Larocque and Roll

March Madness (con’t)

Today at lunch, I was walking to the coffee shop trying to come up with a way to start off the second round of book reviews from March. I thought about telling you humorous library user tales (like the one about having a stapler thrown at me earlier this week [1]) but it wasn’t really enough to sustain a good introduction.

I get to the coffee shop, and the first thing I notice is all the people dressed in really sharp suits. Like, pinstripe-tailored-expensive looking suits. I’ve never seen that many people dressed that well in North Bay, let alone in one place, so I guessed there must be some kind of meeting going on. Turning to go to the counter, there’s a guy sitting at the table who looks awfully familiar, and he’s talking to four or five other people who are also sharply dressed. I glance away, thinking, “Naaaaaaaw.” I glance back. Yup, it’s Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario [3]. Sitting in my coffee shop. He was in town to make a funding announcement at the university, and he must have been meeting with some other supporters. Cool.

~ Lisa Lutz. The Spellman Files (7.5) and Curse of the Spellmans (7)
Two books about a family of private investigators – ostensibly they’re about solving a central mystery, but it’s really secondary to seeing how awesomely dysfunctional the family really is. (The mysteries never turn out to be very big or important or dangerous – they exist to demonstrate how the family operates – they reminded me of the Royal Tenenbaums.) I enjoyed how the story was broken down into reports and side-notes, but I can be anal and organized and found it helpful to keeping the various threads of the story straight. Warning: it’s not a linear story, so avoid if this might bug you.

~ Dave Bidini. The Five Hole Stories (6)
If I told you this was a book of hockey erotica, would you believe me? Would you read it? Eh. One point for each story, and an extra one for the thinly-veiled #99 fantasy.

~ Karen McCullah Lutz. The Bachelorette Party (8)
Basically I picked this one up because it was on the shelf beside the Lisa Lutz books, and I wasn’t expecting much at all. Much to my shock, I ended up loving it because it was funnier and smarter than I’d hoped. It’s not your typical chick lit, in that the heroine hooks up with the hot guy at the end – she *does* hook up with him, fully cognisant of the fact he’s unsuitable for her, and they part on good terms [4].

~ Max Brooks. World War Z (8)
Loved this book – the premise (zombies) and the execution (written as a series of survivor interviews in the aftermath) were well done. I gave it to my boss, and he loved it too. Except. When I finished reading it, I had trouble falling asleep for a few days, and still do if I’m tired – it sort of creeped me out. The one thing that stuck with me (and still keeps me awake) was the “moan chain” – if a zombie saw an uninfected person, they would moan, and all the zombies within hearing range would moan and then come to the first zombie, and then all the zombies that heard the second group would also moan and then go see what was up. And so on. Like I said, great book, but keeping it in the house was not a good idea – I would get the willies every time I looked at it (hence my giving it to my boss, who’s a big fan of horror.)

~ Gil Adamson. The Outlander (6)
Last night I was reading a review of this book, and it mentioned that the mother of the protagonist died of lupus. Try as I might, I can’t remember if it was ever mentioned how she died or what she died of, or even what her symptoms were, so I don’t know where they got that from. But that’s just a minor detail in the overall scheme of things. Reading it was like being back in high school, where you have to read stuff because it’s timeless and it’s good for you, gosh darn it, kind of like cod liver oil and confessing your sins to the priest before high holy days [5]. Given its locations, time, events, and cast of “characters,” it’s the quintessential Canadian novel, and reads like mental cheese-flavoured rice cakes – they’re kind of bland but with a hint of something and filling if you eat a whole bag of them, but ultimately don’t do much to satisfy your cravings for a good story.

~ Rachel Cohn. Cupcake (7)
Much better than the second book in the series, Shrimp. Cyd is slightly less obnoxious, definitely more mature, and certainly unchanged in the narcissist department. In the end, she FINALLY figured out she needs to go with what’s best for her, not what her libido wants.

That’s it for my March books. April is shaping up to be similar, although I’m stalled out on my (Sudbury) book club book. Gah.

[1] Well, tossed with prejudice across the counter at me.[2]
[2] Don’t let anyone tell you that working in a library is boring!
[3] Back in my politically annoying student days, I was a member of the Young Liberals, the youth wing of the party. As a member, I actually attended the leadership convention where he was elected head of the party. One of the best pictures I took that weekend was shortly after the announcement that he’d won, around 2am Sunday morning – he’s sitting on stage by himself looking slightly stunned and absurdly pleased.
[4] Which doesn’t normally happen in these types of books, so it was a refreshing change of pace.
[5] That had nothing to do with the book and everything to do with my emotionally scarred psyche.

March Madness

My parents are coming up for a visit tomorrow. I was on the phone with my mother tonight, telling her that I’d almost finished cleaning the house. The last thing I had left to do was the sweeping, which takes less than 15 minutes but that I always leave until the last minute. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” says my mom. “It doesn’t really matter.”

No, I think I’m actually going to worry about it. There are dust bunnies under my dresser that have gone feral and are threatening Bing. There is enough human and cat hair to create some kind of hybrid were-feline. So I think that sweeping is pretty important, and that I should do it.

(And have done. It took 10 minutes. Bah!)

March was truly a mad month. I don’t know who put what in my coffee, but I read something like 13 books last month. I’d plow through one and immediately pick up the next one. Some were good, some were sublime, some were hard slogs that felt more like work than pleasure. The books in that last category made all the others worth it.

~ David Gunderson. Snow Falling on Cedars (6)
The pacing of this book is positively glacial – the cedars grew faster than the characters in this one. It felt like a homework assignment to read it, and reminded me of the Oates book in that respect. However, it was a beautiful story, and the locations sounded wild and lovely, the back story was both mythical and sorrowful, and the resolution was satisfying. I think this is going to be my first library book club book.[1]

~ Ellen Cook. Unpredictable (5)
The heroine of this book works in a book shop which can also special-order books for you, as well as providing research services, both for reasonable fees. Wow, that sounds an awful lot like… a library, where they do those things FOR FREE. I couldn’t get past this fact, so I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I could have (except for the adorable Scottish geek, who became the love interest. Le sigh.)

~ Rachel Cohn and David Levitan. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (9)
Oh, how I love this book. It’s the second time I’ve read it in two years [2]. It’s about two teenagers who meet randomly in a bar when one (Nick) asks the other (Norah) to pretend to be his girlfriend, and it alternates back and forth between the two. I was hooked from the line on the first page: “I am punctuating and I am punctured and I am punching the air with my body as my fingers press hard into the chords.” I seem to remember having gone to a concert around the same time I read this, and it having impacted on how I read that line, how it wasn’t just about listening to the music but also about feeling the music and being moved by the music.

~ Cohn and Levitan. Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List (9)
There was a moment in this book – almost an aside – where they name-dropped the band or a club or something from the previous book, and it made me happy. I like continuity, and I like books that take place in the same fictional world as other books I’ve enjoyed. Like Nick and Norah, it’s written from different viewpoints, but because the characters and the story were more complicated, there were more viewpoints. It wasn’t as lyrical or seamless as N&N, but I really liked it, even though I sometimes wanted to smack Naomi (while somewhat sympathizing with her.) [3]

~ David Levitan. Boy Meets Boy (7)
It’s a very short book that feels like a Grateful Dead/Phish acid trip gone wholesome. Lots of weirdness, but weirdness you’d let your mother read (Hi Mom!). Its idealism is kind of cute – can you imagine going to a high school where the star quarterback is a drag queen? – but I’d still like to visit there.

~ Levitan. How They Met (8)
So… yeah. I went on a bit of a Levitan/Cohn binge this month (there was another Cohn towards the end of the month). This was a book of short stories about fly fishing in Argentina and cheese-making in Cape Verde, and there was absolutely nothing about chance encounters in airports, dance classes, hallways and coffee shops that lead to romance. Nothing at all.

Okay, this is running long, and it’s late and I want to be able to get up in the morning. I’ll continue this later.

[1] OH YES. I’m starting a monthly book club at the library in September. There’s going to be two sessions a month, both doing different books and then switching the following month. Because being the lead on several technology projects, on a conference planning committee, on an advisory panel, keeping various displays in the library up-to-date and participating in a virtual reference service in addition to the regular day-to-day stuff ISN’T ENOUGH TO KEEP ME FROM BEING BORED.

[2] According to my records.

[3] See, Naomi is in love with Ely, but despite the fact she knows he’s gay, keeps hoping that he’ll fall in love with her. In high school, about 2/3rds of the guys I developed crushes out turned out to have the same taste in men as I did, so I kind of know from where she’s coming. Although I never for one second ever believed that I could convert the objects of my misguided affections – my response was usually, “Oh… huh. I hadn’t noticed… anyways…” Yeah, I was kind of clueless.

Tuneage, Part the Second

This playlist actually had a theme (as opposed to the first one). This one was all about going back to school, and education in general. It was a bitch to narrow it down to just 20 songs, and then group them in some sort of order. Roughly speaking, it goes:

• Introductions
• the Alphabet
• Numbers (and then Economics)
• Biology
• History/Politics
• Language Studies
• Geography
• Home Economics
• Autoshop
• Class Dismissed!

~ Weezer – My Name Is Jonas: Can’t hear this one without remembering epic Guitar Hero weekend. [To me, for some reason, it sounds like a sea chanty.]

~ Blackalicious – Alphabet Aerobics: Frickin’ awesome. By the end, I want to collapse.

~ Look People – Five: Weirdest. Band. Ever. Not their weirdest song, though (that would be “Guido”) [Actually, "Guido" isn't their weirdest song, but that was all I had room to write. Their weirdest song is somewhere between "I'm a Lousy Lover, I'm a Lousy Lay" and "Sunday Driver on a Saturday Night." Sadly, I have neither of those songs in my collection.]

~ FemBots – Count Down Our Days: Was surprised to find they weren’t a techno group.

~ Carol Channing – Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend: No one does it like Carol! [I love this version - tres campy!]

~ The Dandy Warhols – All the Money or the Simple Life Honey: Love them in small doses – like this. [I think I only like three or four of their songs, but I like them a lot.]

~ King Cobb Steelie – Luckily I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency: Big Bird called. [It's in my top ten most played songs, so you know it's good.]

~ Modest Mouse – Worms Vs. Birds: A struggle even more epic than cats vs. dogs.

~ Hot Hot Heat – Eyes Ears Mouth (Demo): 50,000 sounds played in tight formation at the right time. [The percussion on this song sounds complicated, but neat.]

~ Buck 65 – Kennedy Killed the Hat: More Buck 65? Why, yes – I think I will! [For whatever reason, I keep thinking there's a Dr. Seuss reference in here, but there isn't.]

~ Starkicker – Neil Armstrong: Hometown boys from early ’90′s. This was their 2nd biggest song. [I'm somehow distantly related to the drummer. Another useless fact: they were originally called blue.bottle.fly.]

~ Death from Above 1979 – Black History Month: The only song where crossing guards get to represent. [It's amazing how much sound two guys can make. Also, really doesn't have anything to do with Black History Month, in case you were wondering.]

~ Dimitri from Paris – sacre francais: Saw the video in a fever dream, and didn’t believe it at first. [It was kind of trippy and weird, so I thought I imagined it. Then I saw it again, and said, "oh."]

~ Elliott Brood – Oh, Alberta: Alternate title: “All The Provinces, w/special guest, South Dakota”

~ Ocean Colour Scene – Hundred Mile City: This song makes me feel old and British. [Was this ever used in a Guy Ritchie movie? Because that's what it makes me think of.]

~ Ron Sexsmith – Gold In Them Hills: ‘Nother hometown boy. Not the Mr. Paltrow version. [For the love of little green apples (heh), couldn't remember Chris Martin's name. There is a version of them dueting on this song.]

~ Zuul’s Evil Disco – Pancakes: ‘Nother obscure band. I blame Steve for this one, and so should you. [For visuals of the band, go here.]

~ Buck 65 – Country Cooking: Don’t listen if you’re hungry. Nothing is left out, even gnocchi.

~ Ministry – Jesus Built My Hot Rod: Ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long. Hee! [Admit it, it's just fun to say!]

~ Van Halen – Hot for Teacher: What playlist about education would be complete without this song? [Sadly, I never had a hot teacher. Not even a hot student teacher.]