Pam Webb

a writer's journey as a reader

Archive for the category “Literature”

14 Nov 2013
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A Bit of Bard for the Kidlits


List of titles of works based on Shakespearean...

How well do your kids know this guy? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Shakespeare. He probably isn’t on most parental to-do lists when it comes to childhood enrichment items. Then again–why not? We trot our kiddos to soccer practice, piano lessons, and the library to enrich their lives, why not foster the love of the Bard at an early age?
Acclaimed playwright Ken Ludwig believes infusing the Bard into our children’s lives is an essential, endearing adventure to undertake. His How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare is both inspirational and inventive in its approach. Although I no longer have kidlits at home since my progeny are now building their own nests, I can still adapt Ludwig’s methods by amending them to classroom instruction, especially since the ninth grade Common Core curriculum has a Romeo and Juliet section.

Teaching Shakespeare to our children is a notable endeavour. Ludwig states a few of his goals as to why he taught Shakespeare to his children on page 11:

  • giving them tools to read Shakespeare’s works with intelligence for the rest of their lives
  • enriching their lives
  • exposing them to literature to inspire them toward achieving great lives as they grow
  • providing meaningful shared experiences

Cool. Those are pretty much my intentions when I teach Shakespeare to my classroom kiddos.
Ludwig hits all the essential values of the “why” of Shakespeare:
1. The richness of imagery
2. The lilt of rhythm
3. The nuances and playfulness of language
4. The importance of memorizing and tucking away forever a few exceptional passages to pull out and nibble on throughout life
5. The joy of exploring character

Shakespeare’s plays showcase poetry at its best. Why wait until the kinder are all grownup before relishing the richness of English language? I am always amazed when I get a ninth grader who states, “Shakespeare? Who’s Shakespeare?” Admittedly that confession is rare. Unfortunately, the only Shakespeare most students know is Romeo and Juliet. On the other hand, by the time they leave high school they will become acquainted with at least three plays and a a handful of sonnets.  Sadly, I didn’t have any Shakesperience until I began teaching it.  That’s nearly thirty years of being Bardless.  Shocking, I know.  Now I’m a professed Bardinator and hope to put my acquired knowledge to page, one of these days.  We’ll see.  I have too many books in want of writing as it is.

For now, I am thrilled to introduce Shakespeare to my freshmen and strive to induce appreciation for his words and wit.

Mass-produced colour photolithography on paper...

Anyone out there have the Bard on their parent list? Is it squeezed in with ballet and soccer?

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Posted in Blogging, education, Family, Literature, Poetry, Reflections, reviews, Teachers, writers and tagged , , , , ,
30 Oct 2013
7 Comments

Poe Is the O in October


Word association time.  Let’s go with Poe:

  • creepy
  • scary
  • gruesome
  • mesmerizing
  • madness
  • death
  • Pits
  • Pendulum
  • Hearts
  • Ravens
Edgar Allan Poe Museum (Richmond, Virginia)

Edgar Allan Poe Museum (Richmond, Virginia) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yeah, ravens. Who doesn’t know The Raven? Don’t tell my freshmen, but after we get their poetry notebooks all turned in we are pretty much done with the curriculum poems and now it’s verse revelry. This is where I bring out poems that I’m hoping will be memorable.  I like to bring out The Raven because, of course, it’s well-done, it’s a classic, it’s a trademark, and plus it’s creepy.Come on, you know what I’m talking about. A guy passing a quiet evening in his library and a crazy overgrown crow bops in and redundantly cries “Nevermore!” That’s nutsy stuff.

There are scads of versions to pursue–everything from the smaltzy Vincent Price movie to Christopher Walken’s chilling audio clip to The Simpson’s animation silliness. While all these have their own value, I have discovered my new favorite.

I’d love to know what you think.

Christopher Lee is riveting, and the illustrations–I never knew they existed!

So–Poe is the O in October not only because he left this world in such an ambiguous way on October 7th, but also because he is Oh So Creepy and for me October is the creepy month. I’m not going there about the bizarre event of parading kids around at night in costumes to hit up strangers for candy (don’t get me going on that one)–no, no, it’s not really that. It’s more due to the fact that October signifies the diminishing of daylight and I sorely miss my daylight. It’s darn right creepy to wake up at 5 am in pitch black and then have it just as light deprived at 5 pm. October must have inspired Poe to dwell so much in darkness.  He definitely rates the King of Oh-My-Goodness-That-Freaks-Me-Out writing.

English: Cover of the pulp magazine Weird Tale...

English: Cover of the pulp magazine Weird Tales (September 1939, vol. 34, no. 3) featuring The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. Cover art by Virgil Finlay. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Posted in Literature, Poetry, Reflections, reviews, writers and tagged , , ,
25 Oct 2013
4 Comments

Oh Willa–Your Pioneers!


''The Song of the Lark ''Oil on canvas, 1884

”The Song of the Lark ”Oil on canvas, 1884 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As I continually research my own pioneer novel-in-progress, I return to favorites for inspiration.  Having reread most of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House of the Prairie series, I am moving on to more grown-up fare such as Willa Cather’s Midwest trilogy of My Antonia, Song of the Lark, and O Pioneers!

Cather’s writing continually surprises me with its subtle acuity. She follows the nineteenth century omniscient style of narration that is no longer in vogue, yet as I read her seamless insights into each character, I realize I am easily visiting each character’s thoughts while still in the scene. That’s art.  It adds so much more dimension to the reading  that I find myself slipping from third person limited into omni in my own writing. *Sigh* Maybe I shouldn’t be reading Willa Cather–at least until I get my manuscript’s revisions tidied back up.

In that regard, unless you have your own concerns about being overly influenced while writing your own pioneer epic, I suggest rereading or experiencing Willa Cather’s O Pioneer!

Cover of "O Pioneers!"

Cover of O Pioneers!

Why?

It’s good stuff.  Really good stuff. Setting, for instance.  Turn to page 97 of your Random House Vintage Classic version and feast:

(Part III: Winter Memories: I)

Winter has settled down over the Divide again; the season in which Nature recuperates, in which she sinks to sleep between the fruitfulness of autumn and the passion of spring. The birds have gone. The teeming life that goes on down in the long grass is exterminated. The prairie-dog keeps his hole. The rabbits run shivering from one frozen garden patch to another and are hard put to it to find frost-bitten cabbage-stalks. At night the coyotes roam the wintery waste, howling for food. The variegated fields are all one color now; the pastures, the stubble, the roads, the sky are the same leaden gray. The hedgerows and trees are scarcely perceptible against the bare earth, whose slaty hue they have taken on. The ground is frozen so hard that it bruises the foot to walk in the roads or in the ploughed fields. It is like an iron country, and the spirit is oppressed by its rigor and melancholy. One could easily believe that in that dead landscape the germs of life and fruitfulness were extinct forever.

Personification, alliteration, imagery galore, tone, diction–it’s a banquet of literary delight.  Cather dedicates this full exposition to set up how this coldest of seasons affects the characters.  Steinbeck did much the same in Grapes of Wrath. Remember the turtle scene?

Sometimes I think we forget the importance of slowly revealing the story in our pressing need to “let’s get on with it” plot modernity mentality. Yet, there is an absolute pleasure in immersing oneself in the cadence of well-placed and balanced words.

Oh Willa–your pioneers keep singing to me of your prairie love through your song of fields, seasonal cadence, and your indelible tribute to those who left their mark upon the land.

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25 Sep 2013
2 Comments

There is no rhyme nor reason to poetry…


at least according to some of my freshmen.  I can understand their point. Who wants to study grammatically incorrect phrasings and try to make sense of what they are talking about when you are doing all you can at trying to get a handle on whether it’s “A” day or “B” day and what lunch you have (“ummm, first lunch on “A” day or was that “B” day?). But we’ve made a commitment to Common Core and it’s full speed ahead.

Cover of "Dead Poets Society"

Cover of Dead Poets Society

Actually, I’ve always been a proponent of poetry.  I’ve brought cowboy poets into the classroom, Beatle songs, clips of Robin Williams doing his crazy wonderful teacher in Dead Poets Society, and provided recipes for poems.  I had football players writing love poems and entering contests, mud boggers writing sonnets about their trucks. We’ve explored performance poetry through Taylor Mali’s incredible YouTube videos and we’ve participated in a packed-out community program of youth performing their own poetry.

Common Core though, I’ve noticed, has dented my zing. I’ve been having students prepare for their SBAC (I should know what that means) by writing up reaction paragraphs to each poem as a means of them practicing their critical thinking skills. There is nothing wrong with understanding and recognizing how, or what, or why the poem works, yet poetry is so different from prose. It should encourage the soul to sing. I’m afraid in my zeal for my students to do well on their tests by getting their writing skills up to stuff I’ve lost my way towards my original goal of greeting me with “What’s the poem today?” with that anticipation of a new flavor to relish.

Hmm, some Walt  Whitman and Song of Myself might do it…

Cover of "Song of Myself (Shambhala Centa...

Cover via Amazon

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20 Sep 2013
6 Comments

The Morphing of the Omni Narrator


Right now we are toughing out poetry with my freshmen. *sigh* “We study poetry because oral storytelling came before the written language came into existence, plus many of the elements we study in poetry exist in fiction–you know, like imagery, diction, syntax, metaphors, analogies–so get to know poetry and you’ll understand and enjoy fiction that much more.”  And the question? (Jeopardy music, please)

Why do we study poetry?

Returning to the anticipated second quarter…(quick, quick, I’m losing them)

Once I get to short stories in the curriculum it’s pretty easy sailing, since my students are versed in plot, characters, setting, and such. Theme sometimes throws them; however, point-of-view gets them pondering. For instance, trying to explain the omniscient narrator is tricky these days. Back when, I used to say, “The Omniscient narrator is a lot like God–you know, everywhere and knowing everything about everybody.” I’m getting less comfortable about using that analogy in such a forthright manner.  I still believe it’s a valid analogy, yet don’t want to offend any of my students.  Let alone get the ACLU or other NSA types coming after me.

Cover of "The Long Winter"

Cover of The Long Winter

Another problem with trying to explain the omniscient narrator is that the old-fashioned version of the narrator filling into the details has changed into something quite different. For instance, I recently reread The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (don’t snicker, it’s a great read, besides it’s for research–really) and Wilder includes in the story what’s happening to the town’s people and to Almanzo and Cap who are all caught up in a grueling blizzard, in an inclusive fluid manner.  I rarely come across this type of narrative style today. As Bob Dylan once said, “Times they are achanging.”

In the last few years I have noticed a trend where the omni narrative is now designated as separate chapters.  This at first proved quite annoying because the point-of-view kept changing. One chapter would be one character, the next a completely different one.  I felt like I was juggling characters to the point of wanting to run an Excel sheet to keep it all straight.

The last few novels I’ve read have run this narrative style, and every new book I’m pulling from my suggestion list and review newspapers seem to be pandering this new style. I keep checking them out though.  I’m either getting used to this new kaleidoscopic style of story-telling or I’m so starved to read I’m willing to put up with it.

Here are some examples of recent titles with the switch-hit character changing technique. Enjoyable reads all, but fret and nuisance, doesn’t anyone write in the old-time omni narrative style anymore?

http://www.goodreads.com

http://www.tumblr.com

http://www.tumblr.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any thoughts, Book Boosters?

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20 Jul 2013
3 Comments

Treaured Tomes


bookbooster

While I tend to pass up most blog challenges, I couldn’t resist the one passed on by Reading Interrupted by another blogger: show us your bookshelves.

Last year I posted an entry about bookshelves and it really resonated with readers, and to date it ranks among my highest hits and responses posts.  What is it about peering at someone else’s bookshelves. Reading Interrupted believes it’s a way to look into our literary soul, which makes me nervous.  However, being a Book Booster, how can I not show off some of the books I own?

I have bookshelves all over the house: kitchen for the cookbooks, living room holds the eclectics ranging from Calvin and Hobbes to bird identification guides, the bedroom has my stack of bible references and current reads, the office is filled with review favorites (mostly children’s books) and tools of the trade, and the back bedroom is the MEPA’s storehouse of ruggedness, all those pursuits of fishing, hunting, politics and such. And then there are  my pretties, my treasures which are displayed on the table next to my inherited piano from my great aunt.  I was fortunate enough to receive her wonderful collection of books. My iPhone photo does not show the titles well, but you must admit they are gorgeous in binding.  They just about shout, “Open me, read me, all who enter these pages will be satiated.” I’ve been dipping into them over the years, savoring them for I do not want to go through them too quickly. Also, I confess, some are rather daunting.

bookshelf

For example, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, The Works of Tolstoi, a study on Ralph Waldo Emerson, selected works of Matthew Arnold.  There are also Ibsen plays, poem collections by Browning, Dickinson, and selected verse from Canadian poets, along with stories from Dumas.  As you can see if I were to consume too quickly such a rich collection I might go by way of gout.

My fave librarian, ET, knowing I am a Book Booster, surprised me one day with a gifting of more of these finely bound treasures. She passed on a blessing to me and I, of course, was thrilled with the serendipity of new friends. You must admit it is a handsome collection.  To think, this is how books used to be, all stately and elegant back when reading books was the prime entertainment and erudition pursuit of most people.

Although these aren’t personally selected favorites, they are indeed treasures.  I suppose I treat them more as my book museum as I respect them and the fragile condition they are in. Does anyone else have a treasure of books they have inherited or perhaps picked up along their travels in life?

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13 Jul 2013
13 Comments

From SparkNotes to Sparky Sweet, PhD


Read the Sparknotes

Read the Sparknotes (Photo credit: kevin dooley)

There are two basic reasons for reading classics:
1. Pressure
2. Enjoyment

Reason One:

Pressure comes from teachers assigning novels that no one wants to read, but students must read in order to complete the course. Mark Twain hit that one spot on:

Classic–a book which people praise and don’t read- Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New
Calendar

I am THAT teacher who literally pressures students into reading. Granted, I get my own pressure from the curriculum powers that be. Certain novels must be taught, which means I must find ways to entice students to read them. Over the years I have gathered up sources I point out to students so that they may better understand the stories, poems, and novels I toss out to them. Some teachers promote the erroneous idea that to utilize a resource like Sparknotes is cheating. Huh? That’s like me handing out To Kill a Mockingbird to my ninth graders, instructing them to sit down in a closet, and I shut the door. They might as well read in the dark if they don’t understand what they are reading. I know some students who never read assigned books and only Sparknote them (an AP student admitted this to his teacher, tsk 2 honesty 1). My thoughts on this are: a)it’s not like Sparknotes are contraband or are damaging to young minds b)at least he is familiar with the novel now. Some reading, even if it’s through summary, is better than no reading.

The other kind of pressure comes after we have left school and feel the need to fill in the holes of our education by reading all those classics we weren’t assigned or assigned and didn’t read. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Crime and Punishment, Robinson Crusoe, the list goes on. Just because we are in college or are college graduated, older, smarter, more aware, yada yada, that doesn’t mean we understand Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, any better. We can also get by with a little help from our friends, those marvelous lit aide sites:

Sparknotes.com–the go-to site for understanding a novel. It covers content, facts, chapter summary, characters, theme, major quotes, all the biggies. There are even quizzes to test comprehension plus videos (major spoilers though).

PinkMonkey.com–never mind the name, it delivers the same sort of information in a somewhat different style.

Cliffnotes.com–if you are as old as me then you remember those wonderful little yellow and black booklets (anyone else think they resembled bees?–and if a teacher caught you with them you got stung?) that helped shed light on Hamlet, Huckleberry Finn, etc. They are now adding videos to their venue. Mmm, I’d say the videos are at about middle school level in approach, although most of my ninth graders liked the silly humor.

Novelguide.com–I used to rely on this site for my insights when preparing a unit, but then I discovered…

Shmoop.com–a most excellent and diverse site for pulling in understanding for both contemporary (mainly prevalent bestsellers) and classics. Prepared by smartypants PhD students (so they say) there is a break down of overview, analysis, theme, essay questions, characters, and a roundup of the best of the net. Videos are often a part of the lineup which are designed to evoke discussion (great for Socratic seminars) and are crafted with cunning.

Cummingsstudyguide.net–another site when needing deeper analysis needs. While basic, it nevertheless provides great insights.

Thugnotes.com–new to the scene, it’s difficult to know what to do with this venue. Sparky Sweets, PhD, is an erudite street talking armchair lit critic. The paradox of foul-mouthed summary offset with finely constructed analysis makes this video series a conundrum. I know the students would appreciate how he brings literature to an understandable level, yet there is need for more beeps or I would be answering to the admin. For a bit of entertainment and enlightenment I present as a choice with caution to those who prefer to not have their classics fouled.

There are more sites out there, and I would appreciate hearing your faves.

Reason Two

If you read the classics for pleasure then you will still appreciate the above-mentioned sites as they add to the reading experience.

Read the classics, no matter if you have to or want to, for they are the foundation of all we read today!

"To be successful at reading comprehensio...

“To be successful at reading comprehension, students need to …” (Photo credit: Ken Whytock)

 

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08 Jul 2013
2 Comments

A Woolf in Read’s Clothing


photo: imdb.com

My first vague acquaintance with Virginia Woolf is associated with Elizabeth Taylor. Both are pivotal influences in their chosen professions.  As a last wave baby boomer cI recall a bit of a fuss when the movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? came out.  Not being a Disney-generated flick my parents did not take me to see it.  In my childhood bliss of perceptual naiveté I believed Elizabeth Taylor to be Virginia Woolf and from the TV trailers she appeared to be a daunting person.  I could see why some might be afraid of her.

image: aroom.org

My second encounter with Virginia Woolf came way later when I began teaching high school English. Woolf’s essay “A Room of Her Own” was part of the senior lit curriculum, a prelude to a brief study in feminist writing.  Still getting my bearings about Shakespeare, I discovered through Woolf’s essay Shakespeare had a sister! I thought him to be like Atlantis, known but unknown, shrouded in mystery, waiting to be actually proven.  A sister?  It sent me scurrying to dedicated research and though Woolf got it all wrong about Willie’s sis, I now know much more about the Bard.

image: etsy.com

The third encounter came way of Meryl Streep.  She’s a fave, so I couldn’t resist picking up The Hours at the library.  Fascinating film (I admit some parts tweaked my comfort zone and my daughter squeaked, “you watched The Hours!”–my prudery is too well-pegged by family members). What truly fascinated me was Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf.  No wonder she received the Academy Award for her performance. A tortured artist always leaves me wondering  the why/what behind the reason of taking his or her  life instead of living it.

image: notreciinema.com

Finding Virginia a bit overwhelming I didn’t do my usual research and read on her. To be honest, although she intrigued me,she also made me nervous, much like James Joyce.  So much, almost too much in their writing for me to comprehend and absorb.  I felt unprepared to read her works.

At present I am a tiny bit more confident having an AP Institute training and one year of AP Senior Lit and Comp seated firmly on the resume.  I thought, “Okay, Ginny, let’s give it a whirl.”  I pulled down Orlando off the shelf and settled in for my summer chaise in the shade read.

Sigh.

I wonder if her writing would have been published if her husband had not set up Hogarth Press expressly for that purpose? Her writing is amazing, this is true. It’s rich, masterful, and paradigm pushing. Deemed ahead of its time, both Virginia and her writing nevertheless appeared to be respected and applauded.  Overall, I will have to pass on Virginia Woolf and her modernist approach to literature.  She and James Joyce are just enough of a different cup of tea to not be on my reread list.

I followed through on my research since I did not do my read on her.  I will definitely include her in my overviews on modernists. Virginia Woolf  may not be among my chosen authors; however, I do acknowledge her place in the literary hall of fame.

image: standrewsrarebooks.wordpress.com

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29 Jun 2013
4 Comments

Prairie Love


image: oceanliteracy.org

Growing up with the ocean ever present in my life, I couldn’t  fathom living  without it. The salty tang of the air, the lullaby rhythm of the waves, the restoring sandy walks–I couldn’t imagine or even desire living apart from its presence.

And yet, for the past twenty years I have done so. I traded the ocean for trees and mountains. The ocean is still a part of me, though we are now parted. There are aspects of my adopted environment that have also become woven into my person. I call this the sense of setting.

image: wallstickeroutlet.com

Because of my familiarity and connection with the ocean, forests, and mountains, I find myself drawn to reading about unfamiliar landscapes, and for some reason my list of setting interests includes an abundance of stories about the prairie.

Initially, I don’t think I could bear the flatness, the unyielding run to the horizon from end to end, nor bear the extremes of seasons and the monotony of view. This is where the marksmanship and craft of writing happens. Writers, poets, authors portray the prairie in such a way I find myself surrounded by the grass, the wind, and witness vicariously the openness and beauty through another’s eyes. The sense of place.

Recently two writers have presented their sense of place, their love of the prairie so profoundly, my paradigm has shifted. I now understand the fullness of this unique setting, and respect it and perhaps even admire it, which replaces my former disdain. True writing,  the skill of a wordsmith can do this.

While I have read many prairie pioneer books in my life, Laura Ingalls Wilder being the first, my most recent read is Willa Cather. She provided readers with a portrait of the midwest through her trilogy Oh Pioneers, My Antonia, and Song of the Lark. A memorable passage from My Antonia:

Presently we saw a curious thing: There were no clouds, the sun was going down in a limpid, gold-washed sky. Just as the lower edge of the red disc rested on the high fields against the horizon, a great black figure suddenly appeared on the face of the sun. We sprang to our feet, straining our eyes toward it. In a moment we realized what it was. On some upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; the handles, the tongue, the share—black against the molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun.
Even while we whispered about it, our vision disappeared; the ball dropped and dropped until the red tip went beneath the earth. The fields below us were dark, the sky was growing pale, and that forgotten plough had sunk back to its own littleness somewhere on the prairie.
Cover of "My Ántonia (Dover Thrift Editio...

Cover of My Ántonia (Dover Thrift Editions)

Cather presents both the starkness of the prairie and the greatness. The plough represents the solitary efforts of those who tried to tame the vastness of that flat, grassy expanse, and while the abandoned plough could have been viewed as sad or even tragic in its loneliness, Cather displays it as heroic.  And this is the view I now have of the prairie. It is like the ocean in its vastness, its grasses the tide upon the land. Those who worked it by tilling the land, navigating its immensity with their ploughs, horses, and tractors are much like those who navigated the ocean with their own crafts of boat, steamers, and ships. Both land and sea represent the need to explore the unknown and forge a living  from it.

Another view comes from today’s Poem-a-Day offering:

Poppies on the Wheat
by Helen Hunt Jackson
Along Ancona’s hills the shimmering heat,
A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow
Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow
Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat
Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet
Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro
To mark the shore.
The farmer does not know
That they are there. He walks with heavy feet,
Counting the bread and wine by autumn’s gain,
But I,–I smile to think that days remain
Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet
No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain,
I shall be glad remembering how the fleet,
Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat.
English: , located on west side of just north ...

English: , located on west side of just north of the Nebraska-Kansas border in southern . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I smile, too, grasping the juxtaposition of frivolity of the simple flower merged the purpose of the land.

I may never go to Kansas or Nebraska, but I can say I have traveled to their prairies.

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Posted in America, Books, Literature, Reading, Reflections, reviews, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
09 Jun 2013
2 Comments

Sigh FiE


Science Fiction served as a mainstay of my reading through most of my college years. I stuck mainly to Ray Bradbury, tried a bit of Asimov, dabbled in other authors of that genre and then pounced on science fantasy such as Roger Zelazny.Yet, I can’t say I enjoyed SF as much in novel form as I did in film.

What I really fastened onto was cheesy low budget sci- fi films, you know, the Buck Rogers variety, where everyone is seriously acting as if bounding about in shiny costumes, waving plastic gadgets and battling fakey creatures is going to build their resume and cause the Academy to perk up for Oscar recommends. I left cheesy SF films behind, along with a penchant for snacking on Top Ramen, when I graduated from college. However, as we all know flashbacks are a part of  life.

The MEPA picked up a few movies at the library the other night and amidst the usual travel logs was (I kid you not) The Angry Red Planet. So bad it’s good. Cheese rating: 9/10–making it a major cheddar.

Micro-Precis:
The missing rocket to Mars returns minus a couple of crew members and the leader has a nasty green growth on his arm, but can the lovely traumatized Iris recall what really happened while on the angry red planet?

I can’t say I have totally graduated from my penchant for Sci Fi (I do not, however, ever eat Top Ramen anymore). I have, instead, developed a taste for the art of the science fiction film. A friend introduced me to Alien when it first came to the screen(I couldn’t have been the only who screamed at the baby alien’s untimely entrance at the breakfast table) and I decided scary Sci Fi is not for me. I have since gravitated to artsy Sci Fi, such as Gattaca, The Matrix, and  Inception.  Novel science fiction goes more towards dystopian like Hunger Games and Divergent. Nevertheless,I will always have a soft spot for Sci FiE films.  How many have you suffered through–feel free to tack on your nominees:

1.  All those terrible Godzilla films where the plastic dinosaur is rampaging Tokyo.

2. Those movies that have such bad titles you know that they reek of cheese.

Book Jacket for: Attack of the 50 ft. woman ;3. Or have such laughable cover art, you check them out just because.

 Book Jacket for: Forbidden planet ;

4. Unfortunate adaptations of favorite authors. Ray, did you know about this one?

Book Jacket for: It came from outer space ;

5. Then again, some of them become cult hits, such as Gunsmoke’s James Arness as a monster and Steve McQueen saving the day.

Book Jacket for: The thing ;     

Oh, there are so many truly terribly wonderfully really bad science fiction movies out there that cause one to Sigh (and say) FiE.

What are your loathsome favorites?

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