Amanuensis

Favorite new things of 2011

2012-01-01T15:51:00.000-08:00

TV:

Episodes
Happy Endings (forgot about this when I was writing this list--thought it started in 2010)
Hart of Dixie
Homeland
Revenge
Downton Abbey (forgot about this too)

Not my favorite, but Once Upon a Time has potential.

Books:
I read a lot of great books this year, but the ones that stuck with me the most were the following non-2011 publications:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Just Kids by Patti Smith
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (rec'd to two people)
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

Movies:

I loved Attack the Block, but past that I feel like I didn't see a lot of movies this year, and, more importantly, none of them blew my brain back. I preferred Source Code, Limitless, Another Earth to Descendants, Moneyball, and Midnight in Paris, all of which I thought were good but am hard-pressed to imagine as Oscar winners.

I didn't really love anything I saw this year, but I probably enjoyed Crazy, Stupid, Love the most and Drive was probably the most striking. Bridesmaids was funny, but it didn't knock me out. Tower Heist, despite Brett Ratner's brazen dumbassery, was in my opinion a funnier film. The best female performance I saw this year was easily Keira Knightley in A Dangerous Method.

Again, I still have a lot of 2011 films to catch up on.

Music:
My favorite music of the year came from Florence + the Machine, Adele, the Black Keys, Foster the People, AWOLNation, Mumford and Sons, and The Naked and the Famous.

Other stuff:

ice skating -- I just skated for the first time yesterday, and now it's my New Year's resolution to learn how to really skate. Excited!

Studio City -- my dream has come true. I am now a Studio City resident.

Nicholl Fellowship -- 2011 I was a QF with my first-ever completed feature film script.

Trader Joe's dark chocolate rocky road bars -- I eat an insane amount of that now.

Portland, OR

Lisbon and Sintra, Portugal; Valencia, Spain

chocolate salami

Overall, it was a decent enough year. Let's just hope 2012 is better.

Christmas spirit

2011-12-19T19:46:00.000-08:00

So I live in an apartment building, and I have a parking space. This is not a dream parking space. It's a tight fit in an alley between my apartment building and the one next door. It is next to the (currently overflowing) garbage and recycling bins and right in front of our laundry room. There is no entrance to the apartment building next to us, so I'm not blocking any of them, but sometimes people in my apartment get irritated because they have to squeeze to get to the laundry. I have a compact car. There's only so much I can do.

But it's a parking space.

And now I don't have it. Apparently, the apartment building next door decided I was parking on a foot of their property, and, in the grand tradition of Christmas goodwill and sharing, put up cement posts in my parking spot while I was at work. Without any kind of prior notification or convo about it. My landlord just found out about this today. Classy.

Now this apartment next door has a real parking garage under their building and cannot possibly get any use from this space. It might be a little easier for the DirecTV guy to put a satellite on their roof or for their energy consumption to be checked, but that's really it. Also, my landlords have been using this space for parking for something like 30-40 years without an issue.

The amount of space between the posts and the cabinet on the right is what they get. Seriously. Basically it accomplishes nothing but putting me out.

So...

Merry Christmas! I'd keep writing but I parked so far away I have to leave now to get to my car in time to go to work tomorrow.

Damnation.

Portland (OR)

2011-12-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

So I have now officially been bodily in AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IA, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, NE, NJ, NH, NY, NC, NV, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TX, UT, VA, VT, and WI. I think that's the lot. I may have traveled through (but not to) a few others and just don't remember that I, say, stopped in the St. Paul airport or something.

Anyway, LOVED Portland. Minus an inexplicable seizure-like event in our lovely, inexpensive Courtyard hotel room around midnight the first night, I had a great time.

PDX is a very easy, friendly, pleasant, not-crowded airport. You can take the red line to downtown. It's awesome.

The first day, we flew in early and had a late breakfast at Fresh Pot because I'd heard they had Montreal-style bagels. I either remember Montreal bagels wrong, or these weren't them. In any event, it was okay, but not great. However, the elephant stamp is super cool.

Then we went to Finnegan's Toys and Gifts, then to Powell's, where we spent A LONG TIME because it's AWESOME, and I got a beautifully illustrated Travels of Marco Polo remainder.

By then, starved, we went to Clyde Common, where I had the egg sandwich, whites only, which was very lovely. I highly recommend it.

We did a little window shopping, then went back to the room to rest, keen on going to the Art Institute of Portland later that night for a craft fair (which ended up being two tiny tables of stuff) and a letter press exhibit-thing (one room, lame). Pretty unexciting. We walked around the Pearl because all the shops were open late. Lucy bought some yarn for her mom, and I bought a shiny little green wreath craft thing that I subsequently managed to punch my thumb through and slightly ruin. As long as you don't look at it too closely, it's okay, though.

We had supper at Gruner, which had AMAZING pretzel croutons. Like, so good, I asked for some more, and they brought me a free cup that I ate later. Everything else about the place was kind of meh.

Back to the Marriott, which again was awesome. Seizurey thing.

Next morning, we went to NE Portland via bus in order to brunch at Pine State Biscuits. BELIEVE THE HYPE. I had a biscuit with fried chicken and cheddar on it. It was INSANE. I want one in LA, along with these guys.

We shopped around that section of Alberta Street, bought coffee, and peppermint chocolate ice cream at Salt and Straw.

Then we walked down 15th Avenue all the way past Klickitat Street!

For those of you with sad childhoods, you may not know that Klickitat Street was the home of one Ramona Quimby, age 8. So, awesome.

After an afternoon rest, we walked across the 405 to have dinner (accidentally) at Sweet Basil, which is a Thai restaurant entirely run by transvestites (except for the chefs). Between lip-sync'd disco hits, Lucy ate, and I tried not to feel creeped out about someone gyrating on a stage behind me to bad '70s music.
Then we went to McMenamin's Mission Theater, which is a moviepub, and saw The Rum Diary for 3 bucks! I had popcorn and was happy.

The next morning, Luce went and had breakfast with a friend, so I checked out Voodoo Doughnuts and bought a dirt doughnut and a no name doughnut.

The no name (pb, rice krispies) was insanely filling, and I ended up giving the dirt doughnut to Luce. I also bought a vegan pumpkin muffin and a croissant from Pearl Bakery, which were uninspiring.

Watched the last half of Dinner for Schmucks after just realizing we had HBO.
When Lucy returned, we went to the Portland Saturday Market, stopping by Stumptown on the way...

which is near Voodoo and opposite this wall.

The market was SO COOL. If I had money and suitcase space, there's a paper tulip lamp and a wire sculpture I absolutely would have bought. Instead, I got my stepdad a t-shirt that said "Eat Locals" with a zombie chasing a farmer on a tractor. He best like it. We also learned a lot about the Portland bubblers from a guy who we sadly did not buy any wares from. Oh, well.

We had lunch at Little Big Burger, where the burgers were, indeed, little. But I was full from breakfast, so I was fine.

We didn't really know what to do after visiting the science side of Powell's, so we just headed toward PSU, taking a rather long break from the cold in the lobby of the lovely, historic Beacon Hotel, where Lucy had tea. And I may have possibly stolen someone's Do Not Disturb sign. Maybe.

BTW, Portland isn't just coffee. There are A LOT of chocolate shops. I did buy one green Michel Cluizel chocolate that ended up being oddly good.

We wandered around PSU for 30 seconds while I talked to my dad, who told me he was about to be a great-granddad, but, oh, wait, actually already was. The things I don't know about my step-family are many.

Finally, it was time to head airport-ward. We passed the itsy-bitsy Occupy Portland protest (which apparently grew after we left) and had a quick dinner at some food trucks near the hotel. I had some really good Korean spicy chicken.

Then home!

Lisbon

2011-11-25T17:17:00.000-08:00

So I flew into Lisbon from Madrid (about an hour flight, minus the hour time difference, means you arrive about the same time you left) and stayed at the Clarion Suites near Marques de Pombal, a huge, trafficky roundabout at the northern end of the part of the city you actually want to visit. It was perfectly nice, especially considering I had prepaid for it through a summer deal and my one-bedroom suite ended up costing me about 40 bucks a night. Not a bad deal.

Lisbon is fantastic and easy to maneuver in a way that Madrid just wasn't. The metro is easy to understand, and everyone speaks English. Everyone DOES NOT in Spain, which sucks. But Lisbon is generally friendly and calm. Or maybe it was just my sister's absence that led me to stress much less.

The first afternoon I went down to the Baixa-Chiado area, which is a lovely little shopping district -- the shop Nicholas is frickin' adorable and I got my mom's Xmas gift there -- and tried to take the trolley thing up to the Castelo. But I took the wrong one, heading towards Estrela Park, cause I'm a moron, and realized it about halfway up into the Bairro Alto, which makes San Francisco look positively level. Finally I got the right trolley, but got off a little too soon and ended up walking to the Castelo. I got there just before it closed, and it was a truly lovely site. Kind of reminded me, in terms of the walk, of climbing up to Coit Tower in SF. But the Castelo is much more charming than Coit Tower and has equal views, especially since there's a Golden Gate-style bridge crossing the Tagus.

View from the Castelo:

Archaeology in effect at the "back" of the Castelo:

Touristy neighborhood around the Castelo. I thought I'd wait to buy postcards, but I should have got them there. Best postcards in the city. Also, a helluva lot of Pessoa paraphernalia. He's like their James Joyce.

I walked back down to Baixa-Chiado after the sun set and up to Restauradores where I had a roasted chicken dinner at a restaurant recommended in my guidebook. I think I was in somehow the wrong half, as it wasn't the chicken described in the book. Anyhow, I would avoid that area, if at all possible, if you don't like being harassed by the restaurant hosts trying to get you to eat in their restaurant. Really the only unpleasant thing about the city.

After that I walked back up the Avenida da Libderdade to my hotel and called it a night. It's a huge Parisian-style boulevard like the Champs d'Elysee, though less fancy, and I felt perfectly safe.

The next day I attempted to go to Sintra. It was gray out, and I walked down to Rossio to grab the train, but it was a week day so the drivers were on strike (to protest austerity measures? I don't know.).
This is the staircase at Rossio. Rocking, huh?

In any event, it started pouring so I grabbed the subway to Parque das Nacoes. The Oriente station is lovely, and right across from a nice mall, and on the other side of the mall is the park.
Station:

Mall:

So I loitered around the mall, went down to Continente, which is like a Portuguese equivalent of Target, to grab some fruit, and found triple chocolate cereal just like the kind I had in London (different brand name but same thing) seven years ago. I bought my fruit and went to check out the park, in the drizzle, which is semi-abandoned and weird and would have been cooler if I hadn't just come from Valencia and their amazing City of Arts and Sciences.
I took pictures of the sky cable cars and the Tagus and the music garden, but, honestly, I only really liked these fountains:

So I went back to Continente, bought my cereal, and took it back to the apartment. I chilled at the hotel for a while watching TV that was canceled in the U.S. months ago (Chicago Code anyone?) and endless repeats of The Simpsons and Family Guy. It was nice to decompress.
This is just north of the Marques de Pombal roundabout. Not sure what's up, but I dig it.

Then I felt like a full-on lazybones (like right now, as I'm going to blow off Pilates), so I walked up to Campo Pequeno, a very pretty bull ring that, during the off season, is home to equally bloody spectacles like Panda goes to School: The Musical and Smashing Pumpkins concerts, I kid you the fuck not. There's also a mall underneath it.

Interesting note: people will tell you Portuguese bullfighting is more humane because they don't kill the bull. This is not true. Yes, they don't kill the bull during the match, BUT they kill it immediately after, so the bull still isn't getting out of this shit alive. Just a FYI.

Then I had dinner at Pizza Hut (I know, I know) and went to bed.

The next day: Sintra!

Sintra is a fairly short train ride from Lisbon and totally worth it.
Look--a house that's also kind of a lighthouse. And it's inland!

Don't bother with any sights you don't have to hike to the top of the mountains to get to (or take a bus to if you're smarter than I am). I climbed something like 2,000 steps to visit both the Pena National Palace and the ancient Castelo dos Mouros. It's mighty tiring but both are very different and very worth it to visit. Might I suggest hiking boots, some water, and only going during the off-season like I did. I can't imagine the hell it must be in the summer or with major crowds.
Pena:

View from Mouros:

Mouros:

The train--notice the car is fairly empty. A bunch of screaming children came into the car I was in, a camp group, so all the unencumbered adults left that car and scattered through the rest of the train. I've been a counselor in that situation before, but I felt no guilt about leaving.

Then I tried dinner once again in Restauradores, this time at Valentino, also mentioned in my guidebook, also not super worth the yelling hosts of that area. I did eat super early, though, so it wasn't so bad.

Sunday, my last day, was a bit of a waste of time. Don't let the abundant automatic correos (little post office machines) littered around town fool you--most of them are out of order and will not dispense the stamps you waited till the last second to buy. It may very well eat your three euros, so be very wary.

I took the train to Belem to check out the Torre de Belem and the huge-ass monastery (that's not very respectful, but it's fairly accurate).
This is cool. I should have paid the two euros to go in, but I decided to wait for the Torre de Belem. MIS-take.

The Torre de Belem, which is pretty but I'm not going to give you any photos of because I did not enjoy my time there, was a clusterfuck despite it not being the most spectacular day, probably because it's free to visit on Sundays until 2. It's small, empty, and there's only one narrow, winding staircase to the top that also is how you get down. No employee is manning this stair, and it's a dangerous, unpleasant thing to try to maneuver. If you are mildly claustrophobic, it's not worth it. The Torres in Madrid were much more enjoyable.

I did like walking along the Tagus, and I did enjoy walking through Jeronimos, the monastery, after services let out, which was also free. It was actually too big to photograph well and trolley cables get in the way. But I got a couple decent inside shots.
Why does taking pictures in church feel so blasphemous? Probably because it is.

I then headed to Pasteis de Belem because, well, the guidebook said it was the ur pasteis place. But I'm not really a pasteis girl. I'm a queijada girl, so I headed to the other side of the block to a place that literally had queijada in its name.

And the queijadas were mad shitty. HOWEVER, they had chocolate salame, and it was awesome! And then I realized they have salame everywhere, and that is a serious Portuguese dessert, but it was too late, and I lost my chance at salame.
So that sucked. But I'm going to make some for Christmas.

Anyhow, I took the trolley back to Baixa-Chiado, then went to a coffee joint where there's free Wi-Fi (which was a joy) and sat for approximately two hours just rejoining the world of the Internet and continuing to be horrified by Penn State at-large.

Then I walked back to my hotel, ate some McDonald's (I know! Shut up!), and got ready to go home.
Which I did the next day. Thankfully the cab was only about 10 euros 'cause Aerobus didn't run as early as I needed to leave.

So now I'm back in LA and going to Portland next week. Gah!
I'm really glad I went, but I really do prefer living in a place to traveling there. Travel is brutal, especially when you don't know the language. You just feel like you're go, go, go, go. When you live in a place, you find the right restaurants and don't have to depend on a book. You don't have to fit in all the touristy spots at once. You know when the train drivers are striking, you know where the good Wi-Fi spots, you can just relax. You can really experience a place.
But for $500 rt from LA, I had to do it, so that's that.

I'm just pissed I didn't get a Portugal passport stamp. Damn you, customs!

more Madrid and Valencia

2011-11-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

I'm in Lisbon now, solo, but I'm gonna post about Madrid and Valencia before I totally forget what my sister and I did while we were in Spain.

On Saturday morning, we hunted for Bodega de Ardosa, but the place we saw was not appealing so we got croissants (mm) and hot chocolate at a nearby cafe. Don't recall the name, but I thought going with the Nutella-esque hot chocolate was a good idea. I'm a dolt.
After that, I think we took a siesta. A long one? I'm having a bit of trouble remembering. What I do know is we headed back to the Mercado Mayor where I bought something called a salame, which was KICK ASS, for later, and we had some gelato. Then we found the tapas place my sister's friend had told her about, Turf. The chicken curry was awful, and I ordered a plate of potatoes thinking something would be done to them, but, no, just baby potatoes. Allie liked her plates, though, so what do I know?

On Sunday morning, we headed to El Rastro, which is INSANE. It covers the entire neighborhood and is about 90% brass knobs, DVDs (legit??), and other random assorted junk. But the experience is something alright. Then on the walk back towards Atocha I got crazy hungry. Like, crazy psycho hungry. But there's not much on the road from Puerta Toledo to the Reina Sofia, so we had some Burger King, which has free WiFi that's actually accessible, unlike another nearby fast food chain (ahem, McD's).

Then we went to the Reina Sofia, which was quite cool and free on Sundays, and then we went to the Parque del Buen Retiro to wile away the hours until we had to grab the train to the airport and take the plane to Valencia.

But before we came back to Atocha, we ate at an Irish pub just north of the park--so nice to talk with people who speak English, but there was an exceedingly unimportant soccer game on and a group of young teen Irish girls at the table next to us pretending to be bratty Barbies, so it was a tad odd.

Then we took a quick tour of Cibeles, which I expected to be a church, but is not, and watched weird tourists take inappropriate snapshots of themselves in a 9/11 photo memorial exhibit.

Then we ducked into the Ritz to try to find a Do Not Disturb sign for my mildly naughty collection, but found nothing.

Btw, Barajas is a devil airport and Atocha is a challenging train station if you have a lot of luggage. Just FYI.

So we got to Valencia late and since we were staying at the Solvasa, which is east of the riverbed, and the Metro (I heard) closes at 11pm, we took a rather pricy cab drive to the hotel. If you like body pillows for beds, this is your hotel. If you don't, you might want to look elsewhere.

The next day, it rained, but I got things off right by finding some amazing ensaimadas at a bread shop just behind the Solvasa (kind of worth the crap beds). After, we braved the storm and hit the Oceanografic, which is part of the City of Arts and Sciences, WHICH. IS. AWESOME.
My favorites from the Oceanografic:
1. sea dragons...
Who knew they existed? I feel like there's a Disney movie in this creature that needs to happen.

2. walruses! They're huge and terrifying and breathtaking. Just the broad brown back breaching the water, you can sense the kind of power a walrus has and suddenly become very thankful you're not in the Arctic between that walrus and something it wants to eat.

3. guitarfish! I think the name speaks for itself.

Then we had a weird lunch of spaghetti, chicken, and French fries called the cabin boy meal. The tomato sauce tasted like and had the consistency of warm ketchup, but the rest of it was fine.

After that, the rain had calmed and we walked back to our room for a siesta. That night, we walked back through the park towards Colon to try to find Fast Good again, but really that restaurant chain is gone, so SOL. On the way through the park, however, we found Gulliver, which is both a giant sculpture of the fictional hero and a playground. It was night, but the security guard still let us wander around and slide down his left sleeve. Anyway, we went to the Mercado Colon for dinner, which is lovely to look at, and I ate half a crappy burger at a crappy restaurant on the main floor.

On Tuesday, we did old Valencia, sniffing around the Cathedral de Valencia, but in our cheapness not paying to actually tour the inside, but we did drop two euros each on the Torres de Serrano, which is a gate that you climb up and get a great view of the city. Then we had lunch at Cappuccino, bought a new converter at El Corte Ingles 'cause my old one blew both its fuses, and headed back to the homestead. At some point, we stopped at the Mercado Central, but we got there just as it was closing, so not much happened.

Then we chilled out for the night, had some cheese, soda, ice cream, and store-bought tostadas at home for dinner.

The next morning was all about the beach! We checked out the America's Cup Museum b/c it's free and the whole reason Valencia in that area is built up, and then we hung out on the playa, my sister dipped her toes in the sea, and then I swung on some swings for a bit. We considered having paella, and then decided to go back to Aqua, the mall across from the Oceanografic, and eat at Foster's Hollywood. It's like a bizarro American restaurant--its heart is in the right, artery-clogged place, but it still feels off.

I bought socks.

We killed some time, then headed to the North Station to take the high speed train back to Atocha, where we'd take the Cercanias to San Fernando de Hernanes and somehow get to the AC Coslada so my sister could take the free shuttle to the airport the next morning and grab her flight back to America and I could fly to Lisbon. This went wrong in so many ways.

First, our train wasn't leaving from Norte. It was leaving from Joaquin Sorolla. Luckily, JS is a short walk from Norte and we had plenty of time to get there, but I only realized the problem by happenstance.

The AVE, though, is quite lovely. I highly recommend it. Much less stress than plane travel.

HOWEVER, Atocha sucks, and then when we got to San Fernando de Hernanes, we had a problem. No cabs were there, and no buses go to the hotel. It's an industrial, fairly creepy area, and from the Google map searches I had done, even though Google said you could walk to the hotel, by street viewing it, I realized there was an underground pass we'd have to walk through that had no sidewalk. We'd get slaughtered.

So adventurously we set off, with vague instructions from some fellow Cercanias rider that cabs were to be found in the direction we were headed.

It was dead nothingness for a while, and we started to get that icky feeling in our stomachs that our mutilated bodies would be found in the nearby brush or some abandoned building in the vicinity two weeks from now, but finally we hit a BP gas station and the lovely attendant called us a cab. If I ever win the lottery, I'm coming back to Madrid, finding her, and giving her lots of money.

Other than that, the AC Coslada was a fine hotel--my sister really liked it--what with free minibar beverages, nice beds, and that free airport shuttle. Just make sure you know how to get there.

Anyhow, I'll report on Lisbon when I can and I'm gonna do photos in a separate blog.

Madrid

2011-11-05T01:12:00.000-07:00

Got into Madrid early yesterday morning. Let me say, Barajas, the airport, is massive. We walked at least a mile to get to the Metro. If you're going to go, I suggest taking as little luggage as possible because it's sort of a pain to get to Atocha (or anywhere) from the airport this way.
In any event, we got to the station, finally figured out that street names are on the side of buildings, and found our way to the Hotel Agumar, which I wasn't sure was going to be any good, but is perfectly fine for our budget (and is very close to Parque del Buen Retiro and the Prado), if a tad too warm.
Couldn't check in for a while, so my sister and I decided to go get some breakfast at the Chocolateria in San Gines. Walked around a little unable to find it, so be aware it's down a little alley next to the San Gines church if you go. Personally, I thought the hot chocolate was great but the churros were a little gross.
After that, we stopped at the Mercado de San Miguel, but we'd just eaten, so we didn't get anything and will hopefully go back before we leave. This was on the way to the Conde de Miranda to get some cookies from this monastery.

Be aware: they don't speak English. I'm not sure what happened, but after some confused discussion they ended up giving us our money back as well as a bag of what I think is lemon shortbread. Who knows?
We walked back up the Calle Mayor to the Cathedral de la Amuldena, which is not your typical European grand cathedral in that it's very new and very... colorful.

Whatever. It's a sight.

From there we went north to the Royal Palace (Palacio Real) and snapped some shots, but didn't go inside.

The line was wicked long and our budget is fairly tight.

We walked down to the Sabatini Gardens, then decided enough was enough and took the Metro back to our hotel where we showered and crashed (my sister in vice versa) until late in the afternoon.

A real unintended Spanish siesta!
The Prado is free from 6 to 8 on Friday nights, so we walked up to the Prado -- tip: if you're coming from the south, you have to walk all the way around to the Prado's north entrance to grab a ticket, then walk around to the east side of the building to enter.
We saw a lot of Catholic paintings, more de Goya and Velasquez than I think I've seen total in any other museum, and a single excellent Picasso.
After that we walked to Alonso Martinez (or Tirso Molina, can't remember) and took the subway up to Ruben Dario and the Calle de Juan Bravo in hopes of finding dinner at Ferran Adria's for-cheap-people Fast Good. It either wasn't there or we were as blind as bats, because we never found it, so, starving (all we'd eaten all day were some damn churros), we walked north to Cinco Jotas, which is apparently a ham place, and I don't eat ham. But they had chicken, so I was fine.

The service was pretty slow for us Americans and pretty fast for our fellow Spaniards... maybe because they had to cook my chicken? Anyway, the food was fine, and we had to walk quite a bit out of our way to get to the Metro, since Ruben Dario was closed.
Then I got a little robbed, but it's okay because it was only a bit of American cash that usually goes to my gas tank, which I am not currently using. Since the bitch (I think it was the old woman shoving me into the subway) didn't take anything important like my phone, credit cards, etc., I should be okay.
Now I'm waiting for my sister to get dressed, so we can go get some food.

Will try to post again in Valencia.

How Fiction Works

2011-11-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

I'm reading the James Wood book, and I'm not too far in, but I already see a reading that I think may be a little strained regarding the following line from Henry James' What Maisie Knew:

"Mrs. Wix was as safe as Clara Matilda, who was in heaven and yet, embarrassingly, also in Kensal Green, where they had been together to see her little huddled grave."

Wood says the word embarrassingly is there as an indicator of Maisie's feeling towards having to go to Kensal Green with Mrs. Wix, the experience of seeing an elder grieving. And yet there is an equally if not more likely explanation for the word choice, especially since embarrassingly is placed where it is and not, say, somewhere in the last clause--the embarrassingly I read as referring to the duality of the afterlife--one's soul is beautifully in heaven and embarrassingly moldering in a cemetery. The embarrassment is humanity's at not being able to vanish body and soul into Paradise. Kensal Green, as far as cemeteries go, is perfectly lovely, so I don't see anything that would suggest that a visit to the cemetery itself would be embarrassing, which would also be a fair reading. If embarrassingly truly described how Maisie felt about going to the cemetery with Ms. Wix, wouldn't the sentence read:

"Mrs. Wix was as safe as Clara Matilda, who was in heaven and yet also in Kensal Green, where, embarrassingly, they had been together to see her little huddled grave."

or somewhere in that final clause? Wood may not be wrong, but I think embarrassingly is placed too vaguely to be sure, and he puts quite a lot on the word considering that.
Am I wrong? If so, why?

No one cares, do they?

movies for the rest of the year

2011-10-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

Movies I Want to See in Theaters:

The Muppets -- it looks like Jason Segel did his due diligence and made a true-to-Henson's-spirit movie, despite knowing that so-called entertainment writers all over the world can't spell his five-letter surname properly and don't even try to anymore.

Melancholia -- I hate Lars von Trier. Hate, hate, hate. And I don't get Charlotte Gainsbourg at all. But it still looks cool.

The Descendants -- depends entirely on the reviews actually.

Shame and A Dangerous Method -- Fassbender. Mmm.

Ghost Protocol -- Yeah, I know.

Movies I'll Probably Wait for on DVD/Netflix:

In Time -- anyone but Amanda Seyfried and it might have been a theater movie for me
The Rum Diary
Martha Marcy May Darlene
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy -- don't think I'll be able to read the book in time
Arthur Christmas -- unless it gets rave reviews
Sherlock Holmes -- don't think I'll be able to do this AND Ghost Protocol in theaters.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo -- unless I finish the book in time.
New Year's Eve -- probably a double-header with Tattoo. I hear New Year's Eve kills off its entire cast but Ludacris.

Am I missing anything?

Tinkers

2011-10-16T14:41:00.001-07:00

Paul Harding's Tinkers won the Pulitzer Prize last year, and I understand why. Sort of. I've been reading it for some time, despite it being a very short book, because it's sort of an experimental book, like a NYU film student's senior thesis, but with less sex. There's a lot of nearly unreadable purple prose interlaced with technical sections, shifts in perspective, men dying slowly, their POV altered by the decomposition of their brains like they were on mushrooms and stuck in Ethan Frome or Snow Falling on Cedars. If you have read and disliked the latter two books, you will undoubtedly find Tinkers tiresome, and, if you loved those books, Tinkers was made for you.
I think my response to Tinkers, more than other books, possibly says more about me than the book itself (possibly not. who knows?). I don't think I like set pieces, which is what it feels like. A set piece of epilepsy and men in the Maine woods. HOWEVER, I rather think Mamet would like it. If anyone knows him, please feel free to pass on the recommendation.

poem

2011-09-21T19:19:00.000-07:00

There's nothing I hate more-a
Than a man in a fedora

(just sos you know, you gots to get yourself a MFA or a GSW to the chest before you can drop a rhyme like that. son!)

Emmys

2011-09-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

Dream winners:

Best Drama: The Good Wife. I love FNL, but I think it missed its shot.

Best Comedy: Since neither Community or Louie is on the ballot, it's either Parks & Recreation or Big Bang Theory for me.

Best Actor, Drama: Can't we just give it to Bryan Cranston anyway? Really, no? Jon Hamm's gonna get it, but that's only because I don't think anyone remembers Hugh Laurie STILL has never won an Emmy for House.

Best Actress, Drama: Julianna Margulies.

Best Actor, Comedy: Jim Parsons has his Emmy, he didn't do anything spectacular last season, so he's not gonna get it, and neither will Galecki. Carell doesn't really need it, but he'll probably get it. LeBlanc has no shot in hell, though he MAKES Episodes. Louie C.K. deserves it for this current season, not the last one, but I'd like him to get it anyway.

Best Actress, Comedy: I'm split between Amy and Martha. I love them both so.

Supporting Actor, Drama: Alan Cumming.

Supporting Actor, Comedy: Since no one from Parks or Community got the nod (A CRIME), Ty Burrell.

Supporting Actress, Comedy: No one from Cougar Town? Jesus, come on. I don't care.

Supporting Actress, Drama: I like Archie Punjabi.

Writing for a Comedy: The Office or Louie.

Writing for a Drama: FNL. It won't get it, but a girl can dream.

Lead Actress in a miniseries: Since I didn't see Mildred Pierce, I'm gonna assume Downton Abbey owns the miniseries part of the awards, and rightly so. But I'm guessing Kate Winslet takes it from McGovern.

Lead Actor in a miniseries: Idris Elba, Luther, must, must.

Supporting Actor, miniseries: I didn't see any of these, but I never bet against Brian F. O'Byrne.

Supporting Actress, miniseries: No clue. I had assumed Michelle Dockery or Ruth Wilson would be nominated here or in lead. So whatever.

Miniseries or movie: Downton Abbey.

San Francisco

2011-09-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

I've been too busy to write this post, but about two weeks ago I spent a long weekend in San Francisco and had a great time.

Awesome stuff:

Coit Tower.

Holy shit is that a trek. At this point, we didn't realize how many stairs we STILL had to go up to get to Coit. I was ready to vomit.

Still, it's satisfying to get to the top. Little tip: the elevator up is more exciting then the actual top of the tower, which has tiny high plastic-covered windows and isn't architecturally interesting. The view from the base is better.
A view of the Bay Bridge:

View of the Transamerica building:

San Francisco Street Food Festival in the Mission. I had the Fennel Crusted Chicken Sandwich from Skillet Street Food and it may be the best chicken sandwich I've ever had. Trust. I also finished my friend's Sweet Potato Pie Waffle from Pinx with pleasure.

Mehfil Indian Cuisine in SoMa. The murag makhni was the living end.

San Francisco lawyers. My college roommate who lives in SF is very sweet, but no one has the right to have such a large coterie of awesome friends who are also lawyers. It's kind of unfair.

Russian sailors in town. I was at a Starbucks, and this was taken through a glass window, hence the smudge on the sailor on the left, who looks 14.

The Ferry Building. I didn't take much stock in it last time, but I went again this visit (during normal hours) and had a great time.

Other stuff:

Humphrey Slocombe in the Mission. I got the brown butter ice cream (yes, having tasted it) and malted milk chocolate, and, yes, the texture was great and the flavors were interesting. But I'd rather the flavors were, you know, yummy then interesting.

Umbria in SoMa. We had eaten A LOT of bread and cheese beforehand (courtesy of Acme and Cowgirl from the Ferry Building), so I couldn't bring myself to partake in the delicious-looking bread basket. But I did get a plate of pasta, specifically Pennette Al'Arrabbiata. Now spicy food doesn't bother me. I get hot salsa, I eat spicy Indian food, I am unfazed. This Arrabbiata almost killed me. So order something else or bring a fire engine, because I'm the only warning you're getting.

House of Air. Organized trampolining. It is fun for, like, five minutes. Then some kid breaks his nose and bleeds everywhere and NO ONE cleans it up. But you get a little rubber bracelet out of it, which I like. It's located near Crissy Field, so at least I got this shot.

Catalina

2011-09-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

I went to Avalon on the island of Catalina yesterday for my birthday. The ferry to the island is running a promotion this year where you get to go for free on your birthday if you sign up in advance, so I did, and it was awesome.

Most people I think stick to the little village by the bay, the beaches, the restaurants, the shopping.
Here's the colorful fountain front and center of the bay.

Almost as soon as I got off the boat, I walked the almost two miles to the Wrigley Memorial and Botanical Gardens.

The gardens are really only interesting if you're super into cacti, but the Memorial is very lovely and kind of reminded me of Coit Tower, which I visited last month when I was in SF.
Coit, however, doesn't have this beautiful tiled fountain set into its what do you call it? Mezzanine?

The entrance.

I kept getting distracted by birthday phone calls (a good distraction, though my uncle and I somehow got onto a conversation about how one should defend oneself against the LA County wildlife--coyotes, mountain lions, the occasional bear--and I had to explain to him that fire and shotguns were super bad ideas). Anyway, I didn't get a really great picture of the tower from the base because of the light, but also I didn't get a great entrance shot because I shot that picture, got a phone call, and then forgot to take more, better ones. iPhones are great, but they're not miracle workers. However, I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before there's an app for that.
Here's the view from the top.

Tower closeup:

On the way back, I tripped on some gravel and scraped up my hands. The people at the Conservancy, which is about 1/4 mile from the Gardens provided me with Neosporin and a Band-Aid. They also have free bathrooms and a water fountain.

When I got back to "downtown Avalaon", I had a late lunch at El Galleon, which is decorated in proper pirate ship-style (re: super cheesy). I had fish and chips, because the fish was halibut, but it was not great.

The bathroom, however? Pretty cool.

After lunch, I decided to head down to the Casino.

Not surprisingly this is how you get to the Casino.

Next to the arch was the sign for the street.

Along the via were little mosaics. Here are a couple.

You can only go into the casino for the evening movie (there's a single screen theater that shows something at night, last night it was The Help), for an event, a pricey walking tour, or if you go into the museum, which featured an exhibit on Marilyn Monroe. I was feeling cheap, so I did a circuit around the gift shop and went back to the village.

After that, I did a little shopping, bought an ice cream cone (all the shops serve Dreyer's, but whatever), and waited for the ferry back.

At the end of a choppy ride back to San Pedro, the fountain light show was playing. I would have taken a photo but I had killed my battery in Avalon. The Port of LA might not be able to help its grossness, but the Bellagio-like fountain was pretty awesome and was a nice ending for my birthday.

Nicholl, true facts

2011-08-26T18:54:00.001-07:00

So, awesome news: my first feature film script Loverude was a Nicholl Quarterfinalist!
So, bad news: my first feature film script Loverude was not a Nicholl Semifinalist.

But let's get real here. Loverude's the FIRST script I ever wrote, and it's a weird little film about a virgin and a gigolo falling in love. This is not the kind of thing that would be likely to win or should, for that matter.

But QF is the top 300 of 6,000 scripts, which is pretty friggin' insane, so I'm happy.
Meanwhile, I wrote my second feature Method over the last month, and it's way better than Loverude, though Method is also weird and was written for a specific purpose.

Now I'm working on a project that could lead to either a huge change in my life or none at all. 'Cause that's what writing is: a whole lot of potential and a whole lot of free work until maybe, some day, someone pays you more than $500 for something. That's my dream anyhow.

I'll post stuff from San Francisco soon, hopefully before my birthday/forget what I did.

these are cool

2011-08-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

Strand Curated Collections -- get your favorite writers' libraries

When I have a kid, I'm going to stick a giant castle on his/her wall and turn it into some Small World deal. Or when I get my own house and have a spare bedroom to decorate. Patrick Hruby rocks.

My child will also get this and these. Or me.

If you're an LAPL member, you can download three free DRM-less songs a week from Freegal. They've got Mumford & Sons, Foster the People, Incubus, and Flock of Seagulls, just to name an eclectic few.

My writing has vastly improved in terms of output, efficiency, and quality (I think) since I started buying and completing those variety puzzle packs. You know, logic art, crosswords, various types of word and number games. I was really into Games when I was a kid, but now I prefer the Penny Press-made magazines. I suggest picking up cheap discounted ones at your local Borders before they're gone.

Mama want.

Gets my goat

2011-08-14T08:34:00.001-07:00

I want to talk briefly about a NY Times magazine article on reducing twin pregnancies. I'm one of those women who doesn't believe in abortion...for herself. But my personal feelings on what I would do I don't think are relevant to the legal system, and so I am absolutely 100% pro-choice.

However.

If you're a 45 year-old woman who ALREADY HAS KIDS and you go through fertility treatment to HAVE ANOTHER CHILD and then you decide to ABORT ONE OF YOUR TWIN FETUSES when that treatment finally works, there is nothing about that equation that isn't selfish. It's about as bad as going to adopt a child, finding out that child has a twin who also needs to be adopted, and adopting just the one. Okay, it's not that bad, but it's close.

If this had been a 45-year-old woman who had never had children, would I have a problem with this? A little, but not really, especially if she were a single woman. Twins are not triplets, but for someone who's desperate to have a SINGLE CHILD in their lifetime but can't afford another, fine. Having a third kid, though (or whatever number--the article isn't clear how many kids this hideous woman already has), is icing. No one writes that movie of the week. It's already so unnecessary. It's having a cat and a dog, but then deciding your apartment isn't overrun enough, let's get yet another.

And you can see she sees the act as a shopping experience, because if she had gotten pregnant with twins naturally, she says she wouldn't have aborted one. WTF?

I really don't want any comments about how abortion is wrong. This isn't about abortion. This is about the commodification of life, and since we're a throwaway society, we throw away the purchases that we don't like. This woman had no medical reason to get rid of the extra child, and since she said she wouldn't have reduced if it were natural, then clearly money isn't that much of a problem, it's her point of view that has morphed into thinking life has more or less meaning if it comes from a tube or a night in the sack with the mister. And that's what's fucked up.

t - 1 month

2011-08-02T22:38:00.001-07:00

Didn't get as much writing done as I wanted to tonight. Got sidetracked by political convo with the roommate. Trying to figure how to write the theater scenes within my film. Not sure if I want to use a play that already exists or not. Other than that, I'm very happy with this feature I'm writing. I'm not gonna tell you anything else about it except its working title Method, which I think is brilliant if I do say so myself.

Had some unexpected good news this past week that gave me the boost of encouragement every not-employed writer needs on a regular basis to keep from throwing themselves off of something high like, say, Seth Rogen.

Today is my uncle's birthday, so I will be 28 in exactly one month (it's all about me). In two years, I'll be 30, and soon after that, I'll die. In the meantime, I'm gonna eat Whole Foods dried apple rings, screw up logic art puzzles, read, write, and pray to get laid soon, because, honestly, turning 28 without a boyfriend or at least a scratching post is gonna suck. If I can't get a boyfriend, at least let me get an agent. One way or another, a girl needs to get f--ked.

vacation in Maine

2011-07-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

I used to spend all my summers at my maternal grandparents' house in Manchester, Maine, which is right outside the capital Augusta. It's a big yellow house with an attached guest house between an orchard and the Lions' Club. There's an absurdly long driveway with a birdhouse on a high pole at the end, around which I used to play She-Ra (the birdhouse was Grayskull). Bordering the dark, dense, creepy woods that surround my grandmother's house were berry bushes. Since I couldn't keep track of which berries I could eat even if I wanted to, I spent a lot of time picking berries and smushing them for "paint," which I'm sure the local wildlife really appreciated. There was also a disquieting--hell, even sinister--drab green shed, which is still there, but since it's been painted the same color as the house, it's a lot less threatening.

I haven't been here in several years. Since I left, the kitchen's been redone, but many aspects remain the same: the furniture is still very '70s, a rotary phone hangs by the microwave, a bust of my great-grandmother sits on the sink in the downstairs bathroom watching you pee, giraffe figurines intermingle with portraits both of my family and bearded "mountain men," who look like they're straight out of the Lord of the Rings, and no one is ever on time for anything.

Right now, my grandmother and mother are poring through my great-grandmother Billie Chapman Elder's old illustrations. She used to do weekly lifestyle single-block cartoons (really just drawings) for the Silver Lake News (in Massachusetts), and my grandmother kept shoe boxes of clippings. We also have gone through tons of other drawings and letters from my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mom, me, and my siblings. In between, I've been researching the books my Billie illustrated. None of them are super well-known by anyone of our generation, but all are available online, though some only have one copy available on eBay, one for $150.

Went to Boothbay Harbor yesterday for a little shopping and food. Bought a Christmas ornament, a painting on a mussel shell that is decidedly touristy and yet absolutely awesome.

A lot of the restaurants we went to when I was young don't exist anymore. Several of them were diners that sold homemade Saran-wrapped whoopie pies or were based out of actual houses. Since I've been here, though, we've been eating more at places like Subway or TGI Friday's. Not exactly authentic, though we did have brunch at Slate's (I kind of hate that place, but at least it isn't a chain) in Hallowell. We had lunch the other day at the Tugboat Inn in Boothbay Harbor, which is pretty cool, because it's in what feels like an actual tugboat (not sure if it really is) and dinner at Taste of Maine, which is a bizarrely-decorated restaurant in Woolwich that has very serviceable clam strips, something I don't get on the West Coast. The best thing was Whoopie pie ice cream at the Ice Cream Factory in Boothbay. Swoon.

My family is big on games, even at restaurants, and while we're waiting for our food sometimes we'll take a long word or title and everyone has to come up with as many words as possible from the original. I kill at this game. Then last night we played a dice game called Stack. I won, which pissed off my sister.

The two things I hate about New England summers have been out in full effect: bugs and humidity. It's cooler in Maine than anywhere south of here, but this house is an insect magnet. At about 3:00 this morning I, either unconscious or semiconscious, swatted something on my knee. The sudden sensation of liquid emitting from a big, squishy thing brought me to full consciousness and struggling with the light switch, at which I found the bulk of a dead large ant on my other hand (the rest of it residing on my bed and my knee), and so I screamed, leapt out of bed, ran to the bathroom, washed it off, and had trouble sleeping for the remainder of the evening. Ah, vacation.

The TV equivalent of Fantasy Football...

2011-06-30T12:25:00.000-07:00

Fantasy Emmys just sounds weird.
I've put !s by who I think should win.

I'd say the hardest category is best supporting actor (comedy), but here are my top six:

Danny Pudi (Community)
Nick Offerman (Parks & Recreation)
Ty Burr (Modern Family)
Donald Glover (Community)
Adam Pally (Happy Endings)
Garrett Dillahunt (Raising Hope)

No ! because it's just too hard to choose. I want all to win.

best supporting actress (comedy):

Julie Bowen (Modern Family)
Jane Leeves (Hot in Cleveland)
Busy Phillips (Cougar Town)
!Mayim Bialik (Big Bang Theory)
Christa Miller (Cougar Town)
Wendie Malick (Hot in Cleveland)

best lead actress (comedy):
!Amy Poehler (Parks & Recreation)
Courteney Cox (Cougar Town)
Martha Plimpton (Raising Hope)
Tina Fey (30 Rock)
Kaley Cuoco (Big Bang Theory)
Melissa McCarthy* (Mike & Molly)

best lead actor (comedy):
Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory)
Joel McHale (Community)
!Steve Carell (The Office)--only because his farewell eps were so great
Matt LeBlanc (Episodes)
Louis C.K. (Louie)
Alec Baldwin (30 Rock)

best comedy:
Big Bang Theory
!Community
Louie
Parks & Recreation
Cougar Town
Raising Hope

*this is more for her work in Bridesmaids, since I haven't watched anything of M&M but the crap pilot

I haven't seen Game of Thrones or much of Justified or Boardwalk Empire so I think my drama choices are less "spot-on"...

best supporting actor (drama):
Manu Bennett (Spartacus)
Josh Charles (The Good Wife)
Alan Cumming (The Good Wife)
Joel Kinnaman (The Killing)
Steve Zahn (Treme)
Ian Somerhalder (Vampire Diaries)

again too hard to pick

best supporting actress (drama):
!Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife)
Khandi Alexander (Treme)
Sara Ramirez (Grey's Anatomy)
Christine Baranski (The Good Wife)
Christine Hendricks (Mad Men)
Kim Dickens (Treme)

best lead actress (drama):
!Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife)
Mireille Enos (The Killing)
Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men)
Lucy Lawless (Spartacus)
Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights)
Emily Deschanel (Bones)

I'm not really committed to this race without Bryan Cranston...

best lead actor (drama):
!Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights)--just this once
Simon Baker (The Mentalist)
Nathan Fillion (Castle)
Hugh Laurie (House)
Michael C. Hall (Dexter)
Jon Hamm (Mad Men)

best drama (again I haven't seen many, so I can only honestly say...):
The Good Wife
Friday Night Lights
Treme

2011-06-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

Though it should be rather obvious from my tweets, here are some things I'm loving now.

Streaming the British sitcom The IT Crowd on Netflix. Amazing. It's like a master class in hilarity. Deadly that there's only 24 episodes and no more coming any time soon (a fifth series is in the works, supposedly, but Graham Linehan isn't rushing it, and a sixth season seems unlikely, blast!), so ration the episodes if you can.

Reading Wells Tower's Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. Short stories that are splendid if random as fuck.

Planning my trip to Europe in November. Spanair had a crazy sale last week, so I'm going to Madrid in November with my middle sister. Trying to decide where else to go while we're there. Lisbon? Malta? Barcelona? Any suggestions would be welcome.

The Great Wall of LA in Sherman Oaks. Not the greatest art ever, but a commendable project. The end of it is two miles from my apartment precisely, so it's a fantastic walk too.

good

2011-06-09T23:27:00.000-07:00

When people visit me, I make a habit of forcing them to accompany me to all the hip, cool restaurants and places I've been meaning to visit but haven't had the opportunity/balls to go to solo. So when my friend came into town last weekend, we went to Reservoir in Silver Lake for dinner. I had the Cornish hen and mashed potatoes. The potatoes were off the hook, but I have a difficult time mauling tiny birds. Reservoir is right next to L.A. Mill, so we went there afterwards. Luce had some absurdly expensive coffee that actually smelled inviting (and I don't usually like the smell of coffee much), and I had an absurdly expensive, itsy-bitsy brownie sundae that was, for its size, very delicious. I would like to go back to L.A. Mill for breakfast I think.

Saturday we went to brunch downtown at Lazy Ox. Ricotta fritters, boo! Luce liked all her vegetables, but my meal was just so-so. I wasn't bowled over on the whole, but I still am a downtown convert.

Saw X-Men: First Class today. The dialogue was on-and-off, but it held together decently. I did quite enjoy the surprise cameos, and I particularly liked Caleb Landry Jones as Banshee. He could have easily been one of the Weasley brothers if he'd been born in the UK a few years earlier. But how weird was it to see Brendan Fehr as an American XO with, what, one line?

James McAvoy has three people's amount of charm, I swear. It takes a lot to take attention away from Fassbender, but damn. Here's one question. If Charles Xavier has been pressing his fingers to his temple for all those years, why, by the time he's bald, isn't there some sort of imprint there? I feel like the skin would be raw by the start of the millennium.

I'm making plans, God's laughing, all's status quo

2011-06-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

Hey, losers, I'm lying on my bedroom carpet (it's the color of fossilized excrement), still in my PJs--I'm talking cartoon owl shorts and a Grumpy tee from Disneyland. What are you doing?

I have read 23 books this year, most of them short-ish, when I should be at 41. Gah! Before summer begins in about 20 days, I would like to read five books, i.e., one every four days. This can include art books and/or plays and probably will. I'll also probably read Room, since I just realized my roommate has it. Some people say quality is more important than quantity. But these people don't have reading lists 1,000 books long, so. I'm very attracted to primary colors too. Somewhere along the way I reached such a level of maturity and intellect that my brain and personality collapsed in on themselves and went all neutron star on me. The good news is my brain can't degenerate anymore, if the physics of my metaphor holds up, due to the Pauli exclusion principle.

Going to the Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA manana then picking up one of my college roommates from the airport. She's coming down from San Francisco to hang out with me for about 36 hours, go on a hike, make a pizza. Weird, right?

I will be going to Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans, Hawaii, Mexico, Sydney, or Europe this year. Probably two of those places in the next 18 months if it's cheaper/more local places. I'm saving up the cash, and IT WILL happen. If anyone wants to go somewhere, hit me up, we can make plans. This Nomad needs a change of scene.

Reality

2011-05-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

I am too tall. Screw having my own sitcom on the air or winning the lottery--my ultimate dream is to be able to wash my hair without hitting my skull on the shower head.

briefly

2011-05-05T11:52:00.001-07:00

I'm not going to get into all the craziness of this dream I had last night, but just comment on a highlight. In the dream, I was a cop and discovered that my sister had been arrested. I can't remember what for, but one of the reasons she was hauled in was for watching Glee. Watching Glee wasn't a crime, per se, but a suspicious activity that could, say, warrant the issuing of, well, a warrant to search someone's apartment or something. This is very strange, in no small part because I'm 90% sure my sister doesn't watch Glee.

DTLA

2011-04-16T18:58:00.000-07:00

I have, until today, hated going downtown. Downtown is hilly. It's urban. It's never temperate. Roads are one way. Transitioning from the 101 to the 10 is a nightmare. Parking is a bitch. Downtown sucks.

I was wrong. Downtown does not suck. Now that I've been a few times, for jury duty and such, I am no longer afraid of downtown. I took the red line (the LA subway!) to Pershing Square, walked up to the Central Library to grab some soundtracks they only had at that branch, then down to Main Street to Nickel Diner for lunch. Nickel Diner is famous for its maple-bacon doughnut. Since bacon is not my thing, I had a burger-meh-and a slice of s'mores cake. 'Cause if this goes by your table, you can't not order it. I justify it because I didn't have any fries.

It was very rich and the graham cracker is kind of tough to eat, so I suggest only getting it if you're quite hungry and have someone to share it with. And have a jackhammer.
Main Street is fantastic. I had time to kill before I had to be at the Downtown Independent, which was showing a film of the National Theatre run of Danny Boyle's Frankenstein. Between Nickel and the Independent there are two independent bookstores, Metropolis Books and the Last Bookstore in Los Angeles, as well as an art supply shop.
The Independent accidentally showed us the first 20 minutes or so of the wrong version of Frankenstein (we had come for Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature and Jonny Lee Miller as Victor Frankenstein, they showed us Cumberbatch as Victor and Miller as the creature--Cumberbatch is a better creature, I think). To apologize for the mishap, they gave us free popcorn and soda, which was great. I will definitely go back to the Independent.

So don't be scared of DTLA. Especially during the day. It may not be Beverly Hills or West Hollywood or even the Valley, but it's pretty damn cool all the same.

not wrong

2011-04-11T14:57:00.001-07:00

My Pierley/Redford Dissociative Affect Diagnostic result: "Thoughtful to the extreme, you are often obsessed with perfection and the rules governing your own personal interests. Your world is black and white. You love to work within a logical system, such as language, computer programming, or mathematics. Manipulating a system that can be completely understood is a distinct pleasure to you, because of your confidence in the underlying veracity of your belief system. Because of your appreciation for logic and order, those who speak or think in a sloppy manner are apt to generate more than their share of wrath. Although very amiable, you are not drawn to friendships out of a sense of personal need. You are just as happy by yourself with a good book or puzzle. Because you are so involved with thought, you will on occasion have difficulty dealing with the day-to-day problems of a normal life. Taking out the trash, doing the dishes, these are often left until the last possible moment, if at all."

So, yeah. I wonder if how long it takes you to answer is part of the "diagnosis" -- that would make more sense.

literally versus literally

2011-04-08T13:40:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Tom Rachman's The Imperfectionists and am very, very into it. It's sort of like those employee bios on a company web site, and it's sort of like a compendium of short stories, and it's sort of like a fictional history of a newspaper, but all of them together but not.
In any event, I have one point of contention. In the book there's an anal editor, as all good editors should be, who includes in his newspaper's Bible an entry condoning any reporters who might use the word "literally" when speaking hyperbolically. Fair enough. In journalism, it's egregious. But I've seen this issue come up in the every day, which is a whole other matter. Indeed, to say "he literally jumped out of his skin" when no such grotesque occurrence happened is definitely technically wrong. And I am nothing if not a technical anal grammar nutcase.
But!
There's a concept in linguistic anthropology in which meaning and usage are not subject to history or a dictionary but to common usage. The meaning of words alters as the culture sees fit. At this juncture, people use the word "literally" most commonly when they are not being literal. I think most people are aware of this and do so because the power of exaggerating and using the word literal in fact amplifies the exaggeration. "He jumped out of his skin" we obviously realize isn't literal, just a metaphor for someone reacting in a frightened manner. But to say "he literally jumped out of his skin" makes it seem like an even stronger reaction, as if the impossible metaphor nearly came into being. Whether this is the intention or not, or if it's just an automatic quirk of language, this is one of those commonalities to which I don't take offense. Dangling prepositions will bug me till the day I die, but I literally could not care less how the masses employ the adverb.

new stuff

2011-03-26T18:36:00.001-07:00

I'm moving to Studio City, about two miles from my current apartment. Finding a place was an exhausting venture, but I think it's gonna work (because it has to).

I've started a new blog to help me not become a hoarder. It's called cardsfrommygrandmother.blogspot.com. Guess what I'm transcribing on it? Yep.

I finished a sitcom pilot and a film script so far this year. Now I'm working on specs. Very slowly.

I'm really angry I didn't win $300+ million in last night's lottery. I really want to go visit Bhutan. But not China, which I just read a long book about, until the air pollution issue is addressed. God help us all.

I don't think I have anything else to report. I'm exhausted. Moving is not on my list of favorite things.

not hard

2011-03-03T11:51:00.000-08:00

Things that are not hard, but you'd never know it from reality:

1. Mailing stuff. The world has post offices and grocery stores in abundance. And by the world I mean Los Angeles. Mailing an antique bookcase to India is tough. Sending a piece of paper to someone who lives across town is not tough. Even if you can't make it to the post office during normal business hours, every grocery store sells envelopes and stamps, and mail boxes are ubiquitous.

2. Vacuuming. I have a vacuum. It's in the living room. And yet my bedroom remains unvacuumed. Why have I not vacuumed yet?

3. Taxes. Taxes aren't that hard if you're smart and you only have to fill in your W-2, the $200 IRA deduction, the $18 in interest on your savings account, and the $1775 spent on student loans. I keep trying to itemize other stuff despite knowing that my standard deduction is higher. I filled out a federal tax form about four different times this year before filing this morning.

4. Finishing a book. I used to finish books all the time. I am currently in the middle of six books.

5. Getting dressed. It's four minute before noon and I am still in my pj's.

6. Making decent pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I went wrong somewhere, and I don't know where, but it makes me sad.

7. Eating healthy. Considering how crappy the cookies I just made are and how much produce is literally falling from the branches in my neighborhood, you would think eating healthier would be something that I could do without too much effort. You would be wrong.

8. Exercise. All you have to do is move.

9. Making more money. I went to one of the finest universities in the country. I am smarter, if we're talking basic IQ, than lots of people I know who make waaaaay more than me. I think IQ tests should include how much a person makes and how much power they have exercised in the world. Dubya and the Saudi kings and Gates and your average Chinese person would all have approximately equal IQs, and I would have the same IQ as someone living in the Falklands. No offense to people living in the Falklands. They at least are breathing much cleaner air.

See...

2011-02-11T11:37:00.001-08:00

All Egypt needed was a little encouragement. Adios, Mubarak.

Mubarak and what I've learned from REALITY (television)

2011-02-10T22:55:00.000-08:00

Why are we Americans not supporting this man? What every reality show I've ever watched (under duress) has taught me is that the person who wants it the most wins things and deserved to win it. And clearly Mubarak just really wants to be president of Egypt more than all the rest of Egypt (plus a major chunk of the rest of the planet) wants him to not be president. Contestants, judges, and victims alike all agree the thousands of losers of American Idol and Top Chef and America's Next Top Model and Survivor and so on and so forth simply didn't want to win enough and, as such, had to lose because their desire wasn't at the same pitch as the winners. This information was obvious to all through some kind of special thermometer the contestants stuck up their butts before every taping or production cycle to see whose desperation for victory was greatest and who had the flu.

Some would say great "want" translates into the kind of dedication to craft or work that, when combined with talent or opportunity, leads to success and that this is what this repeated statement actually means. Fine, then that means Egypt's citizens don't just not want Mubarak not to be president hard enough, they are also not dedicated and skilled enough to oust him. Sorry, Egyptian citizens, please pack your knives and go.

Golden Globe TV should/will

2011-01-16T09:06:00.000-08:00

Best Television Series (Drama) - The Good Wife/Mad Men

Everyone loves Weiner.

Best Actress (Drama) - Julianna Margulies/Julianna Margulies

I think if Sons had a wider audience, Sagal would take it, but I think this is Margulies' award.

Best Actor (Drama) - Jon Hamm/Hugh Laurie

Bryan Cranston literally has no more room in his house for awards, and Hamm deserves it, but I think everyone misses Laurie. The man gives good speech.

Best TV Series (Comedy) - The Big Bang Theory/Modern Family

Just a personal taste thing.

Best Actress (Comedy) - Tina Fey/Laura Linney

This is tough, because I only watch 30 Rock and The Big C, but I believe Liz Lemon exists. So...

Best Actor (Comedy) - Jim Parsons/Jim Parsons

I also believe Sheldon exists and that his seat is sacred.

Best Miniseries/Made-for-TV movie - The Pillars of the Earth/?

I'm sure The Pillars of the Earth does not, in fact, deserve it over its fellow nominees, but it's the only one I've seen, and I'd like Starz to get some credit for the sheer unadulterated joyful madness of its programming over the last few years.

Best Actress (Miniseries) - Romola Garai/Claire Danes

Romola was a fantastic Emma.

Best Actor (Miniseries) - Idris Elba/Carlos Ramirez

I've only seen Luther, and Idris Elba is spectacular, but I've heard great things about Ramirez.

Best Supporting Actress - Julia Stiles/Sofia Vergara

I think everyone thinks Sofia is overdue.

Best Supporting Actor - Scott Caan/Eric Stonestreet

I know people are thinking Colfer for this, but I don't buy it. Anyway, really Scott Caan's hair deserves the award. Love me some Caan.

Golden Globe movies should/will

2011-01-15T10:42:00.000-08:00

Best Motion Picture (Drama) -- Black Swan/The Social Network
I've seen all these movies, and I really take issue with The Social Network's structure. Moreover, it's ultimately a lawsuit movie. I love Sorkin, but I think the film's overrated.

Best Actress (Drama) - Natalie Portman/Natalie Portman

I've only seen two of these, so this is probably unfair, but Natalie (who I formerly loathed and will probably loathe again) killed it.

Best Actor (Drama) - Ryan Gosling/Colin Firth

Again, I saw all these movies, and it's a tight race, but Ryan singing "You Always Hurt the Ones You Love" trumps everything else.

Best Motion Picture (Comedy) - The Kids are All Right/The Kids are All Right

Please.

Best Actress (Comedy) - Annette Bening/Annette Bening

Again. Please. Emma was great, but she was in a mildly-better-than-average high school movie. And Julianne Moore should be in supporting.

Best Actor (Comedy) - ?/?

I saw none of these, so...

Best Supporting Actress - Helena Bonham Carter/Melissa Leo

This is tough. I saw everything but Animal Kingdom. I think Melissa Leo has it locked, but I loved HBC in a surprising but inspired casting choice.

Best Supporting Actor - Christian Bale/Christian Bale

In any other year, Rush would have it in the bag, but Christian Bale tore himself apart for this role, so it's no contest.

Best Animated Film - Toy Story 3/Toy Story 3

I only saw Toy Story 3 of these five, but I would bet my firstborn on this one.

I'm gonna skip Best Foreign Language Film because I didn't see any of them.

Best Director - Christopher Nolan/David Fincher

I thought there were a lot of flaws with Inception, but you've got to be impressed with how Nolan mastered all the technical madness.

Best Screenplay - 127 Hours/The Social Network

Do you know how hard it is to make a movie about a guy trapped in a cave and have it be utterly captivating? No, because Beaufoy and Boyle made it look easy with their insanely great script.

I'm gonna skip the music stuff too as I'm not really qualified. I'll post my TV predictions and feelings later.

Glynn Turman: An Appreciation

2011-01-09T18:24:00.001-08:00

I'm (belatedly) finishing the first season of In Treatment. Near the end, Glynn Turman, best known (by me) as Colonel Taylor on A Different World, plays Alex Prince Sr., the father of regular patient Alex (Blair Underwood). Turman is perfect. Everything about his performance, his voice, his mannerisms, hell, his gaze makes you believe that this is Blair Underwood's dad, who has been described over the course of the previous six weeks. To so completely fulfill a character sketch like that is both rare and deeply impressive.

After sobbing through his first big episode, I thought, "God, Turman totally deserved an Emmy." And guess what? He did get an Emmy for it. So sometimes everything falls into place.

Hot in Studio City

2010-12-17T22:11:00.000-08:00

It's rainy here in the San Fernando Valley. My friend Lucy came down from San Francisco. She's never been to a taping so I rustled up some tickets to a taping of Hot in Cleveland. Tapings are fun to a certain extent, but they're long and usually during dinner, and if the show provides food, which HIC did, it's not necessarily appetizing, which it wasn't.
At a taping of a multicamera show, the audience is entertained between takes by a comedian. Thankfully, HIC doesn't employ the same guy I've seen at a bunch of other tapings. This guy was frantic but funny, and at the end he ran a little game where whoever guessed the most number of TV theme songs correctly won their choice of a HIC script signed by the cast (including Betty White) or a sliver of the Wheel of Fortune wheel signed by Sajak. I wasn't one of the first contestants, and I didn't know some of the songs, but someone finally got 30 Rock wrong, and I raised my hand, and he called on me.
And I never got a song wrong after that. Thankfully, all the songs I didn't know eventually said their name in the title, so I got lucky because I didn't answer until it came. So I won and I got the script. Because come on. They didn't get a SAG ensemble nod for nothing. Also, when the Friends song played, I did the hand clap, and the comedian then made me do it, like, two more times.

Also, we had lunch at Hatfield's. Rec'd.

favorite things of 2010

2010-12-09T22:53:00.000-08:00

It's been an unusually long year, and yet I've accomplished so little.

Some of my favorite things of the year.

Books: Running in the Family, Salt and Saffron, Await Your Reply, The City and the City, several plays, Elif Batuman's The Possessed, Manhood for Amateurs, The Little Stranger, and The Helmet of Horror
I'm currently reading Never Let Me Go, which might make the list.

Movies: The Kids are All Right, Black Swan, Toy Story 3, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
The King's Speech and Blue Valentine were also great, performance-wise.
I liked 127 Hours but didn't find it, you know, magical.

TV: Community, Luther, Raising Hope, Huge (RIP), crazy Spartacus: Blood and Sand and The Pillars of the Earth, Curb Your Enthusiasm (thanks, TV Guide Channel)
I am not going to mention the numerous shows I liked that got canceled this year, except for the one that also just started this year.

Music: Mumford & Sons, Florence & the Machine, Duffy (I really got into her this year), Broken Bells, Band of Horses' Laredo. Honorable mention: Neon Trees and The Black Keys (Tighten Up is good, but there's just something about that song that feels incomplete/too similar to Cee Lo Green)

I hate that Lady Antebellum song. HATE.

places: Lake Hollywood, Larchmont Village, Toluca Lake (my new residence), San Diego (first time I've visited), Grauman's, Quality Meats, Sweetsalt, The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Twitter games

et cetera: the New York TV Festival, the Norwegian Let It Be video, AFI Fest, DeLoreans, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, making my own ice cream, the Groundlings, seeing Persons Unknown cast members in my neighborhood

thanks to Walking Dead

2010-12-08T20:21:00.001-08:00

I had a dream last night that a group of people and I had finally found our way to a coastal area free of zombies. Suddenly, massive amounts of survivors appeared and their loud presence attracted a literal wave of zombies. They were walking out of the ocean towards us. I started climbing this cliff, no longer afraid of heights, and, as I was waking in a panic, I thought, "Can zombies swim?"

My biggest problem with The Walking Dead, in terms of zombie development, is the explanation of zombies' motor skills. I understand they have to be able to climb stairs and ladders or else escaping zombies would be super easy, but if you start explaining the "science" of zombies, like happened in the finale of this season, you get into murky territory. I've read that, theoretically, zombies wouldn't be able to swim, but since they don't need to breathe, they can walk under water until the water has a degrading effect on the body. So my dream was accurate before my knowledge.

But that still doesn't answer a fundamental question...
Can zombies do jumping jacks?

today

2010-12-02T23:03:00.000-08:00

Today I found the Lake Hollywood Reservoir, the pristine gated lake hidden in the hills. You can walk partway round the Reservoir and end at the Mulholland Dam which has the goshdarn prettiest view of the Hollywood Sign there is. I parked at the North Gate, so my roundtrip walk was 4.6 miles, but if park at the East Gate (the one that's actually open), the walk's only 3.2 miles. Even with the big wire fence, I highly recommend it.

Tonight I saw a screening of David Cianfrance's Blue Valentine, which is a very layered and short-story-ish movie that I quite liked. Ryan Gosling is particularly excellent, and as soon as the soundtrack is on iTunes, I'm totally buying his version of "You Always Hurt the One You Love."

details, malaise

2010-11-27T21:17:00.000-08:00

Today is two days after Thanksgiving.
I had my dinner with my roommate, her boyfriend, her brother, and her brother's wife at her brother's apartment in WeHo. The food was fantastic, and we watched old SNL episodes. The sparkling grape juice was a revelation.
I bought jeans 1/2 off Friday morning, so now I own three pairs of jeans. This is a remarkable feat. Then I bought a Best of Prince album off Amazon for five bucks because I only had Kiss and 1999. I used to be afraid of Prince. I still am a little bit.
I bought China Mieville's Kraken at Bookstar in Studio City today because I had coupons and my grandma's discount card and I'm a cheap sumbitch.
I bought groceries.

My hands will smell like gingerbread pretty much for the next few months because I have a gingerbread man-shaped bar of soap. If you are wondering if it is also brown and decorated, yes.

Yesterday I put up my fake Christmas tree with a single string of lights and seven ornaments. I wrote Christmas cards today and watched a TV Christmas movie with James Van Der Beek. Now I'm writing my name into bookplate stickers for books I do not own.

Tomorrow is my father's 61st birthday.

I have retro-orbital pain. Maybe I have dengue... or a sinus infection.

Question of the hour:

2010-11-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

So I saw a vanity plate today that said Water Bunny. Okay, it was missing a few letters, but that was what it was supposed to be. I don't get it. What's a water bunny? Is it like a beach bunny, but one who spends all her time in the ocean? How would you know she's a "bunny" then? You're not seeing the bikini, she's not playing volleyball or tanning, or any typical "bunny" activity.

Also, where does the expression beach bunny even come from? Does it have something to do with the Playboy bunny? Is it because bunnies are supposedly cute, and the girls lounging at the beach remind people of cute, little rabbits hopping around? I don't understand the original term, so this variation is even more confusing. Anyone care to enlighten me?

Read this:

2010-11-06T12:02:00.000-07:00

Zadie Smith's article in the New York Review of Books about Facebook. I don't 100% agree with her on everything, and I'm not canceling my Facebook account anytime soon, but it's thought-provoking.

something to look forward to

2010-10-31T10:30:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again. Oscar-bait time! Whoo!

I'm really excited about a few films. I already have plans to see Due Date next week and Black Swan at AFI Fest. I'm most interested in:

Blue Valentine
The King's Speech
Somewhere (despite my dislike of Coppola)
The Illusionist (animated, by same people who did The Triplets of Belleville)

More commercial fare:
Unstoppable
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
The Tourist
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I'm also semi-interested in 127 Hours, Morning Glory, and, if they did a better trailer, Tangled.

What are you looking forward to? I know I should be including True Grit, but, honestly, it doesn't excite me that much.

Halloween dreams

2010-10-31T08:34:00.000-07:00

I had this atrocious dream last night that I was in some kind of party/toy store where there was a remote control T-rex in some kind of vehicle that was voice-operated by someone else in the store, and it was totally harassing me. So I ran around the store trying to escape from it while everyone in the store conspired to have it come after me, even when I hid in a closet. For some reason, Amy Adams showed up and was like, if anyone's gonna be a wuss and hide in there, it should be me. Her argument did not carry a lot of water.

I also had a weird falling dream where I was in the many thousand-mile long race along mountains and I (third-person me, I think) slid down a mountain and my estranged father (played by Tim Daly in this dream) came down after me, and we had hit the part where we were falling slowly through this icy landscape instead of sliding, and this guy had also chucked him off the mountain to save us, but he brought a stretch of fabric that, when he reached us (gravity impossibility), we'd grab one side and he'd grab the other, and it made a parachute. So we lived. I don't remember anything after that except really connecting with Tim Daly.

bad chef, good ice cream

2010-10-26T14:35:00.000-07:00

I have a small, wonderful ice cream maker. I didn't buy it. It was a gift.
I also have Perfect Scoop, an ice cream book written by the incomparable David Lebovitz.

From that book, I recently made a batch of peppermint white chocolate ice cream with a couple of twists because I didn't have the proper ingredients (i.e., milk). It came out amazing anyhow.

6-8 ounces a bag of white chocolate chips

1 pint heavy cream

1/2 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon peppermint extract

3 large egg yolks

1. Set the white chocolate in a large bowl and set a mesh strainer over the top.

2. In a medium-sized saucepan, heat the heavy cream, sugar, and peppermint extract.

3. Whisk together the egg yolks in a small bowl and gradually whisk in half of the warmed liquid, then scrape the warmed yolks back into the saucepan.

4. Cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly with a heatproof utensil, until the mixture thickens and coats the utensil. I'm not sure how long to do this for and I was concerned I took it off too early, even when there was a thin coat on my spatula.

5. Immediately pour the custard through the strainer into the white chocolate and stir until smooth. I had added a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips in with my white chocolate chips, and they didn't smooth out. It worked out fine.

6. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The half-melted semi-sweet chocolate chips will glob a bit at the bottom, but just scrape that in too. It will add a nice fine chocolate chip texture to the ice cream.

Your ice cream is not for presentation but for taste--light, creamy, minty, smooth, white chocolate and chocolate, it's delicious. But the mixture of the white chocolate and semi-sweet makes it gray and hideous. Just trust me on this, though. It's yum and a good way to hold off cravings for Haagen-Dazs's seasonal Peppermint Bark ice cream.

best thing about Freedom

2010-10-05T11:02:00.001-07:00

If I'm ever famous and you decide to steal my glasses and run away, a la Franzenfest, you best get away because if the coppers catch ya, I won't press charges, but I WILL go to your house and make you tell your mom what you did. With a camera crew filming it.

Actually, my favorite part of this is that the glasses-nappers left a Hotmail address. You know what that says about you.

songs of the year so far

2010-09-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to a lot of British garage rock recently, but I just wanted to share some of my favorite songs of the year so far. Some of them aren't from 2010--I just discovered them this year. So, enjoy.

Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons
The High Road by Broken Bells
Light of the Morning by Band of Skulls
Cosmic Love by Florence and the Machine (I like it better than Dog Days Are Over, has overtones of Bjork)
Mas Que Nada by Sergio Mendes feat. the Black-Eyed Peas
Laredo by Band of Horses
Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys (I really only like her part, but it's still great)
Kings and Queens by 30 Seconds to Mars (I got the video right after Christmas of '09, so it counts; This is War is also pretty great)
How You Like Me Now by The Heavy
Sweet Disposition by the Temper Trap

I've also continued to love Duffy, Muse(mostly), MGMT, Phoenix, and Weezer (despite myself).

What about y'all? What are you listening to?

2010-09-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

I had the craziest dreams last night. We had these donkeys on a cart, and they came to this bridge that hadn't been built yet, but if you had some interns suddenly appear by their side, the donkeys were too worried about what that meant to notice there was no bridge and were able to walk through the air to the other side. As were, oddly, the interns, as if the donkeys were capable of changing reality. Amazing. Also, the place I was in was actually at the edge of the earth and you could step from earth into space for a moment. Your foot would go numb briefly, but it wasn't dangerous. Some scientists has been commissioned to study the exact edge of the earth, which was made up of special, unusual substances. Finally, I watched a great rift occur, which just consisted of a line of earth shooting upwards in great puffs through this village/vineyard area.
Other stuff happened, but that's all I remembered when I woke up. I tend to have fairly repetitive dreams, so this was a whole new thing that does not appear to have been much influenced by anything I've watched or read lately. Bizarre.

in praise of miniseries

2010-09-06T22:15:00.001-07:00

I love a good miniseries. There are not many miniseries in any given year, and most of the ones we do get are on premium cable channels or come from overseas, so I often don't get to see them until they come out on DVD. What's fantastic about them is that you never EVER have to worry about it being canceled midway or that the writers don't know what they're doing. Most of the time, miniseries are based on books too, typically classics, which is an added benefit for people who care about things like plot. And if you haven't read the book and you enjoy the miniseries, you can go read the book. I just bought Pillars of the Earth for that exact reason.

The other great thing about miniseries is that they often get top actors who might shy away from doing a regular series with an uncertain run.

Here's a list of some of the miniseries I have seen and enjoyed:

Pillars of the Earth (naturally)
Little Dorrit (I'm halfway through it right now, but so far so good)
Syfy's Alice (particularly Andrew Lee Potts)
Band of Brothers
The 10th Kingdom (very cheesy, but enjoyable)
Pride and Prejudice (Colin Firth!)
Emma (the Romola Garai one)
State of Play
Angels in America
Dune and Children of Dune
Jekyll
Elizabeth I (I'm 99% sure I watched this in grad school and liked it, but it's hard to keep track of all the Elizabeth stuff that has come out during my lifetime)
I think I also liked parts of Mists of Avalon.

The Stand was bizarre, and most of Syfy's miniseries are, well, best not to talk about them too much.
I also don't remember thinking too highly of the '98 miniseries Merlin.

I don't count Planet Earth, though that was incredible, because it's more a doc series.

There are plenty I haven't seen that I want to, like The Pacific, Roots (want to read the book first), Tsunami: The Aftermath, John Adams, The Thorn Birds, Gideon's Daughter, Brideshead Revisited, Jane Eyre (2009) and so forth.

Anyone have any suggestions or recs?
And, yes, I would love to write a miniseries some day.

Burbank Times police blotter

2010-08-28T15:21:00.000-07:00

I was just eating yogurt at Menchie's and read a copy of the Burbank Times, and let me tell you, this city has the most interesting police blotter. Apparently, there are "Back Seat Bandits" terrorizing the parking lots of the area, stealing the third-row back seat of all cars with such a feature. Who knew? Also, some prostitutes hanging out at the local Quality Inn and some young women who tried to steal alcohol from the local Pavilions. Also, apparently my Bank of America branch was robbed recently, and the guy got away! I mean, there was no gunplay and only a couple thousand was stolen, but that's incredible to me. So, if you're ever in Burbank and bored, I absolutely recommend picking up a copy of the free Burbank Times for the fascinating and detailed police blotter. There's a lot of crazy stuff going on in my neighborhood.

I tweet

2010-08-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

too much.

In fact, one of my tweets was quoted in Gawker last year.

They could have, like, told me.

4% shot at happiness

2010-08-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

Screw grad school (for now).

things I like right now

2010-07-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

Starz miniseries The Pillars of the Earth (hate that I have to read that now--book is friggin' huge)

all things Chris Hardwick

my reading list--go check the margin of this blog to see what I've been reading

that the cast of gone-too-soon Party Down continues to work in amazing stuff like Childrens Hospital, which is now on Comedy Central's Adult Swim and has already begun working on Season Three (Season Two premieres next month).

broccoli slaw

the short story I just finished writing (first draft)

lack of humidity in LA

the problem with writing a shell game...

2010-07-25T14:58:00.001-07:00

Well, that should be obvious, shouldn't it?

incidence v. coincidence

2010-07-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

Had a writing class dream last night in which I was a student and possibly the teacher. It's been a while, I think, since a writing dream.

The teacher brought out a bunch of stories that had, strangely enough, featured Nyquil, which seemed to be inappropriate to the time or place of the story. The teacher than brought up coincidence v. incidence, which was neither here nor there, I think, as far as the students' mistake, but it is an equally important issue. Great writing utilizes incidence in favor of coincidence every day and I sometimes forget that and write foolishly. It's good to know that, inside me, there's a far more clever writer than the one currently in play.

some of my best/fave tweets

2010-07-05T18:45:00.001-07:00

I blew off a chance to be social this afternoon (the beach is sooooo far) and have decided to go through my 2,500+ tweets and bring you some of my faves. But just 2010, because, though I'm lame and crazy, I try not to be both at once.

time to unleash the flock of sheep in my brain. i keep them in close quarters in a small pen in the back of my thalamus. don't tell PETA. 11:24 PM Jul 3rd

if this whole writer thing doesn't work out, I guess I could always move to Thailand and sell cow placenta. Saturday, June 26, 2010 3:10:26 PM

If we're going by smell, my supervisor just microwaved a homeless person in the break room. 12:30 PM Jun 23rd

My eyes need resting. Don't know why. They don't do shit. 11:26 PM Jun 11th

people who couldn't be chefs because of their last names: John Ratzenberger. 10:37 AM Jun 8th

If you had to ID me just by my current stomach contents, you'd presume my name was Peter Peter and that I had a wife, but couldn't keep her. 1:53 PM Jun 7th

If someone is hospitalized in "grave condition" and doesn't die, I feel like the Grim Reaper got punk'd. Thursday, June 03, 2010 10:40:59 PM

Fabiola: feminant variant of Fabian, not an extra-ridiulous variant of Fabulous, like I was gonna guess. It may mean "one who grows beans." Saturday, May 15, 2010 3:31:28 PM

You complete m Saturday, May 15, 2010 2:44:36 PM

this is like 39 in my emotional 40 years in the desert 1:43 PM May 13th

Chocolate solves everything. If Kagan doesn't work out, we should appoint chocolate to the Supreme Court. Tuesday, May 11, 2010 4:53:24 PM

At la brea. Just heard a kid call a sabertooth a cybertooth. 4:26 PM May 1st

If you pronounce respite like it rhymes with cess pit, let's hang out. 5:12 PM Apr 27th

I don't have standards so much as everyone's gross. 4:13 PM Apr 25th

If "Pretzel Stand" was a perfume, I wouldn't just wear it, I'd buy it for all my friends. 9:40 PM Apr 23rd

Is getting seafood at the mall a bad idea? Well That's why my momma named me bad idea stevens. 7:14 PM Apr 23rd

water is no substitute for something that my body can convert into fat. 2:50 PM Apr 22nd

My calves are barking. That's right. So sore they don't even make a bovine noise. 3:29 PM Apr 16th

Mega Piranha, next weekend, on @SyFy. Honestly, any fish that size is gonna be scary. It could have been Mega Trout, same movie. 10:06 AM Apr 3rd

Leafy greens rhymes with beefy spleens. Coincidence? 12:50 PM Apr 1st

gonna get girl scout cookies today! yay! take a knee, diet. take a knee. 10:15 AM Mar 12th

I am not about to renege on a promise or flee my impending nuptials, so why are my feet so cold? 8:38 PM Mar 11th

Just sneezed a jellyfish. Sunday, February 28, 2010 6:00:33 PM

Ate too much the yo that is fro 2:17 PM Feb 27th

Latvia's trending? did they win a medal? or did Pattinson move there? 'cause I can't think of another reason for anyone to care. 10:28 PM Feb 23rd

whoa, Ted Danson's hair in Body Heat, whoa. Friday, February 19, 2010 8:29:07 PM

It's one of those soreness at the injection point kind of days. 11:51 AM Feb 6th

feels too crappy to eat solid foods. is there a thing called baby disease? 1:39 PM Feb 2nd

God forbid There's ever a fire at my apartment building. More cars park in front of the fire hydrant than you can shake a flaming stick at. 2:23 PM Jan 15th

Now the shower's off but She's still in the bathroom. Mutton faxer. 12:27 AM Jan 2nd

Rape victims take shorter showers than my roommate. For crying out loud. 12:14 AM Jan 2nd

think I'm belatedly jet-lagged. if i don't slap my face into my pillow soon, my face will never forgive me. face vengeance...shudder. 10:14 PM Jan 1st

conditions of the body, soul, living quarters

2010-07-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

I have accepted my enemy as he is and decided to keep him close. My secondhand bookshelf that would not come together perfectly I have decided to keep and use in its unfinished condition. Three out of four screws will suffice, and the heavy books will go at the bottom. No fragile objects.

Saw Over Her Dead Body, which is a terrible movie for a variety of reasons. Something about Lake Bell's hair was particularly unpleasant. But I did like the talking bird at the end.

Also Toy Story 3 (and the short that came before). Simply fantastic. Best Animated Picture winner. Calling it now.

My friend who lives in Long Beach came up today and we talked for hours and ate food at restaurants I hadn't been to. I found a bed at Urban Habitat that I will buy when I win the lottery. It's crazy ornate, but I love it. My throat is sore from the unfamiliarity of talking so much, which is nice. Considering my roommate's gone till the 10th and I'll be alone till Wednesday night, having a friend around really helped.

Since I was a teenager, I've had this skin condition where my upper arms are quite bumpy because of an overproduction of keratin. The condition's called keratosis pilaris, and it's supposedly not uncommon, but I've never seen anyone with it. It's just a mild cosmetic issue, nothing too awful, but, boy, little, unalterable physical flaws have a way of breaking down your self-esteem in such a way that you sort of give up on the whole. I try to be healthy (and fail), but the idea of outer beauty is a real problem for me because of all these relatively insignificant but very present flaws like the KP that, even if I was slim and glistening, will never completely go away. I KNOW plenty of people have worse problems in their lives, but it's kind of a mind-fuck anyhow, I got to say.

Working on some ideas. Reading a billion things at once. C'est normal.

Hope everyone has a great weekend, and for those of you working like me, I have you in my heart.

fly in the soup

2010-06-30T22:18:00.000-07:00

It might be 99% goodness, but boy can that fly just ruin things. I mean, I'm not a big fan of soup in general, but the metaphor stands. I've had some positive turns in the last few weeks but one really massive disappointment (for me) that just jacked the soup.

Gonna try to see Toy Story Cubed manana. And this 4th weekend, I'm gonna write like a maniac fueled by graphite and ink and Intel. Word(s) up.

ugh

2010-06-25T18:23:00.001-07:00

I just realized I've only read a little over half as many books as I wanted to have read by this point this year.

Only two of the last 15 books I've read have been by women, but of the four (yes, four) books I'm in the middle of now, two are by women. Not a conscious decision, but I'm glad of it anyway.

Playing the waiting game for several things. Tiresome.

just once...

2010-06-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

I would like a reality show contestant to say, "I AM here to make friends. Screw winning. I'm here to become lifelong bosom buddies with the whole gang here. Especially the dude who gets eliminated first. 'Cause that's got to be tough, and real friends are friends even when you're going through a rough patch. Check out the lanyards I made for everyone."

if I had three wishes...

2010-06-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

I would wish for:

1) that everyone would use their turn signals every time they, you know, turned or changed lanes
2) that people wouldn't bail on me repeatedly, whether in life or on IM
3) that everyone suddenly develop an allergy to making and/or using weapons of any kind (except water guns and shurikens)

intense

2010-06-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

I had this A-Team meets Harry Potter dream last night where magical forces were keeping all these kids in a school and I had to get them past trains and out of classrooms and so on. Also, in my dream, my recently-graduated-from-college sister had lost all her math skills and I was trying to reteach her addition, and, at one point, my whole family was in a bunk bed above me watching a horror movie and wouldn't turn it off, so I had to hum the Nutcracker to myself in the bottom bunk. For a long time.

I'm exhausted.

Scoundrels

2010-06-16T21:42:00.000-07:00

My review.
I might be too nice.

the 'wood and update

2010-06-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took the subway (uneventfully, thank God) to the new W hotel at Hollywood and Vine. It's pretentious and pretty, so it works for that area I guess. My friend's in town for a bachelorette weekend and they're holing up there. We had lunch at Kitchen 24 and passed about a million World Cup fans at various bars shrieking and hollering. This was an hour before the England-USA game. So that was odd.

Have read some good books lately. Love my new apartment in West Toluca Lake, except for the screechy bed upstairs (I don't think they're getting down every night--I think the bed is just old and needs some oil or something). All my fellowships but one are done. Finally have DirecTv hooked up. And my white whale, a bookcase I bought secondhand and have been unable to put back together for over a week now, is sitting in my lovely bedroom taunting me like a professional.

In other news, Betty White is everywhere. One wonders if there isn't a Betty White clone or if future robots/aliens haven't infiltrated us, all looking like Betty White. We would be sitting ducks.

dream Emmy nods

2010-06-04T19:01:00.000-07:00

I'm a little behind on Breaking Bad, Damages (who's still alive on that show?), and FNL, but that's okay. I'm going with what I loved this year, and if I couldn't think of enough to love, I went with people who'd been good the year prior (Glenn, for example).

Bones
Breaking Bad
Friday Night Lights
House
Lost
Trauma (I loved it, so deal)

Best Lead Male/Drama

Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad)
Hugh Laurie (House)
Ian Somerhalder (The Vampire Diaries--seriously)
Jon Hamm (Mad Men)
Kyle Chandler (FNL)
Michael C Hall (Dexter)

Best Supporting Male/Drama

Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad)
Bruce Campbell (Burn Notice)
Michael Emerson (Lost)
Terry O'Quinn (Lost)
Tim DeKay (White Collar)
Zach Gilford (FNL)

Best Female/Drama

Anastasia Griffith (Trauma)
Anna Gunn (Breaking Bad)
Connie Britton (FNL)
Emily Deschanel (Bones)
Glenn Close (Damages)
Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife--haven't seen it, but I've heard good things, and it's hard to find lead females)

Best Supporting Female/Drama

Aimee Garcia (Trauma)
Chandra Wilson (Grey's Anatomy)
Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives)
Lindsay Price (Eastwick--probably counts as lead and there's no chance in hell, but she sparkles in everything she's in)
Lisa Edelstein (House)
Yunjin Kim (Lost)

Best Comedy

Better Off Ted
Chuck
Community
Cougar Town
Modern Family
Parks and Rec

Best Lead Male/Comedy

Alec Baldwin (30 Rock)
Jim Parsons (Big Bang)
Joel McHale (Community)
Neil Patrick Harris (HIMYM)
Ty Burrell (Modern Family)
Zachary Levi (Chuck)

Best Lead Female/Comedy

Amy Poehler (Parks and Rec)
Courtney Cox Arquette (Cougar Town)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (New Adventures of Old Christine)
Lindsey Shaw (10 Things I Hate About You)
Portia De Rossi (Better Off Ted)
Tina Fey (30 Rock)

Best Supporting Male/Comedy (toughest category by far--could have easily been five other guys)

Daniel Pudi (Community)
Donald Glover (Community)
Hamish Linklater (New Adventures of Old Christine)
Jonathan Slavin (Better Off Ted)
Nick Offerman (Parks and Rec)
Tracy Morgan (30 Rock)

Best Supporting Female/Comedy

Alyson Hannigan (HIMYM)
Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Rec)
Busy Phillips (Cougar Town)
Christa Miller (Cougar Town)
Jane Krakowski (30 Rock)
Jane Lynch (Glee/Party Down)

The good and the bad

2010-05-07T19:09:00.000-07:00

The Good:

Lunch at Mimi's Cafe.
Iron Man 2 at Cinemarama Dome (the film's fun and entertaining).
Early dinner at The Waffle (Neil Flynn, aka The Janitor from Scrubs, was one of the only other people in there).

The Bad:

I have to drive my parents to LAX at about 4:00 in the morning. Ugh.

here in the Southland

2010-05-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

So my parents are in town for the first time since I transplanted my person to the Coast that is West, which means being a total tourist.

Saturday we went to Aroma on Tujunga in Studio City for lunch where I created French Fry jenga with my mother, much to the joy of everyone present.

Then in the afternoon we hit the pits (La Brea, that is) and saw a crazy light installation at LACMA, where I totally fell and twisted my ankle.

Thanks to the wonders of physical therapy when I was in grad school, my ankle bounced back in a day, and it did not impede on the crazy itinerary I've set out for the 'rents. Then we had dinner at the Grove and saw The Thrilling Adventure Hour at Largo at Coronet, which EVERYONE SHOULD DO. It was AWESOME.

Sunday we went to the Getty Villa in the Palisades and then up to Malibu for lunch.
The Gettys have interesting taste.
The Chocolate Box Cafe at the Lumber Yard, btw, does not have good chocolate. In case you thought they might. That night we did the Hollywood/Highland thing.

Monday we drove to San Diego and stopped at Oceanside for lunch. Me gusta. We stayed at the Dana in Mission Bay, which is within walking distance of Sea World. Had dinner in Old Town, where I was finally converted to salsa consumption, and bought my dad's birthday and/or Christmas gift.

Also, I bought Mexican bingo. 'Cause why wouldn't I?

Tuesday we did Sea World. In line for one of the rides, some OC douche flicked a cigarette near a baby and the baby's dad confronted him, and there was nearly a brawl because, rather than apologize, the OC douche was like, oh, I should mouth off to a new father who kind of looks like he's in a gang or did jailtime. Seriously, some clothing came off. It was exhausting. I don't particularly like the concept of Sea World, but it didn't totally suck. Dinner was at Bread & Cie, which is in a bitch of a location for parking, but I quite enjoyed my turkey pesto sandwich.

Wednesday we drove back and stopped at the Mission San Juan Capistrano, which is where I would like to get married some day. We ate at El Adobe, which was fantastic, and then rested at home.

Today my wonderful roommate showed us around the Fox lot. We got lucky that the It's Always Sunny set was open and were permitted to walk on. I won't tell you what I saw (don't want to get anyone in trouble), but it was AWESOME. Well... maybe this photo is okay.

I'm psyched for the new season. Had lunch at Moe's (like the guy on The Simpsons) and bought a "It's Not Lupus" shirt from the studio store.

Went to Venice and walked around the canals, which are out of control gorgeous, and then hung out in Santa Monica, where I finally got the surfboard clock I've been wanting for two years.

Had dinner in Encino, came home and watched Iron Man in prep for manana (somehow my parents missed seeing it when it came out). And I'm almost positive I saw Spielberg drive past my street. I wouldn't bet a child's life on it, but maybe an old person who I didn't like too much.

So great week so far. Tomorrow is the last day. Then back to reality and all that awfulness.

the oil spill

2010-04-30T08:25:00.001-07:00

When we play Russian roulette with our eco systems like we do with every offshore oil rig, we're not just biding our time until we mutilate our environment, we're also taking huge chances with the economies that depend on those environments. The Gulf's economy, what's left of it, is going to get screwed nine ways to Sunday by this spill. Even if you don't care about wildlife and think God put other living creatures on this planet for us to slaughter willy-nilly whether for food or fun, you should at least care about the way the spill is going to hurt the fishing and tourism industries. No one wants to swim in a wasteland or eat Maine lobster in the Big Easy. Anytime we put the environment in danger, we put ourselves in danger, period. So stop sneering at clean energy, Republicans, and understand that it's not just foreign oil we'd be smartest to stop depending on, but all oil. At the end of the day, offshore drilling is NOT worth the inevitable (and this spill was inevitable) price.

Martinique

2010-04-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

My parents are coming tomorrow. Fellowship season is underway. I am not getting the amount of reading done required to finish 100 books in a year. Not that that's particularly important.

I've been reading Wideman's Martinique book, and I'm not loving it. His book is unfocused (purportedly on purpose) and he talks about Martinique almost solely through his lens of guilt at being "white" by being wealthy enough to go there as a tourist and having a Caucasian girlfriend. All of the history of slavery seems to converge upon the island, and he refuses to see a single islander as anything more than a byproduct of that terrible history. They do not appear to have any other qualities, and Wideman, so dismissive of fellow tourists, says he feels as if he is in a dream, yet I doubt the Martinicans feel this way, that they so box themselves in.
Yes, slavery is and its history remains a critical aspect of the development of Martinican culture, identity, and economic development, but it's not EVERYTHING. Germany and Germans are not all about Nazis. China and the Chinese are not all about Communism. Yes, the tourism industry with its catering to the upper-class, which in this case is largely European, can feel like not too far a leap from days prior. But Martinique is not the only place in the universe where a person's day job is to cater to someone of another race who has more money. This is practically universal. If you want to write a sociological study of tourism and what it means to Caribbean islands or Pacific islands or minorities in any given nation, do it. But don't throw all that weight on Martinique and call it a day.

I have to go to the gym, get my hair cut, clean my car, submit by CBS app, and go to Santa Monica today to pick up an air mattress and see Hot Tub Time Machine with a friend.

a good day

2010-04-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

I had kind of a good day today. Did two hikes in the Walking L.A. book -- High Tower and Highland Bowl and the Whitley Heights one. Kind of killed me, but it was cool, and I also went to Lucky Devils for lunch, which was delicious. Found a Modern Library copy of Sons and Lovers in the giveaway cart at the Studio City library. May or may not go to a screening at the Fox lot tonight. Depends on if my exhaustion dissipates.

Goals this weekend: laundry, finish Modern Family spec, and go to the gym for a little bit. Maybe make some waffles since I accidentally bought 1% milk and I only drink skim...

regarding this awesome day

2010-04-01T16:38:00.000-07:00

I love April Fools' Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gotcha! I actually hate it.

Episode: Awesome

2010-03-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

This blog is not going to be about reposting amazing videos, even though I've been doing that a lot lately. As soon as I do something interesting, I'll letcha know.
In the meantime...

AMAZING.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Weezer has no human friends, apparently

2010-03-28T15:17:00.001-07:00

Do not watch this music video if you are on any illegal substances.

No, wait, scratch that. ONLY watch this music video if you are on illegal substances.

good/bad

2010-03-22T08:27:00.001-07:00

It hasn't been the easiest month for me, what with burning my abdomen with boiling water and some other things, but there are reasons to smile.

Yay, health care reform! I never thought I'd see you! You're not exactly how I imagined, but I welcome you with open, surprised, insured arms anyway.

This NY Times article about David Simon and the upcoming HBO show Treme. Makes me wish I had HBO (as does The Pacific).

Art Plus Celebrity Tweets Equals Awesome.

So good!

2010-03-18T18:44:00.000-07:00

And they include Firefly!

Breaking Bad blog

2010-03-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

My friend Kate is a WA over at the ever-stellar Breaking Bad and is doing a blog for AMC as Marie Schrader, the sister-in-law on the show. Enjoy!

booked

2010-03-11T20:45:00.000-08:00

Finished reading The City and The City. I feel about it the way Ashton Kutcher felt about Twitter before it became all mainstream and passe. Reading Lion's Honey now, which is less a reinterpretation than a laparoscopic look at the subtext of the story of Samson (the Old Testament being what it is).

I have a lot to do. Gah.

amusing dream

2010-03-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

I had the weirdest dream last night that my stepdad was Vanna White's nanny on the set of Wheel of Fortune (and my stepdad's a little more Clint Eastwood, a little less Fran Drescher). At one point one of the kids slipped onto the stage and my stepdad had to run out and take the kid from Vanna. The camera closed in on him, he put the kid down, and looked into the camera... and started to speak Hawaiian (or some other Polynesian language). My stepdad's Polish/Russian, and I'm pretty sure this wasn't one of the episodes they do on the road, so that was particularly weird.

Also, and I say this with all due respect, suck it, James Cameron!

hooray!

2010-03-07T12:15:00.001-08:00

My mom's coming to visit me! Probably late April, but I can't wait! She hasn't visited me since I've been out here, so it's super-exciting.

I'm reading The City and the City. I love the idea of it and the execution so far, but we'll see how it pans out.

Outlining a spec sitcom pilot. I'm definitely feeling it.

And of course more news to come...

in the good

2010-03-04T17:55:00.000-08:00

I'm so happy my heart feels like it was tickled by the Easter Rabbit's whiskers and then hugged by Mrs. Claus.

I'll leak details as they trickle on through.

best pairs skating choreography ever would be...

2010-02-15T13:27:00.001-08:00

If the guy threw the girl into the stands where someone caught her, threw her back, and the guy caught her again. Add a triple-something in there and you totally win the gold.

past is present and a bright satin bow

2010-02-15T11:21:00.001-08:00

So I've made a decision about my future. I'm not gonna say what, in case it comes to nothing, but it made me read my MFA thesis again, and holy God. I can't imagine anyone reading that thing and not thinking the author was both genius and madwoman. Like, I should be on some major meds.

In any event...
a month and a half, 14 books. I think we know why I don't have a boyfriend.

Culver City

2010-02-11T20:09:00.000-08:00

I've been to Culver City before, but not like today where it was the destination. And, much to my surprise, it's not a terrible place. I gazed lustily at Sony and just really enjoyed Washington Blvd. Stopped at Surfas, which seems to have developed fully-formed out of a chef's head, and got my mom a gift and a delicious biscuit at the cafe. Then a Valentine's pseudo-whoopie pie at Essential Chocolate Desserts. Amazing. Then I went to the Culver City Westfield mall and watched some strange people in retro orange and white gym outfits demonstrate an exercise device that attached to your door. I thought it was called Core Door, but I can't find it online. Anyhow.

I LOVE Sherman Oaks, but if I ever had to work Sony (and I would give all my fingernails to do so), I could handle the move.

Got a new roommate with the same name as me, except it's spelled differently. In fact, it's spelled more bizarrely than my way. Does that make me the normal one? Perhaps...

Feb. 1

2010-02-01T14:16:00.001-08:00

Ten books down. Boo-yah!

Granted, none of them have been massive tomes or even the books I expected to finish, but I am wending my way through the Canongate Myth series, so that makes me happy.

I expect this month to read more of the Canongate Myth books, A House in Bali, Evia, T.C. Boyle's The Women, and hopefully The City and the City. Perhaps some others.

Also, Russell Brand wears boots with heels and is very, very skinny. And I think his favorite adjective is "pleasant"--he even used it to describe his fiancee.

That is all.

untitled

2010-01-26T17:21:00.000-08:00

I'm going to admit it: I'm a sucker for a gimmick in a book. Not a formula, necessarily, but a gimmick in terms of structure. You have funny footnotes, Jasper Fforde? You got me. You wrote a book in the form of an online forum conversation, Victor Palevin? You got me.

Of course, this isn't always true. I read Sorrentino's all-questions book Gold Fools and hated it, didn't I? So I guess it's not a universal way of seducing me.

In any event, I mention it because I picked up Twilight of the Superheroes expecting something to do with, you know, superheroes. Maybe something like Alan Moore meets Michael Chabon. Not so much. People love these short stories, but of all the short story collections I've read recently, this one drags the most. And I'm wondering if it's because I was expecting or hoping for a gimmick. Sigh. Back to work.

the first four

2010-01-15T22:43:00.000-08:00

15 days into 2010 and oy. I don't have to go into the personal dramas at home and work, let alone reiterate the insanity of the earthquake in Haiti and how quickly and beautifully most Americans have leapt to help (and how quickly and viciously a few have leapt to attack). We get the Earth we get.

So far I have managed to avoid cupcakes, though my other resolutions food-wise have faltered a bit. I've read four books this year, two from the Canongate Myths series, one a large photography book that almost doesn't count, and Agassi's autobiography. The latter is by far my favorite, and I urge any and all tennis fans to pick it up. Even if Agassi pissed you off, it's a fascinating read. I've been a fan of Baghdatis for years, so I appreciate the time Agassi spends talking about his last ATP match win, which was against him. How he talks about Rafter is also gratifying. If you're a big fan of Sampras, keep a cool head. As you can imagine, Agassi had a complex relationship with Pete.

I have to finish at least four more books in the next two weeks (I'm thinking The Water-Babies, Homage to Catalonia, The Helmet of Horror, and Twilight of the Superheroes), finish my Nick fellowship, go scream like an idiot from the Golden Globes grandstands on Sunday with Luce, and try once more to do an open mic. When I'm stressing and lost, I must remember that my problems are good problems to have.

41 is not 100

2010-01-04T17:58:00.000-08:00

I finished reading 41 books last year. That doesn't include (a lot of) scripts, short stories, interviews, or books I partly read, but it does include books I started before 2008 and didn't finish until 2009. In any event, it's way less than 100. In any event, I have 717 books on my to-read list. A few of these are more "to own" reference books, but there's still well over 600 books I want to read, plus 16 in my so-called "currently reading" list. I've heard of people reading 100+ books in a year, and if I want to make a significant dent in my to-read list, which I do, I think I should shoot for 100 as well. Anything to take my mind off how little a dent I've put in my student or car loans.

So 100 books means 8 or 9 books a month. I have yet to finish a single book this year, so, along with my not-insignificant work and life goals, I have my work cut out for me. I think the first two books will be Homage to Catalonia and A Short History of Myth, then probably Water Babies, Shah of Shahs, and whatever the library sends me first from my holds list. That means I should read at least one of the many unread books I have at home. Since the Australian Open's coming up, that may mean Agassi's bio, Open. Can't wait!

'010

2010-01-01T10:38:00.000-08:00

Calling this year '10 will be weird, so I think I'm gonna call it '010. Feel about that as you will.
I'm not gonna "resolve" anything, but there is stuff I am going to do this year.

1. Not eat cupcakes, ice cream (froyo is allowed), or anything from the vending machine at work, no matter how hungry I am. I should drop a bunch of weight right there. I'm considering no soda too. I've gone years w/out soda, I should be able to do it again.

2. Go someplace I haven't been before. This may be San Diego, Seattle, or Sydney. Doesn't matter, as long as it's an adventure.

3. Be me, do good, and try to figure it all out. No pressure.

And Angels in America

2009-12-30T15:14:00.000-08:00

Forgot Angels in America. Sigh. Let's just make it a top 13 list.

marginalia

2009-12-30T07:59:00.000-08:00

Dear California license plate, HVNZENT,
First of all, it took me a mile to get your plate. Second, you're a douche. Unless, of course, no one took HVNSENT and you decided to use the Z anyhow. Then your douchiness is so far above all others, it's kind of awesome.
Best,
Kati

Note: Why isn't precautious a word? If I'm taking a precaution, aren't I being precautious? Food for thought.

two glaring omissions

2009-12-29T09:37:00.000-08:00

I realize I made a major mistake in my top 10 TV list. Band of Brothers and Planet Earth--event television in every sense of the word--should have made it in and could quite easily knock half the other shows out. If you've never seen Band of Brothers, go buy it. Don't rent it. Just buy it. You'll want to have it as a possession. If The Pacific, which is coming out next year, is only half as good, it'll still probably be the best thing on the air next year, minus the Lost finale, natch.

Payback

2009-12-27T15:02:00.000-08:00

Payback is my book of 2009. A masterwork analysis of debt--anthropological, literary, ecological, psychological, sociological, and so on. To call it thought-provoking would be the smallest praise. Should be required reading.

ten best TV shows of the decade, and then some

2009-12-22T06:41:00.000-08:00

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (started in the '90s, but still)
West Wing
The Wire
Lost
The Office (UK/US)
Arrested Development
30 Rock
Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart and Colbert Report
House
Firefly

also great: Friday Night Lights, Big Bang Theory, Brothers and Sisters, Carnivale, Chuck, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Damages, Deadwood, Weeds, Six Feet Under, Californication, Alias, Will and Grace, Friends (more '90s, really), How I Met Your Mother, New Adventures of Old Christine, and the hardly-seen, gone-too-soon shows The Winner and Privileged and Pushing Daisies

I think for the next decade Community and Modern Family could make it.

belated photos from Buenos Aires

2009-12-20T06:02:00.000-08:00

I finally have some time off, so I'll post these photos from Buenos Aires while I hunker down in my parents' house for the storm's duration. I was in NY the last few days, and the cold was such that it made my nipples stand up and ask, "Hey, you got any ice that needs sculpting?"

All the pictures were taken from my phone--I didn't have a real camera there.

This is the Ateneo on Avenida Santa Fe, the ultimate bookstore in Argentina--and it used to be a theatre.

This is the Floralis Generica at the United Nations Plaza.

Photos from the Recoleta Cemetery.

best movies of my decade

2009-12-16T22:58:00.000-08:00

Everyone's doing it, so I'll jump in.

To be fair, this only really works if you've seen all the movies made in the last decade. I haven't. But I've probably seen more than your average Joe. I don't like a dark, spare film, so take heed. Any films coming out now-ish are not in the mix.

in no particular order...

Monsoon Wedding
No Country for Old Men
City of God
Spirited Away
Kill Bill
Zoolander (whatever you think, I don't know if I have ever laughed harder, not even at The Hangover)
Night Watch (despite choppy editing and confusion--helps to read the book)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Pan's Labyrinth
Monster House 3D

Most underrated film of the decade: The Darjeeling Limited

Most awesome contributor to film this decade: Clint Eastwood, specifically for Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River (despite the heinous accents) and, perhaps, Invictus, which looks great.

Other great films: District 9, Wedding Crashers, Wall-E, Memento, Monsters, Inc, Little Miss Sunshine, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Cooler, Coraline, Almost Famous, The Emperor's New Groove, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Spider Man, Dirty Pretty Things, The Triplets of Belleville, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

There were certainly other great movies, but either my ardor has cooled for them over time (Slumdog and Crash I still love, but I have other movies I prefer to fight for) or the minor flaws have just become too large in my mind (Leo's overacting in The Departed). Other movies I realize I loved only because of an actor's performance, not the film as a whole (re: Helen Mirren, Ryan Gosling, Robert Downey Jr., Jamie Foxx, Johnny Depp, Amy Adams). And Milk would be on here if its structure was a little different.

So take it as you like it.

End-of-the-year movies I want to see

2009-12-13T19:16:00.000-08:00

The Young Victoria. I want to hate Emily Blunt, but I don't.

Sherlock Holmes. For all the reasons any 26-year-old girl has for wanting to see it. Also, I quite liked Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. Also, I read most if not all the Sherlock Holmes stories when I was a kid. And I used to live off Baker Street when I was in London.

A Single Man. Oh, Colin Firth.

Up in the Air. Though all the fawning is giving me the Juno jitters.

An Education. Sarsgaard is good at being creepy and fey and still somehow sexy all at the same time. I imagine some might find him icky.

The Princess and the Frog. Initially thought it looked, well, not racist, but maybe not of its time? But I love that kind of animation--I'm a child of Disney, after all.

Julie & Julia. I know it's on DVD now. Still want to see it, so I can move on from that whole weird phenomenon.

Did You Hear About the Morgans? Actually looked funnier than anything either SJP or Grant has done in a while.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. I'm thinking I won't like it, but it's a must-see for obvious reasons surely.

There are other movies, but these are the ones that I would actually try to see.

MOVIES I DO NOT WANT TO SEE:
It's Complicated because Nancy Meyers and Meryl Streep together is just too much. Old people smoking pot comedy is so boring. In fact, after I see Julie & Julia, I'm going on a self-imposed Meryl Streep strike.

Avatar. It's the blue. I'm sorry. And I have never been on the James Cameron train.

Nine. Nein. Looks self-indulgent, and I've also never really been on the Daniel Day-Lewis train either. Might watch it on DVD someday.

There are other movies I really don't want to see, ones starring chipmunks and Jeff Bridges pretending to be Mickey Rourke or something, but they're hardly worth mentioning.

My favorite books of 2009

2009-12-13T16:51:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping to read a few more before December comes to a close, specifically Shah of Shahs and I'm Dying Up Here, at the least, but since everyone's already listing the best books they read this year, so shall I.

So shall I.

1. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carre. Being something of a post-Cold War, baby, it's historical fiction for me, but it's also a spy story that holds up well, even after overexposure to all the twists and curveballs that have come since.\

2. American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Dense and weird, but completely absorbing. Whatever you're expecting, it's not it.

3. Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau. Funny, surprising, little French book about a girl with a passion and a mouth and the cadre of irrational adults around her. Made me rethink my feelings on French literature.

It's a short list. I could add some other books, but these were the three that I would recommend to anyone without reservation.

Merry my sister's 23rd birthday!

great morning

2009-12-10T11:28:00.000-08:00

Had a fantastic morning in my lovely Sherman Oaks. Walked to Maxson's to drop off Christmas cards, went to the grocery store to get whipped cream for the chocolate coconut cream pie I made last night and saw Nick Lachey and his g/f, and then I went to Nola Ice for some crazy yummy hot chocolate and met former publicist Jillian DeFrehn, one of the owners, who was really friendly and gave me some great advice on how to get a job. If you go, and you should, I suggest getting the mint and milk chocolate combo with a toasted coconut marshmallow.

Now I am carbed out. I literally have nothing healthy to eat in the house. Must go back out for lunch.

I'm a little concerned about the man's armpit, though.

2009-12-02T15:17:00.000-08:00

This CBS holiday promo from 1966 would never be done today

nightmare last night

2009-11-25T08:09:00.001-08:00

I don't usually have straight-up nightmares anymore, but, dear Lord, last night I had this dream about Christmas and my mom deciding not to do a turkey dinner that morphed into us discovering that this guy in our presence, who looked a lot like James Franco, was a lunatic serial killer. First, a Latino friend of ours tried to take him out and was immediately stabbed (I'm so glad my nightmares follow the movie who dies rule). Then we ran to the lake in front of the house and discovered about 20 or so bodies in the lake (that's where he was keeping them), and rather than fight, this older man, who may have been my father, decided to stay in the center of the lake, which was volcanic or something, and die. He was holding an African-American child he had adopted. Finally, I was the only one left and JF was chasing me through the trees, and I could apparently climb trees like a koala and hop from trunk to trunk. Just as I thought he was gonna catch me, a helicopter with a searchlight appeared overhead and scared him off.

Then I hid briefly in a movie theater where I watched a trailer for a movie where Nia Vardalos and her friend had been dorks in school and then became fashion gurus. Or something.

Then I knew I had to go back to my car and that he'd probably be waiting inside. When I saw that my car had been vandalized, I was sure, and then I found him hiding underneath the middle seat. I pulled him out and brought him to the police at the garage and handed him over. The bureaucracy that followed was kind of annoying.

Anyhow, now I'm scared of James Franco.

new things I love/hate

2009-11-21T17:07:00.000-08:00

Love

Goodreads
Trader Joe's Reduced Fat Chinese Chicken Salad
Pej Vahdat (the episode of Bones where he comes clean about his background was great)

Hate

the Leeds mattress and FOX/Adam West commercials (obnoxious? you betcha)
the City of LA (when I pay you what I owe you on time, how about you not F up my credit score?)