Recommendations of September 2008

Book: The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Giver is a childhood favorite of mine. Don't let the title of a children's book get in the way. The giver has been criticized for having too deep of concepts for children to understand. It was the first book that I read where the moral discussion in the text was the idea of utopia. In the story, when children turn twelve they are given their jobs in the community; they will have these jobs from there on out. But when the jobs are announced Jonas is skipped. He is given a very special job working with someone called the giver. The give does as his title implies, he gives Jonas something invaluable: memories of life before everyone was the same. Jonas then experiences these strange things called color, pain, war and peace. Thought his tale Jonas begins to see the community for what it really is: a shallow dystopia.

Album: The Planets by Holst
Okay, this is not so much an album as a musical series, but you can get all of them in album form. The Planets is indeed a "classical music" series made between 1914 and 1916 by British composer Gustav Holst. The series was made to represent the astrological planets; Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto had not been discovered but I think that there is a guy who made a composition for Pluto. Not that it matters any more since Pluto was deemed unworthy of planet title. Anyway, this really is a great classical series and if you're going to poo poo it because it's not preformed by metro-sexual whilst dancing, then at least listen to Mars - Bringer of War. It will probably change your narrow mind about music.

Movie: Clerks
If you haven't seen Clerks then you suck. I honestly think that this movie embodies the seemingly horrific prison to the human mind that is the service industry. It's all about two guys working in a convince store. They discuss everything from their loathing of the customers to tar Wars. There is no crotch kick humor in this movie, just humorous dialogue and a poor turn of events allowing you to laugh at someone else's misfortune. But that's not why I'm recommending Clerks. Clerks was created by Kevin Smith, who at the time was working in the very same convince store that he shot his independent film in. It's all in black and white due to a lack of a budget (he maxed out several credit cards), the blinds are closed because he was only allowed to film at night and slept for only an hour a day during filming. Clearly this was a labor of love for him, and it really inspires me personally. No one who works in the minimum wage service industry wants to be there. Everyone there would rather be doing something else and Kevin Smith is one of the few who actually said "screw waiting, I'm doing something better now". Plus one of my co-workers and I have realized that we're pretty much are the Dante and Randall duo of where we work.

Thing to be Aware of: Plastic
If you haven't at least heard of people buying re-useable grocery bags then you clearly are living in a cave with your ears plugged. People are finally starting to realize how much plastic is used just for packaging, packaging that will be thrown away. What a lot of people do not know is that all these years of use dumping rubbish into the oceans has lead to an absurd amount of plastic in the oceans. Plastic does not biodegrade and return to the earth as fertilizer, instead the sun just breaks it up into smaller and smaller pieces. Want to know how much plastic is in the ocean? Continent sized masses of broken up plastic. I'm not kidding; they even have been given names, NAMES. Even worse, fish eat the plastic thinking that the little bits are plankton. Plastic isn't food, so it stays in the fish's belly. The oceans are already over-fished but it seems that the human race is not content with just eating the ocean to death; we're going to fill the guts of fish up with plastic and probably eat that fish later.



AUGUST 2008

Book: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.
There is a movie out there now but I've only read the book. It's about the life of Chris McCandless AKA Super Tramp. He was just crazy enough to do something I've always wanted: throw your life to the winds and have an adventure. Granted, he is far braver than I'll ever be; Chris ventured out alone into the wilderness and eventually met his bitter end in the Alaskan wilderness. His death is not the focus of the book, the bulk of the book's content is more or less just discovering who this bright young man was and how his pure determination brought him back into the wild.

Album: Thunder, Lightning, Strike by The Go! Team
I love this group in its entirety. It's seriously like cheerleaders that actually entertain you mated with 70's funk momas and then the offspring were given adrenaline instead of formula. I'm not kidding, it is an amazing album and it deserved more love than what it gets.

Movie: Mystery Men
My God more people need to see this movie. It's one of the most ridiculous spoof movies out there. This is pretty much the summer of super hero movies so why not watch a good spoof with it? No, not Superhero movie; I'd rather vomit for an hour than see that. Mystery Men is like the less witty superhero sibling of Shaun of the Dead. While it's not the best satiric movie out there I thought that it managed to do something that no other superhero movie has done: realize it's in a cartoon and it's not meant to be taken seriously.

Thing to be Aware of: Polaroid Film
Polaroid is indeed discontinuing ALL of their instant film. Some of you may not care, and some of you may be devastated. I for one am horrified, Polaroid is famous for their instant film and they are ripping away what made them a household name. Even more of a tragedy: there are some really good photographers out there who do serious work with Polaroid because it develops differently from normal film and every single shot remains as a single. None of that multiple prints nonsense like you can with roll film or even like that new fangled digital stuff.
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