my favorite book

I fell in love with the story of Les Misérables long before I read the actual novel by Victor Hugo. When I was about seven, my Aunt Bee gave me and my sister a cassette tape of the "Les Mis" Broadway musical. We listened to that tape incessantly and always sang along to every part. I think V and I both were convinced that we sounded exactly like Frances Ruffelle, the actress who played Eponine, when we sang. As I got older, though, I grew to love the story and plot, not just the music. I began to love the passion and courage of Fantine, the revolutionaries, and Jean Valjean. Today, I have to say that I think Javert is one of the most interesting characters. "Javert's Suicide" is one of my favorite songs in the musical.

One evening when I was little, I remember I wearing my green nightgown and doing a very lively jig to"Master of the House" in our living room. My mom came in and said that it was a "not nice" song, and fast-forwarded to the next track. I guess she didn't want me to be so enthusastic and excited about the terrible Thénardiers.

I loved that musical, and it definitely piqued my early interest in singing and musical theater. But I have to say, though, that Victor Hugo's Les Misérables is infinitely better than the musical. I read the unabridged version of this book for the first time in college, while I was on a study abroad in Europe. It was so amazing to be in Paris and visit all of the places discussed in the story - I even took a tour of the Paris sewers so I could better visualize where Jean Valjean carried Marius away from the barricade.

Hugo's writing is compelling; he cleverly forms sentences and phrases that catch readers by surprise. He also uses descriptions that seem ancillary and decorative, but then uses these same descriptions later to impact how the viewer reacts to the plot. For example, Hugo describes Fantine as having "gold and pearls [for her dowry]; but the gold was on her head and the pearls in her mouth."¹ This emphasis on gold and pearls becomes important later, when Fantine opts to sell her hair and two front teeth to raise money. I remember audibly gasping in dismay when I read that Fantine sold her teeth, and that "the corners of her mouth were stained with blood, and there was a black hole where her two front teeth had been."² I still shudder each time I read that paragraph.

There are few books which cause me to gasp audibly. When I gasped at such an early part in this story (when reading it for the first time), I knew that this book would have a great impact on me. And it did.

Have you ever gasped while reading a book? What's your favorite book? Do you have a favorite part in Les Misérables (the musical or the novel)?

1 Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (New York: Signet Classic, 1987), 122.

2 Ibid., 186.

martin short as "jerry lewis"

The other night J commented about a SNL "Jeopardy!" skit where Martin Short plays Jerry Lewis. I'd never heard of this skit before. Since I like Jerry so much, I'm surprised that J never mentioned the skit earlier. My favorite part is around 4:04 in this clip, when "Alex Trebek" is trying to get "Jerry" to say the correct question to match the Jeopardy answer. The whole "cannon-ballin-mamin'" mumble is a pretty good JL impersonation.

fall excursions

The rainy weather has started up again, but luckily we've had a few rain-free moments during the past two weekends. Last weekend we went to visit a park that's located on the shore of Lake Washington, and the weekend before we went on a short hike between to lakes. It's been fun to see all of the fall colors in the Northwest, even though I think that Utah's fall colors are prettier. Here are some pictures of our latest excursions:

Phantom Lake
(the beginning of our hike)

Larson Lake
(the end-point of our hike - I promise, there are two different lakes in these pictures)

Several summers ago, J helped to clean up the blueberry fields outside of Larson Lake. The bushes are especially pretty right now with their red leaves.

Exploring at the park on Lake Washington. If you can manage to look beyond my brightly colored windbreaker, you can see Seattle in the background.

I wonder if we'll manage to get more rain-free weekends this year. I admit, I'm not excited for the rainy season to start, mostly because it's hard to entertain a curious, wiggly boy indoors. If anyone has some great ideas for inexpensive/free indoor activities, I'd love to hear them.

the eyre affair

After the first ten pages of reading Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair, I realized that I needed to SUSPEND. MY. DISBELIEF. Once I did that, this book was fantastic.

Although this book appears to be set in the 1980s, there are a lot of things that differ from reality. Time travel takes place, people (and characters) can travel in and out of novels, and dodo birds are household pets (they were revived from extinction through genetic cloning). It's quite fun. The protagonist of the novel is a Special Operations agent named Thursday Next. She is hunting for a master criminal and murderer named Acheron Hades.

This book is peppered with witty words and clever references to literature. The thing I enjoyed most about this book, though, is the discussion of Jane Eyre. In order to kill Hades, Next has to travel into the original manuscript of Jane Eyre, which results in Next changing the end of the story so that Rochester and Eyre can end up together (before Next made any changes, the novel finished with Eyre going to India with St. John Rivers).

If you like stories with cultural or literary references, you should pick this up. There are some really funny parts - I laughed out loud when I read about a a Neo-surrealist convention that was invaded by a mob of angry Renaissancists.

I know that Fforde has written a whole series of Thursday Next novels, but two people have told me that they other books not as fun as The Eyre Affair. Has anyone read any of this series? Would you recommend that I read any of the other books?

product of mild insomnia

I have a lot going through my brain right now, and I can't seem to fall asleep. Hopefully if I purge all of my thoughts into this post, then I'll be able to get a good night's rest (from what's left of the night, that is).

• The other weekend J and I watched The Thin Man with William Powell and Myrna Loy. I've wanted to watch this old movie for a long time, and I'm glad that we did. It really is quite funny and it's a murder mystery (bonus!). J and I had a couple of unexpected and hearty laughs during the show. I watched this YouTube compilation of clips from the series, and some of the other films look like they might be fun. Has anyone else seen any of The Thin Man films? Which film in the series should we watch next?
• I think I'll be ready to submit my article by the end of this month. I've done a lot of rewriting and the process has been slow-going, but I'm almost there. I hope that this journal approves it for publication. If not, though, I'll try and send it elsewhere. I'm just glad that I (almost) have a succinct article that is short enough to appear in a scholarly journal. And who knew that my thesis could be condensed to almost a fifth of its original size? Not me.
  
• I met a really nice girl today who recently moved to Seattle. We were introduced through a mutual friend via email, and she came over to talk about job hunting in the area (she hopes to land an adjunct lecturer position and wanted some advice). It was so nice to meet someone and feel like I could connect with them on multiple levels. I haven't really made any close friends since moving up here, although I do have some local friends that I knew from high school/college. In regards to making new friends, though, that hasn't really happened. I have made plenty of casual friendships at church and in the area, but no one with whom I've connected on a very close level. J thinks that we'll never be able to recreate the close relationships that we have with college friends, and maybe he's right. But I'd like to think that I'm not so snobby/boring/standoffish/strange that I can't form a good friendship or two.
• I found out today that my mom has kidney stones. Seriously, my mom does not need to deal with that right now. I hope it ends soon.
• I really, really need to stop dreaming about SC. For the past couple of years, I have consistently dreamed about one of my friends. On average, I would say that this friend pops up in at least one dream per month. All of the dreams are really bizarre, too. It's kind of hard to explain, but I know that I keep dreaming about this friend because it bothers me so much. I think I first dreamed about SC when I was a newlywed, and I must have felt guilty that there was a boy in my dream that wasn't J (even though I'm sure that the dream was not romantic). Anyhow, I think my initial vexation has started this whole dream trend. J thinks the whole thing is a little humorous. I'm just irked with my subconscious.

war and peace

This is the book Sam wanted to read the other morning. Thank goodness. I was tired of reading The Hungry Caterpillar with him.

michelangelo commercial

This is J's latest work project for the new Michelangelo exhibition at the SAM. J worked on the graphics, created the storyboards, and engineered the sound. The commercial will be airing on TV tonight.



Once again, J is famous.