Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Last week onan outing with Barbie we stopped by the library Andy they had a book sale. I went crazy and bought six books all of which I plan to read (well for the other two we're "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and  " The Tale of the Body thief" both have been read and one already thoroughly reviewed) so this is was the first one that caught my attention while I was looking through the pile because I had seen seen the movie at the library, I was curious about it but hadn't really wanted to check it out thinking that it would try to be like "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon", a movie that I love and own and cannot see destroyed! I finished the book in a day. It's a fast read  and it kind of wills you to keep reading. In many ways it reminded me of "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Holden. The theme of the main character being uncommonly beautiful and poor, the pain of becoming an adult the weird foot wear (although the Chinese take the cake foot binding is fucking horrific ok) and the misunderstandings  that lead to major problems. However See' s novel also talks about the disturbingly true nature of the Chinese and their loath of women. 

BITCH PLEASE!

Overall engrossing I do wish that Snow Flower had been more seen through eyes that were not the main characters as she can only ever see her with pity and furthermore I wish that the author would not have confused me. In the beginning of the book when Snow Flower, Beautiful Moon and Lily are talking about their future spouses the narrator says that in truth she hadn't realized until after her marriage how close Beautiful Moon would live and how often they would get to see each other. Then she goes ahead and kills her. I was passed because I liked Beautiful Moon. However I did enjoy the book and I'm going to check out the movie and hobbits just as good.  

Shit my dad says

Shit my dad says by Justin Halpern.

After reading Kavalier and Clay ,I definitely needed from serious an  long books so I choose something that was funny. I had been thinking of reading this book since it came out but it takes me forever to get around to anything that doesn't immediate attract my full attention. So I gave this a shot and was very happy I did.

Birch please!

The book revolves around Halpern who moves back in with his parents after getting dumped by his girlfriend. The dad is the main character of the book as Halpern goes back into his childhood and recounts his father's wisdom. The book is filled with three of my favorite types if humor, bathroom, raunchy and profane. He usually has a cuss word, an allusion to poop and then a little anger thrown in. In reality it reminded me of a way less tame version of my own father. I think this book was amazing because Halpern is brilliant by cashing in on the ridiculousness of his father (something something I should look into) and still remaining in close contact with his father father who despite sounding crass loves his and is quite affectionate with him. I have a feeling this man has some Salvadoran blood. He fits perfectly in our culture. 

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay: by Michael Chabon

this book has been sitting on my book shelf for a really long time. I was told that I would like this book.the verdict is I sort of did but did I find something to birch about, of course. The book is about two cousins Josef Kavalier and Sammy Clayman. Josef is the light of hope for his parents who are about to be sent into a concentration camp. However things go awry when the immigration offices revoke his passage to America. So he seeks help from his old magic teacher and takes a ride with the Jewish Golem. He travels with it all the way to Lithuania where he birch takes a ride to Japan and from there to San Francisco and to New York. There he and Sammy quite quickly come up with a plan to make themselves rich. They are going to make themselves rich on the golden age of comic books.they create the escapist a superhero that beats Nazi's and who represents the angst in his creator then we go into learn about Twitter lives and meet j just about the only real female character in the book Rosa Saks. Then there's slot of more in the war but mostly in Antarctica

Bitch please: 

The book was clearly not Kavalier and Clay but more aptly titled Kavalier and sometimes Clay.I felt bad for Sammy he spends most of the book in the shadows and horrible things happen to him and yet unlike Joe he has no one to talk to about it. The only good thing in Sammy' s life is Tracy Bacon. Even then he can't really appreciate it either.when Joe leaves him and he takes care of the ones Joe has left behind, he can't even enjoy. Joe is an asshole, I mean he just runs away from his anger and he just poses me of because he can't appreciate the love and burgeoning family that Sammy so craves. His heart is still in Prague, with his family. But he doesn't allow himself the chance to be completely happy, or to be miserable on his own. I guess maybe that's what brought me down about the book how Joe is unwilling to help himself be happy. That and how long the book was. I mean I get it the author is cramming details about the life and journey of two comic book genius in their rise and fall. But 640 pages is a lot to get through. My favorite parts of the book are the introduction to the escapist and Luna moth. The little stories totally enthralled me. The verdict, read it if you like comic books or like to read about Jewish heroes. It's long it's a little dry and there are days when you start drifting during the reading, nonetheless it's got a feel good.

 Luna moth

Horror Movie Marathon

So my sister and I have been watching all the universal horror movies of old.We started with the hunchback of Notre dame and have now currently seen phantom of the opera, Dracula and bride of Frankenstein. Here's the review:

Hunchback of Notre dame: 

Ok considering I didn't like the ending of the book I did like this rendition of the movie.perhaps because the movie had a just ending. Ok two saving grace Esmeralda' s portrayal and interaction with Quasimodo. That and the romance that grew between Gringoire and Esmeralda, which is better than the author posting her up with that ass phoebeus who I am happy to say has a minor role. I liked this it felt more just and even though I still feel sorry for Quasimodo I understand that love cannot involve ugly. In an observation I noticed that Maureen O'Hara reminds me of Kate Winslet.

Am I right or am I right! 

Phantom of th  opera:

My main problem with this movie was that I felt sorry for the phantom whom in the book and in the 2004 rendition of the movie I hadn't. This poor poor man. Poor Claudin, he worked all his life for a love that could never be his. Fucking Christine played fiddle with all  of those mans emotions. The three being the phantom, the policeman Raoul, and the baritone Garron who by the way look alike and made for confusing cinematic experience. Ok things I liked: the staging was pretty awesome and the music sans the singing I dug.
What I didn't like? The costuming, the story, the lack of horror, the ducked up story line, the opera....let's just say bad rendition of phantom.

See they are eerily similar.

We saw Dracula too but I'm saving the ruler of the night for a different post.

For now this is it. I'll post on Mama and The woman in black later. 

My hobby.....

As a collector, I understand the excitement of purchasing a long sought out for item. As a collector of Marilyn memorabilia, well thats the excitement at finding a new venue of Marilyn items to collect. The fan base that not only keeps growing but keeps adding to her legend is voluminous. Most recently the Marilyn Monroe brand which originally only sold lingere, now has a full fledged clothing line, complete with modern replicas of some of her famous costumes. Since I was 15 I have collected Marilyn items, begining with my giant book of Marilyn Monroe, a huge heavy pictorial of some of her more famous pictures.

This was quickly precedded by a random trip to Walmart where I purchased (2006) a Marilyn Monroe shirt and a Audrey Hepburn shirt. This was the begining of the screen tee. Once I graduated I had only comenced the iceberg of what fandom was. I had a huge help from a Marilyn site  http://www.marilynmonroe.ca/ in which I verified some of the quotes and discussed the falsities of her life. In college I now had more access to films and a knowledge of how better to get what I wanted. I watched her famous films e.g. "Some Like it Hot" and "Gentlemen prefer Blondes" and her little known work "Don't bother to knock" and "All about Eve". At some point I got my hands on a set of her DVD's

This set included "The seven year itch", "Niagra", "Lets Make Love", Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", "River of no Return", and a dvd for "Marilyn the final days". For a while this was enough to keep me at bay. I read books on her life, and decided I didn't agree with some authors, others were too sympatheic. Marilyn remained, at least in my head, misunderstood on all levels. I continued to find ways in which my poor college student self could indulge into the world of memorabilia collecting. In almost all stores they now carry screen t' s. I Think this is due to people wanting to become nerdy. whatever the reason, I had now an incessant source an enabler if you will of Marilyn Monroe t-shirts. I only have six because I am extremely picky about the design or sometimes the quote that comes with it. Here's a pic of my six shirts.

My pride and glory Marilyn Monroe has become a fixture in my life. I cannot say why. Perhaps because she is eternally altered she herself never knew her truth. Maybe I have a soft spot for fuck-up's.  I though I should share my smAll addiction.

Let's see what I can find to bitch about

Barbie and I are both taking math classes this summer, her because she wants to get it out of the way. I'm taking math in the summer because I'm dumb and didn't pass last semester's class. Anyway my class is way less intense than hers and so I therefore have no reason to study and now I'm here doing absolutely nothing.
So I decided to bitch about random shit.

Bruno Mars: Unorthdox Jukebox

I really, really love this album. I can't even begin to explain how much. Personally before this came out, I didn't care much for Bruno Mars. That song "Grenade" and "Just the way your are" kind of wore me out. I kept thinking he was just a sweet guy who was singing about lost love or whatnot and I'm just not that romantic. In the second album we hear a more racy side to him. Even though "Locked out of heaven" and "When I was your man" are kind of lovey dovey they have this simpleness that I love. As of now my favortie songs on this album are "Treasure" a sort of throwback to the Jackson 5 with a little edge and "Natalie" a song about a bitch he's gonna kill with a pretty awesome hook. I'm also kind of obsessed with "Money make her smile", it just has a really funky beat you just want to get crazy with.  Bruno Mars clearly can sing and in this album he's rowdy and fun and dirty and raunchy. If you like the Jackson Five and reggae, simple pop and good beats you'll like this album and then like me dance up the hill to "Treasure", pulling a Cameron Diaz in "The Sweetest Thing"

Movie time:

This movie I wanted to watch all week, my sister and I have been into the monster thing lately and are currently obsessed with having a scary monster movie marathon. Dracula was the only one we could find at the local library but it came with the pleasent surprise of four extra movies. It was "The Son of Dracula", "The Daughter of Dracula" "Dracula :The spanish version" and "House of Dracula" which the latter is a sequel to the movie "House of Frankenstein". So I popped it in after I had come home from school and had just had a big lunch, I'm talking mashed potatoes and a cheese stick(ok it wasn't that big but it felt like it at the moment). I saw up until the part where they find Lawerence Talbot, who incidentally is one of the main character of Anne Rices's "The Tale of the Body Thief" David Talbot. I thought that was fun fact whether it be true or not. But anyway after that I might have fallen asleep missing out most of the film and too sleepy top rewatch it afterwards. What I saw of it I can say that it was kind of creepy and that the nurse Miliza played by the beautiful Martha O'Driscoll scared me as I thought it was Carla Gugino (Sally Jupiter Sr. in watchmen? Mother of the two kids in Spy Kids?)   It was like Hollywood Doppleganger moment...

Carla Gugino                                                                              Martha O'Driscoll



 Eerily similar right!!!!

Bookworm alert:

At the beginning of the semester I ventured to the school's library on the lookout for a bibliography on one of my favorite writers, Antoine St. Expuery. I ventured into the Fiction section, because I just can't resist and found myself face to face with a tiny little book called "Einstein's Dreams", I have this thing with tiny books where I will read them just because of their size, because they are soo diminutive in stature that whether they are thick or thin I must read it. Anyway it was only 175 pgs I knew it would be a fast read. I read this book in two hours and am forever changed by it. Lightman has studied Einstein's theory of time and when he puts it into what I would refer too as a painting a picture it's just mind blowing. The one that catches me the most was the little vignette of the people who live in their past forever and therefore never give themselves a chance to move forward and be happy. A man who was a star athlete in his youth relives his past by keeping all his trophies on display and retelling his stories of glory and a lonely spinster refuses to move on with her life after her only love has gone. I was just so electrified by this vignette because it is a path so easily taken by people. Even I at my young age sometimes revisit the past, even though I tend to prefer to live in the present. There are a lot of insightful little tidbits that just make you want to shake and motorboat your lips because you can feel yourself becoming the person in that vignette. Also I've always imagined/ believed that all of my decisions were turned into consequences in a different dimension, for example in this world today I had chips and a soda for lunch, in another world I would have decided to go home instead of waiting for this *points to the left* one to finish her hw and then go buy shampoo. And then have this mean lady sit next to me and inquire what the fuck it is I am doing. And in another world a different me, a very rude me, would tell this bitch to "fuck off". But then you'd be reading or perhaps not reading her blog and not mine.

Miley Cyrus being a HO:

Then theres this Miley Cyrus video I watched out curiosity "We Can't Stop" it's her singing and announcing in a pretty fucking annoying way that she is at 20 finally liberating herself from her parents and the world, she has become fucking emancipated everyone lets rejoice and smoke and play in pools and eat bread and twerk as we wear gold grills. She is just so fucking stupid! I watched this video and couldn't really comprehend what her message was, "I'm 20 years old, a millionaire and I have an obsession with my vagina, or anything sexual for that matter. I put a lot of white bread in my videos but its not like I even eat bread because I am ultra thin cuz I need to twerk. I am now inviting black people into my videos when in my "Party in the USA" video I didn't even know who Jay-Z was and added him in my lyrics anyway. I still play with dolls and have a cutesy little girl side to me because I have been pretending to be a grown up for too long." In this video she grabs ass and tit,and says stupid shit like how it's her house so she can smoke, drink and fuck if she wants to. Bitch let me tell you something if you have to voice your independence so loudly you are not independent. Everyone smokes or drinks and fucks so what makes you so fucking special to shout that shit up, I don't want to hear about a weekend I could have! This girl is dumb and has way to much fucking time on her hands. As a girl who was venerated by young little girls everywhere for her Hannah Montana thing I can understand why she would want to transition away from that but let me say right now that there is  a way to do it. You can't go from little Disney princess to raunchy gagaesque wannabe slutbag. As an artist you define yourself by your beginnings not by the transition. No matter how much she tries to hide her image of the squeaky clean Disney darling she is just making it worse because she draws comparisons it's just too many volatile extremes and not only that but she is totally disregarding anything her parents have taught her. Demi Lovato has transitioned beautifully as well as Selena Gomez (I can't stand either one of them but they deserve brownie points for not commiting the crime miley has) Mily Cyrus, get your shit together and find real shit, don't just make your life about dumb shit smoking, drinking and having sex is only good for awhile find something substantial to sing about if not get the fuck out. ANd stop buying shit from American Apparel.

Mathematics:

I really just fucking hate Math

I'm running our of things to bitch about and I'm hungry so Barbie better feed me.. by that I mean she better take me to Taco Bell, whatever happened to that annoying little chihuhaua that used to say "Yo Quiero Tacoo Belll" Like an East LA cholo?



i officially am upset with Barbie's professor, Professor Santa Claus is going down he just gives way to much homework, oh look at that I found something to bitch about! Well at the commencemnet of the semester we figured that our professors were pretty much dopplegangers for two very beloved characters Santa Claus and Bilbo. Although Santa is actually quite nice Bilbo is much sweeter in his effort to give us less homework and even though he demotes my ass every class meeting, daring me to fail his class even at my 82% I still like the old bastard so here are pictures of what we have to deal with everyday:

 

 

OMG WE'RE FINALLY LEAVING....END OF RANT ... TO TACO BELL WE GO, TO TACO BELL WE GO HIGH HO THE MERRY HO *points at Barbie* TO TACO BELL WE GO=]



Monster's University

Monster's University

LOVED THIS MOVIE!
Baby Mike is so freaking cute I can't even handle. The story revolves around Michael "Mike" Wasowski the cohort to James "Sully" Sullivan in the first movie Monster's Inc. Mike's bigest dream is to be the best scarrer ever. He works very hard to learn all the master's of the art and lands himself at Monster's University where he has been planning on attending for all of his life. Upon arriving and attending his first class he meets his roommate Randall Boggs. The two instantly become friends as they find they both have similar traits. Upon his first class meeting he discovers that Sully is a real jerkface, he comes from a generation of scarers and he believes that school is unnecassseary. Now to not bore you with the whole story lets just say that it is a typical film about fighting your adversities. Although I found that it wasn't entirely a child friendly message, i did like that it was typical pixar and it was funny!!!!!
 Just go watch it, Pixar never fails!

Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook By Matthew Quick:

I decided to read this after I saw the movie because I thought it would be fun. I have a bit of a girlcrush on Jennifer Lawerence and since I loved the movie so much I'd read the book. I wasn't disappointed at all. I finished it in a day! The story is about Pat Peoples (probably the dumbest name for any character ever) as he is being taken out of the neural facility he has been in for the past  four years. His mother who is pretty much his everything brings him home where he finds almost a complete gym in the basement. Pat has a theory that to end "apart time" with his estranged wife Nikki he has to show everyone especially her how he has changed, physically and personally. He practices the theory "practice being kind rather than right" and he strives to read more in an effort to deliver lines from books on Nikki's syllabus. He will not watch movies anymore as he is watching his own movie and it's director/producer/writer is God. He spends most of his days obsessing about his body, his future encounter with his wife and the literature. His mother is his everything and does everything for him while his father pretends he doesn't exist. His brother ashamed he hasn't come to see him in the "bad place" but they make up. The world of this family revolves around The Eagles some football team, which I am not sure even now where they are from. The dad only makes communication with Pat through football. His therapist happens to be a huge football fan and so it is easy to bond with him. Pat's best friend Ronnie introduces him to Tiffany who is equally jacked up. Everyone pretty much walks on eggshells with Pat but won't tell him why,oh and his trigger is a Kenny G who is his nemesis. He is obsessed with physical fitness as he says that this is the reason why his wife has left him, this and the fact that he was emotionally abusing her.
Bitch Please!
Ok the book was an easy read, especially when you take into consideration that it is basically about one man trying to reunite with his wife, who if you ask me doesn't deserve him and the Eagles football team. Now say what you will I dislike football, because it's the one sport I don't really understand, there's some stupid ass rules in football and then there is something about yards and other shit I'm just like gah, fuck this. However because I am fond of Pop culture i recognize one of the players names who happened to be a big fucking deal in the book. Hank Baskett is married to Kendra Wilkinson, former girl friend of Hugh Hefner and star of the tv show "Girls Next Door". In the spin-off Kendra and Hank get married and have a baby. So I know something of Hank and I think he's a fucking nice guy. I was pleased I wasn't completely out of the loop for the football references and I personally think that football fans are way too angry, (I'm a huge football fan, or soccer as you Americans say, and we are crazy but not angry, unless you count the English and the Irish.)
                      *SPOILER ALERT*
Anyway that being said I really did enjoy the book especially the Tiffany bits, now that bitch is cray. I read a review that said that the episodes that brought about the mental breakdowns were a bit of a let down but i disagree. I mean first of all the guy that ends up with Nikki is may I remind you the same asshole who calls him an illiterate buffoon and she always laughs when he says it too, which is a tell tale sign she was always going to takes Phillips side over Pat who was her husband! When he discovers that day that she was cheating on him with a friend of theirs, someone who he has invited into their homes, permitted them into the sanctity of their personal bubble to be betrayed by someone who knows how intimate you have been with the person, its a HUGE breach of trust. Not only was Nikki cheating on him but she was replacing him, she was playing their song on while fucking this guy! WTF! Now here's what I think about Nikki and in turn this Phillip guy, HUGE FUCKING DOUCHEBAGS! I get it Pat nearly beat the shit out of Philip but Nikki tried to kill him back in an attempt to stop him, if she had just not cheated and asked for a divorce well then Pat would not have been deemed fucking insane and therefore had to spent four years in a mental institution wasting his life. That was first, second of all why the fuck does she get to keep the house and his money, in California cheating is not ok, they don't give you anything if you cheated and broke the marriage, Pat had a terrible lawyer. Third, fucking Nikki the whole reason for the problem doesn't even make an effort to apologize for her actions or to come and see how he is doing, I understand how upset the family is and or was but honestly Nikki your a bitch. But as the book has taught me to look at the silver lining in everything I suppose I will. If Nikki hadn't royally screwed up then Pat would never have excelled to be a better person and would never have met Tiffany and Tiffany is kind of a bitch but she owns it so, she is, in my book anyway , kind of freaking awesome. Tiffany is crazy but not because someone cheated on her but because of her guilt. Her husband Tommy who was so in love with her and wanted to have sex all the time died trying to help an old lady coming home from the mall after he had bought his wife, Tiffany, some lingerie. Now why she went all sexaholoic I don't know, what I do know is that in some way she got her closure which is what Pat is striving for. All in all I really liked this book, it's an easy read, entertaining, and it leaves you with the sense that everything is as it should be, you fall you get hurt, but you get up and keep going it's the only way to survive. I like Happy Endings.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo:

I read this because I felt I had to read something by Hugo and Les Miserabvle is so epically large I am reading it in installments. That being said I decided to read teh Hunchback as it is smaller and I thought more parody than Les Miserable. You know what I found out? Hey it wasn't. But more on that later. The hunchback of Notre Dame really follows the lives of just two characters, Dom Claude Frollo an apathetic character, Pierre Gringoire a character who opens the story by being the philospher who knows all sides of the story more or less. Esmeralda of course the young beautiful VIRGINAL maiden, her love Captain Phoebeus the #1 asshole, (maybe more so than Claude Frollo, and of course the perpetual ghost, Quasimodo. The story begins with the commnecement of the king of fools, Pierre Gringoire the narrator if you will, displays his play and from there we begin to see Paris thru the eyes of the author Hugo, with his sweeping grand vision of his home city. The book is a veritable map of the Paris he knew and the Paris which he is describing in 1560. He then continues to describe the backgrounds of each character into which he weaves a splendid web of interconnectedness. There are times, when Hugo goes on tangents about the architecture and rants about why they tore it down. It almost seems like he wanted to write a history of Parisian architecture and decided to throw in a sort of love story.
Bitch Please!
As far as love stories go, this one kind of maybe really sucked. The whole story revolved around the insanely zealot priest Frollo,who's obsession with Esmeralda takes everyone on a whirlwind ride into despair and death. This was seriously depressing not even the beautiful language could bring me out of the continually growing abyss of "God why is this so sad." considering his next grand novel was titled "Les Miserable" and considering I have only read about half, this is me saying the title of this novel should have been "Les Miserable."
                                                  *SPOILER ALERT*
First of, fuck Dom Claude Frollo, how could he go up and kill Esmeralda, yeah I said it, he fucking hangs her just because she will not love him. And don't get me wrong she is dumb too, she falls in love with the most disgusting display of manliness Hugo could offer. Phoebeus is a douche and a coward. Frollo kills Esmeralda but Phoebus pretty much sentences her to death. Then theres Quasimodo who really can't help being ugly and I know, I get it he's too ugly to be loved, but thats wrong. Everyone deserves to be loved and if there is one thing that continues in every love story it is that love is redemming. As a realist Hugo understood that if Esmeralda kissed him he wouldn't become a prince, and that is the problem with this story. In condemming the love for the ugly he destroys Esmeralda. Quasimodo has been tormented for so long he is bitter and hateful but you can tell that with her love he could change. But she is shallow and falls in love with Phoebues a self deluded idiot who's main goal is just to get in her knickers and he will say just about anything to aachieve that goal. Meanwhile Frollo is in despair trying to fight his inner demons because he has lost his faith in everything. Which calls into account Hugo's atheism. First of God loves all his children, even or especially Quasimodo. Secondly a man without faith (even if it isn't God) will always fall into despair and become cruel for the disbelief in love leads into obsession and corruption. Then theres Hugo's manly display of women. Esmeralda is DUMB! She pretty much leads herself to the gallows at the end by calling out to Phoebeus and outing her hiding place where her mother had just hidden her. The asshole doesnt even turn as he wants nothing to do with her. Her mother dies in her vain attempt to save her and this after she has just discovered that the daughter she mourned for so long.  I mean fuck then you got quasimodo who kills Frollo's beloved brother (although I can't say I didn't see that coming the boy was just too spoiled) then he kills his master, who definietly deserved it. Quasimodo alone now decides he too shall die and we;re not sure how that happens but in the end he does end up with Esmeralda in death. What of Phoebeus you ask, that ass gets married and supposedly thats his great "misery" but how can it be when he is swimming in gold, and has a beautiful wife and a position in the army guaranteed for life. No he needed to be punished for his cowardice but alas Hugo took pity on the rich. In the end the story was good and beautifully written but honestly just too unjustified. I wouldnt mind if they had all died, but if I had had just a semblance of justice for the mother of Esmeralda and for Quasimodo had Phoebeus been made to pay his cowardice it would have been better. This being said I expected to hate Frollo more but I kind of felt sorry for him, he really has no idea what its like to be an imperfect human being. In the end I liked it but felt unjustified. Read it if your into literature or if you want to know France otherwise...don't bother, read "Les Miserables" at least that one has a better ending.