Read Austen, Damnit

It's the two hundredth birthday of Pride and Prejudice, a novel that has a special place in my heart. Though anyone acquainted with the Jane Austen industrial complex - notebooks, cookbooks, keychains, miniseries, finger puppets, etc. - would probably say that's hardly unusual. Particularly among the straight, female, bookish breed I belong too. However, some things that may set me apart: I'm not holding out for a Mr. Darcy, though I finally stumbled across a few guys who appreciated my wit and reading. They just weren't independently wealthy or good horsemen. I don't wish to be transported back to Regency England, as I appreciate the right to vote and decent dentistry. And finally, it's not even my favourite Austen, because Persuasion exists.

 Still, I do think it's an incredible novel, both gracefully written and socially astute. I'm tired of critics looking to the work as a key to the secret dreams and desires of women. Considering the historical context, the stakes for Elizabeth in this novel are more than a happy marriage, but a bearable life and financial survival as well. If you're one of the few, unfortunate (and mostly male) readers who've ignored the book because you think it belongs to silly women who own more tea than ideas, please put your prejudices aside and read the book. You won't regret it.

Book Pile for January 27, 2013

1. To Infinity, and Beyond Confusion: Space from Zeno to Einstein: Classic Readings with a Contemporary Commentary, ed. Nick Huggett
2. Recently Read: Cakes and Ale, W. Somerset Maugham
3. Even More Recently Read: We Think the World of You, J.R. Ackerley
4. Soon to be Read: The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
5. Reluctantly Read: Introduction To Probability and Statistics, William Medenhall et al.

When Good Workers Go Bad

Posting on this blog might become a weekly phenomenon, unless there's an undiscovered reserve of energy hidden in my foot I can find and tap. I work, I come home, I yell at the cats, I sleep (until feline voices wake me) - hit repeat, and that's my week. Not only does it leave little energy for writing, it provides even less material, as I'm sure few of you are interested in the tales of horrid customers and petty resentments I gather at work. And sharing them would probably get me fired.

Though it would be pretty cathartic.

Actually, the past week at work has me pretty worried. Worried that I've been replaced by Dark Protagitron, that is. Where I used to be friendly, helpful, and labouring under a massive guilt complex, I'm now a little surly. The jangly indie pop I used to listen to in my office has been replaced with rap and hip hop. I now give the phone both middle fingers instead of just one. And so on. I suppose it's a defence mechanism you evolve in customer service, but I just don't want it to get out of hand, until I start spitting venom all over freshmen.

Begin... Radical Frugality

There were no New Year's Resolutions this year, mostly because resolutions 1 through 5 would have been "sleep." Between moving and the usual stress of dealing with a new crop of classes and textbooks chez job, I was just too damn tired to come up with any. Now that January's almost over though - and I still haven't bought a half-price calendar, so it really snuck up on me - the time has come. Here we go:

1. Get my G2, a decade after I turned 16, so I don't have to depend on the kindness of strangers (or brothers) to drive me around
2. Read A Dance to the Music of Time. After finally finishing Proust, why not tackle another key cycle in 20th century literature? I guess I could also read A Song of Ice and Fire, but 20th century British social commentary is just as exciting as dragons and titties to me.
3.  Knit a simple red wool sweater. Something I've always wanted to own, but never made.
4.  Master omelet making
5. And finally... practice radical frugality. I'm bad with money. I'm not "using one credit card to pay off another" bad with money, but I never save, I tend to spend, and then there are weeks of lentil-only living to be suffered through. So, starting next month and until I get into grad school, I'm going to try to cut down on my shopping, eating out, and boozing (or just the first two.) Maybe even find a second job. Basically, I'll live like my immigrant great-grandparents. I will try and aim to get fewer goiters though.

Wham Bam, No Thank You, Man: Gangster Squad Review

Gangster Squad is so bad, it's like the Expendables of respectable actors. Ryan Gosling, James Brolin, Robert Patrick and Sean Penn... welcome to the seating chart at the Golden Globes, except here they're breaking skulls instead of applauding politely. 

My friends and I left the theatre and realized we couldn't name most of the characters we had just spent 90 minutes with. Even though it felt like 180. Hours. So in the following review, I'll refer to them the best way I know how.

It's 1940s Los Angeles, and Sergeant James Brolin O'Something has returned from the war, only to realize the real battle is in his backyard. Yes, the despotic threat of Main Bad Guy Sean Penn's overacting goes unchecked. Main Bad Guy (Cohen??) runs every racket in town, and owns nearly every cop. However, he still hasn't bought Chief Nick Nolte. After James Brolin's antics busting up a prostitution ring earn him press, condemnation, and probably a visit from the ACLU, Nick Nolte asks him to put together a team of men to take I'm-Pretty-Sure-It-Was-Cohen down. There's Jerry (Ryan Gosling), Cowboy Man (Robert Patrick), Tech Weasel, Hispanic Guy and Black Guy. They're off the books. Nobody knows their name, nobody knows their badge numbers. Many, many nameless faceless thugs will know the shape of their fists though. It isn't all unchecked violence, and quickly elided awkward moral questions from Tech Weasel, however. A romance develops between Jerry and Grace (Emma Stone), complicated by the fact that she's Cohen's doll. Will they find love? Will Cohen fall? If I don't care to know the names of the characters, I don't care to tell you. It was more interesting to try and bet on which of the principals would be whacked for the greater narrative good. I had my money on Black Guy.

Gangster Squad looks good, but the script has been pumped full of lead, and the cast is seems too drunk on period costuming to care.

Bonjour Tristesse and Gin and Tonics

There's a rhythm to the radio silence on this blog. I work a job that alternates periods of intense stress and business with stretches of relative calm. Last week came from the first category - classes were back in session, and the children-who-are-our-future were banging on my door, demanding textbooks. But, for once, my job wasn't the thing weighing heaviest on my mind.

I haven't yet put Project OKCupid out of its misery, though recent events have me reaching for the shotgun. If they were hilariously awkward dates, I would write about them here in excruciating detail. Perhaps there would even be diagrams. But, instead, it's the fairly banal fact that some people* don't like me as much as I would like them to. I try to reason with myself. "Noted philosopher Bonnie Raitt wisely noted that 'I can't make you love me'," I'll say, before returning to gaze morosely out of the streetcar window. "It's not me, it's him. Or the situation. But definitely not me. I'm perfectly acceptable." But these sunny-ish thoughts fail to stop the deluge. It sucks that he doesn't want to see me again, it sucks that I can't change that, and it particularly sucks that I feel this way after just a few nights spent with the boy, because that is irrational. And I want to be a creature of reason instead of bad habits.

Oh, if I could have a feeling-ectomy I would, and have all this silliness neatly cut out of me. Unfortunately, with the current state of medicine, that's a no. And as much as I'm (again, irrationally) hurt with the fella, I'm really mad at myself. Every time this happens, I worry about my judgment. Then there's the wasted hours of reflection, which I probably could have used to write, knit or at least clean my room. The time I just spent reading the dating advice book of a friend's friend isn't helping. I feel like I'm stewing in relationship slurry. So, tomorrow: we cancel the OKCupid account, we sign up for a class, and we start drinking instead of thinking.

*Well, a particular person, but it ain't like it was the first time.