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THE (audio)BOOK:
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.
Read by Lenny Harris. This is such a rich, funny, humane novel, and Lenny Harris’s reading of it is so pitch-perfect, I didn’t want it to end, and I spent a day in a churlish, antisocial mood when it finally did.
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THE SHORT STORY:
“The Scheme of Things” by Charles D’Ambrosio in The Best American Stories 2005 (ed. Michael Chabon).
Just the best story I’ve read in six years. And my brother read D’Ambrosio’s story “Up North” in The New Yorker, and said it was the best short story he had read in some time. Which means it’s not too early to put in an order for D’Ambrosio’s upcoming collection, The Dead Fish Museum.
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THE MOVIE:
The Chronicles of Narnia • The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
I was never, even as a kid, in the cult of C.S. Lewis, but this movie adaptation of Wardrobe grabbed hold of me from the opening shot – the Luftwaffe dropping the bombs on London – and held on to my emotions right through to the jolting, stunner of a battle that closes the picture.
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THE OTHER MOVIE:
Brokeback Mountain
If you have hangups about Christianity, and they keep you from going to see Narnia, all I can say is you don’t know what you’re missing. And if you have hangups about homosexuality, and they keep you from going to see Brokeback Mountain, that goes for you too. What won me over was the picture’s deep-down decency. This is an emotionally wrenching story that never once resorts to cheap manipulation. And by the way, I’m sick as hell of the endless, media-perpetuated culture wars. Who’s for a truce?
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THE VIDEO:
Murderball
What should be horrifying – a film about quadriplegics beating the snot out of each other in the high-speed game of wheelchair rugby – is instead a complete rush. I have a new favorite sport.
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THE SHOW:
Battlestar Galactica
I sat down to the miniseries, expecting an outer space geekfest. Instead I got three hours of taut, fat-free suspense. Now I’m wallowing like a hog in Season One.
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THE COMIC:
Desolation Jones by Warren Ellis and J.H. Williams III
Violence and perversion from a great writer-and-artist team. Warren Ellis’ blog is also a frequent stop of mine when I’m on the internet, a wellspring of grotesque humor, news, rumor and music.
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THE SONG:
“Fast” – Daniella Cotton
A spare, brutally addictive track. I wrote my novel to this song.
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THE CD:
Rebel, Sweetheart by The Wallflowers
I don’t know why I waited so long to download this album, which sets a new musical high-water mark for the band. Great, unapologetic rock.
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THE INTERNET BROADCAST:
Rocketboom with Amanda Congdon
Like John Stewart and Keith Olbermann, Amanda Congdon is a refreshing, funny, essential commentator on our times. And just hearing her say, “Hello and good Monday,” makes me feel a little better about the week ahead.
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ANTICIPATED PLEASURE:
V for Vendetta
Looks like maybe someone in the film business finally got Alan Moore right. We’ll see.
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