Completely Unnecessary

In two sentences or less:

The Notebook (film): Meh. Too much or not enough softcore (especially in the deleted scenes), I can’t tell.

Wuthering Heights (book): Sister Emily should have sold the story rights to Charlotte.

The Girl with the Pearl Earring (film): I can’t take seeing Cillian Murphy tragically wasted in another film this week; two was enough. Also, as a character note: I hope to she sold that shit.

Maus (book - graphic biography?): Wonderful - still not sure how I never read the original since Maus II has been a favorite of my bookshelf for years.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (book): Getting better. I know it’s a noir, but it shouldn’t take me 100 pages to care.

Buffy (Season Six, Disc 2 - ‘Life Serial’, ‘All the Way’, ‘Once More With Feeling’, ‘Tabula Rasa’) (tv): Maybe my favorite three episodes of Buffy ever. ‘All the Way’ would make it four if Dawn’s grisly murder had been a plot point.

‘Life Serial’ gets an additional two sentences, since Warren’s (Adam Busch) outburst during one of The Trio’s James Bond arguments still makes me laugh out loud anytime I hear it or think of it:

I mean, there’s a shot of, like, pigeons doing double takes when the gondola blasted by!  Moonraker is inexcusable.

I think that’s honestly the best combination of writing and delivery I’ve ever seen.

Angel (Season Four) (tv): Kinda zzzzzzz. Narrative structure, much?

Herald Sun (newspaper): I actually had to read some of the HS for some research the other day - hands down the worst newspaper I’ve ever read. HS is inexcusable.

[Things I forgot! -Ed.]

Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog (online video) - Awesomely wonderful. If I’d know there was only a short period of time to watch it for free, I would have done it a bunch more times.’

Possums (animals) - So cutie pie and so everywhere. I lure them over with the promise of food, but then get a little nervous and ride away.

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Nothing says ‘fun reading’ like examining media coverage of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

I started out trying to look at DR Congo. I was going to argue that the media’s sporadic and surface-level coverage added to the perception of endemic crisis in the country. But - and here’s the funny part - no one’s even touched it. Media coverage of the enormous country is so sparse and irrelevant that no one’s even taken a crack at exploring how truly bad it is.

So I moved onto Rwanda, which no one can get enough of and, might I say, during which the media did a particularly bang up job of totally stuffing up a complex and volatile situation.

You’ll be glad to know, however, that I am saving time. I now just I read straight media analyses like Babysitters’ Club books.

For those of you unfamiliar with the escapades of Kristy et al, allow me to recap:

There’s an opening chapter where they lay out the basic plot of the book. Then, a long and involved Chapter Two is devoted to, I believe quite literally, the same detailed explanation of who the Club members are and how the Club works.

The litany is so precise that, years later, I remember that Kirsty is the tomboy who lives with her dad and step-mom; MaryAnne’s mom died and her dad is conservative; Claudia is Japanese-American and wears funky clothes and loves junk food; which is an anathema to Stacey because she has diabetes.

And Dawn moved to California, but they go visit every once in a while.

Media analyses are kind of the same. Intro, figure out what we’re talking about. Quick skim of the Lit Review - ah, we’re talking about ‘framing’ Entman, etc, check. And then it’s just skipping more or less blindly through the Methology and Results to get to the Discussion, where we actually get into whatever they hell it is they’re talking about.

Occasionally, I stop and think about how much pain, effort and chunks of my soul went into that one particularly obnoxious paragraph in my Methodology and I want to cry.

And then I’m glad I’m not the kind of person to make graphs (I skip those, too).

ps - Attentive readers will note that, without students or structured places to be, I’m back on my 6pm-3am writing schedule. No more 7am!

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Dith Pran died today of pancreatic cancer at the age of 65.

Dith is most famous for his partnership with NYT journalist Sydney Schanberg. The two covered Cambodia during the rise of the Khmer Rouge.

Unlike Schanberg, who had an American passport, Dith was unable to escape Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge regime. He lived through a time in his country’s history that remains nearly unspeakable to this day.

It seems impossible to believe that he survived so much, only to be felled by his own cells. It is tragic that his life (as well as the lives of all who died as a result of the KR regime) was cut so short.

If you haven’t read The Death and Life of Dith Pran, I highly recommend it. Dith and Schanberg were also the subjects of the Academy Award-winning film, The Killing Fields. The film is good, but I recommend the book. If you get interested in the Khmer Rouge period, I also recommend, Stay Alive, My Son.

The NYT also has a photo gallery of Dith, including some of his work with the paper after his escape.

Link:
Dith Pran, ‘Killing Fields’ Photographer, Dies at 65 [NYT]

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I went and saw Too Much Light last night. Highlights included a girl saying to another audience member “You jackass, this tastes like cat litter,” whilst trying to eat a bowl of “Disney’s Princess” cereal. The best play, however, was “Star Crossed Sweepers,” wherein two of those new little robot vacuums tried to find each other across a crowded stage. I nearly hyperventilated.

I bought a two track cd of the musical “Wicked.” I’ve learned from this disc that buying the entire thing would have been a giant mistake. Yet, I’ve also become strangely obsessed with one of the tracks. I kind of have to fast forward thru part of the track because it makes me want to put my fist through the stereo, but Idina Menzel’s voice just keeps drawing me in. The notes this woman can belt are in the upper ranges of my falsetto. And every single tone is a bell - it’s just stunning. The rest of the bits though sound like some early 90s horrible light rock crapola. Turns out, it’s by the same guy that wrote Pocahontas. Aside from the positive choice of casting Idina instead of Vanessa Williams, not much has changed or improved.

I’m currently slogging thru this Bill Bryson book about the history of the English language in America. It’s funny and has really interesting little factoids, but I think this is seriously the longest I’ve ever spent on a book in my life. I’ve had to renew it from the library twice. But I’m bloody well determined now. Also about 100 pages of the book randomly fell out of it one day. Hope that’s not a sign.

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