Abandonment

You may have noticed it's been months since my last post, and it's time I just came out and said it. Wrinkled Though has progressively fallen to the bottom of my list of priorities. So much, in fact, that I've decided to abandon it altogether. Don't worry. I plan on leaving it up for nostalgia state, and undoubtedly I'll embark on another equally thrilling and compelling blog soon, but right now it's time to say good bye.

The End.

Happy 2008

I'm a little late, but my intentions were good nonetheless. I hope you have a wonderful 2008.

I love New Years Day. It feels so fresh.

Maybe I'll post my resolutions later.

Kurt Vonnegut Ringtone

I'd really like to know exactly what they mean by "Kurt Vonnegut Ringtone." I'm fairly certain his popularity was from his success as a novelist, not a musician. Maybe the ringtone is a recording of some of his writing. That seems a little far fetched though. I clicked on the link. They wanted me to confess my cell phone number. I tried a fake one; it didn't work. I shall never know.

Best Books of 2007... not so much.

I was browsing amazon.com the other day trying to compose my Christmas list, when I came across a link reading, "The New York Times: Best Books of 2007." Naturally, I clicked on it. I've made countless decisions based on recomendations from The New York Times, but after reading their so-called list of best books, I'll never trust their word again.

The New York Times: Best Books of 2007

1. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
2. The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross
3. Tree of Smoke: A Novel by Denis Johnson
4. Then We Came to the End: A Novel by Joshua Ferris
5. Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
6. Out Stealing Horses: A Novel by Per Petterson
7. Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
8. The Savage Detectives: A Novel by Roberto Bolano
9. The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History by Linda Colley
10. Man Gone Down: A Novel by Michael Thomas

I'm ashamed to admit I have not read any of these books. And to think I call myself a reader. I read some reviews on the above books, and they actually sound pretty good, but I still feel like something's missing from the list. I can't quite put my finger on it. Wasn't there some book that came out in 2007 that sold something like eleven million copies in the first day it was released? I think it was the final instalment in some best selling series, which has had five award winning movies. The author, thanks to her books, is a millionare. I seem to have forgotten about it. Looks as if it slipped The New York Times' mind as well. Gee, what was it called again? It's on the tip of my tongue.... Oh yeah! HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS! Hmm.... I wonder why The New York Times didn't think it was worthy of their little list. Maybe they thought nobody would notice. =)

Seriously now, whoever made this list should be sent to some other planet where nobody's heard of Harry Potter.

Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Johnny Depp. Helena Bonham Carter. Alan Rickman. Directed by TIM BURTON. I'll be first in line come December 21st. This is going to be incredable.

The Office

I've never really enjoyed watching TV. I like movies, but TV's just so loud and just looking at it makes me feel like I should be doing something more productive (like blogging). Recently, however, I've become progressively more and more addicted to The Office. Stevie owns the DVDs of seasons one, two and three and I've been borrowing them. I'm completely hooked. I've seen every episode up to season four, which I'm catching up on with the help of the NBC's handy dandy website which has select episodes available to watch online. I only just discovered the website tonight. It's lots of fun. The fictional character blogs are perhaps the coolest television website thing ever: Shrute-Space (hilarious) and Creed Thoughts. So what's so great about The Office? It's difficult to say exactly. Maybe it's lines like this:

"Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject so you know you are getting the best possible information."

Said by Michael Scott in the episode entitled, "The Negotiation."

Who's Bram Stoker?

I didn't know Dracula wrote a book! Wait a minute. Isn't Dracula a fictitious character created by Bram Stoker? Poor Bram Stoker. He invented the vampire genre and at the same time wrote a classic that people will still read hundreds of years from now and he also created a character who is recognized world wide (even by people who have never heard of the book), but nobody ever remembers Bram Stoker's name. I wonder how long people will remember Neil Gaiman. As much as I enjoyed Princess Mononoke, I don't think it has the quite the same staying power as Dracula.

This question came from the "Are You Goth?" quiz I found while procrastinating my English homework. I never found out if I was goth or not though because you were required to give them your email address before they told you your score. I wasn't going to fall for that.

Banned Books Week

Banning books is wrong, not to mention unconstitutional. The First Amendment says:

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING AN ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF; OR ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS; OR THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, AND TO PETITION THE GOVERNMENT FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES.

September 29th to October 6th is Banned Books Week. I'm going to try and post something everyday to celebrate. I did a project about banned books sophomore year, and ever since it's been something I've been really interested in.

Quick Facts:

• Banned Books Week has been recognized annually since 1982. It's a time to celebrate our freedom to read.
• Typically books are challenged (this means somebody attempted to remove materials from curriculum or library), not banned (books actually are removed). Only a small percentage have actually been restricted thanks to the commitment of librarians, teachers, and booksellers.
• Books usually are challenged with the intentions to protect others, especially children, from difficult ideas. "Inappropriate" sexual content or offensive language tends to serve as a target for overprotective parents everywhere.
• Book burnings have been practiced since before 213 BC, when all Confusion books were burned except for one copy.

I found all this information on the banned books page of the American Library Association's website. It's a pretty cool site. I'm expecting to refer to it quite a bit over the next week.

Abreviations 101

This photo was taken a while ago at the Page versus Centenial game. I'm pretty sure "Page'en" doesn't make any sense. What it should be is a slang version of paging, which is PAGIN'.
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Doesn't this make you feel all warm and fuzzy about high school education? Erm... not so much.

Oprah's Book Club

What do all Oprah's-Book-Club books have in common? The price tag. Any published work stamped with the famous "O" automatically costs a couple more dollars. Typically classics are cheap, or at least less expensive than newly released paperbacks, but William Faulkner's Light In August is $11.16. Some other pricey titles include As I Lay Dying ($10.36) and The Sound and the Fury ($9.46) by William Faulkner, One Hundred Years Of Solitude ($10.17) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cry the Beloved Country ($10.20) by Alan Paton, and Middlesex ($8.99) by Jeffrey Eugenides. These numbers are fairly reasonable when you consider the price of a hardcover book, but these are the prices of paperbacks. It's ridiculous! In 2002, an copy of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy was a reasonable $6.95. Ever since 2004, the year it was added to Oprah's list, a paperback edition has been $10.88. Coincidence? I think not!

Disclaimer:
I have nothing against Oprah. I've only seen her show twice, but that has more to do with my distaste for TV than it does Oprah herself. I admire her because she uses her fame to do so many good things. Look how many people are reading and talking about literature thanks to her book club. I just wish the book publishers would stop trying to make a fortune off her. It's drilling a deep hole in my wallet. I suppose I could go to the library, but it's very difficult for me to get through a book without writing in it. Something tells me the library wouldn't appreciate my annotations.

Summer Reading Procrastination

For a long time I looked forward to summer reading. Rarely, in my high school career, have I been assigned a book not worthy of my time (the exceptions being Lance Armstrong's Every Second Counts and the cheese-ball 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens). Though every year, towards the closing days of summer, I begin to realize I still haven't made much progress in my assignments. Summer reading is a very stressful ritual. The intentions, of coarse, are admirable, but the project itself is the source of so much unnecessary worrying. I shouldn't complain because I did sign up for A.P. English 4 knowing that I'd have an easier time in the honors or standard classes, but this is my blog and I say what I want(!), even if my unhappiness is self imposed. If you think that finishing only two books in an entire summer vacation would not be very challenging, you'd be wrong. With mission trips, summer camps, and all the opportunity to spend this newly acquired leisure time to read books you've been meaning to get to for ages (along with the release of the long awaited Harry Potter 7), summer reading becomes very unappealing. With only a day and a half until school starts, I'm still not even close to being through. It's strange that a person who is so addicted to books waited to the last minute to complete her dream homework assignment: reading and journaling about truly amazing literature. Mrs. Sniderman's A.P. English students were instructed to read A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving and write a journal as well as reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster and responding to some questions that help us apply what we learned. I'm only half way through A Prayer for Owen Meany, a book that's quickly working it's way up in my favorites list (this list is in my head; I have no actual recorded favorites list). As much as I love the book, I'm having a hard time motivating myself to read. There's hardly any time left before homework takes over my life again so it's difficult to sit down and work on something with such a strong stench of school. It's also an incredibly long book. How to Read Literature Like a Professor was stimulating and even managed to be mildly entertaining. I can tell it'll be a very useful reference in my future English classes, but I could have skipped over half of the book because the questions I've been given only apply to about eight chapters. I know I'd be better off reading the whole book because, in concept, summer reading is not about the grade, it's about the learning. Grades often can get in the way of learning, but that's really not the point I'm trying to make here. I could have done half the work and still completed the questions with the same quality as I will not having skipped chapters. Maybe I'll be lucky and we'll have a pop quiz with the unassigned chapters on it and I'll know exactly how to respond while the kids who skipped those parts will be caught off guard and, therefore, not do as well as their fellow classmates who actually read every page. MWAH HA HA (my interpretation of an evil laugh). We were also assigned to read both Genesis, Exodus, and one of the Gospels in order to pick out symbolism in literature. I'm ashamed to admit I blew this part of my summer reading off completely--well maybe not completely, but for the most part. I feel confident in my knowledge of Exodus having staffed at a camp for elementary students where the Exodus was the week's main focus as well as having been a member of the 'Exodus' unit at Affirm (an ELCA week long camp). Genesis, I've read, but I have to admit it's been a while. As for the Gospels, although I've never read Matthew, Mark, Luke or John in their entirety, I'm fairly certain that I've read or came across all the stories at some point in my life. I'm not one to sit down and read the bible chapter by chapter. I like to skip around a lot--find stories that inspire me. Not to mention, five years of volunteering at Vacation Bible School can teach you a lot.

Summer reading that was fun for me:

1. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (11th grade Great Books) For this book I just had to write an essay about my personal response to the book. I actually enjoy writing essays so this assignment was a dream: a classic novel and a chance to express my opinion about it creatively.
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (11th grade English) This has been my favorite summer assignment yet. I don't remember doing a project on it. I think we just had a quiz day one at school. I love this book and if it weren't for stupid summer reading it probably would have taken me a lot longer to discover it.
3. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (11th grade English) The second half of our English III summer reading was to read a nonfiction book and keep an analytical journal. This book was slow, but mesmerizing because every word is so articulate. I had a lot of fun picking at the language.
4. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (12th grade English) I love it; too bad I'm only half way through.
5. Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella (10th grade English) Our teacher set up this online discussion board for this book where we could all post our responses to the book while in the process of reading. It reminded me a lot of the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribean, and Star Wars fandom because it was so similar to the discussion boards that exist for these books/movies. It was a really cool set up because you were interacting with your classmates and it wasn't the typical quiz/essay.
6. Esperanza Rising by (7th grade English) I really don't remember much about my assignment or the book. I think I made a children's alphabet book with words I didn't know in the novel. I enjoy doing artistically demanding projects so this one was fun for me. The book was good too.

Summer reading I hated:

1. Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong (10th grade English) Luckily my English teacher hated this book too so we didn't have to do a project or anything. The book was assigned to all Williamson County students. I'm still not sure why. What a waste. They could have us reading Shakespeare or Dickens or John Irving, instead the school board assigns us a pile of profanities, shameless boasts and some trivial information about the Tour de France. I found myself to think a lot less of Mr. Armstrong after reading Every Second Counts.
2. 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey (9th grade English) This one was assigned by the school board too. It was extremely dull advise: do your homework, don't do drugs, be nice to the dorky kids. We've only heard all that about 65136813132 times before.
3. Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli (6th grade English) I hated reading when I was younger. I know it's hard to believe. Reading any book at age 10 or 11 would have been torture for me when I could be playing outside. The book may have been very good--I wouldn't know. Back then all books were boring.
4. Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt (7th grade English) I never finished this book. It was bad enough to compel me to buy something more less likely to make me fall asleep. The replacement turned out to be Esperanza Rising, which I've mentioned above.

That was a nice little break, but I should probably get back to work now. I don't think it's a coincidence this is significantly longer than my average post. I can't avoid finishing forever. Feel free to express your inevitable frustration with summer reading in the comments. There's no way I'm alone in this.

Myspace Books

Move over Facebook.com! Myspace added a book section! It's the coolest thing ever. My favorite part is the 'featured books', reviews of new releases. You may also choose to rate or make comments about each featured book. I've read one of the reviews and I thought it was really helpful. At the bottom of each featured book's page there is a link to the author's Myspace profile, something I personally love. Myspace Books is very exciting and a complete surprise. I never expected Myspace to do something, not only for book lovers, but encouraging to those who may not do a lot of reading. It's great. Want to go check it out? Click here.

I also thought I'd mention that I'm reading Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner. So far it's pretty good. I'm not enjoying it as much as In Her Shoes, but I still can't manage to put it down. I'm mentioning this because I'm not sure if I'm going to do a review or not. I mean, I'm enjoying the book, but it's not turning out to be what I expected (not always a bad thing). If I'd read the back cover before I paid for it then maybe I would have been warned about the story I'm half way through now.

Aiko the Paper Doll

Whenever I go in the Cracker Barrel store, I'm amazed at how much junk people buy, but sometimes they have really cute junk, like this Japanese paper doll I found. Not only is it adorable, it's educational too (I have a bit of a thing for learning tools disguised as entertainment). It taught me about the 7-5-3 festival, which is a festival especially for 7, 5, and 3-year-old children, and how one would dress up for her wedding. My favorite part is how Aiko wears socks with her sandals. The wedding costume is also very pretty.

I Lied

click to enlarge

I know I said no more Harry Potter posts, but I thought this comic was sort of cute. I found it while browsing the BLOGS OF NOTE in a post by The Caffeinated Librarian and I decided to steal it for the pleasure of my readers. It's a really fun blog. I suggest you go check it out.

Also, JKR just gave an interview that leads me to believe she is in fact planning on writing an encyclopedia type book about the Harry Potter world. I can't wait.

Reflections on Deathly Hallows *SPOILER*

I've been done with the book for about 36 hours now and although I'm still sort of processing, it's about time I posted some reflections. I came to the conclusion a review would just be an insult to Harry Potter fans everywhere this soon after the release. Deathly Hallows was exactly what JKR wanted it to be. Right now we're all just marveling in the book's perfection.


*SPOILER ALERT*





I KNOW IT'S TEMPTING,





BUT IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED BOOK 7





OR IF YOU'RE ONLY HALF WAY THROUGH BOOK 5





(I'm talking to you mom)





YOU SHOULD STRAY AWAY FROM THIS POST IMMEDIATELY.





YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.




Okie Dokie. Where do I start? Some favorite points in the story (in no particular order) were...

• Sirius Black's magic mirror. I must admit I was slightly disgruntled in Half Blood Prince when there was no mention whatsoever of the walkie talkie mirrors. I was even more pleased that it turned out to be a fairly major plot point--Aberforth's reflection.

• Dudley's thanks. How poignant?

• Dobby's Death. I sobbed pretty hard, which surprised me. I couldn't imagine a better way of him going. He dominates the death eaters, gets back at the Malfoys, and tells Bellatrix off ("Dobby has no master!") without feeling the need to punish himself for bad behavior. I loved that Harry dug the grave by hand. The "Here lies Dobby, a free elf," about killed me. He's always been one of my favorite characters

• Leadership. We saw a glimpse of Harry's leadership ability in book five, but he completely took over in Deathly Hallows, which was a blast to read about. I knew he had it in him. I also enjoyed reading the subplots about Neville, Luna, and Ginny making an impact at Hogwarts. Especially Neville, but I'll get to that later.

• Lily. Learning about Lily was so much fun. The letter and the scenes in the pensieve were such treats. I have to admit, I've never been a Lily/Snape shipper so I was sort of shocked to find out the Snape loved Lily theory turned out to be accurate. I thought it fit the series perfectly and I was really excited that such a large percentage of the fandom guessed right. The Petunia/Lily relationship has also been long awaited and their story, though heartbreaking, filled up that gap of information more than I ever expected. I sort of thought that aspect of the books might remain a mystery forever and was relieved to find closure.

• Godric's Hallow. I've been waiting to see the village ever since it was first mentioned in book one. The statue of the Potters and the graffitied sign were beautiful.

• Dumbledore's imperfection. I thought I really liked Dumbledore before I read this book, but now I love him. I knew he had to of had some skeletons in his closet and learning about his past was extremely sad, but, in a weird way, thrilling.

• Godfather Harry. I thought it was really nice to see history repeat itself. The marauders are such a great subplot. It sucks that Lupin and Tonks are gone, but the Teddy/Harry relationship resembled the Harry/Sirius relationship too much not to smile at the thought and wish you could read more about it.

• The end of Bellatrix. Molly Weasley finishes off Bellatrix with quite a bang. That scene was hilarious and that line is probably going to be one of the most remembered from entire series. I've always gotten the impression Molly spends most of the time worrying about the boys and often forgets about Ginny. Seeing Mrs. Weasley stick up for her daughter was better than seeing her save any of her other children. I was rooting for Neville to be the one to kill Bellatrix, but the hilarity of that scene makes up for it.

• Ron. I've never been a big Ron fan. I mean, I guess I've always liked him okay, but it wasn't until this book I really appreciated his character. His return was so ideal. I mean, he gets to save Harry Potter. Not bad for a sidekick.

• Luna and Hagrid live. I thought they were going to die for sure, but luckily I was wrong.

• Fred. I saw that one coming since book three. One of the Weasley twins had to go. I'm glad Percy was there. Much better than George, which is what I thought was coming.

• Gringotts and the Dragon. Gringotts is one of my favorite places JKR created and we haven't been there since book one. The dragon guarding the vault was just icing on the cake. It amazes me how JKR mentioned dragons in Gringotts in the very beginning of her series because she somehow knew that it'd play a part in the far off future.

• Neville. Can we get a whoot for my favorite character (after Harry of coarse)? He shined in this book like no other character. I mean, he continued the DA, inspired other students no matter how much pain it caused him, figured out the room of requirement, risked his life to save Harry, killed Nagini--thus a part of Voldy himself, finally made his grandmother proud, and avenged his parent by fighting the Death Eaters. I love him. I love him. I love him. His success might be my favorite part of this book.

• Suits of Armor. Hogwarts fighting back is something I wanted to read so bad. I almost cried with joy when McGonagall got the armor to march down to the battlefield. It makes me get all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it. Having the battle at Hogwarts was also a plus. I couldn't imagine the finale of the series happening anywhere else (except maybe beyond the veil) especially with so much of the book occurring elsewhere.

• Harry wins with EXPELLIARMUS! In other words, love. It's one of the few harmless spells used for defense. I don't know what I would have done if Harry died (permanently), or worse, lost his powers. I'd've probably cried for weeks. The fact Expelliarmus is the saving spell was awesome because Harry's continually used it and more than once defended that spell as not being useless because he used it in book four and it saved his life. I thought it fit well with the theme of wands that ran throughout the book.

• King's Cross. To all the psycho extremist Christians who never read the books and claimed that Harry Potter was satanic, you could learn a lot from reading Deathly Hallows. KING'S CROSS for crying out loud! How can you actually believe these books are so evil with all the Christian values. Ugh. Ignorance kills me. The scene at King's Cross was incredible. I can't get over how beautiful it was--Dumbledore's wisdom combined with Harry's acceptance of death and Voldemort's undesirable fate was so perfect. I was really going to miss the Dumbledore explains it all chapter we get in every other book. I didn't think we'd be getting one due to a particular event in Half Blood Prince, but I was wrong. Thank goodness.

• Epilogue. The final chapter was not at all what I expected. When I realized I wouldn't be finding out about everything that happened from "I've had enough rouble for a lifetime" to Harry's death I was a little disappointed. JKR only gave us about a five minute peek into Harry's future. The truth is, that's really all we needed for closure and that's why the Epilogue was so ideal. At first I was slightly put off by all the opportunities for fanfiction, but that I realized that people were going to write fanfic whether or not she gave us all the details and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

All in all, Deathly Hallows was amazing and I can't imagine a better way of ending what's been my favorite story for the past eight years.

I'm thinking this is going to be my last Harry Potter post for a while. It's funny, seven of my twelve posts this month were related to Deathly Hallows. Somehow I'm not surprised. This is the only book that's come out since my life as a blogger began. I won't say I've overdone it, but it's probably time to move onto other literature: summer reading.

Feel free to post your own thoughts about Deathly Hallows in the comments. I'd love to hear what you all think.

J.K. Rowling on Jonathan Ross

Hilarious! (The videos I had put on here earlier in the week were deleted so they nolonger would play. Don't worry, these two work, you just have to ignore the spanish subtitles.)

part 1


part 2

Stephen Colbert "arguing" with Khaled Hosseini on BookTV

Colbert fans and Hosseini fans unite in laughter! This video is hilarious.

When I was looking up some Khaled Hosseini stuff on YouTube, I found out there's a movie being made of The Kite Runner. It should be released on November 2nd this year. The dialogue is in Dari, but there'll be English subtitles. It will be released in the USA (yes!). I think The Kite Runner would make a great film. I'm anxious to see how it'll turn out.

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July!

Labels

I'm going to take a moment and define my labels.

Book Reviews include a brief summery of a book along with my personal opinion on whether or not the book was worth my time reading. Occasionally I'll include excerpts from the book when I can't quite capture the tone of the novel in my own words. I also usually will link to other reviews or a place to purchase the book (almost always amazon.com).

Diary posts are all about my personal life: my vacations, college visits, or stories. More than likely, a diary entree will come complete with photographs.

The Excerpts and Quotes label is pretty self explanatory. This is a place I can share my favorite lines from books, songs, poetry, movies and other art involving words.

Film Reviews are still a little unclear to me. I've only done one, so it's hard to define. I'm guessing it's exactly like the book reviews, except movies instead of literature.

Lists are pretty broad posts. Normally I do something book related, but I'm not limited to do so. Lists can be as simple as what I bought today at the book store or as elaborate as multiple book reviews about novels in a similar genre.

Podcast Reviews will be a synopsis of what typically happens on show, who the show is geared towards, and some fast facts, such as how long an average episode is, video/audio, or if the podcast is discussion based or interview based. I also usually will share my opinions about how enjoyable the podcast as a whole is.

Utterances are a way of sharing with the world advances in my vocabulary. Whenever I learn a cool new word I post. I call these entrees 'Utterances' because dictionary.com defines an utterance as "something uttered; a word or words uttered." I learn these words I'm posting about through real world context. Utterances have been, in fact, uttered in my presence.

Wrinkled Thought posts are very similar to diary posts, except these posts usually do not elaborate on my personal life. YouTube videos, news, book related school assignments, or just funny things I've picked up on are all fair game when it comes to these posts. I also usually include blog related announcements in this label, such as the post you are reading right now.

I'm glad I did this. I'm sure as time goes on this list will expand, but, for now, at least we're all clear on what to expect when you see something is stamped with any of the above labels.

Japanese Game Show (In a library)

Stevie () showed me this video on YouTube and I thought it was hilarious enough to post. It's definitely not one of those things everybody finds funny. It's more of a personal taste. If you don't like it, don't worry--you won't hurt my feelings. I think the best thing about this video is just the concept: Japanese men putting on a game show in a library. The part I chuckle at most is the contestants' attempt to stifle their laughter.