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.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, September 19, 2011
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
pshaw
sometimes i think that social media is extremely self-indulgent, there is so much trivial 'me me me' going on. lately i feel like by contributing i will only be perpetuating this obnoxious trend. sometimes i just want to talk about real things. like how RPA is the best show ever. medical procedures and factory production lines and hunter versus herd animal documentaries are my favourite things to watch ever. reality tv narration and sound bites and cliffhanging ad breaks are at the other end of that spectrum. in other words masterchef is starting to kill me but i want to know who wins.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
highly satisfactory
xcvii. a visit from the goon squad, jennifer egan
i quite enjoyed this though it was quite different from what i expected - as the pulitzer prize winner i expected gripping detail and interwoven stories and strong characters. actually it had all those things but in a loose and non-linear way, which i suppose is relatively unconventional. it was more like a collection of interconnected short stories which all came together in a four-dimensional portrait of a loosely related group of people. therefore it also allowed consumption in smaller portions, with satisfaction from each and every chapter, and no cliffhangers!
i quite enjoyed this though it was quite different from what i expected - as the pulitzer prize winner i expected gripping detail and interwoven stories and strong characters. actually it had all those things but in a loose and non-linear way, which i suppose is relatively unconventional. it was more like a collection of interconnected short stories which all came together in a four-dimensional portrait of a loosely related group of people. therefore it also allowed consumption in smaller portions, with satisfaction from each and every chapter, and no cliffhangers!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
add it up
xciii. middlemarch’ by george eliot.
i would say that this novel has the greatest number of fully realised characters and interwoven family histories that i have ever read. many novels would struggle to encompass but one fourth of the narrative threads, notwithstanding the spectrum of moral, monetary and matrimonial quandaries explored within. i find many novels are vertical in terms of epic family histories but i liked that the interactions across the community during a single generation instead show the reality that minor events drive the dramas of life.
ok basically it was good and people are complicated! #braindead
xciv. the snows of kilimanjaro, hemingway
it was quite good. the 2nd half of the collection mainly concerned one character, nick, and i never know what to think when a character recurs in an otherwise seemingly themeless collection. though of course the entire book focused on the classic hemingway themes of drinking, men and women, gambling, europe, fishing, bullfighting, the usual. mostly i like that hemingway describes landscape through its relationship with the characters’ actions.
xcv. the mistress’s daughter, a.m. homes
read this apparently for the 2nd time even though i forgot that when i borrowed it at the library. as a memoir i found it interesting and unusual in that apart from the subject of her adoption and birth parents she didn’t really discuss anything else, whereas most other memoirs that i’ve read apparently give everything up too easily.
xcvi. the portrait of a lady, henry james
i have realised it may in fact be possible to read too much, i was getting burned out for a while there but once i hit the 2nd half of the book i breezed right through it. oh man, what to say? someone told me they couldn’t get into the book because they didn’t like isabel, but clearly they hadn’t gotten far enough to see how heinous some of the other characters were. in the end it wasn’t so much a portrait of her as her unfortunate involvement in a larger plot, though it was always through her lens that everything was experienced. pansy’s name truly befit her, sad to say, even though it wasn’t her fault. my impression of caspar goodwood also wasn’t very good, he seems so boring and wooden. ralph was my favourite. i expected a more conclusive ending as well but i suppose it is suitably ambivalent.
i would say that this novel has the greatest number of fully realised characters and interwoven family histories that i have ever read. many novels would struggle to encompass but one fourth of the narrative threads, notwithstanding the spectrum of moral, monetary and matrimonial quandaries explored within. i find many novels are vertical in terms of epic family histories but i liked that the interactions across the community during a single generation instead show the reality that minor events drive the dramas of life.
ok basically it was good and people are complicated! #braindead
xciv. the snows of kilimanjaro, hemingway
it was quite good. the 2nd half of the collection mainly concerned one character, nick, and i never know what to think when a character recurs in an otherwise seemingly themeless collection. though of course the entire book focused on the classic hemingway themes of drinking, men and women, gambling, europe, fishing, bullfighting, the usual. mostly i like that hemingway describes landscape through its relationship with the characters’ actions.
xcv. the mistress’s daughter, a.m. homes
read this apparently for the 2nd time even though i forgot that when i borrowed it at the library. as a memoir i found it interesting and unusual in that apart from the subject of her adoption and birth parents she didn’t really discuss anything else, whereas most other memoirs that i’ve read apparently give everything up too easily.
xcvi. the portrait of a lady, henry james
i have realised it may in fact be possible to read too much, i was getting burned out for a while there but once i hit the 2nd half of the book i breezed right through it. oh man, what to say? someone told me they couldn’t get into the book because they didn’t like isabel, but clearly they hadn’t gotten far enough to see how heinous some of the other characters were. in the end it wasn’t so much a portrait of her as her unfortunate involvement in a larger plot, though it was always through her lens that everything was experienced. pansy’s name truly befit her, sad to say, even though it wasn’t her fault. my impression of caspar goodwood also wasn’t very good, he seems so boring and wooden. ralph was my favourite. i expected a more conclusive ending as well but i suppose it is suitably ambivalent.
Friday, June 17, 2011
whup
partially posted elsewhere
xci. pulse, julian barnes
not posted elsewhere
xci. pulse, julian barnes
overall i would rate it as merely 'ok', there were a lot of words and the writing was pretty loose for short stories. there was a lot of continuous conversation quoting and no female inner voices to speak of, in either 1st or 2nd person. needless to say i do not really approve.
not posted elsewhere
xcii. men without women, ernest hemingway
seriously misleading title, not without women at all. in fact not much to do with men as 'men' or men 'without women' at all. in fact i would have read this collection much earlier if not for the title. good though, what's new? this is true succinctness of word, my friends.
Monday, June 6, 2011
return to regular scheduling
lxxxix. lost japan, alex kerr
very very interesting book about japan, the culture in different areas, and the interplay of history and western influence and the modern japanese psyche.
xc. this book will save your life, a.m. homes
i guess this book was ok, the lack of chapters actually made quite an impact in a continuous storyline way and also because i don't like it when authors feel they have to end each chapter on a witty/shocking conclusion. i thought it would be a stereotypical story about a rich white guy's mid-life crisis but some characters as satire and some characters as extremely real make up for it.
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