…But now, sometimes, I think, I’m too much carried watching Asian dramas online. So, I’m very confused about that topic. Whatever:D

Being married to someone you love and loves you too-it is something every girl in this big yet small world of ours hardly dream for. But it is worth a decision.

Honestly, I don’t want my future boyfriend(whoever he is) to propose to me in a crown(especially in a large crowd!) What if I’m not ready? Can I say NO? It will only be so embarrassing for him if I say NO, right? *to my future boyfriend, if ever you are going to read this, I don’t know if I have already changed at the moment you have met me, but please, do not propose in front of the crowd.* But, I’m thinking, if you really are ready, being asked “will you marry me” in front of a crowd is so so romantic!:D

To my future fiance: hope you’ll leave me never. Now, I’m still confused about love; but I hope in time, you’ll make me change my mind. I hope I can be your princess, and you’ll be my prince:D I hope you can prove to me that fairy tales really do exists.. <3

I’ve been having consecutive bad dreams about my insecurities, and it’s been quite upsetting lately.

I dream that I constantly embarrass myself in public, and that I was left in a windowless circular room with the lights closed and a locked door by my friends.  But the worst dream so far was that I had a new boyfriend who looked exactly like my ex, only he was sweeter and nicer and even more sincere than possibly possible.  I found the newfound love too ideal to the point it was nonexistent, and I thought he reminded me of my past too much, so I broke up with him :|

Can anybody tell me what these dreams mean??? @_@

The Cheshire Cat smiles.. and smiles.... and smiles.

Anyway, blog entry for today:   The Cheshire Cat.  He is one of the most fascinating animals ever created in the history of literature.  He also gave me nightmares as a child. :|

Where does he come from?

Freakishly, I do not know where.  Nobody does.  It’s a good idea for a story, don’t you think?  The Cheshire Cat’s origin…

But anyway, Wikipedia says that the Cheshire Cat was an old simile popularized by Lewis Carroll.  By the way, Cheshire is a little English county known for its cheeses.

There used to be an old warehouse for cheese in Chester in Cheshire by the River Dee, where the cats that stood by the dock waited for the mice to come along.  They caught them and ate them and were the happiest cats in the kingdom — hence their grins.

He’s always around, and randomly pops in and out.  What’s creepy about him is his smile, which is/can be the quarter moon, and his ability to just… fade.  From the classic Alice in Wonderland, his presence sometimes annoys Alice, comforts her, or gives a range of feelings ranging from ‘baffled’ to ‘infuriated’.

I wonder why cats are a necessary medium to portray certain roles.  Like Garth Nix’s Mogget in Sabriel, or Gaiman’s black cat in Coraline, who also gives her quotable quotes like, “You humans have names because you don’t know who you are.  I know who I am, so I don’t need a name.”  I might blog that into detail sometime soon.

Other than that, I apologize for the lack of information for now.  My pillow is calling, as are the nightmares.

my mum didn’t get me the fame monster… sad times. so no review today. new moon review tomorrow though.

yay!

im sooooo addicted to Ugly Betty now its unreal. I need to stop watching american tv before I run out… actually, I say before I run out, but im pretty much out of them now anywho…

so i got some good news earlier. Im getting my allowence doubled after christmas… so exited. the posibilites are endless! means i can shop MOREEEEE! and still use dads amazon account. yay. i hope thats part of my inheritence… dads amazon account. its not like anyone elses uses it more than me. IVE EARNED IT!

its kinda worrying me how close me and my dear, dear mother are at the moment. it seems like its been forever since we argued. we’re even planning to get out the ps1 and play through all the old tomb raiders together. im actually sooooo exited. but realy scared. we’re due an argument. and its been so long. their will probably be murder…

wow it reminds me of the daysss…. i remember when my mum got her first pc and i was like… i dont know… four., and I used to sit with my mum and play tomb raider. yeah, that probably makes her the worst parent of all time! but i disagree. i think it made me the person I am today, and it probably one of my clearest happy memories… and then tomb raider two was around the time my dad came out of hospital, so thats more happy memories.

Im glad my mum was such a bad parents. it technically, in my eyes, made her the best parent EVER! thanks mum! much appreciated!

I get so annoyed with political correctness and protecting children from the horrors that can be found in fairytales. who cares if the big bad wolf is terrifying, and who cares if its baa baa black sheep. does it make it any less offensive its its baa baa rainbow sheep? isnt that just plain in your face homaphobia? or maybe its encouraging kids to be gay?

kids arn’t stupid. they know whats right and whats wrong. if its so wrong to expose children to fairytales, then why on earth do we think its fine to expose them to the monster we call The Night Garden. now, im not being funny, but the things in that absolutely terrify me! id rather be locked in a room with a clown than in a room with them.

And tellytubbies. im sorry, but that was just plane WRONG! how DARE they allow names such as Tinky Winky (little penis) Dipsy (stupid blonde girl) lala (CRAZYYYYY BITCH) Po (Shit) on the screens. for fucks sake they didnt even speak english… hell, they didnt speak. period.

I dont think that me reading stories like Little Red Riding Hood or Enid Blyton’s The Magical Far Away Tree ever effected me. wait. no. take it back. bible bashers will blatently blame my exposure to these sins as the reason for my homosexuality. OH FORGIVE ME FATHER for being ME!

I don’t care. if they’re whats made me such a sin, then fine, I’m glad. I’m happy and proud to be the person I am, and I wouldnt want it any other way!

If anything I think its a sin that the people who are banning and changing these fairytales and other classics are the people who were never exposed to them in the first place. they seriously DON’T know what theyre missing. losers.

its not our fault they were born to competent parents. forgive us for our parents failiure. its not our fault they didnt know the demons hiding behind the pages of Fairytales and the words of Nursary Rhymes. they didnt know the poison Roald Dahl or Enid Blyton wrote.

shame on them!

{su blackwell}

on a bitterly cold winter’s eve, there is nothing better than climbing into a nice warm bed, snuggling down under layers of blankets, and getting stuck into your favourite book.

all the better if it is a magical book, a book of your childhood, one which will transport you away to a land of witches and warlocks, fairies and goblins, talking caterpillers and friendly fauns.

what are your favourites books for whisking you away to a land of make-believe?

when i was little my father read to me every night, and his favourite tale to read me was the hobbit. he did all of the voices, which i adored, and made a terrifying gutteral noise to signify gollum, and a hauntingly sinister “what has it got in it’s pocketses, me precious!??”

those bedtime stories are one of my favourite memories of my father from when i was young, and the tales he read me of magic and triumph and good and evil are the stories i like to return to time and time again, especially when the rain is lashing on the window and the wind is howling down the chimney. i’m off now to curl up with my copy of the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, with a nice big mug of cocoa…

{oh good, you have a map! now you can come visit me in the wild woods of the west,

you know the way! through the land of spare oom and the lost city of war drobe}

The Nutcracker

Really rather wonderful photography by Cade Martin, of The Washington Ballet. It’s refreshing to see photos that are not only expert but the subjects are also talented in their own.

In addition to my growing collection of Alan Moore books, I have recently purchased a complete hardback compilation of Lost Girls. I was initially put off by Melinda Gebbie’s illustrations. Whimsical and fairytale-like in style, they are not at all reminiscent of Moore’s previous works. Once I started reading, though, I honestly couldn’t put the book back down. This is not so much due to its frequent and explicit erotic content, but because it has such a powerful and magnetic narrative quality that is comparable to Moore’s other more well-known pieces. The plot – a perversion of a variety of universally known and familiar fairytales – guides us through a revelation of human desires in its many forms. Although Lost Girls is probably more specifically targeted towards females, I have no qualms that male Moore fans will enjoy this series nevertheless. Here are some of the less explicit pages from the book.

Falei do Sol, da Islândia… Enquanto eu reclamo, na Islândia eles clamam por ele.

Acostumei-me tanto com esta loucura,
Que agora já é compulsório.

Sigur Rós. Eu podia viver dentro dessas músicas.

Some awesome fairytale pictures from Korean celebritys. I wonderd if i should have something like this in my final work?

Han Chae Young and Baek Seol Gong as the Queen and King from Snow White.Ye Ji Won as Little Red Riding Hood

Ha Ji Won as Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels

Kim Seong Ryeong as Rapunzel

Chae Sira as Cinderella’s step-mother. Models Kim Min Hee and Lee Hyuk Soo’s reinterpretation of Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride

Nice work, i wish i had a budjet for that…

It’s funny the affect one person can have on kids, at least on my kids. I’m talking Santa. And don’t I use it for all it’s worth:

• You better clean your room. Santa doesn’t like messy rooms
• If you three don’t stop fighting and learn to share, Santa might have to skip this house

You get the idea. Now that the Christmas season is upon us (any time after the Santa Clause parade is the Christmas season in my book) one of the first things my kids do is write letters to Santa.

Now with my kids, a standard pen to paper type letter just won’t do. There has to be crayons, markers, scissors, glue, stickers and glitter. And let’s not forget the images cut out of magazines and flyers illustrating the exact toy each child wants (my kids are so considerate of Santa’s senility).

So with Christmas music playing through the iPod and hot chocolate from our Tassimo beverage system, the Christmas letter mayhem started:

My 5yo making a snow scene on the back of his letter to Santa

My 2yo writing her letter to Santa (big sister helped)

My 7yo making a picture for Rudolph

Everyone working together

The letters Santa and crew will be receiving from our house this year.

Have you sent your letters in yet?

Welcome to another Write a Review Wednesday, a meme started by Tara Lazar as a way to show support to authors of kids literature. Last week I looked at a great new picture book for preschoolers, Meeow and the Big Box (age 2-4 ) fromSterling Children’s Books and written/illustrated by Sebastien Braun. With December just around the corner, I can’t help but get into the Christmas spirit all ready. And it’s easy with The Great Reindeer Rebellion (4-8), a funny Christmas rhyme written by Lisa Trumbauer and illustrated by Jannie Ho. Thank you Derry from Sterling Publishing for my review copy.

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‘Twas the week before Christmas,
and somewhere up north,
dear Santa was frantic -
he paced back and forth.

He had just heard some news
that he sure didn’t like:
It seemed that the reindeer
were going on strike.

Following the same rhythm as The Night Before Christmas story, Lisa Trumbauer spins a laugh out loud tale about Santa’s trials and tribulations on finding a new sleigh team. How hard could it be to find eight animals to help Santa and save Christmas. Not hard it turns out. Cats and dogs, flamingos and kangaroos, even elephants all offer their services to Santa; eager to pull the sleigh on that one magical night.

But Santa and the animals soon discover that not everyone is cut out to pull the sleigh. Fresh baked cookies, mice and even the Christmas presents seem to cause problems for sleigh team after sleigh team. It’s not until the reindeer offer a solution that everything back on track.

The first thing I noticed with this book is the page stock. Unlike most picture books, the pages are stiff cardboard making it easy for even younger readers (or lookers) to enjoy without much fear of page ripping. Although The Great Reindeer Rebellion isn’t a touch-and-feel book, some of the images are embossed adding a nice dimension to the pages.

Reindeer on strike!

All three of my kids loved this story. The familiar rhyme drew them right in. The pages are layed out in such a way that the kids enjoyed guessing what mess the new sleigh team fell into. The placement of the text also added to the lyrical feel of the whole story; it weaves wonderfully through the pages. Jannie Ho’s illustrations are bright and fun, adding to the feel of the whole story as they fill the page. She did a wonderful job carrying the reader from one sleigh incident to another. The kids loved seeing the background images of the flamingos with bandages in the background as the next sleight team made their attempt.

The Great Reindeer Rebellion is delightful Christmas story. When we were done reading, my kids went on at great lengths discussing and debating other animals that could pull Santa’s sleigh and if they’d be successful or not.

The Great Reindeer Rebellion will certainly have a spot on our holiday book shelf. You can add a copy to your personal library from Amazon.ca If you’re looking for other great book suggestions, read some the past Write a Review Wednesday posts.

My one, silent rebellion was prayer.

In Oz it’s rude to talk about spirituality/religion much, certainly not the private kind so I really have no way of reading how ok you’d all be about the mention of it?
(not that I mind being rude, you understand. The odd verbal spanking appeals to me but there is such a thing as context and I get enough spam as it is…)

Sufficiently armed with the above disclaimer, I was thinking (they tell me it’s dangerous, so naturally I find it hard to stop)…
about the resources I have to hold onto. then and now.

Back then the question seemed about externals. I mean, technically God is an external, too except it’s hardly the same. (God is not a Disney film.) But it’s notions like that that kept me even vaguely this side of sane, even with militant atheists for parents or perhaps because of them.

Sounds funny because we normally associate prayer with conformity and with a brand of conservatism that is so mainstream as to go largely unacknowledged and yet remains a central feature of many peoples’ daily lives.

My prayers were always tinged with guilt. Surreptitious and vehement as the stars I’d look to. I heard them swallowed by the silence, the depth and magnitude of nature rang out in response and I was sure they were still there.

My parents were strangely devout in their atheism… and I mean these were people who would disown friends/family for ‘turning religious on them.’ There was a deep-seeded fear of it, for good reasons but at the time all I knew was that you keep it underground.

So day by day it grows a little stronger in response.
Because it’s always there when nobody else is, and precisely because it’s meant to stay out of sight. It’s like telling a prisoner not to mind the bright red escape hatch on the wall… these are not the ways to keep the curious from killing the cat.
I’ll go there because you tell me not to. I’m obsessive like that, or is it stubborn? Either way, it was there.

I went to an Anglican school with enforced prayer but it was the music and the wholeness of each note that did it — a thousand voices soaring, the organ piercing sunlight that had only just before seemed so absolutely void. Scriptures I could take or leave, for the most part. Parables you hear regardless — the lessons had already been marked on my skin, one way or another.

And so they told me, you can sing but do not dare to feel. Leave it at the gates and go… nowhere. offer… nothing. tell… no one.

Sometimes I’d write to God because it turned out Santa was just another fat, middle-aged pervert pretending to be something he was not.

See, there was no replacement for the wonder and belief that had long before been poured into my heart. How do you tell a child they can’t believe in the Moon? It’s right there.

But I learned to ignore those things, somewhere along the way, deliberately forgot the rest, most likely. It is an emptiness, an invitation to deny yourself and in the process lose a little hope with every breath. Not that I hoped for so many things, certainly not that some mystical power would save me from what had by then become my life.

I doubt I wanted to be saved. Kindness hadn’t proved much of a boon up to that point so I thought to myself, just don’t hand me another fairytale. I’m not a princess and there is no pea. There’s just you, me and… ?

What I did want to know was that I could be understood. And if there might, just might be a light switch to find, if I kept to the path I couldn’t help but know lay deep within, then that would be gravy.

These were my messages in a bottle, stored on the very top shelf. I stuffed them in the cookie jar, perched right below the bright red sign that tells you not to dare.

cupcakes

sockses

some old fairytale drawings that are too large for the scanner

About a week ago I picked up a book called Orthodoxy(by G. K. Chesterton) in my dads little unorganized basement library. I am about halfway through right now. The dude is a BRAAAIIIINIAC, and sometimes I have to stop and read a sentence three times and just be like WOAH, yesssss.

If you want some good thinking, CHECK IT.

Here is some tastiness from the book(in my own words) :

On the MySTeRY. The whole secret of mystery is that we can understand EVERYTHING with the help of what we don’t understand. The scientist tries to make everything believable, provable, and therefore makes everything mysterious. The believer allows one thing to be mysterious and everything becomes real.

Hmmm? There is no way to prove the mysteries we believe in as christians. Yes there are the miracles, but even the cynic has an explanation. So we go on believing, and it is clear to us. While the non-believer is going crazy trying to figure out a way to disprove our miracles, our belief; and suddenly it all becomes mysterious to him.

He goes on to speak of fairy tales.  On ‘Jack the Giant killer’, and that giants should be slayed(a word?); a story about ego, and that no man should be giant. Beauty and the Beast: a thing must be loved before it is lovable. Sleeping Beauty: all humans were blessed with all birthday gifts, but cursed with death and how death might also be softened to a sleep.

The importance with all of fairy land is the whole spirit of its law. Laws can be broken in fairyland, here they are something that can not. The way fairy tales look at life is beautiful. Anything is possible in a fairy tale, trees may grow candles instead of fruit, squirrels may talk. Yet there is always one exception, one law that must not be broken, a forbidden. Cinderella must be home by twelve or her magic will be gone, the princess must kiss the frog for him to turn back into a prince- of course she does not know he is one. Yet it is not utter chaos either? No because there is always the big picture, something to believe in. Some law not to question; our fairy tale creatures are innocent yet perfect. But, not perfect, because they are still human-with maybe a little magic on their sides. So what is the difference between me and Cinderella? Nothing. We both have magic on our side. I just call mine Christianity. Corny? Maybe. True?

This is why I so love fairy tales lately. The magic is a means of sanity! I can believe in whatever I like, and be more happy than the ‘honest’ ‘grown up’ who refuses to lie about Santa.

there’s this guy from a town in another land, far far away, where a peculiar language is spoken — let’s call him mr Light. Sometimes fiction trumps the facts. Let’s imagine this is fantasy, and that mr Light, like so many other fairytale characters, is good and evil, and that, imprisoned in the mental twilights of our own minds, we don’t see the latter side until it is too late. Because we don’t stop at deceiving others; most of all and most successfully, we deceive ourselves. I don’t assume people are out to do bad things. Sometimes I don’t see things for what they are until too late. I saw the good things mr Light was doing (and perhaps not noticing the bad sides of the good things).

Perhaps this was our first disagreement. And I don’t tend to take domination lightly, being told what to do and what to accept or reject is just not my cup of tea. Mr Light wished to turn out the lights on alternative opinions and explanations, and to own the authority to define what is incorrect and correct. In the sordid corners of our universe, in the caves of death and decay and deprivation, said mr Light, there lurks these dangerous beings, these murky characters, they’re called anthroposophists. Don’t ever let them close to you, I was advised. They may appear almost human, but they’re driven by instincts which are purely sub-human. They’re lobotomized gnomes. They eat you alive. They dig you down, they keep you in subterranean stashes, saved for snacking on during long, cold winters.

Little did he understand it was already too late. — How do you tell somebody: I already know the monsters of your fantasy, and I don’t fear them? I don’t know how. — Because, indeed, I knew about the dangers. The gnomes were always so close, it seemed they were merging with my skin. Creeping into my ears. I have them in me. They are me. With sparkling intelligence and seeming indifference to the world — and appearing at times stupid, at times evil, at times lovely, at times careless, at times mad.

“You don’t know anything,” he said to me. “I tell you, keep yourself far away from them.” But there’s no way to get rid of the gnomes of your childhood. And I said, I don’t even want to. If this means foolishly siding with evil, then I’ll foolishly side with evil. I don’t have any other choice. And I wasn’t allowed my own choices, I wasn’t shown any tolerance.

Since this fairytale world is rather black and white, I find myself suddenly transformed into a representative of the dark forces. Having little talent for subordination, being cast out of the Eden of perfect agreement and common purpose was perhaps a natural consequence. I was better off in the land of the lawless (and those governed by laws I don’t have to abide by anyway). And, as in the deep and dark forests of Småland, you find ways to navigate even in the black of the night, and those threatening shadows begin to seem familiar after a while, and you learn to recognize the unevenness of the paths even with eyes prevented from seeing.

And then, as clouds evaporate, the black sky is lit up with sparkling stars and you look up at the infinities, and everything sensed and known is beyond good and evil. And even in our darkness, out of the distance a subtle light comes at us, unsolicited and comforting, without the slightest tinge of forcefulness. Without artificiality. Without attempting to block our senses to other impressions. The light of the starry night sky only gently and unassumingly nods at the monsters lurking in the shadows. There is such a thing as coexistence with these beings. You can let them come out of the shadows and crawl on you. You can approach them and let yourself be devoured by them, disappear amongst them and disregard all the warnings and precautions and even let go of — be relieved from — the urge to keep the boundaries of your own self intact. And come out of it alive.

So this acquaintance from the foreign land tells me to go far away from all these things I am attracted by. Says, battle the shadows with a torch and run the fairy-beings out of their hidings — not even for a second must you cease despising them, hating them, taking them to task for each and every of their failings. But inciting such a battle is equal to saying I must battle myself, and this I have done enough times and spent enough energy on, and I won’t accept advice which has such consequences. I don’t want the penetrating light of that torch shining upon the pieces of my soul that haven’t already withered away — and I don’t want it on that which is dead either. This blinding, unrelenting light can never ever touch that childhood of mine.

Wouldn’t it have been so much easier if — when disagreement first arouse — to have been accepting of a differing viewpoint? Of course, mr Light may believe he has an uncomplicated and emotionally detached attitude towards these anthroposophists scurrying about the periphery of his life (or let me reconstrue this sentence: it seems to me it is him who wanders into that empty space remaining in the middle any where these beings dance their funny, magical dances and communicate with spirit worlds so distant not even the light of the stars reaches them).  This makes for a very strange battle field indeed. I know my relationship to it all isn’t uncomplicated or detached. To ask that it should be, won’t change anything at all. And if there were really any dangers, I was already exposed to them. I never had anywhere else to go anyway, I’m inevitably stuck with myself. One way to elude the gnomes of our own shadows is to attempt replacing them with another fantasy. Another is to simply accept them as integral parts of our existence.

“Let’s absurdify life, from east to west.“
[Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, p 309.]

Sometimes I inwardly, objectively observe delightful and absurd things which I can’t even imagine seeing, for they’re illogical to our eyesight — bridges that connect nothing to nothing, roads without beginning or end, upside-down landscapes . . . . . — the absurd, the illogical, the contradictory, everything that detaches and removes us from reality and its vast entourage of practical thoughts, human feelings, and all notions of useful and profitable action. Absurdity prevents the state of spirit in which dreaming is a sweet fury from ever becoming to tedious.
[Pessoa, p 309.]

“Let us stop being deluded by life and its ways. Let us flee, my love, from being ourselves. . . Let us never remove from our finger the magic ring that summons, when turned, the fairies of silence and the elves of darkness and the gnomes of oblivion. . .“
[Pessoa, p 421.]

[Edited 2009.11.25: language.]

Its very early in the morning, I have been browsing blogs since I have gotten here, combined with some lovely apple tea. Since I am always so depressed and constantly down, I thought I should write down the things I love and that make me smile, so I dont drown in my self pitty – which is easy to do.

Ok, here goes the long overdue list!!

1. Rainy days in Cornwall.

2. My boyfriend when he wakes up in the morning. (<– Corny, I KNOW – who cares!)

3. My cat doing her rabbit impression.

4. The smell of a hot chocolate with cinamon.

4. The first taste of cream mixed with the hot chocolate and cinamon.

5. Autumn.

6. A nice empty notebook.

7. Vince Noir and Howard Moon.

8. Calls from N at 12AM that last until 3AM, talking about weird and wonderful things only we can talk about.

9. Emails in my inbox from my friends in the UK two hours after I have already started work.

10. The noise my BFFs throught makes when she smokes. (Seriously, it sounds hillarious!)

11. Staring at people that have tattoos and trying to convince boyfriend to spend his tips on my new tattoo rather then on his own.

12. Boyfriend in general, really.

13. Writing more then 3 pages and still having ideas.

14. Cinamon stars from the Hintertupfing christmas market.

15. Apples. Dont know why, but the smell makes me smile.

16. Talking to women on Medieval fairs about witchcraft and fairytales. My favourite!

17. Fairytales.

18. Christmas lights.

19. Love.

Ok, this list could go on forever!

Love,

Me x

By Shane

Now what I want you to do next is listen to the sound of my voice and close your eyes.  I see they’re still open. Do you not trust me? It helps for me to close my eyes to see things clearly. To not dwell on all things present but to reflect on times when I was care free. Free from relationships, free from the hardships of life, free from myself. Close your eyes and listen to the sound of my voice and maybe you’ll see that the things you keep your eyes open for aren’t worth seeing. 

Think back to a moment of innoncence, a moment of complete happiness when you where care free. Let yourself give into your desires and let go of all inhibitions. Now tell me what it is  you desire? What is it that your body yearns for? Tell me.

TELL ME.

Love has found us here seven stories south of heaven. Baby, I want  you to undress. Remove the make-up hiding the scars of lover’s past.  Undress yourself of every man who may have forsaken you. Undress yourself of every situation preventing you from becoming the woman your meant to be. Damaged goods is what you consider yourself, but why? Like you, we all have played the jester in the cruel jokes of life.  I know when you where young you never envisioned your life being a rubix cube of rhetoric neglect.  Never planned for your planet, whose seven stars align to form that pretty scar on your heart to turn to stone. A place where your spirit, your time, your flesh grows fatigued by it’s own loneliness formed by your captor. You. You, a prisoneer to your own mind.

Condemned.

Condemned to the stresses of being alone. Floating along the waves of despair. Where is your balance? A random departure from being somewhere near, to nowhere at all, to this illusion you’ve established for yourself.

I can show you how to love again. I can show you that your a vision created from fairy dust residue. Take my hand and let us leave this place of never-ever after’s. Let’s write the ending to your Grimm’s Brothers fairytale.

Lagunatic always reads stories to the kids at bedtime. Last night, after a few raucous renditions of Dr. Seus’s “Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?”, we turned the lights off and snuggled up but Julian wasn’t ready to sleep just yet:

“Mommy, I want to tell you a story.”

“Ok! Go for it!”

“Ok. Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess named Tinkerbell. She lived in a big castle…..she put on a lot of make-up……and there was a staircase……………..the old witch locked the door………………….and the staircase didn’t go to the top……………the old witch tried to dead Tinkerbell…………..but then Superman came……………and he made the witch dead………The End!!”

I’m guessing it’s still a bit too early to discuss why he can’t mix DC and Marvel.

TOFFPOX: Prudence! What kind of person drinks rum?
PRUDENCE: …A person who wants to get drunk?
TOFFPOX: No! Yes! I mean – what sort of rogue is usually associated with rum?
PRUDENCE: …Johnny Depp?
TOFFPOX: …Who?
PRUDENCE: Johnny Depp, the local barman.
TOFFPOX: (disdainfully) “Johnny Depp, the local barman”?
PRUDENCE: Yes – well, if you told me to say the first thing that comes into my head when you say “rum”, I would say “Johnny Depp”, because he’s the local barman, and serves alcohol, including rum, so, yes, he’s the sort of rogue that I would associate with –
TOFFPOX: No, no, Prudence, you’re missing my point –
PRUDENCE: Which is?
TOFFPOX: Pirates! Pirates drink rum!
PRUDENCE: …And?
TOFFPOX: We could dress up as pirates and run away to sea!

First night of Fairytale Shorts – ten minute fairytale adaptations/devised pieces performed by the uni’s drama society – went well. My short, “Scurvy Curs: A Delightful Tale of Whimsy”, about two ladies who seek adventure as a badly-disguised male pirate and a parrot named Nobstradamus, went down well. I am extremely pleased with the audience’s reaction to the whole thing. Pirates having an orgy to the tunes of “Love Shack”, a maid with a feather duster wound into a coathanger and worn as a headdress and the crew dancing around the stage to “Why Is The Rum Gone?” seem to go down well with people my age and older, which excites me. I’m glad I wasn’t just writing stuff that I thought was hysterically funny and alienated everybody else. AND they laughed a lot at my character, which I suspect is because of the highly nasal voice and the glasses perched on the end of my nose. I love Bluster. She’s insane.

COCKSWAIN: Do ye swear by the sword that ye really be a scurvy cur and yer true callin’ be to run through bluejackets and lobsters?
BLUSTER: Are you averse to killing naval officers of any sort?
TOFFPOX: No.
BLUSTER: No.
COCKSWAIN: And be ye true to the sweet trade until ye find yeself in Davy Jones’s locker?
BLUSTER: Will you be a pirate until you cop it?
TOFFPOX: …I suppose so.
BLUSTER: Yes.

Second and final night of the performance tonight. I had a nightmare that I was forced to rewrite the entire thing and everything fell apart on the night, and I’m glad that’s not the case. (I guess now that I’ve written that, half my cast is going to fall ill or break body parts. I hope not.)

In other, more academically-focused news, I got the same mark in both my first essays for this year: THREE MARKS short of a first. I started out on a trip of self-loathing once more, until my seminar tutor told me that actually, it’s really good at this stage, and next time I can work towards a first. I am very happy indeed. I got a couple of firsts last year, which don’t count towards my degree mark, but I hope to repeat the performance again. It’s very odd. I’m used to A*s in all my English pieces of work, so not getting a first kind of equated to getting a B. You won’t really appreciate this until you know that, consistently throughout my school life, I have been achieving among the highest marks in the year in everything to do with English. It was that one subject that I never ever really tried hard at but enjoyed and got high marks in anyway. Science and Maths? Bollocks to them.

I leave you with this most important moral message from my play:
BLUSTER: And disregarding the danger of STDs, they all lived happily ever after. Remember girls, you CAN do anything, but you WILL end up as a sexual object anyway!

It’s always nice to see new interpretations of fairytales, particularly an illustrator’s interpretations of favourite characters.  There have recently been several outstanding new additions to our collection of fairytales for you to feast your eyes on.

Lucy Cousins’ Yummy is one of my favourite books of the year because of her bright, bold illustrations and her uncensored versions of some of the best fairytales for young children.  The appeal of this book is the graphic nature of the illustrations, such as in Little Red Riding Hood we see Red and Granny being swallowed by the wolf and the wolf’s head flying across the page after being chopped off by the Woodsman.  In The Three Little Pigs the wolf is boiled in the pot and eaten by the pigs.  I particularly like the horrible looking troll in The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  This is a great fairytale collection particularly for boys as there are no princesses in sight.

Fairy Tales by Berlie Doherty and Jane Ray is a reprint of their popular classic originally published in 2000.  Walker Books is one of my favourite publishers as they always publish great books that are beautifully designed.  Classic Fairy Tales is one of the titles that Walker have re-released in stunning paperback editions that are easier to hold and read. This collection includes a wonderful selection of popular fairytales, such as Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, and Rumpelstiltskin, retold by Berlie Doherty with magical illustrations by Jane Ray.  One of the things I like most about this book is that every page is decorated with colourful borders that match the story. This collection is perfect for older children, especially those girls that love princesses.

The other day in the garden I noticed a field of weeds sprouting where there were supposed to be nothing but walking path.  Then I realized that they were volunteer arugula and I was pleased.  This got me thinking about the nature of nature and how the raised vegetable and herb bed was for plants and the part outside of it was not for plants… only no one told the plants.  Nature just goes where it feels like, and we sometimes stop it, but sometimes don’t realize that it just might be the spice of life for our salad—the earth offering to feed and teach us by quiet example.

Because the fairytale Rapunzel is all about arugula (Rapunzel means arugula, as does rocket and rampion), that was also on my mind today when a friend sent me a question:  “Hey Bruce, you’ve touched on this in a few blogs but is there a simple 3 or 5 stage progression from pre teen to young adult similar to the 5 stages of grief?”  He is a dad of girls, but was also prepping a pitch related to fairytales and this seemed a synchronicity calling for a post, hopefully of interest to other parents of pre-teens to young adults, in the hopes that some Grimm insight might help us better enjoy parenting in the sort of salad days one sometimes finds in Los Angeles in November.

As you may recall, a witch takes Rapunzel away as a consequence for her birth mother’s having craved arugula, which her well-meaning husband filched from the witch’s high-walled garden. 

In stage one of pre-teen years, Rapunzel is an innocent beauty living in a tower without door.  She lets her lovely hair down for the witch to climb up.  I would equate her hair with the thoughts that grow out of her head, and at this point the mother figure is free to enter into her head so to speak.  Developmentally, the eleven-year-old is just beginning to think more deeply about the world and it’s not just hair that is changing, but the myelination of the neurons in the brain.  The sex is the easiest part to interpret in our overly precocious age, and yes, hair would also symbolize developing sexuality (i.e. the body hair that also shows up in boys and girls at the same time the brain is changing into the world of abstract thought).  This is when kids can first do algebra, and Rapunzel is soon to do the math and realize she is ready for boys.

In the next stage, Rapunzel lets the young prince climb up in her hair.  This illustrates the need for parental supervision, rather than locking the tower, the liquor cabinet, etc. and thinking the kids won’t get into trouble.  I like to think that perhaps it was the deprivation of warmth and the birth mother that has left Rapunzel so vulnerable to being seduced by the first prince who comes along.  For us parents, this means continuing to give love and affection even though kids thirteen or fourteen can be so harsh, rejecting and downright witch-like at times.  They project the cruelty onto us parents, but arugula is a spicy herb and desires can run rather hot through transitions, be they pregnancy or puberty.

In the next stage we have a tragic Goth phase where Rapunzel has lost her maidenhood, but naively says that the witch is much heavier to hoist up than the prince—outing her fallen self and getting thrown out of the tower and into the desert.  This symbolically shows the split in the child’s mind between being over-protected in the castle, or abandoned to the jackals in the desert.  This is adolescence, in the child’s mind, in a nutshell:  stifled in over-closeness or else doomed in isolation.  Many grown-ups languish for decades in this stage—fearing both intimacy as engulfing, and isolation as terrifying.  While in Rapunzel it is the witch who causes the isolation, often our teens feel out in the desert and alone and are sure that we must be the witch or warlock at fault somehow.  The exhausting dynamic of kids, mentally at least, running off into the big bad world and back into our arms like regressed babies can truly try a parent’s patience and bring out the witch in Mother Theresa. 

In fairytales “launching” is pretty much being thrown out of a tower.  To this end, the witch launches the horny little prince as well, tossing him into thorns where he is blinded.  In counterpoint to Sleeping Beauty pricking her finger at puberty and falling asleep, the prince has already drawn first blood of Rapunzel’s virginity and he pays a blood price for it, pricked right in the eyes.  I’m sure many a father of teen girls can relate to the witch on this count, especially because they remember the towers they once tried to climb.

In the final stage we have Rapunzel as the destitute mother of twins barely surviving in a desert as the blind prince (love is blind guy) crawls near.  Rapunzel’s tears heal his eyes and they live happily ever after.  Perhaps this suggests that before true maturity is reached one must suffer—losing the vanity of long tresses, the power of shallow or desirous sight, and being “blessed” with kids of their own (twins, a boy and a girl).  In terms of development, I would put the struggle in the desert stage as going from eighteen to twenty-six, with true adulthood just beginning at twenty-seven.

By considering the long and painful process of growing up, we parents might better tolerate the slings and arrows of our kids’ projections onto us, seeing us as over-involved witches on the one hand and disengaged clueless fools on the other (i.e. the parents who lose their baby to a witch over a salad).

So, let’s dedicate today to enjoying a little arugula, but to eating it with the bittersweet consciousness that we are at once the craving mom, the well-meaning but weak herb-stealing dad, the witch, the maiden innocent and profaned, the ardent and chastened prince… and, finally, the family who lives happily ever after—within one unified psyche at first (thanks to our efforts to individuate), and subsequently as part of the larger groups of our actual family, community and world.  Here’s to salad days in honor of all our collective children.

Namaste, Bruce

The Yellow Fairy Book by Andrew Lang, just one I read earlier - a lot earlier

I am the sort of person that if I read something and I like it, and the way that it’s been written, I shall then proceed to read as much as possible by the same author.  So consequently, when I first discovered libraries I read one of the Andrew Lang Fairytale books (can’t remember which colour) which contained many fairytales and carried on until I had exhausted them all.

Sam Pig Alison Uttley

From there I progressed to Folk tales from different countries and this kept me going for a bit.  Other series that I liked reading as a child were the Sam Pig books by Alison Utterly.  I just like the way that these were written and the illustrations.  I read one Sherlock Holmes book and this lead to just having to read them  all.

Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

When I discovered Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (which we had to read in school), I began to realise what ‘literature’ was really about.  Dickens also had the same effect on me, I devoured nearly his books, with varying degrees of enjoyment (though I still haven’t read ‘Edwin Drood’).  This habit  has stayed with me as an adult.  When I saw ‘Tipping the Velvet’ on TV, I decided to read the book, from there I have now read all Sarah Waters books: some are better than others, but I just love they way in which they are written – I like the style.  Having said that, Patrick Hamilton’s books, of which I have enjoyed an extensive one after the other phase, tend to be erratic (the author showing through sometimes too much), enjoyable though

Great-expectations one of my favorites

An author I could not get enough of about 25 years ago was Stephen King.  His works translates fabulously to the screen,  My hubby doesn’t like him, says he has a tendency to waffle on.  I disagree.  When for example, you read something like ‘The Shining’ it’s true that half the book is taken up with describing the hotel – but that’s the genius of King, he builds atmosphere so skillfully.  Then when the ‘hotel’ or scene of the horror is set and is then  so vivid in your imagination  - he just steps right  in and frightens the hell out of you, lol!

Stephen King the shining

Lot’s of writers I could write about: lot of books and writers I am going to write about, lots of books I have read, lots of books I have read and forgotten about. Yet so many books to read – I look forward to that.

M-am gândit să îmi fac şi eu blog. Desigur, am mai avut unul şi înainte dar din nu ştiu ce motiv nu am mai scris pe el.

Sincer, chiar nu ştiu ce să scriu în această primă postare a blogului meu.

Oricum, pe 15 noiembrie, la 20:41:31 s-a născut o nouă blogeriţă!:)