Stardust

Why? Because I'm the performing and visual arts editor, that's why.

1. New museum in Denver. Opening soon, with an emphasis on the kiddies (who will, of course, grow up to become donors! Big donors! Let the private school kids in first!).

2. Oscar winners likely to be depressing. This is news?

3. Holy crap. Best. Sale. Ever.

4. Heads up, homophobic Singapore! Gandalf is after you. Hint: Change your ways. You know what happened to the Balrog, right?

5. Am I just weird? Also, if I read 300 books a year (say), how much does that mess with the average?

That reminds me, I went to see Stardust last night, and it was super. Don't miss it. Especially if you were a fan of Princess Bride.

The Unshelved strip today somehow seems apropos.

Good books are not conducive to a proper amout of sleep. Do you hear me, Craig Thompson? I was going to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but then I picked up Blankets and seeing as I was about three-quarters of the way through ... I just kept reading.

And then I couldn't sleep. It's a truly beautiful, heartbreaking, sad, lovely, hopeful book, and it strikes me as an intensely brave work of art, too. Just gorgeous. I also adore Thompson's earlier book, Good-Bye, Chunky Rice, which is one of those things that calls up a very specific memory for me: Sprawling on a blanket in a patch of spring sun in New York's Tompkins Square Park with a pile of comics my friend Toby had lent me. I also read Queen and Country: Operation Broken Ground that day, if memory serves, but it was the story of Chunky Rice, a turtle, and his best friend Dandel that had me sniffling and smiling at the same time. Thompson has a remarkable (though that word is too mellow) knack for the melancholy, the kind of story where change is inevitable, even necessary, but no less painful for that.

But now it's morning, and my coffee cup is empty, and that must mean I've found some interesting reading online, right? Well, sorta. Just a couple of things, really.

• First, something droolworthy: root beer float cupcakes. The same site has recipes for things like pear and bleu cheese cupcakes, which also, not-so-oddly, appeal to me.

• And droolworthy in another way is this set of images from and commentary on the original Oz books at BiblioOdyssey. The site also links to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz online at the Library of Congress, but I'm not clicking on that because, well, I need to do some work today. If only books were still this stunning.

• The Village Voice explores Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies about 9/11. I'm sticking this link here despite having not yet read the story, because I think the topic is important (and thus you should read it) and because I want to sit down and read it carefully and in-depth (and thus I don't want to forget about it).

• You realize Stardust opens today, right? And that you should go see it? Walk away from Daddy Day Camp! Don't be tempted by Rush Hour 3!

• If you need more Harry Potter in your life (and honestly, I still do), here are Christopher Hitchens' and Stephen King's takes on the end of the tale. (I confess, I usually can't bear King's Entertainment Weekly column, but I'll give this one a read.)

And with that, dear readers, my need for caffeine has begun to outweigh my love for browsing for more links. These are still pretty ordindary links, from pretty ordinary sources, and I realize that; I've got to get in the swing of things and start finding some funky stuff. Feel free to send in suggestions!

(Also, when I've had more coffee? Links get more commentary.)

Do you like books? How about movies? Magic? Neil Gaiman? Yes? If not, what's your problem? If so, well, go see Stardust. Obviously I'll elaborate about this in review form soon, but for now, I simply gush. I came up northwards last night for a screening in Tigard (Tigard! When was the last time you had a good reason to go to Tigard?), at which I met up with a Portland-based movie-critic friend, gleefully sat in the media personnel section of the theater, missed my friend Lolly winning a book and giggled ferociously at the best parts of the movie. If only I could do that every week.

Zooming along 217 to 26 is a funny way to arrive in Portland. Miles and miles of suburbs - 'burbs I used to be quite familiar with as an angsty teen when my dad lived in one of them. It all looks the same; it's like a couple of malls bred, and their offspring put down roots and sprawled like, um, sprawly stuff. Or something. It's rather difficult to find interesting words to use when writing about suburban sprawl. But then you hit 26, and after tearing down the hill on which the road's grooves yank at the tires of a smallish car, you're suddenly smack in the middle of Portland. I still mix up my bridges, so it took me awhile to make my way to the Speakeasy, which is one of those perfectly dingy, perfectly welcoming-in-a-slightly-gruff way kinds of bars that Eugene seems to lack. An old man bar, if you will. An old man bar that serves up an Andes mint with your gooey, cheesey quesadilla. Good times, I tell you.

And now: Ikea! I promise to take pictures. Swedish wonderland, ahoy!