Updates and Links

Reminders

Just a reminder that this month film club is discussing Babette's Feast on April 27th. Only two of us watched The Island last month, so I'm really hoping more of you join in the for the next one! The film is out of print, but hopefully available at many libraries.

Also, the next Faith and Fiction Saturday Round Table read is Viper's Tangle by Francois Mauriac. Again, not many participated in March's read and discussion so I'm hoping you'll join in for June? It makes it much more fun for me and I think everyone who does read if more people join in.

News

I thought Gary Ross wasn't going to direct Catching Fire, but apparently they are sill in negotiations. I think it might be a slightly disastrous film since it sounds like the schedule will be so rushed and apparently the book he liked most was The Hunger Games. That's not an unpopular opinion but if they're rushing through Catching Fire and he also didn't really like the book...I don't know that spells disaster to me.

If you enjoyed Mira Grant's Feed and Deadline as much as I did then you will be happy by this news that Orbit has signed her for two additional novellas set in the world of these books as well as two brand new science fiction books. I love her zombie land so I'm looking forward to reading them!

I don't have a lot to add to the many excellent things already said in regards to "boy's caves" some libraries are building. But the quote that Liz brought out from one of the articles, legit brought tears to my eyes. Girls at the school have mixed feelings about the boys-only section. "I kind of wish it was a girl thing," said student [redacted]. "I mean I wish there was something cool for girls, too. But, I don’t know. It’s cool.” I can just imagine the girls who have already forced themselves to adapt to reading all kinds of books and watching all kinds of movies wistfully looking at this special thing being made for the boys who have essentially been taught from a young age they shouldn't have to deal with "girly" things. I know this is true because last summer I was visiting some friends with kids. We were sitting out in the yard catching up after many years of not seeing each other and the kids were all playing together. They decided to watch a movie and couldn't agree on what to watch. The oldest daughter came out and asked if they could watch a movie and the parents agreed, and she asked if they could watch Cinderella and they said no the boys wouldn't watch that, she'd have to wait for some other time. She was asked to put aside her own preferences for the sake of the group which included boys. I just sort of see that playing out here, girls are being forced to be the responsible ones and then almost punished for it while the boys are coddled and have special things created just for them that kind of enable them to stay in the status quo. I'm not an expert on these issues, but I know enough to know that this feels like a kind of injustice.

Remember that summer we watched all those Hitchcock movies together? The Millions linked to this cool time-lapse composite of the events of Rear Window unfolding from one vantage point.

Reading

I've noticed lately that if I'm reading a book and it's just mediocre I sort of stop reading for days. I think this is the place I've found, the way I will be as a reader now after years for forcing myself to read for a schedule. The one thing I wish I could do is slow down the rate at which I hear about books I want to read, because I know now that I will only be able to and be happy reading about 5-7 books a month. So it's almost better to not hear about new books because I always want to be reading them, but then it's really impossible to not hear about great books. Sigh.

TV

Not much to say here since I already gushed over Nikita (I wish all of you would watch it immediately) but I did check out the first two episodes of Don't Trust the B-- in Apt. 23. I liked the first one better than the second, but it's a pretty fun show. The thing for me is that comedies are really hard for me to get into. The only exception I can think of is Parks and Recreation and I think it helped that I had three seasons to watch consume at one time. So I don't know if B is really a show I could watch week to week.

Anyway, I hope you all have a great week!