Black Weekend

Mr. worked every day this weekend with his on call day on Saturday, so I was left to my own devices.

On Saturday, I caught an afternoon matinee of the documentary American Teen at Sunshine Cinema on the Lower East Side with one of my sorority sisters.

First, the theatre - I've always gone to the Angelika or Quad Cinema for independent films, but Sunshine is so much better! The lobby is still quirky, giving you the full experience, but the seats are actually a) comfortable and b) above ground. Woot.

Anyway, American Teen is about a few of the high school archetypes in a small Indiana town. Having grown up in an only slightly larger Midwestern town, I was curious to see how fair the portrayal was. I suspected the stereotypes would be exaggerated, but they weren't. This was a genuine slice of life look at seniors in high school.

What I found especially interesting (and accurate to my personal experiences) was that with one exception, there was very little intermingling of the groups despite the small size of the community. While Megan, the princess, was definitely a mean girl, her victims were often within her same circle. Likewise Jake, the geek, wasn't tormented by the jocks but by a more popular band geek. It's an accurate look at the pressures your typical American teenager faces. It's definitely worth checking out if you're as fascinated by the every day as I am.

After the movie, my friend and I grabbed some coffee, then dinner. It was fun to talk about just about everything and anything. I ended up getting home around 10 that night and felt bad abandoning Mr. ... until I got back to the apartment and realized he hadn't been home yet. The only thing that sucks worse than having to work the whole weekend is having to work late on the weekend. Poor guy; welcome to medicine.

Sunday morning I finished Peony in Love, which I had started on the subway on Saturday. It's set in 17th century China and is a fictional work about actual women who had all married, and widowed, the same man.

It's well written in first person with a voice that sounds like that which you would expect from the character. Perhaps because of the setting, very different from anything I've experienced, I wasn't drawn emotionally to the story. However, I was still captivated. I simply couldn't put it down and had to know what happened next.

It kept me interested - I'd recommend it if you need something to read on a plane.

After I finished the novel, I made and ate lunch, did the dishes, went grocery shopping (which I would stop doing on Sunday afternoons if it weren't so darn convenient!), made dinner (chicken parm - shockingly easy!), did the laundry, and worked on my scrapbook.

Mr. came home and took a nap. Only 5 more days until he gets a day off.

Book Review: Marley & Me

For our paper anniversary, Mr. gave me a couple of books. Knowing I've breezed through quite a few novels on my commute, he chose two New York Times Bestsellers: Marley & Me and Peony in Love. I'm certain he has not read them and likely either chose them because they were under a section called 'Great as Gifts' or because he was advised to do so by a Borders salesperson. Mr. is very bright, but a literary scholar he is not. To be fair, neither am I, but I would argue that my grandmother, both my parents, and my brother are. The bar was set high.

I started with Marley & Me by John Grogan because the title was more familiar and who can resist that adorable puppy on the cover? My first impressions were lukewarm. Sure, it seemed like a nice story and the writing wasn't bad, but it didn't strike me as great literature either. When I lived with my brother, an unpublished poet and unapologetic literary snob, he would lend me works by the likes of Dave Eggers, Tom Perrotta and Michael Chabon. When I read their books, I couldn't help but feel a sort of pride and pretension knowing that I had stumbled upon the works of great talents of our generation. I didn't have that reaction to Marley & Me.

However, I've read "US Weekly" shortly after finishing Anna Karenina; I don't demand that everything I read be brilliant, just entertaining, so I continued. Suddenly I was engrossed in the story. Disobeying the unwritten rule to remain stoic on the subway, I chuckled at the crazy antics of that wild yellow lab, Marley. Without pretension, Grogan brought me in with the clean, crisp writing of a columnist, and I fell in love with his family and their beloved pet.

This morning on my commute as I finished the memoir, while I managed to prevent the many tears in my eyes from falling down my cheeks, I wasn't able to prevent myself from sniffling. Even worse than giggling, I was crying on the subway. The classic rave review - I laughed; I cried - holds true in this case.

The purpose of art, no matter the medium, is to provoke and stir emotion. Sometimes there is a bigger agenda attached, such as a political message of some sort, but what good is that message if it doesn't stir people to act? Marley & Me met this objective head on, and I now see why it reached that coveted #1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller list. I'd give it a 4 out of 5.