Saturday, April 27, 2013

My Foot is Too Big for the Glass Slipper



I just read my foot is too big for the glass slipper by Gabrielle Reece. It is just a book on her thoughts and advice even though she isn't really an expert or anything. She is a great volleyball player who married a surfer and she wrote a little about how she thought a woman should be submissive with her husband at times. It got a lot of media attention because everyone thought that was awful to say and so that's why I picked it up. I believe a woman has to be feminine and a man has to be masculine or there can't be any respect in the relationship.
I can't really say much about it because it's not that type of book, you know? But she did have a whole chapter on exercising because she says it's "the key to everything" and I dont know about everything but I think it can solve a lot of problems.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Brave New World

                     

 

I just finished Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In general it was strange and some of the scenes I had to skim through because they were so terrible (in a violent way, not in a literay way). It is a dystopian society that relies too heavily on technology and material happiness.
The literary world seems to be dominated by liberals and socialists but this book was quite the opposite and I really appreciated it's logic.
The logic is is that we cannot let the viviparous life be abandoned. A married mother and father is what a child needs. The promiscous life is immoral and terrible for society.
The logic is that we cannot have the government telling us what to do, where to work. We cannot let the government determine how much we earn or if we are allowed happiness. Even so far in the future, with all the advanced technology and science, a socialistic government is terrible. With capitalism, you can go wherever you want. If you are born poor, you may rise from that pit and become rich, if only you work for it. There is individual responsibilty, because the individual is important. Society is seondary.  And we cannot let the government be our god. There needs to be a seperation, because man is fallible and God is not. Christianity is vital to society's happiness.
 
The only thing I didn't like was the savage's flogging of himself. His overall motiff is Christianty, but in that event he was representing sacrifice(success tastes sweetest to those who ne'r suceed) and not love, which is what Christianity is truely about.
 
Sometimes I wonder about the idea of having to choose between happiness and high art.
The rational and irrational.
The easy and the passionate.
 
 Sometimes we forget that Christianity is raw, unmatched, beautiful art.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

The Hobbit

 
I read Tolkien's The Hobbit, because I watched the first movie, which is the first third of the book. I think the movie was better than the first third and I think the next 2 movies will be better than the last part of the book. I don't like it that much because Tolkien seems to appreciate quantity over quality. He just lists the dangers and obstacles that the characters have to overcome but doesn't really describe them or tell how any character is feeling, and therefore little character development occurs. I know this is bad to say, because Harry Potter isn't respected in the literary world, but I just feel so strongly that Harry Potter is so much better than The Hobbit. One of the reason's there has to be 3 parts for a 330 page book is because so much happens, but there is no detail so it doesn't take long. The movie, though will create the details so it will be a lot of hours. It is very anti-climactic, too. Because the "plot" was that they had to get their home away from the dragon, but someone else ended up killing the dragon before them. And then there was a whole war in like 4 pages!!!
I'm glad I read it because it is such a popular book, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Lincoln the Unknown

It's been a while since I blogged anything. I read 50 shades of grey but I didn't want to make a whole post out of that because of course it was stupid and not worth reading

But I just finished a book by Dale Carnegie called Lincoln the Unknown and it was marvelous!
It was purely biographical but it was short and I'm sure I missed out on a lot of interesting things but what I did learn was shocking. For time purposes, I will just write about the women in his life. Lincoln fell in love with a woman, and she with him, and they courted for a while, but eventually she got sick and died.  That caused him to go into a severe depression that never truely left him. His love for her is so famous that Americans still go to her grave and weep for her.
Then he met Marry Todd and she wanted him to marry her because she thought he might have become president. But she was the most awful woman on the face of the earth. I hate her with so much of who I am after reading the book. I cannot explain with words how terribly awful she was, and how sad he was. He tried to leave her but she cried and so he proposed and then he went insane as the wedding date approached because he knew what a terrible life he was entering into. He didn't show up to the wedding and was found mumbling incoherently in his office. But, trapped by his consience telling him to stick to his promise, he decided to go through with it. 
She terrorized his life and ruined it, along with any other human being she met. He was sad all through his life, and I suppose I don't truely understand the depths of that inconsolable sadness. That makes me hurt, to know a man of such character had to endure that awful witch and his depression, but he did it with a Christ-like strength.
I believe his burden has been lifted and he has found relief and happiness. I hope to meet him one day.  


Sunday, September 16, 2012

WEAR



Penny Lane from Almost famous and Lisa Rowe from Girl, Interrupted are two of my favorite movie characters of all time, and I just realized that they have really similar coats. If I ever want to be cool someday, I will buy this coat.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Girl Interrupted

 
I read Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. I didn't even know it was a book until I saw it at Goodwill, much less know it's a true story. I loved the move a ton so I decied to read it. The book is good but surprisingly it's not as good as the movie. They really played up Lisa (Jolie) in the movie and made her one of the main parts. I love the story though becasue I'm really fascinated by the thin and obscure line between the sane and insane. I don't really wanna explain it because thats what the movie and book are for and I know I'll just ruin it by summarizing. Sometimes I wonder how far I am from crazy and I wonder what takes us there and I wonder how we can heel from that.
Some of my favorite lines:
"Endogenous or exogenous, nature or nurture- it's the great mystery of mental illness."
"When you're sad you need to hear sorrow structured into sound."
"What is it about meter ad cadence and rhythm that makes their makers mad?"
"You can flit back and forth between thes perceptions and ecperience a sort of mental vertigo. And if you do this, you are treading onthe ground of craziness- a place where false impressions have all the hallmarks of reality."