Childhood Christmas Classics

Christmas is a season that can tend to get crowded with commercialization and emphasis on the unnecessary and the superfluous. Now I'm not going to sit here and preach like everybody and his brother. Unlike the renowned Everybody's fraternity, I merely want to say that what has brought me the most joy this season is being around others. Being around my friends and family especially at this time of year has helped me to value them more than usual. But enough of the gooey stuff. Just wanted to say love you all lots and Merry Christmas!

This weekend I discovered a long lost video from my childhood Christmases. Bloom County's A Wish for Wings that Work. I had a random whim to search for it on youtube, and low and behold, there it was. Wow, this did bring back memories: Opus, Bill the cat, hairballs, albatross, rhinoceros, lobotomy coupons and barfing on the Chinese rug. Nothing like the randomness of a Bloom County classic. I have to admit, it was so much funnier to watch now as an adult, there was so much stuff that had gone over my head while watching it as a kid. There are some great lines such as when Opus the penguin says: “I'm an insult, I might as well be a dung beetle, or a fly infested worm infused molded mildewed scrub of rotten banana...or a network executive.” Classic.
Of the odd memories of this cartoon my brother and I distinctly remember, is that Opus faxes his letter to Santa, oh how very 90's.

Another of my esoteric Christmas Special loves is “It's Christmastime again Charlie Brown!” A lesser known Charlie Brown special that if I remember correctly was obtained by my family from the shell station back in the early 90's. It is a combination of classic short Peanuts story lines, including: Charlie Brown selling his entire comic book collection to buy gloves for the little red-haired girl; Peppermint Patty obsessing over holiday homework assignments, as well as being relegated to playing the sheep in the school play, while Marcie gets to play Mary. Most memorably however, Sally is cast as an angel in the play, all she has to say is hark, but much to the 50 apostles chagrin, she belts out “Hockeystick!”
Yes, this is one Christmas classic that has and will be a staple in my family for generations.

A Thanksgiving Skywalker Special

Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrating food, family, and football. One of the things that come to my mind at the thought of this holiday in addition to the above mentioned alliterative threesome is Star Wars. Yes, I do mean the epic, dramatic, and at times campy silliness that is George Lucas’ classic saga of the triumph of good over evil. If thanksgiving is about family, then yes, this is in part because of an unnamed tradition, largely spurred on by my mother’s side of the family, of watching at least one volume of this excellent saga. Star Wars is excellent family fare, and not necessarily the nerdy bantha fodder it’s made out to be.

Star Wars is the Galactic saga with something for everyone in the words of the Grandfather in Princess Bride, it has: torture, revenge, chases, escapes, true love, miracles. However, the prequels can be too political and full of the cheesiest lines in the galaxy. The Prequels’ only saving graces are Yoda fighting like a wicked awesome little Tasmanian devil, Natalie Portman as Padme, Liam Neeson as Qui Gon Jin, Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, a fully gadgeted R2D2, and the best light saber fight ever in Phantom Menace with Darth Maul and his double bladed light saber.

I side with the rebel alliance of the original trilogy, because after all, we know that these campier older movies had the best dialogue and the cleverest plots. Who wouldn’t want to team up with guys like Han Solo and Chewbacca and fight the Empire? I must say, having some silly droids along the way would help as well. And I’m sure inside every little girl, there is a Princess Leia. She is a lot tougher than her politically driven mom, because in an era where politics is corrupt, some skill with a hair-dryer-like weapon and bagel-bun hair are a must. And as we all have discovered, it is so much better to be Leia than it is to be Padme, because she has a much better and fulfilling relationship (if not funny and full of more clever playful banter) with Han Solo than Padme had with Anakin. On the one hand you have Harrison Ford, on the other you have wooden-voiced, bad-acting, brooding Haden Christianson. You make the call.

The transcending message of all six of these films is tremendous. Anakin Skywalker turns to the dark side as a result of giving into his own anger and desire for revenge. But he is also fuelled in his turning away from the light by the conniving worm-tongue like Senator Palpatine (who eventually proclaims himself Emperor of the new Galactic Empire, doing away with the Old Galactic Republic). Anakin is encouraged by Yoda and the other Jedi to become detached, and not be so preoccupied with saving those he loves and cares about. In the end, he is so bent on keeping Padme from dying, that his own turn to the evil dark side in order to protect her, ends up saddening and killing her. So he brought about the death of the very person he was trying to save. However, we all know, as Luke says, “There is still some good in him.” Because by the end of Return of the Jedi, it is his character of caring about those he loves that saves him, and rids himself of the evil influence of Palpatine forever. When Darth Vader sees his son Luke being tortured by Palpatine, the old good feelings of Anakin overpower the confused and mutilated feelings he had as Darth Vader. He reaches out to defend his son, throwing Palpatine down the endless pit thing. Even though by doing so he destroys the very machinery that has kept him alive. In the end, Anakin redeems himself, and tries to undo the very evil and anger that had influenced his actions for so long. So, contrary to the old Yoda’s beliefs that detachment will save him, it is love and self-sacrifice that redeems Anakin Skywalker.

And as a final word to my fellow rebels, since we all know that the little farm-boy from a moisture farm on Tatooine triumphs over the creepy, power hungry Senator aka Emperor Palpatine. So no more whining that we would rather go down to the Tosche Station to pick up some power converters, let’s get out there and be rebels and join the Light side. Happy Thanksgiving to all, and may the force be with you!

Our DLF, Dickens

I'm not sure if it comes from reading modern Lit, like Waiting for Godot, which is dry, sparse, and unfriendly to the alliterative and assonance-loving eye, or if it's the fun and fabulous festive season that is leaving me suddenly longing for Dickens.
Yes, I'm talking about our dear little friend Charles. You know, that guy from 19th century England who got paid by the word, causing his novels to be telephone directory sized, and the bane of the existence of all high school students for decades. I'm sure we all can boast of reading at least one of his works, or falling asleep during one of the obnoxious BBC dramatizations. I myself can boast of reading his A Christmas Carol as well as A Tale of Two Cities. Both of which are some of his most famous works and contain some of the best of his infamously penned lines. They also include some of the most hysterical, interesting, and sympathy invoking characters in the history of English literature.
Yes, I am longing for his excellent and melodious prose. I never thought I would say those words. It really seems that you don't appreciate genius like Dickens' until you find it lacking in the courses taught on the dry, hopeless and Godless modern English literature. I have the heart that longs to live in the magically flowing rhythm of a Dickensian sentence.

For instance: "Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge. a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster."--A Christmas Carol.
This line flows lyrically off the tongue and instantly creates the perfect image of Scrooge's cruelty, making him one of the most infamously characterized selfish villains in literature, which also makes his conversion at the end of the novel all the more beautifully touching. It's a story we come back to year after year. It's been retold in numerous ways, in particular, by my favorite troop of varied and lovable actors, the Muppets.
A Muppet Christmas Carol has definitely been one of my favorite Christmas classic movies to pull out and dust of when that time of year rolls around. The Muppets are in part responsible for introducing me to much of the great literature today (Wishbone and Bugs Bunny supplied the other half of the introduction).
One of the most creatively pulled of escapades of the muppet rendition of Dicken's classic novel, is having Gonzo the great supply the narration under the guise of calling himself Mr. Dickens. Included in the muppet fun and frolick of the tale, Gonzo, er Mr. Dickens, narrates in the lovely flowing style of Charles Dickens own words used in the original novel itself. How wonderful. This truly is literary culture at work. I cannot wait to pull out the old, time-worn, recorded off the Disney Channel VHS tape and watch it again this Christmas.

First post

Taking Modern British Lit, has enabled me to read some very unusual novels. It seems that any literary genius to break all the rules and write in the strangest fashion still managed to get published. And now they will haunt the reading list of English majors for years to come. Needless to say I've had to read various authors' takes on the stream of consciousness style. This can be interesting, but very difficult and occasionally annoying to read. Maybe I'm just finding a lot of things annoying because I'm suffering from the 3rd cold I've contracted this semester.

While reading all these works of insane literary geniuses, I've managed to find new ways to distract myself, since the delights provided by Facebook offer merely minimal deterrence from literary enlightenment. I've become addicted to a couple sites that provide a respite from the political propaganda thrown at you by checking CNN.com on a daily basis.
The first of these new addictions is Office Tally. Being a fan of The Office, I find the site quite enjoyable. It contains deleted scenes from current episodes, pictures from fans, Halloween costume tips, and spoilers on upcoming episodes. I find it very diverting. I mean, isn't everyone concerned with whether Jim and Pam will really get married?
For more fanciful fun, I stumbled across this website of a writer who found some very entertaining obscure fairy tales in her research for her book. Ms. Durst posts her findings and her commentary about their randomness.
Well, there's my first post. I hope you find these sites as diverting as I did. I hope to post again soon about my novel and its plot. This post should also explain the title of my blog as well.