Hadran Alakh

In case you couldn't tell, I'm very thrilled that Mechi and I (and Raphi, for a bit) finally finished our first perek of Avodah Zarah (Anjal, if you still read this, you can come find me in the hall for an explanation!) That was just about the only good part of my day. That, and I bought a pretty shiny ring. (I resisted buying the one that's a dead ringer for an engagement ring, even if it is the ring that drew me to the store in the first place.)

Currently listening to: Dirty Goodbyes by Verbena (Verbena's La Musica Negra is my newest CD purchase, all for my favorite song du jour, Me and Yr Sister)

Currently talking to: Yoni and Liz, both about Time's top 100 Novel List, which apparently I've spoken to Yoni and Mechi about before but I didn't remember. Anyway, Mechi sent it over, and now we're combing through it. Including books I totally don't remember but know that I finished, I've read 20, which I think is pretty decent. Now I can't wait to get started on the rest of the list, especially after the rash of bad books I read in Orlando over Pesach: The Unbearable Lightness of Being? Um, or possibly the Unbearable Pain of Reading Milan Kundera's Weird Crap. Not sure what it is Hannah loves about this book. Also read Thackeray's Vanity Fair...or 400 pages of it before I finally threw it down in disgust. What's frustrating is that I was really enjoying it, and then I just...lost...it. Then there was Citizen Girl, by the authors of the Nanny Diaries. Why can't they just give their main characters names? What is so damn difficult? The name of the main character in this book is Girl. That's it. It's the most annoying thing ever. Except maybe for the fact that she's a pain in the ass feminist. Then there was James Patterson's 5th Horseman, which was definitely a quick read, which left you with a total feeling of "I'm sorry, what? Where the hell did that COME from?" And so, the best book I read over Pesach goes, by default, to Robert Parker's Sea Charge. At least, I think that's what it was called. When a book about pedophilia and sex tapes makes it to the top of the top, you know you're reading some crap.

Currently reading: Wideacre, by Philippa Gregory. Not bad, if you don't mind gross and weird. And I don't. Plus I loved The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool.

Back to the book list, since I'm sure a bunch of you are wondering who made the cut. Nabokov had a nice showing with both Lolita (which I think might be the best written book of all time) and Pale Fire (which has been on my "to read" list forever), as did Philip Roth with Portnoy's Complaint (not recommended for the queasy) and American Pastoral (which I describe as a blur of boringness with some of the best scenes you've ever read mixed in - if you know how to skim, this is worth a read). Naturally, Faulkner had two books on there as well, but I'm too ignorant to have read Faulkner (Light in August and the Sound and the Fury - I've never even heard of the former, if you wanna know the truth). I think that's it for the writers who took two spots. Oh, no wait, Virginia Woolf made it with Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse (the latter which I just listened to Liz rave about and now am really looking forward to reading).

A bunch of others are totally duh entries, which makes me appreciate the list because they didn't fill it with obscure crap just to be annoying like the New Yorker of Vanity Fair SO would've done - the Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Gone with the Wind, the Grapes of Wrath, and To Kill a Mockingbird all made the cut, as did the slightly less obvious but still not surprising 1984, Lord of the Flies (and Rings), Slaughterhouse Five, Catch-22, Tropic of Cancer, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Invisible Man. There are some I've never heard of (Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson? Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry? Am I just being ignorant?), some I've never read but totally made me think of other people (Ian McEwan's Atonement makes me think of Lizzie even though she hated it, and Margaret Atwood's the Blind Assassin always makes me think of Rebecca, though I'm pretty sure she loved it), some I definitely wouldn't have read if it hadn't been for class (Bernard Malamud's The Assistant), and some I was supposed to read for class but couldn't even get through far enough (Saul Bellow's Herzog). There were books I put down in the middle (Jack Kerouac's On the Road - find me someone who loves that book and I'll find you someone who actively wants to love that book. There's just no other way. You must have loved that book before you ever opened it) and books I totally skimmed through (Toni Morrison's Beloved - am I the only one that thought that her Song of Solomon blew it out of the water? And even as a kid, before I knew about the whole weird Christianity thing, I never took to the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.)

Next on my list? White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Apparently Mechi thinks it's the most wonderful thing ever, and considering he's doing pretty well by me with his recommendations thus far (I'll forgive Arcade Fire for I am Kloot, and although I can't seem to get through Fortress of Solitude, I'd say I liked Motherless Brooklyn overall - just not enough to convert to the church of Jonathan Lethem.)

And on the topic of books - for God's sake, if you must read Dave Eggers' "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius", DO NOT READ THE INTRODUCTION BEFORE YOU READ THE BOOK. Don't say no one warned you.

In other news, Orlando was fun, went to Sea World with my parents, hotel was really nice, I seem to not tan anymore, I'm going to Yoni's for the second days, my article got ripped apart in class today, my Russian dialogue today was a disaster, I hate Pesach food, I just wrote a sonnet for poetry with the last word of every line being one he assigned, I have zero prospects for summer jobs, and I really want the following things: The Sims 2 Nightlife Expansion Pack, Chanel nail polish in Lilac Sky, Stila Smudge Pot in black, and Stila Lip Glaze in Fig.

Also, can SOMEONE please explain all the fuss about the Arctic Monkeys to me? I'm having a hard time deciding if I should be unethical and download the damn thing, being a sheep and shelling out 20 bucks on an album just because every music magazine on the planet is touting them as rock gods, or if I should just remain ignorant. (I'm leaning towards sheepdom, b/c I listened to a couple of songs on Pandora today and they really were pretty good, but I really hate getting sucked into those overhyped bands that are supposed to save rock - read: the Strokes, My Chemical Romance, Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse...where the hell are all you guys anyway?

DA SVIDANYA, COMRADE.