Ashli

I have a thing about doors in Europe. I love the vibrant colors, the various sizes, their design .... they're simply interesting and add to the landscape of so many aesthetically pleasing cities on this continent. The door above has probably been around for quite sometime and has definitely been painted over and over again. It's likely not to have been sanded prior to the fresh coat of paint. Nor has it been replaced -- even if it doesn't fit quite so snuggly as it once did.

In addition to my obsession with photographing doors over here (that's hyperbole folks!), I have been enjoying Reading Lolita in Tehran. From the title, you can gain much about the book: there's a group reading western classics in Tehran, and it's probably not a celebrated group. It's immediately intriguing -- isn't there something fascinating about how a completely different culture receives Western thought and ideas?

 The book is divided into four sections. Thus far, I suggest reading the second section of the book and then going back and reading the first. While the second section has a cohesive narrative of the author's life, the first part is a bit disjointed -- albeit interesting. It's just that the first part of the book details the underground reading group taking place in the author's home, and that would have had a lot more meaning had I known more about the author herself. Anyway, it still seems worth a read!

MBA and I also saw Social Network last week. Do I even have to tell anyone this is the Facebook movie?

By the time it was released here, the film had received a lot of hype from all my American counterparts.  The movie itself is definitely a hyped up film -- it's intense,  and it tells a story a lot of people want to hear. The story I saw was one about people having an endless capacity for evil and for destroying themselves. You might see a story about how Facebook came in to existence. Someone else might see a story about Sean Parker's come back. While the directing was really well done, the actors impeccable, and the soundtrack by Trent Rezner superb -- I'm just not as "in" to this movie as most others. Allegedly, only 40% of it's true; but most people watching the film won't consider that. That bothers me -- there's a lot of re-creation going on there, and it affects real people's lives. Additionally, I think the movie could have used a light moment here and there. Overall, I just wasn't as impressed as I thought I was going to be. Goodness -- I am so going against the trend by saying all this!!!  I feel like such a rebel!

I know I'm going against the grain saying all this, so feel free to throw your own two cents in there!