Spin State

I just finished Spin State by Chris Moriarty, which was recommended to me by my friend Y (actually, he called it the best science fiction novel he'd ever read), so of course I had to read it.
Did I really like it? Yes. Did I think it was great? Yes. Best ever? No, but it's in my top three. And for the record, my top three area:
1) Neuromancer

2) A Deepness in the Sky

3) Spin State.

I'm not going to go into detail on a top ten (mainly because I haven't thought that far in advance but I'd probably put Ender'sGame/Xenocide in there somewhere (while trying to avoid the fact that I just found out that Orson Scott Card is Republican apologist), Cryptonomicron, In Conquest Born and maybe something by Charles Stross-although he strikes me as more fantasy than science-fiction. I don't want to hear about Asimov (good ideas, writing is not that exciting to me) or Frank Herbert (Dune is for teenage boys) or Ray Bradbury (okay, I'll give him props for Farenheit 451 because the idea is excellent but the execution is poor). And I may have to put Connie Willis on the list because The Doomsday Book IS science-fiction and I loved it.
However, I'd like to start with Neuromancer because, frankly, Spin State could not exist without it. Neuromancer started the whole "c0llective conscious" idea that is about as close to today's internet as a book could get in 1984-and went way beyond it. It also has an artificial intelligence that yearns for what the AI in Spin State has-a way to jump into a willing body. But I have to put Neuromancer at the top of the list because it was the first science fiction book I read that I thought was COOL. There had been others that were intelligent (Ursula LeGuin) and fun (Bradbury, kind of) and some that were entertaining-but this was the first one that made it punk-from the attitudes of the characters (Case, the cyber-cowboy who was the best at what he did, which required "a contempt of the flesh" to Molly, she of the mirrored glasses that enclosed her eyes and the razors that came out from under her nails. Most science fiction I had read up until that point had clearly been written by some guy who had been the geekiest guy in his school and was going to write a book to show that he could get the girls and be cool-and this book puts all of that stuff to shame. This book has a female character who could rip your heart out (literally), is tough as nails and doesn't care that much about the hero-this is not a romance but it is science fiction noir.
It's a great book and if you like hard science fiction you should go read it.

You Kill Me Junebug.

I don't want to like Tea Leoni-she's married to David Duchovny (actually, from everything I've read about him, he sounds like a major pain in the ass to be married to), she's thin, beautiful and has a lot of family money. But then I read an interview with her or see one on TV or see a movie of hers...and I think she must be the coolest person in the world. She just seems like someone you could hang out with and have a drink and bitch about life and then start laughing your head off at something stupid. All these are reasons why I'm sorry she has not made more movies and every time she does, she gets stuck with Woody Allen, Ben Kingsley or Adam Sandler. What is that? She's gorgeous and she's with these guys? Come on-thank God she gets to go home and see someone good-looking (although he looks awful in the pictures from his latest show) instead of these guys with whom she keeps making movies.
Which brings me to her latest movie (and as Manola Dhargis of the NY Times said, she is woefully underused). It's the story of frank, a hit man in Buffalo with a drinking problem. Frank (Ben Kingsley) gets sent to San Francisco to join AA, get a job and clean himself up. Why the Polish Mob (which is losing money) would send him to an area of the US where real estate prices are sky-high doesn't make sense but I guess you just have to buy into the story and go with it. Frank gets a job apprenticing at a funeral home, where he meet Laural, whose step-father just died. This is a very black comedy, with Frank needing to clean up so he can go back to killing people and Laurel trying to help him-he even teaches her some tricks of the trade. I liked it-it was dark and funny but I really wish Tea would get a guy in a movie who is just as good looking, smart and funny as she is-she deserves it. I'm thinking Ryan Gosling.

I also saw Junebug. This is a very small, character driven piece about a newly married couple (he's from North Carolina, she's a diplomat's child who has lived all over) who go to his home state-ostensibly to visit an artist for her gallery but also to visit his family. What I liked about this movie is that everyone could have easily become a cliche-but none of them did so. Each had their own personal quirks and irritants but no one ever became "the Southern Mother", "The Silent Father" or the "The Screw-Up Son and Talkative Daughter-in-Law". Each had something in them that redeemed them and made them a person-Screw-Up Son wants to get his GED and learn about Huck Finn. Mom doesn't really care for the New Daughter-in-Law and it would have been untrue to the film if she had completely warmed to her by the end of the movie but she has thawed a bit. The Good Son loves his parents and his wife, despite their flaws-which he sees very clearly.
This isn't a heart-warming movie but it is one that genuinely cares about the people in it and that's kind of rare these days.

The Musical Edition

He Won!! Yay!!
More on that later.

First I got sucked into watching the cheesy show on PBS Friday night in which old pop stars from the 60's sang their hits. Some it was sad (Chad and Jeremy looked sad) some weren't too bad (Petula Clark and Peter and Gordon) and some sounded really good and didn't too bad considering their age (that would be The Zombies, who did a great version of She's Not There). The non-musical portion of the weekend was taken up by the new Fantastic Four movie, which I liked except for the completely wrong characterization of Galactus as a big killer cloud. Oy. His name is Galactus and you couldn't do better than a CGI cloud? Aside form that, I found it entertaining but those of you not into comic books would probably be bored.
My netflix movie was Harold and Kumar go to White Kastle. Yes, it's a stoner movie and I've never liked those. Yes, its target audience is many years younger than I. And yet, I loved it. It was very funny, reasonably intelligent and actually had a message. And it was funny-did say that? I can forgive a lot if a movie makes me laugh-and just the beginning when Kumar is telling Harold that they are getting high night because he bought some herb and he wasn't going to smoke it all by himself (this, while he's in the middle of an interview for med school) made me laugh. I liked it a lot and you don't have to be a stoner or stoned to like it.

Now for the musical segment of this post. Yes, I got hooked on Britain's Got Talent. Specifically on Paul Potts, the unlikely opera singer who can really sing. I was on pins and needles all day Sunday waiting for the results to be posted...and he won! His final performance of Nessun Dorma was wonderful (no, he's not Pavarotti or Domingo but he is very talented amateur and with more training he could be even better). I was just glad he won-but really, who else could they have chosen to perform in front of the Queen?

If you want to see him, go to youtube and search for his name-the best posts are by myredroom-they are very high quality. Go look-you won't be sorry.

I Thought This Was Funny

I still love The X-Files. Yes, they've been off the air for five years-I don't care. I read interview with Gillian the other day saying that she would do the movie, but she needed to see a script-David said he would do it, what's the hold up? Can we see a script, please?
That being said, I thought this headline on Wonkette was hilarious.

Fox Mulder Named Interim FBI Director
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I may be the only one, but I don't care.

A Pet Peeve and Some Great Music

Ladies, please stop wearing those yoga pants like they are an outfit. you know the ones I mean. Stretchy around the waist, maybe the waistband folds down, looking like a cummerbund, fitted through the thigh and then billowing out, trying to look vaguely like a skirt. These pants are an anathema to me. If you have gone to yoga and then have to run errands, then I guess it's (marginally) okay. but they are NOT to be worn while you're going to work or out on the town. no matter how good you think they look or how comfortable you think they are-they look awful. I've seen skinny girls wear them and I've seen overweight girls wear them and they look equally bad on everyone-the madness has to stop. That being said, why would you wear a perfectly nice Indian print skirt in brown and white, a nice brown jacket that also looked nice-with a tomato red t-shirt? Honestly, she could have worn almost anything else with it and might have been okay, but the red was far too orange and it just looked bad. It was disheartening, considering the rest of the outfit. And you-girl with the orange sweater and black pants-I know it's chilly out but it is NOT October. Please save that color combination for later in the year.
And here's a conversation I had with my friend M Last night...those of you who know us (and especially me) will find this funny. keep in mind I've known him for close to 20 years...
After the initial part of the discussion of "how are you" and "how was your day"..

M: I'm going to sit in my chair and read my book.
Me: Good for you
M: I really enjoy doing that-how come you never told me how great it was to just sit down and read a good book?
Me at this point speechless...finally..."I'm sorry, I thought the way I lived my life was an example of the joy of reading a good book
M: You KNOW I don't learn by example
Me Yeah, I did know that.
This reminded me of our conversation in which he told me he only wanted history books that had a pop-culture feel and i told him there were so many things wrong with that statement that I didn't know where to start.

I'm reading Spin State right now-it's quite good. I haven't decided what to read next. I may tackle Light (again) or I may read Dick Francis or Neil Gaiman. I also bought Les Miserables-I don't know if I'm up for that quite yet.

But you have to see this guy on YouTube-he's cellphone salesman in Wales. He looks like a lump, with bad teeth, not a great haircut and a shapeless suit and he says it's his dream to sing opera. You can see the looks of dismay and skepticism on the judges faces...and then he starts to sing. He may be a ringer, because you don't just start singing bel canto-it's something that truly has to be taught. But there are so may cool things about this: his shy and downtrodden demeanor, the reaction of the judges when they find out he's going to sing opera and then as he actually sings, the reaction of the crowd as he hits every note and has great control over his breathing (this is the part that has to be taught) and the end with the judges decision.

Here's the link and it's well worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oxTy7KIAaA&eurl=

A Little Story

I've been itching to tell this story for awhile now because it seems to me such a Washington story (it's nothing to do with running into someone who is "famous for Washington"-it's the opposite of that-but it's very Washington in it's own way). I live in Adams-Morgan and I work in Dupont Circle-I used to walk down 18Th Street to get to work until a weird guy started hitting on me, so after that I decided to walk down 19th Street-it's much more residential. it's quieter and I get to see a lot of cute dogs in the dog park. I also walk by a grade school (I still don't know its name, I know that's sad). So last summer there was a homeless woman who seemed to be camping out in a corner of the schoolyard. It's not a big schoolyard-maybe 15 feet deep although it's probably 100 wide or so and it slopes down to the sidewalk on a reasonably steep inclines-there's no way to easily sit flat on it unless you went to one of the upper corners-and that's where the large, African-American homeless woman seemed to be living. I saw her almost everyday, both morning and evening and she didn't seem to be hurting anyone although she clearly had mental problems, as evidenced by the incessant mumbling and a tendency to pull her pants down and pee every once in awhile-at which point I had to avert my eyes. I wasn't looking anyway, but she seemed to make a point of it whenever someone walked by. Anyway, I felt sorry for the poor, crazy homeless person who lived in the schoolyard. So, one day I was walking to work and I saw the homeless woman sleeping in the schoolyard-she was hard to miss being rather large in a relatively small schoolyard. She woke up and saw me (from a distance of 200 feet or more)at which point she went to a corner of the schoolyard (still well within my eyesight) and pulled down her pants to go to the bathroom. This had happened to me before, both with her and once in New York (on a very crowded street on a very cold afternoon-it was surreal) so I averted my eyes as quickly as possible and just will myself to walk past her as fast as I could. Unfortunately, the khakis and blue-shirted guy across the street who clearly had paid a lot of money for his clothes, condo and car. was grossly offended by the her. I personally felt sorry for her and the fact that there were no kids around made it, if not okay, then not as bad as it could have been. But blue-shirt guy had to start screaming at her "What the fuck are you going? Get the fuck out of here!" I thought it was pretty clear what was going on and if there's one thing I've learned it's that you DON'T engage with crazy homeless people-it's always a mistake. Which he found out because she started screaming back at him. I don't know if he thought she would just go away or say "yes, sir" and stop or what-but she (of course) screamed "Fuck you! Fuck you! Get the fuck away from me!". And I, of course, was caught in the crossfire right as these two were screaming at each other. All I could think was that it was way too early (being around 7:45) to listen to these two yelling at each other and couldn't upper-middle class guy leave the poor homeless woman alone? I left them screaming at each other and did not see her on my return trip home. If he called city government on her perhaps she got some help. I'd like to think so, anyway.

Fracture and Dead as a Doornail

Actually, the one movie I want to write about isn't in the title of this post-and it's The Whole Wide World with Vincent D'Onofrio and Renee Zellweger. It's the story of Robert E. Howard (creator of Conan and others) and Novalyne Price, English teacher and all-around nice person. I mention this movie because I watched Conan the Barbarian on TV last week and was reminded of just how awful a movie it is and how wooden Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance is in it. He looks right for the role (and does a reasonably better job in it but his co-stars Grace Jones and Tracy Walter really help) but as I've said before, he's as wooden as a plank of maple siding. So, if you really want to hear a good Conan story you should watch this movie (which ostensibly about the love story that did and didn't happen between Novalyne and Robert) because there is one scene where Vincent D'Onofrio tells a Conan story by firelight-and that one scene is so much better than anything in either Conan movie that it made the rest of the movie worthwhile. I'm not always fond of romantic dramas (let alone romantic comedies) but this was a very good movie-Vincent was wonderful and Renee was not as annoying as she can be, which is saying something.



I also saw Fracture, with Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins. It was very good, considering I figured out fairly soon (not right away) the trick and saw sooner than he did (apparently) how Ryan was going to get Anthony. The story is that Anthony Hopkin's wife is having an affair-she comes home afterwards and he shoots her. He cleans himself up and calls the police. The hostage negotiator shows up, talks himself into the house, sees his girlfriend dying (because she isn't dead) and decides to beat up Hopkins. he also neglects to mention this to the Assistant District Attorney who has the case (and one foot out the door to his posh new job saving corporate criminals). So when the gun doesn't seem to be the one that shot her and the confession is ruled as inadmissible due the idiocy of the police, Hopkin's goes free of the charge of attempted murder. This is actually the point at which I figured everything out-I'm sure there are others out there smarter than I who got it earlier, but this is the point where I saw how the rest of the movie was going to go. But you don't see a movie like this for the intricacy of the plot (it wasn't THAT intricate) but you see it for Hopkins and Gosling and they were both very good. Hopkins does an excellent job of playing the control-freak and the rube who doesn't know the rule of law (guess which one he really is) while Gosling does a great job as the Assistant DA with a 97% winning record who is ready to go to the corporate life-or is he? Does he want that life just for the money or the ADA's job because he wants to put away the bad guys? While I saw the end coming a mile away, it was still quite fun to watch-I actually found myself grinning at one point. To see two actors who can do their jobs this well (and it's clear they were having a blast doing this movie), well-that's always a pleasure.

I also read Dead as a Doornail-this was my quick break from Spin State and The Watchman (more on those later). Yes, it's Southern vampire story and yes, it's pretty lightweight. But Charlaine Harris is very good storyteller and the story was fun and a little creepy and sometimes you can't ask for more than that.