Prête-moi ta lume

The Art of Urban Blight

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:44:20 GMT

Through a link from cynodd's mother, I found this photo exhibition in Time Magazine Online entitled "Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline." It's from a series by 2 French photographers, Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, entitled The Ruins of Detroit (click on the arrow to the bottom left to scroll through the pictures on their site).

It's hard for people outside of Detroit to imagine how many abandoned buildings there really are in this city, but Marchand and Meffre have photos of 14 of those that used to be important and/or beautiful. These photos are really worth a look for the beauty of the photos themselves and for the lost potential revealed in them.

What You Will

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 16:27:08 GMT

This should be the last post about my recent trip to London. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I visited Westminster Abbey. Photographs were not allowed inside and I'd previously taken some photos of the outside on another trip, so I only took one on my visit there this time. It would probably be better to post this on Monday or to have posted it on Thursday, but this photo is a portion of the wall above the main door at Westminster Abbey displaying the statues of 9 "martyrs," according to the tour guide. I've captured 3 of them here, the one in the middle being Martin Luther King, Jr.:

From an article in Jet Magazine (I think):

Canon Anthony Harvey of Westminster Abbey said King "combined an explicitly Christian language of freedom and justice with an appeal to American democracy."

"On April 4, 1968, he was shot dead in Memphis. He was 39 years old. Today he is widely celebrated as one of the great prophetic leaders of the later 20th century, and his name still inspires those who follow his call for justice," he said.

I think I mentioned in my last post, too, that I'd gone to the Novello Theatre Saturday night, which was the closing night, to see whether I could get a return ticket for Hamlet, but there were none to be had by the time I arrived. So, I wandered around central London fairly aimlessly on Saturday night (coffee shop, bookstore, etc), but returned to the Novello Theatre, which really was on my way back to the hotel anyway, at the time the play was due to be over.

I'd say there were probably about 75 people clustered around the stage door holding stuff for the actors to sign (though, I think it was too cold to expect the actors to sign anything) in addition to 15-20 people with really big cameras who I assume were paparazzi. After some time (which I'm very bad at judging), someone came out to sign a few things - I believe it was Tom Davey, who played Guildenstern, since I could see him fairly clearly. Then, some time after that, David Tennant came out, but I was only able to see the top of his hair. I assume it was him, though, because as soon as he went back inside, the crowd began to disperse. As I was walking around the front of the theatre (which was the direction of my hotel), suddenly all these people with the big cameras started to run around to the front doors of the theatre and I heard someone shout, "He'll come out the front doors!" So, I watched them for a few minutes. It was pretty funny, actually. They positioned themselves right in front of the front doors with cameras ready until, after about 30 seconds, someone shouted something like, "No, these doors!" and a bunch of the people with the big cameras ran down the side of the theatre building. After another 30 seconds, some of them came back, so they were spread out along the theatre building. I have to say that I felt a bit sorry to think that the actors were trapped inside the theatre and quickly left after that, since I didn't want to contribute to a crowd of people that was torturing them. What they really need is a secret tunnel from the theatre that lets out into a secluded street several blocks away. Who knows - maybe they have that! *lol*

If there is anyone reading this who might like to see Hamlet on DVD, please sign this petition. (For those on Facebook, joining the group on Facebook isn't the same as signing the petition. I think the Facebook group is mainly for updates. According to the latest update there, though, Michael Boyd, the artistic director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, has been in contact with the petition's author and is reading the petition with interest.)

Sunday, which was my last full day in London, I went to see Twelfth Night. This is the story of a twin brother and sister who are shipwrecked and find themselves in an unfamiliar land, each thinking the other is dead. The sister, Viola, passes herself off as a boy to work for the local duke, Orsino, and is sent on his behalf to court Olivia. Unfortunately, Olivia falls in love with Viola (as the boy, Cesario) while Viola falls in love with Orsino. There are several other characters in the households of Orsino and Cesario involved in side storylines, one of which involves making Olivia's steward, Malvolio, believe that Olivia is actually in love with him. (A mean trick, I thought, but I guess it would have played well to people who were victims of a class system.) It turned out that my ticket for Twelfth Night was very good, row K in the stalls, and I really enjoyed it.

I thought the play was very good, though not as good as Hamlet. The difference was the the actors' voices. For Hamlet, it sounded like the actors were speaking and it was easy to get drawn in - to believe the actors really were who they were portraying. For Twelfth Night, it sounded like many (not all) of the actors were projecting, which was a frequent glaring reminder that they were actors and they weren't really who they were pretending to be. Of course, the most experienced actor on the stage, Derek Jacobi, who I knew from Kenneth Branagh's Henry V and Dead Again, was perfect. :) He always seemed to be speaking normally and made an excellent representation of comically taking himself very seriously as Malvolio. He was hilarious! :-D

Otherwise, I was most impressed with Alex Waldmann, who played Sebastian (Viola's twin brother), and Zubin Varla, who played Feste (the entertainer/clown). Waldmann, it seems, has only been in theatre. Varla had previously played Feste in a TV version of this play (which I have never seen). He strummed guitar and sang during the play, which was very nice. Olivia was played by Indira Varma, who I had previously seen in Bride and Prejudice, Rome, and Torchwood. My only criticism of the play was that the chemistry between Varma and Victoria Hamilton, who played Viola, was not very good. I didn't really buy that Olivia had fallen in love with Viola (as Cesario). Perhaps that will improve with time, though. As I noticed during the second performance of Hamlet that I saw months after I first saw it, the relationships among all the characters seemed to have improved to the point of seeming entirely natural.

Overall, the Shakespeare audience seems tougher than the musical theatre audience. Neither of the 2 Shakespearean plays got a full standing ovation, but Oliver! did.

Sunday evening, I was sent to a French restaurant at the Covent Garden Market for dinner by the hotel's concierge, who was French. As I was looking around the Market area for the restaurant, I came across a sextet who were performing in an open area of the Market near a pub. (Some of the pub's patrons were actually eating and drinking outside, despite the cold.) I sat and watched them for a few pieces (something by Mozart, "The Can-can", and the opening of Carmen) and gave them a couple of pounds. I also took a picture:

I have no idea of what the group was calling themselves. They seemed very good, though. They were also able to play while running around and bouncing, which was amusing to see.

At the restaurant, I had a glass of wine (some kind of rosé) and by chance set it down right in front of a small candle on the table, which made the wine seem to glow. I thought it was interesting, so I took a picture of that, too! :)

And then it was time to pack for home...back to reality last Monday.

Small World?

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:12:27 GMT

Hamlet closed with its last performance last night. I thought I'd try to see whether I could get a return ticket because...why not? However, I later heard that people had lined up for return tickets beginning the night before, so it's not surprising that I didn't get one when I went to the theatre only 45 minutes before the show was due to start.

When I met Peter De Jersey from Hamlet the other night, I asked whether he'd miss it when it was done. He said that he wouldn't because he was bound to work with everyone from the production again at some point or another and he was excited to be moving on. Not being very gifted at small talk, at the time it didn't occur to me to ask what he would be doing next. Instead, I asked whether that indicated that the community of actors here was small. He responded that he didn't think so, but that there were a lot of projects over the course of time. Now, I'm wondering how true that is...

As I mentioned previously, after meeting Julian Bleach and having him tell me that he was playing Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, in Oliver!, I had the tune for "That's Your Funeral" running through my head all day Friday, though I couldn't remember most of the words. So, I figured I'd try to go see it. Why not, eh? I was able to get a ticket to the matinee performance yesterday. It turns out that it was starring Rowan Atkinson, whom some may know as Blackadder or Mr. Bean, as Fagin. It also starred Burn Gorman, whom I know as Owen Harper from Torchwood and jaderabbit knows as Mr. Guppy from Bleak House, as Bill Sikes. (I have yet to see that version of Bleak House, but intend to watch it sometime.) Although neither Blackadder nor Mr. Bean fit my sense of humor exactly, Atkinson was quite funny as Fagin. I really enjoyed his rendition of "Reviewing the Situation" and there was a new twist to Fagin being concerned about Oliver seeing his stash of jewels. He seemed to be enjoying wearing the jewels, including a tiara, quite a lot, so when he discovered Oliver awake, it seemed as if he was as concerned about Oliver having seen him try on the jewels as he was over whether Oliver had seen where he kept them. *lol* Bill Sikes as a character is harder to judge because there's nothing humorous or subtle about him. I will say, though, that I thought Gorman had the presence to pull it off, which surprised me. The woman playing Nancy, Jodie Prenger, had been chosen for the part in a competition similar to "American Idol." She had a good voice and wasn't inappropriately bright or cheerful as Nancy, unlike what cynodd and I noted in our old high school's production of Oliver! this past spring. (To be fair, I'm not certain that any average high school aged girl would really understand Nancy's situation. I certainly didn't when I participated in Oliver! many years ago.) At the production I saw, Oliver was played by Harry Stott and the Artful Dodger was played by Ross McCormack (based on their photos in the program). I thought that the boy playing the Artful Dodger was particularly talented and fun to watch.

But, back to Julian Bleach...it turns out that he played both Mr. Sowerberry, the undertaker, and Dr. Grimwig, the doctor (obviously). I was sitting as far back as row S in the stalls, but I'd never have known him to be the same person I met the other night, if he hadn't told me. Knowing it was him, as I did, I could say that his nose was the same. Otherwise, he looked very cadaveric (which fits an undertaker, I suppose) and moved as a nimble charicature of an illustration in a version of Dickens's book. He was very funny, too, as Mr. Sowerberry. When I got back to the hotel, I decided to look him up on the internet to remind myself what he really looked like. Here is a photo of him from the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of The Tempest a few years ago. As I was looking for a photo, though, I came across his "filmography" and discovered that I'd seen him before on television: he portrayed Davros in the finale of Doctor Who, series 4, and the "ghostmaker" in a series 2 episode of Torchwood, "From Out of the Rain" (the evil circus episode). It's a shame I didn't know that at the time I met him or I'd have told him how creepy I found him in Torchwood. Hopefully, he'd have taken that as a compliment. ;-)

So, given the number of overlapping actors in just these few shows, it's hard for me to believe that the theatre community is really that large...

ETA: I said there was nothing humorous about Bill Sikes, but that's not entirely true. The way he pulled his loot out of various hiding places on his person to give it to Fagin was done in a very amusing way... Also, Gorman received quite a few boos from the audience during the closing bows. However, he smiled at it, so hopefully that was a good thing...traditional or something.

a confession...

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:50:37 GMT

As I'm spending this evening in a hotel room, I thought I'd take some time to write about my trip to London, so far. I'm here to see Hamlet and Twelfth Night. On arriving Wednesday morning, my main goal was to make sure I was rested enough to enjoy the performance of Hamlet last night. Fortunately, even though I arrived at the hotel hours before their normal check-in time, they had a room for me and I was able to take a nap. I have to say that I didn't do much else on Wednesday - just wandered around central London on foot (everything is so close that I wouldn't have bothered with the Tube in the past had I known), had dinner, and stopped in at a Waterstone's Book Shop to get a copy of Twelfth Night. I had plans to read it before I saw the performance, as it's been more than 15 years since I read it. (Although the Royal Shakespeare Company's Manifesto on learning Shakespeare emphasizes active involvement in the plays, either acting or watching, which I don't dispute is a good thing, I personally learn better by reading than I do by hearing. Given the rapidity of speech from good actors, the accents, and the difficulty of this older version of English, I'd like to make sure I understand it.) However, I haven't yet started reading it...I felt too tired for Shakespeare Wednesday night, so I just read a bit further in A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin, which jaderabbit and her husband gave me to borrow when I visited them in November. (I'd have gotten to it sooner, but I was reading The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie and was very busy with the holidays. So, I'm about 150 pages into it and was interested to see that lunas_ceiling just posted her thoughts on it. I don't want to read what she wrote until I'm finished with it, though. Unlike cynodd, I never skip to the end! *lol*)

Yesterday, in order to relax, I did what I often do when out of town - had a manicure and pedicure. Usually, I do this when I'm away for a conference because I'm alone and have no sightseeing to do. But, this trip is similar to that, since I'm alone and have less sightseeing to do than when I go somewhere I've never been before. Also, having a "spa day" (or few hours) allowed me to rest more and catch up from my jet lag. I added in a massage, since I've been curious to try it and 2 of my colleagues at work love them. It was different - mostly relaxing, but a few times I felt like I couldn't breathe due to the pressure. I'm glad she didn't crack one of my ribs! *lol*

In the evening, I went to the performance of Hamlet, which was preceded and followed by a reception for members of the RSC who had bought a ticket for this special event (to benefit the educational programs of the RSC). I had the good luck to be assigned to a table with a very nice couple roughly my age and a very nice older gentleman. The older gentleman seemed very entertained by my American-ness and I was, in turn, entertained by his reaction to me. :) The couple told me that I didn't have a strong accent, which I thought was funny, since I thought everyone thought people with accents different from their own were the ones with the strong accents, not themselves. (If that makes any sense...) I explained that the Midwestern accent is the standard for TV and movies in the US. They told me that many British teenagers are speaking in that Midwestern accent because of the influence of American TV here, which I found very surprising, somewhat strange, and also a bit sad. I love different accents.

Hamlet itself was fantastic. I'd really enjoyed it when I saw it in Stratford-upon-Avon last summer (at a preview performance), but it was obvious to me how much it had improved with time. At the reception before the performance, the director, Gregory Doran, said a few words about David Tennant having missed most of the performances of the London run (he was fortunately back this week). He said that he thought Tennant had been so grieved to have missed so much of the run that it informed his performance. And, there was definitely more emotional depth now than there was last summer - Hamlet seemed much more fragile, as if he was balancing on the edge of a knife. My only quibble last summer was that there were quite a few moments at which his performance reminded me of the Doctor and that the audience seemed very informed by his portrayal of the Doctor. This time, there were almost none. (A word here or there, I'm sure, can't be helped, since he is the same man with the same voice portraying both...)

Seeing a production a second time allows me to focus on different things, since I know what to expect. It's one of the reasons that I enjoy watching movies and TV shows that I like over and over. This time, I was struck by how Ophelia, Laertes, and Fortinbras are all foils for Hamlet, seeming to show what he isn't. Hamlet may be mad, but he's not mad like Ophelia...he may be vengeful, but not like Laertes...he may be a warrior, but not like Fortinbras (or his father, for that matter). I've been trying to decide whether I like Hamlet in the sense of whether he's a good person. Although it wasn't really part of this production, I've always had a problem with Hamlet's disposal of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Also, I don't really like how he seems to use Ophelia and lack adequate remorse for having killed Polonius. However, in his favor, Horatio seems, without guile, very fond of and loyal to him and, in this production, there was a real rapport between Horatio and Hamlet, which helped to temper my more negative feelings toward Hamlet. (The fragility given to his character by Tennant this time around also helped with that.)

The performances that I particularly noted this time, aside from Tennant's, were those of Penny Downie as Gertrude and Peter De Jersey as Horatio. I've already mentioned the excellent rapport between his Horatio and Tennant's Hamlet, which made both characters more than what they are just on paper. Downie was very interesting to watch, even when Gertrude wasn't directly involved in the action of the play. It was clear from watching her that Gertrude was very smart - that she understood a great deal of what was going on under the surface. For example, she conveyed that Gertrude understood Claudius meant to have Hamlet killed when Laertes demanded revenge and also that Gertrude suspected Claudius had poisoned the cup for Hamlet. She doesn't just unknowingly drink the poison. She tests Claudius to confirm the cup is poisoned by motioning as if she'll drink it, then chooses to drink it, even though her suspicion is confirmed. This makes sense, given the portrayal of her throughout the play, slowly realizing what she has allowed and what Claudius is. This brings me to another improvement over the performance last summer. At that time, I found the scene in Gertrude's closet to be fairly Oedipal and didn't really believe Gertrude's sincerity in the concern she showed to Hamlet, since she seemed to allow Claudius to comfort her too easily after the confrontation with Hamlet. This time it was entirely different. They seemed very much mother and son with Gertrude taking her son's words to heart when Claudius made to comfort her.

There was a reception with many of the cast members following the performance, which was fun. I made an effort to tell everyone involved who was present how much I'd enjoyed the show, although there were a few whom I missed. I met several of the cast who had been to Ann Arbor, Michigan with the RSC a few years ago. One man (possibly Ewen Cummins, though I could be remembering wrong) showed me that he was wearing a Michigan scarf and said, "Go Blue!" when he heard where I was from. :-D One of the people who had been to Ann Arbor was a gatecrasher from Oliver! down the road, Julian Bleach. He'd previously performed with the RSC, but said that he's currently playing the undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry in Oliver!. So, of course, I had to tell him that I'd been in Oliver! in high school. *lol* Not entirely by coincidence, then, I've had the song, That's Your Funeral, running through my head for much of the day. I might try to see whether there are any tickets for Oliver! available for tomorrow at the theatre box office, although I understand it's essentially all sold out.

I spoke with Andrea Harris who was very friendly and enthusiastic. She's from New York and seemed particularly pleased to meet a fellow American, as well as an ordinary person (ie. not a literary academic/theater buff). I greatly enjoyed speaking with her. She subsequently introduced me to Riann Steele who doesn't have a speaking part, but named her character, a "personal assistant" to Gertrude, Frieda. :)

Andrea Harris then introduced me to Peter De Jersey and Mark Hadfield. I spent some time speaking with Peter De Jersey, although I can't remember much of what we said. I told him that I'd especially enjoyed his performance, but I think I made a mistake in telling him that he was the first person there I'd met who'd had a significant number of lines. It was just something to say - sometimes things that are said only for the purpose of saying something are best left unsaid, though. Anyway, he started to talk about the importance of the ensemble and how everyone is important, not just those who are best remembered. Of course, I agreed with him and responded that I had been making an effort to tell everyone how I'd enjoyed the performance. He asked whether I was familiar with "David's other work" and, of course, I am. He asked about the popularity of it in the US and I had to say that most people I know have never seen Doctor Who. He suggested that Patrick Stewart is much better known in the US, which I think is accurate. I told him that I was supposed to say "hello" to Patrick Stewart from my Dad, if he was there, which he was not. As he said goodbye to me, he kissed me on each cheek, which made me wonder where he or his family is from. I don't think that's a British thing. I've mainly run across that greeting in people from South America (the people I met in Brazil and my brother's fiancee). I then spoke with Mark Hadfield who was the gravedigger. He was quite funny both times I saw the production. I spoke to him about using a real skull in the performance, after confirming that the 2 he threw onstage were not real. (The real one, representing Yorick, was carefully placed on the side of the grave.) He said that he didn't like using a real skull at first. He also said that there is another real skull in the RSC's prop collection, which was that of a criminal hanged in the nineteenth century. The one used in this performance was donated for the purpose of being used as a prop according to the wishes of the man who died.

I have to confess that I fibbed a little during my discussions with people, since I didn't reveal that I'd previously seen Hamlet during the summer. I guess I was worried that people might think it was strange that I was seeing it more than once. When they asked what productions of the RSC I'd seen, I said that this was the first, which is technically true, if all the performances of Hamlet are considered the same...a stretch, I know. So, I think they thought it was strange that I would be at this event without previously having seen something by the RSC. I explained about my interest in Shakespeare from my college course in it (which is true) and my desire to have seen the RSC in Ann Arbor (which is true), but it wasn't quite plausible, I don't think... And, I probably needn't have worried about it because the couple I met there were seeing it for a 5th time!

I got back to the hotel past 1:00 am and went directly to bed. Today, I slept in and didn't get out until nearly 1:00 pm. I went to Westminster Abbey, which I hadn't previously been inside. The tour I took gave a bit of history of the abbey, but mostly pointed out the graves or memorials of famous people: kings, queens, scientists, and artists. I stood quite awhile on the grave of Charles Dickens because that's where there was room to stand while the guide was talking. It seemed a bit strange to me. The guide pointed out the grave of Thomas Hardy and said that, while his ashes are at Westminster Abbey, his heart was cut out and buried in his hometown. If I understood correctly, Laurence Olivier was buried there, although it may just have been a memorial. There was a memorial to FDR there and, demonstrating the reciprocal relationship between the United States and Great Britain, there was a grave of an unknown soldier. This British unknown soldier had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by the US Government. Apparently, the American unknown soldier in Arlington National Cemetery was awarded the Victoria Cross by the British Government. I hadn't previously known about that.

Since it gets dark early here and most touristy things close by late afternoon, I decided to see a movie in the early evening. I saw Slumdog Millionaire, which I would highly recommend. The story was constructed in a really interesting and compelling way. Without giving too much away, it's the story of a young man who is winning at the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." He's suspected of cheating and the movie cuts between the authorities showing him a video of him on the show answering the questions and his life experiences which may have led him to the answers. Although the movie was often violent with the main characters suffering a lot, there was definitely a payoff with everything coming together in a meaningful ending. :)

Merry Christmas

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 00:42:15 GMT

Merry Christmas!

This is my tree, showing all the ornaments. I finally got all the gifts wrapped and put under the tree this afternoon. You can also see part of the lighted garland I have running up the stair banister. Like lunas_ceiling , I thought I'd show some of the other decorations in my house, too.

I don't know whether anyone can tell, but the stocking on the left says, "I've been very very good," while the stocking on the right says, 'I've been very very naughty." *lol*

Unfortunately, I didn't get my outside lights up this year

And, with that, I'm preparing to watch It's a Wonderful Life. :)

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 03:48:21 GMT

Never visit Zingerman's Bakehouse when you're hungry. I went there on my way home today to find a cake for a Christmas dessert (I settled on a Buche de Noel) and also ended up buying a pan of cinnamon rolls, an over-the-moon pie (sort-of an expensive Ding Dong - $4 each), and a tin of their "Fancy Schmancy" cookies for my Grandmother. Unfortunately, I'd missed lunch because, by the end of the morning, I was 2 hours behind in clinic and used the lunch hour to become only 1 hour behind. (Usually, I'm about 1 hour behind and use the lunch hour to mostly catch up, so I have time to eat a few bites between patients...but, not today. *sigh* I did eat 2 cookies from a tray that someone brought to the staff room, though.) After finishing clinic, I decided I'd rather just go home than eat hospital cafeteria food. And, again unfortunately, it was a mess on the roads with all the snow. It took me 3 hours to get home.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a vacation day for me, but one of the residents never finished dictating all the discharge summaries for the patients from my time on the inpatient service last month. Technically, they're supposed to be done within 24-hours of discharge, but it's not well enforced. And, unfortunately, I'm ultimately responsible for them, as the "captain of the ship", even though the residents are actually supposed to do them. Since just a few days after finishing my inpatient service, I've been trying to get the residents to get the discharge summaries done (which was successful in all but this one case). Unfortunately, I received an e-mail from medical records on Saturday evening saying that I had until Christmas Day to sign the discharge summaries (which means that they have to be dictated and transcribed by then) or my hospital privileges will be suspended, which will be a serious pain-in-the-butt to fix. So, I sent an e-mail to the program director responsible for the residents detailing my displeasure with this resident's lack of responsibility. Of course, it received no response. Today, I paged the resident and he assured me that he'd have them done today. When I got home from work via Zingerman's, I checked and saw they had not yet been done. So, I decided that I should finish up my Christmas shopping this evening in case I have to go in to the hospital to dictate them myself tomorrow. (Unfortunately, there's a winter storm warning in effect with more snow and freezing rain expected well into tomorrow, so it may take 3 hours to drive each way tomorrow, too.) But, unfortunately, going shopping tonight meant that I didn't have time for dinner. After having nothing but 2 cookies to eat all day, I scarfed down the over-the-moon pie. Maybe it's only because I was starving, but, OMG, it was so yummy! Real buttercream, mmm...

I was able to finish my Christmas shopping and stopped by Noodles on the way home for take-out. Unfortunately, it started sleeting on the way home. I imagine that my car will be encased in ice by the morning, since, unfortunately, I can't park in the garage right now. As I described in an earlier post, I recently got a new TV. My old TV is quite heavy and I decided to give it away to anyone who was willing to transport it to their house. So, the Red-headed Girl and her husband are taking it. They were supposed to pick it up this past weekend, but, unfortunately, they couldn't because the Red-headed Girl's husband didn't have anyone to help him carry it then. I can't park in the garage now because all the snow & ice on the car would melt and the TV would end up sitting in a puddle of water, which would probably ruin it.

The other unfortunate thing about them not being able to pick up the TV is that I'd left some sodas in my car trunk after shopping on Friday, thinking that they wouldn't freeze by the time I was able to park in the garage on Saturday. Unfortunately, I totally forgot about them until yesterday and, when I went to get them, they'd already exploded. I brought what was left of the cartons in the house and emptied them into the sink to see which cans were salvagable. I've never seen cans split open quite like this before:

The only fortunate thing is that it's been so cold (2°F on Sunday; that's -17°C) that the soda remained icy - all I had to do to clean up the mess was take out the mat covering the spare tire and brush it off.

ETA: And, things must be looking up because I see that 2 of the discharge summaries in my inbox have been done... That greatly increases the chance that they will all be done by tomorrow and I can have my day off. :)

So _that's_ what this song is about! LOL

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:59:51 GMT

This is for anyone who thought this was one of the most awesome videos ever back in the 80's.

Take On Me: Literal Video Version

Thanks to son_of_darkness for originally linking to this. :)

Plagiarism?

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 03:04:50 GMT

As I was driving home today, I heard a story on NPR about how Coldplay is being sued by guitarist Joe Satriani for copying their Viva La Vida from his If I Could Fly. They said there was a YouTube video demonstrating the similarities between Coldplay's Viva La Vida and Satriani's If I Could Fly, which is purely instrumental. Actually, I found 2 videos, the second of which seems to be Satriani's music with someone singing the Coldplay lyrics along with it?

According to NPR and all the news stories I saw on this, Coldplay is being sued for plagiarism...but, I thought that plagiarism was purely an academic term and one could only be sued for copyright infringement? Is it different with music than it is with the written word?

Also, here is a new trailer for the Doctor Who Christmas special:

It seems not particularly informative or exciting, though the sound quality is better than the previous trailer that I'd seen. (ETA: I still can't quite understand what the older man is saying at the end, though. Monstrous...something? The woman responds, "Merry Christmas to you, too.") I remain most intrigued by the opening 2 minutes of the show (broadcast to raise money for the BBC's Children In Need), which makes it look very interesting, amusing, and fun. :)

All good things...

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:48:16 GMT

Unfortunately, I've been out of touch with my LJ recently. (I was sick at a time when work was extremely busy, but am better now.) So, I missed last week's excellent news that The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction will be published next month. It seems that with a lot of hard work and determination, Steve Vander Ark has revised his manuscript to make it compliant with the September 2008 court decision, which confirmed that unofficial guides to literary works should not be prohibited as long as they don't use too much text from the original work.

Congratulations, Steve!

It'll be exciting to see it in bookstores finally! :)

Also, I updated my "home theater" with a new plasma HDTV - it's a thing of beauty, all sleek and black and the perfect size for my room. The picture on the TV is great, too! *lol* I also got the Blu-Ray DVD player to go along with it. I don't have any Blu-Ray DVDs, yet, but it plays regular DVDs, too, which is convenient. I'd previously been under the impression that Blu-Ray players wouldn't play regular DVDs and that everything I own would need to be replaced, if I ever got one.

The Blu-Ray player "up-converts" the old DVDs quite well, so they're very clear - I can now see all the appalling skin flaws of my favorite actors and actresses! :-D (No one should be worried about that, since it just makes them seem more like real people, rather than divine beings to be placed upon pedestals.) Actually, the thing I notice the most, strangely enough, is the fabrics used for costumes. For example, it was only after watching the Doctor Who series 4 DVD set that my parents got me for my birthday on this new set-up that I realized the Doctor's blue suit isn't solid blue - it has reddish-orange pinstripes in it! *geekily excited by being able to see this*

True Blood: It's not just for vampires

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 19:56:29 GMT

When I was little, I was more afraid of vampires than practically any other type of scary creature. It's interesting that they've become more nuanced, transitioning from evil monster to antihero in recent years. We've seen this in the vampires of Anne Rice, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Twilight. When I was visiting jaderabbit and her family, we began watching Ultraviolet, which I understand is another story in this line. I'll have to get the DVD set and finish watching it - we only watched the first episode, so I don't know where it will lead yet, but it was interesting enough to wonder about. :)

Yesterday, the Red-headed Girl mentioned a series on HBO called True Blood, which is also about vampires. I hadn't previously heard of it, but checked and found it was "On Demand" through HBO. (Yes, I subscribe to HBO.) It also seems quite good, though I'm writing this after only having seen the first episode.

It takes place in modern Louisiana 2 years after vampires have begun coming "out of the coffin" to claim their place in modern society. This was made possible by the advent of a synthetic blood product called "Tru Blood." Some people think that vampires should be treated like humans and given all the same rights in society. Bill Maher is shown on a TV interviewing a vampire advocate for vampire rights early on in the episode. Some people think that vampires are not to be trusted. One un-trusting character makes his point by asking the human protagonist, Sookie, whether she would give up all the foods she loves to drink Slim-Fast for the rest of eternity. I admit this isn't very appetizing...

Another problem for the society of the True Blood world is that vampire blood has street value. Apparently, drinking it makes humans feel more alive and it acts like an aphrodisiac. Vampires are captured by the human criminal element and drained of blood which is to be sold like heroin. It's been implied in this first episode that draining a vampire completely will actually kill it, unlike in usual vampire lore. This is what almost happens to Bill, the vampire who plans to make his home in the small Louisiana town where Sookie is a waitress.

Sookie, never having seen a real vampire before, is somewhat fascinated by Bill when he comes into the restaurant where she works. She's something of a mystery herself, though. She "hears" other people's thoughts constantly (just those of humans, so far), which is distracting, but she has some skill in focusing this ability when she makes an effort. Unfortunately, people who don't know her well think she's slow and stupid because she doesn't always respond quickly to the spoken word. She "hears" a couple who are planning to kidnap Bill and drain him of blood and, when she discovers the three of them gone from the restaurant, she goes after them to rescue Bill. She finds him tethered to the ground by light silver chains (like necklace chains, but longer) and is able to drive off the couple who would have harmed him. After this, Bill seems equally fascinated with her and twice asks her what she is, concluding that she is more than human.

Interesting stuff! :-D

ETA: I've just started watching the second episode and saw a tabloid lying on a table with the headline "Angelina Adopts Vampire Baby". *rotfl*

Even Edward Knows Bella is a Mary Sue

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:27:31 GMT

In case anyone missed it, Twilight, based on the book by Stephanie Meyers, opened in theaters today. Since the worst part about the book was the writing, I was curious about whether the movie could be better and checked out some of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Interestingly, the top critics seemed to have liked it better, generally speaking, than the lesser-known critics; though, it earned a tomato splat from both groups. Of the 28 top critics, 15 gave it "fresh" reviews and 13 gave it "rotten" reviews. Of the 122 lesser known critics, 52 thought it was fresh and 70 thought it was rotten. So, since I didn't really like the book all that much, I'll probably wait to see this until I happen to run across it on TV someday...

Yesterday, someone on another blog's comments posted a link to this interview with the actor who plays Edward in Twilight, Robert Pattinson, who a lot of my f-list know as Cedric Diggory:

The interesting part comes when the interviewer asks about why he thinks the books are so popular and he speaks about his experience reading them. (It must have been torture for him - it's hard to imagine any guy having the fortitude to take more than a few pages of Bella's thoughts. Actually, Bella is lucky that Edward can't read her mind...) He says [edited for pauses & filler words for easier reading]:

"There's a thing about the books where, when I was reading them, I didn't know how to read it from a teenaged girl's or any kind of woman's perspective, I guess. I don't really know why they like it. But, what I thought was weird about it...the reaction I had with it was...when I read it, it seemed like...I was convinced that Stephanie was convinced she was Bella and it was...it was like a book that wasn't supposed to be published and you're reading her sort of sexual fantasy about some...and, especially when she says it was based on a dream, and it's like, "Oh, I have had this dream about some really sexy guy," and she just writes this book about it. And, some things about Edward are so specific...things like...I was just convinced that this woman is mad. She's completely mad and she's in love with her own fictional creation. And sometimes you'd feel uncomfortable reading this thing. And I think a lot of people feel the same way - it's voyeuristic and it creates this kind of sick pleasure in a lot of ways."

Although, I have to say that he seemed very uncomfortable with the idea, not as if he'd enjoyed the books as some sort of voyeuristic pleasure.

Medical Marijuana

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:08:43 GMT

Prior to the passage of Michigan's Proposal 1 to legalize medical marijuana, I told those who asked me what I thought that I was against it. But, unfortunately it passed and now I'm going to have to deal with it.

Today, I received an e-mail from our hospital's chief medical officer (CMO) to address the issue, since patients are already asking for it; although, the state has several months yet before the program must be implemented in order to develop and set up the program. The CMO also attached a document on FAQ for Proposal 1. It's not clear to me where this document originated, with the hospital or the state, but it unhelpfully states that the Michigan Department of Community Health cannot provide any advice on how patients should grow marijuana plants (for those without a green thumb) nor how patients can legally obtain marijuana. Apparently, patients are only legally allowed to have it once they own it, but there is no one who is legally allowed to supply it to them. Yes, this was well thought out. *rolls eyes*

But that's not why I was against legalizing medical marijuana from the start. I'm not convinced of the benefit of medical marijuana as opposed to drugs that I'm already used to prescribing and I fear the only people who ask for it will be generally drug seeking, leading to a more contentious relationship with some patients. (Even cancer patients sometimes use their medications inappropriately and for recreational purposes.) An editorial by Voth from 2001 notes that "physicians should remember that marijuana remains a schedule I drug, that it has not been approved as safe and efficacious by the Food and Drug Administration, and that the use of marijuana by patients holds inherent risk."

This reminds me of a funny story that I once heard an older oncology researcher tell about an attempted clinical trial of medical marijuana back in the 70s or 80s - because it's not like they've never tried to figure out whether medical marijuana is useful. According to his story, one of the big tobacco companies was actually all set up to start mass producing joints for medical purposes and collaborated with the NIH on a trial meant to prove marijuana was a useful treatment for patients getting chemotherapy. The problem is that these sort of general symptoms, anorexia and nausea, have a psychological compenent as well and can respond to placebo (~20% of the time). So, in order to determine if a medication is really effective, there needs to be a placebo-controlled trial, meaning that one group of patients gets the active medication and another group gets a compound without the active medication. The best trials are double-blinded, meaning that neither the doctor nor the patient knows what the patient is getting to avoid any bias. So, for this attempted trial, patients getting chemotherapy were given either a marijuana joint or a similar thing to smoke that had no marijuana in it. Already this seems like a bad idea because some people are inhaling smoke, which isn't healthy, and have no chance of having any benefit (other than placebo effect, which doesn't count). The funny part of the story, though, came in the description of how, despite the blinding, everyone could tell which patients were getting the actual marijuana and which were getting the placebo...and I understand that this trial was never completed. So, not only has marijuana never been tested to see if it's any better than the very effective modern medications we use for nausea, it's never been tested to see if it's any better than placebo.

The otherwise very helpful medical website for doctors, UpToDate, which contains frequently updated articles on practically every medical issue, written & edited by leaders in each specialty, only says this about the possible therapeutic benefits of medical marijuana (under the general heading of marijuana use in adults):

A systematic review of randomized, controlled trials that evaluated the use of cannabinoids for treatment of chronic pain (including cancer pain, chronic non-malignant pain, and acute postoperative pain) found that cannabinoids were no more effective than codeine in controlling pain, and they have depressant effects that limit their use [102].

The primary active ingredient in marijuana, THC, is available in purified form without other cannabinoids or carcinogens as an oral tablet under the name dronabinol. Other delivery forms currently in development are a transdermal patch, a nasal spray, and a metered dose inhaler. The debate over medicinal use of smoked marijuana will continue.

[102] TI Are cannabinoids an effective and safe treatment option in the management of pain? A qualitative systematic review.
AU Campbell FA; Tramer MR; Carroll D; Reynolds DJ; Moore RA; McQuay HJ
SO BMJ 2001 Jul 7;323(7303):13-6.

OBJECTIVE: To establish whether cannabis is an effective and safe treatment option in the management of pain. DESIGN: Systematic review of randomised controlled trials. DATA SOURCES: Electronic databases Medline, Embase, Oxford Pain Database, and Cochrane Library; references from identified papers; hand searches. STUDY SELECTION: Trials of cannabis given by any route of administration (experimental intervention) with any analgesic or placebo (control intervention) in patients with acute, chronic non-malignant, or cancer pain. Outcomes examined were pain intensity scores, pain relief scores, and adverse effects. Validity of trials was assessed independently with the Oxford score. DATA EXTRACTION: Independent data extraction; discrepancies resolved by consensus. DATA SYNTHESIS: 20 randomised controlled trials were identified, 11 of which were excluded. Of the 9 included trials (222 patients), 5 trials related to cancer pain, 2 to chronic non-malignant pain, and 2 to acute postoperative pain. No randomised controlled trials evaluated cannabis; all tested active substances were cannabinoids. Oral delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) 5-20 mg, an oral synthetic nitrogen analogue of THC 1 mg, and intramuscular levonantradol 1.5-3 mg were about as effective as codeine 50-120 mg, and oral benzopyranoperidine 2-4 mg was less effective than codeine 60-120 mg and no better than placebo. Adverse effects, most often psychotropic, were common. CONCLUSION: Cannabinoids are no more effective than codeine in controlling pain and have depressant effects on the central nervous system that limit their use. Their widespread introduction into clinical practice for pain management is therefore undesirable. In acute postoperative pain they should not be used. Before cannabinoids can be considered for treating spasticity and neuropathic pain, further valid randomised controlled studies are needed.

AD Pain Management Centre, Undercroft, South Block, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham NG7 2UH. [removed first author's e-mail address]
PMID 11440935

That article was written by Michael F Weaver, MD (Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Psychiatry; Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University).

Under the section about anti-nausea medications, it says this about marijuana:

The potential antiemetic utility of cannabinoids was first observed in scattered reports of improved emetic control in patients using marijuana during chemotherapy [31]. Subsequent clinical trials using nabilone and dronabinol (Marinol, a purified synthetic delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) confirmed antiemetic activity that was superior to placebo and, in some studies, superior to prochlorperazine [32,33]. In contrast, dronabinol was inferior to metoclopramide in a trial with highly emetogenic chemotherapy [34]. Rigorous comparisons of marijuana with the most effective antiemetic therapies are lacking.

The modest antiemetic activity of this class of agents combined with their relatively unfavorable side effect profile (vertigo, xerostomia, hypotension, dysphoria), especially in older patients, has limited their clinical utility.

[31] TI Medicinal cannabis in oncology practice: still a bridge too far?
AU de Jong FA; Engels FK; Mathijssen RH; van Zuylen L; Verweij J; Peters RP; Sparreboom A
SO J Clin Oncol 2005 May 1;23(13):2886-91.

No abstract provided.

AD Department of Medical Oncology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam--Daniel den Hoed Cancer Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
PMID 15860846

[32] TI Antiemetic effect of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol in patients receiving cancer chemotherapy.
AU Sallan SE; Zinberg NE; Frei E 3rd
SO N Engl J Med 1975 Oct 16;293(16):795-7.

Anecdotal accounts suggested that smoking marihuana decreases the nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapeutic agents. Oral delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol was compared with placebo in a controlled, randomized, "double-blind" experiment. All patients were receiving chemotherapeutic drugs known to cause nausea and vomiting of central origin. Each patient was to serve as his own control to determine whether tetrahydrocannabinol had an antiemetic effect. Twenty-two patients entered the study, 20 of whom were evaluable. For all patients an antiemetic effect was observed in 14 of 20 tetrahydrocannabinol courses and in none of 22 placebo courses. For patients completing the study, response occurred in 12 of 15 courses of tetrahydrocannabinol and in none of 14 courses of placebo (P less than 0.001). No patient vomited while experiencing a subjective "high". Oral tetrahydrocannabinol has antiemetic properties and is significantly better than a placebo in reducting vomiting caused by chemotherapeutic agents.

PMID 1099449

[33] TI Antiemetics in patients receiving chemotherapy for cancer: a randomized comparison of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and prochlorperazine.
AU Sallan SE; Cronin C; Zelen M; Zinberg NE
SO N Engl J Med 1980 Jan 17;302(3):135-8.

Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is an effective antiemetic as compared with placebos in patients receiving chemotherapy for cancer. In this study we compared THC with prochlorperazine (compazine) in a randomized, double-blind, crossover trial with patients who had failed to benefit from standard antiemetic therapy. Regardless of the emetic activity of the chemotherapeutic agents, there were more complete responses to THC courses (in 36 of 79 courses) than to prochlorperazine (in 16 of 78 courses). Of 25 patients who were treated with both drugs and who expressed a preference, 20 preferred THC (P = 0.005). Among patients under 20 years of age there was a higher proportion of complete responses to THC courses (15 of 20) than among older patients (21 of 59 courses; P = 0.004). Increased food intake occurred more frequently with THC (P = 0.008) and was associated with the presence of a "high." Of 36 THC courses resulting in complete antiemetic responses, 32 were associated with a high. We conclude that THC is an effective antiemetic in many patients who receive chemotherapy for cancer and for whom other antiemetics are ineffective. (N Engl J Med 302:135--138, 1980).

PMID 6985702

[34] Gralla, RJ, Tyson, LB, Bordin, LA, et al. Antiemetic therapy: A review of recent studies and a report of a random assignment trial comparing metoclopramide with delta-9- tetrahydrocannabinol. Cancer Treat Rep 1984; 68:163.

no abstract available

That article was written by George F Longstreth, MD (Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California San Diego School of Medicine) and Paul J Hesketh, MD (Editor — Supportive Care; Professor of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine).

My other problem with medical marijuana is that, not only is it not proven to be more efficacious than what I already prescribe, but there are no guidelines for its use. If I do prescribe it, I have no idea what to tell a patient about when or how often they should use it. When I tried to look for any prescribing information, I only found this paper by Nierengarten (Lancet Oncology, November 2007). Unfortunately, I can only see the very beginning of it because I don't have a subscription to Lancet Oncology, but it begins this way: "No evidence-based guidelines are available on dosage or optimum delivery of marijuana for the symptomatic relief of patients with cancer." In the age of evidenced-based medicine, this is a big problem.

The Next Doctor?

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:59:18 GMT

Last night, I was over at my parents' house to watch Doctor Who with my Dad, since they were showing last year's Christmas special, "Voyage of the Damned", on BBC America. He'd missed that episode on the Sci Fi Channel. Unfortunately, BBC America cut it down to 1 hour with commercials, so it wasn't very good. It seemed very disjointed and half the characters didn't have any introduction - they were just suddenly there in the thick of the action. Since BBC America shows the same programming over and over, I don't see why they can't cut out some of the repeats to show the episode properly. :-/

We didn't watch the following episode, "Partners in Crime", which was shown immediately after because my Mom always watches Suze Orman at the time it was on. My Dad, who had the remote control, actually left it on Doctor Who for the first 10-minutes of "Partners in Crime" until, after a couple of comments like, "God, this is so stupid," my Mom reminded him that Suze Orman was on. I liked "Partners in Crime", though. I thought it was cute and funny! :)

After getting home, I was able to track down the video for the first 2-minutes of the 2008 Doctor Who Christmas Special that was recently broadcast to raise money for Children in Need.

It looks like it will be fun! I'm happy to see that the Doctor looks like he's enjoying himself again because he seemed pretty beat up by the end of series 4. (I have wondered if that was the Doctor or David Tennant, since he seemed physically very drawn, as well, but it fit what was going on in the Doctor's life...) I'm a bit confused by why they would say "allons-y" (translation: let's go [there]) while holding their (sonic?) screwdrivers in a defensive position, though. Also, if that's a Cyberman, it looks quite strange...

I've heard that this preview has fueled speculation that David Morrissey will be the one to replace Tennant as the Doctor in 2010. Apparently, the bookies' odds were 3/1 in favor of Morrissey and went to 2/1 after this was broadcast. I'm unconvinced, though. If Morrissey's Doctor was Eleven, wouldn't he remember himself as Ten? Ten remembered himself as Five, shown in the episode, "Time Crash" (broadcast for Children in Need last year):

Although, I suppose it's possible that Eleven will be forgetful or something...

I'm not sure what to think of David Morrissey, since I've only previously seen him in Blackpool. I liked him well enough in that series (his portrayal - not necessarily the character he portrayed), but my impression was that he was often loud, speaking in a booming voice. It made some sense for his character in Blackpool, but he seemed that way in the clip above, too...I'm not sure that wouldn't get annoying after awhile...but, at least I'm getting used to the idea of someone new as the Doctor. It hasn't taken nearly as long for that as I would have expected. Partly, though, I'm excited to see what else Tennant will do. I mean, just because he's giving up Doctor Who doesn't mean he's giving up acting! *lol*

(edited for typos)

The Real Me

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:02:51 GMT

cjmr and cynodd posted this meme, so I thought I'd try it:

clair de la lune's Dewey Decimal Section:

045 [Unassigned]

clair de la lune = 3219845212145 = 321+984+521+214+5 = 2045

Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works

Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.

What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

It's a little odd because the quiz says that it will give you results 3 different ways (based on name, favorite number, and birthdate) and you may choose the one that you feel best suits you. Well, that part's not odd. The part that's odd is that, although I got different Dewey Decimal numbers each time, I was always in the same part of the library:

clair de la lune's Dewey Decimal Section:

095 Books notable for bindings

clair de la lune's birthday: 11/25/1970 = 1125+1970 = 3095

Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works

Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.

What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

clair de la lune's Dewey Decimal Section:

099 Books notable for format

Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works

Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.

What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

So, I guess it must be the real me! *lol*

Not Just Red & Blue States

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 17:05:24 GMT

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by .... Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.

We are, and always will be, the United States of America.
- President-Elect Barack Obama, November 5, 2008

In the spirit of the US being united states, as opposed to a collection of individual red and blue states, I made this map of the US showing how red & blue each state really is:

My paint program uses red, blue, and green for all colors. If Obama won a state 57% to 41% (as he did Michigan), that state's color is 57% blue and 41% red with green (representing 3rd parties) making up the rest to 100%.

The commentators have noticed how there seemed to be a "Civil War split" in terms of how the Southern states went for McCain and the Northern states went for Obama (see red/blue map), which is sadly divisive. I think my map tells a different story. :)

One Day to a New Beginning

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:37:18 GMT

cynodd showed me this yesterday and I thought it was hilarious. If you love Les Miz and favor Barack Obama, this video is for you:

Starring Obama campaign office workers as Jean Valjean, Marius, Cosette, Eponine, Enjolras & Company. Starring "John McCain" as Javert and "Sarah Palin" as Mme Thénardier.

A Blessing and a Curse

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:54:53 GMT

After the book, The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, was mentioned here in relation to the Doctor Who episodes, "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead", I knew I had to read it. So, now I have. :)

I was surprised to find this book in the literature section of Borders instead of the sci-fi section, but on reading it, that really makes sense. It's about time travel, but not about the mechanics of time travel. It's about the effect on a man, Henry, who spontaneously time travels, controlling neither when it happens nor when/where he ends up, and on his relationship with his wife, Clare. It's a fantastic love story.

(Not that there isn't any science in it - there's a very small amount. I was skeptical about the idea of time travel being controlled by a person's genes, but this was more than compensated by my amusement at the idea of making transgenic time traveling mice to study the time travel genes. *lol*)

When Clare first meets Henry, she's 6 and he's 36. By that time, Henry has known Clare for 8 years and been married to her for 6 years. When Henry first meets Clare, he's 28 and she's 20. By that time, Clare has known Henry for 14 years, but they won't marry for another 2 years. (Older!Henry has been very careful to tell young!Clare nothing of his everyday life, so it may be complete coincidence when he meets her; though, in general, the story seems strongly to support predestination.) I really liked Henry's response to his first meeting with her at the beginning of the book:

...I need coffee. Leaving the marbled papers in a state of controlled chaos, I walk through the office and past the page's desk in the Reading Room. I am halted by Isabelle's voice saying, "Perhaps Mr. DeTamble can help you," by which she means "Henry, you weasel, where are you slinking off to?" And this astoundingly beautiful amber-haired tall slim girl turns around and looks at me as though I am her personal Jesus. My stomach lurches. Obviously she knows me, and I don't know her. Lord only knows what I have said, done, or promised to this luminous creature, so I am forced to say in my best librarianese, "Is there something I can help you with?" The girl sort of breathes "Henry!" in this very evocative way that convinces me that at some point in time we have a really amazing thing together. This makes it worse that I don't know anything about her, not even her name. I say "Have we met?" and Isabelle gives me a look that says You asshole. But the girl says, "I'm Clare Abshire. I knew you when I was a little girl," and invites me out to dinner. I accept, stunned...
(p. 5)

It seems like it may be a bit strange to read a love story that partly involves a very young girl and a man in his 30s-40s, but it makes sense when you read it. I mean, if Henry falls in love with an adult Clare in his present before he ever knows her as a child in his future and her past, he's not exactly setting out to corrupt her youth. (Henry is very parental toward Clare when she's a young girl, anyway.) And, I think this story just more obviously demonstrates how people in relationships shape each other. Clare becomes who she is because of Henry's influence. In return, Henry becomes the man Clare knew as a young girl because of her influence on him.

Henry and Clare marry almost exactly in the middle of the book. The first half of the book is about their getting to know one another. The second half is about their married life together and how their story ends. The situation of the wedding itself is very funny with 32-year-old Henry missing the wedding in his present by suddenly traveling in time to 3-4 days in the future. Meanwhile, 38-year-old Henry has fortuitously appeared in his past on the date of the wedding and figured out that he has to get to the church ASAP to marry Clare. (38-year-old Henry, of course, knows that he has to be there to stand-in for his 32-year-old self because he knows that's what happened when he was 32.) As much as there were things like this that made me chuckle, though, there were very sad and tragic things, as well. Both Henry and Clare seemed very much like real people with real, crazy, mixed-up lives.

As many of my friends know, I'm not a fan of AS Byatt's Possession. At the time I read it, I didn't find it to be particularly well written and I didn't like the people in the story. Audrey Niffenegger, however, seems to admire Possession so much that she used a quote from it to mark the transition from the beginning to the end of her story, from the beginning of Clare's & Henry's relationship to its end:

"What is it? My dear?"
"Ah, how can we bear it?"
"Bear what?"
"This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?"
"We can be quiet together, and pretend - since it is only the beginning - that we have all the time in the world."
"And every day we shall have less. And then none."
"Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?"
"No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere."
(p. 282)

This is such a pretty quote and fits the story (The Time Traveler's Wife) so well that it makes me think I should give Possession another shot...

So, overall, I really loved this book. It often read like a bunch of short stories, but isn't that what our lives are made of? A series of events, like short stories? And, the individual events all fit together perfectly to make the lives of Henry and Clare complete.

Oh, and a bonus for me is that Clare is from Michigan with much of the story taking place there. :)

Has anyone else read it? I would very much like to discuss it.

On a related topic, I saw this news story tonight about David Tennant having announced... that he will not return as the Doctor in the 5th series of Doctor Who to be broadcast in 2010. (A longer interview with him about it is here and here). Obviously, I'm disappointed to hear he'll be leaving, but I suppose this is enough notice for me to get used to the idea and accept it by the time the Doctor actually regenerates sometime in 2009 (at Christmas, I would presume)...

Hopefully, they'll have a story showing the Doctor meeting Professor River Song before Tennant leaves, since she obviously had met the Doctor in Tennant's form when he met her for the first time in the Library. It would be a real shame to waste her character. And, it would be really annoying to lose that continuity, if she meets a later incarnation of the Doctor instead.

Dancing with the Politicians

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 20:34:19 GMT

Someone sent this to me via e-mail today, so I thought I'd post it here:

Opie, Andy, Richie, & the Fonz for Obama

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:56:08 GMT

I found this amusing, but I thought that rattlesnakeroot, especially, would get a kick out of it:

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Online Madness

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:27:31 GMT

A friend directed me to this news article. Apparently, a woman in Japan was playing a game online in which she had a virtual husband, who was a man she didn't otherwise know living in a city 620 miles away. Her virtual husband suddenly divorced her virtual self with no explanation and she got angry - so angry that she logged onto the computer as her virtual husband (with a username & password he'd shared with her) and killed his character in the game. Now she's in real jail charged with some crime related to manipulating electronic data and faces a up to 5 years in prison, if convicted. How crazy is that? Was the man actually irreversibly harmed? What kind of person reports the death of an online character to the actual police?

Twilight: Does it really deserve the Hype?

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:25:46 GMT

I have to admit to having been very curious about the Twilight series of books by Stephanie Meyers. She's been compared to JK Rowling and the phenomenon of her books has been compared to Harry Potter with a large online fan base and people dressing up as characters from the stories for book release parties. Here is a representative article about it from Time Magazine. I was intrigued by the large displays of her books in Waterstones and Borders, the cover art being particularly stunning, I think (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn). So, when I last went to Borders, I decided to pick up a copy. It was a pretty easy read - I started it on Saturday afternoon and finished it yesterday. For me, that's very fast for a 500 page book. Unfortunately, though, I found it disappointing overall. I was able to read this book so fast not because I couldn't put it down (although, I wasn't bored with it and some aspects of it were very interesting), but because much of the writing is repetitive and the plot is very simple.

This is a romance between Bella Swan, a 17-year-old human, and Edward Cullen, a centenarian vampire in a 17-year-old boy's body. Does it sound a bit like Buffy? It did to me, too. In fact, there's a character, Mike, an ordinary human boy, who "likes" Bella and, after awhile, I realized I'd assigned him Nicholas Brendon's voice. (He's the actor who plays Buffy's friend, Xander, who has a long-standing crush on Buffy.)

The unfortunate difference between Bella and Buffy, though, is that Bella is pretty helpless and no match for Edward who is her superior in every way. In fact, it's not entirely believable, to me, that Edward would find Bella so irresistible as he does, except that she's the ultimate Mary Sue. The book is in first person from Bella's point-of-view. According to this narration, Bella is not particularly attractive (though she's instantly popular and many boys want to ask her out, all of whom she refuses, and she "doesn't know how pretty she is") and doesn't want attention (though, she gets it). We're supposed to see her as all about self-sacrifice: she goes to live with her dad in a town she hates so that her mother can travel with her new minor-league baseball player husband; she feels awful about saying something truly horrible to her father to protect him; etc. However, she actually comes off as being rather self-absorbed in how she treats her father and her friends. I didn't really like her, so it was hard for me to see why Edward would, unless it was just all about pheromones. I'm not sure that's enough to sustain a relationship as strained as theirs, though...

Of course, the main aspect of a romance novel is setting up obstacles for the would-be lovers. In this case, the main obstacle is the fact that one is a human, the other a vampire. And, just to make it a bit more difficult, the pheromone that makes Bella particularly attractive to Edward also makes him think she would be particularly good to have for his dinner. This relationship is a challenge for him. Unfortunately, this translates into many, many pages of Edward playing "come hither/go away." Even though the story isn't from his point-of-view, we got to see his struggle, wanting to be near Bella, but not wanting to put her in danger or be driven by his instincts to kill her. I would expect some of that, but it got tiresome after awhile. Meanwhile, Bella just wanted to be with Edward and disregarded all danger - she would take her chances of being killed just to be with Edward without any second thoughts. I found this odd, considering that the book is from Bella's point-of-view. It seems like there should have been more internal struggle on her part. It seems like she should have feared Edward, if not when she was with him (since he had a "dazzling" charisma about him), then later when she had time to think about what she was doing. But she was not introspective in any way.

As I said, though, there were some aspects of the book that were very interesting. Edward could read others' minds, but not Bella's. Ignoring how intrusive it is, in general, he creatively used his skill to find Bella and rescue her from danger. Edward's sister, Alice, was able to see the future (though the future she saw was ever-changing) and was also, apparently, a very good artist. This was also able to lead Edward to Bella and rescue her from lethal danger. However, I think both devices were under-utilized. They should have played more prominently in the story.

That said, when I finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, my reaction was that it was a cute story I'd enjoyed and I could see why kids would find it so entertaining. I had no idea that the Harry Potter series would evolve to be such an interesting mystery with a 7-book long story arc. It wasn't until the end of Goblet of Fire that I realized the series was more than just an adventure a year. (Though, I hope I've gotten to be more astute at reading since then.) My reaction to Twilight was less warm than it was to Sorcerer's Stone, but I wonder whether it's worthwhile to give the other books a chance to see where the story goes? After all, the worst flaws of this first book may be improved in the other books, since the characters are already established? Still, I wonder whether the author really had enough time to really develop a sophisticated overarching storyline? The Time Magazine article I linked said that Stephanie Meyers wrote Twilight in 3 months (after conceiving of the book in 6/03) and she's published 4 other books since then. JK Rowling spent nearly 10 years on her story before the first book was published and another 10 years before the last book was published. I'm afraid that the relative (lack of) time and effort show...

ETA: I've been meaning to ask fullmoon_dreams for the author of the books she once mentioned that are romance novels involving vampires & werewolves, etc...do you remember, fullmoon_dreams? I'm still interested in giving them a try.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:40:03 GMT

The political division in this country over the past 15-20 years has seemed really horrible to me. I blamed this on 24-hour news networks. I mean, how else can they get people to continue watching them without making a huge deal out of the smallest thing? There are also all the extreme political commentators who seem to drag people to the fringes with them. Again, I thought this was a fairly modern phenomenon; but, after finishing John Adams by David McCullough yesterday, I'm not so sure...It sounds like politics used to be even nastier and I found the emphasis on religion in the 1800 presidential election to be a particularly interesting parallel with today.

Even in its infancy, the United States had 2 main political parties: the Republicans* and the Federalists. The Republicans were pro-France, anti-Britain, and favored states rights over a strong federal government. Thomas Jefferson (author of the Declaration of American Independence and third President of the US) was a Republican. The Federalists were anti-France, pro-Britain, and felt that a strong federal government was necessary. George Washington (first President of the US) and Alexander Hamilton (first Secretary of the Treasury and the guy on the $10 bill) were Federalists.

John Adams (second President of the US) tried to remain independent, but was not very successful for it. He was associated with the Federalists, favoring a strong federal government and against a strong relationship with France, but was constantly undermined by Hamilton who wanted war with France and power for himself. Adams thought that Hamilton planned to become another Napoleon Bonaparte, dictator of America. Hamilton had been placed in charge of the army by Washington, but the army was disbanded by Adams and Congress after a preliminary peace with France was arranged. According to McCullough, "Had Hamilton been given free reign with the army, Adams would remark, it would have required a second army to disband the first one."

The parts of the book that I found particularly interesting were those related to the Presidential election of 1800, since I'd previously heard that it was particularly nasty and it seemed like a timely thing to read about with the 2008 election upon us:

In the summer and fall of 1800 the question of who was to lead the nation rapidly became a contest of personal vilification surpassing any presidential election in American history. [FYI: This book was first published in 2001.] The spirit of party had taken hold with a vengeance, and whether Adams or Jefferson was the most abused would be hard to say. In Federalist pamphlets and newspapers, Jefferson was decried as a hopeless visionary, a weakling, an intriguer intoxicated with French philosophy, more a Frenchman than an American, and therefore a bad man. He was accused of favoring states' rights over the Union, charged with infidelity to the Constitution, called a spendthrift and a libertine.

One New York paper assured its readers that a Jefferson victory would mean civil war. Hordes of Frenchman and Irishmen, "the refuse of Europe," would flood the country and threaten the life of "all who love order, peace, virtue, and religion." It was said Jefferson had swindled clients as a young lawyer. The old smear of cowardice during his time as governor of Virginia was revived. [Jefferson had fled in the face of the advancing British army during the Revolutionary War.] But most amplified were charges of atheism. Not only was Jefferson a godless man, but one who mocked the Christian faith. In New England word went out that family Bibles would have to be hidden away for safekeeping, were he elected. So widespread and pervasive was such propaganda that even Martha Washington, who may have been smarting still from the "Mazzei Letter," remarked to a visiting clergyman that she thought Jefferson "one of the most detestable of mankind."

Stories were spread of personal immorality. It was now that a whispering campaign began to the effect that all southern slave masters were known to cohabit with slave women and that the Sage of Monticello [Jefferson] was no exception.

Adams was inevitably excoriated as a monarchist, more British than American, and therefore a bad man. He was ridiculed as old, addled, and toothless. Timothy Pickering [Secretary of State to Washington and Adams, who was eventually fired by Adams] spread the rumor that to secure his reelection Adams had struck a corrupt bargain with Republicans. According to another story, this secret arrangement was with Jefferson himself - Adams was to throw the election Jefferson's way and serve as Jefferson's vice president.

If Jefferson carried on with slave women, Adams, according to one story in circulation, had ordered Charles Cotesworth Pinckney [one of Adams's appointed emissaries to make peace with France] to London to procure four pretty mistresses to divide between them. When the story reached Adams, he was highly amused. "I do declare upon my honor," he wrote William Tudor, "if this is true, General Pinckney has kept them all for himself and cheated me out of my two."

Most vicious were the charges that Adams was insane. Thus, if Jefferson was a Jacobin [supporter of the French Revolution], a shameless southern libertine, and a "howling" atheist, Adams was a Tory [supporter of the British monarchy], a vain Yankee scold, and if truth be known, "quite mad."

....There were, as well, striking ironies. Jefferson, the Virginia aristocrat and slave master who lived in a style fit for a prince, as removed from his fellow citizens and their lives as it was possible to be, was hailed as the apostle of liberty, the "Man of the People." Adams, the farmer's son who despised slavery and practiced the kind of personal economy and plain living commonly upheld as the American way, was scorned as an aristocrat who, if he could, would enslave the common people.... (pp. 543-545)

The book also described something that Jefferson did that I would consider to be somewhat corrupt. It was revealed during the first year of Jefferson's presidency:

That the contest for the presidency in 1800 was to be unlike any of the three preceding presidential elections was clear at once. For the first (and last) time in history, the President [Adams] was running against the Vice President [Jefferson]. The two political parties had also come into their own with a vitality and vengeance exceeding anything in the country's experience.

Further, under the Sedition Act anyone openly criticizing the President ran the risk of being fined or sent to prison. Since the first sensational case against Congressman Matthew ("Spitting") Lyon of Vermont, eleven others had been charged and convicted under the law. In one instance, a New Jersey tavern loafer who had done no more than cast aspersions on the President's posterior was arrested, prosecuted, and fined $150.

That spring of 1800, the notorious James Callender [a political commentator/journalist - there was no difference, apparently] reemerged, determined to defeat "the wretch" Adams, elect his patron Jefferson, and make himself a martyr. Matthew Lyon, after being sentenced to four months in a foul Vermont jail, had become a national hero and was overwhelmingly reelected to Congress.

Callender, who had quit Philadelphia, was now working as a Republican propagandist in Richmond, Virginia, with the encouragement and financial support of Jefferson, who, at the same time, was actively distributing a variety of campaign propaganda throughout the country, always careful to conceal his involvement. "Do not let my name be connected with the business," he advised James Monroe [a Republican, the fifth President of the US]. That Adams was never known to be involved in such activity struck some as a sign of how naive and behind the times he was.

In the Richmond Examiner, where he praised Jefferson as "an ornament to human nature," Callender assaulted Adams in a series of essays that would soon appear as a book titled The Prospect Before Us. It was the first salvo of the election and a clear sign of the sort of contest it would become.

Not satisfied that the old charges of monarchist and warmonger [what the Republicans claimed Adams to be] were sufficient, Callender called Adams a "repulsive pedant," a "gross hypocrite," and "in his private life, one of the most egregious fools upon the continent." Adams was "that strange compound of ignorance and ferocity, of deceit and weakness," a "hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

....Adams's sole objective was to make war on France, Callender asserted. The choice was clear - Adams and war, or Jefferson and peace.

To all this Jefferson gave his approval. Having seen the proof sheets of the new volume, he assured Callender, "Such papers cannot fail to produce the best effects."

To no one's surprise, Callender was promptly arrested for inciting the American people against their President.... (pp. 537-538)

Callender, having served his sentence for violating the Sedition Act, was out of jail by the time Jefferson took office. But unable to pay the fine imposed by the court, he had appealed to Jefferson for help, asking also that he be made postmaster in Richmond. Feeling that Jefferson owed him as much and more, Callender went to Washington to see Madison [a Republican, the fourth President of the US] and in the course of the meeting implied that, if denied his requests, he might have things to say. Madison warned Jefferson, who immediately, on May 28, 1801, had his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, give Callender $50.

Furious at Jefferson's parsimony, Callender switched sides to become the editor of a new Federalist paper, in Richmond, the Recorder. In the summer that followed, writing in the Recorder, Callender revealed that Jefferson, while Vice President, had secretly subsidized and encouraged him as he broke the Hamilton-Reynolds scandal [an alleged adulterous affair between Hamilton and Maria Reynolds involving blackmail] and did all he could to defame John Adams. For proof, Callender quoted several of Jefferson's letters to him. (p. 578)

It was Callender who made the specific accusation that Jefferson had an affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, a charge which I have previously learned as probable truth. It's interesting how an accusation like that could remain in the public consciousness for over 200 years...

Overall, the book was a very interesting portrait of John Adams and several others who figured prominently in his life: Abigail Adams (his wife), Thomas Jefferson (his friend and enemy), and John Quincy Adams (his son and sixth President of the US).

*I don't think this is the same Republican party as that which exists now, but I'm not sure (and haven't looked it up yet). I was always under the impression that Abraham Lincoln (President of the US during the Civil War) was the first Republican President and Jackson, Michigan identifies itself as the "birthplace of the Republican Party." On the other hand, John Quincy Adams was described as a Republican President when he was elected in 1826 and the idea of favoring states rights is a central component to the modern Republican Party...

As an aside, I'd always remembered from a biography I'd read as a child that Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr - something that many Americans likely remember due to this "Got Milk?" ad:

However, I didn't previously know that Burr killed Hamilton while he was Vice President!

More Deluded People

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 20:42:09 GMT

I just saw a blurb about John McCain defending Barack Obama from his supporters at one of his rallies yesterday, and being booed for it:

If anyone is interested to see the whole segment, as it aired on MSNBC's Countdown, it's here.

ETA: CNN just showed a blurb of McCain being booed as he told his supporters that they should be more respectful toward Obama: "We want to fight and I will fight. But we will be respectful," he said. "I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments. I will respect him and I want everyone to be respectful, and let's make sure we are." The story on that is here.

Fashion Dos and Don'ts

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:53:24 GMT

I watched the repeat of the latest episode of Project Runway last night.

Kenley never bothered me very much - I have always liked her better than Christian from last season. To me, she always seems very open and bubbly. No, she doesn't mince words when she doesn't like something, but neither does she hesitate to gush over another designer's work when she really likes it, even if it's not her natural style. We saw this in her praise of the pop star outfit designed for her. So, I have to say that I was really put off by how she was treated by the other three designers in the last 2 episodes, especially Leanne and Korto. I thought their failure to even say "hello" when she arrived in the hotel suite was inexcusably rude. They really lost my respect as people. (However, I'm willing to consider that they might not actually be as bad as they were edited to be.)

I don't understand why the judges auf'd Jerrell. I agreed with Nina Garcia's comment regarding the grey netting looking dirty, Heidi Klum's comment that the entire wedding dress looked messy, and Michael Kors's comment that the model looked like she had a flower pot growing out of her head, but I thought the bridesmaid dress was pretty enough.

In contrast, there was nothing that I liked about Korto's dresses. The wedding dress was just ugly and had details that made the model's hips and thighs appear huge. The bridesmaid dress would have been a nice dress, but looked way too casual for a wedding. It's the sort of thing I could see someone who was very into fashion wearing to meet friends for lunch or to go shopping.

Leanne's wedding dress was interesting, but I didn't like it that well. The "wave" things on the bottom of the dress were not perfectly evenly shaped. Since it was made by hand, there's not much Leanne could have done about that, but it's still the sort of thing that would make me pass on it. I thought the bridesmaid dress was really beautiful, though. It was perhaps a bit short, I thought, but I guess bridesmaids these days are likely to be a lot younger than me and I can see much younger women liking to wear short dresses, even for formal occasions.

Of all the wedding dresses, I liked Kenley's the best and her bridesmaid dress was also cute. What caught my attention, though, was that Michael Kors said that her dress looked like something recently created by Alexander McQueen. Not being a complete fashionista, I'd never heard of Alexander McQueen, but wanted to know what Michael Kors meant, so I went looking.

I believe that Michael Kors was referring to some dresses in Alexander McQueen's fall 2008 collection, seen here. Of the dresses in this collection, I think this dress is the closest to Kenley's.

As I was looking through this site, I made an interesting discovery - the runway show featuring the designers currently on Project Runway has already been held and the collections are on display for all to see: Leanne, Kenley, and Korto. It was interesting to see that several of the auf'd designers had runway shows, too: Jerrell, Joe, and Suede. I suppose they might have done this to keep the winner a secret, if the runway show was held several weeks ago...

This page of the "most hideous" fashion designs from the spring 2009 collections of a number of famous and not-so-famous designers is worth a look (voted on by the readers of this website). Suede actually has several dresses in this gallery. This is the only one of them that had me literally laughing out loud, though! It's a real "what were they thinking?!" *snort*

Note: I gathered all these links last night and just wrote up the post quickly today as a break from the monotony of dictating.

Oh Noes!

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:15:17 GMT