Yesterday my family saw Where The Wild Things Are.  I’d been looking forward to this for months in advance, but as the date drew closer, I found myself apprehensive.  What if they ruined one of the simplest, best books from my youth?  Could I stand it?  People were buzzing about it, which made me more nervous.  I was surprised that many people were interested.  When I heard someone express boredom with the whole concept, it made me feel much better, actually.  I can’t explain that.  Then there was the premiere, and all talk seemed to drop off.  All I heard was Zombieland talk.  It was bizarre, because I knew so many people who claimed to be going the day of, but no one could tell me how the movie actually was.

I went looking up reviews, knowing that I couldn’t spoil the movie, having read the book.  I read scathing reviews mixed in with awestruck reviews.  People suggested this was a big “ad for Ritalin” or a scarefest that would traumatize children.  I actually read one reviewer who said it was unfair of Spike Jonze to inflict his own tortured, dark views of childhood on her precious cherubs.  I also read a lot of reviews that said it was boring, and there wasn’t much plot.  So, I was a little concerned that it would be overly dark.  I wasn’t concerned about the plot, since it’s a 10 sentence book.  I didn’t expect a very complex, involved plot.  I expected the same as the book.  Kid throws tantrum, escapes to his imaginary world, comes down off his tantrum, and returns home, where he finds unconditional love.

After seeing the movie, which held pretty true to that formula, I find myself boggling at the reactions I read. The most common charges were that the movie was too scary, or symbolically complex  for children to sit through.  Ha.  My kids, 8 and 5, loved it.  The little one was scared on the way to the theatre because he’d overheard me discussing the dark reviews I’d read.  Several people suggested that anyone who identified with this movie, adult or child, should get to a counsellor or swallow some happy pills straightaway. Well, childhood is not all gummy bears and rainbows!  Life is hard sometimes.  To pretend otherwise is unfair to children.  Yes, there are developmental stages wherein their understanding of life’s complexities are incomplete, but we could say that of any adult as well.

I also read complaints that we didn’t know the “backstory” of some of the Wild Things.  Guess what?  This is a story about critters from a boy’s imagination.  Go with that!  Children often are baffled by other people’s behavior.  They DON’T know the backstory as to why the people in their lives act the way they do.  It’s frustrating to not understand, or not to be able to express yourself properly.  Kids have tantrums, freak out, get out of control, act like wild things!  I think the movie captured that very well.  Max was no monster, despite what reviewers said.

The last complaint I read a lot of was that the movie was boring, and only a “hipster” (I read this several times) would enjoy it.  I don’t even understand that complaint, to be honest.  I suppose it’s the most honest of all the reactions, though, because that boils down to an actual preference, instead of a misguided attempt to shelter children from evil feelings like anger and sadness!  The boring, I can attribute to the lack of song and dance razzle dazzle that Pixar and Disney have conditioned us to expect from a kid’s story.  Jim Henson style puppets (which were supercool, by the way), even with updated animations, are inadequate in a world where every movie is a primary colored 3D animation fest.  I found the movie to be stylistically beautiful and refreshing, personally.

Yeah, I know, this is a month late to say anything about Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, but I just saw it last night. I really expected the normal disappointment at seeing a well written book translated to film. As usual, I was careful not to read too much ahead of time, so as to spoil my enjoyment. My anticipation wasn’t very high.  I was hoping for good enough. Kinda like Goblet of Fire.  Instead, I’d say the movie rated about a D.  That’s not good enough.  It’s only a passing grade because it hit enough of the crucial plot points that I suppose there’s a justification for the next two movies.

I would quit watching the Harry Potter movies by now if I hadn’t read the books. But having read the books, somehow I can’t tear my eyes away from the train wreck. Just so you know, in the book, there’s crazy stuff about the freaking HALF BLOOD PRINCE in and also Lord Voldemort and some other apparently unimportant junk. The book is the most powerful of the series, I think. But somehow this movie was utterly boring! For such an emotional book, too!  I cried at the end, but only because I knew what it should have been, so I cared about what was happening. Or really, what should have been happening.

Did J.K. Rowling just quit with the input?  I remember when they were making the first few, she’d insist certain seemingly unimportant details be kept in because they were crucial to the story line.  Did she decide to just quit once the last book came out, figuring that now that the whole story was out there, any idiot would know not to give Bellatrix 4th billing?   Or to cut out all those pesky bits of information about Snape, Harry’s parents, or most all of the stuff about Voldy’s childhood?  They even cut out the interesting bits of the love stories, and left us with half a movie about how annoying Lavender was!

Flat out disappointed, even going in with low expectations.

As long as I can remember, 47 has been my favorite number, though I never had any particular reason to be drawn to it.  There are now 47 posts on this blog. When I pair that fact with the bit of synchronicity from last week, I realize that the universe has informed me that it is time to write a tribute to the mystery of 47.

I’ve heard of other numbers having followers. I’ve heard there are many people who believe that seeing 11:11 means that the universe is trying to reveal something.  I found that idea very fascinating for a while, but I think the universe must not have anything very special to tell me just yet, since I never randomly look up and see elevens anywhere.  I know several people whose favorite number is 7.  Others pick 13, just to buck the system. But 47?!  47 is my number, I’d always felt it was unique.  Not so much.

Cruising the internet last week, I came across a link to Awkward Family Photos.  As I was giggling my way through the pages of the album, I saw that 47 apparently is an awkward number.  I had to read the comments on that one. They pointed me to the 47 Society’s webpage.  Disappointingly, it appears to be inactive, but I was intrigued, and kept researching.

According to the Ponoma College website, “In 1964, Professor of Mathematics Donald Bentley proved that all numbers are equal to 47.” I feel so vindicated, because that’s exactly how I use it!  Now I’ll know I’m not really exaggerating, as 47 is accurate at all times.

Furthermore, the fascination with the number 47 infected the Star Trek universe.  The number 47 has featured prominently in episodes from The Next Generation’s fourth season forward, because of writer Joe Menosky.  He is a Ponoma graduate, and wrote for TNG, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.  The inclusion of 47 in these series has been tracked obsessively.  Rick Berman was a fellow writer during some of these episodes, and joked about the inclusion, “47 is 42, corrected for inflation.”  Squee!  A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference wrapped up in a shiny Star Trek coating!

I really wonder now if my subconscious got some programming from watching so much Star Trek, or if it’s truly just coincidental.  Will I turn into this guy?

Looky what I got!  Isn’t it awesome?  Some friends of mine went to a small anime convention and immediately thought of me when they saw it.  So they bought it!  I love surprises. In addition to the obvious, this was a nod to my half-orc, XaXa.  A couple of their characters lust after XaXa mightily, green skin or not.  I don’t blame them.  She is pretty hot.

She's green? That'll do!

I’m wearing it right now, to get me into the gaming frame of mind.  But really, it’s just serving as a reminder to me that the Star Trek movie is out and I haven’t seen it yet!   It looks like I may have to wait a little bit, too.  Unless… oh!  Maybe I can convince my mom that she would really like to go see that with me for Mother’s Day! Yeah, I think I’ve got a shot at that.   She did take me to see every single Star Trek movie out there while I was growing up, and taught me that we were “Trekkies, honey, never Trekkers.”

Have a great weekend everyone, and please don’t forget your moms.  Live long and prosper!

The discussion of A Clockwork Orange is well past overdue.   Most of us in my informal book club have been very busy over the past few months, and reading a book and finding an available time for to meet up has been difficult for some.   I’m a little concerned that choosing A Clockwork Orange may have put one of the nails in the group’s coffin, because I’m fairly certain it didn’t hold mass appeal.  Having seen the Stanley Kubrick movie first, I was prepared for Alex’s gleeful portrayal of the violent life he led, and I expected that it might be a bit gruesome for others to read. Interestingly, it actually turned out to be a much lighter read than I expected.

The book is written in Nadsat, a dialect Burgess created for the book composed of “…odd bits of old rhyming slang.  A bit of gypsy talk, too. But most of the roots are Slav. Propaganda. Subliminal penetration.”  At the beginning, Alex’s dialog is confusing and foreign, but Burgess quickly gives plenty of clues as to the meaning of unfamiliar words.  Of course, most printings of the book now have a glossary.  Failing that, an online version is easy to come by.  After a chapter or so, the reader should have a general handle on the language without any aids, anyway.  I found this an interesting device, but  I enjoy plays with language and am fascinated with how pidgins and dialects are formed and function.  Alex is very musical, and that comes through in his speech patterns. I enjoyed the parallelism to the music in his lyric turns of phrase, but others found it to be distraction from the larger message of the work.

To complicate matters further, the British version has a signicant difference to the originally published American version, and I almost missed it entirely.  My copy, printed in the 60s, was on loan from the local library.  A few of the other girls were reading an online copy. About an hour before meeting time on our original discussion date, I was looking online for interesting talking points.  I kept running across a question about the significance of the drink Alex orders in the last chapter. I was absolutely confused.  There’s no opportunity for Alex to order a drink in the last chapter!  Did I nod off somewhere near the end?!

A quick online search solved the mystery. Originally, the final chapter was simply not published in America. I found Anthony Burgess’ essay on the situation and the missing last chapter with 30 minutes to spare.   I think the book is stronger without the moralizing of the last chapter, but it wasn’t my work.  If Burgess had a formula and a plan, how much should it be honored? I suppose, in the end, he allowed it to be published without that last chapter, so he made the decision himself.

I grinned as I read Burgess’ introduction:

I first published the novella A Clockwork Orange in 1962, which ought to be far enough in the past for it to be erased from the world’s literary memory. It refuses to be erased, however, and for this the film version of the book made by Stanley Kubrick may be held chiefly responsible. I should myself be glad to disown it for various reasons, but this is not permitted. I receive mail from students who try to write theses about it, or requests from Japanese dramaturges to turn it into a sort of Noh play. It seems likely to survive, while other works of mine that I value more bite the dust. This is not an unusual experience for an artist. Rachmaninoff used to groan because he was known mainly for a Prelude in C Sharp Minor which he wrote as a boy, while the works of his maturity never got into the programmes. Kids cut their pianistic teeth on a Minuet in G which Beethoven composed only so that he could detest it. I have to go on living with A Clockwork Orange, and this means I have a sort of authorial duty to it. I have a very special duty to it in the United States, and I had better now explain what that duty is.

So he wasn’t very fond of the book, himself!  There was a talking point, and I was very excited, but also distraught.  As I was frantically trying to print out 6 copies of that last chapter so we would all have it to refer to, I got a phone call.  Only one of the girls had been able to read it, and quite a few of the group wasn’t going to be able to make it after all.  The extra time was actually a relief, and absolved me from dealing with a frustrating paper jam.

A month later, we still haven’t discussed the book in much detail.  The misadventures along the way taught me more about the book than I would have learned simply buying it from the bookstore. As I said, I really enjoyed it, but it does read like an early work, and I understand why Burgess later found it to be distasteful. I also understand why Kubrick and the American publisher chose to forego the last chapter.  I still find myself conflicted about that last chapter. I’ve tried very hard not to spoil anything for anyone in this post on the off chance that some of you are still working on the book.  Still, I hope that even if we don’t meet, that everyone would feel free to talk about the book in the comments, whether they are a part of the book club or not.

Sunday I chillaxed with some girls, watching Disney movies.  We’ve all been running on empty, so one of my friends invited us over to just watch our favorite cartoons and veg.  We were also supposed to discuss A Clockwork Orange, but strangely that didn’t exactly fit in with the rest of the day.  I’ll try to make up for that by writing about it later on this week.

For my contribution I brought cookies.  They’re from a super simple recipe from an old cookbook.  I was (am) low on groceries, and didn’t really have enough white sugar or milk or all sorts of ingredients for most of my recipes, so I went off searching and found something that was brown sugar based and wouldn’t require a whole lot of improvising.   The cookies were a hit, and the book is out of circulation now.  It’s a shame to let something so simple and yet so yummy go to waste.  Plus, I was asked for the recipe.  Here you go!

From A Collection Of The Very Finest Recipes Ever Assembled Into One Cookbook, 1979:

Brown Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup shortening
• 2 cups light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons water
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

1. Cream shortening and sugar; add eggs, water and vanilla.
2. Sift dry ingredients and mix well.
3. Shape into cookies.
4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes at 350°.

Note: A vanilla or caramel icing is good; or sprinkle brown sugar or coconut on top before baking.

Maybe you can already tell that they’re basically a cookie-biscuit hybrid.  Yum!  I didn’t have enough shortening or butter to complete the recipe, so I subbed butter for half the shortening.  (I’ll get groceries soon, I promise!)  The photo I’d planned is unavailable due to their nomminess, so I’ll describe them.  I could have gone the cookie cutter route because the batter would have been perfect for that, but instead I made tablespoon sized balls that I flattened with a spoon and topped them with green sugar crystals.  Visually, they were rather boring, being a dark beige color.  They really would have benefited from nice contrasting icing or more colorful sprinkles.

What’s your favorite Disney movie?  I’m not really sure what mine is, but I picked Sleeping Beauty.  I particularly love the stylized look of that one, plus Maleficent is one of the best UBGs* ever! I’m glad that I picked that one, too, because we gravitated towards newer ones for the rest of the day.   After skipping the television for a week, five movies was quite a pendulum swing.  A full 24 hours later, my brain is still stuck singing Disney lyrics, especially Beauty and The Beast.   Sometimes you just need a day to zone out and eat junk.

*Ultimate Bad Guy (aka Big Bad or Boss Monster)

Today I read a Paste Magazine interview with Felicia Day.  She is quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses. She’s unconventional — beautiful, smart, witty and has gorgeous eyes and red hair!  Yay!  She’s a gamer nerd chick, with smooth pale luminescent skin glowing from lack of pigment and too much computer time.  She’s got freckles!  She was born in Huntsville.  She was home schooled and then went on to college and double majored in mathematics and violin performance.  After she graduated, she moved to California… to become an actress.  What’s not to love?

Felicia has been here and there, most recognizably playing Vi on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But I became really familiar with her through her online work, particularly Penny in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Dr. Horrible is Joss Whedon’s hilarious and wonderful online musical, created during the writer’s strike last year.  Did you ever see the Buffy musical episode?  Dr. Horrible is definitely a close relative.  It chronicles a young hopeful’s rise to stardom in the world of super villains.  It’s only 43 minutes all told. I was a  big evangelist when the episodes originally debuted.  I’ve memorized it by now, because I have watched it at least a dozen times.

As I began researching the actress who played the lovely Penny, I discovered that Felicia Day actually was brought to Dr. Horrible largely because of her experience with her own online project, The Guild. The first season of The Guild was very easy to find Youtube.  I immediately watched them all, enjoying the instant gratification. Before you click “play,” I should warn you there is some strong language.

There, the first one’s free. Actually all of them are. Just travel over to the Guild’s website.  There are only two seasons so far, so catching up won’t be hard.  It’s very different than Dr. Horrible, which created for mass appeal.  Obviously, it’s very much a niche oriented video, with jokes geared toward online gamers.  World of Warcraft players will especially enjoy it.

Felicia had tried to sell The Guild as a more traditional show, but it was too much of a niche market.  Too many people didn’t understand the jokes.  So she turned to where the audience that would appreciate her work hangs out all day every day, and began making Youtube shorts.  By the end of the first season, the donations that were pouring in actually made it possible to pay the actors.  For the second season, after much wooing from many angles, the perfect solution to return to her pet project and actually make money while retaining her creative autonomy.  From the Paste interview:

Then, Xbox and Microsoft came in and were like, “We love the show, we want you to do what you do with it, we just want to help you produce it and make it and roll it out really fast.” They created a revolutionary business model, because not only did they get a sponsor on board, but they distributed it over all the Microsoft platforms so you can download it for free off of Xbox live and HD which is basically like downloading a TV show. So our little independent, shot-in-my-shed show is essentially one click away from 30 Rock.

How cool is that?  She had the idea for a nifty show about gaming, got rejected everywhere, and decided to go ahead and do it.  And now she’s enjoying incredible success by turning a small independent venture into something that is reaching the whole world because niche marketing actually works so well on the internet.  Joss Whedon was right to seek her simply for her skills as an internet guru for Dr. Horrible.  The fact that she can actually sing and act was simply a bonus.

At ImagiCon last weekend, one of the panels was on the role of true science in science fiction.   It was a very interesting panel of Southern science fiction authors.  Despite their differences in background, the panel got along well.

• Allan F. Gilbreath started out the group.   He’s a novelist, poet, and short story writer.  He covers a wide range of topics, especially dark fantasy and science fiction. He had an open manner and a sense of humor that made the whole session a lot less stuffy.

• Stephanie Osborn was the most interesting author represented, personally.   She has over twenty years experience in civilian and military space programs. With degrees in Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics, she had the strongest background in science of the whole panel. She has written a mystery, Burnout, based on her experiences at NASA, about a space shuttle catastrophe.  In the ensuing investigations, it turns out the disaster was no accident.  Her work was at her editor’s when Columbia exploded, and she had a friend on board.  It took her a while to face her work again, but when she finally did, she double checked her accuracy on the science and investigatory procedures at NASA.  She didn’t have to change a word.  I wish I had more time to listen to her talk.  I did briefly get to sit in on the “Space Race” panel, where she told stories of Soviet launches.  She also talked about our current space program, and how we simply do not have the technology necessary to go to the moon right now.

• William H. Drinkard was promoting his new book, Elom. He describes it as “Clan of The Cave Bear meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”  He was frustrated at his publisher for trying to peg his book as fantasy because there was travel that was faster than light speed, which everyone knows is “not science.”  (At this, Stephanie snorted and asked, “How do they explain tachyons then?”)

• Van Allen Plexico is a comic book writer, currently publishing with a small press.  In fact, he was more interesting in that arena, and I plan to talk about small presses and self publishing later.  As you can imagine, his comic books aren’t real hard scifi.  He joked that his stance on true science in Science Fiction was, “I’m agin it!”

A main theme of the night was that  science and science fiction have a symbiotic relationship.   Obviously, there are different levels of science fiction.  A hard science fiction book that botches basic principles is a disaster, but space opera is given a lot more leeway.  And comic books are expected to be pure fluff.   All of the panelists agreed that there was a time and place for all of these elements.  No matter how in depth the science really is can still serve to capture the imagination and drive the readers or viewers to want to learn more.  The original Star Trek of the 60s, paired with the Apollo fire, inspired young Stephanie to enter the space program.  She looked at what was happening in real life, and realized people had died for this cause, and at the same time, she saw that Star Trek, or some version thereof, was where it could be going.   Many people were lit afire with the tales of what one day might be reflected in 2001.  While science obviously inspires fiction, it can work in reverse, as well.  Inventions were “invented” in fiction decades before scientists figured out how to make them work.  Psychologically, science fiction can prepare us for new things ahead of time.  We all know that a Kindle is really a proto Hitchhiker’s Guide.  War of the Worlds, written in 1898, featured robotic workers.  These ideas enter our mind and make us able to grasp new concepts quickly when technology catches up with the art.

We also discussed the decline of hard science fiction, and how it coincides with fewer Americans entering science and math fields.   During the panel, I was by far the youngest in the crowd.  At one point, a young girl had stopped in, listened for a few minutes with a bored look on her face, and then turned around and left.  Science is failing to capture the imagination of our young.  Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke are considered too hard, or too boring, for young people to read.  Also, most of the science fiction that is truly popular right now is truly fantastic or just botched. Think about Armageddon.  Most people didn’t even realize how crazy the science was.  I remember being told to shut up and watch the movie when I was protesting about a whole asteroid the size of Texas hurtling at the Earth that fast, but all of NASA just missed it.  And then they just swung good old Hubble over to take a gander at it!!

The same issues come up in historical movies and novels, by the way.  People don’t understand the basics, and are satisfied with entertainment.  Someone recommended that disgusting film, King Arthur, because I was a history and English major and it was historically accurate!  I scoffed at the mere thought of a historically accurate King Arthur movie, but I love the Arthuriad and all the myriad takes on it, so I watched it.  I hated it, and the history was awful.  And please, someone, tell Keira Knightly to eat a biscuit.  The reason she’s tolerable in the Pirates movies is because you can’t see her pointy spine.  Ugh!

Instead of blaming science fiction of today,  we talked about the trends in science fiction reflect the trends in science, and vice versa.  As a society, we’re slipping in our education.  We’re teaching to tests, and not getting fundamentals. As science and math are being dumbed down, so are stories about them.  My (first grade!) son is learning to use a calculator in school before he has truly gotten down basic addition and subtraction!  Teenagers in Pre Cal and Trig are doing functions on their calculators without having mastered long division.  There is an extent to which science builds on itself, and every computer programmer doesn’t have to learn to program in binary. At the same time, science is UP in China and India.  Someone joked about how we will be able to provide fine entertainments for our new masters, with our emphasis on sports and Hollywood.   (It’s funny because it’s true!)

The true joy of science fiction is the joy of knowledge, learning, and imagination. I left with an appetite for more, and am very glad that I went.  I left with many concepts to ponder, and a few recommendations of good authors to read.

Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are is my absolute favorite picture book of all time.  I loved it as a child, but as an adult, it’s even better.  Reading this outloud is so much fun!  The language is expressive and beautiful, and of course, nothing beats a story with a wild rumpus in the middle.   I love to get my audience jumping, whooping, hollering and basically on the brink of total bedlam, and then I suddenly become Max again and startle them still by yelling, “NOW STOP!”

Doesn’t that look absolutely magical?  The Wild Things and Max look perfect.  Unlike so many recent kiddy movies, it’s not overloaded with creepy CGI effects to distract from the tale.  The sounds work, too.  Arcade Fire rerecorded that version of “Wake Up” just for the movie.   Most importantly, though, that last little bit of howling sounds exactly like our wild rumpus at home.

Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze cowrote the screenplay.  I’m not familiar with Dave Eggers’ work.  He did write an adult novelization of Sendak’s book, intended to be released at a time coordinated with the film’s opening, to tie in to the hype.  Maurice Sendak himself suggested Eggers write it, after growing close to him while working on the film.  That endorsement satisfies me, and I’ll be looking for the book.

If anyone has the imagination and honesty to do this one right, it’ll be Spike Jonze.  His filmography includes Being John Malkovich.  He’s directed the absolute best music videos ever.   If you can’t remember who he is, he directed the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” and Weezer’s “Buddy Holly.”  Remember Christopher Walkin in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice”? My personal favorite, though, is Björk’s “It’s Oh So Quiet.”  (Shhhh… shhhh…)   It helps that artists I like tend to gravitate towards Jonze, but on those rare occasions I didn’t like the song, I’d still have to stop and watch a Spike Jonze joint.  He even managed to make a cool Gap ad!

Despite being very leery of any great children’s books being made into film, I’m expecting nothing short of pure genius.  It comes out October 16, 2009.  Let the Wild Rumpus start!

The SciFi Channel has decided to change their name to SyFy.

“Without abandoning our legacy or our core audience, we needed to cultivate a distinct point of view with a name that we could own that invites more people in and recognizes our broader range of programming with literally something for everyone,” Howe said in a statement. “Syfy allows us to build on our 16-year heritage of success with a new brand built on the power that fuels our genre: the imagination. Syfy ushers in a new era of unlimited imagination, exceptional experiences and greater entertainment that paves the way for us to truly become a global lifestyle brand.”

They needed an umbrella brand name, and to trademark “SciFi” is problematic.  Sure, that’s easy to understand. I see how that changing the name could be necessary.  But SyFy?  Really? I’m no expert on what appeals to the mainstream, but SyFy is probably about right, since it’s inane and tasteless.  Kind of like wrestling on a channel devoted to imagination and “greater entertainment.”