Quick movie & book review

Traveling to Whistler and Vancouver next week - psyched to go, but sorry J couldn't make it to our honeymoon spot!

Saw The Incredible Hulk last night w/ Dad for Father's Day. I really liked it. Dad & I kept nudging each other as links to the show came up. I thought Norton did a good job as Banner and Roth was certainly looney tunes. And I didn't think the CG Hulk was too bad. As for smashing, just like on the show, Hulk smashed to survive, save people, get away from meanies. Not gratuitously.

Just enough time to record Book #10 before other things need to be done:

Book #10 - Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger. I picked this up to see what other stuff of his was like, after The Catcher in the Rye. It's a series of pretty down and dreary vignettes. The most striking was the last story - "Teddy", but I won't tell you why - try not to spoil things here.

But they're an institution!

Sitting in a coffee-shop when a father and his 3-ish daughter step up to the pastry case. He's detailing the goodies she can chose from and they come to the mega-Rice Krispies treats. "What's that?" she asks and he proceeds to detail how they are made. My gut reaction is horror - how can any kid old enough to walk into a coffee-shop and share goodies w/ Dad not know Rice Krispies treats? They're a childhood institution!!

Book#9: Waking up Screaming by H.P. Lovecraft. I have to be honest. Lovecraft had been so hyped as a master of terror, that I felt I must be horribly jaded as I read most of this book. Creepy, gross things, yes. Terrifying, no. In most stories, I figured out the deal early on, so all of his work building suspense was just in the way. That said, I did really enjoy "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" - the novella at the close of this collection. I didn't have it totally right at the start and I enjoyed the history of Providence it wrapped in.

Vacation musings

Thought I'd share the notes from my journal from the first part of our vacation trip.

6/2/08 - Swarms of gnats hung from each tree like a plume of smoke. Their coordinated movements spurred thoughts of collective intelligence, as in some horror film.

6/3/08 - After intermittent drizzly showers, the river has calmed to a glossy stillness, blurred by fog.

6/30/08 - What was the crumbling shack in that field before? A farm stand? A small home for someone making do? Whatever it once was, today it sags and bulges. From a window, a pink leg of some (once-loved?) stuffed beast droops. Memories left behind become just a part of the rubble.

Come and gone

Dan's birthday gathering was in the Thousand Islands. We stayed in a nice cottage on top of a big pile of rocks right on the river. Even though the weather wasn't spectacular all week, it was a great time. J made it up two days after the rest of us (because of a class), the guys got to spend an afternoon fishing for big 'uns, and we did an islands tour so we got to fantasize about having an island someday....



Sonny's run of trees sold out in < 1 minute. He's also sold some other large pieces recently. Awesome stuff.

I have a bunch of books to catch up on:
Book #8: Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History by Michel-Rolph Trouillot. I was pretty disappointed in this. I was hoping for book of case studies detailing what had been buried and why. I got a lot more really dry academic definitions of history and its composition. The moments when he detailed what little is known of some of the true events surrounding Haiti's revolution, it gets more bearable - but just not the really cool analysis I thought it would be.