Officially Pre-ordered

Well, my paranoia got the best of me tonight. Fearing that the Take Ivy reprint might actually sell out if I didn't go ahead and order, I placed my pre-order, and while I was at it, I placed my pre-order for True Prep. I'll admit that I'm more excited about the latter, but having the former certainly won't be bad. August 31st and September 7th should be awesome days.

Now we will finally see what those creepy Japanese dudes were really writing about.

Can Lisa Birnbach do any wrong? I'm still tempted to ask her to be my Facebook friend...

Style Icon- G. Bruce Boyer

Photo credit: The Sartorialist

In case you didn't know, G. Bruce Boyer is an author and was fashion editor at Town & Country, GQ, and Esquire. I think that he is one of the most stylish men in America. He has really done so much for promoting American style (as opposed to American or Italian), and that is clear in his own style choices. He is dressy without being pretentious or stuff, and conservative but with enough small touches to keep it from being boring (like his penchant for only wearing suede shoes).

I was given a copy of his book, Elegance- A Guide to Quality in Menswear (thanks Alan C.) and it is one of the best books about clothing that I own.

Here are some various photos of him from the interwebs.

Photo credit: The Sartorialist

Photo credit: The Sartorialist

Photo credit: The Sartorialist

Photo credit: The Sartorialist

G. Bruce Boyer (along with Andy Gilchrist and Alex Kabbaz) sporting a Barbour jacket at last year's Collection of Sartorial Excellence (Photo credit: Collection of Sartorial Excellence).

Whit Stillman's "The Last Days of Disco" on DVD

I found out tonight that Whit Stillman's third movie, The Last Days of Disco, is finally being rereleased on DVD. If you are familiar with this movie then you already know that it has been out of print for some time, resulting in huge mark-ups ($100+ per DVD) on Amazon.com and Ebay for versions that will play on US DVD players. It appears that it will be released by The Criterion Collection and is available for pre-order on Amazon right now. You'll have to be patient, though, since the release date isn't until August 25th of this year. Having read the book last year (which is basically a novelized version of the movie script) but having never seen the movie, I am quite excited about this. Awesome.

On "Twilight"

Being a Man, I have not read, nor had any inkling of a desire to read the Twilight series of books that are so popular right now. I have never really been one to get into books that are faddish (I have not read The Da Vinci Code, The Purpose Driven Life, any Harry Potter book or basically any book that has been endorsed by Oprah), but the amount that people (even well-read, literate people!) love these books does seem to border on psychotic. However, I was reading the blog of Birmingham blogger Amanda this morning and she linked a blogger's review, of sorts, of the book that has apparently been around since last March. It was too hilarious to not post here. This is just the first part of the review, entitled "I want to beat Edward Cullen with a stick," but the rest can be found here.

Bad Book Month
In Which I Read Bad Books on Purpose

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Oh, my. This book justifies Bad Book Month all by itself. It's appalling. The redeeming factors are few and far between (mostly Charlie, because he's sweet; and maybe Jasper), but they're helpless against the overwhelming gag factor.

The most appalling element, however, is how popular this novel is. How many teenage girls are drinking this up and screaming for more. I fear for my gender's future, for what they're learning about love and relationships through this series.

However, I'm not the only one who's noticed the general lack of quality about this book (and its sequels, which I hear just get worse). avadriel posted an insightful, if scathing, review of the book. Reading the one-star reviews on Amazon is also quite fun.

Because of the amount of anti-Twilight stuff out there - though, granted, it only equals the smallest fraction of the pro-Twilight fangirl mania - I'm not going to write a review. I'm not going to go into the disturbing way Bella and Edward's obsessive relationship is portrayed as true love, or how borderline abusive it is, with Bella's complete lack of self outside Edward and Edward's controlling, emotionally unstable behavior. I don't have anything new to say on the topic.

I am, instead, going to provide you with a catalog. A count of various elements in the book, which should give you a feel for exactly how numerous its flaws are.

The Catalog

Number of Pages in the Book: 498
The First Hint of a Plot that Is Not Bella and Edward's Romance: page 328
When the Plot Actually Arrives: page 372

Boys that Totally Love Bella (Including Edward Cullen): 5

Approximate Amount of Time Bella and Edward are Romantically Involved Before Bella Is Begging Edward to Turn Her into a Vampire so They Can Be Together Forever: Like, two weeks. Maybe three. The timeline's a bit fuzzy.

References to Edward's Beauty: 165

Broken Down into the following categories -

• Face: 24 (Favorite adjectives: glorious, heavenly, seraphic)
• Voice: 20 (The voice of an archangel, donchaknow.)
• Eyes: 17
• Movement: 11
• Smile: 10
• Teeth: 8
• Muscles: 7
• Skin: 7 (Note: This only contains accounts of Edward's skin being beautiful. I didn't count references to it as "pale," "cold," or "white." If I had, this number would be about ten times larger.)
• Iron Strength or Limbs: 5
• Breath: 4 (EVEN HIS BREATH IS AMAZING.)
• Scent: 4
• Laughter: 3
• Handwriting: 2
• Chest: 2
• Driving Skills: 1

The Number of Times...

• Bella Is Clumsy or Makes a Reference to Her Clumsiness: 26
• Bella Sneers at Forks or Its Inhabitants: 22
• Bella is "Dazzled" or Rendered Speechless by Edward's Beauty or Touch: 17
• Edward Tells Bella to Stay Away from Him While Completely Contradicting Himself with His Behavior: 16
• Bella is Utterly Desolate at Edward's Absence: 12
• Edward and Bella Kiss: 8
  • Bella's Hormones Get the Better of Her and She Attacks Edward, Almost Causing Him to Eat Her: 2 (She's not even allowed to kiss him back! Where's the fun in that?)
    
  • Edward's Kiss Makes Bella Faint: 1
  • Edward's Kiss Makes Bella's Heart Literally Stop: 1
• Bella Thinks She Isn't Good Enough for Edward: 6
• Edward Is Referred to As Godlike: 5 (Note: This number might be off, as I didn't start counting until three or four mentions in.)
• Edward Tells Bella She's Unnatural: 5
• Edward Sparkles: 3
• Bella is in Mortal Danger: 3
  • Edward Saves Bella from Mortal Danger: 3
• Edward Stalks Bella, For Real: 2 (Note: One of these instances involves watching her sleep every night for, like, months.)
• Bella says "Holy Crow!": 2
• Bella and Edward Argue About Who Loves the Other Most: 1
• Edward's Inability to Read Bella's Mind is Explained: 0

I would have kept track of how many times Edward's mood shifts unexpectedly and for no reason, but I didn't have that much paper. I am sad, though, that I didn't keep track of how many times words like "granite," "stone," and "marble" are used in reference to Edward. His arms, his lips. Explain to me how kissing cold, marble lips is at all appealing. And yet it makes Bella faint. I give up.

I highly suggest reading the rest of the review, which includes a parody by the author entitled "Duskiness."

Michael Crichton: 1942-2008

I meant to write this last week, but I ended up being busier than I had planned. It wasn't until last week that I found out that author Michael Crichton passed away on November 4th from throat cancer. I guess that it likely got swept aside in all of the hubbub surrounding the election. However, I was really disappointed to hear this news and was somewhat annoyed that I didn't find out about it until a week later.

While I can't say that I have read a lot of Crichton's books, I can still remember the first times reading both Jurassic Park and The Lost World and what an imparct they had on me. They are still some of my favorite fiction books and I love the way that he was able to incorporate cutting edge real-world science into his stories to make them that much more believable (which I guess was his forte). Anyways, I'd suggest checking out his website; there is a good summary of all of his work and includes a number of essays that he's written on various topics.

Michael Crichton, you will be missed.