A fitting post for Balloons

http://weburbanist.com/2011/03/07/literary-love-12-works-of-book-art-architecture/

Film Noir and 'The Maltese Falcon'

I found this blog post on a blog I check out from time to time, "U.S. Intellectual History" It is part of a series of posts about the film noir genre and its influence on American culture. As we read the book and watched the movie for book club I thought you all might enjoy the discussion. The other posts are also very interesting. Enjoy!

Franzia Runners of Yoknapatawpha County

At this gathering, the Franziacs assembled around a so-called lesser work of William Cuthbert Faulkner; our focus was The Reivers, his last novel, published the year of his death, for which he was awarded the 1963 Pulitzer post-posthumously, the final story of Yoknapatawpha County (taking place, as it does, in 1905, but commenting on 1961), a work of less intense style and subject than The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, or Go Down Moses, a tale of early cars, America's first grease monkey, a black man three steps ahead of his white employers, and a young boy coming of age. And while Lucius Priest learned about being a man, we learned when a genius shares some fun, there are no lesser works.

The Diminutive of Franzia is "The Franz"

It was a confluence of names and history at the home of little Chrinivyet and Charitizi, a manor on the outskirts of old Sugarhood. Chrystovok and Banya brought their fine company, Carringya made a dip of black beans and the fires of revolution. Andrenichka brought a box of the Franz, a delicate vintage, chilled by the snows of the winter night, and Kellikov sat on a stool like a proper gentleman--I'm sorry, I continually forget they are 'Comrades" now. And the heady assemblage had gathered to discuss the life and times of on Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago, Yura in his youth, but Doctor Zhivago to history.

Awesome Book Covers

Which one do you like best?

We shall discuss your affairs over a Christmas box of Franzia, Bob!

What to say about the second most well known Christmas story? Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is a story whose particulars are well known to us all, but few had read the original. What did we discover?

Girls with Dragon Tattoos Love Boxed Wine

Our perception of Best Sellers is apparently somewhat jaundiced. We've come to expect Da Vinci Codes,  or perhaps a few hundred pages of Tom Clancy putting info on the latest nightvision scopes and his Cold War Hangover Fever Dreams into a shaker, or various tales of how rich women finding themselves, bearing the sticker of Oprah's Book Club. We are not Oprah's Book Club, we are the Guild of Franzia--our souls are as hard and black as our livers.So it's a bit of a shock that best-selling sensation The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, praised by mothers and BYU folks alike, sits comfortably on our shelf with the rest of the urban despair and death camps.