32 candles. ernessa t. carter. (302)

i decided to read 32 candles after reading about it on a book riot post.  the description shared that it was about girl who wanted a molly ringwald kind of life, after watching 16 candles.  any girl growing up in the 80s/90s wanted to be her, including me.  though after watching the breakfast club, i wanted to be ally sheedy.  but before the makeover, i hated that they changed her into that square looking girl!  but back to the novel, the mention of molly ringwald made this a to-be-read book for me.

i have to start by saying that though enjoyable, it was not what i expected.  in fact, i had anticipated a sort of #whitegirlsproblems, but davidia had some serious issues, plus she was black.    davidia grew up in an abusive home.  her mother was an alcoholic and a hoe (for lack of a better word), men came in and out of their home and sometimes paid her for sex.  as a child, davida found comfort in pretending she was tina turner, but when her mother caught her, she beat her, and davidia stopped talking.  some heavy stuff, i know.

so davidia was an outsider, nicknamed midnight monkey because she was dark and ugly.  though her ugliness may have stemmed from people knowing what her mom did.  i kinda imagined her as precious, which was unfair because she wasn't that big.  due to her outsider status, she identified with molly ringwald and felt her life mirroed 16 candles, especially after she fell for the hot rich new guy, james farrell, who was her very own andrew mccarthy.  davidia stalked him which i thought was creepy and sad.  even though davidia didn't talk, she was very bright, she saw college as the means to get away from her mother and out of her hell of a life.  however, her intelligence made her target of prank after her crush's sister, veronica started to pick on her out of jealousy over test scores.  quick interjection, it seemed really sad that veronica decided to pick on davidia, i mean that girl is that insecurity that she picked on someone so low on the totem pole.  oh and i guess the fact that davidia's mom was sleeping with the farrell's dad added fuel to the fire.  anyway, everything comes to head when veronica invites davidia to party, in which davidia brought a prom dress, having never been to a party before and became the laughing stock of the school.  davidia then ran away that night.

she ended up in hollywood and surprisingly became a jazz singer!  she becomes a new person, davie jones.  only to meet up with her crush, james farrell again. only this time he wants to date her and has no recollection of her from his past.  so the whole time i was reading about james pursuing her, i was like why is girl holding on to high school like she was.  i mean it was a traumatizing experience, but she was a new person.  it seemed kinda sad that she was still so hung up on things that had happen in high school. however, as the reader discovered she is a little cray cray.

so davidia, that the reader had pitied the whole time, turned out to be bat shit crazy.  i won't reveal too much, mainly cos i don't want to type it all out.  but just know girl messed with people's life.  however, in the end, she gets her molly ringwalk ending, which i loved.

all in all, the book was okay.  i mean not something that i absolutely loved, but it was enjoyable.  i have to add that i loved that it took place in LA, so i knew what they were talking about.  i also have two places to go eat, that sushi place that was mentioned and house of pies.  i mean this is a good summer beach read, but i mean only pick it up if you have nothing else to read on the beach.

weetzie bat. francesca lia block.

so i was like 99.9% percent sure that i saw francesca lia block's weetzie bat on flavorpill, but i can not find a post.  i have found this amazing a "weird girl's reading list:  10 best outsider books for teenagers" that i will now add to my many list of books i need to read.  however, i know it wasn't this post that i learned of weetzie bat from because the cover is not the same.  though maybe the cover isn't why i got it? i just recognized the name.  anyway, who cares all that matter is that i have it.  and that i found it at the goodwill in delano! yes, in delano, and for like .79 i think.  talk about a deal!

so weetzie bat was supposed to be my final read of 2014.  it's only 113 pages and the book is a mini one so it's probably more like 50.  i started it on new years eve while waiting for my friend danny to finish his shopping at the amoeba in sf, however, i did not finish it before midnight struck.  (there was a lot of prep and prepartying on my nye). so instead of being my last book of 2014, it ended up being my first book of 2015 (i finished reading it while waiting for brunch on new years day!)

and can i just say that i love weetzie bat it's like this wild little adventures that takes place in the city that i love best, los angeles!  i mean on the first page, graumann's, the farmer's market and okie-dog are name-checked.  i texted my friend cody, who dragged me to okie-dog, a handful of nights, when i read that.  and it turns out his ex-stepmom had him reaad weetzie bat in high school!  (also i learned about ponyland which used to be an amusement park where the beverly center is now!)

so weetzie bat was a young high school girl that lives in shangri l.a., she had a blonde pixie haircut and dressed up in vintage dresses with taffeta or fringe, feather headdresses and moccasins (all the pre-coachella phenomenon.)  she befriended the hottest guy at school, dirk.  they spent a bunch of time hanging out, there was the promise of love in the air, and then it is discovered at the end of the chapter that dirk is gay!  the best ones are always gay! oh and i should clarify, no love in the hetero sense of boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, there is plenty of love between dirk and weetzie!

from dirk's grandmother, weetzie received a magic lamp.  a genie granted her three wishes and her life began to unfold.  i won't go into a rehashing of the plot, i mean it's 100 pages, you should check it out and i promise it won't take more than a day to finish.

i will say that i loved the story of dirk and duck, at the end of the novel. duck unable to cope with death of a friend to aids ran away to sf.  dirk just following instinct found him because duck was in his blood.  so sweet and what a wonderful point to make esp since blood became so scary due to aids.  

there is so much that happened in this novel and it was all weird and wonderful.  oh i just remember about how weetzie, dirk, and duck decided to have a child together!  loved that too.  it's a great little book and you should definitely pick it up or you can borrow mine.  hopefully i can make it through the rest of the series in 2015.  it was a great kick off book for the new year!

everything leads to you. nina lacour. (215)

i can't remember how i first heard about nina lacour's everything leads to you. i searched flavorpill and the huffington post websites.  i even went over all the facebook pages i like, book riot, penguin paperback, random house, but could not find anything.  i finally decided upon penguin's first to read program. i must have read a blurb and decided to check it out.  i stressed out about how i found it because initially i hated it.  i hated it so much that i stopped about 60 pages in and decided to return it.  i couldn't do it, it was just so horrible.  i even planned writing about how much i did not enjoy it.  but i gave it a second chance and it turned out to be okay.  extremely predictable and cleaned up too nicely but then again it is a young adult novel.

i hate to come across like some book snob like ya novels should not be read about adults, i read ya novels all the time.  the issue that i had with this novel was that characters did not seem their age.  the situations they were in did not seem plausible for high school students.  i mean the main character emi and charlotte are intern for movies which would be more of a college thing.  it is addressed way later in the book that she started off in job via her brother but still it made no sense initially.  it would have made more sense if they were college students (even first years would have made more sense) versus high school seniors.  i felt like they were placed in high school simply so it would qualify for a ya novel.  so this judgement which occurred early on made it difficult for me to get into the book.

secondly, emi being naive and silly when it came to love.  i mean i can barely handle love in adult novels so i having to read about a high school senior being taken advantage of by her older ex didn't feel like my cup of tea.  i also couldn't take emi seriously due to it.  i mean i get that part of the plot is her growth in terms of understanding love but still teeny bopper romance not my thing.  though i will add kudos for lacour having emi be a lesbian.

thirdly, not that i ever been in the movie industry but all of that seemed far fetch too.  their jobs just seemed too perfect.  i mean the occurrence that starts off the story was so unrealistic.  also regardless of how much money their boss spent a record and belt buckle would have never just been given away like that.  i have seen enough of pawn stars to know that that buckle was more valuable esp since if was in a movies.   and also i just felt for being so young they had so much responsibility.  

the first 60 pages all i could think was, this would never happen in real life.  i am not sure what came over me but i decided to finish this book.  and it turned out to not be that bad.  i mean it was pretty predictable but it was sweet.

the story starts off with two friends, emi and charlotte, discover a letter written by deceased hollywood icon, clyde jones, in a record from his estate sale.  they decided to return the letter to the addressee.  they then discover that jones had a secret daughter.  however his daughter died so they go in search of his granddaughter. 

they find her ava, who is beautiful and a struggling actress.  they help her learn more about her past and help her come into her fortune.  emi also became a production designer for a movie which ava gets the lead!  and then emi and ava fall in love!  oh and toby and charlotte admit love for each other.  it all cleans up so nicely in the end just like a hollywood movie!!

i am being sarcastic now but high school senior me would have problem loved this.  i mean i did read nicholas sparks back then.

i should add that part of the reason i wanted to finish it was because  everything leads to you is set in los angeles.  i love reading about la.  and though i loved la as its backdrop, it was obvious the author was not a la native (the back flap said she is a norcal girl.) first of all, she spelled silverlake as silver lake.  and seriously everyone was way too willing to drive around everywhere.  i mean for morgan to just zip up to pasadena like that from what i am is assuming weho (actually where do lesbian brunch) okay maybe echo park seemed like a lot.  though it was work-related.  but la drivers hate actually having to drive outside of their neighborhoods.  also driving out to the deserts means driving out on the 10 to palm springs.  driving up the 405

to leona valley would be driving up the 405 to leona valley.  but the directions to the bev center was correct! 

all in all, an enjoyable read if you are 16.  if you aren't find something else to read.

super sad true love story. gary shteyngart. (173)

gary shteyngart's super sad true love story was supposed to be my anti-valentine's day read.  title alone is perfection.  also adore the cover, kate spade should make it a book clutch. back to my reading, i sadly did not finish it on time, even though i had the time  valentine's day weekend thanks to shia labeouf's #iamsorry exhibit.  the plan was also to read it before reading shteyngart's memoir little failure, but since i had return that book to the library first, this was placed on the back burner.

however, reading the memoir, i picked up on some things that i won't have if i hadn't.  as i mentioned in my little failure post, i learned that lenny's parents are essentially shteyngart's parents and that the korean girls from shteyngart's high school was the inspiration for eunice. but as i read more, i discovered that shteyngart's mentor/father figure john was the inspiration for lenny's mentor/father figure joshie, since both are obsessed with youth.  also lenny's mother was named after his grandmother. 

the setting is the distant future, a future i would be alive for and a future i could definitely imagine happening.  shteyngart's future is hilarious and clever but to take two adjectives from the title, super sad.  in the future we are ruled by an äppärät, an iphoneesque device that one wears around their neck.  äppärät just like an iphone is the future's means of staying connected to the world.  in the future, the world communicates via globalteens which i assuming is based on facebook.  facebook start off as a college kids site but now as turned into the most important form of online communication.  given the teens in its name, i imagine globalteens had a similar start. it can also shares and receives the scores and rankings of the individuals around you for the follow criteria:  credit, fuckability, hotness, personality, anal/oral/vaginal preference, sustainability.  as you can see the future is also driven by sex, a fuckability score demonstrates that fact.  more proof, girls wear onionskin jeans which are sheer jeans that show everything, bras that show your nipples and underwear called totallysurrender that are removed with the touch of one button, and there is clothing brand called juicypussy and a store called assluxury.  its all so clever but when you think about it honestly, its the exact direction the world is headed.  based on this sex-driven society, youth is super important in the future.  lenny works for a company that helps high net worth individuals live forever.  his boss, john, that i mentioned before, is a 70 something but looks like he is in early 40's (maybe younger i don't remember exactly) and his also obsessed with youth culture, aka hip on all the lingo (which i will explain later).  everyone stays youthful and healthy by being los angeles on crack.  everyone eats organic, fat-free, antibiotic-free food in order to stay young.   in shteyngart's future, los angeles would be mecca (the setting for this story is new york) or maybe los angeles is the future, but regardless, los angeles would thrive because sex, youth, and health are important.  oh and shopping is super important too, and of course the media, the main jobs everyone wants are in retail and media.  seriously, shteyngart's future is simply an mutant variation of current los angeles.  (btw i absolutely love los angeles, is this not an insult, but an observation.)

and in the future, america is no longer the powerhouse it once was.  (are we still a powerhouse?)  china is the big country in charge.  even korea is more stabled then america, we learn this from eunice's (i will introduce her later) parents who realized it would have safer for them to keep their daughters in korea than coming to america.  since retail and media are such important aspects of american society, america is ruled by big conglomerates like "alliedwastecvscitigroupcredit" (hilarious but so true).  however, america is facing the same problems , it is/was experiencing with occupy wall street.  the lower classes are fed up with the class divide but this time they set up their protest in central park.  in all honesty, this part was bit over my head (aka i was bored) just like politics is in real life for me.  so i didn't pay too much attention to this storyline.   i did find it interesting how the us was invading venezuela and venezuela was in our current news due to the protest about their economy.  and i am sorry, i know it makes me sound like a ignorant american (or like eunice park), but i always feel like even if you know about politics, you don't know exactly what is going on within the political realm.  

but back to the story.  super sad true love story is the story of two unlikely lovers, lenny abramov, the 39 year old son of russian immigrants, an old, and eunice park, the 23 (i think) year old daughter of korean immigrants.  it seems awkward to note their ethnic background but it is an element that adds to their unlikely love.  they love is unlikely because lenny is "old", gross (he looks like a rhesus monkey), fat, and unhip while eunice is the exact opposite, young, hot, thin and hip.  i hate to be so shallow but i couldn't get pass how awkward lenny was and didn't believe in their love for one bit.  (i also rarely believe in love in general.)   they met in rome at a party, for lenny it was true love, for eunice it was a gross random hook up with an old dude.  it seemed as though they would never met again, but when eunice comes back to the states, she doesn't want to stay with her family, so she stays with lenny.  with the world in turmoil,  and of course their love starts to blossom.  the love that i am skeptical of (and rightfully so), i mean the title kind of sets you up for their failure.

and though i was skeptical of their love, i did enjoy the book.  the book was divided between lenny's perspective via his journal and eunice's via her globalteens entires.  the book is also supposed to be a book within a book since lenny's journal and eunice's entries are later published and become a bestseller.  i hate to admit it but i found lenny's portion a bit boring but absolutely loved reading eunice's part.  it's funny because shteyngart realized this as well because he has lenny write how "the stateside critics have unanimously agreed, the gems of the text are eunice park's globalteens entries.  they 'present a welcome relief from lenny's relentness navel-gazing.'"  i couldn't have said it better myself.  eunice's entries were the gems and i could have read a book of just her entries  as i had mentioned before youth have their own lingo, made up primarily of acronyms, which is the way we are headed with our current use of lol, wtf, omg, etc.   since shteyngart's future is so sex driven, the lingo is as well, for example, "JBF" or "just butt fucking" is used alot by eunice.  but eunice's entries are hilarious and entertaining, like reading a friend's email or texts.  to start eunice's username on globalteens "euni-tard abroad", how great is that?  also the dialogue between eunice and her friend is pretty rauchy but i guess if you go on a random person's fb, you would see similar talk now.  and even though it's raunchy, it's still funny.  they seriously write the craziest stuff to each other:  

from eunice:

what up twat?  missing you 'tard?  wanna dump a little sugar on me? JBF 

i can never reveal who i really am to him because we would just vomit.

sup, my bus bee-oitch?

from her friend:

wak-waka, ass-sucka!  whut-a-happenin?

oh, shit. i gotta subtract.  why does alcohol make you go so much? is that a sciene thing?

panda, i'm off to juicy for a vag rejuv . . . 

from eunice's entries, we learn that she is troubled young woman trying to figure out life.  eunice is so messed up that lena dunham could add her to the cast of girls and do away with all those #whitegirlproblems critiques.  she has a trouble past, her father is abusive, beating her mother, her sister and eunice.  she is caught between this desire to protect and provide for her family while also wanting to live her own life.  at the beginning of the novel is a self-centered mess, but she becomes involved with the movement in central park, and begins to think beyond just herself.  though she is no perfect person, she still has her faults.  also her love for lenny still didn't make sense, even as she grew as a person.  

in the end, lenny and eunice do not stay together forever, but then again not all love lasts forever.  their relationship is an example of the kind of love that may not be true or forever but still allows an individual to grow and become a better person.  that relationship that helps one conquer a fear (as lenny overcame his fear of death) or help one see life a new way (as lenny showed eunice that there is more to life than media and retail).  and in reality we have more of these types of relationships than we do have of the true love forever kind, since there is only one of those.  due to this, the title is then perfect for their story, it was super sad and true because not all love stories end happily ever after.  

i really enjoyed this book.  shteyngart was so clever when it came to creating a future.  i recommend reading this novel for the setting alone and of course' eunice's gems.

p.s. i have to add that this library book smelled!  it stunk!!!  not like that sweet book smell but sour like someone puked in it.  i was able to read past it, but i just thought it was funny that in the book, people are grossed out by the books that lenny reads.  one guy on an airport complains that his book smells.  and when eunice moves into lenny's she is grossed out by his books, she even tries to spray them to make them smell better.  so the gross smell of this book only enhanced the story!

happythankyoumoreplease

what is with me and tv character obsessions? but yes i did check this out because "ted mosby" wrote and directed it. i wanted to see it in theaters (especially because the landmark did a q&a with josh radnor) but it got bad reviews so was okay when i didn't see it in a theater. what re-sparked my interest in it was my new girl crush zoe kazan starred in it too. well not major but minor.

so the thing that i have to remember when i watch my favorite tv actors in movies is that they are not their tv characters. i realized that when sam (radnor) started cussing, ted mosby doesn't say fuck well more like i never heard him say it. i was expecting to watch a ted mosby movie and that was not the case.

this movie was okay, nothing really to write home about. it follows the life of sam, a writer and his friends. sam helped this foster kid who was left on the subway and instead of sending him back into the system, kept him for a few days (yes which is essentially kidnapping) and discovered the kid is good at art and tried to develop that talent in him. he also met a girl named mississippi and they decide to have a "three night stand" which is kind of a cute concept. act like a couple for three days to see how it works versus just one night of sex. i would have signed his contract. and she is this singer and she asked him to her show but he doesn't want to go cos what if she is bad? then his attending her show becomes this symbol of his commitment to her. and in the end he goes. she is supposed to be amazing but i thought she sucked. she sang this bad show tune kinda song. it ended the movie on a bad note in my opinion.

another storyline is his friend annie who has alopecia which they treat as this horrible ailment. she even hosted an awareness dinner. and i get everyone has their own self-image battles but i think the head wraps made her look more ridiculous than her hair loss. she looked like a wannabe black girl, kinda like a wigga but that is not the right phrase. she didn't read bohemian but more like a wanna-be erykah badu, so i couldn't take her seriously. her whole thing was that she doesn't realize her beauty until she started dating this guy she was initially annoyed by from her office. btw this guy was buster from arrested development!!! anyway the title comes from story she shared at dinner where this taxi driver teaches her this mantra so she could have more happiness in her life.

then there is mary catherine (played by kazan) who was sam's cousin. her boyfriend wanted to move to la and she is anti-it because she hates la. but he gives this amazing description of la which is very true.

--

she gets preggers and then crazy. her bf proposed to her (without knowing that she was knocked up). but she freaked out because she is not the marriage type. but they end up happily ever after.

see the story lines were ho-hum. i didn't become invested in any of them.

but you know what i did love! the soundtrack!!! it was amazing and sadly not available anywhere. but wikipedia listed out the track list and surprise surprise the music supervisor is andy gowan from "how i met your mother". the man is really amazing!!!

ruby sparks.

grandma bea and i do not have fancy cable or satellite that gives you a guide to look for tv shows. instead we have to use a tv guide or channel 2 which scrolls through a listing of shows. though it can be a pain to use channel 2 because you have to wait for the channel you want to come around, it has kept me informed on what is new on dvd. it was in one of these said segments that i learned about "ruby sparks".

"ruby sparks" is the story of a struggling novelist who writes about the girl of his dreams, only for her to come to life. the storyline caught my eye and so did the actors. it's stars paul dano who we all adored in "little miss sunshine". i also saw a movie with him and zooey deschanel called "gigantic", it was cute but not super great. i also just learned thanks to his imdb that he voiced "alexander" in "where the wild things are". but who really caught my eye was chris messina. i first fell in love with me as the sweet adoptive dad with the great syrup/love analogy in "away we go". i am also loving that i get to see him on a regular basis on "the mindy project". he is so flippin' cute! he plays calvin's (dano) older brother.

at first i thought ruby was played by erin from "the office" but it's actually zoe kazan. and after watching this movie, i have a huge girl crush on her! you may remember her as the youngest sister in "it's complicated". anyway i learned on wikipedia she wrote "ruby sparks"!!!! and she and dano have been dating for 5 years now, so cute! and way to go her for writing such a great screenplay!

so as i said before the movie is about a lonely novelist who has a lot of issues (he sees a therapist). he wrote this amazing debut novel (everyone thinks he is a genius, though he hates the word). he even has bookish groupies, aka maeby from "arrested development"(!).

random digression but i could totally see myself as a bookish groupie, but have never thought of who i would sleep with based on book alone. i will do this now. please note this is based on their writing not the picture on the book jacket.

contemporary writers, i would want to sleep with: nick hornby, chuck klosterman, kevin wilson and maybe chuck palaniuk (though he would probably be into some crazy shit though i would be open to try. lol)

olden days: hemingway (we'd get along drunkenly and i would forgive him for his cheating), f. scott fitzgerald (ditto for what i said about hemingway, lol), garcia marquez and bradbury, definitely ray bradbury!

back to the movies. so calvin's therapist has him write about a person willing to meet his dog scottie (who is named after f. scott, i'm not a dog person but would consider someone with a pet name that cute!) and that is when he begins to write about ruby, a girl he has been dreaming about. and then one day she appears and she is real! i don't want to give any spoilers but will say that calvin realizes the power he has over ruby because he did write her. i will add that not everything is perfect for them, even though he created her but his love for her is real which is kinda odd. this also provoked another question for me as i read: "do author's fall in love with their characters?" like did austen love mr. darcy, fitzgerald- daisy, kerouac- sal, or tolstoy-natasha? it would make sense also because they were probably based on people they knew in real life.

oh and if you want to know what happens check it out or look for it on netflix.

also ruby is absolutely adorable, which is in part because zoe is so cute. she was the quirky girl that every boy falls in love with. i have a love/hate relationship with these types of girls in movie (see: sam in "garden state", claire in "elizabethtown", "allison" in "yes man", summer in "(500) days of summer" [yup those last two are zooey deschanel]). because i consider myself a quirky-ish girl yet i can't find a artsy boy that looks cute in cardigans to fall for me! where is my romantic comedy?!?! soundtracked by the shins?!?!? lol. but seriously these types of film fill me false hope. but than again this movie proves you need to be in love with the person and not the idea of the person. so i'll shut up now.

oh and before i forget, love love love loved that this movie was filmed in la. i have a soft spot for movies in which i can spot the filming locations. like where calvin gives a talk is totally the billy wilder theater at the hammer musum and the after party is in the hammer gift shop!

so yes go check out this movie!! also if you like books, you'll like this.

p.s. the book cover for the book that calvin writes at the end is totally cute. if it was a real book, i would have picked it up simply based on the cute cover.

you don't love me yet. jonathan lethem. (60)

this was one of the books flavorpill recommended to fill the girls' void. flavorpill admitted that it isn't totally "girls" cos it takes place in LA instead of nyc, but the LA was its selling point for me!

i love movies, shows, and books with an LA setting cos i love pointing out landmarks that i have been too. (btw: i give some legit "entourage" and "(500) days of summer" tours around LA). and joanthan lethem did not disappoint.

LA landmarks mentioned:

right of the back, i knew i would enjoy this book because the book opens in a museum and in my head it was the lacma. jeff koons' three ball 50/50 tank is alluded to which can be found in the bcam at lacma. though this is not a direct reference because the book was published in 2007 and the bcam did not open until 2008 but talk about a good prediction!

the happy/sad foot clinic sign on sunset is mentioned as well. it its an oracle for lucinda, she consulted it for directions with life's pressing questions (apparently beck believes in it's power to according to the sign's facebook. yes the sign has a facebook! when i told my friend danny about the mention in the book he told me about the facebook. check it out: www.facebook.com/happyfoot.sadfoot)

restaurants were also mentioned. hugo's restaurant in weho was a destination for its oatmeal fritters. i have been to hugo's for it's pasta mama (as recommended by susan feinger on the best thing i ever ate) but did not know about it's oatmeal fritters and googled and yea the book gave the exact description of that dish. neptune's net in malibu is where the book ends. and a great fish tacos place is mentioned and since this is pre-ricky's fish tacos, i am assuming it is "the best fish tacos in ensenada" on sunset. lastly lucinda has a cuban sandwich at cafe tropical and i've gotten a quick bite from there cos my friend karen lived down the street, they put abuelita in their mochas!  so being a true angelano at heart, i will say lethem did LA well.

the novel is the story of a girl, lucinda, her band and an odd affair she has with this older guy, in the late 90s. i assumed it took place today but one character is using this "new" thing called email and at one party (which i will detail later) people use walkman's instead of ipods.  but i mean life hasn't changed too much in LA so this book was pretty contemporary.

as odd as this may sound, i liked the "art" in the book more than anything else about it. lucinda works at a gallery for her ex, falmouth and he made some great art. he did an installation involving a complaint line. he put up flyers around LA with a hotline number and set up a gallery space where people took calls and accepted complaints.  i was hoping that the number would be real, the back cover had a flyer with a number, which i called but sadly nothing. but still a cool concept, i imagined an exhibit of the complaints.  complaints written up on cards and placed side by side on a museum wall.   the compliant that stood out to me was "nobody told me about aging/moisturizer/death". the complaint line is how lucinda meets carl but we will get to that later.

falmouth's second installation was a silent party called Aparty. so there are parties known as silent discos where attendees wear wireless headphones that are linked to the deejay so everyone is dancing to the same music but an outsider can not hear anything. cool, huh? falmouth's silent party was similar. but since it was back in the 90's, everyone brought walkmans and danced to their own music. i liked this idea more because then you get all kinds of dancing to all kinds of music. and considering this was pre-ipod days in which we can make playlists with a couple of drags and clicks, so that meant people had to make mixed tapes or CDs specifically for the party or could have cheated and used the radio. i like the idea of people moving to their own groove at a party.

the description of the party also captured the essence of hipster/silverlake/echo park parties. how you hear about some thing from a friend of a friend (or an email list) about a gallery opening or a free show and everyone shows up for the free booze. and then it turns into this huge thing with a long line and just chaos.  (i will say i have a pretty good track record in which i somehow magically get into places sans being on a list or standing in line for hours.) so that was a good description of LA-hipster life (not that i'm a hipster.)

the story in a nutshell is that lucinda meets a this older guy (who is really good and giving orgasms) via the compliant line and their conversations and his words become the songs for the band.  there are a bunch of other little side stories like lucinda's most recent ex kidnaps a kangaroo from a zoo, and the band is on the verge of "making it" after playing the silent party.  i think carl the complainer had some interesting theories on love which will be quoted below.  but did it fill my void?  not really, i didn't identify with lucinda like i did with the girls from girls.  but if you love LA and a music geek, i think you would dig this book.  so check it out.  

ps another LA-esque aspect was a radio deejay, Autumnbreast, who is an LA legend who plays all the "it" bands and used to hang with all the great bands of the 70s.  i think he is based upon kroq's rodney on the roq (the studio in the book was in culver city which is where kroq is).

quotations:

i will say that i was gross out by the older guy cos he seemed sloppy and fat versus hot old like dermont mulroney in new girl.  but he did have some great thoughts on love:

"I have this condition called monster eyes.  I find something not to like and it becomes enormous, it becomes the whole world." (how he finds fault with the ones he loves)

"Nostalgia, except it's not just regular nostalgia.  More like nostalgia vu. Longing for longing, instead of for the thing in question."

"'I don't think it counted for that much one way or the other.  We were only one another's astronaunt food.'
'What's astronaut food?'
' You know, stuff in little packets that you keep lying on the shelf.  Everyone has some lying around.  The people you imagine you might be with but you know you never will be.  The people who if you're in a couple but you're a little bored or restless you meet them for  a coffee alot and the other half of your couple isn't thrilled about it.  Or if you're single, they're the people you're keeping on a mental list just so you don't feel like there aren't possibilities.  Friends who are almost more than friends but really, they're just friends.  Astronaut food, bomb shelter provisions.  If you were ever going to have anything with them it would have happened already. Sometimes you even fall in bed with them but it doesn't count for much.  It's always a mistake to try to get any nourishment out of that stuff.  But not a big mistakes.  That's the beautiful part, the stakes are low.'"

"Only as a friend of mine use to say, you can't be deep without a surface."

"All thinking is wishful."

"Pour love on the broken places."

"'I'm not drunk.'
'Your eyes are X's.'"