duckandafly: June 2007

Friday, June 22, 2007

Ok, This is the Best Video Ever

Ok, take karate (correction--Kung Fu), cowboys, plasma guns, sexy heroines, mustaches, a unicorn, eagles and and . . . well, a kickass song.

Don't want to spoil it more--but man, oh man--brilliant!

Knights of Cydonia, by Muse

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Homegrown Terrorists Target Kids Who Read

Yea Jean and her fight against stupid people a story she found on the School Library Journal was just posted on a great Blog BoingBoing.net

See Boing Boing post here

See original Journal Post here

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Rise of the Silver Surfer

I thought this movie was much better than the critics the ending was a bit week but over all I enjoyed it. If you are looking for a remake of the 1967 comic you will be disappointed but Stan Lee's cameo was great.

Over all it was a great way to spend the day with my kids.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Dark Tower

Ok--I don't want to know how much it costs, really, I don't, but price be damned Sean got me the awesomest gift, a mint condition Dark Tower game. Way back in the 1980s, I played this board/electronic game as a teenager and was obsessed with it since then, my Rosebud if you will.

Basically, a way-scaled back version of D&D (playable in a little over an hour) but holding many of the charms without the creepy roleplay aspects. Loveably low-tech by today's standards, but not embarrassing to share with my tech-snob 11 & 14 year old kids.

2 years between posts, Have to work on improving that

I hope this will be a fun place for Jean and my self (Sean) to post rants and any thing we may find interesting, frustrating or completely mundane as the intro points out "guess what I just saw a duck Yes, a duck and a fly"

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Recommended reads

Beware of God by Shalom Auslander--This collection of stories provoke,, attack, confound, entertain and humble you as you read his profane text. Brilliant.
Chaos by James Gleick--An intro to fractals and the beauty of randomness and unseen patterns. As a liberal arts type, a beautiful handholding entree to science writing that opened the door to reading volumes of contemporary science writing.
Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson
Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson-- A novel of Northern Ireland like no other. This is an amazing achievement. Intelligent, sanguine, hilarious and almost physically arresting. What writing is meant to be.
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald. My dream is to be able to write like she does. A family drama that explores a child's perception of truth and the pain that is packaged in some familial love.
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling---The first chapter of the first book is a singular achievement. The books grow in complexity and deftness as Harry and his mates work their way through their Hogwarts years.
His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. The fantasy alone is worth the hours reading the full trilogy, but his ideas regarding the nature of conciousness, quantum worlds, the relatedness of humans and their universe with that beyond make this trilogy more than the excellent fantasy series it is.
Idoru by William Gibson
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. A wonderful world super-imposed on Napoleonic era England. Classic storytelling, in grand epic style. You find yourself at the end believing in the permeation of magick and looking around your own world for evidence. Expertly drawn characters and deft wordplay. An achievement.
Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo. I think this is his best book, but perhaps because it hits so close to my own life experience. One of those novels that you know the author had to get out of his system before he could be free to write something else. Painful and filled with disappointment, it is also an excellent comic novel.
Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice. I recommended this novella to a good friend/bookstore customer of mine and he came back the next week to chew me out. I thought its tragedy was beautiful--he thought it was exploitive. I am right.
Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson
So the Wind Won't Blow it All Away by Richard Braugtigan. A novella with a chorus., 'dust, American, dust.' Shelve your Kerouac and Kesey, this is a truer depiction of the turning of American history in the 60s.
Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor. Once again, grand and tragic--just how I like them. Very victorian meets modernist (Dickens plus Carver??). Set on a ship, on the sea--between two worlds.
The Belgariad by David Eddings
The Bunny Suicides by Andy Riley. Absolutely frickin brilliant. With the salvo that I gave to my daughter, "Don't worry honey, these bunnies have already made up their minds to kill themselves, there is nothing we could do. But see, how they do it is very funny!"