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"Boy, you better go run to her..."

Animals in the womb ad from Ford

This commercial (from Ford Europe) almost made me cry this morning! Baby animals in the womb? So cute! (via Very Short List)

Two other books I've read recently (in addition to...): Plenty, which I bought on a warm spring day at the farmer's market when I was particularly inspired by the idea of eating locally; and Busting Vegas, which is another Ben Mezrich book about smart young people in over their heads (c.f. Bringing Down the House, Ugly Americans). Both were okay, but overall felt a little bit empty for me--honestly, though, I think this is my newfound bias towards fiction talking.

R. Kelly. Double Up. On Vox. Best ad evar!

Du Og Meg

Yesterday, I found a wonderful Of Montreal show captured online. Today, I listened to it, and loved "Du Og Meg," which despite my love for this year's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? I hadn't heard (it's from Icons, Abstract Thee, a special-edition EP that was previously to this month sold only on tour, I guess?). It's a lovely, heart-on-the-sleeve pop song that reminds me of early Orange Juice, with all of the charm/giddiness/lovesickness that implies. Listen!

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

I finished Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics last night, which book sounds like some sort of weird collection of boring science essays, but isn't, at all. And I've also found that if you describe it as a "murder mystery," people just look at you kind of funny.

But so this book is to a murder mystery as green tea mochi is to ice cream: it's all sophisticated & scholarly & erudite, but in the end, it's just really good fucking ice cream.

One of my favorite passages:

I looked down at him. He looked like Hamlet. And I'm not talking about the Hamlets enamored with the language, the ones always thinking ahead to the upcoming sword fight or where to stress the line (Get thee to a nunnery, Get thee to a nunnery), not the Hamlet worried about how well his tunic fits or whether he can be heard in the back. I'm talking about the Hamlets who actually start to wonder if they should be, or not be, the ones who are bruised by Life's Elbows, Kidney Punches, Head Butts and Bites on the Ear, the ones who, after the final curtain, can barely speak, eat or take off their stage makeup with cold cream and cotton balls. They go home and do a lot of staring at walls.

From Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics, p. 399

Anyway, I loved it.

Music at Ssäm Bar

Be Easy

Aside from the steamed pork buns, the crispy fried artichokes, & of course, the glorious Bo Ssäm--thank you, kind pig, as you were one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten--reason #57 to love Momofuku Ssäm Bar:

During our recent dinner there, we heard (among other things) Ghostface Killah's "Be Easy", Pavement's "At & T", and T. Rex's "Mambo Sun".

So but yes, aside from the amazing food: great music.

Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys

As much as I loved Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, until recently I hadn't since sought out any of his other books. In particular, Wonder Boys, of which I never saw the movie, either, but whose trailer I was always sort of annoyed by. [1]

But so I read Wonder Boys last weekend, and I really loved it, and wondered again if I might actually enjoy the movie. And so afterwards, I was looking at the movie info, and based on the character list it seems as if a large chunk of the book was omitted from the movie--namely, the scenes where Grady and James visit Emily's family and celebrate Passover.

That would, indeed, be too bad, as those were my favorite passages in the book, including the following:

He inhaled, and exhaled, and then, as he started in on that old rigged four-part quiz we'd all heard Philly reel off, in weary Hebrew, so many times before--asking Irv why, on this night that commemorated a strange assortment of emergencies and miracles, he ate crackers, horseradish, and parsley and sat slumped against a crocheted orange throw pillow--the Warshaws left off their arguments, and their wry asides, and their shifting around in their chairs. Instead they just sat, motionless, listening, while James picked his way carefully through the passage, in his clear, high corrupted-altar-boy voice, as though his Haggadah were an instruction manual and there was some complicated machine there in the living room that we were all trying to assemble.

[1] I'm not a big fan of Michael Douglas, particularly when he's making faces like this. Thankfully, my paperback doesn't have his simpering face on the cover.