The Call of the Wild

So I was watching Into the Wild last night, and all I could think of during the scenes where it was snowy out and the guy found a school bus to live in is HOW GREAT those conditions would be for napping. Seriously.

Maybe the movie also spoke to me because I also recently went hunting for the first time. It was by accident, really. I went to Food Emporium and asked for a cooked lobster, but the guy said they were old and gross and I didn't want them. He offered me a live one, but I said I was scared, so he said he'd steam one for me if I gave him 12 minutes.

I walked in, the lobster was alive; I walked out, it wasn't. Visceral, like gutting a moose with your bare hands.

I guess if you had to pinpoint the one difference between my story and that of Christopher McCandless, it's that I didn't get maggots in my kill and starve to death. Instead, I went to the ballet, then came home and ate my lobster with some sea salt and vinegar chips, Cherry Garcia, and Diet Dr. Pepper. That's some Jack London shit, son.

Another Vacation Book Roundup, Folks

I'm not giving out palm trees this time because I don't have any sense of scale. All of these books were entertaining and satisfying except for the one I didn't finish. Bought and Deal Breaker were my favorites.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
I liked this because it was about someone I can relate to, a Nazi pedophile lady who never talked about her feelings. The first part was great, the years-later stuff got kind of boring because there wasn't much going on besides a white guy's guilt. Still, overall, a good time.

Never Tell A Lie, by Hallie Ephron
This was a pretty good mix of chick lit (in that there was someone my age in it) and thriller, where a pregnant lady's husband is accused of killing a high school pal. There was one thread about a former owner of their home and that sort of went nowhere, which was disappointing. Also once I read one of the quotes on the back, about revenge and grudges, I pretty much guessed the ending, which is always a bad sign since I'm easily taken for a ride by even the most base of reality programs.

Remains to Be Seen, by Jim Ingraham
This was by a local author (and it had a pun in the title) so I got it as my idiot tax for reading so many bad books all the time. It's about a Maine college president who is found strung up and murdered, maybe by his wife or some college jocks or some pro-choicers or some corrupt local politicians scandal scandal intrigue etc. It wasn't as heavily Maine-ish as I would have liked but it moved along pleasantly.

Bought, by Anna David
This was the funnest easiest read in a while -- I mean. It's about girls in LA who aren't outright whores but who hang out with guys in exchange for rent and purses and shoes and other fancy things. Juicy and dirty and based on research Anna really did with these girls.

Deal Breaker, by Harlan Coben
So whenever I go on vacation I'm always super depressed for the first few days because I'm faced with empty days to fill with the realization that I'm an utter failure. And then eventually I read a fun book and regain my will to live. This was my vacation turnaround book. It's about a sports agent who is looking into why his ex-girlfriend's missing sister is showing up in nudie mags and contacting people. Good thriller, but more importantly, the main character is funny, which makes it like reading a Dennis Lehane mystery -- even better! Also I just realized this guy wrote the book that "Tell No One" (French thriller mystery movie thingy) was based on, so that's exciting.

Just One Look, by Harlan Coben
Then I got greedy and got another Harlan Coben book, this one about a woman who gets some pictures developed and finds one in the roll of her husband and some random people from decades ago. That night her husband disappears, and she has to track down who the other people in the picture are and figure out what happened to them all and why they're dying. Good mystery but not funny like Deal Breaker. Still, book trend for this trip is clearly mistaken identities and fake dead people.

The Rainmaker, by John Grisham
Obviously I don't think I'm too good for John Grisham, but I'm not gonna lie to you, I only read half of this. It was 3,000 pages and probably would have made a good L&O:CI (reminder: new season on USA -- thanks, DVR!), but if you can't give me one interesting character or subplot or build intrigue in the first 1,500 pages, look, it's vacation. Sad face!

Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates
Mini-trend -- Kate Winslet movie books. This was an entertaining look at suppressed suburban malaise, but having seen the movie it was hard to imagine the characters as anything but Kate and Leo and awesome Michael Shannon.

Hoomigod I'm Back. With Book Reviews!!!

Sorry gang. I know you have been dying to know what I read on my recent vacation. The good news is that the eggsellent place where I stayed had a book swap bookshelf, so I got to read all sorts of thrillers without having to buy them. Heaven!!!

Dead Connection by Alafair Burke JJJ
I love Alafair Burke and have a hard time finding her books when I'm impulse shopping and had an even harder time waiting five days to read this since I bought it a week before I left town. But I resisted. This is about a murderer who preys on online daters in NYC. The lure is obvious. Yay mysteries and thrillers and reading books and vacations and not working!!!

The Ruins by Scott Smith JJJ
More good times ... a bunch of college-aged kids on vacation in Mexico decide to go check out an archaeological dig ... but it's alive!!! Or at least the vines are that grow under their skin and eat them and mimic their voices. An important lesson about the danger of leaving resorts and venturing into untouched nature. Ew.

Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives by Marilee Strong JJJJ
This is a nonfiction book about what Strong calls "Eraser killers" -- a so-far unclassified type of wife-killer. While most domestic murders occur after years of escalating violence, some men are sociopaths and perfectionists and want everything to appear hunky-dory. So when their wives want to split, they simply "erase" the women. (Think Scott Peterson or Charles Stuart or Mark Hacking.) In many cases, the murders aren't even classified as such because they're made to look like accidents or voluntary disappearances. Lots and lots of true cases make this fun to read.

But it's maybe not the best thing to read the day you go get lost and then the sun goes down and you're by yourself near a bunch of like industrial parks and wild dogs are everywhere. Just keep that in mind.

Ice Trap by Kitty Sewell JJ
This is about a disgraced UK doctor who served a couple of years in the Arctic North. Years later he's contacted by a woman who he worked with who says she had his kids -- but he doesn't remember ever sleeping with her. I like books about Canada and Alaska and Inuit love stories and evil tricky mind-effy women, as you should well know by now, but this was mostly just okay. When I can see the "twist" coming it's pretty obvious, since I'm basically my mom.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby JJJJ
One from the book swap, I had always assumed this would annoy me and be about a self-indulgent douchebag feeling sorry for himself. And it sort of was, but it was also about how he's sad and realizing his life is empty and he's a commitmentphobe. And it was really funny, too. And then I realized it was really about me which annoyed me a little too but mostly it was awesome.

And then I decided since I'm too poor to adopt those kids I want from Alaska I should just have my own so I have something to live for. But that passed, mostly since they don't sell Eskimo sperm online.

Pop Goes the Weasel by James Patterson JJ
This was about some online role-playing guy (conveniently called "The Weasel" for the title's sake) and magic black-person/DC detective Alex Cross who hunts him down. Literary equivalent of an episode of CSI. Acceptable!

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult JJ
Obviously it's vacation so I read a Jodi Picoult book, duh. This one is about a guy on death row who murdered a cop and his step-daughter, and the people who fight for his right to donate his organs post-death to the daughter of the cop he killed whose heart is failing. Oh and some people think he's Jesus. It was fine and all, but it took longer to read than most of her stuff. Because basically that premise is sent up on the back cover, and then there are 500 pages of, well, just illustrating that.

The Partner by John Grisham JJJ
A lawyer is caught in Brazil after faking his own death and making off with about 47 bajillion dollars that his sleazy partners were about to make. And then it's about his attempts to get out of trouble. It involves the government and legal conspiracies and some fraudulent contracting stuff and is delightfully thrillery. And then there's a twist ending.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Okay I know you're all smart and fancy and think I read boring bs and I do but I tried to read this and I hated it so bad I couldn't even finish. Seriously, it's like Gabriel Garcia Marquez' stuff where there are 34,000 characters and fascinating colorful incidents and blah dee bloo but there's no entry point that you actually care about, just some intersex dude with no personality, so it's all authory showboating and then it talks down to you like "In other words, this was a symbol for all the times my grandparents had ... " and "Let's skip ahead to hours later, when ..." and it's like listening to jazz on a page. So I say sorry Oprah and my smart friends and people who care about things -- I'll take my vacation book swap thrillers any day.

Bad, Bad Economic Times

So it's not just that I know three people who've been laid off from three jobs in the last week, or that my former employer totally folded the week before that, or that my current employer is constantly thisclose to being sold, or that I accidentally looked at my IRA statement.

But recently my mailbox started filling up with something I hadn't ordered. Yep, my subscription to Positive Thinking magazine has been rolled over to a publication I haven't seen since I lived at home with my mom who got it.

Check out what happens when you go to www.positivethinkingmag.com. That is some sad irony, friends.

Another Piece of Information About the Movie Changeling

(This one is not a spoiler.)

It will make you -- and by that I mean it is making me -- crave French toast all the time.

And then I went on flickr to try and art it and I came across something called Eggnog French Toast. Seriously dudes, could anything be better than the holidays?!?

Brush With Death! (Warning: Spoilers [The Real Kind])

DON'T WORRY America. I am safe and sound after another terrifying night out at the movies. But it's true, I almost died of

a) shame that I had not ever heard of the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders

b) fracas

Fortunately, Changeling got out at about 11.

Academia

Fact: This study about nurses in the movies is interesting. I wrote away for the full text and will update you with specifics when/if I get it.

Vacation Reading Book Reviews 2

This time around I will be ranking these on a scale from one to five beach umbrellas.

Lush Life by Richard Price IIII
This book tells the story of a hum-drum killing in the Lower East Side (prolly inspired by this story). The narration jumps between the frustrated artist-waiter initially accused of the murder, the itchy teens who did it, and the cop leading the investigation. It's kind of like a thriller, only with "literature" cred. It seems to speak of the banality of most crime, and the anticlimactic way in which many cases are solved.

Mercy by Jodi Picout II
Some dude loves his cancer-ridden wife so much that when she asks him to, he smothers her to death. Some lady loves her husband so much that she accidentally smothers him emotionally and he has an affair. They're all related to one another and to some heroic Scottish warriors. Blah blah blah questions of love loyalty forgiveness selflessness family ho hum standard issue not bad not super

The Chris Farley Show by Tom Farley and Tanner Colby III 1/2
Oral history of the life of the now-legend. Very easy read, both engaging and insightful even though we all know the story already. I personally would have liked a few more of the ugly details about when things got bad, but the book still gives you the whole picture.

To the Power of Three by Laura Lippman I
This author wrote a book called What the Dead Know that's an Imaginary Nurse five-umbrella/tree mystery. This book, however, is lame-o. There's a school shooting in the first chapter--some girl shoots her one-time best friends and herself. But there's more to the story, obvs. Then the other chapters are just people doing stuff in the aftermath while wondering if there's more to the story. Then in the last chapter it tells you what more there is to the story. Suhnore. The suspense doesn't really build, it just wallows. Next.

World War Z by Max Brooks IIII
Were you to go on and read the subtitle, you'd know this is an oral history of the Zombie War, which is when the world is almost overtaken by zombies. I don't usually like science fiction but my brother gave this to me so I tried to power through and I would up really liking it. It's told in interviews with people all over the world who had very different experiences with the zombies, so you don't have to focus very hard on anything.

I know this is fewer books than I shuld have come back with, but you have to remember that the Olympics were on.

Two New Lows

Last week I turned off Intervention before the first commercial. A whiny bulimic boozer dude? Snore.

Then tonight I started walking to the gym and then was so tired I turned around before I was halfway down the block. But don't worry, I ate two dinners to make up for it.

I bet if I died I'd look like the Montauk Monster.

Movie Review: The Dark Knight

This dystopian docudrama follows, in real time, six days in the lives of two rival criminals as they engage in prankster brinkmanship.

Along the way, they reference 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing as a means of proving that President Bush was the real hero for staying the course. Because you may lose a few men, but you don't negotiate with lunatic thugs—you hang them.

As a bonus, the movie is so long and boring and bleak that your mind wanders to what happens when the next terrorists hit and you have to leave the city on foot and try to figure out the best way to kill your cats so that they don't suffer when you abandon them, and then you hope you die. The end. John McCain 2008.

And speaking of movies that America loves I will tell you what other movie was boring. The George Clooney Tilda Swinton lawyer movie that was all the rage. Michael Clayton I think it might have been called. The whole g-d movie was about a memo that, if the dude was so tortured about having, he could have just faxed anonymously. I mean the end. Why all the talky talk and the alleged acty-act? The Dark Knight forced me to relive this rage all over again.

From Bad to Worse

That reality TV problem I mentioned a few days ago? Got uglier when I found myself staying up to watch (a rerun) of "Step it Up and Dance." Help.

And it turns out that breaking a fork with my snout mouth was only the beginning. The day after I typed that, I was eating so voraciously that I bit my tongue. Hard. As in, so hard I almost started crying. and then 20 minutes later looked and saw that I'd sliced off a flap of skin and was still bleeding. Photo below may be disturbing to some viewers. Especially those sensitive to tongue lesions.

That is called being a pig, people.

Okay Okay Okay

Here is a new post. Thing is, I have a job now, so I have to take all my good ideas and throw them on a list to use there. Don't worry, once the site actually launches and I discover that there are "limits" as to what I can write, I'll put all the good stuff back here.

But even though I have a very glamorous, very important new job in which I am changing lives EVERY SINGLE SECOND, I still have problems, you know? I'm not untouchable. Here are a few things I'm grappling with this summer:

• Although I still work out, I work in a very cupcake-heavy environment, and I have put on 73 pounds in just four weeks.
• I can't figure out how to walk the four blocks from the new icy place to my apartment without eating the entire thing on the way. FYI: cantaloupe, lychee, black cherry, and regular cherry (well, technically it's called FDNY Cherry but I don't recognize FDNY as a sovereign adjective) are all delicious. Pink grapefruit was surprisingly bland.
• I have some issue with my frontal lobe that makes me unable to stop my impulse to watch any competitive reality show ever made. I've watched Design Star, Shear Genius, America's Best Dance Crew, and the Legally Blonde show in the last week, and tomorrow I re-board the Project Runway bus. What a loser!!!!
• I can't decide whether to eat pizza, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, or burritos for dinner.

Today I was so hungry that I bit a tine off my fork. True story.

My Complete and Unabridged Thoughts on SATC

1. Carrie is not cute.

2. I am definitely a Miranda, like, for sure. Even though my job is Carrielike, my tolerance for talking about the s-word is Charlottian, and my appreciation for young blond men is Samanthaish, SO WHAT.
Obvs I'm a Miranda. And that is 100% awesome with me. But you know what is not? The sad, sinking realization that it means I'm going to wind up with a Steve: A short, sensitive, "I'm trying here!" guy with a nasally voice who I hate SO MUCH that I won't even let him live with me after I have his stupid kid. Gee dee it all.

BLECK.

Oh, and in case your browser doesn't support these photos, let me do a quick sketch for you.

Miranda ----------------> :) :( <------------ Steve

Happy Handsome Birthday

Dear Dwayne The Rock Johnson,

Happy birthday today! I know we haven't really been in touch ever since you un-friended me on MySpace. Maybe it's because Disney closed the account when they got done promoting The Game Plan. Is that it, The Rock? Maybe.

But I also realize that maybe it's because you were afraid of how close we'd gotten. It's true that we have an unbelievable amount in common—you're scared of spiders, I'm scared of roaches; you are tall, I am tall; we both regularly eat entire cheese pizzas. we both have tattoos. It's fate, really. And I suppose with your separation so fresh in your past, you may be wary of the idea that you could love again so quickly.

Anyway, I want you to know that I wish you the best. Maybe for this birthday I'll go stand by myself and stare creepily at the wax figurine of you in front of Madame Tussauds in Times Square. And I have a very special gift for you, so I guess I'll just hang on to it until we meet. (Hint: It's my virginity!)

Your friend,
Love,
The Imaginary Nurse

Vacation Reading Book Reviews

I will be ranking these on a scale from one to five palm trees, because I cannot find the star symbol on blogger.

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult JJ
A teenager says she gets raped and then there's some intrigue and her dad writes comic books and she runs away to Alaska. My least favorite of her books that I've read. 1. Nobody cares about cutters in 2008. Shut it. 2. Sorry to some selected readers, but I don't really understand graphic novels. This book gets one palm tree because I like Jodi Picoult's other books and another because I really do like stuff with Inuit history and legends. (Related: Read And She Was.) But she is sliding by on a technicality okay?

Beautiful Boy by David Sheff JJ
A memoir from a guy whose son is addicted to meth. I was super-excited to read this and then my mom brought it and yay, right? I really like junkie bios and thought this might be harrowing and hit a few chords from some personal experiences. But really it was just kind of eh. In fact, it was so forgettable that I didn't actually include it when I first did this entry because I didn't remember that I'd read it. Maybe I'm just numb from too many Interventions.

Old Books, Rare Friends by Madeline Stern and Leona Rostenberg JJJ
Nonfiction memoir by two old ladies who grew up in the teens and 20s in NYC and ran a rare books shop. I thought I would break with tradition and actually read one of the books my dad gave me. It was interesting reading about the women going to school and living in New York and traveling. And one of them discovered Louisa May Alcott's secret pulp writings, so that was interesting.

The Bookman's Wake by John Dunning :(
A Denver ex-cop and rare book salesman is hired to track down a previously-unknown copy of The Raven that's gone missing, along with a bail-jumper named Eleanor Rigby. I put it down because I couldn't make it through the pages and pages of background on the printing press that put out the book's copy of The Raven. Sorry, dude. This is the beach. I successfully finished this one once, so if you're curious about the series, start there?

Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich JJJ
A bounty hunter can only bring home her target by playing matchmaker for five freakazoids. I actually enjoyed this book and even laughed out loud at one part but I'm so embarrassed I even read it (we'll get to why in a moment) that I can only give it three palms. Three tiny palms, since the huge print (SO EMBARRASSING) means this is a tiny book.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini JJJJ
A guy remembers his glory days before the fall of Afghanistan to Russia and then the Taliban. Yeah okay this book was a quick read but you know why? Because it's Mystic River/The Prince of Tides/Peyton Place but I guess since it's set in Afghanistan liberals feel all intelligent for reading it. Guess what, liberals? I'm on to you! Wanna borrow my Plum Lovin'?

Web of Evil by J.A. Jance JJ
This lady becomes the prime suspect when her soon-to-be-ex-husband is murdered in the back of a trunk left on the railroad and then his knocked-up gf's mom gets killed. Okay look it was fine I'm not proud but a brief memo to the state of Florida, if I may: WTF?! I went into like 5 drugstores and supermarkets and the ratio of gross romance novels to mindless thrillers was like 99.5:1. So Web of Evil was that one. Man. Rough times. And I'll just say it: I don't like books where the heroine's mom gets kidnapped. Makes me uneasy.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro J
Kids in England attend an exclusive boarding school and come to realize the meaning of their shared secret. I suppose I should have done a little more research before I bought this. I'd eyed it when it first came out and went ahead and spoilered it by reading the library of congress keywords. (Spoiler alert: They're clones.) I also bought it because I decided I'd like to write* a melodramatic thriller called Never Let Me Down Again, and this sounded kind of similar. Thing is, I don't really like science fiction, and I definitely don't like things that remind me of my horrible grade and middle school years. So thumbs down. It can have one palm because it turns out it's sort of about a hospice nurse. But also, clones are boring it turns out.

*aka read

Fun Game

So here is a good project to occupy you on road trips and the like. All you do is invent a ridiculous murder, then come up with the corny pun-like line that David Caruso will say when he finds the victim right before the opening credits.

Like maybe there's a shootout at a massage parlor and the ME is telling Horatio that it looks like it might be a front for some other type of business, or maybe it's a body and some bruising is starting to indicate that maybe the person got too hard a massage and hours later their spleen ruptured and they died while on a rollercoaster, and Khandi Alexander goes "Who would do such a thing?" and David Caruso goes, "Ah, there's the rub."

So one I would like to see, and it's not really a pun, but it's a rhyme I learned and I sure would like to hear David Caruso say it, is where there's a body washed up shore, except some pieces are missing (or disheveled or something), probably due to pelican interference. And David Caruso goes, "What a strange bird is the pelican. For its beak [puts on sunglasses] can hold more than its belly can."

Your turn!

Show Idea/Future Career Plans

So there's this supersmeller, see? (Like a supertaster but with her nose?) And she singlehandedly solves all sorts of crimes. She goes into crime scenes and sniffs around and explains what happened (like there's a bunch of blood but no body WHAT HAPPENED? Don't worry she can smell gunpowder in the air) or pretends to be a deputy walking guys in for a lineup but really there's no one behind the glass and she can ID the suspect from his scent. I don't know exactly what it's called but the tagline is definitely about how she can sniff out crime—don't be ridiculous.

FYI? Related ads when you search for supersmeller on NYT.com:

» Fart Noises

» Fart Machine 2

» Fart Sounds

» Farting

» Funny Fart

Well Here is Something

Here is the first/best scene from the Australian junkie movie "Candy." It really sets you up for a heady film that doesn't actually follow. I am not the most youtubey lady around but I do watch this regularly because I haven't found this version of the song available to download.

Counter-Programming

Please direct your attention to channels 213 and 214 to note what merry hijinx those Cinemax pranksters dreamt up.

Good Reality Show Pitch

It's like The Real World or Big Brother, only the roommates are half suspected murderers, half undercover cops. And the suspects get sleep deprived and tortured just like they would in Gitmo, or they just get sleep deprived and have to do a bunch of stupid challenges that have the same psychological effect, and because it's a reality show, they signed up for it so it's all legal. And then they confess (or even just reveal details they formerly denied knowing that link them to the crime, not realizing the undercover roommates have any context for what they're talking about) thinking it's how you win the grand prize and then their confession is used as evidence against them. BOOM! You know who's the winner on that reality show? AMERICA.