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3.5/5 stars
Well, it was much better than the critics would have you believe. I rather enjoyed it, in fact.
While I’m not sure that setting this Robert Louis Stevenson classic in space added much to the story, I’m not sure that it took anything away either. I’ll have to read the book to decide. Also, they did play fast and loose with the laws of physics….I suppose I’ll have to just forgive them that.
5/5 stars!
Wow! What more can I say?
Johnny Depp was incredible. Orlando Bloom was dreamy. Keira Knightley’s “damsel in distress” character wasn’t just a helpless woman. The story was original — one of few that is not a sequel or based on a best-selling novel this summer. And it was pirates!
Highly recommended!
by Frederik Pohl
This is the second installment in the Gateway series. I was completely drawn in by the first book, and it’s now among my favorite books. So, I was a bit startled/jolted when I started this one and found the style and point-of-view was completely different (the first book was completely from Robinette Broadhead’s point-of-view, whereas this one had a different point-of-view for each chapter).
However, I quickly got over my surprise, and was drawn in by Beyond the Blue Event Horizon as much as I had been by Gateway. This book picks up several years after Gateway, and follows a family’s voyage to a Heechee food factory in the Oort cloud. After three years of travel (they do not take the Heechee ships because the last person who tried, did not return), they arrive, only to discover that they are not alone. They stumble upon a human boy, Wan, who has never seen another human besides his mother who died when he was very, very young). He has been living at another Heechee port, nicknamed Heechee Heaven, cared for by the “dead ones” — machines with the imperfect memories of men and women unfortunate enough to have stumbled into Heechee Heaven.
Pohl does not disappoint. The characters are well-crafted, and the story compelling. I’m looking forward to the third installment.
Since Maggie and Jim have recently taken up mountain biking, I thought we could go for a bike ride while Maggie was here. We rented her a bike at Spokes, Etc. in Vienna, and went for about 4 miles up the W&OD trail (Washington and Old Dominion — an old railroad that was turned into a bike trail). Maggie quite enjoyed being able to go fast, since usually she’s going up and down so much that she can just take off. We reached 17 mph on a straight away, and on our way back down a hill, we got up to 26 mph!
This evening we had tickets for The Reduced Shakespeare Company ‘s All the Great Books at the Kennedy Center. I’d seen RSC’s Shakespeare performance on PBS last year, so I was really looking forward to tonight’s performance. I was not disappointed!
Picture of Andrew and me on the viewing deck of the Kennedy Center, with the Lincoln memorial in the background:
While we were in Alexandria, I released a book “into the Wild”. (Check out Bookcrossing.com if you don’t know what that means — it’s a way cool web site! You can also check out my bookshelf .) I released it on a bench in the Market Square
It’s hard to see, but the book is on that bench — way to the left.
I was worried that it might get rained on, since the forecast called for thunderstorms.
Nothing to worry about! Someone picked it up, and registered it today!
2.5/5 stars
While this was much more enjoyable than Rat Race, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World just went on too long. There was still at least 30 minutes left when the groups started to finally converge on the park where the treasure was supposed to be buried. Then followed an excruciatingly goofy/silly/boring search for the “big W”. But up to that point, I was enjoying the chase.
3.5/5 stars
Fun, but fluffy. I can see JD’s point that the movie is not as “hilariously funny” as all of the ads and critics promised. But it definitely had moments, and was a fun story.
4/5 stars
Pixar continues its tradition of fun, entertaining animation. This is the story of a clown fish trying to find his son, Nemo, after Nemo was taken by a diver. Along the way, we meet some sharks, a scary glow-fish-thing, and some surfer turtles. Very fun.
However, I remarked to Andrew that I couldn’t think of a single WOW animation moment. In A Bug’s Life, there were the leaves on the tree — each seemed to have a life of it’s own fluttering in the wind like real leaves. In Monsters, Inc., Sully’s fur was most impressive. Maybe we’ve gotten spoiled. Maybe we’re just taking it for granted now. Don’t get me wrong, the animation was incredible, and I was duly impressed.
A Living Doll Turns Forty
Edited by Yona Zeldis McDonough
McDonough has collected 25 pieces on that most loved, and most hated, doll, Barbie. While many of the essays blasted Barbie for (take your pick):
many of the pieces in the book took a more balanced approach to Barbie.
No one disputes that Barbie was modeled after a quasi-pornographic doll sold primarily to men. Nor do they dispute that her measurements are unrealistic for a healthy woman. On the other hand, blaming the downfall of civilization on Barbie seems a bit much for her perfectly sculpted shoulders to handle. Barbie has held many jobs not traditionally seen as “female” jobs — astronaut (the first time in the ’60s), paleontologist, veterinarian, and dentist. In addition, Barbie is the one doll out there that lets girls explore their lives without babies. Baby dolls imply that a woman’s job is to have and care for babies, whereas Barbie shows girls that they can live their lives with or without babies.
I’ll admit to being somewhat on the fence about the “Barbie-issue.” I know that she’s unrealistic, and even in her non-traditional careers, she has to be absolutely fashionable. Let’s not even mention the whole “Math is hard” debacle in the early ’90s. On the other hand, I played with Barbies, and I seem to have turned out just fine — in fact, I’m quite independent and shun fashion trends and make-up with a passion. Maybe I’d have turned out more fashion conscious if Mattel had made an astrophysicist Barbie.
by Jules Verne
While it took me a little while to get into this book, once the “Journey” was well underway, I found myself hooked.
Professor Hardwigg found a scrap of paper in a recently-acquired early edition with some cryptic writing. He vows that the household will not eat until the message is decrypted. His hungry nephew, Harry, finally figures out the secret (motivated mainly by his desire for a good meal). The note contains instructions for finding a cave in an extinct volcano in Iceland that will lead into the center of the Earth. So it’s off to Iceland for the Professor and his nephew (dragged along by his uncle’s enthusiasm, rather than any inclination of his own to see the center of the Earth).
Do they make it to the center? Well, no. But they do have a grand adventure, finding a vast underground sea populated by ancient giant sea monsters, and stumbling upon a giant ancestor of man (fleeing before interacting with him).
I found that Verne would have some wonderfully descriptive passages followed by terribly simplistic whining from the nephew (our narrator). So, I’m not sure if my difficulties of getting into the book were from Verne’s writing style, or an artifact of the translation. Overall, though, a fun story, if slow-moving.
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