Monthly Archives: March 2010

You know I feel alright

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Over the weekend I watched A Hard Day’s Night, the Beatles’ first film. I’d seen it before, years ago. Watching it now, I was happy to see it was as silly and plot-free as I remembered, but in many ways it also surprised me.

  • The movie has lots of surreal moments — jumps and shifts that are sort of goofy but maybe a bit more than that. John in the bathtub and then gone; the band in the train corridor and then running outside the train; John cutting the tailor’s tape. In the time between when I first saw this movie and now I’ve seen more film, particularly French film and film by bona fide Surrealists, so now I see better where the influences came from.*
  • The music is of course amazing — but it’s even more so if you believe the movie’s producer when he says in the DVD extras that the band wrote the songs in the few months between when the three-picture deal was signed and when the production started shooting. The title track wasn’t even written until near the end of production, and it was written overnight. Makes my all-nighters look like wasted hours.
  • The lads fell down a lot, especially George. And then they bounced back up and kept going, like Weebles. I mean, watch the opening sequence below: Happens 8 seconds in. Doesn’t that look painful? They do it a few more times during the movie. How George’s hands weren’t too bruised and scraped to play guitar I can’t understand.
  • I knew that footage from the Beatles movies and TV appearances were the source material for the visuals in The Beatles: Rock Band, but I didn’t appreciate how closely the game mirrors the footage, and sometimes improves on it.

Next in my queue: Magical Mystery Tour. Yeah, I know, it won’t be as good. Still, must be done.

BONUS: I came across this while seeking out a suitable clip. Nicely done.

* My brother suggested that I should watch the Monkees TV show again, to see if I have a similar renewed appreciation for its surrealism. Excellent idea. But I was always a big fan of the Monkees, so it’s hard to imagine I could like them more than I already do.

The future of the book (take 2)

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UPDATE: Find the liveblog of the event at this newer post.

The much-anticipated but sadly postponed discussion on The Future of the Book has been rescheduled for April 1.

Sven Birkerts


Sven Birkerts
Maud Newton


Maud Newton

Essayist Sven Birkerts and Blogger Maud Newton to Discuss the Impact Of Technology on the Publishing Industry, April 1 at Pitt

PITTSBURGH- Imagining the possibilities that future technologies might have on the publishing industry will be the focus of a discussion with essayist Sven Birkerts and blogger Maud Newton. Titled “The Future of the Book,” this rescheduled event will be held at 8:30 p.m. April 1 in G-24 Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Ave., Oakland. The event, part of the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series 2009-10 season, was postponed because of inclement weather.

The event will be moderated by Pitt creative writing professor Cathy Day, author of the short story collection The Circus In Winter (Harcourt, 2004) and the memoir Comeback Season: How I Learned to Play the Game of Love (Free Press, 2008).

The event is free and open to the public.

If you’re not able to attend — or if you do plan to attend and want to participate in a bit of backchannel discussion as it happens — I’m planning to liveblog this event here on this site. The liveblogging tech (from CoverItLive) lets everyone write in comments and questions, follow selected posts on Twitter, and generally participate in a variety of ways from any location. Nifty.


Tuesday Shoe Review: The best winter boots I’ve ever worn

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Tuesday Shoe Review is a new recurring feature here at My Brilliant Mistakes. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying, buying, comparing, and of course wearing shoes. In itself that might not be reason enough to blog about them, but I suspect I’m not alone in this obsession. In Tuesday Shoe Review we discuss shoes you should buy, shoes you shouldn’t buy, and shoes you might wish you could buy but you can’t because they are mine, mine, mine.

I’ve heard it said that there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. I’ve been leaving the car home and walking to work more lately, so I needed some snow-worthy footwear to keep my toes warm and dry and my feet slip-proof.

My KEEN Winthrop Boots in action

My KEEN Winthrop Boots in action

These are the boots I bought a few months back: KEEN Winthrop Boots. I chose a red-brown color that the company calls “Madder Brown,” which coordinates well with browns, blues, greens, everything. I like them equally well with pants and with skirts. The upper is leather and boiled wool — the wool is in back — and the sole has a hearty tread that holds steady on ice. I’ve trudged through two-foot-deep snow and trotted across pools of icy water, and throughout my feet stayed as toasty-roasty and dry as if I were wearing socks and sitting by a fireplace.

And comfortable! Wearing them is like wearing cushy slippers all day. I have a strict rule not to wear the same pair of shoes two days in a row: Shoes need at least 24 hours to dry out after you’ve worn them to discourage the growth of bacteria (smelly and destructive to the shoe), plus I find my feet hurt less at the end of the day if I vary heel heights and footbed shapes through the week. These boots are so terrifically comfortable that I have broken my no-repeats rule twice in the past two months — one week I wore the boots four days in a row! I tell you, this time it’s love.

The boots are so warm they are suited only to cold weather. Once the temperature rises above 60F I’ll have to pack these away, so I’m already scouting KEEN’s shoes for a warm-weather substitute.

I would like to think that Spring is right around the corner, but in case it is not, you would do well to try out a pair of these boots. Winter will have no power over you again.