I was inclined to pick up this book based on Karen Healey’s quick review on her LiveJournal (you’ll have to scroll down to find it in the list):

It’s about the difficulty of hope, how terrible things happen for no reason, how the mechanics of poverty and oppression keep great people down, how they can be combated, and how faith – of many kinds, including in one’s God, in one’s self, and in one’s friends and allies – can be maintained, lost, regained, and blaze like a beacon for others. There’s barely any hints of romance.

Unfortunately, for me, it’s told in 1st person point-of-view, and i’ve found that with 1st person you have to actually like the narrator’s voice well enough to keep on.  And i didn’t.  Perhaps if i’d pressed on i’d have gotten past Amber’s irritating narrative stylings, but these days i don’t waste more time on a book than i have to.  Sorry, book!

I don’t have much to say about “Sherlock Holmes.” I’ve never read any of the works by Conan Doyle (tho’ i think i’ve read versions for kids when i was in school) and i’m not even sure i’ve seen a full episode of any previous versions of Sherlock Holmes.  I have picked up enough about Holmes from popular culture to be fascinated by the character, but i’ll admit that i was really only interested in seeing this version because i was interested to see what Ritchie would do with such a fascinating character.  Also, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are pretty.

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“Komaneko” came out in 2006 in Japan.  I got to see it last november at The Grand Illusion Cinema, and this year Andy got it for me as one of my birthday presents.

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I can watch “Doctor Who” all night long — episodes back to back to back.  I can even watch an entire disc of Monty Python shows in one sitting.

But apparently i can’t watch more than 1 episode of “Futurama” in a go.  We finished the last disc of the last season tonight — and they were 4 good episodes (especially compared to that dark spot in season 3) — but i found myself getting really tired of the whole Futurama formula.  Bender says something obnoxious/offensive, Leela punches/kicks something, Zoidberg is pathetic yet sassy, the Professor gets off a few good lines, and Fry pines and pines and pines after Leela.  Perhaps, like Mel Brooks movies, Futurama is best served up as out-of-context one-liners in conversations amongst friends.

Also:  Hey, script-writers.  A dude pining after Leela the way Fry does and constantly begging, nagging, cajoling her to go out with him isn’t charming or poignant.  It’s the 1st sign of stalker.  Find a new schtick!

It is difficult to adequately wrap-up this book because i read it slowly over a 2-month period.  Perhaps that’s the 1st thing to say about it: This is not the sort of memoir that i was able to breeze thru’ because it was engaging and consuming and whisked me away.

This is a very, very thinky memoir.  Rothenberg is analyzing and deconstructing the framework of her personal history while she is recounting it.  The thoughtfulness of her narrative is very rich and dense, and i found it somewhat hard going at times.

That said, i think her memoir has the potential to be a very important piece to understanding the institutional nature of racism, classism, and sexism.  I found it helpful to have someone note the framework of these -isms  every step of the way as they told the story of their own life.  Tho’ i think that it will speak best to people who have grown up under similar circumstances: white, educated, middle-to-upper-middle class.

(Note:  Rothenberg does touch on why she writes about herself as white altho’ she is the child of Orthodox Jewish parents.)

There were instances where i wished Rothenberg would have more thoroughly investigated her class privilege — for example, in the last chapter where she speaks about her love of travel and how much of it she’s done.  I also distinctly remember the phrase “dead-end job” that leaped out and startled me with its implicit classist assumptions.

Overall, tho’, i would still give this a recommendation for people who are interested in an examination of how race, class, and gender can impact an individual life.

This past weekend, Andy and i finally tracked down a rare creature indeed: A CD WE BOTH REALLY LIKE.

It’s Zee Avi’s self-titled debut album. We were turned onto her music back in december by our friend Wings, who runs the infamous Star Life Cafe where Andy and i wind up spending ridic amounts of time. Wings gave us a burned CD with music he thought we’d like, including Zee Avi. Ever since we’ve been trying to track down a legit CD so that (a) we can register our enjoyment via a purchase (b) we can have a damned tracklist! Wings maybe needs to learn to burn better CDs. :p

I don’t know how good i am at describing music. It seems like the only way i can think to describe Zee’s music is to say “it’s light music for a sunny summer afternoon.”

Which isn’t to say that the lyrics are always light in tone — “Poppy”, for example, is pretty deceptive in how it sounds like an upbeat jazz tune, but underneath that it’s talking about a boyfriend being “lost” to opium addiction.

Music-wise, i think the lightness i’m perceiving comes from the accompaniment being pretty stripped down. Sometimes it’s just Zee singing with guitar or piano (”Let Me In” is really lovely), sometimes there’s a little bit of horn, a little bit of soft percussion. And sometimes [coughcough] there’s a little bit of ukelele.

Not all of the lyrics are about heavy things like opium addiction. “Honey Bee” is pretty adorably about saving “my honey bee”, “even if i have to face the queen.” The line “the bees have control of your mind” has become extremely popular in our house.

Linguaphiles/Malayphiles may enjoy “Kantói”, which Andy enjoys for how it shifts between English and Malay right in the middle of lines. The internet tells me that: “Kantoi” as most Malaysians know, is a term used when you catch someone in the act of something not-so-good (or simply, “busted!”).

You can listen to “Bitter Heart” on Zee’s website. She came to have a record deal after posting her song “No Christmas For Me” to YouTube — watch it there, because it’s not on this CD.