Month: June 2015
Books I’ve read lately
Funny Girl by Nick Hornby
Hornby novels for me are like pizza: when they’re good they’re great and when they’re not they’re still enjoyable and immensely readable. Luckily, in addition to being readable Funny Girl is really good.
The Book Blogger Confessions Tag
I saw this on another blog and thought it would be a fun thing to do.
1. Which book, most recently, did you not finish?
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky, English translation. His novels are ultimately rewarding, but my can they be hard work; I made it to half-point and then just quietly gave up.
Slow West – Film Review
I caught the encore session for this movie today at Palace Cinema Como. I’m not usually a fan of westerns, but this one looked more offbeat and interesting plus I’m very partial to Michael Fassbender. Because I’m not into westerns I probably missed out on tons of references and tributes that the genre enthusiasts would pick up on and appreciate, but I really enjoyed it nonetheless.
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent – Book Review
I was very eager to check this book out. It got a lot of attention and praise, and the premise seemed interesting: it’s based on the real-life story of Agnes Magnusdottir, the last person to be executed in Iceland.
Quote of the Day
I read out this extract from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet during my speech at my sister’s wedding – I was looking for a wedding-appropriate poem that a) didn’t make me vomit and b) expressed something I personally believed in. I think it puts a very practical advice on the need of space in relationships in a very beautiful way:
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
The Wolverine – Film Review
I watched The Wolverine yesterday on regular TV; I really forgot how annoying the ad breaks are. Luckily a mute button was there for me to make things a little bit better.
I love Hugh Jackman and I love the character, but I skipped the movie during its theatrical release. I still had the foul aftertaste of X-Men Origins: Wolverine in my mouth, a legitimately shitty movie if there ever was one, and the trailers just didn’t look inspiring enough. While The Wolverine is not anywhere as terrible as Hugh Jackman’s first solo outing, it’s still nothing more than mediocre. It’s not exciting enough as an action/thriller and much too superficial to be a thoughtful, mature character study it was obviously aiming to be. In fact the best thing about it is the rather cool Japanese-style poster.
Ex Machina – Film Review
I had a day off work today, so I decided to check out this movie, especially since it’s ending its run soon. Day sessions are weird; there were only three other people in the cinema and one of them, a guy with crazy hippy hair and a beard, seemed to be something of a mutterer – he mostly kept quiet though, thank god. There were also scuffling noises coming from the roof throughout the session, as if a bunch of possums decided to throw a party.
Quote of the day
A human being should be entirely beautiful: the face, the clothes, the soul and the thoughts.
– Anton Chekhov
New Music 06/2015 – Chet Faker, Courtney Barnett
I should have had this blog years ago, when I was buying up to five albums a week sometimes and my CD collection ballooned over 900. Since then, I cut down my collection by about a third, and got much more selective about my purchases. By a coincidence, the last two I got are both by Australian artists.
yggdrasille.com 