BRAIN DRAIN

With another year drawing to a close, here’s a look back at the reading list that was:

The tally is thirty-one books, just slightly more than my modest annual target of twenty-six. In all, it’s a better mix than last year’s and betrays my penchant for following specific authors (see Murakami, Parker, Pullman and Fforde).

As for 2008, my reading list is already shaping up to be just as interesting with at least six books on my queue. I’ll get around to them soon enough, and as always suggestions are most welcome.

Slim pickings this time around as I’d already seen most of the available movies on the flight (or already have them on DVD):

Stardust. I was never overly fond of the novel (I thought it was so-so, for Gaiman), but having seen the movie I will definitely make time to read it again. Overall the movie is a very well made romp of fantasy, managing to play itself out as a fiary tale that adults will find charming (which, as I understand it, was the filmakers’ intention). There are some misses in the movie, though. For instance, Robert de Niro as Captain Shakespeare is somewhat off (but does manage to get better), and the chase scene toward the end was underplayed. Also, one gets the sense that the writers of the adaptation could never quite decide whether to position the movie as a G- or PG-13 rated affair, eventually opting for the latter. Nonetheless, the movie’s still worth watching, Neil Gaiman fan or no.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Adam Sandler movies typically follow a simple formula: have an otherwise likeable fellow find himself in a spot of bother, see him become a total and utter jerk, then marvel at how he redeems himself in the end (with the token moral lesson thrown into the mix). Chuck and Larry is no different, with the exception that it tends to make for uncomfortable viewing because of all the in-jokes about homosexuality that are made, some of which border on the offensive (but are necessary to the overall plot). In retrospect, the movie has its moments but on the whole is otherwise forgettable. Having said that, the two highlights that come to mind are Dan Aykroyd and Ving Rhames. Just because.

Shoot ‘Em Up. For a movie with no plot, the barebones of a story, and oodles of gratuitous violence, it’s actually passable. Clive Owen makes for a very convincing all-around killer, especially in a film that’s basically built around making the star strike the cool action pose. Paul Giamatti also shows off his acting chops (which in this case doesn’t seem to have required much effort, considering), though I didn’t much care for Monica Belucci (never have). In all, Shoot ‘Em Up actually reminds me of the premise behind Warren Ellis’s Nextwave series: hypercondense an action film to its barebones and take it to its extreme, and this would be it. Oh, the film also has a fantastic soundtrack (edgy rock music).

Superbad. As the title implies: Super. Bad. I am obvioulsy not the target demographic for this sort of film, but it’s a sad world we live in that a movie like this gets made. In short, the movie tries to strike a mix somewhere between Dazed and Confused and American Pie, but it’s neither as entertaining as the former nor as funny as the latter. It’s oversexed and otherwise quite pathetic. On the plus side, Michael Cera does outperform everyone else in the film (and how).

The Contract. I never heard of this one, but it was quite entertaining. A fairly decent thriller/chase film pitting Morgan Freeman (surprisingly, the bad guy) against John Cusack (unsurprisingly, the good guy), it’s actually reminiscent of the movie Shooter, even in the sense that it becomes clear that the story has nowhere to go. While the movie won’t keep anyone glued to their seats, the actors deliver solid performances for an action-film-that-isn’t, making the spectacle actually quite entertaining.

A few “highlights” from the long trip home this holiday season:

Misplaced. I had to take care of some things at the University before my departure, and with some of the subway lines not running at the time I opted to take the inter-campus shuttle. This slight change in plans was mostly uneventful until I later realized (on the trip back to my apartment via train to pick up my luggage and lock up) that I’d dropped my favorite pair of earmuffs in the van. As the second piece of winter clothing I’d misplaced in as many weeks — my only other pair of gloves had gone previously — and with my stay in New York winding down, I can’t help but take it as a friendly reminder from the city of how much I’ll miss the place when I’m gone, freezing cold winters and all.

Chaos! This is probably the latest I’ve traveled home for the holidays, and I don’t ever want to have to do it again. The traffic to the airport was in disarray (but manageable) and navigating the security screening when I got there was the most stressful three-quarters of an hour I’ve had all semester. After that, though, smooth sailing.

Boarding announcement. JFK Airport has relatively tight terminals, which get crowded very quickly as the time to departure approaches. For some reason, passengers near the boarding gate for the flight I was on were getting particularly antsy right before boarding. As a result, one of the ground staff got on the PA system to announce — in his Yankee-doodle drawl — that the flight to “Hang Kang” was not yet ready for boarding and to ask passengers to please be patient and take their seats. This announcement would be repeated four or five more times in the next ten minutes. Based on the reaction of the people at the boarding gate (mine included), I’d say that such announcements do less to help pacify anxious passengers and can actually make matters worse.

Wheeeeeeee! I happened to be on the jetway to board my flight right behind a mother with her young child in tow. Naturally, said mom had to keep pace with her son, and since I was behind them I had to walk slowly as well, allowing me to overhear their conversation. “This is the corridor to the airplane,” mom pointed out to child, and then proceeded to ask, “Are you excited?” The child’s reply to this, after careful consideration, was a very enthusiastic “I like it!”

Bloating. It’s a well known fact that a person’s feet tend to expand while on an airplane flight. This is something that I’ve become more conscious of on long-haul trips, where I have difficulty getting my feet back into my shoes right before landing. Because it happened to me again on the journey home, I got to thinking: maybe it’s not just our feet that bloat while in the air, but other parts of our body, too. If true, and given the amount I’ve traveled between New York and Manila these past few years, then perhaps I’ve found an explanation for the added girth around my waist…

Sanitized. At some point in the middle of the night (day?) I visited the lavatory to freshen up. After splashing some water on my face I was staring at my ugly mug in the mirror when I noticed a sizeable white dot on my left ear: a sticker with the word “STERILIZED” printed on it, presumably from the audio headset I’d used. Who knows how long this had been stuck there, with the person to my left across the aisle wondering why my ear was sterilized?

The flying clip. Speaking of the person seated across me from the aisle: during the meal service I noticed that the napkin and utensils were being held together by a small clip. The clip itself was quite nice (think miniaturized clothesline clip), and because I had nothing better to do I started playing with it. Yet it was also made of smooth plastic, and so when I gave it a fourth or fifth squeeze the whole thing came flying out of my fingers and across the aisle. For a moment, I was absolutely mortified, waiting to see the reaction of the person within firing range. Fortunately, the clip barely missed her and she hadn’t noticed at all. Suffice it to say, for the remainder of the flight I was on my best behavior.

First, the bad news. I had an invitation to the airline lounge that I intended to use in Hong Kong. Because my flight would get in early in the morning, I was realistic about what food would be available (typically dimsum as it would be too early for noodles) but was looking forward to it nonetheless. Unfortunately, the flight arrived a little late, and what was supposed to be a two hour layover prior to my connection instead became a thirty minute rush to the boarding gate. In short: no dumplings for me.

And now, the good news! Upon boarding my connecting flight, I learned that I was upgraded to first class. In fact, it looks like the few of us who were on the prior New York to Hong Kong leg of the trip had the same good fortune. Personally, I think the airline did this for their own convenience: since the prior flight came in late, it was in their interest to open up the seats and just upgrade existing passengers to unsold seats so that their luggage and boarding get processed faster. But really, who cares? I think this one should be filed under “Ours is not to question why…”, and even if the flight from Hong Kong to Manila was only an hour and a half long, the unexpected bonus from the airline was certainly a great way to end a twenty-odd hour journey.

If our tree is anything to go by, it’s shaping up to be one fantastic Christmas.

Whoa! The past week sure flew by quickly. Studying for exams, then taking them, and then running those last minute errands that pop up, well, at the last minute seem to have all coalesced into one huge blur.

I’m hoping I enjoyed myself. But I sincerely doubt it.

Anyway, the shopping’s done, the apartment’s clean and the bags are packed; all that’s left to do is lock up and ship out. That happens tomorrow. Honestly, apart from going through the motions the holiday spirit really hasn’t captured me yet (for that matter, I haven’t really been myself lately), though I’m betting being around friends and family again will remedy this situation very quickly.

Case Histories gets bandied about a lot as worthwhile reading. Having finished the novel, my impression is that the book is…well, not good per se, but certainly not all that bad either.

First, the good news: Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories is every bit as unconventional a take on the murder mystery genre as many critics suggest. This is a feat of storytelling more than anything else. In typical fashion, the book revolves around several unsolved mysteries that find their way to a private investigator’s doorstep. The novelty, however, lies in the fairly detailed “case histories” that describe the circumstances surrounding these events, not to mention how different characters’ points of view are employed to tell the overall story. The latter help add some depth to the tale, for sure, but it is in the former that Atkinson’s book truly comes into its own. Once the initial three case histories are laid out in the opening chapter, and as these are updated at critical points in the book, it becomes difficult not to have one’s interest piqued.

Now, the bad news: the book has a noteworthy beginning and end, but its middle leaves a lot to be desired. A more apt description would paint it somewhere between “unremarkable” and “aimless”. On one end of this spectrum, the book is perhaps a victim of its own success: because of the reliance on these case histories as a storytelling device, the detective-protagonist does very little sleuthing in the traditional sense. Consequently, the search for clues is largely underwhelming. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum the book is chock full of details about its characters that tend to be unnecessary and border on meaningless. Of these, the ones I object to the most are those that involve sexual practices or orientation (were they even necessary?). My biases aside, a very good case can be made that the same story could have been told with greater finesse.

While Case Histories may not be as groundbreaking a work as those enamored by its charms make it out to be, it nevertheless makes for a reasonable diversion. In my case, I ended up wrapping up the book over a three week period, reading a few pages every now and then when the time would permit. As one prone to either put off reading a book unless it can be finished as quickly as possible, I take this as a positive sign. My take on Kate Atkinson’s work may be less than glowing, but insofar as it was a mildly entertaining read I must say that it did deliver in that regard.

A little random surfing brought Buzzword to my attention. A web service under development from Virtual Ubiquity, it’s described as “the first real word processor for the web, [...] a breakthrough in collaborative authoring for documents that matter.”

I haven’t signed up to try out the free preview yet (I’ll probably get around to doing just that over the holidays), but from what I’ve seen and read so far I am thoroughly intrigued. It would seem I’m not the only one, either: Adobe Systems acquired Virtual Ubiquity a couple of months ago, which I suppose is a very good sign of even greater things to come.

I vaguely recall hearing about Jeff Smith’s Bone when I was heavily interested in comics back in the ’90s. If memory serves, I knew of it but could never quite muster the interest to see what all the fuss was about. Looking at the art, it’s easy to see why: it’s of the cartoony sort clearly meant for younger audiences (or so I thought at the time). In spite of this, however, both Bone and its author have consistently garnered acclaim from fans and luminaries in the comics industry alike, a sure reminder of that adage not to judge a book by its cover.

And rightly so: as simple (that is to say, childish) as Bone might seem, it turns out that Jeff Smith’s series is a finely crafted work of fantasy.

In broad strokes, the premise is simple: three Bone cousins — Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone — are run out of Boneville, finding themselves lost and separated in an unfamiliar valley. Stranded because of a long winter, it’s not long before they eventually find one another with the assistance of the many new friends that they make along the way. Yet all is not well in the valley: there is a mysterious dragon running about, as well as “rat creatures” wreaking havoc amongst the local townspeople after years of leaving them well alone. The plot thickens, however, as the secret history of the valley unfolds. Soon enough the battle lines are drawn between townspeople and rat creatures, with the dragons ever in the background, culminating in a clash for the valley’s very survival.

Fans of the series are quick to point out parallels between Bone and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. While might seem a tad generous, in truth it is a very appropriate comparison to make. Both tales progress in a similar fashion, from innocent beginnings that quickly snowball into a story of epic proportions, and have plenty of the shared iconography — kingdoms, creatures, characters — practically native to the fantasy genre. Yet this is not to say that Bone is simply derivative of Tolkien’s work in the same way that Christopher Paolini’s Eldest series is outright derivative of George Lucas’s Star Wars (as some critics have been wont to say). Rather, Bone achieves that unique blend of offering something familiar together with something unique, paying homage to the great works that have clearly built up the genre while at the same time presenting a mythology that is ingeniously its own.

The credit for this, naturally, must go to Jeff Smith. Bone is truly Smith’s magnum opus, an uncompromising series spanning thirteen years of his professional life and — a rarity in the comics industry — one where he gets to tell the tale he wants from start to finish. For this reason, reading Bone is as much about seeing the story unfold as it is having a front-row seat to Smith’s maturing as a storyteller, from the rather aimless first few chapters that introduce readers to the the series (not to mention the occasional panel whose contents are less than clear) to its climactic moments and poignant scenes, which at their best are truly a wonder to behold.

Bone was originally printed in black and white, and readers can have access to this original presentation in the complete collected one-volume edition (also known as “the brick”), without a doubt the most cost-efficient way to experience the series firsthand. More recently, Scholastic has begun the process of re-releasing Bone in full-color format across several shorter volumes, certainly a more expensive alternative for the curious but well worth the vibrant hues to accompany the experience.

Ultimately, Bone is not only that kind of series that parents would want to read together with their children, but also the sort that even seasoned comic book collectors will find entertaining. The reason for this is simple: it is fundamentally a story well told that manages (thankfully) not to take itself too seriously. At the end of the day, isn’t that really what comics should be about?

The UK’s Science Museum is certainly one of those places that science geeks everywhere should visit while in London. Now their website has also become an online destination worth geeking out over thanks to the museum’s popular online game Launchball. It’s a wonderfully engaging puzzle-type game that a person can get lost in for hours (and I should know!).