Happy 4th!

Really, can you get any more American than this?

What I Watched -- Hugo

I read Brian Selznick's second book, Wonderstruck.  For some reason though, I never The Invention of Hugo Cabret, his first book and winner of the Caldecott Medal, which recognizes the "artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children," in 2008.

Hugo, the movie version of the book, was another one of the (many) movies I didn't manage to see before the Oscars this year, even though I wanted to.  So here I am, six months later, finally getting around to it.  (It was 105 degress in St. Louis on the day I watched this movie.  A little snow in Paris never looked so lovely.)

Hugo was nominated for ten Oscars and won five, including art direction and cinematography.  I actually saw all the movies nominated for art direction and four of the five nominated for cinematography.  Other than a possible win for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 in the art direction category, I'm not the least bit surprised that Hugo won.

On to the actual movie.  It is every but the ode to the magic of movie-making that critics accused it of being.  But if you can put that aside, it's a fun story.  Hugo is an orphan living in a Paris train station, and it's his job to keep the clocks running.  At night he is working hard to find a hidden message from his deceased father.  He befriends Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz, whom I have loved in all two of the things I have seen her in) and together the two of them get into trouble.  Typical stuff, but charming.

I do have one major complaint though: why does a movie set in Paris, where the characters have French names (Hugo Cabret, Isabelle with two l's and an e, Georges Melies, Lisette), use British accents?  The Eiffel Tower is a major visual set piece, people!  I know geography lessons have fallen by the wayside in schools, but, really?

Bottom line: predictably bow-tied, but sweet.

Goal #27

Goal #27: sort all the books?

That's right: sort all the books.  This is an immense undertaking.  In truth, I should really do this in steps, but I wanted to be able to reference Hyperbole and a Half's classic "clean all the things?"  So now I have to sort all the books.

This project includes sorting through the probably dozen and a half boxes of books I recently recovered from L&L's basement a couple of times.  First I eliminate any books which I know off the bat I don't want.  Either I already read them and don't wish to keep them, I never read them but they no longer sound interesting to me, or I listened to the audio.

The second time through, I take a closer look at the books which survived the first round.  Now that I'm satisfied that I want to read it, will I actually do it?  Does it look like something that I want to spend my time on?

Investment of time?  I got through one box already in about 20 minutes, but it was mostly hardcovers.  Boxes packed with little paperbacks will take longer.  Wish me luck!

Recap of Goal #26: success was had!  Not complete success, but progress.  My two biggest lists (with which I will never catch up) are my lists of books to read and movies to see, and at least I got those two taken care of.

What I'm Reading Now -- Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is one of those books that was really popular when it came out, especially with book clubs, yet somehow I really have no idea what the story is.  All I know is that it's set in China.  But Mom sent me the audio version of it, so here I go!

The Song I'm Loving Today

Paradise (Coldplay)

I've listened through Coldplay's latest album, Mylo Xyloto, a couple of times.  Honestly though, I haven't given it the attention I should have.  Then, a couple of weeks ago, E championed "Paradise" as the cutest music video on the internet.  Turns out: she's right.  It's so adorable I couldn't stop laughing, but it's also surprisingly touching!



When she was just a girl,
She expected the world.
But it flew away from her reach,
So she ran away in her sleep,
To the para, para, paradise,
Para, para, paradise,
Para, para, paradise,
Every time she closed her eyes.

When she was just a girl,
She expected the world.
But it flew away from her reach,
And the bullets catch in her teeth.
Life goes on, it gets so heavy;
The wheel breaks the butterfly.
Every tear a waterfall,
In the night, the stormy night,
She closed her eyes.
In the night, the stormy night,
Away she flies.

And dream of para, para, paradise,
Para, para, paradise,
Para, para, paradise,
Oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh.
She dreamed of para, para, paradise,
Para, para, paradise,
Para, para, paradise,
Oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh.

La la la la la la la la la la
La la la la la la la la la la

And so lying underneath the stormy skies,
She'd say "oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, I know the sun must set to rise."

This could be para, para, paradise,
Para, para, paradise,
Could be para, para, paradise,
Oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh.

This could be para, para, paradise,
Para, para, paradise,
Could be para, para, paradise,
Oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh.

This could be para, para, paradise,
Para, para, paradise,
Could be para, para, paradise,
Oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh.

52 Weeks of Dresses -- Week 37

Otherwise titled: brunch at the Provinces

This past Sunday, T and I went to brunch at the Provinces Restaurant, which is one of the restaurants at the Hilton in Frontenac.  They had delicious mimosas made with strawberry-orange juice.  (Hmm...it appears that I have a thing about mimosas!)

The brunch was buffet-style, and they had quite a spread of food, though most of it fairly typical brunch stuff.  And it was typically decent.  Not great, but good.  They did have a blackberry tart for dessert which was delish, though!

Circus Flora ~ and ~ What I Watched -- One Lucky Elephant

I've been meaning to watch One Lucky Elephant for some time.  I had it DVR'd at my old house, but lost all that stuff when I moved.

I also had been meaning to go to Circus Flora for a couple of weeks, but had been quite busy with life and hadn't gotten around to it.

These two objects of my procrastination came together when I realized that the circus's last weekend of the year was upon me!  I got the movie and watched it.  It's the story of a man named David and his elephant, Flora.  Yes, that Flora.

Flora had been captured in Africa when she was quite young and brought to the US, where David acquired her for his circus.  She served the circus for many years, seemingly happily.  Eventually, David [Balding, still Circus Flora's producer and artistic director] decided that the circus was no longer the best home for Flora.  The film chronicles his attempts to find her a happy place to live.

The circus no longer has an elephant, but it does still have horses, ponies, dogs, high wire walkers, clowns, tumblers, and all manner of tricksters.  I went with the three L's - two of them were there for the first time!  (True, one of them is three months old.  Still.)  I was a little sad there were no trapeze artists this year, but otherwise things were great, as usual!

Alice in Wonderland

Last week, E treated me to a night at the opera!  What a lovely surprise, since I already had my night with Grandpa and was not expecting another one!  This time it was Alice in Wonderland, so we did the only acceptable thing: had a Mad Hatter tea party!

We had curried egg sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches with dill and scallion cream cheese, crackers with horseradish cheese spread (made with real horseradish!), pomegranate scones, lemon cookies, linzer cookies, Jordan almonds, fruit gummies, and other delicious and most colorful treats!  Oh, and of course drinks: wine, pink or yellow lemonade, iced tea, and candy-striped straws through which to drink!

Our table, which doesn't show remotely all of our goodies - certainly not the petit fours, which we saved for dessert after the show!

Now, on to the show itself.  Alice, in its U.S. premiere, was good - certainly enjoyable - but I did not think it measured up to the wonder that was Sweeney Todd.   Of course, that would be hard to do.

It was surely amusing; I laughed out loud several times.  The caterpillar was particularly fun, as was the Duchess.  There was great variety in the characters' attitude and costumes, not to mention their pieces of music.  But since I did mention them, they ranged from rap to much more classical aria.  In truth, I found it to be a bit more like watching a musical play than an opera, however.  The scoring is quite modern and felt like it could use a bit more refinement, though it did play well to different characters' traits and story.

The set pieces were limited: four or five large cabinets as well as a few smaller props.  It was amazing everything that was done with them though.  It felt like I was following Alice on her adventures, even though I was always looking at the same stage.

Goal #26

Goal #26: Lists, lists, lists.

I have previously shared my joyous love for Evernote with everyone.  One of the reasons I love it is that it's cross-platform compatible - web-based, tablet app, mobile app.  So anywhere I am that I need to jot something down to remember later, there it is!

However, the problem is that my lists are getting a little out of control (much like my e-mail inboxes a couple of weeks ago).  This week I'm going to spend a little time cleaning them up, actually doing the things on my to-do list, etc.

Recap of Goal #25: massive success!  All books relocated.  Soon I'll have to start digging through them, but that's for another week.

What I Watched -- Moonrise Kingdom

Is it possible that I forgot to post about this?  I saw it a few weeks ago, but I guess I've been so busy that it just slipped my mind.

Anyway, Moonrise Kingdom is the new Wes Anderson movie, very much in the vein of The Royal Tenenbaums.  He uses the same quirky cinematography in both film, colors that at once seem dull and bright, and actors who take their otherwise comedic roles and scenes very seriously.  Both movies would be considered comedies, if only they had been played for laughs.

The story of Moonrise Kingdom is simple: two kids decide to run away together, and people go searching for them.  Serious hilarity ensues.

Bottom line: oddly entertaining.