Current Playlist:
Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall
Sunday Funnies [El.]:
Burning Man: If it wasn’t having to suffer through PortaPotties I would so go and spend a week here. Experience it. Actually maybe I’ll still go someday. Primarily for the art ofcourse. I’m not into the whole hippie free love angle.
The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler
Drugs, murder. Fight Club except a generation younger. Not quite as gory. Real. By real I don’t mean the circumstances or the eventual twist. I mean what it feels like. The lies, the deception mainly decieving oneself. It’s more of a feminine book I suppose since it seems to mostly revolve around heartbreak and fairly anti-men in general. But then it was written by a man so I don’t know and it’s definately not a trashy romantic novel. Would I reccommend it? I would. Although you should probably be forewarned that I tend to sensor my reviews.
Description from eBooks(The Study Questions actually do show up in sections of the book and tend to be quite funny):
It’s first semester senior year, and Flannery Culp needs her friends more than ever. Her homeroom teacher is a tyrant, her biology teacher is a pervert, and in a few months the Winnie Moprah Show will broadcast vicious lies calling her a Satanic murderer when they really mean murderess.
Flan needs Kate, even though she gossips incessantly. She needs Gabriel, even though he has a scarcely requited crush on her. She needs V_____, whose name has been changed to protect her wealthy family. She needs Douglas, who can get absinthe. She needs Lily, she needs Jennifer Rose Milton, but most of all she needs Natasha — beautiful, brave Natasha — who is turning her calculus teacher’s advice — do something — into a formula for panache.
Flannery needs all of the Basic Eight because high school can get so stressful, you just want to kill someone.
Vocabulary:
TYRANT
INCESSANTLY
SCARCELY REQUITED
PANACHEStudy Questions:
* In order to sell, a work of literature now has to be condensed into a few pithy paragraphs on the front flap. Does this seem right to you? Why or why not?
* Really, the only way to tell if a book is any good is to purchase it for yourself, take it home, and read it all the way through. Don’t you think? Why or why not?
* If a boy is messing with your head, is it okay to pummel his head? Why or why not?
Aver [Moneeza A.]: New Muslim magazine which just came out. Considering I know pretty much everyone writing for it and on the editorial board, I figured I’d give it some readership. Not quite sure yet what I feel about the content. Most of the UTM folks would probably recognise the names.
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Really quite pointless. Maybe the movie was better. Lots of adolescent boys far too infatuated with a brood of unhygenic, suicidal wraiths who eventually do themselves in for no discernible reason except maybe to prove their otherworldly, ridiculous philosophy. I’m betting they were on crack.
A Simple Tale: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Never forget that.”
And continuing my series of prominent figures who look startlingly similar, consider Channing Tatum and Josh Hartnett
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A friend of mine was promoting and distributing Aver when they released their first issue. It’s a good concept, and it had a nice design, but the content was quite disappointing. Nonetheless, I’m impressed at what they’ve been able to do thus far.
Nearly every Muslim publication I’ve read thus far (including the newspaper I’m an associate editor for) all struggle with providing good content. One of the exceptions is Islamica magazine, which I’ve been impressed with in my limited reading. The youth-focused stuff has been the most disappointing; it generally assumes all Muslim youth are hip-hop obsessed thugs who “live on the edge” and need to “fight the power”. I didn’t appreciate that when I was 15 and I still don’t think it accurately represents our generation at 25.
My sentiments exactly. Although I always presumed that the young folks all spoke like that and considering I never went to school here I just couldnt relate. Now I know better.
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