The 3 books that will be exhibited are:

1. The Shopping B(ag)ook (2008) (Okay, for a certain reason, I can’t really release pictures of the book yet, but you’ll be able to see it at the show.)
2. Oversized Silver Coptic (2006)
3. Braided Tapes (2007)

I simply cannot not cross-post the information of the show! So here it comes…

Patti and Rusty Rueff Galleries
Yue-Kong Pao Hall for the Visual and Performing Arts
Purdue University
552 West Wood Street
West Lafayette, IN 47907

November 10 – 25, 2008

And here it comes, this Fall, Blindness will be adapted onto the screen. Julienne Moore will play the role of the doctor’s wife. She’s one of my favs and I was glad that she’s in the picture. The trailer was pretty good, I have to say, it gives me the scary and werid chill that I felt with the book. Apparently Saramango refused to sell the rights of the book for years, fearing that filmmakers would give the book’s violent setting typical Hollywood treatments.

On the movie website, they posted a YouTube clip that shows how much Saramango was touched after seeing the movie. Honestly, I thought putting that on the movie site was a bit hokey, and it gave me a chill. But then again, Saramango was the 1998 Nobel prize winner in Literature, I suppose it’s hard not to exploit that a bit…

As for the sequel, Seeing, I have yet to find the right moment to begin.

I am already imagining Danial Craig as Lord Asriel and Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter while reading. Let’s see how the movie goes when it comes out.

Apparently the book’s website has some interesting visual materials to go with the book, which I just happened to find. I have also found some videos on YouTube as well.

Everything who is aware of environment issues should really pick up a copy and read; but of course, for those who don’t care much about the environment, they probably won’t care to read in the first place. Weisman visualizes the Earth without us being around, which us, as he claims, an innovative way to look at the effects we have induced onto the environment.

When I was in high school I learned about the upheavement of Manchuria, Japanese’s occupation of China, the Civil War between KMT and the Communist Party, the rise of Mao, the Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution, but nothing compared to personal stories and recollection of what’s really happening to the people. I am totally mesmerized by their intense stories. They are dramatic and sensational, but at the same time they are what they were experiencing, that’s what’s different than history lessons.

Compared to Chang’s last book Mao: The Unknown Story, which has gotten a lot of bad reviews, Wild Swans seem to be much more popular. I guess it’s the personal accounts that count. Can you still criticize her as being biased if she’s writing her own personal accounts? Perhaps she has the license to be biased?

In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman speculates the scenario of our Earth with all human vanished. It’s an alternative method to help us think about our impact on Earth, thus helping us to see our environment in a different way. I can’t wait to get started on it. I read his article in Scientific America last month and I wanted to read The World Without Us real badly. Now it’s sitting on my head table and I have been reading a few pages every night before bed.

At the same time, I am skimping through The Joy of Chemistry to remind myself of the Chemistry I learned in high school, while getting ideas of some kitchen experiments that I can play with at home. It turns out that I can make salicyclic acid (key ingredient in treating acne) from rubbing alcohol and asprin. Amazing.

But it’s just a story book, people! Stop obsessing over it! A story book! Again: A STORY BOOK!

It’s a story, just like any other fiction. It’s a story about these wizards and their lives, friendships, struggles… A story! A story! It’s great that we all enjoy it, right, nice! Please stop obsessing over it and it sickening that so much money have been squeezed out from this Potter thing. Why must be make money out of every possible “phenomenon”? Why must we exploit everything people seem to like.

Too much is too much, can’t we just keep it a summer beach book and that’s it? Can’t we just enjoy flipping through those pages and call it a day?

Remains of the blessed plams from the Palm Sunday from the previous years are burnt in ashes, for which is used on Ash Wednesday. These ashes are blessed with holy water and incense.

Oh by the way, Googling the term “Ash Wednesday” apparently revealed that Ethan Hawke wrote a book, titled Ash Wednesday.