When the movie Contact first came out I had no idea it was based off of the work of fiction with the same name by Carl Sagan. I didn’t have an idea until a couple of weeks ago. The movie happened to be on tv and I, one night, randomly decided to wiki random people. I knew Carl Sagan was an author that a friend of mine had mentioned a few times and I wanted to know more about him. So I wikied (you know, kinda like googled). Well, lo and behold, I learned that he was the author of the book Contact. Further reading naturally informed me that this same book was adapted into that film with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey (yup, I had to look up how to spell his name, lol!), the same one I had just been watching on tv the other day. I always liked that movie – not in a drooling fan kind of way, but enough to watch it when it was shown on tv and occasionally of my own volition. I remember wondering almost every time I’ve watched it through to the end, who Carl was of the “For Carl” dedication; I get it now.

     From past experiences I know that books are almost always better than their movie counterparts, so I just had to know. I got myself a copy and read it through. I took my time, not feeling inclined to rush nor being so intensely enthralled that I couldn’t put the book down. I still think the books win over their movies any day. I couldn’t help but constantly compare the movie with the book: waiting for Ellie’s dad to die – leaving her alone, waiting for that unlikely relationship between Ellie and Palmer to develop, waiting for the crazy religious dude that blows up the Machine, waiting for Ellie’s solo journey to the stars followed by her public interrogation. Well, none of that happened like I expected. All those things sort of happened, just very differently. They got the big events the same, but the details, the details were so different that it really was like reading it all for the first time. I think the biggest detail change was the fact that Ellie doesn’t make her trip to the stars alone. That’s huge. I like that she doesn’t make it by herself in the book.

     Even though I wouldn’t personally consider this book a page-turner, I still really enjoyed it. It got into science, but usually not so deeply that I was utterly lost. Even with my laymen’s knowledge of science and astronomy and such, I could easily follow what was going on. I didn’t grasp all the concepts just by reading their names, but Sagan has a wonderfully casual way of getting the point across without being patronizing to the audience. I really appreciated that. Once I got to the point in the book where the characters were preparing to depart in the Machine, the book was a page-turner. I read straight on through to the end from there. Previously to that the reading bordered on tedious, though I don’t think that necessarily detracted from the plot. part of the whole point is that it takes them years to decode and decide and build the Message and the Machine, and I think the pace of the writing reflected that nicely.

     Sometimes the writing seemed to jump around, moving in a staccato fashion from one place in time of the plot to another. I felt as though at times I didn’t have an entirely sound grasp on the timeline of the plot or events. It evened out more in the second half, but especially early on, as Sagan takes us through Ellie’s childhood, the years and events just seemed to skip as though from a scratch on a cd. Maybe this was just a flaw in my copy, but I’m not sure. After awhile I got used to this slightly jarred style of writing and didn’t really pay much attention to it anymore.

     I was slightly bothered by Sagan’s handling of Ellie’s familial relationships. Not because they were dysfunctional, but rather because I felt like he betrayed the character in her turnaround at the end. She learns that her father (Ted Arroway) is not her biological father and that John Staughton, who married her mother after her dad died, was in fact her father. At one point Ellie is thinking to herself and she mentions her father (after she has learned of her biological beginnings) and then she self-corrects and refers to him as Theodore Arroway. Now this is the man she loved and admired so much that the alien takes on his form for her. And in a instant it felt like he was suddenly demoted, and I felt that this was untrue to the character. Just because someone isn’t your flesh and blood doesn’t mean you stop loving them as much when you learn of this fact. Especially when they meant so much to you previously. Ellie also claims that she is glad that her mother never bothered to tell her about Staughton (Ellie finds out in a letter that her mother left her after she died). This bothered me a lot. Being a kid that was adopted under unusual circumstances and having had that kept from me for the majority of my life (the circumstances, I’ve known about the adoption since I was 11), I felt that this was a bad example to set as a precedent. Even in the letter her mother muses that Ellie must have had some intuition regarding Staughton due to their strained relationship. And I think it’s true that people certainly have a better unconscious recognition of those kind of relationships and that it can effect them. I don’t mean to imply that I would know my biological mother if I passed her on the street, but that if half of the party knows that their relationship is something other than what the other half thinks, there are going to be tensions and such between them. While the unsuspecting party may not understand or know how to interpret these signals, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t be aware of them. So, after that long-winded theoretical spiel, all I mean to say is that this end bothered me a lot and I don’t think it was very nice or realistic. Then again, maybe others would say that they’d rather not know. To each his own, I suppose.

     While I always find one thing or another to nit-pick about in a book, I really do enjoy reading them. And Contact wasn’t any different. I think it is a book that strives to encompass an extraordinary vision and for the most part succeeds. I think it is a fair reflection on the issues of politics, cultural differences, science, religion, and humanity in general. Sagan tackles a lot of huge topics and he handles himself well. While I wouldn’t necessarily agree with some of the ideas he conveys throughout the text, I truly enjoyed being taken on such an adventure to the ends of the galaxy.

★★★☆☆
Definitely worth reading, especially if you enjoyed the movie.

     My feelings about the sixth installment of the Harry Potter movies are mixed. I try to watch the movies from an objective point of view, or, at the very least, in two minds. One mind focuses on the movie in context of strictly the films and how they have developed – and how the characters have developed – without influence from content within the books. My second mind is from the point of view of someone who has read all the books and notices what is missing, changed, hinted at, and assuming what is to come. Warning! Spoilers (for both book and movie) follow. Read at your own risk .

     That being said, both my minds are mixed in regards to the Half-Blood Prince film. In some respects the movie was good. I thought the composition had a nice flow to it, despite the amount of content they have to force into 2.5 hours. It didn’t feel choppy or chaotic. I never felt lost in the story line (though, of course, I have the advantage of reading the books and I tend to automatically fill in the gaps, so I can’t say for sure that the story makes complete sense without having read the books). I thought that the characters were a bit… held back. Snape wasn’t nearly as antagonistic as usual. Ginny wasn’t as fiery as I think she should be, at least not compared to her book counter-part. Harry wasn’t as obsessive or trouble-making like he always is. No insanely risky wandering around at night, no dancing on the line at risk of getting caught or at least not with the threat of punishment that it usually holds – heck, Potter doesn’t even get in trouble after his bathroom brawl with Malfoy.

     Often times throughout the film there was a forced humor to it. I feel like they were trying to ease the heaviness of this installment with humor. It worked, sometimes, but more often than not it seemed out of place and awkward. This book is not funny. I’m not saying there are never funny moments, but mostly it is just intense, sad, and heavy with fear. Beyond passing mentions of the fear that grips the magic world, it really isn’t present within Hogwarts. Not even after Katie Bell is cursed or Ron Weasley is poisoned. I felt like we were never really allowed to feel the gravity of situation.

      Oddly enough, I think this was the slowest film yet, which strikes me as odd, because in the book there is plenty going on. Even in the film there was plenty going on, and yet there wasn’t the degree of commitment I expect from the film makers. Harry is supposed to be obsessing over Malfoy and his role in the Dark Lord’s regime, but he only half-heartedly obsesses. We’re never shown how he nearly misses a Quidditch match to find out why Draco isn’t playing (we don’t even learn Draco is no longer playing), we don’t see the tension Harry’s suspicions cause between him and Dumbledore, and even between him, Hermoine and Ron. We don’t experience Dumbledore’s disappointment after Harry has failed to retrieve the memory, we don’t even get the back story to the horcruxes (at the very least a point should have been made about Riddle’s trophy collecting habits).

     I think my biggest pet-peeve with the movie though is it’s odd choice to remove some of the scenes, and add others. First off, what the hell is with the whole attack on the Weasley house? It just didn’t make sense to me. This film/book is not about capturing Harry Potter, but about killing Dumbledore, so why this random attempt to draw Harry out? I feel like it takes away the focus, which should be the horcruxes, the Malfoys, and Dumbledore. Two scenes that were completely ignored include the battle that happens after Dumbledore is murdered (the bad guys just run through the castle unchallenged!?!?!?) and Dumbledore’s funeral. Oh, not to mention Harry breaking things off with Ginny. That small scene in the book tells a lot about them and their relationship (which is emphasized way too much in the movie if you ask me. And emphasized too early as well.). Oh! Another thing never mentioned is the change of Minister of Magic. I think that’s important. I think it is important that we know how far Potter is willing to go with Dumbledore, how much he trusts him as well as the extreme dissonance between the magical government and high up figures like Dumbledore.

     While I’ve mentioned mostly what has bothered me, as a whole, I think this movie is probably one of my favorites out of the six. I’ll have to see it again once it comes out on video. I’ll have a Harry Potter marathon and watch all the films in close succession, which will give me a better idea as to how this movie fairs up to the others. I realize that it gets more and more difficult to convey the complex feelings and circumstances of the characters, but I still left the theater in want of something. Like I said, I think my biggest issue is the lack of commitment this film suffered from. It needed more intensity and poignant moments to really convey the severity and difficulties the characters are faced with.

★★★☆☆
Worth seeing if you like the series, whether just books or just movies or both.

     I began reading this book simply to pass the time, but quickly it became more than just a filler. Perhaps it is cliche to say so but this tale following the lives of two women from the late 1950’s to the early 2000’s is heartbreaking. Of course that is not the only quality to this book. It is filled with round, quietly compelling female heroines supported by a variety of others characters from gentle, kind-hearted men to dispicable abusive husbands and the terror of war.

     Hosseini’s tale of life in modern Afghanistan is haunting with subtle currents of hope weaving throughout the story. I admit there were times when I was unsure of where this story would end when injustice followed by more injustice consumed the lives of the main female characters. I had hoped to encounter a story of female equality being fought for and rewarded, but Hosseini doesn’t spare his characters or his readers the hardships and unfairness of reality. You truly endure with these women as they live on the cusp of change – back and forth between modern ideologies of rights and equality and strict traditional values. Being a modern female reader I had to cringe at the turn for these characters and how society and war pushed them back behind veils and walls, stripping them of even basic human rights.

     I had also hoped to find some redeeming quality for a belief structure I understand very little of, hoped that there would be some quality of life I had never been told about. While I’m not sure I found that redemption, I was reminded through Hosseini’s compassionate story-telling and variety of characters that governments, social constructs, religious structures often don’t reflect the mind-set of an entire people, especially on the edge of change.

     This book isn’t about war and which side is right or wrong. This book is about the innocent lives entangled, uprooted and lost in the midst of such wars.

     While I enjoyed Hosseini’s writing and the flow of the language, I certainly had some issues with it. Why is it that babies are always what makes a woman happy? It’s bad enough that education is denied these women, the right to walk to the store alone, and they are married to an abusive husband. But what will make it all better? Babies, of course! Because a man who is willing to beat his wife would never consider hitting a child. Because it isn’t hard enough to keep one’s self alive during such times of war so let’s all have babies! Even at the end when Laila, one of the main characters, gets to be something more than just mother, she doesn’t do anything beyond a typical female occupation. Perhaps I’m being ungenerous though. It is advancement, it is more than you imagine her achieving three quarters of the way through the book. But why doesn’t she go back to school? Why doesn’t she study to be something? I know that after all the sacrifices and pain endured up to this point means that even the smallest of happiness is a win, is evidence of more than just enduring, but the feminist in me still isn’t thrilled. It was too much cost for too little gain in my opinion.

     And another thing I can’t reconcile myself to is the need to return to a person’s hometown, especially after it has been ravaged by war and painful memories. I understand it in the context of the book, but I generally find it a weird complusion to be so tied down to a land. Or maybe I just have major commitment issues and won’t even be tied down to land. But enough of my harping on the small things that bothered me. All in all this really was an interesting book with a nice variety of characters and moving story. I don’t know that I would read it again – maybe some day, far down the road. I do know that I will definitely give Hosseini’s other book The Kite Runner a read (as well as give the movie a watch afterward).

★★★☆☆
Definitely worth the read

     After this month (May) I am putting the Lit Bit Book Club on hiatus. Since I am getting ready to head off to the UK for grad school, I have a lot of things that I need to focus on and get prepared; like applying for my student visa . With this in mind, and my recent attention to grad school stuff, I haven’t been as focused on the book club as I’d like to be. So I’m going to shut it down for awhile (I’m not exactly sure how long at this point), and think about what I want to do with the book club as well as taking more time before choosing books. I’ll let everyone know when I decide to get it going again.

     I’ve recently been toying with the idea of starting a personal blog. I hate mixing my personal posts and literature based posts here on Lit Bit. I’m okay with some overlap (because I consider this inevitable) as long as a semi-personal post has something to do with literature: like what book I am currently reading or plan on reading or struggling with writer’s block, etc. But the full blown personal, I-just-need-to-bitch posts generally drive me crazy and cause me some embarrassment, no matter how necessary they may have been when I wrote and posted them. So in comes the idea of a completely separate blog that is dedicated to me just saying whatever personal thing I need to say, no matter how irrelevant, mundane, exaggerated. I seriously tried to give this avenue a go. I could really use a place to just unload my thoughts. But I can’t. I tried to write posts for a personal blog. I can’t do it. I can’t be that blatantly personal, that open. I can only do it in vague, round-about ways like this post. How frustrating. I will have to come up with some other solution I suppose. I’ve tried just normal journaling… I only get on my own nerves doing that. :/ And I’m sure before an hour has passed I will be embarrassed by this post as well. *sigh*

     I haven’t been up to much lately. Well, aside from accepting my acceptance to Royal Holloway, University of London for a Masters in Creative Writing (emphasis on Poetry, of course), and the ensuing paperwork and applications for financial lenders and housing and such. It’s a tedious and intimidating process still, even with the peace of mind that I have been accepted somewhere. Aside from school stuff I have also been reading. We just finished reading Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh for the Lit Bit Book Club, and on my own I finished reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and I have now started The Fellowship of the Ring. Can you tell what direction I’m going with that? Haha! I’ve read The Lord of the Rings series before and while I enjoyed the books (and the movies), they make me sad; so I’m making my way slowly through them… very slowly. I am also going to start reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. I’ve also been sporadically reading books of poetry. And the book club is reading Lila: An Inquiry into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig for the month of May.

     That’s a lot on my “currently reading” list. You’d think I’d have more to show for it here on Lit Bit. I’ve also been listening to a lot of new music. My friend introduced me to some really awesome post-rock bands. A couple of my favorites are Explosions in the Sky and MONO. One of my favorite songs for Explosions in the Sky is called “So Long, Lonesome” and is definitely worth listening to. Beautiful music! One of my favorite MONO songs is “Mere Your Pathetique Light” and I hope you give that one a listen too. This music makes me wish my ice skating days had never ended, because this is the kind of music I wish my coaches had come across for my routines. Anyway… aside from the nostalgia or whatever that longing is, it really is great music and very relaxing for a stressed out brain.

EDIT: I also read Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë last month. That was the first time that I made it all the way through that book – and I still don’t get why people like it. Meh. Anne Brontë deserved so much more credit than she got.

     I have been on mental and (primarily) emotional lockdown these past few months. As I try to push beyond this mental barrier I have raised against myself and everyone else, my mind pushes back – pushes against the desire to unleash, to let go. It doesn’t take much to deter myself from my goal. I know exactly what to think to make myself cringe and step away from the chink in the brick wall. This isn’t writer’s block – I can feel the store of information swelling behind the barrier, thoughts dammed together, waiting to spill over. I simply won’t let them, but I can’t bring myself to truly be angry either. So how do you get beyond a hurt that permeates into all your other thoughts until your mind draws a line beyond which you can no longer dwell without the wretched onslaught of anguish? This sounds like hyperbole, doesn’t it? I wish it were.

     I extracted myself from an unpleasant circumstance, hoping that the change in environment would allow my frame of mind to recuperate and move beyond. It has been a couple of weeks, but I still can’t bring myself to simply think of some things, much less speak of them. I know I should, I know I need to. I know that would help in the long run, but I just can’t. Even the slightest probing into this pool of thought results in an emotional pain that is nearly physical (and sometimes is). That being the case, my poetry writing has been severely handicapped. While I wish it was easy to write detached poetry (or even prose), it isn’t. It doesn’t matter if I am writing a political poem, or on a topic unconcerned with my personal life – writing still requires me to put something of myself into it. I have to think not only from outside myself, but from inside as well. Does that make any sense? I have to think in multiples when I write – in multiples of self (my better self, my darker self, my self as I am aware and unaware of, etc.), as well as in the multiples outside of the self. So it doesn’t matter what subject I choose to write about, because they all need me to cross that line, to cross into a territory that I can’t access at the moment.

     This battle between the creative urge and self-preservation has been hard. Writing is usually a relief, a place I can go to and say whatever the hell I want, then tuck it away to never be seen again or re-evaluate later. I want that relief very badly, but I can’t seem to make it to the page. I lose control over my thoughts before the beginnings of a poem have even been grasped and then it’s all downhill from there. When I try to unlock a small portion of thought, tangents leak through and eventually overwhelm. This is quickly followed by another mental lockdown. My brain retaliates by immediately staunching the flow and going off on a benign tangent. In the middle of emotional upheaval I’m suddenly calm as the contents of a recently read book or watched movie consume my thoughts. I find myself back in a safe zone, but there is no true relief here. I know my mind is trying to protect itself. I’ve always been passive, so this duck and run technique isn’t that surprising. And it is extraordinarily frustrating to be able to see myself from the sort of detached perspective (how else could I talk about all this (even if it is in vague, imprecise language)?).

     I’m just trying to write and read and hoping that at some point I’ll be able to move beyond. Even toeing the line as I’ve been doing this entire post is giving me a headache and drawing the pinch of skin between my eyebrows tighter and tighter. I suppose the best I can do is to just keep trying. Hopefully reading poetry and listening to music and such will help loosen the ties in my mind as well as spending time with close friends.

     I am currently residing in California on a visit with my good friends Skunkie and PolyVector. We decided for Earth Day we were going to try and limit our usage of things like electricity (a very trying thing for us tech junkies to do). I also decided in honor of Earth Day to completely rework the look of my MacBook Dock, wallpaper, and other various icons in the system by use of CandyBar 3 (which Skunkie and PolyVector were awesome enough to buy me for my birthday two days ago (Thanks guys!).). While the aesthetic appeal of my desktop may not contribute to the Earth directly, I hope that it will serve as a reminder to myself to think about the amount of waste and energy usage I create in my daily life.

     I found the various icons and docks in places like Deviantart.com and MacThemes. I’m gonna go ahead and link to a few of the artists that supplied the icons and such. If I miss anyone, I’m sorry, or if you know of someone I missed, let me know and I’ll gladly link to them.

The wallpaper “Simply…” is by Assydious
wikinerd’s “Now Wooden” and “Now in Wood” collections were great for apps like iTunes, 1Password, Transmission, etc.
kano89 made awesome wood icons for things like Finder, Safari, and Dashboard.
Thvg made all the wood disk drive icons and system folders I am currently using
HYBRIDWORKS made the icons I am currently using for Colloquy, Stanza, and my trash
kano89 also made the Dark Wooden & Glassy Dock I am currently using

     Thanks to all the talented people that make customization so easy. I really appreciate it. And big thanks to friends that make it even easier by getting me an awesome present like CandyBar. I hope everyone has a wonderfully aware Earth Day. I’m off to read using good ol’ sunlight as my lamp.

UPDATE: I’ve decided I have no thumbs (and neither does my dad). We’ve killed all our plants. We’re not sure what happened exactly…they were doing great and then suddenly started drooping and falling down. In a last ditch attempt we went ahead and planted them. Bad choice though, considering the temperature decided to take a turn downward. Perhaps we will try again when the weather decides to be a bit more consistent. :/

     I’ve never been much of a gardener. Growing up my brother was the one with green thumbs – everything from cherry tomatoes, grapes, beans and even marijuana (silly boy growing anything and everything just to see if he could). While I always enjoyed watching the cycle of growth and color as well as the picking and eating, it wasn’t my hobby, it was his. Our parents encouraged us to have separate hobbies to prevent tension – to make each kid feel special. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I really wanted to try starting my own garden. Unfortunately the place I was living had a very limited season (and I had very limited space in a small apartment backyard). I tried going for just a potted garden, but I had no clue what I was doing or how to properly maintain even that simple of a thing. Needless to say all my plants died and never returned to life after that first season with me. It’s a discouraging thing – watching plants turn brown and brittle.

     When it comes to gardening I need all the help I can get. So when I moved to another state in the Southwest with slightly more amiable gardening conditions, I decided to team up with my dad. He has also wanted to start up a garden, though slightly less ambitious than my ideas of a garden. I can’t help but have that magazine image of gardens in my head – the one where the vegetation is overflowing planters, boxes, and pots, bursting with colors from rich greens to reds and yellows and purples. The kind of garden that seems to sprout naturally with minimal cultivation and added resources. That’s the kind of garden I want.

     Of course I realize that any garden requires work to achieve that flawless, flowing, natural look. Our first course of action was to purchase our seeds: zucchini, cucumber, jalapeños, a variety of sweet peppers, cantaloupe, watermelon, a grape vine, green beans, fennel, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, a variety of flowers as well as some other stuff that I can’t recall at the moment. I went for a wider variety of edibles while my dad focused on a few of his favorites as well as more flowers.

     Once we selected the type of stuff that we wanted to grow we proceeded to use a seed starter kit that my dad had picked up last year. Again, I went for a variety of produce to start in the little pellets of peat, only planting two to three of each type of seed while my dad chose to start rows of the each seed on his half of the tray. It wasn’t long before the seeds germinated and began sprouting stalks and leaves.

     Eventually we decided that the plants were quickly outgrowing the small starter pellets (evidenced by the roots they were shooting out into neighboring pellets), but unfortunately we still hadn’t firmly decided how we were going to lay out our garden, nor did we have the materials to ground the plants yet. So we bought some of those peat pots and some potting soil. I moved the plants that were outgrowing the pellets into these pots while some were left behind to continue growing.

     This past weekend my dad and I worked outside all afternoon to finalize our plans for the garden. We picked a corner in the backyard that gets sufficient sunlight and can also be protected from the dogs. We decided to do a sort of raised bed in order to better contain the garden and minimize expenses on material – no need to waste soil and such. We went ahead and built up the frame of the bed with some scrap wood and fenced the area off.

     We still plan on getting some peat moss and then top soil to fill the bed with. We think that the dirt already in place at the bottom is decent enough to not need a deeper container. On top of the fenced off area for the edible stuff we also have a spot intended for flowers. It’s in the middle of the yard so I decided it was only safe for completely decorative plants. There was no way I would risk eating eating green beans that had been pissed on by a pup. My dad agreed with my whole-heartedly.

     We also have a small trellis planter that we are going to utilize for anything that vines, like the grape plant my dad picked out.

     That’s the current status of our gardening adventures. I’m hoping this next weekend will see the plants actually in the ground. We are feeling generally good about being past any frosts (though we could be thoroughly mistaken). I’ll continue to take pictures and post updates on the progress of our green thumbing.

It has been ages since I’ve posted a screenshot of my desktop so I finally decided I better get the ball rolling again.

Naturally I found the wallpaper on MacThemes. The wall is called Grain by enzudesign. There are a bunch of other wallpapers I have been using since the last time I posted a screenshot that I have really enjoyed. I will have to get screenies of those ones as well up here some time. Icons were found in various locations by various artists.