B*tches in Bookshops

Nerd Fishing

nataliedee.com

A Super-Mega Reading Update!

Since my life is completely and utterly boring and devoid of any drinking and party-making I find plenty of time to read. In fact, all I do now is lay completely submerged under mountains of quilts with the cat beside me and read until my eyes are bloodshot and wonky. I will, occasionally, come up for air and coffee, but that is pretty much it.

Needless to say I've devoured several books in the past few weeks.

I started off March reading John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things. Connolly's novel is about a young boy, David, who endures the death of his mother, OCD-like compulsions, the remarriage of his father, the birth of a new sibling, and a quest in a fairy-tale world filled with rabid wolves, murdering huntresses, and a vile trickster. A wonderful story that fully satiated my fairy-tale obsession.

Next I continued said fairy-tale fetish by reading the fourth volume of Bill Willingham's Fables series, March of the Wooden Soldiers. In this volume, the Adversary is waging an attack on Fabletown, a duplicitous Fable appears, and Snow White is in the last stages of pregnancy. I would have to say that one of my favorite elements of this series is the humor; there is a terrific stab at Young Republicans in this volume that is not to be missed.

At the public library with Hope the other day I actually had ten minutes without the "mom,mom,mom..." mantra to look at books. I grabbed the newest Chuck Palahniuk novel, Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey. EXCELLENT. I love it when authors gives a story from different characters and hooks it all together. When I first started reading Rant I knew that rabies figured prominently in the plot along with a massive outbreak in rabies related death. Additionally important is "Party Crashing." Party Crashing is a subculture of Nighttimers (those in the future relegated to living lives at night) forming teams and essentially playing tag with their cars on the road. Mid-way through, the book takes a decidedly cyberpunk twist by introducing the concept of "porting" whereby a port is placed in the back of one's head to enable one to have full sensory experiences (as opposed to merely watching t.v. or listening to music). Also, we find out that Buster and party crashing has much more to do with manipulating time and space.

Then it was on to more comic books (my, I read like a boy this month) with the third volume of Mike Carey's Lucifer series, Lucifer: A Dalliance with the Damned. Although this book was very good allowing the reader to see Lucifer's creation of a cosmos, an Eden story, and a closer glimpse into hell, there was less Lucifer in this volume. I know that elements of this volume are important, but I missed having Lucifer witty quips on every page.

Finally, this afternoon I finished Margot Mifflin's book on women and tattooing entitled Bodies of Subversion. This book was a quite read, but lacking in historical detail. The book begins in America in the late 1800s with the emergence of tattooed sideshow ladies and continues with a look at women in tattoo up through the late 1990s. The book is a feminist look at women in tattoos and focuses much of its time on prejudices against women with tattoos and discrimination against female tattoo artists. All that I dig, but that is virtually ALL that the book went into. I wanted a more complete history, stretching back through antiquity. Maori tribe tattoo and Egyptian tattoo were only mentioned briefly. I think this book needed far more research and certainly needed to be longer to constitute a "history" of women and tattoo. At less than 200 pages I think Mifflin barely skimmed the surface of women and tattoos.

I have two books going right now, Angela Carter's Burning your Boats which is a collection of all Carter's short fiction and Charles Bukowski's The People Look Like Flowers at Last to fulfill my poetry thirst. Tomorrow I will most likely pick up another comic book to peruse and start on Sarah Water's novel, Fingersmith.

Oh what I riotously nerdy St. Patty's day I will have.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age...

... or "the Top Ten Reasons to Scoop Your Eyeballs Out with A Searingly Hot Spoon Rather Than Be Subjected to Such Obnoxious Twaddle"

10. Clive Owen -- Normally, Clive Owen with his dark looks and chiseled chin is a good thing. In this movie...meh...not so much. Oh sure he is rugged and handsome and looks lovely as Sir Walter Raleigh, but historical inaccuracies abound making Clive Owen look like the court jester with a better codpiece. He says morose things with dead eyes that stare wistfully at the sea and when he gets all sexy over a lady-in-waiting he looks as turned on as PETA activist in a slaughterhouse.

9. Bad Poetry, Oh Noetry -- One of the major historical inaccuracies is Queen Lizzy falling in love with the dashing Raleigh. What makes this even more far-fetched is that Lizzy's lust is heightened by long boring scenes of Raleigh pontificating on the beauty of discovering the new world. And the wind. And the land. And the albatross...(okay there is no albatross). And Queenie squirms, SQUIRMS, listening to Raleigh describing land looking like a "smudge."

8. Female Hysteria -- We all know that even though she is the spawn of Henry the Eighth, Elizabeth is, unfortunately, plagued with having a vagina. Having a vagina means that she is completely unfulfilled by power and wealth and would rather have Raleigh in a cottage with some brats running about. This is evidenced by her bipolar like behavior towards Raleigh. She loves him so much she commands him to not go back to the new world but to stay in England with her (eyelash flutter). In actuality, Raleigh stayed because of impending war and not so that Lizzie could get her "quaint honor" all worked up over him. Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Elizabeth is embarrassing. There are plenty of shrieks, tantrums, agonized expressions, blank stares of despair, and the classic Blanchett "I'm-covering-my-mouth-dramatically-to-stifle-the-screams" move.

7. Bad Montage -- This sapfest climaxes in a really bad montage about midway through the movie. Basically, the director took scenes from the first Lizzy movie. It is the part where she is dancing with her Duddikins (a.k.a Dudley, Earl of Essex) and takes out the Dudley to replace the scene with WALTER RALEIGH. Really, REALLY?! Oh, poor Lizzy. She hasn't been properly laid and all that sexual tension from Dudders has given her blue balls. She is unable to even think about her duties as sovereign when she is pining over her past loves (Duddy) and her new interests (Raleigh).

6. Assassins Running A-Muck -- So everyone knows that there are plenty of folks who would love to off Lizzy and get a good ole' Catholic queen. Security is increased; the council is on alert and Lizzy is .... off riding horses alone with Raleigh, walking into churches with nary a guard and only her gleaming purity to save her (apparently, when the queen wears white she glows like that chic from Touched by an Angel). Towards the end, Lizzy stands on some cliffs looking out to sea at the burning Armada in her nightie with the wind whipping round her. So much for royal propriety.

5. Mary Queen of Scots WTF -- In this film Mary Q. is portrayed as a vile trollop. Okay. I can buy that, depending on which interpretation you read of MQ's bio she was a bit haughty. What is completely effed up is that MQ is executed in a sort of throne room, wearing a scarlet dress and the entire execution is screwy from a historical standpoint. Oh, yes, it is all very dramatic. But not right and frankly since mostly nerd watch these sorts of historical movies I think that directors have a duty to nerding-types.

4. Not giving Drake his due -- Drake gets a slight nod mid-way through the Armada sequence, but he definitely doesn't get the mad props he deserves. Raleigh is credited with the piracy that pissed off Spain (that was Drake) and Raleigh has the brilliant idea for fire ships (Drake again). Raleigh was present during the Armada show-down, but didn't play a large part in the ass kicking.

3. They Fucked up the Armada Scene -- According to this film Raleigh (Clive Owen) saves the day by kicking the Spanish Armada's ass nearly single-handedly. In addition to Drake only being mentioned in passing, John Hawkins (the leader of the English fleet) doesn't get mentioned at all. And Raleigh certainly didn't dive into the flaming waters of the Atlantic nor did he scale burning ships.

2. Overt Symbolism -- At the end of the film King Philip of Spain is praying to God about this defeat. He says to his Jeebus that he (Philip) is the light and wishes to lead England out of damnation. Then the candle blows out. And rosary beads sink into the flaming ocean and a cross dips under a wave. (Rolls eyes). All this while Lizzy stands in her nightie looking into the night with a look of quick victory on her face. Painful. Oh so painful.

1. Stupid -- it was stupid.

The ONE REDEEMING QUALITY -- according to roommate (a.k.a. Fashion Design major) they used lovely brocades.