"Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one." ~E.B. White
A weblog focused on: literature, writing, reading, media, anything pertaining to the world that interests me. Media and media commentary abound on this site, enjoy.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 10:22PM My good friend Andre has joined the blogosphere. I urge you to check it out.
Things to expect from Londonlestrygog:
andre, blogging about blogging, james joyce in blog Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 4:01PM I just started in on D.H. Lawrence's The Rainbow a history of the various generations of the Brangwen family. My good friend Faith will also be joining me on this read. We've agreed to post a discussion once we are 4 chapters into the text.
My initial reaction to the text is that this is very similar to Virginia Woolf's The Years (a family history set during the first World War). Also, D.H. Lawrence enjoys utilizing sexual imagery in his prose, but this is not surprising. Based on the literary reputation and the handful of short stories I've read by D.H. Lawrence, he is a man that is concerned with exploring the inter-personal relationships and sexual encounters of his characters.
book, british literature, d.h. lawrence, literature, the rainbow in book reviews, literature Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 3:49PM 
I don't consider myself overly clumsy but I will occasionally do something stupid (as I think many other people I know) such as stub my toe on a door or spill a drink. I was getting into my car yesterday after work and I was attempting to move the sun visor to the side when I pulled too hard and it hit me in the face. While I would like to attribute this to my being tired after working a 12+hour shift, I also admit that these things just happen. I immediately reflected on this act though and laughed at myself. These are moments, these private moments of stupidity are always amusing to me because we're at our most vulnerable. I immediately looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Maybe I'm making too much of this but I find that when these moments occur, accident or not, they're HONEST. These are moments where we are who we are, we're not pretending to be someone else or impress individuals who happen to be near by. We're just being human, we're being ourselves and this occasionally includes a moment act of stupidity.
clumsy, self-promotion in random, self-promotion Monday, July 26, 2010 at 10:44AM I've never watched Gone with the Wind.
I've never read To Kill a Mockingbird.
film, gone with the wind, literature, to kill a mockingbird in film reviews, literature Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 4:50PM 
Do you know what you're watching at 10pm tonight? How about drinking? I know I do.
mad men, television in media, television Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 12:22PM I'm making plans to visit my favourite red-head in the world. Miss Karen was kind enough to visit just a few months back in Winter and now it's my turn to visit. I'm excited. I wish it could be a few days longer but it'll be about 2 days and a half. The Friday afternoon, all day Saturday, and if I'm lucky with flight plans Sunday morning.
As it stands, we're tentatively making plans to hit up Boston on Saturday and the rest is up in the air. If you've ever been to Boston or New Hampshire and you have some recommendations, please share. While I have no doubt that Miss Karen will have some wonderful ideas for what we should do in the area...it's always nice to see what other people have to say about a place.
Miss Karen, I found the following image for New Hampshire. I think you'll appreciate it.
karen, new hampshire, red in random, self-promotion Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 6:56PM 
"Book Love" is love that you have for a particular book that overwhelms. This is a book you own multiple copies of, it's a book that you repurchase because maybe there is a new introduction by the author, or because the cover art in this particular edition is so much cooler than the one you had prior. It's a book you have multiple copies of because you've worn out the others, and also because you want to pass it on and share it with others. You love this book so much that when you pass it on to another friend, you don't want it back, you want them to love it as much as you, you want them to keep it and cherish it the same way you cherish your copies. That's what "Book Love" is. I have a few of these and I am sure you do too.
books, literature in books Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 1:15PM Last question. I have to know, because I love this story and want it to be true. There have been stories about you sneaking up behind people in New York City, covering their eyes with your hands, and saying: Guess who. And when they turn around, they see Bill Murray and hear the words "No one will ever believe you."
[long pause] I know. I know, I know, I know. I've heard about that from a lot of people. A lot of people. I don't know what to say. There's probably a really appropriate thing to say. Something exactly and just perfectly right. [long beat, and then he breaks into a huge grin] But by God, it sounds crazy, doesn't it? Just so crazy and unlikely and unusual?
-From GQ Interview w/Bill Murray
bill murray, ghostbusters in links, media Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at 1:16AM I had a bad day today. One of the worst. All of the bad was work-related and I was mentally and physically exhausted by the time the day came to an end. "Dreams within dreams is too unstable!" I just returned from viewing Christopher Nolan's Inception and I feel awake, the most awake I've been all day. I want to write a proper review but I'm not sure I can do that just now. I need to process this film for a bit longer.
christopher nolan, film, inception, leonardo dicaprio in film reviews, media Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 9:25AM Some fun links I've recently stumbled upon:
Curious Expeditions: Travelling and Exhuming the Extraordinary Past
A an interesting look at various museums, exhibits, and old world miscellany. From buckets of teeth to etymologist art exhibits.
It's pretty obvious what this is: Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Foods. I dare not think of the cost of this, but then again I am sure these machines are routinely tested and serviced, so might as well scan something interesting. (WARNING: make sure you don't have too many things running on your computer, the site eats up resources and may take a bit to load on slower computers.)
I was clicking away on the net last night and I stumbled upon this little gem. Do you wish you had a vast library filled with thousands of works of literature? Do you wish you had entire rooms filled with shelves upon shelves of books? Do you construct forts? or use books to construct physical art? Well, until your books threaten to consume you the way they've obviously consumed these people...enjoy these beautiful pictures of bookshelves and libraries from across the globe.
The Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense
From the element of P - Psycics 1 all the way to Cu - Cupping 103. It is exactly what it claims to be.
"By 'grawlixes', I mean icons representing unprintable words, occurring within speech balloons belonging to characters who are agitated." – Gwillim Law.
Obsenicons: the earliest use of mixed typographical symbols (as opposed to uniform asterisks or underlining) to represent (part or all of) taboo words?" The use of such symbols appears to have originated as a comic-strip convention.
books, bookshelves, comic strip, food, fruit, grawlixes, library, mri, obscenicons, periodic table in art, books, comics, food, language, links, media, random Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 9:47PM I am not sure what to make of this but I figured it was worth sharing. Not how I organize my own library but it is pretty.
bookshelves, library, rainbow in books, media Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 4:10PM I've been formatting computers all day long. This is how I feel.....
G
Some advice for those who have older computers. If your computer is aging the way mine has been (5+ years now) then you have more than likely noticed a reduction in performance and speed. Might I recommend that you back up all of your important files and formatting. It is a sure fire way to give your computer a second life. I did the very same for both my sister's computer and my own and the difference is akin to night and day. It took me a few hours to get it back to where I wanted it and all of the updates and installations are annoying, but this computer should last me a few more years barring any unforeseen hardware problems or accidents.
When you purchase your computer it usually comes with an installation disc that retains all of the drivers and factory install settings. So it's simply a matter of popping that in and clicking yes to format/partition. As I said, if your computer is older, it's something you should consider. I'm still using XP and I'm quite happy living in the past. Cheers.
computers, image, office space in random, self-promotion Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 1:06AM 
"He's the worst singer in the world...How can you listen to that?"
Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 7:53AM I had a bizarre dream in the early hours of this morning. That in between awake and sleep time when you know that the alarm clock is coming and yet you know you still have enough time to maybe trick yourself into going back to sleep. 
I am pretty annoyed at this dream because I was so aware of my in between state and it was an exhausting dream. I was dreaming about the very thing I just commented on: that in between time. In my dream I was annoyed that I was not quite asleep and yet still somewhat awake. It was very frustrating.
My music selection for driving to work this morning had a very calming affect on me. Thank you Miss Joanna Newsom. Listening to your elfin voice and lyrical whimsy provided just the thing I needed to lose that exhausted feeling I had when first waking up. Music can be so powerful sometimes. The ability to overwhelm and also calm.
dreams, joanna newsom, music in random, self-promotion Monday, July 12, 2010 at 6:32PM "All the negroes were friends of ours, and with those of our own age we were in effect comrades. I say in effect, using the phrase as a modification. We were comrades, and yet not comrades; color and condition interposed a subtle line which both parties were conscious of, and which rendered complete fusion impossible. We had a faithful and affectionate good friend, ally and adviser in 'Uncle Dan'l', a middle-aged slave whose head was the best one in the negro quarter, whose sympathies were wide and warm, and whose heart was honest and simple and knew no guile. He has served me well, these many, many years. I have not seen him for more than half a century, and yet spiritually I have had his welcome company a good part of that time, and have staged him in books under his own name and as 'Jim', and carted him all around – to Hannibal, down the Mississippi on a raft, and even across the Desert of Sahara in a balloon – and he has endured it all with the patience and friendliness and loyalty which were his birthright. It was on the farm that I got my strong liking for his race and my appreciation of certain of its fine qualities. This feeling and this estimate have stood the test of sixty years and more and have suffered no impairment."
A passage from The Farm by Mark Twain, extracted in full in the next issue of Granta and taken from the forthcoming autobiography of Twain, which is published in November by the University of California Press.
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 12:57PM From off the streets of Cleveland, Harvey Pekar pioneered autobiopgraphical comics in the 70s with his self-published American Splendor. His tales of working as a file clerk lead to greater fame, including appearances on David Letterman and a movie about his life. He worked with many different artists, including his personal friend Robert Crumb. Beyond that, he was an inspiration for so many others. Harvey Pekar passed away last night at the age of 70.
Harvey Pekar - American Splendor
american splendor, comic, harvey pekar, in memoriam in comics, media Sunday, July 11, 2010 at 2:45PM The original Predator film directed by John Mctiernan is a must see film. I recall quite vividly the first time I heard about this film. An older cousin of mine told me that it was a film about hunting and that is all he would tell me. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura, Carl Weathers, an alien creature who crashes in the jungles of South America that can cloak itself, such an amazing action-packed thriller. Massive machine-guns, explosions, ultra-violence, excessive cursing, and extreme machismo, it's a film very much targeted at a male audience. 
Since the original 1987 film there have been 3 films: Predator 2 (1990), Alien vs. Predator (2004), & Alien vs. Predator (Requiem) (2007). Of those three films, I have only seen Predator 2 and while entertaining, was not nearly as enjoyable or memorable as the original.
Robert Rodriguez (ala Desperado, Sin City, Planet Terror, From Dusk till Dawn, etc.) has just released what I consider to be a proper sequel: Predators, starring Adrian Brody, Laurence Fishburne, and Topher Grace.
This film was an absolute joy to watch and considering the somewhat lousy summer screening options, the only thing I have to say is: ABOUT FUCKING TIME!
Predators flips the original movie on it's head (well it does and it doesn't - let me explain). In the original film an alien life-form lands in a jungle environment and proceeds to hunt down and eliminate humans that occupy the area. A team of military commandos under the guise of a routine military mission is caught in the cross-fire of this jungle predator. The mission abandoned, things soon turn ugly. The violence escalates and a man versus alien battle for survival.
In this new film Predators reverses so much of the set up of the original. In this film, the aliens are the humans and they have been sent to this planet as some type of sick twisted game. The planet functions as a massive jungle reserve where the alien Predators hunt humans for sport. The foreign species that invades this jungle is not the Alien, but the human.
While this film will never replace or top the original, it is an action-packed fun-house. Full of everything I wanted and expected: violence, explosions, one-liners, a massive body count at the end of the film, and some awesome predator style battles.
The pacing in the film was dead on and the film moved very quickly. I think that some of the special effects (particularly the costume and design of the predators) could have been improved. The predators in this film did not seem as massive or fearsome as the original predator. Adrian Brody's performance was perfect and while not nearly as buff or muscular as Arnold, took center stage and holds your attention and carries the action with ease.
I think the story was a bit simple but then again it also works. My major complaint is that this film seemed a bit too short, as did the final battle sequence. It felt rushed. The original fight sequence between Arnold and the predator in the original film was a drawn out affair that built tension and let the action rise slowly into a massive explosion. This film had action sequences spaced out equally but the build up wasn't really there.
If you enjoyed the original then I suggest you go out to the theatres and sit back and relax. A fun film that is filled with old-school violence and explosions. I wish I had had a few beers before seeing this. This is the type of film you watch with a group of friends while buzzed.
film, predator, predators, robert rodriguez in film reviews, media Friday, July 9, 2010 at 7:44AM My sister and I attended a performance of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night last night at Henry of Pelham Family Estates. An outdoor performance right on the vineyard. It was a wonderful production.
Some things to note from last night:
Sir Toby Belch, Fabian, & Maria (played by my friend Emily) planning deception and trickery.
My ranting aside. The performance was a delight to watch. While I often smile when reading Shakespeare, there is something about the audience and that communal gathering of souls who are craving culture that makes drama so much richer when experienced in person.
My sister and I were laughing frequently (as well we should, this play being a comedy). I need to experience the theatre a bit more, a great time was had.
drama, henry of pelham, twelfth night, william shakespeare, wine in art, drama, food 
