Work
- Seeds of Peace – working for the non-profit organization based in New York, unfortunately little to do, generally uninteresting, not challenging, and unpaid. Left after a week and a half.
- Food Lion – for the 3rd summer now, working for store #1476 off of Taylor Road. It’s the grocery business. It pays $7.25 $7.40 (raise!) an hour and all the absurd stories I can witness.
Reading
- No god but God – Iranian-American Reza Aslan’s amazing introduction to the history and culture of Islam
- The Cairo Trilogy – the masterpiece of Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, this massive novel traces the course of one family’s history through two and a half decades of life in Cairo
- The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew and the Heart of the Middle East – Journalist Sandy Tolan narrates the course of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspective of Dalia, an Israeli Jew in the city of Ramla who lives in the family home of Bashir, whose own family was forced out during the 1948 War. At one and a same time, it paints an intimate portrait of the personal interactions that shape the conflict while providing in-depth historical background.
- Unseen Academicals – Terry Pratchett’s latest work of fantasy comedy
- The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway’s most stripped down masterpiece, involving an old Cuban fisherman and the fickle nature of the Sea
- The Qur’an – knowing a bit about the central text of Islam might prove slightly helpful in the Middle East.
- Predictably Irrational – Behavioral Economist analyzes why so many of the economic choices we make are irrational – try ordering by secret ballot next time you’re at a restaurant and see what happens.
- This Time is Different – Economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff examine 800 years of economic failures. Ever wonder why Newfoundland isn’t a sovereign nation anymore?
- Baudolino – Umberto Eco, Italian author of The Name of the Rose (read it – you won’t be disappointed) returns to the Middle Ages in this exciting tale journey through the politics and mythology of the Middle Ages. Follow Baudolino, foster son of the Emperor Frederick (Barbarossa) as he talks his way (literally and figuratively) through a series of fantastic adventures. Knowing some European history is beneficial, but not essential.
- An Introduction to Judaism – Having spent enough time reading about Islam, I figured I may as well learn about the first of the 3 big monotheistic religions to come out of the Middle East. Maybe I can learn what a gefilte fish is.
- Sin and Syntax – Yes, it’s a book on grammar and word usage. No it’s not boring. Yes, I am actually reading it.
- Being Muslim – Haroon Siddiqi takes an occasionally humorous but generally dead serious look at the problems and misconceptions Muslims face in today’s society. Doesn’t let contemporary Muslim society get off lightly, but then, nobody does.
- Life on the Mississippi – Mark Twain reminds everybody why he is a titan of American literature by writing about his first job and the land he grew up in. Oh, and he casually reminds his reader that he’s far more well-read than they’ll ever be.
- Ordinary People: Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland – Christopher Browning’s interesting study in how ordinary people become cold-blooded, state-sanctioned killers.
- A Brief History of Egypt – Currently being serialized and summarized on my blog.
Movies
- Ajami – A Palestinian/Israeli story, reminiscent of Crash.
- Memento – a story told in two directions at once. The rest you probably need to find out on your own.
- Kingdom of Heaven – Ridley Scott’s epic, well, epic about the Crusades. A bit apologetic, a bit more inaccurate, but not bad on the whole.
- The Conversation – a survey of a surveillance expert. Who’s really being watched, though?
- The Big Lebowski - his name isn’t Lebowski. It’s the Dude, got it? And he’s just trying to get his rug replaced. It really tied the room together.
- Let the Right One In – one of the best vampire movies ever made. Incidentally, in Swedish. About to be remade in America. Incidentally, not in Swedish. probably unlikely to be one of the best vampire movies ever made.
- Do the Right Thing – it’s pushing 100 degrees in a Brooklyn neighborhood. Tensions rise. Events unfold. Just watch it.
- Metropolis – if you look at this 1927 classic pretty closely, you may notice a lack of depth and a number of plot holes. But why would you bother when there are 30,000 extras on screen, the protagonist hallucinates about the Book of Revelations and there’s a mad scientist on the loose?
- Ran – Akiro Kurosawa does King Lear in 16th Century Japan. Pretty bleak, on the whole.
- Paprika – A very surreal Japanese movie about the intersection of our dreams and technology. Many comparisons have been drawn to Inception – I understand why. Warning: may include circus clowns, giant dolls, and some explanation of film-making techniques.
- Se7en – Forget what I said about Ran. This is the bleakest outlook on humanity that I’ve seen in a long time. A very well done movie – very violent, but the violence is treated as something to be abhorred, not something to be amused or excited by.
- Lions for Lambs – a 2007 film about the Iraq war, involving soldiers, politicians, academics and journalists. It believes itself to be high-minded, even-handed, and well-developed. It is actually dull, unfulfilling and cliched.
- Inception – Leonardo Decaprio and some other athletic looking scoundrels take a trip into a dream world that is much like reality, only cooler. Gravity may not apply.
- Touch of Evil – Orson Welles writes, directs and co-stars in a crime drama that was, predictably, re-edited and wrecked by Universal before being restored to the intense, dark film that it is. For more like this, see The Magnificent Ambersons, minus the restoration.
- The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – The first tale in the late Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy, it features the exploits of investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist, hacker and vengeful anti-mysogynist Lisbeth Salander, and a host of other colorful characters besides. Well, maybe not a host, but a decent number.
- Departures – A Japanese cellist, down on his luck after his orchestra shutters, takes a job as a an aide to an “encoffinator”, preparing bodies for burial.
- Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans – About 80 minutes iunto this movie, you’ll start wondering how anything could take up the reminaing 40. It seems like Nicholas Cage has run through every available source of cocaine, iguanas are invading every horizontal surface, and no satisfying resolution could possibly come about. You’ll be proved wrong. hopefully. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, search “bad lieutenant dancing soul” in YouTube and watch the clip.
Adventures
- June 6-9 – Jersey Shore, D.C., Blacksburg and back in about 3 days. An awful lot of driving.
- June 13-25 – New York. 2 Weeks. Supposed to have been longer, but still a pretty good time in the City.
- June 27-28 – Vermont, weekend trip. The mountains are still as beautiful as they’ve ever been.
- July 14 – D.C. One day, up and back. A lot of driving, but saw the Navy Yard and walked past the White House.
- July 28 – Biking 20 miles to the N.C. border and back.
- August 8-10 – Outer Banks.
- August 12-13 – hiking in the Shenandoah Mountains.
- August 23-24 – visiting D.C. again.
- August 27-29 – visiting UVa and Virginia Tech. Also, some rock climbing.
Driving distance (not including riding home from college) adds up to about 6250 miles, plus another 525 traveled by train.
