paperbackgirl.

a bright wall in a dark room.: TV MONTH: Modern Family

Fri, 25 May 2012 11:41:54 -0400

a bright wall in a dark room.: TV MONTH: Modern Family :

ALEX DUNPHY FOR PRESIDENT

by Bailey Kennedy

In the cheerfully dysfunctional world of Modern Family, each and every character brings something special to the table comedically. Gloria has her ESL malapropisms: “But I’m nice and I put on the sugar jacket!” Phil carries off a goofy…

I wrote an essay about Alex Dunphy and Modern Family, hope you enjoy :)

Hi UCSD kids!

Wed, 23 May 2012 18:01:00 -0400

According to my analytics, I have a sudden influx of visitors from UCSD (my alma mater) who found my site searching for Salvage The Bones, which I recently reviewed. Kids, as a former Triton literature student I feel your pain, but alas my review will not help you write your paper about the theme of loss. Feel free to email me though if you want to riff on the themes in the book :)

We would all do well to keep this in mind.

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:20:00 -0400

We would all do well to keep this in mind.

Dinner tonight: sriracha buttered shrimp over avocado, adapted...

Tue, 22 May 2012 20:48:51 -0400

Dinner tonight: sriracha buttered shrimp over avocado, adapted from this bon appetit recipe.

Per Gothamist, over 1800 people have Fifty Shades of Grey on...

Tue, 22 May 2012 17:18:27 -0400

Per Gothamist, over 1800 people have Fifty Shades of Grey on hold at the NY Public Library. Based on the soft core reputation of the book, why anyone would want a passed around copy of it is beyond me. Lord knows where those copies have been. Gross.

Strangers, Blanca Gomez.

Sun, 20 May 2012 21:29:57 -0400

Strangers, Blanca Gomez.

Jean Craighead George has passed away at 92.

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:28:00 -0400

Jean Craighead George has passed away at 92.:

Thank you for My Side of the Mountain and Julie of the Wolves.

What I'm up to this week:

Tue, 15 May 2012 18:19:27 -0400

Refreshing the NYPL site to see if Rosecrans Baldwins’ memoir Paris I <3 You But You’re Bringing Me Down is available yet.
Planning birthday festivities. I turn older on Friday.
Reading essays by Roxane Gay, Steve Almond, and Jim Behrle that have been open in my browser for weeks. All three were fantastic and are highly recommended.
Writing an essay about Alex Dunphy and Modern Family for TV month on A Bright Wall In a Dark Room.

"You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die."

Tue, 15 May 2012 15:34:32 -0400

“You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die.”

- Carlos Fuentes

RIP Carlos Fuentes.

5/11/2012: The day this literary snob learned that Evelyn Waugh...

Fri, 11 May 2012 15:25:00 -0400

5/11/2012: The day this literary snob learned that Evelyn Waugh was a dude.

Just finished: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. About thirty...

Wed, 09 May 2012 17:32:00 -0400

Just finished: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward. About thirty pages into this book the father of the family living on the outskirts of New Orleans comments that a hurricane called Katrina has been identified off the coast of Florida. With that seed planted, the book progresses to what we all know is a major catastrophe, the tone and tension mirroring the building intensity of the storm.

The narrator, Esch, is the sole female in the house, her mother having passed away after giving birth to her youngest brother. Esch navigates her feelings towards mothers and motherhood after her brother Skeet’s pit bull China gives birth to puppies. Without giving too much away, motherhood and loss are the underlying themes of the book and Ward captures them thoughtfully without being too heavy handed.

By the time Katrina arrives, the family has already experienced life changing events in the days leading up to the storm and I found myself wondering just how much more they could weather as the winds started to pick up. I thought the book was beautifully written but didn’t love or hate it on the whole. Also, as a warning to animal lovers, there is organized dog fighting that was extremely difficult to read.

a bright wall in a dark room.: Reality Bites (1992)

Mon, 07 May 2012 14:51:00 -0400

a bright wall in a dark room.: Reality Bites (1992):

brightwalldarkroom:

I WAS TOLD THERE’D BE NO MATH ON THIS EXAM.

by Bailey Kennedy

I watched Reality Bites for the first time two weeks before graduating college, huddled with my roommates on the giant gray suede LoveSac in our living room. Up until that point, my life felt like a carefully plotted course…

I wrote about Reality Bites for BWDR. Mah mah mah my sharona!

HBO not adapting The Corrections after all.

Tue, 01 May 2012 18:09:00 -0400

HBO not adapting The Corrections after all.:

I was curious to see how they would handle the different time frames within the novel. Apparently HBO was equally flummoxed.

What I read in April: Torch by Cheryl Strayed Pulphead by John...

Tue, 01 May 2012 10:51:54 -0400

What I read in April:

Torch by Cheryl Strayed
Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
Forever by Judy Blume
Heft by Liz Moore

skylarlechien: One year ago today I brought this little...

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 13:12:25 -0400

skylarlechien:

One year ago today I brought this little munchkin home with me. I can’t imagine my life without Skylar <3

Celebrating one year with my pup today. She is the best companion a girl could ask for.

I didn’t mean to match my nails to my book but I’m...

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 09:02:00 -0400

I didn’t mean to match my nails to my book but I’m not mad about it either.

"I always feel bad, man. I promise you there is no white writer out there, who when you read a book..."

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:22:02 -0400

“I always feel bad, man. I promise you there is no white writer out there, who when you read a book by a white person, and you hear other white people being like, ‘Yo this white book makes me look bad.’ I’ve never met a white writer who ever gets asked questions like, ‘Well, don’t you feel bad about the way you represent white people?’ Guys I’m not representing Dominicans, I’m representing one crazy set of like, what, 11 people? There’s like, what, 12 people in this book? There’s 10 million Dominicans, yo. I just happen to come from a family of crazy people and I think you should be allowed to write about crazy people.”

- Junot Diaz. Everything he says is gold, always.

"You’ve gotta remember it’s about Dominicans in New Jersey so they paid like $500 for it. No, I’m..."

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:19:59 -0400

“You’ve gotta remember it’s about Dominicans in New Jersey so they paid like $500 for it. No, I’m being honest. The shit wasn’t about werewolves, you know? Literally they paid, like, they paid me lunch money.”

- Junot Diaz on Miramax optioning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao but choosing not to make a film.

capitalnewyork: “I’m not worried about chasing people away,” he...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:03:51 -0400

capitalnewyork:

“I’m not worried about chasing people away,” he said. “How many more people can we chase away by writing? Nobody reads. It’s not like I’m dropping an album, I’m like an M.C. and I’m like ‘Yo, I need all the beats to be polka beats.’ Okay, I might lose people, and there’s money involved. But there ain’t no money in this fucking game. If you get 2,000 readers, you’re good. You’re good. So you might as well do what your dream tells you to do and be happy that the people at the other end of the page are happy to see you.”

Junot Díaz on writing about 11 Dominicans, getting ‘lunch money’ from Miramax, and the generosity of his readers

God I love Junot Diaz.

Are we tired of talking about The Hunger Games yet? No? Alrighty...

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:44:00 -0400

Are we tired of talking about The Hunger Games yet? No? Alrighty then, check out this awesome tribute survival analysis post from Brett Keller’s public health and development blog.