So Cúirt, ROPES, World Book Night, a paper due on Friday, and bunch of other things have made this a really stressful week, but the President of Ireland smiled at me today, so that has to count for something.
I promise he was a lot closer when the smiling occurred.
Today, Bookslut announced the arrival of a sister publication, Spolia:
Spolia, meaning to use rubble as building material […] appropriate for those trying to create a literary culture in the End Days of Publishing, or whatever it is that is going on right now.
– Jessa Crispin, Blog of a Bookslut
I’ve been reading Bookslut daily since I discovered it (during my last stint abroad, eight years ago), and I’m looking forward to downloading the first issue of Spolia on Monday.
So, something big happened at the Vatican today, and it’s all really exciting. This is the first pope from the new world. This could have some good implications.
However, something else happened today that was ground-breaking and life-changing and squeeeee-inducing wonderful… the news of the Veronica Mars movie.
If we MARShmallows want to see the Neptune High class reunion, we need to raise 2 million on Kickstarter in the next 30 days (incidentally, I did not know Veronica Mars fans were called marshmallows!)
There are some really cool inducements. Ideally, I would want the perks of a $5,000 pledge: a private screening for 50 in your hometown, plus all the basic T-shirt, DVD, and movie poster swag. But I settled for a much more realistic number.
So the campaign just hit 1.9 million, and it’s only 7:30pm in the States. I’m probably going to pull an Election Night special and watch the results roll in. It really is incredible… $2 million in one day.
After yet another day of lecturers staring at me quizzically or smiling patiently while I try to express my ideas about the world in which we live, one more silly little remark can’t hurt…
It really warms my heart to see Sarah Jessica Parker sitting in the Vogue offices and talking about her early days in New York City (the Thanksgiving episode of Glee just aired here).
It reminds me of the early days of Sex and the City, for which I am more than a little nostalgic. I know all the cool kids have move on to Girls, but still… I miss those days.
I have both of my “read a book every week” classes tomorrow, so this is usually the night – at least, for the past two weeks – when I don’t get to sleep.
However, I’m caught up on my reading tonight, so I’m forcing myself to go to bed, even though there are plenty of things I could be working on right now, calling my name…
To that end, I took some of the herbal sleeping remedy recommended by the girl at the health foods store, followed by a cuppa Pukka-brand Night Time tea, and now I’m ready for beddy-bye.
I have also, within the past hour, hit upon a new idea for my thesis, the proposal for which is due on Friday. I have had my topic picked for months, but this new idea is imaginative and collaborative and boldly experiential.
It’s possible I might have taken too much hippie potion. We’ll see if this idea stands up in the morning light.
Okay, now it’s possible that I won’t be able to take the class because it’s open to so many MA programmes that they may have to cap enrollment. Trying to stay positive…
Favorite Five Films
1. The Artist
2. What Richard Did
3. Bernie
4. Looper
5. Shadow Dancer
Five Best Film Events
1. Grace Kelly Film Festival
2. Breakfast at Tiffany’s at the Paramount
3. Gremlins at London IMAX
4. The Dead on Culture Night
5. French Film Festival at IFI
Top Five Films I Missed
1. The Revisionaries
2. The Eye Has to Travel
3. Rust and Bone
4. Dollhouse
5. Cloud Atlas
Five Favorite Plays
1. Tromluí Pinocchio at An Taibhdhearc
2. Jason and the Argonauts at Baboró
3. Who Needs Enemies? at Town Hall Theatre
4. Sanctuary at Blue Teapot
5. The Poor Mouth at Project Arts Centre
Five Best Nonfiction Pieces
1. “The Innocent Man” by Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly
2. “Punk’d” by Harriet Charity Verney, Vogue
3. “A Swing and a Miss” by B.R. Myers, The Atlantic
4. “NW London Blues” by Zadie Smith, The New York Review
5. “Irish Studios Have a Moment in Clover” by John Anderson, The New York Times
Five Best Short Stories
1. “An Abduction” by Tessa Hadley, The New Yorker
2. “Supper Club” by Kevin Barry, Silver Threads of Hope
3. “Thank You for the Light” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The New Yorker
4. “I’ve Hardly Slept at All” by Trevor Byrne, Silver Threads of Hope
5. “Enclosure” by Jim Crace, Granta
Five Best Books
1. Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed
2. Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian by Eoin Colfer
3. Wild by Cheryl Strayed
4. The Night Swimmer by Matt Bondurant
5. Eat and Run by Scott Jurek
Five Books I Should Have Read
1. The China Factory by Mary Costello
2. This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
3. Coming to My Senses by Alyssa Harad
4. NW by Zadie Smith
5. This is How it Ends by Kathleen MacMahon
Five Top Book Stories
1. Rue and Trayvon: Reading Comprehension
2. Jonah Lehrer’s Self-Plagiarism
3. Dalkey Archive’s Job Listing
4. Nonprofits and the Fictional World
5. Mr. Morris Lessmore’s Oscar
Five Favorite Book Events
1. Dublin Book Festival
2. Doing Writing with Kevin Barry
3. Scott Jurek’s Book-Signing 5K
4. Bookpeople’s Cheryl Strayed Giveaway
5. MALP’s Publishers on Publishing Series
My boyfriend and I were once sitting in front of the TV at home, and he was talking on the phone to one of his friends, who was also sitting in front of the TV at home with his girlfriend.
My boyfriend overheard his friend say to his girlfriend: “So, babe, are we gonna watch some Star Trek or what?”
To this day, we still refer to that as the smoothest line in all of romantic history.
We had something of a Star Trek theme running through our weekend in Dublin.
On Day One, Saturday night, we arrived in Dublin on the last train. We checked into our hotel in Merrion Square, and I switched on the TV to see JJ Abrams’s 2009 Star Trek playing. My boyfriend and I saw this movie in the cinema with his mother, who had grown up watching Star Trek every day after school. She knew the name of each character as soon as they arrived on screen.
Yesterday, after our Perfect Irish Sunday, we caught a 3D screening of Rise of the Guardians at the Savoy on O’Connell Street. We both thoroughly enjoyed it, but we had to sit through the credits to figure out who all the voices were (Alec Baldwin as Santa Claus? That was a surprise.) When we saw Chris Pine as Jack Frost, I’ll admit we didn’t know who that was, until I imdb’ed him when we got back to the hotel. We first saw him as “one of the skinheads” in Smokin’ Aces from 2006, but of course, he’s most known for his role as James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise in the 2009 film Star Trek.
Finally, today, Monday, we’re catching the train out of Connolly Station to Belfast. We found out that passengers en route to Belfast have their own special waiting room, and the train is a different model than the one that goes to Galway. It’s name? The Enterprise.
11,708.
That’s how many words I got during NoNoWriMo. I lasted about a week.
Also, I didn’t take a photo of the Movember mustache someone drew on the Oscar Wilde sculpture when I had the chance, and now it’s gone.
And… I neglected the blog for another week.
November FAIL.
Yes, I know I’m two days late, but there are still lingering effects in the form of leftovers and hangovers and a trail of email squabbles with my family. Thanksgiving traditions are definitely surviving the digital switchover! Happy holidays.
(I’m going to post a few times today to try to catch up.)
The Galway Train 