Knitting, Reading, Watching

I'm well on my way on my second mitten. So far it looks a lot like the first one so I won't bother with a photo.

I actually finished a book recently. My reading has been slow and sporadic for months now. I just read Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer. He's a very engaging writer and weaves together many threads of the founding of the Mormon church, the growth of fundamentalist sects of Mormonism and a very brutal double murder committed by fundamentalists in the 80s. It's all very interesting and well told. In the end though the book is utterly lacking in resolution. It felt incomplete to me. It reminded me of why Capote putting off finishing In Cold Blood until Perry Smith was executed. Not that I'm hoping for an execution but two men sitting in prison for twenty-plus years is not a very satisfying end to a story.

Last night I started One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson. She wrote Behind the Scenes at the Museum, a novel I adore. I started this a long time ago when it first came out and for whatever reason I didn't get into it. I picked it up again last night and I am really enjoying it. I read the first two chapters last night and had to make myself put it down to get some sleep.

There has been a lot of movie and tv watching lately. Most has been mediocre but lightly entertaining.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is a seriously uneven but seriously hilarious pastiche of every musician's biopic ever made. Gross, raunchy, stupid but definitely funny.

Becoming Jane is a fictional imagining of a love affair that leads Jane Austen to...well...become Jane Austen. Pretty, sweet, too predictable. James McAvoy co-stars. This is a plus for me.

The Long, Hot Summer. Holy crap. Paul Newman just oozes movie star charisma all over this one. The cast is stellar with Orson Welles, Angela Landsbury, Lee Remick and Joanne Woodward. A gorgeous and entertaining film.

Twilight. Teenage vampires. They're in love. Yadda yadda yadda. If you liked the book then you know the drill.

Encounters at the End of the World. Werner Herzog goes to Antarctica and shoots mermerizing footage of the landscape and bizarre interviews with the people who choose to live and work there. Herzog inserts himself solidly in the center of the film. It's very interesting.

So there's a sampling of what I've been up to lately.