0 True Grit - Read it! - Wed 20 July 2011

True Grit by Charles Portis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Most enjoyable - I love Mattie's forward manner and take-no-nonsense attitude. This book even brought a tear to my eye towards the end. Highly recommended.



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0 Edgar Allan Poe is my homeboy - Fri 6 May 2011

Yes, I know. It has been a month since I posted anything on my blog, but that happens when one is on holidays (from my place of employment only, not from actual work :( ), moving house, dealing with family and generally being a misery guts! Time flies even when you're not having fun.


However, one good thing has come from the (un)joy of moving, and that is finding the material for today's post. It is a poem I wrote about five years ago expressing my undying love for Edgar Allan Poe, written in a similar poetic metre to Poe's "The Raven". I found it in a box in the cupboard. Enjoy.

An Ode to Edgar Allan Poe 


or


How I long to one day be known as the female Edgar Allan Poe of the 21st century








To this day I still remember, that dry and warm November
when I first walked to the shop to buy a book to call my own.
I was happy and excited, most whole-heartedly delighted
that my parents felt incited to give me a 10-buck loan.


I could barely quell my passion, in my young and childish fashion,
face lit red instead of ashen, looking for a 10-buck book.
Through the store I did a-wander, rabidly I tried to ponder,
with the money set to squander, round the literature I looked.


Then I saw just what I wanted, sitting there like it was haunted,
from the bookshelf, yes, it taunted, begging me to take it home.
As I picked it up I shivered, the front cover was so vivid,
a picture of a man so livid, that I knew I'd love this tome.


I could sense its ghoulish content from the cover picture's torment,
yet I knew I would but love the work I found inside its folds.
So with undignified elation, I took "Tales of Mystery and Imagination"
with me home past the train station, keeping it tight within my hold.


When at last I got to reading, yes, my dark soul, it was feeding
from the brilliant prose and poetry of Edgar Allan Poe
and I wondered if I ever, could but hope to be as clever
as him, most brilliant author that the world shall ever know.


To this day I still find pleasure, while I'm reading at my leisure
through the most macabre and chilling stories ever written down.
Though we are facing a new age where violent video games are the rage,
nothing ever can compare to Mister Poe, of most renown.

2 Little surprises - Sun 3 Apr 2011

As a Librarian, one of my main (and most favourite) tasks is cataloguing. For those not familiar with Librarianship - this basically means I grab the new books/CDs/DVDs/puzzles and decide where they'll be shelved in the Library.


Of course, there is a bit more to it than that, and given that in our modern age, a computer catalogue is used to locate books, it is my job to make sure the search fields all have the correct information and so on. I like to imagine I am a kind of book-locating super-programmer (though any I.T. boffins reading this would probably scoff) :P


One of the greatest parts about being a cataloguer, is that I get first look at a lot of library stuff - when it is still crisp and shiny, rather than grimed with the "booksnot" of many borrowers. In addition, I get to see things that many people may never come across, i.e. books on unusual topics or interesting pictures. Which leads me to sharing with you one of my recent fantastic finds.

I was cataloguing a jigsaw puzzle depicting what seemed (at the time) to be a fairly bland picture of a hay-filled cart pulled by a pair of grand old horses. At first glance it was nothing special and many a catalogued jigsaw has had such a similar country scene, however, on closer inspection, I noticed the people in the picture appeared to be Amish.


Interested in learning more, I scoured the box for information about the photograph, and discovered to my grand delight, Bill Coleman's website, which I must now share with you.


Bill Coleman is a photographer, who, for FORTY YEARS has been visiting this remote Amish community in Pennsylvania and photographing their daily way of life. The photographs are just beautiful and truly depict a fun-loving, hard-working and joyful group of people - not to mention a plethora of gorgeous country scenes. I implore you to view his photos here.


And if you're too lazy to click on the link, here's one of my favourites. Enjoy!:

4 To read or not to read - Wed 23 Mar 2011

If you couldn't already tell, I love to read. And while I might not be a particularly fast reader, I would definitely say I'm enthusiastic. 


However.


I have recently found myself, I hate to say, putting off and avoiding reading! Argh! 


The main cause for this literary lapse, is this - I am currently reading a Book Club book which I simply cannot seem to get excited about. Now, I understand that not all books can be exciting, or amazing or mind-blowingly stupendous. In reality, very few of the books I actually do enjoy reading are any of these things anyway. 


But a book must be compelling. It must make the reader want to keep going back to it, to make the reader think about the story and what might happen next even when they're off doing something completely different. 


For me, our Book Club book just doesn't have that compelling quality and I'm now worried that I may not even get it read before our next meeting (still two weeks away!). 


I'm really not sure what to do because the very reason I joined the Book Club was to make me read books I might not otherwise check out - to go that little bit beyond my sometimes narrow reading-comfort-zone and discover something new. But it's really such a struggle that it makes me feel exhausted!


To make matters worse, because I am feeling guilty about not reading the assigned book, I'm not reading anything at all! And I miss it desperately :( 


All my whining leads me to the main point of this post - Is it wrong to just give up and move on to reading something I think I'll enjoy? And if I do, what am I supposed to say at my Book Club meeting? Should I force myself to read the book in these precious few moments I have on this Earth, when really I'd rather be reading something else? Or should I just suck it up? I mean who knows - the last 400 pages might be better ...


Please post your suggestions and help me with this quandary!

1 Book Review - The Graveyard Book - Sun 13 Mar 2011

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


After hearing many a soul wax lyrical on the fabulous imagination of Neil Gaiman, I found myself drawn towards The Graveyard Book, figuring it would be an easy way to acquaint myself with his particular form of “brilliance”.

I was sadly mistaken.

The Graveyard Book is kind of like trying to stop a dog from eating crap - basically a good idea, but ultimately useless.

It follows Bod, a young boy who, after witnessing the murder of his parents in the first chapter (the highlight of the book), ends up living in a graveyard and being raised by it’s inhabitants.

The book, although clumsily tied together as a single narrative, is really a collection of short stories, the likes of which wouldn’t have been half bad if left that way - but the flimsy plot linking them together, which I’m sure was an afterthought, really detracts from what could have been some good writing.

The characters are kind of like faded water paintings, lacking any kind of substance or real colour, which is a shame given the potential for character growth and complexity that setting the story in a graveyard brings.

Although the book is aimed at a youthful audience, any 10 year old could have seen where the story was going, and no one would have been surprised by the turn of events leading to the book’s climax. Then finally, as if to punctuate the story’s generally lackluster meandering, the ending goes on for too long.

If I had to describe The Graveyard Book in one word, it would be “Meh”.

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1 Movie Review - Grandma's Boy - Sat 5 Mar 2011

Grandma's Boy (2006)


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Grandma's Boy, a comedy from Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions, follows Alex (Allen Covert) a 35 year old game tester, who is evicted from his rental home after his room-mate spends all the rent money on "exotic massage therapists".


After staying at a friend's house and disgracing himself, Alex realises he'll have to stay with his Grandma Lily (played by Everybody Loves Raymond's Doris Roberts), a lovely old woman with two kooky room-mates.


Things start to get difficult when the deadline for testing "Eternal Death Slayer 3" looms and Alex's new room-mates keep him from working by giving him innumerable chores and hogging the only television set in the house.


Joel David Moore gives a fantastic performance as J.P., a prodigy game designer with a penchant for pleather and aspirations of becoming a robot. Coincidentally, you can find Moore in another game-referencing movie, playing Norm Spellman in James Cameron's 2009 blockbuster Avatar.


There are also cool cameo performances by Jonah Hill (best known for his roles in Superbad and Knocked Up)  and Nick Swardson (Jon Heder's stalker in Blades of Glory), who plays Alex's boyish friend Jeff. There's even a couple of blink-and-you'll-miss-it scenes with Rob Schneider playing a Russian landlord and David Spade as a short-tempered vegan waiter named Shiloh.


Covert is likeable as the hard-done-by protagonist Alex, and his group of co-workers are all good fun, even if they are a little stereotyped. My favourite scenes include Alex beating the other testers at "Frog Bog" and Jeff meeting his "Silver Fox".


I really enjoyed this film with its fictional gaming references and gamer in-jokes, and if I weren't a Librarian, I'd LOVE to work at Brainasium! 


If you love gaming, love a good laugh and you're not easily offended by drug-fuelled toilet humour, then Grandma's Boy is the film for you.


Still not convinced? Here's the YouTube trailer:

0 Down the Rabbit Hole - Sat 26 Feb 2011

Basically, the Internet is a rabbit burrow of cosmic proportions. If you're like me, you wander in, looking for one little thing and emerge 5 hours later not knowing where you are (and usually without getting the "thing" you were after in the first place!).

This is okay on a 38 degree day when you're in an air-conditioned room and don't have to be anywhere anytime anyway, but most of the time it's inconvenient and can take an immense amount of willpower to find what you were looking for and get out while you can.

If you're in Perth, you know today is a 38 degree day and perfect for getting lost down the online rabbit hole - which leads me to share with you some of the cool things I have encountered online today:

1. The must-have owl design leather handbag - how have I lived to the ripe old age of 32 without one of these things?! Available in a rainbow of colours, apparently "the slight tilt of the owl's beak makes it look more vivid!" This would probably work as a great theft deterrent, given the way the owl stares at you with those deadly eyes, threatening to take off your hand everytime you go for your keys. If a handbag's not your thing, there is also the backpack.

2. The thumb piano - no musical background is needed to play the thumb piano! I'm not sure how it sounds, but it sure looks pretty funky - and how can you go wrong with something made from a gourd! If you're looking to buy me a Christmas present this year, here's my suggestion - please don't buy me a thumb piano, I'd prefer an owl handbag instead.




3. Finally, I must profess my love for Panjabi MC and share with you the video for his song "Jogi". I have to say I really, really love it - even though there's not a thumb piano in sight! Enjoy :)

2 In which Saire is thrilled by an Orchestral performance - Sun 20 Feb 2011

Having reached an all new level of Neanderthal-like hermitry in recent weeks (you know, never leaving the house and barely covering your nakedness with rags just in case someone happens to see through the window), I figured it was high time to Step Away from the Console and Do Something ™.


Thus, prompted by the involvement of the lovely Alethea, last night I ventured to the wilds of Midland, to see a performance by the Hills Symphony Orchestra.


The theme for the night was "Spot The Segue", in which each piece of music the orchestra played was somehow linked to the preceding piece, and the delightful Conductor would invoke the audience to call out between tunes if they had "spotted" the segue. Alas, this game was way beyond my pre-school level knowledge of classical music, and much of the Conductor's in-joke commentary was lost on my ignorant ears.


BUT, music is the universal language, and once the orchestra began to play, I could understand completely. What a fantastic performance it was, with music including an excerpt from Scheherezade, the hauntingly beautiful Greensleeves and, in an encore performance, the crowd-pleasing Toreador's Song from Carmen. My favourite piece for the night was Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet - Op. 64: 13 (Alethea, please correct me if this is wrong!).


Seeing the Hills Symphony Orchestra was the best $5 I've spent since Coles last had that 2 for 1 deal on Omo washing powder. Very impressive. 


For your viewing pleasure, I have included a video of the London Symphony Orchestra performing Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights here. Behold the excellence! :

0 Book Review - Look for Me by Moonlight - 12 Feb 2011

Look for Me by Moonlight by Mary Downing Hahn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Look for Me by Moonlight follows Cynda, as she moves in with her father and his new wife when her mother leaves for Italy with her new husband. Living in an old inn, the family is settling in for a quiet winter, when a tall, dark stranger comes to stay.

Yes, this is another teenage-girl-of-divorced-and/or-dead-parents-seeks-solace-in-the-arms-of-a-strange-lover kind of story (think Twilight and The Vampire Diaries), but the difference here is that the lover turns out to be truly evil and abusive. There’s none of the wussy jealousy and petty talk you see in other YA vamp novels, oh no no no, we’re talking real and intended cruelty and psychological abuse here.

Unfortunately, the cruelty and psychological abuse are the best parts of the book.

The rest is your typical YA fare - the heroine thinks she’s ugly and gangly and that no one understands her, she has few friends and is at war with her family - you know how it goes.

Given its dark beginnings and themes throughout, Look for Me by Moonlight really could have been something great.

It’s not.

You might as well jump on the bandwagon and read Twilight instead - at least then you’ll have something to discuss with other people.

View all my reviews

I chose Look for Me by Moonlight as my book for Read It 2011's February theme of Heart Reads.

2 Book Review - The Night Bookmobile - Sat 29 Jan 2011

The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Night Bookmobile is an interesting and imaginative graphic novel written and illustrated by Audrey Niffenegger (of The Time Traveler's Wife fame). It follows Alexandra, a girl who comes across the night bookmobile while wandering aimlessly one night and discovers that the collection is made up of every book she has ever read. When she discovers that the bookmobile is gone the following night, she begins a kind of journey to find it again.

The Night Bookmobile is a melancholic tale, but it is this melancholy that makes it so painfully beautiful. Like Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, there is a compelling sadness to this story and both books seem to have parallel themes of solitude and loneliness, that I feel I understand completely.

I enjoyed The Night Bookmobile much more than Her Fearful Symmetry - possibly because the plot moved at the right pace, and because I deeply understand Alexandra's love of books. Just like Alexandra, it is this love of books that lead me to become a Librarian - and just like her, I now know that the dream and the reality are often quite different. In this way, The Night Bookmobile reminds us to be careful about what we wish for - it's important to have dreams, of course, but they don't always turn out quite how you might imagine.

I would heartily recommend The Night Bookmobile to anyone - even if you don't like graphic novels - because it is a quick and easy read and is a comfortable step out of the ordinary.


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4 Eternity Not - A Haiku - Tue 25 Jan 2011

All comes to an end.

Even that rock you sit on

will erode away.

Inspired by Sunday Scribblings (#251 - Eternity).

1 CAPTCHA - Mon 24 Jan 2011

"Thou aren't so beautiful when thou first wakest"

It would seem that some other blog services (such as WordPress) use a different word verification system to Blogger. That is, they still have those crazy (sometimes barely legible) picture words, but to double the joy, they have TWO of them! Oh yes!


Since my previous post about word verification, I've been advised by the man (who always seems to know these things!) that one of the most commonly used word verification systems is CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart). This system generally uses two words, and at times if you're lucky, they can make funny phrases.


Which leads us to Captcha Comics. This hilarious website, has a plethora of user-created comics based around the CAPTCHA words people have encountered. I implore you to check it out! My favourites include Saucy Chapiter and Judicial Sequobo, and I think GozzieHoon will appreciate Lightery Karl.


Let me know your faves by commenting, and don't forget to include a link!

0 Time - A Haiku - Sat 22 Jan 2011

A new year begins,

but time is cruel and constant.

Does it ever change?

Inspired by Sunday Scribblings (#250 - Invisible). 

2 Book Review - Her Fearful Symmetry - Sat 15 Jan 2011

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger is an interesting tale about the complexities of love, grief and family relationships. Strangely, it is also a ghost story.

When Aunt Elspeth dies in London, she leaves her apartment to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina from Chicago, with two conditions - that they live in the apartment for at least a year, and that they never let their parents Edie (Elspeth’s twin sister) and Jack inside.

Little do the twins know, their aunt Elspeth is still inhabiting the apartment also.

Complex and multi-layered, Her Fearful Symmetry isn’t your average ghost story, but more a treatise on the difficulties between siblings, lovers and parents. It follows a number of characters, all on their own distinct yet inter-twined paths and is a slow and subtle read. Fantastically, there is a lot of time spent on character development, but unfortunately very little time spent on plot development. Sigh.

Her Fearful Symmetry reminds me a little of Paul Auster’s The Brooklyn Follies in that it tells a story about everyday people in a way that is still interesting and compelling. Where it differs from the Follies however, is in its dark and macabre turn of events, as the secrets of each of the characters are slowly revealed and the choices they have made come to fruition.

I am left feeling a little confused after reading this one - I’m both saddened and horrified, and am still not sure whether I like the book or not. I guess some would say this is the mark of a truly good book - that it has left me with questions requiring further contemplation, but I guess you’ll only know for sure if you read it for yourself.

View all my reviews

2 Playstation Move - Sat 8 Jan 2011

So, I bought the man a Playstation Move Starter Pack for Christmas. He was impressed (of course) and promptly challenged me to a game (or 20) of Sports Champions.


We played Disc Golf and Bocce, which were both great fun, but Bocce, in particular, had me thinking about the comic strip Clarity on Penny Arcade. You know, all you really need is your own Bocce set and you're playing Bocce - you don't really need a game console ...


In any case, I have to say I am quite liking the Move, and its the girl in me that must admit, I'm liking it for its social aspect. So many games for the Playstation are single player games, that its nice to have a bit of social fun now and again.


Of course, I can't forget to mention the joy of competition that it brings! If your household is anything like mine, you'll know that gaming competition is thinly veiled by clench-teethed commendations and passive-aggressive praise; and many a game has ended with the loser sullenly claiming they have "had enough for now".


One of the funnier parts of playing the Move, is that when you are a winner, the Eye Camera takes a photo of you for posterity. I am the Disc Golf champ in our house, and am already on my way to winning the Silver Cup. Here's my Victory Pose, after winning the bronze (yes, I am wearing pyjamas):

The big purple circle near my head is the "disc" (also known as a frisbee) that the Move superimposes into your hand where the Move controller should be. Pretty cool. 


The Playstation Move is great fun, really, and I see it quickly becoming one of our favourite toys. Now if only dish washing evoked the same level of interest ...

1 Movie Review - Gamer - Thu 6 Jan 2011

Movie Review - Gamer (2009)


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Gamer is set in a world where you can either be the player or the played - where real people are used as avatars in two real-life video games - Society and Slayers.


Society is much like the real "game" Second Life, where you control an avatar, making them go anywhere in the game and do anything you please. The difference here is that Society’s avatars are real human beings - usually people down on their luck, who have agreed to be “played” as a way of earning money.


Slayers is much darker. The avatars in Slayers are death-row inmates that have opted to become a part of the game in the hope that they may actually survive and not be put to death. If they are able to make it alive through 30 games, they are pardoned and set free. Suffice to say, it has never happened.


Enter John Tillman a.k.a Kable (played by the handsome Gerard Butler), who has made it successfully through 27 games, and is looking to be the first avatar ever to be set free. Kable has become a global celebrity, with almost everyone wanting him to make it through, except for Ken Castle, the creator of Slayers (played by TV’s Dexter, Michael C. Hall), who has other things in mind.


I love the concept of this film. It is both original and imaginative, and really makes you think about the ethics of life, death and self-control, but alas, it is poorly executed. The plot is too erratic, and to match this, the cinematography is so frenetic it could send a healthy person into seizures. All at once, it’s colourful and noisy before going dark and quiet, and so many blink-and-you’ll-miss-it images are flashed at you over and over again that it’s hard to work out what is actually happening.


Butler is handsome, but that’s about it. He’s a cardboard cutout with a heartbeat. I guess that’s to be expected given the nature of his role, which is a character being controlled by a 17 year old boy.


The movie’s saving grace is the performance of exquisitely evil Michael C. Hall, who does psychotic oh so well. He is both likeable and detestable - managing to reel you in quickly with comedy before suddenly pushing you away with his sub-human indifference. My favourite scene would have to be Hall’s choreographed rendition of “I’ve got you under my skin”. Given that it’s towards the end, it makes having watched that much of the movie seem almost worth it. 


This film could quite possibly appeal to Gen Y viewers who supposedly love the frenetic - but for me, it was just too surreal.

Here's the movie trailer on Youtube (if you work where I do, you won't be able to see the embedded video below, but you can check it out at home):

0 Time to Start Tweeting - Sat 1 Jan 2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Let's hope 2011 is a fabulous and exciting year for everyone!


Nothing is better at the beginning of a new year than setting yourself a few goals and challenges, and one "challenge" I have decided to get involved in is Read It 2011.


I discovered this through Swan Libraries on Twitter and think it's a great idea! Each month, a theme for reading is set, and everyone is encouraged to read a book in that vein and tweet about it on Twitter. Easy!


So why don't you join us and get reading and tweeting too!


The theme for January is "Scare up a good book". You can read more about it here. I'm not sure what book I'm going to read yet, but once I've decided, I'll be sure to mention it on Twitter.


You can follow me on Twitter by clicking the link on the top right hand side of my blog, or click this one here:

Happy reading!