New stuff.

www.wordspy.com: a very cool Web site that features up-and-coming buzzwords. Here's one: cuddletech. Defined as technology -- such as the new Volkswagen or the iMac computer -- that is marketed as cute, friendly, or just plain cuddly. Memorize a term from the top 100 list and see how many of your friends you can confuse and intimidate.

www.kerismith.com: Visit this illustrator's blog, the Wish Jar Journal for some fabulous links. Ms. Smith has just published a book called Living Out Loud: Activities to fuel a creative life. I will be running to the bookstore tomorrow to purchase this if possible. Smith is an illustrator; her site and her blog include a lot of her work. Her work has a smart, dorky, clean and personality-filled look to it. Spending time on her blog makes me wish I were her.

Broken Cord, by Michael Dorris. Ben read this book as part of a special education class - part of his Graduate Teacher Education program. It's non-fiction, about a man who adopts a child as a single father in the 1970s. The child has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome -- only no one knew what that was thirty years ago. The only thing I knew about the author of the book was that he had committed suicide a few years ago. Because of the tenderness and honesty in the book, I became very curious about what had happened to Michael Dorris. It is a complicated and very very sad tale.

In mentioning Michael Dorris to a co-worker, I got a recommendation on a documentary about writer Annie Lammott, which I was able to get from my library. She's a hoot. And she's making so many people happier -- through her writing and teaching.

Watched two difficult movies: Jean Luc Godard's In Praise of Love, and Jaques Rivette's Celine and Julie Go Boating, the latter of which was nearly three hours long! I honestly do not know what to say about these films. On the one hand, I feel like I'm further alienating myself from the majority of the moviegoing public; on the other hand, I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing. The bottom line is that these filmmakers challenge and mess with all of the basic underpinnings we think of when we think of a "movie": plot, action, resolution, etc. Their films are more about ideas than they are about stories. As Donna on That 70's Show would say, they're "thinkers." Wish there were more people around that were willing to think about them with me...

For Thanksgiving, Ben, Margaret, Thad, Suzanne and I are going to McMinnville to stay at the Hotel Oregon. We'll have Thanksgiving dinner there, stay the night, then visit some Yamhill County wineries the next day. I want us all to really enjoy ourselves; I'll be kicking around online to see whether I might be able to find some interesting car/talking games. Past searches for these kinds of activities have been relatively fruitless, but try try again...

Another book I'll be checking out soon: SPECK: A Curious Collection of Uncommon Things. A recommendation from the Wish Jar Journal. Sounds fascinating.

Another recommendation, which came from director Claire Denis, via a translated interview she did with a French Magazine, were the collected stories of Chester Himes. Himes was a black man living in Ohio who starting writing in the 30s. I've read the first story of the collection, Headwaiter, and it absolutely knocked me out. I'm afraid to read more because I want to like all the stories as well as that one.

I also tried to start Three Junes, winner of some award. It's off to a rocky start for me. Trying a bit too hard to be literary. Perhaps it will get better or my mood will change.

If you like The Royal Tenenbaums, you really should try taking a look at it frame by frame on a big TV, or close up on a computer screen. The level of detail in each frame is just astounding. And so exciting: the fact that, for whatever brief period of time each set existed, that world existed.

From Res Magazine. An article quotes Charlotte from Lost in Translation: "Let's never come here again because it wouldn't be as much fun." Then goes on to say, " Watching the film offers the same feeling � it slips by, with unexpected humor and insight, and you know you'll never get to feel the same way again."

Melancholia, like saying goodbye to a friend who's going on a long trip, sets in when some movies end. An aching for an experience -- not just a person, time or place.