The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman #Nonfiction

Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman by Harrison Cheung

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Harrison Cheung, a Canadian who loves movies, was Christian Bale's unpaid personal assistant for many years. He does not have a very high opinion of Mr. Bale, whom he characterizes as incredibly self-centered. Disdainful of publicity to an extreme, Bale didn't even attend Heath Ledger's funeral because he didn't want to face the public, even though Bale and Ledger had become friends. (Some people get along with Christian Bale. Heath Ledger was one, and Russell Crowe is another.)

This book is full of short, interesting tidbits, but it also contains some strange errors and omissions. When mentioning Christian's interest in playing Mercutio in the Baz Luhrmann 'Romeo + Juliet' film of the '90s, Cheung and co-author Nicola Pittam mention that Bale lost the role to "an African-American." What an odd, vague way to describe Harold Perrineau, the actor who not only steals the movie with his impassioned portrayal of Romeo's volatile friend but is also well-known to American audiences through the TV shows 'Lost' and, now, 'Claws.' Do the authors really not know who Harold Perrineau is?

Another section refers to Colin Farrell as a British actor. Colin. Farrell. Is. Irish. Irish people are NOT British, and since Cheung lived with a British family (Christian, Louise, and David Bale - brother, sister, and father) for years, shouldn't he know this?

Cheung also has a low opinion of Winona Ryder, a former friend of Bale, his co-star in 'Little Women,' and the one who introduced Bale to his wife, Sandra (Sibi) Blazic. He describes the petite star as foul-mouthed and rude.

The whole narration has to be taken with a small grain of salt because Cheung obviously has a bone to pick with the Bale clan. They owe him thousands of dollars, if he genuinely never received a paycheck for working as Bale's personal and social media assistant from the earliest days of the Internet. Maybe he's exaggerating, or maybe he has cherry-picked the incidents that paint Christian Bale and his semi-con-artist father in the worst possible light. I don't know. It was still an interesting, relatively quick read.

I purchased this book at Barnes and Noble with my own funds as was not obligated in any way to review it.

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With Which 10 Folks Would You Most Like to Drink Wine?

(May contain spoilers.)

I'm freshly back from enjoying Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2 on the big screen. Wow. I'm not sad to have come to the end of the movie series. I'm excited I got to see J.K. Rowling's books translated into film at all.

I agree with the critics who said the last film is the best of the eight. Part of the reason why it's such a bittersweet pleasure is Severus Snape, played with subtlety by Alan Rickman. A couple of weeks ago on her blog, Jennifer Spiller wrote a post called "Don't you just LOVE Alan Rickman?" The short answer is yes.

The long answer is this: The hormonal tide had turned in such a way that I was predisposed to cry at the movies today. When I read the book, I wept profusely as Harry valiantly marched into the forest to meet Voldemort. At the movie, I got choked up over Fred, Remus and Tonks. (I'm a huge Remus and Tonks fan.) What really made me weep, though, was Snape cradling Lily Potter's lifeless body. Harry going off to die? No problem. Snape's love for Lily, on the other hand, brought on the waterworks. Jennifer Spillman totally called that one.

And he was Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility, opposite Kate Winslet. No one does repressed longing like Alan Rickman. I only wish he could play Colonel Brandon in a film version of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

Yesterday while blog hopping yet again, I came across "10 People I'd Meet For a Glass of Wine" by Kim at My Inner Chick. Kim's wine list is as follows:

1. Maya Angelou
2. Sean Penn
3. Johnny Depp
4. Madonna
5. Oprah Winfrey
6. Elizabeth Berg
7. Ellen DeGeneres
8. Billy Graham
9. George Clooney
10. Jane Fonda

That's a pretty good list - feminist, literary and with a couple of hot guys thrown in for eye candy. In my comment on My Inner Chick, I composed the following extemporaneous list:

1. Maya Angelou
2. Toni Morrison
3. Sapphire
4. Madonna
5. Courtney Love
6. Camille Paglia
7. Lady Gaga
8. Gloria Steinem
9. Christian Bale
10. Winona Ryder

Now that I've had some more time to think about it, though, I'd like to revise my answer slightly. While I do admire the author of Push, the basis of the movie Precious, and think Sapphire would be fascinating to have a drink with, I'm going to ditch her in favor of Alan Rickman. Kim had Johnny and George to drool over, while I only gave myself Christian Bale.

I know, I know..."only" and "Christian Bale" don't even belong in the same sentence. To say I only have Christian Bale to drool over is like saying I only have five sweaters and a heat lamp to keep me warm. He's more than adequate. He's the male yumminess equivalent of an entire chocolate chip cheesecake. With cherries. Yet somehow in my daydreams I can still have more. More English dudes. Ones who have those British Charm Units that make this American gal want to drop her knickers. (I think they made Christian Bale surrender his when he applied for American citizenship.)

I can't ditch Toni Morrison; she wrote Beloved. No way would I even consider ditching Madonna. Courtney Love would be super-interesting, especially if we seat her next to Camille Paglia, with whom she's had a public battle of contrasting feminist theories. Plus, Paglia can talk about poetry like nobody's business. Break, Blow, Burn, anyone? It's an astounding book.

Lady Gaga would make me drool, dance and wish I'd worn something more Alexander McQueenish, plus provide an interesting foil for Love, Madonna, and Paglia, so she stays in. Gloria Steinem is an icon, an inspiration and Christian Bale's stepmom, so she stays on the guest list. The only other one who's remotely expendable is Winona Ryder. Girl, I love you in everything from Little Women to Dracula to the new Star Trek, but you gots to leave...so I have a spot for Colin Firth.

The BBC's Mr. Darcy is my newest crush. He never made it into the Potter films, but he was in The King's Speech with Michael Gambon (Dumbledore), Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix LeStrange) and Timothy Spall (Wormtail). He definitely comes with the British Charm Unit.

Image attribution:
Lily image by Hokusai; public domain within the United States
Alexander McQueen Spring 2010 collection image: Michelle Ng, Creative Commons license

As featured in Poetic Monthly #56: My interview with Christian Bale!

I (never) sat down for an (imaginary) interview with (a fictional) Christian Bale, the star of films inspired by great literature such as Little Women, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and American Psycho.

Erin O.: It’s an honor to meet you. First question: will you pull me around in a sled like a pony, as you did for Kirsten Dunst in Little Women?

Bale: That’s fucking unprofessional, man. Are you professional?

Erin O.: Of course. I’ve been a staff writer for Poetic Monthly for over a year, and I’ve interviewed several authors on these pages.

Bale: Give me a fucking answer!

Erin O.: I just did. My answer was yes.

Bale: Oh, did you? I’m sorry. What was the question again?

Erin O.: (Deftly switches questions.) You recently applied for American citizenship. Your parents are English, and you were born in Wales. Do you feel any kind of special connection to the Welsh people?

Bale: Naturally, Wales holds a great fascination for me. I’m especially fond of Dylan Thomas, the greatest Welsh poet. I can only read the English-language literature of Wales, though. That Celtic language they speak is beyond me.

Erin O.: It’s beyond the comprehension of any English speaker. They spell “Wales” as “Cymru,” for crying out loud! Moving on…do you ever find yourself singing “King of New York” from Newsies?

Bale: That was so long ago, I forgot all the words. I do remember all my Shakespearean dialogue from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, though. When Calista Flockheart got married, I recited all my lines for her at the wedding. It took so long she had to skip throwing the bouquet!

Erin O.: That’s actually sweet, in a weirdly egotistical way. Speaking of wedding cake, your weight fluctuates drastically. You were almost plump in The Prestige, but skeletal in The Machinist. What gives?

Bale: (Smiles.) It all depends on what the role requires. Plus, the head caterer on the set of The Prestige had a crush on Hugh Jackman. She kept making him Vegemite pies. They were delicious! Why don’t you have Vegemite here in America?

Erin O.: I’ll check with our food writer, Stephen Lapan, and get back to you on that. So, you’re saying you ate Hugh’s pies?

Bale: I think he told me I could. His Australian accent is hard to understand. I always talk in my growly Batman voice so people can understand me.

Erin O.: I do like the growly Batman voice. May I end this interview with a joke?

Bale: Please.

Erin O.: How does Batman keep his hair so smooth and shiny?

Bale: Oh, I know this one! He uses Conditioner Gordon!

Thank you, Christian Bale, for stealing my punchline. Post script: I asked Martin White, the editor of Poetic Monthly, if we could make this a scratch-and-sniff article that smells like Vegemite pies, but he nixed the idea. I haven't figured out how to make a scratch-and-sniff blog post.

A Post Blogged by an Idiot, Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

Melange Books has released The Smell of Gas, an erotic, pulp-style crime thriller by your humble author and her husband Tit Elingtin. It's available now in print and e-book formats. I don't want to blog about it here, though. I already blogged about it today on Breaking In Before Breaking Down. I would rather blog about...breakfast.

It was a fine, sunny morning in my home town this morning, so Tit Elingtin walked over to our usual breakfast spot, then went on a 3-mile walk along the river. I had the pancake special, chocolate chip pancakes. Delicious. Along with the chunks of candy in my breakfast, I was also treated to a hunk of eye candy, a guy at a table across from us who looked just like Sam Worthington. (I wish I had a Hunk du Jour photo to link to, but somehow HdJ has managed to miss the Aussie stunner.) Well, almost just like - this guy's hair was a little redder.

Many of you will remember Sam Worthington from Avatar. I like to remember him from Terminator: Salvation, because, well, I just like to think about Christian Bale.

I also like to remember Sam Worthington's interpretation of MacBeth. Those who love Claire and Leo in the contemporary telling of Romeo + Juliet (may Pete Postlethwaite rest in peace - best Friar Laurence ever!) will enjoy the 2006 version of MacBeth starring Worthington. I like the sexy, redheaded Scottish witches. They're like a trio of soothsaying Shirley Mansons.



This weekend I have rented, but have not yet watched, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead. Should be a good one, though. It has Hamlet, vampires and a score by Sean Lennon. So far, the best film take I've seen on the Hamlet story remains Royal Deceit, with Gabriel Byrne, Kate Beckinsale and Christian Bale. Not just Christian Bale, but a NAKED TEENAGE Christian Bale. Best Shakespearean version? I like Ethan Hawke's attempt. Julia Stiles is a particularly charming Ophelia.

Do not get me started on the Mel Gibson version of Hamlet. I will no longer watch films with that anti-Semitic, misogynistic douchebag. Except maybe Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome; Mel is canceled out by Tina Turner, feminist icon supreme and possible reincarnation of ancient Egyptian woman-pharaoh Hatshepsut.

Sooooo anyway, Sam Worthington's redder-haired doppelganger sat in the restaurant, eating sausages off a fork in a way that would make an erotica writer with an active imagination think impure thoughts. In stepped a cute woman with a ponytail, approximately Sam 2's age, and I thought they would make a good couple. They would have adorable babies. Because, you know, babies are what you're supposed to be thinking about when it's a warm spring day, you're surrounded by egg and bunny decorations and everybody's getting ready to celebrate Ostara.

I would like to have some brilliant post connecting the Pagan celebration of Ostara with Jewish Passover and Christian Easter, since Passover was this week and it is Easter weekend. I don't. I have this, a post blogged by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (I promise you a worthy Beltane post on May 1.) Buy a copy of The Smell of Gas!

https://amzn.to/49Sd9SB

Book Review: 'The Big Short' by Michael Lewis

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this book because I was listening to public radio on my way home from work one evening and heard an interview with the director of the movie based on it. The director talked about some of the real people Lewis wrote about.

The "character" who stood out in my mind was Michael Burry, who was played in the film by Christian Bale. I have a longstanding interest in Christian Bale. Bale had to learn to play heavy-metal drums to take on the character, the director said, because Burry has some distinctive mannerisms and habits. He's on the autism spectrum, with the characteristics typical of Asperger's.

I thought this sounded interesting enough that I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie. I couldn't understand all of Lewis's more technical points about the bond market. This made the first chapters of the book slow reading for me. I think I caught the gist of it, though: Many, if not most, of the people on Wall Street - less so in the stock market, more so in the bond market - have no idea what products they're actually selling. This was particularly true in the 2000s, before the awful housing market collapse of 2007-2008. But, Lewis would have us know, there hasn't been any real effort to fix the underlying problems.

Some of Lewis's conclusions seem to support those of Barbara Ehrenreich in her book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. In my review (here) of that book, I wrote, "The thesis of Bright-Sided is the U.S. residents tend, as a people, to subscribe to an optimistic outlook on life that isn’t so much based in fact as it is in wishful thinking." A few individuals, such as Burry, foresaw that the U.S. subprime mortgage market could collapse, and they made their investors tremendous sums of money when it did. The majority, however, refused to believe that the collapse could ever happen in the way that it did. The bond market put more faith in itself and its regulators than either deserved.

The U.S. financial market was, and remains, fraught with what Lewis refers to as "bombs." They're not the exact same subprime mortgage bombs, since banking regulations have tightened around that particular market. However, these large financial institutions remain able to create markets out of thin air and trade on derivatives and other financial products so arcane, only tiny numbers of people who, like Mike Burry, possess unusual skill sets can actually understand them and their risks.

By the way, Burry never actually plays the drums in the book. He does take up the guitar and develop a passion to learn everything about guitars. Maybe the screenwriter had to change guitars to drums because that was easier to teach a non-musical actor. (I think it's fair to call Christian Bale non-musical, although we all know he did, in fact, sing and dance in the musical Newsies. But that was 20 years ago.)

I checked this book out from my local public library and was not obligated in any way to review it.

Join Us For a Game of "Eff Marry Kill"

Hello, all, and welcome to my first link-up with Blonde...Undercover Blonde and The Vintage Apple for "Eff, Marry, Kill." The game is played thusly: I give you three celebs, and you must decide which you would marry, with which you would have a one-night stand (eff) and which you would kill. It's more fun and entertaining if you give your reasons why.

The kid version of this game is "Kiss, Marry, Avoid." If "kill" is too violent, you may choose to avoid one celeb. I play "Kiss, Marry, Avoid" all the time on GoodReads, usually with Harry Potter characters. I'm not going to use book characters, because I have no way of knowing if you've read the same books I've read.

My first thought was to use the guys from The Dark Knight Rises - Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman. Eff Gary Oldman, marry Christian Bale, kill Tom Hardy. Then I thought, "Naw, Christian Bale is mine, and y'all bitches better stay away from him."

Instead, let's do contemporary authors.

Stephen King.



George R. R. Martin.



John Grisham.



I say eff John Grisham, because he's a good-looking guy and I really liked A Painted House and The Client. I wouldn't marry him because he'd totally lawyer me. I'd never win an argument.

I'd marry George R. R. Martin, 'cause that guy's doing really well with his Game of Thrones series. I'd have to kill Stephen King. Hey, he's had a good run - he's probably published more books than anyone except maybe Nora Roberts.

Your choices are...?

You may also enjoy these Eff, Marry, Kill links:

The Men of Nicholas Sparks adaptations
The Onscreen Loves of Kristen Stewart
The Men of 'True Blood'
Laurie Laurence, Gilbert Blythe, Heathcliff 

(Gotta admit, I never read Anne of Green Gables. Got to add that to the TBR list.)

Men of 'The Vampire Diaries'
Men of 'Magic Mike' (the movie sucked, but that doesn't mean the male strippers aren't still hot!)

Erin Watches Movies

In March, I read The Big Short, and over the past weekend, I finally watched the movie version on Netflix. 

It’s a very good film. Although it's no secret I’m a big Christian Bale fan, and I really enjoyed his performance as Dr. Michael Burry, I thought Steve Carell’s performance was the best. (I did appreciate how Bale was framed so that the left side of his face was de-emphasized to help create the illusion that he had a glass eye, like the real Michael Burry. Good cinnamon tography.)

I didn’t realize it while I was watching it, but later when Tit Elingtin watched the movie at my suggestion, I noticed Tracy Letts in the cast list. As you may recall, I heard his name in “HardcoverBound 2,” first thought he was a female and probably quite feminist playwright, and then thought to associate him with the films Bug and August: Osage County. 

Tracy Letts has a small role in The Big Short. It makes sense. He’s a theatre kid, writing plays and acting in movies. Also, his mother was the writer Billie Letts, who wrote Where the Heart Is. It was turned into a movie starring Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd. (I saw it in the movie theater with my friend Jamie in 2000.) Judd, who was in Bug, has thus appeared in films by two different Lettses. 

I didn't read this.

But I digress. In trying to find out a little more about Letts’ acting career, I found upon a photo of Letts with Rebecca Hall and Michael C. Hall (no relation to one another). The Halls and Letts are involved in a film called Christine, scheduled to be released in October (next month).

I recently saw Michael C. Hall in Kill Your Darlings, the drama in which Daniel Radcliffe played Allen Ginsberg. I loved that movie. David Cross was adorable as Ginsberg’s poet father, Dane DeHaan* is dreamy even though Lucien Carr was a shit boyfriend to Allen (repressed much?), and Radcliffe is now my second-favorite movie Ginsberg after James Franco. I’ll always have a special place in my heart for the Norman Reedus/Keifer Sutherland/Courtney Love film Beat, with my sweet sweet baby Kyle Secor as David Kammerer, Carr’s creepy stalker. The Kammerer character in KYD is much better written and sympathetic, and Hall does an excellent job playing him.

Rebecca Hall, of course, played the long-suffering wife of Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) in The Prestige. It’s one of my favorite movies, and I’m not the only fan. The Simpsons had its season premiere this past weekend. Mr. Burns re-instated a vaudeville-like stage show like he remembered from his childhood, including a magic act performed by twins Sherri and Terri that referenced The Prestige.

I DID read Christopher Priest's novel - after I saw the movie

I’ve also been watching Rebecca Hall as Edwardian narcissist Sylvia Tietjens, opposite Benedict Cumberbatch, in Parade’s End. She will play the title character in Christine.

Christine is Christine Chubbuck, a real person whom I read about in He Who Shall Remain Shameless. 

Sylvia Tietjens isn’t a very sympathetic character. One tends to feel more sympathy for husband Christopher, who is desperately in love with spunky suffragist Ms. Valentine Wannop (Adelaide Clemens, a young Australian who played Myrtle Wilson’s sister in The Great Gatsby), but too old-fashioned to divorce Sylvia. I'm on episode 2 of the 4-part miniseries, and so far the most scandalous thing Christopher and Valentine have done is get lost in the fog and stay out together all night…sitting next to each other. Just sitting, physical contact at an absolute minimum. It’s like the opposite of Jane Eyre. Where Edward Fairfax Rochester was not concerned enough about pursuing the woman he loved while in a bad marriage, Christopher Tietjens was probably too concerned. Lots of unresolved longing and surreptitious eye contact ensue.

Christine Chubbuck, conversely, is a very sympathetic character. Life dealt her a hand so much worse than she deserved. Her severe depression cost her her life. Live on television. We can't see the actual footage, thank Something, but we will see a dramatized version. 

*I saw him in the trailer for Tulip Fever while waiting for Love and Friendship (a Jane Austen adaptation) to start in the movie theater. I want to see that. Christine might be too sad, even though I'm sure Rebecca Hall's acting will be great. Let's see Tulip Fever instead. As of this writing, its release is planned for February 2017. 

No, I did not read this book.

My Nerd Girl Nirvana

I wrote this post in April 2011 as a guest post for another blog. That blog went off the Internet, so I'm reposting it here.

This is the piece of nerdiness that I’ll own: I’m a bookworm. I keep a book in the bathroom so I can read while I’m brushing my teeth. If I could figure out how to take them in the shower with me, I would. I keep Banana Yoshimoto’s Kitchen in the kitchen; there are two bookshelves there, one for cookbooks and one to catch the overflow from the office and the dining room. A drawer in the bedroom is stuffed with all the magazines I want to keep forever.

The height of my nerd girl nirvana is the semi-annual book sale in the city where I grew up. I can’t go alone, though--I have to take my grandma. I have breakfast with her every Sunday, and she always lets me know when another sale is coming up. We can’t go on the day when they open the doors to the public on Saturday, though. We have to buy the special Friends of the Library pass to get into the Thursday pre-sale.

We have a pattern. First I have to find her a cart. Between the two of us, we’ll need it. Grandma brings a list every time, but I like to take my chances. We skip the CD, magazine and children’s book sections and go straight for the new (well, gently used) hardcover fiction. She finds mysteries and mainstream fiction there. If I’m lucky, I find something paranormal. Some of my lucky finds have been The Passage, The Sacred Book of the Werewolf and Vampyres of Hollywood.

After the new fiction, there’s a huge section of older fiction. Grandma takes her time through there; I eventually wander off to the romance novels. They get picked over early, even when we show up within the first two hours of the sale. (You don’t want to be there at the very beginning; too crowded.) On a good day I might find a paranormal or fantasy romance. An anthology with Laurell K. Hamilton or MaryJanice Davidson is always nice. 

Grandma likes to wander the nonfiction shelves; I give them a more passing glance, unless there‘s a topic I‘m deeply into that week. By this time I’ll have added five or six books to the cart. This will cost me about $2.50.

We split up once again while I look at the DVDs. There are still a few seasons of The Simpsons I don’t have on DVD yet, and I’m always hoping to run across those. Barring a Simpsons find, the best thing I can hope for off the neatly alphabetized DVD shelf is a Christian Bale movie I don’t yet own. Okay, so I’ll admit to these two strains of nerdcraft as well: I can quote Simpsons characters for hours on end, and I have a squealing schoolgirl crush on Christian Bale. I’ll even watch Newsies.

After we pay for our reasonably-priced purchases, we load them into Grandma’s fold-up bookbag on wheels. At her house, we’ll separate hers from mine. On our way to the car, we might stop and look at the carts of free books outside. We don’t like to stand outside in bad weather, though. Besides, we’ve already had enough fun to last us until the next book sale.

Erin O’Riordan is a cool erotica writer, like Anais Nin, until you put a book in front of her and turn her into a drooling geek. 

Since I wrote this, Irish granny has had breathing problems and spends less and less time away from her house. We no longer go to the book sales together. In fact, she no longer gives me a list of books to get for her. Her eyesight has also gotten worse, and she doesn't spend a lot of time reading anymore. This is a scan of our last book list.

The 2012 book by Bob Woodward is actually called The Price of Politics, despite what my side note says. 

These Classic Books - Love Them or Hate Them?

I stumbled upon a book-related blog hop yesterday... (2023 Update: the site was called http://www.blondeundercoverblonde.com/ and it's now defunct.)

...and naturally, I have opinions about books. Two of the bloggers read classics. Abbey at Finding My Forever read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I like this book, but it's not one of my all-time favorites. What's your opinion of Gatsby - love it or hate it?

Will you see the new movie, with Leo DiCaprio, when it comes out? I'm sure I will, eventually. I love Leo, but it's going to be awfully hard for him to out-Gatsby Robert Redford.

Belle at The Life and Times of Belle tackled Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

GWTW is an intimidatingly large book, which I'm sure turns some people off from reading it. It's also problematic because of the characters' racism, which is nauseating (but true to the time period in which the story takes place). Still, I contend this book is very definitely worth reading. It's a great story. Love it or hate it?

You should also, definitely, watch the movie, even though (like From Here to Eternity) it leaves out quite a bit of plot and characters. If you've only ever seen the movie, you don't know that Charles and Scarlett had a son.

Clark Gable aside: I happened to watch Public Enemies yesterday (because Christian Bale), and this time I noted a) that I don't like it when Christian Bale shoots Channing Tatum - I don't care if he is Pretty Boy Floyd; b) Emilie de Ravin of Lost and Remember Me has a small role; and c) the movie which John Dillinger is leaving when killed is Manhattan Melodrama, starring Clark Gable and Myrna Loy. You'll get to see a few moments of it - along with Johnny Depp reacting to the gangster story - as you watch Public Enemies.

I'm pro-Gatsby and pro-GWTW, but I can't quite decide whether or not to like the music of Azealia Banks. "Liquorice" gets stuck in my head, but I'm not sure whether to applaud the bold sexuality in it or frown on the artist for (in this song) aspiring to be nothing more than a male fantasy - or both.



On the one hand, the word-picture she's painting is like that of the women Amy Winehouse mocks in "Fuck Me Pumps." On the other hand, who am I to judge? as argued by Salt N Pepa in "None of Your Business." Adults are free to make their own sexual choices among other consenting adults.

Plus, you can dance to "Liquorice." Azealia Banks - love her music or hate her music?

Blue Monday ~ Blue and Nerdy

These pins come from my Nerdy Girls Need Love Too board on Pinterest. On Mondays I hook up with Pinning! at A Night Owl Blog/Baxtron{Life}. On Wednesday, it's Oh, How Pinteresting! at The Vintage Apple.

And by "sometimes," I mean always.



And when I say "always," I mean



(Saw it in the theater twice, cried my eyes out both times. Yes, even the second time, even when I knew exactly when it was coming.) 

When you love to read in general and you're a complete Harry Potter nerd in particular:



I don't know what the other reasons are, but this one's good enough for me.



Dis bitch!! I'm a big Helena Bonham Carter fan, but come on, there's no way to like Bellatrix LeStrange. She's distilled essence of bitch. She makes Effie Trinket seem decent.  

I'm so glad I haven't seen any of the Hunger Games movies yet. Now that I've finished reading Mockingjay, I've kinda got a little bit of Suzanne Collins withdrawal. At least I still have four movies to look forward to. 



Why Batman? Some of it is because I'm a teeny bit of a comic book geek. Some of it is my unending celebrity crush on Christian Bale. No matter what Harrison Cheung writes about him in Christian Bale: The Inside Story of the Darkest Batman. Gotta admit it, though: Bane is by far NOT my favorite Batman villain. 

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Blue Monday ~ Blue Man Group

Last week it was the ladies' turn. This week's Blue Monday is a kind of Man Candy Monday, too.OK, I guess I didn't have that many blue-related pins of guys.

You got that right, Andy Warhol. My most dearly-beloved Hindu god is Shiva, but this is an absolutely beautiful image of Krishna. (I have beautiful pictures of my sweet lord Shiva, but none of them are blue enough.) One of the very first erotic books I ever read, one I didn't even remember to mention in The Good Parts, was a collection of stories about Krishna and Radha.



Then there was Christian Bale. Hey, skinny Christian Bale in a blue jacket, whatcha doin'? Something related to filming your Academy Award-winning Best Supporting Actor role in The Fighter?



But I wonder what you would look like with more meat on your bones, wearing a blue jacket that isn't a track jacket? Probably something like this.

But I kind of feel like that loud blue shirt doesn't go with your hazel eyes. You know what we need? A man with bright blue eyes and a blue shirt.

James Caviezel, you'll do nicely. You do everything nicely in my estimation, ever since I wrote that EPIC Easter post and fell in love with Badass Jesus. Neck beard and all. Why do you think the corresponding Pinterest board is called I Haz An Obsessed?

But maybe I'm a tiny bit color blind, so you tell me: is this shirt blue or is it purple?

The Dork Mistress, whose Tumblr and I are in a relationship, informs me this white suit is Dolce and Gabbana. You know, when JC gives the paparazzi a thumbs up, it kinds looks like

Know what goes great with blue? Gold. What would Jesus do? He would root for Notre Dame. 

I didn't go to Notre Dame. I went to St. Mary's College of Notre Dame, Indiana, the all-women's college across the highway. The kind of patriarchal crap that flies at Notre Dame doesn't go down at SMC, and the pretty Italian and Irish Catholic boys are more fun to look at than they are to date. That's how my alma mater got the nickname School for Lesbian Nuns. I say it with pride - hell yeah, women's spirituality and sexual diversity!

Let the Vatican put that in its pipe and smoke it. (I link to that story about the Vatican chastising American nuns for their "radical feminism." The radical notion that women are people - shocking!)

5 Jewish Dudes I'd Most Like to See Lewd

Am I a little late to jump into the Anthony Weiner fray? Maybe so, but this isn't really about an ex-Congressman with an awesome Muslim feminist wife and a sexting habit. This is book blog, damn it, and the inspiration for this one is The History of Love of Nicole Krauss, a nice Jewish book like your mother always wanted you to read. It happens to be what I'm reading right now.

As you may have guessed from previous blog posts about Hanukkah and "Spicy, Earthy, Sweet," in addition to being Irish on my dad's side, I'm Jewish on my mom's side. I belong to the Templin family, formerly of Warsaw, Poland. That's right, I'm straight-up ghetto. Ethnic Judaism comes to me straight through my motherline: my mother is Jewish because her mother was Jewish, because her mother was Jewish, and so on and so forth.

The History of Love is not my favorite Jewish fiction ever. That might be Nomi Eve's The Family Orchard, Markus Zusak's The Book Thief or possibly Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen. I like it, but I don't love it. I understand why my alma mater chose it for the college's first-ever book club selection, because it's well-written and charming, but nonetheless it fails to knock my socks off.

And speaking of socks off...

Call it tribal identification, or simply acknowledge I have widely varying tastes in sexy, but I like the Semitic look. I kinda think Weiner's hot. Jewish Mayhem magazine has the Hebraically hot chicks covered, so this post goes out to the five Jewish dudes I'd most like to see lewd.

1. Adam Levine
Wish granted! The Maroon 5 lead singer took it all off for a Cosmo photo shoot, with only his Victoria's Secret supermodel girlfriend's hands to cover up his junk. Someone on Zimbio commented that this photo makes him look like there's not too much to cover. To that person I say, Israeli-American dudes are internationally world-famous for having not so much the inches, but the fatness. Beer cans are often referenced in comparison.

(In her book Thanks for Coming, Mara Altman went to Israel to test this theory.)

He has a lot of tattoos for a Jewish guy. He was the inspiration for temple cantor Ilan Kauffman in "Bat Mitzvah" and "The Hope."

2. Harrison Ford
I wrote a bit about the Harrison Ford thing already...part of it's historical, left over from the days of Star Wars, part of it is yet another one of my old-guy crushes (cf. Gabriel Byrne, Jean Reno, Liam Neeson), and part of it is, well, he's Irish and Jewish, too. Great combo.

As an added bonus, he's married to Calista Flockheart who, in addition to being completely sexy in her own right, touched her lips to the lips of Christian Bale in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Excuse me if I space out for a few moments thinking about Harrison Ford kissing Christian Bale...

3. Leonard Albert "Lenny" Kravitz
Lenny sings. He rocks out. He looks great with long hair or short hair. Either way, I say "Let Love Rule." Does he not have the most kissable lips?

Added bonus: Neneh Cherry wrote the song "Buddy X" about him, and it's one of the great '90s female anthems.

4. Jakob Dylan
Bob Dylan's blue-eyed baby got the looks and the voice! No visible tattoos on this Jewish rock star, but I'd still like to check.

Jakob Dylan was probably my #1 celebrity crush of the '90s. Guy crush, I mean. Uma Thurman was the actual #1. I borrowed his first name for the husband of my fictional ancestress, the pirate Raven Rachel Templin.

5. Eli Roth
This guy you either love or you hate. I think he freaked some people out with Hostel, which I have not seen. As The Bear Jew in Inglorious Basterds, IMHO he managed to be hotter than Brad Pitt. With that buff body, he looks like a hot Krav Maga instructor.

Honorable Mention: Adrien Brody
Do I hate almost all of his movies? Yes. Cadillac Records especially, as it seemed to hit every Jewish stereotype in the book. He walks around saying, "The money!" like he's starring in an episode of The Jew, The Italian and the Redhead Gay. Written by Louis Farrakhan, directed by Borat? Maybe. Even if he makes me say, "Et tu, Brody?" and makes terrible film choices, I still want to kiss his badly-reset Hebrew nose.

That's my list. Blog symmetry dictates that I go out on the note I came in with. So, for your viewing pleasure, I close with a gratuitous photo of Huma Abedin's dude. Dignified? No, but kinda fun nonetheless.

The Best of Blue Monday

Stopping by from the Shameless Summer Giveaway Hop? Please visit Friday's post HERE for a chance to win free books!

On Mondays I hook up with Pinning! at A Night Owl Blog/Baxtron{Life}. On Wednesday, it's Oh, How Pinteresting! at The Vintage Apple.  These are some of my favorites from past Blue Mondays. 

This is my very favorite from the celestial-themed Once in a Blue Moon post.



This one is from the jewel-themed Bejeweled Blitz post. 



Among the pretty pictures in the all-female pin-up post, the prettiest may have been this lady with the blue eyelashes.



The prettiest picture from Blue Man Group is of Christian Bale. 



Blue is really Christian Bale's color, even though he has hazel eyes. Since I posted Blue Man Group, I pinned this one, with the artfully disarrayed hair. The fun part is imagining how his hair got this way. Messed-up sex hair, maybe? 



This image comes from the Underwater theme.



The fourth Blue Monday theme was "Wear It." My personal favorite is the blue lipstick. The model's blue eyes really sell it. 

The Monumental post only featured two monuments: the Eiffel Tower lit up in blue lights, and this beautiful winter image from Chicago.

The first-ever Blue Monday was circus-themed. Sort of. It also only had two pins, the second of which is this colorful sequined costume.



Stop by on future Blue Mondays for more highlights from my Pinterest boards. My blog's very own board is Pagan Spirits Book Blog. Some of my other bookish boards are:

Nerdy Girls Need Love Too - tons of Harry Potter pins, plus various assorted nerderies

Hotties Read - George Clooney is the most popular reading hottie

Books Worth Reading

Book Haul! Austen, Dumas, Meyer and more

Yesterday was my library's once-monthly used media sale, which I attend a few times a year (at one time, with my grandma, although she's stopped reading due to health problems - that is, until she indulges herself in an e-reader. I hope she'll do so for her birthday, coming up this weekend. 

But I digress. 

My Haul:

The Books:

1.The Host by Stephenie Meyer. I haven't read it yet. It's the only novel by Stephenie Meyer that I haven't read. Perhaps I'll get to it by the time the movie comes out on DVD and I rent it on Netflix. I understand it's something about aliens. 

2. The unauthorized Twilight companion by Lois H. Gresh, who also wrote The Truth Behind 'A Series of Unfortunate Events'. I wasn't terribly impressed with her SOUE book, but I was willing to give the Twilight one a chance for 25 cents. 

3. An unabridged The Count of Monte Cristo. It's a little rumpled, but at least this time I won't miss out on the lesbian elopement. (I promise I'll never read an abridged classic again. I didn't even do it on purpose this time.) 

4. Darkest Highlander by Donna Grant. Granted, it's the 6th book in the series, I only own 1-3 and I've only read 1 (Dangerous Highlander; review here), but I'll still have a head start when I someday eventually finish the Dark Sword series.  

5. Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. I've never read it before. I do think that when I took the "Which Jane Austen Character Are You?" quiz, I got Catherine Morland. I did suggest the other day that Joseph Gordon-Levitt should star in a period-piece adaptation by a beloved female author - as Christian Bale did in Little Women and Tom Hardy did in Wuthering Heights - and could play Henry Tilney. 

(That Tom Hardy is an unlikely choice for Heathcliff will be a rant for another day.) 

The Movies: 

1. The Hunger Games. I saw it twice, but I didn't own it until now. 

2. Becoming Jane. I haven't seen it, but Anne Hathaway as a young Jane Austen - how bad could that be? It also has James MacAvoy (Mr. Tumnus the faun), Julie Walters (Molly Weasley) and Maggie Smith (Minerva McGonagal). 

3. The Orlando Bloom Three Musketeers. I haven't seen this one either. To be honest, I don't have very high hopes for it - the previews looked like more special effects than story - but it's a Dumas adaptation and it's been ages since we had a big Hollywood Musketeers movie. (Coincidentally enough, the last one was in 1993, the year I wrote about in yesterday's music post. If we count The Man in the Iron Mask, which came out in 1998, it's still been 15 years.) 

4. Best of all, A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), with Christian Bale, Stanley Tucci, Rupert Everett and Michelle Pfeiffer, among many other stars. I've seen this one literally dozens of times, starting when it came out in theaters. It's hard to believe I didn't own it, but I didn't until now. 

Mmm, Demetrius No-Pants. http://pinterest.com/pin/46936021088470209/