Posted by barb on Aug 1, 2004 in
Books by Celia Rees
This book is the fictional diary of teenager Mary Newbury, chronicling her journey to the New World. Her journey, however, is precipitated by her grandmother’s conviction as a witch. A mysterious woman wisks Mary away from the public hanging, and sends her to Southampton where she will join up with a group of Puritans heading for America. Mary acts the part of a good Puritan girl, but has been brought up as a witch…a wiccan, not the wart-nosed, evil incarnation of a witch on Halloween night.
This was an easy read, since it was geared toward teenagers, however I quite enjoyed it. I liked how Rees set up the scenes, in particular the cramped, smelly ship crossing the ocean.
Posted by barb on Jul 29, 2004 in
Memes, Etc. Our second games class was delayed by a couple weeks, but we finally met again tonight. We played three more fun games.
The first game was Ticket to Ride. This is a railroad building game, where each player attempts to connect various cities based on the tickets they hold. While on the surface, this game looks a bit like TransAmerica (which we played in the Beyond Monopoly class we took last fall), the game play is quite different, and I liked it much better. Of course, I killed the competition in this game, so that might have something to do with why I liked it so much.
The second game was Cluzzle, a sculpting game meant to be more of a social game than anything else. Each person takes a card with several different things listed. For each of three rounds they choose one of the things on the list and sculpt it using PlayDoh-like clay (but without the classic PlayDoh smell). Sculptors get points for each player that gets their word, but no points if everyone gets it. Players also get points for each sculpture they guess. Fun, silly game, but probably not one that we’d buy, since we don’t really do the “social” games much.
The final game we played was For Sale, and auction game. Each player starts with 15 chips, and bids on buildings during the first rounds. During the last round the buildings are then sold. I’m not so good at auction games, so, again, this is unlikely to be a game we buy. It was fun, though, and only took about 15 minutes to play.
Posted by barb on Jul 28, 2004 in
Movies 1/5 stars
What was I thinking? I know better than to rent “cult classics”. It’s always better to see them with the cult or not at all. I only knew what was generally going on because I read the Netflix sleeve before watching this. I didn’t really know what was specifically going on, and much of it felt like a fever dream. The only thing I can think of that would make this a “classic” of any sort is that there was full-frontal, both female and male (David Bowie, to be precise); though, what kind of “classic” I can’t really say…
Posted by barb on Jul 28, 2004 in
Books A few notes for booklovers:
- I don’t think I’ve mentioned Bookcrossing except in passing on this Blog. Bookcrossing is a cool website where you can track the travels of books. First you register a book and put the unique Bookcrossing Identification number (BCID) inside the cover with a note pointing toward the Bookcrossing website. Then, you “release” the book. The release can take many forms: pass it on to a friend who would enjoy the book, leave the book on a park bench or in a doctor’s office waiting room, donate it to a library book sale, sell it to a used book store, or even trade with other Bookcrossing members on-line.
Once out of your hands, it’s best to forget the book. Hopefully, at some time in the future, you’ll get an e-mail that your book has been journalled by someone else. This is a huge thrill, especially with “wild releases”, i.e. those that you don’t directly put into someone else’s hands.
My first wild release that was journalled was Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel. I released it in the St. James Hotel lobby in Red Wing Minnesota, and it was picked up and journalled by a woman from Somerset Wisconsin. She has since re-released it in Hawaii.
I have now tracked some of my books to Senagal (The Alienist by Caleb Carr) and Maylasia (As Nature Made Him by John Calapinto). Check out my bookshelf to see where my books have travelled, and join up yourself…tell them rhombitruncated sent you.
- For you science fiction, fantasy and horror book lovers, you have got to check out sf-books.com, a site I discovered through Bookcrossing. It’s a book trading site that costs you nothing to join. List books that you’re willing to trade with other members, then when you send one out and it’s recieved, you get a credit that you can use to request a book from another member. This involves a bit of trust, but I have yet to lose a book or credit, and the webmaster will make things right if someone stiffs you.
There are traders from all over the world, so you can set which regions you’ll trade with. Within the US, it only costs about $1.50 to send a book if you use the “media rate”. Most members don’t mind if you use the slowest, cheapest method for shipping, since it’s silly to spend more on shipping than you would on a new or used book. Plus they all have to-read piles just as large as yours.
You can see what books I have up for trade on my sf-books.com profile page. If you sign up, tell them rhombitruncated sent you!
- Powell’s Books is holding a contest for book lovers. It’s an essay contest on your most memorable reading experience in the last 10 years, and the prize is $1000 in books from Powells. They’re taking submissions until August 31….I still need to write mine! (Thanks Suzanne for bringing the contest to my attention!)
Posted by barb on Jul 25, 2004 in
Books by Sheri S. Tepper
Life is a game of strategy. Literally, in the world that Tepper has created here. Gamesmen use pawns much as they might be used in chess — they are easily sacrificed in play in favor of a more powerful position. Children of Gamesmen study the game rules for 25 years, and during the last few of those years, their Talent starts to evolve to determine what position they will occupy (king, wizard, healer, etc.).
Fifteen-year-old Peter, still studying in school, finds himself suddenly “in play” during Festival, a time when anything goes. To protect him, the schoolmaster sends Peter and two of his friends to another school far, far away. However, Peter soon discovers that once he’s in play, it’s difficult to get out of the game.
All of Tepper’s skills at weaving a story and creating interesting, sympathetic characters are present in this novel; however, while reading it I felt that her writing just wasn’t as fully developed as in other books I’ve read by her. The book was a bit thin, and I felt that there could have been more development. However, after doing an Internet search, I found that this was, indeed, her first novel. Not bad.
Posted by barb on Jul 24, 2004 in
Movies 3/5 stars
While I remember that I did watch Starsky and Hutch when I was a kid, I don’t actually remember anything about it. Since I’m not burdoned with any recollection of the show itself, I was able to just sit back and enjoy the remake.
Posted by barb on Jul 24, 2004 in
Movies 4/5 stars
This is a fun mockumentary about three folk bands that come together for a concert honoring a recently deceased concert promoter. We watch The Folksmen reunite, while the reunion of Mitch and Mickey is not quite so easy, though Eugene Levy seemed to have a lot of fun with Mitch (he’s not entirely in this world anymore, as it were). Then there are The New Main Street Singers, a revamped version of the older Main Street Singers.
Fun movie with a lot of fun music.
Posted by barb on Jul 22, 2004 in
Movies 3/5 stars
This was a fun movie, with lots of great music (of course). It follows the life of Cole Porter from his days of obscurity in Paris to his time in Hollywood as a famous, well-loved creator of musicals to his riding accident that nearly lost him his legs.
The one main problem with the film is that I am never convinced by the “older” characters. Kevin Kline and Ashely Judd sport a lot of make-up to make themselves look old, and while they look convincing, the acting never quite matches the age. This is true of any other movie I’ve seen where an actor plays a significantly older person. Perhaps it’s because I know better…perhpas it’s because the make-up never quite comes out right (in this case, it seemed too “hard”)…perhaps it’s because actors just aren’t comfortable in roles that require them to play someone so much closer to the end of their lives.
Posted by barb on Jul 22, 2004 in
Memes, Etc. The article, 10 Dumb Moments in Sci-Fi Cinema, counts down the top 10 bad moments in blockbuster science fiction films. These are not dumb moments from b-films — that would be too, too easy. No, these are dumb things that occur in otherwise good movies.
The moments they describe are entertaining. For example, why would the Empire (of The Empire Strikes Back), builders of the greatest space weapon, the Death Star, use All-Terrain Armored Transports to attack the Rebels on Hoth? These AT-ATs are not exactly stable, and really don’t have much fire power…at least compared to what we know the Empire can muster.
My favorite part of the article, though, is the introduction:
Sure, the genre [science fiction] gets respect, not to mention box office yield, but the poor innocent fans are still depicted as lifeless, dateless, and wearing Vulcan ears.
But, and we say this with love, sci-fi fans often deserve the reputation. Once people overhear some pale guy with wizard hair explaining how a light saber simply isn’t possible, as the exposed plasma from the device would irradiate every living organism with a 5-kilometer radius, what are people supposed to think? “Sexy?”
(Sigh)
Posted by barb on Jul 21, 2004 in
Movies 3/5 stars
This movie reminded me a bit of Phenomenon, in which John Travolta’s character gains super-intelligence and telekinesis. In both, we are given enough time and intruduction to the main character to believe that they are truly what they seem to be. In K-PAX, Kevin Spacey plays Prot, a man institutionalized when he tells a police officer that he is from another planet. Over the next hour, we watch him interact with the psychiatrist and other patients and begin to believe that he just might be from outer space. I won’t give away the ending, but I was definately satisfied by it.