In the Mountains: Non-Fiction Books about Planes, Mountains, and When Planes and Mountains Meet
I’ve been going through a number of reading phases. First it was the apocalypse, and now this. It started with wanting to read Into Thin Air again, and from there all it took was a quick Google search for other mountain disaster books and I was hooked. The following are the best I’ve read for your recommendational reading pleasure.
As we all know by now, Ghostbusters III is a definite go, with filming set to start this summer. The original cast is slated for either supporting or mere cameo roles, which means a new team is going to be handling the meat of the film. It appears that Eliza Dushku has already been talked about as being aboard, but I was wondering — whom else would you like to see as the new Ghostbusters?
I was going to make this a poll, but for some stupid reason I can’t just make a poll, I have to go to some other website and make an account and blah blah fuck off (why can’t things just be simple?). So instead I’ll just list my choices and then you can chime-in in the comments with your picks.
And here we go . . . the final episode of Dollhouse! Did it all come together? Are there gaping plot holes and unanswered questions? Is it possible to conclude a series gracefully after an early cancellation? James17930 and I are going to weigh in on whether or not we’re happy with the Dollhouse series finale.
I’ve thought about this day off and on through the years (as have hundreds of thousands of others, I know), contemplated its inevitability, pondered its ramifications. I wondered how I would feel, how the media would react, and what both his fans and detractors would start to say about his legacy. And, though it sounds callous, I of course thought about the possibility of his vaults being opened up, all this writing that he had supposedly still been doing throughout the years finally coming to light, either as his final hurrah and beneficent gift to his long-suffering followers, or against his will, Kafka-esque.
Of course, it also wouldn’t be surprising if he burned it all years ago.
For such was the enigma that was Jerome David Salinger, a man who, in a way, become his own worst enemy — a famous man enveloping himself in reclusion in order to safeguard his privacy, but that very status of ‘famous recluse’ meaning there would always be someone looking to get inside and blow the doors open. Despite this, he, or his legacy, at least, managed to survive mostly unscathed, but now, given that the cryptic story of his life is over and his mysterious presence, floating around sardonically in the background of the American literary imagination for decades, is gone, if we don’t get anything posthumous from his estate, it wouldn’t surprise me if that legacy very quickly planed out into an almost nothingness, dull embers, ageing Gen-Xers and the odd lit. student being the only ones to still give a damn, for really, is there any room in our hollow, transient, amnesic media-culture for Holden Caulfield and the Glass family?
Fill•er (‘filər)
noun
-material used to fill a cavity or increase bulk
That’s pretty broad — could be anything. Could be good, like the gooey scrumptiousness hiding inside your standard Boston cream doughnut.
Or the pizza-stuff magnificence comprising the innards of a calzone.
Or, filler could be bad — like in the centrepiece of this classic prank.
But the word, of course, also has another meaning:
-an item serving only to fill space or time, esp. in a newspaper, broadcast or recording
Or a TV show run (you just can’t have 22 amazing episodes every year . . . that would defy the laws of the creative process — part of what makes a show great is how little of the inevitable filler there is). Both Buffy and Angel had definite ‘filler’ episodes, though few, and they were mostly entertaining; unfortunately, that habit, slight as it was, carried over to their respective comic-continuation series, and also unfortunately, filler seems to stick out a lot more in comics than on TV. Maybe it’s because there’s only one issue a month, so the wait for the next non-filler stuff is a lot longer than the week it would take TV; maybe it’s because it’s being read and not just observed. Regardless, it’s something that’s sort of become the Achilles heel of B:S8 — something I’ve been complaining about since nearly the beginning, here, here and here.
And for the last two months, since the end of Retreat, this is what we’ve again been given, although surprisingly both were written by Joss Whedon himself. The only question is — do you want to shove them into your mouth, start chewing and roll your eyes to the heavens, or do you want to stamp them out with your slipper and then yell and shake your fist at the no-good, trouble-making neighbourhood kids?
I was pretty floored by the ending of Getting Closer, so much so that I couldn’t put any coherent thoughts together to write about it. Initially the only question was: was all this part of the five-year plan? Was Boyd always meant to be the Big Bad, or, after getting cancelled, did they just say ‘fuck it’ and do the craziest thing they could think of? (“That dude can act” — ha). My intuition points toward the latter (I’m sure I could try to find some interviews to corroborate that, but . . . there is that laziness I mentioned).
Thing is, though, it really doesn’t matter what was originally intended; that will never be. This is now what is. So — does this work? Hmm . . .
I’m a trailer addict. I frequent traileraddict.com on a daily basis, and I’m angry when they have nothing new to show me.
Although 
my biggest pet peeve is a trailer that gives everything away, I still can’t help but want to know what’s coming out.
When a trailer is good, I want to watch it multiple times, and the best trailers are the ones that use music along with editing to their advantage. Most of the new music I’m introduced to is thanks to googling “____ trailer song”.Trailers brought me David Bowie and ELO.
Here are my Top 10 favourite songs from trailers in recent years, and in no particular order.
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I’ve been feeling lazy lately, and my brain is just way too completely fried from the awesomeness of this episode to bother writing anything coherent, so all I’ll say is:
Holywhatthefuckmygod.
From tgjkennedy:
I totally agree. I just watched this episode and my head hurts. It feels like what normally paced plot twists feel like, but ramped up on energy drinks and pixie sticks. This is what it feels like when a complex plot that should span 5 seasons is stuffed into 8 or so episodes. It hurts, but it’s kind of a good hurt.
*Spoilers ahead*
This year is over again, for the first time, every time. Someone pointed out that there shouldn’t be any decade-end best-of lists yet because the decade isn’t over until next year is over. That person is correct. So we’ve all just been wasting our time. Shame.
Did I encounter anything enormously exciting or relatively ground-breaking this year? Exciting, yes; ground-breaking, don’t think so. The things I did really like were more backwards looking than not, though that seems to actually be a bit of a trend right now (so trendy, I am), and the things that all the ‘experts’ said were the best were things that I usually just found okay.
In reality, there’s really no need to do this post at all, because I have nothing all that interesting to point out, but it’s became a year-end tradition so it’s gotta happen.
And I’ve extended that intro just enough to get me past the bottom of the sexy-legs-walking-into-the-new-year picture so that the post formats itself properly, so I think I’m finally ready to begin.
read more…
Beal earlier brought us the A.V. Club’s list of top TV shows from 2000 – 2009, so I thought I would take a look at the equivalent one for books, and bring them to your attention, seeing as I’m supposed to be bookish and all that. I was quite disappointed to discover that, while I know of many of these and want to read them, out of the thirty listed here I’d only managed to get to two these past ten years. Ouch.
But now fun game — can you guess which ones?!
