Half-tuned out

So as my brain continues to atrophy, I find that I also get books mixed up. For a minute I thought Julia Roberts and James Franco are starring in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which is a book about a woman's attempt to only feed her family local foods for a year. My only memory of this book--as I haven't read it yet--is seeing a hippie girl reading it on the bus, and being amused by the title.

Well, as those of you who live in the real world probably know, Roberts and Franco are starring in Eat, Pray, Love, which is yet another book turned movie about a woman having an early-mid-life crisis and then doing something drastic and escapist.

As I continue to read wikipedia, the more disenchanted I get. The author of Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert) funded her year-long trip with an advance on the book she would write about the experience. Oh, and did you know she wrote the essay that Coyote Ugly is based on? I'm okay with her being a phenomenal writer, but she must have an awesome publicist/agent.

Everyone seems to love Eat, Pray, Love. Oprah dedicated 2 episodes to it. Time Magazine has this puke-worthy compliment:

"To read about her struggles with a 182-verse Sanskrit chant, or her (successful) attempt to meditate while being feasted on by mosquitoes, is to come about as close as you can to enlightenment-by-proxy."

I'm sure I'll probably pick up Eat, Pray, Love once I forget how artificial and premeditated Gilbert's self-discovery seems, and knowing me, I'll probably like it. But right now I'm still annoyed.