Super Size Me

Super Size Me is a hilarious and horrifying look at what happens to a person who eats McDonald's at every meal for a month. Kudos to Morgan Spurlock for submitting his body to such torture. To back up to the premise, Spurlock decides to see if McDonald's is just as bad as some fear, so he offers up his body as a test subject to a month of burgers, fries, and the like. He eats everything on the menu and will always super-size his meal if asked. Additionally, he cannot eat or drink anything outside of McDonald's food during this period. Before, during, and after this gastronomical endeavor, Spurlock goes to a few doctors to check on his health to see if and how it changes. He also tries to keep to the average physical activity of an American adult. Through this experiment, Spurlock not only gains weight, but also experiences lethargy, depression, and palpitations.

Full disclosure: I am not a McDonald's eater. However, I am an occasional fast food eater, which cannot be too different from McDonald's in a big picture sense. I am not suggesting this documentary means no more french fries because, well, I like french fries. But it is a sped up example of what a person's body could experience with the weekly trip to Burger World. I mean, it took a month for Spurlock to gain about 25 pounds and over a year to lose it all.

Maxed Out

This movie is appropriate for the types of struggles America is facing. Maxed Out looks into how the financial system of America works. And I even understood most of it! The filmmakers explore the banking system and how it works today in comparison with 50 or 100 years ago. How credit card companies sell you on plans that are not in your best interest and why they do not want you to pay your bills on time. They also go into a collection agency to see the scare tactics used to get people to pay up. They reveal that the financial industry's best customers are the broke and bankrupt because the deeper in debt they get, the more the industry gets from them. The documentary also explains how large the financial industry's influence is over Congress and the President. They interview bankers, credit card companies, economists, those in debt, and the people harassing those in debt. I cannot remember if they give any alternatives to the current system of the rich getting richer and the poor diving headfirst into debt, but even if they did not, this documentary is one to watch.

The Staircase

I am going to try something a little different here for the next few days. I am going to depart from talks of food and books and write a little bit about some films I have watched over the past few years. Documentaries, to be exact. Before you let out that yawn and eye roll, hear me out. I once was a docu-doubter as well. Thinking they were long pieces on things I could not care less about - the life cycle of the house fly or someone's aunt's neighbor's cousin's dreams of owning the most cats. And certainly there are films out there like that, but the ones I am talking about will not be. Promise!

To kick things off, the first documentary I picked and watched of my own accord - The Staircase. This documentary chronicles the preparation and trial of Michael Peterson, a Durham-based author accused of murdering his wife by pushing her down the staircase. Peterson contends that his wife, after drinking and taking a Valium, lost her balance and fell. However, there are some curious blood spatter and odd injuries that seem to not match up with a simple staircase fall. The filmmakers follow the defense team and Peterson, so the story is one-sided, but it is filled with some unexpected plot twists. Ones many mystery writers could not think up themselves. Admissions of bisexuality, the curiously similar death of a friend 18 years earlier in Germany, and questionable documentation and testimony. If you like John Grisham, CSI, James Patterson, and Law & Order, there is a good chance you will like this documentary. It leaves the viewer wondering for him- or herself the guilt or innocence of Michael Peterson.

Apartment Anthropology

There has been a theme running through my apartment living. One I have little control over and a fluctuating tolerance for. I shall call this problem "single male neighbor syndrome." This syndrome has many facets, the chief among which I have discovered to be described below. There must be a contract single men sign when moving into an apartment that others do not. One which states that they must purchase a loud, bass-thumping sound system and play it as loud as they can, risking permanent damage to their hearing. Also required is that the bass must be able to be heard and felt by the single male's immediate neighbors as well as shake wall hangings in all contiguous apartments.

Acceptable forms of bass-thumping noise include, but are not limited to: rock music, heavy metal, video games, and action movies. Lots and lots of action movies with lots and lots of gunfire and explosions. There is a caveat to the action movie, though. Action movies featuring gunfire and explosions can only be played on thumping sound systems after 11 pm. It is also acceptable to fall asleep with the sound system thumping as long as the single male has ensured the music will continue to thump by placing the music on repeat, thereby keeping the neighbors up or forcing them to retreat to the farthest corner of the house from their single male neighbor.

The sound system is best placed directly against a wall shared with a neighbor for optimal sharing potential. By doing this, the single male neighbor should anticipate a sudden flurry of banging against the wall, ceiling or floor by their neighbors. This is also an excellent opportunity for the single male to meet his neighbors when they sharply rap on his door to express their difference of opinion in his taste of sound. In some cases, local authorities may even be called in to assist with the matter. But the single male does not realize any of this is occurring, since he cannot hear the knocking, banging, ringing or pounding due to his thumping bass overpowering all other noises.

I have not found a cure for single male neighbor syndrome. The only positive results I have seen have been when the single male moves away to a different apartment, thereby transferring their syndrome to a new group of neighbors. In general, I let the single male have his bass thumping fun during normal waking hours (8 am - 10 pm). Certain concessions are also allowed for sporting events and nights that are clearly a party and not just the single male sitting in his living room in his boxers drinking beer and listening to Metallica.

GANC: The Age of Innocence

I am not sure by what means I decided to read The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton for this challenge. Maybe it was on a "Top 100" list I looked over, or I remembered Wharton's name from a literature class I took in college. Maybe the book caught my eye because it won a Pulitzer. For the first 100 pages or so, I was wondering exactly why it made lists and won prizes. But things soon fell together and now I see why it merits the credit it is given.

The Age of Innocence is the story of a young man, Newland Archer, in the late 1800s who lives in the upper New York City society. He is engaged to a society girl, following the traditions, suggestions, and orders of his class as a proper gentleman should. But Archer knows there is more to life, to experience, to love than order and tradition. He just does not know how to escape the confines of his class system. Through his fiancee, he meets a woman, Countess Olenska, who he feels free around. Problem is, she is married, albeit separated. Archer decides to follow social expectations and marries his fiancee, but Olenska is continually in his mind. The plot of the story circles around whether Newland will break from his social class's regulations and seek out a woman that is opinionated, carefree and dangerous to his reputation, or will he stay with his wife May, who though pretty and acceptable, is devoid of opinion, passion or individuality?

The New York aristocracy took some getting used to and sorting out. Everyone is related to everyone else somehow, and there are family clans basically. I am positive all of this made much more sense to those reading when the book was published, but it is not so foreign that it cannot be understood today. With a little stretching of the theme, this story could be anyone of a young person trying to escape the rituals and parameters of his or her parents. Trying to figure out what of your upbringing to keep and what to slough off. In that way, the story does make this book a great American novel. It is a classic story, retold in the context of New York high society.

Time for a tangent! I fell short in reading this book because I did not realize until near the end I was reading it in the wrong fashion. Some books can be devoured like a 7-year-old with Halloween candy - voraciously and heedlessly, without regard to taste or texture. Other books are meant to be savored like a gourmet chocolate truffle (or insert memorable food here) - you let it sit with you, tasting it slowly and thoroughly so that all the notes sing. I began reading The Age of Innocence in a method nearer on the scale to a 7-year-old, and slowly recognized it should have been read more methodically and purposefully. The people in this book tell so much based off of a small nod or the way they greet another, and thus too is the book written. Displeasure is displayed delicately but deliberately; not screamed and echoed from rooftops.

Great American Novel Challenge Booklist:

July 2009: Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner, publ. 1936

August 2009: Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry, publ. 1985

September 2009: Moby Dick - Herman Melville, publ. 1851

October 2009: For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway, publ. 1940

November 2009: Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston, publ. 1937

December 2009: The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath, publ. 1963

January 2010: Rabbit, Run - John Updike, publ. 1960

February 2010: East of Eden - John Steinbeck, publ. 1952

GANC: Coming Soon!

Due to technical difficulties on the home front, this month's Great American Novel book will be a day late... maybe two if I cannot get the review written tomorrow. As a means of distraction, look at the funny little puppy!