Tom Perrotta, author of Election, Joe College, The Abstinence Teacher and Little Children, has written a new book called The Leftovers. It’s about a Rapture-type event and sounds really interesting. I’m adding it to my reading list. Perrotta and his novel were featured in a NY Times article this past Tuesday, and I found the following quote really insightful and true:

“You know, you just watch people leave the world, and you get this sense of living among absences. So I think it was a kind of midlife book. There I was reading about the Rapture, and I started to think, I know that feeling. I know that feeling of being left behind. We’re always being left behind, we’re always living in a world where there are these spaces where people we knew and loved used to be.”

The last stanza of Carl Sandburg’s poem Omaha:

“Omaha, the roughneck, feeds armies,
Eats and swears from a dirty face.
Omaha works to get the world a breakfast.”

FILMS
Daddy Longlegs
Fish Tank
Winter’s Bone
The Exploding Girl
The Tillman Story
Black Swan
Greenberg
Catfish
Inception

Films I have yet to see that could make their way onto the list: Somewhere, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Blue Valentine, Dogtooth, I Am Love, Tiny Furniture, The Fighter, Rabbit Hole, Waiting for Superman, Carlos, White Material, A Prophet

MUSIC
Beach House – Teen Dream
Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Nicki Minaj – Pink Friday
Sleigh Bells – Treats
Lower Dens – Twin Hand Movement
Drake – Thank Me Later
Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz
The National – High Violet
Best Coast – Crazy For You
Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

Runners up: Grass Widow – Past Time, Warpaint – The Fool, M.I.A. – Maya, Vampire Weekend – Contra

BOOKS/STORIES
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower
Safari and Ask Me If I Care by Jennifer Egan
A Widow’s Story by Joyce Carol Oates
Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever by Justin Taylor

Recently read books: The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta, An Invisible Sign of My Own by Aimee Bender, after the quake by Haruki Murakami, Birds of America by Lorrie Moore, and I finally finished the last 30 pages I had to go in Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain.

I’m currently reading Conversations with Woody Allen: His films, the movies, and moviemaking by Eric Lax, but I like to have a fiction novel as an alternative to switch off with a non-fiction book (a newer habit). There are plenty of books on my list of books to read, but any suggestions?

I’ve recently rediscovered the library, and it’s great. I finished Benjamin Kunkel’s Indecision and Katha Pollitt’s Learning to Drive over vacation. Before vacation I read Aimee Bender’s Willful Creatures. I’m currently in the middle of Haruki Murakami’s after the quake.

I remember the awesome summer reading programs at my local library growing up where you would get rewards for certain numbers of books. I may re-institute that for myself. Here’s my first self-reward:

1. I finally finished Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse.

2. I was asked to be the drummer for a reggae band. (I declined due to lack of time).

As you probably have noticed, I have moved my blog. I love this new format and design, but one thing I miss was my consistent updating of my blogger profile with movies I’ve seen, ones I want to see, music I’m listening to, and current faves and interests. I always like reading what other people are reading, listening to, and watching, and it’s a good way for me to keep tabs on what I’m into at a certain moment in time and also remember the movies I want to see or music I want to hear. So I think I will try to give updates on a pretty regular basis; perhaps weekly or bi-monthly. Should these updates have a name? Any ideas?

Reading: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, The New Yorker, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath

Listening to: Dark Was the Night compilation, Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! (I know, but I will buy the album), Justin Townes Earle – Midnight at the Movies, Neko Case – Middle Cyclone, The Show is the Rainbow – Wet Fist

Recently Read: Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 by Susan Sontag, edited by David Rieff

Recently watched: Synechdoche, NY, Snow Angels, Opening Night, Sunshine Cleaning, The Wackness

Recently bought: Pierrot le Fou Criterion DVD, You Can Count on Me DVD

Looking forward to: Wendy and Lucy, I’ve Loved You So Long, Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest, Marianne Faithfull covers album, March Madness

There’s a really interesting and quite thorough profile/article on David Foster Wallace online at the New Yorker.

Also on the site is Wiggle Room, an excerpt from his unfinished novel.