Music for Your Weekend

So it's Thursday night which means tomorrow is Friday and the weekend begins. Big whoop. My weekends are always full of portfolio, cataloging, and gov pubs. I hate the weekend. I hate this quarter. I hate school. So how's your life going?

Anyway, here are three songs I've been listening to lately, and I offer them here for your edification and/or delight.

"The Book of Love" by the Magnetic Fields

You may be familiar with the more famous Peter Gabriel cover, but I prefer the original vocal stylings of Stephin Merrit. Sorry the video's a little (lot) creepy, but it's the only decent one I could find. I love, love this song! It's probably my favorite love song. ever. "The book of love is long and boring / And written very long ago / It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes / And things we're all too young to know."

"Harrisburg" by Josh Ritter

I'm going to see Josh Ritter again this February (well, I'm planning on it). From his second album, "Harrisburg" is the latest Ritter I've downloaded, and from what I can gather, it's one he always plays live. I think he's just one of the greatest American folk singers working today. "Some say that man is the root of all evil / Others say God's a drunkard for pain / Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden / Was burned to make way for a train."

"This Year" by The Mountain Goats

The Mountain Goats "This Year" from A Bruntel on Vimeo.

You may have heard a clip from this song from last week's This American Life episode. The song's kind of weird--as is the video--but I can really get behind the chorus: "I am going make it through this year / If it kills me." I'm going to make it through this quarter, and another one, graduation and finding a job, moving--it might kill me, but I'm going to make it through 2011.


Bonus Song
For those who'd like a little musical number, here's Elaine Stritch (aka Colleen Donaghy) singing "Ladies Who Lunch" from the Sondheim musical Company in which she originated the role Joanne. She masterfully walks the line between comedy and bitterness.

"And here's to the girls who just watch / Aren't they the best? / I'll drink to that!

Well I hope you all have a lovely weekend--hopefully not doing homework--but if you are, I commiserate.

A Few GG Thoughts

I'm not going to do a full recap of last night's show--for that you can read the live blogs of The Film Experience and/or IMDb.Here a just few thoughts.

Since I don't have television I had to stream it live which took a while to get going, so I missed the first few minutes. I also drank a whole bottle of Domaine Ste. Michelle blanc de noirs which is a sparkling wine I can finally get behind.

Ricky Gervais killed it last year, and I was so excited he would be hosting again. Shame, shame, shame on you, Ricky. You were not funny, just rude. I would like to join IMDb in hoping that Robert Downey, Jr. might like to host next year.

I have not seen The Fighter yet, but everyone says it's amazing. I must see it before the Oscars.

Chris Colfer wins for Glee, and is just adorable! LOVED it so much! Lea Michelle cries all night. Jane Lynch also win for Sue. And Glee wins Best TV Series--Comedy or Musical, and I'm sorry, but even though I like the show for it's glitzy musical numbers, the show long threw out things like story lines and character development.

IMDb writes, "Andrew Garfield presents 'The Social Network' but gets totally tangled on the word 'inspiringly' because, well, it's not a word." But he's so cute we don't even care! The Social Network wins four prizes including Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), Best Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin), and Best Original Score (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross). All very deserved in my opinion. If you haven't seen it, go; it's still playing. I'm waiting till it hits the dollar theater to see it again.

Pixar cannot be stopped, and Toy Story 3 wins Best Animated Feature. I liked it, but I preferred How to Train Your Dragon which is just as good as anything Pixar's done.

Annette Bening wins for the (seemingly) effortless The Kids Are All Right. Natatlie Portman wins for her bravura performance in Black Swan. They both gave excellent speeches and will be dueling for the Oscar, and I can't decide which one I want to win more. The Kids Are All Right also wins Best Picture Comedy, and it would have been a travesty if it didn't. Yay!

Tina Fey and Steve Carrell are very funny presenters. Maybe Tina Fey should host! How good is she off-the-cuff though?

Paul Giamatti bests Johnny Depp and Johnny Depp and Jake Gyllenhaal's ass for some movie I've never heard of: Barney's Version. Good for Paul.

And Colin Firth wins for The King's Speech which I haven't seen yet either. Clearly, I have a lot of movies to see before the Oscars.

Anyway, Gervais wasn't very funny, most of the winners earned it, and there were very few surprise moments. But I was very drunk, so I had a very good time with lots of clapping that drove my roommate insane. What did you think?

On the Verge

In the last few weeks of 2010, I had a really good feeling about 2011. Ya know, that it was going to be my year. Well my school is trying to kill me, and all my warm fuzzy feelings towards the new decade (do we start with 1 and end with 10 or do we start with 0 and end with 9?) have evanesced. Also, they just changed the Zodiac on us, and now I'm supposed to be a Cancer. What?!? I was a Leo (born in the year of the Tiger) and I felt very feline. Now, apparently, I am a crustacean. That's a big change to spring on a guy on a Thursday.

Remember how I thought that last quarter was going to be my hardest quarter it was all going to get easier from then on out? Well, I do. But my new quarter is a beast--it makes last quarter look like...I don't know, something really easy--and there is going to be a lot of bitching. Here, on Facebook, to my roommate, and even to my apartment when nobody's there.

Three of my classes are online which doesn't help since that makes me responsible for setting aside time for lectures and readings and online posts. It's much better for me to have a set class time when I just have to be there. Highly functional and motivated people will just say that I should set aside certain hours on certain days for homework, but that's just not the way it works. Sorry.

I am taking Cataloging, which is actually an elective and not a required class. Can you believe it? Professors and alums--who are NOT catalogers--continually say that it is hard and not fun but that one must absolutely take it. I think librarians are sadists. I, apparently, am a masochist.

I am also taking Portfolio which is my culminating experience like writing a thesis or doing a capstone, but it's actually not like doing those things because it is a portfolio. I haven't even started this class, but the first module is due on Sunday--the same day as the Golden Globes! Hosted by Ricky Gervais! My cataloging labs are also due on Sunday. Do they not know?! Do they not care!? WTF, iSchool? There are important things like library students learning cataloging and preparing portfolios so they can get jobs, and then there are really important things like award shows where celebrities get drunk.

I am also taking a government documents class which is my only in-class class, and is kind of my filler class (because there are practically no electives offered this quarter!) that I don't really care about. Honestly, I don't care about any of my classes. The instructor is really nice, but there's a lot of work slogging through gov pubs, so it's not a very easy filler class.

Finally, I'm taking a one-credit pass/fail database class using Access. I figure it's a good idea to have a tiny bit of knowledge about databases and Access. The first module was pretty easy, so currently it's my favorite course.

I want to say my next and last quarter will be easy peasy. I will be done with all my core classes, cataloging, and my culminating experience. It could just be Nancy Pearl, XML intro, directed fieldwork, and yoga. Isn't it pretty to think so? But if my last five quarters as a library student have taught me anything, it's that each quarter is worse and harder than one before. Somebody kill me now.

On a side note: go see Black Swan. It's so intense! You definitely need to see it theaters because it is partly spectacle. However, it's pretty visceral, so if you're squeamish, you may want to avoid it.

Holiday Highlights

It's January 10th already? Where does the time go? Here's just a brief recap of my two-week break for my own records and just in case you happen to be interested.

On Thursday, Dec. 17 I finished 544--the worst class ever--and packed my bags which still had clothes in them from when I moved back in August. Don't judge me. Then on Friday morning I flew away home to beautiful, frozen Utah. I seem to have brought the Pacific Northwest with me, however, because soon all the snow melted and it rained and the sky was gray. Festive.

On Saturday my family got up early for breakfast at the Sunshine Cafe which happened to be full, so we downgraded to Denny's instead. After scarfing down some grand slams, we made our way out to the Hale Centre Theatre for A Christmas Carol which was very well done and the stage effects were very nice. And in the end, Scrooge learned the true meaning of socialism, I mean Christmas.

Later that night, I went to Megan's wedding which was not at all themed like Joe Versus the Volcano, but Megan made a lovely bride anyway, and I got to see some high school friends. Then Eric (the groom) threw the garter to the only two bachelors in the room which included myself. Oh, Utah.

On Sunday I went to Apartment Christmas with my college friends (and some new ones that I didn't know) even though none of us really live in apartments anymore. Ellen made me an apron--tres chic--Val got me hot cocoa and wrote me the most beautiful note, Chris/Tina got me a gift card, and Matt and Dixy gave me stuff they got for free. We also went to Temple Square and sang carols and stuff like that.

On Tuesday it was the solstice which meant we could all go dance naked in the freezing cold or sing karaoke indoors where it's warm and there is alcohol, so we went with that plan. Elise and Justin B. sang beautifully, and then I sang "Fuck and Run" which did not go well since I do not have a beautiful singing voice to begin with and am tone deaf too. But I was drunk so I didn't even care. Yay, Solstice.

On Wednesday, Ellen and I watched Love Actually, as is we are wont, with Justin A. and Daniel. O Love Actually, you have so many plot lines, quite a few plot holes, and we love you dearly.

I got sick the next morning with a minor cold. Bah humbug!

Then one day it was Christmas morning, and even though my brother and sister got up at seven as per family tradition, I slept in a whole extra hour. And I made out like a freakin' bandit. I already wrote a love letter to my Roku player. I am very pleased with The New Best Recipe cookbook even though it is sometimes very judgmental. I got a Nancy Pearl action figure with amazing shushing action! which I used on my family. I got an external hard-drive so I won't cry if my computer dies and all my songs are gone (also to back up important school files), an Edith Piaf collection, a new watch, lots of gift cards, and more. My sister and brother-in-law came later and gave me a risotto cookbook and risotto rice which they bought on the Internet since apparently Logan grocers do not stock arborio. I barely managed to shove all my loot in my suitcases.

My family also got a Blu-Ray player and lots of Blu-Ray movies, and I have to say I wasn't super impressed. It was nice and all, but it didn't blow my mind.

On Sunday the extended famdamily showed up which made our house very crowded. And we ate a huge feast and then exchanged more presents. Goodness gracious.

The next day, Elise hosted her Festivus party which was low-key and charming, and everyone got obsessed with the fake snow--like the stuff they use in movies. Elise also made super delicious party food.

Sometime during the week when I wasn't busy reading The Passage or The House of Mirth or watching Battlestar Galactica, the family went out to eat at The Mandarin--best Chinese restaurant in Utah! Yum. And on Wednesday I went to Village Inn with Jessica which also happened to be free pie day, so that was awesome. and I drank coffee for the first time in over a week, and my heart went pitter-patter.

Friday was New Year's Eve--at which point the freezing weather had returned with a vengeance--and I went downtown to the Broadway sing-along with Elise and Justin A. and then we got dinner at Applebee's. I left them to join Elise in her kitchen sink with a couple of bottles of Cava that I bought at my beloved SLC wine store, and we rang in 2011. This is us.

Now Megan has hosted New Year's for the last eight(?) year, but now she's all married and currently in Texas, so . . . yeah. She stole New Year's, like the Grinch, with the lemon water and the Little Smokies, and we just had to make do somehow with the broken pieces of our shattered lives.

On Saturday, I went to Barnes & Noble with Kristen P. We browsed and talked and caught up on life and school and wedding plans (hers, not mine), so that was lovely.

Then it was Sunday, and after a lovely home-cooked dinner, and a round of billiards, I was hurtling back to Seattle on a jet plane--after it was severely delayed. And Heidi, who went to bed at 7 on New Year's Eve--because she is already an old person--picked me up at 11 at night which was way past her bedtime. Once I got home, I unpacked my bags, and that was that.

Top Ten

I just saw Easy A again. Love it! so much. Anyway, some of my friends asked for my top books list of 2010, and before I forget, I want to post it here.

This is in the order that I read them and not the order of how much I liked it:

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
(I love his short story collections!)

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
(a reread and still my favorite YA novel)

Angelology by Danielle Trussoni
(one of the most inventive contemporary novels I've read lately)

Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges
(I did a review of this back in April--a very important book)

The Absolute Sandman vol. 3 by Neil Gaiman
(absolutely love The Sandman)

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
(an interesting novel / critique of Harry Potter)

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
(it is as good as everyone says--read it if you haven't already)

Fun Home by Alison Bechdale
(a tragicomic graphic memoir about her identity as a lesbian and her fraught relationship with her father bound together with books)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
(a classic of sci-fi and the basis for Bladerunner)

Batman: Hush by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee
(my favorite Batman comic)

And I have two alternates which are books that I started to read and didn't finish--but not because they weren't good. One was overdue at the library, and I didn't finish the other one before school started up again.
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
(will make you hate Big Agriculture and fall in love with agrarianism)
The Iliad by Homer translated by Robert Fagles
(a modern, readable translation of the greatest war epic in Western literature)

So there you go. What were your favorite reads of 2010?

Do Nothing Day

Happy New Year people, but enough of that. It's the first day of the quarter and I've already said goodbye to productivity, hello do-nothingness!

I mean I did wake up early.ish. I mean what is early anyway? And then I went to work. For three whole hours! And I just got back from grocery shopping. That was expensive. So I've done things. I even checked my gd email. And right now I'm writing this blog--you're welcome.

But before that, I set up my Roku player! It was one of my Christmas presents--the best Christmas present ever! (There will be another post about holiday highlights. Later.) Right now I'm streaming Netflix on my television! We live in a magical, magical world people. All my fears and anxieties about technology have suddenly disappeared. I just watched like eight episodes of 30 Rock.

So basically school can rot in hell, because now that I can stream TV shows onto my TV--I may never leave my apartment again. Ever. And later tonight I'm going to watch The Thin Man on DVD (from Netflix) with a martini. I get two DVDs at a time--I may need to drop it to just one. But there are so many movies I need to see for the Golden Globes and the Oscars!, many of which are already out on DVD, others are not--like Black Swan which I am DYING to see. I should go this weekend.

I didn't get any DVDs for Christmas because I didn't ask for any, except for Tori Amos Live at Montreaux (which I did get). So then I felt a little sad and ordered 10 movies I love and 2 seasons of Will & Grace. It's going to be a great quarter.

After I spend all day in front of the TV, I'm going to need time to read my GQ and Entertainment Weekly and then some more to study some poetry, so I think I'll just have to shunt my cataloging reading and lectures. You can't say I don't have priorities.