What I've been up to, into for the past year

I've neglected this sorry site for far too long now, and I apologize. While I'm fixing up this place a little, I'll go ahead and start off what will hopefully be a string of posts by discussing some pop culture I've enjoyed over the past several months.

Books:
I feel massively guilty that one of my favorite pass times tends to be so low on my priority list. I blame capitalism, what with its over priced textbooks that I'm obligated to read for my "education," and my job(s) that I'm required to have in order to not starve. Ugh.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Author of the popular "Dykes to Watch Out For," Bechdel creates this amusing, heartfelt memoir about the discovery of her father's true sexual orientation as well as her own. I was introduced to Bechdel when she visited my college to make a speech for our Presidential Lecture series, the theme of which was "diversity." After the speech, I immediately purchased the book but was far too shy to have her sign it. Fun Home is a story which is impossible to set down, and as such serves as an excellent pioneer for the hopeful new genre of the graphic novel memoir.

Everything by David Sedaris

Speaking of memoir, if you have yet to be introduced to the modern master of memoir himself, pick up one of his books immediately. Mr. Sedaris is an excellent read if, like myself, you find you don't have time to read an entire novel but would like the comfort of a cozy, light-hearted read nonetheless. His short stories are both comedic and insightful, and you will likely recall his antics at random intervals in your life as though they were your own memories. If you don't want to take my word for it that this guy is the greatest, here is a very convincing clip of Sedaris on Letterman.

Bitch Magazine

A subscription to Bitch is a must if you consider yourself any of the following: feminist, postmodern, pop-culture literate, or not dead. Coming from someone who turns her nose up at every magazine she sees, Bitch gives me hope for what seems to be the lost art of pop culture journalism. Instead of giving you advice on how to completely change yourself in order to get the guy you like to notice you, the authors of this magazine write vastly diverse articles about the state of today's culture and its effects, both negative and positive, on women. Bitch is intelligent, empowering, entertaining, and beyond worth twenty bucks a year.

Television:
With the rise in my work hours comes an almost insatiable need to sit in front of a glowing tube for hours on end (No, I don't have one of those fancy flat screens, thank you).

"Dollhouse"

If you haven't watched the first season yet, do yourself a favor and skip the first six episodes. They're silly and reminiscent of all the shows FOX canceled for good reason. Episode seven through the end, however, are pure gold. In fact, go ahead and buy it on DVD so you can see the unaired pilot and missing episode. Just describing the basics of the plot is difficult, so I'll keep it simple: people have their personalities wiped for various reasons and are then temporarily imprinted with new personalities in order to satiate the needs and desires of clients. That alone lends itself to so many smaller plots and mishaps and intricate moral dilemmas that it's easy to make this series soar and even easier to make it crash. Good luck, Whedon.

"Mystery Diagnosis"

The proof that this show is awesome is in the name. People have stuff that's wrong with them and the diagnosis is a mystery. It's on Discovery Health and I highly recommend that you go ahead and DVR it for any time you're needing a fix to watch something educational that won't bore you or gross you out too much. The greatest part about this show is that it almost always has a happy ending because the people on which the episodes are based get properly diagnosed. I say "almost always" because sometimes the subjects of the episode have some kind of genetic disorder which shortens and/or heavily impairs their lives, but even then, they usually have started some kind of research institute or support group for their particular disease/condition/disorder in order to help other people in their situation.

Movies:
I'm so proud of 2009 for helping to reinstate my love for science fiction cinema. There are a whole TWO films which came out this summer that are genuinely science fiction, and that's two more than usual.

Moon

This indie sci-fi film stars Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey's voice, and is directed by David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones. I'm sure I don't need to say much more to convince you that it's awesome. No, it doesn't have lots of explosions or choppy fight scenes, and it probably didn't cost too much to make, but it's engrossing. I think it's safe to say that Moon is one of the first science fiction films in over a decade to dazzle its audience with elaborate character development and a simple-yet-twisted plot which doesn't aim to Lynch our minds with skewed perceptions of reality.

District 9

Aliens, faux-documentaries about aliens having lived on Earth for two decades, a collective newfound self-loathing for humanity. Just see it.