A downtown Tacoma resident for 7 years and counting, Erik covers the arts, technology, and politics with a smattering of travel blogging thrown in. Email him at erikemery (at) gmail (dot) com.
I read (and loved) The Blind Side a few years ago. It's a great piece of sports writing with a great story in the middle of it. That story makes up the core of the movie adaptation.
And generally, the movie stays pretty true to what actually happened. The biggest change from the book, and the hardest for me to get past, is the focus on the adopting mother (Sandra Bullock) as opposed to Michael. This is like watching the story of Hamlet through Gertrude's eyes--the most interesting character is not the focus.
Even so, it's an affecting story and pretty well-served by the movie. If it makes you pick up the book, then by all means go see it!
I read Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca recently, which was adapted into the wonderful Hitchcock movie of the same name with Laurence Olivier. The book is from 1938 and holds up tolerably well. The narrator is twenty but for a long time she's as annoying as a 12 year old. She's a lot easier to take in movie form where you don't have to be inside her head.
But the book is still pretty good. There's definitely a few more plot twists and turns than in the movie.The biggest downside was the romance-novel-style cover. It's hard to take any book seriously with a cover like this. The last romance I read was a free Harlequin eBook I downloaded to my Kindle that was sponsored by the Paris Las Vegas. Before that it was probably the first two in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. And fortunately, none of those had billowing red satin (velvet?) on the cover.
I've decided to skip over Jefferson for now. I've already read Hitchens' biography of him in the Eminent Lives series and I will eventually get to American Sphinx. But he features prominently in both the biographies of Washington and Adams and I know he is Madison's mentor, that I think I'll just skip on up to the 4th President and cycle back to Jefferson later.
I was moved by the Adams biography. Having seen the mini-series last year, I enjoyed the re-tread of his life and the greater detail. I thought he was a fascinating man, and his stamp on the country rather large.
He nominated George Washington to lead the army (apparently Hancock wanted it); he wrote the Massachusetts constitution, in many ways a preliminary document for our own; he negotiated and won a loan from the Dutch at an incredibly important time to keep the revolution afloat; then negotiated peace with the British; he kept us out of a war with France despite the popular support for it (McCullough notes here that had we declared war, Napoleon almost certainly would not have sold us the Louisiana Purchase. So in addition to avoid a war we almost certainly would have lost, we were set up to more the double the size of the nation).
Certainly not a perfect man or politician, I came to really respect him and Abigail alike.
I do want to quote a letter to John Quincy that I thought was a call to arms for anyone who wants to see change in a participatory republic like ours: "Public business, my son, must always be done by somebody ... If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not."
Well said. He had many great zingers, too, but I'll let this one stand.
Music Just discovered the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album. What an odd combination of musicians! And with a pretty great result. I've been listening to their cover of Gone Gone Gone by the Everly Brothers. Here's the Everly Brothers performing it. It's a really fun pop song, though in this case the highlight is definitely the dancers. Television Mary's been watching Weeds and whenever I drop in for a few episodes I've really liked it.I've been interested in Glee and FlashForward but have decided to save both for DVD. The only TV on DVD I've been watching is It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is wonderful when it's on the mark and just so-so when it's off. For current TV, I'm on a diet of just How I Met Your Mother, The Office, 30 Rock, and The Simpsons pretty much. Looking forward to seeing Lost start up again. Oh, and I TiVo'd "V" last night. We'll see how that is. Theater I forgot to mention that The 39 Steps in Seattle was a lot of fun. A good comedy built around a Hitchcock movie with an absurd premise.Movies I can't believe I wasted a Netflix rental on Supergirl. Books I read Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol in about 24 hours, which is pretty common with his books. Like his others, it's high-octane, can't-put-it-down utter nonsense. Anyone with a passing knowledge of history or science can spot where he's twisted things to suit his facts. The science-y stuff is like a novelization of The Secret (which I didn't read) thrown in with a little Bible Code (which I did read). The book isn't as good as Angels & Demons, which is still Brown's best, I think. And John Adams, of course, which will get its own separate post later.
As part of my recent Presidential biography reading, I read River of Doubt, the story of Theodore Roosevelt descending an unexplored Amazon river after his Presidency. The book pretty well convinced me that I don't want to spend a lot of time exploring the Amazon.
The Lost City of Z did the same thing. I don't think I've ever read the line, "The men were never heard from again" more frequently than in this book.Z is very well written; it tells two stories. The first story is that of PH Fawcett, an explorer who set out to find evidence of an ancient Amazonian city that he called simply "Z." The second is of the writer himself, on the trail of Fawcett, the literally hundreds of people who died looking for him afterward, and possibly Z itself. A great non-fiction read. Thanks to Matt and Mary for the book!As to the Presidential reading, I finished McCullough's John Adams on Thursday. I'll post on that in a bit. I read Z in about 24 hours. It was a well-told tale.
Some great modernist posters here. The Dark Knight is pretty great, especially how it alludes to Two-Face without showing him. And I really like Rain Man, Star Wars, and Ratatouille too.
Plus the Harry Potter covers are pretty great too. (via Andrew Sullivan)
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