Tom & Alissa

I’m back in NYC after flying successfully to and from Pittsburgh. As an aside, people in Pittsburgh have a really interesting accent. To my ear, it resembles a very light southern twang, but flattened out midwestern-style. I thought it was just the couple of people I talked to in the airport when I landed, but then everyone talked that way. I didn’t realize how pronounced the accent was the further west you get.

At any rate, it was a pretty uneventful trip. I spent the day at Carnegie Mellon helping the students who were interviewing for summer intern positions to get in the right place with the right forms and answered their questions.

In between the work, I managed to read two books in their entirety: Wonder Boys (divine) and Running With Scissors (dismal). The speed of reading frightened even me. I did have many hours of uninterrupted reading time, but still. I was glad to have the time.

Also, I’m never in one place long enough involving restaurants to actually eat in a real restaurant, so I eat ridiculously poorly on business trips considering how much I can technically expense. I did have a great taco salad in the airport last night, though.

Tonight we are going to see Philip Seymour Hoffman on stage. Yes, I’m excited.

After last month’s dismal showing of books, I really dug in this month. And here are the results, for February.

His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman
The conclusion to the His Dark Materials trilogy. Brilliant, and a bit horrifying if you don’t have a good grasp on the claims of the Bible. I don’t know if Pullman thinks he is really just writing fantasy, or if he believes what he’s writing (and I don’t really care that much - he’s a great writer and has a great imagination) - but the whole story falls apart when you remember insignificant details like, oh, Jesus. So, read and enjoy, but don’t get too sucked in. Much better writing than The Da Vinci Code. [4/5]

Self-Help - Lorrie Moore
I love Lorrie Moore’s writing (among others, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital). I’d read one of her stories recently in the New Yorker and it blew me away, so I pulled this off the shelf. Really great early work. You can see her playing with forms and experimenting with chronology. However, she’s a real downer, and every story is pretty much about men cheating on women (in her world, they all do), or about her mother’s decline. So, not exactly uplifting, but really great writing. I’d love to spin stories and shape phrases like her. [5/5]

Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty On the Open Road - Donald Miller
I love Don Miller’s writing, but this is not my favorite of his. It’s the story of his roadtrip from Texas to Oregon, which pretty much shaped him as a person. Roadtrip stories have varying degrees of success, and this one starts to get tedious halfway through; still, it’s amusing in his signature style, and I was satisfied when it was finished. If you liked Blue Like Jazz, you’ll probably enjoy this book. [3/5]

Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
Brilliant Pullitzer-winning meandering fictional letter from a dying preacher to his small son. It takes some mental energy to read this book and some gumption to get through it, but I guarantee you’ll be glad you did. A must-read. [5/5]

Magnolia: The Shooting Script - Paul Thomas Anderson
P.T. Anderson is currently one of my heroes in the film world and I am always so inspired by his characters and the way he puts disparate stories together in very potent ways. Reading the script was almost better than seeing the movie, which is oddly one of the more redemptive stories I’ve ever seen on film, all about regret and forgiveness and the past. Recommended. [4/5]

The Book of Jane - Anne Dayton & May Vanderbilt
I can’t say too much as this doesn’t actually release until June. :) But, I will say that their writing and characters get better and better. I’ve read my fair share of chick lit and I think theirs is far and away better than much I’ve read. And, surprise surprise, you can be a Christian girl and live in a city and be cool and have fun! From the authors of Emily Ever After and Consider Lily. If you like chick lit (Christian or mainstream), I think you’ll like the book. [4/5]

Wonder Boys - Michael Chabon
Hysterical. I loved the movie and this is just an enhancement - the movie and the book are very similar, with whole sections of dialogue nearly identical. I picked this up on Monday afternoon and finished it Tuesday, and it’s a long book full of Chabon’s signature densely populated plots and characters. The main character is a pot-smoking bumbling philanderer with a genius for completely screwing up his life. But it’s a great book. [5/5]

Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
Bought this in the airport on the way back from Pittsburgh and finished it when we touched down in New York City. Overall, I was disappointed. It’s twisted and foul, but not just that - I didn’t find it funny. It was weird, and dark, and nearly unbelievable (though I’m sure it’s not too far from life), but I didn’t see much humor (unless you think sexual or scatological humor is always funny). It’s definitely full of bizarre characters. Very well-written, but not recommended. [2/5]

I’m in the midst of a collection of short stories and novellas by Andre Dubus, and I’m hoping to read some Capote next month.

We had the IAM conference all weekend. It was successful, and we all agreed that the overall program grew in coherency. Dick Staub was the moderator and did a wonderful job, and we got to hear from visionaries such as Daniel Libeskind and Jeremy Begbie (who was completely delightful), among others. I shot lots of pictures - our lens is intensely capable of taking great photos in a very dark room, sans flash - and Tom manned a video camera most of the time.

It snowed last night.

Today I will attempt to fly to Pittsburgh, spend the day there, and return tomorrow night. “Attempt”, because who knows, with this weather. On the other hand, at least I’m not going to Chicago.

My article on the new Wilberforce biopic Amazing Grace appears as the lead Film Clip in March’s Paste (as well as a review of The Wind That Shakes the Barley, 2006 Palme d’Or winner at Cannes). I was able to speak to Michael Apted (director of Amazing Grace), Steven Knight (writer) and Ioan Gruffudd (who portrays Wilberforce in the film) and found them all personable and interesting. Be sure to go see the film when it opens this weekend.

Paste is worth the subscription, but it can also be found on many newsstands.

I get more and more excited about the new possibilities our DSLR will enable us to pursue. I was reading up on street photography again (I used to do a lot of it in college) and was reminded of how many of the best photographers simply shoot more pictures than anyone else.

Garry Winogrand is famous for having exposed three rolls of Kodak TRI-X black and white film on the streets of New York City every day for his entire adult life. That’s 100 pictures a day, 36,500 a year, a million every 30 years. Winogrand died in 1984 leaving more than 2500 rolls of film exposed but undeveloped, 6500 rolls developed but not proofed, and 3000 rolls proofed but not examined (a total of a third of a million unedited exposures).

Amazing! In reality, you might only get one great picture out of 1000, which makes large volumes of shooting all the more important. Thank goodness I’m using digital!

I hit the ground running today and now I’m taking a quick breather . . .

Yesterday was a national holiday. Huzzah for days off! We had breakfast at home (Tom’s a genius with scrambled-eggs-with-olives, Boca sausages, English muffins) and then headed down to Red Horse to read and write and while away the hours. I wish we lived less than fourteen blocks away from this place - it’s that good. I drank two pots of tea (”Paris” and “Chocolate Mint”) and finished reading the shooting script of Magnolia. Someday . . . I hope that will be my job.

And last night, we watched The Bourne Identity - my first viewing, shockingly. I loved it, not shockingly.

We just booked ourselves into a photo seminar via Mediabistro for tonight (hurrah for last-minute plans) and tomorrow night we’re out to dinner with Tom’s parents in Jersey. And Thursday night through Saturday is the IAM conference. Coffee IV, anyone? (I’m going to try and stick to green tea.)

I stumbled on this, and it made me laugh. :)

I (being Alissa) am back from a weekend at home with my mom and brother. Outside of church, my extended family at a birthday party, and the Womers, I didn’t really see anyone else. (I guess that leaves few “anyone else”s to see, but still.) Next time I’m up I’ll try and remedy that.

I also finished reading Gilead on the train. And it got better as it went along, more narrative and with a plot, of sorts. An excellent, excellent book.

So now I’m just waiting for Tom to get home from his last shooting day. Praise be, tomorrow is a holiday, so we’re going to do very little and enjoy it.

And this weekend is the IAM conference, so I only actually work Tuesday through Thursday this week. While I don’t particularly hate my job, I do get very happy when I don’t have to go and can pursue actual interests instead. Hurrah! If you’re going to be at the conference, let me know.

Installment #2 of What We Watched. As always, keep in mind that we are a filmmaker and film critic and don’t always watch what other people would want to watch.

That said, it’s been a very amusing month.

January 21
Venus - the new Peter O’Toole movie. I really wanted to like this movie - I loved the trailer. The ick factor was a bit too high. However, it was superbly acted, and it’s a movie full of roles for the elderly, which you don’t see much in cinema. I think that if you’re getting up there yourself, you might appreciate this movie more, as it is, in the end, a meditation on the “winter years”.

January 22
Starter for 10 - I saw this at a press screening so technically I can’t say too much, but I recommend it to people who like good, entertaining romantic comedies. It stars James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) and Rebecca Hall (The Prestige), and though the plot was a bit predictable, it also took some non-smarmy twists and was hysterically funny in parts. I guess I haven’t seen that many press screenings of comedies, but the whole room was laughing - hard - and jaded critics can be hard to impress. So, if you like romcoms, give it a shot.

January 24
The Devil Wears Prada - This is a re-watch for me, and it’s a film Tom has yet to see. The fact that it’s so much better than the book is enough for me to overlook some of the questionable fashion - it’s a good story and most people can relate. Meryl Streep is tres magnifique.

January 26
Dirty Pretty Things - Finally got around to watching this, partially because I recently spoke with the writer, Steve Knight, for another article I was doing, and partially because the director, Stephen Frears, also directed The Queen. I liked it. I didn’t think it was the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen, but I think it had a compelling story and great acting.

January 31
Shopgirl - Tom did not like this at all (he didn’t even finish watching it). I think I liked the way it was shot best; the colors are very saturated and deliberate in an Amelie-like fashion. The story dragged, though, and I was ticked at everyone by the end of it, though I understood a bit better in the very last scene. I think I should read the novella.

February 3
Old Joy - We finally saw this at Film Forum. At its most basic, it’s the story of two old friends who go camping overnight in the forest. Warning: if you don’t like slow movies, don’t go see this one. However, we both liked it. There’s very little dialogue and you’re left not quite sure where it was driving, but you know there was something profound about it. The scenery is lovely, too.

February 3
V for Vendetta - Ok, so, I don’t understand a lot of reviewers’ comments on this. However, Tom hated it, and I sort of liked it. Sort of. We’d both read the graphic novel on which it’s based (note that the author was so disgusted with the film that he asked to have his name taken off) - I really disliked the graphic novel, and Tom really liked it, so maybe that’s half the problem. At any rate, I don’t think I agree with the movie, but I also don’t really see what the fuss was.

February 5
City of God - Great, wonderful film, and if I could write something, I’d love to have it be this style. Think Shortcuts meets Tsotsi, but with a better plot and cooler characters; we follow the gang wars in a ghetto town and see how one boy perceives everything. It’s bloody, but not too disgusting.

February 8
The Last King of Scotland - If you can handle two scenes of gore/torture (and they are relatively brief, but still completely revolting), then you should not miss this movie. I don’t know anything about the history behind it, but the writing, story, and acting is great. Forest Whittaker definitely deserves his nomination. And Africa is a beautiful character in the film.

February 11
We decided to have “bad movie night” over a bottle of red wine and some dark chocolate.
Constantine - This was bad movie #1. I’m disappointed, because it had a lot of potential, a great plot, and interesting spiritual implications. I think its problems were a) Keanu Reeves, in general and b) lack of direction. Some really cool effects. As entertainment goes, isn’t a bad movie. (Caveat: A handful of disturbing scenes of demon possession. However, I, who had nightmares from The Exorcism of Emily Rose, wasn’t affected by this one. I think it was enough of a comic-book movie so as to not stick in my brain.)

Get Rich or Die Tryin’ - Bad movie #2, and truly the worse of the two. This is the 50 Cent movie. I should have to say more, but oh wow, don’t waste your time. (Although, did you know the director is Irish?)

February 12
Flags of Our Fathers - We’d decided to see this before we see Letters from Iwo Jima, which we’ll probably see next week. It wasn’t bad, but it jumped around a lot and I think that was ultimately the problem. It’s an engaging story, but I think it’s a hard story to tell on film. Still, it makes me want to see Letters, which is supposed to be fantastic (and is nominated for Best Picture).

We also have been chugging through season 2 of The Wire when we’re not watching a movie, and I watched season 1 and the first disc of season 2 of The Office (American) and I’m loving it. Very recommended.

I’m going home today for the weekend to see my family!

Tom’s shoot wraps on Sunday night and he will be able to sleep again!

There’s a new baby Greider!

IAM Conference registration ends on Sunday night! (You should come, if you haven’t already signed up. I will be there with a large and bulky camera, yet powerful and sexy camera in tow and will take a flattering picture of you if you so desire.)

I am reading good books! Currently, Gilead, which we gave away to our wedding party but I’m only getting around to reading now. I am completely flabbergasted that such an intensely Christian book not only won the 2005 Pullitzer Prize, but has rave reviews from such publications as the New York Times and Elle that say things like “OMGZ! BEST BOOK EVAR!”. It is that good. It has no chapter breaks and no distinct narrative plot. You should read it.

It’s Friday, and my tax returns and bonuses have just landed in my bank account, and I have been working very hard all week, so I think I deserve a coffee. I depart.

The Morning News weighs in on NYC etiquette. I like it.

(via kottke)

Happy chocolate day!

Seriously, though, I like Valentine’s Day. My mom and dad always made an effort to have it be a fun day for us and gave us gifts, and mom still sent Tom and I both a big bar of dark Lindt chocolate this year. Then again, I just like holidays. I think it makes the winter pass more rapidly.

I stood in front of my closet today trying to find an outfit that would keep the maximum amount of me dry, and surprisingly, finally settled on a longish thick skirt and my black boots. Those babies are awesome. I stepped in a whole lot of six-inch-deep slush puddles as I tried to get to my meeting at another office and my feet are still dry and cozy.

Our camera came yesterday; Tom is elated and shooting lots of pictures (I will, too, when I get my grubby fingers on it :D). It’s a lovely camera and it takes lovely pictures. The lens we got is quite heavy though . . . wrist pain after shooting for a little while. Looking forward to getting a slightly lighter lens. UV filters and such in the mail today. We are geeking out.

I want to write fiction, or at least stories. And I am having a nightmare of a time getting started. The whole working-all-the-time thing doesn’t help, but man, whoever drops stories into human heads needs to just give me, like, one. Or maybe two.

I apparently freaked a lot of people out yesterday with the start of my blog entry, including my father-in-law, who actually called and left a message. (Hi!!)

To which I say, seriously, y’all? Ha!

In other news, it’s very cold and I want to be home snuggled into a blanket, not at work. That is all.

We are soon to be the proud parents . . .

. . . of this baby and a number of its accessories.

(Tax return season.)

Excellent news - the beeping in our building has ceased. My landlord finally went into the apartment and found that the batteries in the smoke detector were dying. The cat was still alive and the apartment didn’t show any signs of damage, so he took the batteries out and I slept peacefully last night.

Last night was also Tom’s only real time off in the last week, so we met for dinner after work and went to see The Last King of Scotland. Overall, fantastic, though emphatically not for the faint of heart (Amin resorted to torture and the filmmakers didn’t sugarcoat). The cinematic style is very 70’s - in a good way - and both Forest Whittaker and James McAvoy were great.

Oddly, I saw McAvoy in a press screening of Starter for 10 (formulaic plot but periodic hysterical, off-beat writing) a few weeks ago and was thinking what a great comic actor he is, but I had NO CLUE that he played Tumnus in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Also, it is very cold out, though it has been getting gradually warmer.

Tom is shooting all day tomorrow and I plan to try and knock out some of the work that’s been piling up. That translates to “hibernating with a large mug of coffee”. I’m glad I have a lovely laptop to work on.

Why must people make horrible movies out of good books? I actually liked the book The Last Sin Eater (it’s really well-written and gripping), but make a movie out of it and everything goes to preachy pot. ::growl::

My friend Laura is amazing; look what she made:

Pattern to follow.

Our downstairs neighbor is apparently out of town, and has been for at least a week (the mail isn’t disappearing).

For the last two days, there’s been an incessant beeping noise. It’s not too loud in our apartment. Last night I thought it was outside after ruling out any electronic devices in our apartment. It sounds a bit like a smoke detector (very high-pitched) but it doesn’t beep steadily; sometimes it will beep for a few seconds in a row, other times just once, sometimes twice.

I think it’s been getting gradually worse; I actually was crawling silently around the apartment last night at 3:30 am trying to figure out what it was because it was keeping me awake. I came home and realized as I was coming up the stairs that it’s coming from his apartment.

Ahh! It’s driving me nuts! What to do?!

Is there a job out there that just requires you to read (at least nominally) good books all day long? For gobs of money?

Because I want that job.

Quite a good weekend, too.

On Friday night I went out with the significant others of the guys that Tom is working with on the film. We went to Chumley’s, in the West Village for dinner. Let me rephrase; Chumley’s, one block from my former abode, that I never once visited while I was living there. What a mistake! It’s unmarked (hence my ignorance) but is awesome once you get inside. Good food and drink and great atmosphere.

So we moved on to Caffe Vivaldi (::eyes bleed from hideous website::) and managed to stumble into a gathering of Mensa people having a CD release party? I don’t know that we fully got the concept, but we’re clearly inferior and kept getting shushed so after a pot of tea and some cheesecake, we moved on to Starbucks and a rocking game of Boggle. I’m so rarely “out” on Friday nights that it was a great change.

I made my cinematic debut on Saturday as an extra riding a subway way out in the boonies of Brooklyn (near Coney Island). It was very cold and I was one of the few extras who actually are regular subway riders, so that was fun, but it concluded with pizza so all is well, and I got to be with Tom. We headed from there to see Old Joy at Film Forum (pretty good, IMHO) and then back home. Both being exhausted, we napped; not notable except we woke up around 11pm and watched V for Vendetta. A weird, strange movie to watch in the middle of the night.

By Sunday I’d discovered that my cell phone slipped out of my bag at Chumley’s on Friday, so we went there after church and ended up staying for brunch. I regret to inform that we did not watch the Superbowl, as we have no capacity for said watching and Tom had meetings and I had errands, but we did check scores. We were nominally rooting for the Bears, for Tom’s family’s sake, but they didn’t win, so it really doesn’t matter too much anyhow. We did miss out on junk food galore, I guess. Bummer.

It is very, very cold today and I had a last-minute meeting uptown, but I was chicken enough to cab it (I’m also wearing spiky little tweed heels, so cut me some slack!). So now I’m just finishing the vestiges of lunch and wading back into the pile of work. And it’s week 2 of shooting for Tom. Don’t expect to hear from him until it’s all over.

Tara Leigh tagged me for the “Six Weird Things” meme that’s been going around cyberspace. I don’t know if there’s six weird things about me, but I’ll try.

1. I strongly dislike most cheeses, unless they’re melted and on things like pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches. This puts me in a weird place with all my cultured friends (cheese, bread, and wine, right?), but the stuff makes me gag.

2. Similar situation with milk. I positively cannot drink milk from a glass. Disgusting.

3. I unreasonably hate couch cushions that aren’t straight. I’m always straightening them.

4. When I was a kid, I used to dip my hands in those little plates of Elmer’s glue they’d have at art class and let it dry so I could peel it off. I still have to keep myself from peeling off scabs.

5. I have never seen Titanic.

6. I carry about six types of lip gloss/lipstick/lip balm in my bag at all times, and I feel 100% naked without it.

I tag Alisa, Joy, katy~*, Josh, Angela, and Laura.

I’ve been reading a lot of books, but these are the ones I actually finished.

The Golden Compass - Philip Pullman
The first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy. These are what some have called the “anti-Narnia” trilogy. I’m not going to delve deeply into it; if you’re interested, read about them. I clearly don’t agree with all aspects of his worldview, but he writes great, gripping fantasy books - and aside from Narnia, I really don’t like fantasy books all that much. It was a struggle to get through The Lord of the Rings. This is being made into a movie starring, among others, Nicole Kidman, Eva Green, and Daniel Craig, and it will be out in December 2007 (which is why I’m reading it now - I anticipate controversy yet again). [4/5]

The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
Book #2. The middle book of trilogies can often be a drag, but I actually really liked this one. Felt like it developed the story very well. [4/5]

I’m about a third of the way through book 3 right now, so that will pop up in February.