Actorserf: 2007 booklist

Showing posts with label 2007 booklist. Show all posts

Friday, July 06, 2007

Star Light, Star Bright...

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
28. Different Seasons, Stephen King
29. Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
30. The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson
31. Moneyball, Michael Lewis
32. American Pastoral, Philip Roth
33. Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
34. The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem
35. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
36. Orlando, Virgina Woolf
37. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
38. Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto
39. Lizard, Banana Yoshimoto
40. Hardboiled Hard Luck, Banana Yoshimoto
41. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
42. The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
43. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963, Robert Dallek
44. Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
45. Bluebeard, Kurt Vonnegut
46. Stardust, Neil Gaiman

Stardust has been made into a movie which'll be released soon. It's an excellent book; Gaiman is one of (if not the, though of course any such proclamation comes down to personal taste) best living fantasy writers. American Gods and Anansi Boys are ok, but I don't think they're as strong as the more "childlike" stories: the Sandman comics with which he made his name and the novels of his which I've read this year.

Auditions here have been starting to pick up. Since returning from Europe I worked a couple on my own, but in the last week I've gotten 3 from my agent; two commercials and one movie. Nothing spectacular, but it's something - now all I need to do is get cast in one of them. Silence so far leads me to believe that I probably didn't get any of them, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Next week I'll be starting a class at the Professional Actors Lab. It's been some time since I've been in a classroom setting and had someone picking my acting apart. Kinda nervous, but confident; based off of what I saw when I audited a class there, I think technique-wise I'm a bit ahead of most people who go. This is a good thing, but also a bad thing, as it might mean I'll have more habits to fight against.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Forgot One

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Bickety Bam

So, yeah...been a while. First things first, an updated booklist:

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
28. Different Seasons, Stephen King
29. Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
30. The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson
31. Moneyball, Michael Lewis
32. American Pastoral, Philip Roth
33. Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
34. The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem
35. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
36. Orlando, Virgina Woolf
37. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
38. Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto
39. Lizard, Banana Yoshimoto
40. Hardboiled Hard Luck, Banana Yoshimoto
41. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
42. The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
43. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 1917-1963, Robert Dallek

The JFK book I'll be done soon. Next up is Harry Potter (once it comes out), then I have some Vonnegut I wanna read and then possibly some Shakespeare?

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Show Me the Money

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Deep Thoughts

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen
28. Different Seasons, Stephen King
29. Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
30. The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson

As I was reading through Siddhartha I actually found myself wanting something a little more serious. I suppose Emerson fits that bill; I'm sure in a week or so I'll be wanting something silly and fluffy instead.

Emerson is apparently referred to as a "transcendentalist" (whatever the hell that means); a champion of the sort of individualism which has come to be associated with the American spirit, which was then taken to its extreme by Ayn Rand and others.

One of the interesting things about Buddhism is that on the surface, it seems like a communal religion: love for all your fellow beings, for the plants and the rocks and the waves and all that hippy jazz. But when you find out more about it, you find that it reaches that level of community through a similar sort of individualism to that espoused by Emerson; that is, every thing, every creature, has their own potential, has something of the Buddha within them, and that's why you love them, because they are all Buddhas, all of them seeking their path. Obviously, Emerson doesn't quite put it that way, but the intent is similar. I read a passage recently talking about how everything is becoming, everything is evolving, even rocks; that perhaps copper is simply metal on its way to becoming something else, and when it's done being copper (though it may take millions or billions of years), it'll turn into silver, or gold, or whatever the next step on its path is.

I mean, it's a nice thought, and it would be wonderful if it were true, but it seems to me that there are many people who are not seeking at all, or who don't even know there's something they should be seeking, or are seeking the wrong thing. And what can you do? You cannot walk their path for them, you can't even make them see what they're missing. Life is difficult, and life is unfair. That is the way of things. I suppose that's why religions were created in the first place; though, of course, actual divine inspiration is entirely possible, and maybe when I die I'll show up and whatever god it happens to be will be all, "Ha-ha, don't you look fuckin stupid now."

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them. It's hard to make strangers care about the good things in your life.

So, it turns out that the 4 short stories in Different Seasons were written several years apart, The Body being the first one, which is interesting because it's (to my mind) the best, and the most personal of the 4.

It's also interesting that the 2 movie adaptations I've seen (haven't seen Apt Pupil) are very accurate to the stories (from what I remember of them; it's been quite a while since I've seen them both). Well, maybe it's not that interesting. Maybe it's just kinda neat? A little neat? Not really neat and I'm a loser?

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Huzzah

Friday, March 09, 2007

Oh Yes

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr
21. The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman
22. The Sandman: Dream Country, Neil Gaiman
23. The Sandman: A Game of You, Neil Gaiman
24. The Sandman: World's End, Neil Gaiman
25. The Sandman: Endless Nights, Neil Gaiman
26. The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Frank Miller
27. Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen

Still slogging my way through RFK.

I think one of the most interesting aspects of reading biography are the reminders that people are not monolithic. People are not always of one mind, and this may seem obvious if one assumes that to mean that people's thoughts and opinions change throughout their lives, but what I really mean is that it is possible to be of multiple opinions simultaneously. It is, indeed, possible to both love and hate someone or to be in favor of two things which seem diametrically opposed (anti-abortion and pro-death penalty, perhaps).

Is this rational? Perhaps not. Is this human? Most certainly.

What is perhaps most striking about great individuals is the particular way in which these combating impulses coalesce, which particular ones come to dominate at which points in their lives. One of the recurring threads of the RFK book (reflecting Schlesinger's point of view, from what I know of his work) is that individuals can make a difference, can identify issues and effect real, positive change. It is, perhaps, the most romantic notion of the book; a vestige of that time when all the problems of society seemed solvable.

I keep asking myself if I believe in that and I'm really not sure. Some days I do and some days I don't. Maybe I'm just making excuses for myself. Because if you do believe that's true, then you're left with the obvious question: what are you doing to make things better?

We live in a society (assuming whoever reads this comes from the developed world) where all but the very lowest members remain within the top 10% of the world's population, in terms of privilege, opportunity and well-being. I personally come from an even smaller substratum, in or about the top 10% of that 10%. And often I cannot escape the feeling that I am wasting it, sitting around and waiting for something to fall into my lap.

Monday, March 05, 2007

The End?

Friday, March 02, 2007

Unfinished Lives

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse
8. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
9. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
10. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford
11. Let Us Compare Mythologies, Leonard Cohen
12. The Sandman: The Wake, Neil Gaiman
13. The Sandman: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
14. The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller
15. The Sandman: The Doll's House, Neil Gaiman
16. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Neil Gaiman
17. Underworld, Don Delillo
18. The Sandman: Fables and Reflections, Neil Gaiman
19. The Sandman: Brief Lives, Neil Gaiman
20. Robert Kennedy and His Times, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr

There's 5 other Sandman books which I haven't picked up yet, but which I'm sure I will sometime over the next month.

It's really an incredible achievement, though one wonders if it might have been better or worse with a more consistent art crew. Sandman is the only major comic from this period that I can think of with a rotating cast of artists; many of the others were both written and drawn by the same individual (Maus, Love and Rockets, Cerebus, Sin City), and while Alan Moore worked with different artists, his stand-alone works (Watchmen and V for Vendetta) are drawn by the same artist from beginning to end. I suppose, though, that as Sandman concerns itself with the Lord of Dreams, and dreams are always in flux, the rotating cast of artists could be taken as another commentary on the world that Gaiman created.

I mean, I'm sure he just happened to use different artists for each storyline, but it's possible that he might have thought it out a bit more explicitly like that.

The RFK book I'm really looking forward to. Early on, Schlesinger (who actually passed away a day or two ago) makes the point that what is so poignant about RFK's death is that he was still in the process of becoming, a process which he had been going through his whole life. There are glimmers of the man he was at the time and whom he was becoming, perhaps most famously in the Indianapolis speech (and if you don't know what I'm taking about, I demand that you watch the linked video, and promise you will not regret it), but we will never know whether or not he would have faltered in the years to come, what mistakes he might have made and how he might have responded to them. In some ways, perhaps he was too good, too earnest, too honest of a man to live; the perfect symbol of an era which started with such promise and somehow, some way, lost its focus, as its leaders dropped by the wayside, one by one.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

A Place Called Vertigo

Friday, February 23, 2007

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Exit Light, Enter Night

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Genghis Khan and the Making of My Booklist

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Alchemy of the Soul

That night, the boy slept deeply, and, when he awoke, his heart began to tell him things that came from the Soul of the World. It said that all people who are happy have God within them. And that happiness could be found in a grain of sand from the desert, as the alchemist had said. Because a grain of sand is a moment of creation, and the universe has taken millions of years to create it. "Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him," his heart said. "We, people's hearts, seldom say much about these treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, towards its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out of them - the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.

It's been a while since I read anything so unabashedly romantic as The Alchemist; maybe A Hundred Years of Solitude is the closest parallel out of books I've read recently (as a side note, I find it somewhat interesting that Marquez came to mind, as he's Colombian and Coelho is Brazilian), although the quote on the back of the book jacket likening it to Le Petit Prince is right on.

It's a beautiful little book with a concept of a "Personal Legend" which everyone and everything has within them, waiting to be fulfilled. But people get in the way of their own desires, people find excuses not to follow the things that fill them with joy and enthusiasm, and wind up - perhaps not unhappy, but not as happy as they could have been. It is so easy to get sidetracked in this world, something I know from having seen all the kids who came out of theater school with me whittle away their time, making excuse after excuse about why they didn't audition, instead of just going out and doing it. And maybe that wasn't their dream, maybe they had to go through it to find out that they could live without it, but I can't shake the feeling that at least one of those people doesn't or won't regret that decision, or lack of decision.

When you have a dream, nothing else should matter. Not money, not family, not relationships, because if they are true, they will understand your dream and why you must pursue it. This might sound like a recipe for ending up alone at age 40, and maybe it is; but there are things you have to do for yourself, and let the other chips fall as they may. I like to think that improving yourself, that living in a way that makes you content with what you do and who you are, leads to more effective relationships; love without possession, giving and fulfilling. I could be wrong. But I like thinking that way, so I choose to.

Man, I really am a romantic sap. Pathetic.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Oh My Sainted Aunt

The Sound of Silence

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot
7. The Code of the Woosters, P. G. Wodehouse

So Middlemarch was good - very, very, good, worthy of many hyperbolic adjectives - but there was something in there that interested me above and beyond its merit as a book.

It's funny to read books from that (the Victorian) era, and to realize how little society has changed since then. To be sure, women are allowed far more independence now than then, but when reading the conversations and the relations between men and women one sees the same mixups, miscommunications and plain lack of communication that can be found today.

I don't really know what this says. It's not a bad thing, I don't think, so much as it is unavoidable. There will always be words which miss their mark, which are said with one intention but interpreted with another, until the day when we're able to read each other's minds (and won't that be fucking terrifying, knowing exactly when that guy is thinking about sex and - perhaps worse yet - when he isn't). What is important is to talk about them, and to not let them just sit there, an open wound waiting to be prodded. Because that's what people (well, I) do, when they have imagined hurts or slights; future comments are reinterpreted with that bias in mind, with the thought that you are somehow lacking in that area, that the other person is constantly picking on your shortcomings. And that's neither fair to yourself nor that person.

My life and my relations seem to be characterized more by silence and the words not said than the things I did say. Something in me finds that sad. Sometimes silence is right and sometimes silence is good, but sometimes silence hides fear and shame and doubt. And how can you know when silence is best? How can you know when her quivering rage hides a need to be reached out to and when you just need to shut the hell up and go away?

I feel like my relations in the past have gone too far, that they've been silent too long and I don't know how to change them, I don't know if the other people involved want to change them. Maybe I'm just too scared to make them change. But I do know that in the relations I invite into my life now, I aspire to something different, to something more open. I'm not talking about wholesale apologies for anything and everything I can think of any time I think the other person's upset; that defeats the whole purpose of an apology. If you're not truly sorry about something, if you don't really think you've done something wrong, then saying you're sorry is even more insulting than saying nothing. But when someone is important to you, you owe it to them to try to see things from their perspective, to understand what and why they are feeling a certain way.

From time to time, I trample on a lot of feelings. I think it's another reason why I come across as arrogant; I sort of like to hear my own cleverness, I get caught up in discussions and don't necessarily consider how my words might affect the people I'm speaking to. I think I'd rather be interesting than nice. I mean, interesting and nice would be cool, and I think on the whole I am, but if I had to pick it would definitely be the former.

You can't ever know what would have happened if you'd said whatever you wanted to say unless you say it. Personally, I would rather err on the side of saying one thing too many than not saying enough. Words are important; they are the only bridges that can be built to link two people together, in any kind of a relationship.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Whose Nation Is It, Anyways?

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
5. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser
6. Middlemarch, George Eliot

One of the things that makes countercultural arguments so irritating at times is the inescapable elitism which goes hand in hand with critiquing mass culture. In regard to fast food and the general western trend towards processed and genetically engineered food, people who criticize the culture often ignore the simplest reason for the ascendance of fast food: it is cheap, and of uniform quality. No matter where you go in the world, no matter where you are, a McDonald's burger and fry combo will taste pretty much the same. Critics decry this as a sign of world-wide homogenity, of cultural hegemony and assimilation, and they are correct, but they are also turning their noses up at the millions of average people who are unable to afford any better. Touting environmentally sensitive and sustainable solutions is certainly admirable and desirable, but the fact remains that unless such solutions are affordable for the majority of a population, they will fail.

Schlosser also ends up in the odd position of contradicting much of his early argument. He goes to great lengths to describe the horrible conditions in slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, then goes on to state how the big fast food chains, acting in their own interest, have pushed health reform on the companies which provide their meat. But if McDonald's meat is safer than store-bought meat, isn't that making the argument that more people should eat at fast food chains, since the government is unwilling to pass legislation that would test meat sold in supermarkets?

It is interesting that, like Naomi Klein, he advocates an economic solution; that is, the route to change is through economic pressure on trans-national corporations. Like Klein, he cites the McLibel case as a turning point, a perfect example of how publicity can be turned against corporations and effect change. But what both he and Klein forget is the essential role which government played in the case, in providing the forum and the platform for the words of the two plaintiffs to be heard. Without the legal institutions, without the possibility of McDonald's taking those activists to court, their chances of garnering such international attention were next to nil.

I do believe that we are quickly approaching a turning point, a point from which our development will become irrevocably destructive and which the planet will move to correct. But I also believe there is still time for government to step in, to show the way and to force real, effective change, and it has to be government, because private interests will never provide all the services and goods necessary for a healthy society; if the widespread deregulation of the last 20 years has proven anything, it is this.

I had a friend mention recently that what he found so distasteful about North American society is how isolated it is, how isolated individuals within it are made to feel. He's right. The problems with fast food society are not specific to the fast food industry; they are the same problems faced in every industry, they are the symptoms of a society and a culture which is itself diseased, which is slowly but surely destroying the vast majority of its citizens.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Illumination

Of course, he said, although it came as a great surprise - not that she didn't love him, but that she would say it. In the past seven years of lovemaking he had heard the words so many times: from the mouths of widows and children, from prostitutes, family friends, travelers and adulterous wives. Women had said I love you without his ever speaking. The more you love someone, he came to think, the harder it is to tell them.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Yay Snow

1. The Rebel Sell: Why the culture can't be jammed, Joseph Heath & Andrew Potter
2. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
3. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
4. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer

Rabbit, Run was good. Really really good. I'd comment a bit more but it's way too early for thinking and I need to run anyways. Maybe another time.