New Year's Resolution: A Book A Day

Yep, you read correctly. My New Year's Resolution will be to read a book a day for one year. That's 365 books in 365 days. Personally, I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions; I mean, why arbitrarily pick a new year to do something new when you could pick any day to do that?

The books that I read in the next year will only be limited by the following criteria:

1) Each one must be at least 60 pages.

2) Graphic novels and other visually oriented books are permitted. (Just no children's picture books; those typically wouldn't be 60 pages anyway...)

3) I won't necessarily read a book EACH DAY. It will be 365 books over the course of 365 days. A small distinction, but an important one.

I will be blogging off and on about my project. Stay tuned for further updates in the upcoming weeks...

The World's End: The Final Installment of "The Cornetto Trilogy"

I had high hopes for the third and final movie in the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost/Edgar Wright so-called "Cornetto Trilogy". The World's End is the final installment in the very loosely linked trilogy, which includes Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. I thoroughly enjoyed the other two and it wasn't that I disliked this one...it's just that it was a little less satisfying than what I was hoping for.

(HERE BE SPOILERS!!!)

I wasn't really expecting to be disappointed. I was convinced that this would be a home run -- outta the park. The problem isn't that it's a bad film, it's more that it takes a large helping of Shaun of the Dead (aliens this time instead of zombies), a mild dash of Hot Fuzz (the whole town ends up being in on the "conspiracy") and a certain amount of the dreadful 2011 Paul (the only film of the Pegg/Frost collaboration that I've actually disliked). The film also reminded me of another Frost film, Attack the Block, which concerned aliens landing in a poor London neighborhood, but was also a much better film. That being said, World's End itself is still entertaining because of the goodwill that I have towards the wonderful cast (it's been years since I've seen such a great cast in a British comedy), the fact that the dialogue is well written for the most part, and the surprising pathos to be found here in terms of the character's relationships with each other.

That being said, the third act is absolutely ridiculous and made me want to run screaming from the theater. It does relate back to the title and the ending of the world, but to me, it felt like so many other apocalyptic films and not in the typically fun Pegg/Frost skewering sense, but more like Paul, which was absolutely fucking exhausting.

I love these guys and I liked this movie (for the most part), it was just a letdown after the quality of the first two movies.

Difficult Art

On the surface, there isn't much similarity between Amir "Questlove" Thompson's new memoir, Mo' Meta Blues and Dodie Smith's 1948 novel, I Capture the Castle. If you look a little more closely, you'll see that they both illuminate a fundamental truth about the nature of art though: Any piece of art that is truly groundbreaking will typically be initially resisted and maybe even criticized.

You might not even like it at all. But if you have that reaction, it might be worth taking a second look. A comedian once said that jazz music "defies you to like it". That's because it's not "easy"...you can't just sit down and listen to it with your brain turned off. You have to give it some thought. All truly transformative art might defy you to like it, but if you put the time in, you might be surprised.

Questlove talks about how his positive reaction to new records typically comes through in one of two ways. 1)  He loves it right away and is immediately into it... or 2) He resists it and isn't quite sure that he likes it. It's challenging for him. He says that he finds the records that fall into the second category always end up being the ones that really last for him and become something truly memorable and possibly even influential on his music.

I had that same experience with PJ Harvey's 2000 album, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. I initially resisted it and disliked it so much that I even returned it to the store. Something made me give it another chance though and I bought it a second time and couldn't get enough of it. It has gone on to become one of my favorite albums.

There have been a number of films that have had this effect on me as well (to name a couple: Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket, Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes). I didn't like these movies at all (I could even sit through The Red Shoes) the first time that I saw them. On second look, they amazed me. I would much rather watch a shitty, conventionally "weird" movie than a good, mainstream film any day of the week. For my money, the weirder, the better.

Dodie Smith expressed a sentiment similar to Questlove's in I Capture the Castle. Her characters, Simon and Cassandra, discuss how true beauty in nature can't really be put into words, in the same way that you can't really "explain" something artistic to someone. Cassandra doesn't really understand her father's novel that he is working on and she wants Simon to explain it to her. He says that in the same way that she can't put the beauty of the English countryside or the brilliant effect that her antiquated home has on her into words, he can't really describe what the brilliance of her father's novel is all about. She must discover it and feel it for herself. Not to sound like a Luddite, but in the age of instant gratification and constant electronic presence, I think we're losing a bit of that DIY appreciation of art. We need someone to tell us if something is good and then immediately make up our mind about whether we want to experience it or not versus finding out for ourselves.

Something truly meaningful shouldn't be able to be expressed and understood so easily, whether it's art or any of the other beautiful, yet inexplicable things in life.

Here is what my bald-ass head looked like in the beginning...

The Sun breaks through the clouds...

It's been awhile since my last post and since then, the following things have occurred in my life...

1) I tried to cut my own hair. Not the best of ideas; especially since, according to my wife, I looked like "a mental patient that had escaped from the Ozarks". She was able to help me fix it, but that involved shaving my head and I really miss my hair. It's growing back...but way too slowly for my tastes.

2) My family and I went on a three city tour of Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. It was great fun and it was definitely the break that we needed from being in Colorado for the last two years with no trips out of the state.

3) I got my first column in the Broomfield Enterprise, our town's newspaper, published. You can read that here... http://www.broomfieldenterprise.com/broomfield-opinion/ci_23854539/mckinney-controversial-materials-can-teach-much-our-children?IADID=Search-www.broomfieldenterprise.com-www.broomfieldenterprise.com

4) My son, Aden, and my daughter, Maggie, turned three and one, respectively. Two parties within two weeks of each other is pretty exhausting.

5) Finally, our portion of the country has been under water for most of the past three days and there have been many people who have been evacuated or stuck in their homes. The sun has just come out, so hopefully, this is the beginning of the end for the bad weather. I guess one of the advantages to living in Broomfield is that we're on a hill. And we have good pizza, too.

The worst thing about falling down a staircase is...

if you don't stop yourself, you have to ride it all of the way down. And it feels like forever. And you'll probably end up with a huge bruise on your ass. Which your wife will then tell everyone about...

Hollywood, you break my heart

Hollywood, why must you frequently break my heart when it comes to superhero movies? For much of "The Wolverine", the movie is a smart, well-crafted not particularly ridiculous thriller. With elements of "The Outlaw Josey Wales", various Japanese samurai films, and a variation on the damsel in distress theme, it seems more of an adult entertainment than the oft-ridiculous superhero fare. Plus, it's set in Japan which is pretty cool.

Then...two things happen in the third act to upset the apple cart...[HERE BE SPOILERS!!!] First, there is an overabundance of villains -- Yakuza, a crazy mutant named Viper, another character who is a frenemy of one of the main characters, an old man that was supposed to be dead. It's just too much. "The Wolverine" is far from the only film to be guilty of this sort of thing; Hollywood seems to think that people like their villains like they like their food at Mickey D's -- more = better. Not so. If you don't want a convoluted mess of a plot, pick one villain, MAYBE two. That's it. No more.

Second, the finale of the film is set in (one of) the villain's mountainside enemy lair with a lab and a giant robot. Why does there frequently have to be a showdown in a lab? Why does it typically have to be in a seemingly out of the way location that isn't really that difficult to find? The giant robot was potentially thrilling at first, but then this grumpy old men is inside of it and he saps Wolverine's (sorry, THE Wolverine) immortality and immediately becomes young again ... while in the robot ... while he fights The Wolverine. What was initially a smart entertainment had to be smushed into a typical BS superhero finale.  Granted, it isn't nearly as bad as that abortion of an ending in Iron Man 3, but it was almost more disappointing considering what came before. Hollywood, you're a bitch, yet I just keep coming back for more. When will I ever learn?  B-

Something new...

My son, Aden, who will be three in August, always uses my shoulder as a napkin, Kleenex, and general wash cloth. Hence, I have become "The Human Napkin".

Yes, I have two kids, Aden, and Maggie, who will be one in September. I stay at home with them, but am also a certified life coach, and freelance writer.

This is my third blog that I've started in the last ~ 8 years. Unlike the last two, this one won't have a specific purpose...it will be much more about random thoughts and other things that I want to put out there.

Random Thought #1 -- I just read (literally this instant) that there will be three Avatar sequels now instead of two...really? Who even needed one?

Random Thought #2 -- I finished Questlove's new memoir, Mo Meta Blues, today and it's wonderful. He's a brilliant poet philosopher who needs his own magazine column right now. Go out and buy his book (or at least get it from your local library like I did) right now.

Random Thought #3 -- I cried over a greeting card today...and it wasn't even for me. It was for my son. I might need to get out of the house more.