Recommendations / the TASP Canon

LITERATURE
AUTHOR TITLE COMMENTS
Jostein Gaarder The Solitaire Mystery My favorite book. Such a lovely story. - Tae-Yeoun
Ian McEwan Atonement The "Come back, come back" line. :) Briony Tallis is one of the few female characters in literature I've been able to relate to. - Tae-Yeoun
E.L. Doctorow Ragtime The idea of the silhouette artist. - Tae-Yeoun
Banana Yoshimoto Kitchen Comfortably strange feel-good book. - Tae-Yeoun
Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children Extremely dense, a difficult read, but beautifully written. - Tae-Yeoun
Yevgeny Zamyatm We Much like "Brave New World" and "1984."
Interestingly, it's written from the future to us... A short read. - Bryan
Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose - Natashia
Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the Time of Cholera I wish I knew how to put an orgasmic groan on paper: nuff said. - Alex B. Orgasmic groan seconded by Kelsey.
Murakami, Haruki The Wind-up Bird Chronicle The call of the wind-up bird winding the world's spring... Spiritual mysticism sometimes overdone but incredibly pretty nevertheless. - Tae-Yeoun
William Faulkner The Sound and the Fury ...which I absolutely loved... - Olga.
i'm about 50 pages from finishing "sound and the fury," and it's pretty fantastic. weirdly, i found the most straightforward section so far, that told from jason's point of view, the most difficult to get through, if only because he was such an asshole. one of the most abrasive character i've ever seen. - Alex Y.
Thomas Mann The Magic Mountain Yes, it is massive, yes, it is pretentious, yes, one associates it with a great number of spiritually bloated canonical texts that manage to be both boring and melodramatic, but it is AMAZING. I am AMAZED. AMAZED. - Jacob
Garcia Lorca Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding) It's so good I can taste the duende. I'm throwing it out there as a recommendation, especially if anyone has a chance to see it. I'm sure it ascends to another place on stage, even though the text was pretty heavy in itself. - Jacob. Seconded by Eunice, who recommends it in Spanish, and thinks it shows Lorca's style much more completely than La Casa de Bernarda Alba, though that's good too. And Adrian says: "All hail Blood Wedding... it even has a title like a cheap horror movie."
Gabriel Garcia Marquez A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings One of my favorite short stories; somehow, as soon as Dr. Monas began speaking that July acaffair he reminded me of the angel in this story. - Tae-Yeoun
Gao Xingjian Soul Mountain - Eunice. Seconded by Tae-Yeoun based on what she's read of the first few pages at TASP, and on the cover and inside-front-cover illustration as well.
Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas i read this book way too often at a formative age, and it's shaped me considerably, sadly enough. - Kelsey. Seconded by Olga. Thirded(?) by Alex Y, who says: "You can never have too much of a near-psychotic journalist and his lawyer running around vegas while consuming copious amounts of any substance they can get their hands on. Avoid the movie, however. Despite the fact that it was directed Terry Gilliam, the genius behind brazil, time bandits, 12 monkeys, and the surreal animation in monty python, the movie doesn't come close to the book's drugged up glory."
Ernest Hemingway Hills Like White Elephants The more I read it the more complicated it seems. Hemingway is so noncommittal in this story (I was never a big fan of his, but here he fascinates me). - Alex B
Vladimir Nabokov Lolita - Many, many TASPers. Seconded by Tae-Yeoun.
Umberto Eco Foucault's Pendulum - Natashia. Seconded by Jared who says: "Natasha, I'm currently reading Foucault's Pendulum. It is marvelous. I demand you give me more suggestions because you obviously have good taste in books." Kelsey agrees.
Franz Kafka The Trial has anyone else read the trial? just finished it and i'd love to chat it over with a tasper. -Kelsey
Heidegger What calls for thinking We're doing it in philosophy and its strange vibrations between seeming to state the perfectly obvious and claiming some deep, preposterous point which it utterly fails to support immediately reminded me of a few of our earlier course readings. - Olga
Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type I did, however, finish Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type, on Brian's suggestion. I highly recommend it. No gospel music necessary. - Jacob
J.M. Coetzee Elizabeth Costello It was really good, and I recommend it. Well, I'm not sure what to think about it, really. It was interesting, and I really liked parts of it, but there are long sections that are just transcriptions of the main character's lectures (she's an academic). One, for instance, compares the slaughter of animals in meat-processing plants to what happened in concentration camps under Hitler. I think that Coetzee isn't argung that, but rather that he structures his novel around the relationship between her intellectual and private life and between what she says and what other people says. It's really about what ideas are, what responsibilities people have, what it is to be a writer. (forgive that -- mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa, I needed to get that out) He's a fantastic writer, and his other books aren't quite so stuffy, but I'd love to talk about it with people if they deem it worthy of their attention. - Alex B
Tom Wolfe Radical Chic It's a great satirical account of a New York high society party thrown for the benefit of the Black Panthers in the early 70's, and is often hilarious. My copy also has the story "Mau-Mauing the Flakcatchers," which I haven't read just yet. - Alex Y
Hannah Arendt Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil The most influential book I read in 1999. I read Arendt's revision of the judge's verdict twenty times over, trembling so greatly that I could hardly read straight. - Mónica
Audre Lorde 'The Uses of Anger' A short ten page essay that has been a recurring source of courage for me to speak, particularly in academic/intellectual spaces. - Mónica
Max Weber The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism A masterful historical/sociological interpretation of how capitalism become over-subscribed. Weber takes on what (Marxian) historical materialism might/does not explain about capitalism. - Mónica
Witold Rybczynski City Life It's a pretty exhaustive look at how and why American cities are so different from European cities, though concise (only about 250 pages) and very readable. The author is pretty biased against modern architecture, but he makes a lot of really interesting points, and I enjoyed it a lot nonetheless. A pretty good introduction to reading about urban planning and how cities work. - Alex Y
M. T. Anderson Feed It's like Catcher in the Rye and Brave New World combined. What's really cool is the modern technology that is noted. People in the future will have pop-up adds in their feld of vision because of internet-implants. - Adrian
Michael Ondaatje Running in the Family a wonderful book... highly recomended - Alex B
Michael Ondaatje The English Patient - Adrian?
jonathan safran foer everything is illuminated especially for those of you who wrote about primo levi or the holocaust for the tasp research papers? it's a good book, fantastic in parts, and it tackles (with varying success) a lot of the issues from that article we read. - Kelsey
Dave Eggers You Shall Know Our Velocity dave eggers' new novel is actually really good (i didn't want to like it but did), better than a heartbreaking work of whatever whatever. - Kelsey
Italo Calvino if on a winter's night a traveler i think i remember móź©Ła mentioning if on a winter's night a traveler at tasp - whether she did or not, it's really freaking good. a post-modernist classic, yada yada yada, damn worth a read, and skinny too. all the writer types especially should read it, no everyone should, and we should all move to italy and be beautiful intellectuals together. - Kelsey
Erich Maria Remarque All Quiet on the Western Front ...wow.... definitely one of the best war novels i have read.... - Bryan
Jonah Blank Arrow of the Blue Skinned God This book for Asian studies, Arrow of the Blue Skinned God --about the Ramayana, is wonderful. - Adrian
J.M. Coetzee Disgrace I'd like to second (or third? has someone already re-recommended?) Alex's recommendation of Coetzee; I just finished Disgrace and truly enjoyed it. - Jacob
Vladimir Nabokov Pnin In English class we spent some time on Pnin, the book Nabokov wrote between Lolita and Pale Fire, which, if a little too cute or clever at times, makes up for it with a number of comitragic passages about the book's protagonist, the loveable, "ideally bald" Timofey Pnin, aging professor of Russian at Waindell College. - Jacob
Robert Penn Warren All the King's Men olga told me she wasn't too crazy about it, but i finally finished it a few days ago and i thought it was grrrrrreat. oh well, to each their own. it's the story of jack burden, a man from a genteel louisiana town who tumbles out of the society he grew up in when he goes to work for willie talos, a huey long-esque politician, and how talos' rise to power effects both of them. the whole time i was reading it, i kept thinking that i desperately needed to make it into a movie with john goodman playing willie talos. i guess i'll have to file that under long-term goals... - Alex Y.
Chu Yo-Sup My Mother and the Roomer (sarang sonnim gua omoni) in a feat of what Bryan calls KP, I'd like to recommend Chu Yo-Sup's 'My Mother and the Roomer' ('Sarang sonnim gua omoni') to you and see what everyone thinks. I'm somewhat disappointed with how clunky it is in English; originally it's written in the vernacular but in Chu Yo-Sup's own textbook English it sounds like a Zen text. But, even though the story's lost much of its subtlety, it's forgivable because Chu Yo-Sup translated it himself in what I believe was his third language that he learned in Japan, and it's one of my all-time favorite short stories, and I don't know, it'll be fun to discuss it I think. - Tae-Yeoun
Tom Stoppard Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead We started reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead today in English. Though I've only read the first couple of pages, I love it. - Eunice
Making Out in Japanese - Adrian
Beverly Daniel Tatum "why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?" and other conversations about race recommended reading for susan, bryan, and anyone else interested - Kelsey
The Midnight Disease ...a book I'm reading called The Midnight Disease ... seems like it comes right out of our TASP syllabus: a neuroscientist who loves literature analyzing the drive to write, writer's block, creativity, mood disorders, drugs, etc. Mr. English here, so averse to dehumanizing science, finally starts to see the attraction of such a field... I never thought I'd see the day. -alex b
Graham Swift Waterland It's a fan-freaking-tastic book. It takes a bit of work to get past the first 100 or so pages, but after you get through those the book is just like a brilliant, lucid dream. -natashia
John Fowles The Magus Also, The Magus by John Fowles is incredible, but you have to be in the right mood for it. -natashia
(Yay the Magus! -alex b)
Herman Melville Moby Dick I quote Moby Dick by way of conveying my enthusiasm (profound, exciting, beautiful, crass, hardy, and, by God, funny) for the book - alex b
Gunter Grass The Tin Drum It's like Midnight's Children in a East European way. Such pretty images/stories glaring against the violence of its historical setting. - tae-yeoun
Samuel Beckett Endgame I just read the saddest play, Endgame, by Samuel Beckett. I picked it up with the expectation of the usual half-pretentious postmodern play, but as I read it I found myself sincerely and profoundly moved. This is not a cerebral play. It is as visceral as a Quentin Tarrantino movie. ... There are sections I couldn't make heads or tails of, but other than that, funny and sad. Sad, sad, sad. It's like Beckett takes the essence of any othe sadness you might imagine and lays it out on the paper, raw. Wow. - alex b
I definently agree with your assessment of its emotional effect. At first I thought it was about some kind of nuclear holocaust, considering the time in which it was written, but when I read it a second time I wasn't so sure. I'm not even really sure it's about anything besides the mood that Beckett is trying to express. - natashia
Philip Roth Operation Shylock a novel worth mentioning, in which Roth encounters another Philip Roth living in Israel. The other Philip Roth preaches diasporism, the opposite of Zionism, or the belief that Jews should relocate to their 'true homeland' of Eastern Europe. As always, strange semi-autobiographical sexual encounters ensue. It's a fun book, and even though it's a little longwinded at times I thought I'd toss it out there as a creative take on the question of how an American (for Roth, particularly an American Jew) should go about relating to events in modern Israel. - jacob
Yoram Binur My Enemy, My Self Another really interesting book on the subject [of Israel] is ... [by] an Israeli journalist fluent in Arabic who was able to pass and hold several jobs as a Palestinian. I found his reporting more surprising than his conclusions, but everything in the book was very much worth reading. - jacob
Salman Rushdie The Moor's Last Sigh I just started the Moor's Last Sigh, and darn that man can write. - alex b
Fyodor Dostoevsky The Brothers Karmazov It is joyful, dramatic, darkly comic and gets at what it is to be human. It is immensely funny and compulsively readable. - matthew
The Book of Job required reading - matthew
Harry Mulisch The Assault I just finished a masterful, masterful book. Not firework prose, if you know what I mean (outside of a few pyrotechnic moments), but beautiful, controlled, and with a perfect attention to detail. This writer had me in his death grip by halfway through the book -- and it's a pretty short book...it's set in the Netherlands, starting in 1945. The Nazi-controlled police shoot main character's family after a bully of an officer falls victim to the underground. Mulisch, in these brutally efficient "episodes", subsequently shows us the protagonist's life in 1952, 1956, 1966, and 1988. You end up winded. - alex b.
Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex Now I'm finishing Middlesex, which I also like a lot: how can you go wrong with a Greek hermaphrodite fo a protagonist? After the Assault, though, it's a little jarring, like watching Barishnikov and then Fred Astaire. Eugenides is much looser, much funnier. Still, it's a great story and some darn good writing. - alex b.
Karl Popper The Open Society and its Enemies I'm about 50 pages in, and I'm finding it pretty fascinating. - alex y
Niven The Tales of Known Space As for reading, I've been really heavy into The Tales of Known Space by Niven for a few days now (and a few of his books all summer). - adrian
- POETRY -
POET SPECIFIC TITLES/ COMMENTS
Stephen Dobyns - Olga
Saskia Hamilton - Olga
Charles Simic particularly the poem 'In the Dark'- Olga
Olga Broumas (i think thats how you spell it) poem song/for sanna - It is a beautiful poem about sexual tension and tea, hahaha and it reminded me so much of [Olga], besides which, hey, the author has [Olga's] name! - Aimee
William Blake and John Keats I finally discovered William Blake and John Keats. Poor, beautiful John Keats. -Natashia
e.e. cummings 'may my heart always be open to little...' -Alex B
Stanley Kunitz 'The Quarrel' -Jacob
Robert Hass I also dont know if you've all already read Robert Hass's poem 'Meditation at Lagunitas', but if you haven't, you certainly should. After reading it for the first time I had to put the page down and just sweat for a few minutes. -Jacob

MUSIC
ARTIST/COMPOSER TITLE COMMENTS
Mozart Requiem in D Minor Favorite piece #1. - Tae-Yeoun
J.S. Bach St. Matthew's Passion Favorite piece #2. - Tae-Yeoun
Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A major Movement 2 will change your life. - Tae-Yeoun
Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor Movement 1 has the most amazing, melancholy yet majestic theme,
you have to listen to it to know. - Tae-Yeoun
Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D major Also called (apparently) "Concerto Against Violin." - Tae-Yeoun
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor The main theme in the first movement is so haunting, and movement 2 is so pretty... - Tae-Yeoun
Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor If you liked #2... - Tae-Yeoun
Schubert Wanderer Fantasy The piece Eunice was working on throughout TASP...
Ravel Gaspard la Nuit - Eunice
Beethoven Piano Concerto #3 - Eunice
Chopin Piano Sonata #2 Op. 35 yesyes, piano again - Eunice
Beethoven Piano Sonata #17 in D minor - 'The Tempest' it gets addictive after a while. People from the suite across the laundry room: did they play the third movement in '8 1/2'? I can't recall because I was too sleepy... - Tae-Yeoun
Albinoni Adagio in G minor for Strings and Organ when you're feeling tragic... - Tae-Yeoun
Samuel Barber Adagio for Strings (from one of his quartets I think, if he wrote more than one, can't remember) while we're on adagios. this was the main theme to 'platoon.' - Tae-Yeoun
Ernie I Don't Want to Live on the Moon Yes, the Ernie from Sesame Street. The first nonclassical title! I did not look up the composer but Ernie will do. - Tae-Yeoun
Dr. Octagon (rapper Kool Keith, producer Dan the Automator, and turntablist Q-bert) Dr. Octagonecologyst (album) Now, I know most of you have this inexplicable distaste for rap, but I know even more of you enjoy the surreal and grotesque. ... It's all done from the point of view of the titular mad scientist/gynecologyst, and is probably the most bizarre, pornographic hour or so of music I've ever purchased. He samples horror movie music, creepy strings, and porno movies. A solid album! It figures, though, that this would come from me, seeing as I wouldn't shut up about Naked Lunch for all of TASP... - Alex Y
Doria Roberts Perfect Love á la folksy soul - Mónica
Meshell Ndegeocello Bitter (album) Expressive and patient jazzy soul - Mónica
Enanitos Verdes Lamento Boliviano Rock that doesn't bracket its latinam roots - Mónica
Pepe Aguilar Por Mujeres Como Tú Traditional mexican songs about love that make me cry. Pepe Aguilar's timbre is perfect for the lyrics... - Mónica
Luis Miguel Si Nos Dejan ...a three-generation family favorite. - Mónica
Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations (op. 33) - Tae-Yeoun
A Perfect Circle Judith O, and if you ever want to really offend a Christian friend with a leg problem, email her the text of Judith by A Perfect Circle ; D - Adrian
bill frisell/dave holland/elvin jones bill frisell with dave holland and elvin jones it's somewhat pretentious, and basically an hour of bill frisell's loose guitar noodling, but it's a pretty interesting mix of modern jazz, blues, folk, rock, and even the occasional ambient electronic touch. dave holland and elvin jones, the backup bassist and drummer, make some interesting, though pretty subtle, contributions as well. - Alex Y
our lady of the highway ok guys who i like to make fun of for listening to sally-ass acoustic guitar music, listen up. i have a music suggestion: our lady of the highway. the drummer is my metal shop teacher and they kick jason mraz and john mayer's collective ass. go to the site you can download songs. - Kelsey
Brahms piano quartet in G minor, op. 25 it's all I've been listening to for three weeks... - Tae-Yeoun
Elliot Smith Between the Bars it's all I've been listening to once I got over the Brahms... - Tae-Yeoun
Theme song to 'Triplets of Belleville' annie lenox's totally unremarkable new-age bombastic bore-fest beat out the crazy django reinhardt-esque themesong to "triplets of belleville." - Alex Y
jay-z and DJ dangermouse The Grey Album "its's a remix of the lyrics from Hov's Black Album with beats cut from the Beatles' White Album. Highly illegal, so it's only available through Kazaa or Limewire or some such," says jamie. i've downloaded 11/14 songs, and it's pretty hot. i don't have jay-z's "black album" as a point of reference beyond the single, "change clothes," but it's pretty amazing what dangermouse was able to find in "the white album" and how perfectly it works. - Alex Y, seconding Jamie's recommendation. thirded by John.
Modest Mouse - natashia
Flogging Molly - natashia
Breaking Pangaea - natashia
from Kelsey's jefferson starship/corey hart mixtape (side one: we built this city, repeated 6 times; side two: sunglasses at night, repeated 8 times) - kelsey
blondie and pat benatar greatest hits five tracks of debbie harry back to back with five pat benatar classics. freakin genius. - kelsey
Holstein what a life awaits you. Everyone will think your tractor's sexy. - matthew
Angus what a life awaits you. Everyone will think your tractor's sexy. - matthew
Caccini Ave Maria - tae-yeoun
Charlois what a life awaits you. Everyone will think your tractor's sexy. - matthew

MOVIES
TITLE COMMENTS
Amadeus That movie I could not stop whining about all throughout TASP... - Tae-Yeoun
apocalypse now (not redux) - Alex Y
paths of glory - Alex Y
midnight cowboy - Alex Y
withnail and i - Alex Y
amarcord - Alex Y
the manchurian candidate - Alex Y
sleeper (the woody allen movie) - Alex Y
ran - Alex Y
donnie darko - Alex Y
manhattan - Alex Y
the graduate - Alex Y. seconded by Tae-Yeoun for the soundtrack (the actual movie's good too...)
monty python's life of brian - Alex Y
brazil - Alex Y
lock, stock, and two smoking barrels - Alex Y
dead man - Alex Y.
i am blown away. so incredibly fantastic that it's impossible to express without using curse words. johnny depp. crazy black and white cinematography. pounding neil young guitar. and gunfights. so so so good. beyond highly recommended. i'm only watching westerns from now on. - kelsey
blade runner - Alex Y
pi - Alex Y
2001: a space odyssey - Alex Y
any movie by the coen brothers. there are no bad ones - Alex Y
roger and me - Alex Y
american movie - Alex Y
fantastic planet - Alex Y
blue velvet - Alex Y
seven beauties - Alex Y
shane - Alex Y
ikiru - ??, seconded by Alex B
ran - Alex Y
Lost in Translation - Alex Y. when "lost in translation" won best screenplay, it was further proof that quentin tarantino is right and that best screenplay is the real best picture award, while best picture is just something they're obliged to give to whoever the public perceives as "deserving." - Alex Y after the Oscars.
wasn't lost in translation just perfect? that's the way life happens, that's the way you see life as it happens around you (at least I do, with all those lingering camera shots) - Alex B
American Splendor It's about Harvey Pekar, star of the underground comic book community, and his life as the subject of the titular comic book. It's a really interesting mix of documentary and...well, non-documentary (what would you call that?) - Alex Y
Love Letter The Japanese one; I'm sure there are a lot of movies by this title. Upon watching this movie I could not stop yelling 'ogenki deska' every time I found myself in an open space. - Tae-Yeoun
Harold and Maude after TASP Though it's hard to imagine a movie better than the Harold and Maude we saw at TASP, I think I've found one. Now it not only resonates with its own trite (yet perfectly trite) beauty, but with images of Austin as well. Watching it this weekend, my usual H and M tears doubled. - Jacob
Elephant by Gus Van Sant Probably the most disturbing movie I've ever seen...It chronicles the day of a school shooting from a variety of perspectives. It really does the whole non-linear storytelling thing very well, and the characters so real - it helps that none of the actors are famous. The only time I've ever left the theater shaking. - Alex Y
You Got Served Please do yourselves a favor and go watch this underrated movie. It's like Bring It On except with more class. ^ ^ - Susan
City of God i can count at least five categories in which LOTR should've lost: best directing, best adapted screenplay, best cinematography, best editing, and best song. for the first four, it should have lost, hands down, to "city of god," which was simply AMAZING, both in terms of its story and the skill with which it was made. "city of god" was one of the more strikingly unique and complex movies i've seen in a while, one of the few that seems to understand that life can be both horrifying and funny, and that movies can be artistically adventurous and have a social/political conscience but still be fun to watch. - Alex Y
seconded by Tae-Yeoun.
Triplets of Belleville a movie that, like city of god, was also massively dissed - definitely should've beaten "finding nemo" for best animated feature. "triplets of belleville" was way better than that piece of pixar schmaltz (they're never going to top either toy story). - Alex Y
Rio Bravo "When I'm getting serious about a girl, I show her Rio Bravo and she better fucking like it." - Quentin Tarantino
(tae-yeoun wouldn't put this up because it's cussing. but it's quentin tarantino, who is allowed to cuss, and what's more, he's right. -kelsey)
((Sorry Kelsey, I got lazy and I put up all the recommendations together instead of posting them as they came, and I missed yours. Nothing against your cussing or Quentin Tarantino's. - tae-yeoun))
jarmusch's ghost dog isn't as good as dead man, but the soundtrack is done by RZA, and it's nuts. - alex y
kurosawa's Yojimbo Just really, really good Japanese western, in that really sly, violent, funny way) - alex b
I'm with Alex on his recommendation of Yojimbo: bloodlust at its best. I can't remember if anyone already mentioned Rashomon, too. I saw the two of them when I was pretty young as a double feature, and I was never sure whether I liked Yojimbo because of its nostalgic value or because it really is cool. Seeing it up on the TASP blog has finally convinced me of the latter. Of course, neither approaches the last scene in Ikiru, which I rewatched recently and which--dare I say it? could it be?--may be slowly taking the place of Harold and Maude as the movie I turn to when feeling generally glum. - jacob
luis bunuel's discreet charm of the bourgeoisie it's the only bunuel film i've seen so far, but i thought it was really funny, surreal social commentary, but very spot on. it's kinda cheech and chong, if they were buddies with dali and focused just a little bit less on doobie-smoking. - alex y
Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal This reccomendation should come with a bajillion exclamation marks. ...I was absolutely stunned. It's either the most heretical or the most devotional film I've ever seen, but I can't decide which. Probably both. There isn't a weak performance in the cast. It's visually amazing the whole way through. And unexpectedley, it's pretty funny, too (albeit in a very dark way). - alex y
Fahrenheit 9/11 Documentary lovers and future politicians would do well to pay attention, as well as anyone who plans to be in the United States within the next few years (all of us). Great film, with enough comedy to keep it from being a two hour downer, but enough truth to make it worthy. I admire the fat guy obsessed with Bush who made this work, he is noble and cunning and virtuous. I hope more voters watch this film, and I hope our children all have to when they take history in school. - adrian
Adrian, I too saw Fahrenheit 9/11, and I didn't like it at all. By far the most powerful part was the last third or quarter or so, when Moore went into the "human dimension" of the war in Iraq and enlistment. But in that part, he just let real people vent and showed disturbing footage. He didn't try to draw any conclusions - it was the part with the least amount of Michael Moore in it. I don't really like Moore's tendency in every movie since "Roger and Me" to lack any sense of coherence at all. Some people have excused this by saying it's not documentary filmmaking, it's just an Op-Ed on film, but even if that's the case, don't Op-Eds have to come together? Don't Op-Eds have to be tight? I also felt that some of the things he did, particularly in the first bit, when he discussed the Bush-Saudi link, and later when he talked about the Bush admin's push to connect Al-Qaeda and Iraq, just didn't make any sense. In one sequence, he shows Bush and various cabinet members shaking hands with Saudi dignitaries - well, we're supposed to assume they're Saudi dignitaries, but Moore doesn't ever say who they are, or even that they're definitely from Saudi Arabia. For all we know, they could be from any country in the Arabian peninsula. It also ignores the simple fact that diplomats shake hands - what's he proving by showing it? When he discussed the administration's claim that there's a connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraq, he just spliced different clips of Bush and others saying "Iraq" and "Al-Qaeda" together really quickly, usually from entirely different speeches. He employs tactics just as low-down and sheisty as those he criticizes. But while I strongly disagreed with the means, I think the ends are more than just good, they're absolutely necessary. Moore brought into the open a lot of issues that have up till now only been considered by what's been called the "NPR set." A lot of the things he brought up should have been talked about and debated by the mainstream media a long, long time ago. - alex y
Alex, I agree completely with your evaluation of the movie. I guess I was feeling rather positive about the message and failed to notice such little flaws, but since you mention them, they were there. - adrian
Los Angeles Plays Itself It's not so much a documentary as a lecture/essay committed to celluloid. It's all about the depiction of Los Angeles in film, and how most of these depictions are either incorrect, very skewed, or woefully incomplete. It's lengthy, the voiceover is a bit monotone, and the guy seems to have almost nothing but spite for everything besides independent black neorealism set in Watts, but if you can get past those drawbacks it's incredibly insightful and thought-provoking, and has a lot of implications beyond film criticism and Los Angeles. - alex y
garden state instead of watching the non-event that was the DNC, i went down to my town's movie theater tonight to see the local premier of "garden state." it might seem odd to give a small suburb its own premier of a nationally released film, but Zach Braff, writer-director-star of the film, is in fact from south orange/maplewood (technically two towns but they're practically one), and went to my high school. he was there, being cute cute cute as usual. the movie was pretty good but not great, but what it lacked in, say, qualities like originality or maturity, it made up for with the fact that my school is mentioned by name once and the front entrance is shown once in a short montage. oh yeah, it was clever and the characters were interesting (sometimes, anyway) and it gave you a great sense of the environment. so i guess this doesn't really qualify as a reccomendation, but if for some reason you're pining for a very accurate picture of the area i live in, it's a good choice. - alex y
Imelda Now that Alex has started the list of movies you wouldn't exactly recommend on their value but would like to mention anyway because they're set in the area you live in-- Imelda is most definitely not a movie recommendation, but hey, what movies featuring the Philippines (except Apocalypse Now and Platoon where the Philippines poses as Vietnam) actually do make it to the international audience? You want to smack her five minutes into the film, actually you've probably always wanted to smack her, but Imelda Marcos aside, it gives you a very good glimpse of how modern Philippines had been shaped. - tae-yeoun
Old Boy At once really pretty and really disturbing, I've given up trying to decide which of the two it is - I suppose I'm recommending it for proving to me once again that the two aren't mutually exclusive. - tae-yeoun
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle An epic journey of two young men from Hoboken, NJ, who showed a near-feverish devotion to that noblest of all fast food resturaunts, White Castle. It's a WAY better New Jersey movie that "Garden State," but perhaps more importantly, it's got the absolute highest density of jokes and gags per minute of almost any movie i've seen, and the same density as FUNNY jokes and gags per minute. Gawd! It just didn't stop hitting ya with it... - alex y

VISUAL ART
ARTIST TITLE COMMENTS
Myron c. 450 BC Discobolus Suggests... Adam for the athletic pose - Olga
Donatello David Suggests... Adrian (though the statue is less built) - Olga
-from the Vatican- a statue of a young man with Hippocrate's staff Suggests... Adrian - Olga
Bernini Apollo and Daphne Daphne suggests... Aimee - Olga
-from the Vatican- a statue of Apollo, I think, holding a cup and a bowl, with an animal that resembles a dog Suggests... Alex B - Olga
-from St. Peter's Basilica- Sanctus Andreas Apostolus Suggests... Alex Y, [the statue] looking very sarcastic in a classic Yablon pose - Olga
-from the Vatican- Damoxenes the pugilist Suggests... Bryan. another ancient statue in the Vatican, this one looking very savage :) - Olga
Bernini Longinus Suggests... Brian. from St. Peter's Basilica; he was wearing a toga and reminded me of Brian's performance in Antigone - Olga
unknown an 18th century copletion of a Roman statue of a bathing Venus Suggests... Eunice (for the girl who always got the the shower first :0) ) - Olga
-from St. Peter's Basilica- St. Bruno Suggests... Jamie. he was raising his hand in a very Jamie sort of way - Olga
Michelangelo The Creation of Adam (detail from the Sistine Chapel ceiling) Adam suggests... Jacob: his reclining pose reminded me of Jacob's favorite pastime - Olga
Michelangelo David Suggests... Jared (the lack of a tan is common to both) - Olga
multiple artists many, many different Jesuses Suggest... John, in particular the earlier ones from the Dark Ages with all the gold paint - Olga
Antonio Canova Paolina Borghese Bonaparte Suggests... Kelsey. [The sculpture] was so beautiful and lifelike that her husband locked it away from everyone (including the artist) as soon as he saw it - Olga
Antonello da Messina Portrait of an Unknown Man Suggests... Matthew. the mischievious smile reminded me of Matthew - Olga
unknown a 2nd century Roman statue of Artemis Suggests... Mónica - Olga
Jacopino del Conte Cleopatra Suggests... Natashia. - Olga
Pompeo Batoni Madonna con Bambino Mary suggests... Susan. - Olga
Michelangelo Pieta Mary suggests... Tae-Yeoun - the serene expression reminded me of Tae-Yeoun at the poetry reading - Olga
Titian Profane and Sacred Love Suggests... Tara - there was a little bit of Tara in both of them - Olga
Nadar Sarah Bernhardt Suggests Olga, for the hair and the mysterious expression. - Tae-Yeoun
Murakami, Takashi Tan Tan Bo Puking Alex Y's aim name
Pablo Picasso Guernica It came up in an AIM discussion on Hemingway. Aspects of the painting discussed in the conversation were the figure on the right with the lamp, and the isoceles triangle that cuts through the composition.
Romare Bearden Card Players The subject of Alex B's poem

WORDS
WORD COMMENTS
titular if there were a list of TASP word reccomendations, i would put "titular" near the top. - Alex Y

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