halfway there...

I've just submitted my final project for the Gothic lit class. I had too much fun putting it together - I found a creepy castle background, and I used the Blackadder font for the titles. I hope I did enough to make it worth a decent grade.

I have a whole week off before my next class starts. It involves crochet and a big, juicy book for some frivolous reading - Little, Big by John Crowley. You can read some of it here.

I also won't have to double up on classes after all, nor have a gap between classes. The program advisor helped me re-work my schedule. I'm now starting my thesis in August, rather than October, and I can take the final core class after my thesis (creative nonfiction workshop!) It's backwards, but allowed. This second half of my degree is all creative writing through January of next year. I hope I'm up for it.

Before I get to Little, Big, I'm going to read some cheery Wodehouse after all this dark Gothic stuff.

suggestions?

I'm working on my final project for my theme class. My topic is Gothic Elements in Children's Literature. I've chosen four novels to highlight - two classic, two contemporary: The Secret Garden, Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, Coraline, and the Harry Potter series.

As an appendix, I want to include a list of other works of children's literature that have Gothic elements in them. I'm thinking of things like A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Spiderwick Chronicles, etc. Any and all suggestions welcome - classic or contemporary. The more the merrier, as long as it's children's lit.

Also, if I were to highlight just one of the Harry Potter books for its Gothic elements, which do you consider the most promising? I could do all seven, but that might be overkill.

If I can figure out how to post my PowerPoint presentation on blogger, I will.

Thanks.

fascinating reading

Here is a link to the Mills-McCartney divorce decision. Despite the legalese, and British legalese, no less, the judge writes well and is a smart cookie. And parts of this are actually funny. It's long, but worth it.

This photographer came up with an intriguing project.

This is an excerpt from Philip Pullman's new book, which is a prequel to the Dark Materials trilogy.

This is an interesting site about Internet mind viruses. I especially like the ultimate Internet mind virus at the bottom of the page.

horrific homework

On to The Abbess, and what a bitch she is. Really. She's arrogant and mean and nasty. Next week is Melmoth the Wanderer. Did you know that after Oscar Wilde got out of jail, he went under the pseudonym Sebastian Melmoth, partly because the story was written by his uncle?

One of this week's research assignments is about historical Gothic. Unfortunately, the research available on this is skimpy. I've found a lot that is history OF Gothic, but not much about history IN Gothic. I've had to resort to asking the ref desk at the university, which is sooo not like me, as I can usually find anything.

Next week, we're supposed to watch a horror film and critique the Gothic elements in it (horror is a descendent of Gothic fiction, you know). I'm open to suggestions on which film to watch, as I'm not much of a horror film watcher. I suppose Shaun of the Dead qualifies, despite the comic element, and I haven't watched it in awhile. Possibly The Picture of Dorian Gray? Oscar seems to want to say something to me - I keep running into him lately.

My tea party went off swimmingly, and I think that will definitely be a yearly tradition because it forces me to do my spring cleaning earlier. I even found clotted cream for the scones and curried chicken salad for the sandwiches.

There's a lovely interview with Terry Pratchett in The Guardian. He's got a few more books coming out soon, so the Alzheimer's disease obviously is going to have a hell of a time slowing him down.

Who's queen?

I came across a DVD of Blackadder Back and Forth in which Blackadder travels in a time machine (that looks and moves remarkably like a TARDIS) invented by Leonardo DaVinci. Lovely Colin Firth makes a cameo as Will Shakespeare. I don't like how Blackadder treats him (moreso because it's Colin Firth) - punching him "for all the schoolchildren for the next 400 years who have to sit in classrooms trying to find just one joke in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'" and kicking him for "Ken Branagh's endless uncut four-hour version of Hamlet." It's not Will's fault, it's the fault of it being badly taught most of the time. Otherwise, it's a fun episode.

The seventh Harry Potter film will be split into two films, so 7a and 7b, I guess. They apparently can't take anything out of the story so that it fits into a reasonable-length film, so they have to tell the whole thing in two parts.

I'm now reading The Monk by Matthew Lewis, which is gorier and racier and more supernatural than Romance of the Forest.

gothic PowerPoint

It is appropriately foggy and damp out today. It makes reading Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest all the more atmospheric. It's both dramatic and funny. Lots of fainting women, dark rooms, intrigue. Next week is The Monk. We've also dabbled in The Castle of Otranto and the Mysteries of Udolpho, both of which I'll have to read in full after this class is over.

Thankfully, in this Gothic lit class, we're not required to submit the traditional final paper if we don't want to. The professor encourages us to do something different. He suggested PowerPoint presentations, and since I know PowerPoint inside and out from six years of wrassling with doctors' presentations, I jumped at the chance to do a presentation on something non-medical and non-work related. The professor has approved my topic - Gothic elements in modern children's literature - so I have until the end of March to put it together.

Onward.

Stephen Fry's latest podgram is about dancing. It's hilarious. You can read it on his blog, but hearing him read it is far more entertaining. It's also rather long, with a few tangents wandering off here and there.

Speaking of Stephen Fry's narration, I've only been able to find his audio version of the first Harry Potter book, so if anyone knows where I can get the others, please let me know. He read the UK editions, while Jim Dale read the US versions.

And speaking of Harry Potter, I find this book highly amusing. I wonder if they'll do a crochet version.

I like the cover of Neil Gaiman's next book. I considered doing my PowerPoint presentation on Gothic elements in the Sandman graphic novels, a topic which the professor also approved, but somehow, I don't like the idea of analyzing Sandman too much. Others have done so already, and I don't have anything new or imaginative enough to add anyway. Best to leave it to its mythical wonderfulness.

There. Did you like how I brought things back around to my intro paragraphs? I'm really getting the hang of this writing thing.

I'm off to hair cutting and manicuring. I'll post this on blogger as soon as blogger decides to cooperate again.

Love and bye.

gothic literature

The professor has made the class Web site all moody and dark. The tagline for the class is "Mystery, History, and Bleeding Nuns." He ended his introduction with "drape yourself in black, lock the door, and do a bit of brooding." Gotta love it.

There's a ton of reading for this course. This week is Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe. Next week is The Monk by Matthew Lewis. (I've heard Paul McGann does a good film version of this, so I will have to hunt the film down for comparison purposes.) After that it's The Abbess by William Henry Ireland and Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin (the uncle of Jane Wilde who was the mother of Oscar Wilde). There's also the Oxford Book of Gothic Tales to get through.

Apparently, there are some podcasts on iTunes that we get to listen to as well. Go figure.

body worlds

There are two words to describe this exhibit: cool and gross. More cool than gross, though.

Oddly, the real bodies didn't look real. I think this is because the plastination process that preserves the bodies and organs and nerves and bones and whatnot makes them look as though they're manufactured.

The bodies are in various states of dissection. Some show the muscle just below the skin, some show the tendons and ligaments, some show the skeleton, some show the organs, some show the blood vessel networks, and then several show specific body systems - circulatory, neurologic, etc. Lots of healthy organ next to diseased organ displays as well - ie, healthy lungs next to the lungs of a coal miner.

There was some humor in the exhibit. One body is positioned to look like a skateboarder, upside down, balancing on one hand, the other hand holding the skateboard. Another pair of bodies are positioned to look like ice skaters doing the death spiral. Another looks like a ballet dancer. Another looks like a soccer player. Another looks like a gymnast on the rings. Another sits contemplatively, and reminds me of Rodin's "Thinker."

Overall, it's an amazing combination of art and science, and being able to get up close to the body sculptures really helps you see how all the parts work together, and how much is compacted and layered into one person.

There's a lot of controversy surrounding this exhibit. The inventor of the plastination process is apparently under investigation to find out if the bodies used really were donated voluntarily (there are rumors of them being Chinese political prisoners, so says the waiter at the restaurant we went to before going to the museum). And of course, it's a very graphic display of the bodies - you can get quite close to them, as not all are in cases, so it's definitely not for the faint of heart. My feeling when people make a fuss and try and stop exhibits like this is "if you don't like it, don't go see it." You don't have to like it, but that doesn't give you the right to stop others from seeing it. There is great value in knowing what is inside your body, and this is a creative way to see it.