this was depressing. then again, i suppose that’s the point.
as a side note, there seem to be many websites devoted to explaining this short book, most of which contain a fair amount more text than the book itself. it seems to me that high schoolers would be better off reading the books they’re assigned than trying to “cheat” and look up answers on the web. maybe they’d actually get something out of it.
you have probably heard that this movie was darker than the first two — it’s true. lea pointed out that the school grounds, especially, look very different with a different director at the helm. i enjoy the harry potter movies, and this was no exception.
some of you may remember me complaining on this site about the music at barnes and noble last winter. for those of you who don’t remember, it was mid november, and they were playing awful christmas music over the soundsystem. this was problematic for two reasons. first, it wasn’t even thanksgiving yet, and i am anually annoyed by the Christmas Creep phenomenon, that being the apparent need (of retailers) to start celebrating the joyous holiday season earlier and earlier ever year; hopefully, halloween will remain strong against the onslaught better than thanksgiving has. second, this was really bad music. judged strictly on its own merits, without even bringing in the christmas grudge, the music would have gotten a big fat F. i’m not sure why people seem to forgive music for being awful just because it’s a (terrible) rendition of some run-into-the-ground “christmas classic.”
anyway, on monday lea and i went to b & n to peruse, and suddenly i heard the refreshing opening bars of kissing the lipless, the first track off of the shins‘ chutes too narrow, a sweet rhapsody to be sure. after the song concluded, some b & n employee buzzed in to announce over the intercom the name of the artist and album being played, which is all fine and good, but she labeled the album “new,” as in, “the new shins album, chutes too narrow.” now, chutes too narrow was released back in october — does it really qualify as new? and, even if one is prone to give b & n the benefit of the doubt and assume they meant “the newest shins album,” does that mean i can refer to loveless as my bloody valentine’s new album?
really, i’m just bitter that i heard the shins in a popular outlet, because to some extent i’m one of those people, that calculates the personal relevance of any given piece of music inversely to the number of people who listen to that music. it’s not that i think the shins “sold out” — it’s not like they’re a small punk band decrying commercialism et al — it’s just that they’ve been excised from the canon of music that i can use as a mark of differentiation. at least i still have the love-cars.
also, on a mostly unrelated note, my audioscrobbler profile finally shows “similar users.”