Der Stuff Innenseite
Stranger Than the New $20 Bill
This Stuff Rules, I Promise
12 Greatest
Hits
Patsy Cline
The latest package to arrive at my doorstep via my BMG music club membership contained "Patsy Cline: 12 Greatest Hits." My God, does this woman know about heartbreak. I sometimes wish someone would have handed me this CD when I turned 16 and said, "Listen carefully, since everything shitty that could possibly happen to you is dealt with in one of her songs, but she'll express it with more heart and soul than you ever could." But I wouldn't have listened because I was 16 and thought I was too smart to get my heart broken. Add that one to the long list of things I was wrong about. But, in the eight short years between 16 and 24, I've only come close to feeling Patsy's pain. One of my favorite lines is "The only thing different, the only thing new is I've got your picture but she's got you." Sometimes, you're not lucky enough to even get a picture. Or how about, "He loves me too. His love is true. Why can't he be you?" Yep, I've been there too.
Get this CD. Listening to it will make your simple life seem like a field of daisies.
The Unbearable
Lightness of Being
Milan Kundra
This novel is set in Prague, so I'll admit that I read it partly in the hopes I would recognize some of the places mentioned. And I did, but only twice. Still, I found the novel thoroughly engrossing, even though I am not sure I understand what I was supposed to take away from it. Kundra's writing style is unexpected, not taking the easy route of a straight narrative on the lives of three people in the Czech Republic before and after the 1968 Prague Spring, but jumping around, giving the reader a brief description of the events to come, and then going back and filling in the details. At one point, the narrator does something pretty un-heard of in the world of fiction and admits that these characters are not real and even gives a reason that he created them.
There was a movie made based on this book and I saw it a few years ago, on one lonely spring night. It had the same characters, but that's about all that is the same, but I would recommend seeing it anyway, just because of the yummy Daniel Day Lewis with a Czech accent. Who am I kidding, I'd recommend this movie just because of Daniel Day Lewis.
Bottom line: A great book, but not at all like the movie and for once, I like it that way.
The Very Best
of Meat Loaf
Meat Loaf
The thing about having one of those silly music club memberships is that sometimes when you are looking through the catalogs and everything sounds so good that sometimes when you get the package in the mail three weeks later, you don't remember what you ordered, so you open the box up and say to yourself, "I ordered The Very Best of Meat Loaf?"
Apparently, I did order The Very Best of Meat Loaf. Not that I'm complaining because I like his music. The thing that I've always loved about Meat Loaf, besides his name, is the irony in songs such as "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" and "I'd Lie For You (And That's The Truth)." Besides, anyone who's ever gotten lucky in the backseat of a car (Not me, but I'm still young) can't resist the nostalgia of "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights."
Mr. Loaf doesn't know the meaning of the phrase "three piece band." Very rock opera-ish, his songs could stand on their own as over-the-top Broadway musical productions about love, loss and redemption. Maybe the best way to describe the music of Meat Loaf is kind of like if Celine Dion was a man from Texas with a sense of fucked-up sense of humor and put on an extra 200 pounds just for feeling.
Sponge Bob
Square Pants
Nickelodeon, 10 a.m., Saturdays
It's a cartoon, about a sponge that lives on the bottom of the ocean. The funny thing about it is that Sponge Bob isn't like a normal sea sponge, you know, kind of blobby and amorphous. No, Sponge Bob is a yellow, square sponge, like the kind you use to wash your dishes. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the zany-ness that is Sponge Bob Square Pants. Sponge Bob lives in a pineapple at Bikini Bottom with his friends Squigbert Tentacles, he's a squid, Patrick, he's starfish, Mr. Crab, he's a crab, and Sandy, a kung-fu-loving squirrel from Kentucky who lives in an igloo-shaped air bubble. Sponge Bob is optimistic and bubbly (excuse the pun) to a fault and to add to the hilarity, he's not that intelligent. To be perfectly honest, my favorite part of the show is Sqidbert's house. It's shaped like one of those big, stone heads from Easter Island and is decorated in the style of circa 1965 faux-Hawaiian. Some day, I'll decorate my apartment the same, but it won't be on the bottom of the ocean. But, let's face it, we all know why we love cartoons to begin with, their simplicity. The plot lines are the same, regardless whether it is Tom and Jerry or Rocky and Bullwinkle. Just tune in and turn off, as the saying goes. Plus, cartoons remind us of a time when the biggest decisions we had to make were between Rice Krispies and Frosted Flakes. Ahh, those were the days. White Rabbit Candies I call these little huggers, "evil candies." The reason they are evil is because they taste really good and you'll be tempted to eat the whole bag. They are from China and I was first introduced to these white, creamy candies when my cousin's future husband brought them to Christmas one year. He was probably trying to make a good impression by bringing Chinese foods and gifts to our exciting holiday get togethers in exotic Ohio. I basically sat next to this box of candy all night and attempted to get the rice paper coating off the candies intact. Like I said, these family celebrations were really exciting. Fast forward 10 years or so and I'm at Pearl River market in Chinatown, thinking to myself, "What the hell do I want or need that's Chinese?" And I remembered these candies, but I didn't remember the name or what they looked like. I was lucky. I picked up the right bag. So I started rationing them. I would only eat three at a time because I would have to go all the way back to Chinatown to get more. Later I found out they were available at my supermarket in Jersey City. I was thrilled that they were so easy to get that I ate several in a sitting. Then I had to make sure I didn't even go near the aisle these luscious concoctions were located in or else I would buy large amounts of them and then all my teeth would fall out. And that, my friend, would be bad.
But a word to the wise, don't let the candies get cold. I took these tasty treats to Germany last spring, where it is pretty cold, and they got hard and never really softened up again.
And
now, a musical interlude
by Aminda Jacobs
Swinging
from the trees I am
Munchin' on leaves and pickled ham
I ain't going to be a man
Walk upright and get a tan
Sing with me!
'Cuz
I'm not a homo sapien
I will never be with men
They are kind like my kin
But I have fur on my skin.