The Film Noir Experience

Some of you will remember that when Kingsley went missing Cooper started doing this adorable thing where he punched me in the face when he was hungry. At 5 o’clock in the morning. Well, he still occasionally does that when I do something silly like fall asleep before feeding him his midnight snack.

So, this morning, I just assumed that since he was purring and batting me in the face that he must be hungry and so I chose to ignore him. (Actually, I told him that we weren’t eating until the alarm went off, but since my cats don’t speak English that detail is both silly and irrelevant.)

When the alarm went off and I finally did get up he ran into the room, watched me go about my morning business and then led me into the kitchen. ” I know, I know,” I said to him, “You’re hungry.” Only instead of stopping by his food bowl and waiting patiently he kept on walking and sat on my yoga mat in the front room. I stared at him for minute, put food into his bowl (Lily, my other cat, actually was hungry) and then went to join him on the floor.

I’ve been doing yoga in the mornings and apparently Cooper has decided that this is new special Kate and Cooper time. Isn’t that adorable? So, now I have to wonder, is he hitting me in the face because he’s hungry or because he wants to weave through my legs while I’m in downward-facing dog?

So, I can’t remember a time where I didn’t get books or gift certificates to bookstores for birthdays and Christmas. You know, back in the days when you’d order a book and it would take two weeks for it to come in. Back in the days before the internet. Back before the days when everyone I am related to became involved in some aspect of writing/publishing/selling books.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone then that a “care package” in my family usually involves a book. Sometimes, only a book, not even a card or a note. This is how it was last Fall when I came home to a package on my doorstep with a familiar return address. My sister had sent me a book. Not just any book, but Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games. I once described this as Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood meets that Japanese film Battle Royale. In the (possibly not that distant) future, after a war that almost destroyed humanity Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12, one of the outer districts that unsuccessfully fought against the Capitol sneaking out past the fences to hunt to keep some food on the table, watching her friends’ fathers go to work in the Capitol run coal mine that killed her father. As the story opens, we see District 12 preparing for another round of the gruesome Hunger Games meant to celebrate the end of the war and to, once a year punish the districts for their disobedience to the Capitol. (and, here’s where it turned into Battle Royale). Every year which district sends two tributes, a boy and a girl, to the Capitol to participate in the games. While the games have a different setting every year, they are always the same. They are always a fight to the death.

Katniss is a firebrand. A spark plug. She is fierce and loyal and in a move to protect someone she loves she ends up as one of district 12′s tributes. And, the games are awful. But, the book is touching and wonderful and an excellent first novel in a series about this dystopian future.

Naturally, after reading the first one I had to run out and buy the second one. Catching Fire is more of the same, except that now there are more visible signs of unrest in the country and Katniss appears to be at the center. Not as good as the first book, but good enough that I am thoroughly invested in seeing this series to its end. I need to know what is going to happen to Katniss, the other tributes, her family and the rebels.

Thankfully, just in time for one last non-school book hurrah before the fall semester begins Mockingjay came out on Tuesday. And, my copy came in the mail yesterday. So, now I’m alternating between stuff I want to get done before school and, that’s right, reading my last non-school book before the semester starts.

Ah, the next Pretty Little Liars book. We left off with them at Alison’s funeral, Spencer jonesing for her sister’s boyfriend, Hanna ruling the school, Aria chasing her teacher and Emily coming to terms with who she is. Oh, and all of them freaking out about the fact that someone seems to know all their secrets (and knowing that the one person who *actually* knew all their secrets is dead.) So, this book is more of the same. The girls being terrible people. The girls doing awful things to people they care about and people that allegedly care about them doing awful things to them.

In this book, we’re taken back to the real beginning, the “Jenna thing” that is alluded to throughout the first book. Toby, who has been discussed, returns to town and freaks the girls out. Toby’s secrets become apparent. Some of the girls secrets are outed, too.

In short, this is more terrible people doing hateful things to each other. It was wonderful, like watching a soap opera without having to be home in the middle of the day or remembering to set your TiVo.

So, these books have recently been made into a television show. I know this because I’ve seen the pilot and because it also says so all over the books. I decided to not hold it against them. I was looking for something…well, trashy. Trashy and thoughtless to read while I’m on vacation. Oh, boy did I find what I’m looking for. For the most part, these are stories about thoughtless, terrible people doing hateful things to each other. One of the girls is jonesing for her sister’s boyfriend. One of them has hooked up with her AP English teacher. One of them has remade herself into the high school’s new It girl and little swimmer Emily is just coming to terms with who she is (and is actually pretty sympathetic). They are all involved in a web of secrets and lies and have been since their best friend Alison disappeared 2 years before. The novel progresses, us discovering the secrets that the girls want to keep hidden as they begin to get text messages signed by “A”. They wonder if their friend is back until her body is found. And, now someone is out there, and knows all their secrets and seems determined to make them all pay.

So, this was well written and it was fun. I have some theories about who this mysterious “A” is, and I think the girls are way off. (And, at 15, if they’d just own up they’d get a slap on the wrist and be done with their community service in time for college.) Some of their secrets are the sorts of things that, yes, at 15 you would be freaked out about in a small town but aren’t tragic. And, some of their secrets, well, let’s just say I look forward to some of them getting their comeuppance.

Despite the fact the most of my friends told me to read things that weren’t linguistic while I was on vacation, I picked this book up. I figured that, since Blount is a journalist and not a linguist, it wouldn’t be like real language reading. It would be fun. And, the subtitles promised, “the energies, gists and spirits of letters, words and combinations thereof; their roots, bones, innards, piths, pips and secret parts, tinctures, tonics and essences; with examples of the their usage foul and savory.”

That sounds fun, right? (Well, it sounds fun if you’re a nerd like me.)

And, the book isn’t bad. I just don’t feel like it is what I was promised. There are not a lot of “roots, bones, piths and secret parts”. There are some but not for every word. And, some of Blount’s “pith and innards” seems to be features of sounds or phonology that he points out to support his thesis that language isn’t arbitrary. But, a lot of language is arbitrary. It is actually a design feature. It has the flexibility that it has largely because of its arbitrary parts. But, whatever. I’m trying to not be a linguist, just someone who is interested in words here.

There were a lot of anecdotes in the book. Some of which were funny, some of which were just, well, anecdotal. And, often not having to do with the words but rather one instance of one word’s usage.

My friend Melissa recommended it to me. And, I looked for her review of it just now to see if she liked it. Because I have to say that my opinion of the book is coming down on the side of ‘boo’. Anecdotes about your life in words can be fun. But, believe me when I say (after reading 1 semester and 1 summer session’s worth of papers on etymologies) where words come from is sometimes surprising, often fun, every now and then shocking and always interesting. I expected so much from this book based on its title, and it just didn’t deliver.

So, I feel like I’ve been holding out on the blogging world (and my seven loyal readers.) I have been busy this summer. I have been cooking (so, of course, I have recipes I’d like to post) and canning (I made sweet pickles out of squash!) and reading (I’m almost caught up on Cassandra “Still Not King” Clare’s ‘Mortal Instruments’ series, I’ve read the two books by Maggie Stiefvater that don’t involve wolves and, to my knowledge aren’t part of a trilogy, I’ve written some bad poetry (in perfect iambic pentameter) thanks to Stephen Fry, I’ve made not-so-shockingly little headway on this year’s book list but I have sort of become addicted to Sara Shepard’s Pretty Little Liars. The books, not the TV show the books are based on.) and I’ve been learning German (ich lerne Deutsch! Ich habe eine Schwester. Ich schenke ihr das Buch! Assuming that is how you spell all of those words and they are in the right order, all of those sentences are true. Although, a little hard to process probably since ‘das Buch’ is definite and without antecedent.) I’ve been bored to tears reading about LeBron and Favre (both of whom take way too long to make decisions. Can you imagine sitting in a restaurant with either of those guys? Do mains have to come out and court them? Do pigs have to point out where the juiciest chop will be? I know, I could just stop getting tweets from Sports Center and PTI, but sometimes they actually talk about Sports!) I’ve been working my way through all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is amazing how little sleep one actually needs when one needs to know if Willow can be talked down from the dark side. Oh, and I’ve been working on academic stuff. Academic stuff that’s not in German.

All of this is preamble to the following sentence: I have vacation coming up. Time I have dedicated to specifically not working on preserving tasty and cheap food for the winter and ongoing academic projects and the like. So, I plan on spending some of that time posting about the food and the pickles and reviewing the books. I plan on spending some of that time working on this year’s photo project ( I may even put up a page for it!) Oh, and I plan on holding babies and going to bridal showers and just generally enjoying the part of my life that isn’t geared towards one day getting me a job (or making sure I don’t starve, get rickets or some other disease brought about by some kind of nutritional deficit.) I may blog about that, too. It is fun and exciting (and a little bit sad, noting the inexorable march of time) to see how big the Smalls in your life have gotten in the 6 months since you’ve seen them last.

So, I am holding out a little, but it won’t be for long.

The time of year when things are starting to mature in farms and gardens and I find myself (like many other CSA share-having people) hip deep in more veg than any one human being could eat. This is okay because since I have moved to Buffalo I have slowly been building up an arsenal of canning skills.

That sounds so weird. But, It is true. I have recipes. I have pickling spices. I have jars. I have the internet to search for new and exciting recipes. And, tomorrow I’ll hopefully have jars full of a brand new (to me) squash pickle recipe.

You read that right, squash pickles. I also plan on making a beet relish. The recipe calls for horseradish, but I have fresh dill so I may use that instead. Is it wise to monkey with a recipe you’ve never tried before? Probably not. Will I do it anyway? It wouldn’t be the first time.

The good news: I got my stuff moved (aside from my kitchen stuff) before the hot weather set in.

The bad news: The hot weather set in.

A friend of mine once had this theory that you should eat hot foods when it is hot out and cold foods when it is cold out. I don’t know if there is any truth to this, but her theory was that if you raise your core temperature (with a nice steaming bowl of soup in your belly), you kick off the bodies defenses and it works to make you cooler. Or, if you lower your internal temperature with a big banana split, you spur your body to make itself warm again.

I was thinking about this today while I was reading with a fan on and the curtains closed. Or, at least trying to read. But, all I could think about was ice cream. So, I went out and got some. In fact, that is what I had for dinner. Ice cream sandwiches! (And, swiss chard slaw, the recipe for which I got off the the internet. I may now be headed for bed, but first I have to go take a cold shower. It is still scorching up in heah!

It is 9:30 and I can already tell that it is going to be a scorcher today. I think I may have to abandon my furry compatriots and spend most of the afternoon someplace else working on German flashcards. I knew moving up to the 3rd floor of a building was going to mean being creative with where I spent my afternoon on the hot and humid days in Buffalo.

The good news is, I spend most of my afternoons on campus. Also, my cats spend most of their afternoons passed out, so I don’t feel particularly bad about leaving them to swelter in their new home.

This morning, though, Cooper got me up at 5:59. (He’s like the weather, he always wakes me up on a 9.) I fed him and it was quiet and a little cool out and I thought about going for a jog. I should have. This may become the summer of listening to my cats. How much stuff could I have gotten done before it started really getting hot if I had those three extra hours? We’ll see if he does it again tomorrow. He probably will, only earlier. Yesterday, he woke me at 6:59. (I went ahead and got up yesterday because 7 seemed reasonable on Sunday. Or, maybe all the moving has me delirious.)

As, you may know, It is the World Cup. I like to think of this as a month long holiday that happens every four years where all of the world stops and wonders, “Who will be the next champion?”

Now that we’re out of the group stage, past the round of 16 and into the quarters a lot of people, myself included, have found ourselves without a team to cheer on from here on in (Go, USA!). Honestly, my bracket has been completely destroyed. I was just listening to a piece on NPR about who to follow now. And, the guy suggested that instead of looking for a team to root for, you can look for a team to root against. In general, I like this suggestion because I’m a snarky human being. However, my favorite team to root against is also out. (Sorry, England.)

But, I unexpectedly found a new team to support while watching my team (Go USA!). Ghana is a lot of fun to watch (unless they’re playing the US.) They’ve knocked us out of two World Cups (boo!). Also, they’ve never won a World Cup (only seven countries have ever won the World Cup: (West) Germany, England, Uruguay, Brazil, Italy, Argentina and France). How awesome would it be to watch a first time winner at the first Championship held on the African Subcontinent? Go, Ghana!