Pride of Baghdad -- Take 2

I finished reading Pride of Baghdad on Saturday night.  Unfortunately my environment wasn't terribly conducive to reading (dark and noisy), but I was going to finish at least one book this weekend if it killed me.

I picked up with our pride wandering the bombed-out streets of Baghdad, and that is most of the remainder of the story.  There are power struggles, accusations of a lack of loyalty, anger, exhaustion, martyrs, and discussions about freedom.

In books where politics is only tangential, I try to look past it for no other reason than that politics is a dirty game and I hate it.  But it's pretty central to Pride.  That theme of freedom that runs through the book is the crux of it: What is freedom?  What does it mean to be free?  If you've never known anything but captivity, how can you understand what it means to be free?  What price are you willing to pay?

This is a short book; it'll probably take you 45 minutes to read it.  When you do, you can formulate your own answers to those questions, but (as much as I hate to admit it), they're interesting to think about.

What I Watched -- Unstoppable

I guess I'm into suspense lately.  I just watched Buried, which was heart-pounding, and Harry Potter, which, while maybe not suspenseful exactly, was still an action movie.  And the other night I watched Unstoppable.  In it, a runaway freight train threatens to derail and spill its toxic and combustible chemicals all over the good citizens of Stanton, Pennsylvania.  The action starts about four minutes in.

I like Denzel Washington, who plays engineer and 28-year railroad vet Frank Barnes.  I knew nothing about Chris Pine, who plays newbie conductor Will Colson, but I like him now.  They're both a little lost in life, so together with the help of capable yard master Connie Hooper (Rosario Dawson), they agree to go after the runaway.

Dad walked in about two thirds of the way through the movie.  It was obvious there were good guys.  "So who's the bad guy?" he asked.  Well, that's the thing about this movie.  There isn't one.  There's a bad train, but the train didn't do anything wrong.  There's the guy who let the train go, but he was stupid and lazy, not malicious.  The bad guy doesn't really exist.  Nor, for that matter, is there much blood - another oddity for an action movie.  But it works.

I know nothing about rail freight shipping, or about trains at all really.  It was neat to see how the yards and the tracks work.  I never knew there was someone called a yard master.  I've never seen what you do when you want to derail a train on purpose.  This is all cinematically enhanced, of course, but "based on real events."  Which the movie actually is! In 2001, CSX Locomotive 8888, unmanned and under power, led a 47-car freight train through Ohio for two hours, reaching a maximum speed of only about 50 miles per hour.  You can read the incident report here, or read the CNN coverage.

The cast also includes Jessy Schram of the TV series Life as Darcy Colson and Kevin Dunn (Samantha Who?) as Connie Hooper's boss, and Andy Umberger (Mad Men - lots of TV stars!), as well as a number of other people whose faces you'll know but names you probably won't: David Warshofsky, Kevin Corrigan, Kevin Chapman, Ethan Suplee.

Bottom line: a surprisingly good way to spend the evening.

What I'm Reading Now -- Pride of Baghdad

K had to read Pride of Baghdad for a class she took on the Iraq War, and she recommended it to me.  Pride is, I'm - um, proud? - to say, my second ever graphic novel! I always wrote off graphic novels as part of the manga genre, and I don't really get manga.  As far as I can tell, they're just comics for grownups, but I was never really that into comics even as a kid.  Probably just not for me.

However, graphic novels are different.  They're stories, just in a different format.  Which I guess is why they're called "graphic novels," but I never thought that one through before.

Anyway, the first one I read was  Laika by Nick Abadzis.  I heard about it on NPR, and it sounded like something I might enjoy; it's the story of the first Russian space dog, and boy was it good.  They weren't kidding.

So, Laika opened me up to the possibility of graphic novels as an enjoyable genre, and the K recommended Pride.  It's the story of a small pride of lions who are inadvertently freed from the Baghdad Zoo after the city is bombed.  That's about as far as I've gotten, but I like it!

Maybe I like these books for the animals more than the graphic novel format.  Thoughts?

What I Watched -- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

It's the end of an era!  Kids everywhere have already quit reading, but now they may also quit going to movies.  Well, they actually probably quit going to movies 3 months ago when the movie came out, but I just saw it.  There are only two theaters still showing it, so we barely made it.  But we made it!

And it was a worthy venture.  The movie was well-made, and super dark, which I like.  (Yes, I probably should be in therapy.)  There were bits and pieces of the book that I had forgotten, but I was actually a little bit jealous of T, since he didn't know how the puzzle fit together.  To be sure, just watching the movie as enjoyable.  But I remember reading the book, and being eager to discover how it all played out.

Bottom line: if you can still find it in theaters, you should probably see it.  It's a worthy, if somewhat predictable, end to the Harry-and-Voldemort showdown.

What I Watched -- Buried

I heard about Buried and just had to see it.  The whole 90-minute film consists of Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) in a coffin.  Sounds boring, right?  It's not.

He was working as a contractor in Iraq when his convoy was ambushed.  Everyone was killed but Paul, who was buried alive and is being held for ransom.  He has a cell phone, a flashlight, a lighter, a knife, and some other tools.

The movie is claustrophobic yet intimate.  You spend the whole movie in the coffin with Paul, and see him go through the whole range of emotions right up to the heart-pounding final moments.

Bottom line: do not - I repeat: do not - watch this movie if you are claustrophobic.  It will seriously freak you out.  But if you can handle the idea of being buried alive, it's fascinating.

What I'm Reading Now -- The Unthinkable

Somehow I ended up with The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - And Why on my iPod.  I don't know where it came from, but it actually sounds kind of interesting, so I've started listening to it.  I'm into it only sporadically, usually when I run out of regular daily podcasts, so it may take me a while.

So far, I've learned about various responses to 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and other major disasters, as well as (depressingly) more common situations, such as police shootings, hostage-taking, and the like.

It's actually very interesting stuff.  The analysis of people's responses to different situations is a mix of cognitive science, psychology, and history.  Just the kind of "science" I like!

Mockingjay -- Take 2

Another series down!

Mockingjay is the final twisting tale of The Hunger Games trilogy.  In it, we join our heroine Katniss Everdeen in her quest to overthrow the government of Panem.  What she discovers, though, is that the cliche is true: no one is quite who they seem to be.  Everyone has secrets, and some of those secrets end up costing Katniss a lot, both personally and emotionally.

It is true that the violence and bloodshed come roaring back, just as I suspected.  It is also true that Katniss cannot escape the conflict between Gale and Peeta, who, despite their distaste for one another, are forced to ally from time to time.  Until one of them fades away.  And I didn't want to stop turning pages until I found out which one it was.

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 23

Otherwise titled: Dierdorf & Hart's

Another dinner, another dress!  I have to confess that I'm a little bit scared of (or perhaps confused by) Westport Plaza.  It seems like it should be super cute; it has this German village sort of look.  But it's just not working for me.  It's not at all clear what it's supposed to be.  There are restaurants and coffee shops.  There are hotels.  These things should be good, but they made it as difficult to get to as possible, with these winding roads that go all over the freakin' place.  You'd think by the time you'd turned left five times you just would have gone around the block, and then some, right?  Nope.  It just means you're almost there.

Okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit.  But only a little.  It really is confusing.  Lots of people seem to manage it just fine, but for me it's like making rice.  I always manage to screw it up.

However, with T giving me turn-by-turn directions from the passenger's seat, I found my way to Dierdorf & Hart's for dinner last week.  D&H is, apparently, a St. Louis institution.  I (sometimes regrettably) consider myself a St. Louisan, but I had never been there.

What I picked up on in various conversations is that D&H had a downtown location for a long time - probably why it was considered an institution.  But a few years ago, that one closed, and this one in Westport opened.  I wonder how it compares to the original...?

About our dinner.  We ordered a lot, but did a pretty good job picking smaller things and/or taking home leftovers.  I started with the lamb lollipops, which were good, but I'm pretty sure the only reason they call them lollipops is for the entertainment value.  They have a bone sticking out, but all lamb chops do.  That does not a lollipop make.  Dinner was the dry-aged strip steak, which actually became three meals!  I ate about a third of it at dinner (with a side of the gouda scalloped potatoes, which were awesome), I took a third home, and T took the rest as a salad topper.  Continuing my love of all things dairy, I ended the meal with German chocolate ice cream, one of their seasonal flavors.  I asked for "a scoop."  What I got was more like a Rigazzi's fishbowl, though that didn't deter me a bit.  I didn't eat all of it, but I managed most.

T ordered the crab cakes, which he was very kind to share with me, the sirloin filet, and a trio of mini cheesecakes: chocolate, raspberry, and lime.  I liked the chocolate.  Are you surprised?

I will spare you another rambling lament of the casual diner.  Suffice it to say, though there were a number.  It didn't take away from the flavor of the food, but it does leave a little something to be desired vis a vis the ambiance.  But still, good steak.

What I Watched -- Harry Potter, Nos. 1-7

I'm not posting all the images (I actually tried, but the formatting got all messed up because of Blogspot's [and my] limited functionality), but T and I watched all seven - yes, seven - of the Harry Potter movies which are out on DVD.  He hadn't seen any of them; I had seen all of them, but some not in a long time.

Now we're all ready to go see the last one.  I just need to find a theater that's still showing it!

Alison Krauss + Union Station

Holy summer of amazing concerts, Batman!

Somehow it escaped my notice that AKUS was coming to the Fox Theater late last month, but luckily Dad alerted me just in time to go!  It was the final real "on-the-road" show of their summer tour; they had two more shows after ours, but both of them were in Knoxville, which is pretty close to home for most of the band members.

The concert was good, although I'm not as familiar with their latest album, Paper Airplane, as I am with their older stuff.  But there was lots of funny onstage chitchat, including a bit about how every song they sing is sad.  Which is practically true!  Apparently, according to Alison herself, they're just a depressed group of people.  But they did sing "Now That I've Found You," which is a happy one!

There were also some wicked solos, including one by the great Jerry Douglas, as well as one by the band's new pianist.  Dan Tyminski ("the singing voice of George Clooney in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?," as Alison introduced him) got lots of stage time.  They paid tribute to the movie soundtrack by doing not only Tyminski's famous "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow," but also "Down to the River to Pray."

There was one encore, which was an interesting collage of snippets of some of their older works, including "When You Say Nothing At All," "Whiskey Lullaby" (originally recorded as a duet with Brad Paisley; the official music video is here) and others.

It was a pretty low-key show, as concerts go, but that didn't surprise me.  Because the venue draws different performers and crowds, many shows at the Fox tend to be mellower than outdoor amphitheater concerts.  But the music was beautiful and it was wonderful to just relax my brain near the end of a tough week.