Mood:  cool

There are lots of reasons why I am currently plumbing the depths of my memories to create a list of all the books I've ever read.  I don't suppose that I will be completely successful, but I at least want to get as many titles and authors as there are vague plot lines floating around in my head from long ago.  Even I think this project is a little crazy, but its one of those things that I get wrapped up in on a whim.  I have to say I'm doing pretty good--better than the first time I worked on it getting just under three hundred titles that was then lost in Google Notebooks, then found, then lost again--its probably my fault.   All that's neither here nor there because what I want to talk about is Loganberry Books a bookstore in Ohio.  

While conducting my vague plot reminiscences I stumbled upon the Loganberry Books Stump the Bookseller.  I'm sure there are other forums to get help from people who might know what your talking about when you only have a sliver of an idea, but Stump the Bookseller has popped up repeatedly in my searches for strange stories about separated twins, virtual rock stars, and red wizards.  I realized that I was doing a diservice to it by simply using it as a mine for my potential forgotten titles, so I'm talking it up to you guys.  I want to visit Loganberry books someday--anybody who lives near it should wait for me though.  Go and keep this place in business!   

Mood:  chillin'

I was unsuspectingly reading through my own personal news real when io9 brought me this awesome bit of news about Anne Hathaway being cast in one of Stephen Chow's new projects.  Not much is known about the film so far and it is untitled, but it has to be one of the shiniest news bits I've ever heard.

Although Stephen Chow broke into U.S. theaters with Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, there are too many people who've never heard of this genius writer, directer, actor, in my opinion.    

I talked up Stephen Chow once before, and if I didn't convey my admiration then, I just wasn't doing my job.  So, I'd already be waiting on the edge of my seat for a new movie from him, but the news that Anne Hathaway has been cast in it is even more giggle inducing.  Though I have to admit I have no inclination to ever see Bride Wars, Anne Hathaway had already won my heart long before that.  She has an easy way of presenting a character that is completely believable and translates well to comedy.  I can't wait to see how they'll work together.

picture from CRIENGLISH.com

Mood:  bright

My romance with bookstores has recently encountered some rocky terrain, I am the first to admit it.  I have been wanting more and more from our rendezvous than I had ever before.  What with all the book ads and blog posts I read online about new and exciting material, the bookstore just cannot bring me everything I want and I am cruel for wanting it to.  Yet, there is still the wonderful browse through shelves to find something I hadn't heard of online or from a friend, something I wasn't looking for, but that still excites.  Times like this remind me why I got into this relationship in the first place, because the bookstore will most always show me something wonderful I never expected from it.

It will show me something like, The Big Book of Weirdos by Carl Posey, because it knows about the softspot I have for graphic novel treatments of history and literature.  And when it shows me, it dresses it up in skimpy price tags smoothly affixed to a buff cover.  Yes, this is why the bookstore and I will never break up.  I haven't had a chance to do much more than skim the heavily black illustrated scenes of various historical figures, but I know I won't regret the purchase.  While I've never had any problems reading books, even non-fiction, without pictures--a graphically presented history marries two of my favorite things in the world.  You know, history and pictures. 

Only slightly less wonderful than history and pictures, is when literature I enjoyed gets pictures too.  I saw the Picture of Dorian Gray and wrestled with myself over it, but I have a much easier time of refusing the bookstore's whiles when its graphically noveled literature.  I suppose its because I have to really like the literature already, and when I do really like the literature I am only more and more critical of the art that is chosen to go with it.  Now, in defense of  Picture of Dorian Gray, it looks really good and the story is, of course, amazing---I was just able to resist it somehow.  I probably won't be able to resist on my next trip. 

Mood:  bright

Over the last couple years I have noticed that my blogging style has changed incrementally, so too has my RSS aggregator feed. I have subscribed and unsubscribed from feeds as my interests have changed. In the beginning I had the noble goal of getting more information and news on a broad range of topics and interests so that I could fill the gaps in myself that happen from not watching much TV or reading the newspaper. I've given up on much of that. I have a couple of newsish feeds remaining and some really good off topic in-depth study feeds like Tetrapod Zoology, but most of what I look at day to day is eye candy--artist blogs and design blogs. I've got some professional development and some blogs selected specifically to test and add to my language studies. After all of that, there are a few personal blogs I subscribe to and hoard every post like an afterdinner mint. I save them and squirrel them away until I've gone through everything else and can afford enough time to adequately digest them.

There is something magical about well handled language. The writer and speaker who can unite words in brain massaging ideas and sentences will always have me enraptured. I'm uncomfortable with being a fan, but there’s no other explanation that I can offer for reading the personalities I do. Anthony Bourdain's command of image birthing vocabulary parties speeds me through his writing even as it erects a giant echo of his voice in my head (most likely because I watch his show as well). Mark Dery cooks such amazing gut tickling sentences that I could care less what he's writing even as I'm absorbing it. And Stephen Fry can offhandedly fling linguistic beauty like tossing a apple peel. My brain gasms just thinking about it.

There's something more that Stephen Fry does though that I've only just noticed. I was reading one of his more recent posts offering his twitter followers some suggestions when I noticed. I consider Stephen Fry a celebrity, a great actor, a great intellect, and I know he lectures and writes and works on many and varied projects--he is a busy man. He is a busy man who manages to straddle celebrity without being aloof or requiring that a PR team stand between him and people who would strive to make contact. Where other successful entertainers would balk at the task of managing an honest desire to engage their admirers and a fear that an admirer slighted would pose some kind of danger, Fry jumps into the internet community the way few have learned to use social software.

It's hard to relate how impressed I am. There are other stars that write blogs and keep pages of advertisement on social networking sites, but how many answer or reciprocate in the discussions they inspire?

Mood:  happy

I'm a sucker for being told about myself and so the Bean is as well.  I headed on over to Typealizer to get the instant Myers-Briggs personality assessment of this blog and do ya know what it said?  do you?  do you? 

Apparently the Bean is an ESFP or a Performer.  I quote:

"The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions."

I love the little disclaimer that the personality rating of a blog may have little to nothing to do with the writer's "self-perceived personality."

So, to take them up on that "little to nothing to do" part, I found a site where I could take a mini Myers-Briggs quiz myself.  I am pretty evenly spread with no really high percentages and no really low, but I rated the strongest as an INFJ.  From Myersbriggs.org:

INFJs "Seek meaning and connection in ideas, relationships, and material possessions. Want to understand what motivates people and are insightful about others. Conscientious and committed to their firm values. Develop a clear vision about how best to serve the common good. Organized and decisive in implementing their vision."

 Considering the two results, and the fact that I am currently the only writer of the Bean, it looks like I enjoy beauty, entertaining, and helping others as long as it happens in the organized and constructed reality of my own head for which the internet and its interacting media (like blogs) serves as an external mirror.

What with all the legal issues and stories of employers using the Myers-Briggs to pre-evaluate applicants, I suppose it could be self-damning to just share all this.  Most psychologically analytical tests that I've come accross make the mistake of predicting action based on a snap-shot of the inside of one's head.  There are two fatal flaws here, I think.  One is that a snapshot is a static depiction of a moment in time.  We each bend and grow based on our environment so one test could never accurately reflect you forever.  The second is that there always seems to be an unevaluated peice of the mind that serves as a bridge between what you think and what feels most natural to you and what you do in any given situation based on the needs of the moment.  While I will nod my head and agree with the evaluation of myself, I know too that I don't get to be like that most of the time simply because of the work that I do and the people I interact with.  I am just ruminating here, and all these tests have various disclaimers and studies that probably point out exactly the same things I have.  This is why using them in a business situation is wrong and kind of dumb.  I can't imagine many people getting more from personality tests than personal amusement and satisfaction.  I sure think it's fun.

Mood:  happy

I was at a theme park with Mom and Richard.  Like Adventure Island and Epcot, the park itself grew off the banks of a large lake.  The water was big enough that there were double decker ferry ships making rounds from the dock as a ride.  Mom wanted to go and as we neared the ticketing agent I noticed one of the ships heading out so overladen that its deck was only a foot above water.  From one ticketing desk to another we were sent downstairs were people were packed in everywhere.  I started down a tightly spiraling beige metal staircase that had no handle and as I saw the people packed below and the stair treads got narrower and narrower, I stopped unbalanced and told Richard, who was behind me, that we couldn't go any further.  I felt like I was going to fall, and Richard grabbed me and pulled me back up the stairs.  The three of us when down to a dockside bar to mourn not getting a chance to go out on the boat even though the departing ferries were heading out with their decks submerged.  The bartender told us that they sold tickets for the boats there too and Mom was still really excited to get out there.  The tickets turned out to be for a strange little fishing boat with a covered cabin and wall-less deck.  We boarded and tried to figure out how to drive the thing while we waited for our chance to depart as the half submerged ferries on either side of us kicked up the waves and made all the smaller craft dance. 

Rabbit Hole Day:  January 27th ---change your blogging style

Mood:  cheeky

You know, a good many of the posts I do with references elsewhere, I write so that I'll remember them too.  I sure hope you like shiny  new architecture designs as much as I do, because I could not help but show you these.  Read like a book, they are:  Carlos Marreiros'  giant Rabbit building for the Macau Pavillion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010(Neatorama), Aeolus Airship designed by Christopher Ottersbach  (Inhabitat), Milano Santa Monica (Inhabitat),Herzog and de Meuron  (Inhabitat),Daniel Libeskind recently unveiled a soaring green skyscraper for New York (Inhabitat), a new city in South Korea, Gwanggyo(io9), Shanghai Tower (Inhabitat)

Articles for more beautiful buildings:

Buildings that look like spaceships you've never seen at io9

Top ten green architecture projects of 2008 on Inhabitat

15 Bizzare houses on Neatorama

 Previously on the Bean:

Shiny Buildings and Historical Space Programs

I love me some futuristic architecture

Buildings of the New.  Again.

City of Silk Rail Network tower to rival Burj Dubai

Our Wonderful Future

On top of the Sea

Ever Expanding Dubai

Mood:  bright

I am intrigued by the idea of having a different drink for different seasons.  Wine is a top choice for me all the time, but I can't say I always notice a difference or improvement in cheaper varieties compared to more expensive ones.  I can tell the difference in the type all right, but I think my pallet is more attuned to the differences in heavier liquors.  Enter Cruzan Black Strap Rum.   This might be the only liquor I've ever had that is wildly flavorful with no perfume back snap that isn't all that cloyingly sweet.  It has a smokey, tangy overhang of molasses that I find delightful.  This at once tastes of alcohol and of enough other things that people who hate the taste of alcohol but still drink might actually enjoy it too.  

Edradour, on the other hand is not for people who can't take it straight.  It is the product of the last full hand-worked Scotch in Scottland--which makes it pretty expensive.  I've noticed too that the heavy odor of peat varies per batch, but it all goes down the throat smooth and light.  It is imported to the states by the way, and I have heard that various liquor stores will order it if you ask.      

Mood:  chillin'

Over Christmas I finally filled the hole in my DVD collection for Calamity Jane. Watching it over the weekend I realized first, that this musical version of Deadwood is like a 1950s 15 year old's dream of what the old west was like--and I loved it.  Then I realized that the man playing Wild Bill Hickok was the same man who played the unfortunate lead in Show Boat.  Unfortunate only because his character gave me the creeps.  A little more thinking and I remembered that Howard Keel was also in Kiss Me Kate.  And then came the inevitable thought, "I wonder whatever happened to him?"  

After a hayday of musical making with one of the nicest baritone voices I've ever heard, Howard Keel ventured jauntilly on in roles that varied from The Day of the Triffids to guests spots on "Here's Lucy," "Walker Texas Ranger," "Murder She Wrote," and "Love Boat."  It seems to be universally understood that his role as Clayton Farlow on "Dallas" was the biggest he'd had since his later musicals like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  My memories of "Dallas" are the type of fond ones that involve being snowed into a hotel when my mom and I planned a weekend at Six Flags.  

Perhaps it's only "Dallas" fans that think the role of Clayton Farlow redeemed Howard Keel's career.  His list of roles is impressive, varied, and constant in my opinion.  

Mood:  caffeinated

On my first trip to Virginia Beach I prepared myself by looking up restaurants in the area and shops I might want to see.  I had a list and on it was The Jewish Mother.  I didn't end up visiting, then or the next trip to Virginia Beach even though it was always in the back of my mind.  When I got back home from the second trip I read an article about the troubles the restaurant was going through and mentally kicked myself again for not going.  Well, I have made good. 

After some mediocre food experiences, on the third day of our trip we set out for The Jewish Mother.  I normally suspend my on-again, off-again vegetarianism when traveling, and I was really glad I did because I was served the best burger in the history of the universe--it was the Momma Ada Advacado Muenster Burger.  My dining companions were equally impressed with their burgers and we sat comfortably masticating in silence in the uneven, multiflooring, awkwardly laid out, aging diner that is The Jewish Mother.  I feel kind of sad that I could not visit at night when the lights and the band would bounce from wood paneling to mirror and transform the place into the warm and buzzing Hernando's Hideaway type local secret I knew it was.   What I know now is that, day or night, this is not a dining experience to skip.

Mood:  not sure

Since I'm reminiscing a bunch on the Bean, of late, I thought it was high time to talk about Hero Sandwich. One summer, years ago, I talked Dad into taking me and my brother (I think it was both of us) to Emerald City Comics in Seminole.  It was like a wonderland for me--one of those awesome comic shops with rows and rows of back-issue boxes.  I found Hero Sandwich, and immediately became entranced.  Like other super-powered crime fighting team comics, each member of the investigation agency in Hero Sandwich has something a little more than human--super-stretchiness, vampirism, or a weird round alien head, and it is all laughs with a plausibly serious story line.

The story I picked up at the time surrounded a series of murders that were all linked to a guy who wanted to be a vampire so much that he filed all his teeth into points.  Poor guy couldn't stomach all the blood that he tried to eat at the crime scene and so left a perfectly identifiable calling card.  This comic taught me not to thread an individual key from my ring between each finger as a defensive measure--seriously girls, if you haven't yet been corrected, stop.

Anyway, promptly after reading the already old comic I followed the instructions on the back and wrote to Slave Labor Graphics for a catalog of their wares and soon enough I had myself some more Hero Sandwich, and some Milk & Cheese to boot.  Now a-days Slave Labor Graphics (SLG Comics) is widely successful online and in reputable book stores all over.  You may have seen some of their current holdings like Gloomcookie and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac by Jhonen Vasquez (creator of Invader Zim).  Much of their old stock has been phased out, but they do offer a Hero Sandwich Collection.  If you want the original stuff, you'll have to go to My Comic Shop or your very own Wilson's Used Book Store. 

Mood:  cool

To be very honest, I have never been attracted to many westerns.  I find that as a genre they tend to rely heavily on facet less stock characters rather than develop any characters of their own.  There is most likely a drunk guy who is annoying but will prove an important alliance in the final fight.  There is the good/bad guy with the horrible memories and a bad bad guy who is probably connected with them.  Invariably there are floozy women who switch sides during the course of the movie, and, of course, a woman and/or child who is somehow attached to the good/bad guy all the way through.

That said, there have been a few that are worth recommending and one of those is Sukiyaki Western Django by director Takashi Miike who has done movies as far ranging in dissimilarity as  The Great Yokai War and Visitor Q.  I already had an affection for movies by Takashi Miike.  He doesn't hit the nail on the head constantly, for me, but he has an interesting take on most any story he constructs for the screen.  Sukiyaki Western Django also has a history in Italian Spaghetti Westerns that I am proud to say I am acquainted with, thanks to my husband.  Django is one of the westerns I've seen that was pretty cool, if I do say so myself--though it could never top my favorite, Tombstone, but it's not surprising that it has inspired many sequels, prequels, remakes and adaptations.  

Anyway, Sukiyaki Western Django is Takashi Miike's adaptation of the Django story--and the only modern adaptation I know of right now.  It warps a typical western storyline to the scenery of Japan, is cast with almost entirely Japanese actors who are all made to speak English, and adds allusions to Shakespeare and the War of the Roses.  Besides the facts most of what hit me about Miike's movie was its audacity--that's what it feels like.  It is one of those movies that starts and has you asking yourself, "what the (expletive here) am I watching," and its good to ask this, and its good to watch.

Mood:  energetic

It is with crazy nervousness that I announce my first television appearance.  I think it was a couple years ago now, I was all excitement and work getting ready and getting filmed and now on February 19th, at 8AM on HGTV I will be one of the crafters on That's Clever!  There's a little description of the HGTV That's Clever episode on their site. 

For a while we all (me, friends, and family that is) thought a full on cancelation of the show was coming and my TV spot would never be seen, but hooray for HGTV, putting the show on the air again.  It was always something I liked watching--sometimes crazy, sometimes embarrassing, but always filled with great ideas and wonderfully good editing.  Hope they  made me look good too.  You all may even get to see my husband and one of my cats.

Mood:  spacey

There's something about the holidays that brings out the wonderful non-holiday programming channels like PBS keep in their vaults all year round in order to show stuff less attuned to my needs.  No offense to PBS, but I have some serious issues with the Saturday night programming they show opposed to what they have (or did have).  I was very happy to run into a special on Victor Borge right before Christmas, and it reminded me why I must have more recordings of this amazing man.

Victor Borge was a phenomenal pianist, and comedian with a long career that spanned stage, radio, and television of all color capabilities.  I first knew about him through my mother.  We would snuggle in and watch her VHS of a Victor Borge show and laugh insanely when I was young.  In my most recent viewing of Victor Borge's comedy, I noticed something I hadn't ever before.  His is nerd humor, and sadly may not be widely understood anymore--just look at some of the comments on the YouTube videos and you'll see.  Granted humor changes with the time, but his was a time when jokes about the Mozart/Salieri relationship and the history of musical instruments could be understood by a wide audience.  

Ah well, if you like getting your nerd on, and yet have never heard of Victor Borge, I suggest you follow the video below to pretty good collection of videos on YouTube.  Hooray for PBS!

Sites:

Victor Borge