My second American hero is a genius whom it's difficult not to admire. I've been marathon-reading Richard Powers' s work for about a year now, starting with the widely and rightly acclaimed The Time Of Our Singing –I reread it after Obama won the American elections, which added to the emotions the story and the characters convey, and I've failed to post about it since then but I will some day because it deserves a post of its own–going on last Autumn with the wonderful The Eko Maker that convinced me that Richard Powers was one of a kind, and perhaps the best American writer alive. So I've decided to explore Powers' s bibliography before.
( Read more... )
Perhaps you remember how I fell in love with the former while reading his The Lost. I have read two other books of his since then, and I'm still under Daniel Mendelsohn's spell.
( Read more... )
PS: I'm spamming(yes there's a Part Two coming soon) today but since the History & Geography test took place yesterday morning and given that this afternoon I went to Saint-Cloud to picked the Baccalauréat papers, that I'm supposed to mark in the 7 upcoming days, these entries are probably my latest "big posts" for a while. Marking Hell begins tomorrow morning so you won't see a lot of me until I'm done, unless I need a place to rant and whine from time to time...which might happen.
The 84-minute finale felt too short but gave me enough food for thoughts. So here we go...
( The Incident )
( My thoughts on Dollhouse's Omega )
( Dollhouse episode 1x11 )
( About Dollhouse episode 10 )
( A quickie on Heroes finale )
Last but not least, I finally saw the second episode of Ashes to ashes.
( Shall we always trust the Gene Genie? )
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whedonesque , this interview of the actor playing Victor on Dollhouse.I guess that the show has grown on me for I missed it last week and I look forward to watching the new episode.
There was no Lost this week and I've been feeling tv show deprived even though I watched of course the first episode of the second season of Ashes to ashes.
( Spoilerish thoughts )
When I first heard that there would be a the spin-off, I was rather skeptical. I didn't really see the point of telling the story of what happened some fifty years before the Cylons destroyed the colonies, so I wasn't sure I would watch the 82 minute movie, less alone like it, but I thought I could give it a try, and honestly I did enjoy Caprica. It is quite different from BSG even though there are connections through Bear McCreary's music, the Adama family (William isn't Bill yet but he's there as a young boy) and the "birth" of the first "cybernetic life-form node" that is a CYLON. The line "A Cylon? Interesting." was a killer.
I spotted flaws here and there, and yes there was some stuff that bothered me but I was left wanting more, wanting to know what would be going to happen next. I guess it's a good thing given that Caprica is a prequel! The Greystones are really intriguing and touching, especially Daniel. Eric Stoltz was simply amazing.
Also looks like Ron Moore and Joss Whedon keep giving nods to each other's work. I couldn't help noticing that two characters have names that connect them to Buffy: Cyrus Xander and Clarisse Willow! It can't be a coincidence! Or was it Jane Espenson's wink at her former boss?
So I recommend Caprica to anyone who likes intelligent Sci-Fi. You don't even need to have seen BSG in order to understand it. But it's better to see to pilot, unspoiled!
( Spoilers )
Richard Powers' Galatea 2.2 is terrific. I loved it. I can't believe that there isn't a lot more fans of Powers out there. He is a genius and manages to move me every time (I cried reading certain pieces from The Time of Our Singing!). For anyone interested, Galatea 2.2 tells the story of a writer anmed Richard Powers, who's going through a life crisis and gets involved by acognitive neurologist in a crazy project: building an intelligent machine, a machine who can read and comment on the readings in question. Here is what I wrote about the novel on my Goodreads account.
Le chocolat se déguste comme du bon vin, on y met le prix, on le garde en bouche et on le laisse libérer sa chaleur, ses arômes et ses saveurs. Le chocolat séduit par son éclat, s'offre à la dent comme à la langue, s'adoucit, se transforme, se répand. Il épouse les parois qui l'accueillent et fournit une ultime caresse orale en fondant sous le palais. Corsé ou élégant, il déborde de sensualité et peut même vous tourner la tête!
Chaque année, à cette date, les plus grands chocolatiers parisiens rivalisent de créativité pour rendre hommage à la déesse Cacao.
La maison Hévin joue l'audace, habille son poisson d'un noeud pap', et s'inspire des célèbre statues de l'île de...Pâques!
Hermet lui façonne des masques rappelant les arts premiers:
Pendant ce temps La Maison du Chocolat se la joue champêtre...
Pour ma part, n'ayant pas les moyens d'acheter ma drogue noire chez ces nobles artisans qui sont aussi des artistes, je me fournis près de chez moi à la Confiserie du Maine . C'est déjà bien cher, mais c'est si bon...
for Dollhouse and Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles for it's likely that these tv shows won't get another season. Joss himself is quite pessimistic about a possible season 2 for Dollhouse and TSCC's final episode looked like a series finale.
It saddens me for I've come to like TSCC despite some stuff that bothers me, and the last two episodes of Dollhouse were good, not perfect but clever the way Joss can make a tv show clever, you know. *sigh*
( Born to run )
Here comes a long review with a lot of Egyptian stuff.
( I love that show )
In other news I really hope that Fox isn't going to cancel Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It has flaws but I'm hooked, and it's funny to watch the birth of A.I on that show especially since I'm reading Richard Powers' Galatea 2.2 .
Did I say how much I love Richard Powers? He's really becoming my favourite American writer, along with Daniel Mendelsohn.
- Mood:
content
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sister_luck managed to lure me back online. ;- )I watched my tv shows though.
( Lost )
I have also seen the two last episodes of Dollhouse and the Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles ones.
( Dollhouse )( T: SCC )
battlestar_blog and commenting on an entry over there.( Spoilers for the finale of Battlestar Galactica )
( Read more... )
( TtSCC did manage to surprise me )
And now let's speculate about Joss' new baby.
( Dollhouse didn't surprise me at all but I enjoyed it nonetheless )
- Mood: content
1. "Moonlight Mile" by The Rolling Stones (from Sticky Fingers). One of their best songs !
2. "Sao Paulo Rain" by Tom McRae( from his debut album). A song Xander listens to after the wedding fiasco in season 6. The youtube vid is a Buffy/Angel one but I shall bear some Bangel just for Tom...;- )
3. The dance of the puppets /The rusted chains of prison moons..."In the Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson
5. "Always on My Mind" by Elvis Presley (of course!) . Ah Elvis' voice.....
6. "Life On Mars?" by David Bowie. Tom did a cover but I prefer David's version.
7. "The Crystal Ship" by The Doors
8. "Pavlov's Bells" by Aimee Mann. She sang it in "Sleeper" during BTVS season 7.
9. "I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones. Spike hums it in "Crush", season 5.
10. "All I Know" by Art Garfunkel. It's a lovely song and if you watch Nip/Tuck you must know the track for it was used in the wonderful ending scene of the season 2 finale . One of the greatest tv twists ever.
11. "Wuthering Heights" by Kate Bush . When I was a young teen I prefered "Babooshka" though and wanted her outfit from the video! I loved that song and played it all the time driving my family nuts. Ah the 80's !!!!
12. This is what you get/ this is what you get. It's "Karma Police" by Radiohead!
13. "Fantasy" by Earth, Wind & Fire
14. "Mad About You" by Sting
15. Waking to these sounds again / I wonder how I'll sleep "Over and Over" by Morcheeba (Big Calm)
16. Holding hands/Skipping like a stone/On our way/To see what we have done "Burn the Witch" by Queens of the Stone Age (Lullaby to Paralyze).
17. I'm coming up only to hold you under/ I'm coming up only to show you wrong "The Funeral" by Band of Horses.
18. "Children of the Revolution" by T-Rex(Marc Bolan singing).
19. "Behind Blue Eyes" by The Who. Giles sings it at the Bronze in BTVS season 4, and Willow swoons over his voice.
20. "I Go To Sleep" by Sia (written by the singer of The Kinks, but it's The Pretenders' cover is the most famous). Sia's cover can be heard at the end of the 4th episode of Dollhouse.
I know Sia since she keeps borrowing the marvellous Oli Krauss to play with her. Oli is the cello genius that has been touring with Tom McRae for years.
By the way Tom is 40 today. Happy Birthday dear Tom !!!!
stormwreath</lj>'s idea of music meme ! Can you guess 20 of songs(in English) that I often play on my computer, from the first two lines (or the first two lines of the chorus if the title appears int he first two lines of the song)? Gimme the title, the artist and if possible, the album.
Turns out that four of them are Buffy-related and one is Dollhouse-related!
1. When the wind blows and the rain feels cold /With a head full of snow
2. There's always a party on a funeral row, where the cross flashes red to the street.
3. The dance of the puppets /The rusted chains of prison moons
5. Maybe I didn't love you quite as good as I should have, maybe I didn't hold you quite as often as I could have,
6. It's a god-awful small affair/to the girl with a mousy hair
7. Before you slip into unconsciousness/I'd like to have another kiss
8. Oh, Mario,/Sit here by the window;
9. Twenty-twenty-twenty four hours to go/just put me in a wheelchair, get me on a plane
10. I bruise you, you bruise me/we both bruise too easily
11. Out on the wiley, windy moors/Wed roll and fall in green.
12. this is what you get/ this is what you get,
13. Every man has a place, in his heart theres a space/And the world cant erase his fantasies
14. A stoness throw from Jerusalem/ I walked a lonely mile in the moonlight
15. Waking to these sounds again / I wonder how I'll sleep
16. Holding hands/Skipping like a stone/On our way/To see what we have done
17. I'm coming up only to hold you under/ I'm coming up only to show you wrong
18. Well you can bump and grind/ If it's good for your mind
19. No one knows what its like/To be the bad man
20. When I look up from my pillow/ I dream you are there with me
ETA - songs already guessed are in italics.
So that was a huge defeat but England deserved that victory, they were obviously better and faster than us; our team was just the shadow of a rugby team, hopeless and broken. At least we scored one try.
Not a good weekend for France, after Alain Bashung died yesterday. La nuit je mens is a song I love because of its lyrics and because Tom did a cover of it.
So speaking of echoes, here's a few thoughts about Dollhouse, I promised earlier.
( True Believers )
- Music:Alain Bashung
This week has been hectic so far and I'm bound to Marking Hell still for a while(at least tomorrow and on Saturday). Today it was non-stop work, from 8:00 to 16:30, I did not have lunch time(I'm supposed to have a break off teaching between 12:40 and 13:05 but I had stuff to do) and I left the school feeling exhausted which isn't surprising. I didn't even get a break to go to the loo during the whole day (I swear it's true) and ran from the subway exit to my place because I soo needed to pee. TMI?
So when I came back home I fed the cats, after relieving my bladder, and went out to the hairdresser. Yeah I was too tired to go shoe shopping.
Next week is gonna be tough too, for I have term meetings on Monday and Tuesday evening after the class. I won't leave the school before 20:00 at best. I'm going to spend 11 hours at school on Monday and I will miss my piano lesson on Tuesday. :-(
In case you wonder the connection between the title of this post and the content so far...the reason is that I've just watched Lost. But I suppose that my icon gave it away.
ETA: Speaking of Lost, MSN has pictures from "behind the scenes": http://tv.msn.com/gallery/lost-behind-th
I know Locke wasn't really on yesterday's episode but Terry O'Quinn rocks. What a beautiful man.
