Like the goldfish in the bowl, one thought kept reoccurring as I watched this movie: “Why can’t they make more movies like this?” How often do we get to see a smart, articulate young woman work very hard for something she loves who is not a boy? Even Juliette Lewis didn’t bug me, and I can’t recommend this enough.
Bechdel score: two women: yes. Who talk to each other: yes! About something besides a man: YES!
I felt a little sad for the trees, but not knowing anything about the situation, I didn’t get too worked up. It must have been an interesting task to cut them down without also taking down the power lines.
And here we go on the hunt for black pants that fit. I hate everything about this enterprise–the going to the store, the finding the black pants, which are always in six or seven different locations at the store, the dressing room mirrors which are always much too close to me, the having to bring two sizes of every brand because there is not standard sizing, the feelings of dissatisfaction with my body. Other things I hate about the process? Limits on the number of items you can bring in dressing rooms and store personnel who want to assist me. Thanks, I’d rather experience this disappointment and annoyance on my own. I avoid those last two by hitting Macy’s first. They leave me alone and don’t guard their dressing rooms.
At any rate, I managed to get myself to the store and through all those obstacles. I narrowed it down to two contenders. The Macy’s brand which was okay and a pair of Calvin Klein pants that I loved how they felt but the larger size was just a bit too big and the smaller size was just a bit too small. Due to the not-quite right fit and the fact the Calvin Klein’s were twice the price of the Macy’s brand, I went with the cheaper option. The pants look great, but they are lacking in any pockets which would be a big problem at work if I didn’t wear an apron to contain all the items needed for important Administrative Coordinator work.
One big check off for me today!
I wanted to like this movie much more than I did. I think Spike Jones and Dave Eggers did a good job of making a perfect book into a movie, but I couldn’t really get absorbed in the story. It was a very visually stunning movie, yet not engaging.
The beautiful Portland Park Blocks are split into two sections: the North Park Blocks and the South Park Blocks. The South Park Blocks start at PSU and run North past a number of churches, the PCPA, and the Schnitz where they run smack in to the Arlington Club. From there, there is a run of blocks of normal commercial development before the park picks up again just North of Burnside. Some people dream of demolishing all of those buildings and connecting the park blocks, which will most likely not happen in my lifetime. The park blocks don’t really connect anyway, as the North Park Blocks are one block East of the South Park Blocks.
At any rate, awhile ago there was an open block that was being used as a parking lot and the powers that be got together and suddenly (actually it took a long time and was delayed for seemingly ever) there is a park where there once was a parking lot. So I bring you my review of Simon and Helen Director Park.
It looks better than a parking lot. But I think the scale is weird. The Southwest corner has a large awning type thing that is very very high and I think it makes the rest of the park look small. It looks like it is looming over the tiny people, ready to stomp on them. Interestingly, the picture of the artists rendering in the link above cuts off this structure almost entirely.
I do like the granite color they have chosen. However, I’m still distracted by the large sheet of glass, ready to cause mayhem above me. Aside from the height of the roof, the supporting beams seem too thin and thus out of scale.
Unlike Pioneer Courthouse Square, which really is Portland’s Living Room, there also seem to be few places to sit. I think this makes the chances of the park becoming a cold, windswept plaza even more likely.
Here’s the Teacher’s Fountain in recognition of teachers “selfless and untiring efforts to inspire the hearts and minds of their students.” Right now it looks like a granite ball. Yay. A ball. But perhaps that water in the artists rendering has something to do with it.
Here is a closer look at the out of proportion glass cover, with actual human people so you can get a sense of scale. The building on the left will be a restaurant of some sort.
In conclusion, I’m not immediately charmed by Director Park. We shall see if my view changes over time.
A nice balance of fiction and nonfiction this month. I should check and see what my usual ratio is.
Read
Toolbox for Sustainable City Living
Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew
A great book, not as friendly and chatty as “The Urban Homestead” but is required reading for anyone contemplating a gray water system. Also, good information about how to grow bugs, which your chickens (you do have chickens, don’t you? Yeah, me neither.) love to eat.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith
I read this first at the end of my junior year of high school, at the same time I was realizing I liked a boy. It turned out he liked me back and this book has always been linked in my mind with that boy ever since. In a year of somewhat “eh” fiction offerings, I was eager to read it again. I most wanted to get to the part where Francie is an older teenager, on the cusp of her first relationship. That part of the book loomed large in my mind and this time through I was surprised to find what a tiny section of the book it is.
The other surprising thing was how much of the story was lodged in my subconscious. I can’t tell you how many passages I read and thought, “Oh yes! That was in this book!” This is a great story, of course, how else would it be a classic novel? The writing sometimes can be a little Dick-and Jane-y, a bit pedantic. Due to the lack of italics, I also sometimes got confused as to if a character was talking or thinking. But I recommend this book because the story is such a wonderful one.
Freddie & Me: A Coming-of-Age (Bohemian) Rhapsody
Mike Davis
The book section of the Oregonian recommended this to me and I missed the fact that it was a graphic novel. As I’ve said before, I’m not the biggest fan of the genre, and reading this I realized why. There are no paragraphs. Each picture has a sentence or two, but then my eye has to move a great expanse across the page to the next sentence. It is too choppy for me and there isn’t enough description. I like description better than pictures.
But this book was okay. Davis and I are essentially the same age and I enjoyed his connecting Queen songs to various points in his live as well as following Wham!, his sister’s favorite group. In my opinion, the book should have ended long before it did, the final 20 pages felt very tacked on.
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
I found this story very readable–it took me less than a weekend to finish it. Walls’ descriptions are clear and the portrait of her family life is very well painted. Aside from that, halfway through the book I found myself getting impatient. Just as Dan Brown engineers each two-page chapter to end in a “dum, dum, dum” cliff hanger, so I found that every vignette in this book ended in a way that seemed to be manufactured for the liberal middle-class reader to think some form of “oh, those poor children!” or “what irresponsible parents!” or “how did they ever survive?”
Reading the book, I am amazed that not only did Jeannette Walls escape the situation she was born to, but that of the four children, three because productive citizens. There is a lot to discuss upon finishing this book: nature vs. nurture; the role of citizens to interfere in family life; what choices make sense for parents to make for their children; how we treat children who come from different situations; which parent was more to blame. This would be a good reading group selection and I am surprised my edition did not include the reading group questions I find at the end of so many of the books I read.
The Cactus Eaters
Dan White
There isn’t much for me to say after finishing Dan White’s chronicle of hiking the Pacific Coast Trail. There were a few “read out loud” passages, especially describing nerds and drug use on pages 200-201, but I mostly found this book “fine.” I read it, I finished it, I judged him perhaps too harshly for his post-trail decline and that was that. I heard about this book through the Multnomah County Library’s blog An Embarrassment of Riches. Here is part of what Tama had to say:
So far it’s the funniest book of my still new summer reading season. I’ve forced friends and loved ones to listen to entire paragraphs. The other day I was laughing so hard it actually made my son pause Lego Star Wars II to ask if I was ok. I couldn’t wait to finish it yet I was sad when I did, and in my world that is the sign of an excellent book.
High praise indeed and the reason I put it on the list. However, while I found parts of the story amusing I don’t think I ever actually laughed out loud. Though there may have been a few snorts.
So, read it, don’t read it. It’s all the same to me.
Henry IV part II
William Shakespeare
Good god, but this was boring.
The Birth of Venus
Sarah Dunant
An intriguing premise (dead pious 16th c. nun discovered with large tattoo of snake on her body.) An interesting time (Florence during the end of Lorenzo de Medichi’s life and with a fiery catholic priest making trouble.) A girl who just wants to paint. How does she end up the pious nun? How does that tattoo get on her body? Read and discover!
Started but did not finish
Edible Forest Gardens Vol I
Dave Jacke
Very textbook-y,and I mean that in a nice way. I would have finished this, but it is very thorough, and others at the library are in line behind me. This is permaculture for the east coast of the United States, which works better for me than permaculture for Australia. I’ll reserve this again, and am contemplating buying it.
Because Marge Piercy is still alive, and I’m concerned about copyright, I will link to the poem. Find it here: http://www.northnode.org/poem.htm
I found this poem by flipping through the readings in the back of the UU hymnal one Sunday in late September. I needed a poem for October and the last two stanzas were a responsive reading. Memorizing it wasn’t too hard, though Piercy is very precise in her words and I wanted to be doubly sure I would get each phrase right. I’m having trouble with actually remembering to include the third stanza, I want to jump straight from the “mud” to the “work of the world,” bypassing the fields entirely. This is even though I love saying “parlor generals and field deserters” and the image of work done in common rhythm.
I also enjoy the lines about everyday work vessels being put in museums. Sometimes, when looking at something historical on display, I like to imagine all the hands that have touched said item, through its long history.
Marge Piercy has a few of her poems excerpted as readings in our hymnal. And she wrote one of my top five books of all time (Gone to Soldiers.) I expect we will be seeing her again.
