They show up in cities all over the world. A simple picture of a small hillside and the night sky with the words "coming soon." They look like movie posters. No one really has any idea what the movie is going to be about. Space, a young romance, some sort of adventure movie? It's difficult to tell. Rumors and gossip run amok as people theorize who's behind it all.
It's got to be this studio, this director is known for pulling stunts like this! But the director shakes his head. Much as he wants to admit and take credit, it's not his work. Other directors, writers, and artists are asked, but all say no. The mystery stays unsolved.
Weeks pass, and the fervor with which people had over this strange phenomenon soon pass onto other things. Politics, celebrity scandal, and all the usual things of the world bury the excitement away. Most people forget about it. The posters still hang, though they're acquired dust, sun bleaching, and many of them graffiti tags.
Nobody notices when the signs change to say "Opening tomorrow night."
Friday, October 13, 2017
Friday, May 12, 2017
The Stars Look Very Different: A Small Tale
He is out in the yard, watching his grandfather set up a large telescope. His gnarled hands lovingly putting it together without any shaking or hesitation. As dusk gives way to night the lights are turned off in the house. The boy and his grandfather sit side by side in little folded chairs, waiting.
Night falls, and the sounds that daytime produced gradually fall away to a silence. The boy's ears buzzed with the unusual lack of noise. Not even the crickets chirped. It was too cold this time of the year. The stars glittered in the night sky. The cold air somehow giving them a sharp crispness that reaches across the atmosphere.
At some unseen signal, the grandfather gets up, and begins to search the night sky. Then he reaches out a hand, gesturing. Come see. The boy hesitantly gets up, feeling the cold squeak his bones. He looks at his grandfather, who gestures again. The boy looks. It takes a moment for his eye to adjust, but he sees it. A star unlike any other. If the boy didn't know better, he'd think it was a person, just hanging there in space.
Night falls, and the sounds that daytime produced gradually fall away to a silence. The boy's ears buzzed with the unusual lack of noise. Not even the crickets chirped. It was too cold this time of the year. The stars glittered in the night sky. The cold air somehow giving them a sharp crispness that reaches across the atmosphere.
At some unseen signal, the grandfather gets up, and begins to search the night sky. Then he reaches out a hand, gesturing. Come see. The boy hesitantly gets up, feeling the cold squeak his bones. He looks at his grandfather, who gestures again. The boy looks. It takes a moment for his eye to adjust, but he sees it. A star unlike any other. If the boy didn't know better, he'd think it was a person, just hanging there in space.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
100 years from now.....
Hello, Tuesday April 25th!
You are considered the perfect day because you are not too hot, and not too cold. All you need is a light jacket. At least in some areas of the world.
For once the weather actually held true to prediction here. Aside from some light breezes happening all day, the day was considered quite splendid. Ah yes, this day will forever be memorialized if for only that scene in Miss Congeniality.
All that aside, it's nearing the end of the spring semester with only 3 weeks left. Some classes start to weigh you down with lots of homework, tests, and final essays to write. And some realize you have already mentally checked out and are just letting you cruise until finals time.
My English class isn't one to cruise, but today we sort of went off tangent and discussed things not related to the text we were supposed to be reading. It was related to literature in general. My classmates and I have a tendency to show up 10-20 minutes before class starts to discuss the homework or whatever amuses us in that moment. Our group talk was over the current trend of books that have been really popular as of late. You know, the ones you seem to see in every store, including non bookstores. The ones that are bestsellers if only because they have such a high sales market regardless of if they have great content or not.
And then it went towards another thought. What literature will students be reading in English classes for high school and college 20 years from now? 50 years from now? 100 years? What anthologies will editors put together to explain our current politics, art movements, music, in future generations? What would it even be called? This stumped us all for a moment, because in truth we have no idea. Our general vote of consensus was that this era might one day be considered the time of Great Technological Advancements. Or rather, the generation of Escapism.
You are considered the perfect day because you are not too hot, and not too cold. All you need is a light jacket. At least in some areas of the world.
For once the weather actually held true to prediction here. Aside from some light breezes happening all day, the day was considered quite splendid. Ah yes, this day will forever be memorialized if for only that scene in Miss Congeniality.
All that aside, it's nearing the end of the spring semester with only 3 weeks left. Some classes start to weigh you down with lots of homework, tests, and final essays to write. And some realize you have already mentally checked out and are just letting you cruise until finals time.
My English class isn't one to cruise, but today we sort of went off tangent and discussed things not related to the text we were supposed to be reading. It was related to literature in general. My classmates and I have a tendency to show up 10-20 minutes before class starts to discuss the homework or whatever amuses us in that moment. Our group talk was over the current trend of books that have been really popular as of late. You know, the ones you seem to see in every store, including non bookstores. The ones that are bestsellers if only because they have such a high sales market regardless of if they have great content or not.
And then it went towards another thought. What literature will students be reading in English classes for high school and college 20 years from now? 50 years from now? 100 years? What anthologies will editors put together to explain our current politics, art movements, music, in future generations? What would it even be called? This stumped us all for a moment, because in truth we have no idea. Our general vote of consensus was that this era might one day be considered the time of Great Technological Advancements. Or rather, the generation of Escapism.
Monday, April 10, 2017
Strange the Dreamer by Lani Taylor
Summary:
The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around--and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he's been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance to lose his dream forever.
What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?
The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries--including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo's dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? and if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?
There are few books that I have stopped my life on to simply sit and read the words on the pages. Usually I'll read for an hour or so at the end of the day when I have finished all that needs doing. And then go to bed at that somewhat reasonable hour. That wasn't true with this book.
I read this book in one sitting.
I spent most of my evening and half the night reading this book. I remember at one point I had to stop and ask my husband what time it was, feeling a bit like Cinderella outracing that midnight clock. What's funny is that I was just having the thought about how no one would want to read a book about a person who reads books. And while it is about stories, it is so much more than that, and I was both happy and surprised by those words I read.
First, I love how all the orphan children are given the surname 'Strange'. Already it tells us that he is no ordinary child. Lazlo himself is like any other child growing up in the monastery. He has chores to do, and prayer to follow. Were it not for a profound sense of imagination he would have faded into those dusty walls and lived out his life not unhappy, but not fulfilled by his purpose in life.
It's a curious, and alarming encounter that causes Lazlo to keep the stories of Weep alive in his mind and seek out the truth from the fiction. After all, what causes the name of a city to taste like despair and tears when uttered?
The city of Weep is beautiful and haunting in its description. A place of once mythic beauty, its now become haunted by the 200 years of isolation and the loss of its name.
I have to add I received the book in my monthly Fairyloot box. So I received the blue UK edition with the blue covered edges.
Rating: 5/5 Stars
I read this book in one sitting.
I spent most of my evening and half the night reading this book. I remember at one point I had to stop and ask my husband what time it was, feeling a bit like Cinderella outracing that midnight clock. What's funny is that I was just having the thought about how no one would want to read a book about a person who reads books. And while it is about stories, it is so much more than that, and I was both happy and surprised by those words I read.
First, I love how all the orphan children are given the surname 'Strange'. Already it tells us that he is no ordinary child. Lazlo himself is like any other child growing up in the monastery. He has chores to do, and prayer to follow. Were it not for a profound sense of imagination he would have faded into those dusty walls and lived out his life not unhappy, but not fulfilled by his purpose in life.
It's a curious, and alarming encounter that causes Lazlo to keep the stories of Weep alive in his mind and seek out the truth from the fiction. After all, what causes the name of a city to taste like despair and tears when uttered?
The city of Weep is beautiful and haunting in its description. A place of once mythic beauty, its now become haunted by the 200 years of isolation and the loss of its name.
I have to add I received the book in my monthly Fairyloot box. So I received the blue UK edition with the blue covered edges.
Rating: 5/5 Stars
Friday, March 3, 2017
Nostalgia: A Small Tale
The circus has come to town.
It's not the same tent, nor the same color. The people are not the same ones who come tumbling out of my memories in brightly colored costumes and bubbly music. It's become more, and less than what I remember.
The show is still entrancing. Still entertaining. Yet I cannot get lost into the world it offers me. It is not the circus of my history. But I see the children nearby watching with rapt attention. Their eyes bright with an imagination captured by what they see. And I smile. In years to come, when they are grown, and the world is not as shiny as they once knew, they will remember this as their circus.
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
New Year, Mostly Same Goals
Hello 2017!
I'm expecting you to be much better than 2016.
The year did not quite go how I had planned. Not entirely too bad, but not as great as some years I've had. I went from one job to another. I decided to take the plunge and go back to school, again. I got a second dog! These are the things I consider to have made the year bearable, But I also know of all the things I let myself down on.
Like this blog, for example. I started out the year planning on keeping to my schedule to write and update it on a regular basis. And for a while, I did. Then I got a full-time job, went back to school, and lost my motivation. The free time I had grown accustomed to using to plan out my writing vanished. And with it, the writing itself. This is to be expected. I did not plan my time right. I can't just write about the book I reviewed or my monthly round-up the night before. Well the book probably, while it's still fresh in my mind. But by the time it occurred to me the ideas were gone.
My goals otherwise are pretty much the same. Write, finish a story or two. Be more of a doer to things I'd like to do, rather than letting them pass me by. Take one decent vacation that isn't me just staying at home.
So the overall goal for this new year is to try to stay ahead. To fly less by the seat of my pants and have more things planned out that I can just press 'go' on. To take this crazy ride and go, "I'm driving" instead of it pushing me around like a windblown leaf.
I'm expecting you to be much better than 2016.
The year did not quite go how I had planned. Not entirely too bad, but not as great as some years I've had. I went from one job to another. I decided to take the plunge and go back to school, again. I got a second dog! These are the things I consider to have made the year bearable, But I also know of all the things I let myself down on.
Like this blog, for example. I started out the year planning on keeping to my schedule to write and update it on a regular basis. And for a while, I did. Then I got a full-time job, went back to school, and lost my motivation. The free time I had grown accustomed to using to plan out my writing vanished. And with it, the writing itself. This is to be expected. I did not plan my time right. I can't just write about the book I reviewed or my monthly round-up the night before. Well the book probably, while it's still fresh in my mind. But by the time it occurred to me the ideas were gone.
My goals otherwise are pretty much the same. Write, finish a story or two. Be more of a doer to things I'd like to do, rather than letting them pass me by. Take one decent vacation that isn't me just staying at home.
So the overall goal for this new year is to try to stay ahead. To fly less by the seat of my pants and have more things planned out that I can just press 'go' on. To take this crazy ride and go, "I'm driving" instead of it pushing me around like a windblown leaf.
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