A Gilded Planet

A Visit from the Goon Squad recalls the intricately interconnected sprawl of Cloud Atlas and Infinite Jest , but presented in miniature, as if those literary metropoles were reconfigured in order to be contained in a single city block. In fact, the Jules Jones interview/nervous breakdown chapter feels like a direct parody of or homage to David Foster Wallace's writing style, and the way characters and situations are nested recurrently throughout the distinctly different narratives and styles of each chapter owes a lot to Cloud Atlas . Yet I don't mean to belabor the point regarding its influences - this is very much its own book and in its finest moments it achieves the sort of lyrical transcendence one associates with masterpieces. It's also a breeze to read, which I think belies its real complexities to a significant degree. One could quibble with the neatness of the interconnections of Egan's characters, settings and stories. Many writers suggest that coinci...

You know that song that goes in the jungle the mighty jungle the lions sleeps tonight well that's not even accurate the lion doesn't sleep in the jungle he doesn't even live in the jungle the jungle is for jaguars and leopards you idiots! And that isn't even my main problem with Disney's 1994 animated musical, The Lion King . For starters, I don't think the so-called 'circle of life' necessarily has to involve your uncle killing your own father and stealing your birthright. So that's misleading. 2. Hakuna Matata does not mean "no worries for the rest of your days." It means "no worries" as in "no problem," or "no big deal." There's a world of difference that in all its irrevocable frivolity The Lion King glosses over entirely. It's like they didn't have Wikipedia in those days or something. Swahili speakers all over the world find The Lion King insulting. 3. There's no such thing as a...

Magnolia 1999. 188 minutes. USA. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Watchdate: 9/9/2012. The problem with doing too much cocaine, as I understand it, is that it makes you think every idea you have is a good idea. Evidently, Magnolia amounts in large part to a parade of cocaine decisions. The opening sequence of the movie offers the tantalizing possibility of a masterful cinematic examination of the nature of coincidence, both hilarious and tragic in equal measure. With each moment that passes after this perfectly orchestrated opening, the movie grows ever more frantic, overwrought and slipshod, taking on the rhythm of Scorsese without his coherency, the scope of Kubrick or Altman without their poignancy, even the absurdity of Buñuel without his satiric edge.  It's a great big mess of a movie and sometimes those work out really well, but a lot of other times they become exhausting to watch. For every excellent performance, from Julianne Moore's shrill drug addict to To...

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Bulgakov swings gracefully between the theatrical, the vulgar, the cartoonish, the caustically satiric, and even at times the profound and the sublime. I don't know how much of the satire I missed due to my relative unfamiliarity with the Soviet Union in the 1920s, though his attacks on the groveling and conforming literary establishment of the time are quite clear and wonderfully handled. I especially loved his satires of hustling for real estate. Behemoth the Tomcat is an indelible character - even if his supporting role in the book is smaller than you might imagine given his prominence on the covers of many editions of this book. But the most thought provoking element of the book may be the novel-within-the-novel about Pontius Pilate. It functions simultaneously as a deep rupture from the main narrative, yet Bulgakov also successfully integrates it in myriad ways. Techniques associated with postmodernism stretch as far back as ...

When I watched Lincoln the other week, I noticed something about the 13th Amendment I had not been aware of before. The movie's narrative follows the political struggle to pass the 13th Amendment through Congress. At the end, the text of the 13th Amendment is read out loud: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. I highlighted the above section because it's a big fat loophole in the U.S. Constitution just waiting for some brutal geniuses to think up the prison industrial complex. 150 years later, we have mass incarceration and states of the Old Confederacy have considered using prison labor  to do the work that slaves would have done prior to the Emancipation Proclamation.

And I forgot about Steubenville Just like everyone else did Each one a pig Indifferent and agnostic and execrable And what's wrong with being an attractive young woman? Nothing, we say But I prefer self-control You prefer birth control He doesn't like politics He believes in football But what's wrong with being an attractive young woman? Please drink responsibly You shouldn't go out alone at this hour Demons of the night and all Demons that look like me The dead body on video What's wrong with being an attractive young woman? The woman part, that's all We can outpig Steubenville Even though men aren't out to get women anymore She must exercise restraint Watch how you dress "Nothing wrong with being an attractive young woman" Or there shouldn't be, anyhow

Corner Store 2010.  70 minutes. USA. Directed by Katherine Bruens. Watchdate: 5/24/2011. You should really check out   Corner Store , now available to watch for free on Hulu . I think this documentary is great but I am biased because the director is my older sister. The documentary follows the owner of a corner store located in San Francisco who emigrated a decade ago as an economic refugee due to the Second Intifada in Palestine. The documentary  his reunification with the family he had long been separated from, and the decisions associated with whether he should move back to the West Bank or bring his family over to the U.S. I have seen at least three different cuts of the movie by now and each time I get caught up in it emotionally. I actually get choked up at the end. So this movie is in good company with You Can't Take It With You , Up , and The Shawshank Redemption - all movies that make me cry.

In second grade, a precocious young girl named Heather constructed a diorama representing the court of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I. Somehow, Heather had interpreted a creative assignment about the ecology of rainforest biomes to be one dealing with the English Renaissance. Her teacher could hardly complain about the resulting project, as it was far more intricate and sophisticated than the projects that the rest of the snot noses had concocted even if it was lacking in the sort of flora and fauna native to places such as the Amazon. Heather received 4s in nearly every category that trimester except “Following Instructions,” in which she received a 2. Later, in middle school, incessant teasing sent Heather to the brink of an eating disorder though she pulled herself back in time for a relatively healthy, happy high school life in which she performed roles both comic, romantic and tragic in Shakespeare plays while secretly falling in love with his sonnets. She had to keep this a secr...

Rather than strain anyone's patience with some high-minded Resolutions of the annual variety, I will engage in New Years Navel Gazing by taking a look back at the most popular posts I produced during this past year. I intended to post something new every day and succeeded just over one third of the time. And popularity is, of course, a very relative term considering that it's rather rather rare for me to get pageviews that number in the triple digits, and as you'll see, those pageviews don't always indicate anyone is actually reading the post that's been accessed. 10. Long Live Johansson Projects Though it barely made the cut, I am proud of this one since my brief little review was cited by its subject . I assume a fair number of its pageviews came through that link, alongside the links provided to more legitimate reviews by SFGate and the Daily Cal. Ah, the democracy of opinions that is the Internet. 9. Happy Birthday, José Martí! This post was just me...