Where I Stood

June 30, 2008 at 1:29 pm (Uncategorized) (, , , )

Entertainment Weekly’s list of the 100 New Classic books. Bolded are ones I’ve read, and italicized are those I’d like to get to soon. Possibly before the end of the year. Probably not.

1. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling

3. Beloved, Toni Morrison
4. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
12. Blindness, José Saramago
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates
15. A Hearbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
16. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith
20. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
21. On Writing, Stephen King
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt
28. Naked, David Sedaris
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst
36. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
41 . The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman
47. World’s Fair, E.L. Doctorow
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
49. Clockers, Richard Price
50. The Corrections, Jonathon Franzen
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
58. Drop City, TC Boyle
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich
61. Money, Martin Amis
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini,
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel 69. Secret History, Donna Tartt
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
84. Holes, Louis Sachar
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman
96. The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson
98. The Predators’ Ball, Connie Bruck
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show

Real post soon, I promise.

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Why I Write Here Now

June 22, 2008 at 9:36 pm (Uncategorized) (, , )

Minnie Driver’s character said it best in the John Cusack classic Grosse Pointe Blank.

“You’re a fucking psycho.”

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And I know there’s only one direction we can go from here.

June 14, 2008 at 12:53 am (Uncategorized) (, , )

I’m overwhelmed by my feelings for him and by my feelings in general.

But fuck that shit. I’m going to bed.

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Overhsare Meme

June 11, 2008 at 1:04 pm (Uncategorized) (, , , , , )

Found throughout various blogs, I’m a sucker for memes that let me talk about myself, because let’s face it: I like to talk about myself. So without further ado, let’s begin, shall we?

1. Name the singer/band/performer you are most embarrassed to admit you actually paid good money to see in concert.

Most people would argue that I should write the name “Hanson” down here, but I disagree. I first went to see Hanson when I was 12 years old, when they performed the free show at the Mall of America. It was insane on all levels, but it was probably the most fun that I’ve ever had at a concert. I saw them again when I was 19. I don’t regret either concert, nor am I embarrassed to admit that I still listen to them from time to time. They’re good people.

2. Which reality TV show have you watched more than once (come on. I don’t believe you if you say “none,” unless you don’t own a TV)?

I don’t watch much TV in general these days, and the few things I do watch are not reality TV, but I will admit that I watch American Idol every now and then, and I fucking loved Lisa Loeb’s short-lived show on E! called #1 Single. That show was high-quality entertainment.

OH AND ALSO: Kathy Griffin’s My Life on the D-List is starting up again, and even though I don’t have cable, you can be sure I’ll be couch-hopping to various places that do.

3. Which complete trash novelist have you not only read but enjoyed enough to read more than one book of his/hers?

A lot of what I read is trashy. I collect the Sweet Valley series by Francine Pascal as well as an assorted number of other YA series from the days of yore. I’ve also read all three of Stephenie Meyer’s books in the Twilight series (and will pick up Breaking Dawn when it comes out for sure), and while I pretty much hate everything that they are and stand for, I secretly enjoy them.

I’m also a fan of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series, which is all kinds of trashy. What else, what else? There’s a shit-ton, you guys. I read a lot of crap.

4. What sappy musical could you watch over and over and over again?

Isn’t the phrase “sappy musical” kind of redundant? I like to say that I’m not a big musical fan, but that statement is contradicted by the fact that I know all the words to the soundtracks for Wicked and Rent. I also love the movie Once, which is all kinds of sappy but remains to this day the most beautiful little love story/musical that I think I’ve ever seen

5. Who was your first celebrity crush?

Jonathon Taylor Thomas and Devon Sawa? Yeah, pretty much. I was so in love with JTT. And Devon Sawa’s little cameo in Casper was the stuff of a 9-year-old girl’s wet dream. I still think Devon Sawa is kind of attractive, actually, but the fact that Jonathon Taylor Thomas stopped growing at the age of like, 14 kind of weirds me out.

6. Who is the most embarrassing celebrity on whom you have a slight crush today?

Similar to the question about embarrassing concert-going experiences, I’m not sure that I have any embarrassing celebrity crushes. I have a terrible girl-crush on Jessica Alba. This is only embarrassing in the sense that she cannot act her way out of a paper bag. But she’s so lovely

7. What movie that everyone else and his cousin and even his dog has seen have you never seen?

There are a lot, I’d wager. I’ve never seen The Godfather trilogy, nor have I seen Casablanca. I haven’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life, either. I’m woefully uncultured, and I totally don’t care.

8. What were you drinking the first time you ever got drunk?

This is a tricky question, because I’m not much of a drinker. I got tipsy for the first time when I was 18, on Southern Comfort (woof) and Bud Light (good lord).

The first time that I got rip-roaring drunk, it was on White Russians, screwdrivers, and Red Stripe.

9. Which old re-run will you still pause to watch if you’re flicking through the channels and see that it’s on?

I’ve been known to watch re-runs of Friends, Sex and the City, and Saved by the Bell. But really, thanks the the wonder that is TV on DVD, I don’t really do the whole re-run thing.

10. What book/movie/t.v. show that only a fifteen-year-old would think is funny makes you laugh?

Any Judd Apatow movie, ever.

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Things worth mentioning

June 8, 2008 at 12:05 pm (Uncategorized) (, , , , , )

“Have you guys seen my bike?” R. asked at 1:00 AM.
“No,” replied T. and K. simultaneously.
“I haven’t either. I can’t remember where I left it.”

The tofurky hotdog, complete with cream cheese, salsa, ketchup, mustard, and olives, at 2:00 in the morning.

Black coffee in the morning with no breakfast and cigarettes out an open window. Bad influences!

Walking around and around, getting dive-bombed by birds and panhandlers alike.

Being happy in general and feeling proud.

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