While in France this summer, one of the four books I took was "Eat, Pray, Love." I know I have posted a review of the book in the past, and if you want to argue matters of whether it is politically correct or not I would rather you look up that post (it is my secret hope that it takes you too long to find it and you give up hope). I am Catholic, and I do believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. My support of this book does not change any of that.
But back to my main point, this post is not about the book, as much as it is about the upcoming movie. IMDB posted a wonderful article about the movie this past weekend, and I for one am thrilled. The director Ryan Murphy has chosen Julia Roberts, one of my absolute favorite actresses to play the role of Elizabeth Gilbert in this film. Gilbert says she was surprised to hear they wanted to turn her best selling memoir into a book, seeing as she didn't take a single photo in her year-long trip.
As much as I did enjoy the book, I'm not placing much weight into the success of this movie. I'm sure it will have record sales in it's opening week, but the story line is bound to be weak. Personally, I was able to draw a lot from the book. Gilbert's thoughts are well written, and I am happy for her success.
Filming is scheduled to begin in July and will take place in New York, Italy, India, and Bali.
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Sherlock Holmes
I had the great pleasure of seeing this movie last Sunday. After some plans got cancelled last minute, a few of my friends decided to make a stop at the movie theater. This caused me to stumble upon a wonderful secret in Kansas City. The Plaza movie theater has movie tickets for $4 if you go to the early show! Since I am anxiously awaiting the release of a few movies this spring, I welcome this information!I am a great believer of reading the book before the movie. Perhaps it is from my mother harping on me all these years, or perhaps it is because I've been let down so many times. However, if we simply discuss the movie itself, I was very impressed. The ending was closed off, characters were well chosen, the story line moved along, and overall it was an enjoyable experience.
I have ventured into reading a few Father Brown stories, but other than that, my literary tastes don't steer towards Mysteries. Hence I am not qualified to make a statement about how well the movie related to the books of Sherlock Holmes. If anyone has something to say on the subject, please feel free to leave a comment. On that note, I have nothing further to say.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Breakdown in Borders
I'm sure you're wondering why we are smiling in this picture if the title of this post is "Breakdown in Borders." The simple answer, is that this photo is after the whole ordeal had passed. I must first state that Becka and I are not normal girls. As much fun as finger-nail painting and giggling sometimes sounds, we would rather have our eye lashes plucked out. After three hours of being in a mall and an hour in Borders with nothing found, we lost it. I am still convinced that Becka was already on the verge of tears, though she would never admit it. In my infinite knowledge, I whipped out my phone and called Miss April (aka the goddess of books). She instantly saved us from our distress by recommending "The Noticer." We dried our, um, tears, pulled ourselves together, and went to find our holy grail of a book! After this, of course, we were able to find four other books to add to our shopping cart. Becka is currently reading it, and sends me paragraph text messages every day. She's bringing it to me on the 30th, and then I will be able to write a review of my own. We've decided to continue this trading of books. So far we've shared "My Sisters Keeper," "Eat Pray Love," and now "The Noticer." (I'm sure Becka will fill in anything I've forgotten.) This concludes the tale of "Becka and Megan's Infinite Adventures."
Last Minute Shopping
David and I ventured out into the snow this afternoon to make a last-minute purchase of Starwars II & III for Reid's Christmas present. We were pleased to discover that Hastings had a buy one used get one for $1 sale going on today! In addition to Reid's gift, I also purchased a little something for my mother and myself. I won't share it today, in case someone decides to check my blog last minute ;)
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Abolition of Man (and Woman)
From "The Catholic Key" newspaper, by Benjamin Wiker....
In 1943, C.S. Lewis published his masterful The Abolition of Man, a book that is far more profound than its short length (130 pages) might suggest. Lewis’ central concern is the use of technology to control, manipulate and reconstruct human nature. The book was written in the shadow of the Nazi war machine, one of whose aims was to create a master race through eugenic breeding and the elimination of “unfit” races and individuals.
But Lewis’ warnings were directed at a deeper evil, of which Nazism was only a morbid and significant sign.
“The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself,” he wrote. “Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. … The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it?”
This victory will come about through politics, for “the man-moulders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: We shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please.”
We are not surprised to find Lewis’ dark prophecies now being fulfilled through the fantasies of genetic manipulation — a small number of scientists funded by a small number of heads of corporations attempting to determine the future shape of the new humanity.
But the real evil is not the manipulation itself. That is, rather, the effect. The real evil is the horrifying change in outlook, the insidious transformation of the substance of the will that occurs when we suddenly regard all natural limits as momentary obstacles that technology can remove. That is what gives the devastating sting to moral relativism today — the notion that human nature is not the inviolable beginning point of our moral reasoning but merely presents us with one more set of obstacles for technology to overcome.
To cite one example: What could be more natural than the distinction between male and female — a distinction that we share with animals and even, in a real sense, with plants? This distinction is the source of marriage as a natural institution, making it the origin of all moral claims about sexuality, the family and marriage itself. It would be hard to imagine “Thou shalt not commit adultery” if there were no such thing as male and female and human beings somehow produced children through means other than their union.
But what if we suddenly looked at human reproduction as a problem subject to technological solutions? What if we began to look at male and female as concepts to be abolished? We’d soon find that the natural distinctions of male and female, and marriage itself (and all its attendant morality), would become obsolete. Marriage would become meaningless as men became superfluous through the advance of reproductive technology; as women became unessential through cloning technology; and as the mass of humanity became dispensable through genetic manipulation, trait selection (and de-selection) and abortion.
Earlier this fall, scientists announced the creation of one offspring by three parents: sperm from the male, an egg from a female and additional DNA material from a third female. This “advance,” now applied to monkeys, will soon enough be available for human beings. What then is the moral meaning of “adultery” once this becomes as acceptable a practice as in vitro fertilization?
The effect of the abolition of male and female will be, and in fact already is, the unraveling of morality. Once the sexual union of a man and a woman becomes just one way to make a human being, then it is not the way to make a human being. Heterosexuality loses its privileged status in defining what way we are to be sexual. The natural gives way to the artificial, and what was once a natural standard defining sexuality becomes a historical artifact and (at best) a quaint option for sexual antiquarians.
Because human beings live in society, and society makes laws, this great transformation by technical power must find its way into law. If children can be had by a number of other means, then laws designed to limit marriage to one male and one female would be like laws designed to limit transportation to horses.
The abolition of man and woman is part of a larger cultural revolution, a fact seen quite clearly in the active drive to make male and female obsolete in the culture, as well. First, there is a kind of relentless spirit of androgyny pushed in our intellectual culture, where manliness is actively discouraged and disparaged and womanliness is taken to be a kind of servitude from which women must be delivered. The goal seems to be to make men more like women and women more like men, so that, by their eventual blending together, they become indistinguishable. The result, of course, is that male and female become morally insignificant distinctions in our minds.
The insignificance feeds the notion that there is really nothing wrong with endless technical manipulating of our sexuality and reproduction.
But there is another related sense of obsolescence because the spirit of androgyny takes flesh in the actual culture and through real social and educational institutions and policies. If the distinct aims of manhood and womanhood, fatherhood and motherhood are removed as the proper and good goal of boys and girls, then what, precisely, do boys and girls aim at? They are each taught to aim at the exact same target: becoming self-supporting, individual moneymakers.
The guiding assumption that a boy becomes a man precisely in becoming a husband and provider for his family has been replaced by an entirely indistinct, androgynous image of a large boy making money by himself, for himself, and for the satisfaction of his own pleasures. The guiding assumption that a girl becomes a woman by becoming a wife and mother has been replaced by the same indistinct, androgynous image of individual moneymaker working by herself, for herself, and for the satisfaction of her own pleasures.
Little wonder, given this image, that when men and women do decide to become a couple, the marriage would have as little moral meaning to them as divorce. Nor are we surprised to find the cultural push for androgynous terms like “partner,” “significant other” and “caregiver” replacing such morally meaty and precise words as husband, wife, father and mother.
Perhaps there is far, far more to those words in Genesis than we imagined. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Here lies the boundary keeping us from all moral chaos. Once it is crossed and then crossed out, all things are “without form and void.”
In 1943, C.S. Lewis published his masterful The Abolition of Man, a book that is far more profound than its short length (130 pages) might suggest. Lewis’ central concern is the use of technology to control, manipulate and reconstruct human nature. The book was written in the shadow of the Nazi war machine, one of whose aims was to create a master race through eugenic breeding and the elimination of “unfit” races and individuals.
But Lewis’ warnings were directed at a deeper evil, of which Nazism was only a morbid and significant sign.
“The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by an education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself,” he wrote. “Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. … The battle will indeed be won. But who, precisely, will have won it?”
This victory will come about through politics, for “the man-moulders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: We shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please.”
We are not surprised to find Lewis’ dark prophecies now being fulfilled through the fantasies of genetic manipulation — a small number of scientists funded by a small number of heads of corporations attempting to determine the future shape of the new humanity.
But the real evil is not the manipulation itself. That is, rather, the effect. The real evil is the horrifying change in outlook, the insidious transformation of the substance of the will that occurs when we suddenly regard all natural limits as momentary obstacles that technology can remove. That is what gives the devastating sting to moral relativism today — the notion that human nature is not the inviolable beginning point of our moral reasoning but merely presents us with one more set of obstacles for technology to overcome.
To cite one example: What could be more natural than the distinction between male and female — a distinction that we share with animals and even, in a real sense, with plants? This distinction is the source of marriage as a natural institution, making it the origin of all moral claims about sexuality, the family and marriage itself. It would be hard to imagine “Thou shalt not commit adultery” if there were no such thing as male and female and human beings somehow produced children through means other than their union.
But what if we suddenly looked at human reproduction as a problem subject to technological solutions? What if we began to look at male and female as concepts to be abolished? We’d soon find that the natural distinctions of male and female, and marriage itself (and all its attendant morality), would become obsolete. Marriage would become meaningless as men became superfluous through the advance of reproductive technology; as women became unessential through cloning technology; and as the mass of humanity became dispensable through genetic manipulation, trait selection (and de-selection) and abortion.
Earlier this fall, scientists announced the creation of one offspring by three parents: sperm from the male, an egg from a female and additional DNA material from a third female. This “advance,” now applied to monkeys, will soon enough be available for human beings. What then is the moral meaning of “adultery” once this becomes as acceptable a practice as in vitro fertilization?
The effect of the abolition of male and female will be, and in fact already is, the unraveling of morality. Once the sexual union of a man and a woman becomes just one way to make a human being, then it is not the way to make a human being. Heterosexuality loses its privileged status in defining what way we are to be sexual. The natural gives way to the artificial, and what was once a natural standard defining sexuality becomes a historical artifact and (at best) a quaint option for sexual antiquarians.
Because human beings live in society, and society makes laws, this great transformation by technical power must find its way into law. If children can be had by a number of other means, then laws designed to limit marriage to one male and one female would be like laws designed to limit transportation to horses.
The abolition of man and woman is part of a larger cultural revolution, a fact seen quite clearly in the active drive to make male and female obsolete in the culture, as well. First, there is a kind of relentless spirit of androgyny pushed in our intellectual culture, where manliness is actively discouraged and disparaged and womanliness is taken to be a kind of servitude from which women must be delivered. The goal seems to be to make men more like women and women more like men, so that, by their eventual blending together, they become indistinguishable. The result, of course, is that male and female become morally insignificant distinctions in our minds.
The insignificance feeds the notion that there is really nothing wrong with endless technical manipulating of our sexuality and reproduction.
But there is another related sense of obsolescence because the spirit of androgyny takes flesh in the actual culture and through real social and educational institutions and policies. If the distinct aims of manhood and womanhood, fatherhood and motherhood are removed as the proper and good goal of boys and girls, then what, precisely, do boys and girls aim at? They are each taught to aim at the exact same target: becoming self-supporting, individual moneymakers.
The guiding assumption that a boy becomes a man precisely in becoming a husband and provider for his family has been replaced by an entirely indistinct, androgynous image of a large boy making money by himself, for himself, and for the satisfaction of his own pleasures. The guiding assumption that a girl becomes a woman by becoming a wife and mother has been replaced by the same indistinct, androgynous image of individual moneymaker working by herself, for herself, and for the satisfaction of her own pleasures.
Little wonder, given this image, that when men and women do decide to become a couple, the marriage would have as little moral meaning to them as divorce. Nor are we surprised to find the cultural push for androgynous terms like “partner,” “significant other” and “caregiver” replacing such morally meaty and precise words as husband, wife, father and mother.
Perhaps there is far, far more to those words in Genesis than we imagined. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Here lies the boundary keeping us from all moral chaos. Once it is crossed and then crossed out, all things are “without form and void.”
Thursday, October 1, 2009
"Coming soon, a FoxBooks superstore and the end of civilization as you know it."
"You've Got Mail" will always be a favorite movie of mine. I feel that it is my personal calling in life to post these quotes every few months, so that maybe I will convert some of you to my views on the subject.
Quotes:
I like Patricia. I *love* Patricia. Patricia makes COFFEE nervous.
The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.
Because we're going to sell them cheap books and legal addictive stimulants. In the meantime, we'll just put up a big sign: "Coming soon, a FoxBooks superstore and the end of civilization as you know it."
I think he's married. Married three kids.
She was the nanny?
I'm going to get eucalyptus candles cuz it makes my apartment smell Moss-a.
Nelson Fox: Perfect. Keep those West-Side liberal nuts, psudo-intellectuals...
Joe Fox: Readers, Dad. They're called readers.
Nelson Fox: Don't do that, son. Don't romanticize them.
Kathleen Kelly: He couldn't possibly be the Rooftop Killer!
Christina Plutzker: Remember when you thought Frank might be the Unibomber?
Kathleen Kelly: That was different
Quotes:
I like Patricia. I *love* Patricia. Patricia makes COFFEE nervous.
The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.
Because we're going to sell them cheap books and legal addictive stimulants. In the meantime, we'll just put up a big sign: "Coming soon, a FoxBooks superstore and the end of civilization as you know it."
I think he's married. Married three kids.
She was the nanny?
I'm going to get eucalyptus candles cuz it makes my apartment smell Moss-a.
Nelson Fox: Perfect. Keep those West-Side liberal nuts, psudo-intellectuals...
Joe Fox: Readers, Dad. They're called readers.
Nelson Fox: Don't do that, son. Don't romanticize them.
Kathleen Kelly: He couldn't possibly be the Rooftop Killer!
Christina Plutzker: Remember when you thought Frank might be the Unibomber?
Kathleen Kelly: That was different
Fall
I'm not one of those crazy environmentalists who think that the world is slowly coming to an end and that the only way to stop it is to buy a million of those recycled bags. But I do wish our culture was more aware of the world around us.
Fall is my favorite season. And although it may be for the slightly morbid reason that it reminds us of death; it's given to us in such a beautiful way.
Our culture has become engrossed in thinking that death equals the color black. But who said this was truth? God gave us orange and yellow and red and brown; these are the true colors of death.
I love pulling my boots out of the back of the closet and my light blue vest with the soft fur inside. I love chilly mornings with coffee and "A Tale of Two Cities." I love the feeling you get when you walk into an ice rink that is colder than outside.
I truly believe that Joe Fox in "You've Got Mail" summed it up quite well in saying:
"Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address."
Fall is my favorite season. And although it may be for the slightly morbid reason that it reminds us of death; it's given to us in such a beautiful way.
Our culture has become engrossed in thinking that death equals the color black. But who said this was truth? God gave us orange and yellow and red and brown; these are the true colors of death.
I love pulling my boots out of the back of the closet and my light blue vest with the soft fur inside. I love chilly mornings with coffee and "A Tale of Two Cities." I love the feeling you get when you walk into an ice rink that is colder than outside.
I truly believe that Joe Fox in "You've Got Mail" summed it up quite well in saying:
"Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address."
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Shelly and Lord Byron
N.B. Percy Shelly, his wife Mary Shelly, and Lord Byron often vacationed at a summer house of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. One summer they agreed to each write a ghost stories and see who could come up with the best. Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" won.
She Walks in Beauty
by Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
She Walks in Beauty
by Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Quotes on meditation (from Eat, Pray, Love)
If you sit down with the pure intention to meditate, whatever happens next is none of your business.
Instead of trying to forceful take thoughts out of your mind, give your mind something better to play with. Something healthier.
Like what?
Like love. Like pure divine love.
When I ask my mind to rest into stillness, it is astonishing how quickly it will turn (1) bored, (2) angry, (2) depressed, (4) anxious or (5) all of the above.
Like most humanoids, I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the "monkey mind" - the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl. From the distant past to the unknowable future, my mind swings wildly through time, touching on dozens of ideas a minute, unharnessed and undisciplined. This in itself is not necessarily a problem; the problem is the emotional attachment that goes along with the thinking. Happy thoughts make me happy, but - whoop! - how quickly I swing again into obsessive worry, blowing the mood; and then it's the remembrance of an angry moment and I start to get hot and pissed off all over again; and then my mind decides it might be a good time to start feeling sorry for itself, and loneliness follows promptly. You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.
Instead of trying to forceful take thoughts out of your mind, give your mind something better to play with. Something healthier.
Like what?
Like love. Like pure divine love.
When I ask my mind to rest into stillness, it is astonishing how quickly it will turn (1) bored, (2) angry, (2) depressed, (4) anxious or (5) all of the above.
Like most humanoids, I am burdened with what the Buddhists call the "monkey mind" - the thoughts that swing from limb to limb, stopping only to scratch themselves, spit and howl. From the distant past to the unknowable future, my mind swings wildly through time, touching on dozens of ideas a minute, unharnessed and undisciplined. This in itself is not necessarily a problem; the problem is the emotional attachment that goes along with the thinking. Happy thoughts make me happy, but - whoop! - how quickly I swing again into obsessive worry, blowing the mood; and then it's the remembrance of an angry moment and I start to get hot and pissed off all over again; and then my mind decides it might be a good time to start feeling sorry for itself, and loneliness follows promptly. You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Another quote...
From "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert:
"Moreover, I have boundary issues with men. Or maybe that's not fair to say. To have issues with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place, right? But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my a**, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time-everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else.
"I do not relay these facts about myself with pride, but this is how it's always been."
"Moreover, I have boundary issues with men. Or maybe that's not fair to say. To have issues with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place, right? But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my a**, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time-everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else.
"I do not relay these facts about myself with pride, but this is how it's always been."
Eat Pray Love...
From Elizabeth Gilbert's book:
"Please go to this pizzeria. Order the margherita pizza with double mozzarella. If you do not eat this pizza when you are in Naples, please lie to me later and tell me that you did."
So Sofie and I have come to Pisseria da Michele, and these pies we have just ordered-one for each of us-are making us lose our minds. I love my pizza so much, in face, that I have come to believe in my delirium that my pizza might actually love me, in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair. Meanwhile, Sofie is practically in tears over hers, she's having a metaphysical crisis about it, she's begging me, "Why do they even bother trying to make pizza in Stockholm? Why do we even bother eating food at all in Stockholm?"
Pizzeria da Michele is a small place with only two rooms and one nonstop oven. It's about a fifteen-minute walk from the train station in the rain, don't even worry about it, just go. You need to get there fairly early in the day because sometimes they run out of dough, which will break your heart. By 1:00pm, the streets outside the pizzeria have become jammed with Neapolitans trying to get into the place, shoving for access like they're trying to get space on a lifeboat. There's not a menu. They have only two varieties of pizza here-regular and extra cheese. None of this new age southern California olives-and-sum-dried-tomato wannabe pizza twaddle. The dough , it takes me half my meal to figure out, tastes more like Indian nan than like any pizza crust-thin and crispy, or thick and doughy. How was I to have known there could be a crust in this world that was thin and dough? Holy of holies! Thin, dough, strong, gummy, yummy, chewy, salty pizza paradise. On top, there is a sweet tomato sauce that foams up all bubbly and creamy when it melts the fresh buffalo mozzarella, and the one sprig of basil in the middle of the whole deal somehow infuses the entire pizza with herbal radiance, much the same way one shimmering movie star in the middle of a party brings a contract high of clamour to everyone around her. It's technically impossible to eat this thing, of course. You try to take a bite off your slice and the gummy crust folds, and the hot cheese runs away like topsoil in a landslide, makes a mess of you and your surroundings, but just deal with it!"
"Please go to this pizzeria. Order the margherita pizza with double mozzarella. If you do not eat this pizza when you are in Naples, please lie to me later and tell me that you did."
So Sofie and I have come to Pisseria da Michele, and these pies we have just ordered-one for each of us-are making us lose our minds. I love my pizza so much, in face, that I have come to believe in my delirium that my pizza might actually love me, in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair. Meanwhile, Sofie is practically in tears over hers, she's having a metaphysical crisis about it, she's begging me, "Why do they even bother trying to make pizza in Stockholm? Why do we even bother eating food at all in Stockholm?"
Pizzeria da Michele is a small place with only two rooms and one nonstop oven. It's about a fifteen-minute walk from the train station in the rain, don't even worry about it, just go. You need to get there fairly early in the day because sometimes they run out of dough, which will break your heart. By 1:00pm, the streets outside the pizzeria have become jammed with Neapolitans trying to get into the place, shoving for access like they're trying to get space on a lifeboat. There's not a menu. They have only two varieties of pizza here-regular and extra cheese. None of this new age southern California olives-and-sum-dried-tomato wannabe pizza twaddle. The dough , it takes me half my meal to figure out, tastes more like Indian nan than like any pizza crust-thin and crispy, or thick and doughy. How was I to have known there could be a crust in this world that was thin and dough? Holy of holies! Thin, dough, strong, gummy, yummy, chewy, salty pizza paradise. On top, there is a sweet tomato sauce that foams up all bubbly and creamy when it melts the fresh buffalo mozzarella, and the one sprig of basil in the middle of the whole deal somehow infuses the entire pizza with herbal radiance, much the same way one shimmering movie star in the middle of a party brings a contract high of clamour to everyone around her. It's technically impossible to eat this thing, of course. You try to take a bite off your slice and the gummy crust folds, and the hot cheese runs away like topsoil in a landslide, makes a mess of you and your surroundings, but just deal with it!"
Saturday, July 4, 2009
The secret life that will never know...
So, when I was putting my summer list together I thought it would be good to read "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd. The books I read depend on the mood I'm in, so I usually have three or four going at once, so I can have a choice. Today was the third time I have tried reading it with no luck at all! Someone tell me it gets better after chapter 5??!!
Reading List for the Summer
Before we begin, let me state, for the record, that this list is in no way binding in any way shape or form. I reserve the right to change it at any time, and to not finish it if so desired!
The Wednesday Letters
My Sisters Keeper
The Four Loves
Surprised by Joy
Eat, Pray, Love
Father of the Bride
The Secret Life of Bee's
The Man Who Was Thursday
The Scarlet Letter
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
The God Delusion
Joan of Arc
The Virginian
Sinners in the Hands of an Argry God
The Celestial Railway
The Turn of the Screw
Ben Franklin's autobiography
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
The Wednesday Letters
My Sisters Keeper
The Four Loves
Surprised by Joy
Eat, Pray, Love
Father of the Bride
The Secret Life of Bee's
The Man Who Was Thursday
The Scarlet Letter
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
The God Delusion
Joan of Arc
The Virginian
Sinners in the Hands of an Argry God
The Celestial Railway
The Turn of the Screw
Ben Franklin's autobiography
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Books, oh so many books...
I know I haven't written much lately, but I've been reading quite a bit! I have found that the books I am supposed to be reading, seem less and less appealing. I have however picked up several books over the last few weeks and enjoyed them very much.
Last week I spent three wonderful days at the lake soaking up the sun and reading 'My Sisters Keeper'. I was thrilled with how well written the book was! I found myself laughing and crying much more than I expected. While in the midst of a hockey game, I was nearing the end of the book much sooner than I realized. If you know anything about hockey the periods are 17 minutes long. I missed the entire 2 period because I found myself sitting in the woman's restroom with many used tissues! Now, I will confess that the purpose of reading this book was to go see the movie. Let it be stated now that you should read the movie first! It has always been a rule of my mothers, and I am adapting it to my own life. I won't go in to great detail about the movie, because that is the whole purpose of seeing it for yourself (although I will recommend taking plenty of tissues!). It was well acted, and they did stay pretty close to the original story line. I took the advice of a friend and didn't have any expectations going in to the theater, which did help immensely.
Quotes from the book:
"Maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it."
"When you love someone you let them take care of you."
"A real friend isn't capable of feeling sorry for you."
"You don't love someone because they're perfect," she says. "You love them in spite of the fact they're not."
"Doubt thou that the stars are fire;
Doubt thou that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt that I love. -William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Last week I spent three wonderful days at the lake soaking up the sun and reading 'My Sisters Keeper'. I was thrilled with how well written the book was! I found myself laughing and crying much more than I expected. While in the midst of a hockey game, I was nearing the end of the book much sooner than I realized. If you know anything about hockey the periods are 17 minutes long. I missed the entire 2 period because I found myself sitting in the woman's restroom with many used tissues! Now, I will confess that the purpose of reading this book was to go see the movie. Let it be stated now that you should read the movie first! It has always been a rule of my mothers, and I am adapting it to my own life. I won't go in to great detail about the movie, because that is the whole purpose of seeing it for yourself (although I will recommend taking plenty of tissues!). It was well acted, and they did stay pretty close to the original story line. I took the advice of a friend and didn't have any expectations going in to the theater, which did help immensely.
Quotes from the book:
"Maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it."
"When you love someone you let them take care of you."
"A real friend isn't capable of feeling sorry for you."
"You don't love someone because they're perfect," she says. "You love them in spite of the fact they're not."
"Doubt thou that the stars are fire;
Doubt thou that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt that I love. -William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Thursday, July 2, 2009
BBC Reading List
Apparently the BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books on the BBC big read top 100 book list. It is on my Bucket List to read all of these books, but after Becca's review of Bleak House, I might not be able to :)
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Jane Austen in Scarsdale
This was book number two in the "two in two days" modern Jane Austen frenzy! I wanted to share a few quotes from the book that I liked."Life isn't a Jane Austen novel. I'ts one thing to be long-suffering in a story, where the author can make it worth you while, but in real life, who's going to make sure it ends happily? Just look at what happened with poor Jane Austen. She worked things out for that long-suffering ninny, Anne Elliot, in her last book, but who worked things out for her? Believe me, my dear, no man is a prince, except in the imagination."
"Regret is a useless emotion" murmured Winnie.
"It's a sad emotion, but it's not a useless one," said Anne resolutely. "You have to regret - even mourn - your mistakes if you're ever going to move on. I made a mistake when I gave up Ben Cutler, and I regret it. Which doesn't mean I can't go on living."
"He offered to pay me a stipend, which I declined. I am not Jane Eyre, just an impecunious gentlewoman with ties to the estate."
"Who are the ten greatest poets of all time?" demanded a spokeman for the class
"One' Shakespeare.
Two: Milton. He wrote Paradise Lost. The greatest action-adventure poem in Engling.
Three: John Donne.
Four: William Wordsworth. Big on nature, but there's more going on than just flowers and trees.
Five: Walt Whitman - great American poet.
Six: Emily Dickinson. A nutcase, but brilliant.
Seven: William Butler Yeats. An Irish poet.
Eight: Robert Frost. He wrote 'Stopping by Woods' but theres others that are also great.
Nine: Gwendolyn Brooks - a woman of color who didn't preach about it.
Ten: Don Riggs. You probably never heard of him. He lives in Philadelphia and writes for small literary journals and online magazines. Look him up on the Internet. He's a genius."
It's Official
I have gone off the deep end. Reached the point of no return. From this day forward all shall know of it.
I AM A HELPLESS, HOPELESS, ROMANTIC!
There, I said it. And I must confess that it feels a lot better getting that off my chest.
I finished my second modern day Jane Austen book last night.
And if I remember right...yep...that makes two in two days!
Like I said...hopeless...
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Me & Mr. Darcy
While packing like a mad woman on Tuesday morning, I grabbed this book that was sitting in my "read these books someday" pile. I figured I would be at Grandma's house for two days, and it never hurt anyone to be prepared. Turns out I couldn't sleep for anything on Tuesday night, so I started reading this book, 'Me & Mr. Darcy". My mom picked it up at a bookstore a few months ago, and I figured if all else fails, it has a cute cover and can sit on my vanity!I was surprised by how quickly I was drawn into the book. I couldn't put it down! Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this is best fictional book that was ever written. As you know I am a big fan of the Twilight books, and this doesn't come close! But it was worth reading.
After a string of disastrous dates, Emily Albright decides she’s had it with modern-day love and would much rather curl up with Pride and Prejudice and spend her time with Mr. Darcy, the dashing, honorable, and passionate hero of Jane Austen’s classic. So when her best friend suggests a wild week of margaritas and men in Mexico with the girls, Emily abruptly flees to England on a guided tour of Jane Austen country instead. Far from inspiring romance, the company aboard the bus consists of a gaggle of little old ladies and one single man, Spike Hargreaves, a foul-tempered journalist writing an article on why the fictional Mr. Darcy has earned the title of Man Most Women Would Love to Date.
The last thing Emily expects to find on her excursion is a broodingly handsome man striding across a field, his damp shirt clinging to his chest. But that’s exactly what happens when she comes face-to-face with none other than Mr. Darcy himself. Suddenly, every woman’s fantasy becomes one woman’s reality. . . .
I think the reason I liked this book so much was because, in the end, she realizes that Mr. Darcy is not all that she thought he would be. He is stiff, and quiet, and awkward. Nothing like she thought, or maybe exactly what she thought...
Monday, December 22, 2008
Cinderella, the story of a blonde! (in a politically correct way!)
There once lived a young woman named Cinderella, whose natural birthmother had died when Cinderella was but a child. A few years after, her father married a widow with two older daughters. Cinderella's mother-of-step treater her very cruelly, and her sisters-of-step make her work very hard, as if she were their own personal unpaid laborer.
One day and invitation arrived at their house. The prince was celevrating his exploitation of the dispossessed and marginalized peasantry by throwing a fancy dress ball. Cinderella's sisters-of-step were very excited to be invited to the palace. They began to plan the expensive clothes they would use to alter and enslave their natural body images of emulate an unrealistic standard of feminine beauty. (It was especially unrealistic in their case, as they were differently visaged enough to stop a clock.) Her mother-of-step also planned to go to the ball, so Cinderella was working harder than a dog (an appropriate if unfortunately speciesist metaphor).When the day of the ball arrived, Cinderella helped her mother- and sisters-of-step into their ball gowns. A formidable task: It was like trying to force ten pounds of processed nonhuman animal carcasses into a five-pound skin. Next came immense cosmetic augmentation, which it would be best not to describe at all. As evening fell, her mother-and-sisters-of-step left Cinderella at home to finish her housework. Cinderella was sad, but she contented herself with her Holly Near records.
Suddenly there was a flash of light, and in front of Cinderella stood a man dressed in loose-fitting, all-cotton clothes and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. At first Cinderella thought he was a Southern lawyer or a bandleader, but he soon put her straight.
"Hello, Cinderella, I am your fairy godperson, or individual deity proxy, if you prefer. So, you want to go to the ball, eh? And bind yourself into the male concept of beauty? Squeeze into some tight-fitting dress that will cut off your circulation? Jam your feet into high-heeled shoes that will ruin your bone structure? Paint your face with chemicals and makeup that have been tested on nonhuman animals?"
"Oh yes, definitely," she said in an instant. Her fairy godperson heaved a great sigh and decided to put off her political education till another day. With his magic, he enveloped her in a beautiful, bright light and whisked her away to the palace.
Many, many carriages were lined up outside the palace that night; apparently, no one had thought of carpooling. Soon, in a heavy, gilded carriage painfully pulled by a team of horse-slaves, Cinderella arrived. She was dressed in a clinging gown woven of silk stolen from unsuspecting silkworms. Her hair was festooned with pearls plundered from hard-working, defenseless oysters. And on her feet, dangerous though it may seem, she wore slippers made of finely cut crystal.
Every head in the ballroom turned as Cinderella entered. The men stared at this woman who captured perfectly their Barbie-doll ideas of feminine desirability. The women, all trained at an early age to despise their own bodies, looked at Cinderella with envy and spite. Cinderella's own mother- and sisters-of-step, consumed with jealousy, failed to recognize her. Cinderella soon caught the roving eye of the prince, who was busy discussing jousting and dear-baiting with his cronies. Upon seeing her, the prince was struck with a fit of not being able to speak as well as the majority of the population. "Here" he thought, "is a woman that I could make my princess and impregnate with the progeny of our perfect genes, and thus make myself the envy of every other prince for miles around. And she's blonde, too!"
The prince began to cross the ballroom tward his intended prey. His cronies also began to walk toward Cinderella. So did every other male in the ballroom who was younger than 70 and not serving drinks.Cinderella was proud of the commotion she was causing. She walked with head high and carried herself like a woman of eminent social standing. But soon it became clear that the commotion was turning into something ugly, or at least socially dysfunctional. The prince had made it clear to his friends that he was intent of "possessing" the young woman. But the price's resolutness angered his pals, for they too wanted to own her. The men began to shout and push each other. The prince's best friend, who was a large if cerebrally constrained duke, stopped him halfway across the dance floor and insisted that HE was going to have Cinderella. The prince's response was a swift kick to the grion, which left the duke temporarily inactive. But the prince was quickly seized by other crazed males, and he disappeared into a pile of human animals. The women were appalled by this vicious display of testosterone, but try as they might, they were unable to separate the combatants. To the other women, it seemed that Cinderella was the cause of all the trouble, so they encircled her and began to display very unsisterly hostility. She tried to escape, but her impractival glass slippers made it nearly impossible. Fortunately for her, none of the other women were shod any better.
The noise grew so loud that no one heard the clock in the tower chime midnight. When the bell rang the twelfth time, Cinderella's beautiful gown and slippers disappeared, and she was dressed once again in her peasant's rags. Her mother- and sisters-of-step recognized her now, but kept quiet to aviod embarrassment.The women grew silent at this magical transformation. Freed from the cinfinements of her gown and slippers, Cinderella sighed and stretched and scratched her ribs. She smiled, closed her eyes and said, "Kill me now if you want, sisters, but at least I'll die in comfort."
The women around her again grew envious, but this time they took a different approach; Instead of exacting vengeance on her, they stripped off their bodices, corsets, shoes, and every other confining garment. They danced and jumped and screeched in sheer joy, comfortable at last in their shifts and bare feet.Had the men looked up from their macho dance of destruchion, they would have seen many desirable women dressed as if for the boudoir. But they never ceased pounding, punching, kicking, and clawing each other until, to the last man, they were dead.
The women clucked their tongues but felt no remorse. The palace and realm were theirs now. Their first official act was to dress the men in their discarded dresses and tell the media that the fight arose when someone threatened to expose the cross-dressing tendencies of the prince and his cronies. Their second act was to set up a clothing co-op that produced only comfortable, practical clothes for women. Then they hung a sign on the castle advertising CinderWear (for that was what the new clothing was called), and through self-determination and clever marketing, they all-- even the mother- and sisters-of-step--lived happily ever after.
-Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner
One day and invitation arrived at their house. The prince was celevrating his exploitation of the dispossessed and marginalized peasantry by throwing a fancy dress ball. Cinderella's sisters-of-step were very excited to be invited to the palace. They began to plan the expensive clothes they would use to alter and enslave their natural body images of emulate an unrealistic standard of feminine beauty. (It was especially unrealistic in their case, as they were differently visaged enough to stop a clock.) Her mother-of-step also planned to go to the ball, so Cinderella was working harder than a dog (an appropriate if unfortunately speciesist metaphor).When the day of the ball arrived, Cinderella helped her mother- and sisters-of-step into their ball gowns. A formidable task: It was like trying to force ten pounds of processed nonhuman animal carcasses into a five-pound skin. Next came immense cosmetic augmentation, which it would be best not to describe at all. As evening fell, her mother-and-sisters-of-step left Cinderella at home to finish her housework. Cinderella was sad, but she contented herself with her Holly Near records.
Suddenly there was a flash of light, and in front of Cinderella stood a man dressed in loose-fitting, all-cotton clothes and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. At first Cinderella thought he was a Southern lawyer or a bandleader, but he soon put her straight.
"Hello, Cinderella, I am your fairy godperson, or individual deity proxy, if you prefer. So, you want to go to the ball, eh? And bind yourself into the male concept of beauty? Squeeze into some tight-fitting dress that will cut off your circulation? Jam your feet into high-heeled shoes that will ruin your bone structure? Paint your face with chemicals and makeup that have been tested on nonhuman animals?"
"Oh yes, definitely," she said in an instant. Her fairy godperson heaved a great sigh and decided to put off her political education till another day. With his magic, he enveloped her in a beautiful, bright light and whisked her away to the palace.
Many, many carriages were lined up outside the palace that night; apparently, no one had thought of carpooling. Soon, in a heavy, gilded carriage painfully pulled by a team of horse-slaves, Cinderella arrived. She was dressed in a clinging gown woven of silk stolen from unsuspecting silkworms. Her hair was festooned with pearls plundered from hard-working, defenseless oysters. And on her feet, dangerous though it may seem, she wore slippers made of finely cut crystal.
Every head in the ballroom turned as Cinderella entered. The men stared at this woman who captured perfectly their Barbie-doll ideas of feminine desirability. The women, all trained at an early age to despise their own bodies, looked at Cinderella with envy and spite. Cinderella's own mother- and sisters-of-step, consumed with jealousy, failed to recognize her. Cinderella soon caught the roving eye of the prince, who was busy discussing jousting and dear-baiting with his cronies. Upon seeing her, the prince was struck with a fit of not being able to speak as well as the majority of the population. "Here" he thought, "is a woman that I could make my princess and impregnate with the progeny of our perfect genes, and thus make myself the envy of every other prince for miles around. And she's blonde, too!"
The prince began to cross the ballroom tward his intended prey. His cronies also began to walk toward Cinderella. So did every other male in the ballroom who was younger than 70 and not serving drinks.Cinderella was proud of the commotion she was causing. She walked with head high and carried herself like a woman of eminent social standing. But soon it became clear that the commotion was turning into something ugly, or at least socially dysfunctional. The prince had made it clear to his friends that he was intent of "possessing" the young woman. But the price's resolutness angered his pals, for they too wanted to own her. The men began to shout and push each other. The prince's best friend, who was a large if cerebrally constrained duke, stopped him halfway across the dance floor and insisted that HE was going to have Cinderella. The prince's response was a swift kick to the grion, which left the duke temporarily inactive. But the prince was quickly seized by other crazed males, and he disappeared into a pile of human animals. The women were appalled by this vicious display of testosterone, but try as they might, they were unable to separate the combatants. To the other women, it seemed that Cinderella was the cause of all the trouble, so they encircled her and began to display very unsisterly hostility. She tried to escape, but her impractival glass slippers made it nearly impossible. Fortunately for her, none of the other women were shod any better.
The noise grew so loud that no one heard the clock in the tower chime midnight. When the bell rang the twelfth time, Cinderella's beautiful gown and slippers disappeared, and she was dressed once again in her peasant's rags. Her mother- and sisters-of-step recognized her now, but kept quiet to aviod embarrassment.The women grew silent at this magical transformation. Freed from the cinfinements of her gown and slippers, Cinderella sighed and stretched and scratched her ribs. She smiled, closed her eyes and said, "Kill me now if you want, sisters, but at least I'll die in comfort."
The women around her again grew envious, but this time they took a different approach; Instead of exacting vengeance on her, they stripped off their bodices, corsets, shoes, and every other confining garment. They danced and jumped and screeched in sheer joy, comfortable at last in their shifts and bare feet.Had the men looked up from their macho dance of destruchion, they would have seen many desirable women dressed as if for the boudoir. But they never ceased pounding, punching, kicking, and clawing each other until, to the last man, they were dead.
The women clucked their tongues but felt no remorse. The palace and realm were theirs now. Their first official act was to dress the men in their discarded dresses and tell the media that the fight arose when someone threatened to expose the cross-dressing tendencies of the prince and his cronies. Their second act was to set up a clothing co-op that produced only comfortable, practical clothes for women. Then they hung a sign on the castle advertising CinderWear (for that was what the new clothing was called), and through self-determination and clever marketing, they all-- even the mother- and sisters-of-step--lived happily ever after.
-Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
The Prisoner of Zenda
Tonight, for the first time, I went to the homeschool literature class in Kansas City. It was really great, and I am plannning on attending in the future as well. I didn't have a chance to read the book, but this is the one that we were talking about this evening.Everyone seemed to really like this book. It is such an anti-Disney book! In the end, the two lovers don't end up together. It is about putting your duty above love, and your own feelings. How life doesn't always end up the way we wish it would. That sometimes we find more pleasure in doing what is right, than in doing what we think is right. I am very much looking forward to reading this book. I think I should have time to read it over the Christmas break, so I will let you know what I think of it.
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