VidLit Reviews

Follow former VidLit intern Tayrn Johnson through her final year at college.

 

The Magic Bullet is one of those “As seen on TV products” that turns out to be something surprising useful and hard to live without. Key recipes I use my Magic Bullet for: mince chicken for my chicken meatballs, pesto sauce for pasta, salsa, and smoothies. It’s easy to clean and I like it better than a large blender for two-person meals.

Below you will find my VidLit review of Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. Beware it contains SPOILERS but only up to page 125 out of the 750 page book. I spoil the inciting incident of the book because it’s a doosie; one you need to fully embrace to really love this book. Breaking Dawn is the fourth and final installment in the Twilight Series and I recommend the whole series from ages 13 – 99.

Cape Canaveral:

A lovely melody to open the record. It’s soothing and makes you smile just a bit when you’re sitting in bed late at night (perhaps writing an album review) as you imagine being rocked to sleep in a rope hammock much like the one on the cover and being sort of at peace with the world because no matter how impossibly huge the universe, no matter how overwhelming the insignificance can seem, we are all parts with different memories and destinies.

“Watch the migrants smoke in the old orange grove and the red rocket blaze over Cape Canaveral. You’ve been a father to me, your 1960’s speak, give me comatose joy like re-run TV, while the mountainside was shining, wild colors of my destiny. I saw your face age backwards, changing shape in my memory. You taught me victory is sweet even deep in the cheap seats.”

Sausalito:
Somewhat similar in musical style to Get-Well-Cards. This song makes you feel the idea of being on the road, driving on a hot desert road until you finally reach the comfort and happiness of a houseboat floating on the blue ocean. The line “where pilgrims disappear” is repeated throughout the song - a very interesting concept, which to me symbolizes an end to wandering when you can finally call somewhere (or someone) your home.

“We should move to Sausalito, living’s easy on a houseboat, let the ocean rock us back and forth to sleep. In the morning with the sunrise, look in the water see the blue sky, as if heaven has been laid there at our feet.”

Get-Well-Cards:
A good choice for an opening song, country-influenced and pretty upbeat. It is also stylistically very sound with more sparsely instrumented verses building up to a louder, rhythmic chorus – showed off the band’s skill and chemistry from the very beginning at the live show. I’ve been listening to it a lot today, and it is definitely one of those songs that tends to stick in your head.

“Right there, that’s the postman sleeping in the sand, he’s got a letter to deliver, but I can’t stay mad. Right there, that’s the postman asleep in the sand, he’s got a get-well-card to deliver, he’s going to do it by hand.”

Lenders in the Temple:
This song reminds me a bit of No One Would Riot For Less, the highlight, in my opinion, of Bright Eyes’ last album, Cassadaga. It’s all about the corruption of power, dishonesty, the hardening of human souls, and how often we forget love is such an easy connection between us all. I guess those sort of ideas are just growing less acceptable in society today. The jingling of coins as the song fades is also brilliant to say the least.

“Not something she’d ever tell except when she got deathly high. Then out it came like summer rain, washed the cars and everything felt clean for just a little while, a telethon we drunk dialed.”

Danny Callahan:
This was one of the songs released early on Conor Oberst’s website, so it is the first I heard of his new material. From his very first intonation of “green world, lovely chloroform” I knew a great new record was going to come out on August fifth. It took a few listens before I realized heard the line about a “bald little boy” and realized it was about a young boy dying of cancer – a topic with the seeming potential to spawn an exploitive or cliché song – but Danny Callahan manages to be upbeat and speak about “the love we feel we carry inside” with unflinching sincerity.

“Stop reading the weather charts. Stop counting the playing cards. There’s no system, there’s no guarantee.”

I Don’t Want to Die (In the Hospital):
A fast-paced country song that had everyone in the crowd dancing and shows Conor’s passionate singing voice - you know when he screams and his voice breaks - I just love that. It seemed to be a bit lacking on Cassadaga. It’s a fun song and conveys Conor’s ironic sense of humor. My favorite part is when he whispers “slow sad song”.

“They don’t let you smoke, and you can’t get drunk. All there is to watch is these soap operas. I don’t want to die in the hospital; you got to take me back outside.”

Eagle on a Pole:
I was excited to hear this song because it stood out to me when I was listening to my newly purchased CD earlier in the day. It contains my favorite line “El cielo es azul; just don’t go telling everyone”. The song is darker in tone than the first three of the set; the simple yet eloquent three line stanzas sung in Conor’s commanding voice inspired a rapt silence in the audience as he picked out the first notes before the rest of the band kicked in. Probably my favorite on the record.

”Heard the fire pop and snap like a tack piano rag. I never could get used to happy sounds. I hope the world is exposed, a cruel and elaborate hoax that convinces me to walk without a cane.”

Moab:
The song on the new album that most literally refers to Conor’s penchant for “traveling songs” and constant movement in his own life. He finds comfort in the assurance that you can always move on from bad situations and find new places filled with hope, the journey itself perhaps the most important part. “There’s nothing that the road can’t heal” just seems to say it all.

“Some would spend their precious time trying to decorate their lives, taking measurements for some new look they want, so from one to ten –ten’s exactly what I am, zero being everything I’m not, tell me what you like. Is it less than five?”

Hello. I’m Grace Slansky, a ten-year-old reporter much like Kit Kittredge, reviewing Kit Kittredge: An American Girl Mystery.

I think the movie was better than the title. The title didn’t say anything about the story. Personally I went on and off with American Girl Dolls, so if I wasn’t reviewing it I don’t know if I would immediately go, “Oh, I want to go see an American Girl Doll movie.” The title didn’t say anything about the story. It wasn’t as childish and girly as I thought it would be. It was more about what was happening then, in the Great Depression.

I think it wouldn’t be a bad movie for boys, but again, the American Girl Doll aspect of it might make it unappealing to boys. I think for some younger kids the title might be more appealing because they’re a lot more into American Girl Dolls, but it might also be a lot harder to understand, because of the historical aspect.

Kit Kittredge is a girl who just wants to be published in a newspaper. She goes to the Cincinnati Register and everyone laughs in her face. But she is determined. Then her family starts to run out of money, and her dad has to move to Chicago to see if he can find work. They end up taking in boarders, selling eggs and wearing chicken feed sack dresses. And then one of the hobos her mother had hired was blamed for robbery. But Kit wouldn’t believe that he did it. She saw this as her big chance to write a story.

The boarders that stayed in her house were a magician, the magician’s hurt cousin, a mobile librarian, a mother and her son who goes to class with Kit and a dance instructor. Kit had a dog, a basset hound, Grace. And the magician’s cousin had a monkey. County and Will were the two hobos that were hired to work for them in exchange for food. They showed the children how to read hobo signs, which they put in front of houses to tell other hobos if the people inside were nice. This was maybe the coolest part of the movie. A cat on a fencepost means that someone is a nice person. A fishbone means they have good garbage. Two arrows coming out of a circle means danger. And one arrow coming out of a circle points to a hobo jungle, which is where hobos live

My favorite character was County, a hobo child. The acting was actually really good.
I liked some of the costumes. I liked the dresses made out of chicken feed sacks.

The movie was also somewhat educational. I learned about the Depression, that the bank was taking away people’s houses. And I learned how to read Hobo. Not that anybody uses Hobo anymore.

My fellow interns Emily Rose and Rafe told me about two websites,
jawbone.com and freeheadset.org, both designed to make obtaining a bluetooth device (and therefore steering clear of the law) easier and less expensive. And why not keep that headset on all day? Why not get it permanently installed? Walk down the street alone, gesture emphatically with both hands, communicate wholeheartedly into that sleek Jabra JX10. It’s okay because everybody’s doing the same thing.

VidLit’s Kindle Review - an old fashion review of the sample excerpt of a book on this new-fangled device. In this episode: Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld.

VidLit’s Kindle Review - an old fashion review of the sample excerpt of a book on this new-fangled device. In this episode: A Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties by Suze Rotolo.

I tried a sample of Sorbetto two weeks ago at the behest of the woman behind the counter. It was sort of like finding a toy in a box of Rice Krispies: I didn’t need it or even want it, but it was a colorful, diminutive supplement to my usual Starbucks experience. I still need a latte in the morning, though.

Kristina here, reporting to you on a great makeup find for the ladies! Have you noticed how actresses on the big and small screen seem to have flawless skin? Well, I’ve got news for you, it’s not because they’re immortal human beings blessed with a perfect complexion, it’s because of their makeup artists who use airbrush foundation to give them a smooth flawless look!

So, are we all out of luck because we don’t each have our own makeup artist?  Nope! I was browsing through Sephora one day when I found Dior’s “AIRFLASH.” It’s airbrush foundation in a can for us mere mortal folks!!

I’ve tried it, loved it and haven’t looked back! Sure, I have to be careful when airbrushing my face because it can go everywhere, but a simple shower-cap and a disposal sponge to smooth out the excess will do.  On top of this, airbrush foundation doesn’t require you dipping into the same compact, eliminating the variable of bacteria which causes the blemishes that you’re trying to cover up.

I hope you try and enjoy!

Dior’s Airflash is available at department stores like Nordstroms, Bloomingdales, Macy’s and, of course, Sephora. Dior’s Airflash

Kristina out.