Saturday, March 29, 2008

Weekend Auto-Fun :: 3-29-2008

quote: ""That had been in Agnes's mishmash decade, after college. She had lived improvisationally then, getting this job or that, in restaurants or offices, taking a class or two, not thinking too far ahead, negotiating the precariousness and subway flus and scrimping for an occasional manicure or a play. Such a life required much exaggerated self-esteem. It engaged gross quantities of hope and despair and set them wildly side by side, like a Third World country of the heart. Her days grew messy with contradictions." (Lorrie Moore, "Agnes of Iowa")

links:
1) "When a missed -- or misguided -- literary reference makes it chillingly clear that a romance is going nowhere fast.": "It's Not You, It's Your Books" (@nytimes)
2) Major League Baseball's first "plus-sized" all-male cheer team: "Florida Marlins bring on a heavy-hitting cheerleading squad" (@la times)
3) Students for a Free Tibet (the country): "How Three Canadians Upstaged Bejing" (@globe and mail)
4) Goosebumps is back: "R.L Stine Rides Again" (@the walrus)
5) Very appropriate for me today: "A History of the Hangover" (@slate.com)
6) Agenda based video games tested -- Faith Fighter ("I like to play as Buddha: because he's blue and I don't think it will offend anyone"), Bible Fight, Ethnic Cleansing ("racist, anti-semitic, Neo-Nazi blasting away 'blacks, spics and Jews'), The Zoo Race Game, Night of Bush Rapturing, Left Behind: "What Would Jesus (or Hitler) Play?" (@jewcy)
7) Margaret Atwood salutes a childhood classic, Anne of Green Gables (@the guardian uk)
8) Brooklyn/San Francisco is the new Manhattan/L.A. "Sisters in Idiosyncrasy (@ny times)
9) "The Beggars" by Rainer Maria Rilke, Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann (@poetry magazine)
10) Chuck Klosterman asks, "What's the difference between a Road Movie and a movie that just happens to have roads in it?": "On the Road" (@the believer)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey riese,have you seen Stop-Loss? I recommend it.

Also, www.marriageissogay.com

take care!

ps. i love your vlog with asemicolonex

Anonymous said...

Dear Riese:
I just realized that I have been reading your blog pretty much on the regular for 2 years. Well I guess I am a lurker but I just want to say you're my hero, pretty much. I am a girl from the Canadian prairies & in the time I have been reading your blog I have: overcome substance addiction!, turned 21, come to terms with bisexuality (I think it's difficult to reconcile oneself with genuine feelings when it seems the lesbian community around me eschews bi girls as whores pandering to male fantasy/idealism & the bi girls I know, well, they're pretty much what the "real" gays say they are), grown my hair out...Not that this has anything really to do with you, but yeah...I really like your blog. Also, the only book on some list you had a while ago that I hadn't read was The Unbearable Lightness of Being & I read it, it's now, for now, pretty much my favourite book in the world. Thank you!

Annie said...

Nice tip on Anne of Green Gables turning 100 next month. This is why I love Auto-Fun! I'm still inappropriately obsessed with the 1985 "Wonderworks" four-part TV series starring Colleen Dewhurst and Richard Farnsworth. My sister and I used to compete to see who would cry first when Matthew dies in the pasture. Ah, youth.

Katyn said...

the sharpie came out for the most part with aquanet. guess it's not just for 80s hair anymore.

Ms. Jackson said...

That's funny....I'm in the middle of reading Birds of America.

Anonymous said...

Dear Chuck Klosterman, I still love you.

...Oh and you're great too Riese.
Thanks for pointing that article out, I trust you've read Klosterman's books. If not, do it.

And I see your Canadian prairie fanbase is expanding.

Chrissy said...

Glad I totally just got an opportunity to pimp your blogs. My friend Ariel (who is like 17, btw) noticed I had a certain L-Word quote in my signature on a message board, and went nuts. So I linked her to here and auto-straddle, and the store. =]

eric mathew said...

cruel intentions is on tv.
i forgot how crazy that movie was.
those years when i hung out with sebastian and kathryn were insane.
....okay living my life through a movie.

well hope your wknd was good.

frank said...

manatees. lol. men are so dumb with their sports.

i'm throwing an L Word party tonight at my place. you should come. bring the girls.

riese said...

laia - I haven't, I haven't seen any movies this year. But it looked good and I actually sort of have a crush on Ryan Phillipe. Thanks for voting Semicolon!

tamar - Hi! Thanks for de-lurking! Also: glad you liked Unbearable Lightness -- someone made me read it once, I don't know if I would've picked it up on my own, but I'm glad I did. And congratulations, on everything you've done, and I totally feel you on the bi stereotype thing.

annie - Was there also a show on the Disney channel called like Anne of Avonlea or something that was somehow based on the same characters? Or am I insane? I remember Sarah Polley being involved.

katyn - That gives me an idea, see, Stef carries a sharpie with her everywhere, and I think she should also carry Aquanet.

ms. jackson - omg, amazing book!

alicia - I read his column in Esquire every month, and I read part of Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. I like him. I'm a hit on the prarie, it's hot I'm gonna move to canada.

chrissy - I like the parenthetical " who's 17, btw." See I was about to go look her up on facebook, but I've got enough trouble with the law as is. But yay thanks!

eric mathew - Rarely am I given two chances in the same commenting spree to mention my love for ryan phillipe, but here we are!

lozo - honey, the l word is over, the finale was last week.

Anonymous said...

Heyyy I wanted to read that p.s.

Anonymous said...

I'm a total Anne fangirl. And the tv series I think you're thinking of, Riese, is "Road to Avonlea"? It was Anne-less, but made by the same company as did the excellent 1985 mini-series, and it did indeed star Sarah Polley.

And? One of those three Canadian Tibet-freers? Totes from my university, we're very save the whales/trees/Tibet/etc. Everyone's all "boycott the Olympics!" right now.

The Canadian prairies are nice, they have pretty skies and lots of like, livestock, and Ukrainian Heritage sites, and obvs excellent literary taste.