On Cotton Candy, the Paranormal, and My Evil Inner Editor.

I've admitted before that I enjoy the Twilight books. I don't feel too bad about this because I enjoy them for what they are and have no illusions about their literary merit.

I think of them as the book equivalent of cotton candy.

Cotton candy is awesome. It's fluffy, it's pink, it has no nutritional merit, it's fun to eat, and it reminds you of going to the amusement park with your first crush and awkwardly holding hands on the SkyRide.

You wouldn't (or shouldn't) eat it for breakfast.

You wouldn't (or shouldn't) have it as your staple food source.

But you would (and should) enjoy it on vacation days and at parties and other times when you don't want to and don't have to be a responsible grown-up who worries about things like laundry and taxes.

(Confession: the first leisure reading I did after law school graduation was the Twilight saga. Talk about cleansing your mental palate! No brain required, just fun.)

Twilight is not Pulitzer Prize material. (Yeah, I experience a nearly physical revulsion when people say this and are in earnest.) Twilight should not be the only thing you ever read. ("May I recommend a greater allowance of prose in your diet?") Twilight is not a shining example of character development or a model for how to lead a long and happy life. (Yeah, as much as I enjoy the books, it is in spite, and not because, of Bella Swan.)

I have a limited supply of patience with people who insist that the books of the Twilight saga are the Greatest. Books. Ever. Written. and that is INCLUDING Shakespeare and the Bible! Yeah, they're not. They're fun, yes. But great? No.

Stephenie Meyer is not a good writer. She is a good storyteller—she makes you want to know what happens next. But she does a less-than-adequate job of telling you about it.

And my Evil Inner Editor has a problem with this. I squirmed for most of New Moon when all the em-dashes—of which Ms. Meyer is particularly fond (and who can blame her? They're an awesome piece of punctuation)—had spaces around them. I twitched at the misspellings. I wriggled uncomfortably at the unwieldy prose. And I positively writhed in frustration after about the twelfth mention of molten-liquid-gold-topaz-smoldering-chiseled-muscles-eyes-angel-can't-breathe. Which occurred, I believe, on about the fourth page after Edward makes his entrance.

So I felt like I'd finally found what I'd been looking for when the amazing Booklicious posted a link to Reasoning with Vampires. The author of RwV has taken upon herself the task of editing the Twilight Saga. While I definitely don't hate the books like the author does, my Evil Inner Editor has been jumping up and down inside of my head yelling in triumphant vindication while my actual self has been laughing. A lot. It's absolutely worth taking a look at if you are 1) a reasonable Twilight fan, 2) a Twilight hater, 3) an editor, or 4) someone who like hilarious things.

But you don't have to take my word for it.




I know a lot of people, including fans of the series, were also furious when the last book ended happily. "It doesn't reflect real life," they said. "She just gets everything she wants with no consequences!" This didn't bother me for a couple of reasons:

1) I *like* happy endings, especially in my escapist fiction;

2) Um, it's about VAMPIRES and WEREWOLVES and you are worried about it not reflecting reality? and

3) When I eat cotton candy, I don't want it to come with a bunch of depressing life lessons attached. It's cotton candy. If I wanted nutrition, I would eat brussel sprouts (which are tasty, but not good for taking on the SkyRide).

Three things that make me laugh.

Courtesy of Booklicious.


I'm kind of in love with this show.


Just saw this movie and loved it. John Malkovich definitely stole the show.



12 days and counting! I could totally be a Christmas song at this point.

A Trip to the Library; or, Thank You, Jerry Bock.

Don't forget to De-Lurk, please!


Jerry Bock passed away last week. For those of you who aren't geeky enough to recognize that name without more explanation, he was the Bock half (obviously) of the duo Bock and Harnick, who wrote Broadway musicals (Sheldon Harnick, the lyricist to Bock's composer, is still alive). And if that doesn't help, maybe this will:



So let me pause here because I want to make one thing very clear. I adore Fiddler on the Roof. I think it is brilliant and quite possibly one of the best musicals ever written.

But it's not my favorite musical by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick.

That distinction goes to the little-known 1963 gem She Loves Me.



It's the story of The Shop Around the Corner in musical format. (The movie was originally adapted from a play called Parfumerie, by Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo, and subsequently remade as In the Good Old Summertime and, later, You've Got Mail.) The music is sweet, the story and characters are charming, and, of course, the guy gets the girl in the end. (If you think that's a spoiler you're not paying attention.)

Unfortunately, this beautiful little musical was overshadowed by the mega-shows Funny Girl and Hello, Dolly that year, with which it couldn't compete, and so it only played for a short run, and was mostly shut out come Tony time.

Which is a real shame. It features such songs as "No More Candy" (trying to sell a musical candy box to a skeptical customer), "Tonight At Eight" (our leading man is nervous about his impending date to meet the girl of his dreams), "Perspective" (the older clerk in the store explains how to keep your job), "Romantic Atmosphere" (a frustrated maitre d' tries to impress upon a bumbling waiter the importance of setting the mood for lovers' meetings), "Tango Tragique" (a cautionary tale about anonymous pen pals), "Where's My Shoe" (leading lady gets a bit of a crazy-go-nuts scene), "Ice Cream" and "She Loves Me" (the leading lady and leading man, respectively, discover a softening of their feelings of animosity toward each other), "Grand Knowing You" (the skeezy clerk's big farewell), and several others.

Including my very favorite, "A Trip to the Library."

In this scene, when last we saw our secondary lady, (who is a bit of a floozy), she had just had her heart stomped on by the skeezy clerk for the last time, and valiantly resolved to change her ways and not be taken in by such a skeezy guy again. She comes back to work the next morning and reports on her progress to the leading man. It seems that last night, she found her feet taking her on an unexpected route . . . to the library. "You've never seen anything like that library! So many books! So much marble! So quiet!"



I chose this version out of all the many on YouTube because even though she flubs a couple of the lyrics, she sings it more closely to the way the original actress, Barbara Baxley, did. I prefer the slightly more vulnerable and sweet tone to the brassier belting featured in most of the other renditions. If you'd like to see how it plays out on stage, though, I did enjoy this version:



I ask you, how can you not love a show with a song that rhymes "respectable" and "bespectacled"? And who could resist a lyric like this:

I have to admit, in the back of my mind
I was praying he wouldn't get fresh,
And all of the while I was wondering why
An illiterate girl should attract him.
Then all of a sudden he said that I couldn't
Go wrong with the way of all flesh—
Of course it's a novel, but I didn't know
Or I certainly wouldn't have smacked him!

If you have never heard of She Loves Me, I suggest you do yourself a favor and check out the soundtrack. Or keep an eye out on your community theater notices, as this show is frequently mounted around Christmas time. Check to see if there's a production going on near you and go to see it. Take a friend and sink back into this lovely little musical. I promise you won't regret it.


Day 9! Wahoo! (When was the last time you went "wahoo"?)

Short and sweet: The Amazon PayPhrase.

Today was rather busier than usual so we're going with the short and sweet post today.

All I really want to say is that Amazon PayPhrase is one of the joys of my life. I have not yet and never will set my Amazon PayPhrase because if I did, it would stop suggesting pay phrases for me. And I get such good ones.

Like today's gem:

"Elliespen's Austere Sofas."

Past favorites include:

"Elliespen's Sketchy Seat"
"Elliespen's Unstoppable Disco"
"Elliespen's Glowing Jewels"
"Elliespen's Unfocused Thoughts"
"Elliespen's Social Fraternity"
"Elliespen's Extreme Retention" (This was either a good omen for bar study or an apt reflection on the size of my pregnancy feet.)

A friend of mine once got "Metallurgical Episodes" and "Racy Writings." Today, Shallow Man got "Gradual Layers," and once it was "Shallow Man's Wild Missions."

Yes, an Amazon PayPhrase suggestion can brighten up a grey day or add extra zest to a happy one. What are some of your favorite past PayPhrases?


Today, mine should be something like "Elliespen's Continued Triumph." Day 6, baby!

Wow.

There are no words. Just watch.

Want.

So Daring Young Mom is doing a giveaway. And I would really like to win.

So I'm posting about it here to get an extra entry. And I suppose also to spread the new-found joy that is Keen.

But if one of my seven readers goes and wins DYM's giveaway after seeing it here, I get 10%.

And now, because, realistically speaking, I won't get another chance to post before Thursday, I would like to wish all of my readers (yes, even you crazy lurkers who sneak around stealthily) a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Now go forth and eat much turkey!

Oh, hey.

So apparently Carrie tagged me awhile back and I didn't notice until my husband pointed it out. Probably because, thinking back on it, I've never actually been tagged for one of these things before (at least that I can recall). So.

Six of my quirks (and if you're reading this, you probably already know me well enough to know all of them):

1. Lightswitches. If a room has more than one lightswitch connected to the same light, I will walk across the room, turn off the light, and then go back to the other switch and turn it on if that's what needs to be done in order for the switches to be turned in the right direction.

2. I hate washing loads of towels. I don't like doing laundry much anyway, but the towel/linen load just bugs me more than the rest. Which is dumb, really -- you don't really need to sort it and it's ridiculously easy to fold. But that's what makes it a quirk.

3. I quote stuff. Movies, commercials, TV, books, comic strips, radio shows, you name it. I can (along with most of my family) hold an entire conversation using nothing but Far Side captions. I can even quote some stuff I've never seen. This is probably due to the fact that....

4. I have a crazy-amazing memory for random and useless stuff, like where that carabiner with the Morgan Stanley logo on it that I got two years ago is, where Shallow Man left any given object at any particular time, what day I saw a given movie for the first time, what I did for Halloween 2001, movie trivia, etc. But not important stuff like what on earth was it I scheduled for Tuesday night and what is my name again?

5. I'm a serial snooze button hitter. The alarm needs to be set at least 30 minutes before when I actually want to wake up or I'll miss it from hitting snooze too many times. This is probably connected to my crazy procrastination skillz. I am a PROcrastinator. Or, as that crazy personality test I took in Mr. Ekberg's 9th grade biology class said, "You have a tendency to take on more than any one person could possibly handle and still somehow manage to get it all done." At great expense and at the last minute? Yes. But it still gets done.

6. If you're talking to me, chances are good I'm making up a story about you or the object of the conversation in my head. Okay, maybe you didn't know this one. But you do now. (Careful, you may end up in my novel.) Kind of like how I make up fake song titles for fake songs for my fake band in my head. (Which actually is now a real fake band, since there are three other people in it now. We're called the Dutiful Existentialists and I'm on lead vocals. You should totally check us out on Facebook. We're the best fake band I've ever been in.)

Um. So. Tagging. Uh... It's late and I'm feeling lazy so if you want to do this, you'll have to tag yourself. Or consider yourself tagged. Just let me know if you do it.

Yarrrr! It do be that time o' year...

I do apologize to all o' ye fer not gettin' this up arrrlier but I did be lootin' an' pillagin' all marnin'.

But now that yer cap'n is here, ye best step lively, swab the decks and give out yer best "Arrrrrr!" for 'tis the day o' days, the time all stout-hearted hearties have been awaitin' since 19th o' September last. Aye, it do be...

International Talk Like a Pirate Day!




Now shout "Avast!" and spread the pirate cheer, fer it's all hands on deck or I'll cleave ye to the brisket, ye scurvy lubbers!

Cap'n Ethel Bonney
o' the pirate ship
The Fearful Curse

DUDE.

You MUST click here. Immediately. Because it will disappear on the 20th of July.

But it will be oh so worth your time.

Some verbs

So, this made me very happy. I hope it makes you very happy, too.

You know you've been in law school too long...

...when the funniest thing you've seen in several days has to do with the Supreme Court.

In other news, my oral argument for advocacy is tonight. Not looking forward to doing it, but it will be such a relief to have it OVER WITH. No more Kendricks! Woohoo!

That is, at least until next year when I TA.... D'oh!

Happy Birthday, Frederic! or, Better Late than Never

Note: So I wanted to get this up earlier but YouTube is blocked on campus... but it's up now and the dateline will still be right, so it'll have to do.

*ahem*
Happy Birthday to You,
Happy Birthday to You,
Happy Birthday, Dear Frederic,
Happy Birthday to You!

You have finally reached the ripe old age of 38!

Now let's go get some ice cream while you sing...




P.S. If you can't catch what's going on, here's one with misspelled subtitles.

Ah, late nights... (bork bork bork!)

I shuoold be-a vreeting a memu reeght noo. Boot I vuoold rezeer prucresteenete-a und Incheffereeze-a stooffff fur my blug insteed. Bork Bork Bork!

(Translation: I should be writing a memo right now. But I would rather procrastinate and Encheferize stuff for my blog instead.)

Seriously, since ITLAPD has come and gone, this site may be all I have to tide me over until next Sept. 19.

It was inevitable, I suppose

The guy just can't leave anything alone, can he? :)

Happy, happy

Happy Birthday to the Shallow Man!

Love you, honey!

Woot!

After my DH scored as a blast-ended skrewt (he hasn't read the books so he was a bit confused as to why I found this so amusing - it kept me giggling for a good five minutes), I had to see how I scored.

You scored as Luna Lovegood. No surprises here. Of course you are most like Luna Lovegood. You believe everything you read in tabloids, freak people out with your casual acceptance of even the most bizarre, and endear others with your dreamy charm. You know how to say it like you see it. Luna Lovegood 60% Mad-Eye Moody 55% Blast-Ended Skrewt 55% Minerva McGonagall 55% Albus Dumbledore 25% Argus Filch 25% Goyle 15% Dudley Dursley 5% Harry Potter Mania created with QuizFarm.com