The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Author: Sherman Alexie

A good young adult novel is the best because 1) when I was a young young adult I was starved for good reads and usually resorted to sustaining myself with re-reads or checking out whitebread Sweet Valley High and 2) even though the language is simple, it doesn't mean the truths of the story don't run deep, if not the deepest because of it's accessibility/universality (think Hemmingway).

This was the sort of book that made me exclaim out loud--laughter, gasps, and the mmm sound you make when something tastes just right. Obviously, I'm a little biased--I'm a sucker for anything about Indians and sports and family and community and making the most of the cards you've been dealt and this book definitely has all that. Plus it has inserted little personal drawings/doodles/comics like the ones that Davi draws and I never get enough of.

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Director: Miranda July

I watched this movie when it first came out a couple years ago and besides remembering I liked it, I really only remembered the "back and forth, forever" scene because it is so funny and oddly touching.

I just checked it out from the Bayfield Library and watched it again with my mom and this time the scene that stood out to me was when Christine goes to the art museum to drop off her tape and the art lady gives her a business card and tells her to mail the tape to the address on the card, the address of where they are standing, and says it will be easier that way. Throughout the whole movie Christine is trying to break down this wall to be directly intimate and everytime she is cast as crazy for doing it, yet the rest of the characters are so closed off and can only let themselves be intimate through devices like internet chatting, posting signs on the window, code words, etc. And yeah, of course it is "easier" (as in less awkward, less scary) to only let your guard down when there is already a wall in place, but it is also so ulitmately sad and lonely and literarlly sense-less.

So yeah. Beautiful. And I promise the next blog will be about a book.

Speaking of, Miranda July has a pretty cool new book too.