Marianna's Book Club, Part II

This weeks book is The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.

When I was first handed this book I was told "It's great, but the ending will make you mad". I tell you this up front because it is the number one thing I took away from this book, fantastic but the ending made me mad.

The Help tells the story of African American maids and their white employers in 1960's Mississippi. The stories for two maids and one white woman weave together to create a fantastic story. The book obviously touches on race relations, but also gender roles and socioeconomic relations within the same race.

The ending didn't make me mad because it wasn't necessarily happy. While I hoped that this book would have a happy ending where black maids and white employers all sat down for a cup of tea to discuss their differences I knew that wouldn't be the case. What I didn't like was the lack of closure. Major story lines were practically dropped. Story lines that were supposedly building up to a major revelation fell flat. I wondered if I was missing pages because the book simply ended with no form of resolution whatsoever.

I still recommend it if only for the fact that until the end it makes for a satisfying read. The story is solid enough to keep you interested but refrains from throwing in too many extraneous plotlines. Overall solid lead, needs a much better ending.

Let's move on the more important subject, I still need a name for my book club. I tried being incredibly uncreative and googled "Funny Book Club Names" but what I came up with was this

"One of the best ways to come up with creative or funny book club names is to think about what makes your group unique.

A club that meets at lunch could be called the Lunch Bunch. One that meets over dinner could be the Restaurant Readers. One that meets at the library could be the Library Ladies. A group of teachers might call themselves the Teacher's Pets.

A reading group that likes to laugh a lot might be named the Giggle Girls or the Laughing Ladies. One made up of all men could be called the Mighty Men, while a club of all women might be the Wonder Women.

Many clever book club names also play off of book puns. For example, the Book Wormers or Book Marks"

Gag. Well it was worth a shot.

What direction should I take the naming process in? I love puns, so I would like to include a pun in there, but I don't want it to be too corny. I want it to be different, but not so different that people don't understand the humor in it. Not too much irony, I'm not a fucking hipster. No references to obscure Russian authors from the early eighteenth century, there's a reason I didn't major in English. Same goes for references to 1960's feminist writers.

With that being said, I'm making this a contest for my readers...all 6 of you (so your chances of winning are pretty high!) Name my book club and I'll make you president. It's as simple as that. You will get to choose our next book and perhaps, if I'm feeling crafty, get a personalized bookmark to commemorate your success. So get to work. I'll get my scissors out and start working on your bookmark, you start working on the names. Together, we will create something epic.

My Own Personal Book Club

I used to be quite the reader...in 1st grade at least. I had my own shelf of chapter books in the classroom library, I remember it having a label on it that said "Marianna's Books" but that's probably revisionist history. I would knock back books by the day. My favorite time of the year in school was the Pizza Hut reading competition where you would pledge to read a certain number of books in a month and if you met your goal you got a free pizza. While others would shout out their goals at 2, or if risky, 5, I would pompously up the anty to 15. This is definitely where I lost the popularity contest each year.

Around middle school I stopped reading. Actually, during middle school I just stopped caring about anything other than being moody and complaining that no one understood me. Rather than pick my reading habit up again in high school I just stopped reading all together, school work included. This led to the classic note on my report card "Marianna's grade would have been infinitely better this term if she had actually handed in her homework...at all". Around this time I was also diagnosed with ADHD. Coincidence? I think not.

In college it was suddenly cool to read. Bryn Mawr loves books. Everyone and anyone is reading at all times. I had gotten so used to not doing my homework that suddenly having to do it, and lots of it, every night kinda turned me off of the idea of pleasure reading. I bought a few books with intentions of reading them for fun but never got around to it. What books I did read for fun were limited to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series.

Since I've been home I've taken up reading again. My $96 of library fines mysteriously disappeared sometime over the past year and as such I have been granted borrowing privileges again at my local library (they were taken away 5 years ago after a heated confrontation with Gladys, the former gatekeeper of the library). Also I have been allowed to participate in my mom's daily tradition of "commuting". As Mom works from home she doesn't get that time in between work and home to wind down that others get when they "commute". Instead, after she's done working but before she cooks dinner, she puts music on the stereo, pours a glass of wine and sits in the living room with a book. It's absolutely as classy as it sounds. So now every day at five the two of us sit down with a book, a glass of wine, the dogs sitting at our feet and music softly drifting throughout the room and wait for OMP to come home. Bliss.

I've managed to get back into the swing of things knocking back quite a few books over the past month and a half. Some have been great, some have been less than great, some haven't gotten past the first few pages. I would like to join a book club as there's nothing I love more than sharing my opinion, but until I find one that's not filled with crazy soccer moms (who am I kidding, I would love to join a soccer mom book club), I'm stuck being my own personal book club.

Because I can't share my opinion with anyone other than myself, you, the blog readers, will now become my audience. Please chime in if you've read any of the books I've read and have any insight into them. For the record, our next book will the The Help by Kathryn Stockett. You are officially invited to join my book club.

For now, in no particular order here are the past books of Marianna's Book Club (cooler name to be decided on later).

Devil In the White City-Erik Larson

Plot: A non-fiction book by Erik Larson, Devil In the White City takes a look at the 1892 Chicago World's Fair. Larson's information is ridiculously detailed as he follows the fairs planning and implementation as well as the side story of H.H. Holmes, a serial killer who has set up shop near the fair grounds.

Thoughts: Loved it. I bought this book two years ago after studying the Chicago World's Fair and never read it because of the whole not reading for fun thing. I picked it up a month ago and couldn't put it down. You start to question whether or not it's a non-fiction book because the story is so gripping.

I'm usually turned off by side stories, flipping through them in order to get back to the main story, but they all gelled together really well in this book. I particularly enjoyed the occasional story of Patrick Prendergrass, an Irish immigrant who thought he would gain political power through postcards (hellooooo alliteration!). I won't ruin the ending of that one for you.

After I finished Devil In the White City I immediately began to look for jobs in Chicago because I was so fascinated by the city...at least the 1892 version of it. I might be sorely disappointed should I ever actually move to Chicago and find that things have changed since then...

Holy Crap! I just looked the book up and found out that it's slated to be a movie in the next few years with Kathryn Bigelow directing! Awesome!

The 19th Wife-David Ebershoff

Plot: A complex story intertwines the lives of pioneer Mormons in the mid nineteenth century with a 21st century boy recently ousted from his fundamentalist community. Polygamy and murder twist the two together.

Thoughts: My friend Andrea recommended this book to me and after reading reviews I was eager to read it. I love reading about fundamentalist religious communities (have I looked into the requirements for joining the Amish? Yes). I am absolutely fascinated by communities that are able to function outside societal norms. That being said, The 19th Wife was incredibly confusing. The switching between present day and past is fine at first, but with the past story moving at a much quicker pace than the present day story the pacing really threw me off. By the end of the book I was only really paying attention to the modern day story (which is really gripping) so I think I must have missed the big picture of the book. While I should probably read it again to get a better idea of the nineteenth century story....I probably won't.

Outside the Limelight: Basketball in the Ivy League-Kathy Orton

Plot: Kathy Orton chronicles the 2005-2006 basketball season in the Ivy League. That's basically it.

Thoughts: I'm a huge Ivy League Basketball fan. I'm probably the only girl in her twenties who did not attend an Ivy League school who is (Caroline's degree from Barnard puts her in a shady grey area for this one...). We started going to Princeton games when I was a baby and just never stopped. There is no logical reason behind my love for the games. They're not fantastic, the play is slower than most games and the gyms are so quiet you can hear crickets. But when Ivy basketball is played I'm riveted.

That being said I was not a fan of this book. It read like a book of my blog entries would read. While I love my blog entries, even I'll acknowledge that if I were to ever make a book out of them they would need serious editing and rewording. While I appreciated the inside look into a league I've put so much time into, it was light and failed to satisfy me. I was looking forward to some insight into non frontrunner teams like Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia and Yale and how they handle being overlooked so often. Ironically....they were overlooked. Orton only covered Penn, Princeton, Harvard and Cornell in depth.

I did really enjoy reading it as the season wound down, however, and appreciating how far Princeton has come in the past four years. Reading about the teams struggles in 2006 made last night's 20th win of the season taste that much sweeter. I also enjoyed reading about Cornell, who would in the next four years come to own the league. I'm looking forward to watching them do great things in the tournament next week, from what I've seen and what I read they deserve it.

Magic Hour-Kristin Hannah

Plot: A once prominent child psychologist is publicly scorned for her failure to foresee a patients violent rampage. Humiliated she returns to her Washington hometown to help a recently found child who turns out to be a feral child. Lessons on love and family ensue.

Thoughts: Remember how I love fundamentalist communities? I also love feral children. I was pumped when my boss handed me a copy of this book and told me she thought I would like it. She was right, I loved the plot. Loved watching the relationship between the child and the psychologist flourish. Loved the descriptions of small town Washington state. It was a very comfortable book that went great with a glass of wine and soft new age music in the background.

Unlike Devil In the White City, I did not love the side stories. I didn't really care that Ellie used to be homecoming queen and is still dealing with her former glory even though she's 40. I didn't really care that Max and Julia had feelings for each other, really it seemed unprofessional as they were both doctors on the case. I also didn't care for the final twist. Julia, the psychologist, references it as being like a Disney movie at the end, which nearly made me vomit. I also didn't care for the fact that it had an epilogue that only took place five months in the future. That's not an epilogue, that's another chapter. To be fair, I don't actually know the rules of epilogues or even if they exist.

American Wife-Curtis Sittenfeld

Plot: A small town Wisconsin woman meets a man from a powerful family, marries him, deals with the repercussions. Supposedly based off of Laura Bush.

Thoughts: HUGE book, really thick. Loved the first half. Sittenfeld was really good at creating characters and I felt myself becoming a part of the story. I think the fact that I was able to separate the main character, Alice, from her alleged counterpart, Laura Bush, helped a lot. Both her and the rich family, The Blackwells, felt like original characters rather than characters of public figures.

Then they went to Princeton reunions. I'm very territorial about Princeton having spent a lot of time there throughout life. I get really angry when books, movies, etc. feel the need to reference every individual part of campus from dorms to lampposts. Maybe it's because I'm so close to the place that I notice it more than I notice it when other locations are involved. Every sentence seemed to drive the fact that they were at Princeton into the readers head with a hammer. I had a hearty laugh when she described each reunion worker as being incredibly organized and level headed. As someone who spent sleepless nights counting out reunion keys last May I can assure you I was a mess.

After they came back from Reunions the book went downhill. The similarities between the Blackwells and the Bushes became impossible to ignore. At some points I practically expected her to put quotations around the characters names, a subtle wink to the idea that this might not be fiction. This would be all well and good except for the fact that it was fiction. If I had wanted to read a sensationalized story of the Bushes marriage I'm sure there are plenty of options out there. I enjoyed the book when it was original with just enough reference to truth to ground it. After "Charlie" became president, however, it was just too much to handle.

The Glass Castle-Jeanette Walls

Plot: A girl from a family of eccentrics grows up in different places, learns to love her family despite their faults.

Thoughts: Really great book. The author, Jeanette Walls, recounts her journey throughout the United States as her family moved often to escape financial problems. Still living in the memories of my cross country trip, I was fascinated by her descriptions of the different places her family ended up. These small towns seemed to be the epitome of despair. Her eventual home in West Virginia was actually the first official town to recieve food stamps. Yet each town or house seemed to have a former glory attached to it. Welch, WV once had a booming coal mining culture, their house in California while falling into disrepair still held on to it's former beauty through small architectural details. Whether intended or not, it was a beautiful metaphor for this family. Broken, yet holding on to this idea that they might one day turn themselves upright again.

The book has a rather non-traditional ending, at least for this type of story. Unlike other feel good tales, the family does not all end up together, wealthy and happy. Walls, her brother and one of her sisters end up on their feet, doing just fine or even excelling in the case of Walls. Her parents, however, remained homeless up nearly until her father's death. While there was no magic ending, there was a peace in the ending. I realized that while I crave a happy ending to every story, there is often a fakeness to happy endings where you are questioning whether the person is truly happy with the way things turned out, or whether they even turned out like that at all. The Glass Castle's ending was peaceful. Things hadn't turned out perfectly but everyone was where they needed to be in order to feel free.

So grab yourself a copy of The Help and join the book club. Otherwise I'm heading to the soccer fields in my Volvo and joining the first mothers book club I can find. I will steal a baby as my cover if necessary.

Tragically Captivating

The general rule of thumb is never travel with my sister. Bad things happen. I have threatened to call Homeland Security on her numerous times because of the amount of terrorism attacks she seems to attract. The terrorism has been replaced by natural disasters in recent years, attracting a number of small, yet noticeable, earthquakes. Apparently Mother Nature hates Caroline and her typical western lifestyle even more than Osama.

On Friday I was watching The Olympics with my mom when my man Costas informed me that we were going to be cutting away for a newsbreak. My mom moaned and said "oh great, there's probably been an earthquake in Japan". We laughed and I set to work searching to internet to find out what the newsbreak might be. After CNN and NY Times gave me nothing, I went to MSNBC to see a giant red banner reading "7.3 magniture earthquake off the coast of Japan".

I dissolved into hysterical laughter, in retrospect probably not the right response but it was truly funny to me. Mom asked me what I was laughing about and I realized that I was going to have to break the news to her about the earthquake, most likely sending her into a fit of worries until Caroline called with news that she was safe. Rather than tell her, I just laughed harder. Finally I managed to get some words out about the earthquake. My mom did not think it was nearly as funny as I did. Even funnier? The newsbreak was about the governor of New York.

Mom spent the next hours frantically checking the internet for updates before we got an e-mail from Caroline. "yea....there was an earthquake. I kinda slept through it. I just thought it was some trucks." She continued on to tell us how great the sushi was in Japan. Winner.

Unfortunately for Caroline I'm going to stop talking about her now and rather use her story as an introduction to my thoughts on the weekends events.

After finding out that Caroline was indeed fine I went off to my friend Nicky's place. I usually spend Friday nights with her at the bar located in her dorm (excellent location for a bar, btw). Inevitably I wind up spending the night in her room...I keep a sleeping bag and pillow in the trunk of my car at all times just in case this happens. That sleeping bag is the best 15 dollars I've ever spent.

I digress.

I wandered home on Saturday morning and was preparing a giant mug of coffee when my parents came in from walking the dogs. My mom had a grim look on her face and asked if I had heard about the earthquake. I assumed she meant the one in Japan and reminded her that "yes, I did hear about that" then made a mental note to call several area old folks homes to set up informational meetings. She went on to tell me about the Chile earthquake and the subsequent tsunami warnings for Hawaii.

I made a beeline for the television, as is the custom when there is a disaster somewhere in the world, and was pleasantly surprised to see that Chile seemed to be handling the destruction as well as it could be. Now, 4 days later, we are seeing the destruction and chaos that is normally associated post earthquake, but the initial images of post-earthquake Chile were disturbingly calm and organized. People almost seemed to be treating it like we did the Snowpocalypse...it was a nuisance, but intriguing. In the background of some shots you could even see traffic flowing as if it were any other day. Truthfully, they were handling it far better than we did the Snowpocalypse. As the fatality numbers continue to rise and the actual situation begins to set it, it's clear that those hopeful first reports were nothing more than a pipe dream.

What captivated me the most about these news reports, however, was the news that a tsunami was heading straight for Hawaii. Even more captivating....they had an exact time that it would hit. We could literally have a tsunami countdown. The rest of the day was spent checking the clock, counting down the hours until the tsunami. I resisted the urge to imagine a stereotypical tsunami wave, the size of a ten story building, crashing into the Hawaii beachfront. I assured myself that it would be nothing like the tsunami that crashed into Thailand a few years ago. That it would just be a little surge of water, nothing all that interesting. Still I counted down, waited, frantically tried to dissect the charts and graphs that "experts" were parading across tv to try and determine the effect that it would have on Hawaii.

The tsunami was supposed to hit at 4pm est. At 3:30 my family sat down at our tv to watch. We flicked back and forth to try and determine which channel would give us the best coverage. I'm ashamed to admit we decided against MSNBC solely because we wouldn't be able to see the tsunami in HD. My family has decidedly different political views and preferred news channels are often a subject of contention. Over this non-political issue my mom gladly suggested that maybe Fox news would be best while my father assured her that CNN would be more than fine. Eventually we decided on the BBC, however they were more interested in the day's soccer (excuse me, football) match than the tsunami watch in the South Pacific. Bollocks.

The next 45 minutes were thus spent flipping back and forth between Fox News and CNN. All this taught me is that there are no news crews in Hawaii. The only footage anyone had of the beach was courtesy of Skype. Even better it was courtesy of the Skype of an MMA fighter. You're telling me that out of all the high rise hotels and helicopters circling above the ocean, no news channel could have gotten a camera out there? Who am I to complain, though, people were actually using their heads for once. News channels respected the severity of a tsunami and refused to send crews out to the frontlines. Meanwhile I sat safely thousands of miles away from both the destruction of the earthquake and the possible destruction of Hawaii and complained. I am truly a terrible person sometimes.

And so we sat. And waited. And watched. We studied the shots of the ocean and offered our own expert advice. In one shot the water had receded a little....in another we swore you could CLEARLY see the tsunami on the horizon. 4 o clock came and went. We waited. It was sick when you think about it. We knew what we were waiting for wasn't supposed to be all that impressive, yet we waited in case it was. No one wanted to see Hawaii harmed in any way, but we wanted to see something we had never seen before.

Gradually Mom left to go bake a cake, then OMP left to go...I don't know, do OMP things like write books and curse in Polish at Communist youtube videos. I stayed, I watched, then eventually I left as well. It never hit me that the wave never came. Eventually something else caught my attention and I moved on. It wasn't until the next morning that I realized I had spent my whole afternoon waiting for something that never happened.

I want to have a deep ending to this blog entry about the fragility of life and the power of Mother Nature, but I think that's a given. Rumor has it the Pope's Catholic as well. Death and destruction from natural disasters are givens...so why, if they're so unpleasant, are we drawn to them? I don't have an answer, all I can do is offer my advice for television executives. While Dancing With the Stars is great......nothing will guarentee my attention more than a sudden tsunami warning.

And yes. I do worry about what this says about me as a person....

Caroline's Trip to Asia: Part I

My sister is in Asia right now on a "school trip". I put that in quotations because any "school trip" to Asia is far more than any "school trip" I ever went on. We'll instead refer to this as "study abroad".

The general rule of study abroad is that you have to have a blog. That's how I got into blogging, and that's how every other blogger I know started blogging. They practically include Blogger as a part of your orientation when you go abroad...you have to keep a blog. The problem lies in the fact that Caroline seems to think I'm funnier than she is. This is true...in a way. Caroline is actually hilarious, although unlike me, she doesn't realize that she's hilarious. As such, she asked that I keep a blog for her while she's in Asia.

The problem in this is obvious. I am in New Jersey. I have never been to Asia. I have absolutely no idea what she is up to. Truthfully I have no idea what time it is over there. But nonetheless I promised her that I would keep an excellent blog of her trip to Asia, despite being at least 12 hours in the past.

Luckily, for the first entry Caroline spared me the trouble of coming up with a fake blog entry, as upon her arrival to Tokyo she sent the most hilarious email I've ever been sent. I'm not even going to try and make up an entry for her first day, I'm just going to copy and paste the e-mail, word for word, and use that to introduce you to the crazy that is Caroline.

i made it!

no clue how to use this keyboard so this will be quick but i knew you guys would be worried. ive spent the entire morning trying to find an internet cafe or a phone card. My phone doesnt work here but i made it from the airport with no problems and met up with paul at his office. he had to go back to work so he taught me how to use his apartment...sounds strange, but it was a necessary lesson. everything has a remote, even the toilet...with a button for flushing sound. im a little bit like scarlett johannsen in lost in translation.

flight was fine. we were delayed because the incoming flight tapped the next jetway over with its wingtip when arriving so they wanted to make sure everything was okay.IT IS A LONG FLIGHT SORRY, THIS WENT INTO CAPS AND I CANT CHANGE IT.ANYWAYS, I NOW UNDERSTAND WHY JACKIE PAYS FOR PREMIUM ECONOMY...EVERYONE IS JAMMED IN REGULAR ECONOMY BUT PREMIUM WAS EMPTY. I ASKED IF IT WAS OKAY FOR ME TO MOVE UP AND WAS MET WITH A LOOK OF HORROR. I MIGHT ASK HOW MUCH PREMIUM IS ON THE WAY BACK. YOU KNOW THOSE EYE SHADES AND EARPLUGS BRITISH AIRWAYS GIVES OUT? ANA DIDN:T AND I:VE NEVER WANTED A PACKET MORE IN MY LIFE. I DIDN:T SLEEP AT ALL.BUT I MADE IT!

SORRY, THIS IS THE WEIRDEST E-MAIL I:VE EVER WRITTEN. JUST KNOW THAT I:M FINE AND SAFE AND HAVING A GOOD TIME. I SLEPT A TON LAST NIGHT AND WAS UP AT 7, SO I THINK JET LAG IS OVER! I WENT TO A TEMPLE THIS MORNING AND NOW AM GETTING LUNCH TO SIT IN THE PARK BEFORE SEEING A FEW MORE TEMPLES, THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL.

LOVE, CAROLINE

Look forward to me following Caroline as I try to figure out what she is up to in Tokyo, Vietnam, Thailand and various other Asian locations. This is going to be fun.

Snurricane '10!

If the Snowpocalypse wasn't enough for you, welcome to the Snurricane

Courtesty of http://www.philebrity.com/2010/02/24/new-weather-forecast-meme-could-use-a-little-more-profanity-please/

Oh Canada: An Interview With an America Expat in Vacouver

My friend PaigeS (there are two Paiges that will be referred to often in this blog, PaigeS and Pwalker, just a heads up) moved to Vancouver shortly after graduation to begin a career doing...something psychology related. One of my biggest regrets of the past year is that I didn't get plane tickets to go and visit her during the Winter Olympics...I figured I would have a "real job" by now and there wouldn't be time. Whoops.

PaigeS began the Olympics with an e-mail to us announcing that she would be supporting Canada, rather than the US, during the Olympics. I was outraged. As such, I rooted harder than I ever have rooted for anything hockey related when the US played Canada the other night. I wanted her to feel pain. Which she did.

Last night she came online after spending the evening at the bar watching the Canadians beat Germany. She was in....well she was in the exact state of mind you would expect a Canadian to be after watching a solid victory at a bar. I decided this was the perfect time to get an interview with her about her throughts on Canada and the Winter Olympics.

Me: Thank you for agreeing to do this for the blog

PaigeS: I love watching Jeopardy drunk

Me: This is for the blog

PaigeS: yea, yea, yea, ask away

Me: What would have happened tonght if Canada had lost and been eliminated

PaigeS: Holy shit....riots....stabbings

Me: Why do I feel like you would get caught up in the action and start stabbing people

PaigeS: It would be hard to prosecute

Me: What are the 5 best things about Canada/Vancouver?

PaigeS: Ummmmm...the views, teh city, the public transit...the fact that i get paid to live here and the underdog mentality

Me: 5 best things about the Olympics?

PaigeS: The excitement, the freestuff, the drunken crazies, ice skating, ridiculing tourists

Me: 5 worst things about the Olympics?

PaigeS: crowds, drunken riots, it's expensive, I don't care about most of the sports, the traffic

Me: What would you say to convince Paul Rudd to come to Canada

PaigeS: I'm here and so is the Twilight cast

Me: Have you seen any famous people?

PaigeS: I saw jessica biel

Me: Have you slept with any athletes?

PaigeS: I may or may not have participated in a threesome with the figure skating siblings

Me: Which ones, there were four pairs

PaigeS: That were siblings? Wow. All of them...all four...all.

Me: Who's hotter, Canadians or Americans?

PaigeS: Canadians, but americans dress better

Me: America and Canada play each other in the ice hockey gold medal game and the outcome of the game leads to an actual war...who wins?

PaigeS: America let's be real, even I can't pretend America doesn't kick ass at everything.

Me: Are B4-4 still national heroes?

PaigeS: Of course, they are like our Beatles.

Me: Why is the queen on your money

PaigeS: because we never stood up for ourselves against England. We just took it for years until even they didn't want us anymore.

Me: Pop Canadian History Quiz, no Google allowed. What is the origin of the name Canada

Paige: it means great land of the sea (nope, it means village or settlement)

Me: What rodent is described by the Canadian Encyclopedia as having "had a greater impact on the history and exploration of Canada than any other animal or plant species"?

PaigeS: The mallard, with it's manly and adventurous nature (The beaver)

Me: Who was the only Canadian to ever serve as Prime Minister of Great Britain?

PaigeS: Queen Elizabeth II (Bonar Law)

Me: What was the name of the system of safe passages and safehouses that allowed American slaves to escape to freedom in Canada?

PaigeS: The Underground Railroad, Part deux: The Great White North (Thats...correct...in a way)

Me: What is so special about the Thousand Island Railway

PaigeS: They also market a tasty salad dressing (It is the shortest railway in the world)

Me: How many times has the US invaded Canada

PaigeS: Everyday I have been in the country, so 108 days....108 times (Twice)

Me: Do you keep track of how long you have been in the country with hash marks next to your bed like a prisoner?

PaigeS: Sorry, 217. I just counted

Me: You were way off

PaigeS: Well that answers your other question

Me: Which way does the toilet flush in Canada?

PaigeS: Toilets?

Me: Nevermind

PaigeS: Sounds expensive

Me: What season of Friends are you on in Canada?

PaigeS: We call it Acquaintances and Rachel just got a great haircut. I wonder if her and Ross will get together

Me: I have to go to bed, what is the one thing you want my readers to know about Canada?

PaigeS: Think about engaging in more of a cultural exchange with canada, because we have a lot to offer but are also missing important things....like music after 1990

Thank You PaigeS. Enjoy The Olympics!

Top 5 Winter Olympic Movies

This list was made completely off the top of my head and only because I'm watching Miracle right now. If confronted I will easily fold to your arguments. Please, feel free to leave suggestions in the comment box for better Winter Olympic movies.

1. Cool Runnings.

Synopsis: Jamaican Maurice Bannick, the worlds greatest runner, falls during the Olympic qualifying match and fails to make the Olympic Track and Field team. As he takes shit from no one, he creates a bobsled team and together they learn the sport of bobsledding and compete for an Olympic medal all within 3 months. As a child I saw nothing wrong with this. As a 23 year old...I still see nothing wrong with this.

-This might just be the first movie I remember seeing as a child that I could fully comprehend. I have vague recollections of going to other movies, but I'm pretty sure this is the first that I was able to follow along with. I remember being 6ish and sitting at the Mercer Mall theater (now a DSW Shoe Warehouse) cracking up hysterically. It was clear to me that this was not just a movie, but a work of art. My sister and I quoted it to each other constantly (I believe the only quote I could remember was "kiss my lucky egg!"). I was outraged that it didn't win any Oscars.

I actually recieved extra credit in 5th grade after convincing my teacher that I had a "documentary on the Jamaican bobsled team that I wanted the class to watch." I brought in Cool Runnings. This might be the exact moment that I began to slide from "awesome student" to "total failure".

Since watching this movie I haven't been able to watch the Swiss or any other German speaking team bobsled during the Olympics without shouting "EINS! ZWEI! DREI! AHHHHHHHHHHH" a habit that I think might be starting to get on the nerves of anyone who watches bobsledding with me.

Also who hasn't done this in front of a mirror.

True Story: Yul Brenner and Ice the Bounty Hunter on Arrested Development are the same person. AWESOME!

It also has the greatest slow clap scene in cinematic history

Note: I watched this movie for the first time in about 2 years today. In the aftermath of the death of the Olympic luger (possibly due to inexperience) I found the (spoiler alert!) crash scene a little hard to stomach. Damn you, reality.

2. Miracle

Synopsis: The greatest moment in US sports history, hands down, was the 1980 Olympic Hockey Team's victory over the Soviets. This movie gives the 100% true story to that glory. Alright, fine, it takes some dramatic liberties, but no other movie makes you more proud to be an American.

-Originally I had put this over Cool Runnings. I thought it had everything you need, a heart warming storyline, hot guys and hilarious accents. But that's not enough to put it over Cool Runnings as exactly the same can be said about that movie. It was really sentimental value put it above the rest.

My mom and I saw this the first weekend it came out. She had told me the story of how she was on a flight back from god knows where when the "Miracle on Ice" happened and how the pilot had relayed the news to the cabin. It sounded like quite the moment. We saw the movie, loved it, and went back the next day to watch it again. It was that good. Also, full disclosure, when I was in Ireland while studying abroad I got incredibly sick one weekend. I popped in this movie and watched it while dying in bed. I may have burst into tears when they beat the Soviets and everyone started shouting U-S-A! U-S-A! I just love my country that much. The fever also probably played a role.

The youtube video of the little kid reciting the Herb Brooks speech definitely gave it some added bonus points as well.

It's probably the closest we can get to putting D2: The Mighty Ducks on this list (aka the greatest movie ever), so that gives it some extra bonus points as well.

(Holy crap they're the same movie! WHO KNEW?!??!?!)

Then I watched Cool Runnings again and realized just how incredible it was.

3. The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner

Synopsis: Walter Steiner ski jumps...he also enjoys woodcarving. Famed director Werner Herzog is crazy. Together, they create art.

-One thing that you should know about my group of friends, we love Werner Herzog documentaries. We have shirts with his face stenciled on them. His movies are the perfect mixture of interesting, ridiculous and hilarious. The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner follows a Swiss ski jumper Walter Steiner, who also enjoys woodcarving. It's best if you follow my liveblog of the movie here. Walter Steiner, from what I can tell in this German language film, is the greatest ski jumper of all time. At one point he agrees to jump from a lower starting point just to give his competitors a better chance at beating him. That's like Babe Ruth volunteering to bat one handed. While it sounds like he's evening the playing field, he's actually just showing off. My favorite part is when Steiner talks about how he had a pet bird as a child then shot it when it wouldn't go back into the wild because it was "the humane thing to do".

Here is the opening scene...you're transfixed within 10 seconds.

Simply knowing this movie exists gets me 35 hipster points. Pretty soon I'll have enough to buy a pair of suspenders out of the hipster catalogue.

4. Blades of Glory

Synopsis: Ron Burgandy and Napoleon Dynamite are banned from mens competitive figure skating for life. They find a loop hole and are still able to compete as long as they compete as a pair. Will Arnett and Amy Pohler play an orphaned brother and sister pair set on bringing the two down. Hilarity ensues.

-I didn't want to put it this high. I saw it once, then spent the next year telling everyone how overrated it was. Then I saw it again and laughed, a lot. Then I watched actual pairs figure skating and realized how realistic it was. Now I am desperately trying to find an OnDemand channel that is showing it so I can watch it again.

5. Funny story, there are only 4 Winter Olympic movies that I've seen enough times to make blog entries about them. I've been yelled at for not including The Cutting Edge on this list. The truth is while I've seen The Cutting Edge I can't for the life of me remember it. I could go and rent it, but movie stores have completely gone out of business. I could cue it up on Netflix but my next movie is a documentary about the Amish practice of Rumspringa and I've been waiting too long to watch that to delay it even further. We'll just go ahead and give the number 5 spot to D2: The Mighty Ducks for being the greatest movie ever.

Synopsis: Did you watch Miracle? It's the same movie, but with teenagers. You think I'm joking. It's the exact same movie. Replace "Soviets" with "Iceland" and "Olympics" with "Junior Goodwill Games". Same. Effing. Movie.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I ended many a drunken night in college shouting QUACK! QUACK! QUACK! QUACK! with my friend Pwalker. I could watch this movie 1000x over.

This movie brings up so many questions.

Is Charlie Conway a terrorist for refusing to wear the Red White and Blue instead wearing the Duck uniform?

Did I create a Facebook group to promote this idea?

Since when has Iceland been a hockey powerhouse?

Why do the Icelandics have the same accent as the Cool Runnings Swiss?

Is Gunner Stahl really that guy from City Guys?

If nothing else it left me with my favorite movie quote ever.

You lost it for yourself...let's go shake their hands

And isn't that the true Olympic spirit?