And Now I Have Lost All Remaining Faith In America’s Ability To Understand Literature

I was hunting around on IMDB to see if a halfway decent movie version of Anna Karenina exists (unsurprisingly, the answer is “no”), when I stumbled across a review of the 1974 (Coppola) version of The Great Gatsby.  An excerpt:

“[...] the story itself is sorta outdated* (I’m not commenting on the novel but the film). The story of beautiful rich people affected by the tragedy of the poor** had been done, even back in 1974, to death. There’s really nothing new to this kind of story and watching the downfall of a wealthy man because of a bad decision*** on Gatsby’s part to protect Daisy is hardly riveting (what does Gatsby see in Daisy?****). In fact, the title of the film is sorta misleading. It shouldn’t be THE GREAT GATSBY***** but THE ANNOYING DAISY. The Daisy character in the movie needed a good smack to the head but alas, it never happened.****** Tragic, indeed.”

*Uh… sure.  Fitzgerald’s accurate portrayal of the state of the American Dream, and his observations about shifting American attitudes toward wealth and status are totally NOT relevent right now, in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage bust.  
**If by “affected” you mean “oblivious/apathetic,” then yes.
***Or, y’know, deliberate and heartbreakingly fatalistic.
****Oooh, bingo.  You’re onto something, at last.
*****Reviewer, meet Irony.  Irony, Reviewer.
******Never mind.  Thought you knew what was going on for a second there, thought you almost grasped the central message of the story.  My bad.

In other news, I bought a new desktop computer today.  And a Nikon D40X D-SLR camera kit, with two lenses and a UV filter.

Are These The Same Guests Who Aren’t Aware That You Own A Media Empire?

From the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living:

“‘It’s a great pleasure to set the table with custom napkins,’ Martha says.  ‘My guests can’t believe that I made them myself.’” (p. 212, Issue No. 166; September 2007)

Shit, Martha, I thought you had the kind of friends who’d start to worry if you HADN’T set the photo-finish dinnertable with personalized cloth napkins.  Also, this quote loses even more credibility when it is superimposed over a photograph of your massive, newly-renovated in-house craft workspace, complete with multiple sewing machines and a whole desk devoted to colored glue storage.  Martha, Martha, Martha…