9 Days And Nothin' To Show For It... Well Almost Nothing... :)

Okay, I'm way overdue for a post here. Not sure what was standing in my way last week. I think at some point I had planned a post about "Thriller," and how I had a hard time understanding the lyrics, but I killed that one before it could be published. Figured it was only amusing to me, haha. As are many of my posts, but that's a story for a different day/therapist.

Over the past 9 days, not a lot has happened in the World of Christina. Let's see. I got a new car, Lafayette, that I told you about last time. He's being pretty cool to me, though occasionally making a gurgling noise, which is probably due to the fact that I accidentally put too much coolant in him. Whoops. But besides that he's cool. Still occasionally amazes me at how much natural bass his sound system has. Bass is at 0, and I still get the whomp whomp whomp sometimes, hahaha.

I've taken up reading the Harry Potter books again. I started a few summers ago, but only got through the first two since I couldn't find the third one at any of the Public Libraries of Charlotte-Mecklenburg County. Right now I'm about halfway through Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It's pretty good despite the fact that it's my least favorite of the movies to-date. Hah. Kind of want to see the 6th movie, but at the same time, I want to have been able to read it before I watch it so I can compare that way. Though, I suppose if I like the movie, then the book won't be a disappointment, but whatever. Right now my plan is to just work through the books. We'll see what happens.

The only other interesting thing that I did was on Friday the 17th. What is it you ask? Well, you'll have to tune in next time since it will probably involve pictures and lots of pre-teen-esque squealing, and I don't have the time for it right now, haha.

Until next time!

P.S. - the spell check just suggested "Azerbaijan" for "Azkaban." That could work too, haha.

Fiction Fest '09: An Update

I'm a little disappointed with myself. The whole work of fiction I was trying to plan? Yeah, haven't done anything else with that. Haven't done any more planning or plotting. In fact, I think I had kind of forgotten about it until I saw a book about Jeff Buckley at the bookstore Friday. I should really get back on that.

Or I should at least keep up with the other piece of fiction I've been working on for the past, probably, 6 or 7 years. That one isn't even halfway done. I really need to get on it! Especially if I'm ever going to get published, haha. I haven't written in so long, I know I'm going to have a hard time getting back into the narrative. But then, it's my story, my writing. Hopefully I'll be able to pick it up quickly :). And maybe I'll drag my butt to the library for a healthy change of scenery. Maybe I can get something substantial done... like I used to. We'll see. I'll keep you posted.

In other news: My car Paolo was starting to go. It was injury after injury. I was pouring more money into it than it was worth. Most recently, after shelling out $200 to change his transmission and cooling fluid, ol' Paolo decided to blow a hole through one of the pipes in the exhaust system. You know, after I spend nearly $300 giving him a new muffler. So there I was, AGAIN, puttering down the road. It was only a matter of time before the pipe rusted all the way through and fell off. It still hasn't, but who knows how big that 50 cent piece-sized hole is now.

So, I decided Paolo and I had a good run, but we had to go our separate ways. So now I have Lafayette (name subject to change upon discovery of a better one). He's a Nissan Sentra too, but he's only 4 years old as opposed to 18. He's a metallic gray-silver-gold combination. Very sexy. And he's got power everything. Windows, locks, mirror adjusters. Built in CD player and auxiliary jack. He's pretty awesome. I'm sure we'll become fast friends :).

4th of July Weekend, Part II

Oh, and just in case you're interested, here's the Macy's Fireworks Finale (it was pretty awesome. Sidenote: New Yorkers/New Jerseyans really love their fireworks!):

4th of July Weekend

So, crazy weekend, and crazy first few days of the week apparently have kept from from blogging for 6 days. Which is kind of a lot as of late. But is relatively good considering my run. But whatever.

So this weekend saw the 4th of July, which means that I saw fireworks. Twice. Is it just me, or is it weird for a town to have its annual July 4th fireworks show on July 3rd? Either way, went to that one in Red Bank, NJ. Then on Saturday, I saw the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Extravaganza or whever it's called in NYC. That was pretty cool I guess. If you could look past the fact that they had us standing on the West Side Highway behind a line of trees ubstructing the view of the fireworks. The most amusing part, however, was probably the way back to midtown from the West Side. I dont' know if I've ever seen so many people walking to the same place. There had to be thousands and thousands of people, which is pretty cool.

I tried to take some video, but it came out kind of dark. It's of the sea of people walking behind me up 34th Street. Don't know if you can see anything...



It was pretty crazy. It probably took us like 40 minutes to get to Times Square, which is ridiculous considering we only had to walk 8 blocks up and 4 blocks over. There were entirely too many people. But, you know what. I kind of loved it. We didn't get to do much else as we had to book it back to the train station, but it was good times.

Man, I didn't realize how much I missed NYC until I hadn't been in it for a while, and then went two Saturdays in a row! I need to make another appointment to go in. :)

Questioning the Classics

So, I was flipping through channels yesterday and found the 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice, starring Laurence Olivier. So, naturally, because I love Laurence Olivier, I stopped and watched the rest of the movie, which was most of it because I turned it on when they were at the dance when Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy first talk to each other.

Now, I don't know much about Hollywood politics, especially back then when they seem to have been so... corrupt, but I started to wonder about them as I watched this movie. From what I understand, having never read Pride and Prejudice, Darcy is kind of a snot and a jerk, and generally a man to be avoided. Elizabeth finds him arrogant and snobbish, and she wants nothing to do with him. It is fate, however, that seems to keep bringing them together. And the more it does this, the more they tolerate each others' presence, though Darcy is never really a warm-hearted man. But in the end, Elizabeth with her devil-may-care (for 1800s society, anyway) attitude, her combination of grace, wit, control and pluck wins Mr. Darcy over, and they fall madly in love. This is what I've gathered from the, oh, 3 other versions of this story that I've seen haha.

Anyway, I didn't get any of this from the 1940 version. Is it because back then they didn't want their movies to have too dark of themes? Could the heroine not struggle for love? Well, that's a lie; just look at Wuthering Heights from 1939 (also, starring Laurence Olivier!). But then again... that version of Wuthering Heights made Heathcliff look like a sympathetic character. To an extent, he was, but he was a very power-hungry man. Once he had the wealth and fortune, he turned and treated Hindley's son like crap, the way he had been treated by Hindley when they were growing up. However, in Olivier's version, Heathcliff is a love-struck young man, who is determined to better his station in life to win the affections of the cold-hearted, but somehow lovable Catherine. And, also, it completely leaves out the second part of the book... when everyone is all grown up or dead, and now their children play out their story in an eerily similar fashion. I loved that about the book. However, not in the 1939 movie.

But why? I suppose it might have something to do with that era's movies not being that long, and thus not having enough allotted celluloid to record that part of the story. Or maybe Laurence Olivier was so damn dashing that they didn't want to make him unsympathetic, or a creep. Maybe they wanted to make him romantic (which they succeeded in doing). So then, that just makes me wonder, how different are our understanding of the classics than our grandparents? Or even parents? Well... if we went solely by movies. I guess our grandparents probably read them. But in a cinematic sense, we know the true story, while they got the sugar-coated one. No wonder our world is so much different than theirs was.

But back to the original, Olivier made Darcy seem like such a sweetheart. I couldn't figure out why Elizabeth was avoiding him. Yes, I suppose I might have been just blinded by the light that was Larry Olivier, and fell for him the way we all fall for the really good looking bad boys.... But still. Why was Hollywood so scared to make Mr. Darcy (or Heathcliff, for that matter), the scary dudes that more recent depictions make him out to be?

Does anyone know? Makes me want to research old Hollywood. Or at least watch more Laurence Olivier movies... :)