Novel Eye

I have almost finished the first Volume. Have read a great chunk since last I posted. Rather on the topic of the last post but one: Three-quarters of the mental ingenuity and the mendacious boasting squandered ever since the world began by people who are only cheapened thereby, have been aimed at inferiors. And Swann , who behaved simply and casually with a duchess, would tremble for fear of being despised, and would instantly begin to pose, when in the presence of a housemaid. In his younger days a man dreams of possessing the heart of the woman whom he loves; later, the feeling that he possesses a woman's heart may be enough to make him fall in love with her. I fear that I do this: Sometimes, in spite of himself, he would let himself go so far as to express an opinion on a work of art, or on someone's interpretation of life, but then he would cloak his words in a tone of irony, as though he did not altogether associate himself with what he was saying. And I would like to b...

Having developed something of a small obsession with them for the last week, I feel I would be remiss to not point out that pop songs aside, in the first incarnation they really remarkable innovators in the field of electronic music--that some of their early stuff sounds better than things being mixed and sampled today and this was in the days when computer storage was reel-to-reel. I have to agree with many of the posters at You Tube that in some ways the girls ruin it--that several of the songs might be better if they weren't included, but after 30 years I rather doubt that Oakey is going to suddenly remaster everything without them.

From some time ago-- Self-Deprecating Minds Want to Know For the most part I presume that people will not take the energy to either like me or dislike me, but will rather be indifferent to me. I do have trouble networking because I have not mastered that fine art of appearing interested and retaining names, faces, etc. (I can do one or the other). My boss, who is otherwise a cad, can appear terribly friendly at those things and still get his own pitch across. What I do worry about is whether friends really like me. Friends who say they'll email me after some event in their lives is past, but never do. I stress over people turning down my parties--do they really have something else to do or do I give crappy parties. Do I bore them? Annoy them? Do they tolerate me for my talents, but really don't want to spend time with me (this is partially guilt, because I have other friends that I decline invitations from because they bore me or annoy me or tax me or just drain me). So...

http://engrishfunny.com/2008/08/22/engrish-gives-it-to-us-raw-and-wriggling/

Yes, we indulged in nostalgia. On Wednesday we went with three friends to the Regeneration Tour (not to be confused with L'Arc's Regeneration tour after Sakura left)--Naked Eyes, A Flock of Seagulls , ABC , Belinda Carlisle , The Human League . Ah, the 80's live again. I think I am learning to enjoy myself in the moment. Because I did mind so much that we are getting old and so are they, just enjoyed a pleasant evening. Naked Eyes I like, but in the way one enjoys some foods. They aren't your favorite foods and you don't search them out, but it's pleasant to eat them when they come up. One of the members died in 1999 so it was just one and a back up band. He was a better performer than I expected. Paunchy but working the crowd despite the fact that the audience was thin at that point. A Flock of Seagulls is one of those bands everyone remembers because of the hair, without being sure of what they sang. Unlike Naked Eyes I actually seek out Flock of Seagulls m...

...but funny. http://www.knifegunpen.com/the-four-hundred-hour-workweek/

Is a terrible film (bad use of slo -mo, dreadful signalling music, etc.) that somehow manages to be quite a fun ride. I swear I am getting old, though, because some of the "hand-held" shots were too fast for me. I'll go with this quote from Roger Ebert: "It's goofy fun with a lot of stuff that blows up real good." AND I will say that someone, somewhere (probably a room full of people) put some serious thought into how things transformed, which is pretty impressive for a movie called, oh, I don't know, Transformers. Oh, and it was very, very funny. John Turturro in particular was very, very funny. And one doesn't get to say that very often.

Bernie Mac died. Bernie Mac was in Ocean's 11-13. I enjoyed his comedy. Didn't love, love it, but thought he was good. Damn.

Ocean's 13 was quite fun. I really loved Ocean's 11 but it is a boy's club and having women in Ocean's 12 was a mistake. Even though it WASTED Eddie Izzard it pulled together (and Ellen Barkin was having fun). AND it's so damn meta. Is it just me or was the whole walking through a Toys are Us at the beginning a little too Mr. & Mrs. Smith? Plus the small talk--settle down, have some kids. Heh , heh .

I have been contemplating for some time the possibility of creating another blog based on my experiences as an accidental marketer, called either--The Accidental Marketer or Confessions of a Marketing Moron (Vote now). Neither of which is particularly creative, but then marketing is just taking the familiar and repackaging it. I can't decide if I would show my work there which would open up the possiblity of someone at my job finding it and thus making it impossible to vent, or keep it as a venting plus what I've learned area. If I have any "marketing" aspirations for it, it would simply be to see if others who wear many hats would come and answer my questions, post their own, etc.--way down the road. Anyway--part of Marketing these days is the place of Social Media, FaceBook , MySpace , Blogger, Linked In, Twitter, and I thought about making this my opening post, but decided it's a little dark for that. My husband sent it to me. DO NOT WATCH THIS if you are easi...

I want to launch my friend Derek's (it's ok , he uses his own name) blog. I've known Derek for about 10 years so he went pretty high in the list. We met at R&S's annual Halloween party when he and his wife were dressed as dead Heaven's Gate cult members. We knew we were going to like them. Derek is always fun to speak with (and once won some money on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, but don't hold it against him) and I feel it's high time he dumped some of that into a blog. Check out his mash up of Sexy Beast and Gandhi . http://www.derekleif.blogspot.com/ He also is learning L'Arc's Ready, Steady, Go on the Ukulele which is a bizarre coincidence and still hasn't told me why.

She's reinvented Cabaret; she never let anyone tell her she couldn't sing; she's played the ART and the Boston Pops; Neil Gaiman's written songs for her and now she's singing a Neil Gaiman song.

Happy Birthday, Guinness!

DID NOT SUCK! All in all, a very tight ending. One moment that bugged me, but it was in another universe and not really the Doctor, so not really counting, and maybe, just maybe it means that it is the end of Rose Tyler, amen. It had some nice "human" moments, the gathered group was a little wasted--a problem whenever you have too many people in a story--why you end up with J'onn J'onzz staying on the space station all the time in the Justice League, or groups being isolated in stories. Someone always ends up twiddling their thumbs. When they (the writers) do manage to really use everyone's talents well--well, it's very exciting. It posed the interesting problem of which is worse, to have traveled with the Doctor and not to be traveling with him any more or to have traveled with him and not be able to remember it--to have saved the universe and have to go back to being the sad loser you were before the Doctor made you better. Rather like the question that c...

Gah , I could have sworn that I wrote about "A History of Violence" but I can't find it! A subtle film, for all of the bloody and brutal violence and even those are relatively (for Cronenberg certainly) few. And an ambiguous one. Part (I vaguely remember hearing) of a triptych of films about whether the mark of violence is always on you. In this one quite literally.