All my heroes stand up straight*

by chuckofish

I had a good day yesterday. I stayed home to work, which means that I got plenty of other things done, but very little work. For example, I went to the dentist, the farmer’s market, the post office, grocery store, and liquor store (you can’t buy wine at the grocery store in this state), and worked on packing up extra china and cleaning son #3’s room, a task that gives new meaning to the term “Herculean.” I also got to listen to my new Gregory Alan Isakov CD — it’s just wonderful. Listen to “Second Chances”

and “Time will Tell”.

See, I told you he was great. Now go buy it — my dual personality already has.

Last night I watched “Everything is Illuminated” and I really liked it. It’s quirky in the right way but also made me cry. The music was perfect as were the actors, especially the grandfather and Alex, who is played by the lead singer of the strange, but occasionally wonderful, gypsy punk band, Gogol Bordello. The film is about odd and emotionally stunted Elijah Wood and his journey to the Ukraine to discover what happened to his grandfather during WWII. According to IMDB, it was filmed in the Ukraine and the Czech Republic — both of which have beautiful scenery as well as plenty of evidence of their violent pasts. And who knew that Liev Shreiber could write (screenplay from novel) and direct?

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Earlier in the week I watched a quirky Indie film on Netflix called “the Giant Mechanical Man” that I also liked a lot (yes, that’s 2 quirky movies in one week!). Although it was very “Indie”, it was also charming and kind of sad. Well worth a viewing.

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This post would not be complete without a book recommendation. In honor of recently departed Seamus Heaney, I’m reminding you all of his peerless translation of Beowulf. If you don’t have it handy, you can listen to him read it:

Beowulf is one of my favorites and every time I read it I get something new out of it.

So those are my recommendations for you this weekend. Take a listen or a look and let me know what you think!

*a line from “Second Chances”