Froggie McFrog's Blog

Book 30 His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

2008-06-15T22:30:00.000-04:00

Book 29: Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones

2008-06-07T10:42:00.000-04:00

Book 28: An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson

2008-05-29T19:04:00.000-04:00

Book 27: The King of Lies by John Hart

2008-05-14T18:08:00.002-04:00

Number of frogs: one, only as a thought, as the narrator repeats the old (false) claim about putting a frog in boiling water.

\

Book 26: Songs of Innocence by Richard Aleas

2008-05-07T18:07:00.004-04:00

Number of frogs: 0

"You want to know what it's like?" Leo had said to me, clearly hoping to scare me off if I was considering the job for the wrong reasons. He'd had one assistant before me and it hadn't worked out. "It's like this. Your work like a bastard for days and days and nothing makes any sense. You're lost, you're confused, you've got no answers and you're wasting your client's money. You're a fraud, you've always been a fraud, and no one in his right mind would hire you to find Times Square on a map or add two plus two. The one day, you think of something. Or you see something. Or someone tells you something. And suddenly, everything that didn't make sense does. Only here's the thing: nine times out of ten, you wish it didn't. You wish you were a fraud again. Because the things people hire us to figure out are the ugliest fucking things in the world."

Book 25: House of Meetings by Martin Amis

2008-05-04T19:13:00.003-04:00

Number of frogs: 0

It was a rare fascist who lasted long in a strong brigade. In a strong brigade there was a unanimity of effort that had the weight of a union contract or a military oath: you met the norm and you ate the full ration. It was one way of getting through it -- the booming worksong, the bucketful of soup, the sleep of the dead. A peasant, carrying around with him his millennium of slave ethic -- a peasant could manage it without great inner cost. But an intelligent...This is what comes over you, in the slave system. It takes a couple of months. It builds, like a graduated panic attack. It is this: the absorption of the fact that despite your obvious innocence of any crime, the exaction of the penalty is not inadvertent. Now go with such a thought to a strong brigade. You try and you try, but the idea that you are excelling in the service of the state -- it weighs your hands down, and causes them to drop to your side. You can feel your hands as they drop to your side; your sides, your hips, feel them as they fall. Needless to say, a weak brigade, with its shiteater short commons, wasn't any good either. So what do you do? You do what all the fascists do. You skive and slack and fake and wheedle, and you subsist.

Book 24: The Tyrant by Michael Cisco

2008-05-01T20:24:00.003-04:00

Number of frogs: 0

As she peers into the dark, a slightly flexed horizontal band of faint light spanning the sky overhead sweeps away from her to the horizon. Beneath it, rolling heath, dark bare hills, nearby a treeline, shadows of branches slide around the roots as the band goes by aloft, the leaves reflect brightly and the spaces in between the boughs are clots of black...Scattered cemeteries surrounded by low stone walls on the heath, a few obelisks and flat black stone...There a gibbet...The band winks out at the horizon -- then, it rolls back, nothing in the sky to obscure. Ella watches the band sweep toward her and away from her like a visible sonar ping, gradually becomes aware that there is a slow drift in the view toward the woods, the gaps between the trees like dark halls...
...a long white figure issues from them with weightless curving strides --
Ella shrieking pitches backwards and while Dr. Belhoria is admonishing her -- "El-la! You can't keep going off like this!" -- both of them are interrupted as the dead figure lying opposite them says--
*Stay away from those dead woods...from them, even ghosts never can come back.*

The Tyrant receives:

Book 23: Remainder by Tom McCarthy

2008-04-26T11:57:00.003-04:00

number of frogs: 0

As I came up to street level, out onto the concourse in front of the station, rush hour was getting underway. Commuters were streaming past me, heading back down the steps into the tube. I stood there for several minutes trying to work out which way Younger and Younger's office was while hurrying men and women dressed in suits streamed past me. It felt strange. After a while I stopped wondering which way the office was and just stood there, feeling them hurrying, streaming. I remembered standing in the ex-siege zone between the perpendicular and parallel streets by my flat two days earlier. I closed my eyes and turned the palms of my hands outwards again and felt the same tingling, the same mixture of serene and intense. I opened my eyes again but kept my palms turned outwards. It struck me that my posture was like the posture of a beggar, holding his hands out, asking passers-by for change.
The feeling of intensity was growing. It felt very good. I stood there static with my hands out, palms turned upwards, while commuters streamed past me. After I while I decided that I would ask them for change. I started murmuring:
"Spare change...spare change...spare change..."
I continued this for several minutes. I didn't follow anyone or make eye contact with them -- just stood there gazing vaguely ahead murmuring spare change again and again and again. Nobody gave me any, which was fine. I didn't need or want their change: I had eight and a half million pounds. I just wanted to be in that particular space, right then, doing that particular action. It made me feel so serene and intense that I felt almost real.

For Remainder;

Book 22: Trauma by Patrick McGrath

2008-04-15T18:13:00.003-04:00

Number of frogs: 0

I got up out of the chair and left the apartment. Descending the staircase I remembered a story about a man in an asylum. This man believes that his psychiatrist, whom he has met only once, is busy working on his case, finding the solution to his problem. It keeps him going. Then, after some months, he sees him again. The psychiatrist pats him on the back and asks what his name is, and what seems to be the problem. This was my mood. I felt as though I'd been putting my faith in some absent being who was working on my problem. When my mother died, I realized that nobody was working on my problem, in fact no one even knew what my problem was.

Book 21: Moment of Truth in Iraq by Michael Yon

2008-04-13T09:31:00.003-04:00

Number of frogs: 0

Iraqis love and greatly value their children. This makes children especially vulnerable as targets for terrorists. That is a brutal fact. The official had gone on to say that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance the family had a boy about eleven years old. When the families sat down to eat, their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family. My repeated attempts to verify the story failed to produce concrete proof, although many had heard similar stories. But the rumors showed how terrible al Qaeda's repuration for atrocities had become among the local people.
Ali told me people had been afraid in their own homes because of al Qaeda. And so Abu Ali and the local 1920s were the latest al Qaeda paradox. Al Qaeda, which nearly ripped Iraq apart, was driving former enemies into what I believe could be long-term alliances with U.S. forces. The 1920s knew that our people had moral fiber and were completely unafraid to close with al Qaeda in combat at any chance. The 1920s had come to respect U.S. forces for the punishment and losses U.S. soldiers could take, yet still keep clobbering 1920s, al Qaeda, and JAM, all at the same time. That respect helped create common ground. We all knew that we had to destroy al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda had made the 1920s in Baqubah our ally.

Book 20: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

2008-04-09T18:49:00.006-04:00

Number of frogs: zero living, but one shadow-puppet frog, a couple of Feng Shui bullfrogs, and a crystal bullfrog thrown across the room and shattered by Hunter S. Thompson.

In once continuous shot, Navidson, whom we never actually see, momentarily focuses on a doorway on the north wall of his living room before climbing outside of the house through a window to the east of that door, where he trips slightly in the flower bed, redirects the camera from the ground to the exterior white clapboard, then moves right, crawling back inside the house through a second window, this time to the west of that door, where we hear him grunt slightly as he knocks his head on the sill, eliciting light laughter from those in the room, presumably Karen, his brother Tom, and his friend Billy Reston - though like Navidson, they too never appear on camera - before finally returning us to his starting point, thus completely circling the doorway and so proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that insulation or siding is the only possible thing this doorway could lead to, which is when all the laughter stops, as Navidson's hand appears in frame and pulls open the door, revealing a narrow black hallway at least ten feet long, prompting Navidson to re-investigate, once again leading us on another circumambulation of this strange passageway, climbing in and out of the windows, pointing the camera to where the hallway should extend but finding nothing more than his own backyard - no ten foot protuberance, just rose bushes, a muddy dart gun, and the translucent summer air - in essence an exercise in disbelief which despite his best intentions still takes Navidson back inside to that impossible hallway, until as the camera begins to move closer, threatening this time to actually enter it, Karen snaps, "Don't you dare go in there again, Navy," to which Tom adds, "Yeah, not such a hot idea," thus arresting Navidson at the threshold, though he still puts his hand inside, finally retracting and inspecting it, as if by seeing alone there might be something more to feel, Reston wanting to know if in fact his friend does sense something different, and Navidson providing the matter-of-fact answer which also serves as the conclusion, however abrupt, to this bizarre short: "It's freezing in there."

Book 19: The Face That Must Die by Ramsey Campbell

2008-04-02T17:36:00.006-04:00

Number of frogs: 0

He shoved open the inner door. It cost him a few moments to realize that the door to the passage opened inward, and to grab the handle. Behind him the inner door halted half-open. It was being held.
He wrenched at the handle. Between the doors, the vestibule was claustrophobic as an airlock. His nervousness hindered the door. As he dragged it open, a large hand reached over his shoulder and laid itself flat on the wood.
He saw its hairs, black as an ape's. He saw the penumbra of moisture which outlined it on the door. It was inches from his face. He limped into the dim passage, clenching his eyes to see, and heard the man padding after him. He wouldn't be intimidated; the man had none of his friends with him now. He turned and stared straight into the man's eyes.
The face looked absurd on the large head: a small patch crowded with all the features, surrounded by luxuriant flesh. It gazed at Horridge for a moment, then it frowned. But it knew well enough why he was staring. It was the face he'd seen outside the house on Aigburth Drive, and spying from the window.

I give the Millipede Press edition of The Face That Must Die (which includes the "fractured photographic montages" of JK Potter):

Book 18: Garnethill by Denise Mina

2008-03-29T20:37:00.005-04:00

Number of frogs: 0

They could hear him ringing off. Maureen darted back to the settee. Liam came back into the living room and slammed the phone down on the side table. He looked furious. "She's gutted," he said. "She told her mother she'd smoked hash once and now she thinks Maggie's a drug-soaked gangster's moll."
Benny was puzzled. "Why did she tell her mother that?"
"Because she asked," said Liam with a superior air. "And Maggie's family don't lie to each other all the time."
"My God," said Benny. "They must hate each other."

A good book, with an original voice. But the author is a bit of a wanker - an interview in the back of the book, she refers to Patricia Cornwell's crime novels as "crap, really right-wing fiction." ?!?!?
Despite that, Garnethill earns:

Book 17: The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

2008-03-25T19:27:00.003-04:00

Number of frogs: 0, not even conceptual ones.

The idea of the floor, the carpet, the concept, feel, shape of the words in my head all broke apart on impact with a splash of sensations and textures and pattern memories and letters and phonetic sounds spraying out from my splashdown. I went under, deep, carried by the force of my fall and without the thought or image or any recollection of oxygen or breathing at all.
I came up coughing, gasping for air, the idea of air. A vague physical memory of the actuality of the floor survived but now I was bobbing and floating and trying to tread water in the idea of the floor, in fluid liquid concept, in its endless cold rolling waves of association and history.
********
Something huge rushed fast in the water under my body, pulling me in a mini whirlpool twist of unravelling thought drag in its wake. The thing from the static. Jesus. I kicked faster, scrabbling against liquid, trying to pull up a solid thought of dry land in my mind. But I could only beat out splashes and scatter sprays of mind fragments. Then another undertow and I'm pulled and buffeted, the thing passing under again and I'm knocked and rolled and ducked under by a fierce ripping after-wake.
Coming up for air coughing out: shark. The word coming in a tangle-breathed shudder and then me screaming: help. Shark. Help me.

Incredible stuff.

The Raw Shark Texts receives:

Book 16: The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey

2008-03-18T17:50:00.003-04:00

Number of frogs: 0

I don't know, I feel as if all those who raved about this book don't read crime novels often - seems like I've read a similar story many times.
I only give The Blade Itself:

Book 15: Lush Life by Richard Price

2008-03-15T14:00:00.003-04:00

Number of frogs: 0

Eric had turned down the ride from the detectives, had walked in a daze from the jail to his building, through the small vestibule reeking of cat piss, damp, incense, and a hint of decomp, walls, stairs, doors, everything aslant to the earth, climbed the five flights to his floor, past the defunct hallway toilets, to his apartment, stepped inside, then he threw the double lock, took a shower without turning the lights on, puked in the toilet, took a second shower, brushed his teeth, came out into the parlor naked, turned on the TV, nothing on the screen registering but the gibber of voices as calming to him as a double vodka, which he got up and made for himself, then drained in a swallow before he could even get back to the couch, the shit-ass futon couch, then just sat there glass-faced, debating whether to get up and pour himself another. That was when he noticed the printout of his one fifth-done screenplay, his bullshit screenplay, Pushcart Pauline meets the dybbuk on Delancey, which was lying atop the steamer trunk/coffee table. He picked up the first page, tried to read it, but the words just slid off his eyes incomprehensible, as meaningless and blithery as whatever was coming out of the television; what the world needs not; dropped it back onto the velvet shawl that served as a tablecloth or whatever the hell it was supposed to be other than his supposed girlfriend's way of marking even this as somehow hers; got up, fell back down, got up, was abruptly revisited, saw, heard that deceptive pop, that sharp snap, the buzz of that steel bee, followed by the slow falling back of Ike, as slow as a flip-book, onto the pavement, Eric imitating it now and clipping a shoulder blade on the corner of the steamer trunk but no matter, he had it coming, that and more, got to his feet, walked past his girlfriend's bookshelves packed with literature both academic and sleazy on prostitution and bondage, with Southeast Asian phrase books and sex-tourist guides, with assorted fetish magazines and reproduced Tijuana Bibles, every fuck book, textbook, eight-page comic and titty magazine bristling with her hand-scrawled notations; unhinged the security grate on the window, went back to the bathroom, wrapped a towel around his waist, waded through the lone closet, the allegedly shared closet, jam-packed with zippered bags full of whatever they don't wear in Manila, found the hibachi on a high shelf lined with her boots, her shoes, brought it out to the fire escape, returned to the kitchenette, had another drink, rummaged through all the labeled pouches and widemouthed jars of her dried lentils and beans and spelt and fuckball until he found the small bag of briquettes, grabbed a box of kitchen matches. He was headed back to the fire escape when the sharp and sudden rap at his apartment door shot through him like an arrow, spun him like a top.

Lush Life:

Book 14: Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski

2008-03-08T15:19:00.003-05:00

Number of frogs: 0 (just a passing mention, once, of "the sound of bullfrogs"

When Martiya was in college, Tim Blair had taken her to a butterfly house. It was like a large greenhouse, with two sets of double-swinging doors to ensure that the butterflies never escaped. Now, Martiya had always liked butterflies just fine, pretty little things with brightly colored wings fluttering gently across a flowery meadow; but she had never really been around more than one or two butterflies at a shot, and as soon as she entered the butterfly house, she realized that when considered in large quantities, butterflies were insects. Big flapping bugs, with huge antennae, and buggy snouts, who wanted to land in her hair and crawl all over. That was pretty much when she knew it wasn't going to work with Tim, when he wanted to stop and play with each and every butterfly, and read the informative placards, and say "Hey Martiya! Check this guy out! He's got stripes!"; and all Martiya wanted to do was flee. Living with the Dyalo, Martiya was beginning to fear, was just a little like visiting the butterfly house: a few days in a village, an afternoon discussing an interesting rite, a field-clearing ceremony or two -- that was fine. But what she hadn't thought about back in Berkeley was that there would be Dyalo around all the time, doing tribal things all the time , talking in their weird language all the time.
And she could hardly blame them, really: they were here first. This was, after all, their home. She had come to them.

Fieldwork:

DVD 12: La Vie En Rose

2008-03-01T22:02:00.003-05:00

Number of frogs: deux!

I'm tempted to dock the movie a star since I just read that Marion Cotillard is, believe it or not, a 911-truther.
But I won't.
La Vie En Rose:

Book 13: Bad Men by John Connolly

2008-03-01T16:28:00.002-05:00

Number of frogs: 0 (I wish I had been there, with the thousands of yummy moths.)

To those looking in upon the island from outside, its history may appear bloody and strange. Yet those of us who have lived here for many years, and whose fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers lie buried in the island's cemetery, have grown used to the strangeness of Dutch Island. Here, paths through the forest disappear in the space of a single week, and new paths take their place, so that a man may one day walk a trail familiar to him, yet find himself directed toward new surroundings by the end of it. We are used to the silences and we are used to the sounds that are native only to this small patch of land. We live in the shadow of its history, and walk by the gift of those who have gone before us.

Bad Men receives:

DVD 11: Michael Clayton

2008-02-22T21:12:00.001-05:00

Number of frogs: 0

"I am Shiva, the God of Death."

Michael Clayton receives:

Book 12: The Tenant by Roland Topor

2008-02-20T18:58:00.003-05:00

Number of frogs: 0

He strolled through the streets unhurriedly, observing the passing crowds. The ranks of faces filed steadily, almost rhythmically, before him, as if their owners were standing on some kind of endless, moving sidewalk. Faces with the great bulging eyes of toads; pinched and wary faces of disillusioned men; round, soft faces of abnormal children; bull necks, fishlike noses, ferret teeth. Half closing his eyes, he imagined that they were really all one face, shifting and changing like the patterns on a kaleidoscope. He was astonished by the peculiarity of all these faces. Martians - they were all Martians. But they were ashamed of it, and so they tried to conceal it. They had determined, once and for all, that their monstrous disproportions were, in reality, true proportion, and their inconceivable ugliness was beauty. They were strangers on this planet, but they refused to admit it. They played at being perfectly at home. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in a shop window. He was no different. Identical, exactly the same likeness as that of the monsters. He belonged to their species, but for some unknown reason he had been banished from their company. They had no confidence in him. All they wanted from his was obedience to their incongruous rules and their ridiculous laws. Ridiculous only to him, because he could never fathom their intricacy and their subtlety.

The Tenant receives:

Book 11: The Deadly Percheron by John Franklin Bardin

2008-02-17T17:01:00.004-05:00

Number of frogs: 0

[A] frightening thing was happening to me. I was remembering...something. Something that had to do with a girl's face close to mine, her eyes watching me, something that was horrible to remember...that had to do with pain...my own pain or someone else's? I did not know.
I might be wrong. I might be remembering, even now, despite the assertions I had made, going to her apartment that day in October. Perhaps, I had gone there, perhaps, I had done other things I could not remember...both before and after that day.
I shut my eyes, but found I could not shut out the image of that beautiful face, those wide-open, staring eyes. It would not down. And there was something else... something terrible that was coming that I could not prevent, that was coming again and again. And something else again, the sound of a violin...a sweet sound, yet horrible.

The Deadly Percheron receives:

DVD 10: Joshua

2008-02-16T22:21:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: 0 (but it does have a really cool giraffe "binky")

Take Vitus, mix with The Good Son, and you get Joshua.
Slowly paced, but the last twenty minutes or so are very effective.

DVD 9: Gone Baby Gone

2008-02-15T21:38:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: 0

Fantastic adaptation of the equally good Dennis Lehane novel.

Gone Baby Gone receives:

Book 10: Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan

2008-02-14T12:17:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: 0 (thank goodness they don't serve frogs at Red Lobster.)

The stockroom isn't a room at all but a hallway behind the grill with shelves on each side rising to the ceiling. As he waits, surrounded by identical drumlike cans of Sysco pickles and sliced mushrooms, plastic five-gallon jars of ketchup and honey mustard and cocktail sauce, Manny hears Ty riding Fredo ("That's not where that goes. Move out of the way"), the transformerlike hum of the ice maker and the cyclic rinsing of the dishwasher. She kissed him here a dozen different times, mashed into him against his half-joking protests that they'd get caught. Some of the dustier cans probably witnessed them -- the maraschino cherries and baby corn, maybe. It seems wrong that even these perishables have outlasted what he thought was eternal -- still thinks, really -- but there they are, solid evidence. The glasses too, even though they were supposed to be a limited offer. What isn't? He needs to remember that with Deena.

Last Night at the Lobster receives:

Book 9: Duma Key by Stephen King

2008-02-10T18:27:00.001-05:00

Number of frogs... well, there's one in the cover art, so... <jigsaw>Oh yes, there will be frogs.</jigsaw>

I slipped back to some sort of consciousness in the middle of the night with my right arm itching and my right hand tingling and no idea where I was, only that from below me something vast was grinding and grinding and grinding. At first I thought it was machinery, but it was too uneven to be machinery. And too organic somehow. Then I thought of teeth, but nothing had teeth that vast. Nothing in the known world, at least.
Breathing, I thought, and that seemed right, but what kind of animal made such a vast grinding sound when it drew in breath? And God, that itch was driving me crazy, all the way up my forearm to the crease of the elbow. I went to scratch it, reaching across my chest with my left hand, and of course there was no elbow, no forearm, and I scratched nothing but the bedsheet.
That brought me fully awake and I sat up....I was in the house I was already thinking of as Big Pink, and that grinding sound--
"It's shells," I murmured, lying back down. "Shells under the house. The tide's in."
I loved that sound from the first, when I woke up and heard it in the dark of night, when I didn't know where I was, who I was, or what parts were still attached. It was mine.
It had me from hello.

For Duma Key,

DVD 8: Rocket Science

2008-02-09T11:12:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: 0 (although one could say Hal's stuttering problem is due to a frog in his throat.)

"It's one of those two, love or revenge, I'm not really sure which one. But it's one of those two that made me throw a cello through somebody's window, so you figure it out."

High school introvert and horrible stutterer Hal Hefner gets recruited to the debate team by the star - does she like him, or is it a scheme?

The cliched mix of odd characters, but still quite charming. Bonus scene: a cello and piano duet of the Violent Femmes "Blister in the Sun."

Rocket Science gets:

Book 8: The Maine Woods by Henry David Thoreau

2008-02-03T11:35:00.001-05:00

Number of frogs: 6 groups including 3 times having "heard the hylodes", once the "tree-toads", and twice "bull-frogs."

There was the usual long-handled axe of the primitive woods by the door, three and a half feet long, -- for my new black-ash rule was in constant use, -- and a large shaggy dog, whose nose, report said, was full of porcupine quills. I can testify that he looked very sober. This is the usual fortune of pioneer dogs, for they have to face the brunt of the battle for their race, and act the part of Arnold Winkelreid without intending it. if he should invite one of his town friends up this way, suggesting moose meat and unlimited freedom, the latter might pertinently inquire, "What is that sticking in your nose?" When a generation or two have used up all the enemies' darts, their successors lead a comparatively easy life. We owe to our fathers analogous blessings. Many old people receive pensions for no other reason, it seems to me, but as a compensation for having lived a long time ago. No doubt our town dogs still talk, in a snuffling way, about the days that tried dogs' noses.

The Maine Woods receives:

DVD 7: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

2008-02-03T11:00:00.001-05:00

Number of (computer) frogs: 2 or 3 shots of one of my tadpolehood idols, The Frog from Frogger.

A reviewer on Amazon.com had it exactly right: "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder why you are laughing and crying about Donkey Kong." I became completely invested in the story of family man, anti-establishment "Good" Steve Wiebe vs "Evil" Billy Mitchell. Great stuff.
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters:

Book 7 Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas

2008-01-30T17:51:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: 0

She's gone. I'd stayed. But all through the years that followed, part of me had gone with her, vicariously enjoying the rolling, green campus when I was riding crammed subways past Washington Square, living with her in a clean suburb when my real life took place in a fourth-story walk-up with windows that didn't close properly and junkies outside on the sidewalk. Leo was my real life. While she was learning to heal people, he was training me to uncover the worst things about them. But late at night, in bed with the door closed and the blinds drawn and my eyes shut, I'd see through her eyes, and because she was someplace better, so was I.
Only now I knew she wasn't, that she hadn't been anywhere better. Everything I'd imagined for her -- the happiness, the comfortable life, those were the lie. Somehow she'd fallen into my world.

Good, but a little more predictable than I expected.
I give Little Girl Lost

DVD 6: Vitus

2008-01-30T11:20:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: 0, but the presence of Bruno Ganz makes up for the lack of froggieness.

Vitus stars an amazing 12 year-old (now 15) Swiss piano prodigy named Teo Gheorghiu. He does all his own playing both in the movie and on the soundtrack.

There are some silly or unbelievable parts to the story, but it is well worth seeing if just for the music.

Book 6: The Android's Dream by John Scalzi

2008-01-27T10:47:00.001-05:00

Number of frogs: 0

[R]etailers learned early that shoppers prefer their shopping suggestions not be too truthful. One of the great unwritten chapters of retail intelligence programming featured a "personal shopper" program that all-too-accurately modeled the shoppers' desires and outputted purchase ideas based on what shoppers really wanted as opposed to what they wanted known that they wanted. This resulted in one overcompensatingly masculine test user receiving suggestions for an anal plug and a tribute art book for classic homoerotic artist Tom of Finland, while a female test user in the throes of a nasty divorce received suggestions for a small handgun, a portable bandsaw, and several gallons of an industrial solvent used to reduce organic matter to an easily drainable slurry. After history's first recorded instance of a focus group riot, the personal shopper program was extensively rewritten.

I give The Android's Dream:

DVD 5: 3:10 to Yuma

2008-01-27T10:44:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: 0

Arizona desert too dry for frogs. (Although I think a lot of it was shot in Saudi Arabia.)

3:10 to Yuma receives:

DVD 4: The Kingdom

2008-01-27T10:40:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: 0

Saudi desert too dry for frogs (although I think a lot of it was shot in Arizona.)

The Kingdom gets:

Movie Seen Amongst Others While Still in Theatrical Release #1: Cloverfield

2008-01-24T16:13:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: As far as I am concerned, the "monster" was just a giant, atomic-mutant, alien frog.

Go, Monster!

Kill the annoying 20-somethings!

As Leonard Cohen sings: "First, We Take Manhattan..."

I give Cloverfield:

DVD 3: Stardust

2008-01-19T18:09:00.001-05:00

Number of frogs: 0 (surprisingly, give the number of witches.)

Claire Danes is radiant, literally.

I give Stardust:

Book 5: Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms

2008-01-19T17:53:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: 1 (and a mention of a misdirecting attempt to collect an unspecified number of unseen others)

I was born in the reeds. Like a mouse. My mother gave birth to me and put me in the water. And I swam away. Some kind of fish with four whiskers on her nose circled around me. I started crying. And the fish started crying. Suddenly we noticed that some porridge was floating atop the water. We ate the porridge and began to laugh. We were very happy, and we swam along with the current until we met a crayfish. He was an ancient, great crayfish; it held an ax in its claws. A naked frog followed swimming behind the crayfish. “Why are you always naked,” asked the crayfish, “aren’t you ashamed?” – “There’s nothing shameful in it,” answered the frog. “Why should we be ashamed of our fine bodies, given us by nature, when we are not ashamed of the vile acts that we ourselves perpetrate. “ – “Your words are true,” said the crayfish. “And I do not know how to answer you. I suggest we ask a human, because humans are smarter than we. We are only smart in the fables that man writes about us, i.e. it means once more that it is the human that is smart and not us.” But then the crayfish noticed me and said: “And we don’t even have to swim anywhere to find him – because he is here, a human.” The crayfish swam over to me and asked: “Should one be embarrassed of one’s own body? You, human, answer us!” – “I am a human and I will answer you: One should not be ashamed of one’s own body.”

I give Today I Wrote Nothing

Book 4: The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

2008-01-13T16:36:00.001-05:00

Number of frogs: 0

"I'm not joking," Charmaine said. "Ed's a pretty wonderful guy, and I've been lazy and selfish. I'm through playing tennis, and I'm through reading those astrology books. From now on I'm going to do right by Ed, and by Merrill too. I'm lucky to have such a wonderful husband and son."

I give The Stepford Wives

Book 3:The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton

2008-01-11T19:18:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: 0

Was not the woman who, six or seven hours ago, was screaming about being "sporty" and supporting a drunken American in his ambition to bathe - was not this woman one who would, geographically situated otherwise, have been yelling orgiastically in stadiums, supporting S.S. men in their ambitions, presenting bouquets to her Fuehrer? My God - couldn't you just see her!
In fact, if one interpreted Vicki Kugelmann in the light of some aspects of Nazidom, and if one interpreted some aspects of Nazidom in the light of Vicki Kugelmann, were not both illuminated with miraculous clarity?

I give The Slaves of Solitude

DVD 2: Eastern Promises

2008-01-07T07:44:00.000-05:00

Число Лягушек: 0 (but considering the rather shocking scenes of violence, I'm kind of glad there were none.)

There's something about David Cronenberg that I just don't quite get. I had heard such amazing things about "A History of Violence" that when I saw it I was kind of underwhelmed. It was the same with "Eastern Promises." I can recognize that it was a very good movie, it held my attention, and I was interested throughout, yet I wasn't blown away by it. I don't know if it was the high expectations or what - I suspect there is something in the way Cronenberg writes and directs that puts me off - wish I could put my toe on it.

*SPOILER*
Plus, the twists were, not so much - I think I knew from the beginning that Nikolai was a cop. And it was obvious that he was being given the "Stars" to be set up.

*END SPOILER*

Having said that, I still rate Eastern Promises:

Book 2: A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin

2008-01-04T09:34:00.000-05:00

Number of frogs: 0, but I didn't really notice.

His plans had been running so beautifully, so goddamned beautifully, and now she was going to smash them all. Hate erupted and flooded through him, gripping his face with jaw-aching pressure. That was all right, though; the lights were out.

So a human guy is trying to take a shortcut to prosperity - he's preparing to marry a girl who's father owns an industry and is ridiculously wealthy. One problem: she's pregnant, and her father would cut her off if he found out. She can't kill the tadpole inside her belly, so he decides to kill her and make it look like suicide. A year or so later, her sister, who was always convinced it wasn't suicide, decides to investigate. The book has some amazing twists - the kind where you shout "Holy Toad!" and throw the book across the pond.

Great book - read it knowing little more than I've already mentioned, and by no means check out the movie version until later - even summaries of the movie are likely to give too much away.

On a scale of 1 to five lilypads, I give A Kiss Before Dying:

2008 DVD #1: Rescue Dawn

2008-01-02T09:53:00.001-05:00

Number of Frogs: 0

Rescue Dawn is written and directed by Werner Herzog, so I had planned on letting my friend the Incredible Yodelling Lederhosen make this post, but he has not yet figured out how to use a computer.

Christian Bale plays a bomber pilot who crashes in Laos at the beginning of the Vietnam War. He ends up in a makeshift prison and together with his fellow POWs hatches a plan to escape.

I was a little worried because I know they eat weird foods in that part of the world. I was therefore surprised and pleased to see that when the camp ran out of rice, they served the prisoners live grubs. Yum! Christian Bale looks mighty happy to be greedily wolfing down lots of the wriggling, nummy-nummy bugs.

On a scale of 1 to 5 lily pads, I give this movie:

2008 Book #1: On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

2008-01-02T08:57:00.000-05:00

Number of Frogs: 0

I had high hopes for On Chesil Beach as the title seemed to indicate the presence of bodies of water; unfortunately the writer did not see fit to add any frogs into the book at all.

I found the main premise of the book confusing. Two humans are at an inn on their wedding night, and are both nervous about what is to come since neither of them have mated before. There is a graphic description of their first attempt at amplexus, which the male seems to achieve successfully; however, the female does not release her eggs and runs away from the male. Somehow this is interpreted as the male's fault, even though he did everything correctly.

On a scale of 1 to 5 lilypads, I award this book: