When you do a keyword search for “brave new world” at the Barnes & Noble website, the SparkNotes are listed before the real book.

That is so depressing.

Before you read this, you must know that High Fidelity may be my favorite movie ever. At the very least, it is in the top five (ha). I have watched it many, many times, and it’s still wonderful and never gets old. I’ve been meaning to read the book for a long time, and finally did it last weekend.

It should go without saying that if you’ve never seen the movie or read the book and don’t want anything spoiled for you, you shouldn’t read this. You probably wouldn’t get it anyway.

At first, I thought that the biggest difference between the two would be Dick’s hair. In the book, it is long, dark and greasy. In the movie, his head is shaved. I did , of course, find fleshings-out in the book that didn’t fit into the movie, like more on Rob’s parents and a more prominent Marie DeSalle. In the book, she doesn’t walk out of the picture after sleeping with Rob. She’s more of a permanent friend of the gang.

But though the two versions kept about the same mood throughout, and actual events were almost identical, the conclusions were very different. Though, in the movie, Laura tells Rob that she’s getting back together with him because she’s too tired not to, you get the impression that it’s because he is Home to her, and she’s had it with trying to get away. In the book it seems more literal. She’s sick of his bugging her, and still kind of likes him, so she might as well move back in.Then, in the movie, everything is good. Sure, there’s the brief Caroline Episode, and Laura won’t marry him, but you know they’re going to stay together. The book, though, is less optimistic. I’m not sure if I can see Book Rob and Book Laura staying together forever. There’s a lot about them arguing, and they just don’t seem as happy. Everything’s still in flux, nothing has really been decided. I guess that’s a lot more realistic.

I typically disagree violently with movies rewriting sad endings to make them happier*, but I think I’m okay with it in this case. The book ending would have left the audience feeling like the movie was unfinished. We expect out movies wrapped up in a neat little package. We want to be able to accurately predict what will happen to each character in the next ten years. Or, at the very least, we want it obvious that there’s going to be a sequel. People are more forgiving with books, though. It’s okay if a book’s ending is ambiguous. Why is that? Maybe it’s because uncertain endings make you think more, and people feel more comfortable being made to think by books. I’m not sure. It’s an interesting question, though.

*This mostly applies to children’s movies. The Little Mermaid? Swan Lake? The Hunchback of Notre Dame? All are supposed to have endings in which the main character dies. I felt betrayed when I discovered the truth. You will lie to me no more, Disney!

As a vegetarian, I have decided that I cannot in good conscience refer to this day as “Turkey Day,” as so many do. Instead, I have dubbed it “Cranberry Sauce Day.” It makes more sense anyway. People eat turkey on sandwiches all the time, but how often do you eat cranberry sauce? We only have it on Thanksgiving.

My Thanksgiving was pretty good. At dinner we did that weird, cliche, “let’s all go around the table and say what we’re thankful for” thing. I was thankful that high school will soon be over. I’ve begun compiling a mental list of my parents’ CD’s that I want to rip onto my laptop-to-be to take to college with me. My mind is always at least 33.3% college, with the other 66.6% dedicated to boys and homework/family/website/etc. How much of which depends on the time of month.

Lodenocity.com: The Photoblog is officially open!

Looks much better in Firefox than IE because I got so frustrated with trying to get things to display correctly in IE that I gave up. Sorry.

For more stuff, see the photoblog’s info page.

I was listening to NPR on my way home from work today, as I often do, and there was a story about one of the funniest things I’ve heard of in a while. Apparently, Saddam Hussein is a romance novelist. No, really.

Today’s All Things Considered featured a story called Contemplating Saddam, the Romance Novelist (scroll down almost to the bottom, it’s there, and you can listen to it).

The woman reporting seems to condemn him for his vanity because he’s really playing out his own fantasies instead of writing good books. I would encourage it, though. In fact I would encourage any non-harmful creative outlet in someone whose only other outlet seems to be killing people.

So many dictators write books that there’s actually a name for it. Dic-lit.

Further research revels that amazon.com sells Zabiba and the King, the first on this books, in both English and what I think is French. You can get the English in digital for for only $10! The Amazon editor’s write-up talks a lot about allegory and the not-so-hidden political meaning in the book, but I’m much more intersted in the fact that it was turned into a musical stage production in Baghdad.

No matter how you feel about the story, you have to admit it’s hilarious to think of Saddam Hussein, cruel and ruthless former dictator of Iraq, sitting down and writing something like this:

“Oh yes!” she cried, “YES!” as he thrust his throbbing member into her velvety sheath. She writhed in pleasure on the pillows as he entered her again and again, thanking Allah that she has the priviledge of making love to the most powerful man on Earth.

This is the best thing that’s happened to me today.

For my birthday this year, I asked for contributiuons to my Digital Camera Fund. I managed to save up enough money, and last Friday night I went out a bought a lovely camera. We already had a family digital camera, but I can’t take it around with me. It just sits at home and is used mostly by my father. This one will come many places with me, including college.

Of course, now that I have a camera of my own, I’m starting a photoblog. I did a lot of work on it yesterday, but it’s not quite ready yet. I’m enjoying working on it and taking pictures. The 256 meg card that I ordered came in today, so from now on I’ll be able to take more than nine pictures at a time. Then the blogging will really begin.

So look out for the grand unveiling of my photoblog! It’ll be… grand. I’ll write more about it at that time.