southerlywind

Scored these today

 

 

Can't wait to open them up. Still gotta hunt down Hulk, Hawkeye and Loki. Being Wal Mart exclusives, they've been tricky. Been looking for a few weeks at a few different stores. Open pics later tonight.

Do they not make a Black Widow figurine?

Ugly renaissance babies

I saw this the other day! It cheered me up greatly.

This sums it up.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJRzBpFjJS8

 

Though I know what his name will be.

I love Garfunkel and Oates. I had "Me, You, and Steve" stuck in my head for a whole week once.

It's a Wonderful Life is an alright film. Maybe I've seen it too many times, or maybe I had too mnay beers, but I watched it on Saturday and had toruble staying awake. It's always neat to see a cat like Jimmy Stewart do his thing though.

Have you seen The Philadelphia Story? He's excellent in that. "C.K. Dexter Haven, either I'm gonna sock you or you're gonna sock me!"

So someone recommended to me that I need to see to see It's a Wonderful Life right away.

 

Did "He'd making violent love to me" mean something else in 1947?

Yes--very much so, yes. "Making violent love to someone" would have been more along the lines of kissing them passionately and perhaps reciting some exciting poetry (groping optional).

I'm feeling increasingly emo at the moment. My mood swings from

to this, sometimes during the course of a day. I switch between seeing hopeful opportunities in the future, to a bleak and wintery view. And I'm easily moved by all kinds of stuff. It is rather annoying, and makes concentrating on stuff, like work, harder than I like it to be.

This happens to me all the time--I usually can't start to deal with whatever's bothering me until I accept that being functional is not the most important thing in the world. Your health and sanity always, always matter more than your obligations--and, parodoxically, I often find it easier to get my obligations (like work) done once I take the pressure off myself to do them. I do this by putting the stack of papers-to-be-graded out of view, plugging my ears, saying "LA LA LA LA LA" very loudly, and then watching TV.

Oh, Deodato.

 

If one was so inclined, this page could be shopped and the dialogue altered to something a lot more peggy.

 

Rawr.

I've heard others say that "Ulysses", while a solid piece of writing, is a bit overrated & paled when put up to "Dubliners." So, I'm glad to have my purchase justified :)

I disagree!--but possibly because I was lucky enough to spend three hours a week discussing 1-2 chapters per session with other writers. It's not always a fun read, but there's so much to talk about, and it always (to me) felt worth it. I wouldn't want to read it on my own, though, without anybody to talk through it with--a lot of his choices don't make sense at first, and I wouldn't have had the sticktoitiveness to keep going on my own (and thus missed out on the emotional punch-in-the-gut of the last two chapters).

Also, has anyone read "Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy" ? I love the concept of a retired spy coming in to solve a myster of a mole.

Yes, I love le Carre--though I haven't read him in years, and these days I might have to kind of skim over the female characters' appearances with an eye roll or two.

Yes and yes, to dogpoet and Mark. And, because I don't think Kate's original question has been quite answered: Ms. is pronounced with a voiced alveolar sibilant (miz) and Miss is pronounced with a voiceless alveolar sibilant (miss). You're welcome!

Yeah, I don't think anybody expected Children of Earth. It was just incredibly well-plotted and emotionally effective.

And I liked the second series better than the first but it was pretty crazy at times too. Lots of Rhys, though! I love Rhys, god bless 'im.

hahahahahaha

Yes, Balthy, Torchwood is brilliant! I actually did like the first two seasons (for a given value of 'like'), but then I love campy, over-the-top shit with lots of queer all over the place. I wasn't exactly watching for the plots.

Is anyone keeping up with the US Torchwood that's going on now (or was going on? I never remember these things). I watched a couple of episodes but the gore and dismemberment got to be too much. I'm a wimp, I know, but I couldn't handle people walking around with their heads on backwards and so forth. Was it good? Should I just get Whitney to watch it first so she can tell me when to close my eyes?

Congratulations Matt! That's brilliant! It's weddings all over around here.

Your missus looks like Jessie a bit.

She does a bit...

Someone who holds a party at which a girl goes to. Said girl later meets you and suspects that you were also at said party. She's willing to spend time with you, since she has nothing better to do. You are totally hot for her, though you are disappointed that despite her recent grant she isn't actually much of a conversationalist.

 

But hey, who are you to blow against the wind.

+1

@Pooka: cutest dog ever

@Spain: glad you liked the Met! It is a very very lovely museum, I think.

Whitney says yes to Lombardi's, it's delicious and they have some kind of white pizza that is supposed to be good.

My pitch is "go to the Met and see all the awesome Egyptian artifacts," but that's not necessarily quite as awesome to somebody who's not me. But, for real, go to the Met, it's so cool.

Avaunt--

In a good book, the action should always be actiony and the relationships should always be relationshipy. I'm stealing that for discussions in my grad lit classes.

Dave--

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Whitney (my partner) has worked in publishing, and casually follows YA books with queer and of-color protagonists, so she'll be very interested to see this. There seems to be an awful attitude among many parents, some teachers, and (most trenchantly) some publishers of YA fiction that books for young people should not expose them to anything troubling or disturbing--as if books were the biggest threat in kids' lives. There was a Wall Street Journal article to this effect over the summer that caught tons of flak among YA authors (it's here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576357622592697038.html?mod=wsj_share_twitter ). It's as if people picture the teenage readers of these books as white, straight, middle-class, able-bodied, cheerfully average, pink-cheeked babies to whom nothing bad has ever happened, and who never need reassurance that they're not alone, or some examples of possible coping strategies, or a fictional place to work through their anger and insecurities. Also, god forbid any of them be gay--or, anyway, god forbid they want to talk about it.

(/end bitchfest)

Anyway, Jessie, have you read Tobias Wolff?

I used to appreciate Wolff far more than Carver, before I gave Carver a chance (Cathedral put me off Carver for years).

Wolff is more "hip" than Carver, but if you like what Carver does, you'll enjoy Wolff.

Check out his short story collection called Back in the World sometime, if you haven't already.

(I first picked up a collection by Wolff because a professor at U of M-Flint knew Wolff personally.)

I've got In the Garden of the North American Martyrs on my shelf but haven't busted it open yet. He's another one who used to teach here at Syracuse--I walk past his old house on my way to campus.

Mmm, Akhira, that looks delicious.

I'm patting myself on the back (possibly prematurely) because my first semester of teaching is going really well so far. I have two sections of composition (essentially "intro to asking interesting questions and articulating your ideas clearly"), one at eight in the morning and one at seven at night, on the same days, which is a huge pain in the ass. I was worried about teaching, partly because I'm barely five years older than the youngest of these kids and decades younger than some of my nontraditional students, but it turns out that my teacher brain snaps on and I have automatic authority without even having to try. I'm pretty happy with what they're producing, and I feel like I'm doing a good job of walking them through some difficult concepts. And it's really, really gratifying when they finally get it. A total ego trip.

I see. I thought Volstagg had written a book. No matter.

 

Bowling shirts.

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees

I Was Told There'd Be Cake?

This cake is a lie.

 

*dodges paper missiles*.

Whitney says she doesn't think it's a Portal reference, but she hasn't read the book yet. I will report back when she has.

I'm reading White Noise by Don DeLillo.

I've been casually reading "Would You Please Be Quiet, Please?" by Raymond Carver.

Wow--I haven't checked this thread in months because I never recognize what you guys are reading, and now two books I know something about in one week!

Christian: I couldn't finish White Noise either, but I did read Cosmopolis by DeLillo for a grad class I took that focused on the sentence in literature. It was taught by this dude Gary Lutz, who is a completely socially incompetent individual and dresses like Neil Gaiman and also writes the most fucked up incomprehensible shit that still somehow manages to make you tear up at the end even though it's about incest and people getting head in public restrooms. Gary has a magic touch with words that I completely do not understand. Also most of his characters don't have genders and you don't even notice, that is really hard to do.

Anyway, he worships DeLillo and gave us Cosmopolis to read, and I hated it but read it anyway. I've decided that I have a lot of respect for DeLillo's language--he really puts a gorgeous sentence together, and as a fellow writer I can tell that he has a seriously mind-boggling amount of control over what his language is doing--but I do not give two shits about the things and people he likes to write about. So there's that.

Shawn: I read "Would You Please Be Quiet Please" in high school and it blew my mind. I mean, you get to the end of one of his stories and somebody's just lighting a cigarette and somehow it has this huge emotional power that you don't even understand, but you feel it, you know? Carver used to teach at Syracuse University, which is where I'm getting my MFA in creative writing, and wrote some of his bleakest stories while he lived here--that whole economically depressed, jobless, shitty and alienated vibe in his work is basically in the water in Syracuse.

I Was Told There'd Be Cake?

Don't ask me--Whitney works in a library and she's always bringing home stray books. It appears to be a collection of essays.

I love this:

(That's an egg over-easy on top, in case the photo's too washed out. I am eating this right now and it is amazing.)

That's awesome, Balthy! Twelfth Night is a fun play, you'll knock it out of the park.

I'm teaching this year as part of the funding for my graduate degree--I have two classes full of freshmen, and I have to teach them to think like adults. It's a very very large task. So far I seem to be pretty good at it, though--or at least they listen and try to do what I ask of them, and one kid changed his schedule just to stay in my section. It's a lot of work, but I don't think I'd mind doing this for a few more years.

What's with this beans-on-toast-for-breakfast thing? It sounds deeply appealing and directly in line with my breakfast preferences, but I'm not clear on exactly how it works. Are there steps beyond "open can, heat beans, dump on toast"? Is it some great English cultural tradition or just your equivalent of the breakfast burrito?