Robert Durick's Reading in 2013, fourth quarter

My third quarter thread
My second quarter thread
My first quarter thread

I am, at the beginning of the quarter, between books. I may go back and look at the goals I haven't reached, or I may go on into new excitements.

My 2013 reading so far, probably all books, but possibly articles or magazines. The links are to the message in which I mention what I have read, and in that message there will likely be a touchstone.

January 4, The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
January 18, Mary Stuart by Friedrich Schiller
January 31, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

February 6, Anthill by E.O. Wilson
February 11, The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
February 26, Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima

March 2, Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
March 5, Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare, edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen
March 14, Don't Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff
March 25, The Iliad by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles

April 4, The Cambridge Companion to Homer edited by Robert Fowler
April 5, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
April 11, Drift by Rachel Maddow
April 19, Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
April 29, The New Yorker Book of Cat Cartoons

June 10, Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies
June 12, The Narcissism Epidemic by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell
June 14, Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima
June 21, Quantum by Manjit Kumar
June 24, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

July 5, Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
July 22, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

August 1, Temple of Dawn by Yukio Mishima
August 8, The Decay of the Angel by Yukio Mishima

September 4, The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
September 11, The Mystery of Existence edited with commentary by John Leslie and Robert Lawrence Kuhn
September 18, Einstein's Mistakes by Hans C. Ohanian
September 22, Boomer by Linda Grant Niemann
September 25, Hiking Through by Paul Stutzman
September 30, Wild by Cheryl Strayed

October 7, The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane
October 9, The Box by Marc Levinson
October 14, Dersu the Trapper by V.K. Arseniev
October 21, Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland

November 1, Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
November 4, Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
November 13, Doctor Faustus, Norton Critical Edition, by Christopher Marlowe, edited by David Scott Kastan
November 28, The Presidents Club by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy
November 29, Different Games, Different Rules by Haru Yamada

December 15, How to Read a Film by James Monaco
December 31, Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Plays, concerts, movies, lectures, screenings, and any other entertainments I might want to mention with links to the messages in which I mention them:

January 2, Jack Reacher, movie theater, mainstream
January 3, Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away, 3D movie theater, limited release
January 3, Les Misérables, IMAX equivalent (Titan XC), mainstream
January 5, Les Troyens, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
January 9, Labyrinth, IMAX equivalent (Titan XC), one night screening
January 13, Zero Dark Thirty, IMAX equivalent (Titan XC), mainstream
January 19, Maria Stuarda, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
January 20. Rust and Bone, movie theater, foreign (France, Belgium)
January 26, Quartet, movie theater, limited release
January 30, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, 3D IMAX equivalent, mainstream
January 30, The Raw and the Cooked, museum theater, documentary
January 31, The Magistrate, movie theater, National Theater Live screening

February 2, Stand Up Guys, movie theater, limited release
February 6, Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013, Animation, movie theater, limited release
February 6, Oscar Nominated Short Films 2013, Live Action, movie theater, limited release
February 7, Step up to the Plate, museum theater, documentary
February 10, Lohengrin, museum screening from La Scala, opera
February 13, Die Hard, IMAX equivalent, one day and night marathon revival
February 13, Die Hard 2, IMAX equivalent, one day and night marathon revival
February 13, Die Hard with a Vengeance, IMAX equivalent, one day and night marathon revival
February 13, Live Free or Die Hard, IMAX equivalent, one day and night marathon revival
February 13, A Good Day to Die Hard, IMAX equvalent, mainstream
February 16, Rigoletto, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
February 17, Amour, movie theater, limited release
February 20, The Savoy King: Chick Webb & the Music That Changed America, museum theater, documentary

March 2, Parsifal, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
March 4, Jack the Giant Slayer, 3D IMAX, mainstream
March 4, Side Effects, movie theater, limited release I think
March 9, West of Memphis, movie theater, documentary
March 16, Francesca da Rimini, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
March 23, Dawn Upshaw and Gilbert Kalish, museum theater, live concert
March 26, To Catch a Thief, museum theater, revival series
March 30, The Gatekeepers, movie theater, documentary

April 3, G. I. Joe: Retaliation, IMAX equivalent, mainstream
April 10, The NeverEnding Story, IMAX equivalent, one night revival
April 13, Trance, movie theater, limited release
April 14, The Place Beyond the Pines, movie theater, limited release
April 20, The Sapphires, movie theater, foreign (Australia)
April 20, 56 Up, movie theater, documentary
April 21, No, movie theater, foreign (Chile)
April 22, Oblivion, IMAX, mainstream
April 25, Na Kupu Mana'olana, museum theater, documentary
April 27, Giulio Cesare, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera (first act only)
April 28, Chasing Ice, museum theater, documentary

May 3, More Than Honey, museum theater, documentary
May 4, Mud, movie theater, limited distribution
May 5, Iron Man Three, IMAX 3D, mainstream
May 11, Jules and Jim, museum theater, foreign (France)
May 15, Une Estonienne à Paris, museum theater, foreign (Estonia, France, and, they say, Belgium)
May 18, Lore, movie theater, foreign (Germany, Australia)
May 19, Star Trek Into Darkness, IMAX 3D, mainstream
May 22, Pieta, movie theater, foreign (Korea)
May 23, 42, movie theater, mainstream (but running out of steam)

June 1, Frances Ha, movie theater, limited release
June 2, Fast & Furious 6, IMAX equivalent, mainstream
June 8, At Any Price, movie theater, limited release
June 15, Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's, movie theater, documentary
June 18, The Hangover Part III, movie theater, mainstream
June 18, Tai Chi Hero, movie theater, foreign (China)
June 18, The Internship, movie theater, mainstream
June 19, Man of Steel, IMAX 3D, mainstream
June 22, Before Midnight, movie theater, limited release
June 22, Kon Tiki, movie theater, limited release
June 24, This Is the End, movie theater, mainstream
June 25, The Untold Story: Internment of Japanese Americans in Hawaii, movie theater, documentary
June 25, Il Trittico, movie theater, opera
June 26, Yojimbo, museum theater, foreign (Japan)
June 27, Seven Samurai, museum theater, foreign (Japan)
June 28, The Bling Ring, movie theater, limited release
June 29, The East, movie theater, limited release
June 29, Much Ado About Nothing, movie theater, limited release

July 2, The Hidden Fortress, museum theater, foreign (Japan)
July 6, What Maisie Knew, movie theater, limited release
July 8, The Heat, movie theater, mainstream
July 9, The Lone Ranger, IMAX equivalent, mainstream
July 10, Armida, Metropolitan Opera high definition, summer encore
July 13, Twenty Feet from Stardom, movie theater, documentary
July 21, Only God Forgives, movie theater, limited release, kinda foreign
July 24, RED 2, movie theater, mainstream
July 24, Fight Club, IMAX equivalent, one night revival
July 27, Fill the Void, movie theater, foreign (Israel)
July 31, Only God Forgives, movie theater, limited release, pretty foreign

August 3, The Attack, movie theater, foreign (Lebanon, France, Qatar, Belgium)
August 7, Fruitvale Station, movie theater, limited release
August 10, Blue Jasmine, movie theater, limited release
August 13, Elysium, IMAX equivalent, mainstream
August 14, We're the Millers, movie theater, mainstream
August 17, The Act of Killing, movie theater, foreign documentary (putatively Denmark but mostly Indonesia)
August 19, Lee Daniels' [sic] The Butler, movie theater, mainstream
August 20, Don Carlo, movie theater, opera
August 24, The Spectacular Now, movie theater, limited release
August 26, Drug War, movie theater, foreign (China)
August 30, The Grandmaster, IMAX equivalent, mainstream
August 31, Blackfish, movie theater, documentary

September 1, La Traviata, museum theater, opera
September 3, Traviata et nous, museum theater, foreign (France) documentary
September 7, Short Term 12, movie theater, limited release
September 8, Walker Art Center's Internet Cat Video Festival, museum theater, feline
September 14, Hannah Arendt, museum theater, foreign
September 28, Enough Said, movie theater, limited release

October 5, Eugene Onegin, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
October 10, Gravity, IMAX 3D, mainstream
October 12, Inequality for All, movie theater, documentary
October 13, Othello, movie theater, National Theatre Live
October 19, Wadjda, movie theater, foreign (mostly Arabia)
October 21, Captain Phillips, movie theater, mainstream
October 24, Macbeth, movie theater, National Theater Live
October 26, The Nose, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
October 28, The Haumana, movie theater, limited release
October 30, The Nose, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera

November 2, Last Vegas, movie theater, mainstream
November 9, Tosca, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
November 16, Nabucco, Opera in Cinema, opera
November 17, Hamlet, movie theater, National Theater Live
November 30, Nebraska, movie theater, limited release

December 7, Out of the Furnace, movie theater, mainstream
December 10, Wedding Palace, movie theater, foreign (Korea)
December 14, Falstaff, Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition, opera
December 16, Commitment, movie theater, foreign (Korea)
December 21, Inside Llewyn Davis, movie theater, limited release
December 26, The Wolf of Wall Street, movie theater, mainstream
December 28, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, IMAX 3D, mainstream
December 29, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, movie theater, limited release

Notes:

January independent movies to see
February independent movies to see
March independent movies to see
May independent movies to see
Summer 2013 movies to miss
Atlantic's Oscar previews
Time's Ten Best of 2013
The five best movies of 2013 for mature audiences

Books, CD's, and DVD's, that I have acquired in 2013 so far. The links below are usually to the message in which I comment on the acquisition. There should be a touchstone in that message.

Books

1. January 2, Classics of Buddhism and Zen, volume 1 translated by Thomas Cleary
2. January 2, Classics of Buddhism and Zen, volume 2 translated by Thomas Cleary
3. January 2, Classics of Buddhism and Zen, volume 3 translated by Thomas Cleary
4. January 2, Classics of Buddhism and Zen, volume 4 translated by Thomas Cleary
5. January 2, Classics of Buddhism and Zen, volume 5 translated by Thomas Cleary
6. January 5, Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
7. January 5, The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
8. January 12, Being and Time by Martin Heidegger
9. January 12, Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
10. January 15, The Strangest Man by Graham Farmelo
11. January 15, The English Language by Laurel J. Brinton and Leslie K. Arnovick
12. January 15, The Maine Woods by Henry D. Thoreau and edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer
13. January 15, The Book of Enoch translated by R.H. Charles
14. January 15, The Conquest of a Continent by W. Bruse Lincoln
15. January 15, Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life by Mark Francis
16. January 16, A House for Hope by John Buehrens and Rebecca Ann Parker
17. January 19, The Language Wars by Henry Hitchings
18. January 26, I Could Read the Sky by Timothy O'Grady, photographs by Steve Pyke
19. January 26, Moscow, December 25, 1991, by Conor O'Clery
20. January 26, Soul Dust, by Nicholas Humphrey
21. January 26, Reading Music, by Marc Schonbrun
22. January 26, The Uninvited Guests, by Sadie Jones
23. January 26, The Secret Life of Pronouns by James W. Pennebaker
24. January 28, B.S. Johnson Omnibus by B.S. Johnson

25. February 3, Quiet by Susan Cain
26. February 3, Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander
27. February 7, The Art of Living According to Joe Beef by Frederic Morin, David McMillan, and Meredith Erickson
28. February 7, Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith
29. February 9, Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare and edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen
30. February 9, The Victrola Book of the Opera by Samuel Holand Rous
31. February 9, Opera People by Robert M. Jacobson
32. February 9, Fifty Years of Glyndebourne by John Julius Norwich
33. February 9, Opera edited by Rudolf Hartmann
34. February 9, Opera by David Ewen
35. February 9, Opera! by Karyl Lynn Zietz
36. February 11, The Iliad by Homer and translated by Robert Fagles
37. February 12, Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
38. February 19, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
39. February 23, A History of the Connecticut River by Wick Griswold
40. February 23, The Wisdom to Know the Difference by Eileen Flanagan
41. February 23, The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction by Wendy Northcutt

42. March 4, A Brief Guide to Jane Austen by Charles Jennings
43. March 4, Mapping the Lands and Waters of Hawai'i by Riley M. Moffat and Gary L. Fitzpatrick
44. March 6, Trapeze by Simon Mawer
45. March 6, Drift by Rachel Maddow
46. March 7, A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor
47. March 9, Don't Get Too Comfortable by David Rakoff
48. March 9, Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon
49. March 9, Man in the Woods by Scott Spencer
50. March 13, Countee Cullen Collected Poems edited by Major Jackson
51. March 16, Beloved by Toni Morrison
52. March 16, When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson
53. March 16, Revelations by Elaine Pagels
54. March 16, Complete Price Guide to Watches 2013 by Tom Engle, Richard E. Gilbert, and Cooksey Shugart
55. March 23, The Ninth by Harvey Sachs
56. March 23, Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton
57. March 26, The Cambridge Companion to Homer edited by Robert Fowler
58. March 27, James Weldon Johnson, Writings, by James Weldon Johnson, edited by William L. Andrews
59. March 27, Chesnutt, Stories, Novels, and Essays by Charles W. Chesnutt, edited by Werner Sollors

60. April 11, Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima
61. April 13, Red Star Rogue by Kenneth Sewell with Clint Richmond
62. April 13, Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew with Annette Lawrence Drew
63. April 13, What Money Can't Buy by Michael J. Sandel
64. April 17, Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden
65. April 17, 1493 by Charles C. Mann
66. April 20, The Decalogue Through the Centuries edited by Jeffrey P. Greenman and Timothy Larsen
67. April 20, New Beethoven Letters translated and annotated by Donald W. MacArdle and Ludwig Misch
68. April 27, Unintended Consequences by Edward Conard
69. April 27, The New Yorker Book of Cat Cartoons by a whole bunch of cartoonists

70. May 1, Lost Kingdom by Julia Flynn Siler
71. May 1, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
72. May 1, The Narcissism Epidemic by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell
73. May 1, In Defense of Food by Michael Pollen
74. May 1, Meat by Susan Bourette
75. May 2, The Realm of Prester John by Robert Silverberg
76. May 2, Wild by Cheryl Strayed
77. May 4, The Cat by Edeet Ravel
78. May 7, Jem (and Sam) by Ferdinand Mount
79. May 7, The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
80. May 10, Google Secrets by Yvette Davis
81. May 10, Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies
82. May 11, American Science Fiction Four Classic Novels 1953-1956 edited by Gary K. Wolfe
83. May 11, American Science Fiction Four Classic Novels 1956-1958 edited by Gary K. Wolfe
84. May 11, Cather, Early Novels and Stories, by Willa Cather and edited by Sharon O'Brien
85. May 11, Cather, Later Novels, by Willa Cather and edited by Sharon O'Brien
86. May 11, Cather, Stories, Poems, and Other Writings, by Willa Cather and edited by Sharon O'Brien
87. May 11, The Seventeen Solutions by Ralph Nader
88. May 15, American Journal of Numismatics 24 edited by Andrew R. Meadows and Oliver D. Hoover
89. May 15, Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
90. May 18, The Toughest Show on Earth by Joseph Volpe
91. May 18, Opera Anecdotes by Ethan Mordden
92. May 18, Operatic Lives by Alberto Savinio
93. May 18, Opera 101 by Fred Plotkin
94. May 18, The Operagoer's Guide by M. Owen Lee
95. May 18, The Maestro Myth by Norman Lebrecht
96. May 18, An Illustrated Guide to Composers of Opera by Peter Gammond
97. May 18, Demented by Ethan Mordden
98. May 25, The Black Count by Tom Reiss
99. May 31, The Art of Happiness by Epicurus
100. May 31, Travels with Epicurus by Daniel Klein

101. June 5, Big Machine by Victor Lavalle
102. June 5, Wild Dogs by Helen Humphreys
103. June 5, Melissa Miller by Susie Kalil
104. June 8, Words for the Taking by Neal Bowers
105. June 8, Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood edited by Mary Strong
106. June 8, Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
107. June 8, Quantum by Manjit Kumar
108. June 12, Einstein's Mistakes by Hans C. Ohanian
109. June 12, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
110. June 14, John Milton by Gordon Campbell and Thomas N. Corns
111. June 15, Art As Experience by John Dewey
112. June 15, The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
113. June 15, The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer
114. June 15, Trapped in the Mirror by Elan Golomb
115. June 20, The Annotated Collected Poems by Edward Thomas and edited by Edna Longley
116. June 29, Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
117. June 29, The Most of P.G. Wodehouse by P.G. Wodehouse

118. July 8, Longitude by Dava Sobel
119. July 8, A Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrams
120. July 9, American Transcendentalism by Philip F. Gura
121. July 9, The World of the Oratorio by Kurt Pahlen
122. July 9, The Literary 100 by Daniel S. Burt
123. July 9, Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
125. July 9, Dorothy Parker by Marion Meade
126. July 12, The Garden of the Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
127. July 12, The Temple of Dawn by Yukio Mishima
128. July 24, The Mystery of Existence edited by John Leslie and Robert Lawrence Kuhn
129. July 27, Thought and Language by Lev Vygotsky
130. July 27, Coming Apart by Charles Murray
131. July 27, Predator Nationby Charles H. Ferguson
132. July 27, Dearie by Bob Spitz

133. August 1, The Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism edited by Joel Myerson, Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, and Laura Dassow Walls
134. August 1, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax edited by Guglielmo Cinque and Richard S. Kayne
135. August 5, The Decay of the Angel by Yukio Mishima
136. August 6, The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology edited by Paul K. Moser
137. August 9, Gödel's Way by Gregory Chaitin, Newton da Costa, and Francisco Antonio Doria
138. August 10, The Indian Heritage of America by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.
139. August 10, The Portable Chaucer edited and translated by Theodore Morrison
140. August 19, Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
141. August 21, Boomer by Linda Grant Niemann
142. August 22, The Capitalism Papers by Jerry Mander
143. August 24, Our Sunshine by Robert Drewe
144. August 24, Fortune by Robert Drewe
145. August 26, Dersu the Trapper by V. K. Arseniev and translated by Malcolm Burr
146. August 31, Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
147. August 31, What It Is Like To Go To War by Karl Marlantes

148. September 3, Voices of Long Term Sobriety by A.A. Grapevine, Inc.
149. September 10, The New Jerusalem Bible
150. September 10, Ezra Pound: Poet, volume 1, by A. David Moody
151. September 10, Between the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor
152. September 14, How to Read a Photograph by Ian Jeffrey
153. September 14, Ansel Adams in Color introduced, commented on, and edited by a bunch of people but mostly by Ansel Adams
154. September 14, Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams: The Hawai'i Pictures by Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
155. September 14, Georgia O'Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities by Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and maybe a couple of others
156. September 23, Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
157. September 26, How Music Works by David Byrne
158. September 26, The Box by Marc Levinson
159. September 28, Hope, a Tragedy, by Shalom Auslander
160. September 28, Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
161. September 28, Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
162. September 28, From Dictatorship to Democracy by Gene Sharp
163. September 28, The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane
164. September 28, Germania by Simon Winder
165. September 28, Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks
166. September 28, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
167. September 28, A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
168. September 28, Griftopia by Matt Taibbi
169. September 28, You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier
170. September 28, Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs
171. September 28, The Pot and How to Use It by Roger Ebert

172. October 5, Regeneration by Pat Barker
173. October 5, Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland
174. October 15, The Presidents Club by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy
175. October 28, Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
176. October 28, The Redress of Poetry by Seamus Heaney
177. October 31, Death by Todd May
178. October 31, Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
179. October 31, The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn

180. November 14, A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland
181. November 14, The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond
182. November 15, Rage and Time by Peter Sloterdijk
183. November 16, OK by Allan Metcalf
184. November 16, The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution edited by Maggie Tallerman and Kathleen R. Gibson
185. November 26, Mystics by William Harmless
186. November 26, Apophatic Bodies edited by Chris Boesel and Catherine Keller
187. November 26, Different Games, Different Rules by Haru Yamada
188. November 26, How to Read a Film by James Monaco
189. November 30, The Official Red Book of United States Coins, 2014, by R.S. Yeoman

190. December 4, Should We Eat Meat by Vaclav Smil
191. December 6, Mark Twain's Book of Animals edited by Shelley Fisher Fishkin
192. December 7, Amazingly Stupid Mad, Expanded Edition
193. December 7, Mad About Super Heroes
194. December 7, Horrifyingly Mad
195. December 15, Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
196. December 15, Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick
197. December 16, How Much Is Enough? by Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky
198. December 16, The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien
199. December 23, The Mansion of Happiness by Jill Lepore

CD's

1. January 26, Cold Fact, Rodriguez
2. January 26, Babel, Mumford & Sons
3. January 26, Sigh No More, Mumford & Sons

4. February 23, Love Ella, The Original Versions, Ella Fitzgerald

5. March 14, Strictly Jive, Chick Webb

6. November 2, Cash, Johnny Cash

DVD's

1. February 2, The Heart Is a Loney Hunter
2. April 13, BBC Jane Austen set
3. May 25, Memphis
4. November 30, Stanley Kubrick, Essential Collection

Just jumping on your latest thread, and looking forward to what comes. I think I want to read Quantum.

Well, Dan, I don't know how much there will be to see. But you certainly are welcome.

Robert

Robert, I am also a fan of your thread. Perhaps you ought to ease up on the book buying after the September splurge

A few years back a friend trying to be of good counsel said, "And now just don't buy any more books." I replied, "That's not how it works."

Robert

The Metropolitan Opera opened its live in high definition season Saturday with Eugene Onegin. It is about a jerk and an innocent. The cast and staff during commentary talked about the musicality of the work. The audience at the Met was in nearly its entirety on its feet at the end. I was moved by two scenes: Onegin holds Lensky's head as the act closes (that's a virtue of this production), and Tatiana does not respond immediately after Onegin asks her for pity in the last act (the music plays on; it is a virtue of the work). I think that a novel along the same lines could explore character and that Tatiana could be a remarkable woman. I may read Pushkin's novel which is in a stack upstairs to find out.

I won't be watching this opera again even though I know I am wrong in that.

Robert

I didn't buy any books for a week. I had Plutocrats though on my waiting-for-the-paperback wishlist. It came out in paperback, was available at my Barny Noble's, and was cheaper there than on line. It comes recommended by Chatterbox whose thread I follow over in the 75 Books group, whose judgment I trust, and who wrote Chasing Goldman Sachs.

There have been a couple of mentions on LibraryThing recently of the 1992 novel Regeneration. It too was available there, looked good, and was at an acceptable price. I did not buy the other available book in the series that this book starts.

Book prices seem to be going up. $12.95 books now seem to go for $17. Yet there is no inflation.

Robert

Serbian lion cub learns to roar:



It sounds to me like she's saying, 'meow.'

Robert

I suppose that The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane is inspirational, but it is not very informative. People who have walked know that they can be reflective in their walking; he encourages that and encourages being observant too (there is some reflection on ocean going as well). He also takes on some of the history of contemplative long distance walking, especially in the early twentieth century. One of his heroes is the sadly goofy and too early deceased Edward Thomas; I realized as I was reading the acknowledgments that I had liked a poem by Thomas posted on LibraryThing well enough that I eventually ordered the collection The Annotated Collected Poems which I feel compelled to read now.

One of his listed inspirations, although not mentioned, as far as I can remember, in the text, is Patrick Leigh Fermor. If I can find my copies of his first two books on his long walk I think that I will turn to him sooner rather than later. I am sorry to see that Thousand-Mile Summer is not in print; I have enjoyed Colin Fletcher's writing about walking, although the mechanics of it play a bigger role in his work than in Macfarlane's. I also have very much enjoyed Redmond O'Hanlon's trekking tales, and I should turn soon to Trawler, but I have absolutely no idea where that is in this overburdened little home of mine.

Robert

Have you read anything by Chris Townsend? I liked Walking the Yukon.

I haven't read him. I will look into his books although I'd like to see one on a shelf somewhere.

Robert

When I shipped my car from Northern California to Guam in 1968 it went on the deck of a ship where it got concrete drooled on it. My motorcycle returned from Okinawa in 1972 on a palette, I believe within a container and without damage. The intermodal container was getting a real footing in the shipping industry at that time as Malcom McClean developed Cam Ranh Bay to supply Americans in Vietnam. The Box by Marc Levinson tells that story and the follow up into this millennium.

Throughout the world longshoreman and others, like the Vietnamese generals who would not let containers into the port of Saigon because they couldn't plunder them, supplemented their income stealing from breakbulk cargo. Shipping is now reliable, reasonably priced, and on schedule with containers when it just wasn't before their widespread adoption. Globalization can happen because of these new efficiencies.

Mr. Levinson has written what I think is an interesting and even usually lively book of non-fiction. Some of the labor history seemed dry to me but might not be to an economist; it was at least necessary. I would have liked a few maps and drawings. I would have liked to know more about freight consolidators away from the ports. I would have liked to have heard more about the intermodal interface. I would have liked to learn about how rail yards move and load containers. And a few other things. But the book was still rich with the tale, and I'm glad to have spent a few days with it.

Robert

I saw the movie Gravity* in IMAX 3D, the recommended medium. It is not the best movie, but it is really good, and as I've reviewed it in my mind I have found more to admire in it. The IMAX 3D is for the machinery and for the two sequences of Sandra Bullock's being lithe, value enough right there for the ticket price. The movie is about anoxic epiphany, and could represent a religious coming to terms. The giant plot hole, that near outer space is a neighborhood of generally friendly estates between which one can commute, is probably not devastating to most of us movie goers.

SPOILERS: George Clooney's joy in space and apparent competence as a spaceman shows a happy way to relate to what is ultimate. It turns out that he is something of an angel, and he brings the message to Sandra Bullock who moves from resignation to determination at his prompting. She prays to him after he is gone the second time, and she had despaired of prayer even as she had wished for it. Her emerging from the pond, kissing the mud, and uttering "Thank you" before she stands wobbly and laughs is just beautifully triumphant.

I can recommend that you go spend your time, money, and attention on this one.

Robert

I've heard other favorable reviews of Gravity.

I've also had my household contents shipped by container more than a few times. There has been a marked improvement in the speed and ability to give me a clear schedule. I do always picture the container falling into the ocean halfway over, but that hasn't yet happened. Now I get to worry about the container falling over.

That's really interesting about the development of containers. I need to read this book. I've lived in several ports over the years, and container ships and container yards always fascinate me for some weird reason. I think I just like watching the containers being moved around and dreaming of the places they visit. I actually like labour history too.

I want to read that also. Whenever I drive by the "ghost ships" in the bay on the way to San Francisco I think about the potential for novels taking place in them ever since I read a Ridley Pearson book about immigrants being kept in them. A book about the uses of old outdated containers could be interesting. An illustrated book of course.

From Trains Magazine

tanca of troyes, come home.

On Saturday, I saw the documentary Inequality for All* in which Robert Reich mispronounces his name and offers the thesis that a large differential in wealth between the richest and the poorest is a cause of social ill and a worsening of the lot of most people. All of the data are the kinds of things we see regularly in any news that goes deeper than headlines and that the Republicans would repudiate with hollow gestures. I happen to believe that people should be able to get rich in a free society; I don't believe that the government should be giving the rich allowances from our tax dollars as our neighbors on the sidewalk go hungry. I don't believe that destroying the environment and the innocents, animal, human, and floral, among us raises all boats. I think that rational taxation and good quality regulation are the answer and that will allow capitalism to raise all boats. So Mr. Reich and I have fundamentally different rationales, and he is an expert while I'm just a mensch, but I think our solutions might be similar. Except for us televisionally challenged folk who get to see and hear Mr. Reich there is not much here that hasn't pretty much been said, albeit possibly not all in one place, and so the documentary is unnecessary. I am glad to have seen it though.

On Sunday, I was already in town, so being across town was just a little extension. I had been skipping the National Theatre Live screenings because too often I would make the thirty mile round trip with no other excuse and have the screening fail. I wanted, however, to see Othello, so I used my being nearby as an excuse to give it a try. I've seen the opera a couple of times, but I've never seen the play; I don't know whether I have read it. It is a long play about psychopathy and, they say, jealousy. There is a lot of good language in it, and the intensity of the psychopathy is excruciating — its relevance to my life unveiled my depression. I would like to see it again, once, in period costume. Then I could stay with my favorites, Hamlet and The Tempest, and the ones I haven't seen.

I find myself coming to the defense of Gravity as it is charged with being spectacular and empty or whatever like that. I think it should hold up, and I find enough meat in it, on reflection, to make the defense easy.

Robert

Well I've been wanting to see the Reich, but not bad enough to actually get off my duff and go, because I was thinking what you said - what is there left to be said?

I am going to have to see Gravity.

My daughter and her family went to see Gravity in 3D IMAX yesterday. When I asked her how she liked it, her answer was "WOW". She also said she never thought she would say that 3D IMAX was the only way to see a film, but in this case it was.

Robert many thanks for your review of The Box. I think I'll order it.

When I read an article about the tiny-house movement a couple months ago, I came across containers repurposed as houses and whole complexes: “The uniform size and shape that made them easy to transport on long-distance trucks and ships allows them to be stacked up to a dozen high without significant external reinforcement.” (photo in msg17 notwithstanding!)

Siberia is fascinating, a huge, empty land spoiled by the forces of population and thuggery, and there are fascinating books about it. Dersu the Trapper is about the humanity and wilderness of the very right end of the country down low only barely contiguous with the full mass of land. It reads as a memoir, but the author of the preface, Jaimy Gordon, says, "We may be sure that the Dersu of the books is a composite character." This composite character has a reality on the page that we can use to represent what we have lost by being reared in houses with supermarkets nearby (a situation that the mountain men of the American west tried to avoid). And he foresees the devastation that will occur in the immediate future as more and more people push into the unspoiled land, some to live in it and some to plunder it.

I can happily read this kind of book that runs on like: It was cold and we could not get warm. We sat toasty by the fire. We had no food for days. We shot and ate a roe and left it for the ants. There were this tree and that tree and that other kind of tree and dentate leaves. It does that over and over. I suppose that could get long for people who find the chapter on whales in Moby Dick long, but what I bring away from the book is not the specific flora and fauna but the relationship to the land that the explorers, the trapper, the other trappers, the farmers... have, and how it related back to them — it sends storms and tigers against them.

The liberty of Dersu could not be sustained in most parts of the world today. And the author's liberty was lost to him as he went to an early death in the Soviet Union.

This book is a beautiful tragedy and a glimpse at the devastation our world likely faces.

Robert

When it came time to pick a book to discuss at the December meeting of our church book group one of the women held up The Presidents Club by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy. She said that it was interesting and easy to read. On those grounds the group picked it, and it was in today's mail from Barny Noble. The interesting thing is that the Presidents are in a unique circumstance and have nobody but ex-Presidents to talk to about it, and so do. I'm not excited about this book, but I can't believe that it will be totally uninteresting.

Robert

Your review for Dersu the Trapper was lovely.

Love your review of Dersu the Trapper.

Ditto Dersu review!

Thumbed!

Aw, shucks.

 

Mr D, you've described the National Theatre's Othello perfectly with your the intensity of the psychopathy is excruciating and I can see how it would have the effect it did, but it is a performance that will not soon be forgotten. Having seen it in traditional costume and setting in August and thought that was done well, this raised the bar immensely. I thought the modern setting put a whole new light on it that I would not otherwise have considered.

Great review of Dersu which I bought after reading rebecca's review. It will be a great book to read as I freeze this winter. That's also a terrific map.

interesting and easy to read oh those book clubs! That could well be the motto of the one I go to ,which is thinking of disbanding as some members find reading a book a month somewhat onerous.

 

Women are without privilege in Arabia. But still they have wills and desires. In the movie Wadjda* we watch a delightfully sly girl find her way into a privilege the adult women would deny her. Meanwhile the movie is even more about the love between that girl and her mother, and it is contrasted a couple of ways with adult love. In the end mom comes through giving attention to her child that I think is not universal but is called for. The movie is a pleasure.

Robert

Sounds very intriguing!

 

There is not much depth to the movie Captain Phillips* the

Captain Richard Phillips: There's got to be something other than being a fisherman or kidnapping people.
Muse: Maybe in America, Irish, maybe in America.

dialog notwithstanding, but it is an exciting action movie. I saw it on a standard screen; it could have been good on a big, high definition screen, but that is not necessary. I was a little skeptical about the drama's resolution, but apparently it was true; this is a spoiler. There were two exquisite bits of acting, one seen in the trailers where the pirate says, "I am the captain now;" and the other by Tom Hanks at the end.

I didn't like Tom Hanks's accent in the movie. I think they should just have ignored the fact that there is a New England accent. But he was pretty believable otherwise, much more so than in the trailer for the forthcoming Walt Disney portrayal.

Robert

I am a capitalist conservative who is offended by the purchase of American governance by the very rich. I have now read Plutocrats by Chrystia Freeland. If you look at a few political sites on Facebook or read a newspaper or some such you've heard about most that is in the book. The book's virtue is that it captures the detail and puts it in one place. Chatterbox, a competent financial reporter herself, asserts that the book is well researched (a model of that kind of research) and deserving of reading. I am glad that I read it. A former friend, an entrepreneur, doesn't like the way America is going, but I don't think he reads, so his objections devolve to something like, "Why don't we do urinalysis on welfare recipients?" There is greater depth than that to the issues America faces and we should be plumbing those depths rather than shouting at each other.

There are virtuous rich people, by the way.

Robert

A parenthetical post script: John Paulson is mentioned, but that he might have played loose with the rules is not mentioned. At first he was something of a hero to me, but his misuse of the system may be contemptible.

R

Yasna 9

Last night provided yet another example of why I don't drive across town solely to see a National Theatre Live screening. Once again the projectionist didn't know when to start the event; Emma Freud didn't come on for about 22 minutes. The sound track was defective with pops and tiny silences that were just too annoying for concentration and sometimes omitted enough to prevent understanding. So I don't know whether I like Shakespeare's Macbeth in performance.

This production was loud, even noisy, with a minimum of sets. Some of the acting seemed aimed at showing that the performers were acting. Kenneth Branagh played Macbeth just a little too obviously and brutally evil. I left at the end wishing I had followed my own rule of thumb and not gone.

Robert

Sorry about that version of Macbeth. I enjoyed catching up here again, and loved your take on Dersu. Glad you posted your review on the book page.

The Metropolitan Opera's production of Shostakovich's opera The Nose seemed sufficiently decadent when I saw it Saturday afternoon that I wondered how Stalin tolerated it. Stalin gave Shostakovich a really hard time; I first learned about it from Europe Central but have paid attention ever since. So I googled 'shostakovich "the nose" stalin' and found that Stalin's insistence on socialist realism didn't come to bear until 1932, but the first production of the opera was in 1930. The Bolshevik press criticized it.

According to Fandango the screening encore is Wednesday, October 30. It is near a Costco. I think that I will go get Halloween candy and then see the opera again. I want to see all of this season's Live in HD performances, but for various reasons. This one was for Shostakovich's music. Peter Gelb interviewed the set designer (I think; it might have been the stage director), and the latter talked about projections. I was leery; it sounded like it was going to be on the cheap. Meanwhile the reason I made myself come to opera and ultimately enjoy it was that composers I liked claimed to want to write opera because it was a combination of music, plastic art (sets), and drama. So I came to The Nose expecting music, and I got the whole shebang.

I haven't read Gogol's story, but there is an absurdist story presented to good music here in an active and telling set all of which taken separately or together is fascinating. And it cannot be taken in in one sitting. Except for some of the provocations of some of the nastier members of the audience I was riveted to the screen. This was a strange thing for someone who likes plenty of arias to capture the music and the notion that the production is about singing. The friends I ran into outside had been equally taken by the production. I'm telling you all of this pedestrian stuff because I cannot capture the specialness of what happened here.

(I started to type 'go see it,' but it is not for people who aren't ready to accept something entirely new, probably attuned to opera, but probably outside there usual ambit.)

Robert

On the way to the local multiplex last night I stopped for just a few minutes in the used book store downstairs.

The Redress of Poetry by Seamus Heaney. I have some respect for the author and some curiosity about the genre, so for five dollars I thought I might become informed.

Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins. I am not good at reading poetry, but often enough hearing or seeing a poem by Billy Collins I have found myself liking it and knew that someday I would own a collection of his works. I've been waiting for a comprehensive collection but was aware that this book had some poems from earlier in his career and that this book was well regarded. So for five dollars I got it.

Robert

A fellow who knows that I go to a lot of movies had seen The Haumana* (at the time of posting there is pretty much nothing at the asterisk link) at a special showing and recommended it to me. It is playing at the local multiplex now so I went to see it. It was pleasant and revealed some of the inner workings of hula groups as it told a story about people finding themselves in dedication to an ideal. The lead character had a lot of Hawaiian shirts. The shooting, some of it glorious, the script, and the acting all had a little bit of the home made about them so it is not a movie to seek out if nobody requires it. It is to be commended for handling one aspect, challenges to the group from outside, with subtlety, and one scene of making amends is corny but affective and no cornier than real life often is.

I hope that I don't have to explain this to the fellow who recommended it to me.

Robert

 

I liked the Metropolitan Opera's The Nose on Saturday enough that I went back to see it again last night. It seemed a little long on Saturday, possibly just from the fear engendered by there being no intermission, but it flew by last night. I did, however, hear in the parking garage elevator a woman complain that it has been an awfully long two hours.

The libretto is not timeless and solemn; it is satirical. The music is competent. The singers and dancers are competent but not spectacular. The set is intricate and without error; seeing it a second time let me in on its intricacies (like the repetition of the phrase, "We also let blood"). And it all added up to a work of art that is uncommon and cannot be hung on the wall of a museum. I'm talking through my hat here because this is the only production I've seen of this opera, but it is the production to be admired in this case. There may be other good ways to deliver this sung comic drama; the fellow who staged this really knew what he was doing, though, and spent some time getting it on stage. If it runs again in the summer I'll be going back to see it again.

I neglected to mention this last time, Kovalyov gets his nose back and gets to proposition the gorgeous dancer who appeared from time to time throughout the work.

Robert

I had two Barny Noble coupons. I have some long wishlists with them, but nothing was calling loudly, so I just tried to reduce their length by a half a per cent or so, and I got one more just cuz. The two orders were in today's mail.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. This caught my eye in the store and went on my wishlist. The reactions to it on LibraryThing are mixed, but it is important to have an entertainment ready to hand. The author's picture shows kind of a humorless person, and she lives in Seattle, so the humor in this may be someone else's idea of funny. It says on the cover that it is "One of the year's best books" so it may be worth reading even if it isn't humorous. This was the no coupon book.

Death by Todd May. The touchstone system and search your library function cannot find so simple a title as this one. I did manage to force the touchstone though. I don't know how this got on my wishlist. It is a subject that interests me written by a philosopher for the common reader.

The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn. These three novels got some eager and favorable comments awhile back. There is a fourth, putatively last novel in the series. If ever I get around to reading these I may go looking for it.

I got some actual, paper coupons in the mail the other day that I have to use by the end of November. I wonder what they will do for me.

Robert

Enjoyed your comments on The Nose, even though I haven't seen an opera. Hope you like the Billy Collins book.

I finished the science fiction polemic Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver structured by this scientist novelist to be a literary novel. The dynamic protagonist is contrasted with her static best friend, both of whom are too good to be true. Secrets are revealed, but none of them are interesting enough or interestingly enough revealed to bother spoiling the raveling of the plot for others who get lured into this book.

Science is good. Ignorance is not so good but is to be understood. People lead lives.

I read this for the church book group.

Robert

 

Everybody was falling over for Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape*, but my eyes were on Mary Steenburgen. I must have seen her before that, say in the Back to the Future series, but it was in Gilbert Grape that I noticed her, and much as I find her attractive I haven't seen her much since then, 20 years.

She was also the feature, as far as I'm concerned, of Last Vegas†, a movie I have finally come to realize gives me nothing to take away from it. The movie was reviewed as being good to us old folk, and maybe it is important that we geezers should be reminded to pay attention to those women folk in our own age group, but I think a lot of us do that anyway. During the movie I was uncomfortable with the party setting or the Las Vegas setting. On reflection a few hours later that discomfort had faded, and I was happy that the substantial Ms. Steenburgen had prevailed and the less substantial young woman had been sent back to her own cohort. But by today there was nothing left. This doesn't even hold together as a buddy movie despite some really credible acting from some really professional actors.

Oh well.

Robert

I've always liked Mary Steenburgen too.

Also a fan of Steenburgen. My husband and I just about had dual heart attacks laughing at that movie. I don't like Vegas but I love DeNiro and the others. However, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone under 65. It might frighten them. Old age seems to only be funny when you get there.

Robert, thought you’d be interested in today’s Google Doodle in honor of Raymond Loewy:

Thank you. I saw the link to that in a couple of places, maybe on Facebook, but I never clicked through.



Robert

It took only two days to get through Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, a breezy novel of alienation. This is not a great novel, but it hits on some truths of society and of society's relation to us through the very admirable title character. For it to be a humorous novel the reader has to have a broad view of humor; it is entertaining, fluent, and telling with some depictions that feel right (if poetic justice makes one laugh perhaps one can find laughatible humor here). The denouement is a little bit explanatory in feel, but it does end the novel in a tidy and hopeful way. I think that I give this book some more credit than merely meeting expectations.

Robert

PS Do you spell laughatable with an a or with an [I] i?

R

Look! You can get all 357 volumes of Oxford's Very Short Introductions for a mere $2950.

Robert

Sure. But where would I put them all?

 

62 -

When I clicked on that link it was at $4266.15!

I'm sorry. Look at this page and scan down a little way. The one I posted worked when I posted it. If this doesn't work enter 32103 into the promotional code box and look in luxury gifts.

Robert

62: Tempting...
61: Do you spell laughatable with an a or with an i?
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2012/10/ibles-and-ables/

Thank you. I was thinking specifically of the noun collectible/collectable when I asked the question and thought I'd have to look it up again after I finished the article (I originally looked it up to make a category in saved messages in Outlook and decided at that moment to use Collectible). Then the article went on at length about it.

So if laughatible has been around for a long time it's okay, but if it is a new word it should be laughatable.

That's fun.

Robert

PS I should not have used a capital I in my question, but it has been there long enough now that I think I should leave it.

R

68: If you change I=>i in your post, I'll change it in mine to match.

Well, I tried to strike it out, but that was not very clear on the single, straight character, so I put it in brackets too. It is likely that my spell checker was originally responsible, and I neglected to check my spell checker.

Robert

70: Well that's purity. Would've been morally OK to pretend it never happened. :-)

I keep forgetting that on Saturday afternoon I sat through the Metropolitan Opera Live in High Definition screening of Tosca. The sets and the acting are adequate to the drama, although the sets are huge and take a very long time to change. Scarpia especially delivers in the acting; it is a pleasure to be able to boo him as he takes his bows at the end. The singing is done by masters of the craft; I am a fan in particular of Roberto Alagna. If anybody wants to see Tosca to find out what it is about or happens to like it as a work, they'll do well to see this production.

I have now seen the work performed at least twice. I think that I don't like it and that I won't be seeing it again.

Robert

Doctor Faustus is two plays written by a variety of people who cannot be decided upon by the authorities. Christopher Marlowe is credited with the two except for the parts he's not credited with.

People who make deals with the devil become trivial and pay for it with forever in Hell. The renaissance man has some fun, though; so what you should do is think it through before you make a deal with the devil. The renaissance man should have some intellectual satisfaction, too, but Faustus, though he aimed for knowledge, pretty much gave it up for tomfoolery. The devil didn't actually have the upper hand; Faustus gave himself to the devil, a deal that probably wasn't fixed until Faustus's death. I have decided that I shouldn't make a deal with the devil, but I could change my mind.

The essays at the back of this Norton Critical Edition are substantial and informative about the sources of the Faustus myth, the religious environment of the play(s), the nature of the kind of deal... The excerpts at the very back about staging the play(s) seemed to me very interesting. Among other things the pomp with which they are staged could very much affect the perception of the value of the deal.

The plays read easily. The academic essays read harder. Shaw's review is snarky fun. I'll reread the plays before the group discussion at church. I hope also to read Goethe's and Mann's takes on Faust before then.

Robert

PS PolymathicMonkey read the play or plays in the context of reading Marlowe. I wonder if a different take arises out of reading them in that context versus reading them in the context of exploring Faust.

R

Good to hear that the Norton Critical edition is a good one. I will get it when the time comes to read Marlowe.

I think that there is enough depth in the plays that you'll get something out of the essays and maybe what I said will make sense if you get around to the book. The system worked in this case. My other two Faust books are also Norton Critical Editions, and I feel positive in anticipation of reading them.

Robert

PS I misspoke myself. The Mann is not a Norton Critical Edition.

R

Coupons got me to reduce my wishlist; the first shipment of two books was in today's mail. I'm hoping for another book from Barny Noble tomorrow.

The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond. Even if some of what he says is wrong, the author is interesting and some of it is right. Enough positive was said about this book that it got onto my wishlist, and now it is in my house. This is the coupon book in this order.

A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland. Tinnitus keeps me from ever hearing nothing unless I lose my hearing altogether. Still getting away from noise, which can include the gibberish of daily social contact, appeals to me. Here's a woman who actually moved into silence in Galloway. I hope, from this book, to find out where Galloway is.

Robert

Another coupon book was in today's mail from Barny Noble.

Rage and Time by Peter Sloterdijk. I am, among other things, an angry old man. This book is a philosophical text on the impingement of rage on culture.

I am hoping for a couple of books from Oxford University Press tomorrow. Time, I suppose, will tell.

Robert

The mailman was at the mailbox cluster finishing up as I returned from my quasi-daily walk, and I saw him toss a parcel locker key into one of the mailboxes. To my happy surprise my OUP order was in one of the parcel lockers. I had expected the USPS tracking page delivery estimate to be wrong...

OK by Allan Metcalf. Here's a fellow who doesn't know how to spell his first name talking about a word. Oh well; it's an interesting word, and he may have something to say about it.

The Oxford Handbook of Language Evolution edited by Maggie Tallerman and Kathleen R. Gibson. I may be an old prescriptivist, but I do know that language changes. I am curious how it changes and didn't get enough of that in my pursuit of historical linguistics three decades ago.

Robert

It's OK if he doesn't know how to spell his first name if what he has to say about OK turns out to be OK.

count your blessings one by one

I posted this photograph or one taken from about the same place with similar elements sometime back. With this one we now know that we are looking at Dudhsagar Falls in Goa.



Robert

This message is just me stashing notes to myself. Nothing interesting here.

13 minutes of towing the Big Boy a few hundred feet. He said "600 tons."

A friend induced me to go see Nabucco, from La Scala, on Saturday at the multiplex across town. I was headed beyond that for Saturday night so I risked the theater's screwing it up. My friend was unable to make it. For a nation to be hauled off to Assyria to be held captive, you'd think the citizens would wear something other than mid-twentieth century street clothes. And why would you try to characterize Nebuchadnezzar as a mafia chief? The set was both abstract and minimalist — too much so in combination. But the music was good; a lot of folk who don't know opera from blue grass could hum along to the chorus (I like to say march, but it's not) of the Hebrew slaves. I dozed off as Nebuchadnezzar claimed godhood for himself. Despite the faults I saw in his presentation I found myself cheering his performance at the end. There was a lot of other very good singing in the show. Early on there was an unscheduled silence in the sound track for several seconds; a little later on the screen went dark for a couple of minutes, although the sound continued.

In 2010 that same multiplex in the newspaper, on line, and by telephone claimed to be presenting the National Theatre Live's Hamlet with Rory Kinnear in the title role. They were lying; they didn't have the disk in hand. Many of us made long trips (mine: 30 mile round trip, twice, with no other interest in being in that part of town) to see it and were turned away. I was most of the way there Sunday, though, and went to see it. The only failure was that they started it ten minutes late. I dozed off for only a little while and got to see why there were raves about the performance. Again there was modern dress which I dislike, but the director was looking toward a statement about totalitarianism rather than about something more intimate so it wasn't too distracting. Poor Ophelia. Is Harold Bloom right about Hamlet?

Robert

In a different century I was a Navy pilot, but, although I qualified in carrier landings both single and multi-engine, I was a transport pilot and didn't make a living on carriers. After a long day at sea, these aircraft have to be hung up to dry, and that is why they have tail hooks.



Robert

In the movie Gravity* Sandra Bullock wrestles with mortality and gets on the radio with someone who does not speak English. At the theater we have no idea what the other side is doing. A relative of one of the movie makers made a short film showing the other side. It is also a commentary on mortality, and it, apparently, is itself in contention for an Oscar.

Robert

 

Envy you seeing the Rory Kinnear Hamlet. You're sending me off to my newly purchased Harold Bloom.

That photo is amazing. I enjoy them all so much. Thanks.

>85 Mr.Durick: Reminds me of being a kid in the Midwest during the Fall.

Sassy, you can prove my memory one way or another. I suspect I am remembering from The Invention of the Human. What I remember is that Bloom regards Hamlet as a very smart central character. Smart though he may be, Hamlet dies.

Merrikay and Ms. Mom I hope you clicked through to the rest of the pictures of the little lioness. She's darling.

Robert

No I didn't know I could do that. Thanks for the show! It is wonderful. That cub is especially beautiful in her coloring.

If I can put an informative link, I do. That means it doesn't always happen, and sometimes the link is only to give credit for the photograph. But sometimes there's a story to which the picture is a gateway.

All you have to do is mouse over it and watch the cursor to see if there might be something there.

Robert

Love the pictures of the lion cub. They said on the Today show that she would not be part of the public exhibits for several weeks.

>89 Mr.Durick: Still laughing. Thanks for that!

These may be the same pictures though from a different source (I haven't been through them one by one yet), but she's good enough to be here twice.



Robert

I took some time to go through the Oxford University Press sale offerings and found four more books that I wanted and could afford. They were in today's mail, a day early.

Different Games, Different Rules by Haru Yamada. Japanese and Americans don't understand each other. This book purports to explain that lack of understanding, and the cover calls it 'misunderstanding.'

Apophatic Bodies edited by Chris Boesel and Catherine Keller. It may be that nothing can be said affirmatively about God, that only negative statements work for Him. This is a collection of articles on negative theology. Although I bought it from OUP it is published by Fordham University Press.

Mystics by William Harmless. Mysticism is an attempt to develop a direct relationship with the numinous, and so far as I can tell a necessary part of complete religious experience. The Jesuit author looks at mysticism in Christianity and some other major religions.

How to Read a Film by James Monaco. This book is well enough regarded to be in its fourth edition. Maybe it'll lend some credibility to some of my comments on movies. Maybe it'll help me watch movies.

Robert

I'll be looking for your review once you've read Different Games, Different Rules as I'm curious as to what the author will discuss.

Oh, oh. Does that mean that I have to read it right away?

I know that I've read another book along similar lines, and it irks me that I don't know what it is. I remember its showing that a Japanese mother would invest time in teaching her young child what the feelings of another party to an event would feel, like a dog being teased or some such.

Robert

Or perhaps you could be of assistance to James Monaco.

>98 mkboylan: Agreed.

Merry Thanksgiving!



Also a video

Robert

Next Wednesday we will be discussing The Presidents Club by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy at the church book group, and so I have read it. It is breezy, and the authors are not interested in writing well. So long as they are nearly coherent they seem to be satisfied. It is also informative. It roughly covers the span of my life and a little more at the beginning. Stuff I hadn't known before or had forgotten or not paid attention to is in this book, so I think that I am glad that I read it.

The premise is that only a President knows what it is to be President and, not made explicit but throughout the book, to do Presidency. So the only people a President has to talk to, after his wife for personal matters, are those who have sat in the same office. There are greaters and lessers, but they all defend the office whoever is in it, even as they sometimes undermine it. Republicans and Democrats become bosom buddies to get things done throughout the world; domestic politics is trivial.

Sleaziness pervades politics to the top.

Robert

Two books inspired by LibraryThing and coupons were in today's mail from Barny Noble.

Mastery by Robert Greene. I have a book or two by Mr. Greene, and I saw this on the shelf at my usual Barny Noble's brick and mortar. Some headings in this book are printed in red ink. I wonder how his findings will compare to those of Malcolm Gladwell.

Kneeling at the Altar of Science by Robert Bolger. It's curious that I was tipped off to this book on LibraryThing but that this is the only copy here. There are people who are religiously scientific, though many like to deny it angrily. On another side there are religious folk who try to dress up their faith in scientific terms. According to the cover of this book, it is aimed at the latter and takes the position that religious matters should be apprehended in religious terms.

I have, I think, three more coupons to use by tomorrow evening, and some Library of America discounts are expiring soon enough. Oh, dear.

Robert

Your coupon using inspired me to find a coupon and get myself a treat: Where Children Sleep. Thanks!

Your thread is worth following for the photos alone! Fabulous.

I like lions and railroads, and I like clarifying illustrations. I am glad to share the photographs. Thank you for your 'Fabulous.'

Robert

Friday night I finished a quick run through Different Games, Different Rules by Haru Yamada. The author is a sociolinguist who did her academic qualifying work under Deborah Tannen. She sometimes focuses a little narrowly on what she has seen in research sort of disavowing real life, but the content seemed informative to me.

The book is subtitled "Why Americans and Japanese Misunderstand Each Other." It is about that with almost exclusive focus on business communications (there's a tennis club scene and possibly some others that are not business related).

The American hero is the working man who makes a success of his career. The Japanese hero(ine) is the mother who rears (although I think she says 'raises') her child to be a functioning part of society. Americans are individualistic. Japanese are interdependent. The speech patterns of Americans are in 'Speaker Talk' while the speech patterns of Japanese are in 'Listener Talk.' The book collects illustrations of these elements and builds the case that we misunderstand one another.

If you have an interest in the subject, it is okay.

Robert

The movie Nebraska* is shot in black and white.

Robert

PS The story fits in a thimble and is as expansive as Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska, its setting. It is as straight as a taut piece of string and glories in the complexities of relationship. The people in it are exquisite renditions of real human beings with real lives and interdependence (oh gosh, we have that in America, but it is different than it is in Japan). So the film is an exquisite gem. A dad who is exasperated by life but not much allowed his exasperation goes on a quest. His son can't stop him and so goes too and becomes his partner. The mom, a crank, shows herself to be an important center (I don't know whether there is more than one) to the relations and the movie. Black and white though it was, it held my attention for two hours.

R

Upstairs from the multiplex with two coupons to be used by the end of the day Saturday in the Barny Noble's store that is going out of business December 31 I had a hard time finding a use for the coupons, although I found a couple of special editions of Scientific American Mind that weren't covered by them.

I came away with a DVD set and a handbook for coin collecting in addition to the two quasi-periodicals.

The DVD set is Stanley Kubrick, Essential Collection and comprises:

Spartacus
Lolita
Dr. Strangelove
2001: A Space Odyssey
A Clockwork Orange
Barry Lyndon
The Shining
Full Metal Jacket
Eyes Wide Shut

Now I hope that I can talk myself into going to a movie at home rather than in a theater.

The book is The Official Red Book of United States Coins, 2014 by R.S. Yeoman. I had some money earlier in the millennium and bought a few coins. I have imagined myself a collector ever since even if I haven't bought anything. I suppose that this could be a wishbook.

Robert

106 -

While reading your review and your list of her topics of discussion I went "yep, yep, yep, that's true, indeed, yep, I knew that already" so looks like I wouldn't be learning anything new from the book. Figured as much.

>108 Mr.Durick: Your Kubrick find helped with my Christmas shopping this year!

I accidentally found it convenient to check my mailbox today before I checked USPS package tracking. There was a book from Barny Noble in it that had arrived astonishingly fast. I had to look at the USPS web site just to see how it could have happened, and I still don't fully get it although it all looks possible.

Should We Eat Meat by Vaclav Smil. I will almost certainly never be a vegan; I will probably never be a full on vegetarian. Still it is a conundrum for me that I like animals and respect their rights yet eat them. I once held that I was not a vegetarian because of cured meats, but there is smoked turkey and turkey bacon that will do and could get me part way there. I also have found myself sufficiently diverted by a good 48 ounce porterhouse to reckon myself in retrospect to have been in paradise with it. There have been contented times in my life, however, when I have gotten by with a minimum of animal flesh — weeks without it and no gorging at either end. So what's the story? Do millions of cattle get to live who would never have gotten to live at all if at their end we slaughter them to eat them?

Can I move toward eliminating mammals from my diet? I don't know and may find help from this book.

The book was pretty expensive for a trade paperback even with a coupon.

Robert

I've never been a true vegan, or vegetarian..although when i was in college i could not afford to buy much meat (unless it was the night before the meat truck brought the new order, to the local grocery...then chickens were $.05/lb) and lived on dried beans and pulses....I still don't eat much red meat, and that 48 ounce steak would feed me for several days. The book sounds like something i would want to read, so it goes on the Wishlist.

I started The Goldfinch last night...so far, so good

J

111: Do millions of cattle get to live who would never have gotten to live at all if at their end we slaughter them to eat them?
Yeah, but miserably, so this doesn't seem the goal to aim for. You could shift toward quality of life without giving up meat.

I like animals. I like reading Mark Twain in bits and pieces, although not so much in lumps. The book Mark Twain's Book of Animals appealed to me when I first saw it on the shelf at my customary Barny Noble's store and so onto the wishlist it went a couple of years ago. A coupon finally pried it loose from the wishlist, and it was in today's mail.

Robert

she is related to kind mr Euclid

 

 

I am more impressed by the movie Out of the Furnace* than a good many of the critics even as I have to add a caution to any possible recommendation. This is a moral tale about what it is not to do wrong, what it is to do right, and what those mean when pressure and fate push back. The plot is simple enough (sort of but not exactly as given in the two links), but the set up (I didn't time it, but maybe the first half) is sufficiently intense that I thought I might walk out. To achieve that intensity something was made to work, and I stayed.

One of the comments on Rotten Tomatoes is to the effect of the story's having a pedestrian ending, but the ending is arrived at through continuous construction and is not final until the credits roll. Life is hard, and this movie captures that hardness.

Robert

I don't know whether there are clearance items at my usual Barny Noble's store because the chain has stuff to dump or if they are being cleared because the store goes out of business on December 31. In either case I took advantage to get a few guilty pleasures. I liked Mad magazine about 60 years ago, and I still have fond sentiment towards it. There were three collection from Mad on the bargain shelves marked down 40% from their bargain prices, so I got them. They are Horrifyingly Mad, Mad About Super Heroes, and Amazingly Stupid Mad, Expanded Edition.

I'll put them where I can grab them to dip into them, but probably, as with others I have put in such a position, I won't touch them. Still I'm fond of them.

Robert

I had to go to the bank, and it is in the same sprawling mall that houses the local multiplex. I got to the movie house in time for the start of two Korean movies and picked Wedding Palace* which had got an okay review in the local paper and which had shown legs at the multiplex.

As it started I thought that maybe they were playing it a little over the top and that it might be clever in that way. As it went on I realized that the movie stinks. Don't bother with it... at the theater, on teevee, or on DVD.

Robert

James Levine came back to the Metropolitan Opera and directed Falstaff which screened Saturday and will encore on Wednesday. In this opera no one murders, and no one commits suicide. It is a comedy in which the burly knight gets his come-uppance and everybody ends up happy. I've seen it, I think, once before with Bryn Terfel, no slouch, in the starring role; I enjoyed it then. Ambrogio Maestri, in this production, really owns the role, however, and his performance is worth taking in just to marvel at competence. The rest of the cast holds its own.

The one thing I'm not competent to judge in this production is the music. It all works of course, but when the experts talk about the fugue (which I'm supposed to understand ever since I read Gödel, Escher, Bach) in the last act, I am all at sea.

Robert

The church book group decided to read Heir to the Glimmering World, a novel by Cynthia Ozick, for discussion in February. I went along with it because I have been meaning to read her essays for twenty or thirty years, and the novel has Karaism woven into it (I hope a lot). A coupon came the next day and I turned it right around to get the book. It was supposed to be delivered last Monday; when it wasn't here by Thursday I complained to the Postal Service. They haven't replied, but it was on my front porch with another package in the rain Sunday morning. It hadn't been there Saturday night. The package tracking web site says that it was delivered late Saturday morning.

The other package was also from Barny Noble; I had ordered it three days after I ordered Ms. Ozick's book. The web site also said it was delivered late Saturday morning. It was Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, another version of which I now find is in my library although I have no idea where. Lots of people on LibraryThing have said good things about it, and one of the people in the book group expressed interest in it. It hasn't been available in the store I usually go to.

Both books show only minimal effects from the rain.

Robert

I'll be interested to find out what you think of Heir to the Glimmering World. I read another book by Ozick last year and am still not entirely sure what I thought about it.

This is one that I can actually count on reading, and I'll let everybody know. But I'll be disappointed if I don't come away with something about the Karaites.

Robert

I have read all of the fairly thick How to Read a Film by James Monaco. I don't believe that one can learn to read a film from this volume. I believe that its only merit is to introduce a few buzzwords or important names and to list a few hundred books that one might read to further the cinematic experience. For those buzzwords and the bibliography I have given the work one star instead of half a one.

Robert

It's hard to figure the post office. Two books that hadn't reached my delivering post office this morning were in my mail when I got back from my quasi-daily walk. These books were required purchases because I had coupons.

How Much Is Enough by Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky. This is a good question. One rich person cited in The Plutocrats wondered why a tyrant needed more than a billion dollars. I know that I need more than I have, but I can get by on not much more once I take care of a problem or two. I think I have a related book by Michael Sandel.

The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O'Brien. A woman in the church book group mentioned the author, and nobody responded. Then I saw her mentioned somewhere else, perhaps on LibraryThing, and put this collection on my wishlist, and it caught my eye when I went to place my order.

I have another coupon to use before the end of the day. I'm required to use it, am I not?

Robert

Yes, Robert. You are.

A man whose life is measured out in book coupons (better than coffee spoons)

I liked the Korean political assassin movie Commitment* perhaps more than it deserved. A North Korean adolescent whose father was killed in South Korea on a secret mission is recruited to a similar mission by the promise of his and his sister's release from prison. He meets a girl in his South Korean high school and bonds with her; her name is the same as his sister's name. The North Koreans are not honorable. He has to sort things out and at 19 can beat up or shoot everybody. There is a South Korean agent or police officer who tries to get some things straight.

The film is apparently about the commitment of its title and about affection or love. Because it is about those things and because it can be very dark, it scores a little higher than a mere shoot 'em up.

Robert

I didn't really want to worry about the cat that I had seen in the trailers, but I saw Inside Llewyn Davis* on Saturday because it started fifteen minutes earlier than Philomena. It seemed to cater mostly to us older folks for whom 1961 is not pre-history, and there was a lot of laughter around me in the theater. Although I found myself waiting for it to be over, I could see the quality of the filmmaking; the Coen brothers do things pretty much right.

Llewyn Davis is not a very nice fellow. He wants to make a living performing folk music. He is only so good at it and no better. He struggles. The cat comes to no harm, although we never find out what happened to the other cat.

As I often do, I went upstairs to Barny Noble's after the film. I didn't buy anything. It is scheduled to close on December 31. I wondered whether it was the last time I'd be in that store.

Robert

A coupon made me do it. It was in today's mail from Barny Noble.

The Mansion of Happiness by Jill Lepore. There are some avid Jill Lepore fans here at LibraryThing; I couldn't not have her on my wishlist. I am cranky about the notion of happiness and in turn curious about it. So here's this book, which is categorized on the back as American history.

Robert

I receive a regular email from FOLK ALLEY....where there has been some talk about INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS...

I grew up during the 60s "folk boom" and knew people who had more attitude than talent...excepting Nick Katzman...

I want to see PHILOMENA...

You reminded me to check whether Philomena will be playing Saturday, and it will. Apparently it has legs, and I don't have to rush out to see it before it closes. I could go see The Wolf of Wall Street at the local multiplex, but that'll keep me out too late if I try to fit in food too.

I have read that some of Llewyn Davis is derived from Dave van Ronk. I thought that he was pretty good, and I have a few of his LP's.

Robert

I, uh, loved Dave van Ronk.....i memorized a few of his LPs.....and played a few of his songs, back in the day.....

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is still a "question mark" for me

I stayed out late enough not to read from any books last night. All I got to eat was a sushi bento and popcorn, but I did get to see The Wolf of Wall Street*. You could take away a moral lesson from the film; I think that lesson may very well have been expressed many times, so I came away impressed that it was a three hour manic comedy which entertained me from beginning to end. It was not a great film. The New York Times review says a whole lot about it with which I agree: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/25/movies/dicaprio-stars-in-scorseses-the-wolf-of.... The judge looked to me like Fran Lebowitz; I wondered why I would know that and had a hard time confirming that it was she. I finally found mention of her in the AARP review: http://www.aarp.org/entertainment/movies-for-grownups/info-12-2013/leonardo-dica....

There are more movies to see than I have time to see them.

Robert

I was interested in your review of Wolf of Wall Street. I went to see it yesterday and really disliked it, finally walked out but it was almost over at that point. I wanted to leave earlier but didn't think my husband wanted to; meanwhile he wanted to leave but didn't think I wanted to. I just found it depressing and disgusting. I hated all of those people or at BEST felt sorry for their obvious struggle with manic behavior - or rather lack of struggle. It was hard to believe he got all of those other people to go along. Altho I realize that is his perspective, not necessarily theirs, many of whom no doubt felt coerced. Also it just about made me never want to have sex again. I'll have to go watch my fav sex scene to recover - and that is Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin in The Big Easy. The point being it wasn't the sex or language or whatever that was disgusting as much as their misogyny and the repetitiveness. For example the famous quaalude scene? Might have been funny for a couple of minutes but sheesh it just drug on and on. They needed to cut out at least an hour and maybe would have had something better. The message is important no doubt, but only if you can sit through it. I sure didn't want to spend three hours with those people. I'll just watch the news.
Well, I feel better ;)

 

A couple of weddings got me to town Saturday, and a memorial service for an old friend kept me in town Sunday. So I skipped my quasi-daily walk each day and saw a movie.

The Hobbit: the desolation of Smaug* in IMAX 3D is a sumptuously filmed extravaganza and a not very richly told story. I was able to sit through it watching the pictures, and I will be back to see what happens to the dragon; I think that there could be a new hero. But I can't at all recommend it to anyone who has a prima facie reluctance to see it. There were a couple of fight scenes that engaged me the escape from the Elves' reign and where the female Elf does in a bunch of enemies one after another; she's kinda cool.

Mandela: long walk to freedom† is a good movie, but it is a little pedestrian. That may be the only way to take on the depiction of a great man. The artfulness of the movie is not always well enough concealed, so the effort to show the hero as a human being can run a little off the track. But the movie seems matter of fact enough that the train seems to get back on the track. So in the end I have been enriched by this; it may be that the book would do as much. Naomie Harris is a babe throughout.

So in one weekend I got to see two movies with a colon in their titles. There are two more movies playing that I hope are not run out of town by the New Year: Philomena and Twenty Years a Slave. And there are a couple of others to see that will probably be here for at least a little while.

Robert

I finished 2013 in bed with fireworks outside the window, and my cat unusually beside me probably to avoid the fireworks. And I struggled with the Norton Critical Edition of Faust. I had approached the work with happy anticipation. Reading the two parts of the play turned into a lot of work, and reading the critical apparatus at the back turned into meaningless drudgery. I got into the last section, modern criticism, and began over and over asking of the socialists and the semioticians, "Okay, that's nice, but what are you getting at." So I skimmed to the point of gross omission at the end and wrote it off as finished before I turned out the light.

The play itself, especially the first, more accessible, part, has its merits, but I think mostly for those who want to make a career publishing analysis of the material. I can't imagine being attracted to this on a first reading, although I suppose if I dipped into the mountain gorges section at random I might think I'd like to go back and see what the rest was like.

From Marlowe I got the life lesson that one shouldn't make deals with the devil. From this I got that maybe one should let others read Goethe.

What a disappointment!

Robert

Happy and prosperous New Year.

Robert