Nerdish Delight

Because you weren't convinced of my total descent in the nerdy abyss, I am posting these AWESOME pictures I found online.


So, this is a double nerd delight. All eleven Doctors as Simpsons characters! (If you don't know who the Doctors are, I'm not explaining it to you.)

Here are David Tennant as the Doctor and his faithful assistant, Donna Noble, also as Simpsons characters.

A Simpsons version of the Weeping Angel from "Blink."

And last but not least is this SUPER AWESOME poster that I also found online....

Am I ready for the return of the Doctor in 2011 or what?

Books + Bubbles = Motherhood

I'm not beginning this entry with an apology. There's a week and a half until my final packet of the semester is due, and I have a nine-month old baby. I post when I post. That being said, I am looking forward to more regular posts during my nearly two-month break before the next semester starts. (And yes, I am aware of the paving material for the road to Hell.)

Despite the irregularity of my posts since the arrival of Superbaby, I have tried to keep one thing consistent: no torrent of baby-related posts. This is not a poke at my friends who have child-centric blogs. That is the purpose of their blogs, and I read them with relish (mostly.) My blog, however, is about my life as a student and writer, and also a place for me to rant about films and books. I'm afraid I'm going to have to break my rule, however, as these two areas of my life (books and baby) have intersected.

I have already written about my obsession with children's literature and my joy at having an excuse now to revist old favorites. Only recently, however, I got do the one thing I have looked forward to since the day I found out I was pregnant (and even before that)....I took Lucy Addison to the library.

Deciding when a child is old enough for the library is a tricky thing. If I'd had my way, I would have been wheeling her in there for a load of books on the way home from the hospital, but alas, the library is a quiet place, and squawling infants are met with stern looks over ancient reading glasses. So I waited. At eight months, I decided that I'd been patient long enough. We made our first trip to the library.

As I carried my twenty pound infant on my hip (a mistake I didn't repeat...stroller from here on out), I half-expected bright lights and an angel choir. I was, after all, introducing Lucy Addison to the library. Here she will choose books, find her favorites, go to storytime, win summer reading contests, oh, wait, I digress. Back to reality. Things weren't quite like I remembered from my childhood library visits (and there were many.)

First of all, Greenville libraries have automatic sliding doors now. How unromantic is that? I was prepared for the computerized card catalogs and infrared scanners and book barcodes, but not the sliding doors. It was a little disappointing. Then there's the whole smell thing. When I was little, my favorite thing about the library was the smell. I was the only five year old who got a contact high from the scent of musty books. Since I can no longer smell, something of the whole experience was diminished.

The visit improved greatly, though, when I got to the children's section. As I wandered (as much as one can wander when their right arm is numb from carrying a baby) through the picture books (set in shelves at kid height), I spotted the sign for storytime. Every Tuesday at 10 and 11. It was Wednesday. We'd have to wait a whole week for it to come around again. "Lucy Addison," I said, "we'll be back." She didn't seem particularly excited at the prospect.

We checked out her very first library books and rushed home to begin reading them. That part was as good I'd hoped. I remembered all the books my mother had read to me, all the trips to the library lugging the maximum number of books allowed from library to car to house and back. Checking out favorites again and again. Was Harry still a dirty dog? He was. Was Lyle still the most clever crocodile? Turns out yes.

Then came the day for storytime. I followed the other mothers in with their squirming toddlers and even a few infants. A smiling librarian with a Clifford puppet on her hand met us at the door. "Clifford" spoke to each child as they entered. Lucy Addison inspected the red dog from the safety of her stroller, looking a little skeptical with furrowed brow, and then we rolled into the auditorium with fifteen or twenty other children for the main event.

May I say that I never felt more like a mother than I did for that half hour. It was magical. There was singing, story reading, and even a rhythm/marching band where Lucy Addison got her own instrument (a rice-filled plastic egg.) There was even a bubble break. Part of me didn't want it to end. The best part was that Lucy Addison really seemed to enjoy it. That's it. No clever quips or funny anecdotes. It was perfect. The librarian even read Harry, The Dirty Dog.

Cue the music. This was the moment I had built up in my mind all those years. I am the mother of a little girl, and I just took her to storytime at the library.

And we get to do it again next week.

For anyone who's curious, here are the books we've checked out and read so far:

Thirsty Baby, Catherine Ann Cullen

Olivia and the Missing Toy, Ian Falconer

Olivia Forms a Band

Angelina Ballerina, Katharine Holabird

Angelina Ice Skates

Angelina's Baby Sister

Princess Baby, Karen Katz

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, Bernard Waber

Harry, the Dirty Dog, Gene Zion

LMNO Peas, Keith Baker

Too Many Frogs, Sandy Asher

Maisy Goes to the Library, Lucy Cousins

On Your Toes: A Ballet ABC, Rachel Isadora

Bears on Chairs, Shirley Parenteau

Lyle and the Birthday Party

Eloise: a Book for Precocious Grown-Ups, Kay Thompson (we didn't finish this one. Too much for LA)

Wee Little Bunny, Lauren Thompson

Plus these that we checked out this week and are in progress....

A Beautiful Girl, Amy Schwartz

Emily and Albert, Jan Ormerod

Emma and Mommy Talk to God, Marianne Williamson

Martha Walks the Dog, Susan Meddaugh (Martha is after my time, but I'm in love with her!)

Angelina at the Fair

Angelina and Alice

Angelina at the Palace (Noticing a pattern here?)

Say Cheese!, Lauren Child

Katy and the Big Show, Virginia Lee Burton

Dead Dogs Tell No Tales: A Rather Late Review of Australia

I've decided I'm going to revise Chekhov's famous gun rule this way: If a dog is introduced in the first act, it will die tragically in the third. Filmmakers everywhere apparently have a tacit agreement that dogs can and should be included in a film as a means to manipulate the audience's emotions when said dog is senselessly shot/poisoned/has its neck snapped. Dogs have become the new version of the obligatory unnamed Star Trek cast member who appears and dies in every episode.

Why am I ranting about this particular little movie tidbit? I finally got around to watching Australia. Yes, I know it's not my usual movie fare (not to mention two years too late), but everybody kept telling me how wonderful it was and how I had to see it. So I Netflixed it. And yes, the dog dies.

Every person I talked to raved about the beautiful scenery, the exquisite cinematography. So while I didn't have high expectations for the film itself, I was prepared to be blown away by the breathtaking experience that is panoramic vistas in Blu-ray. So imagine my disappointment when I watched the actual film. Yes, there were certainly a few scenes with the stock Australia-type footage. Everything in between, however, appeared to have been filmed in a studio in sunny LA. Even the big outdoor scenes were split by badly transitioned close-ups that were obviously shot in a studio. One second Nicole Kidman or Hugh Jackman would be kicking up dust astride a horse, and the next second there would a poorly-lit head shot of them with a Sears Portrait Studio background behind them and a oscillating fan to the side. The shift between location and studio shots was so poor that after a while it became physically jarring.

Of course, dead dog and bad filming aside, the biggest problem with the film was that I'd already seen it. Yeah, I saw it back in 1992 when it was called Far and Away. Different time period, you say? Different country and no Tom Cruise, you point out? Well, it doesn't make any difference. The films were so similar in feel and circumstances to be laughable. The boy narrator even refers to Kidman once as the "Far, far away lady." Did the writers intend that as a joke? I hope so because it would be the only clever writing in the entire film.

Now, I must temper my harsh words with the reminder that the sweeping historical romance is not my usual choice when it comes to film, so I went into this whole experience with a bit of bias. Nevertheless, I watched the movie with as much of an open mind as I could muster hoping to be pleasantly surprised. Alas, I wasn't. The expected people died. The predictable misunderstandings and moments of poignancy went off like clockwork. No new ground was trod by this film or its director/writer, Baz Luhrmann.

All that being said, the film was entertaining and full of suspense. Nicole Kidman's costumes were beautiful, and she looked like an ivory goddess (as usual.) Hugh Jackman was appropriately craggy and emotionally unavailable, and love conquers all in the end.

Love wasn't enough, however, to overcome the bad writing and poor cinematography. It also didn't save the dog.

Moore Work (Pardon My Pun)

The work continues. I have had to give up on the whole writing-during-the day thing for a while. I've always worked better at night, but before the baby got here, I could make myself eek out a little work during the day. Now that Lucy Addison is here and demanding more and more of my daylight hours, I find that whatever daytime concentration I'd been able to muster in the past has now completely disappeared. After two weeks of trying to be the disciplined, dedicated writer who gets up and writes before her child is awake, I've had to resort to writing at night while she is asleep. The downside is that evenings are also the time when Steve is home. Oh well, I suppose we're must suffer for our art, right? And besides, it gives Steve a chance to play Red Dead Redemption, and, after all, we must have priorities. Video game banditos need love, too.

In addition to my creative work (I'm still plugging away on the old novella), I am also trying to finish up the books I'm reading for my critical paper this term. I believe I mentioned this before, but in case you're just tuning in, I am [planning on] writing my critical paper on non-linear narratives in twentieth century lit with female authors, and more specifically, Lorrie Moore. So far I have read, Self-Help, Anagrams, Like Life, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, and I'm about half-way through Birds of America. After I finish it up, I will only have A Gate at the Stairs left to go.

So far, I am loving her work. Like Life was probably my least favorite thus far (and also the least related to my critical project), but I am IN LOVE with Self-Help and Anagrams. It is almost unfortunate that I am not writing my paper on her use of word play because, quite frankly, her word play is AMAZING! Not only does she do really subtle stuff in the narration, but her characters are very intelligent and witty, and they make hilarious puns and turns of phrase that resonate with so many layers of meaning. Wait a minute. Can layers resonate? So maybe the cold medicine is kicking in a bit...never mind me. Lorrie Moore's words, metaphors, connotations, and references are brilliant. I swear that if I went through her stuff with a flourescent highlighter marking every time she blew me away with her mastery of the English language, the books would glow in the dark.

Besides her word play, an aspect most impressive to me is her use of the second person in Self-Help. She manages to write successful second person stories that are also entertaining and moving - not just exercises in edginess. This is a feat I've rarely seen accomplished so elegantly - though Leslie Pietrzyk's "Ten Things" would also fall in that amazing second person story category.

Of course, all of these aspects, though very intriguing, have little to do with my paper, which is about non-linear narratives. She does do some pretty impressive things with her handling of time in her stories, and I look forward to exploring that in more depth. So thanks to Bob Olmstead for nudging me toward such an amazing writer.

Rambling [Wo]Man

I'm frantically trying to get my writing done for Monday's deadline, so, of course, I'm going to take some time to blog. Actually, I'm a little stuck, and I'm hoping this will shake something loose. Okay, that's kind of a disturbing metaphor, but I digress.

Lately, my days have been one long succession of baby, baby laundry, and feeling guilty/worried about my schoolwork. I can't seem to work for very long periods of times these days (for both practical and unknown reasons), so it's looking like I should have started this one-page-a-day installment plan a little sooner. I just need to get something on the page for this chapter so that I can start editing. The problem is that I keep editing in my head before I put anything down, and then I stall. Plus, I really wasn't planning on writing on one story for the entire semester, but I somehow got convinced that was the thing to do. Apparently, flattery will, in fact, get you everywhere, and telling me that you like my story and want to see more is enough to get me to agree to continue on with little, lost Michelle's adventures. What was I thinking?

So here I sit, knowing that the baby will wake up at any second from her nap and that we both have a cold and I still haven't eaten lunch and the dishes need to be put away and at some point I should probably wash my hair.

Okay, enough with the rant. Every semester I am convinced that this will be the time I don't get everything in by deadline, and every semester it all works out just fine. So I guess that means that this really will be the semester when I'm late and everyone realizes I'm a fraud and the health department really does declare my house unfit and we all run out of clean clothes.....and there she is, awake and ready for a bottle. Break over!

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense." - A Review of Alice in Wonderland

Every time I heard Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland described by a friend or acquaintance, I heard the word "weird." Upon its release in theaters, Facebook lit up with comments about the "bizarre" film adaption of Lewis Carroll's classic. Of course, I had seen many of the previews, so I had already accepted the fact that the film would have little or nothing to do with the actual book, but the weirdness intrigued me. After all, even if the filmmaker combined Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Saw There, there probably wouldn't be enough to create a traditional plot/story arc. My hope, then, was that Tim Burton got the mood right - the feel of this truly twisted story, the beautiful "unlogicalness" of it.

This week I finally got to watch Tim Burton's latest...all by myself. I tried to keep my expectations low, since that attitude toward movie watching has paid off recently. Unfortunately, Mr. Burton let me down, and I'm having a difficult time forgiving him this trespass against one of my favorite childhood books.

The first sin was one that has become quite common in Hollywood. Why do filmmakers feel compelled to turn every female literary character into a put upon feminist? We are introduced to Alice as a free-thinking, imaginative child whose one kindred spirit is her father. So you can guess what happens to him. Next we see Alice as a young woman about to be married off to a creepy, young aristocrat who was a blatant rip-off of Spalding from Caddyshack. But Alice won't be tied down, no matter what her mother and sister say or expect. She's going to be a rule-breaker - she's going to change the matchmaking traditions of her generation (cue kicky Joan Jett song.) Seriously? Is Tim Burton jealous of Lewis Carroll's legacy of creepiness that predates his own, and now he's punishing him by completely eviscerating the childlike wonder of his character, Alice? I'm so disappointed.

Then there's the mish-mash of details from the two stories that are shuffled together into a completely new plot that is one part The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, one part Labyrinth, and about twenty parts special effects. What happened to the chess game aspect of Through the Looking Glass? There is only a brief nod to that detail when the final battle scene is set on a checkerboard. Plus, I always thought that Alice's entrance through the mirror was far more intriguing than her initial entry via rabbit hole. Don't misunderstand me. I realized that the story would be new, but surely there was a way to create a story that felt like Carroll. Look to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film adaption. It had very little to do with the books, and yet they managed to maintain the gist of the message and the essence and quirkiness of the characters....which leads me to my next (and biggest) complaint.

Everybody kept saying how weird this film is. I would argue, in fact, that it isn't nearly weird enough. Obviously, those people never actually read the book, which is full of delightful conundrums, tongue-twisting rhymes, and jumps in logic and story that boggle the mind in a way that just feels right...especially to a child. At the age of ten (or whenever I read this book), I so got the writing, the kookiness, the meandering acid trip of it all. And, honestly, this is the area in which I thought Burton would excel. Nobody does creepy and bizarre like him, and yet he appears to have sold out to Disney or whomever suggested that he bastardize such a great book into this extremely accessible movie. Because, let's face it, Alice in Wonderland (the book) is anything but accessible or mainstream.

Lest I sound unfair, I will admit that the film on its own is entertaining. It is well-paced, and the acting is decent. Burton relied on his usual cast, and they didn't let him down (even if Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter did feel a bit like a reheated leftover of his Willy Wonka performance.) I am certain that viewers who never read any Lewis Carroll probably enjoyed it immensely, especially if they are addicted to special effects and elaborate wigs and makeup.

The question I am left with is, Is it enough to be entertaining? Doesn't the filmmaker owe something to the author? Carroll created a masterpiece that used childlike logic to explore very adult injustices and to point out the ridiculous in our world, and yet, the ridiculous is what is missing in the film. There is plenty of silliness and slapstick, but it all appears to be there for no other reason than to solicit a laugh from the audience. About the only thing separating this film from other Disney pap is its lack of a power love ballad. Hey, maybe Burton could give Celine Dion a call, and she could hook him up. Maybe Alice could become the next Disney Princess.

Coming Attractions

Once again I've been slack in the blogging department. I haven't written a new entry in over a month, and I am suitably ashamed. Truth is, I haven't been working on school writing like I should, and I feel guilty if I do "fun" writing for my blog when I should be chipping away at my novella. All kinds of blogging ideas flit through my head and then either wither away or get dismissed as I remind myself of all the schoolwork I should be contemplating instead.

So, I resolve to do better about both. I've been working on my schoolwork fairly faithfully this week, and tomorrow I intend to reward myself with some blogging time. I finally got to watch my most recent Netflix arrival, Alice in Wonderland, and I'm dying to review it. What will I say? Will I give it a thumbs up or say "Off with Tim Burton's head?" I guess you'll have to check back tomorrow to find out!