Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Dispatches

There's too much cool stuff in the world today for me to keep it to myself.

via the Examiner and NASA
There's been a rad new planet discovered! Called Kepler-22b (for now), its 1.6 times the size of Earth, features temperatures similar to southern California's and has a calendar year of 290 days (about 2 months shorter than Earth's). So, essentially, there's a retirement planet nearby where you get old faster but live like a king. It probably never rains either. Before you pack your bags, know that they're still trying to figure out if it's made of rock, gas or liquid. Fingers crossed it doesn't go all Melancholia on us.

The New Yorker posted this cool little story about fear and writing—how writing can calm fears, or exacerbate them. I fall on both sides of the divide, in equal measure. Writing! What a curse, what a joy! (Oh, also, if you're excited about The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, as I am, David Denby's review has caused quite the uproar by going against the studio's embargo on reviews of the film published before December 13. The producer Scott Rudin and director David Fincher have both decried his actions and banned him from future screenings, even though the review was very positive. Oh Hollywood, you DO go on.)

via
These Maryland convicts have been transformed by a program called Knitting Behind Bars, which does exactly what you'd think it does – teaches hardened criminals how to knit. I've long extolled the benefits that I think knitting has on me personally (besides the warmth of knitted goods, that is), and I totally believe that it would have a really positive effect on someone in prison. The inmates all seem to have a really great attitude about knitting, and it even helps them reach parole more easily, due to the calming effect on their demeanor and that they're giving back to the community. Knit on with yo' bad selves, guys. (It also really reminded me of a great TAL episode, Act V, where prisoners perform the last act of Shakespeare's Hamlet.)

I thought this was a really cool local news story: a teacher in the middle of a first-aid lesson on CPR and defibrillators actually had to USE it when a student's heart stopped in a nearby class. Now he and the other teacher who helped restart the kid's heart are up for Emergency Medical Services Citizens' Awards. Talk about good timing (and heartwarming? Ohhhh...)

via
I saw The Skin I Live In this week, and let me tell you, it was every bit as amazing as I thought it would be. Beautiful, lush photography, gorgeous people and performances, and a melodramatic, twist-filled plot that kept me absolutely hooked. And looking back, the trailer makes perfect sense. I'm still trying to parse out what all the complicated layers of meaning suggest, but all I can say is, the less you know about this one going in, the better.

And also this week, I read the first book of The Hunger Games in less than 26 hours, with about 6 hours of actual reading time. Talk about a fiction hurricane. I'm getting the next two books this evening, and I expect the rest of my week to be detonated, with me curled up in bed, furiously flipping pages. A serious ton of fun (and I was impressed by the trailer for the upcoming film adaptation—they only cover the introductory third of the book.)

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