Musings of the Obsessive Kind

Amazon must think I am bipolar as this is what their "customers with your history bought these" looks like:

China's Last Empire: The Grea... (Hardcover) by William T. Rowe
5.0 out of 5 stars (2) $24.58

Fix this recommendation
The Open Empire: A History of... (Paperback) by Valerie Hansen
4.1 out of 5 stars (10) $36.82

Fix this recommendation
The Viking's Captive (Kindle Edition) by Sandra Hill
2.6 out of 5 stars (9) $5.99

Fix this recommendation
Dark Viking (Kindle Edition) by Sandra Hill
3.3 out of 5 stars (10) $7.99

Fix this recommendation


Ahahahahaha. According to them I like either weighty history tomes or trashy romance novels and nothing in-between. And while I happen to like both, I am not sure where Amazon is getting the idea I have a Viking fascination as the last time I bought any book involving the Vikings was when I purchased a book on law in Icelandic society about a decade ago. As to the last time I bought or even read any romance novel with the word "viking" in the title, or for that matter anywhere in the text, it would be never. I must investigate...I do know who Sandra Hill is as friend and I used to read the backs of her books out loud to each other in the bookstore to make fun. They are all about ladies time-travelling to 1000AD and living happily-ever-after with oddly unpillaging and unraping Vikings, instead of dying of sepsis.

In other news of trashy books, I realized Sweet Valley: 10 Years Later is (a) almost out - March 29 is the publishing date and (b) will be available on kindle. Elizabeth, Jessica and all their gorgeous nitwit friends are such a part of my childhood. I will definitely be getting it.

1. OK, Still Wants to Marry, it's just ridiculous of you to tease me with this:



When I won't get subs for at least a week.

Also, the blatant fanservice for (presumably older lady viewing audience) is pretty amusing. I thought the college badboy rocker fantasy sort of dies with leaving college but it seems not. I mean, yeah, it's OK for a 20-yr-old to want that sort of thing, but for a 30+-yr-old professional heroine? Bizarre. Seriously. How is he going to support you? I am both amused (because Kim Bum = automatic awwww) and a little skeeved out - I kinda want him to hook-up with an age-appropriate college girl instead.

2. I watched ep 2 of Wallflower over the weekend and it is official:

(a) I am really enjoying this drama
(b) They watered down the weirdness/made it more serious than the manga but not badly so
(c) They weakened Sunako a bit but she's still pretty awesome.

As far as adaptations go, it's pretty good. There is not much to meta about this drama but it's a fun watch.

They are going to give me my Takenaga/Noi. YESSSS.



Seriously, you have no idea of my glee that they have Noi in this!



Without weird fringe and bizarro mannerisms, actress who plays Sunako is quite gorgeous.



I am probably heartless but I was sort of LOLing while Kyohei was angsting about being repeatedly sexually harrassed by men and women because He! Is! Too! Pretty! Mainly because I just cannot buy Kame as inspiring any sort of hormonal frenzy in the entirety of the population of Japan. He's not even good-looking, let alone irresistable. Oh well. There there, Kyohei, I am sorry, I do feel bad for you. Now don't head-butt me, k?



I wonder if they are going to bring in the story with Kyohei's crazy mother (and Sunako's solution which is food).

Anyway, it's a great deal of fun.

3. Dear Amazon reviewer, if you start your 1-star review by saying that maybe you've been spoiled "by the literary prowess of Diana Gabaldon", you have just ensured I cannot take anything you say seriously. (Btw, the review was for 'Confessions of an Austen Addict' - no great book but at least it did not have pages and pages of graphic s&m rape meant to titillate the viewers). Gabaldon - archenemy.

1. OK, Still Wants to Marry, it's just ridiculous of you to tease me with this:



When I won't get subs for at least a week.

Also, the blatant fanservice for (presumably older lady viewing audience) is pretty amusing. I thought the college badboy rocker fantasy sort of dies with leaving college but it seems not. I mean, yeah, it's OK for a 20-yr-old to want that sort of thing, but for a 30+-yr-old professional heroine? Bizarre. Seriously. How is he going to support you? I am both amused (because Kim Bum = automatic awwww) and a little skeeved out - I kinda want him to hook-up with an age-appropriate college girl instead.

2. I watched ep 2 of Wallflower over the weekend and it is official:

(a) I am really enjoying this drama
(b) They watered down the weirdness/made it more serious than the manga but not badly so
(c) They weakened Sunako a bit but she's still pretty awesome.

As far as adaptations go, it's pretty good. There is not much to meta about this drama but it's a fun watch.

They are going to give me my Takenaga/Noi. YESSSS.



Seriously, you have no idea of my glee that they have Noi in this!



Without weird fringe and bizarro mannerisms, actress who plays Sunako is quite gorgeous.



I am probably heartless but I was sort of LOLing while Kyohei was angsting about being repeatedly sexually harrassed by men and women because He! Is! Too! Pretty! Mainly because I just cannot buy Kame as inspiring any sort of hormonal frenzy in the entirety of the population of Japan. He's not even good-looking, let alone irresistable. Oh well. There there, Kyohei, I am sorry, I do feel bad for you. Now don't head-butt me, k?



I wonder if they are going to bring in the story with Kyohei's crazy mother (and Sunako's solution which is food).

Anyway, it's a great deal of fun.

3. Dear Amazon reviewer, if you start your 1-star review by saying that maybe you've been spoiled "by the literary prowess of Diana Gabaldon", you have just ensured I cannot take anything you say seriously. (Btw, the review was for 'Confessions of an Austen Addict' - no great book but at least it did not have pages and pages of graphic s&m rape meant to titillate the viewers). Gabaldon - archenemy.

I have just so splurged and bought myself a New Year's present, Murnau, Borzage and Fox, a set released by 20th Century Fox which contains 2 Murnau and 10 Borzage movies, most of which I have desperately wanted on DVD, plus a documentary on the two directors.

I...can't...fight it!

Set here.

So splurgy yet so wonderful. Now, if somebody would only do a King Vidor set!

ETA: OMG, apparently they are doing a King Vidor set in 2009. I think The Crowd is the best silent movie I have ever seen, and Big Parade is the most anti-war (yet romantic) movie I have seen. And Show People is one of the funniest. Yes!!!

The One-Star reviews for the Wizard of Oz movie on amazon are a gift that keeps on giving. Come on, people. I don't like the movie either, but a brain while reviewing would help. But some of the other ones are so delighfully snarky.

Here are some masterpieces (whole review and exerpts):

I. Have. No. Words. Except for one: 'Ruuuuuuun!'

The central premise of this movie is that Dorothy falls victim to some sort of trauma, be it a tornado sweeping across the prairie and damaging her house or something more sinister, this is left uncertain as is often the case in real life, most unfortunately.

In any case the victim (Dorothy) then regresses in the form of classic ptsd with psychotic episodes...to the land of Oz. There she assembles her false memories with metaphores for swarms of bombers filling the skies, good and bad witches (possibly representing a schizoid mother figure), and 3 male entities who each must overcome their inate stupidity, anxiety and lack of emotion. These concepts probably originated with comments made by the mother and therefore appear impossible for the real person they refer to to overcome...probably an ineffective and emotionally devoid father. The intense hope that Dorothy has for this coupled with the rational impossibility for the figures to overcome the defects is due to her anguish in competing with her mother and the fact that her father is unable to save her from the mothers' tantrums.

The FMS relates to the desire for the 3 components of the father figure to be erased and become complete in their respective sense. The hope has distorted her thinking and there is absolutely no evidence to procede with the prosecution of this line of storytelling.

However, in the end her mother does believe her and she returns safe and sound to Kansas. So ther is indeed hope. Therefore I gave the film a 1.

( More samples here: girls have cooties; what do you mean this was in color, it wasn't so on my black and white tv; this is about satan; and other beauties )

The One-Star reviews for the Wizard of Oz movie on amazon are a gift that keeps on giving. Come on, people. I don't like the movie either, but a brain while reviewing would help. But some of the other ones are so delighfully snarky.

Here are some masterpieces (whole review and exerpts):

I. Have. No. Words. Except for one: 'Ruuuuuuun!'

The central premise of this movie is that Dorothy falls victim to some sort of trauma, be it a tornado sweeping across the prairie and damaging her house or something more sinister, this is left uncertain as is often the case in real life, most unfortunately.

In any case the victim (Dorothy) then regresses in the form of classic ptsd with psychotic episodes...to the land of Oz. There she assembles her false memories with metaphores for swarms of bombers filling the skies, good and bad witches (possibly representing a schizoid mother figure), and 3 male entities who each must overcome their inate stupidity, anxiety and lack of emotion. These concepts probably originated with comments made by the mother and therefore appear impossible for the real person they refer to to overcome...probably an ineffective and emotionally devoid father. The intense hope that Dorothy has for this coupled with the rational impossibility for the figures to overcome the defects is due to her anguish in competing with her mother and the fact that her father is unable to save her from the mothers' tantrums.

The FMS relates to the desire for the 3 components of the father figure to be erased and become complete in their respective sense. The hope has distorted her thinking and there is absolutely no evidence to procede with the prosecution of this line of storytelling.

However, in the end her mother does believe her and she returns safe and sound to Kansas. So ther is indeed hope. Therefore I gave the film a 1.

( More samples here: girls have cooties; what do you mean this was in color, it wasn't so on my black and white tv; this is about satan; and other beauties )

I am in love.

With something other than a dorama, this time.

What is the subject of yet another fleeting obsession?

The River of Doubt by Candice Millard.

What is it about?

In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt, a former two-term U.S. President (1901-1908), lost his maverick bid for a third term as a third party candidate. In the aftermath of defeat, politicians usually write memoirs, go on speaking tours, join a consulting firm or fool around with their mistresses. TR? Decided to explore an unknown tributary of the Amazon, completely unmapped as of yet, known only as ‘Rio de Duvida’ (River of Doubt in Portuguese).

So he embarked on this trip accompanied by a famous Brazilian explorer, Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon, a Museum of Natural History naturalist George Cherrie, his son Kermit, and a Brazilian military physician, as well as a dozen+ camaradas, local workers.

The book is a non-fiction account of this expedition, which was successful (the river was put on the map and is currently known as Rio Roosevelt. It is a thousand miles long), but also incredibly brutal, dangerous, and strenuous. There was illness, murder, drowning and starvation. TR almost didn’t survive it and, becoming horribly ill with malaria and infected wounds, decided to kill himself so the expedition wouldn’t be burdened with transporting him. He was only prevented from suicide because Kermit insisted that he was bringing him out of the jungle dead or alive and dead he would be a bigger burden.

Yeah.

( More ravings on why it's so good )