Eleventh Five Books of 2007

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I know these movies could have been better. But I'm sick, okay? Give me a break!


055) Ode To Kirihito by Osamu Tezuka, finished August 20

Tezuka is often called the Walt Disney of Japan, and the flap copy of this book promised to demolish that view in my mind. Now, I've never read Astro Boy, so that vision of Tezuka is not that strong in my mind, and four rapes, rampant corruption in the medical community, and and a number of disfiguring pituitary diseases later, I'm really not apt to ever think that. ¶ I don't know if the problem is soley translator Camellia Nieh's, but my main complaint with this book was its rather clunky dialogue. But this was not a constant problem, and if you're interested in the book, I wouldn't let it keep you away. ¶ I picked up this book because of the striking Chip Kidd cover and checked it out because I've been meaning to read something from the Japanese Walt Disney. I was happy that the book was printed in mirror image (yes, I'm cancerously westerncentric in that way) and I enjoyed the book--even at 821 pages it didn't feel too long, even if I was never totally enamored. ¶ The eponymous character is a doctor studying Monmow Disease--cause unknown; causes the ill to degenerate until the skull and limbs become distinctly doglike. While studying the disease in the village the cases come from he contracts the disease himself. One thing leads to another and he ends up everywhere from Taiwan to Syria and everyone from newborns to whores ends up dead in a series of tragedies. It's all very sad. And laden with surprisingly heavy Christian imagery. But with excellent heroic characters: the selfless nun, notably. Into selfless nuns? Have I got a book for you!
one week

054) Polygamy Was Better Than Monotony by Paul Bailey, finished August 10

I think Paul Bailey named this book what he did because he regretted not thinking of it earlier and putting it on Grandpa Was a Polygamist. Or maybe he had thought of that title, but hadn't given up on being popular in Utah yet. Get the full details at the Wikipedia article I started up for him! ¶ Anyway, the truth of the matter is this book has precious little to do with Polygamy--it's really his personal memoir, and although his polygamist grandfathers do play into that, they hardly deserve to have the book named after them. An ironic "Daddy Sacrificed His Second Estate" would have been better, for instance. ¶ Although he's not as successfully funny and his failings as a Mormon are more spectacular, those of you familiar with Robert Kirby might find the comparison helpful. ¶ But all that stuff aside, what I liked most about this book was its clear-eyed vision of small town Utah ninety or a hundred years ago. It's fascinating, to see an area I know so well, through such a very different pair of eyes. And the stories are like none I ever heard in Primary! For instance: getting baptized with tobacco in your pockets and coming out of the water, eight years old, clean, and surrounded by floating brown particulates of sin. Or: a desperate father yelling at President Heber J. Grant in his own office. But also: a town pulling together and rebuilding a downtrodden family's home after a disasterous fire. ¶ The book feels rather unplanned and slapped together a little too quickly. But it was like reading a nonfiction Great Brain (and I loved those book as a kid--even if they did make me feel slightly heretic), and, overall, I enjoyed it. I will be interested to see if his other books--his fiction maybe--read smoothly.
less than seven months but probably more than six

053) Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, finished August 7

This is a delightful book. No school was given that many pages, but as a fun introduction to many schools of thought, it's right on. And if you don't want to learn anything, that's okay too: the jokes are awesome.
two weeksish

052) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling, finished July 24

Hoooooo. Decompress. ¶ So I thought the first Harry Potter book was nice but unremarkable. The second didn't really justify the hype. I loved the third and fourth books and was dismayed by the fifth. I did like the sixth, but really, it all came down to this one. Could Rowling stick the ending? ¶ And the answer is a qualified yes. ¶ This book made me cry time and again. There is a portion near the end where everything could touch off the wellings. It's Neville! The letter his Gran wrote him! The prat brother! The twin! Lupin and Tonks! It was a brutal stretch. And I qualify the yet only because the book had so much more to do after that. But I do not begrudge it any of this. You write a 4100 page book (more than three times as long as LoTR), it can take some time to wind it down. And the readers deserve that. Fair enough. ¶ I'm not going to be willing to comment on whether or not Harry deserves to be called Immortal Literature, but that he is Immortal Literature in every reasonable sense seems impossible to argue. Probably, over the course of this week, more people have read more pages of this book than have ever read as many of any other book in history. Ever. Including the Bible. And the Quran. Do you doubt it? ¶ Anyway, important issues: No, I am not fully satisfied on the Snape issue. Yes, I thought the Dumbledore thing was good and important and in keeping with the well established themes. Okay, I guess I follow the King's Cross deal and the seventh Horcrux thing and all the mythology, and I guess it works well enough for me. Yes, the action was excellent. Yes, the casualties, though horrible, were also good and important and necessarily artistically. No, I'm not anxious to pick the books up and read them all again. Yes, I may well someday. Yes, I will recommend them to my children. Yes, I am glad I read them. No, I'm not sure which last line was the last line she's had all this time and so no, I'm not satisfied with its weight in contrast with its expected weight. ¶ Any questions?
three days

051) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling, finished July 21

When this book came out, I rushed through it so no one could ruin any salient plot points. But I entered it unprepared. I had read Order of the Phoenix the same way and had not touched Harry Potter at all in the interim. IN large part because I didn't much care for Order of the Phoenix--I found it overcooked. And besides: Harry was at a very annoying stage of life. He was intolerable. ¶ I didn't want to make the same mistake entering final book of the series, so I decided to read the last hundred pages of Half-Blood Prince before getting into it. The trouble was that I kept putting it off and putting it off and even though things I read like this and this should have reminded me, it wasn't till I took it off the shelf and started to read that I remembered that, unlike Book 5, I really liked this book. And so I determined to read the entire thing. ¶ I skimmed less important passages, but the book is surprisingly short on such. And I was also reading some passages more critically that I might feel better informed on such things as the Snape Issue as I attacked the final volume. ¶ I'm reasonably certain this was time well spent. ¶ Even if I am a day behind now....
two days

Previously on Five Books....

050) The Ruins by Scott Smith, finished July 13<
049) Favorite Stories by Margret Rey, illustrated by H.A. Rey, finished July 12
048) Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins, finished July 2
047) Flight Volume Three edited by Kazu Kibuishi, finished June 27
046) Nobody Is Perfick by Bernard Waber, finished June 14
045) First Paragraphs: Inspired Openings for Writers and Readers by Donald Newlove, finished June 12
044) The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking, finished June 11
043) Dune by Frank Herbert, finished June 9
042) The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels by Thomas Cahill, finished June 8
041) The Roald Dahl Omnibus by Roald Dahl, finished June 6
040) Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo, finished May 31
039) The End by Lemony Snicket, finished May 23
038) The Complete Peanuts 1961-1962 by Charles M. Schultz, finished May 22
037) The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket, finished May 21
036) The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket, finished May 18
035) The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, finished May 15
034) Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, finished May 14
033) Chip Kidd: Book One: Work: 1986-2006 by Chip Kidd, finished May 9
032) Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, finished May 7
031) The Complete Peanuts 1959-1960 by Charles M. Schulz, finished April 25
030) Devils & Demons edited by Marvin Kaye, finished April 23
029) Talk Talk Talk: Decoding the Mysteries of Speech by Jay Ingram, finished April 23
028) Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman, finished April 20
027) The Long Chalkboard: and Other Stories by Jennifer Allen and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, finished April 19
026) Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis, finished April 19
025) Frank by Jim Woodring, finished April 12
024) The Complete Concrete by Paul Chadwick, finished April 3
023) The Rumpelstiltskin Problem by Vivian Vande Velde, finished March 30
022) Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, finished March 28
021) Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller et al, finished March 23
020) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, finished March 16
019) Batman: Gothic by Grant Morrison et al, finished March 13
018) Wild at Heart by John Eldredge, finished March 7
017) Stink: The Incredible Shrinking Kid by Megan McDonald, finished March 7
016) 50 Professional Scenes for Student Actors: A Collection of Short 2 Person Scenes by Garry Michael Kluger, finished March 6
015) Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda, finished March 5
014) Frindle by Andrew Clements, finished March 1
013) Brain Wave by Poul Anderson, finished February 27
012) The Best American Comics 2006 edited by Harvey Pekar and Anne Elizabeth Moore, finished February 26
011) Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, finished February 15
010) The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ edited by Mormon and Moroni, finished February 7
009) Lisey's Story by Stephen King, finished February 1
008) The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, finished January 26
007) Empire by Orson Scott Card, finished January 24
006) Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, finished January 22
005) Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, finished January 17
004) Superman Adventures Vol. 1: Up, Up and Away! by Mark Millar, finished January 16
003) A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, finished January 12
002) Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, finished January 11
001) Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut, finished January 10

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Thvlog V: Making duck noises with my mouth

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Theric and the Deathly Svithe

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No, no one has died recently, thank you, and I haven't even really been dwelling on such things, but heck, I haven't posted on death in over a week and not in a svithey way in even longer, so I figured it was time.

I learned in my college-freshman course in physical science (taken as a senior, incidentally) that we measure and prove time through entropy: things breaking down. And that, therefore, when there shall be time no longer, we may assume that entropy has been halted.

This makes sense. Resurrected bodies do not die; resurrected worlds do not end.

And so the death of friends becomes nothing more than a memory.

(Although, given the lack of entropy, a memory that never fades. But maybe the whole Death Thing will just seem amusing from the perspective of six eternities later. How can I say?)

Anyway. That's a little svithe on dying for you.

Go forth and die no more.

Than the one time, I mean.





last week's svithe

Frzday

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Zt's Frzday and all the kzds are ready to party!

Zt's Frzday and all the squares are anxzous to kzck off thezr wzngtzps and go danczng.

Zt's Frzday and the deer and quazl are abandonzng the campgrounds and headzng for the hzlls.

Zt's Frzday and the Clown Assoczatzon zs outszde czrcus management pzcketzng.

Agazn.

Dang it! I can't believe we totally missed this!

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To your left (volume seven)

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So we invited Petra over for dinner tonight, as part of her conversion to the Cult of Northern California, and she was--you'll all be glad to hear--very polite and becoming.

Whew.

Anyway, we confirmed her corporeality and fed her Mutant Tomato Pizza. Which was GOOD, dagnabit, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Also: she proved herself to be a person of exquisite taste and discrimination by borrowing a bunch of our books. That's a sure way to get on our good side. Unless you leave them in the bathroom and they sustain serious water damage.

Twice.

I'm looking at you, Nemesis.

....bleeding librarians....

Anyway, we trust Petra will prove to be much more responsible than that.

And she was an excellent, if belated, start to our 2007 corporeality-confirmation schedule.

Who else do you know that spends her spare time judging Indonesian transvestite contests?

Scary!

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Check out our tomato.

Check, check, check (61-80)

today's episode of check check check
is dedicated to alfred hitchcock
who shows up a lot on this list
and rightly so
and who would no doubt still be making movies today
on his 108th birthday
if he wasn't
you know
dead

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61. "Sullivan's Travels," 1941.

I'm so happy to see Preston Sturges represented on this list. No moe shutouts, Mr Sturges!

And this is even my favorite of his movies!

Or would be, I'm pretty sure, if I'd ever seen any of them.

But I'm still pretty sure I'm an awfully big fan....

62. "American Graffiti," 1973.

This is a good movie. But like a lot of movies in the next twenty, I'm surprised to see it on this best-hundred list all the same.

63. "Cabaret," 1972.

Yes, I liked Liza Minnelli in Arrested Development. But that only made me more loathe to see her done up sexy.

64. "Network," 1976.

Sheesh: I;m already mad as hell--why would I want to watch this movie?

And yet....

I do....

65. "The African Queen," 1951.

Bogie and Katie Hepburn jousting on a boat. I;m unsure why we've never watched this....

66. "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1981.

Scared me as a kid. Still haven't quite forgiven it. Maybe that's why Lady Steed still hasn't watched the copy I bought her a year or so ago

67. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", 1966.

Me. I don't want Liz Taylor shouting at me. Not at all. And I think I'ld like my first experience with Albee to be on the stage.

68. "Unforgiven," 1992.

I'm not a huge cowboy-movie kind of guy, but this one's definitely on my list.

69. "Tootsie," 1982.

Another good-enough movie whose top-100 status I find questionable.

Although it's is a zillion times better than crappy ole Mrs. Doubtfire.

70. "A Clockwork Orange," 1971.

I don't care how many people warn me against it: I still really want to see this movie.

Just maybe not the eyeball part.

71. "Saving Private Ryan," 1998.

Hhhhhh.

War movies.

Isn't there ugly enough already?

I don't mean to knock the worth of war movies, but today, now, this year, they're just not for me.

72. "The Shawshank Redemption," 1994.

I've never seen this except on tv, so I don't know what I'm missing, but what I've seen is terrific.

But how could it not be, when starrin Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman?

73. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1969.

Not since I was a kid. High on my list of mustrewatches.

74. "The Silence of the Lambs," 1991.

Like Shawshank, never seen this except on tv. But it's awesome.

75. "In the Heat of the Night," 1967.

Someday. I've heard too much compelling stuff to put it off forever.

76. "Forrest Gump," 1994.

Why do people like this movie? I saw it in theaters because it was all the rage, and when I walked out half-a-day later, it was like I had not even seen a movie.

When you see a good movie or a bad movie or fun movie or a hilarious movie or an exciting movie or an embarrassing movie or a lousy movie, you leave at least knowing you have seen a movie. Seeing Forrest Gump was like having 2½ hours of my life just suddenly lost to me. It was like not having seen a movie at all.

Several years later it was on tv and I tried to give it a second chance.

No dice.

It's the most absent work of art ever made.

Suck on that, Zemeckis!

77. "All the President's Men," 1976.

Ummmm. Which all the X's men is this again?

78. "Modern Times," 1936.

Haven't seen this one, but I just read that in it, "Chaplin has two wrenches and he's chasing after a woman with nuts on her nipples".

!!!!!

79. "The Wild Bunch," 1969.

Another cowboy movie, yes?

I'll add it to the list.

80. "The Apartment, 1960.

Prety good. I always like Shirley MacLaine. And Jack Lemmon too (with one notable exception). But I like my comedies funny. And this one ain't.

Add it to the good-enough-but-what-the-heck-s-it-doing-here list.

In Memoriam J.E.F. a svithe

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I remember: I had just graduated from high school about a year previous and Gordon B. Hinckley became the new president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As counselors he chose Thomas S. Monson and some guy I had never heard of before, one James E. Faust.

This was an eye-opener for me, that there could be an apostle whose name I did not even recognize. I mean--I watched General Conference. I read The New Era--or at least the comics--how did I miss a guy who had been one of the Twelve for over thirty years? My personal opinion of myself as a with-it young Mormon took a hit.

So President Faust became a guy I took particular interest in.

Just because he died I'm not going to lie and say he gave some of my favorite talks--honestly, he was never one of my favorite speakers. And it's true I'm biased towards better writers, but President Faust has soul. And the last few years as he has stood to speak--so visibly enfeebled--I have been touched by the greatness of his heart.

Nowhere in scripture does it say blessed are the more talented wordsmiths. Nowhere does it say the clever scribes are more likely to convert.

And really--it was probably just a matter of taste--the man was brilliant, ask anyone who knew him. And his professional life was marked by good deeds. And what's more important, leaving the world a better place or impressing Theric with your prosy?

Now I just need to convince myself of that fact....

Anyway, President Faust, congratulations on your graduation. We'll be thinking of you.

Love,
Theric

ps: I'll be trying to go me and do likewise






last week's svithe

Thvlog IIII: Happy birthday; time to die

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So I had a birthday. An ever-notable marker on the path towards death. And, well, I know how I'll die. And it's the same way Über S will die. So we made a video together.





(clever grad student-types may want to note that in this video i used the black bars for a completely different effect than the way i normally use them here on thmusings; how about them cheese logs, clever grad student-types?)




Buy the shirt!

AAAAAARRRRGH: A Dilemma

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I have never been in this situation before. Two schools want me to teach for them. Both are ideal positions, but ideal for different reasons. Both jobs have but few minor drawbacks. I'm torn. I have no idea which one to choose. I have until tomorrow.

I'm nostalgic for the days when it was take the burger flipping job or have no job at all --- and that was it.

I can't remember ever being this stressed over a decision.

Look: this is me shuddering: -~-~-~_~__~-`-`-`-`-`-`_-`-~_`_~__~-`-~--~-~_-~-~-~

Check, check, check (41-60)

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41. "King Kong," 1933.

I was surprised when I saw Peter Jackson's version to realize that I didn't know big chunks of the story and, therefore, must never have actually seen the original film. This was appalling, and so earlier this year I fixed that--and in the best fashion: sitting in front of a big screen. And although Jackson's take appeals more to my modern tastes, I liked the '33 version too. And, for the record, Fay Wray is gorgeous and those dresses should be illegal.

42. "Bonnie and Clyde," 1967.

I want to see this--I like it when married couples going around killing people. It's totally my thing.

43. "Midnight Cowboy," 1969.

I know, I know:
Dustin Hoffman

Jon Voigt

only X-rated movie to win best picture
So why haven't I seen it?

I guess I just can't get over the fact that Dustin Hoffman's character is named after a Muppet.

44. "The Philadelphia Story," 1940.

Jimmy Stewart. Cary Grant. Kate Hepburn. This movie should be awesome, but when we watched our copy, I was pretty underwhelmed. I wanted funnier. And, well, the circumstances in which we watched it weren't ideal.

So the next time we see it, I'll know better what to expect and I'll get more out of it.

Lady Steed saw it as a play with Miss Nemesis and they thought it was hilarious.

I look forward to that.

45. "Shane," 1953.

I have never seen any Alan Ladd movie. Not even Shane.

Man, I suck.

46. "It Happened One Night," 1934.

Classic Capra screwball and although it's a nice flick (and allegedly killed the undershirt industry), it's by no means the greatest of the screwballs. I've never been quite sure why it always shows up so high on these lists. I mean--it's a good movie, but #46 of all time? I like Tad Hamilton better!

47. "A Streetcar Named Desire," 1951.

This is another movie with a great reputation that all anyone can tell me about it is that Marlon Brando is hot and sweaty in it.

Stella, indeed.

48. "Rear Window," 1954.

It's a shame we only have this movie on VHS, because even though it's not one of my top Hitchcock faves, I like talking about this one a lot. For instance, those of you who've seen this movie--I bet you think Raymond Burr killed his wife, don't you? Well, I say he didn't. Think I'm wrong? Prove it.

49. "Intolerance," 1916.

This wasn't on the list ten years ago, and I know nothing about this movie.

I feel . . . . . . . . ignorant.

And I don't like it.

50. "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," 2001.

Okay, I love this movie, but it's my Snow White complaint all over again: the first movie of a set is voted onto this list not necessarily because it is the best of the set, but because it is the first of the set. Drives me nuts.

Anyway, seen it several times, loved it each, own the theatrical release and so should you.

Unless you own the extended edition. Because that's awesome too. And the special features are the best. I love them. I would marry them, except....

(Just kidding!)

51. "West Side Story," 1961.

I've never seen this and I thought I would find it annoying, but I listened to the overture on a classical station once and loved it. So I guess I shouldn't think that anymore.

52. "Taxi Driver," 1976.

Child prostitution is awesome, of course, so I guess I'll have to check this out someday. In the meantime, I'll remember Jodie Foster in this and this, instead, thank you very much.

53. "The Deer Hunter," 1978.

Oh boy. Another sad Vietnam movie. Sign me up.

54. "M*A*S*H," 1970.

I do want to see this one.

It's the Korean War.

It's totally different.

55. "North by Northwest," 1959.

Probably Hitch's straightest action flick and a fun ride. But again, probably not as good as people make it out to be. Wonderful to watch, but he made better.

Not with Cary Grant though.

56. "Jaws," 1975.

Haven't seen it since I was a kid, but I just read something Hitchcock said after seeing this film ("He['young Spielberg']'s the first one of us who doesn't see the proscenium arch.") that totally makes me ready to leave my fears behind and check it out again.

57. "Rocky," 1976.

Nuther boxing movie.

Nuff said.

58. "The Gold Rush," 1925.

I've only seen parts of this one, but those parts were good.

Go, Charlie!

59. "Nashville," 1975.

I don't know much about this particular Altman film. Unless I learn something really fantastic all of a sudden, M*A*S*H and A Prairie Home Companion will remain well in front of it on my to-see list.

60. "Duck Soup," 1933.

Man, the Marx Brothers are AWESOME. And if you're looking for a place to start, this is as good as any. Or, you can just do what I did and get this and this and never look back.

Today in Primary.....(svithe material)

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....was the Big O's first chance to give the scripture and prayer in Primary, so we've been practicing all week and he's been getting pretty good at it. Then it came time to stand in front of all the other kids and I went with him, then the shyness hit and his ear stuck to his shoulder and he fell face-first into my chest and nearly knocked me over and that was pretty much that.

For those of you wondering what it was he was trying to say, this was it:

For, behold, the Comforter knoweth all things, and beareth record of the Father and of the Son.

When we got home, we tried it again and it turned out much better:





last week's svithe

Only a couple hours till Coast Guard Day

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Have you decided what you're getting me?

Auschwitz Cantaloupe

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Kids say the most perplexing things.....

All Work and No Play

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It's a little known fact that in my spare time I do some freelance magazine illustration. Dr. M. A. Malien is starting a breastfeeding column for one of those ubiquitous new-parent magazines and I was offered the job of illustration. Then they decided to go with well lit but generic photographs of pretty babies with pretty mommies lounging on brightly colored furniture and I got a kill fee in the mail.

Anyway, I had already done all the work on the first three months' columns, and while I lack the medical school credentials, perhaps if you, like Lady Steed, are a nursing mother known to complain that your “b**bs” hurt, maybe there will be something in it for you.

Dr. Malien's main thesis, however, I have already given the observant. Did you catch it?

(roll over for captions)

sources of scrap

the George Booth illustrations
the album cover
all other images