Happy Thursday!

Happy Thursday little bloggity readers! Hope your day is full of fun.

Reading any good books lately?

I'm still in the middle of Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, it's good, but I'm finding myself easily distracted from it.

On another note, here is something I want to make:

It's an old book that has been turned into a clutch. Awesome....
Found it here, along with a bunch of other cute DIY projects!

Have a great day!

Still Life.

 From the back cover: “Still Life with Woodpecker is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes.”

Why wouldn’t you want to read about that?

So this book, much like all of Robbins’ work, is about forty different things all at once. To strip it down to the basics: the plot revolves around Princess Leigh-Cheri – an extremely sexually charged redheaded former princess who also happens to be an environmentalist. On a trip to Hawaii for the Care Fest – basically an environmental convention, she is chaperoned by her non-English speaking maid, Gulietta, and meets Bernard Mickey Wrangle on the airplane. Bernard has plans to blow up the Care Fest with a stack of dynamite he has strapped to his chest. They meet again after Bernard accidentally blows up a UFO conference instead of the Care Fest, and through a bottle of tequila they fall for one another. On returning to Seattle, Bernard is arrested for his past transgressions, and Princess Leigh-Cheri longs for him. She finds out what his cell looks like and decorates the attic of her home to match (black, one small window, a cot). All she has to entertain her is a pack of Camel cigarettes in which she fabricates a tale of great proportion (this tale involves you just reading the book because WAY too many things take place in it for me to even try to connect all the comparisons… basically it involves redheads, pyramids, the moon, the word CHOICE, etc.)

People begin to copy Leigh-Cheri’s isolation and see it as a fad. Bernard becomes disgusted with it and sends her a letter that ends their love affair. Heart broken, Leigh-Cheri leaves the attic and becomes engaged to a rich Arab suitor. 

Then lots of things happen… including the building of a giant pyramid, a diet of wedding cake and champagne, more bombing, and a hospital.

I think I’ve said this before, Tom Robbins is one of those guys that you can either really dig, or he isn’t. I think I’m still on the fence… which is weird because I now own almost every one of his books. He just has this way of making you love his writing style, and hate the long windedness at the exact same time. He can take something so small and blow it up into this crazy cool idea, but then you are like “What in the hell kind of drugs is this guy taking?” He is an anomaly in my reading repertoire for the main fact that I don’t know if I actually love him.

But there is something there, otherwise I wouldn’t waste my time reading his books. Obviously.

It's funny what people find so important that they want to tattoo it on their bodies... Literary tattoos are some of the coolest in my opinion.

All in all, I liked Still Life With Woodpecker. I really wish Tom Robbins would never refer to the female genitalia as a “peachfish” ever again though. It really grosses me out.

On to reading!

Wicked Cool.

Check out these rad book sculptures that a good friend of mine turned me onto today:

Pretty intense, huh?
I would love to have one of these in my home.

The artist: Guy Laramee

Amazing.

Have a great Friday!
On to reading!

Anthem

Is it strange that I was expecting more from this? Everyone has always been like “Oh! Ayn Rand, she is a genius!”

But, well, I just didn’t get that from this book. Granted, this may not be her most famous, it’s Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead that you hear all the rave reviews about… but when I found this book for super cheap, I was all about it. I wanted to see the hype of Ms. Rand.

My first reaction when I picked the book up was that it was so tiny. You look at some of her other works and it makes you contemplate weight lifting before you pick them up. This one was more like a pamphlet in comparison.

So, let me just say that I’m a pretty big fan of Dystopian Novels. Books like The Giver, 1984, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, etc. They make me a happy camper. This one… it was just a little too one dimensional for me to even get into it. It took all of about two hours for me to get through it, and when I was done I just sort of set it down and was like, “Alright. On to the next one.”

Basically Anthem is about a society that has no individuals. They don’t know the word “I”, they don’t understand any concept but “We”. There are no names, there is no individuality. The story line is similar to a lot of dystopian novels… basically Equality 7-2521 begins to write down his thoughts (which is illegal) in a hidden tunnel he found one day (something from The Unmentionable Times), he falls in love with a girl named Liberty 5-3000 (which is illegal), he begins to discover things and think for himself (which is illegal), he tries to enlighten the rest of the people with his discoveries and is sentenced to be punished. He runs away. Liberty 5-3000 follows. Then they find a house and it has books (which are illegal) and they read, and their minds are expanded, and then they know the word “I”.

I don’t know. I probably will not read this one again. But, that doesn’t mean I won’t read Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead at some point.

On to reading!

Palm Leaves

Palm Leaves 

at exactly 12:00 midnight 
1973-74 
Los Angeles 
it began to rain on the 
palm leaves outside my window 
the horns and firecrackers 
went off 
and it thundered. 

I'd gone to bed at 9 p.m. 
turned out the lights 
pulled up the covers - 
their gaiety, their happiness, 
their screams, their paper hats, 
their automobiles, their women, 
their amateur drunks... 

New Year's Eve always terrifies 
me 

life knows nothing of years. 

now the horns have stopped and 
the firecrackers and the thunder... 
it's all over in five minutes... 
all I hear is the rain 
on the palm leaves, 
and I think, 
I will never understand men, 
but I have lived 
it through.

-Bukowski  

I just finished "Burning in Water Drowning in Flame" by Charles 

Bukowski last night... Fittingly enough it ended with this poem 

about New Years. 

On to reading! 

Oh, By the Way...

I just realized that I think I forgot to mention why I have been so busy lately.

Turns out I got engaged.
Woohoo!

It's his late Grandmother's engagement ring.
AND it's in a Cake Ball, which are like my favorite things in the ENTIRE world. So not only did I get an amazingly meaningful ring, I also got to eat a morsel of heaven.

P.S. It was at a Halloween Party, hence the skulls. Oh, and our outfits:

It was really romantic starring into those demon eyes as he proposed, by the way.


So, ever since that happened, my life has gone into a whirlwind of craziness. And then the holidays hit. So, as you can tell, it's been hard to get to the computer and review books.
But, I'm back at it my little readers!
And 2012 will of course be much more productive (with less internet absences).


On to reading!

Don't Panic!

This book has been mentioned to me countless times throughout The History of Me that I finally had to buy it. It was actually my boss who really turned me onto it, and through his incessant recommendation, I finally picked it up.

I am so, so, so glad I did.

Hilarity abounds in this relatively short novel. The story follows Arthur Dent and his good friend, Ford Prefect, as Earth is destroyed by the Vogons (an alien race that writes horrid poetry). Together they hitchhike their way onto various space ships in the galaxy (aided with a fantastically useful book called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). They find themselves shoved into space after being captured aboard a Vogon spacecraft and are picked up by a stolen spaceship that is manned by a comical crew. Zaphod Beeblebrox (which, by the way, is probably the coolest name in the entire world, in my opinion), a two headed, three armed ex-hippie who just so happens to be the President of the Galaxy, and not to mention completely wacky, Trillian (once Tricia McMillan of Earth) who is Zaphod’s girlfriend, and Marvin, the absolutely brilliant but exceedingly depressed robot, are all aboard The Heart of Gold (which has a computer that is pleased as punch to help his pals and doorways that sigh with happiness as you walk through them).

Basically, if you can handle the absurdity that flourishes within this novel, then you will love it. If you can understand that mice are more important than we ever knew, that towels can get you out of pretty much any bind, that the Earth is Mostly Harmless, and that dolphins tried to warn us of our planet’s demise by doing back flips, then you will appreciate Adams’ humor.

I tried to watch the film versions of the book – a British TV show and then the  movie that has Zooey Deschanel in it – and they were good… but not my favorite (as it always seems to be for book to movie conversions). I am still confused as to why they cast Mos Def as Ford Prefect… but I guess I can try to get over that. Sam Rockwell played Zaphod magnificently. Zooey was pretty good. I enjoyed the Marvin in the TV series more than the updated movie version, but that’s maybe just me.

Anyway, read the book. You’ll like it more than the film versions.

If you don't get the above picture (which, kudos to the guy that got this tattooed on him) - then you obviously haven't read the book, and it's a shame. This is probably the best part in the ENTIRE novel.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

On to reading!