A super cool professor of library science (none of my professors were like this) named Carol Tilley is defending comics as early literacy tools. In an article titled For Improving Early Literacy, Reading Comics Is No Child's Play at Science Daily, she talks about her ideas:
A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words," Tilley said. "Some kids, yes. But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books -- that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words."
Absolutely. Except for a few BAM! POW! BOOFs!! comic vocabulary is quite sophisticated in general. Great reading material. And because it fires the imagination so much, it keeps the reader a Reader for many years, if not for life. Alice would heartily approve of comics.
In the spirit of the "librarians as rock stars" backtype post a few days ago, I present me, the rockingly scary librarian. They only let you insert your face, not change sex or hair. Below is the original photo.
This is a squeeker post for National Blog Posting Month. I almost missed today!
I started listening to Lush Life by Richard Price. It was on the shelf and I had read great reviews of it when it originally came out. The narrator is Bobby Cannavale and he does excellent thug voices, very fast speech and has the cadence right. A bit less well adapted to the slower narrative that follows the prologue. The CD skips on track three anyway. I am not going to try to listen to this one because drugs and thugs aren't for me.
Next up is Hundred Dollar Baby by Robert B. Parker. I have not seen the film but know the essence of the plot. (Actually maybe I don't from listening so far) I'm hoping it works out better. (I started listening this morning and I don't like the hooker/crimelord backdrop at all, But I love the Spencer and Hawk characters. I did not watch the series when it was out and this is my fisrt Robert B. Parker book.)
FlashForward tonight was awesome and terribly sad. More when I write up the episode.
Did not get to see Survivor tonight. Will catch up tomorrow with that and V. How do people keep up who watch more shows than I do?
There you go, a post about not much, but still a post.
I listened to this as an audiobook going to and from work these last couple of weeks. The narrator, Bianca Amato, has a wonderful rich voice that lent itself well to the characters. I was truly spellbound listening and didn't mind waiting in traffic, and I was so involved especially near the end that I missed my exit coming into work a couple of times.
This is a ghost story with new twists given to how ghosts behave, what they can do, and what they might long for. It is, in the end, a tale of possession that is wrong morally, spiritually and every other way imaginable.
Two sets of twins who are obsessively close to each other are at the core of the story. Elspeth and Edie have been estranged for 20 years. Edie's daughters inherit Elspeth's flat in London next to Highgate Cemetery upon Elspeth's death. Although they're very intelligent, the twins are the picture of slackerdom. They are happy enough to drift off to London to live in Elspeth's flat for a year before thinking of what they might do next.
Julia and Valentina are mirror twins, physically identical but with a few amazing differences such as their hearts being on the opposite sides. They dress alike and do absolutely everything together. This suits Julia, but Valentina has long harbored a smouldering resentment at the cloying bond and she is willing to do anything, even die, to get out of Julia's grasp.
With the help of her aunt's ghost, she plans to die temporarily, then return to life. Her detailed plot for escape through death has profoundly different results than she expects.
The timelessness of historic Highgate Cemetery runs through the plot. The small gate between the flats and the cemetery is like the thin gate between life and death that the characters try to open and close at will.
Join the Mosaic a replica of the Mosaic site the show uses to capture a pattern of the world's Flash Forwards. Features people's "stories" and news reports. A funny one: a woman was watching the series finale of Lost. "The bomb worked and Charlie and Claire end up together." Too clever to slip that in.
Red Panda Resources A fan site run by David Goyer "The Official Site of the Creative Team Behind ABC's TV Show "FlashForward"
Apparently every month is blog posting month for the good folks at NaBloPoMo but they go wild during November in an effort to emulate National Novel Writing Month.
I tried to write on another of my blogs every day for 7 days once and it was really tough. That was a more specialized topic though, and this blog is a veritable trash can of random thinking. Anything goes! I can do it!
In case you think I missed yesterday, I count working on writing my annotations and adding illustrations to my scary movie post as blogging. The Cheater Doth Live!
If writing in your blog daily and working on that Great Novel aren't enough, keep keyboard in mano because it is also National Play Writing Month! The Playwriters have an adorable logo, in case this sways you towards releasing the Shakespeare Within.
Happy Halloween! Here is my list of scary movies. The only one I would not be able to watch again is Night of the Living Dead. All of these made the list because certain scenes stick in my head or I just remember them being particularly scary when I saw them. I have a penchant for the classic horror films and wanted to be married on Halloween in Bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein's Monster costumes but this was nixed by my intended. Alas. I looked terrible in the costume I ended up in.
The Abominable Doctor Phibes (1971) Vincent Price stars as a man out to get revenge on the medical team who did not save his wife. He cleverly thinks to get back at them by murdering them based on the ten plagues that God visited upon the Egyptians. Tricksy Vincent.
Alien (1979)
In space, no one can hear you scream! This was plastered everywhere it seemed when this came out. The movie lived up to its hype as a dark, claustrophobic series of abrupt and violent attacks by creatures such as we had never seen before, even in our darkest nightmares. The scene that sticks out in my mind is the one in which the alien bursts from the chest of John Hurt after a few moments of bulging movement. Gross gross. I like the next film Aliens best of the series but this one is the scariest by far.
An American Werewolf in London (1981) Two college pals hitchhiking in northern England ignore the warnings of the charming folk at the Lamb and Slaughter not to leave the roads at night. They are attacked soon after they leave the road and one of them is killed, while the other begins the slow process of turning into a werewolf. A startling mixture of horror and humor with great music, this is an all time favorite.
The Black Cat This twisted tale of wartime betrayal stars two favorite old time horror meisters. Bela Lugosi is a man who was imprisoned in Russia for many years, and Boris Karloff is the man responsible for his fate. Karloff also steals Lugosi's wife and daughter, while leading a dark cult. It was a pleasure seeing these two together, competing for most villanous onscreen presence. They seemed to do every scene with relish, especially the final one where Lugosi exacts his revenge by skinning his foe like a cat.
The Blob (1958)
I could be mis-remembering but I think I saw this with the family at a drive in when I was four. The Blob seemed really really scary and by the end of the movie, HUGE not to mention pulsating. It was just so implacable.
Dracula (Lugosi)
Frankenstein (Karloff)
House of Wax
House on Haunted Hill
The Haunting (Older version)
Hellraiser
It
Jaws
The Mummy (1932) Boris Karloff stars as the re-animated high priest Imhotep who tries to get his lost love Princess Anck-es-en-Amon re-animated as well. As you can see even revived he is very mummy-like. How did he fool those Egyptologists?
Night of the Living Dead
Nightmare on Elm Street
The Pit and the Pendulum
Poltergeist
Psycho
The Thing (newer version)
Salem's Lot
The Sixth Sense
Theater of Blood A little movie of revenge starring Vincent Price and Diana Rigg (The Avengers). Actor Edward Lionheart gets back at his critics by murdering them according to quotes from Shakespeare's plays. Vincent Price is gleefully grotesque.
13 Ghosts
The Thing (newer version)
The Tingler
Poltergeist
Village of the Damned (1960) A strange gas permeates numerous small villages all over the world, resulting in the births of eerie, blonde, telepathic children. George Sanders is the parent of one of the leaders. Once he realizes the children are cold, controlling and murderous, he devises a plan to destroy them. Glowing eyes=bad kids.
