Absolutely wonderful. Jeffers is my new favorite children’s illustrator of the moment. Way Back Home has the sweet simplicity of his other books with gorgeous illustrations and a nice little story. He refrains from writing in a child-like way, where many other children’s authors write in a form that is a step above baby-talk (which is completely annoying). And my absolute favorite thing about this book is the continuity (read Lost and Found before this book.)
And I hear he lives in Brooklyn to boot…now I just need to track him down to do a reading in my store. ::insert giddy squeals::

Interesting and offers a lot of information, although it doesn’t go as in depth as I wanted it to. With the amount of people they had at their disposal they could have had the definitive review of the US-Iraq debate. The film presents a lot of facts, but at times just rests on those instead of delving into cause and effect and trying to find the story behind everything. I think it would have benefited greatly if they made it into a series, but at about 90 minutes it’s still a decent survey. For further information you can read “Hubris”, “Assassin’s Gate” and “Imperial Life in the Emerald City.”

So I really wanted to NOT like this album – just for the whole Danger Mouse collaboration and fears that a Black Keys song could be the next Gnarls Barkley “Crazy” plague. But my fears were assuaged a few songs in. Some reviewers have said that they had hit a wall with their past few albums – but in my eyes they have steadily brought that bluesy-garage-rock sound that I have come to crave from them. This album strays a little away from that by touches of futuristic sounds, and a lot more doses of those lovers-lament songs. At times the whole low-fi, distorted sound that has been their signature on past recordings feels a little forced on this album. I almost want to record it onto a tape and pound it out of the 6-inch speakers of my 1997 JVC boombox just to get a true “quality-crap” sound.

All in all – a good album from The Black Keys, but I do hope for their next album they go back to recording in Dan’s basement.

I just started this and I don’t know if my opinion is swayed by my blind admiration for all things Mayakovsky – but I am completely enthralled with the few new translations I’ve read so far. I’ve scoured used book stores all over looking for texts by/about him – so hearing this was in the works got me all giddy. Of course, any translations lose something – but I think poetry more so, and especially with writers like Mayakovsky who use words in a unique way. He is the sole reason I am inclined to learn Russian – so I can enjoy him unfiltered.

For those lazy Sunday mornings where you want a nice war movie, without all the pesky historical accuracy. I mean c’mon – Sutherland was a borderline hippie for nut’s sake!

- Although I cried at the end of “the Dirty Dozen.”
- Who didn’t?
- Jim Brown was throwing these hand grenades down these airshafts. And Richard Jaeckel and Lee Marvin were sitting on top of this armored personnel carrier, dressed up like Nazis…
- Stop, stop!
- And Trini Lopez…
- Yes, Trini Lopez!
- He busted his neck while they were parachuting down behind the Nazi lines…
- Stop.
- And Richard Jaeckel – at the beginning he had on this shiny helmet…
- Please no more. Oh God! I loved that movie.

Bonus points if you can name what movie that was from.

::putting on my best announcer voice::

In this corner, hailing from a Swiss patent office, the undisputed father of Relativity – Einstein.

And in this corner, a young physicist hailing from Germany, the challenger of relativity – Heisenberg.

Watch (or read rather) as these two duke it out (well less “duke” and more debate, hypothesize, analyze and test) amongst their peers (meaning really smart scientist dudes) about cause and effect, momentum and position all in effort to understand our Universe better, and what do they come up with…Uncertainty.

I’ve read enough history to know that there are two-sides to every story…so I am open to reading (and looking forward to) the “counter-argument” to this book. And I’m not talking about a passing two-line synopsis in certain person’s autobiographies – I want nitty-gritty facts.

The thing that was interesting to me about this book was all the politics that surrounded journalism. I mean I knew it was there, but it’s borderline outraging the barriers put up between people and the facts we should be privy to. Even more so when the barriers are put up by people who’s JOB it is to bring us the facts.

Where the writers went a little astray is when they started adding a little too much emotion when presenting what they knew as fact.

A sober and somewhat removed telling of life within and surrounding the Green Zone in Iraq during the first years of US occupation. I commend Chandrasekaran for trying to remain “journalistic” in the sense of just reporting facts and remain unbiased – but having witnessed what he did – how could you not form opinions. There are personal touches in the writing which adds to the telling (like his discovery of a pizza place just outside the Green Zone).

M. Ward + the bright-eyed Zooey = fun times.
Nice, mellow, but upbeat collection of songs to have around for sunny Sunday mornings. Listening to it makes me want to skip…with a basket-full of flowers.