Tuesday, March 08, 2005

a broken arm goes back to school

I'm still searching for the theme of this blog, so for now, I'll just post and perhaps something will emerge.

The youngest kid, who took a hard charge in a high school basketball class and ended up with a truly grotesque broken right arm which subsequently required surgery, went back to school today. This meant a night of homework aid, which meant, realistically, me doing a ridiculously detailed "The 411 on Shakespeare" worksheet from his honors English class (what two roles did Helen Hunt play? How big was Shakespeare's vocabulary? see answers below). We tactfully labeled this worksheet "Dictated to Lisa B. by Walker B." Into the night this went on.

Which means that when I called the broken arm from work to find out how the day went, he was sleeping, but at least he didn't get shoved or further damaged . . . to my knowledge! Who knows?

By the way, here's what the Atlantic Monthly said about Dave Eggers' new book and why it's bad writing:

D ave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a memoir full of practiced idiosyncrasy and contrived candor, revealed nothing so much as the author's X-rated affection for the sound of his own voice. His latest effort, the story collection How We Are Hungry (McSweeney's), is a far more temperate, generally melancholic affair. But in it a certain voice keeps popping up oddly: that of the irrepressibly manic memoirist."

Yeah, but what if you like practiced idiosyncracy and contrived candor? Like, um, I apparently do.

Movie log: saw Be Cool this weekend, agree with everyone that it wasn't as good as Get Shorty, which wasn't as good as the novel (that's the novel-to-movie-to-sequel declension . . .), but enjoyed it anyway. It looked kind of cheap, except for John Travolta, looking meaty and delish in that suit, in my opinion. Also saw The Sea Inside, thought it was swell, cried like a baby when "Nessun dorma" plays over the "flying in my dreams" scene.

That's it for now.


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