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Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 1187
It's rare that they make a good film out of a book. Rarer still they make a great film out of a book.
Usually, they take a great book, and make a "Long and boring" film out of it. Or three of them. Think Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings.". Or Harry Potter.
Or, in the case of the "Titanic", they don't even use a book, just a scrap of toilet paper the director made some notes on, maybe an old Reader's Digest to do their fact checking....
"Fight Club" is a great book. And it was a great film. And, oddly enough, (perhaps because I saw the film first), the one didin't ruin the other. Yes, they were close enough, but there were enough differences that you didn't feel you were simply seeing the film again. There were twists, director's interpretations, things in the film that were changed to make it tighter....
But the book is good too. Great even. It's a wonderful rant, a spit and jab at the world of commerce and social expectation, an anarchist's Bible. A well reasoned, well written invective on the futility and emptiness of modern life. A sort of real life self help book.
Goodbye Pumpkin
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1811
It had to happen. I knew, hoped, waited patiently for the day, and my daughter has come back from her vacation and retrieved her cat.
I was worried, perhaps they were having too much fun without him, perhaps they'd just let me look after him for the rest of the summer, what if they had an accident and Pumpkin became my ward?
I was right, somewhat, they were back, but in no rush to recover their cat. But a deal's a deal and finally after much negotiating they showed up to reclaim him.
He looked a bit confused, like he didn't really want to go, but I went out of my way to help him into his carrier...
Finally.
I mean, and I know it's true, this is entirely a matter of personal prejudice. 100%. For some reason I just didn't click with him. I liked him, well enough for a cat, although he annoyed me with the games he played with Princess, sitting in the front doorway with his head lowered and growling so she couldn't get in, staking out my bed so she couldn't curl at the foot...
Sometimes she'd just have enough and there'd be a fight, she'd win, he'd back down, go and hide, but usually she'd just avoid him. Couldn't be bothered.
He's a good cat. True, weighing in at over 20 lbs he might be considered a trifle obese, but what's that? He was affectionate. If you like that.
And by affectionate I mean this is a cat that should be brought round to cancer wards to cuddle with terminal children. They'd love him. They'd never have seen a cat like this before, and could spend their days cuddling and petting him and marvelling at the resemblance to Garfield (less, of course, Garfield's meagre wit)...
He'd love it too. Being petted all day long, the center of attention...
2 weeks I've had him. Evey night he surreptitiously slips into my bed, bringing with him that unwiped-cats-ass smell, his matted fur with the bits of kitty litter clinging to his butt...
If you got past the unchanged litter box smell there was another smell, "Highlights" they call it in the cologne industry, of damp wool overcoat.
I have to wash the sheets on my bed.
Every night he'd sit in the living room, pretending to be sleeping on the sofa while I worked on the computer. And when I was done I'd shut it down and try to stealthily slip past him, he'd continue pretending to be sleeping while I brushed my teeth, but when I went to the bedroom I'd find him already curled up on the bed. Looking at me expectantly. And when I lifted him, shoved him over, he'd crawl back again, head-butt me, try and sit on whatever book I was reading, try it again and again until maybe I'd give up or maybe he'd just give up and poke his head under my arm as if he were reading along....When I was done reading it would be time to play, he'd purr loudly and writhe obscenely upon the bed, like an expectant lover, on his back, legs splayed, on his side and batting my face with his paws, licking my face, my arms, my hands and my feet....
It was disgusting.
If I was up late he'd come in, mew to distract me, bang his head upon my arm (there was no way he could leap upon the desk..), try to climb into my lap and be petted. If I let him he'd sit in front of the computer as well, (having to reach around his ponderous bulk to the keyboard), put his chin on the desk and gaze boredly at the screen, occasionally using his paws to swipe at the keys or mousepad....
He definitely thought he was a person. And I can totally see it, although I'm stumped wondering who....
Occasionally he'd go outside. Not often, just once in a while. Sitting in the garden sniffing flowers, as if trying to convince me there was a poets soul there.
Or mealtimes, going to his dish, from behind his fat frame and striped tail made him look like a giant racoon....
In the kitty litter box, or half in, as he never could fit, not at all shy, scratching the litter all over the hall before searching me out, mewing at me to be petted some more, brushed, tickled....
He was insatiable.
I wish I could say that I'd miss him but somehow I'm glad he's gone. It'll be a lot more peaceful here. And there's Princess, sadly neglected, when petting her always aware of his suspicious, hissing stare from across the room. Head lowered, eyes big and glowering.
Goodbye Pumpkin!
Of me & Brad Pitt
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1480
Probably this is related to the book "Fight Club" I picked up at a garage sale yesterday. I started to read it last night, Pumpkin (my daughters cat) had other ideas, after a couple of firm "No"!'s I exiled him from the bedroom and read the first couple of chapters. So far it reads well.
In the middle of the night I had a dream, I woke, made some mental notes, fell back asleep, and now will recapture what I can remember of it....
Me and Brad Pitt were picking up our kids from some Camp in the South West. I don't know what city, just that we were in the South West and we lived in the South East.
It was a Zoo camp, they had converted a giant wave pool to hold hippopotomases and other animals, giant atriums ... At night, when the kids were all out of the pool, done playing with the animals, they filled it with lentils and beans, these would germinate into sprouts by morning and be used to feed the wildlife...
It's dark outside and we've missed the bus, just him and me, somehow the kids must have caught it because the pool is deserted and so we have to set out to home on foot. I offer to help him find his way, I know where he's staying, he explains, it's by a client of mine in the country and I think that "damn, that's a ways" but I don't want to let him down, so we start walking, looking for a place where we can hail a bus....
Will Ferguson - Happiness
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 1307
Now I've read Will before, and to my surprise quite liked him. So when I found this at a garage sale I was pleased, a bit of light reading, something to pass the time away from the computer...
But it was disappointing. Very disappointing. Exactly what I had feared when I read his first book. Jocular, filled with the kind of banter that perpetually falls flat, almost as if it were trying too hard to be funny. Large themes handled with small characters and witless dialogue.
The premise is that an editor (Edwin de Valu) for a publishing house (Panderic) publishes a piece of rubbish called "What I learned on the Mountain", a self help book that will cure everything from obesity, smoking, self image, finances, etc, only this self help book works and the plot centers around the mayhem that ensues. There's potential here.
And I read it and I read it, hoping it would get better, a satire on the Self Help and New Age movement, the satirical observations only slimly veiled, (The "Chicken Broth" series, for example), the occasional stabs at insight all but damned, then, when realizing it wouldn't get better, at best peaking at "Mildly amusing, but I've started it now and had better finish...."
Examining the cover. Published by Penguin, he's come up in the world, a plain red-white striped cover, this from the back jacket:
"Light Blue for big ideas Green for crime Orange for fantastic fiction"
Fantastic in this instance obviously means "In no ways related to reality....' and is in no way is to be interpreted as a reflection on the quality.
The funny thing is, he can write. He can clearly express good ideas, there are good ideas in the book, but their development, the dialogue, the characters, all, well...
Never mind. Ironic in that while satirizing the publishing industry for publishing any drek provided it sells, the prose in this book sets forth to prove the point
Despite it's attractive cover I'd give it a single rotten banana peel. Don't slip up and buy it.
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