Today, self was so bleary-eyed from two back-to-back nightmares (one was about hubby; she woke up from that one, fell back asleep, and had another nightmare, this time involving son — YIIIKES!! She got up at 3:30 a.m., determined not to fall asleep again), that soon after hubby left for the office, self stuck in her Netflix movie, “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.” There is only one reason on God’s earth that self would watch this movie, dear blog readers. And that is of course to see oh-so-cute Tom Wisdom, who plays the love interest of America Ferrera.

Luckily the movie turned out to be better than expected! Amber Tamblyn proved to be quite a revelation; self found all her scenes the funniest. Alexis Bledel has great big eyes and is possibly the prettiest of the four girls. And self really likes America Ferrera, even though there was quite an apparent disparity in height, as Tom is 6′2″ and America is only five feet, and it was lucky that in most of their scenes together they were usually sitting down and even then self noticed that he seemed to be very gallantly attempting to make himself shorter by hunching his shoulders. It’s lucky that in the scene where lips finally connect, she is standing on stairs, ha ha haaaa!

So, after that, self felt quite energized, and went to catch a matinee of “The Road.” Goodness, this is not the movie to see if one hopes to be placed in a Christmas mood. It is just so dreary, so relentlessly downbeat. Viggo once again displays those elements of stoic endurance that make him such a compelling actor. The actor who plays his son looks just like Charlize Theron. Self even got several ideas for a post-apocalyptic story of her own. In fact, by the time the movie ended, self had almost completed figuring out all the structural elements of this story.

Anyhoo, plot of “The Road” goes something like this: some catastrophic event takes place, and suddenly all the plants and animals die. The people who are left either a) commit suicide to escape the utter degradation of having to scrounge for canned food; or b) attempt to make it to the coast, as Viggo and his son do. After the decision is made to head for the coast, the movie then becomes one long string of encounters, with Viggo fending off all threats to himself and his son with a gun with only one bullet in it. Self will deliver no spoilers here.

Self decides she would really like to write a story about an apocalyptic event. Whether this Event will be a nuclear blast or Earth’s collision with a humongous comet, self has yet to determine. After this Event, no one can drive cars anymore. (Also eliminating the need for traffic cops, in one fell swoop). All the cars will be abandoned on the freeways. Self and hubby will also, like Viggo and his son in the movie, embark on an epic road trip. Only, this road trip will be more like a comedy of errors than a journey of epic valor. Because of course, there can only be one Viggo. Unless self wants to invent a Filipino Viggo. Hmmm, that might be interesting!

Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.

Over at Empire Online the movie mag’s site (the newest issue of the magazine itself features an iron clad Robert Downy Jr. from Iron Man 2 on the cover; not that I’m a fanboy or anything, the only interesting aspect of Iron Man is that it’s title character is an alcoholic) features a whole slew of movie poster mash-ups.  Everything from Hip-Hop to Board Games to Bible mash-ups with famous movie posters.  It’s excellent to browse through while killing time in a cubicle.  These entries come from the movie poster/Sesame Street mashups.  Enjoy!

-Sonny

From the shelves of book-as-cultural-moment I have read neither the Harry Potter series nor The Lord of the Rings. I did read The Hobbit, but that was required reading in the sixth grade. I devoured Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy but that hasn’t gained quite the same fan boy status. I think I could critique Pullman’s work (never!) without having a hundred Frodos come down upon me.

Not to be left behind this time, I’ve decided to catch up on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga. I haven’t read the books, but I’ve seen the movies (that’s something I thought I’d never write.) Watching the films provides the viewer with the sense he’s reading a book–something I’ll get into in a moment. While I plan to read the books some time soon, I will discuss the films on their own terms, although separating the films from the hype may be even more difficult.

The first movie, Twilight, I found interesting for the way vampires were portrayed (sunlight can’t kill them, but makes them twinkle–a glittering that is universally accepted as the sign of a vampire and not just a kid in body glitter returning from an all night rave circa 1996.) While I haven’t kept up on all variations of the vampire, the film’s take on the monster (via Meyer) seemed fresh. Her representation is also necessary to believe in the possibility of the story’s intense yet innocent romance. The relative chastity of the romance compared to the sensuality of traditional vampire tales may be the franchise’s most fascinating aspect. Sucking blood, after all, is a pretty intimate act yet Edward and Bella are remarkably tame, as are Bella’s circle of American Eagle friends, given this is a story about members of the sexting generation.

There is much running around the wet woods, much walking along the wet beach, much pouting, and many communicative stares. Set in the Pacific northwest, the fog and rain appropriately consume the screen. My favourite scene was the game of vampire baseball; you haven’t seen the game until it’s played by the undead!

While I enjoyed the movie enough, the pace was slow (due, in part, to too much narration.) As I wrote earlier, it was obvious the film had been adapted from a book given Bella’s exposition. Occasionally, the vampires looked ridiculous when their white makeup had been so caked on they appeared to be vaudevillian performers under a magnifying lens.

I am happy to report that in the sequel, New Moon, the vampires have evened their skin tone, and Bella doesn’t talk as much–to herself. She does write e-mails to Edward’s sister which at least seems more plausible than straight narration. The greatest addition to New Moon may be the physicality of Jacob, and I don’t just mean that he’s buff now (there was actual swooning in the theatre where I saw the film when Jacob tears off his T-shirt–the first of many times.) The men, that is vampire Edward and struggling werewolf Jacob, are raising the stakes (bad vampire pun, bad!) in their caring about Bella and that makes for a better story; however, I found myself checking my watch during this movie, too. Do we need all those scenes of gazing at the fog-shrouded pines? I kept wanting to tell Bella that, seriously, she needed to get out of the woods and meet some nice mortal boys. Don’t they have guidance counsellors or Vitamin D in Forks, WA?

Despite its shortcomings, I’m looking forward to the next one and I’ll probably read the books before then. Like all soap operas and sagas, resisting the pull of and then, and then proves difficult.

And I’m Team Jacob, in case you were wondering.

And here I thought I could get through all of November without skipping a day.  Hmmf.  Now I’m on a 4 day dry spell with more business ahead of me and a plethora of issues on my plate.  Oh well.  I’m currently reviewing some advertising possibilities for this page.  I know, I know, I’m selling my soul.  The game is capitalism here though.  I can’t be blamed for simply being born into it.  I had an excellent holiday weekend.  Saw some old friends and great family.  Not that I haven’t been doing anything in terms of this life.  I’d been working on a piece I was writing for a short story contest.  It’s probably one of the most fucked things I’ve ever done — take it or leave it — and I’m not sure if I’ll win (or even receive an honorable mention).  Everything’s worth a try though, right?  Well, besides murder I ’spose.  I’m seeing Doomtree Saturday, into it.  I kinda want to go check out The Road at some point (which I’ll review), even though it seems impossible to adapt to film.  I just liked the book so much, it’d be hard for me not to go see it.  It’s mind boggling the Academy is doing 10, yes 10, Best Picture nominations starting THIS year.  I don’t think there’s even been 10 films worth seeing in the theater this year.  Jesus.  I’ll  be back.

-Sonny

Movie adaptations of popular novels are troublesome things, especially when the novel’s fanbase is so intense and visible that a filmmaker could be pushed into thinking they’re making the film for the fans of the novel, as opposed for filmgoers in general (or, God forbid, to please his/her own sensibilities). This is the kind of thinking that results in borefests like Chris Columbus’s two Harry Potter movies, and Chris Weitz’s New Moon.

(Just so’s you know: the fangirls are overjoyed with New Moon. The critics – and pretty much everyone who didn’t love the books to death – are not so much.)

One problem with Meyer’s books is their off-balance structure. Two-thirds of Twilight and New Moon were made up of angst and swooning – nothing wrong with that in and of itself – until Meyer realised she’s writing a book about vampires and werewolves and there should probably be some kind of actiony plot. So in Twilight we get the evil, human-eating vampires showing up (some might call them ‘proper’ vampires) and deciding they’d quite like Bella for supper, and in New Moon we get the highly convoluted situation of Jacob inadvertently leading Edward into believing that Bella’s dead, and Alice showing up to drag Bella off to Italy with her, because she’s foreseen that Edward’s gonna off himself there.

Now. Catherine Hardwicke got around this last-minute plot problem quite well by interspersing scenes of the evil vamps killing people in the early parts of Twilight. A small change, but a very important one. It meant that when the evil vampires showed up to the Cullens’ game of baseball, we already knew who they were, and that they were bad news. (Of course, their indecently long hair and swaggering tipped us off to their evil ways too.) And it meant that early on, amidst all the angst and swooning, we also knew that it was all leading somewhere – that a momentum was building.

Chris Weitz, however, makes no changes to Meyer’s original structure, and packs all of the important stuff – the jaunt to Italy, the face-off with the Volturi (it’s Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning, people! Give them more than five lines each!) – into the last half hour. There is very little foreshadowing or preamble for this, and so it feels tacked-on – silly, even. Part of the problem is that we have no idea where the Cullens have been for most of the film, and so it falls to poor Ashley Greene to be Exposition Girl when Alice eventually turns up.

But it’s a movie. Why not show the Cullens in exile, and Edward’s dark night of the soul, visually? Why couldn’t we have had interspersed scenes of Carlisle and Emmett trying to tempt Edward into playing vampire baseball, only to have him sulkily decline? Seen Alice having her vision of Bella jumping off a cliff, and telling Rosalie about it? Seen Edward heading off for Italy?

But Weitz, unlike Hardwicke, would not mess with the original structure. And consequently, the novels’ fans love Weitz and despise Hardwicke. But you know what else? Hardwicke’s Twilight feels a hell of a lot more efficient than Weitz’s New Moon – despite being only about 20 minutes shorter in actuality. (Also sorely missing from New Moon is Carter Burwell’s kick-ass score – Alexandre Desplat is a lot more generic.)

One hears a lot of talk about the virtues of “staying true to the book” when adapting a novel into a movie. But I say, screw that. They’re different mediums, and require different structures. Sometimes a movie can even improve on a novel’s structure. Take the TV show Veronica Mars. Via voiceover, we’re privy to Veronica’s thoughts, and it’s certainly her story – but we also see scenes that Veronica doesn’t.

This is difficult to do in a novel – if it’s in first person, the only way to relay a scene that the narrator hasn’t witnessed without ‘cheating’ is through heavy-handed exposition. And this is basically what happens in the novel New Moon. But there was no reason for this clunky structure to be repeated in the movie. Bella is the main character, and certainly, we should feel what she feels – but not to the detriment of the other (more interesting) characters, or of the storyline as a whole.

Kay, rant over. Personally, I think Eclipse will rock. It’s being directed by David ‘30 Days of Night‘ Slade. Does this mean the vamps will be hideous and communicate via ungodly shrieks? One can only hope …

WATCHMEN

Jeffrey Dean Morgan / Jackie Earle Haley / Carla Gugino / Stephen McHattie / Malin Akerman / Billie Crudup / Mathew Goode / Patrick Wilson / Matt Frewer / Apollonia Vernova /  Leah Gibson / Niall Matter / Darryl Sheelar / Laura Mennell / Robert Wisden / Based upon ‘Watchmen’ by Alan Moore & Dave Gibons / Art Direction Francois Audouy, Helen Javis & James Steuart / Costume Design Michael Wilkinson / Set Design Michael Erickson / Original Music Tyler Bates / Editor William Hoy / Cinematography Larry Fong / Production Wesley Coller & Herb Gains / Adapted Screenplay David Hayter & Alex Tse / Director Zack Snyder

..OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE..

PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL

I finally got through all three books in the Inkheart trilogy. I should probably find a better way to phrase it, as that makes it sound like it was a struggle or a chore to read them, and it wasn’t.

The concept is fascinating: Mo is a bookbinder and book enthusiast whose voice literally brings characters to life. As in, when he reads, things come out of the book into our world. Of course, balance must be maintained, so whenever something comes out, something goes in. Mo’s wife was taken into a book called “Inkheart” when one of the villains of the book came out…and now the characters are looking for Mo. Some of them want to go home; some of them want to take over our world. Mo and his daughter Meggie just want their family back.

That’s book one (Inkheart). It was filmed a couple of years ago with Brendan Fraser as Mo and Paul Bettany as Dustfinger (one of the characters). It’s not a great movie but the things that were flawed about it (especially lack of protagonist consistency) work in the book, where it’s easier and more obvious to switch between different points-of-view.

Books two and three are about the fallout from book one. Meggie is still obsessed with the Inkworld and is trying to find a way into it. She doesn’t quite know what she’ll do when she gets there: she just wants to go.

Most of books 2 and 3 explore the Inkworld and the inevitable change that occur, as every writer know, when characters take on a life of their own. Books 2 and 3 are also ways for Funke to show off the complexity and detail of the world she created but didn’t visit in Book 1. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – it is a fantastic world.

There’s quite a lot abou tthe power of language and word use, of course, and parts that deal with reader versus author: what kind of ownership does an author have over his work once it’s done? What kind of ownership does a reader have over his favourite work? What responsibility does a writer have to his characters and to his readers? In that element of the concept – the reality of fiction, the idea that we are all characters in a story – it reminded me of Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. But where Sophie’s World is a deliberate education in philosophy, these questions in the Inkworld are explored through characters, so the reader never feels like they’re hearing a treatise.

I really enjoyed these books, and have been recommending them to my friends who like other-world fantasy. Some of the machinations in Book 3 are a little bit reliant on coincidence, but I suppose that’s only natural when the story is ‘being written’ as it happens. More could have been done with the culture shock aspect of it, too, I thought – but I don’t know what you’d cut out in its place. Anyway, they’re excellent books and worth reading.

The cast of "Nine"; image courtesy of newsinfilm.com

I saw Precious today and want to talk about it length, but need to process what I saw. I’d also like to get to Push, Sapphire’s book on which the movie was based at some point before the end of the year. For now, I’ll say this. I didn’t love it but I did like it, thought Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’Nique were great, was heartened that my matinee screening had a good and diverse turnout, and think you should see it. But you may want to see it with someone and encourage your local theater to have a safe space where people can go if the movie becomes too intense or touches on frought emotions or horrible memories.

For the time being, I thought I’d mention the preview of a coming attraction. Nine, Rob Marshall’s screen adaptation of Arthur Kopit, Mario Fratti, and Maury Yeston’s musical (itself an adaptation of Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2), comes out next week. You can view the trailer here.

So, I know very little about this musical. I only recently discovered the origins of its source material, which I haven’t seen (though, based on my less-than-enthusiastic viewings of La Dolce Vita and I Vitelloni don’t hold high hopes for it, unless Fellini allowed for self-deprication in his autobiographical film the way that Bob Fosse did in All That Jazz, a movie of a similar mold that I love). Beyond that, I knew Raul Julia starred in its Broadway debut back in 1982, the original production won many Tonys, and once heard someone sing “Unusual Way” at a family friend’s wedding, which is a really cryptic song choice for such a ceremony.

As for the film adaptation, I know the players. Rob Marshall directed Chicago and is at the helm here. Daniel Day Lewis plays Guido Contini, a tortured director. The women who populate his life are considerable — Marion Cotillard plays his wife, Penélope Cruz his mistress, Nicole Kidman his muse, Stacey Ferguson (aka Duchess Fergie Ferg) a whore he once knew, and Kate Hudson a fashion writer whose character has a song that was written for the movie. Oh, and Judi Dench is Contini’s costume designer and confidant.

So, I totally suspect a two-hour version of Julio Iglesias’s “To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before” with generous dashes of love for the authorial presence of male film directors. Also, I think this trailer gives you virtually no insight into what this story is about.

That said, I totally want to see this movie because:

1) I’m always interested in film musicals, whether they are good, bad, screen adaptations of stage musicals, or screen adaptations of stage musicals of feature films. Yes, this means I saw Hairspray and didn’t hate it as much as many of my movie geek friends did. But those matters should be saved for another post. 

2) Unlike many people who hated Chicago (several of whom I suspect feel Marty or Roman got robbed out of a Best Picture Oscar for Gangs of New York or The Pianist), I actually enjoyed it. I felt the adaptation stayed true to the source material, deftly staged sequences that are actually going on in the protagonist’s mind, and felt like Catherine Zeta Jones, Queen Latifah, and John C. Reilly were great. I even enjoyed Renée Zellweger and Richard Gere, actors whom I otherwise would rather not watch in a movie. My only real complaint (which Jon Stewart shares), was that Bebe Neuwirth, who won a Tony for her portrayal of Velma Kelly was replaced by Zeta Jones. Otherwise, bring it.

3) Daniel Day Lewis can sing? The same guy who apparently prepared for There Will Be Blood by recording his character’s voice using early 20th century phonographic technology? I am there.

d) I’m fascinated by the presence of female pop stars in contemporary film musicals. As the golden age of film musicals has long since passed, it seems like the ones that do make it to the screen need a familiar face and voice, and they are almost always women with celebrated recording careers. Just as I wondered what Madonna brought to Evita, Queen Latifah brought to Chicago, and Beyoncé and Jennifer Hudson brought to Dreamgirls, so too am I curious what Fergie is going to bring to Nine. While detractors might snigger that it’s fitting for the woman who sang “My Humps” and “London Bridge” to play a whore, I’ll counter that she’s the only singer we hear in the trailer. Yes, that’s her singing “Be Italian.”

e) In the movie, I’m interested in seeing a whore play a teacher to our genius director protagonist man. In real life, I advocate the decriminalization of prostitution and would like sex workers to get worker rights and benefits.

f) While I worry that these women are going to be portrayed as long-suffering, one-dimensional objects of Condini’s affection, I want to see a movie that boasts so many actresses. Especially actresses I enjoy, like Cruz, Dench, and Cotillard, who I thought was wonderful in her Oscar-winning turn in La Vie en rose, an the otherwise so-so biopic on Édith Piaf. I’m also really interested in the series of noir-inspired ads she’s doing with La Vie en rose director Olivier Dahan for Dior.

I haven’t seen this many women in an ensemble since I saw Cruz in Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver (note: Cruz is also starring in Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces and I can’t wait for it to start playing in Austin). 

As an aside, the gossip enthusiast in me is also curious about Cruz and Kidman starring in a movie together. Ever since Tom Cruise split with Nicole Kidman and dated Cruz, I always wonder what their interactions are like every time they show up on a magazine cover together. It’s a catty curiosity, but a curiosity nonetheless. I wonder how they would be portrayed in a movie about Tom Cruise’s life, but want very much for this movie not to be made.

Vogue cover girls Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, and Kate Hudson; image courtesy of latimesblogs.latimes.com

Nicole Kidman and Penélope Cruz bookending Vanity Fair's 2001 Hollywood Issue cover; image courtesy of abc.net.au

Whether this movie is good or not remains to be seen. That said, I’ll see you at the multiplex.

Austen-based literature, especially based on Pride and Prejudice, is surprisingly common. I suppose a lot of that is due to the 1995 BBC adaptation and the 2005 movie. It’s all essentially Austen fan-fiction, and some of it is quite good. There are sequels, there are prequels, there are stories that focus on one of the more minor characters, and there are stories about people who, for whatever reason, relive one of the stories. Bridget Jones’s Diary, which is based on Pride and Prejudice, and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, which is based on Persuasion, are probably the most famous of these. Austenland and another book that I read last year called Me and Mr Darcy are both about women who go on vacation in order to actually relive Pride and Prejudice.

These books have a lot in common. They’re both perfectly fine books that are quite entertaining and they are more than just simple retreadings of the Pride and Prejudice plot. Another thing they have in common is something incredibly annoying: their heroines, in spite of claiming to be obsessed with Pride and Prejudice, have absolutely no memory of the first, oh, two-thirds of the book. Both of them complain about the man with whom they have a tense verbal relationship and say things like, “If only he could be more like Mr Darcy!”

Do they not remember the book? Elizabeth hates Darcy for the first part of the book. When he proposes she is genuinely surprised because she thinks that he hates her just as much. They banter, they insult each other, they misunderstand each other both deliberately and inadvertently. How can people who claim to be so obsessed with P&P look at a bantering relationship – especially one that uses almost exactly the same words as P&P – and NOT see it as a Darcy relationship? Honestly, if the main character is that clueless about the book and story that has been touted as her favourite, it makes me trust and like her a little bit less.

There are good moments in Austenland: Jane has a believably hard time letting go of her modern self and following the ‘rules’ of Regency England – something I think a lot of time travellers underestimate is the difficulty of letting go of the modern assumptions that make us who we are. And I had to laugh at the piano playing scene:

With professional suavity, Jane arranged her skirt, spread out the music, poised her fingers, and then with one hand played the black keys, singing along with the notes, “Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater, had a wife and couldn’t keep her, put her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well.”

She rose and curtsied to the room. (p.111)

I think that showed great poise and humour and, as a pianist myself, I appreciated it.

Oh dear.  Clearly I’ve been letting work interfere with my blogging,  which will never do.  My apologies, dearest readers.

I actually wasn’t overly impressed with this one, which was a bummer because I loved The Commitments and I had high hopes that The Snapper would be just as good.

So 20-year-old Sharon, a grocery store employee who lives with her parents and about twelve brothers and sisters, gets pregnant out of wedlock, and no one really bats an eye.  Her dad takes her out for a beer the same night she breaks the news to him, and she still goes out carousing with her friends on a regular basis.  The only problem is that she won’t tell anyone who the father is.  Eventually we find out this is because it’s the dad of one of her best friends, who basically raped her when she was drunk off her ass.  The whole town starts suspecting this but she denies it.  Her dad gets bent out of shape about this for a while, but he gets over it in time for the baby to be born.

To me, the real flaw in this movie is that it actually adheres too closely to the novel (which I read just before seeing it).  Roddy Doyle writes fabulous dialogue, but that doesn’t mean you can simply dump it into a screenwriting software program and call it a script.  The Commitments, in novel form, isn’t any more plot-driven than The Snapper, but it becomes a perfectly respectable, structured movie in Alan Parker’s hands.  That should’ve been a lesson to Stephen Frears that it’s OK to take a bit of artistic license when adapting a novel for the screen.

Life in the Boreal Forest

Brenda Z. Guiberson

Illustrations by Gennady Spirin
Henry Holt and Co., 2009
ISBN #978-0-8050-7718-6

K-5^th grades

NF PB

“Tika tika tika swee swee! A Tennessee warbler sings in a forest so huge that it covers one third of the earth’s total forest area. It grows across Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia. A swath of trees this big has many names, like taiga and boreal forest. Boreal means northern, fro Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind.”

This gorgeous book describes the variety of life in the boreal forest in its natural context of habitat and the food web. Including even a bit on the relationship of the predators and prey, the text portrays the life cycles and habits of the life within the forest and the effects the environment cause to its inhabitants. The text explains the reasons for the dwindling amount of boreal forest, a primary premise of the book, but does so in a slightly heavy-handed manner. The information is detailed and ecologically oriented, and includes the food web relationships of the organisms along with their adaptations for survival in the rugged climate.

The illustrations are beautifully rendered in lifelike paintings positioned across three-fourth of the spread with the text in the remaining space, positioned on one side or the other of each spread. The starving animals make an interesting, if pitiful, addition to the realities of life in the boreal forest and its harsh conditions and illustrator Spirin has done an excellent job with them. The animals in action are fascinating and I personally love the snow covered, frozen pond with the beaver lodge and a passing dogsled team.

Activity 1

List the adaptations that enable the inhabitants of the boreal forest to survive the harsh conditions.

Activity 2

Create a food chain using some of the organisms from the book.

Activity 3

Look up information about tropical rain forests. Compare and contrast the differences in the rain forest and the boreal forest. Look for adaptations the organisms in the rain forest have that help suit them for that biome.

Rain forest biome information.

More details about rain forests.

This site has information and facts about the loss of rain forest habitats

Read more information here.

This site has good general information.

 This site has good information and games; however, some links wre not not working. If you have patience, there were a couple of them, including one about The Lorax, that looked fun.

National Science Standard: organisms and environments

Book supplied by publisher to Librarian’s Choices review committee

Coming home from a birthday party the other night I noticed an advertisement on the blue line train. It was a poster for The Addams Family, a new musical opening up here in Chicago this month. Since then I’ve seen other advertisements for the show on the tops of taxis and sides of buses, all in the same general style. The ad campaign for the show struck me as unusual. The background is a simple maroon color with subtle texture meant to mimic old, cracked walls. A golden picture frame hanging from a nail is dead center and within that frame, an Addams family portrait taken straight from a Charles Addams cartoons. The title of the show lies over the image in Addams’ own handwriting, while the rest of the text is in the font most recognizably used by The New Yorker, where Addams’ cartoons ran for over fifty years.

I was struck by this poster design for two reasons. Almost never in my life have I seen an ad campaign for an adapted work that points so loudly and so obviously back to its source material. It was like this poster was screaming, “THIS SHOW WAS INSPIRED BY A CARTOON! YOU KNOW, BY THAT CHARLES ADDAMS GUY?? YOU MAY HAVE SEEN IT IN THE NEW YORKER!” Needless to say, living in Chicago, I’ve seen a lot of advertisements for big musicals and many of those have been adapted from stories in other media. Everyone is familiar with shows adapted from popular movies (such as Broadway’s long-running The Lion King) or literature (such as the staggeringly popular Wicked). I would even venture to guess that most people are familiar with the imagery associated with the advertisements for both of those shows. Lion King’s promotional imagery recalled that of the original animation but also developed its own distinct aesthetic of black silhouettes against vibrant backgrounds. Wicked’s signature reproduction of a very green Elphaba with her floppy black hat and devilish smirk can be recognized nearly anywhere, making the text advertising the show almost unnecessary. Both of these poster designs have become iconic, needing no further explanation than that of the image. Does our Addams Family poster have the same potential? Absolutely not. Strip this ad of its copy and context and all you have is a Charles Addams cartoon.

Poster advertising The Addams Family musical opening in Chicago this November

The other puzzling thing about this poster design is the complete omission of any other Addams Family related imagery. As a child the bottom shelf of the bookcase next to my bedroom door held an array of comics including Calvin & Hobbes, Gary Larson’s The Far Side, some work by Edward Gorey and an anthology of Charles Addams. One of the other things at my childhood eye-level were the stacks of back issues of The New Yorker that lived under the end table in my family’s living room. I used to go through every issue, page by page, looking for the cartoons. As a result I was very aware of Charles Addams’ charmingly macabre family as a series of odd single-panel cartoons, but at least for my generation, I might be somewhat of an anomaly. You’d have to have been living under a rock to only associate the Addams Family with Addams’ New Yorker comics. Since the 1960s sitcom starring John Astin and featuring that incredibly catchy theme song, the Addams Family has been a strong part of the cultural awareness. Over the years, the comic has inspired two live-action televisions shows, two animated shows, four films and six video games. So why this promotional poster for the musical that points so specifically to the original cartoons? It may relate to the fact that the rights to the characters were granted to the theatrical production by the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation. According to this New York Post article, the Addams estate was adamant that the musical be based solely on Addams’ original cartoons. “They have complete control over just about everything on this show, and they rule with an iron fist,” the article states.

The idea that one could have an Addams Family musical based solely on the cartoons seems almost unreasonable to me. Even the names of the characters, while invented by Charles Addams, were created specifically for the 1960s television show. In the original cartoons the family members were not named, and the single-panel format left very little room for any kind of extended narrative. At this point in history, I have trouble believing that the idea of the Addams Family can properly be separated from that of television sitcoms, or the Saturday morning cartoons, or feature films starring Tim Curry. How can the writers, the actors or the designers of this show separate their preconceived notions of the Addams Family from this show? It hardly seems possible. All of that aside, I can’t imagine who thought it was a good idea to have an Addams Family musical that did not include the famous theme song. This was one of a few critiques after the mostly well received invitation-only reading that happened in January of this year. According to another New York Post article, those reactions caused the production to contact Vic Mizzy for the rights to his catchy theme song, so perhaps it will be included after all.

The idea that this musical is to be based only on the cartoons and asks the audience to forget all that they already know about the famous Addams family seems silly, and not a good enough reason to sacrifice what could have been a really awesome poster design. The show is set to move on to Broadway in April and I’ll be very interested to see if they will use to same promotional material in New York. Despite my misgivings on the show’s advertising campaign, the show looks like it’s gonna be a good one – just look at this fantastic cast photo in Vanity Fair! I’m excited to see some fantastic Victorian and Gothic-revival inspired set designs and some wild costumes and make up. Early reviews of the show say that, although it lacks any especially catchy tunes, it’s peppered with a lot of great humor and with Nathan Lane as the family patriarch, Gomez, I’ve got particularly high hopes for this show.

Speaking of which, anybody want to go see a musical with me??

Yes, dear blog readers, self blushes to admit it, but only a few pages into Boris Akunin’s The Death of Achilles, she has developed quite a fondness for Detective Erast Fandorin (though Japanese side-kick is a bit tacky, like a throwback to the days of The Green Hornet), who is handsome and tall, though afflicted with a stammer, and who has returned to Russia after six years spent in the Russian Embassy in Tokyo, where he even acquired a Japanese bride, who unfortunately met a sad demise . . .

But, as usual, self is getting ahead of herself.

Back to the topic under discussion: self even knows just the perfect actor to play Fandorin in the film version: Tom Wisdom! He of the teensy-weensy part in “Pirate Radio” (as a character named Midnight Mark), who self will always remember as the handsome dude who is decapitated in “300″ (one of the 10 greatest movie death scenes of all time)

Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.

6 days!!!

New Moon Quote-of-the-day: “Here’s to responsibility twice a week, and recklessness every day in between.” –Jake, Chapter 7

If you missed Stephenie Meyer on Oprah today, you can watch it here. On Monday (Nov 16), don’t miss Kristen Stewart on The Tonight Show, Taylor Lautner on The Jay Leno Show and Dakota Fanning on Ellen!

Hollywood believes that the masses prefer familiar plots and characters, so that they can get easy entertainment without putting too much effort into it. This theory does have some sense to it – this is the generation of instant gratification. God forbid we read a book when we can get a quick shot of entertainment in the form of a 30 minute TV show or two-hour movie. This same mindset appears to go into the production of the plethora of remakes and book adaptations that fill the silver screen year-round. One is hard pressed to find a movie today that isn’t a remake, sequel or book adaption – or sometimes a combination of all three – and it can be argued that this methodology has gotten out of control. The number of sequels in certain franchises has reached astronomical levels. Sam Raimi has signed on to direct the fourth and fifth installments of the Spiderman franchise. Saw 6 came out in October, Rambo 5 is in the works for 2011, with the possibility of a Rambo 6 to follow at a later date. DenOfGeek.com also speculates that, following the success of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, there will certainly be a fifth installment in the franchise. A fourth and fifth Shrek film have also been confirmed. Virtually every successful movie produced today is followed by at least one sequel. Even movies that were really intended to be a holiday one-hit-wonder and weren’t created with a sequel in mind, such as the Christmas event film Alvin and the Chipmunks, have fallen prey to Hollywood’s penchant for recycling. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel hits theatres Christmas 2009.

Furthermore, it seems no film is off-limits, no matter how long it has been since the original was released. According to DenOfGeek.com, the 80’s cult classic Heathers has a sequel in the works, though no release date has been set. For series based on books or comic books that have a set number of installments and thus a finite potential for sequels, Hollywood has resorted to making prequels, such as The Hobbit, which precedes the enormously successful Lord of the Rings trilogy, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, prequel to the successful X-Men franchise.

The decision to adapt The Hobbit for the silver screen points to another trend: Book adaptations have run rampant. According to ChasingTheFrog.com, 30 novels a year are adapted for the big screen. In recent years, the number has far exceeded the average. About.com reports that in 2006, 50 books were made into movies, and in 2007 that number rose to 70. Some of the better-known adaptations include the Harry Potter series, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and, more recently, the Twilight Saga. These adaptations prove what the movie industry is only just beginning to realize – fantasy novels, an underappreciated genre in written form, make excellent movie fodder. The appeal of book adaptations is understandable – books already have preexisting fan bases that are certain to turn out at theatres to support the movie version of their favorite book. Plus, many action or fantasy novels are geared toward special effects and sequels, which are two key ingredients in the Hollywood formula for success.

However, it is often the case that movie incarnations of popular novels are inferior to the print version, which serves to outrage loyal fans rather than win them over, but incensed fans are not enough to stop the Hollywood’s production machine if they think they can make a buck or two. In what EW.com has dubbed the “Twilight Effect,” a slew of similar book-to-film adaptations are on deck for upcoming years, such as James Patterson’s teen-oriented Maximum Ride series, because the Twilight film, based on author Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling novel of the same name, has done for the fantasy genre what Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey did for science fiction. The teen hit also proved to Hollywood what, deep down, they’ve known for years: If a movie can draw in a teenage audience, the demographic with the most free time and disposable income, it’s sure to be a smash hit.

However, Hollywood has recently started to dip into genres and books less appealing to the teenage crowd, as well as less well-suited to franchises, action thrillers, and special effects. The film incarnation of Jodi Picoult’s popular novel My Sister’s Keeper premiered last June. While the film featured a blockbuster cast of Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, Alec Baldwin and Joan Cusack, the story of a young girl battling cancer and her sister’s fight for the control of her own body is not typical summer blockbuster fare. Hollywood has even gone so far as to turn a children’s bedtime story book into a film set for released in October: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. This is not the first time this particular book has been adapted for the big screen; another version was released in 1973. Nor is this a record for remakes. Many films have been remade multiple times, most frequently films who have their origin in classic novels. For example, IMDb.com shows that Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte has been adapted as a movie four times, not counting multiple made-for-TV versions, and is set for yet another remake in 2010. The same is true of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, which is set for an eighth remake in 2011.

Films based on classic books are not the only genre in danger of being remade these days. Hollywood has now turned its eye towards cult classic films, such as Footloose, Fame, Dirty Dancing and even The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which all beg the question: Is nothing sacred? One would be hard-pressed to find a film that doesn’t have roots in a novel or previous film, or sometimes both. It was once said that there is nothing new under the sun, and in today’s Hollywood it rings truer than ever. In fact, the only original cinematic attractions in modern Hollywood are the movies full of gross or ridiculous humor, such as You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, and the movies that mock other films, such as the Scary Movie franchise. However, even these movies draw upon the films they parody.

In short, Hollywood today isn’t producing anything that’s going to last. Hollywood’s Golden Age seems to be over – the age of stars like Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn, whose films are still favorites with modern audiences. But this phenomenon isn’t isolated to just the film industry. The modern age also isn’t producing lasting literature comparable to that of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, or revolutionary music like the Beatles, who still have die-hard fans, even though two of the band members are dead. Perhaps Hollywood is not the only problem; perhaps modern audiences are demanding less by repeatedly shelling out 10 bucks to see the same film they’ve seen a hundred times before, packaged under a different title. Nevertheless, Hollywood cannot be completely absolved. Film studios, producers and directors have found a formula that works and don’t want to risk their financial security in these uncertain times by generating radical or revolutionary films that have the potential of shocking or alienating audiences. But it’s been proven a hundred times before – the only way to make progress is to push boundaries and move into new territories that have never been charted before. Audiences will love it or hate it, but hey – at least they tried it.

What do you guys think of the “Twilight Effect”? Is it getting out of hand? I’m really starting to wish they’d leave my favorite series alone! They’re turning all my favorite books into sure-to-be-substandard adaptations. The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld and the A Great and Terrible Beauty series by Libba Bray (both of which I highly recommend) are set to be adapted in 2011 and 2010, respectively. How do you guys feel about this recycling-gone-amok?  Discuss in the comments! Plus, don’t forget to follow on Twitter!

6 days!!!

My Never

PS – Click on the image to buy this hott American Library Association poster (that sounds strange, I know lol):

The best closing line to any episode of The Simpsons has got to be: “Tell him I’m going to the backseat of my car with the woman I love, and I won’t be back for 10 minutes!”  This, astonishingly, was released in 1990, titled “Life On the Fast Lane“.  20 years ago.  What happened since then?  If I were to graph out my liking the Simpsons since it debuted back then to now, it would probably look like a plateau with steep ridges coming up from a valley, with hills to the East (fairly steep incline up to a fairly flat peak, fiarly sharp decline down to a low point, then up only a smudge).  Wait, so my taste for the show resembles the Rohanian capital of Edoras?  That’s just weird.  I was probably the happiest n.e.r.d. EVER when word got out a two-part adaptation of The Hobbit was being made and that Guillermo del Toro was directing in Peter Jackson’s stead.  I might be stoned in the street for this… but honestly, the only bad thing about The Lord of the Rings film trilogy was the directing.  The production design, the acting, the locales, the effects, almost everything about it was stellar BESIDES Jackson, yet he gets all the credit (I guess it was “his vision”).  And I know, “yeah but Jackson won Best Director!” blah blah.  It’s shit.  Best Director is a joke.  You wanna know you NEVER won Best Director?  Oh, just Hitchcock, Altman, Fellini, Kubrick, Bergman, Lynch, Lumet, to only name a few.  Seriously, Best Director means less than even the Nobel Peace Prize now-a-days.  Might as well throw that award at the Simpsons’ writers for plotting The Simpsons Movie around environmental disaster.

-Sonny

376444     วรรณกรรมดัดแปลงเพื่อการแสดง     Adaptations of Literary Works to the Performing Arts

เปรียบเทียบวรรณกรรมต้นฉบับกับวรรณกรรมฉบับดัดแปลงที่ใช้ในภาพยนตร์โทรทัศน์ และละครเวที

(Comparison of literary works and adaptations to them of film, television, and the stage.)

(376444 มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์)

by Matthew Cobb

Sex pheromones are widely used by mammals to communicate and detect the sexual status of a potential mate. This is particularly the case with female mammals, whose pheromones are primarily detected by a structure known as the vomeronasal organ (VNO), which is in the base of the nose/roof of the mouth. (And no, humans don’t have a functional VNO, although it does appear briefly during embryogenesis).

There are two kinds of smell receptor molecules in the VNO –  V1Rs look pretty much like an ordinary smell receptor, and the neurons that house them send their axons into the part of the brain that deals with food and so on. But the other kind of receptor – V2Rs – look very different and project to a different part of the brain. The assumption is that key parts of mammalian pheromones are detected by the V2Rs, but that pheromones often contain a blend of compounds, some of which may be detected by V1Rs and by a specialised receptors called TAARs in the main part of the nose.

The really interesting thing is quite how far back these receptors go. The recent sequencing of the Platypus genome showed that there were V1R and V2R genes, strongly suggesting that this form of communication goes back at least 165 MY:

Mammalian evolution – Nature 453, 175-183 (8 May 2008)

So what does a male mammal do when he detects a pheromone? Anyone with a horse – or a cat! – will know. He produces what is known as “Flehmen”, a characteristic curling back of the lip, with the mouth held open. Cats do this when they smell the urine sprayed by a male, and get a faraway, stoned look in the eyes while they’re about it. Here’s a picture of a tapir showing Flehmen:

So do marsurpials show Flehmen? You betcha! Here’s a  video of a male kangaroo testing the reproductive status of a female, by tasting her urine. Note the “flehmen” response he makes with his mouth, just like a placental mammal. Note the way he shakes his head afterwards… Who can blame him? DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!

]]> http://m0vie.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/does-the-battleship-adaptation-demonstrate-the-problem-with-adapting-games/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:55:09 +0000 Darren http://m0vie.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/does-the-battleship-adaptation-demonstrate-the-problem-with-adapting-games/ http://rgmaines.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/making-adaptations/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:44:27 +0000 R. G. Maines http://rgmaines.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/making-adaptations/

I posted a new blog under “Disability / Discrimination” titled “Making Adaptations”

Please stop by and check it out

Soirée de contes de Grimm samedi soir au profit de l’école « Les enfants de la Terre ».  Depuis le début du projet concocté par Hélène Normandeau (au printemps dernier?), j’avais choisi de raconter « Les musiciens de Brême » que j’avais fait quelques fois devant des enfants.  (Un jour, j’apprendrai « Le maître voleur » que j’adore aussi, mais ça fait quelque fois que je m’y essaie et je n’arrive pas à le rendre fluide.)  Sauf que plus nous approchions de la soirée, plus j’avais envie de faire quelque chose de différent avec ce conte tout de même assez connu des fameux frères folkloristes.

Il y a quelques semaines, j’avais décidé que, peu importe le public, je ferais participer les gens autant que lorsque je raconte devant les enfants.  Par exemple, à chaque animal présenté, je demande: « Quel bruit ça fait un âne? Un chien? Un chat? Un coq? »  À chaque instrument, je demande: « Il voulait jouer du tambour.  Qu’est-ce que ça fait un tambour? »  Déjà, pour moi ce niveau d’implication du public est assez nouveau (voir mon billet précédent).  J’avais déjà fait un travail préparatoire en 2007 où j’avais réfléchi à comment se comportait chaque animal, où il dormait la nuit, ce qu’il mangeait, etc.  Déjà, je prenais certaines libertés avec les instruments:  Le conte original fait rêver l’âne de jouer du luth et au chien de frapper les timbales.  On ne précise pas de quoi jouera le chat, mais on sait que le coq chantera.  Pour moi, un âne doit  jouer de quelque chose de percussif, alors que le chien peut avoir entre les pattes un accordéon ou un instrument à vent.  Cependant, il est clair que le chat doit « gratter » quelque chose…

Mais voilà que vendredi (moins de 48 heures avant de conter!), je me mets à avoir envie d’autre chose…  Le goût de repenser la recette, de faire différent.  C’est tard, mais c’est jouable…  Le spectacle est à 20 h.  Le public sera surtout composé d’adultes.  Je veux leur en donner « plus », sans trop savoir encore ce que ce sera.  

Pour moi, les « Musiciens » parlent de notre société qui met à l’écart les aînés qui n’apparaissent plus « productifs » selon une étroite vision consumériste.  Chacun des animaux est mis de côté par son maître parce qu’il ne parvient plus à accomplir la tâche pour laquelle on l’a domestiqué (l’âne ne porte plus de lourdes charges, le chien ne court plus assez vite, le chat ne chasse plus les souris, le coq ne réveille plus la basse-cour).  En même temps, j’admire le caractère visionnaire (utopiste?) de l’âne qui donne à ses amis l’espoir qu’une nouvelle vie est possible au-delà de l’obsolescence qu’on a décrété pour eux.

J’avais donc eu envie de souligner ce message en racontant l’histoire de personnes âgées dont on ne veut plus dans différents secteurs où l’âgisme m’apparait criant (travail manuel, sport, sexe/beauté, showbizz).  Ces aînés laissaient tout derrière eux pour descendre en Floride, leur El Dorado (déjà, quel stéréotype!).  Chacune ayant une personnalité qui n’aurait pas laissé de doute quant à la correspondance avec un animal du conte original.

En même temps, je sentais confusément qu’en jouant ainsi avec l’histoire, je perdais la magie de la métaphore, le côté fabuleux qui permet d’effectuer des rapprochements sans moraliser.  J’avais donc eu la bonne idée de m’en abstenir…  Plus récemment, je m’étais dit que je pouvais conserver les animaux, mais leur attribuer des maîtres avec des métiers plus modernes.  C’est ainsi que le chien de chasse est devenu participant dans une course de lévriers (allusion au monde du sport professionnel où l’on brûle les jeunes athlètes et où l’on est « vieux » avant quarante ans).

D’autre part, le stage de création que j’ai suivi avec Bernadète Bidaude au printemps dernier m’avait inspiré une histoire bizarre où un jeune taggeur rencontre dans un wagon de train le fantôme d’un hobo noir qui joue de l’harmonica et se souvient de la Grande Dépression de 1929.  J’aime bien le jazz et le blues, mais je ne suis même pas un amateur éclairé.  J’ai lu un peu de Kérouac et de Steinbeck, mais pas assez pour que la figure de l’Itinérant ait prise sur mon imaginaire à ce point (du moins, c’est ce que je croyais jusqu’à tout récemment).

Pourtant, allez savoir pourquoi (les voies de l’inspiration sont impénétrables), je décide à moins de deux jours d’avis que mes animaux à moi ne se rendraient pas à Brême, mais à New Orleans (qui me parle davantage comme Mecque de la musique, personnellement).  Ils formeraient un Dixieland Quartet (le chat jouera du banjo et le chien de la trompette, c’est tout) et voyageraient à travers le Sud des États-Unis en pleine Crise.

Du coup, j’ai des images de bâteaux à aubes sur le Mississipi, de vagabonds dans des trains, de maisons closes luxueuses (qu’on appelle des cathouses, ai-je découvert), de marécages, etc.  Je pense à la conteuse estrienne Ann Rothfels qui fait une version de « Peau d’Âne » intitulée MossGown et qui se déroule aussi dans le Sud des États-Unis, mais sur les plantations de tabac et de coton Antebellum (XIXe siècle).

J’ai donc passé une partie de mon après-midi de samedi sur Wikipedia (les définitions de « Nouvelle-Orléans », « Mississipi », « Jazz », « Radio »,
« Greyhound Race », etc. ) et sur YouTube (pour des scènes du film Showboat de 1951, des extraits de Louis Armstrong chantant « When the Saints Go Marching In »).  Vive Internet pour les conteurs à la dernière minute!  Évidemment, l’idéal serait d’y être allé, mais j’ai bien nourri mon imaginaire devant mon écran…

D’après les réactions du public (où il y avait finalement pas mal d’enfants) et les commentaires reçus, ça semble avoir bien fonctionné.  Je n’ai pas fait participer les gens autant que je l’espérais (je voulais les voir chanter « When the Saints… » en imitant le bruit des instruments des divers animaux), mais je pense que le récit a gagné de cette adaptation.  Contrairement à ma première idée qui l’eût appauvri, je pense que le décor contrasté (misère/ richesse; rêve musical/ réalité poussièreuse) et l’ambiance moite du Sud états-uniens conviennent à merveille aux « Musiciens ».   Traverser un marécage la nuit est bien plus inquiétant qu’une « simple » forêt.  Et le rêve de la Nouvelle-Orléans catalyse le tout.  En tous les cas, je m’y retrouve davantage et j’ai hâte de le raconter à nouveau.

Il y a longtemps que je me pose la question de l’adaptation et de la modernisation des récits:  Quand et surtout comment le faire?  Comment savoir quand il ne faut surtout pas toucher à une histoire polie par le temps?  Une des réponses est certainement liée à ce que les nouvelles épices apportent à la sauce (comme le dirait mon ami Marc-André Caron) ou à voir si elles n’en gâchent pas plutôt le goût original.

La grossesse (partie 2 de 2)

Le pourquoi des examens au cours de la grossesse

Une grossesse normale fait l’objet d’un certain nombre d’examens. Certains de ces examens doivent être pratiqués dans des périodes précises du développement de l’embryon. L’objectif de la surveillance régulière est le dépistage précoce de pathologies obstétricales (retard de croissance intra-utérin, hypertension artérielle gravidique, trisomie 21, toxoplasmose, …). Des sérologies sont faites de façon régulière pour dépister certaines maladies infectieuses pouvant entraîner une embryopathie ou une fœtopathie, en particulier chez les femmes non immunisées. Recherche des agglutinines (anticorps) irrégulières tous les mois chez les femmes de rhésus négatif(pour éviter le rejet de l’embryon lorsque celui-ci est rhésus positif). La prévention de certaines anomalies du système nerveux central passe par la prise de vitamines plusieurs semaines avant la fécondation et par une visite périodique chez le chiropraticien.

Les avantages de la chiropratique

Le chiropraticien peut vous conseiller en nutrition (garder une alimentation variée, équilibrée en glucides-protides-lipides et à forte teneur en fruits/légumes) et vous expliquer pourquoi certains aliments sont déconseillés (tabac, alcool, drogues) alors que d’autres sont à préconiser (poissons gras, folate au premier trimestre, fer, calcium). De plus, par sa formation le chiropraticien peut s’assurer que l’enfant est bien positionné dans le ventre de la mère et ainsi éviter des complications à l’accouchement.

Les entrainements chiropratiques Network, au cours de la grossesse, visent une bonne mobilité des os du bassin et du corps, une réduction du stress dans la région du bas de dos (réduisant ainsi les inconforts), une réduction de la fatigabilité physique et psychologique, et une grande satisfaction de soi.

Selon les dernières études, les femmes enceintes recevant régulièrement des soins chiropratiques voient leur temps de travail lors de l’accouchement réduit à 6-8 heures alors que le temps de travail de celles n’étant pas suivie en chiropratique s’échelonnerait de 13 à 24 heures de travail. On observe également, une réduction des complications à la naissance et de l’utilisation d’épidural, de ventouses, de forceps ou de césariennes. De plus, les femmes suivies en chiropratique ont remarqué une réduction des inconforts lombaires, un enfant ayant un sommeil et un tempérament plus calme.

Après l’accouchement

La période du post-partum est comprise entre la délivrance placentaire et  le retour des règles. C’est une période de nouveaux bouleversements à la fois psychiques et familiaux (période clé pour la mise en place de la relation mère-enfant, de la découverte du nouveau-né, de mutations familiales), mais aussi physique avec la perte brutale des repères physiologiques et anatomiques liés à la grossesse. Il s’agit d’une période à risque de complications psychologiques liées aux bouleversements de tous les repères d’une femme, en particulier lorsqu’il s’agit d’un premier enfant. On parle notamment de « baby blues » et de dépression post-natale. Le chiropraticien peut encore vous aider en cette période. L’écoute, les ajustements, les conseils, les recommandations et le support du chiropraticien jouent un rôle clé dans cette période de transition.

Les études démontrent que les soins chiropratiques réduisent les risques de syndrome de mort subite du nouveau-né et stabilisent l’humeur des nouvelles mamans. Étant donné que la naissance représente l’expérience la plus traumatisante et la plus brutale de notre vie, la chiropratique Network aide à libérer ce stress, à réguler la croissance, à calmer l’enfant et ainsi l’aider à faire ses nuits plus rapidement. Ceci au grand plaisir des parents.

Si vous avez des questions, des inquiétudes ou vous planifiez une grossesse, vous pouvez communiquer avec moi et je vous conseillerez au meilleur de mes connaissances.

Le Dr. Julien Lévesque, chiropraticien, pratique à la Clinique MainTenant, au 1477 boul. Saint-Joseph Est, Montréal, Qc, H2J 1 M6. Vous pouvez téléphoner pour réservations au (514) 670-0446 ou au (514) 910-7644 ou par courriel; drjulienlevesque@gmail.com Vous pouvez également visiter le http://www.chiroenergie.ca

Dr. Julien Lévesque, DC

La Grossesse (partie 1 de 2)

Dr. Julien Lévesque, chiropraticien — Quel événement merveilleux que d’apprendre que l’on va devenir mère ou père, surtout lorsque l’enfant à venir est grandement désiré. Le corps de la femme va s’adapter à plusieurs changements physiques, psychologiques et hormonaux. Il est très important que la femme soit accompagné au cours du processus de la grossesse par son conjoint, sa famille, ses amis et son chiropraticien.

Par l’entremise de cet article, je vise à vous présenter un résumé du déroulement de la grossesse; les principaux changements, les principales étapes, les divers services offerts par un chiropraticien ainsi que les nombreux avantages que procurent les soins chiropratiques lors de la grossesse et de l’accouchement.

La grossesse est le processus physiologique au cours duquel la progéniture de la femme se développe dans son utérus. Chez l’être humain, la grossesse dure en moyenne 39 semaines, elle s’amorce lors de la fécondation jusqu’à l’accouchement. On la sépare généralement en trois périodes de 3 mois chacune, que l’on nomme trimestre. Examinons d’abord les changements corporels retrouvés chez les femmes enceintes.

Métamorphose du corps

Au cours de la grossesse, le corps de la femme subit de nombreuses  modifications physiologiques, il y a bien sûr les changements physiques apparents (prise de poids, œdème, cicatrices, décolorations, …) et aussi ceux plus discrets. On retrouve des

• adaptations cardio-vasculaire; il y a augmentation du débit vasculaire de 30-40% avec une augmentation du volume sanguin de 1 à 2 litres;
• adaptations immunitaires; une production d’anticorps pour le fœtus et aussi pour l’adaptation à celui-ci ( la moitié provenant de la mère (l’ovule) et l’autre du père (le spermatozoïde));
• adaptations de l’hémostase; il y a léger éclaircissement du sang ainsi qu’une réduction des plaquettes sanguines;
• adaptations endocriniennes; une augmentation de la production des hormones afin d’assurer le bon développement et la bonne croissance du fœtus, expliquant les possibles sautes d’humeur de la femme enceinte;
• adaptations du système digestif; une augmentation de l’hormone gonadotropine chorionique (essentiel pour le bon développement du fœtus) durant le premier trimestre, entraînent ainsi les nausées matinales.

Les principales étapes de la grossesse

Tel que relevé précédemment, la gestation se compose de trois trimestres. Chacune des périodes de 3 mois est spécifique à certains processus de croissance  du fœtus.

• Au cours du  premier trimestre (de la fécondation au 3^e mois), il est normal que le poids de la nouvelle maman augmente de 2 à 9 livres. Durant cette période, il y a formation, chez l’embryon, du tube neural (cerveau, moelle épinière et colonne vertébrale), des bras, des jambes et des organes internes tels que le cœur.

Pour éviter les malformations chez l’embryon, il est important d’avoir une alimentation riche en acide folique (supplément alimentaire), en oméga-3 (poissons gras et huiles), potassium (légumineuses, légumes feuillus vert), fer (viande, volaille, poisson, légumes verts foncés), calcium et vitamine D (lait et substituts, jaune d’œuf, boisson de soja enrichie). Puisqu’il s’agit du  principal trimestre développemental chez l’enfant, il est important pour la mère d’éviter la consommation de tabac (cigarette), d’alcool, de drogue et de dose massive de caféine (boissons énergétiques).

• Le second trimestre (du 3^e au 6^e mois) est accompagné d’un gain de poids de la mère d’environ une livre par semaine et de la croissance de l’embryon. Le ventre commence à se faire remarquer, la fatigue du début s’estompe ainsi que les nausées et vomissements. Chez le fœtus, il y a la formation des cheveux, le début des mouvements (bras et jambes), le passage de la position courbée à la position assise, le développement des organes génitaux et du système auditif, la maturation du cerveau, et il  est sensible à l’environnement externe (bruit, lumière, activité). La formation de son système auditif le fait apprécier la voix de ses parents, la musique, et l’environnement sonore qui lui devient familier.

Cette étape demande un apport énergétique supplémentaire, alors il faut augmenter ses portions  alimentaires. Les besoins alimentaires demeurent encore les mêmes au niveau vitaminique, mais supérieures en calories.

• Le troisième trimestre (6^e mois à l’accouchement) ressemble assez au deuxième en ce qui concerne le gain de poids pour la maman (environ 1 livre/semaine).  C’est durant les derniers mois que le bébé prend le plus de poids et il est normal de se sentir fatiguée. L’enfant commence à entendre et à percevoir les mouvements de maman. Plusieurs changements s’effectuent chez l’enfant; les os durcissent,  l’enfant bat des paupières, l’enfant va gagner les 2/3 de sa masse graisseuse, coloration rosée de la peau et développement complet des poumons.

L’alimentation doit être riche en calcium (produits laitiers, légumes verts foncés), en oméga-3 et 6 (poissons gras et huiles) et en matières grasses insaturées (huile de canola, olive, soja, margarine non-hydrogénée). L’hydratation est aussi essentielle puisqu’il est important de boire plus de 9 tasses d’eau par jour tout au long de la grossesse.

Black Boy was never adapted into film like other Richard Wright works. It was made into an audio format but that was the extent of its adaptations. But through my research i did find this documentary of Richard Wright and his novels Native Son and Black Boy. I find it very interesting and it gave me some incite of things i hadn’t thought of before.

PART 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT6tD6s_3Es&feature=related

PART3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbDGiq7PhlI&feature=related

PART4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2kojohSNrI&feature=related

PART5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkBkb5aBQj8&feature=related