Weekend Roundup
Various unrelated but interesting links for your long weekend:
Via
Bookslut, a link to an interview with
Alain de Bottoin. Do read it, and I can highly recommend
How Proust Can Change Your Life. I haven't read any of his other books, but I intend to.
The Fourth of July is
Dave Barry's birthday. Stop by and wish him the best.
L.A. Observed has an excellent post on local writer
D.J. Waldie, who first became known in 1996 for his book
Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir. Part autobiography, part urban study, it became an instant classic. He's published a new
collection of essays that has been well received. I'd recommend anything this man has written, especially if you live in Southern California - but he's worth reading even if you don't. His story is an interesting one. He lives still in the small house in Lakewood where he was born and raised in the Fifties, has never married, and works as a civil servant for the city of Lakewood. I get the impression he lives to write, and specifically to write about L.A. He does a wonderful job.
Via
Tim Blair, it's
"Rock, Paper, Saddam!" Give the pictures time to load. Muhaha.
And finally, via
Ernie, it's the
Amazon.com Knee-Jerk Contrarian Game! Here's how it works. Go to Amazon, pick a favorite book or movie, and rank the reviews in reverse order (worst first). It's quite entertaining. Here are a few samples:
On the film
Seven Samurai:
Save your money and time by not watching this badly made kung-fu movie. The guys in this movie do not know martial arts at all.
This movie seems to be a scene-by-scene copy of one of my favorite movies-"Magnificent Seven". Magnificent seven is a classic movie that has been copied many times, but I didn't know westerns were popular enough in japan to be copied.
Uh, well, okay, how about
Citizen Kane?
"The only good thing about Citizen Kane is that it will put you to sleep faster than any film."
"Please stop the hype on Citizen Kane. It doesn't work. It's like you are trying to convince people that poop smells good."
"Citizen Kane is a hymn to all filmmakers who have ever tried to create something artistic and meaningful and failed miserably every step of the way."
"It was just a bad attempt at a boring story about newspaper tycoon. It's one of the worst movies I have ever seen."
And there's so much more. Enjoy.
posted by Dr. Alice at #
