Over the last couple of days I finally finished up Philip Gourevitch's "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda". As to my verdict: a great book, one I would recommend to anyone interested in foreign affairs, Africa, or is just into reading about fucked-up shit. Its a horrifying story, one told vividly and eloquently by Gourevitch. His descriptions of Rwanda's landscape makes me want to go there, and his descriptions of the genocides makes me want to never set foot in Central Africa. Next up on my literary hitlist: Alexander Trocchi's "Cain's Book", which I've been meaning to read for a year now, and now that I finally have a copy of it in my hot mitts, I've got no excuse not to.
Other things brewing in Ye Olde Cranium at the moment:
-The Boondocks just might be one of the greatest things Adult Swim has ever aired. I want to find the person who thought giving Aaron McGruder his own show was a good idea, and give them a big wet kiss. The show won me over with the "Let's Kidnap Oprah" episode (the part where they kidnap Bill Cosby and end up giving him back 15 minutes later because he's too annoying made me laugh so hard I thought I might have burst a blood vessel). Viewing classics like "White Jesus" and the episode where Riley has it out for a mall Santa ("that's a bitch move, Santa. I'm comin' for that ass again") continue to confirm the greatness that is The Boondocks.
-On the personal front: I got confirmation on Thursday from my best friend Adam (who recently made the big and baffling leap of converting from Judaism to Mormonism) that he is indeed getting married. He was up in SLC this week, visiting his bride-to-be's father to get his blessing. The only good news to come from this is that they plan on getting married in Arizona, which spares me the horror of having to go to Utah (I know, that sounds horribly selfish, but this "I'm-getting-married-to-someone-I've-known-for-less-than-a-year" business needs to have a silver lining somewhere). *shakes head slowly* He's a good man, Adam is, but when it comes to the ladies, the boy is out of his fucking mind. Every time he dates someone, he BECOMES them (his only reason for going Mormon: you guessed it, she's Mormon, and hardcore Mormon at that). While a part of me would like to do the responsible thing and tell him he's making the biggest mistake of his life, I know the man is just too stubborn and hopelessly romantic to listen to reason. So I'm going to do what I do best: be there for my friend... and hope that the wedding has a hosted bar (on that note: can a Mormon wedding HAVE a bar? I'll have to look into it...).
-On the cinematic tip: I'm going to see Talladega Nights later on this evening with my Phoenician posse. I also get a bonus check this month (huzzah profit-sharing!) and once I use half of it for responsible reasons (i.e. bills, credit card), the remainder will go to adding a handful of new items to my DVD collection: a boxset of Marx Brothers movies, Bela Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies" (which I was inspired to buy after reading about Tarr's films in the Foreign Films group), "Take The Money And Run" (I have yet to see a Woody Allen film, aside from The Sweet And Lowdown, so I may as well start at the beginning), and the Criterion Collection's new Powell & Pressburger release "A Canterbury Tale" (after seeing "The Red Shoes", I've made a point of seeing every film that P&P have made, in the hopes that another one of their films is at least half as mind-meltingly amazing as "Shoes" is).
-On work: tweakery is at an all-time high (I'm growing quite fond of the phrase "tweakery" as it encompasses several other words that describe tweaker behaviour: chicanery, thievery, tomfoolery, etc.). We're even starting to see a surge in hippies at work. Three days ago we had a dude come in with the worst set of white-boy-dreads I've ever seen: it looked more like the severed lures of an angler fish were sowed into his scalp than actual human hair. His books reeked of sweet mary jane, and his books were about nothing but sweet mary jane. We did buy his books, but only after I had to spend seven minutes explaining why he wasn't getting back from us the same amount he paid for his book (people just do not understand how the secondhand business works; if you paid twenty bucks for something, you'll never get that amount back from a thrift store, or make more than that, and yet people seem to think this is unreasonable that we don't pay out the nose for useless John Grisham novels we'll never need). We also had an old dude who came in with a bag full of musical cassettes that (to paraphrase esteemed poet Snoop Dogg) had the aroma of that "sweet icky-icky-ick" all over it. To make matters worse, he was wearing these short-shorts that he had to keep hiking up, so every once in a while I caught an eyeful of old man pubes (a sight no righteous human being should have to behold).
And that, loyal readers, is that.
Other things brewing in Ye Olde Cranium at the moment:
-The Boondocks just might be one of the greatest things Adult Swim has ever aired. I want to find the person who thought giving Aaron McGruder his own show was a good idea, and give them a big wet kiss. The show won me over with the "Let's Kidnap Oprah" episode (the part where they kidnap Bill Cosby and end up giving him back 15 minutes later because he's too annoying made me laugh so hard I thought I might have burst a blood vessel). Viewing classics like "White Jesus" and the episode where Riley has it out for a mall Santa ("that's a bitch move, Santa. I'm comin' for that ass again") continue to confirm the greatness that is The Boondocks.
-On the personal front: I got confirmation on Thursday from my best friend Adam (who recently made the big and baffling leap of converting from Judaism to Mormonism) that he is indeed getting married. He was up in SLC this week, visiting his bride-to-be's father to get his blessing. The only good news to come from this is that they plan on getting married in Arizona, which spares me the horror of having to go to Utah (I know, that sounds horribly selfish, but this "I'm-getting-married-to-someone-I've-known-for-less-than-a-year" business needs to have a silver lining somewhere). *shakes head slowly* He's a good man, Adam is, but when it comes to the ladies, the boy is out of his fucking mind. Every time he dates someone, he BECOMES them (his only reason for going Mormon: you guessed it, she's Mormon, and hardcore Mormon at that). While a part of me would like to do the responsible thing and tell him he's making the biggest mistake of his life, I know the man is just too stubborn and hopelessly romantic to listen to reason. So I'm going to do what I do best: be there for my friend... and hope that the wedding has a hosted bar (on that note: can a Mormon wedding HAVE a bar? I'll have to look into it...).
-On the cinematic tip: I'm going to see Talladega Nights later on this evening with my Phoenician posse. I also get a bonus check this month (huzzah profit-sharing!) and once I use half of it for responsible reasons (i.e. bills, credit card), the remainder will go to adding a handful of new items to my DVD collection: a boxset of Marx Brothers movies, Bela Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies" (which I was inspired to buy after reading about Tarr's films in the Foreign Films group), "Take The Money And Run" (I have yet to see a Woody Allen film, aside from The Sweet And Lowdown, so I may as well start at the beginning), and the Criterion Collection's new Powell & Pressburger release "A Canterbury Tale" (after seeing "The Red Shoes", I've made a point of seeing every film that P&P have made, in the hopes that another one of their films is at least half as mind-meltingly amazing as "Shoes" is).
-On work: tweakery is at an all-time high (I'm growing quite fond of the phrase "tweakery" as it encompasses several other words that describe tweaker behaviour: chicanery, thievery, tomfoolery, etc.). We're even starting to see a surge in hippies at work. Three days ago we had a dude come in with the worst set of white-boy-dreads I've ever seen: it looked more like the severed lures of an angler fish were sowed into his scalp than actual human hair. His books reeked of sweet mary jane, and his books were about nothing but sweet mary jane. We did buy his books, but only after I had to spend seven minutes explaining why he wasn't getting back from us the same amount he paid for his book (people just do not understand how the secondhand business works; if you paid twenty bucks for something, you'll never get that amount back from a thrift store, or make more than that, and yet people seem to think this is unreasonable that we don't pay out the nose for useless John Grisham novels we'll never need). We also had an old dude who came in with a bag full of musical cassettes that (to paraphrase esteemed poet Snoop Dogg) had the aroma of that "sweet icky-icky-ick" all over it. To make matters worse, he was wearing these short-shorts that he had to keep hiking up, so every once in a while I caught an eyeful of old man pubes (a sight no righteous human being should have to behold).
And that, loyal readers, is that.