Other half of my soul, roots of my tree

Hi! Back from New Hampshire and Vermont! (We ended up skipping over Boston, though...) Checking out colleges, of course. And we went to the pumpkin festival in Keene. It was fun, but hick pride: corn and potato festival, guys! Though my mom still found three or four people she knew, which is crazy. We also found a really cool CD shop in the area. It's called Turn It Up! and according to the bag, the website is turnitup.com... Not that I've checked it out yet. But, the thing is, why they're so cool... They buy used CDs and sell them, and they had some movies and tapes too. But, instead of re wrapping the used discs up and letting you risk a potentially scratched-up disc (FYE, I'm looking at you) they keep them out of the plastic and they even have little stereos hooked up to headphones so you can actually listen to before you buy them. I didn't do that, but hey. Considering the most expensive CD I bought was $8 (and that CD was actually a new, never-been-opened one) I figured I could deal. Anyway, it's not like I was going out-and-out: I bought Barenaked Ladies, Gorillaz, and Matisyahu.


There was also a used books store which was not nearly as cool as the one in Salem (not only was it not a threat to my health, a lot of the books' prices were ridiculous) which I bought a book about the French Revolution from. I almost bought my brother Don Quixote, but the original book price had been $1.78, and they had it penciled in for fifteen. Okay, guys, I know the price is from thirty years ago, but come on. Really? It was kind of a shame. They had a lot of old books, but nothing... good. You know, nothing that you'd be like "Oh, what a classic!" more like "Oh, there's a reason why this was forgotten by the times."


Oh, and you know that new clause that says if you promote something, you have to say if you're getting paid by the company or whatever? For the record, I'm not. But Turn It Up! was so cool.




Okay, so, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. My feelings are basically the same, except stronger: This is a great book, no matter what Emma says! Of course, the problem with rereading a book that you know and love so much is the fact that you get excited for everything before you even pick the book back up. Those first, you know, twelve pages before Mr Darcy appears I could hardly sit still. And before Mr Darcy confesses love... and later when Elizabeth is staring at him the whole time really awkwardly (if I was in her place at that scene you better believe I would have slung him over my shoulder and carried him out of there like a sack of potatoes. Somehow.)... and the end, of course... GAH I LOVE THIS BOOK. I believe this book has done more damage to my already over-romanticized view of love than Aladdin has. Or Disney in general, but Aladdin definitely is the most romantic of them. Only the first one though. I never saw the second one, and because Aladdin's father looks like Sean Connery, it makes it difficult to really enjoy the third one. The show was pretty cool, even though I remember .2 episodes. Uh, where was I?


Oh, right, Pride and Prejudice. Because it got about a paragraph last time I've decided to write more about it. Also, if you have the film version (and I do mean the Colin Firth film version) stop holding out on me!

Oh, and a note: Even though I saw the movie at least five years before I read the book, I don't automatically picture Mr Darcy to be Colin Firth or Elizabeth to be whoever played Elizabeth. Usually that is the case, so I thought it odd that it didn't coincide in my brain. I picture Mr Darcy to be a combination of Colin Firth, Snape, and Oscar Wilde. An attractive combination. Elizabeth doesn't really get a celebrity lookalike bit. She just kind of looks... how I picture her. As for the other characters, I like pretending Collins looks like Scrooge, or some other nasty Dickens character. Collins is a creepy fellow. But I just thought it was kind of interesting... IE, no one else cares.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." One of the best introductions ever. Maybe I should just go about kissing Jane Austen's boots. Maybe...

"To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love..." Thank you, Jane Austen. Talk about a kick below the belt. Hey, but how many other girls can do a Charlie Brown like me? Not many. Heck, I don't even know if that's what the youngens call it nowadays.

"'A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment.'" Yeah, this sounds like something Oscar Wilde would say, doesn't it? I guess I can't tease Jackii too heavily for thinking they were buddies. Not knowing their ages or birth and death dates, it does sound like Austen collaborated with Wilde. She does have Oscar Wilde moments quite often.

"'I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.'" Mr Darcy, if you could sing 'A Whole New World' I think you'd be perfect for me. Pony express me sometime, bro. Or whatever you British do. Hook that hansom up!

Hahaha, oh, this bit will give me carpal tunnel for writing, but it's worth it. This is basically where Darcy gets his imagined Snape-ness from... You know, maybe I sort of imagined him as Colin for the first bit, but as it went on his image changed. I never really thought about it till later, when I actually realized I was picturing him as somebody different. But, he's so Snape in this. Darcy (His first name is Fitzwilliam! Can you believe that?) is writing a letter to his sister and a girl who wants to be his ball and chain is basically looking over his shoulder is being giggly and annoying: "'How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!' He made no answer. 'You write uncommonly fast.' 'You are mistaken. I write rather slowly.' 'How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a year! Letters of business, too! How odious I should think them!' 'It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of to yours.' 'Pray tell your sister that I long to see her.' 'I have already told her once, by your desire.' 'I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend pens remarkably well.' 'Thank you--but I always mend my own.' 'How can you contrive to write so even?' He was silent. 'Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp; and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss Grantley's.' 'Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again?'" Really, with every response can't you just hear that droll 'Mr Potter' voice? I certainly can. Don't let the girls wear you down, Mr Rickman!

"'It is from my cousin, Mr Collins, who, when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases.'" Uh... Thanks for bringing that up. You kind of just ruined our day. Cool. Did you even discuss this with your wife? Why bring up death on such a nice day!? Talk about a buzz kill.

Aha, there's a scene where Elizabeth accidentally accepts Mr Darcy's hand to dance and while she is upset and mulling over it, Charlotte tries to console her by saying Mr Darcy is quite "agreeable". Elizabeth basically responds with no, he's horrible and I hope I never consider him to be a good person. Irony!

"'Your sister is in love, I find. I congratulate her. Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.'" Maybe Oscar Wilde had a Ouija board....

"'We do not suffer by accident.'" Amen to that, sister. Jane Austen, I wish you weren't dead or I could have been born in right era so we could have been friends. Actually, if I'm going to suddenly believe in past lives... Maybe we were! And maybe Jane Austen was reborn as Oscar Wilde... See, he couldn't help it! He just happened to truly be a woman deep down. So--sorry I divorced you...

I love Mr Darcy: "'In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.'" "'But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you.'" "'My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.'"
And last, but certainly not least: "Elizabeth's spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr Darcy to account for his ever having fallen in love with her. 'How could you begin?' said she. 'I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had made a beginning; but what set you off in the first place?' 'I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.'"

Guys out there! Take a lesson from Mr Darcy!

Well, what else really quickly? I saw the Carrie movie a few days ago. Have I written about it already? Well, it was actually pretty good. It was a lot easier to sympathize with Carrie, for sure. Instead of being dull and, to be honest, 'bovine-ish' as I imagined her, she was a pretty girl. Not exactly gorgeous, but not ugly. I didn't recognize the actress from anything else, but she was a perfect fit for the title role. The mother was much less intimidating in the film rendition. She first appears as a soft-spoken sweet-looking woman with a mellow Southern accent. I thought this was so she would really freak you out when she snapped at Carrie, but she wasn't nearly as scary as I feared she'd be. Freaky, but my imagined version of her scared me much more. I pictured her nothing like she is in the movie, and of course she's much more intense in the book.

One bit that confused me was that statuette of 'Jesus' in Carrie's closet. There's a saint who was killed in that manner, but it wasn't Jesus. Not that I can remember which saint, but let's be fair, there's at least one thousand. And if not one thousand, a huge lot in any case.

The scene where she's covered in pig blood isn't too scary either. My dad's a liar!

Wonder if he'll ever know: he's in the best-selling show: 'Is There Life on Mars?'

Over the course of the last few comments (right now, four) on my last post I realized something: We have not invented any new lingo (proving my own point) in, like, 40 years. Maybe 30. But still? When did cool start getting used as a synonym for awesome? Probably in the seventies! No, according to dictionary.com? The 1930's. The 1930's! You know what else happened in 1930? The dust bowl. The dust bowl. And... uh... 'rad'. Fifties. 'Dynamite'. 'Da bomb'. Okay, that was probably like nineties. But really. Come on, get off your butts kids of America. We need slang, so I can sound antiquated because I talk like the Victorian era and 1930's had a child. A child who was only a way of speaking. My way of speaking. Though the Victorian era speaking thing may be because of my Victorian era fetish, but really, we don't need to get into that right now Oscar Wilde.
Anyways. Make some new slang. And nothing that blows (nineties! Bart Simpson!), okay? Run it by me first. I have crowned myself 'Official Chairman of choosing new lingo including something to replace lingo'. (Everyone applauds)

Anyways, the other day I was stuck in my basement so all I could do was pick up a book nearby.... and since I've been bashing Stephen King so much, that book was Carrie. Everyone knows this plot, at least I think so, and remember, on average my brain is set at least 40 years behind everyone else's. But Carrie is basically this psychic girl whose powers are triggered by the advent of her period (no one remembers this from the movie? That was like the scene. And the pig blood scene. I've never actually seen the movie, but my dad assures me what I just typed is the unvarnished truth) is what triggers her abilities to flower, and her mom's a religious nutcase and she's the butt of the school. And then, like every other Stephen King book, everyone dies in a huge explosion. Would you like me to list his books where this has happened? I can't. It would destroy my bandwidth. And then it would explode, and I'd die. In a fiery explosion. Needful Things. 'Salem's Lot. Desperation. Oh what was that? I seemed to cough textually in italicized format just now. But no matter! Let's continue:
My first criticize comes when Stephen King describes a woman as a "typical Ms. California", she "wears bright print shifts", "her hair is black-streaked blond", she's a member of the "California Sun 'n Fun Crowd", et cetera. But then he compares her to Jack Kerouac--"When she talks about Carrie White her face takes on an odd, pinched look that is more like Lovecraft out of Arkham than Kerouac out of Southern Cal." Uhm, Stephen King? Jack Kerouac isn't a "typical Ms. California". In fact, I would go so far to say as he is nothing like what King described the woman to be? I mean, I guess Kerouac is known pretty exclusively for his CA travels, but in this case there are two types of Californians.... People who'd emulate Kerouac, and what you usually think of when you think of a person from CA. Did I just call Stephen King out? I'm not entirely sure. But if I did... I'm right. Come on. Man. (I decided it, by the way, so--LOGICAL FALLACY! That's right, I just called it on myself. Dayum.)
And there was a part I really liked. Stephen King usually has at least one meaningful thing from every book worth quoting in seriousness, and here we go: "'Kids don't know what they're doing. Kids don't even know their reactions really, actually, hurt other people. They have no, uh, empathy. Dig?'...'But hardly anybody ever finds out that their actions really, actually, hurt other people! People don't get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don't stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.'" Props to him.
Ah, yes, is Carrie the Angel with the Flaming Sword? Is she His Right Hand? Punishing the children who abused her? Was she punishing her mother, or setting her spirit free to Heaven? Well, that explosion must have seemed like Judgment Day. I can believe she is an Angel with a Flaming Sword, but whether she is Michael or one of Satan's I can't judge. I can see her as a sort of martyr, constantly being crucified and such (that scene with her on the stage, was I the only one who thought of The Scarlet Letter?) but her being an agent of God.... Well, I was raised on Sunday School Jesus. The idea of Jesus being so bloody and violent just doesn't sit well with me. It just feels awkward. I don't know. I'm just going to take the book as a brainless thriller, nothing more. I enjoyed it, so why sour the pot? No thanks.

Also, regarding the title? I guess that is a TV show now. Is it any good? The theme song better be that song, or I'm calling a party foul (90's) right here and now. I'd watch it right now if I wasn't too busy not doing anything productive. And if it was on....