Three sentence movie reviews: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

What the first film nailed, and what made it enjoyable, was the personalities and the relationships.  The second film also continues this tradition, making for a very fun and funny sequal.  Baby Groot was used to maximum advantage.

Cost: $9.25
Where watched: Regal cinemas in Bend, with Matt

poster from:
http://www.impawards.com/2017/guardians_of_the_galaxy_vol_two.html
http://www.impawards.com/2017/guardians_of_the_galaxy_vol_two_ver2.html
I like version one, but version two is awesome in the rad premise.

Bend Anniversary: Lava Cast Forest

After driving up Lava Butte, we visited the Lava Cast Forest.  It’s a long drive on unimproved roads to get there, but Matt read from the books and I drove and we eventually got there.

Timer portrait at the start of the trail.

Snow was still on the ground.

Wind shaping the flora.

Aside from taking a long time to drive to, the trail is only about 1/3 of a mile. But it has a unique feature. Also there weren’t many people there.

We were there to see the tree molds.

And here is one.

I loved these trees with the swirly bark.

Soon after expressing love, I found this informational sign. (Interpretive win!)

Here’s an upright version.

We did not see any pika, alas.

What’s going on here?

The above is a closeup of a downed tree. You can see how the roots grew around the rocks.

The trail is passable, despite a downed log.

What the ground cover looked like.  We had an asphalt path to walk on, but that looks like it would rip shoes to shreds.  It must have been hard to get to this back in the day.  

Another tree mold.

The last sign on the trail was this picture of what some of the lava molds used to look like.  This was an important picture because it showed how things have changed. After being impressed at the tree molds we saw, I was sad to have missed seeing them when they were taller. (Another interpretative win!)

Overall, I would say visiting the Lava Cast Forest was worth the drive.

Bend Anniversary: Lava Butte

We visited the Newberry National Volcanic Monument to look for some hiking.  On the way in, we were asked if we wanted to drive to Lava Butte.  We did?  We said yes, because clearly it was a thing, and so we did the drive to the top.

Here’s the Butte.  In the summer, you have to either hike, or go by shuttle bus.  Right now, only a certain amount of cars are allowed at the top at one time.

At the top of the butte, I used the outhouse and was amused to see this note.

View from the top.

I had my hiking shoes, but there was a quarter-mile loop around the caldera, so I just stepped carefully in my sandals.

Looking back at the fire lookout station.

Looking into the caldera.

Things were blooming.

Info about the Newberry Volcano.

Another view into the caldera.

I enjoyed that the informational signs each had a suggested activity at the bottom.

Lookout station stairs, with another butte in the distance.

Inside the lower level of the ranger station was an exhibit.

This was a sign at the visitor center, but I found it very interesting.  Apparently Highway 97, which runs north/south through the state, and is the highway that bisects the Newberry National Monument, has been a natural highway for the last thousand, or so years.  This means that animals use it too.  And try to cross it.  And get killed by speeding cars. This poster outlines efforts to avoid that.

Three sentence movie reviews: Lego Batman

The jokes come fast and furious in this follow up to the Lego Movie.  I enjoyed Batman’s journey as well as the many cameos in the film.  Overall, a winner.

Cost: $4.00
Where watched: McMenamins Old St. Francis Theater

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2017/lego_batman_movie.html

Bend Anniversary: Smith Rock Hike

It’s our 15th Anniversary, so we headed to Bend to use our hotel vouchers and celebrate.  On the way into town, we stopped at Smith Rock and did a short hike.

Matt found something to climb. 

It was a beautiful day.  And because it was a Thursday afternoon in early May, it wasn’t very crowded.

Coming down from doing trail work.

Forced perspective.

It’s just so pretty there!

A.S. King at Taborspace

A.S. King writes weird books.  Some of them don’t work for me, some of them I adore, and all of them are flat-out strange.  She’s also a strong feminist writer, which I appreciate.

A.S. King is a intense and hilarious speaker.  In this reading, she read a little from her newest book, Still Life With Tornado, talked about her process and then took questions from the audience.

A.S. King writes all her books without any outline.  (Writers call this “pantsing” a shorted form of the phrase: by the seat of my pants.)  She revises probably 150 times, and uses a lot of paper because she prints and revises.  Still Life is her twentieth book, though the first eight she wrote weren’t published.  Most of her writing tends to reflect what’s going on in her life, though in a subconscious way.  Everybody Sees the Ants, for instance is partially driven by her obsession with the Vietnam war.  Learning this fact, I thought, “uh-oh,” because a recent book has to do with domestic violence.

A.S. King married at 22, and had the goal of living on a self-sufficient farm.  She did so, for eight years in Ireland.  She was submitting things at that time, and had to hatch a certain number of chicken in order to pay for the postage.  She said her writing career–at least the publishing part–didn’t really start until she moved back to the US.  Proximity matters.  She is currently separated from her husband and did experience domestic violence in that relationship.  She had a long explanation about how people are surprised that she, a strong woman, would put up with that.  In her mind, strong women are great as DV victims, because they will do whatever they can to keep the relationship going.

A.S. King was a bit of a math savant in elementary school, but ran into a seventh grade math teacher who said on the first day that he would never call on any of the girls because they couldn’t do math, and were just going to get married and fat anyway.  This was the beginning of a downward slide that had her graduating in the bottom quarter of her high school class.  “Kids!  Proof that you can graduate in the bottom quarter of your class and go on to do good things, not that I recommend graduating in the bottom quarter of your class.”

A.S. King has an angry face.  When she gets excited about things, she looks mad.  She once filmed a promo for reading or libraries when she enthusiastically exclaimed, “Reading is great!” only to see her agent encouraging her to smile.  They re-filmed it, to hilarious results. “Reading is great!” Pause for odd-looking smile.

A.S. King’s first name is Amy, and she writes under the name A.S. King partially because another writer is also named Amy King, but also because she likes that her author name spells “asking”.  (Cue excited gasps around the room.)  Matt had pointed that out to me just in the previous week and I, too, had my mind blown.

None of the things I have written get across A.S. King’s sense of humor which is dry and matter-of-fact and relentless.

It was a very good evening with A.S. King, and I will be sure to prioritize seeing her whenever she finds herself in town.

A note on the photos. It was a small space with dim lighting, and I was very self-conscious about my picture taking.  I stopped after three, and all seemed to be not great.  However, looking at them after the reading, I thought they captured her personality quite well.

Books read in April 2017

April is an unusual month in which I’m most excited about the nonfiction selections.

Picture Books: Big Cat, Little Cat
Middle Grade: Better Nate Than Ever
Young Adult: Pyromantic
Young Nonfiction: Vincent & Theo
Grownup Nonfiction: Every Body Yoga

Big Cat, Little Cat
Elisha Cooper
Read for Librarian Book Group
Picture books are short and this one made me laugh and cry within the space of its 32 pages.  The illustrations of the cats are stupendous.  Recommended.

Wolf in the Snow
Matthew Cordell
Read for Librarian Book Group
Wordless picture book about a girl walking home from school in a snowstorm and what she finds on her way.

Triangle
Barnett & Klassen
Read for Librarian Book Group
Not a book about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.  Instead a funny little interlude between Triangle and Square.  Barnett and Klassen together don’t tickle my funny bone.  I recognize I’m in the minority with that opinion.

Princess Cora and the Crocodile
Schlitz, Floca
Read for Librarian Book Group
Fabulous illustrations paired with an easy-reader story about Princess Cora wanting more from her dreary days.

Out of Wonder
Alexander/Colderley/Wentworth
Read for Librarian Book Group
Poems written in the style of famous poets and paired with gorgeous illustrations.

Better Nate Than Ever
Time Federle
Read for Family Book Group

I adored this book, so much so that even the small detractions were steamrolled by Nate Foster’s approach to the world.  This is a great book for outcasts everywhere.

The Best Worst Thing
Kathleen Lane
It’s too bad that the adult audience who would really enjoy this book probably won’t find it. Maggie is a worrier in a way that I think will be off-putting to a lot of tweens/teens.  But Maggie’s nervous energy is something that adult readers would want to read about.  It’s a beautifully written story.

Fish Girl
Wiesner/Napoli
Read for Librarian Book Group
Mermaid in rinky-dink seaside aquarium begins to question her situation. The answers she finds are illuminating  and cause changes.  There were a lot of problems with this story, but it had some good feminist and coming-of-age stuff.

 

Pyromantic
Lish McBride
The sequel to Firebug, a book greatly enjoyed by me, this continues the story, bringing back all the favorite characters.  I was sorry I didn’t have time for a re-read of Firebug before launching into this, but it was an enjoyable tale all the same.

Wonderful Feels Like This
Sara Lovestam
Read for Librarian Book Group
Nice story of a young musician bulled by her peers who forges a friendship with a retired jazz musician.  The bullying is intense, with some of it rising to the level where the police should be involved.  The stories of the Stockholm jazz scene during WWII were nicely done and the author did a great job working in nuance of her portrayal of bullies.  The point-of-view switches were jarring.  While overall, this was a nice book, it was one I finished out of obligation, rather than pleasure.

The Book Jumper
Mechthild Glaser
Read for Librarian Book Group
This story includes a wonderful discovery: girl returns to ancestral home and learns that her family has the ability to jump into books.  While this would be an exciting development in my own life, I don’t think it made any sense for the plot.  I was never really clear WHY they were supposed to be jumping into the stories, as most of their actions in the books caused trouble that would have been avoided if they had simply read the books, not hang out in them.

I think there are some in-jokes that went over my head for not having read some of the books mentioned.  Much like the book from Sweden I just finished reading, this book also has abrupt point-of-view shifts I found jarring.  Other details about the book jumping also baffled me. So much so that the invented world didn’t hold up, which made for a so-so read.

Rivers of Sunlight
Molly Bang & Penny Chisholm
Read for Librarian Book Group
The framing device “I am the sun” reminded me of a theatrical production written by a well-meaning older person, to show the poor youth of the ghetto the magic of the thee-ah-tar.

Undefeated
Steve Sheinkin
Read for Librarian Book Group
Sheinkin’s ability to make history sing is on display here, even for this reader, who isn’t interested in football.  I am, however, interested in Jim Thorpe and I found the details about the Carlisle Indian School to be interesting, in that terrible way.  There was too much football in this book for me, but I recognize that I am not the target audience.  I would have appreciated a little more unpacking of the special privileges afforded to athletes.  Overall, this was a solid nonfiction.

Vincent & Theo
Deborah Heiligman
Read for Librarian Book Group
Character-driven biography of Vincent Van Gough and his brother Theo.  I was interested in the brothers’ relationship, and how Vincent’s mental illness affected his family and other relationships.  This was big on detail, without bogging down.  I loved the color plates, which were apparently not present in the e-book version.

Every Body Yoga
Jessamyn Stanley
I know a goodly amount of people who will not get far in this book due to the salty language of the author.  However, I found her frank and funny, and I didn’t mind at all the copious use of the F-word.

Stanley, a large girl who grew into a large woman, describes how she came to practice yoga, her various feelings about her body, and provides recommendations for yoga practice for women of all kinds, including fat women. Her recommendation to practice at home was particularly freeing for me, as that is currently the only type of yoga practice that will fit in my schedule.

Pre-100 Days. Post #5 The plan for the tracking month.

I’ll write a draft post at the beginning of the week saying what the plan is for my areas.  At the end of the week I will report how my plans went, which will inform my plans for the following week.

The plan:

Vacation is Thursday-Sunday, so thrown out of usual routines

Exercise:
5/1 Monday–Swim
5/2 Tuesday–Tap
5/3 Wednesday–Swim, Square Dance
5/4 Thursday–Hike?
5/5 Friday–Hike?
5/6 Saturday–Hike?
5/7 Sunday–Hike?

Mediation:
Can do on M, T.  Wednesday might be tight.  T-Sun.  Vacation probably hard to work in. I will see if I can.

Food habits:
Note three food habits that could be modified.