I got around to watching "Ponyo," the latest film from Hayao Miyazaki, last night. It's the most awesomely adorable thing ever. And having seen several Miyazaki films, that's saying a lot.
Here's the adorable end credit song (in Japanese).
I'm going to Taiwan and Tokyo for a a couple of weeks, starting this Thursday. I don't know if I'll be able to update from the road. If not, I'll see you guys when I'm back.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Ponyo
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Crazy or Faking It?
So there were 6 of us at journal club today when some guy peeked his head in. It's prefrosh days at Brown and he showed up talking to a professor, so even though he looked to be in his mid-twenties, the assumption was that he was a prospective student. He apologized for interrupting and asked if he could introduce himself and ask a question. We asked him what the question was and he launched into a halting and rambling spiel. He apologized for having difficulties talking because he English wasn't his first language ... because he was an alien ... from the future. I should point out right now that he was a mostly ordinary looking white guy except that he had long blond hair maybe in some sort of braid, a Russian hat (suede looking, not fur), and an animal skull hanging around his neck. At some point, one of the students interrupted him and asked him what his actual question was. What I could pick out of his statement had to do with H.G. Wells and building a time machine and wanting to discuss it with some sort of theoretical astrophysicist, and who could he talk to? Another of the students suggested that he needed engineers not theorists if he wanted to build something, but he was adamant that he wanted to discuss theory. Eventually I told him that he had to decide: he could sit down and join the meeting (and presumably, listen to some student describe a paper) or he could leave. He chose to leave.
We actually finished the rest of the meeting before talking about the little visit. Most of the reactions were 'how crazy was he?' But I'm fairly convinced that the whole thing was an act -- maybe some sort of weird performance art. If I had thought he was truly crazy, I think I would have been nicer to him. But, instead, these 3 things struck me as he was speaking:
1.) His origin story seemed to be cribbed from Scientology. I don't remember exactly what he said other than that he was from googols and googols in the future, but it had a distinct Scientology bent to it.
2.) He said that he didn't speak English very well and spoke haltingly. But he also looked down a lot and seemed to be reading from at least notes and quite possibly a script.
3.) I feel like crackpots usually try to ingratiate themselves with people they think either can help them or need their help. He seemed more interested in making us uncomfortable than ingratiating himself with us.
Now there are all valid crazy person explanations for these three things: crazy people often crib from other sources and are not known for their social skills. Still, I wouldn't be surprised to find out there's some sort of 'musings from a time traveling alien' blog with today's post being 'interacting with Brown University astrophysicists.'
An aside, what about that professor he showed up with? Our visitor must have accosted him in the hall and when the professor saw that he was distracted by us, slipped away. He totally dumped the (possibly faking) crazy guy on us. Not cool, not cool. ;)
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
I Live in the US, But I Still Cannot Pronounce Anything Properly
Back in the day, I wrote this post about "English" words that people in Germany used but I didn't recognize. I also noted recently that I never pronounced the name of the city I lived in properly.
Well, I live in the US now, but one of the quirks of living in Boston, or maybe in Massachusetts generally or even in the East Coast generically, is that a lot of places have names that you think you know how to pronounce, but don't. I suppose it's carried over from the UK, so the city of Worcester, MA is pronounced "Wooster" (well more like wuhster). And Haverhill is pronounced HAY-vril, naturally. Even words that you're 100% sure you know how to say are pronounced differently. For example, Peabody, MA isn't pea-body as you might assume, but pea-buddy.
I live on Tremont Street. It took me a couple of weeks before I realized that it is not pronounced TREE-mont. Knowing that there was a different pronunciation, my first thought was that it must be TRAY-mont. But no, still wrong. It took me a couple of months, probably, to get it right, and now it's a little difficult to puzzle out how to write what I say. I'll go with treh-mont or maybe treh-munt, unless someone else has a better idea.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Boston Restaurant Week - Uni Sashimi Bar at Clio Restaurant
Sunday we went to Uni Sashimi Bar at Clio Restaurant. They're both projects of Ken Oringer -- who's responsible for Toro (our restaurant week winner so far). Clio is a French restaurant, and Uni is the sashimi bar in a little alcove of the restaurant. There were two tables and we sat at the bar (just 6 seats). It's the only place on our list that's not in the South End (it's in Back Bay) and is a fairly high end, upscale place.
First Course:
Poke with sweet onions, sesame, seaweek & pickled mung bean
Fluke sashimi with jalapeno vinagrette, blood orange, and Thai basil
Second Course:
Chirashi
The rice was cooked in plum wine and maybe some soy (it was red and sweet and maybe a little sour) and consisted of two kinds of rice, white and forbidden rice. On top was pickled daikon, pickled burdock root, fermented seaweed, pickled ginger, and one more thing I couldn't identify. Although I was worried about tiny, tiny portions at a place like this, the fish -- yellowtail, salmon, tuna -- was 9 pieces total.
Third Course:
Coconut tapioca with passionfruit, pineapple & guava sorbet
Japanese Yuzu Curd with coffee croquant & whole milk ice cream
Another winner. The fluke sashimi was awesome -- the jalapeno vinagrette was a nice touch. The chirashi was excellent (loved the rice). And while the yuzu curd was great, Sean managed to form some sort of emotional bond with the 5 spoonfuls of coconut tapioca and the 1 spoonful of guava sorbet. He was ready to order a trough full. As you might expect from a place like that, $33 of food wasn't exactly belly busting. You probably need to spend about twice that amount to get really full at a high end sushi place.
Other notes:
Outside of some fast-food sushi, this is the first time I've seen a restaurant with a non-Japanese sushi chef.
Sunday at 6:30pm is a much better time to go to dinner than a weekday at 8pm. No waiting. Excellent service.
They gave us a $20 gift card to use on a non-restaurant week return visit. Pretty cool. I suppose they're trying to drum up business. While the Uni side was fairly full, the Clio side (not participating in restaurant week) was entirely empty. And while both sides are expensive, they seem to offer some pretty cool weekday deals. I think we'll make it back (the Clio menu has some of the yummy-looking items that we saw on the chef's Iron Chef America episode).
[Updated 11:45 AM] And that's it for restaurant week. We had one more reservation for tonight. But a bad review and a bad report from someone we know, and we just canceled. I declare Toro our restaurant week winner.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Boston Restaurant Week - Sibling Rivalry
Sean and I have actually been to Sibling Rivalry before, and we went on Thursday with friends, so this report will probably be a little shorter, less thorough, than the others. The concept for Sibling Rivalry is that there are two chefs -- brothers -- and each prepares a dish based upon one ingredient. So there's two shellfish dish options, two lamb dish options, etc.
8pm is evidently a tough time for a reservation. We waited 25 minute for a table. And we didn't get out of there until 10:20pm, but it was a far superior experience than at the Butcher Shop: there was a lot more food, we spent a significantly longer amount of time actually eating, the seats were way more comfortable, and the bread came right away. And the basket of bread includes slices of corn bread (I love corn bread).
I had tuna and pork wontons, rack of lamb, and blueberry & apple crisp. The wontons were good, but really the best dumplings are always the ones you make yourself or the ones you get at a real dumpling place like Din Tai Fung. The dessert was fine. The lamb, however, was excellent. I was initially thinking that after all that meat at Toro and the Butcher Shop, I should get fish. That's loser thinking. After I was done with the lamb, I really wanted to pick it up and gnaw on the bones; they were so tender and yummy. And it came with some sort of mashed potato thing that was fluffy and delicious.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Boston Restaurant Week - The Butcher Shop
Wednesday night was the Butcher Shop. A wine bar / actual butcher shop, it's a tiny place with maybe 20 seats at tables and another 10 seats at the bar. A butcher block table is set up in the back where a few (maybe 10) people can stand and have a drink and a snack while waiting for a table. And against the back wall is a set of glass refrigerated cases where you can see the meat, sausages and sides available to take home. The place is supposedly a favorite of Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen.
Where Toro was down-to-earth and unpretentious, the Butcher Shop is the exact opposite. It's not just that it was d-bag central in there; a surprising number of people seemed to have no idea how to behave in public. (Seriously, random person. Are you really going to sit on the butcher block table that people are eating off of like you're in your kitchen at home? Seriously?) And the prices on the regular menu, while not astronomical -- and, yes, that's totally a scientific assessment ;) -- were fairly silly when you could see right in the refrigerated case how much less you'd pay if you took it home. And, then, 1.) you wouldn't be standing around for 20 minutes waiting for a table even though you have a reservation, and 2.) you wouldn't have to hang out with the kind of people who go to the Butcher Shop. For example, the duck hot dog was $16 on the menu (and it's just the hot dog with a bun and a few chips), but I could have bought the hot dog itself for $3. In terms of value, portions were not particular big either. A 20-something dollar entree of meat is just that -- sides are extra. Of course, really none of this (the people, the wait, the money, the portions) was unexpected to me. But what about the food?
This was their restaurant week menu:
Duck Consomme or
Endive Salad
Pork Shoulder or
Skirt Steak
Chocolate Mousse or
Lemon Curd
Since it was the two of use, we got everything on the special menu. The soup, the salad, and the desserts were all fine. The pork shoulder was quite good. The only really excellent thing was the skirt steak. Perfectly medium-rare. The jus was perfect, the crust was perfect (crusty but not at all burnt, so yummy), and finally the delicious center was perfect (juicy, tender, buttery). I didn't know skirt steak could taste like that.
So, not spectacular but quite good. Would I go back? I'm definitely never eating there again (although I'm still a little intrigued by the duck hot dogs). It was not worth the regular prices. Value is, of course, subjective. So what if I were X times richer than I am? Still no because there's still something I haven't commented on: the waiting and the service.
We had reservations at 8pm. When we arrived, the host says that they're not quite ready and puts us at the butcher's block to wait and for drinks. Later, he says that some guests are taking longer than expected and offers us seats at the bar -- which we take. We sit at around 8:20pm. Our appetizers arrive at 8:45pm. It took 45 minutes to get any food -- even bread. The bread, by the way, comes with some fancy honey that Sean quite liked. Our entrees arrive somewhere around 9:20pm. The dessert arrived at 9:45pm. We managed to get out of there at 10pm.
Now, one might think of a lot of reasons for such slow service: 1.) giant influx of people, 2.) not enough waitstaff, 3.) mean or lazy waitstaff. But none of these are what actually happened. As far as I can tell, the Butcher Shop is just completely inefficiently run -- disorganized and possibly incompetent. As I listed before, there's about 30 seats in the whole place (not 30 tables, 30 seats). To serve those 30 people, there was a bartender, 2 waiters, 1 host, and one other person whose exact job was unclear but also added up checks, took drink orders, etc. There was 1 service person for every 6 people in the restaurant. If you include the people who were waiting and got drinks or snacks, there's still 1 service person for every 8 people. You'd think that place that size should be able to get by with half the number of workers. And it wasn't that the people working were sitting around doing nothing -- they were constantly doing stuff and talking about how they can clear a table for new people. But somehow, in some way I cannot fathom, they were incapable of handling everything. Seats went open for 10 minutes or more because no one could get around to cleaning it up or seating new customers. People with reservations had to wait for a seat because 'guests were taking longer than expected' probably because those guests had to wait to be served. And, you might think that maybe the kitchen was the hold up, but most of the menu requires little more than pouring wine and slicing pate, so that's seems fairly improbable too. You would expect a lot of things at a place like the Butcher Shop: the people, the prices, the portions, and hopefully really good meat. But this ineffectualness in the service, the overall dining experience was shocking and completely baffling.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Boston Restaurant Week - Toro
Sunday was the beginning of Restaurant Week in Boston. Actually two weeks, participating restaurants offer prix fixe menus ($33.10 per person for dinners). We live in near a bunch of restaurants which we've never gone to for fear that they would be a big waste of money, so we made five reservations. Sunday night was Toro, a Spanish tapas place. (Toro has a famous chef owner, Ken Oringer. And, coincidentally, we saw his episode of Iron Chef America the day before.)
The restaurant is actually fairly small -- 55 seats -- and was not d-bag-y (as I feared). It's actually more lively and homey. And the service was great. More importantly, on to the food we ate:
Pinchos:
Corazon a la Plancha - grass-fed beef heart with romesco
Cabeza - pig-head terrine with carrots
Okay, let me just go ahead and spoil the ending for you: it was fantastic. Everything. Every little bit. And when we went home and looked at the regular menu prices, it was all fairly reasonable. We're going back (you would be extremely lucky to come with us). Anyway, the cabeza was basically a pate made from pig's head with little tiny shavings of extremely sweet carrots. The beef heart came sliced thin and piled on top of toast smeared with romesco sauce. It was like the best roast beef you ever had, the extremely smooth texture probably the only sign that it was heart.
Tapas:
Boquerones - white anchoives in vinegar and olive oil
I haven't really liked anchoives in the past; they're very oily and fishy. But even though nothing in this dish disguised those basic properties, they were somehow really great anyway. Also, that was some yummy olive oil.
Pulpos - octopus
So soft but not mushy.
Maiz Asado con Alioli y Queso Cotija. La Especialidad de la Casa - grilled corn with alioli, lime, espelette pepper and aged cheese
These just had chunks of butter coating it. You'd think that'd be gross and too rich. I was undeterred.
Asado de Huesos - roasted bone marrow with radish citrus salad and oxtail marmalade
Oh my. As Sean (his first time eating marrow) said: meat butter. Salty, flavorful and flavored, fat. It's awesome. I expect that someday soon, we'll pop in for a drink and this. The oxtail marmalade was really oxtail on toast -- I'm not sure where the 'marmalade' comes in.
Vientre de Cerdo - crispy pork belly, Burgundy snails, fava beans and smoked maple crumble
The very last thing I ate. It was great, but I wasn't that into the fava beans and maple crumble.
Dessert:
Churros con Chocolate - airy crisp fried pastry with chili infused chocolate
Best churros we'd ever had.
Okay, probably not a lot there for any vegetarians to work with. Sorry. To summarize, by far, the best tapas I've ever had. A few more random thoughts: Now I admit that I have a high tolerance for fatty/oily foods. I've eaten lardo. Usually after tapas, you feel greasy. Even though there was oil and fat and butter in everything, I didn't feel that way at all. And though I was worried there'd be tiny portions, we were both satisfactorily full after the meal.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Rain
naturally. There's a couple inches of water on tracks. How very
Miyazaki.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
That Was Random
Warning: this post has some bad language.
I got a text message very early this morning. It's from a phone number I don't recognize, and the reverse phone lookup just says that it's a cell in Hammond, IN (although, I guess the cell itself could be anywhere). Actually, this person texted me before -- twice on New Year's Day with 'happy new year.' Today's message:
"im drunk ! how r u - my nipples are hard as fuck!"
I assume they think I'm someone else.
A few other mysteries (aside from, who is this person?): Is this a booty-text? Did I just accidentally cock-block someone by having a similar phone number? What does that last bit of the text mean? Is that supposed to be a sexual come-on?
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
I Live in Boston, But I Don't Take the T
One of the nice things about Boston is the subway system, the "T." It means that Boston is one of the few places in the U.S. where one can get along without a car. In fact, Sean and I do not have a car. But since we moved to the South End, I've been on the T less than once a month. Partly this is because we live near the commuter rail station and I take commuter rail to get to work. The other thing is that we live in the most convenient location in Boston. I live in the neighborhood with the fancy restaurants. A 15 minute walk north puts me in the neighborhood with the fancy shopping. A few blocks up my street is Chinatown (with the giant Chinese grocery store). Keep on going and I'll pass downtown and hit the river (not a bad run on a nice day). I guess that helps make up for the 3 hour per day commute.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Boston Is Not a Hot Dog Kind of Town
When I lived in Germany, I never once ate or even thought about eating hot dogs -- even though I actually knew a place where I could get them. It just didn't seem right when I ate sausages (mm, bockwurst, so yummy, so hard to order correctly*) all the time. In the few months I've been back in the U.S., I've found that I've been thinking more and more about the meals I had at Sammy's when I was finishing up my thesis: hot dog, fries, milkshake (~$7). But, apparently, Boston is not a hot dog kind of town. Not a milkshake kind of town either. Admittedly I don't live in a greasy spoon kind of neighborhood, but there's a (at least) pizza joint on every corner (often burgers, but no milkshakes, no hot dogs). So I don't know where to get a hot dog -- let alone a Chicago dog. I don't even know where to find a good diner. Thinking about hot dogs and Sammy's makes me think about going to Salonica's and having breakfast. I miss that too.
* Bockwurst digression: Words like 'bockwurst' and 'Bonn' are not easy for an American to say correctly in German. Yes, that's right, I lived there for three years and never pronounced the name of the city I lived in correctly. When I tried to say 'Bonn' (more correctly, it should come out more like 'bun' than 'bon'), the person I was speaking to would say 'Bern? In Switzerland?' Ordering bockwurst was nearly impossible. For all but a handful of times, I was served a bratwurst. And I'd sigh. And then I'd eat the bratwurst because -- hello! -- it's bratwurst.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Train Hijinks
In college, I lived on campus. In grad school, I lived 6 blocks from my office. In Germany, I lived a 10 minute bike ride from work. Today, I live in Boston, MA and work in Providence, RI. I take an hour train ride each way and spend 3 hours per day commuting. The good news is that I do the reverse commute and the trains are never more than 1/2 full. The bad news is that they run fairly infrequently. And here something to ponder: The train starts at South Station. In Boston. It's the end of the line. I get on at Back Bay. It's the next stop, still in Boston, and not that hard to get to on the subway. Yet, the train arrives full at Back Bay, and most everyone on the train gets off. Can someone explain this to me?
Anyway, usually, the train is pretty reliable. Going home, I walk in the door at 7:08PM. But the past two weeks have been full of odd timings. Last Monday, there was an Amtrak train disabled on the tracks, and I got home one hour late. And the train has been noticebly late (more than 10 minutes) twice more since then. And suddenly, I've been synchronized with the neighbor across the hall. Leaving for work, I walk out the door at 8:18AM. In the past two weeks, I've opened the door to see my neighbor opening his door three times. The doors are exactly aligned, maybe 6 feet apart. It's pretty weird, especially since we're going to the same place (the train station), but aren't really inclined to talk to each other.
Speaking of being synchronized: Back during the many years that Sean and I were dating, we'd occasionally goes clothes shopping together. And Sean would say, 'Should I get this sweater in color X or color Y?' And I would say, 'I like color X.' And everything would be hunky-dory. But I should have been more forward-thinking. Now we live together and our schedules are such that a lot of the time Sean is heading out the door as I'm jumping in the shower. And every few weeks, I get home and I look at him and I look down at me, and he looks at me and looks down at himself, and, yes, we're matching. Not quite as embarrassing and getting to work and discovering that you're matching with your thesis advisor (yes, I've done that too) and now you need to go hide in your office all day. But pretty mortifying nonetheless.
Future blog posts: I'm thinking I should write a few about Boston. Are people interested in Boston?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Thursday, January 07, 2010
The Executive Suite
I am at the AAS meeting in DC right now but I'm leaving for Boston in a few hours. Sean and I just checked out of our hotel room. Since we had arrived Monday (and not Sunday), the hotel ran out of rooms, and they gave us an Executive Suite. It had the square footage of our apartment. 
There were two couches, an armchair, and a dining room table in the living room. And the bedroom was just slightly smaller than a regular hotel room.
It had a double door at the entrance.
And a little balcony from which you could see the Washington Monument. 
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Random Germany Thought #2
Back the in the day, when I lived in Germany, I had the same stunning realization every time I visited the U.S. after several consecutive months of hearing nothing but various forms of European accented English: Americans talk funny. They have a twang, a cadenced whine. Not just Southerners or Texans. People I at one point would have said spoke normal, unaccented English sound like this. I probably sound like this. I'm sorry to report, it's not a pretty sound. Of course, about two minutes after I moved back to the U.S., I totally forgot about it.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Random Germany Thought
I took this picture at an outlet mall in New Hampshire and then forgot about it. But this vest (is it a fishing vest? what is it?) illustrates one of those little quirky differences between living in Bonn and living in Boston. This is the de rigeur fashion accessory for German retirees. Every white-haired man in Bonn sports one. I can't explain it. My neighborhood in Boston doesn't even have any retirees. Just yuppies. 
DC in January?
Both Sean and my boss are out of town, so I'm commuting 90 minutes each way between an empty apartment and an empty office. Ridiculous. I'd work from home, but right now I don't trust myself to not sit on the couch all day.
Anyway, I'm thinking about going to DC during the AAS meeting, January 3-7. I'd stay Monday through Thursday. Anyone else going to be around then? I haven't committed to actually attending the meeting if I go (or going at all), so I might have a lot of time to hang out with people.
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Mountain Goats @ The Wilbur Theatre
Sean and I went to see the Mountain Goats last night at the Wilbur Theatre. 
The Wilbur Theatre is a 10 minute walk from our apartment. It seats about 1200 with a general admission main floor and seating in the mezzanine and balcony. It's a nice place for a show. We sat the first row mezzanine, which are excellent seats. Living so close to the place also meant that I walked to the box office to buy tickets (I cannot stand all those online "convenience" charges).
Opening the show was Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy is essentially a solo project of Owen Pallett (although occasionally including a drummer). From skimming his wikipedia page, you'll find out that he's done the strings arrangement for such groups as Beruit and the Arcade Fire. Also, his second album has the awesome title, He Poos Clouds. I'm not sure how to describe the songs: intense baroque/geek pop? In live performances, what he does is play a few lines on the violin, then loop and sample those lines, and play another melody to the accompaniment of his original lines, then loop and sample those lines -- mixing and matching his samples, his playing, and singing. There's a little bit of stage magic too, controlling all the loops with (I couldn't really see) at least 4 foot pedals so you couldn't really tell at what point you're listening to him playing live and when you're listening to the sample. Pretty neat.
At this point, any reading the blog must know of my deep and abiding love for the Mountain Goats (that last link's to Tim's blog post which got me started back in the day). There's not a lot more I can say about that. But this was the first time I've seen them live, and so far I've got a few complaints about seeing them live:
Short shows. They played maybe for little over an hour. Sean saw them last year and it was the same. There was the opening act, and I don't feel like I got ripped off or anything, but it seems short to me.
The balance was off and the bass (both the instrument and the audio from the guy playing it) was too high.
The final thing is maybe a little uncharitable. At times, they sounded really good. And the middle section with just John Darnielle and his guitar was great. But with the full band and especially when playing their most popular songs, they really kick it up and play it loud. But the band isn't what makes the Mountain Goats the Mountain Goats. And the arrangements make them sound like a generic rock band (maybe a cover band comprised of suburban dads). On the other hand, I can understand that playing their most popular songs must be really boring for them.
Random point #1. The Mountain Goats are hilariously dorky-looking (and I've seen They Might Be Giants). I'd say they look like the band formed as a collaboration between the IT and accounting departments of a small medical supply company. When Sean went to their show last time, he took some friends who weren't very familiar with the band. One, they didn't recognize them when they came out to set up their equipment. Two, when they came back out to play and Sean's friend realizes that this is the band, he says "Is that Dwight Schrute?"
Random point #2. Even though I'd heard recordings of John Darnielle speaking before, it's rather startlingly in person to hear how different his singing voice is from his speaking voice. He sings in a distinctive, nasal staccato. Speaking, he's pitched much deeper and drawls (drawls!).
Here's the setlist as stolen from the Mountain Goats website forums.
1 Samuel 15:23
Old College Try
Cotton
Psalms 40:2
Isaiah 45:23
Deuteronomy 2:10
Enoch 18:14
Genesis 30:3
From TG&Y (solo)
Blueberry Frost (solo)
Mole (solo)
Dance Music (solo)
(Owen comes out)
Going to Bristol
(everyone else comes back)
Hebrews 11:14
Quito
(Owen leaves)
Song for Dennis Brown (& hilarious Dennis Brown anecdote)
Genesis 3:23
This Year
Ezekiel 7 And The Permanent Efficacy Of Grace
Romans 10:9
No Children (w/ Owen on piano)
Mostly songs from the newest album. Enoch 18:14 is a bonus track. 3 songs from The Sunset Tree, 3 from We Shall All Be Healed, 2 from Tallahassee, 1 each from two other albums, 1 unreleased.
A studio version of the unreleased song "From TG&Y" is on the internet and linked above. Enjoy. I'd say that the live version was better.
Turns out John Darnielle appeared on The Colbert Report last month. I missed it but here it is.
Thanksgiving
turkey legs, Brussels sprouts, two kinds of mashes potatoes, pumpkin pie, and fresh-made whipped cream.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Best Books of the Decade
The AV Club has been running a series of "Best of the 00's" listicles. Given how slow my rate of book reading has been since I became an adult, I was rather pleased to see that I'd read 5 of the 20 books on the fiction list for "The best books of the ’00s." And since even better than a listicle is a ranked listicle, I thought I'd better order that subset of books:
1.) Never Let Me Go
I try to review the books I read at goodreads.com. Each book can be rated on a five star scale. None of the I've rated so far have reached 5 stars. Never Let Me Go is the fabled 5 star worthy book. It's incredibly difficult to talk about this book without giving away the plot; I'm not going to even try. It's very short. It's easy to read. But it's impossible to put away. I think that the works of art I appreciate the most are those that strive to be the simplest. It's why Spirited Away is my favorite Miyazaki film.
I read this book in one sitting from 8pm to 4 am or so. Then I crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about it.
2.) Middlesex & 3.) The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay
I really love The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay, but Middlesex may be a little better. Kavalier & Clay is a fantastic story set about the "Golden Age" of comic books -- before, during, and after World War II. It's the kind of book you wish you were talented enough to write, the kind of book the grown-up version of any book-obsessed kid would have to love. I was in the Canary Islands when I read it (the Canary Islands!), and I'd steal some time after lunch to go back to my hotel room to finish reading it. With its pulp influences, it's a great story.
Middlesex is a great story too: like Kavalier & Clay it's about family, adventure, and the making of Americans with a historical setting. But it's one that that seems so real and yet so unique that I could never have conceived of it as a kid. I had to read the book first.
4.) Gilead
I read this book while severely jet-lagged and I remember thinking it was very good, but I'm not sure I found it particularly original or unmissable.
5.) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Of the 2000s Harry Potter books, I'm not sure I'd pick this one as the best. Way better than The Order of the Phoenix, probably a little better than The Deathly Hallows. But I seem to have very fond memories of The Goblet of Fire. What do you guys think?
By the way, most of these I reviewed on goodreads and Eugene wrote a whole bunch on Never Let Me Go at his blog.
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