Whine & Cheese

Express Lane: Issue 43

Broadway's 'The Color Purple' Will Close Feb. 24 - The show comes to an end after a 2 1/2 year run... guess Fantasia really was a big box office draw. (1/24/08)

Amazing Race 12's Jen and Nate are Still Together - Well, knock me me over with a feather!  After a post-Race break, the two say things have "never been better" (though that's was a pretty low bar). (1/16/08)

Clinton Chooses Dancing Over Singing - Asked by Tyra Banks what reality show she would prefer to compete on, Clinton chooses 'Dancing With the Stars' - now once I know where Obama and Edwards stand on this issue, I think I will finally be able to make up my mind. (1/15/08)

Oprah Winfrey Getting Her Own TV Network - Perhaps ticked that Ellen Replaced Her As Favorite TV Star the Discovery Health channel will become her OWN... OWN as in Oprah Winfrey Network.  Yes, that's the name... not making this stuff up! (1/15/08)

Woman Who Made Hillary Cry Votes Obama - A pretty funny footnote... ok, I'll give you "emotional moment," but frick sake she didn't cry! (1/9/08)

'Big Brother' Returns to Showtime - Wasn't sure 'After Dark' would return for the first non-summer BB edition... sinc the premium channels are hurting for programming like the networks, but the wildly addictive (and unedited) 3 hour nightly block returns to ShoToo. (1/8/08)

Express Lane: Issue 41

Osmonds Headed to Sin City? / Midler Names Show - Donny and Marie rumored to replace Toni Braxton in a multi-yr headliner gig at the Flamingo... while the Divine Miss M dubs her Caesars production "Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On."  (12/6/07)

Will 'Color Purple' Return to the Screen as a Musical? - Oprah confirms that she's thinking about it, and I think it's a pretty good idea...  of course, would love to see Fantasia get the lead. (12/6/07)

Whatever happened to Melinda Doolittle? - Sadly one of the 'Idol' standouts from last season, Mindy Doo, still does not have a record contract... unlike... ummm... Phil Stacey?  Tragic. (12/4/07)

CBS Sets 'Jericho,' 'Big Brother' Returns - I guess CBS doesn't see an end in sight for the writers' strike.  A lot of new show news and  BBro, the summer's guiltiest pleasure, getting an extra edition and a Feb 12th premiere! (12/3/07)

Ballas injured during DWTS finale; Maks says he's "moving on" - Mark rushed to the hospital with a severe shoulder injury (torn labrum?) and Maks sulks that it may be time to pick up his toys and go home. (11/28/07)

DWTS Champ Calls Off Engagement - Helio may have won the mirror ball trophy, but the wedding is off... and I am quite sure the rumors have just begun! (11/28/07)

Maks says unlike Marie, DwtS cast did not "burden people with our personal issues" - Mel B's partner Maks is never one to mince words.  The truth or just sour grapes?  I'll go with a little bit of both. (11/26/07)

Love In The Time Of Cholera (#32)

Like I need more holiday stress or feel more behind... but here I am three books behind post-wise... I guess I should stop reading so fast... or if I am being more truthful... read longer books so that I have time to catch  up blogging about them.

This latest is yet another Oprah book club selection.  I know I seem robotic at times... running to the bookstore with the masses to the get the latest book I'm told I have to read by the Queen.  Though it probably doesn't seem that way, I am selective.  For instance, earlier this year when she picked The Road that particular book had been on my radar and I was wanting to finally something by Cormac McCarthy, so I did it.

Similarly, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been one of those authors I have been meaning to read for years and years now.  I must have been mad at O when she picked Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude a few years back... so when she selected Love In The Time Of Cholera, especially just ahead of the movie version, I figured what the heck!  (Though the reviews of the movie have been very iffy and, with plenty of alternative entertainment options, we've literally not been out to see a movie in well over a year!)

Here's the very basics (no spoilers!) of the plot... nothing you wouldn't read on the back cover (not that I'm looking, of course!) or in the movie trailer.  As children, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall in love... mostly via love letters and glances from afar... fast-forward several years, Fermina ultimately marries another man... and while Florentino does move on with his life... he never gets over his love for Fermina and waits fifty-one years, nine months, and four days for another shot of love with her!

Ah, the stuff of literary romance ... capital "R" Romance... or else just someone in serious need of a therapist to tell him to get over it!   For me, it was more the former.  Granted I can be a cynic at times, but I did get caught up with it. 

It's not a book to be read quickly. Garcia Marquez's lush prose slows you down, but in a good way.  I only managed to knock it out in under 2 weeks since I read it while Todd was in Asia and had quite a bit of extra "alone" time. 

Originally published in 1985, it very much reads like a "classic."  Although I doubt that high schoolers (maybe college lit classes?) will ever be reading this one in our uber-politically correct/"save the children" world.  As I mentioned, while Florentino pines for his Fermina he is certainly not celibate.  While not graphic, there are many passages revolving around his sexual conquests... or should I say "love making," since the story takes place in a steamy/tropical Caribbean port city (inspired by Cartegna, Columbia where "Gabo" spent part of his youth).

I will likely return to Garcia Marquez... when?  Well, that's the reader's dilemma... so many books, so little time!

2007 10K Reading Challenge:  + 346 pages (Total Pages: 10556 pages) 

Express Lane: Issue 40

'The Office's' Angela Kinsey Pregnant - No word if her 'Office' namesake will be in the family-way as well, but wouldn't be great fun?! That is, if the Writers' Strike ever ends!  Other trivia: 'Toby' is Kinsey's real-life brother-in-law. (11/21/07)

Super-Californication-Titular-Litigious - The Red Hot Chili Peppers sue Showtime, accusing the network of 'stealing our identity' over the title of the David Duchovny sex-fused dramedy 'Californication.' (11/20/07)

Donny Osmond apologizes to Larry King - Don't think this is in order... didn't LK & Co. still ambush Marie live on the air?  Couldn't they have told her BEFORE the show, that they knew about it and that tabloids were going to break the story. (11/19/07)

Paige Davis returns to 'Trading Spaces' - After being unceremoniously dumped from the show in 2005 -- and likely when most folks stopped watching (I hadn't realized it was still on!) -- Davis and many former designers are coming back to the TLC makeover show. (11/15/07)

Ken Follett is latest Oprah pick - Finally a book selection pick that I've already read!  Though it was years ago, so I don't really remember all that much about it! (11/14/07)

DWTS' Karina Smirnoff Gets Nose Job - Check out Karina's 3-week old 'new' nose when she returns for the season finale on Nov 27th.  (11/13/07)

Sopranos' pork store no more - Satriale's has been whacked, demolished to make room for condos... glad we got to see the Kearny, NJ store front this past summer (you can see my Sopranos pix here). (11/11/07)

Middlesex on O

It feels like I finished Oprah's 2007 summer book club selection, Middlesex, eons ago... ok, slight exaggeration... finished it in July, which seems close enough to an eon... nevertheless, it's finally time for the show devoted to the book and its author, Jeffrey Eugenides.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I heard from a few of you who had already read the book (eons and eons and eons ago!!) and enjoyed it as well... so figured, it was worthy of a quick FYI/public service announcement mention...

The O show devoted to Middlesex and Eugenides will air this Friday, September 21st... set your DVR.

My O e-mail alert (we're very close) also mentioned that there would be "real-life stories from members of the intersex community" as well!

Also, usually good odds that Oprah will have a new book club selection.

My First Recycled Kiva Loan

Pretty cool news... my first Kiva loan was paid back and refunded back to me.

In June, I was one of five Kiva members to lend Maria from Mexico a total of $150.  Maria (pictured below left) was hoping to buy a new taco cart to provide better service to her customers and hoped to pay back the loan in 3 months.  I contributed $25 and, on schedule, the loan was completely repaid on September 15th... and the money refunded to me this past Monday.

I had the option of withdrawing the funds, but had I even missed that $25 in the past 3 months?  Thankfully, no... a decade ago, the answer would have been "yes."  So I was able to take that very same $25 and pass it on to Edith in Paraguay (pictured upper right), who much like Maria is a self-employed businesswoman who also plans to expand her business by adding a hamburger restaurant to her convenience store.

I was lucky enough to find a loan!  Kiva has been experiencing a huge boost of new lenders.  As mentioned in a recent Express Lane item, The Today Show had a feature on the organization... but reached an absolute frenzy thanks to a one-two punch mention in President Clinton's new book Giving and a subsequent appearance on Oprah.  There was so much interest generated that Kiva ran out of loans for several days and the number of available loans is still pretty low compared to when I joined back in June.

To give you an idea of the amount of new lenders... including myself, 30 people contributed towards Edith's loan request of $800.... 21 of the 30 joined Kiva since the beginning of this month!

President Clinton's book is subtitled "How Each Of Us Can Change The World"... and I can't think of a better example of that than Kiva (and I feel compelled to mention my other favorite self-empowerment charity and profiled in Giving as well... Heifer.org). 

Individually it doesn't take much... a dinner for two at Applebees or a quartet of double tall non-fat extra-dry vanilla lattes... and while you are literally lending a helping hand to your fellow (wo)man... selfishly, it's you who gets the "feel good" reward.

Middlesex (#21)

Well, I finally caught up with my reading/blogging backlog.  For most of this year, it seems I have been at least 2 books behind ... but kind of as expected, the trip back East proved to be a bit of vacation from reading as well.  Unless our vacations have a good deal of down time (which is rarely the case), a book tends not to get picked up all that much beyond the plane.  I did read a bit while back at the parents and was able to finish this one on the trip home.   

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is the latest Oprah book club pick and, as previously mentioned, a book that has been collecting dust on my shelves for years. Again, for no good reason as I had only heard good things about it.  I will admit to picking it up a time or two over the years and after a few pages determined I wasn't "in the mood" for it.

... and I will admit that it kind of happened again.  But with blessing of O and a bunch of my W&C peeps who had read the book years ago and was glad to see O finally getting around to it, I figured I had to suck it up and get through it.

Sure enough, it won me over and I started to get what all the fuss was about... though again, I will admit to it not really clicking with me until Cal's ancestors immigrated to the States from Greece.

Although many of you have already read the book (hello DeAnn, Craig, and Jen!), I am not giving much away much away telling you that this book is an epic... a novel about the American Dream, immigration, coming of age, and... a hermaphrodite.  Our protagonist is Cal, who, thanks to some interesting and head-spinning familial relations, starts life off as Calliope.  I'm sure I was not alone in thinking that title of the book was simply a play on words of Cal's gender status, but it also ends up being the town where the Stephanides family calls home... so Middlesex is both the journey and a destination.

All in all, an entertaining and quite fascinating read... quite a bit of funny with a few well-rounded doses of heartbreak as well.  The character of Cal is so utterly convincing it seems that Eugenides is regularly questioned (and at times, physically prodded) about whether this is his own Greek family memoir.  Big in scope and certainly a nice and unique book to get lost in...

2007 10K Reading Challenge:  + 527 pages (Total Pages: 6389 pages) 

Anoth-O Book

Oprah's book club show airs later today... but I can always count on Amazon to "spoil" her latest pick with an email, this arrived prior to 9 am local time (O airs at 3p)... and Borders, not to be outdone, got off their email just after noon... not that I care, this isn't Lost or The Sopranos after all.

I am pretty happy with her summer selection... because now, in true Pavlovian fashion (must. read. Oprah. book.), it means I will finally read the darn book.

This is one of those books that have been sitting on my shelves and needless to say has gone unread for years... and for no good reason... it won the Pulitzer and I have yet to hear a bad word about it from us regular reading folk. 

Heck, I even have two copies of it!   I believe my mom got it off my Amazon wish list... but I broke the cardinal rule of buying something for myself that was on that list (my memory seems to suggest I saw it at CostCo and the price was just good to pass up)... and now here we are nearly 4 years later!

The Road (#12)

Good thing I was pretty impressed with my latest book.  I would have been fighting a serious tide of positive thoughts and critical praise.  I first became aware of it when it was named one of the Best Books of 2006 by Time and People... since then, it has reached the masses thanks to being Oprah's latest book club selection... and last week it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction... and its biggest endorsement yet, my blogger buddy Scott-O-Rama is reading along as well (don't worry I warned him this was coming... though I usuallly don't give much away plot-wise in these book recaps).

If you haven't figured it out... or glanced to your left... it's Cormac McCarthy's The Road.  Despite being called one of greatest American authors alive today, this was my very first attempt at McCarthy (perhaps best known for All The Pretty Horses).  While I don't mind a challenge, he had a reputation of being difficult to read... and has even compared to William Faulkner (and you know how I feel about that!)... so with that reputation and the omnipresent "so many books, so little time" scenario, it just never happened.

... and I'll be the first to admit, even after having the book in my hand I wasn't sure it was ever going to happen.  Foolish or not, I decided not to read an excerpt on O's website or even page through it at the bookstore.  It was going to be a leap of faith. 

10 pages into it, I was wondering what the heck I had gotten myself into?!?  I didn't quite grasp what was going on and his prose seemed much too "lyrical" for me.  But whether I "got it" or not it was quick reading... so I continued on... and I am glad I did.

I don't know if it was just a matter of getting the rhythm of McCarthy's prose... or just waiting for things to gel plot-wise... but I got sucked in and started to understand what all the critical fuss was about (sidenote: after I finished the entire book, I re-read the first 20 or so pages... and I still found them difficult to read).

The story is not a happy one... an unnamed father and son walk "the" road through a post-apocalyptic America.  Though we can certainly make a guess, the reader never knows the exact details of the what, why, and where of the devastation.  I found this to be one of the more fascinating parts of the book, though for others it may be one one of the most frustrating aspects.  A lot is left up to the reader and answers are in short supply.  Is this ultimately a tale of despair or hope?  The father often refers to themselves as the "good guys" fending off "bad guys" on the road, but what's really good and bad (or does either even exist) in this doomsday scenario?  So a lot of good stuff to brood over... and ultimately it is one of those books that haunts you for a bit.

But back to the McCarthy's style... stick with it.  It's very minimalistic/stark (much like the novel's landscape) and it does have a rhythm and poetic quality to it... unlike anything I have read before. If you have feared McCarthy like I did or had a bad past experience, the NY Times back-cover blurb calls The Road his "most readable" work. I have a hunch they know what they are talking about when it comes to McCarthy's body of work.

Often I like to pick out a favorite line from a book... this one was my keeper:

People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didnt believe in that.  Tomorrow wasnt getting ready for them.  It didnt even know they were there.

I have read some very good books in my 2007 10K challenge and we aren't even to the halfway point yet... but I'm thinking The Road will be competing for a spot on my own year-end "best of" list.

2007 10K Reading Challenge:  + 285 pages (Total Pages: 3693 pages)

Show Time

I know you are just dying to know whether I am reading Oprah's next book club selection.  Well, it's still 3 hours before the show airs here, but I knew the Internets would "spoil" the surprise before the show. 

Winfrey chooses Sidney Poitier memoir

Bleh!  I am sure Poitier's memoir is very good... but it's just not something that I see myself running out to get and curl up with at night.  The book club announcement proved one of my favorite adages... the anticipation of the event is often greater than the event itself.  One thing I like about the O's book club is that you do feel part of this communal experience.  So onward with my own reading list!  And I am sure it's just a coincidence that Poitier is going to be interviewed (by Jamie Foxx) on Oprah's Oscar-ish primetime special.

But onto, the main subject of this post... we're going to be quite the busy theater-goers... 3 shows between tomorrow night and February 17th... yikes!

We have season tix to the Broadway series and this year they offered 3 "bonus" shows...  just in case shelling out the $$$ for 5-6 shows just was not enough.  These extra shows are often returning engagements or something that might not appeal to the usual demographic (in our locale  that would be middle-aged women who drag their husbands to the shows).  Often we'll pick up an extra show, but this time I coerced tricked drugged Todd was happy to go to all three... 2 of the extras are during this time period and sandwiching a regular season ticket show.

What's nice about the bonus shows is that we are often able to purchase tix before they go on sale to the non-season ticket holders... and also that we are able to go on a Saturday night.  Our season tickets are on Friday night... and in a true sign that we are getting old... it has been really difficult lately  to get excited to go anywhere on a Friday night... now granted we always eat out on Friday nights, but that does not require much of a attention span.

Stay tuned... I am sure the shows will be future blog material, especially since [gasp!] I have felt a bit of an "idea drought" of late... ok, a few hints.. the first is a celebrity one-man show, the second one we haven't seen but it should bee good, and the third is one of our all-time favorites (which we will be seeing for a 3rd time).    

OBook OClub Oturns!

Oprah's next book club selection will be announced on this Friday's show (Jan 26th).  To explain the post title, I figure if Apple can just add an "i" in front of words to make it their own, I figure "Lady O" can do the same with her very own vowel.

It has been over a year since the last selection.  Me thinks, the delay is just a O's fed-up-ness after the whole James Frey thing.  Elie Weisel's "Night" was officially the last book club selection, but I am  guessing it was already past the point of no return by the time the heat got turned up on the Frey-ing pan.  Likewise, one remembers the O book club was almost permanently sent out to pasture when Jonathan Franzen refused to participate when O chose "The Corrections."

This past Friday afternoon, I received an email about the big book club announcement.

I chuckled when the email told me they "wanted you to be the first to know!"

Ummm.. they better tell their friends at O!mazon to hold their horses a little bit... since first thing on Tuesday morning (almost 4 full days earlier), I received this email:

Participating in Oprah's book club is kind of a mixed bag for me.  I hate to be so Pavlonian (Must. Buy. Book. Now.)... but, then again, she hasn't lead me astray when it comes to her selections (though the Faulkner trilogy was on the cusp of being unforgivable).

I have probably read about 60-70% of her book club selections (when she was hot and heavy in the early days with a book every month I didn't keep up), so I guess I will just wait and see what the book is and go from there.

I will likely finish my 3rd book of 2007 before Friday (and have yet to blog about my 2nd book!)... plus I already have a backlog of five books that I have bought in the past several weeks, so it's not like I need another one... but being a chronic book buyer, that certainly has never stopped me before.

So keep your eyes on the upper part of the sidebar next week to see if jumped on the O-wagon O-gain!

You Can't Handle The Truth!

If I ever get into that position, some please please remind me... never (ever!) piss off Oprah!

Holy made-up memoir Batman!   

It was a compelling, if at times quite uncomfortable, hour of television yesterday as James Frey offered the latest version of the "essential truth" about his Oprah "blessed turned burned" book selection, "A Million Little Pieces."

I don't what it took to get him on the show, but I am guessing he had little choice in the matter. Given that a big 'ole can of whoop ass was about to be opened, I am surprised they even allowed him to sit on the couch -- it would have been more apropos if he was seated in a corner with his back to the audience.  Any time Frey opened his mouth to feebly offer a thought, he was often cut-off by a clearly seething Oprah... who, at times, looked as if she wanted to pummel the author into (pinky finger to mouth) one billion little pieces.

Ultimately, though I think it was a fascinating discussion of some bigger issues.  As discussed by some of the journalists appearing on the show... in today's world, "the truth" has sort of turned into a commodity ... something created, marketed, sold, and purchased by willing buyers.  Whether it is a book, a war, or "reality" television. 

Also, the discussion of a definition of a "memoir" was interesting.  We keep on being told a memoir is the re-telling of a person's life as they best remember it.  The book's publisher offered a weak defense of what a memoir is by recounting a story of how former President Jimmy Carter disagreed with wife Rosalyn's re-counting of a particular story... with the First Lady responding "you wrote your memoir Jimmy, I am writing mine" (or something to that effect).  Sure that is two different perspectives on the same event ... which is surely acceptable (and expected) in a memoir... but it was not like Rosalyn knew the true story and intentionally spinning it another way.

This all brought me back to grad school and my ethics class (yes, we had ethics class... even back then!).  A quite simple "litmus test" offered by our professor has always stuck with me. 

When faced with a moral dilemma, she said, think of how it would look on the front-page of a newspaper... and that would lead us to the right decision.

While this was a purely (and wildly) hypothetical exercise, perhaps it is truly a valuable thing to do... you just never know where life will lead you... and for Frey, I doubt he ever thought it would land him on the front page. 

Also see:
Oprah Tells Frey He 'Betrayed' Readers

Live-blogging the Oprah-James Frey smackdown

How Now, Mad Cow?

I admit it... I am on Oprah's Book Club email list.  Got the alert this morning about James Frey being on her show today... but I didn't take a closer look at the email alert until just now...

Interesting advertising, huh?

Do you think that Oprah still has a... umm.. beef with the meat industry?  Or just mere coincidence?

James Frey-ed

If you watch the news or check out new sites on the Web, I am sure you are aware of the controversy surrounding the Oprah-blessed book, A Million Little Pieces by James Frey.  I haven't seen/read too much about it in blog-land (at least those I read), so I thought I'd throw in my thoughts.

Admittedly I fall into a catatonic state ... "Must. Do. What. Oprah. Says."... so I read the book and briefly mentioned it in this October post.  I didn't say all that much, but I did wonder how Frey could so explicity detail/recall conversations and events in the book.  So I really took the book with the proverbial grain of salt, I thought it was a good read, and most certainly compelling, but I wasn't quite as orgasmic about it as Oprah, her staff, and her more devoted followers were/are.

But I was still interested enough to TiVo Frey's appearance on Larry King Live the other night (you can read the transcipt here)... and that is where Frey really lost me.  His body language and general demeanor was just really cagey... he was repetitive in his arguments (by the end of the hour, I was fully aware that a "appropriately comfortable" "less than 5%" of the memoir was in dispute) and just inconsistent (one minute he is admitting to embellishments, the next minute it was how he best remembered events). 

I just had issues with him trying to have it both ways -- if you can rely on personal journals and counselor notess, why fudge on other things that are "on the record."  Sure, the focus of the book was recovery and not crime (the subject of most of the furor), so why even put it in the book in the first place?

Frey talks about changes being made for "efficiency" purpose... offering this example:

"In the book, I say I cut my cheek. In reality, what happened is when I fell down, my lower teeth tore up my lip and penetrated it in two separate places. I received the stitches I talked about receiving, but in the book I say, I cut my cheek... it's a lot easier than saying over and over again that I cut the area between my lower lip and my chin. You know, I believe that the essential truth of the event remains, there it's a large cut on my face."

Someone tell me how this is more efficient?  A couple of seconds to read, an inch or two of print... and an insult to readers who apparently wouldn't be able to figure out that future mentions of the more concise "cut" was the original teeth/lip injury?

Now I am not angry about all this, but disappointed.  While I am fully aware that a memoir is an author's "essential truth" (we certainly have had dueling Hollywood memoirs that offer wildly different versions of the same events), it seems that the writer should get the facts right, especially when the have the means to easily do so.

That said, I still feel a little bit sorry for Frey.  I honestly believe that he was honest about the creativity of his work...  there was some questions about where it belonged on bookstore shelves (apparently the book was originally shopped as fiction) from the get-go... but when it rose to national prominance thanks to Oprah and sold as "truth"... it is hard to back-peddle without tainting the entire work... which is a shame, since I really think it can (and did) provide inspiration to some people.  (Future editions of the book will carry a special author's note).

On a sidenote, Larry King committed a typical cringe-worthy interviewing faux pas or two.  When Frey brought up another disputed memoir, Larry noted that that author had killed himself (before taking a caller... "Mondovi, Wisconsin, hello" -- honest! check the transcript)... this following an earlier line of questioning asking Frey if the controvery would cause Frey to re-lapse, adding a return to drugs and alchohol "might be logical."  Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Finally, another interesting debate on all this over at Entertainment Weekly.

Random Friday Ramblings

We built this beautiful new stadium and no one shows up! 

That is what the folks in Shanghai have been saying this week. It has not been a good first year for the brand spanking new Qi Zhong Stadium.  The stadium is supposed to resemble a magnolia blossom... and even cooler yet, the roof is retractable!

But the stadium is probably the biggest attraction at this year's Tennis Masters Cup - the big year-ending event on the professional men's tennis tour.

The event is supposed to feature the Top 8 players of the year in a round-robin event.  Astonishingly enough, 3 of those 8 either did not make over to China due to injury/personal reasons and 2 more withdrew prior to or shortly after their first match.  The ATP Tour is having a hard time explaining this to tournament officials... calling it a "perfect storm" and promising there will likely not be a repeat any time soon. 

I am guessing those who do not follow tennis likely are more familiar with the players NOT playing... Rafael Nadal, Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi, and Marat Safin... than those who ARE on the court.  So the Cup is pretty much just left with #1 Roger Federer, who has been a bit hobbled with an ankle injury of his own.  Heck, even as a pretty rabid tennis fan, I am finding it hard to muster up some enthusiam over a Nikolay Davydenko vs. Mariano Puerta match!

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What exactly did Jennifer Aniston do to be named "Woman of the Year"?  Well, except to agree to be photographed on the cover of a men's magazine with half a breast exposed.

Despite being accused of some recent Jen bashing in my household, I really do like her just fine... she genuinely seems like a nice person and I do think she is quite a attractive.  It is just every so often, I experience some "Jen fatigue."  Like when news of the divorce from Brad Pitt hit... or during the never-ending "Friends is ending" media coverage... or when she got married to Brad Pitt... or when "the Rachel" hair-do was all the rage... but other than those times, I really don't mind her at all... seriously!

Now she has publicly handled the divorce with all the grace and dignity you can ask ... but I just tired of seeing her have to dance around the topic on every single talk show in the country (and also her new non-relationship with Vince Vaughn)... it is really no one's business, despite these talks shows trying to convince us otherwise.

But Woman of the Year?  Now, I realizes this is not Time Magazine... so it is of no real consequence... more of a marketing ploy... but c'mon she got a divorce, made a movie (or two), and had to go on the press junket from hell... is this really an accomplishment?  Now, Angelina Jolie wooing Pitt away from America's Sweetheart... now that's doing something!

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Note to future Survivors:  You want to keep the annoying guy!

It was another classic Survivor repeat blunder on last night's show.  With all the tribe shuffling, I have lost track of who was on what tribe... but going into the merge it was 6 vs. 4... the plan (as it always is) is for the 6 to get rid of 4 before turning on each other.  But this never ends up happening... and "the plan" got thrown to the curb again last night.

Now I could certainly sympathize with the Survivors, we only saw part of Jamie's paranoic ramblings on last night's show and I was rolling my eyes and thinking to myself "shuuuut the ff&$#ck up" ... but this is the under-rated "survival" part of Survivor.  Sure the elements, lack of food, physical contests, being away from your family are all tough... but keeping around a person you (and no one else!) can't stand ultimately ends up being the one challenge most Survivor contestants fail at.

I think anyone could have won in the finale over Jamie.  Heck, even Lydia... who Probst just stopped short of calling a "capital-L" Loser during last night's challenges.

Now, we'll just see if the women are smart enough to take advantage of this abandonment of the 6 vs. 4 plan.  The ladies now have a 4-3 advantage... pick off each of the guys.... barring an individual immunity the following week the original trio of Steph, Cindy and Lydia then knock out Danni... Steph and Cindy battle it out to take Lydia to the final and take the crown.  Easy, huh?  But we all know that is not going to happen... it never does!

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Finally (!!), Oprah's topic yesterday was When I Knew I Was Gay. 

Well, actually the first half hour was devoted to that specific topic... with the remainder of the show focused on an 18 year old lesbian dealing with her mother's not-so wonderful reaction to her relationship with a 21 year old "I never was attracted to another woman before her" girlfriend (in the name of Anne Heche, run young girl run!)

So that got me thinking... when did I know?  "Know" not being acceptance or action (that's a whole other post...or not!). 

But one memory does stand out to me... and as embarrassing as it is, I guess I will fess up.  One time when I was shopping for spiral-bound single-topic notebooks for the new school year, I remember being drawn to one featuring a shirtless Dirk Benedict of Battlestar Galatica... well, not he had a sweater with the sleeves thrown over his shoulders and tied together over his chest (quite the fashion statement, huh?).  Not this picture here... which is really quite more gay than this particular notebook cover (don't you just love the unbuttoned denim shorts?).  The funny thing is I don't even remember if I watched the show... but Dirk was pretty hunky at the time.  So how old did that make me... well a quick check shows Battlestar aired in 1978... so that would have made me 10 or 11.

But I am sure I "knew" well before that... flipping through 70s pictures to find that Dirk picture stirred up some other memories.  I seem to remember being a fan of Nancy Drew (played by future Dynasty star, Pamela Sue Martin), but having a pull towards the Hardy Boys (Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson)... both of those were circa 1977... and I think I was even guilty of getting an issue of Tiger Beat (or two)... so gay, gay, gay, gay...  I guess I should stop my mental teasing of Carson Kressley!

Stick A Faulk In Me... I'm Done

Dear Mr. Faulkner,

I had really planned to spend the summer with you, but unfortunatley it looks like I am going to have to cut it short.  While I have no doubts that you deserve your reputation of one of the great American writers, I am just not having much fun reading your works.  While As I Lay Dying was a challenging read... I managed to understand and get through it.  I really liked how you used different narrators to piece together the story of the Bundrens trying mightily to bury their family matriarch.

However, you lost me with The Sound and The Fury.  I managed to muddle through the first section and a half of your book... and after many a vow to do so before, I officially threw in the towel last night.  I found myself reading words instead of a story... and honestly I did not know what was going... and perhaps more sadly, I did not care.  The Benjy section really threw me... hard to ease into a book where the narrator is a 33-year old "idiot" who has "no concept of time or place... sensory stimuli in the present bring him back to another time and place in his past, instantly and without warning."

I got that description from this thing called the Internet... in today's world, if you have questions in life you can pretty much find the answer on the Internet.  Back when I was in school, if you did not understand a novel you would buy this little yellow and black booklet called Cliff Notes to help you out. I am guessing these days the kids don't even need to go out and get it, thanks to all the information on the Internet.  However, I am not in school any more... and while, I do like a challenging read, at this stage in my life I don't feel I need to do extra research in an attempt to understand what is going on in a book. As it is, there are too many books I want to read and not enough time to read them...

My apologies for not given it my best effort, but I tried... really!

Ed

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Dear Oprah,

Oh O!?! I don't know about this summer's book selection.  You usually don't let me down with your book selections.  I have really liked that you have moved to the classics, it gives me a good reason to read the books and authors that I never got around to in my youth.  But I was just not getting any enjoyment with your Summer of Faulkner trilogy.  I had never read Faulkner, so I was actually excited to finally get around to it... but boy, he is not very accessible!   If you told me a few years back that I would have no serious problems getting through a Tolstoy beheamoth of a novel... and not be able to get through a relatively short Faulkner novel I would have called you crazy before you could yell out "And you get a car!" for a second time.

In introducing this series of books, you said "you cannot call yourself a real reader unless you have read some of Faulkner"... well I don't know what my decision to quit reading these book(s) says about me.  I consider myself a "real" reader... so I will take it that a book and a half of Faulkner counts as some.
 

As I just told Bill above, I still plan on reading more this summer... but it will just be something that I like.  I am guessing I am not the only one who is waving the white flag on these books.  I appreciate the fact that you are trying to challenge readers, but I am just hoping that this selection won't discourage folks from picking up another book, any book.

I will still give your book club another chance, but give us a little break next time, okay?!

E

Faulk. U

l am surprised that I have not yet mentioned that I managed to finish the first of Oprah's Summer of Faulkner challenge last week.  Yes, I wrapped up As I Lay Dying a full two weeks ahead of schedule... pretty impressive since I have not been terribly good about reading (or doing anything else for that matter) of late.  I won't win any writing awards by saying the book was a'ight... as previously mentioned, it was a bit of a challenge to read due to its structure and language... but my main feeling is that I have scratched something off the "to do" list.  I think I had a more enjoyable reading experience with Oprah's last two big summer reads... Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Steinbeck's East of Eden.

I have been watching the video lectures (thus my "Faulk U" title) on O's website and I am thinking I did not really "get" the book.  Or should I say all that I was supposed to.  Lots of lofty symbolism and, in general, just a lot of stuff I guess I was supposed to have figured out... but heck Mr. Professor Dude has probably read the book like 72 times and he can spend all day long figuring this stuff out!   That said, I did enjoy the book on a more basic level though ... so I am not totally "anti" Faulkner or the book!  Which is a good thing, since I have two more Faulkner novels to go to get through the boxed set!

The Sound and the Fury is the July book... so I still have some time.  However, it is a bit longer than AILD, so if I want to be a good boy I should really get an early jump on it.  But while I was in the book section of Costco picking up the Faulkner set, I also bought Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat... so maybe I'll sneak a few chapters of that in first.   So many books...

Kareni-Done!

Yes, I finally finished Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina -- so no, that book graphic for AK off to the right was not a permanent fixture on W&C. I even finished it a whole week ahead of Oprah's schedule (it is a good thing, her schedule kept me motivated to keep plugging away). With the Olympics, I fell off the wagon a bit...but a late reading surge still kept me ahead of the September 3rd "finish" date.

I have to say that overall AK was a pretty good reading experience. It was far more readable and easy to follow than I ever would have imagined. Sure the names got confusing (especially when a character can be called 3 or 4 different ways), but over the 800 pages you have more than enough time to figure it all out. There were slow parts for sure. I would imagine everyone has their own favorite sub-plot and when it takes 50-75 pages to get back to it things can drag on a bit. But overall it was quite entertaining - as I mentioned in my earliest AK-related post it at times resembled a 19th-century Russian version of Melrose Place (realize I just aged myself with that reference... should I have said The O.C. instead?).

So time for a new book...well actually an old book: Hillary Rodham Clinton's Living History. I started the book eons ago, but then got involved with AK -- so I return to HRC after a 3+ month layoff. I just hope Oprah hold off on her next book selection for a bit. I have had Living History ever since I met Hill herself at a book signing in January (ok, maybe not "met"...but shook her hand and uttered a sentence in about 5 seconds time). I figured this book would be a good anecdote to this week's Republican Convention and "in the mood" as we head for the home-stretch of the Presidential election. I just hope it takes me a lot shorter time to finish this book!

Reading "Anna"... Still

I know you have been seeing Anna Karenina off to the right there ever since I re-invented my blog. But get used to seeing it for a while longer. I am abuot 535 pages through the 815 page epic, so I still have a way to go. I am close to a week ahead of Oprah's "training schedule" but still would like to be a little further along... this truly has become summer reading experiece and it looks like it is going to take the entire summer!

I am a little surprised to report that I am still enjoying the book. I never had any strong desire to read Tolstoy, but overall I have to say it has not been bad at all....though I am sure the translation plays a huge role with that. The novel has been totally accessible. As I said early on, it is basically a soap opera set in 19th century Russia. Cheating spouses, out-of-wedlock babies, death, love, lust.... it is all there! I never would have expected that...here I thought it was going to be stuffy and high-brow!

To Karenina Or To Not Karenina

Hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend.  It was a mostly a relaxation weekend here.  As anticipated the pool was not warm enough to enjoy over the holiday weekend, but Mother Nature is turning on the broiler this coming week in Phoenix with temps shooting up to the 105-110 range this week...so I am sure the pool will be perfect come this weekend... and at least it is already Tuesday!

So I was watching a bit of Oprah yesterday and hung around for her big summer book announcement.  As you may or may not know, the queen of all media has now moved her book club towards "classic" literature as opposed to contemporary (after her run-in with Jonathan Franzen, she prefers her authors to be dead these days).  I think this is a good idea - why not shine a well-deserved light on books that really have stood the test of time? 

I have been wanting to get back to reading and having been generally pleased with her past selections, both contemporary and classic.  I thought this would be a good way to get motivated (she has a reading "training" schedule) as well as read something of substance.  I did pick up a novel over the weekend, but since I am not too far into it I figure I can put it aside and instead pick up a classic!   Sounds good, huh?!

I have also thought about reading a classic after seeing a "101 Great Books" list that has been circulating around blogger-land.  This is a list of books recommended for HS students (as well as folks of all ages).  I considered publishing my own "have read" list... but after counting up the 23 works that I had read (mostly in HS), I figured I would not be impressing anyone ... myself included!   But hey, I have read Moby Dick (believe it or not, my junior year English teacher encouraged us to buy the Cliff Notes for it)

Well, her summer selection is Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

But... Oy!   Tolstoy?!  800+ pages!?  Russian lit??!?  Plus, even Oprah seemed to have trepidations (for the first time she is picking a book she has not read in advance). 

This does NOT seem to be a good way to break myself back in.  And to boot, it didn't even make that list (they cited Tolstoy's other door-stopper, War and Peace).   What to do?!?  I have read Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (on the list!) and actually remember liking it... so maybe it won't be too bad?!   I am meeting an ex-co-worker today for lunch and will be right by our local independent bookstore (which I like to support ... even though my brain says to get that 40% discount over at Borders or CostCo)... so I will probably pick it up and give it a shot... but not making any promises.