This blog thing turned out to be harder than.....

I thought it would be. The hardest thing is to keep up with the writing. The reading part is easy, you read, reflect, scribble down some notes and continue to read. I´ve managed to finish two books already; Joseph Conrad´s Heart of Darkness and Ernest Hemingway´s Fiesta: The Sun also rises. I will come back and write more on my thoughts on these books later, but for now, I just wanted to write a little something so you know that I haven´t deserted this blog. I´m now reading Truman Capote´s In cold blood again. I started reading it, but I got caught up with Heart of Darkness and then Hemingway, but now I´ll finish the book before I read something else.

I went to the bookstore today and looked through the English book section, and found the book On the road by Jack Kerouac. I´ve never heard of the man before until yesterday when I sat and watched an interview with Benicio where he talked about Hemingway and Jack Kerouac. Since I´m concentrating on books that he has read, I thought I would give On the road a go. I also found The Bolivian Diary by Ernesto Che Guevara which Che: Part Two is based on.

It´s an amazing world to step into. You learn a lot about different things you haven´t discovered before. I´m really excited about what´s to come and what I can learn from each author or book every time I start reading a new one. Because each writer have their own style and that is what I find so interesting.

Continuation of introduction

As I sat at this nice restaurant with people passing by outside the big windows, I realised that my introduction was not nearly as finished as I thought it was. I came to realise that I´ve got more to say and share with you who reads this. Because even if I´m inspired to dive in and learn more about the worlds that Benicio has visited, one of my goals is to have people follow me around the world while I´m entering the lands of different people, fictional and nonfictional, different cultures and ways of living.

Something that I thought about today was how Benicio has managed to touch my life, not only once or twice, but three times. First at the age of fifteen, later on at twenty-one and most recently at the age of thirty-six. The influence that he has had on my life, my outlook on life and the kind of person I strive to be each and every single day. He has taught me to emphasize and pay extra attention to attributes that I already aimed for in order to become a better human being.

When you study at the university, you are forced to read a large amount of books, which you swiftly runs through. The afterthoughts don´t linger any longer periods of time. You read, comprehend a bit and analyse a bit here and a bit there. During my time at the university, I started to read Joseph Conrad´s Heart of Darkness, but since I had to rush through it, I didn´t have much time to contemplate the words. Now I can take my time and let the words ease into my mind and I can ponder over their meaning.

As I sat at the restaurant , looking around, watching the waitresses scurry about. Taking orders, seating guests to empty tables, my thoughts went to the place where my hand was moving. I took a spoonful of ice-cream and continued to read. As I read, I began to understand the richness of the book. Something that hadn´t made sense to me the first time around, now made perfect sense. I started to understand both sides of something that I had missed, I began to search for something deeper. I wanted to understand the underlying message and not just the surface.

Introduction by Jackie

Hi!

I´m Jackie and this is my first mission blog. I´ve tried before to write on a blog, connecting it to my website. Due to lack of purpose I found myself not knowing where to go so I simply stopped. This time I´m on a mission. Starting from today which is the 7th of May 2010 and until the 6th of May 2011, I will read 10 books and 10 movies recommended by Benicio Del Toro. I found a list of his favourite books and movies on the website beniciodeltoro.com. I´ve been wanting to do something different for a while now, and after seeing the movie Julie & Julia I got hooked on the idéa to have a blog.

The reason why I have picked Benicio Del Toro is something that has its own little story. A story I thought I would share with you now. The summer of 1989, I was fifteen years old and the latest Bond-movie was released. License to kill became my first Bond
experience and I remember being so afraid of the main villain´s henchman Dario. In those days I didn´t know what internet was or even how to manage a computer. This led to why I didn´t bother to find out who played Dario. All I knew was that I was soo scared of him. Six years later I was sitting and watching movie reviews on tv. One review that especially caught my attention was when the critic announced that Quentin Tarantino could take the backseat and let Bryan Singer steer the wheel. That´s how I got introduced to The Usual Suspects and I realised that Fred Fenster was played by Benicio Del Toro who also played Dario. Dario got a name and I became a fan of Benicio Del Toro.
During the years I´ve seen some of his work and I have admired him as an actor, but it wasn´t until the remake of The Wolfman 2010 that I finally came to learn more about him as an actor but also more about his background and interests. As an audience we have been taken through quite a journey with the multiple of different and intriguing characters that he´s played. Each movie role has been different in either looks or ways. The purpose with this journey that I´m going to begin is a bit different. I thought it would be exciting to explore a world of different colours, worlds I probably never would have entered by myself. With the list of exploring twenty different worlds, I´m expecting it to be a journey and adventure, which is going to change my life for a year.
The first book that I started reading today is Truman Capote´s In cold blood. The beginning is well-written and I like the tone of it. Whether I´m going to like or hate or just endure the books and the movies, I will go into this with an open mind. If you think positive and you want to learn and have something new at the end of the journey. I think that´s the way to go about it. So there you have it, my introduction to this blog.

I hope you will join me on the ride.

Cheers Jackie