Many things make a post
May. 16th, 2012 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icepixieInternets! It feels like I've been gone from you for ages, but I suppose I haven't. I've been spending my time reading Paul Murray's Skippy Dies, which was quite good. Admittedly, the first 300 pages (of 650) were a barely-interesting-enough-to-continue slog, but after I got through them, it got excellent. It's also pretty funny in places.
Skippy, a fourteen-year-old student at a boarding school near Dublin, dies in the first chapter, but of course the book instantly goes back several months to depict the leadup to his death. What I really enjoyed about it was the deft use of quantum physics and WWI history to string the story along. It does have a hint of "Cultural Effects of WWI for Beginners" about it--although that could just be because Modernism is kind of my thing, and you can't study Modernism without understanding the war's impact on it--but I liked that Murray went beyond that to connect the kinds of lies and trickery that got Irish soldiers to join up for the war (i.e., patriotism, promises of glory) to those being perpetuated by the school administration--that they care about them (when they're busy hushing up a sexual molestation scandal), that "they carry on like it's outside, all the bad stuff is outside, and w're this embattled force protecting them from it, when it's us too, Howard, when we're filling them with our own brand of bullshit, about tradition and whatever, setting them up to take their places at the top of the shitheap like this is some noble thing, when it's all just money, and who they are is incidental, they're just the means of allowing Seabrook to keep being fucking Seabrook" (471-2). Murray also connects this to the "betrayal" of Irish WWI vets, who were largely forgotten and even reviled, because they were fighting for Britain just as Ireland was doing its best to throw off their colonizers. I hadn't read about that before, although it doesn't surprise me, given that in the Irish history I've read (which is a lot, at this point), WWI is pretty much treated as an opportunity to revolt while the British are distracted by bigger issues.
In short,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gamesiplay and rowdycamels, I think both of you would like this book, though perhaps for different reasons.
*
I recently read the following description for a sitcom that will be airing on ABC next season. I thought there was no way it could be real. Surely someone slipped it into the list of new shows as a little joke. Here, do you believe this is actually going to air on TV?
It's real. I weep for humanity.
*
Anyway, enough of that. Burn Notice premieres on June 14th! Hooray! Especially since Castle started trying to turn itself into BN, I've been wanting summer to come. I have to admit, I'm not anticipating Fiona being stuck in jail for six episodes and the gang having her as their client of the week for those episodes with great glee, but knowing this show, at least Fiona will get to help break her own self out of jail, which is always good.
*
Plans for the rest of today: REVISION. I'm going to have the second draft of my space pilots story done by June 1 or else.
Skippy, a fourteen-year-old student at a boarding school near Dublin, dies in the first chapter, but of course the book instantly goes back several months to depict the leadup to his death. What I really enjoyed about it was the deft use of quantum physics and WWI history to string the story along. It does have a hint of "Cultural Effects of WWI for Beginners" about it--although that could just be because Modernism is kind of my thing, and you can't study Modernism without understanding the war's impact on it--but I liked that Murray went beyond that to connect the kinds of lies and trickery that got Irish soldiers to join up for the war (i.e., patriotism, promises of glory) to those being perpetuated by the school administration--that they care about them (when they're busy hushing up a sexual molestation scandal), that "they carry on like it's outside, all the bad stuff is outside, and w're this embattled force protecting them from it, when it's us too, Howard, when we're filling them with our own brand of bullshit, about tradition and whatever, setting them up to take their places at the top of the shitheap like this is some noble thing, when it's all just money, and who they are is incidental, they're just the means of allowing Seabrook to keep being fucking Seabrook" (471-2). Murray also connects this to the "betrayal" of Irish WWI vets, who were largely forgotten and even reviled, because they were fighting for Britain just as Ireland was doing its best to throw off their colonizers. I hadn't read about that before, although it doesn't surprise me, given that in the Irish history I've read (which is a lot, at this point), WWI is pretty much treated as an opportunity to revolt while the British are distracted by bigger issues.
In short,
gamesiplay and rowdycamels, I think both of you would like this book, though perhaps for different reasons.*
I recently read the following description for a sitcom that will be airing on ABC next season. I thought there was no way it could be real. Surely someone slipped it into the list of new shows as a little joke. Here, do you believe this is actually going to air on TV?
How well do you know your neighbors?
Meet the Weavers, Debbie (Jami Gertz) and Marty (Lenny Venito). Marty, in hopes of providing a better life for his wife and three kids, recently bought a home in Hidden Hills, a gated New Jersey townhome community with its own golf course. Hidden Hills is so exclusive that a house hasn’t come on the market in 10 years. But one finally did and the Weavers got it!
It’s clear from day one that the residents of Hidden Hills are a little different. For starters, their new neighbors all have pro-athlete names like Reggie Jackson (Tim Jo), Jackie Joyner-Kersee (Toks Olagundoye), Dick Butkis (Ian Patrick) and Larry Bird (Simon Templeman). Over dinner, Marty and his family discover that their neighbors receive nourishment through their eyes by reading books, rather than eating. The Weavers soon learn that the entire community is comprised of aliens from Zabvron, where the men bear children and everyone cries green goo from their ears.
The Zabvronians have been stationed on Earth for the past 10 years, disguised as humans, awaiting instructions from home, and the Weavers are the first humans they’ve had the opportunity to know. As it turns out, the pressures of marriage and parenthood are not exclusive to planet Earth. Two worlds will collide with hilarious consequences as everyone discovers they can “totally relate” and learn a lot from each other.
It's real. I weep for humanity.
*
Anyway, enough of that. Burn Notice premieres on June 14th! Hooray! Especially since Castle started trying to turn itself into BN, I've been wanting summer to come. I have to admit, I'm not anticipating Fiona being stuck in jail for six episodes and the gang having her as their client of the week for those episodes with great glee, but knowing this show, at least Fiona will get to help break her own self out of jail, which is always good.
*
Plans for the rest of today: REVISION. I'm going to have the second draft of my space pilots story done by June 1 or else.
