Hello,
I finished reading "The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz. It's such a fantastic book. It chronicles life under General Rapheal Leonidas Trujillo, military backed dictator, and how miserable life was. The country was his personal playground. He was very vindictive and even saying something negative about him was a way to go to prison. You also could lose your rights, family and your possessions. I love the spirit of the Dominican people and how they are able to have good lives even with his evil presence looming over everything literally. All living areas were required to have a picture of Trujillo hanging where it could be seen.
I loved this book so much and the history of the Dominican Republic that I started reading another book about both. This other book is "In The Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez. The butterflies in the title refers to the 4 Mirabal sisters, three of whom were killed by General Trujillo for their defiance. As you can imagine both books have a lot of similarities with many of the same people and situations. There is also a third book that looks interesting, this book mainly deals with the assassination of Trujillo. It's called "The Feast of The Goat" by Mario Vargas Llosa. Goat being a derisive nickname for Trujillo.
I also would like to respond to a comment from inether: "No Code is by far the best Pearl Jam album. Ten and Vs. don't even compare. Unless, of course, you are having a Pearl Jam's most-commercial album contest." I would have to agree with inether that "No Code" is a great CD. It's highlighted by such great songs as "Smile", "Red Mosquito" and "Lukin".
However in no way is it even close to either "Vs" or "Ten". Just because a CD sells a lot of copies, that doesn't make the CD commercial. Pearl Jam has yet to make a "commercial" CD. Bands like Backstreet Boys and The New Kids On The Block make commercial music. Commercial doesn't necessarily mean good music or does a lot of CDs sold doesn't necessarily mean "sell out".
"Mad Men" kicked off this past Sunday with a pretty terrific season premiere. Making Kenny Cosgrove and Pete Campbell both head of accounts was genius. That's going to make a compelling storyline all season. In keeping with character, Peter has been a complete wienie about the whole situation.
Things I didn't need to see, Sal getting pleasured by anyone. There were a lot of cliffhangers from the season finale of year 2, however very few of those story lines were referred to. Judging by how pregnant Betty Draper is, this show picks up about 5 or 6 months later from where last season ended. For instance, the show ended last season with a big battle between Duck and Don. It was obvious that Don was going to win but where was Duck in this season's premiere? I know he'll be back later in the season.
A couple more quick things. I listened to Brad Paisley's "American Saturday Night", it was okay. I was expecting it to be a lot better CD. The new Rolling Stone cover deals with why the Beatles broke up. At first when I saw this cover I rolled my eyes. This is something that happened before most of Rolling Stone's readers were even alive. However after thinking about it, I do think it will be an interesting article. I look forward to reading it. However for future reference I would suggest to Rolling Stone to be more current.
themusicaddict
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