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wApr 4, 2010 | |
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Easter Easter Vigil at any Abbey is pretty sweet. Not only was the homily superb (the abilities of a priest as a homilist will pretty much make/break him, in my esteem of him), BUT THERE WAS A GIANT TORCH TO LIGHT THE EASTER CANDLE. Seriously, that pole had to be 20 feet long, and there were GIANT FLAMES that made me fearful most especially when the dude tried to get the thing through the doorway. Easter Vigil: arguably the most bad-ass mass of the year (except for that one time at Pentecost when we purposely lit the baptismal font on fire). On a more serious note, I really appreciated the homily. Easter is not just about butterflies and cute bunnies and candy. It means a lot because of the suffering that comes before it, because of the seriousness required by Lent. It's kind of the time of year to screw your head on straight, and then Easter comes and floods your heart with light, and you realize that Spring is here. A discussion on whether 'The Hunger Games' was cribbed from the Japanese novel/movie 'Battle Royale.' People have pointed out the similarities in general premise to me before, but the argument made here lays out a series of incredibly specific things that happen in both. An interesting read, even if it doesn't convince you. The Onion's AV Club had a nice article about A Room of One's Own, on its 35th anniversary. I think that fan-made crafts like these are really cool. In addition to creations focused on by the OTW (fanfiction, fanart, fanvids), I think that crafts are really neat, too. I've been collecting lots of paper cut-outs of various fandoms, along with a few extra Buffy comics. I'd like to make my own, even though I'm not totally skilled in the realm of craft-making. With everyone lying about what's actually in the Health Care bill, I found this Washington Post link useful: Answer 4 questions and find out what the Health Care bill means for you. Also, really liked this Buffy Season 8 vid. DO NOT CLICK UNLESS YOU'VE READ THE TWO MOST RECENT ISSUES OF S8. For serious. Help Out Your Fellow Fan! --were_duck seeks recommendations for the WisCon Vid Show. Specifically, she'd like some AMV recs, as she's generally unfamiliar. --meganbmoore seeks old school shoujo anime. Bonus if you can tell her how to get a hold of it, :D --littlebutfierce both recommends and seeks more baseball anime. Labels: a: collins suzanne, anime, catholicism, comics: buffy, easter, fandom, the internet knows all, vids, work scribbled mystickeeper at 11:21 AM 
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wSep 5, 2009 | |
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Catching Fire Now that I live in a city with a most excellent used book market (a ton of my manga is purchased at half-price), it's pretty rare that I buy a book brand new the day it comes out. In fact, I think I've only ever done that for Harry Potter. But when My thoughts are a bit mixed, but overall, it's good, and I like it, and it's just as suspenseful as the first one. If you liked The Hunger Games, then you're probably already freaking out that Catching Fire is out and you need to read it. That said....spoilers! And for serious, these are books that nobody wants to be spoiled for. Don't do it! Come back and comment later! Okay. So I like Peeta a lot, as a character. But I really want Katniss to be with Gale. I think that they belong together. It almost seems like Katniss favors a poly relationship, but given how jealous Gale is of Peeta, I don't think that that would ever work. This book started off fantastically, and there were threads of fantastic throughout. I love the seeds of rebellion, the use of the mockingjay as a symbol of the rebels, of Katniss not realizing that she is the symbol. And the books are oh so dark - how can these be YA?? They really test the boundaries, I think. How many books have the protagonist purposely trying to kill other people her own age? BUT, I was sort of disappointed to see Peeta and Katniss have to return to the Hunger Games arena. Yes, it was pulled off in such a way that all of the characters were surprised and shocked, but it also sort of felt like the author was pulling the plot along and wanted some real excitement....so she turned to the same device used in the first book. I was a lot more interested in what was taking place in District 12 and the woods surrounding it. I thought that it was unnecessary for the characters to return to the arena. I love reading about Katniss. She is so intelligent, so capable, and so angry - in so many pieces of fiction, the female protagonist is trying to get other people to like her, trying to be nice - but Katniss is a spitfire, will literally rake your face with her nails in anger, and I love her to death. The setup of the districts being oppressed by the government/rich district also reminds me a lot of Midgar in Final Fantasy VII. ALSO, I tried looking for fanart at DeviantART, and all I can find are versions in which every character is white. WTF! Katniss is a person of color, right? And Gale? I mean, I'm starting to think that I read these books wrong, but I feel like the books state several times that they both have olive skin, and that Gale's is even darker than Katniss's. It was just.....really weird, and I felt pretty skeeved out. As for you local people....I think that Keely has dibs on borrowing my copy first, but if you all would like to borrow it, please leave a comment, and I'll make a list and do my best to arrange the trading-off of the book. Do we really have to wait an entire year before Book 3? Ahh! There is so much to say! Read it, Internet, so we can talk about it! Labels: a: collins suzanne, books, books: ya, race scribbled mystickeeper at 9:41 AM
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wMay 13, 2009 | |
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The Hunger Games I read this book a few weeks ago and I would still like to reread it in a day or something. SO AMAZING. Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games is a cross between the TV reality show "Survivor," the Theseus/Minotaur myth, and a dystopian future. In a future North America where the land is divided into districts and controlled by "the Capitol," Katniss lives in the poorest district with her mother and sister. Because there is no other choice, Katniss hunts illegally to provide for her family. Every year, a boy and a girl from each of North America's 12 districts must compete in a televised death match. In richer districts, children train for this "honor" their entire lives. In districts like Katniss's, families can sign up to get more food from the government in return for increasing the likelihood that their children's names will get chosen. When Katniss's sister is chosen despite the odds, Katniss volunteers to go in her 12-year-old sister's place. She has spent years hunting animals in the woods of her district, but now she will have to hunt people in a climate-simulated arena, where everyone is playing to the cameras, and she's not sure who's lying and who's not. I really feel like a good chunk of this book is a deconstruction of the TV show "Survivor" and the people who watch it. In the book, it's disturbing that Katniss has spent her life hungry, and those well-off watch players suffer, die, and fight for their own titillation. This is similar to real life: there are real people in the world are dying and fighting to survive, and on TV, survival is simulated, made into a game, and recorded. I loved Katniss, and I wish I could have read this book when I was younger. She's so smart! So bad-ass! Whoa. I also liked Gale and Rue. Fanart! Katniss volunteering to take her sister's place. Also by Faith, Katniss, with her knife. Katniss spent the book thinking Peeta was playing her, but it ends up that she was playing him. I kind of loved that moment of horror at the end, when she figured that out. I thought it was too easy for Katniss's friends/people whom she didn't want to kill to be killed inadvertently, or by other people. She never directly killed anybody, and it just seemed a little too convenient for me. Yeah, it's YA, but if anyone has read Animorphs, I think you'll agree with me that you can get pretty violent and frank with the tough choices, and still be YA. I love Katniss's hunting partner Gale, and I want book 2 to be him learning to trust her while she continues to play the media, and then they break down the Capitol together. I don't know. I really...didn't like Peeta very much at all. I fear this does not bode well for me. :[ Although it's not indicated anywhere in the book, really, The Hunger Games is the first in a trilogy of books. Catching Fire is due out on September 1, 2009. Labels: a: collins suzanne, books, books: ya, fanart, tv: survivor scribbled mystickeeper at 7:01 AM
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