M is for Mockamons

By that, I mean Mystery Science Theater 3000, Bad Movie Night, campy movies, cheesy movies, guilty pleasure movies. It’s bad portmanteau word from mocking and marathon.

In my freshman year of college, some friends and I watched Ed Wood movies all night. I have to say that Plan 9 from Outer Space is riveting in comparison to some of his lesser known works.

Most of our mockamons have been held on New Year’s Day but we did one last Thanksgiving. We usually only watch one movie now.

Here are a few of the ones we’ve watched. There were many, many others but my brain is protecting me from remembering them. Most of these are just silly but a couple of them are outright offensive. Be careful.

Death Race 2000
Fire and Ice
Mars Needs Women
Incubus
Teenage Cat Girls in Heat
Lair of the White Worm (offensive)
Coma
Return of the Killer Tomatoes
Barbarella
Laserblast
10 Million Years B.C.
Killer Condom (offensive)
Barb Wire
Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter
Legend of Sleepy Hallow (Tim Burton, not bad but overwrought)
Flash Gordon (1980s)
Zardoz

We have a few titles ready for our next mockamon: the 1980s The Punisher and Blood Freak.

Bad Movies.org and Oh the Humanity are both good sites for finding bad movies.

L is for Library

Libraries, specifically public libraries, are a kind of secular sanctuary for me. It’s quiet. There are few interruptions to dozing, to thinking or to total absorption in reading. It demands as much or as little from you as you feel like giving. It presents the best (and worst) of humanity, in a most civilized way. Best of all, you don’t have to keep the books. They take them back. (Anyone who has had to pack and move box after box after box of books should sympathize with this point.)

A lot of my early perspective on the world was formed from the contents of public libraries. Isaac Asimov describes it much more eloquently than I could:

I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough.
My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library.
For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it.

— I, Asimov. New York: Doubleday, 1994. Isaac ASIMOV

K is for Kryptonite

When I was I kid, I had a reprinted collection of Superman comics. I think they were from the 1950s and 1960s, the Silver Age. Kryptonite was the catalyst for almost every storyline. I especially liked the variations.

Green kryptonite just caused weakness but it could be secreted almost anywhere and pop out like a jack-in-the-box to take our hero down. Happily, lead could block it.

I remember white kryptonite affected plant life from the planet Krypton. In one story, Superman used it as a weed killer against some encroaching plants.

Red kryptonite was the wild card, it would duplicate Superman or make his hair and fingernails grow long or whatever the writers needed that day.

Gold kyptonite permanently removes super-powers.

My favorite story was the one narrated by a hunk of gold kryptonite. No, really, it was.

I plan to give away the ending…

---

Gold tells the story of how villains were trying to expose the gold kryptonite to Superman. But the citizens of Kandor, located in the miniaturized capital city of Krypton, see the danger. A Kandorian couple volunteers to save the day for Superman.

In the process, they are exposed to Gold. They exile themselves from Kandor. Apparently, Gold has altered their DNA and they refuse to reproduce non-super kids.

Superman finds out about their sacrifice and offers them a doll house to live in. I forget why they couldn’t be biggified by some kind of ray.

Gold gets sent to the Phantom Zone where the prisoners are stored. Now, even if they escape, they have no super-powers on Earth. So, that took care of that problem.

J is for Janeites, of which I am one

“I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.”

Jane Austen, in a letter to her sister, Cassandra, 24 Dec 1798

 

Jane’s fans see her so many ways: elegant and gentle; witty and heartless; feminist; and conservative. I like every one of the Janes, to be honest.

I met Jane in my mid-teens when my mother suggested that I read Pride and Prejudice. My favorites were Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. Later, I grew to enjoy Emma just as much. I read and own copies of all six novels. I also like her brief history (with very few dates) and Lady Susan.

 

I remember encountering some strange people who didn’t think much of Jane. I loaned my copy of Pride and Prejudice to an acquaintance who took pains to tell me that she wanted to read it only for Jane’s use of language and not for her plot. When I was writing a paper on her in college, a professor commented that Austen did not write characters so much as character types.

I like the Pride in Prejudice with Greer Garson and the one with Keira Knightly. The BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth is excellent in quality but not as frothy as it could be.

I really liked Frances O’Connor in the 1999 Mansfield Park. I know it is not a faithful adaptation but it’s an interesting and lively one. I’ve enjoyed modern versions of her novels: Bridget Jones’ Diary; Clueless; and Bride and Prejudice. I would like to watch a film of Lady Susan but that will probably not happen.

I haven’t read that many “sequels” books but I did enjoy the complete of Sanditon. In college, I discovered Regencies and read tons of them. My favorite Regency authors were Marion Chesney and Georgette Heyer.

I am, of course, going to watch Becoming Jane.

Now, I think that Austen is popular enough that my acquaintance could probably confess she liked all of Pride and Prejudice, not just her word choice.

I is for Internet

I’ve gotten out of the way of doing this since I was on vacation, and now I feel too self-conscious to finish anything. Of course, at this point, I’m sure no one’s paying attention anyway. I don’t even want to look at my stats. *deep sigh*

Here goes:

The Internet is my favorite toy ever. It has the truth about urban legends, word games with hens, quirky comic strips, and videos of vending machine reviews. There are Sailor Moon personality quizzes, lol cats, and information on medical breakthroughs. People share their grocery lists, their pain-filled recovery from sexual assault, and their co-worker’s foibles. I love the Internet because in one click, it goes from shallow to enriching.

One of my favorite sentiments about reading is that it temporarily allows you to see the world through some one else’s eyes. I have been able to see through many, many eyes via the Internet.

(Some eyes were more than a little wrong. But we can exclude them.)

Nevertheless, for all the delightful, gently eccentric, and deeply thoughtful people whose eyes I’ve borrowed: I thank you.

back from holiday

I’m still attempting to tame this life stuff. I’ll get it subdued soon.

In the meantime, here’s Planet Karen which is a very cool comic strip diary.

H is for Halloween

H is for Halloween. Halloween is one of my two favorite holidays. I like jack-o-lantern carving parties, and I like roasting the pumpkin seeds after they are lit and sitting in the windows. I like decorating the house with cobwebs and spiders and gooey bloody handprints. I like the movies and the music. I like choosing the good candy to give out to pirates and elves. I like the trivia and the silly jokes. I like the fall festivals that the community sets up for kids. I like the languid goth fans and the special-effect fans. I like telling ghost stories by candlelight.

I think I will add more this later, my time is up

G is for Grandmother’s Garden

G is for my grandmother’s Garden. 

Years ago, my family visited my grandmother one summer.  She and I had a habit of getting up earlier than the others.  We drank coffee and talked on her front porch.

The mornings were quiet and our conversations were trivial.  When I enjoyed the most was marveling at all the flowers she had planted.  I especially remember the bright azaleas with their thick stalks.

 I’ve read about women wanting to wear purple and red.  But, when I am old, I want to drink coffee early in the morning and gaze at the azaleas I’ve planted.

 ___________________________

G is for Goddess Within by Roger and Jennifer Woolger .   The book is about female archetypes based on Greco-Roman myths and it had a quiz to determine which one you were.  I made my women friends take the quiz, they were all Venus/Aphrodite.  The other goddesses were Ceres/Demeter; Juno/Hera/; Proserpina/Persephone; Minerva/Athena; Diana/Artemis.

 I had read about Jung in a psych intro class but that didn’t inspire me the way this book did.  I read a couple of his books before it went beyond my comprehension level.

One of the best things from Goddess Within was the film list in the back that pointed to archetypes in popular movies.  This list was the inspiration for the website I’m working on.

 I also liked Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Goddesses in Everywoman and Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women who Run with the Wolves.

the trouble with having a life…

is that it gets in the way of important things like blogging.

 I was working on my semester end projects.  Now that they are done, I’m visiting family and friends.  I’m going to a zoo and a science museum today.  Tomorrow, I’m going to visit my brother and go to his favorite new restaurant with him.

 I’ve been reading books and watching movies like crazy to catch up.  But I’ll be back home by next Monday and be done with all this crazy having a life stuff.

“C” encycylopedia of me links

Bella Dia who began the Encyclopedia of Me meme did C for Color. She also has the complete list of everyone who is participating. There are a lot more good ones to look at. You might find a favorite blogger.

Greeting Arts = cheers!

Extravayarnza = contradance (I’ve tried this, it’s fun.)

Domesticalia = Christmas

The Netherwood = clean sheets

Vintage Chica = consumption, taking time to eat healthy foods

Twisted Blossom = coraggio sempre, or courage always

L’arche de Noa = couture, finding good maternity clothes

1 snowflake = celebration

Big Bucket Girl = camel, crab, and courtesy