November and Thanksgiving

Here is me, in front of my house.


I like apple pie better, but I made a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. I made my own crust, just like Mungy, my great-grandmother used to make. James all of a sudden decided that he liked pumpkin pie. Sarah brought an apple pie over later, so I wasn't too unhappy! I didn't take a picture until after a piece had been eaten. Also, in the interim, my computer broke. so I'm posting the picture now.

In the realm of the absurd...

I was in a parade. On my segway. I wore a Santa hat.

sorry about crappy resolution. It was downloaded from Kodakgallery.com which doesn't let you download full resolution pictures. which is crappy.

Book Review: Vidalia in Paris

On Thursday, I received an exciting package in the mail from Amazon. Vidalia in Paris, by Sasha Watson. I read the whole book in one night. I also wrote a short book review on Amazon which you can find here.

Vidalia in Paris is an exciting read that might make you feel a bit wistful that you never had such an exciting experience when you were a teenager. On the other hand, if you had had an exciting adventure, you think that you might have acted a bit like Vidalia in the process. Vidalia deals with some tough questions about friendship, love, and morality and sees her mind open to new possibilities. However, I think that the strength of Vidalia' story is that she ultimately reaffirms the kind of person that inside, she has always been.

The book takes place in Paris, la ville-lumière, and if you've ever been there, this book makes you wish you had just one more afternoon to wander around the city.

I would highly recommend Vidalia in Paris, but if "Reading Rainbow" taught us nothing, "you don't have to take my word for it!"

Movie Review: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

J and I rented this movie last night. It got overwhelmingly good reviews on metacritic and rotten tomatoes.

The movie is about two brothers who decide to rob their own parents' jewelry store. The premise of the movie might have made a fine comedy.

However, comedies don't generally make you feel empty and dirty for watching them. Not dirty as if you were watching something smutty. But dirty as in having witnessed something deadening and lacking in humanity. There is nothing uplifting about this movie, nothing redemptive. The characters are incredible unlikeable. Fat and Sweaty drug-addicted Phillip Seymour Hoffman, his Nervous and Sweaty brother Ethan Hawke, Ethan Hawke's bitchy ex-wife and bitchy daughter, Slutty and Useless Marisa Tomei, and a whole cast of other characters leave you with the impression that human beings are awful and unpleasant to be around. Every other word out the characters' mouth is a swear word. The brothers' father, Albert Finney, is initially slightly sympathetic but the lesson of the movie is that everyone is 2 steps away from being totally evil. Hence the title I guess.

Awful Awful movie. terrible soundtrack (ponderous, repetitive, faux-sombre). A lot of things made no sense. Why would Ethan Hawke have been the favored son, leading to Seymour Hoffman's resentment? Ethan Hawke played a sweaty loser that no parent would love that much. Why did Sidney Lumet decide, in his eighties, to make this soulless film? Has his long life taught him this, that there is no redemption or joy in life but "chaos, hostility, and murder?" (cf. Werner Hertzog).

I wish I hadn't seen this movie.

Asheville, part 3

So we took at trolley tour on our second day (after my early morning walk, see two posts below). We had a knowledgeable guide named James. We saw many beautiful houses. Asheville, nestled in the blue ridge mountains, had its heyday in the early part of the century, therefore there are many beautiful victorian houses.

We started out the tour in the Montford Historic District.

This yellow building is part of an old mental hospital (Highland Mental Hospital) where Zelda Fitzgerald once was treated F. Scott came to visit sometimes. She died in a fire in a building there in 1948.

James Taylor also once stayed here for treatment for heroin addiction.

Downtown, there are many beautiful art deco buildings. This is one of only 58 Roman Catholic basilicas in the United States.

Here is another building, city hall.

Later, we went to the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, where the writer grew up.

J commented that he had big shoes to fill, in re Wolfe.

sock-clad feet are J's

A fun time was had by all.

Dinner

Shrimp Fra Diavolo

Mrs. Palin

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=XR9V_aOCga0