The Many Faces Of Bartleby

• disillusioned angel from Kevin Smith's "Dogma."
• friendly rat creature from Jeff Smith's graphic novel "Bone," which I'd recommend to anyone: Lord of the Rings with the Funny left in.
• title character from Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener."
• www.bartleby.com

Which one did you hear of first? Till a week ago, the only Bartleby I'd heard of was the Ben Affleck version. Dogma is one of my absolute favourite movies, and Kevin Smith one of my favourite directors. Personally, I think he's a better screenwriter than a director, having a deft gift for dialogue and comedic timings. He's brought us Jay&SilentBob (and their alter egos Bluntman and Chronic), Buddy!Christ, Hooper X, and frankly, in my opinion, the entire View Askewniverse rocks. So a big fat round of applause for Kevin Smith. Woo!

Might go check out Caribana tomorrow, and maybe see The Village as well. Thank God for the lack of mock MCAT's tomorrow!

- bye!

A Touch of Pink

went to see The Notebook yesterday, but we were late, so we decided to watch A Touch of Pink instead. It's about this South Asian Muslim guy, brought up in Canada, living in London with his English boyfriend. Alim, our mopey hero, played by Jimi Mistry (of East is East and The Guru fame) has a rather peculiar Guardian Angel - the spirit of Cary Grant, played wonderfully by Kyle McLachlan, who has Grant's speech patterns down pat, even as he says lines like, "there you are, my little samosa!" All is well until Alim's mother, Nuru, comes to visit, and Alim rushes back into the Closet and introdules the boyfriend as the roomie. Hilarity ensues.

My favourite line of the movie - Nuru makes eggs for her son, and the boyfriend, Giles, thinks the eggs are for everyone and digs in. Nuru says, "You people think everything belongs to you - eggs, India, Africa..." and the audience explodes. figuratively.

All in all, a fun movie - if a bit racy in parts. S Asian people might get more of the humour than others, but you won't know till you try, right?

Go read the poetry of Edna St Vincent Millay - who wrote, among other things, Renascence and First Fig. Here's the opening verse from The Philosopher:

"And what are you that, wanting you,
I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days
With weeping for your sake?"

With such a fondness for Angst (note the capitalization!), it's no wonder I'm a Buffy/Angel fan. :D

-later, then!

Cricket!

Asia Cup 2004 - India beats Sri Lanka by a whopping 4 runs (count, em, FOUR!) to make it to the finals. I know I shouldn't complain, but 4? If Jayasuriya hadn't gone and gotten himself caught off a Sehwag delivery, Sri Lanka'd have won easy as pie.

http://cricinfo.com has the score and uber-detailed commentary - every delivery detailed! Go check it out.

Might go watch weepie "The Notebook" tonight, so am wearing my extra-snarky armour along with the lance of sarcasm. extreme situations call for extreme measures, wot? :D

It's true what they say about the internet changing the way we speak - someone said something stupid to me, and this is what I nearly said out loud, "Oh, eyeroll!" Next thing you know, I'll be saying "smileyface" instead of, you know, actually smiling!

And now to end with my STUPID JOKE OF THE DAY!

A Buddhist goes up to a hotdog vendor and says, "Make me one with everything!"

(no? was I the only person to find this funny? )

-Cheerio!

MCAT Madness and other assorted Monsters

I really must learn to post more than once a year...

The MCAT, up close, is not as evil as I had thought it to be. In fact, it may very well be doable! (Waiting for the bubble to burst... and there we go!)

Who am I kidding? It's evil! Especially that horrible, rigidly structured, writing sample, that I will struggle to write, and that some MCAT examiner will cursorily glance over for 2 minutes and dismiss with a 2/6!

Why do we bother? honestly. I could have been having fun this summer, instead of dragging myself to class at 9 fricking in the ante meridian 4 days a week at the wunderbar U of T Scarborough campus, where the construction has taken out traffic lights! twice!

(end rant)

On more pleasant matters, I'd recommend reading the manga "Monster" by Naoki Urasawa. There is an anime, unlicenced and fansubbed, but i prefer the manga, though the anime has some lovely music. It's kinda the fugitive meets Eve (that episode from the x-files with the creepy children who were the product of a secret Government breeding experiment) - except Dr Kimble is Japanese, the children are Czeck, and the whole thing is set in Germany. Sounds fun, no?

must now attempt to restore some semblance of order to my room... bye!