What I Watched -- Joyeux Noel

This is an amazing story, because it's true!  I actually have a book about it: Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce, but as with most of the books I own, I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.  This movie came out in 2005 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, though it lost the award to Tsotsi, which I also saw some years ago.

Joyeux Noel is the story of how a few brave people can make a difference.  Every once in a while, humanity wins.

It's sentimental and a bit sappy, but in this case it's forgivable because it's real.  They really did sing, they really did exchange food and drink, they really did have joint Christmas services, they really did play soccer, they really did share stories about their families, they really did take shelter in each others' trenches when the artillery shelling started up again.  Incredible.

Bottom line: a great story, especially on a really hot or cold night.  It's either wishful thinking or immersion therapy.

Goal #18

Goal #18: Do something physical every day.

This coaching business has made me pretty lazy, because I spend the time I would normally work out watching other people work out instead.  This week I'm going to try to get my butt back in gear, at least a little bit.  A low gear.

Recap of Goal #17: success on all counts.  Contacts have been merged, information edited, notes made.

What I Watched -- 96 Minutes

[SPOILER ALERT: Don't follow any of the links with info on the real events if you don't want to find out some of the details of the end of the movie!]

T and I went to another screening a few days ago, this time for a film called 96 Minutes.  It was written and directed by WashU alum Aimee Lagos, and it was really good.

The story was inspired by real events to which Lagos was connected.  While she was at WashU studying Social Thought and Analysis (yes, apparently that was a major), she worked tutoring city kids, some of whom were involved in the carjacking incident.  The victims were WashU students.  The Post-Dispatch briefs the actual events here; I found this article in a neurology journal online, and it appears to be by the father of one of the kids involved.

Without giving too much away, the film starts two pairs of kids, each in their own worlds.  Carley and Lena are college students with promising futures, though they're both a little lacking in terms of direction and parental support.  Dre and Kevin have lived a tough urban life, also with largely absent parents.  Dre is days from his high school graduation and wants to leave his childhood behind him; his cousin Kevin will do anything he needs to in order to be accepted into the local gang.  The film progresses non-linearly - in the present, the carjacking has already happened and you're on the edge of your seat waiting to see how things end; the flashback scenes march inevitably towards the carjacking itself.

The film stars Brittney Snow as Carley and Evan Ross as Dre; both are fantastic.  David Oyelowo acts well as the only real adult character in the film, and the one who brings some hope to the whole depressing story.

Bottom line: a frustratingly well-told tale which manages to at least open a discussion about class and urban issues.

Salvage the Bones -- Take 2

It took me a while to get started on it, but once I did it didn't take me long to finish Salvage the Bones.  It's an unfortunate tale, the story of a pregnant 15-year-old and her family who live in the poverty-stricken coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi.

Normally this wouldn't really be my type of story, but I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt.  While it still isn't my favorite general topic, I did enjoy this book.  It's compelling.  The chapters count the days, and we know that what's coming is Hurricane Katrina, like a countdown to disaster.  We saw the news footage and we know what kind of destruction the storm will bring, but our characters do not.

There's one passage of the book that I thought was particularly well-written, even though it's not the most affecting.  In it, Esch and her brother Skeetah are tending to Skeetah's dog and her puppies in the shed while another brother Randall and their dad use their tractor to tear down a chicken coop in the yard outside.  I love how the two settings play off each other, with repeated language and images:

"
There is a crack of wood and then a metal whine as Randall presses the gas again and the tractor jerks forward.  'Hold it! You got chicken wire stuck in the grille.'

Daddy tugs at the wire, pulls at the grille and the hood.  He yanks, leans forward so far he almost puts his face in the grille, detangles, and then he begins pulling at the wire again.  Randall is still.

'Do it,' Skeetah commands China.

China's ears are flat as plastic knives laid on her head and her mouth is wet and pink as uncooked chicken, except where the bone shows.  She is quivering, her muscles beset by a multitude of tics.  She is shaking all over, now eye to eye with Skeetah, seemingly ignoring the dirt-red puppy rounding her bowl, waddling for milk.  He is the one that is a model of the father, of Kilo; he is the fattest, the most well fed, the bully.  Turgid with the promise of living.  When their eyes eventually open, I think that he will be the first.

The tractor idles and the engine turns, sounds as if it going to move.

'Don't do it!' Daddy yells against his tugging, but his grunts eat the Don't, and I don't know what Randall hears, but he lets up on the brake and slips it in gear, and the tractor eases forward.  'Stop!' Daddy yells.  He is pulling back, his hand clenched in the wire, and he twists so hard his arm looks long and ropy.

The red puppy creeps forward, rounds China's bowl, noses her tit.  China is rolling, rising.  The rumble of the tractor is her growl.  Her toes are pointed, her head is raised.  Skeetah falls back.  The red puppy undulates toward her; a fat mite.  China snaps forward, closes her jaw around the puppy's neck as she does when she carries him, but there is no gentleness in it.  She is all white eyes.  She is chewing.  She is whipping him through the air like a tire eaten too short for Skeetah to grab.

'Stop!' Skeetah yells.  'Stop!'

Randall puts the tractor in gear, switches it to park, but the small hillock the coop is on pulls the tractor back as the engine idles.

'No!' Daddy calls.

Daddy flings his hand free.  There is oil on it.  He holds to his chest.  His shirt is covered in oil.  Daddy's jaw is slack.  He is walking toward the light of the shed.  The oil on his T-shirt turns red.  The sound coming out his open mouth is like growling.

'No!' Skeetah calls.

The blood on Daddy's shirt is the same color as the pulpy puppy in China's mouth.
"

Gruesome, but very well done.  Also, consider yourself warned that there is some other gruesome stuff here, notably a dog fight.  Reading this book is like watching the proverbial train wreck: you just can't look away, even though you want to.

Fahrenheit 451 -- Take 2

I finished Fahrenheit 451 in time for my book club, and I have to say, it was shorter than I remembered it being.  I remembered odd things about the plot as well: a river near the end, and about the mechanical dog.

But I forgot a lot of the details, including the finer points of the social commentary.  I especially like the portion near the middle where Guy Montag meets with  Faber, the old man who loves books and has a number of them secreted away.

You know what?  I actually don't really have a review for this book.  I liked it.  It has lots of social commentary about oppressive regimes and people as sheep.  And it's a suspenseful story.  Thumbs up.

What I'm Reading Now -- The Complete Persepolis

I know I still owe you a couple of reviews of books I've already read, and I'll get to those.  But for now, I have a new book for book club: The Complete Persepolis.  Pesepolis is a graphic novel, and it originally came out as two books.

Persepolis was also made into a film a few years ago.  It got impressive reveiws and won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film.

What I Watched -- Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is certainly...something.  It's another Joss Whedon production (yes, the same Joss Whedon of Buffy, Firefly, and Dollhouse fame).  Dr. Horrible stars Neil Patrick Harris as the title character, but it is not with Whedon's fave actor (and perennial cutie) Nathan Fillion, who plays Dr. Horrible's nemesis.  (As an aside, he has a more recent movie out called The Cabin in the Woods which I know nothing about, but I've heard you should keep it that way because pretty much anything you hear would be a spoiler.  So it exists, and from what I can tell, it's super weird.  That's all.)

Back to Dr. Horrible.  It's a short series, only three episodes, each about 15 minutes long.  They're all on YouTube for your viewing pleasure: Act 1; Act 2; Act 3.  There's also a full version, but somehow the punctuated acts seem more appropriate to the "sing-along blog" format.

And that's exactly what it is: an online, tongue-in-cheek sing-along!  It's wacky and fabulous and dumb.  And hilarious.

Random Links

I'm a dynamo.  How about you?

Prank call.

Dog.

Ever since investigating Lambert Wilson's music after seeing him in Of Gods and Men, I have been obsessed with this song!  I have no idea what they're singing about (okay, that's not true; I have an idea), but it's so catchy anyway!

Surprisingly addicting geography game.

Radio drama is a medium rarely used anymore.  A new APM podcast called The Truth is bringing it back.  You can listen to their pilot episode, "Moon Graffiti," here.

International Photography Hall of Fame comes to St. Louis.

Since I already posted a cat video, I might as well go whole hog with some cat-and-dog pics.

Goal #17

Goal #17: clean up Gmail contacts.

I'm giving myself an easy one this week.  This is the digital version of going through your address book, erasing old addresses, checking for duplicates, etc.  My contacts have gotten kind of messy, there are a lot of people who need to be tagged or deleted, etc.  This week I'll fix that!

Recap of Goal #16: I polished my necklaces.  I didn't get to the bracelets yet.  But still, that's progress!

What I Watched -- Three Days (of Hamlet)

Wednesday night, T and I went to see what was basically a test screening of the movie Three Days (of Hamlet) (Facebook) at the Tivoli.

As the website says, it's "a film about a documentary about a play."  Alex Hyde-White (son of the famous comedic British actor Wilfred Hyde-White, better known as Colonel Pickering) decided to get a group of actors together, and give them three days to rehearse and perform Hamlet.  The coming-together of the cast (which included Richard Chamberlain) was a focus of the movie, as well each of the actor's individual take on the focus or purpose of the project.

Cut in with that, though, is footage of Alex's father and children overlaid by Alex's commentary about their relationship. Those scenes plays off the father themes in Hamlet, and that's the link that holds it all together

In his Q&A after the movie, Alex Hyde-White, whose manner of speaking is precise and measured and flows in a very British rhythm probably learned from his father (his mother was American actress Ethel Drew) greeted the crowd and patiently listened as people regaled him with stories of their days as Shakespearean actors.  And he answered a few questions too, mostly about the process of getting the movie made.

Frankly, he was such a pleasure to listen to, I have to say that if not for the scenes from Hamlet, the Q&A would have been as entertaining as the movie.  But, as with any Shakespeare, it steals the show.

Bottom line: Hamlet was great, and the three day limitation was an interesting idea.  I understand why Alex used that story as a parallel to his relationship with his father, but I missed some of the import of that personal perspective.  Possibly it isn't quite universal enough.

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 31

Otherwise titled: Happy (Belated) Easter!

So much food!  T and I basically did a tour of neighborhoods, eating along the way.  We started out having breakfast with G&G, then headed out to T's cousin's house in Granite City for lunch, then over to St. Chuck for dinner!

All "the kids" at dinner.

Sorry about the pic; it's a picture of an actual picture that T's aunt mailed to him, old-fashioned style.  Unfortunately you can't really see my dress though. It's black and white tweed, with a gather at the right shoulder.  Super cute, and it has a matching jacket, but I've found that I like the pieces separately better than together.  Together they're just too much, but individually they're perfect!

Ruggerfest!

For the first time in six years this weekend, I played rugby!  It was so fun and now I totally miss it!

Background: I had some friends in town from Chicago for the 64th Annual Gateway Ruggerfest.  They play for Chicago Women's, a team I played with for a bit when I was in Chicago.

Problem: in a full-side rugby game, each team should field 15 players.  They had 14.

I filled in for half a game on Saturday and a game on Sunday.  I also dragged H out to play with us, and she played a game on Sunday as well.  And to top off all that fun, we won the tourney!  There are a few pictures from the day here.

So fun!

Goal #16

Goal #16: clean my jewelery.

I have a few silver necklaces that are looking quite sad.  And what's even sadder than how sad they look is that I've been meaning to clean them for, I don't know, a year and a half or so?  It's about time.  Plus, even though I have lots more online- and computer-related things to do, I need a break from those.

Recap of Goal #15: check this out!

So organized!

What I Watched -- The Help

A little bit ago, I read The Help, and I admit that I was one of those people who was inspired to do so because the movie was coming out.  Well, now I've seen the movie.

And it was cute!  I actually liked it more than I expected to.  Emma Stone was infectiously likable as Skeeter Phelan, and Jessica Chastain was just as confusingly clueless as small-town girl Celia Foote.  The emotional gravitas, though, was brought by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer as maids Aibileen and Minny. (Chastain and Spencer were both nominated for an Oscar in the Best Supporting Oscar category; Spencer won.)  And let's not forget Allison Janney, who played a hilarious mom in Juno and repeats the role here.

To make the book work as a movie, the director and screenwriters cut out a fair amount of Skeeter's relationships with her friends and boyfriend.  While that was probably the safest area to cut because it preserves the racial elements that made the book a bit of a touchstone, it does leave the film a teeny bit disjointed.  Even so, it's still as enjoyable and enlightening as unfortunate recent history (even fictionalized history) can be.

Bottom line: good acting which is enjoyable to watch.

Random Links

A cat video.  Yes, really.

Dancers among us.

Grow St. Louis contest.

Happy animals are the cutest.

The Boat Race.  The video is long, but it was a crazy, crazy race this year.

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 30

Otherwise titled: Mom and Herbie

Mom's in town!  We met, along with T, for dinner Monday night at Herbie's Vintage 72.  The restaurant is a tribute to Herbie Balaban, who died a dozen years ago.  For decades, Balaban's Restaurant was at the same location, but after Herbie's death, it ran into some trouble.  A few years ago, the owners of Monarch (about which I thought I had previously written, but I can't find it!) decided to buy the struggling restaurant, and HV72 was the result.  So far, most reviews are positive.

I had the French onion soup, which was decent but not the best I've had, for a starter.  My entree was the Ligurian shrimp pasta, which was spicy and delicious.  As a bonus, T got the cheese plate, which came with a a super creamy brie, and something else with a spiced rind that I can't remember, as well as a little baby grilled cheese with apricot jam.  So good!

The Princes of Ireland -- Take 2

Is it possible that I never actually got around to writing a review of The Princes of Ireland? Oops.

My terrible memory is going to shine through here, because I have to admit that I don't remember all the details. The story is a generation-spanning epic, a demonstration of how family grudges and quarrels can carry on through the centuries. There are a few characters in each generation who are colorful and complete, but most are just supporting cast members. I imagine that's how it has to be when there are so many possible stories to tell.

What I'm Reading Now -- Salvage the Bones

I need another book to read like I need a hole in the head, but for some reason I decided it would be a good idea to start reading this one.  It's a 2011 National Book Award winner, and it was recommended by Ann and Michael on Books on the Nightstand, which I love.

It's a library book, so I may not even get it finished before it's due (which is in a little over a week)!  But if I manage, I'll let you know my thoughts.

Goal #15

Goal #15: more organizing - papers this time.

Somehow I managed to lose my three-hole punch during the move a couple months ago, and since then I've been accumulating papers for two separate groups of which I am a part.  Normally I keep all this organized in binders, but lately they've just been piling up.  I've scored a new three-hole punch, so this week, the piles will be no more.

Recap of Goal #14: progress!  I'm still not all the way there with the bookmarks - probably halfway, I'd say.  But that's progress.  And it was actually kind of fun once I got going through them, so hopefully that'll continue and eventually I'll get them all properly logged.

What I Watched -- The Hunger Games

I joined the crowd and saw The Hunger Games last night!  As per usual I'd have to say it's not as good as the book, but it is certainly enjoyable; they do a good job of condensing the book into two and a half hours.

(Brief plot summary: Katniss must participate in a 24-teenager fight to the death called the Hunger Games.  The other tribute from her "district" is a boy named Peeta.  So off Katniss goes to the Capitol, leaving her best friend Gale behind.)

Probably the hardest part about the conversion is that a reader of the book learns a lot about the situation in District 12 and Panem and the history of the Hunger Games by hearing Katniss's inner dialogue.  Since that can't happen in the movie, they add some dialogue here and there to fill in the gaps.  Mostly it works, sometimes it seems a little forced.

From a film-making perspective, the camera work was a shaky and sometimes distracting.  The rumor I heard is that they needed to keep their PG-13 rating, and they accomplished that by blurring out a lot of the violence between the tributes so it wasn't too graphic.

Probably my favorite single scene in the movie came near the beginning: the Reaping. It's the day when the tributes' names are selected.  Katniss's younger sister is selected, and in a brilliant bit of acting very reminiscent of Ree Dolly in Winter's Bone, Katniss volunteers to go in her stead, as though there is no other option and it's the most obvious choice in the world.  Great work.

I was a little sad there wasn't more of the Katniss-Gale story in this movie, since it plays a critical role in all three books.  Since there's less action in the second movie, maybe they'll flesh things out a bit more the next time around.  And they could add a little heat to the Katniss-Peeta story while they're at it.

Overall I thought the casting was very well done.  Jennifer Lawrence does not disappoint as Katniss.  Because you don't have that inner dialogue, she has to convey a lot just with her facial expressions.  I loved loved loved Lenny Kravitz as Cinna (though I lament that so much of his role in the book was cut for the movie - he was one of my favorite characters).  The beautiful Elizabeth Banks was appropriately flighty as Effie Trinket, and Donald Sutherland acted the part of President Snow well, although some of the dialogue he had to work with seemed a little stilted.  Oh, and let's not forget Stanley Tucci as Ceasar Flickerman and of course Woody Harrelson as Katniss and Peeta's mentor Haymitch.

Bottom line: glad I saw this one; I'll definitely see the others.  But if you couldn't be bothered to even care about the books, don't bother with this either.  It doesn't have stand-alone cred as a great film.

What I'm Reading Now - Fahrenheit 451

I don't often re-read books (which begs the question "then why do you buy so many?"  Moving on.), but I'm giving this one another go.  I originally read Fahrenheit 451 for summer reading between my freshman and sophomore years in high school.  I remember enjoying it more than most summer reading, (A Tale of Two Cities?  Blech.) but the truth is that I don't remember it that well at all.  Story of my life.

Anywho, one of my book groups is reading it this month, and I've skipped out on the last few months because the selections didn't interest me.  I'm back in the game!

The Fifty

There was a story in the March 2012 issue of The Atlantic called "Iron Giant: One of America's Great Machines Comes Back to Life."  It tells the tale of Alcoa's 50,000-ton forging press, affectionately referred to as "the Fifty."  The article is short but fascinating history; I recommend you read it.

[Library of Congress]

In summary: The Fifty was built as part of the U.S. government's Heavy Press Program (1950-1957), which used taxpayer dollars to build six extruders and four heavy presses.  The 10 forges were needed to keep up with the Soviets, who carried off Germany's most powerful WWII forge at the end of the fighting.  The Fifty has chugged away all this time, building turbines, helicopters, and spacecraft, but it's been out of commission for the last three years.  It's going to pick up service in reconditioned form this year, pressing out bulkheads for the Joint Strike Fighter.

You're probably asking, "Yeah, so?"

Honestly, I don't have a great answer to that question.  For some reason this story just seemed super cool.  Maybe because everything now is all tiny electronics and better technologies, it's really neat to think about this giant 16,000,000-pound waffle iron squishing hunks of metal into shapes that are precise to thousandths of an inch.  It's anchored to the ground in Cleveland, Ohio, with bolts that are 40 inches thick and 78 feet long.  There's just something so tangible, so industrial, so American, about that.

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 29

On Saturday, I went with T to a wedding reception for a friend of his at the City Museum.  His friend married an Indian guy, so they had Indian food at the reception, and I got to eat with my hands!  And to top it all off, in addition to the traditional wedding cake, there was Ted Drewes!

Their reception was in the Architecture Hall, and that and the whole of the museum were open for exploration during the evening.  T and I ventured only through the Architecture Hall and the Natural History room, full of loads of little bugs.

In an old elevator car which has lost its cables,

 and as part of the "International Fur" sign, which has lost its "R."

The dress itself is just an LBD, but it has some lace in the back which makes it interesting.  Hard to get a good picture of though.

While at the reception, I met an old friend of T's who was lovely to chat with, and puzzled at the odd mix of 80's rock, the Electric Slide (about which there has been some controversy), and Jay-Z.  Enjoyable all around!

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 28

Last Sunday for T's birthday (I know, I know: so slow to post!), we decided to enjoy the lovely weather by heading to MoBot for the Orchid Show.  The orchids are actually inside, but it was a perfect day for walking around the rest of the garden - sunny but not blindingly bright, warm but not miserably hot.

Orchids, orchids, and more orchids:

And elsewhere in the garden:

Tulips

A lovely place to rest

In fact, I think I will.

Hyacinth

I found these mallards rather amusing.  What's just out of the picture to the bottom of the frame is a little waterfall.  Those two are standing there right in the flow of water, occasionally coming up for air, and waiting for goodies to get washed down.  The smart one over here on the right found a little eddy and is keeping high and dry while awaiting his snack.

Goal #14

Goal #14: Um, can I request a mulligan?

Recap of Goal #13: I did absolutely zero organizing of the lost bookmarks last week, so I'll go ahead and take another crack at it this week.  Good?  Good.