heigh-ho

[freckles_and_doubt]

I am in favour of book clubs.  After a convivial evening, the loot (as in new books to read) included Across A Nightingale Floor and the new Haruki Murakami.  Since these are book club books and circulate back to members when I've finished with them, they gratifyingly fail to place further strain on my already event-horizon bookshelf crisis. There are, as they say, no actual down sides.  I'm not sure about Nightingale Floor, I enjoyed it but it was a bit Barry Hugart without the humour... I'll be interested to see what the other two in the series are like.

Also, in pursuance of my highly accomplished work avoidance, saw Closer last night.  Infidelity still a bit close to the bone, I have to say.  I thought it was a very good film, but depressing.  Deeply. Despite lovely touches of humour in the script. Excellent cast, too.  Shall take self off to see The Invincibles, by way of mitigation, sometime soon.

Cape Town, in time-honoured parlance, continues hot.  I seem to be existing on salads, infrequently. Take one per day, in fact. Have also just rendered self extremely damp and grubby by carting bucketloads of water all over the garden.  On the up hand, with this twice a week, who needs a gym?  On the down side, it isn't enough: the plane tree is losing leaves and the smaller trees along the wall are drooping.  I think we may lose them to this heat.

Did you know that Manic Street Preachers cover "You're too good to be true"?  Not to mention "Raindrops keep falling on my head" and a joyous little ditty called "Take the Skinheads Bowling", which, I was enchanted to discover, originated with an eighties band rejoicing - and I mean rejoicing - in the name Camper Van Beethoven.  My experience of the 80s appears to have been woefully sheltered.   Hell, I know my experience of the 80s was woefully sheltered.

Amount of work done today: nil.  Spent yesterday wading through screeds of photocopies on mass culture, and have come to the conclusion that my research is out of date.  Am trying to flog self into going up to the library and repairing that, or at least making a decent stab at a database search which will inform me that UCT doesn't have any of the really up-to-date stuff.  Sigh. 

Off to watch Much Ado About Nothing now, at Maynardville open-air theatre. Never let it be said that I neglect important cultural wossnames.

Comments

[origamitiger.livejournal.com]

I have read the second in Across the Nightingale floor series. It was okay. Do you realise the Author is a famous Australian author, Gillian Rubenstein?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I had realised that the author was Australian, but I fear the "famous" bit fails to impact on me as I've never heard of Gillian Rubenstein... *hangs head in shame*. I'll have to read the next two books, I want to know if the hero ends up with the heroine! (Simple reading pleasures, mine...)

[origamitiger.livejournal.com]

Well famous in Australia, wrote Space Demons and Beyond the Labayrinth.

Invincibles?

[pinkthulhu.livejournal.com]

Do you mean The Incredibles, not The Invincibles?

Re: Invincibles?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Invincibles, Incredibles, Unbelievables, Inexpressibles, whatever... ;> I plead the heat as an extenuating circumstance to me obviously having no brain. That movie with the animated superheroes, yeah.

The cool thing being that I can tell myself, and everyone else, that I watch that kind of film because of my serious academic interest in animation as an art form, not because I need something chirpy as an antidote to Closer. Which is still haunting me, incidentally.

incredibles

[(Anonymous)]

go see it. definintely. :D

Thak.

Good eating on one of those

[starmadeshadow.livejournal.com]

Have discovered that jetlag hits the stomach: woke at 9 this morning, but tummy said it's 4 in the afternoon - not the time for breakfast. So didn't have any. Went shopping, and persuaded tummy to eat an espresso brownie at Starbucks (ok, didn't have to do that much convincing) so not hungry at lunch time. At 4 this afternoon (ie SAST breakfast time) was hungry, but told tummy that it was not the time for eating, it would have to wait. Napped until 7pm, checked in with tummy who said `It's 2 in the morning. Go back to sleep'. Ordered salad and a pizza for it anyway, force fed it the salad, and a bit of pizza. Baleful tummy accepted a peace-offering of icecream, but wasn't happy. So looks like I'm on the `take one salad per day' regime, too. Right, am going to put poor abused tummy to bed...

Murakami

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

When Mr. Murakami is at his best (Hardboiled Wonderland & The End of the World, A Wild Sheep Chase, The Wind-up bird Chronicle) he is indeed most excellent – utterly mundane and totally surreal at the same time. When he’s not at his best he’s still good. The new one Kafka on the shore I haven’t looked at yet, but it got good but not rave reviews. I have just finished Dance Dance Dance, which was OK if you're into his books already.

Oh, and Clive "I'm a caveman" Owen totally rocks in his role in Closer. The other actors do well too.

booky

[(Anonymous)]

stv introduced me to murakami via the medium of the wind-up bird chronicle. it is wonderful. stv is green with envy because you've got the new one, by the way, while we live in the land of second-hand books and will have to wait until someone else reads it first (and then brings it to thailand and sells it. um.)

the invincible incredibles are incredibly invincible, and sometimes even invisible. and very very funny. :)

travemovedy dead again, btw (it was back briefly). :P contemplating violence.

(post-tsunami) jo

Re: booky

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I am glad to hear (although, obviously, in absolute terms not glad at all) that travemovedy is, in fact, down, and it's not just me being stupid, or Opera being marginal, or whatever.

Enjoying Kafka on the Shore, certain pleasingly matter-of-fact total off-the-wallness. I haven't worked out what he's doing, yet, which I enjoy a great deal in a novel. Also contains a character who has long conversations with cats, so can't be all bad.

[(Anonymous)]

Am having fascinating time figuring out who these various live journally people are. Figured out strawberry frog pretty quickly. pinkthulu, through lots of bumpycat reading, I have narrowed down to a few people. short_mort still has me desperately puzzled, although clearly someone in Britain... Even though I am not a live journal user and am unlikely to become one in a hurry, I feel I should come up with an enigmatic name too, and confuse everyone right back! Only those *in the know* will recognise me!

the_wolverine_nun

cryptic heh

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

short_mort is strawberryfrog's significant other :>. Shall Reveal All about pinkthulu somewhere more private ;>. I think wolverine_nun would be an excellent LJ nick.