Dinosaurs are awesome!

News item 1: I didn't get accepted into Fordham. Oh well. Steven Page, I blame you for thi... don't give me that look! You said, "When all else fails, you can blame it on me." I am doing what you told me to do!

News Item 2: I stole Ovid's Metamorphoses from Robby D yesterday. I also stole Oreos from Heidi. (I also like that "I stole it from Mr Ford" is now an acceptable answer to "Why are you reading this?")

News Item 3: I wasn't kidding when I said I'd reread The Lost World by Michael Crichton. (The sequel to Jurassic Park, which I enjoy in book-form ten times more than the first. The movie of The Lost World deserves a special place next to the Breakfast of Champions movie in my backyard.


The book is about an island with dinosaurs on it. Come on. Come on, even you youngens should know this! No excuse! More specifically, this island isn't Isla Nublar--it's Isla Sorna. Dinosaurs were raised on Sorna and shipped to Nublar (the park). So, when Jurassic Park was abolished, the 'unknown' animals on Sorna were left to grow and whatever for about eight or ten years. (At one point it is mentioned that the two children from the first book are now in college.) And Ian Malcolm did not die at the end of the first book as it was almost 100% explicitly said. It was just a 'close call', or something ridiculous. Ughhh. Crichton...
So carnotaurs start washing up on beaches (I believe it was a carnotaur) and everyone who was involved with the island or heard rumors is immediately all "HECK YEAH". (Carnotaurs are basically T Rex's stubby and less cool cousin.) Then they all go to the island. Yayyy.



That guy who I called Repton in my last post? I was wrong; his name is Roxton. And he doesn't get eaten. Roxton is kind of the 'idiot scientist' in the book and cited twice for being so darned stupid! (Because they're stupid!) First, he's called out by Levine (Roxton never personally appears in the book, by the way) for "never really"knowing anatomy. (This is foreshadowing!) He says so because Roxton apparently dug up a new skeleton which he believes is a new type of velociraptor; however, Levine believes it is more likely a stenonychosaurus, which is fancy talk for a troodon. (Couldn't have just said troodon? Really?) Later on he is mentioned because a "misinformed" character read Roxton's report that frogs and t rexes have similar brain cases (remember that anatomy comment?) so t rexes are like frogs and can only see movement. So, the character having read this of course doesn't bolt when a t rex starts after him--and gets chomped. Come on, Roxton! Look what you've caused! Do you think you're playing Turok right now!? THIS IS NOT A GAME THAT MAKES ANGELA CRY. It's not even a game in general! God, Roxton.

Oh, but the guys who get eaten by the t rex? All of them deserve it. They're jerks and bastards and grrrr. Good. Though I can't imagine anyone honestly fearlessly approaching a t rex, no matter what they thought they knew. (Thus proving how stupid they are?) I for one would most likely... uh... alter the nature of my underoos. And run like hell. Baselton, you go on ahead. I'll just hide. No, you'll be fine without me, they won't be able to see you, remember?



Okay, fun thing I never noticed before in the past 900 times I've read this book (other than the Roxton foreshadowing on about the third page of the book) is that there's a document, a German document, Levine requested to have mailed to him... from the Peabody Museum!!! Which is so cool mainly because that was my place. I was a dinosaur kid. I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was little. (I am unsure whether I would reject the chance to go to Nublar or Sorna if they were real islands and it were possible or go.) I loved the Peabody Museum. Still do. It's how I roll. The only museum I could ever imagine being better is that one in Russia that has the closest to being complete brachiosaur in the world. (So maybe it wasn't Anastasia that sparked my interest in Russia after all...) But. Uh. What's going on? What was I talking about? Oh, right, the Peabody. Though most people probably don't know this, (George) Peabody founded the museum at his nephew Othniel's asking. Othniel Charles Marsh (OH MY GOD, THAT NAME!!!) discovered some pterosaurs, allosaurs, apatosaurs, eohippus (the "dawn horse", obviously not a dinosaur but an ancestor to modern-day horses) or some other very early horse ancestor, and named basically every genera of dinosaur. Oh, he also discovered a few normal people might know... some dinosaurs called stegosaurus and triceratops. And diplodocus! Oh man. I'm overdue for a trip to the Peabody.



At one point, a teenager named Arby gets into the island's camera system. Of course, seeing all the dinosaurs, his first thought is

(this had to be a trick)

that... it had to be a trick... Really? Like anyone is ever going to get that reference. Even Bruce Coville wouldn't recognize it! Anyway. He says to himself: "They must be movies, he thought. The dinosaur channel." I WISH.



There's this one scene where this scientist lady is on a motorcycle and she has Arby's also teenager friend Kelly ride on the back with a dart gun to shoot raptors. It's easily the most bad ass scene in this book, and in just about any book ever.



Oh, and the ending is very nice. Enjoy the half-page I'm including because I love you that much. Oh, yeah, and spoiler alert too.

"'I wouldn't take any of it too seriously. It's just theories. Human beings can't help making them, but the fact is that theories are just fantasies. And they change. When America was a new country, people believed in something called phlogiston. You know what that is? No? Well, it doesn't matter, because it wasn't real anyway. They also believed... that the earth was only a few thousand years old. Now we believe the earth is four billion years old, and we believe in photons and electrons, and we think human behavior is controlled by things like ego and self-esteem. We think those beliefs are more scientific and better.' 'Aren't they?' Thorne shrugged. 'They're still just fantasies. They're not real. Have you ever seen a self-esteem? Can you bring me one on a plate? How about a photon?'...'No, but...' 'And you never will, because those things don't exist. No matter how seriously people talk about them,' Thorne said. 'A hundred years from now, people will look back at us and laugh. They'll say, "You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?" They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies.' Thorne shook his head. 'And meanwhile, do you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. You see all of us together? That's real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't real anything else. Now look at that compass, and tell me where south is. I want to go to Puerto Cortes. It's time for us all to go home.'" Dear Michael Crichton: I love you. Just so you know.




This book is about ten thousand times better than the movie with the same title. It focused more on the raptors (the movie) and that relationship between the dad guy and his daughter. Ughhh. Cry me a river. I don't watch movies with dinosaurs and people to see sappy crap. I watch movies with dinosaurs to see people get eaten, or random 1940's women getting at least attacked by pterodactyls. Let's see... this book is actually compared with Frankenstein a lot, because it is also the negatory (is that a word? And if it is, am I even using it correctly?) side of scientific tinkering. Bringing dead flesh back to life and suffering the consequences and all of that. A little begrudgingly I admit the closeness. However, my theory is that Frankenstein is remembered as the classic version of this idea because it was the first. (That tends to be the case. An example of a book I don't like that is most likely a classic because of such is The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. One that I do like would probably be Bram Stoker's Dracula. Look at me, not being biased!) Sometimes this first version is good--and sometimes it's bad, Mary Shelley. Jurassic Park deserves to be the classic! First isn't always the best, guys. Now I'm going to be a grumpy old person! Rabba rabba rabba!



So, I realized this month was like obsession month for me. The Russian revolution, Narnia, and Metamorphoses. If I can squeeze in Pride and Prejudice and the entire Animorphs series before January 1st, it will be perfect! Think I can do it? Well, keep on humoring yourself. It's not happening. Haha. But speaking of Animorphs, they'll be reprinting the series next year... (I AM SO EXCITED!!!!)