Mel
Reading: I’m in a career transition, reading Finding Your North Star by Martha Beck, also awaiting a copy of Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write about Real Sex edited by Erica Jong to chat about with some friends.
Watching: Top Chef has returned!! I also saw My Week With Marilyn and the new Muppet Movie. We’re repeating Mad Men to get ready for the new season.
Listening: Tonight I get to hear Tori Amos live, what a treat! Other fun bands I’ve heard lately – Foo Fighters, She Wants Revenge, Peter Murphy.
Eating: Last week I traveled to Philadelphia and my cheesesteak was to die for! Then for my birthday, we ate at a quaint little French cafe in my neighborhood with friends on a rainy evening where I lapped up the food, ambiance and company. And for Thanksgiving – turkey prepared by my favorite farmer, mashed potatoes with brie, stuffing with sausage, apples and toasted almonds and then homemade caramel apple and banana cream pies for dessert. We will likely be eating this for weeks.
Browsing: I’m doing my shopping for Christmas, mostly in person, but some on line. Found some really fun stuff at Urban Outfitters!
Heidi
Reading: Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write about Real Sex edited by Erica Jong (Mel and I have some of the same friends), Rapture a collection of poetry by Carol Ann Duffy — gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. And (so far) sexier than Sugar in My Bowl. Just finished Norweigan Wood by Haruki Murakami and have all 900+ pages of 1Q84 sitting on my bedside table waiting patiently for me to finish the very charming The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.
Watching: The second series of Bored to Death and The Killing (The Danish version). Finally getting around to watching The Sopranos, I’m somewhere in the third season. It hasn’t dethroned The Wire or Mad Men for me, but it’s just as good as everyone has said, James Gandolfini is astonishing. Would like to see Hugo and My Week with Marilyn ( I really like Michelle Williams). Will probably not get to the cinema.
Listening: Bon Iver (Erin’s lovely post put me in the mood again), Fleet Foxes, Robyn, John Maus, revisiting Sleater-Kinney
Eating: Nothing inspiring! I did eat a Heidi Pie (sweet potatoes, feta, spinach — actually three of my favorite foods and I had no choice but to eat a pie that shares my name) when I was in Southwold for the Way With Words literary festival a few weeks ago. Actually, I think someone needs to take me on a date for dinner and a movie …
Browsing: Flavorwire, xoJane, Yo, Is This Racist?
Ed
Reading: The Prague Cemetery, by Umberto Eco. Just finished, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, by Bill Bryson (as per usual, always, always entertaining).
Watching: Pan Am series on TV with my wife. It’s not Mad Men by any stretch, but it will have to do. Although I never did it, but this must be what it feels like when a guy gets ditched by a girl and he then goes and dates her younger sister. Saw and loved Goethe in Love subtitled in German. Think Shakespeare in Love but it’s Goethe’s sturm and drang early romance leading up to the publication of The Sorrows of Young Werther. Also saw and liked quite a bit My Week with Marilyn, an interesting meditation on stardom and beauty, although I’m suspicious how true many of the autobiographical details might be. A lot of British talent on display here–enjoyable on many levels.
Listening: A collection of poetry by W.B. Yeats from audible.com. “Revelator” by Tedeschi Trucks Band. Did you ever like Delaney and Bonnie and Friends? Tedeschi Trucks Band is their modern equivalent.
Eating: Himalania brand trail mixes with pistachios, goji berries, dark chocolate, etc.
Browsing: Recently, quite a bit of the following, although I’m a lurker: Mormon Matters; Mormon Stories; Patheos; The Exponent; Wheat & Tares and Zelophehad’s Daughters.
Heather
Reading: Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write About Real Sex edited by Erica Jong — very interesting collection of stories (fiction and biographical) and essays about women’s sexual experiences. The idea that intrigued me the most was a story of a couple’s last time having sex. It seems that lots of people have tried to capture the first-time experience, but I’ve not encountered someone try to tackle the last-time experience. It was very poignant. Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray and Still Loving My Neighbor by Jana Riess — this really was a delightful read. Get it! Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua — hands down one of the most fascinating books I’ve read in a long time. I read parts of it to my kids and we laughed out loud and then puzzled over it together. Stay tuned for more on Tiger Mothering in Knit Together. ;) You lost me: Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church…and Rethinking Faith by David Kinnaman — another really interesting read about why young Christians are leaving their churches. Lots of similarities between mainline Christian churches and Mormons, I think.
Watching: Totally disappointed by Thanksgiving movie options. Still, we saw Tower Heist (not worth theater prices), J. Edgar (interesting; made me want to read a biography of Hoover), and Hugo (I liked this because Marin and Stuart and I really enjoyed reading the book a couple years ago).
Listening: Mormon Matters Episode 57: LDS Young Single Adult Experiences Revisited Daughters of Mormonism Episodes 30 & 31 Daughters of Mormonism Episodes 19 & 20
Eating: “What am I not eating?” seems to be the more important question. My contributions to my family’s (33 people, I think) Thanksgiving meal were the following: corn casserole, a delicious dish that has sweet potatoes, green beans, craisins, and nuts, and a pumpkin cake. I do not enjoying cooking-ever. There is pretty much no food on the planet that I enjoy enough to warrant spending 5 hours in the kitchen.
Browsing: Funny idea. This website is laugh out loud funny (and then cringe and then fear for the future of the world). I stumbled onto this website. Haven’t read the articles yet but would like to. I’m always intrigued by the idea of compiling the “best of” anything-movies, music, books, articles, etc.
Erin
Reading: Biographies of Robert Frost and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Watching: Seasons #1-3 (working my way through them again) of Arrested Development in anticipation of the to-be-made movie!
Listening:Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”, Wu-Tang Clan’s “Wu-Tang Forever” and “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (seriously, how does Jim Dale do so many voices!?!)
Eating: Mashed potatoes with pools of melted butter (yeah, how a vegetarian overdoes Thanksgiving) + greek yogurt with honey +blackberries lightly sprinkled with sugar.
Browsing: Spotify!
Laurie
Reading: Parenting Children with ADHD by Vincent Monastra, Sugar in My Bowl edited by Erica Jong.
Watching: Old SNL sketches like they’re candy. Some people dream about being rock stars or ballet dancers. I dream about being funny enough to host SNL.
Listening: The Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour), Eddie Vedder, Harry Connick
Eating: Contradictions: Pink Lady organic apples (so pretentious) with Skippy creamy peanut butter (so mundane), oatmeal chocolate chip cookies gooey from the oven (healthy gobs of oatmeal, negated by mounds of sugar), home-made organic chicken noodle soup (The traditionally quick ‘n easy dinner that takes all day the homemade way).
Browsing: Recovering Yogi, Pinterest, Adios Barbie
Claire
Reading: Finally getting around to Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Watching: The Wonder Years on netflix.
Listening: Mylo Xyloto with the family on a road trip.
Eating: S’mores by our backyard bonfire, Mexican Coca-Cola in glass bottles.
Browsing: Riding the Pinterest wave…. and looking at some tumblr sites like Everyday Picnic
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The Wonder Years on Netflix!!! I used to love this show.
Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write about Real Sex–guess I need to read this!
Mel, how did you like My Week with Marilyn?
Ed, we’ll have to have a D&S women return and report Sugar in my Bowl edition. :)
Claire you’ll have to return and report on Eat, Pray, Love. I loved it (of course) but I read it at the right time – before it was hype and there were so many copy-cat books.
I liked Eat, Pray, Love and don’t care much about the haters. ;)
I really enjoyed the book. My sisters and I took my mother a few years back to hear Elizabeth Gilbert and Anne Lamont speak – they were fabulous!
I also really liked Gilbert’s Committed. Very good.
I’ve been really interested in reading “Committed.” I read “Eat, Pray, Love” quite awhile ago — I don’t know if it was before or after the hype — but I liked it. I thought Gilbert’s voice was warm and funny. Yes, she’s a privileged woman going on a journey of self-discovery, but the narrative was laced with humility (any time I’d start to think, alright lady that’s a bit much, she seemed to anticipate the reader and say, alright, I know this is a bit much). Do you think it would have been considered self-indulgent if it had been written by a man (not a rhetorical question, I honestly don’t know)?
Ed – we should go to the movies together. Just saw Melancholia last night too. I was underwhelmed with the story of My Week with Marilyn, but the movie was a delight. I felt he was trying to make his little moment more meaningful and important than it was to Marilyn, but if I look at it from the perspective that we all do this (our life-altering moments may be just a brief blip on the radar screen of someone else’s journey) and don’t take him quite so seriously, it’s a much better flick.
Yep, the interactions between Marilyn and Olivier rang true and fascinated me. We saw both Melancholia and Marilyn at the Atlanta chapter of the Cinema Club. You guys should join us next semester! Here’s a link to the website: http://cities.thecinemaclub.com/?city=ATL