(About this video: my boss set a goal for the team in May, and we beat the goal, so the deal was he'd jump in the lake at work. I shot it and edited it, and here it is. I hope you like it.)
This July post is late because I've been busy as hell. I shot a lot of video of various things, so I've got that to work on. I was in San Diego twice in the last month, once for a quick trip (and long drive back) and once for a real vacation. So I've got a lot of writing and editing to do and I didn't read or watch much in June. So chew on the video and the reviews and hopefully my ass will get in gear and flood this blog with lots of content. Also, I have a bizarre idea that I hope you readers (the three of you) will be game for and help me out with. In the meantime, let's see what I consumed in...
JUNE:
Books bought:
No one belongs here more than you by Miranda July
The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa
DVDs Bought:
High Fidelity
Books Read:
Riding Toward Everywhere by William Vollmann
Movies Watched:
The Incredible Hulk
The Iron Giant
Slow month for bought read watched. My reading is definitely not up to snuff. I’m in the middle of three books right now, and hopefully July will see those finished. As for this month’s only finished novel, it was a hell of a read.
Riding Toward Everywhere is a nonfiction account of the author’s ramblings around this country, using a method of transport that is old-fashioned, free, illegal, and dangerous as hell: freight trains. Vollmann will set out with a loaded backpack, head down to the train yards, dodge security, hop on any train that is heading out, and see where it takes him. He does this for fun. He travels with friends sometimes, and meets hoboes sometimes. The stories the hoboes tell are sad and exciting, and are insight into what kind of mindset a person has that would choose a life on the rails over one spent panhandling or just getting a damn job and humping the American Dream.
Since Vollmann is such a hater of authority and our over-secured travel options, he sees riding the rails as the only truly free way to travel anymore. He is in constant pursuit of his own Cold Mountain, that slice of paradise that is his and his alone. Does he find it? In some ways, he does. The things he sees are described so beautifully sometimes that it seems like the boxcar door is a window into heaven, and I found myself wondering if I had the stones to ride the rails. Other times, when he describes the squalor of the hobo jungles, and the very real dangers of riding, from human (roving gangs who will kill you for a few bucks) to mechanical (cargo shifting and crushing bones, jumping off a moving train and losing legs), it is enough to make me happy that someone has gone out and done the riding for me and done a great job of describing it. A big part of me wants to try this domestic adventuring. If I do catch out, would any of you reading this want to come with me? It’s potentially a Huck Finn-style adventure, and potentially a trip to jail or the morgue. If I do decide to hop on a train to Everywhere, I’ll certainly write about it here.
This month, I watched two movies whose titles could be changed to “The Adjective Large-Thing.” First I watched The Incredible Hulk, or The Remake That Did Not Have To Be.
I liked the new movie, and Ed Norton is always awesome, but it just seems like the other Hulk movie just came out, and it wasn’t all that bad. The actual green guy looked cooler in the first Hulk movie...
...but the first Hulk movie had Hulkified poodles...
...so the new one actually IS better. Sorry. Tim Roth helps. He’s the bad guy. The movie goes like this: Ed Norton runs away from a threat, the threat catches him, he Hulks out, kills some people, and gets away. This happens twice, then Tim Roth gets Hulkified and a big fight breaks out between two obviously computer-generated Hulkmonsters. Also, Liv Tyler shows up from time to time to suck the quality out of certain scenes. So the bottom line is it is pretty good, but Iron Man set the bar high.
The other adjective large-thing movie was The Iron Giant, an animated movie by Brad Bird, the guy who did The Incredibles. I don’t remember Iron Giant doing very well in theaters, and I’m too lazy to check boxofficemojo.com, but it’s a great little movie. Big robot comes from outer space, crashes down, eats some cars or whatever, kid finds robot, government agent shows up, then hijinks ensue. It’s good fun, and it has some heart, so if you have kids or occasionally are around them, it’s a far better movie to watch then something that involves computer-generated animals with the voice talents of Robin Williams or Ashton Kucher.
That’s all I got! Like I said, I’m trying to get a couple more posts up before next week!
Until next time…
