Book Review: The Beautiful and Damned (Fitzgerald)
Have I read this before: Nope! I’ve read all of Fitzgerald’s other “big” stories, but not this one for some reason.
Review: Well, it’s no Gatsby, but few things are. It’s no This Side of Paradise, either. But it precedes Gatsby, so I guess if it had any role in Fitzgerald’s penning of that novel, I can be down with it (The Great Gatsby is one of my absolute favorite books, in case you were unware).
ANYWAY. If Fitzgerald’s goal with this story was to produce two of the most unlikeable characters ever in Anthony and Gloria, mission accomplished. I don’t know if it’s because the book I read just before this one was All Quiet on the Western Front, which provided an incredibly detailed description of what it was like on the German front lines of WWI, but reading about these two selfish, self-absorbed, entitled bratty adults complain about everything was super grating. Especially Anthony’s “joining the army” for WWI and not having to leave the US at all before the war ended but still using his military “history” to gain praise, sympathy, and admiration.
I’ve read that part of the reason this story was a little over-done and over-written was because Fitzgerald was still coming off the high of the success of This Side of Paradise and felt like anything he wrote would be that big of a success. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I could believe it.
Favorite part: I don’t know if I have one. I was basically rooting for bad things to happen to Anthony and Gloria by the end. They were pretty unbearable, haha.
Rating: 5/10
It’s so cold it BUUUUUUUUUURNS
Hey so LOOK HOW FREAKING COLD IT IS
It’s been like this for too many days in a row. It’s sunny, sure, but that makes it even worse because my brain’s like “lawl sun make warm. Go outside!” And then I go outside and my brain’s like “THE FUCK WRONG WITH YOU GO BACK IN GO BACK IN”
Anyway, 16 miles on the treadmill gets super tedious even with Kindle books, so I said SCREW IT and decided to walk to North Hill Mall and back to get my last three miles in today.
Got my mega gloves on, my mega jacket on, my scarf, and my headphones to cover my ears, and went outside. It was cold but it surprisingly wasn’t unmanageably cold (probably because the sun was out and I wasn’t walking directly into the wind). The sidewalks were also covered in compact snow which was too cold to be slippery, so I decided to just run to North Hill and see how that felt.
It wasn’t too bad.
My nose got really freaking cold on the way back because I was into the wind in that direction, but I had little hand warmers in my gloves which helped to protect my fingers and I ALWAYS produce a ton of body heat while running, so it was okay.
I don’t know if I’d want to run 14 miles in it (and my iPod would almost definitely not make it that far), but it was okay.
Woo?
Book Review: All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque)
Have I read this before: Yes! I want to say I read this in junior high or high school. I remember reading it in the eye doctor’s waiting room at some point, haha.
Review: Man, what a sharp contrast from Walden, eh? This book follows Paul Baumer, a German soldier who is on the frontlines during WWI. It is a very detailed, graphic, and seemingly accurate portrayal of the horrific things that the soldiers had to do and had to go through. I liked how it was told in a way that seemed to be both full of emotion and very detached. I suspect that was intentionally done to show how detaching oneself from the actions and events of war is probably a very common coping mechanism for soldiers who go through so much physical and mental trauma.
Favorite part: The portrayal of the anguish of Paul and the anguish of the man who (eventually) dies by his hand is drawn out in a way that really makes both of their suffering very real and impactful. You can feel Paul’s remorse and devastation grow as the man he’d injured dies a slow and painful death near enough to him for him to hear it all. Very jarring.
Rating: 6/10
NERDY BOOK TIME 2021
Hi BUTTBOMBS, how are ya? Personally I’m doing HORRIBLY, but let’s not talk about that. Instead, let’s talk about books!
BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS
Anyway, if you take a look at the little buttons at the top of my blog, you’ll notice that the “200 Books” one no longer says “200 Books” but rather “250 Books.” That’s because I’ve added an additional 50 “classics” to the list.
Why?
KONDLE, that’s why.
I feel like I have such better access to books with the Kindle than I ever did when having to rely on a library (except for maybe the U of I library, that thing was dope), so I figured why not expand the list a bit?
Plus I know I’ll get a lot more reading done now that I’ve got both Kondle AND the treadmill to get me through days when the weather outside is not conducive to walking/running.
YAY!
BRRR RUN BRRR
It was 10 degrees outside today but I WENT RUNNING ANYWAY.
Well, okay, I didn’t do my full running distance because I didn’t think my iPod could handle that amount of cold for that long. When I walk, I put my iPod in a protective insulated case and then put the case in a side pocket on my cold weather shorts that I wear beneath my cold weather pants, thus keeping the case next to my body to give it at least a little bit of body heat to keep it warm. But when I run, I can’t fit my iPod in its little protective insulated case AND fit it in my running pants’ pocket, so I either have to forego the case and hope that my body heat alone is enough to keep the iPod warm or I have to put it in the case and put the case in my running pack thingy, where it does not get to sit close to my skin and thus does not get any body heat.
BUT ANYWAY, 10 is pretty cold, so I figured both of those options were kind of iffy. So I did some of my distance on the treadmill and then did about 10 miles running outside. It was brr. Even with the massive amount of body heat I produce while running, it was brr.
But it’s good to know that I can run that far in that kind of cold weather, I guess.
Book Review: Walden (Thoreau)
Have I read this before: Nope. I may have started it long ago, but I’m pretty sure that if I did, I certainly didn’t get very far into it.
Review: This was a very enjoyable book. I love how it’s not just “here’s how I isolated in the woods for two years” (even though that’s the main part) but it also delves into how the villagers thought he was strange in wanting to isolate and how they actually looked down on him for “not contributing to the economy” by not buying goods. The whole discussion on what solitude actually is and what it means is really interesting, too. It was a lot more philosophical than I thought it would be, but I should have expected that because it’s Thoreau.
Favorite part: There are a few quotes that really stuck out to me.
[On loneliness brought on by solitude]
This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.
[On the success of his experiment]
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. … If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
Rating: 7/10
Burf
Hello, BUTTBAGS! It’s my birthday today, blah blah blah, who cares.
Have some horrific Pictionary drawings instead.
I have no idea what word we were originally drawing here, but yeah. Also, I’m pretty sure “oh lawd, Satan loves worm demons” is in the Bible somewhere.
Nate’s word was “VIP.” I had to spice it up a little.
I think the word was “diversity.”
GOOD JOB
Heyyyyyyy Alberta is doing a really good job keeping COVID cases down. I guess stricter lockdown rules work. WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED?!?!?!?
They’ll probably re-open things too soon again, though, ‘cause that’s what happened last time.
Edit from April: okay, yeah, we done screwed up. We’re in a serious wave three now.
Book Review: Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe)
Have I read this before: Yes! This was actually one of the few books on my list that we were “required” to read in school. I think we had to read this one in 10th grade.
Review: So there are two things I know about this book that I didn’t know when I read it the first time: 1) Harriet Beecher Stowe was white (am I dumb? I’m dumb) and 2) a lot of the characters and characters’ stories were based on real people and events. And while the book played a large role in fueling the abolitionist movement in the mid-1800s, there is criticism that a lot of stereotypes about black people were popularized by it. I can see that, especially in the character of Tom. There’s also criticism that Stowe did a lot of her reading/research after publishing the book.
But even with these (valid) criticisms in mind, I think it still can be acknowledged that this book had a profound cultural impact when it was published (and that it still does today). I feel like this “good story, bad stereotypes, but common stereotypes of the time” is going to be a theme with a lot of these classics (I’m looking at you, Gone with the Wind), where there is obvious mistreatment or misrepresentation of some race/nationality/ethnicity, but it “fits” with the story in that it reflects common stereotypes or beliefs that were held at the time the book was written. That obviously doesn’t mean such things should be ignored or glossed over; rather, they should be acknowledged and actively considered both in the context of the book itself and in the impact they have. Hopefully that makes sense!
Rating: 5/10
WHO GAVE WEEZER CELLOS????
I’m a mild fan of Weezer. I like them but I’m not like OMFG WEEZER like I am with Coldplay or Muse (but mostly just Coldplay). So when I saw that they had a new album, OK Computer, on iTunes, I was like, “okay, cool, let’s check it out and see if there are any good songs.”
There are a LOT of good songs.
Apparently Weezer decided that strings were a good addition to their sound and holy hell, what a good decision. There’s so much cello on this album. Here are some favorites:
The strings in this are sooooooo goooooood yooooooo. That low note at the start gives me feels.
More strings! Also, super sing-able chorus.
This is one of the most “Weezer” songs they’ve ever made. 2020 hipster vibes.
Another one with a very sing-able chorus.
Book Review: The Trial (Kafka)
Have I read this before: I thought I had, but once I got into it, nothing seemed familiar. So I’m gonna say no.
Review: This was…tedious. Like, I’ve read The Metamorphosis and I dug it, so I went into this going “okay cool, this is gonna be weird and angsty and it’ll be great.” But, um…tedious. I get that that’s part of the point, but the style just didn’t jive with me. Unlike with most of the books I’ve read from my list, I found myself just wanting to get through it to get to the next one.
Favorite part: As much as I didn’t like the tedium, Kafka does do a good job with it. It causes frustration. There was a little bit too much of this frustration for my taste, but whatevs.
Rating: 4/10
It’s that time of year!!!!
And by “that time of year” I mean “just another random Thursday” because I just throw one of these surveys in this crap hole of a blog whenever I can’t come up with anything else to say.
WHO CARES LET’S GO
0- What’s something that you don’t have, but wish you did?
Talent. Intelligence. Not looking like a deformed piece of trash. Y’know, all that fun stuff.
1- If you could change one thing about your appearance, what would it be?
God, like ALL of it.
2- Do you have a significant other?
Yup!
3- Have you ever had a threesome?
Hahaha. Nope.
4- When’s the last time you watched American football?
Uhhhh…I watched some with my mom back in like 2019 or something.
5- What is your favorite boy band?
‘NSync. Fight me, Backstreet Boys fans.
6- What’s the last game you used dice for?
Yahtzee on the iPad. If that counts.
7- Do you believe in Heaven, and if so, do you think you’re going there?
I don’t believe in heaven.
8- Do you have an infinity tattoo?
Nope. No tattoos, unfortunately.
9- What is your favorite Beatles song?
Help! is good.
10- Are you interested in surfing at all? Have you ever been?
Surfing sounds terrifying, but also is totally something I’d try.
A- What was your best subject in school?
Like, high school? I gave zero shits, so I wasn’t really good in anything, haha. Drama, maybe?
B- Do you enjoy Beyoncé’s music?
Sure.
C- When was the last time you went overseas?
Whenever the heck that was I went to London, Stockholm, and Helsinki with my dad and grandma. I want to say that was 2003.
D- Who did you last hook up with?
No one!
E- What’s the hardest drug you’ve done?
No drugs.
F- Name three things you are not good at:
1) Finding my way around/directions; 2) not being angry all the time; 3) everything else.
G- Do you use the metric system in the country you live in?
Unfortunately. The only good thing about the metric system is my hot pal the kilogram. Everything else is *fart noises*
H- What brand of bottled water do you prefer?
Don’t care.
I- How would you describe yourself to someone who didn’t know you?
I’d just tell them to run. I’m horrible.
J- What is your favorite type of bird?
Owls are coolio.
K- What does the last text message you sent say?
“Hahaha.”
L- Have you ever been to Chicago?
My mom and I just skirted around it while driving to London, ON.
M- What is your favorite chocolate candy?
It used to be M&Ms, but I can’t have them anymore because anything harder than mushy pasta hurts my teeth. So now I just suck on Reese’s mini peanut butter cups until they dissolve.
N- Have you ever been called a racial slur?
Nope.
P- Do you need to use the restroom right now?
Nope.
Q- Why did you last stand in line?
I don’t remember. I haven’t been around enough people to need to be in a line in a long time. OH WAIT, was it when I stood in the Best Buy queue to get my tablet back in May? It might have been. Haha, wow.
R- What is your favorite pirate movie?
I don’t have one.
S- Have you ever watched Gossip Girl?
Nope.
T- How do you take your tea?
Hot and green. Like my men.
U- Who is the last person you said, “I love you,” to?
My mom.
V- What is your favorite character from Orange Is the New Black?
I’ve never seen it.
W- Who is the worst United States President in your opinion?
HAHAHA DO YOU EVEN NEED TO ASK? Andrew Jackson looks like Mother Teresa now compared to Trumpster Dumpster.
X- What’s your favorite superhero?
I don’t know if I have a favorite, but I always liked the Human Torch from Fantastic Four when I was a kid. The cartoon was always on Cartoon Network in the mornings and I thought he was neat.
Y- Why did you last cry?
Because I’m me and I’m worthless.
Z- How much sleep did you get last night?
SLEEP IS FOR MORTALS
Book Review: The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne)
Have I read this before: No, surprisingly. This is one of those “everybody considers it a classic” books that I actually hadn’t read until now. I’m not sure why.
Review: This was better than I was expecting it to be, but that might be because my knowledge of it (apart from general references) has just been people saying “UGH I had to read this in high school and it was so booooring!”
That seems to be a theme with a lot of these books, eh?
But it was good and not at all boring! It was a lot more “modern” in its tone than I was anticipating, if that makes any sense. That is, even though the shaming of Hester was very “Puritan-esque,” it still felt like it was relevant to how people can be shunned and shamed today, especially with how peoples’ attitudes toward Hester bled over into their attitudes towards her daughter.
Favorite part: I honestly wasn’t expecting Dimmesdale to publicly confess what he’d done. Even with all the guilt he was feeling (and the way it was manifesting itself physically), I expected him to just let Hester and Pearl continue to take all the blame. It was a refreshing ending in the sense that it wasn’t what I thought would happen.
Rating: 6/10
Really, 2021?
So as if all the medical stuff with Jazzy wasn’t hellish enough for 2021, Peter called me this morning and said my dad was in the hospital with a very severe staph infection (like, “the CDC was called in to see if they could identify the strain” level of severe).
He had both hips replaced last year and was doing really well with them, but one of them apparently got mega-infected and he’s back in the hospital. They had to operate on him again to remove the infected components of the hip. Luckily they didn’t have to remove the whole hip joint again, but this is really going to set back his progress.
He was pretty groggy when I talked to him after the surgery but I can tell he’s really discouraged.
Screw 2020 and screw 2021, too.
Book Review: Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare)
Have I read this before: Yes! We read this in high school. 10th grade, I believe. This was another one where we got to pick a part and read it out loud, which in my opinion makes the experience way more engaging than just reading it silently on your own. I was Tybalt. I don’t remember why I picked him.
Review: I said it in my Julius Caesar review and I’ll say it again here: Shakespeare is lost on high schoolers, except for those who are really into lit and/or Shakespeare. Like, I remember understanding the story and everything fine when I read it way back when (this is probably the most…accessible?…Shakespeare play I think), but I certainly didn’t appreciate the language and the subtleties of how it was told like I did this time. I dunno. Maybe I was just super dumb (highly likely). It makes me want to gather a group of friends* and just read it aloud like we did in high school.
Favorite part: I don’t know if this counts as a “favorite part,” but I’ve always found it weird how something that is so obviously a tragedy has been twisted into “RELATIONSHIP GOALS LOLZ.” Like…Much Ado About Nothing is so much more of a “relationship goals” story than Romes and Jules, let’s be real.
Rating: 6/10
*Too bad I DON’T HAVE FRIENDS! Also, COVID.
UGH, Coldplay
I would so love to go to one of their concerts. Look at how amazing this looks. All the people singing and crying. Chris Martin being Chris Martin
I would lose my mind if I heard this song live. I couldn’t handle it.
Book Review: QB VII (Uris)
Have I read this before: Indeed! I can’t remember when, exactly, but I’ve definitely read this one before. This would be a hard one to forget.
Review: Okay, turns out I’m a fart, I know exactly when I read it. As you can see in that post (if you bothered to click on the link; I’m actually not sure how many people click on the random links I put in these posts), I mention that I changed my mind about Kelno a whole bunch of times.
Yeah, that didn’t happen this time. I don’t know if it’s because I just recently read Exodus or if I’m just more mature now than I was when I first read this book, but the evidence presented by individuals who claimed to be hurt directly or indirectly by Kelno seemed to very obviously point at his involvement in sadistic concentration camp medical practices/procedures.
Also, I had no idea that this was loosely based on an actual case for defamation against Uris for his Exodus.
But anyway, this is a really good book. It’s not as intense as Exodus (though it definitely gets intense in places), but it still will be one of those books that will stick with you for a while after you read it.
Favorite part: This is kind of more of a side note of a point in the book, but I still really liked this quote. Super relevant to today.
“The crux of the problem is that there exists a basic flaw in the human race and that is man’s inevitable drive toward self-extinction. Instead of war, he has replaced war with things as deadly. He intends to destroy himself by contaminating the air he breathes, by burning and rioting and pillaging, by making a shambles of the institutions and rules of sanity, by mindless extermination of breeds of animals and the gifts of the soul and the sea, by poisoning himself into a slow lethargic death through drugs and dope.”
Rating: 6/10
It’s Gonna be Brrrr Time
So just a fair warning: Calgary is headed into a deep freeze soon, so I suspect there will be a lot of book reviews on here.
I’m SO GLAD I bought that treadmill last year and I’m SO GLAD I closely followed up that purchase with the purchase of a Kindle. My daily walking is a necessity for me, but doing it inside is so freaking boring. The Kindle really, really helps with that.
Plus I finally get to read again. And reading + exercise? What more could you want?
Good Job, California. You Made a Haunted Road
It’s pretty wild how such a “small” error makes the result so horribly wrong.
Edit: here’s one in Hungary that’s done correctly.
Just in case you needed reminding…
MY SENNHEISER HEADPHONES GIVE ME LIFE
Good lord, brain, what the hell?
So last night I had a pretty damn disturbing dream about a serial killer who worked at Sherwin Williams. The guy would murder people, bring their bodies into the store, hide said bodies in the paint freezer (???), and use parts of their bodies to mix paint colors (blood for reds, bones for whites, etc.). Every time he’d make a “person paint” – as he called them – he would write on the lid of the paint can, “courtesy of Cooltone,” which I guess was his self-assigned serial killer name.
It was…disturbing. And graphic.
Thanks, brain.
Thinkin’ Things
So I have NO IDEA what triggered my memory of this, but back when I was in elementary school, my dad had gotten me the Thinkin’ Things collection (original, Collection 2, and Collection 3). These were three computer games that consisted of sets of puzzles, interactive playthings, and things that made a lot of music/sound.
I LOVED them. I have so many memories of playing through them for HOURS at my dad’s condo on that old Mac computer that he had.
Here’s a place where you can play the first one.
My favorite was the shapes that all made different sounds (the icon with the white dot grid and the geometric shapes on it)
And the second one.
I think my favorite game in the second collection was the one where you could draw a path and have a set of shapes follow it (the one with the window/circles icon).
I can’t find an interactive version of the third collection, but here’s a YouTube vid:
The one with the balls and the sand (7:34), OH MY GOD I LOVED IT. I remember all of these sounds, man. And the half time one (25:01) EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Yay nostalgia.
Did anyone else have these games?
Book Review: The Power and the Glory (Greene)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: Eh, this was okay. It follows a priest in Mexico during the time when Catholicism was outlawed (1930s), so he’s basically an outlaw. He struggles with the fact that he’s a drinker (when he can get it) and a father to a daughter – two things that oppose his moral views. It’s a decent story, but it wasn’t one of my favorites on my list.
Favorite Part: I did like how the priest realized that he was probably being led into a trap at the end of the book, but still chose to do what he was “meant” to do as a priest and hear the confession of a dying man. You get a pretty clear picture of the conflict he’s in but see that he really wants to do what is right.
Rating: 4/10
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