what are you reading / watching / listening to?

I just read Joan Didion's Blue Nights. It's kind of sad, but not in the way I expected. It's thin, I'm afraid—not rich with evocative moods and chewy ideas the way Year of Magical Thinking is. And I found the profusion of famous names unnecessary and distracting. Didion completists will get it anyway, of course, but I don't recommend it to Didion fans who mostly treasure Slouching to Bethlehem and The White Album. Better to re-read those and try to figure out what makes 'em tick...

The rest of my reading, these days, is nothing new to me, because it's focused on what I need to be re-reading for and quoting in my novel: E.R. Eddison, James Hillman, Ursula LeGuin, Edward Edinger's book on alchemical symbolism, Nabokov's Speak, Memory, usw.

Oh, and I've been reading some more John Berger. I'm finding lots of good ideas about what to read on the Author Info pages of fellow NaNo-ers—Berger's Photocopies is one of them. I have yet to read anything of his that's less than interesting, and most of it is brilliant: seriously, the guy can do no wrong.

My months of August though October were stuffed with movies, but since NaNo started, I've hardly watched a thing. Ki-duk Kim's The Isle was pleasantly weird and grisly, if not quite as satisfying as I'd been led to believe: it reminded me of how much violence you can stir up around an utterly despairing and suicidal character—creatively over-the-top stuff that is still nominally plausible, because after all, they're toying with offing themselves anyway. =smile= I watched Winter's Bone for the second time, thinking It would inspire me to write about the world of my novel's country character, but I put down my iPad and watched every frame with the same rapt attention I gave it the first time through: I highly recommend it. (But not so much Daniel Woodrell's writing—I haven't read Winter's Bone, but I had to bail on the Bayou Trilogy, which was billed as "swamp Elmore Leonard," for being self-indulgently packed with over-described extraneous characters at the expense of story and action. Dutch Leonard, he's not.)

And then there's "The Walking Dead," which smells great—I mean, serious stink here!—and has a scrumptious Stephen-Kingish-band-of-colorful-survivors storyline. It's good to see Gale Anne Hurd's work is once again getting the attention it deserves: as always, she's a brilliant collaborator, this time with Frank Darabont.

The 2011 season of Formula One is about to wrap up—waaaa! I don't know how I'll make it until it starts up again next year. After several years in a row, I've gotten addicted to its wide variety of fiendishly twisty tracks, its charismatic, super-athletic drivers, and most of all, its rapidly changing and endlessly fascinating technology.

But that's it for my movie/TV life of late. Musically, one of the things I've been enjoying is the early (when he was 16) bluegrass mandolin of Chris Thiles—the solo work before he joined Nickel Crrek. But writing, I find, limits me to a few stations on Sirius-XM and little else.

So what have y'all been reading / watching / listening to lately?

I don't read fiction much, it's just not my thing, I like fact.

But a long, messy, complicated and unnecessary back story has me reading PopCo by Scarlett Thomas. I do hope she's not a nano, because I'm finding it a terrible struggle. I know it has rave reviews and cult status, but at the end of the day, it exemplifies why I prefer fact to fiction. I read it going "blah blah blah blah... and none of this is true." Which is a horrible thing to say. But on the plus side, it makes me feel happier about writing a whole lot of "blah blah blah blah and none of it is true." :)

Movies - saw THE HUNTER at the cinemas, not bad. On the small screen I've seen Die Hard 2, and a whole range of action movies that have been on GO!... Mr & Mrs Smith, I am Legend,

TV. News. Breaking Bad. Sadly missing Gruen Planet, but glad Hamster Wheel is on tonight.

That's probably about it.

Books: First of all, I am a total Potterhead. I could be satisfied just rereading just the Harry Potter series for the rest of my life, because I am just that much of a dork. Therefore, I am currently rereading the seventh book. I also read the books 1984, To Kill a Mockingbird (this was for school, but I loved it nonetheless), and The Lovely Bones.

Television: I've recently begun watching Six Feet Under online. It's an amazing show. I can understand why it's often referred to as one of the greatest television shows of all time by critics. I also have watched the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer series about a million times (literally), and am currently in the process of watching the fourth season again. I'm currently waiting for next season of Awkward to premier next year, and am wondering with contempt if the mid-season of Parks and Recreation is going to happen soon (I really hope it doesn't).

Movies: I've seen nothing new in the late. Recently saw the final Harry Potter movie and Sherlock Holmes in French class (No teacher right now, don't ask). Oh, and yesterday I watched Mean Girls on ABC Family. Unfortunately, they decided to replace every swear word. If they're going to censor it, I'd prefer if they just omit the swearing, but no. They say "She's being really witchy!" No teenage girl would ever say that!

Music: I have a very wide range of music. Right now, I am obsessed with Florence + the Machine's new album, Ceremonials. It's amazing.

That's about it (or at least all I can think of).

This turned out to be longer than I intended. :O

Reading;
Right now, What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen. Really liking it right now but I don't think it's going to top my favorite book by her. Before this, I was reading My Darling, My Hamburger by Paul Zindel. Hoping to read all his novels before I leave high school.

Watching;
I'm watching Glee and I'm hoping to finally get into the fifth season of Gossip Girl (aka, my guilty pleasure) during Christmas break. I've had classes on Monday nights so I could never get a chance to watch it. :/ In my "free" time I like to watch the Big Bang Theory and Family Guy.

I just watched this amazing 90s movie called Can't Hardly Wait. Since I'm totally into parties and graduation type stories involving different perspectives, it was the perfect mix. This afternoon I watched April Fool's Day which had a surprising twist at the end that made me just overall love the movie. And I recently watched Breaking Dawn. It was pretty good.

Listening;
Ever since the tweet from Jared with his new "Spacebrother" remix on Come and Go by Alan Wilkis came about, I haven't been listening to much else. Seriously. Google that. Free download. It's like your floating on a cloud.

It's also extremely fitting to my MC, making it the new theme song to my novel. :]

Also, I've been listening to the new SUNBEARS! album called You Will Live Forever. It's absolutely beautiful and words cannot explain how I feel about it. Favorite song off it is Stumbling in Twilight.

And I bought the Breaking Dawn Soundtrack. I love the music that's used in Twilight movies, so I always buy the soundtracks. I think this one is my favorite one to date. Every song is a masterpiece! The wedding version of Flightless Bird, American Mouth by Iron & Wine is so magical, if that could be considered a good definition for it.

I've pretty much stopped reading for pleasure for the month of November. I was reading Reamde at the end of October and I'll probably finish it next month. It's an awesome book, but it's nothing like my novel and was making me second guess myself too much. I did read this book last night though :)

I've been listening to A LOT of Pansy Division for this novel along with a bit of Arcade Fire, Fountains of Wayne, and the soundtracks for The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Jesus Christ Superstar. My characters have been listening to the White album.

I don't watch television, but I want to see the new Muppet movie soon.

Hmmn... Reading: Statistical Methods of the Social Sciences, Pima Panthers 1982 Yearbook (for names, middle-school voice, descriptions of hair), State and Local Public Finance, SPSS from A-Z, Ice Storm (Moody), Plot and Structure (I'm surprised how helpful this has been), Cultivating Delight (Ackerman). I'm a bit unfocused right now. Who told me it was a good idea to go back and get another master's degree? Oh, that's right: me.

I'm happy to hear Year of Magical Thinking as "chewy". I haven't gotten to it yet and I really want to. And happy that others read more of John Berger than Ways of Seeing--he's so synonymous with that work that I often find many people have no idea he's done anything else... and I continue to be floored by him.

Music: Every now and again, I might turn on some Tom Waits or Beirut or Devotchka or Asylum Street Spankers, but I seem to be depending on community radio mostly. This means I can get all of the above and lots more without having to change the CD. "Cause I'm like that. I've got CDs and I'm mad that they are going to stop making them because I'm still unhappy about having given in to the change from vinyl. I don't want to hear about downloadable music. I'm going back to vinyl as soon as I can find a really nice record console from the 60s.

Watching: Just rented The Harder They Come--my friend's dad's favorite movie of all time. I like 70s filmmaking, because it seems to really create a sense of place (as this does) and it tends to delve deep into the parts of the personality that we've been avoiding in films since, but this one... oh, I don't know... I have mixed feelings about this film.

And I watch a ridiculous number of sit-coms in syndication. I don't have cable or Netflix or anything like that, so I'm not even getting classics like Barney Miller or Welcome Back, Kotter--I would be really happy if I could get these. Man, there aren't even reruns of I Love Lucy anymore...

I'm reading only things I'm not going to emulate. And only late at night. Pretty much (gasp, you hard and fast literary afficionados) Regency Romance. And Cracked.

The DVR is down to 20% space and that's with some severe deletion. Because I can read before sleep without compunction, but if I'm hanging out watching TV? Then I should be writing. December is mad TV-watching month, anyway, with all the glorious Christmas movies on several channels.

I listen to music pretty much non-stop but have done so less this month. My head is a very crowded place to be, needed to turn down one of the channels.

I'm currently reading The Four Fingers of Death by Rick Moody.
I'm watching Family Guy online.
And I suppose that's what I'm listening to as well at the moment, though lately I've been on a Theatres Des Vampires and Type O Negative kick with a splash of Dope and early Megadeth.

Reading I am re-reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I love Harry Potter, by the way.

Watching: I am stalling on the ending of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a series I have been watching on Netflix since August. I love it; it's hard to end. I plan to finish it in the coming week. The Vampire Diaries I watch, but it is currently on hiatus.
Sherlock is my newest favorite show. I've watched A Study in Pink twice, and plan to watch the next episode tonight. It's modern day Sherlock Holmes from the BBC, and it's extraordinary. Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and Martin Freeman as John are amazing, the writing is so good, the storylines- I am totally in love with this show, and recommend it. I've read a bit of the original Sherlock Holmes stories in the past, and now I think I am going to go back and read more.

Listening: All sorts of things, mostly on my iPod, but a song I've recently come to love, and which shows up in my novel, is Paper and Ink by Tracy Chapman. It's great.. Other music I love includes Sleeperstar, The Script, Ron Pope, James Vincent McMorrow, Taylor Swift, Snow Patrol, etc.

If only I were doing things relevant to my story...

Currently, reading the incredibly geektastic Geektastic edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castelucci, waiting to retrieve a copy of John Green's Paper Towns from the library, and engrossed in Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, sadly via a school assignment, and not by my own original volition. I'm not sure yet how this will influnece my novel-writing, if at all, but they are strangely irrelevant to everything this current story is about. My heart lies in young adult fiction...

Watching... the occasional television show, started catching random re-runs of The Big Bang Theory, 30 Rock, and the few new episodes of the epic fail that is the eighth season of House. I also watched the most recent episode of Castle for the first time, and it was fantastic. And surprisingly relevant. As for films... Away We Go. I love Away We Go. So much.

Current readership is also very much influenced by my current... internet obsession. The vlogbrothers. Hank and John Green have an entire universe of videotasticalAwesometastic Nerdfighteria to distract me from NaNo... I mean, inspire and enhance my NaNo experience... yeah. (They're distracting. Extremely distracting.)

And as for music, I've discovered the joys of Spotify. But mostly I've been listening to what I usually would via YouTube. Lots of Sufjan Stevens, Coldplay, Jon Foreman, Anberlin, Death Cab... among some other things (Away We Go soundtrack... Juno Soundtrack as of the other day...). Music had a very big influence in the beginning of my novel.

Arrested Development currently....

BEADS?!