Horror season is approaching. I keep seeing previews on the idiot box for Gremlins. That movie still makes me twitch, and I don't care how funny it was supposed to be.
Back in high school, some friends and I had a tradition of renting movies on halloween. We had a few classics, but we mostly got the weirdest and worst we could find.
I have been reading the last few posts with interest. Any recs for gleefully superlative terrible scream flicks?
andy: i'm on an incapable computer that is not my own, so i can't check. but if that's the video i saw a few months back, in which a t-shirt becomes rectangular in all of two seconds, i managed to mimic the method. it can be done.
stephan: i'm reading that one right now, actually. i'm starting to think that i'm an anachronism. i recently bought a typewriter as well.
andy: oh, i haven't looked at her books in years. i remember that one as being my favorite of hers. my reading goes in phases, and there's one for children's lit every couple years. c.s.lewis and lloyd alexander are other old favorites in that arena.
randall: sorry, guy. i told you it was going to be an avalanche. the folx round here read all kinds and like to share, and the recommendations are on this side of good. someone once mentioned murder must advertise by dorothy sayers, and i've now gone and read the entire lord peter wimsey series as a result.
Randall: My so-far favorite book is Little, Big by John Crowley. Urban fantasy, multifariously layered, and some great twists of plot and dialogue. I've been reading it about once a year for, oh, about a decade now. But I absolutely hated it the first time - I couldn't get into it at all. This frustrated me so much that I went back and tried again and have never regretted it.
If you've got the patience and the temperment, perhaps a chronological approach might work. I have a soft spot for most of Heinlein's juveniles.
Then there's Asimov's short stories, some stuff by Andre Norton, or maybe Tiptree.
For contemporary fiction, I have to say that Nalo Hopkinson is doing some excellent work. As is Neil Gaiman. And I'm heavily attached to some of Margaret Atwood's books.
And if you're still into comics, the next book on my list of things-that-must-be-bought is the Flight anthology.
Sugnwrgwaed: do you live under a bridge?
randall: you're about to be hit by an avalanche. to stem the tide a little, what do you usually read? just saying "comics" gives us an awefully huge target.
and some of your time is bound to be spent on what you think are mediocre titles. tastes differ. and there's always sturgeon's law.
teresa: straight out of the bowl, usually. it's a sort of communal thing in our family. we also sometimes serve it with pelau, which is a caribbean rice&peas dish. and my mother once threw the same ingredients into a food processor to make a sort of chutney/dip to accompany phulourie - a fried dough made of split peas.
mm. there are too many things i need to learn how to cook.
my family has always made mango chow in the summer. actually, i'm not sure if "chow" is the correct spelling. no one's ever bothered to write it down.
sliced green mango (actual colour unimportant as long as it's firm and not completely ripe)
crushed garlic
hot pepper
salt
in proportions according to taste.
mix in a bowl and set in a sunny place to let the flavours mingle. taste occasionally to see how it's getting on. eventually enjoy.
we've even done this on camping trips. if you're squeamish about the combination of fruit and garlic, a passable imitation can be pulled off with cucumber, but it's not nearly as lovely.
sunlight is an important ingredient.
In no particular order:
Rocky and Bullwinkle
The Muppet Show
Contact 1 2 3 (there was a pac-man-like math bit I think)
Sesame Street
Kidstreet
She-ra
Spiderman
The Edison Twins (someone else remember this please)
and others
Also a brief and horrible flirtation with the Samurai Pizza Cats. The theme song still haunts me at unexpected moments. Who do you call when you want some pepperoni?
*offers teresa an umbrella for over the folding chaise, as well as frozen blender beverage of choice*
yeah, i know. anticipating seasonal change ahead of schedule.
ooh. warm happy thought. knitted mammoth mittens?
Rejection is strange, to say the least. The last time I sent out some short works to a magazine, it was only a few weeks later that I started second guessing and went to reread and edit them for resubmission. By the time the letter got back to me, the crushing sense of rejection was eclipsed by a relieved "Oh, thanks be, they're sane after all."
I've edited essays from grade school age relatives and university friends, and my parent's masters theses. When done face-to-face, it becomes like a tutoring session. This is wrong, this is why it's wrong, these are your options to fix it. This is unclear, what are you trying to say? Okay, write that down. This quote weakens your argument. And so forth. The results are usually good, but it can take a very long time. The idea of trying to do something similar with each book-length fiction manuscript, by letter, stretches possibility. There's no way that editors have that much time - they have to spend that time on the pieces they actually intend to accept. Slush readers have my admiration just for not being jaded enough to set my stuff on fire after reading drivel for days. I am reasonably happy with my small but growing collection of rejections. I learned a little from most of them. And I haven't stopped writing yet.
Mitch - There are many things I doubt and only a few that I am sure of. I do reconsider my decision every time I see my cousin and her two boys, but I have not changed my mind as yet. Partly because I've already been a substitute parent for most of my (admittedly unfinished) life. I've been the other mom for years, and will be able to stop any day now. I think I'll take a short break before I seriously ponder starting up again.
You never know. Stranger things have happened.
Lydia:
" I think that what I’m trying to say is that the various types of abuse that people receive are different, but that ranking them as more or less horrible is unhelpful. As a society, we assume that a child who’s been sexually molested is more damaged than a child who’s been physically abused. The consequences of what was done to us don’t necessarily follow some neat chart that other people think up to judge the severity of the situation. "
Right. Myself and others in my family have had difficulty identifying what has happened to us in the past as abuse. The blueprint we have been given doesn't quite fit our own circumstance.
The social definitions of all kinds of abuse have shifted a great deal, and they can be hard to identify in some forms. How loud do you have to yell at a child before an outsider can identify it as abuse and not normal anxiety? How much force do you have to exert on a child's arm before a stranger can notice that you have gone beyond "discipline" and the acceptable boundaties of parental control?
Pain caused by emotional and physical abuse is just as real and as wrong as that caused by sexual abuse. It leaves a different mark, but it leaves one just the same. Sexual abuse can be pinpointed as "true" abuse because it carries with it all our other baggage about sexuality. It is expected that people will experience some amount of pain, some degree of humiliation and embarassment, some personal insult as a matter of course. It can be sometimes be brushed off as a thing that should be got over and put aside, forgiven and forgotten and unimportant.
from jonathan: "Seems similar to that old story (anyone remember it better?) about the poet who wandered into a critics’ debate on his poetry."
I believe I read something from Isaac Asimov some time ago. He sat in on a lecuture about his stories, and walked up to the prof after the class to explain what he really meant. He was told that he was only the author, and what people took from the text didn't necessarily have much to do with what Asimov intended to put there. Could be wrong though. Maybe it was someone else. I'm sure it was in an sf context, but it's probably happened more than once.
As to the childfree stance. I'm 22 and I've felt for years that reproduction wasn't an option for me. I figure that I can perpetuate my memes without passing on the genes. I've been repeatedly told that I will get over it, that I would make a fantastic mother, and I will change my mind one day. This even comes from otherwise sane family members and close friends.
My mother is one of six kids, my father is one of four, and both of them want to be grandparents. Somehow, none of my siblings are in a hurry to comply (thanks be, as infants should not have infants of their own, let them grow up before they choose). Both of my sisters intend to adopt.
I believe that family is important. But the definition of family can vary hugely. I have an extended extended family of almost-aunts, uncles and cousins who are in no way related to me. The guy my dad was in boy scouts with and his family, he and his wife are my godparents. My mom's best friends from school and their families (husband, kids, sisters, their kids, their parents who treat me as another grandchild). And then there are friends of my own who might as well be family, and I treat them as such.
So when I slip the fact that I don't intend to have kids and get the hollow stare, as if I have somehow betrayed some sanctified family values, it's sharp. When my offer of explanation is brushed off with a "she'll grow out of it," it's distressing. I like kids fine. As I get older, I intend to be a fantastic mad auntie to all of those in my expanding family. But I will not own children.
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| 2004 | 14 |
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