Friday Night Open Thread and Recommendations

Recommendations as in got anything to recommend? I put up a lot of recommendations; I like hearing some, too.

Incidentally, to whomever recommended Matt Helm: Turns out Titan books (a paperback press) is going to republish them in 2013, so hopefully they'll be on Kindle. I assume they will. Now I kind of want to read some Matt Helm.

Anyone keeping to those New Year's declarations? I'm continuing trying to learn French (as you may have guessed by my sudden interest in French movies). It's slow going. I need a more systematic approach than the Think Method from the Music Man. I've been trying immersion-- natural learning, sort of -- and I guess I know some stuff but it's slow. And I still fall apart listening to it. Reading it, fine. I'm reading the Three Musketeers in French and, with the help of dozens of look-ups and guesses, I can manage to at least get the structure of the sentence, even though my actual comprehension is limited to "D'Artagnan placed his [something] against the guy's [other thing] and then had made [some reflexive verb I've never seen before, but context suggests it might have something to do with a horse. Shoeing a horse? Something like that.]."

I'm mostly using "French in Action," an immersion course from the 80s, which used to run on PBS. Anyone remember it? I actually did remember it -- seeing it here and there -- and it stuck in my mind chiefly because the main actress is gorgeous and has the highbeams on in 30% of her scenes (here, at about 1:40-2:00). I remember actually watching it just for the highbeams.

When the videos were used at Yale, three female students lodged a protest due to "sexism" -- because the girl's legs get featured a fair amount, and, of course, her highbeams. Which, in fairness, are halogen. Blinding.

But just further proof that Yale feminists are just hateful and horrible.

Anyway that's all over the internet now, on YouTube, and hosted at Annenberg Learning Center. It's actually got a fan site.

What are you guys up to?

posted by Ace at 07:50 PM

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