My book club meet in early December to discuss Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, a futuristic, sci-fi, action/adventure novel centered around 80s pop culture and gaming. It was fun read, but none of us thought there was a lot of "there" there. Perhaps because the back-jacket claimed it would be important for the protagonist to confront the real-world to survive/win, but either that was not the author's intention or that idea was not successfully carried through. Book aside, our club added a new member (yay!), and we decided to become the Brunch & Tea book club and hold high revel and play whist. I am currently working through our next selection, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami which is highly strange and engaging. In other book news, I read Helene Wecker's wonderful historical-fantasy The Golem and the Jinni, and I have spent the last two weeks reading my way through Hanya Yanagihara 720-page, heartbreaking novel A Little Life before it's Monday due date. Less than a hundred pages left!
Weight
I passed my second weight check-point this month! (And then I went back over it, and then crossed it again.) Anyway, I have lost 50 lbs (or so, depending on the day) since January 2013 and over 30 lbs just this year. But I would still like to go down another size, so... I'm thinking of joining a gym, but I can't decide if January is the best or worst time to do so.
Fashionista
This means that I was able to fit into my topcoat that I bought way back as an undergrad. (Vintage! Not!) And yet this very old coat, which is missing a handful of buttons, has gotten me more compliments this month than probably any other item of clothing I've ever worn. Except for socks—as Elise said, my sock game is "on fleek" and has won a library award.
Cinema
Sam and I went and saw Krampus in early December, and it was scary, funny, and ridiculous. with an upsetting, non-fairy tale ending. *spoiler* Later in the month, after the Globes nominations, we went and saw Room. The situation is obviously horrible, but the film is very good and Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay's performances are exceptional. Then I went and saw Brooklyn (without Sam, sorry!), and it's so far my favorite film of the year. Saoirse Ronan gives a quietly beautiful performance of an Irish girl who learns to make her way in 50s Brooklyn only to have a chance to return to Ireland. I was crushing pretty hard on Emory Cohen, so I was of course #teamtony. Okay, maybe that's not a real thing, but I need everyone to see this film and tell me who they would choose: Tony or Jim and why.
So dreamy. ©20th Century Fox
In other cinema news, I have so far been subjected to the Anomalisa trailer thrice, and I can't even (the horror!). I also can't even wait for Carol, whose SLC opening keeps getting delayed (the agony!). I still have a lot of catching up to do with the nominees before the Golden Globe Awards ceremony next Sunday.Happy Holidays from Billy Wilder et al.
Sam was very sweet and watched two of my favorite Christmas movies with me while we drank Jack Roses and ate Kouign-amanns (or the Breton plural: kouignoù-amann). We started with the terrible, wonderful Love Actually (which used to be my tradition with Ellen before she had her son). "Eight is a lot of legs, David." Then we watched The Apartment, Billy Wilder's fabulous dark romantic comedy about loners who fall in love between the office Christmas party and New Year's Eve. Before heading out for a NYE party myself, I watched Wilder's fabulous Hollywood noir Sunset Boulevard where William Holden attends two very different New Year's Eve parties in a beautiful tailcoat: "Wonderful shoulders. I love that line." Nobody wears tails to NYE parties anymore. I did not get a lot of other holiday movie viewing done (including my other favorite The Thin Man!), but I did catch Netflix's holiday special A Very Murray Christmas, which I found delightful and it totally got me in the holiday spirit. And finally, Elise, Justin, and I watched Meet Me in St. Louis (which is Justin's tradition) mostly for Judy singing the finest and most melancholy of all Christmas songs (Tori Amos's cover is also near and dear to my heart):
Art Angels
This is the first Grimes album I've bought, and I've found its electronic pop to be both very strange (including the cover art) as well as catchy and likable. iTunes writes that "Art Angels is a Catherine wheel of ferocious pop invention" and that seems to me the perfect description. While we're talking music here, I just want to say that my two favorite albums of the year were Florence + the Machine's How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful and Lana Del Rey's Honeymoon.
Snow Day
On Monday, Dec. 14th we had a massive winter storm which left Bountiful with 23" of snow! It was insane, and even though the U did not close (until late afternoon), I decided to take a personal snow day anyway, and I read my book and drank hot chocolate and napped and made macaroni and cheese casserole for dinner (comfort food!), and it was a mostly good time except that I did pull a back muscle attempting to shovel some snow.
T.V.
I finished two series in December: Fox's Scream Queens and Netflix's Jessica Jones (which turned out to be three episodes longer than I expected). Scream Queens was hilarious and macabre with cast members dying in every episode. But the best line of the whole season was Dean Munsch (original scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis) in the finale: "Especially since the new Kappa seems to be aligned so clearly with mine and the rest of the student body's almost militant commitment to political correctness and acceptance of different and unusual points of view. As long as they're always left-leaning. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go disinvite Jerry Seinfeld from speaking at commencement. He told a joke about a woman once. Allegedly." Jessica Jones is a decidedly gritty superhero show—or perhaps anti-heroine show. The season's arc was concerned with defeating Kilgrave (David Tennant) who is no ordinary costumed supervillain twirling his mustache, but a real monster who is misogyny personified, "a one-man system of oppression, sexual violence, and domestic abuse." I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to re-watch Tennant's Doctor Who episodes again—what if his companions are really hostages?
Party Central
I started the holiday parties with my college friend set, who are all married except for Ashley and me, and of the four married couples, three have one or more children. So it was all a little crazy, but we had a lovely dinner, and the gingerbread men cookies that I made seemed to be a big hit, if I may say so myself. Then there was a martini cocktail party which was expected to be a raging hootenanny but turned out to be a fairly small gathering. I dressed up in my suit (which fits again!) and had six or seven martinis (small ones). And we all danced to jazz music and had a mahvelous time. There were family parties in which I most certainly did not hide from my family members in the closet of my childhood bedroom with half a bottle of wine! And I ended the year at Quinci's NYE party which was low-key and fun and in which Quentin Tarantino movies played in the background.Hamilton
Let me be the latest person to fanboy over this musical sensation by Lin-Manuel Miranda. I checked out the Broadway cast recording from the library, and it is most excellent. It's Alexander Hamilton's life story, the cast is mostly people of color, and many of the songs are rap/hip-hop (though there are some traditional Broadway melodies as well). You can read this Atlantic piece about the music, and this Telegraph piece which concludes: "Like most good ideas," Kail says, dryly, "it doesn’t make sense until somebody puts in front of you and you say, 'Oh, of course.'" So go find it and listen to it. It makes me cry and want to read more U.S. history and be a better American. How corny am I?
Bonus: Christmas
Another Christmas has come and gone and I got three pairs of socks! and also many much books. So my Christmas was merry and hope yours was too.
