10 Things

1) Today is the first day of Fall. Yay! Still it was a pretty warm day; those are nice. It will be cold and wintery soon enough.

2) I went and saw Drive today. Midnight in Paris has been the most delightful film I've seen this year, but I would have to say that so far Drive is the best film I've seen. The movie is entirely in control of itself. It's amazing visually, which is good because Ryan Gosling's character archetype doesn't even have a name (i.e., it's not a talky character piece). It's neo-noir, the visuals are surreal, the violence is brutal, the casting is superb, and the soundtrack is unexpected and interesting and effective. Go. See. It.

3) Ryan Gosling. He's so hot. and perfect. *sigh* I still haven't managed to see Crazy, Stupid, Love (must change that soon, before it leaves theaters), and I'm looking forward to Ides of March.

4) Did you see the Emmys? I love television, and I love awards shows. The best moment happened when the best comedy actress nominees staged a beauty pageant. And Melissa McCarthy won for Bridesmaids Mike & Molly.

Also, Kate Winslet now has an EGO. Time to get that Tony, Kate! Also, Downton Abbey pretty much swept the miniseries category; Poor HBO. If you haven't seen Downton Abbey, you have an incredible seven hours of TV ahead of you! I can't wait for season two to come to PBS in January.

5) Amy Poehler. Sadly, I missed last night's premiere of Parks and Recreation as I was having drinks with Kristen. But that just means I have an episode to look forward to very soon. Yay for the Internet.

6) New Girl. It's the new show starring Zooey Deschanel. The pilot was so great, I've watched it three times! Even though it has a few problems, I'm sure those will get ironed out soon. Check it out!

7) Seattle. Yesterday, I was trying to find a bar in SLC, I thought of all the many bars I knew and loved in Seattle. And earlier this week, a couple of Mormon friends asked me what they should do when they go to Seattle in a few weeks--I couldn't think of anything except bars. But later, I did think of lots of non-alcoholic things to do and sent them a very long itinerary. It made me just a little homesick(is that the right term?) and a bit newstalgic. I hated grad school, but it turns out I kind of liked Seattle.

8) Stupid Jobs. I still have not found a job yet. Boo. However, there are some entry-level jobs opening up at the San Francisco public library. Yay! I'm not getting my hopes up, but how awesome would SF be? And I don't even want to go to California. By the way, did you know that San Francisco is a consolidated city-county?

9) Facebook. Every time Facebook changes, people bitch and moan, and then other people bitch and moan about the first bitchers/moaners. I just tried to put my big girl panties on and adapt to the changes, because sooner or later we all do. Resistance is futile. But now I'm really not sure how to use Facebook anymore. and the Ticker thing pisses me off to an unreasonable degree. Lame.

10) Ten...ten...ten..? I don't know. Oh, Tori Amos's latest studio album came out. I have not bought it. yet. It's a song cycle riffing off a lot of classical pieces (she is a classically trained pianist), I've listened to some of it; none of it has caught my attention. Too arty. Tori can do what she wants, but I wish she would get back to her roots and make an album similar to those circa 1992-2002. Or stop making albums and just tour a lot. Also, the Netflix/ Qwickster thing is pissing me off. Oh, and I had Arby's today for the first time in .... well, a really long time. Delicious.

Fall Reflections

With the changing of the seasons, it's time for a new playlist. Summer is the time for loud, energetic anthems about the sun and surf. For fall, I enjoy softer, moodier, and darker songs of melancholy that allow for reflection. Here are the songs with an autumnal atmosphere, at least I think so.

New(ish) Additions:
Honey Come Home by The Head and the Heart
"oh god, I love my vices / but they've taken me to places / that I'd never thought I'd go / and I am ready to be home"
Fun fact: I saw The Head and the Heart open for Hey Marseilles. They were both awesome. Sometimes I miss Seattle.

Dead Hearts by Stars
"was there one you saw too clearly? / did they seem too real to you? / they were kids that I once knew / now they're all dead hearts to you"
Fun fact: I first heard this song on the Like Crazy trailer.

9 Crimes by Damien Rice (with Lisa Hannigan)
"it's the wrong kind of place to be thinking of you / it's the wrong time for somebody new / I give my gun away when it's loaded / is that all right, yeah? / if you don't shoot it how am I supposed to hold it?"

Blinding by Florence + the Machine
"no more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden / no more dreaming like a girl so in love with the wrong world"
Fun fact: While most of Lungs has disturbing imagery, especially of death, this is the track that I find most creepy. OK, so that was more of an opinion than a fact.

Quelqu'un m'a dit by Carla Bruni
"que tu m'amais encore, me l'a-t-on vraiment dit / que tu m'amais encore, serait-ce possible alors?"
Fun fact: Carla Bruni, First Lady of France, appeared in Midnight in Paris as the Musee Rodin guide.

Down in the Valley by The Head and the Heart
"Down in the valley with / whiskey rivers / these are the places you will find me hidin' / these are the places I will always go"
Fun fact: The Head and the Heart's self-titled album is awesome. If you like Mumford & Sons, check them out.

Monster (and monstrous) Love:
The Horror of Our Love by Ludo
"I want you stuffed into my mouth / hold you down and tear you open / live inside you / oh, love, I'd never hurt you"
Fun fact: Based on Salvador Dali's quote about his wife, "I love Gala so much, if she dies, I will eat her."

The Curse by Josh Ritter
"long ago on the ship, she asked, 'why pyramids?' / he said, 'think of them as an immense invitation' / she asked 'are you cursed?' he said, 'I think that I'm cured' / then he kissed her and hoped she'd forget that question"
Fun fact: After Tori Amos (268), I have more songs by Josh Ritter (55) than any other artist (excepting compositions by Chopin). Thanks for introducing him to me, Rae.

Howl by Florence + the Machine
"a man who's pure of heart and says his prayers by night / may still become a wolf when the autumn moon is bright / if you could only see the beast you made of me"
Fun Question: Have you heard the new singles What the Water Gave Me or Strangeness and Charm?

Possession by Sarah McLachlan
"oh, you speak to me in riddles / and you speak to me in rhymes / my body aches to breathe your breath / your words keep me alive"

Songs Not About Food:
Caramel by Suzanne Vega
"so goodbye / sweet appetite / no single bite / could satisfy"

Honey by Tori Amos
"he liked my shoes I kept them on / sometimes I can hold my tongue, sometimes not / when you just skip-to-loo, my darlin' "

Lullabies:
Be Here Now by Ray LaMontagne
"don't look for love in faces, places / it's in you, that's where you'll find kindness"

Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap
"spin me around again and rub my eyes / this can't be happening"

Change of Time by Josh Ritter
"I had a dream last night / and when I opened my eyes / your shoulder blade, your spine / were shorelines in the moon light"
Fun fact: Ritter just published his first novel back in June.

Somedays by Regina Spektor
"I've gone away, don't call me don't write / Somedays aren't yours at all / They come and go as if they're someone else's days"

Old Favorites:
Spark by Tori Amos
"if the divine master plan is perfection / maybe next I'll give Judas a try / trusting my soul to the ice cream assassin"

Poses by Rufus Wainwright
"I did go from wanting to be someone / now I'm drunk and wearing flip-flops on Fifth Avenue"

Sometime Around Midnight by The Airborne Toxic Event
"and the band plays some song / about forgetting yourself for a while / and the piano's this melancholy soundcheck / to her smile"
Fun fact: this band's semi-ridiculous name is taken from Don DeLillo's masterful postmodern novel, White Noise.

Northern Lad by Tori Amos
"I guess you go too far / when pianos try to be guitars / I feel the west in you / but I feel it falling apart too"

Thoughts in the Presence of Fear

I recently learned about this essay by Wendell Berry available on Orion magazine's website. It is also one of three essays in his book In the Presence of Fear and Citizenship Papers which I will be reading posthaste. It is an incredibly thoughtful and prescient essay of 27 points regarding technology, the economy, the environment, education, politics, culture, society, and a way of life. I highly encourage everyone to read it in its entirety. Nevertheless, here are some highlights:

IV: The “developed” nations had given to the “free market” the status of a god, and were sacrificing to it their farmers, farmlands, and communities, their forests, wetlands, and prairies, their ecosystems and watersheds. They had accepted universal pollution and global warming as normal costs of doing business.

VIII: Nor did we foresee that the weaponry and the war science that we marketed and taught to the world would become available, not just to recognized national governments, which possess so uncannily the power to legitimate large-scale violence, but also to “rogue nations”, dissident or fanatical groups and individuals - whose violence, though never worse than that of nations, is judged by the nations to be illegitimate.

XII: Or we can promote a decentralized world economy which would have the aim of assuring to every nation and region a local self-sufficiency in life-supporting goods. This would not eliminate international trade, but it would tend toward a trade in surpluses after local needs had been met.

XIV: This is why the substitution of rhetoric for thought, always a temptation in a national crisis, must be resisted by officials and citizens alike. . . . But the talk that we are hearing from politicians, bureaucrats, and commentators has so far tended to reduce the complex problems now facing us to issues of unity, security, normality, and retaliation.

XV: We are not innocent of making war against civilian populations. The modern doctrine of such warfare was set forth and enacted by General William Tecumseh Sherman, who held that a civilian population could be declared guilty and rightly subjected to military punishment. We have never repudiated that doctrine.

XXI: What leads to peace is not violence but peaceableness, which is not passivity, but an alert, informed, practiced, and active state of being. We should recognize that while we have extravagantly subsidized the means of war, we have almost totally neglected the ways of peaceableness. . . . We have ignored the teachings and the examples of Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and other peaceable leaders.

XXIII: We must not again allow public emotion or the public media to caricature our enemies. If our enemies are now to be some nations of Islam, then we should undertake to know those enemies. Our schools should begin to teach the histories, cultures, arts, and language of the Islamic nations. And our leaders should have the humility and the wisdom to ask the reasons some of those people have for hating us.

XXIV: Starting with the economies of food and farming, we should promote at home, and encourage abroad, the ideal of local self-sufficiency. We should recognize that this is the surest, the safest, and the cheapest way for the world to live.

XXV: We should reconsider and renew and extend our efforts to protect the natural foundations of the human economy: soil, water, and air.

XXVI: Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. Its proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible.

XXVII: The first thing we must begin to teach our children (and learn ourselves) is that we cannot spend and consume endlessly. We have got to learn to save and conserve. . . . An economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly violent, and war is its inevitable by-product. We need a peaceable economy.

How to Dispose of a Demon

Don't ask me how to kill a demon, for that you'll need a slayer or a vampire with a soul. Or a bazooka. But once it's dead--to keep it from coming back--there's just a few steps to follow. Incinerate the body. Douse the ashes with holy water. Divide and bury the remains in separate plots. No more demon redux!

(Isn't "redux" a great word? Also "avuncular"--though it's a bit weird too. What if my uncle isn't like your uncle? I guess it mostly means a kindly uncle. Is there a word that means aunt-like?)

Anyway, I've been watching way too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel lately. It's taken over my dreams. I am addicted and obsessed. I decided to watch the first season of Angel to see what was going on, but I actually like it on its own merits, though I still like Buffy more.

For more vampire/werewolf fun, check out The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger. It's ridiculous, silly, stupid fun. It's a paranormal romance/mystery series set in an alternate Victorian steampunk London. I read Soulless back in March, liked it and then forgot about it. But I got an itch and am now reading book two, Changeless. I'm giggling a lot.

I just finished reading Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton, chef/owner of Prune in NYC. It is an excellent memoir of a hard-lived life. It didn't have the same joy I felt reading Julie & Julia or Comfort Me with Apples, but I think it's a better written book. If you enjoy food writing, I would recommend it. I've also stated A Clash of Kings book two in the Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) series. They are very long, intricately plotted books, and once I finish this one, I'll take a long break before continuing the series.

The last movie I saw in theaters was The Help. Have you seen it? I thought it was a pretty good movie, though it got a little long. I think it was well-intentioned, but Hollywood added some pastel colors and sanded down some splinters of the Civil Rights era. I think it is for white audiences especially women. A way to assuage white guilt, pat ourselves on the back, and ignore contemporary racial injustice. Nevertheless, I enjoyed watching some great actresses doing great work. What is your take on The Help?

Speaking of The Help, Mark Harris has begun his Oscar column on Grantland, discussing early contenders for Best Picture. Like he says, 'when it comes to the Oscars, obsessive overkill is part of the fun [and] this post-Labor Day moment is the last opportunity to weigh in before things get complicated." It's a really good, funny piece, especially if you like movies and awards.

So summers is over. My family went camping over Labor Day, and I stayed home and watched Buffy. I think camping is more fun with friends and beer, less with family and no beer. And I like having the house to myself. Anyway, it's time to get serious with job hunting. No more staying up till 2 and sleeping in till noon, and doing absolutely nothing. I haven't written much all summer, because I haven't done anything all summer. It was really lame. So here's to being a more productive person, getting a job, and perhaps even writing more posts. And to fall--I really love fall.