Friday, July 16, 2010

An Introduction

I've decided to start a blog. I really miss the longer format of LiveJournal entries, but no one reads that any more, and Facebook's Notes application is not what I'm looking for.

There are a bunch of things I like to do and write about: take pictures, cook, think about science, make lists. This blog will therefore be a little bit of everything.

To start with, today I finished re-reading The Neverending Story. I had read it as a teen after being obsessed with the movies in the 80's. I had forgotten that in the book, Fantasia was called Fantastica - a change that completely upsets the soundtrack of movie dialogue playing in my head. The movie also presents Bastian as a fairly average little boy, but in the book, he is chubby, pale, and generally despised. However, Bastian's status in the real world matters less in the movie than in the book, where he undergoes a transformation into a brave hero and benefactor. The movie essentially cuts out the entire second half of the book, although the movie sequel (which is far inferior to the original) takes some ideas from it.




Sometimes the book seems a bit clumsy, although that might be a result of it being translated from German, and some of the scenes don't feel entirely necessary. Regardless, I found my eyes welling up (on the stationary bike at the gym!) while reading of Bastian's reunion with his father. I'm glad I read it again, although now I want to watch the movie. Instead, I'll try to whittle down the enormous list of unread books at my house. During a nostalgic Amazon binge, I also bought The Last Unicorn and The Princess Bride. Besides those, I have Stephen King's latest, Under the Dome; a ghost-written continuation of the Wheel of Time series; Buddhism for Dummies; and over a dozen others.

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