First, I must give you background.
Here is the sign on the inside of the door to the teacher bathroom.
(All adults can use the teacher bathroom at our school. Sigh.)
This sign has been here as long as we have. It came with the building.
My parents bought me a car to drive about a year after I got my driver’s license. It wasn’t fancy, a Mustang II with an AM radio and a penchant for leaking oil and breaking down. When my brother got his license, my parents upgraded us to a green ’79 Mustang with tires too big for the wheel wells. They would scrape every time we went over a big bump or a dip. For a period of time, it had no radio. This was more maddening than only being restricted to the AM band, but some good came out of it. Before everyone had their licenses, we all piled in the cars of the few who could drive in order to get from here to there. We were smashed together, chattering all the way, laughing and gossiping. In other cars, music was the background or the foreground of our ride, but in my car we filled the silence ourselves. Driving a dark road to somewhere one night we fell silent until Eric burst into the opening notes of Gun’s and Roses Mr. Brownstone. We were all GnR fans, and knew every word, so we rode into the night, our drug-free bodies singing with great gusto about addition and touring and a life that nearly all of us would never lead.
I went to see this because it’s the newest Channing Tatum flick and if Mr. CT is in a movie, go I must. I do not wish to do any plot spoiling here, but let me tell you that there is a reason he’s kind of small on the movie poster, and that reason was rather disappointing to me. However, I rallied, and instead focused my keen critic eye on the actress who played Tyra on Friday Night Lights.
Cost: $4.00 (now the only way to see a movie for less than $4.00 is to go to the Kennedy School where they charge $3.00 and where I usually end up ordering wine so the cost isn’t $3.00 at all.)
Where watched: Jubitz Cinema. It was me and a room full of truckers who, to my delight, had their usual pre-movie conversation where they don’t know each other, stare straight ahead, never making eye contact and they talk about all matter of things.
A while ago, I photographed the house on this lot. I was thinking it was about to be torn down and indeed, it was. Two houses have replaced it, with two more coming soon. Once again, I’m torn between the infill development (which I support) and the fact that the houses built are all very large and they leave no room for a yard.
Only four books, two of them picture and two of them YA? What happened? Oh wait, the television series Friday Night Lights happened.
Read
A love story starring my dead best friend
Emily Horner
I grabbed this book just for the title and found a great YA story bravely taking on issues of death, sexuality, friendship, musical theater and bicycling. The main character reminded me a lot of a friend I knew in high school, which probably helped. Great read.
The Lighting Dreamer
Margarita Engle
Read for librarian book group
The story of nineteenth century Cuban poet Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda told through poems. Avellaneda was an interesting person, rejecting a lot of conventions of her times, so that made for interesting reading. I liked the poems in that they were short and accessible, but didn’t find them particularly moving. Overall, okay.
Grumbles from the Forest
Jane Yolan
Read for librarian book group
Fun concept: two different perspectives of familiar fairy tales in poetry form. Great illustrations. So-so poetry.
Hoop Genius
Coy, Morse
Read for librarian book group
The story of how basketball was invented. I loved the illustrations which reminded me of 1930s Soviet Union propaganda posters (but in a freer style).
In my mid-twenties I lived in my version of Shangri-La: a five bedroom house with two bathrooms and four other female roommates. One of my roommates was dating one of our neighbors, a late-20s PhD who spent his days doing some sort of scientific research I didn’t understand. He lived alone, but his younger brother was often over and we saw a lot of the two of them. We called them the James Brothers. His brother, in the fashion of younger brothers the world over, was the hipper, freer James Brother, working in a job I don’t remember, but more importantly, painting his car with chalkboard paint and playing the guitar here and there. He was pretty darn attractive, and even more so when he played his guitar for us in our house. One evening he launched in to the song “Hallelujah” and I knew from the first verse this was a song that needed to become a part of me. After he finished playing and we clapped I made inquires. The younger James brother lent me his Jeff Buckley tape so I could spend the next few weeks rewinding and hitting play. Much like the experience of my twenties, the song is both simple and complex, hopeful and melancholy, wrapping angry words in a poetry that hits an incredible range of emotions. I’ve heard other versions, but I come back to Jeff Buckley,* because the fact that he was a talented artist who died too soon adds yet another layer to what is already a complex and beautiful song.
*Although I shut off the song when he gets to his “general wailing” part at the end.
My friend at work realized after we had the big double feature, that she too wanted to watch these movies, so I borrowed them back from Christi and watch them we did.* It’s very fun for me to watch a film I love with someone who hasn’t seen it before, because if they love it, we can talk about that, and if they don’t love it, it is interesting to hear why. She loved them, though and was a quite astute observer, catching a few details I hadn’t noticed.
Cost: free (thanks Christi)
Where watched: at home with Tiffany & Tim. Matt came out at intermission for snacks and conversation.
*And that is how good these flicks are. Two viewings in two weeks and I still was enraptured.