tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85884308791096677742024-02-07T20:15:06.036-08:00Author - Kristin Sue RoseKristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-59317790750861774442020-01-13T21:00:00.001-08:002020-01-13T21:00:50.481-08:00When I Grow UpDo you ever look in the mirror and think,<br />
<i>Oh, there she is...I guess </i>?<br />
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I mean, I spent easily my first twenty years<br />
wondering what kind of grownup I’d be someday,<br />
and it was always hazy,<br />
without any solid intentions.<br />
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So I slipped through the next couple of decades.<br />
Just tonight, at forty years old,<br />
I looked in the mirror and thought,<br />
<i>Oh.</i><br />
<br />
Because I guess I’m at the spot I was wondering about.<br />
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It’s pretty anticlimactic.Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-15730090878161618282018-07-08T22:26:00.001-07:002018-07-12T10:24:55.593-07:00The WORST ThingI love my summertime travels, I really do. I love my anytime travels, to be honest. Hitting the road, the rails, or the airport--getting out of town is one of my very favorite things--but I'm not here to wax poetic about how <b>fab</b> it is to see the USA in your Chevrolet or whatever. I'm here to complain, and not about all of the things that suck about traveling--no, I want to complain about one thing in particular:<br />
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You know that moment, when you're away from home and all the things you find familiar and comfortable, and you've accumulated a little ripeness or <i>je ne sais quoi</i> and you just want to wash it all away? It's at that moment that you find yourself confronted by</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">THE NOT-YOUR-SHOWER SHOWER.</span></div>
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<b>Scenario One:</b> Let's see. This one knob appears to turn on the water and set the temperature. Perfect. I see it easily toggles between wrath-of-Satan temperature and glacial snowmelt. Something in the middle would be ideal, but...no, this device doesn't do that trick.</div>
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<b>Scenario Two: </b>Ooh, fancy. Three shower heads? A'ight, I'll just turn this knob. And this other one. Yeah, that's the perfect temperature. Okay, if I pull up on this lever thingy that should send it through the shower head. Yeah. That's it. Wait, that's it? I didn't even open the valves to the other two, and that's all the pressure you've got? It's okay, I can rinse my conditioner out under the sink faucet, I guess. The tile is pretty.</div>
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<b>Scenario Three:</b> This looks normal. Thank God. It'll just take a minute or two (or thirty) to dial in the ideal temperature. Turn this one up. No, too much. Down. Maybe if I open this one up more. No, that's frigid. Turn this one up again. And then...oh, the water heater is empty. Damn.</div>
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<b>Scenario Four: </b>No. I'm not taking a shower if the display is digital. I feel like I'm being watched. No.</div>
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I get that these are first-world problems. I didn't have to walk eight hours to get the water. It's purified, so I'm likely shaving my legs with filtered drinking water. I can travel because I'm an American, and that means I'm comparatively rich and whatever.</div>
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I'm not even trying to be helpful, either. I'm not proposing a solution like standardized shower controls or something like it--that would be stupid. </div>
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Nah. I'm just complaining.</div>
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I hate that moment when I have to drive a shower I'm not used to.</div>
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It sucks, and I don't like doing it.</div>
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That is all.<br />
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Edit: <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Copse; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">OMG I'm not the only one with this problem! This from the Notorious LJH: <a href="https://imgur.com/gallery/5s8V2Jp">https://imgur.com/gallery/5s8V2Jp</a></span></div>
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Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-57669063000802576272017-06-13T13:52:00.002-07:002017-06-15T23:15:56.017-07:00Ode to My Chicago Manual of Style<div style="font-family: latoweb, 'helvetica neue', helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0.769em; margin-top: 12px;">
<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">How do I love <em style="margin-bottom: 0px;">The Chicago Manual of Style? </em>Let me count the ways.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">I admit to being a religious fanatic, and CMoS is my scripture. It's nice to run a situation through the search on CMoS online concordance and have it spit out chapter and verse--er, locations. <em>With regard to the serial comma, quoth the Chicago Manual in chapter six, verse twelve, "Use thine the serial comma, which English hath given unto you, excepting in situations involving the ampersand"</em> <em style="margin-bottom: 0px;">(Kristin Paraphrase Version). </em>Armed with this information, I can defend the changes I make to a manuscript.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">To further illustrate my love for the CMoS<em> </em>(while simultaneously illustrating my misplaced priorities), today when both my laptop and my <em>Chicago Manual of Style</em><em style="margin-bottom: 0px;"> </em>were jostled from their spots on the porch swing, I reached first to save the book. This was not the best reflex. Neither the book nor the laptop were harmed, but it could have been much worse.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Sure there are things I don't like about the CMoS--In the M6 Open Discussion I mentioned that "starting a sentence with a number" situation. I admit starting a sentence that way is maybe not the best practice, but writing a rule to proscribe it seems excessive. But then, I don't make the rules--I only enforce them.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #f3f3f3;">Do I know all the things in the CMoS? Nope. Not yet. And reading it straight through makes my eyeballs bleed--okay, not really, but reading the manual <em style="margin-bottom: 0px;">is</em> a dangerous cure for insomnia, what with the thing weighing in at 3.2 pounds but feeling more like twelve. I wish there were a better way to download the necessary info to my brain.</span></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-49008964505877361092017-01-29T20:50:00.002-08:002017-02-21T22:27:35.197-08:00Anne Frank and the Immigration Ban<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX139642532" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: white; clear: both; cursor: text; direction: ltr; font-family: "Segoe UI", Tahoma, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8px; margin: 0px; overflow: visible; padding: 0px; position: relative; user-select: text;">
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<div class="Paragraph SCX139642532" paraeid="{4870868f-d04b-45c7-af81-09e541b0c533}{147}" paraid="1976847437" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">In 1941, Otto Frank applied for </span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">entry to the U.S. He was rejected. Well, that’s partly true, he was granted a single visa</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">, but it was cancelled</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US"> when Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. You’ve probably seen lots of posts </span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">over Holocaust Remembrance Day—posts about refugees, women and children turned away at Ellis Island and </span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">their death dates and locations: Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">, </span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Majdanek.</span><span class="EOP SCX139642532" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX139642532" paraeid="{4870868f-d04b-45c7-af81-09e541b0c533}{152}" paraid="668659928" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">We who learned about the Holocaust in school looked to our grandparents as though to say, “What kind of world did you live in, that you would send children away to their deaths?”</span><span class="EOP SCX139642532" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX139642532" paraeid="{4870868f-d04b-45c7-af81-09e541b0c533}{164}" paraid="1178054725" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">And if we dared to voice our judgment, they may have replied, “</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">We were afraid. America was</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US"> just recovering from the Depression</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">, and we didn’t think we had the resources. There were some who blamed Jews for the Depression. How could we be sure? </span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">It was best to protect our own interests.”</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US"> Or they might have said</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">, “It wasn’t me at all. It was the </span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">government. I lived in a farm in North Dakota. What could I have done?”</span><span class="EOP SCX139642532" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX139642532" paraeid="{4870868f-d04b-45c7-af81-09e541b0c533}{174}" paraid="1835935538" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">When our children and our grandchildren read the history of our time,</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US"> of current-President Donald Trump’</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">s Muslim exclusion,</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US"> will they shake their heads, unsure how we could have </span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">stood by</span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US"> and allowed the worst to happen to desperate people?</span><span class="EOP SCX139642532" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX139642532" paraeid="{4870868f-d04b-45c7-af81-09e541b0c533}{180}" paraid="287996572" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">“I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are still truly good at heart...” </span><span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">–Anne Frank</span><span class="EOP SCX139642532" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<div class="Paragraph SCX139642532" paraeid="{4870868f-d04b-45c7-af81-09e541b0c533}{185}" paraid="1780282167" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; -webkit-user-drag: none; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext; padding: 0px; user-select: text; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="TextRun SCX139642532" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" xml:lang="EN-US">Oh, Anne. I wish I had your optimism.</span><span class="EOP SCX139642532" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </span></div>
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<br />Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-76580445928853683892017-01-18T21:57:00.001-08:002017-03-27T20:39:23.190-07:00Poetry for the LostOnce again, social media (Goodreads) reminded me to miss my friend who liked all the same books I did. My friend who wrote the most scathing, obscenity-packed eviscerations of the ones that fell short of her standards. My friend who killed herself last year.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">For Lauren</span></i></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I still have your book.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was good. I read the whole thing<br />
even though it was nonfiction,<br />
and I don’t usually get into that.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I still have your book.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t know why I’ve kept it so long.<br />
I’ve had it for, like, five years now<br />
And I’ve had plenty of opportunities to return it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Except we were probably meeting out someplace<br />
In ridiculous shoes. Carrying tiny, useless purses<br />
Only big enough to hold lipstick<br />
And a pack of Parliaments<br />
That neither of us smoked.<br />
Except when we did.<br />
Like when we were together.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I still have your book.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I go to those places sometimes,<br />
And I look for you.<br />
Swear sometimes I can hear you.<o:p></o:p><br />
Cursing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You’d be so mad if you knew<br />
The bullshit that’s going on right now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
I keep thinking I should call you.<br />
Or text.<br />
Because it’s been too long,<br />
And I have no excuse.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Except that you’re gone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I miss you.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m so mad at you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I still have your book.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-33884163697476180132016-06-15T21:41:00.001-07:002016-09-12T12:17:30.200-07:00Weight weight, don't tell meHey. I'm Kristin. And I weigh what I weigh.<br />
<div>
<br />
<div>
At the moment, that's 110 pounds.</div>
<div>
<i>OMG 110 pounds! That's amazing.</i></div>
<div>
No. It's not. That's underweight.The only time I've been <i>not-underweight, </i>I've been pregnant. That's when I put on another 50% of myself so I can drop a 9-pound person.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But this year, one of those little people started preschool, and he brought home oodles and oodles of little nasties. *ICK, GERMS!* I was sick from August until April, with nary a well week during that entire span. FIVE rounds of antibiotics, my friends.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
While prescribing that last (28-day) round, my primary care physician said that thing all of my primary care physicians have said to post-adolescent me: <i>If you just put on ten more pounds, you'd be a lot healthier.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
Yeah, okay. I'll try.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Only I've been trying to do that since ALWAYS. Once I went from 95 to 108 pounds in the span of about 3 months. I saw a personal trainer, lifted weights four times a week, and took protein shakes three times a day. It felt like a full-time job--worrying about pouring in the calories. When I quit the shakes I dropped back down to 103. Still, an eight-pound success, yeah?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This time I focused on eating balanced meals and lifting weights. I did great with the food, but my <i>get-to-the-gym</i> willpower is not that great. Four months later, I still weigh 110. Not a single pound gained.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So I'm like, "Whatever, this is the size my body wants me to be. I eat when I'm hungry, and I'm active. I'm just <i>supposed to be</i> 110 pounds right now."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Really, Kristin? And if you were 300 pounds, would that excuse fly? If your doctor said, "You HAVE to do something about your weight," would you just be like, "Whatevs, this is the size I'm <i>SUPPOSED</i> to be"? Just because a weight is more socially acceptable does not make it healthy.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So quit bitching about how hard it is to control your weight. It's hard for everybody.</div>
<div>
Go to the gym tomorrow, you lazy cow.**</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
**I'm talking to myself here. I don't know if you are a lazy cow or not. If you are, come to the gym with me--or just stop by and try to make me go. My willpower = not so great.</div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-61357069608956738132016-04-29T08:33:00.001-07:002017-01-18T22:08:03.068-08:00Ghostbusters -- I Ain't Scared of No Ghost<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Somehow I neglected
to make <i>Ghostbusters</i> a more integral
part of my life. I wasn’t avoiding it, I just thought I’d seen what there was
to see.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">It turns
out, most of my Ghostbuster memories come from the animated series <i>The Real Ghostbusters</i>.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-yopNjBzGUknIpvsE_vMZCt9dXDPkzaMcXqUUzQHgj-3A64et0i6YuvYjR8b8CDCKnPq9MYmKBkinw7mEtADNV0h4hTcfegSxeOHK_yBx7GvNpXbEDNyGY8xfYb64i63_wiv2adtwBDZ/s1600/RealGhostbusters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV-yopNjBzGUknIpvsE_vMZCt9dXDPkzaMcXqUUzQHgj-3A64et0i6YuvYjR8b8CDCKnPq9MYmKBkinw7mEtADNV0h4hTcfegSxeOHK_yBx7GvNpXbEDNyGY8xfYb64i63_wiv2adtwBDZ/s320/RealGhostbusters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
And the
Nintendo game.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Y2zrwGntUwdl8yxmbkcZsNhwdUA94jDPo9UsdYZl-bDmTqxg09GisMm9L0EnNpkNMY45QKgI4nUOWHyjg4jy2ED3GeYJgyc01Z4ufICOprumVtyWWHwTafIMY2BdPLTn1jkIehXocVtg/s1600/Ghostbusters+Nintendo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Y2zrwGntUwdl8yxmbkcZsNhwdUA94jDPo9UsdYZl-bDmTqxg09GisMm9L0EnNpkNMY45QKgI4nUOWHyjg4jy2ED3GeYJgyc01Z4ufICOprumVtyWWHwTafIMY2BdPLTn1jkIehXocVtg/s1600/Ghostbusters+Nintendo.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Those were the foundation of my Ghostbusting experience.
I must’ve been at least nine years old by the time I saw the actual movie, and
here’s the thing—it probably wasn’t the actual movie even then. It was an
edited-for-TV version. So those sexual innuendos? Those weren’t in the prime-time
version.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I can’t
say I went into this viewing with a lot of awareness of the plot. I remembered
there being a marshmallow man, and also that Slimer was a bad guy—not the
Ghostbusters’ funny little boogery sidekick. Oh, and Egon isn’t, like, the
leader—he’s just their resident über nerd. That’s about the extent of it. Oh
and, “There is no Dana, only Zuul.”</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3BrwMX9YCm50nmguyyAk_nlPqKjfg00Za-VWMveOGz5uVKye5nIANKy8Zscd0G9o3xzxJQmNpG5WTrjURGUgsYuXzc1isCzPsYSbrtP1zKRFpDpZtNeTxYgbhVaH3W7yFdNJUZltPwJhG/s1600/Zuul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3BrwMX9YCm50nmguyyAk_nlPqKjfg00Za-VWMveOGz5uVKye5nIANKy8Zscd0G9o3xzxJQmNpG5WTrjURGUgsYuXzc1isCzPsYSbrtP1zKRFpDpZtNeTxYgbhVaH3W7yFdNJUZltPwJhG/s320/Zuul.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">1) The
opening scene in the library totally stressed me out. Not because the ghosts
were scary, but because Bill Murray wiped ectoplasm on books, and that card
catalog mess was going to take FOREVER to clean up. That’s actually why the
librarian was screaming. She wasn’t scared either, she was just like, “Oh, hell
no. I’m not cleaning that up. I quit.” She just forgot her lines and screamed
instead. That’s my opinion, anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">2) The
scene in which Sigourney Weaver opens her fridge to another dimension and
there’s some monster that says Zuul? Those were some amazing special effects,
man. I mean, I could almost understand the idea they were trying to communicate,
but not quite. And when the monsters rip through her armchair and drag her to
the kitchen? That was hilarious. But I wonder if it was scary in 1984. I don't remember.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">3) I’m
going to need to know more about that defunct firehouse and the super-sweet Ghostbustermobile.
Ecto-1 must’ve toured the country for a while, because I saw it in person at
the South Florida Fair back in the day, and it totally made my year. According
to this site, one of the cars is just rotting away in a prop yard in Culver
City. That makes me sad, because wouldn’t I be the coolest mom in the
world if I pulled into the elementary school lot in that? And station wagons
are really hard to come by these days, so converting an old ambulance/hearse
wouldn’t be a terrible way to get one. That firehouse? Yeah, it’s still a
functioning firehouse—Hook and Ladder 8, NYC. You can go see it, if you want.
Or you can stalk them via their photos on Yelp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">So what
about the actual movie, Kristin? What did you think about the ACTUAL movie?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">I still
liked it. I still thought the suits and gadgets were awesome, and the idea of a
crew of undervalued paranormal scientists battling ghosts in New York City is
kind of fun. Interesting, particularly, that an EPA agent was villainized by
Hollywood. I wonder what that says about the ‘80s. I want to know how Egon
comes up with the necessary tools straight out of the gate, when they had no
plan of approach at the library. And what <i>does</i>
happen to the spirits they contain in their ghost dumpster anyway? And so the
ghosts just want to make a mess and end the world—is that the deal? I didn’t
feel like my questions were all answered, but maybe the all-chick team of
ghostbusters will take care of that for me this summer. Because, yeah, I’m
definitely going to see it. If only because the theme song is the best one in
the history of movies—ever. <i>“I ain’t
scared of no ghost.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Ghostbusters</span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">.
Prod./Dir. Ivan Reitman. Perf. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver.
Columbia Pictures, 1984. DVD.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-35875079864350495442016-04-29T08:20:00.001-07:002020-02-26T20:55:09.175-08:00Poltergeist (1982) – A Cautionary Tale Regarding the Dangers of TV<div class="MsoNormal">
This movie was very silly, and it really has nothing to do
with poltergeists, does it? It’s more of a haunting, followed by the onset of a
zombie apocalypse, right? I mean, there’s an angsty adolescent girl, but she’s
not around for most of it, and her angst has nothing to do with the events. By
the end we’re given to understand it’s the angry dead people wreaking havoc.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Things that were good:</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Learning that TV stations used to broadcast the
national anthem before going off the air for the evening. I was born in 1979. I
have no recollection of this.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Kids seeing things the grown ups can't. This
compounded by kids conscious and wandering the house or talking to blank TV
screens while they’re supposed to be sleeping is a nice little stress builder
for all the parents in the viewership.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">A guy’s face rotting and him peeling it off.
Okay, I looked away, and my husband told me when it was over, but the idea was
cool. And gross. And the maggots. And that he set the meat directly on the
countertop instead of on a </span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">cutting board</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">.
Horrifying cross-contamination of surfaces. Gross. So much horror here. (That
one wasn’t very smooth, was it?)</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The
clown appearing out of nowhere and dragging a kid out of bed. Kid could take
him though. Kid for the win. By the way, did you guys know Oliver Robins almost
died for realz in that scene? The puppet ACTUALLY tried to choke him. </span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0732319/" target="_blank">Read about it in the “Did you know” triviasection on his IMDB page.</a></b></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The giant yawning esophagus of hell. That looked
like an expensive effect.</span></li>
</ol>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Things that were horrible:</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Was that wasted </span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">beer</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> in the RC car scene? Moment of silence. (Too </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">non sequitur</i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">? Sorry.)</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">A tornado in Los Angeles? What?</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The mother’s inadequate reaction to her
daughter’s disappearance. If it were me, I wouldn’t sleep for days, and my
fingers would probably be bloody from clawing at the floors/walls of the closet,
and from the first moment I hear that kid’s voice through the TV, I’d never
turn it off. So sitting across the table from the paranormal investigator and being
all affectionate with my hubby wouldn’t happen. I get that they’re trying to
communicate how dulled the family’s become to the paranormal, and, yeah, that might
eventually happen, but I don’t think you get dulled toward the absence of your
child. They’d probably have to put me in the loony bin. She does finally almost
earn mama-bear points when the giant skeleton-y goo monster is blocking her way
to the kids’ room, and she’s all, “Leave my kids alone,” or whatever she
screams. I kinda wanted her to grab it by its gooey little face and toss it's
Satanic ass down the stairs so she could go save her kids. But she fell down
the stairs instead. Let down.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The lack of respect toward the medium. Hey, 1982,
you’re not allowed to laugh at people because the look or sound different. That
was played like a gag, and it made me hate Coach for playing along.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Coach’s not-really-trying-too-hard effort to get
his wife and daughter to breathe after they fall through the purgatory portal.
Didn't they have CPR in 1982? And what is that, cherry Jello? Is that supposed to be some kind of Satanic </span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">special sauce</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">
or something? Maybe you should wipe it away from their noses and mouths, clear
the airways, check for a pulse, and perhaps begin rescue breathing.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">The choreography of the esophagus scene. “Son,
grab your sister’s hand—but only by the tips of her fingers! For God’s sake,
don’t get a decent grip on, like, her wrist or something! Okay! I’m going to
pull, and you two, just kind of stumble-walk out of the room.” Stellar work
there, Mr. Spielberg. The time and money went to the esophagus, huh?</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Skeletons popping up everywhere. That was
utterly silly. I mean, side-clenching </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">WTF
</i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">silly. Was it scary by 1982 standards? Furthermore, this whole section
seemed like an add-on. Like the family is safe, they’re moving, and </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Shit, this film is too short.</i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> Okay,
we’ll make them stay there one more night. </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">But
we already said they’ be staying at the Holiday Inn</i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">. We don’t have the time
or money to reshoot that scene, so let’s hope no one noticed that. </span><i style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Oh, look, Mr. Spielberg. More money. Should
we reshoot that scene now? </i><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Nah, let's just spend it making all hell break
loose.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">That it’s called “poltergeist” and it’s not
about poltergeists. It’s like recording a biography of </span><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Ice Cube</b><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> and naming it after Dr. Dre instead. Swing and a miss.
Kinda like this blog/review.</span></li>
</ol>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Poltergeist</i>. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1982. DVD.</b><b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-86079256787885439272016-04-28T14:53:00.001-07:002017-01-18T22:22:08.832-08:00One Man and One Woman...for Life?Last Sunday I went to church.<br />
<br />
Those of you who know me well also know that church is no longer part of my custom. But sometimes, when I'm visiting my mom, I go with her. Mostly because I think it makes her happy, but also because I really like some of the people she goes to church with. But they aren't the ones I'm writing about today.<br />
<br />
Midway through a sermon on <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Timothy%204:1-8" target="_blank">2 Timothy 4:1-8</a>, the interim pastor inserted a little rant than began with something along the lines of "I don't dislike homosexuals, but..."and finished with "but the Bible says one man and one woman for life." This was greeted with a few <i>amen</i>s, and my very irritated, furrowed brow.<br />
<br />
I've noticed this notion has been dragged out repeatedly to defend withholding civil rights from homosexuals. But when was the last time someone used it to prevent heterosexual divorcees (outside of the Catholic church) from remarrying? You don't hear a lot of sermons exhorting divorced congregation members to abandon their current families and return to their first marriages lest they continue to commit adultery. And Jesus spoke to that in the New Testament, even. Matthew 5:32<span style="background-color: #444444; color: #f3f3f3; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> "<span style="line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."</span></span><span style="background-color: #fdfeff; color: #001320; font-family: "trebuchet" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;"> </span>Mmkay. So that's not some law of the old covenant. That's Jesus talking. And Christians really like Jesus. But they're super busy being worried about the heterosexuality of their mantra than the spousal quantity and length of sentence involved.<br />
<br />
You know what else? One man and one woman is not the Biblical example at all. More like one man and 700 wives, and maybe 300 concubines. Everybody picks on Solomon, but he's not the only bigamist of the Bible. Here's a <a href="http://www.biblicalpolygamy.com/polygamists/" target="_blank">list</a>.<br />
<br />
You know what's even more fun than that? <b>The Bible doesn't actually say "one man and one woman for life."</b> Nope. Try and find it if you can. I spent most of the remainder of the sermon searching Biblical concordances on my smartphone, but I couldn't find it either.<br />
<br />
There's Genesis 2:24 -- the part that goes<span style="background-color: #444444;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"> </span></span><span class="verse-24" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #444444; color: #f3f3f3; font-size: x-small;">"</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #444444; color: #f3f3f3; font-size: x-small;">That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh."</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> </span></span></span>And 1 Corinthians 7:1-16 <a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/1-corinthians/passage/?q=1-corinthians+7:1-16" target="_blank">(read it here)</a> in which Paul encourages the congregation at Corinth to get married only if they can't keep themselves from whoring around otherwise. And Ephesians 5:22-33 <a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/ephesians/passage/?q=ephesians+5:22-33" target="_blank">(read it here)</a> in which Paul reminds men to love their wives, but tells the women they must submit to their men. Don't get me started on Paul. His misogyny makes me angry enough to spit, but it's not my religion, so whatevs.<br />
<br />
My point is, I've heard this "One man, one woman for life" thing for a long time.<br />
And it's not there.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Full disclosure: I'm an atheist, a recovering radicalized Evangelical, and I probably have a chip on my shoulder.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Oh, look what I found at <a href="http://religionhurtshumanity.com/2014/02/americans-who-value-one-man-one-woman-marriages-are-fleeing-same-sex-marriage-states/" target="_blank">Religion Hurts Humanity</a>. Marriage, as depicted in the Bible:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF26m3m8MJN5YtlXpV63axVeZ27ChXEZCz2hwBY38iA3u6m5XXGlg0_K8nMxIKW_7WfWxzATwZQcF_d2F-Wi2pg2WcqkxII1j-Ck6LQ2gnfqCWKWQ3dNzFyiZo2skjSxy33_y0eRbNTMpY/s1600/biblical-image-of-marriage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF26m3m8MJN5YtlXpV63axVeZ27ChXEZCz2hwBY38iA3u6m5XXGlg0_K8nMxIKW_7WfWxzATwZQcF_d2F-Wi2pg2WcqkxII1j-Ck6LQ2gnfqCWKWQ3dNzFyiZo2skjSxy33_y0eRbNTMpY/s320/biblical-image-of-marriage.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-41767721239676086742016-04-27T22:12:00.000-07:002017-01-18T22:25:14.885-08:00The Exorcism of Emily Rose<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Since I just finished one novel
regarding exorcism, I'm, of course, an expert. Which is great, because <i>The
Exorcism of Emily Rose</i> follows much the same pattern as <i>The Exorcist</i>,
and it’s super-gratifying to feel like I’ve prepared correctly for this
experience. The ordeals in the two stories are so similar, in fact, that it
feels as though one could have had fan-fiction roots in the other—and <i>The
Exorcist</i> did influence <i>The Exorcism of Emily Rose</i>, right? It had to
have.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Certainly <i>The Exorcist</i>’s
prominent influence in the horror genre contributed to <i>The Exorcism of Emily
Rose</i>’s similarities to it. But they are both said to have been based on
true stories. Maybe they are based on actual common experience, and that’s
simply the way possession functions. Or maybe they’re based on accumulated
tradition regarding possession and exorcism. Burning smell, thumping sounds,
environmental manipulation, attack followed by eventual possession. I liked <i>The
Exorcism of Emily Rose’s </i>addition of the witching hour, though. Nice touch.
When the priest busts out <i>The Roman Ritual </i>I was like, “Hey, I knew that
was coming!” and I felt smart. Because, yeah, I’m an expert now. I know what
they’re talking about.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In my last post I wondered if maybe
I found movies scarier than books, though I would have assumed the opposite.
But <i>The Exorcism of Emily Rose </i>is scary. And I watched it in broad
daylight on a portable DVD player while my husband drove our family across
I-70. Not a scary environment. Serious nervousness in the passenger seat
anyway. That 3:00 stuff in the dark? Creepy. When the camera pans over to a
clock reading 2:59, the anticipation is almost nauseating. The idea of being
all alone in your dorm room when there’s that prickle of fear, followed by the
unbelievable. There’s no one around to save you from what you have to suspect
are delusions. And which is scarier? That it’s <i>real </i>or that you’re
losing it?</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One hour, two minutes, and
forty-five seconds into the film brought an irritating little revelation. We're
several days into a trial and we JUST found out there was another witness to
the exorcism, AND he's a medical professional? That's handy. Good thing he took
the liberty to call the lawyers. Funny that didn't come up in interviews with
the defendant or the family. I mean, it DOES seem a little <i>deus ex machina</i>
for this to come up right now when it's sorely needed, but whatever. I predict
he’s going to die before he’s of any use. <span style="color: #b4a7d6;">*spoiler alert*</span> Oh, look. He died before he was of
any use. Tension resolved and was rebuilt again in a matter of minutes. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I liked this movie. It was scary as
all get out, but so good. The tension had a certain deliciousness to it. I’d
give it four-and-a-half (out of five) stars for enjoyability and tension. Which means, of
course, that everyone else probably hated it.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Exorcism
of Emily Rose. </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Dir. Scott Derrickson. Prod. Tom
Rosenberg. By Paul Harris Boardman. Perf. Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, and
Campbell Scott. Sony Pictures Entertainment, 2005. DVD.</span></b></span><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-29380463194298524802016-04-22T09:17:00.001-07:002016-04-22T09:17:32.290-07:00The Exorcist<div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">There’s something wrong with me. I don’t mind the books other people detest, and am entirely irritated by books other people love. <i>The Exorcist</i> appears to be a book other people love.</span></div><div><br></div><div>The movie <i>The Exorcist</i> is the scariest movie I’d ever seen. That girl with her head turned all the way around?—yikes. And that scene appears in the book. I was waiting for it. Maybe that’s why it wasn't all that scary. Or maybe movies are scarier than books. Or maybe things that scared me when I was 23 don’t have as much effect on me, thirteen years later. Or maybe I was distracted by other things.</div><div><br></div><div>A writing instructor once told me it’s more important to tell an interesting story than to tell a story well. In his opinion, readers would forgive mistakes if they’re interested enough. And maybe that’s true, but that story would have to be extremely captivating—and this one must not have been compelling enough to obscure distraction.</div><div><br></div><div>That sounds really snotty. It's not as though my own writing is free from errors, but you just kind of expect more from a professional, you know?</div><div><br></div><div><b>Writing Mini Lesson, free for the taking</b></div><div>Let’s talk for a moment about the words “started” and “began.” Beginning writers use these words a lot, and we were all beginning writers once. “She started to cry.” “They started running.” And then did they stop? Like immediately? Because that’s the only time these words ought to crop up. If the action is continue or completed, just cut to the chase. “She cried.” “They ran.”</div><div><br></div><div>This is William Peter Blatty’s 5th novel. He’s not a beginning writer. Yet, I found three examples of this in two pages.</div><div><br></div><div>For example, on page 123 "And then, bending at the waist, <b>started</b> whirling her torso around in rapid, strenuous circles." </div><div>In the next paragraph, "He fetched his medical bag to the window and quickly <b>began</b> to prepare an injection." </div><div>And again on the following page, "Then looked again to Ragan as she <b>started</b> to arch her body upward into an impossible position, bending it backwards like a bow until her head had touched her feet."</div><div><br></div><div>So Regan whirled her torso? Okay. </div><div>And the doctor prepared an injection? Good. I assume he finished this, so I don’t need to hear about how he started it unless something terribly interesting occurred in the initiation of the process. And then Regan arched her body. Great. Edit complete. You’re welcome, Mr. Blatty. For just 1¢/word, I’ll clean up the rest of your manuscript for you.</div><div><br></div><div>Except I really don’t want to read it a second time. As it is, I think I’ve read it twice in this one effort. Maybe I have a reading comprehension problem that’s never affected my understanding until now, but I found this book hard to read. I don’t usually mind incomplete sentences, but Blatty’s style of painting a scene with a collection of fragments didn't work for me. I had to reread sentences, paragraphs, entire pages. And I figured I’d get use to it, but even after three hundred pages I hadn’t. But not every book is for everybody. This one wasn’t for me.</div><div><br></div><div>Oh, and Timons Esaias says you shouldn’t describe a character by having her regard herself in the mirror. You might rewrite that bit on page 17 then, Mr. Blatty.</div><div><br></div><div>And Regan, when she’s in control of her own mind, reads more like an eight-year-old than an adolescent. You might—you know—fix that too.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><b>Blatty, William Peter.<i> The Exorcist</i>. New York: Harper, 2013. Print.</b></div><div><br></div>Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-63638597874604803982016-04-04T21:20:00.002-07:002016-04-04T21:20:44.286-07:00Paranormal Activity: Only $15,000 to Make It? You Don’t Say.<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-large;">Spoiler alert: You’ll
probably be annoyed by the production quality of Paranormal Activity more than
the ending I’ll spoil in this post. You’ve officially been warned of both.</span></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTPODKeAU9UA8PXigAQPm_1tfGHj6EHCsafuN0BnEsWdoggsXpx40ZgFWY-fQNfNzu4G_qFwSVTXYW5WKNAn8T6TbRP1e75VL17p6yTPklo6WGXugQXVH18NywQ_CB_-1a7hCkPuPojFVP/s1600/Paranormal_Activity_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTPODKeAU9UA8PXigAQPm_1tfGHj6EHCsafuN0BnEsWdoggsXpx40ZgFWY-fQNfNzu4G_qFwSVTXYW5WKNAn8T6TbRP1e75VL17p6yTPklo6WGXugQXVH18NywQ_CB_-1a7hCkPuPojFVP/s320/Paranormal_Activity_poster.jpg" width="215" /></a></span></i></b></div>
<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I am not a
fan of the low-budget, camcorder style of the movie <i>Paranormal Activity</i>. Furthermore, I’m not a fan of having had to endure
so much of nothing BUT low-budget cinematography at the beginning of the film
while it took its sweet time getting to the point.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">This film
had, what, four actors? Three of whom aren’t noticeably bad? That scene in
which the psychic simply must leave because he’s angering the whatever-it-is
felt like watching a middle school play in which the actor arrives, looks
awkward, sounds awkward, and exits the stage. Audience wonders if there was a
point to that. But I’ve consulted the all-knowing and always-trustworthy
Wikipedia and been informed that there was no script. So now that scene makes
sense in that the actor looked like he was flying by the seat of his pants
because he was. And not everybody is cut out for “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”
Certainly not a guy with just three credits to his name. Sorry, Mark Fredrichs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Which
brings me to my next observation: Oren Peli didn’t bother naming his
characters. Katie is played by Katie. Micah is played by Micah. Amber is played
by Amber. And Dr. Fredrichs is played by Mark Fredrichs. Very creative. Oh,
wait. There WAS a fifth actor. Diana is played by Ashley Palmer, which tells me
it would’ve been too hard to recognize “Ashley” if spelled by a Ouija board
from their camera angle. Not that we could see <i>what</i> was being spelled out—we just took Micah’s word for it that it
wasn’t “candy bar” or “marshmallow” or something similarly delicious and non-threatening.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">But what a
fun trip down memory lane to watch for an hour and twenty-six minutes how we wanted
our homes decorated just one decade ago. Rear-projection TVs. Enormous
furniture. The latest in ten-pound laptops. Looks like Peli has a nice home,
since he shot it there, saving a couple more nickels and getting a home reno in
the process. Clever.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">So was it
scary? I thought so. I mean, the sounds and footsteps did nothing for me, but
when Katie gets out of bed and just stands there FOR TWO HOURS, that was scary.
Especially when she left the room for God-knows-where. Micah, though, when he
notices she’s gone, stops to pick up the camera while he searches for her. Glad
you weren’t too worried, there Micah. I’ll be real sorry when your arrogant
self-involved got-this-under-control ass dies later. *ahem*<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I notice
he didn’t make that mistake twice though, because when he vaults out of bed
after Katie’s second stand-and-stare scene, and to be fair she IS screaming
bloody murder this time, he leaves the camera where it sits. Consequently,
Katie had to throw Micah’s lifeless body at the camera so we’d know what took place.
Guess the demon wanted it on the recording, otherwise it’s not really clear <i>why</i> possessed Katie had to bring him back
upstairs and throw him at the camera—it was solely for the audience’s benefit,
I guess. Not actually scary.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">When the
bedsheets moved—that was scary. When the thing dragged Katie out of bed and
down the hallway—that was really effing scary. But when she’s sitting in the
hall squeezing a literally bloody cross and it’s clear she’s been possessed, I
really didn’t care what happened after that. And the stand-and-stare trick only
worked on me the first time. We crossed the too-stupid-to-live point when they
didn’t call the demonologist, so I could wash my hands of someone who didn’t
want to leave when it got ridiculously bad. I know why they don’t call in the
other professional, though, and it’s not that Micah “has it under control” or
is afraid it’ll get worse at that point—he clearly IS hell-bent on making it
worse if he can. It’s just that Peli doesn’t want to hire another actor, so no
demonologist.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Could I
watch it alone? Yeah. And I still consider myself a wimp about these things. On
a 1 to 10 scariness scale, 1 being <i>The
Care Bears</i> and 10 being the middle-of-the-night features produced by my own
brain when I’m under the influence of Benadryl, I’d give this a 5. Most of
what’s scary here is just that we’re hard-wired to be afraid of monsters
messing with us while we’re asleep, and that’s what’s played up most in this
film.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-large;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">Paranormal
Activity</span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">.
Dir. Oren Peli. Perf. Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. Paramount/DreamWorks,
2009. DVD.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-22849253226467805802016-04-03T20:46:00.003-07:002016-04-04T21:22:36.383-07:00Grave’s End: A Pretty Convincing Ghost Story. Almost.<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">The following post includes commentary
on and possible spoilers for <i>Grave’s End:
A True Ghost Story</i>, by Elaine Mercado, R.N.</span></span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZLeWtBl6zLlI1s39oRUbDuZkNhR5FFTG85i2qo_j5AwkRomY1WT5cLQZjM-1NdbBlLodWNlIgdogziywO5Il7GmLuywyjB1KRjhk6qrL1iHQ11xsgN1S6zaYfY-4lsGlyLWwmVfC2Hg9l/s1600/GravesEnd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZLeWtBl6zLlI1s39oRUbDuZkNhR5FFTG85i2qo_j5AwkRomY1WT5cLQZjM-1NdbBlLodWNlIgdogziywO5Il7GmLuywyjB1KRjhk6qrL1iHQ11xsgN1S6zaYfY-4lsGlyLWwmVfC2Hg9l/s320/GravesEnd.jpg" width="208" /></a></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">I’ll admit
it. I kind of liked this book. A lot more than I thought I would.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Grave’s End</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> started with two strikes against
it in my opinion. One: It’s a “true” ghost story, and I didn’t believe that even
as far as I could throw it. Oh, you’ve got a story about a ghost sighting or an
angel or something? You don’t say. Hmm. I’m sure you won’t follow up with a retelling
riddled with unsubstantiated claims and attention-seeking language. (Okay, not
ALL of them sound like this, and I’ll admit I hear this kind of thing mostly
from middle schoolers.) Surprising to me at least, was that Elaine Mercado was
able to keep such language to a minimum, in spite of the <i>kind</i> of book she was writing. Which brings me to that other strike.
Two: It's a memoir. Those aren’t usually written very well. They're packed with
filters such as “I thought,” “I felt,” and “I heard.” They overuse “started to”
and “began.” They wander off on autobiographical tangents that aren’t pertinent
to the central story. And this memoir does all of those things. (How much do I
really need to know about Mercado’s nursing school experience? Almost nothing.
Ditto marital woes.) But, assignment or no, once I got going on this book I was
going to read it through to the end.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Somewhere
in the pages of <i>Grave’s End</i> my
suspension of disbelief morphed into something like incredulous belief, and I
admit to uncertainty. Mercado tells her story in a non-self-aggrandizing,
believable fashion. She inspires my trust. Consequently I have to believe that
she experienced what she says she experienced, and I don’t have a skeptic’s
explanation. But over here, back in the real world I live in, I still don’t
believe in ghosts. That doesn’t make sense to compartmentalize belief like
that, but I’ll work on it and try to make myself more open to the idea. A
spooky night at Gettysburg might be just the ticket—stay tuned.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Mercado
addresses, although casually, one of my problems with belief in ghosts which is
that ghosts always seem to be people. Mercado’s medium, however, indicates that
two dogs were also present in her vortex and went to the light. But we kill
animals all the time. Not just the ones we eat and the bugs we step on, but
what about the incalculable number of microorganisms that kick the bucket while
living on my person? Do they have little microspirits that have to find the
light too? And if they don’t, do their little souls wander aimlessly looking
for the way out of limbo? Am I being haunted by tragic little dead things, and
I don’t even know it?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">[Pauses to
wash face with baby shampoo, washing away the spirits of long-gone eyelash
mites.]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">My point
is, things die all the time. If there are ghosts, why aren’t there just
shitloads of them? Everywhere. All the time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">But Elaine
Mercado didn’t write a dissertation on the existence of the paranormal. She
just wrote her story, and delivered it to the best of her ability. And it made
a pretty good story. Maybe it would even make a compelling movie. Wait—wait a
minute.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">[click
click tappity tap tap tap]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/gravesend-woman-sci-fi-tale-living-haunted-house-featured-syfy-reality-show-article-1.1137195" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Look atwhat I found.</span></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Oh. It was
on a reality TV show.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Okay, I
don’t believe her so much anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Ah well,
belief was fun while it lasted.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="color: orange;">Mercado,
Elaine. <i>Grave's End: A True Ghost Story</i>.
Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2001. Print.</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-76459910112058337032016-03-30T15:00:00.003-07:002016-03-30T18:02:17.918-07:00The Amityville Horror--Déjà Vu All Over Again<i><span style="color: lime; font-size: x-large;">This post contains spoilers for Jay Anson's novel <u>The Amityville Horror</u>.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">I can’t be
the only person reading this and feeling the arc and "reader feels" of <i>The Shining</i>, which, since I read it two
weeks ago is still very fresh in my mind. <i>The
Amityville Horror</i> has a slow-burning start with loads of backstory. Unlike <i>The Shining</i>, anything horrific is told
with emotional detachment, so it doesn’t feel gut wrenching. At all. It’s a
little inferior in that respect, but not terribly. Also unlike <i>The Shining</i> these characters don’t seem
to have anything particularly wrong with them. They were just fine—right up
until they encountered the house. But there is a similarity. It (the house/demonic
force) affects each of the family members differently, and one family member in
particular. And that one is the five year old. Everyone’s behavior changes, but
the dad becomes impatient, particularly with the children. And it’s cold. And
that hedge/stone lion moves. And being born with a caul causes psychic ability.
Rip off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">But then <i>Twilight</i> was a rip off of <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, and did I like it?
Damned straight, I did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">I’m
not saying it’s not worth reading. In fact, I think I enjoyed this reading
experience better because once the tension built, it maintained a consistent level
of enjoyable <i>WTF</i>, without pushing me beyond
my comfort zone. Stephen King, however, almost always pushes me past where I’m
comfortable. Some things I particularly liked: The way the house affects
EVERYONE, including those who simply visit. AND that a momentary interaction
with the house is enough for them to carry its malevolence away with them, like
a virus. The priest with his car trouble, flu, and blisters. The brother and
his money. Even the paranormal investigator who catches the flu before even arriving.
It’s interesting that the house’s power isn’t constrained to just the property
on which it stands. It tags along, effing things up for people who even think
about the place. That’s fun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Gawd, I’m
shaping up to be such a pessimist. I hate to harp on what I didn’t like.
Really, <i>The Amityvile Horror </i>was a
fun read, and I didn’t want to put it down. I’d totally read another Jay Anson
book—probably <i>666,</i> which is the only
one he wrote between <i>Amityville Horror </i>(1977)<i> </i>and his death in 1980.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">But
sometimes the action in this book was down-right irritating. Like, hey, crazy
shit is happening in this house. Stone lions moving, weird smells, unseen
presences, but it doesn’t even occur to Kathy, the mom, that the green goo
could be a paranormal manifestation too (226). It must be those blasted kids.
And when George (the dad) brings his dog inside to see if he senses anything,
the dog reacts to <i>exactly</i> the things
we expect him to—the secret room in the cellar, the sewing room, and Missy’s
room. And George acts like he doesn’t understand <i>why</i> the dog would possibly behave strangely—“‘Goddammit, Harry…What’s
bugging you?’”—when that’s exactly why he’s dragging the dog room-to-room in
the first place. And then—“‘<i>Nothing</i>
happened, that’s what happened,’ he said” (259). Perhaps he was expecting the
dog to write a dissertation regarding his suspicions and discomfort, since
George is blind to canine forms of communication. Sigh. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">And then
there’s the priest—Father Mancuso. I get why he wouldn’t want to go back to the
house, but why doesn’t he just send another priest. Or someone to attempt an
exorcism? He’s just like, “Sorry, suckas—you’re on your own. I’m not going to
help you, therefore the Church can’t help you.” Thanks, buddy. May your itchy
palms sprout humiliating hairs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Based on a
true story, my ass. But I wonder how much it increases a book’s sales if you
swear on your grandmother’s grave that it’s true. Not that I’m interested in
besmirching my grandmother’s grave. I’m just curious. Ahem. For a friend, of
course.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: lime;">Anson, Jay. <i>The Amityville Horror</i>. New York: Pocket Star, 1977. Print.</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-48798795166327283422016-03-24T15:23:00.003-07:002016-03-24T15:25:00.681-07:00The Others—It’s a Lot Like That One Movie<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Hey.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">This post contains spoilers
for the movie <u>The Others</u>. Don’t read on unless you’ve already watched
it.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">And if you haven't, you need to.</span></i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6QZBNQc5vPkDoXrx6GMpWEyxKHjLFAkLgaosQ7OGQDYmd6vSUgHdGT2GVtsdTnTiYHPhvC-wuLXfRhJfKNBOfYtjzEd7rJsRlPwPuKjTwS8UFuVcsuMJaeNCbL1rqIJHeI-s6Fqiahxsz/s1600/the-others.18680.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6QZBNQc5vPkDoXrx6GMpWEyxKHjLFAkLgaosQ7OGQDYmd6vSUgHdGT2GVtsdTnTiYHPhvC-wuLXfRhJfKNBOfYtjzEd7rJsRlPwPuKjTwS8UFuVcsuMJaeNCbL1rqIJHeI-s6Fqiahxsz/s320/the-others.18680.jpg" width="216" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The Others</span></i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> opened like any good horror movie
should—with a scream. Okay, maybe it did strike me as a little cliché, but I
didn’t mind the cheap gag. The producers were forgiven as soon as the camera
panned out to include the antique architecture and décor—I could watch that all
day. In fact, since this movie was filmed on location rather than on a sound
stage, I watched it a second time just to focus on the set.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">So here's
what happens: A mom and her two allergic-to-light kids live in a fabulous old
house in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Oh, and that house is probably
haunted. The mom hires random strangers as house help, and the audience gets
the definite idea there’s something dodgy with them, but they’re more likable than
the main character. The kids allege that the house is haunted by a boy named
<a href="https://victorcypert.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Victor</a>—which is a scary effing name if you ask me (I’m talking about you,
<a href="https://victorcypert.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Cypert</a>)—and a lot of not much happens, but I think we’re supposed to be
frightened by paranormal occurrences and the diminishing sanity of the mom. The
husband/father comes back from WWII. Then he leaves because he’s not real. The
mom gets crazier. The ghosts (or the Others) manifest until we realize that
they’re the real people and Nicole Kidman and her kids have been dead all along.
And, oh yeah, she killed them. That was the scary part—a mom who loves her kids
can kill them in a fit of insanity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">I’d be
lying if I said I didn’t find this movie scary at all—and my husband would
totally call me out on it because he was trying to sleep and I kept waking him
up to keep me company. (That’s happened a lot this semester.) But it took a
long time to build tension. I don’t mind that so much—I wasn’t bored—I just
wasn’t scared. I doubt anyone was terribly surprised to find out the house-help
were dead, or that the war-scarred husband/father was also dead, so in that way
I started to smell an element of <i>The
Sixth Sense</i>, and even said so to my unconscious husband. And still, after
saying it aloud to him, it didn’t even cross my mind the flip the writer would
pull, with the entire main cast being ghosts, haunted by the living in their
spaces. And I do so love that concept. Imagine ghosts being terrified of the “normal”
activity around them. Clever. Better than Beetlejuice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">I know
we’ve talked about that good surprise/bad surprise thing in our Horror RIG discussions,
and in that conversation several of you talked about disliking the twist for
the sake of the twist or something like that. Because it gets old. And, yeah,
it probably does, especially if the writer/director makes a habit of it, and you
expect it. So maybe in this genre the more widely read you are, the less you
enjoy the experience—picking up clues and patterns faster. But I didn’t see it coming
this time. And I flipping loved it. But when I watched it the second time, it
was really just some boring stuff that happened in a beautiful old house. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">The
Others</span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">.
Dir. Alejandro Amenábar. Perf. Nicole Kidman. Buena Vista, 2001. DVD.</span></b></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-50370555640093057162016-03-10T16:33:00.001-08:002016-03-10T16:33:16.110-08:00The Shining--Colorado from an outsider's perspective. There was snow. And big deer things.<div class="MsoNormal">
I love Stephen King’s work. Yeah, that’s what
I meant.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His interviews are pretty amusing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This: <o:p></o:p></div>
<h1 class="yt watch-title-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #222222; display: table-cell; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 610px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" id="eow-title" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Stephen King On Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, Lovecraft & More (55:51)"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8TkQvdJVbc&ebc=ANyPxKryU2kw1yQtTrya9_65Km3yJMqHJiswlnQWqZxBXIo4zFEH73YnerIPsXwUE2dawmI6t-MzoyPaWGC_YjbMTc3nvWK2zA" target="_blank">Stephen King On Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, Lovecraft & More (55:51)</a></span></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And this: <o:p></o:p></div>
<h1 class="yt watch-title-container" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #222222; display: table-cell; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top; width: 610px; word-wrap: break-word;">
<span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" id="eow-title" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Has Stephen King Won Writing?"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys9YOJxDjN4" target="_blank">Has Stephen King Won Writing?</a></span></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I love his insights on the creative lifestyle, pantsing
vs. plotting, and substance abuse in <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiHQJzBODeH3pj8C9LNhOXO30TG66970j7j-kaGCtaDVqIJJJ2SODuhygpGXKPfnic-SVhXB7gSezG1E4Bcpgt0ixHXtlOUMoHBarosVDzCN9OrW0lpVCi1dxu_F9swXCP-gl8XnpMfLB5/s1600/OnWriting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiHQJzBODeH3pj8C9LNhOXO30TG66970j7j-kaGCtaDVqIJJJ2SODuhygpGXKPfnic-SVhXB7gSezG1E4Bcpgt0ixHXtlOUMoHBarosVDzCN9OrW0lpVCi1dxu_F9swXCP-gl8XnpMfLB5/s320/OnWriting.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since this was my third read of <i>The Shining</i> I thought I’d listen to the audiobook. A good idea on
paper, maybe, but it turns out I read a little faster to myself than Campbell Scott does
aloud, so that wasn’t really saving me time. And I missed Stephen King’s voice.
I couldn’t hear it while someone else was reading. So I read it the usual way.
Again. And I liked it again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I used to have a quote on my classroom wall that read, “No
man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's
not the same man.” ― Heraclitus<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s how I felt about reading The Shining again. It was
not the same book for me this time. I’m not the same person. I’m a mom now. It
took me three days to get through the arm-breaking scene this time because I had
to keep walking away from it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if other parents felt
similarly. I think in my pre-kids days I found the same scene upsetting, but probably
not as nauseating.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You know what else I am? A fault-finder. I should really
knock that off because I think (whatever…I KNOW) it’s getting in the way of my enjoyment
of reading. Stephen King is SO GOOD at writing disturbing stuff, but I totally
got hung up on his classic outsider misconception of how much snow falls in
Colorado. “By November the snow up there in the mountains would be higher than
the beetle’s roof…maybe higher than three beetles stacked on top of each other”
(33). Colorado is a high desert. Sure a freak storm could
dump snow like that, but you know what's a more common sight in Estes Park in December?
The ground. Snow falls, then after a week or two it either melts off or
sublimates because it’s too damned dry to stick around. Stephen King lives in
Bangor, Maine, where the average annual snowfall is 56 inches. (<a href="http://www.bestplaces.net/climate/city/maine/bangor"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;">www.bestplaces.net/climate/city/<b>maine</b>/<b>bangor</b></span></a>).
You know what it is in Estes Park? 34 inches. If all the snow for the entire
year fell at once, it would just about reach a VW’s door handle. But, whatevs,
it was a snow year for the Torrance family.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was able to get over the Overlook not ACTUALLY being the
Stanley Hotel—the hotel that inspired the book. “Some of the most beautiful
resort hotels in the world are located in Colorado, but the hotel in these
pages is based on none of them. The Overlook and the people associated with it
exist wholly within the author’s imagination." So the Overlook is in the
middle of nowhere and NOT actually right behind a Safeway and a McDonalds. And in
StephenKingLand, Colorado gets a lot more precipitation. You know what else
Colorado has in StephenKingLand? Caribou.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“We might see some
deer. Or caribou” (61). “They had seen caribou tracks in the snow and once the
caribou themselves, a group of five standing motionlessly below the security
fence” (213).<o:p></o:p></div>
<br /><div class="MsoNormal">
I double checked this to be certain, because at first I was
like, “What? Caribou?” But yeah. Not here. “The last herd of caribou to roam as
far south as Colorado probably lived during the Pleistocene” <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4514208?source=rss">http://www.denverpost.com/ci_4514208?source=rss</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have seen a real live caribou in Colorado. Someone up at
Keystone had one on a leash and he tied it to a tree while he stopped in at a
bar. The caribou waited outside like a patient Labrador. That’s because caribou
(reindeer) are domesticable. If they weren’t, Santa would have to get sled
dogs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://tce-live2.s3.amazonaws.com/media/media/8aa5260c-9689-40b1-99e1-f35b2e747684.jpg" target="_blank">Caribou:</a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnqbF92-R353lLEbVa-u0EfUSgxq2cjRzzjw57tB7jBQZ7iTsAVyxYO4hI-SILmkGgGavx2Aqwb3XTDyrya9cWfgsgptJIsUyq6fPNXX0WYSmDp5tOEPMNMKxregWjFhp-44QJ6tllINWA/s1600/caribou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnqbF92-R353lLEbVa-u0EfUSgxq2cjRzzjw57tB7jBQZ7iTsAVyxYO4hI-SILmkGgGavx2Aqwb3XTDyrya9cWfgsgptJIsUyq6fPNXX0WYSmDp5tOEPMNMKxregWjFhp-44QJ6tllINWA/s320/caribou.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We have elk though. They’re a lot bigger. I don’t think I’d
try to walk one with a leash. They can be kind of mean.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.coloradobiggameoutfitter.com/images/flash/colorado-elk.jpg" target="_blank">Elk: </a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR-uLKlnDhyphenhyphene3Kl5G_yeF3MNJzj_lFViiKWgZoDidxAVemcXPM884IOZkm0FNEFwSnRpdRg1WVqc2Xb8NmUgjA8ha72Su4hXcg0biDh1EEKQfPI4Vc0_elRcNe1YN9ay0jmaQ0u8TMiB6Y/s1600/Elk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR-uLKlnDhyphenhyphene3Kl5G_yeF3MNJzj_lFViiKWgZoDidxAVemcXPM884IOZkm0FNEFwSnRpdRg1WVqc2Xb8NmUgjA8ha72Su4hXcg0biDh1EEKQfPI4Vc0_elRcNe1YN9ay0jmaQ0u8TMiB6Y/s320/Elk.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Lesson: Even if your name is Stephen Effing King, do your
homework or you’ll irritate your readers. And the guy lived here (in Boulder)
when he wrote <i>The Shining</i>, but, you
know, in 1974 Al Gore hadn’t yet invented the internet.</div>
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<span style="background-color: #ffe7af; color: #333333; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; line-height: 22.8571px;">King, Stephen. </span><i style="background-color: #ffe7af; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; line-height: 22.8571px;">The Shining</i><span style="background-color: #ffe7af; color: #333333; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; line-height: 22.8571px;">. New York: Anchor Books, 2012.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_E1Yoqa_fGeFKGngHgiej16QHwI_C1oq6bBFWN4e60S88orXg0OBuqYV4G9Hnj4Ywe_fFWblo9MVOA_dvIpuDW-sGWGaw7qsGFFh6lWykLnnYSP-Mb5Ll_6Tmf_Cq9pNL3nhvn6rfB2dc/s1600/TheShining.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_E1Yoqa_fGeFKGngHgiej16QHwI_C1oq6bBFWN4e60S88orXg0OBuqYV4G9Hnj4Ywe_fFWblo9MVOA_dvIpuDW-sGWGaw7qsGFFh6lWykLnnYSP-Mb5Ll_6Tmf_Cq9pNL3nhvn6rfB2dc/s320/TheShining.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>
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Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-15980155692994288772016-02-24T19:45:00.000-08:002016-02-26T15:05:15.308-08:00Ghost Story: It gave me nightmares. Truth.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Ghost Story</i>, by Peter Straub</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This post may contain spoilers. They won’t likely affect
your enjoyment of the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK0s49sN8l7PJqMPNPN7dQOSPdVkt24RZljz1gRWpwiiUqmgvTzQ_mwO-GnH6dJ227HmGnvvKanxxlxiB0fftX2dpOQOBYswTZmQhSLSJlMd0jagSk4n9RPRLXN5CyiV0aAVj8NwBDBDrl/s1600/ghost-story-by-peter-straub.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK0s49sN8l7PJqMPNPN7dQOSPdVkt24RZljz1gRWpwiiUqmgvTzQ_mwO-GnH6dJ227HmGnvvKanxxlxiB0fftX2dpOQOBYswTZmQhSLSJlMd0jagSk4n9RPRLXN5CyiV0aAVj8NwBDBDrl/s320/ghost-story-by-peter-straub.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>From the cover:</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“The scariest book I’ve ever read...It crawls under your
skin and into your dreams.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> –<i>Chicago
Sun-Times<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“The terror just mounts and mounts.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> –<i>Stephen King<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So. Was is scary? <i>You’d better believe it.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Did it keep me up at night? <i>Damn straight.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My copy of <i>Ghost Story</i>,
by Peter Straub, is 567 terrifying pages long. That’s about 67-117 pages longer
than the romance novels I'd typically devour in a day. I figured I’d be through this in
about that length of time. I wasn’t. This book held me in its
not-very-captivating grip for seven days. I couldn’t stop putting it down. And
the nightmares—I’d startle awake terrified of not finishing my assignment in time
and failing out of my degree program. Did I mention I have a little bit of
school-based anxiety? That was really the source of my panic, and this book,
after eating hours of work time, left me disoriented, disenchanted, and behind
in my other schoolwork. It’s magical in its ability to suck time, while still
not managing to entertain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The good news: I was able to read even before bed without
being frightened by the plot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The bad news: I kept falling asleep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It’s not that the book’s story concept was a failure. It’s
not that the characters weren’t richly developed. It’s not that the prose lacks
poetic or skillful turns of phrase. It’s just that it took Straub so effing
long to get to the point. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Lesson learned and applied to my manuscript, so it wasn’t a
total waste.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When professional writers say, "Don't use a prologue.
Readers skip them," I have difficulty believing them. I'd never in my life
been tempted to skip a prologue. Until this one. It’s monotonous and long, and nothing
much happens. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For 26 pages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I hoped that by the end I'd have a different opinion and
think it was brilliant, but I'd've set this book down approximately 26 times
before chapter one even commenced if it hadn’t been an assignment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe it’s evidence of my microwave-generation culture that
I expect to be interested in a book <i>right
away.</i> But I sucked it up and gave this slow-starter a chance. I made it to
Part Two on page 155, at which point I wrote in my notes: <i>Stuff’s happened. People have died. So have the sheep. I'm still having
trouble caring.</i> I mean, if killing off animals doesn't get a rise out of me, someone's doing something wrong.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And by page 290: <i>Oh
look, another character is dead. I have no attachment, therefore no grief, but
also no anxiety or fear. What a let down.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">By page 500 so many characters had been bumped off it was
looking like <i>Hamlet</i> or a George R. R. Martin<i> </i>book. I figured they
were all going to die. I still didn’t care. Straub could have used lessons on
tension-maintenance, constructing fear, and maybe some of Heidi Ruby Miller’s
advice on pacing. Perhaps we could send him a copy of <i>Many Genres One Craft.</i> Or perhaps one of us should rewrite it. Wouldn’t
it be interesting to pull a Richard Matheson and revisit this plot—do it right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Since sexism has been a recurring topic in our books thus
far, I might as well voice my complaint regarding this one. Straub’s portrayal
of women sucks. And if <a href="http://klmolnar.com/blog" target="_blank">Kristin Molnar</a> and <a href="https://rtezak.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Rasheedah Shahid-Tezak</a> don’t speak
more to this in their blogs, I’ll have to revisit the subject in greater detail in my
comments. They’re more articulate than I about feminism and equality. I’ll say
this though: I was born in 1979 so the year was good to me, but if this book’s
outlook is any indication of American culture at the time, I’m not sorry to
have been more interested in primary colors and milk bottles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Anyone happen to know the going rate for a Stephen King
endorsement? I mean, he got paid for that, right?</span><i><o:p></o:p></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.8571px;">Straub, Peter. </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.8571px;">Ghost Story</i><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.8571px;">. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979. Print.</span></span></span></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-76365834729751306462016-02-09T19:44:00.000-08:002016-02-10T14:17:43.635-08:00Hell House vs. Hill House<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Warning: This post may
contain spoilers for Richard Matheson’s <i>Hell
House</i>.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKx8sCI2k_NfKQZz0feTs3MW8V4ivlcAq2li2TzPOMYLMCvJlYgahLNqAVDZK4O4efIEX-8HAiPlM3jY8Dq3yqNa-7X3XLxwrbZQQDmh-7cSSjdp2tN0-3Y7KignIyq3XNYxQV6h4Dqh10/s1600/HellHouse.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKx8sCI2k_NfKQZz0feTs3MW8V4ivlcAq2li2TzPOMYLMCvJlYgahLNqAVDZK4O4efIEX-8HAiPlM3jY8Dq3yqNa-7X3XLxwrbZQQDmh-7cSSjdp2tN0-3Y7KignIyq3XNYxQV6h4Dqh10/s320/HellHouse.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Two library books sit side by side on my coffee table. Both
about haunted mansions left empty for decades and what happens to the groups of
strangers who investigate them. Both follow four characters—one scientist, two
sensitives, and one average person. Many of the scenes have a strange ring of déjà
vu—Matheson’s Florence recoils away from the chapel the same way Jackson’s Eleanor
does from the library. The first three words of one title is in a smaller,
less-conspicuous font, so at first glance even their titles look the same: <i>Hill House</i> and <i>Hell House</i>. I don’t think Richard Matheson makes any apologies
about his novel being a knockoff of Shirley Jackson’s. It may have been his
attempt to do it right, since his book avoids many of the problems I had with <i>The Haunting of Hill House</i>. His book,
though an improvement in many ways, lacks in some ways that Shirley Jackson’s
does not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For starters, Matheson’s characters are compelling because
they’re each well-developed and complex of their own right, and each has a
well-defined goal that hinges upon surviving the experience. Florence, a mental
medium, wants the payout money—one hundred thousand dollars—for her church. Dr.
Barrett wants to prove the legitimacy of his work and his theories. Edith doesn’t
want to be separated from her husband, lest she suffer crippling anxiety, the
account of which gives us an early warning that she’s dealing with emotional
instability. And Fischer (whom I keep wanting to call Luke due to his
relatively passive role) wants to unload the emotional baggage that’s plagued
him since his first traumatic visit to the house. He says he’s sticking it out
for the money, but he really wants to best Emeric Belasco and prove his
individual worth. And that focus on his worth—proving himself—his ego—is a set
up for his insight to what drives Belasco, and to what will be Belasco’s
undoing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Matheson’s characters ping off each other in a reasonably
interesting fashion and everybody possesses likeable qualities, but they don’t
enjoy the witty repartee that Shirley Jackson’s characters do. Matheson’s
characters experience interesting divisive circumstances, but since they’d never
experienced the playful closeness of Jackson’s characters, the relationship arc
seems less dramatic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">The clearest difference, though, that I see between these
two books is mood. The two authors manage tension in completely different
fashions. I complained that Shirley Jackson allowed the tension to dissipate
too much—that she actively dismantled it—between scenes. But her scary scenes
did the job of invoking fear (except for art-hating Philistines like <a href="https://personanonsequitur.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/the-haunting-of-hill-house-i-cant-think-of-anything-clever-to-say-about-this-book/" target="_blank">Michael Ingram</a>.) Jackson uses fear of solitude and fears of the unnatural and the unknown
to excellent effect. Matheson, on the other hand, never really allows the
reader to let his or her guard down</span><span style="font-size: large;">—</span><span style="font-size: large;">weird stuff could happen at any moment,
day or night</span><span style="font-size: large;">—</span><span style="font-size: large;">but there aren’t very many fear-invoking scenes. The overall reader feel was one
of interest, anxiety and concern, even, but not actually fear. Either I’m becoming
very rapidly inured to ghost stories (which I doubt, because I’m a
wimp) or <i>Hell House</i> is an example of
revealing too much of the monster. “Once
you can see ‘it,’ your brain can quantify it and it becomes less frightening”
(Johnson, 102).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: large;">Despite the absence of humor and fear elements, <i>Hell House </i>is the stronger of the two
books on the basis of there not being anything glaringly wrong with it. The
hook is still great, the tension is consistent, the characters are complex, and
the plot took several turns I didn’t expect. I prefer the more modern
close-third POV to Jackson’s impersonal omniscient. Both books, though, are
worth reading and have earned spots on my shelf. The library books go back
tomorrow, right about when I expect Amazon to deliver their replacements. </span><b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<b>Works Cited<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
Jackson, Shirley.
<i>The Haunting of Hill House</i>. New York:
Penguin, 2006. Print.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
Johnson, Scott. “Blurring
the Line: How Reality Helps Build Better Fiction.” <i>Many Genres One Craft</i>. Ed. Michael A. Arnzen and Heidi Ruby Miller.
Terra Alta: Headline Books, Inc. 100-104. Print<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.5in;">
Matheson,
Richard. <i>Hell House</i>. New York: Tor,
1999. Print.<o:p></o:p></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-9636406586633809082016-01-25T21:50:00.001-08:002016-01-29T21:42:59.604-08:00Review: The Haunting of Hill House<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Is this really the same Shirley Jackson who wrote “The Lottery”? The slowly-building style is there, but where’s all the richness? The symbolism? Maybe I need to give the book another read to find it, and at 246 pages I could probably squeeze that in, but I think I expected more—though the humor and the witty banter lent a charm I wasn’t expecting.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I’ve made it sound like I disliked <i>The Haunting of Hill House</i>, but I didn’t. I loved it. It just wasn’t what I expected. I love Shirley Jackson’s slow-building exposition, setting up the situation and the selection of the cast of characters. On page 6, when Shirley Jackson explains the various reasons others didn't join the group, she says simply of those who did: “The other two came.” </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Maybe it's my imagination, maybe I was already keyed up for a scary story, but I read that line as the action by which they damned themselves. To me, it was too straightforward to be anything but foreboding. And when a little old lady quickly changes her “Damn you” attitude to “I’ll be praying for you,” I have to wonder if the protagonist Eleanor is going to be needing all the divine intervention she can get.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Jackson set up Eleanor’s nothing-to-lose situation through her unhappy relationship with her mother, her bullying sister, and her interest in just about anything—from an empty field, to a secluded cottage near a depressing town—so long as it is away from home. She’s so awkward and sad that standing up to her sister and taking the car counts as her "save the cat" moment.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I don’t know that Shirley Jackson does anything by accident. I wonder if the two sisters, squabbling over the car was intentionally set up to mirror the situation of the two Crain sisters who squabble over Hill House. The latter’s disastrous consequences set up the result for the other, so I needn’t have been surprised when it added badly. Lesson learned from Professor Shirley Jackson: Don’t fight with your sister.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">When Theodora is introduced, she brings life and banter and joy to the character set. Eleanor becomes wittier after her arrival, and their cheerfulness is a welcome change to the stern and foreboding backdrop of the house. But then, Luke’s wit sounds a lot like Theodora’s too, so maybe all of the characters are written with the same voice—Shirley Jackson’s. Nevertheless, I needed those moments of levity between dark scenes of oppressive fear, but I wonder if Jackson relaxed the tension too much in those moments. It seems everyone is safe so long as the sun is up, and not every night is eventful, so at times I think I relaxed too much.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Still, I could learn a thing or two from Jackson’s ability to build an anxiety-filled scene. In the four pages from Eleanor’s arrival in the blue room until the sound of Theodora’s car door, Jackson had me terrified, and I think it’ because Eleanor, too, is terrified by then. After looking out the window she’s “afraid to go back across the room.” But even before that the descriptions are all qualified with negativity—“unbelievably faulty design,” “pressing silence,” and “the sunlight came only palely through.” Still, I’m not sure what exactly is wrong with the room, but I’m afraid every time she’s in it.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">At the end of chapter 4, after the first nighttime fright with the banging on doors and trying the knobs, Dr. Montague says, “Doesn’t it begin to seem that the intention is, somehow, to separate us?” That’s a turning point in the book, because at that point we know the house’s game. But it waits. No more overt separations. Instead, it lets them separate themselves when they react to stress and confinement, judging each other's actions, motives, and characters and assuming the worst. The house sets them on a course, but it’s their reactions to paranormal occurrences that drive wedges between them, not some persistent phantom dog. And Eleanor’s attitude toward the spirit of the house turns from fear to acceptance, and she begins to relish being the one who can hear the chattering song—being special in some way—which she is because the house is singling her out, ostensibly because she’s experienced poltergeists before. Speaking of which, isn’t Theodora supposed to be special too? Isn’t she telepathic? Why hasn’t that come up after page 8? Is she a fake?</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">As for the symbolism I was looking for, should I read more into the oleanders? The “Journeys end in lovers meeting” refrain? Should I try to read more into Dr. Montague’s name—like Romeo, he’s fated to want what’s forbidden? Seems a stretch. Maybe her symbols went over my head this time, but the absence of meaningful symbols and motifs in <i>The Haunting of Hill House</i> makes me think those overly-eager high school lit. teachers may have been reading too much into “The Lottery.” </span></div>
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Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-48271998070764958062016-01-25T21:42:00.001-08:002016-01-29T21:43:51.993-08:00Disclaimer<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If it looks like I'm reviewing books/movies for a class, that's because I am. If reading ghost stories for graduate credit sounds like something you want to do, check out Seton Hill's MFA program in Writing Popular Fiction.</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.setonhill.edu/academics/graduate_programs/fiction"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">https://www.setonhill.edu/academics/graduate_programs/fiction</span></a></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-40036825343785691412016-01-15T05:55:00.001-08:002016-01-29T21:44:55.519-08:00My Name is Kristin, and I Write Genre Fiction<div style="color: #454545; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; text-decoration: -webkit-letterpress;">
<span style="color: #c27ba0; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"The notion that popular fiction is easy fiction is a self-congratulatory myth perpetuated by elites...</b><b>But when a writer is spinning a yarn of a particular <i>type</i>, a genre tale, then even <i>more</i> special knowledge is required to win over an audience, not less." </b><b>Michael A. Arnzen, </b><i><b>Many Genres, One Craft</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #d5a6bd; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I just have to post about this because I'm getting pretty sick of taking shit for wanting to write the kinds of books I'd want to read. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #d5a6bd; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> I appreciate Dr. Arnzen's defense of genre fiction. He does it all the time--in writing, in class, in the hallway outside of the cafeteria. It's like he can't help himself. Or like he's been called a hack one time too many, and he's had it. Sometimes in the course of doing what I do and meeting the people I meet, I forget this is an artistic endeavor I'm pursuing. To create is to be creative--and it's hard, hard work. I should hold my head up and be proud of what I do, even when surrounded by the literati.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #d5a6bd; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> S</span>till, there's that literary vs. genre thing, and I'm not entirely certain I can identify literary fiction when I see it. I've heard it defies categorization in a single genre. By that definition, all hybrid novels would be literature. From what I can tell--and this is my prejudice talking--I recognize literary fiction when the author uses poetic language and complexity to make a piece sound more beautiful and artistic. The writer sounds smart, but doesn't consider the reader. It's pedantic.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #d5a6bd; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"> To me it comes off as self-indulgent on the part of the writer to wander through flowery language and leave it to the reader to search for the meaning. Or in some cases it's not language but avoidance of structure--there again the reader is left to sort through superfluous information while he or she searches for the story. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #d5a6bd; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I'm not suggesting that writers pander to the reader and write only on demand, though I don't blame those who do--real people have real mortgages that have to be paid with real money. I might suggest, instead, that the writer keep readers in mind so the work communicates clearly, and the meaning isn't lost in translation. </span></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-63069655009621307882015-12-11T10:20:00.001-08:002016-01-29T21:46:28.802-08:00We're Doing it Wrong<div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My husband and I are mediocre parents. We’ve got two kids, ages 1 ½ and 3 ½, and, though we’re trying to be very conscientious about this child-rearing thing, those little guys keep reminding us that we’re not very good at it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> For example, my oldest kid, whom I’ll call Rabbit, is sometimes super mean to his little brother, whom I’ll call Little Bear. My husband and I aren’t completely ignorant people—we’ve read <i>Siblings Without Rivalry</i>, and a small mountain of other parenting books, and we’ve applied <i>Love Languages</i> and <i>Love and Logic</i>, along with a decade-and-a-half apiece of teacher training on classroom management and motivating children without conflict, but Rabbit still picks on Little Bear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> Here’s the real problem: karma.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For ten kidless years, DH and I taught middle school, all the while quietly judging parents on how well they’re managing the parenting gig and formulating our own ideas of what kinds of parents we’ll be. Parents who take the kids to exotic locations for year-long exchanges. Parents whose kids are well-adapted to adult company, who speak multiple languages and behave well in restaurants. We saw our kids as engineers, astronauts, computer programmers, and certainly honor students; and our kids may very well turn out to be those things, but right now they’re busy reminding us that they’re running this show a bit more than we’d like.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The thing is, nothing makes me more aware of how clueless I am as when my kid’s teachers, who are usually pleased with Rabbit, tell me he didn’t behave in class. My face warms, and I break out in a sweat, and I ask the teacher—who doesn’t have kids of her own—if she has any ideas of what I should do. “Just talk to him about it,” she says.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And I do. And I defer action until after dinner, when I’ve had time to think. And my husband and I talk about it and decide to take away a special toy. Rabbit cries and says he’ll do better, and we promise to return the toy when we receive a positive report.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And we still feel very mediocre.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And the kidless teachers probably shake their heads in the staff lounge.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And we muddle our way through parenthood for another day, just like everybody else we used to judge.</span></div>
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Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-59220095502458991702015-07-29T20:54:00.002-07:002015-07-29T20:55:44.531-07:00Fiction Fest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm sticking this on my page because, I mean, read it. A Fiction Fest in Denver? I'm in!Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-49936646760714002412015-07-29T20:46:00.001-07:002016-01-21T22:43:53.673-08:00On Trying to WriteYou know what's super-difficult? Putting my writing where other people can see it.<br />
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It's a necessary evil, though, because that's the whole point. I mean, I suppose I could just scribble to my heart's content until the day I die and never actually show it to anyone, and I'm sure it would be very cathartic, but it also seems excessively timid. </div>
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It just so happens that I came across a couple of poems I had hastily-scribbled almost ten years ago, when I was evidently feeling pretty unsure about writing. This anxiety and self-doubt has been around a little while then, I guess.</div>
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So yeah, good or bad, I'm just gonna chuck one out there. And then I'm going to go eat some gummy bears.</div>
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<b>Open Minded</b></div>
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So open, I'm sure nothing's inside</div>
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Just capacious, inaccessible vacancy.</div>
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Someone locked the door.</div>
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My pen leaves streaks of illegibility</div>
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On the lined page</div>
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Cross it out. Start again.</div>
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A few more letters</div>
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Those look awkward.</div>
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Cross them out. Turn the page.</div>
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I just can't write today.</div>
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<i style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">8/3/06</i></div>
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Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8588430879109667774.post-68172634623852861942014-12-31T10:37:00.000-08:002016-01-29T21:48:33.913-08:00Legacies<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My great-grandmother lived in Kentucky in the late 1800s. She and her husband left, ostensibly to find a better life, winding their way through Illinois, until they settled on a farm in North Dakota. I don't know what life had been like where she came from, but my grandmother told me about how her mom had been embarrassed to tell people where she'd come from, lest they think she still lived like those people. It makes you wonder what life was like for those people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My grandmother lived on a farm, which I know was a hard life, but it got harder when she left for town, where she worked full time in a university kitchen and lived behind her brother's place in a tiny home, without so much as hot running water until the mid 1960s.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">These women in my family tree sewed clothes by hand; washed clothes by hand; cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner from scratch; used an outhouse in the dead of North Dakota winter; and raised their babies while their husbands did, or didn't, bring home the bacon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">A half century later, I live in a home that is small, by modern American standards, but it's bigger than my grandmother's cottage. I shower in hot water as often as I want to. Machines wash my dishes and my clothes for me. My husband brings in firewood for the novelty of it, and I'm proud of myself when I cook something from scratch. My kids have so many toys that we store three-quarters of them in the garage. I have so much more than I need, and I have to admonish myself for sometimes wanting more.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I'm not writing this for any other purpose than to remind myself that the women of my family worked so much harder for so much less, and they were happy. So I should remember to look around, recognize the advantages I've had, and be happy about it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I am rich.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I am fortunate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Thanks, Grandmas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">12/31/14</span></div>
Kristinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17347370453131615534noreply@blogger.com0