Movie

It has also been since February since I've talked about my favorite movies. I still stand by my statement that I don't have just one and probably never will.

Just a couple weeks ago, I finally watched Requiem for a Dream and I thought it was awesome. I don't know that it's my favorite even of the moment, but it was a great movie and worth a spot in this post.
IMDb Requiem for a Dream

Sketchbook

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was learning to draw and improving. I was too afraid to post my sketchbook drawings because I know they aren't all that great, but I recently shared them on facebook and google+.

These aren't all of my sketches, but these are the ones that I'm most proud of. The seashell is my favorite. I remember drawing it with the other shells and thinking, wow, this one is actually turning out pretty good! And then I showed my husband and I'll never forget the look on his face. "Wow! You drew that?"  It made me feel great.

Blog name!

So I've been blogging regularly since February, but underneath my blog title (Megan) my subtitle is simply "My first attempt at blogging" and I feel that this should change. Any ideas what my subtitle should be?  I was thinking of maybe "Love, Art, Words, and Reason"  or something like that. Please comment!

I can never...

Recently, I posted about realizing that I'll never read all the books I want in this lifetime. I'll never even read all the GOOD books written. And then I stumbled upon this quote! I'm a little... reluctant to identify with Sylvia Plath... and it happens much more often than I'd prefer. But perhaps we are all tortured souls to a degree and it's all about what we do with that. Not all of us have to be crazy.

Water

O sweet spontaneous

 by e.e. cummings

O sweet spontaneous
              earth how often have
              the
              doting

                          fingers of
              purient philosophers pinched
              and
              poked

              thee
              ,has the naughty thumb
              of science prodded
              thy

                    beauty         .how
               oftn have religions taken
               thee upon their scraggy knees
               squeezing and
              
               buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
               gods
                         (but
               true

               to the incomparable
               couch of death thy
               rhythmic
               lover
                                          thou answerest
               them only with
                                                           spring)

A Clash of Kings

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I honestly think this is the best fantasy series ever written. I'm hooked. I love the depth of the characters.



"Some men want whores on the eve of battle, and some want gods. Jon wondered who felt better afterward. The sept tempted him no more than the brothel; his own gods kept their temples in the wild places, where the weirwoods spread their bone-white branches. The Seven have no power beyond the Wall, he thought, but my gods will be waiting." A Clash Of Kings



'A shadow on the wall,' Varys murmured, 'Yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.''



"'The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem... but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.'"A Clash of Kings



"He snorted. 'There are no true knights, no more than there are gods. If you can't protect yourself, die and get out of the way of those who can. Sharp steel and strong arms rule this world, don't ever believe any different.' Sansa backed away from him. 'You're awful.' 'I'm honest. It's the world that's awful.'" A Clash of Kings



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Book Club

My best friend suggested the two of us start up a book club. I was really nervous about doing that because I've never been a part of one and ours will have to take place online since she lives 5 hours away. I'm thankful that Goodreads.com is such a great book social networking site and I think we can successfully have a book club using it. Today is day one. We have a month to read a book. This month's book is Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

 

I haven't started it yet because I read fast.

There's nothing to do but wait until everyone is done reading and go about discussing it. I am a little concerned with how well that will go and I wonder if I should take some notes while I read it so I have some valid discussion material. I'm pretty much basing this whole book club on the discussions I used to have in AP English in high school. That is where I picked the monthly deadline. The regular English classes did chapter discussions or read a block of chapters and discussed, but our class had a month to read the entire book and discussed it after that month as a whole. I've always thought that was better. Sometimes important things are hidden in chapters that resurface later and sometimes you just can't know what the book's main theme will be like chapter by chapter. After we were done reading the book in English class, we'd set the desks up in a circle and discussed it in an informal fashion. Despite my shyness, I really preferred this method and hope that I can mimic a similar style via discussion board. I don't want it to be too much of an essay.
I wish all of the members lived in my area so we could meet in person over some wine and finger foods, but I can't be too picky. There are book clubs around here, but the beauty of starting your own is being able to pick the books. I'll read pretty much anything, but so many book clubs seem to focus on romance and Oprah books and that's just not my thing.
I can't wait to get started and will update my blog once the first discussion happens!

Cutting Down a Dead Tree

This is a tree outside of my house. Limbs have fallen from it recently. My neighbor noticed the tree was dead. And so it must be removed. Here's the progress as of a few minutes ago...

 

Kind of hard to see since there was a glare in the window, but it no longer has any branches. I couldn't get outside to take a picture because of all the branches everywhere. They are all being cut up as we speak.  It's a shame that such a large tree ended up dying so close to my house. There are branches all over my front and side yard right now. 

Since I have internet, I assume the maintenance people had no problems working around the phone line that runs to my house next to the tree. And for that, I say Well Done!

Update: The guys that cut down the tree have left. They piled up all the wood into 4 separate piles in the middle of my yard. There are twigs all over my porch and sidewalk. I had hoped they'd haul the leftovers somewhere and clean off my sidewalk at least, but no such luck. I'm kind of disappointed.

Review

The Golden by Lucius Shepard

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Very strange book, but extremely well written and incredibly interesting. It was recommended to me by a friend and I'm glad I read it. It started off a bit slow. It reminded me of The Picture of Dorian Gray as far as style and dialogue. At first, there didn't seem to be anything vampiric about it at all (other than the characters being vampires, obviously), but as it progressed, it was dark and haunting. I liked the philosophies presented and I think I will pick up a few more of Shepard's novels. I liked his writing a lot. There were many parts of the books that stayed with me because of how eloquently written they were.



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Review

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is not my typical genre, so I was hesitant to read it. My friends have been recommending it for quite some time, so I finally decided to read it. I'm glad I did! I was pleasantly surprised at how well written this book was. I'm not a big fan of murder mystery crime dramas and tend to avoid anything too James Patterson-ish and I honestly thought this book would be like that.
I liked the second and third book in this series more, but I'm glad I read this one and I fell in love with the characters.
Definitely a great book.



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