ps

totally forgot in my recent restaurant non-fiction marathon that the best one was
cxvii. the sorcerer's apprentices, lisa abend
fascinating look at el bulli and the free work that they are provided with by chefs who are desperate to do a stage there! and also the monotony of perfection and the mythology of the entire concept

plus i just finished
cxviii. medium raw, anthony bourdain
i like his conversational yet violently descriptive writing style. this was a bunch of essays mainly about the industry and people in the industry - the ones about david chang and justo thomas were particularly interesting.

not a best of year list

cxv. eating animals, jonathan safran foer
as a former student of agriculture i did not find many things surprising in this book though i think i was supposed to. ultimately, the argument for being vegetarian rather than eating only well-cared-for animals was not made well, neither was there any sort of discussion about the ethics of animal products and therefore veganism. fail, big fat fail. nowhere near as incendiary as its reputation.

cxvi. weight, jeanette winterson


lxxi. bill cunningham new york
as an avid amateur photographer this was extremely fascinating! passion as art as life.

lxxii. the cave of forgotten dreams
this was interesting and beautiful but herzog's philosophical musing was a little too unsubstantiated and whimsical for a historical doco.

lxxiii. we need to talk about kevin
tilda swinton tilda swinton, what else is there to say? there actually isn't much dialogue in this film, it's all the silences that count.

lxxiv. the ides of march
oh political machinations. it was good i suppose. ryan gosling's midface is a little depressed, i don't get what all the fuss is about.

lxxv. melancholia
i felt the same thing as when i saw antichrist, which is to say i felt like i was stuck watching it forever. interminably long. and yet engrossing. and i probably won't watch it again. ultimately lars von trier has drawn out the minutiae of relationships in strange situations, and yet he is just showing it, not really evoking or provoking anything extra. i liked the tree of life more.

well guess what this is a list of

cix. ash malinda lo
cx. heat bill buford
cxi. the nasty bits anthony bourdain
cxii. the secret diaries anne lister
cxiii. not buying it judith levine
cxiv. the mind's eye oliver sacks

cvii. the yiddish policemen's union, michael chabon
this was impressive for simultaneously having zero loose ends and yet finishing unclearly enough to not be too neat and self-containing. awesome mystery story. now i attempt kavalier and clay again.

cviii. there but for the, ali smith
this was a book more about words and puns and wordplay than any story, though she does the typical ali smith unrelated sections pulled together by one character thing again. it was interesting in a way that one could pick it up and choose a bit to read again without then having to finish it.
eta: the font size for this book was bordering on large print, no joke. and so much white space around the sides too. unnecessary and somewhat jarring like i had to hold the book further away. what was the point? you don't like trees, ali smith or publisher? or you want us to feel like we read a hefty book really quickly?


lxix. 13 assassins
the japanese conceptions of honour, loyalty and politics are so very interesting. it means so much and there are so many rules. and so much blood.

lxx. harry potter and the deathly hallows part 2
best of the entire series which makes sense, no cringing from me re: acting anymore. except for the epilogue!! grrr

finesse and finish: anne sofie von otter's australian debut extravaganza

xiii. sydney opera house concert hall nov 3

this is clearly turning into the year of classical music, aka returning unashamedly to my roots! i don't understand why each concert at the opera house has a different ticket price. in any case the under 30s tickets that the sydney symphony has going is a pretty darn good deal, leaving sufficient funds to invest in opera glasses, which i probably actually should have done. the audience demographics were very interesting and i will leave it at that.

the vocal program was split clearly into 'classical' with selections from canteloube's chants d'auvergne and then the pop section. the former was better than i expected, though in some places the orchestra was too loud. overall i thought there was less swooping than the version on youtube conducted by minkowski, though the latter definitely brought together the selected songs together in a more cohesive way. sometimes highdef video doesn't give you the whole picture.

i don't know what to think of there consistently being excess furniture on the stage, as it were, during the small orchestra pieces, it felt slightly unprofessional, and it just doesn't look nice to have a quartet of strings with empty seats streaming out to the sides and full woodwind section behind.

the pop song section was alright, i suppose. it's interesting that the comfortable range varies so much between classical (around C5/D5? i think? i don't actually ever think of music as being typed out) and pop (around F4/G4?) modes. the gentleman sitting in front of me chatted with his lady friend during the interval about his appreciation of von otter's ariodante (i cheered inside) and subsequently his theory regarding why opera singers start to sing pop songs. i am inclined to agree, the second half was alright but didn't seem to require as much concentrated effort. actually it may have been better than expected, that's how well i prepared my expectations. also! no shoes on the concert hall stage! i can't even begin to guess the last time that would have happened with the sydney symphony. the encore was 'smile', nice and mellow.

my only complaint really is not a complaint but i was sitting so far back that i couldn't see her face.

that is until i lined up and got my (mozart gluck haydn) opera arias booklet signed, which i had had the foresight to bring to work that day. they weren't selling them, so my pre-appreciation was obvious. i'm short but not that short but even sitting down she seemed really tall. all i can say is imagine the ice-cool white witch of narnia with the regally kind and yet slightly detached demeanour of aslan, with a head to match almost a la donald sutherland in pride and prejudice. all in the best way possible. cooler than tilda swinton and that is saying something.

eta: oh yes here have a quick cam pic

xiv. sydney opera house utzon room nov 6

this was an entirely different room, designed specifically for acoustic chamber music, and the sound was fantastic. the layout was a little unwieldy though, the long rectangular room had the stage at mid-length and chairs arranged 270 degrees around, actually giving those sitting on the short sides quite a poor view. luckily i showed up early and snagged a good seat in the 4th row (out of 5!) directly facing the stage. (i'm pretty sure i surprised the attendant when i rocked up in my adidas sneakers and held out my ticket, i think she was going to ask if i was lost.) i could count on one hand the people in the room younger than the others by at least a couple of decades.

again classical and pop sections with differing vocal styles and ranges to match. this time the classical consisted of scandinavian lieder and some percy grainger, including an energetic 'handel in the strand' from bengt forsberg. up close the dynamics and phrase-endings were finessed to perfection. if anything (and this is serious nit-picking on my part, especially because i'm only going by my own taste and freely admit i don't actually know much) i wondered sometimes whether there is some kind of deeper pitch barrier to break through before the pitch note's body begins, particularly in classical mode (again, pop mode seems 'easier' and more fun than serious). am i even making sense? i wonder if this is contributing to the swooping in more recent youtube live videos, though live it isn't as obvious any more. or something technically has changed/reverted, for the better in my opinion.

svante henryson's bass background and percussive talents were on display and he loves his harmonics! pop included jobim, abba, and a great version of blackbird. the audience lapped it up. encore was mi mancherai, finally some italian to finish off!

i would have loved some german lieder. with the cello why not some brahms? ah well. no i mean i would have loved an australian debut showcasing career greatest achievements but that'd be impossible for anybody.

xii. sydney symphony and stephen hough, dvorak's new world symphony and mozart piano conc no. 21
i got last minute tickets and it was ok, the conductor mark wigglesworth is very interesting! i'm pretty sure he conducted the dvorak without a score. also his conducting clearly went beyond any notion of marking bars at all, more just shaping the music in somewhat vague ways. anyway interesting.

cvi. atmospheric disturbances, rivka galchen
the 3 out of 5 star average on goodreads perfectly represents my feelings about this book. i suppose it was well written in a way, but the narrator/protagonist makes the premise clear in the 1st sentence, and does not develop beyond that, in fact devolves with no resolution. halfway through i was bored and looking for a hook which didn't materialise. having a part 1 and part 2 implies some kind of difference or development usually, but no, not here. the narrator is hard to identify with, clearly this was the intention, but it just distances the reader. also the narrator being a new yorker was not conveyed at all through his voice, i kept thinking that it was a european book. hence why choose new york as part of the setting? it could have been anywhere.

signor deh non partire

cii. granta book of the family
this started out more like 'book of sons writing about their relationship with whichever parent was more dysfunctional', but then i hit upon the genius idea of reading the female authors only for a while and that fixed things. the last one was by bret easton ellis and i thought it was non-fiction until i realised that the first-person voice was supposed to be female, possibly almost halfway through. one of my favourite things is trying to determine whether a piece is fiction or non-fiction; sometimes it's just not clear and this might actually be a sign of good writing. in my opinion.

ciii. granta 100
one of the better grantas that i have read. great selection and great authors featured.

civ. preincarnate, shaun micallef
a time-travelling vicious cycle, but made hilarious due to micallevian wit. such and such a book received 'an unseasonably warm reception', stuff like that.

cv. werewolves in their youth, michael chabon
i clearly didn't look very closely when i bought this book because only when i started the 2nd 'chapter' did i realised that this was in fact a book of short stories. they were pretty good, michael chabon does good short close-up work.

whatup dudes

hello large audience, hello! bet you didn't miss me.

in the last month i experienced an earthquake, the tail end of a hurricane, a three michelin-starred restaurant, and a raspberry lime rickey. no points will be given for guessing in which corner of which continent these events occurred. here are some other observations, some of them may be cynical, surprise surprise:

- now i understand why starbucks had to close so many locations in australia, because any single starbucks in america could do the same amount of business as the sum total of new south wales' franchises. lines out the door, all day every day. my number one conclusion is that american coffee must suck.

- there are people who drink dark carbonated beverages for breakfast

- bananas are literally 10 times more expensive at home

- same goes for lobsters

- washington dc does not believe in convenience after 5pm and on weekends

- if one were to enquire of the supervisor why the discount on iced tea does not show up on the self-checkout, the supervisor then explains that a membership card is needed by asking if one has one, but one does not, but the supervisor appears not to have heard the answer, and while one stands by preparing to pay the full price, the supervisor swipes her override card without even caring and thereby gives undeserving customers a huge discount

- no wonder the economy has the shits

- slim jims are officially the worst thing i put in my mouth during the entire time i was there, it was like string and spicy cholesterol in a cellophane tube, disgusting. inedible.

- all possible condiments are in original glass bottles

- butter is almost always whipped when served with complimentary bread - i highly recommend! easily spread and less highly consumed

- there is such a thing as a grilled cheese truck with a massive queue at all times

- baseball is awesome, i am a convert

- not only is baseball awesome, but for the first time ever i have a baseball cap which fits my large head

- ventilation in hotel bathrooms has apparently never been heard of, except in canada

- i 100% seriously think that sydney has the highest smokers per capita of any major city walking along its streets, i almost want to prove that this is true


now the part i know everyone has come to love and expect, book and movie reviews! hohoho
and the 100th book review is..

drumroll

c. trash, dorothy allison
i got this in the used section at the harvard book store, which had the best graphic novel section of any used book store i have ever been in. it was pretty good. i have a hard time distinguishing between the author and her first-person personas.

ci. granta 86: film
granta like all magazines is a little hit and miss, this one was only just ok.

lxvii. xmen: first class
not bad, considering. james mcavoy was so earnest.

lxviii. win win
a nice little movie. paul giamatti played paul giamatti.

WHAT IS THE 100TH BOOK GOING TO BE, THAT IS THE QUESTION.

xcviii. the family law, benjamin law
the author is basically an asian-australian david sedaris, the book was a collection of family/personal essays about growing up as a multiple minority. and so hilarious!!! literally swallowing my burst out laughter / pretending to have a choking fit on the train-type funny. i also got a lot of the in-jokes that you would not necessarily get unless you have also spelled out cantonese words in english and know what a strange language it is. basically this is the closest thing that i have to identify with that i’ve read in a really really long time. maybe ever. he might be the male version of me.

xcix. granta 88: mothers
i don’t know how i didn’t know that granta existed until recently. anyway the theme of ’mothers’ was much like you might expect, many men reflecting on their childhood relationships with their mothers, which i found strange because it is so far away from what my relationship with my mum is like. but they were also slightly cliched in that oedipal way. also pregnancy, breast cancer and mothers-in-law were covered, as might be expected. overall i quite enjoy anthologies.


film roundup:

lxi. agora
sometimes you just can't trust margaret and david. they loved this film, i think. i found it really disjointed and inconclusive. religious war comes in cycles, blah blah etc.

lxii. bridesmaides
this was ok. the toilet humour was overdone but eh. overall quite enjoyable.

lxiii. hanna
this was not ok. the premise started out with interest but i kept feeling like cate blanchett was reprising her role in indiana jones. she had better hair this time around though.

lxiv. julie and julia
did julia childs really have such a swoop swooping voice? did she really have to stoop to chop onions at knee level? i mean really. it was ok, overall.

lxv. moon
this was really good! i like this kind of science fiction whereby once a currently non-existing premise is assumed then everything else follows logically. i like how they were all different. (vague but otherwise i'll give it away)

lxvi. the conspirator
holy depressing, man. injustice! *shakes fist* given the cartoonish opening i was pleasantly surprised by the dramatic force sustained during the courtroom scenes.

cinnamon almond egg tarts woop