The Week in Entertainment

While I was in Oregon I didn't even watch a single tv show... I did read, but I'll just fold it all into this one

Live: West Side Story at the Hippodrome - I hadn't seen the play before, only the movie. This production was energetic and captivating.

TV: Caught up on House - damn, 13's back to stay. And the whole 'I killed a man - but it was my brother - and he had Huntingdon's!!! -just like me!!!!! - and I'm so alone now!!!!!!' is of course meant to make us like her even more. But I don't. I don't like her at all. Also caught up on The Mentalist, which I enjoyed greatly. The final scene between Jane and Schneider was genuinely moving (to contrast it with 13's similar one). BUT - what's up with those four-and-a-half-minute long commercial breaks? Good Will Hunting - not sure why I hadn't ever watched that before, to be honest. Quite a good movie - I'm liking Matt Damon as an actor more and more. And Stellan Skarsgaard was also quite good. The Wooden Horse, which I remember reading the book it was based on back in high school; very low-key compared to, say, The Great Escape. Started watching K-19: The Widowmaker but found it kind of ... boring, so I didn't finish.

Read: Finished Sarah Vowell's latest - Unfamiliar Fishes, about Hawaii and the missionaries and the overthrow of the monarchy - the rise of American imperialism stripped of all 'manifest destiny' coverings. In some ways this is the most disturbing of her books. For instance, she quoted Henry Cabot Lodge's argument that the US has never been founded upon "the consent of the governed" (you can find his argument at document 26 here) - and he was arguing for imperialism approvingly. Excellent, excellent book. Also the seven Chloe Boston cozies - very amusing - and the first of the "Book of Dreams" series by the same author (Melanie Jackson). The Dreams books (I've started the second) are rife with typos and the occasional jarring grammatical/syntactic error, but the story is intriguing and well-enough plotted to keep me reading - so far. Two Reginald Fortune novels by HC Bailey - quirky style, and Reggie works better in short story form!, but interesting mysteries.