I don’t know if you’ve been able to sense this lately, but I’m currently without a squeeze, so I’m getting kind of antsy here.  Now, since this is a respectable ( = book blog, and not some trashy, cheesy hormonal teenybopper fanzine, I’ve been wracking my brain about how I can justify displaying mouth-watering pics of delicious men without seeming like a cheesy hormonal teenybopper.  Perhaps if I somehow tie these photos into imaginary movie adaptations of well-known novels, it will seem a bit less lecherous and a bit more socially acceptable.  (Har, who am I trying to fool?  This is all eye-candy, replete with occassional hip dips).  Let the casting begin!
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Les Miserables

The most recent movie adaptation of this novel was released about 10 years ago, and it starred Liam Neeson as Jean Valjean.  I think it’s time for an updated version to be released, don’t you?  I have the perfect actor for the role, and he’s French too!

This is Gaspard Ulliel, and he’s a huge big deal in France.  He may not have the acting chops quite yet, but I don’t think any of his female fans will care.
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Pride and Prejudice

Forget Colin Firth and forget Matthew MacFayden, there’s a new Darcy in town, and he’s going to put all the past Darcy’s to shame.  Here he is:

Don’t you agree?
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Great Expectations

I wasn’t crazy about the 1998 version starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke.  IMO, Ethan was dreadfully boring and didn’t fit the role of Finnegan at all.  Now, if there were to be a very attractive young man cast in the starring role, and if this very attractive young man were to be shirtless during most of the film, it might be worth a remake.  I’m thinking that this guy would fill the bill very well:

His name is Taylor Kitsch, and he stars in Friday Night Lights, (which I have never seen, and I’m thinkin’ I might have to rent it immediately)!  Don’t you think Taylor would make a fine, fine, FINE Finn?  “Come here, young Mr. Kitsch, and rest on my couch for awhile. Can I get you anything, umm, anything at all?”

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Dracula

How about Kevin Zegers?  I saw this guy in Transamerica and was quite impressed with his performance.  He’s edgy and intense, and it doesn’t hurt that he has killer eyes too.  He’s 25 now, and that’s old enough to play the Prince of Darkness, dont’cha think?

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I have to post pictures of this guy, even though I’m not sure what book-to-movie adaptation he should be in. I don’t think it really matters, as long as he’s semi-clothed in most of the shots. I sometimes wonder how he would have done as Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings franchise.  Could he have performed as well as Viggo?  I guess we’ll never know.

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One more thing before I go – Jonathan Rhys Myers MUST be included, just because. He could be in any adaptation, and it would receive raves from me. WOOT!!!

I decided to read Kick Me before tackling some of the novels that have been patiently waiting in my TBR stack(s) for many, many months.  I’m presently not in the mood to read about serious subjects, so the creeping piles of dramatic and tear-inducing books which are threatening to suffocate me as I sleep will just have to wait a little while longer, and no complaining allowed!  The other day, my pug jumped up on the couch, and one of the teetering stacks that I placed on top against the wall went tumbling down on his head.  He screamed bloody murder (pugs scream like little girls) and dashed under the kitchen table, where he remained in a state of cowering wimpiness for several hours.

Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence is Paul Feig’s memoir of his secondary school experiences, and it’s pretty amusing.  Feig was the creator of television’s Freaks and Geeks back in the ’80’s, and he’s also an actor, producer and director.  He’s kind of an incredible guy.  I had no idea! 

Feig hated organized sports and gym class. My favorite story is one in which he has to undress in the locker room for gym while wearing underwear that his mom adorned with a colorful butterfly.  His classmates go bonkers when they see the colorful appliqué, and start yelling “FEIG’S A FAG, FEIG’S A FAG,” over and over again.  He says, “They had come unhinged.  Apparently they’d never seen decorated underwear and the sight of it had turned them into the kids from Lord of the Flies.”

Feig may have suffered daily at the hands of his heartless peers, but they never broke his spirit.  He was a self-confident kid and he became a successful and self-assured man.  It’s refreshing to read a memoir in which the protagonist is able to take the awkwardness of his youth in stride and recreate his gawky teenaged experiences to his advantage as an adult.  Read this–it’s light and fun.      

Now for your continuing enjoyment, I’d like to present one of my worst middle-school experiences.  We’ve all had them; even the most popular kids have a hard time during early adolescence.  After reading quite a bit about this stage in a person’s life, I’ve come to the conclusion that both girls and boys suffer equally, but they suffer in different ways.  Boys have to deal with testosterone poisoning, so there’s all that aggressive crap that they have to dole out to each other every day.  Girls are mean and snotty, and there’s no meaner and snottier time than early adolescence.  During my early teen years, I suffered from an almost overwhelming sense of self-consciousness, mostly due to my height.  I was the 2nd tallest girl in school, so it was impossible for me to disappear the way I wanted to.  I was also the gangliest, most uncoordinated creature on the planet, and my klutziness haunted me until I finally figured out what to do with my mantis-like limbs after starting high school.  Here’s my story:

Chartroose’s Dance of Degredation and Despair

I fell in intense like with a boy when I was in the 7th grade, and this crush lasted until the end of my 8th grade year. The guy that I was crushing on was every girl’s dream.  He was one of the few boys who was taller than I was, and he had clear skin and knew how to use deodorant.  This was incredibly impressive to me, since many young adolescent boys are greasy, blackhead-riddled, stinky things who make their female classmates shudder in horror if they pass too close to them in the hallways.  For the purposes of this story, I’ll call my crush ”Bill,” because Bill is a good and wholesome boy’s name.

The dance of despair took place in 8th grade gym class, which, as we all know, is the worst class in middle school by far.  Gym is the place where you’re the most vulnerable and exposed.  Back in the day, we were forced to wear dreadful bluish-colored one-piece polyester gym uniforms with snaps on the shoulders.  They made us feel like we were gigantic infants wearing onesies.  Since they were 100% polyester, they’d make us perspire like crazy and begin to smell awful about two seconds after we poured ourselves into them.  We also had to wear knee high tube socks without stripes.  If we wore striped tube socks, our hatchet-faced pseudotransexual gym teacher would become angry, which really didn’t bother us all that much because she was perpetually angry anyway.

Most of the time, the girl’s gym classes and the boy’s gym classes were separated, but on the infamous day in question, the girls were to perform a special rhythmic dance for the boys.  We all knew this was the brainchild of the boy’s gym teacher since he liked to watch our breasts bounce up and down every chance he got.  (His perversion was one of the few gym related things I didn’t have to worry about, since my body closely resembled Olive Oyl’s).  Several days before the big performance, we were separated into random groups and told to choose our own music and choreograph our own dance.  Each member of the group was given a small bouncy playground ball  which was to be incorporated into our routines.  In my group, there were a couple of those perfect little squealy girly-girls that all moderately intelligent normal girls love to hate.  They took over the choreography, and the rest of us just went along with what they said because we simply didn’t care enough to argue about it.

I learned something very important about myself during this dreadful time:  I have absolutely no rhythm.  I was by far the worst participant in my group.  I can throw and catch a ball just fine, but not while trying to move my body in a graceful manner.  Even now, I’m about as graceful as a zombie, so you can imagine what I must’ve looked like back then.  I would throw the ball in the air and try to catch it while executing a split jump and end up losing my balance and taking a nose dive onto the hard wooden gym floor.  I’d try to pass my ball to another member of the group while twirling like a fool and accidentally bounce it off my knee, and it would then zoom across the gym and gleefully interrupt another group’s practice session.  I’d try to catch a ball that another member of my group tossed my way while attempting to pose in an arabesque-like manner and fall down with a crash, my gangly arms waving feebly like the appendages of a dying tarantula. 

My teammates, appalled at my lack of coordination, held a powwow and decided there was only one solution to the terrible situation I had created:  I was to do my own little routine while they did their big one.  I would dribble my red rubber ball in a big circle around them while they performed their beautiful dance on the inside.  It was all I could do, or so they thought.

The day of destiny arrived, and I was a nervous wreck.  The boys were going to be watching, and, to make matters worse, Bill was going to be there.  I could barely stand the anxiety, and I broke out in a sweat that dampened my polyester gym uniform more than it had ever been dampened before.  I and my glistening armpits took to the gym floor, anxiously awaiting the beginning of the dance.  The music started and I began my circle bounce walk.  I had dribbled perhaps three or four steps when the biggest catastrophe in the history of my little life happened.  The ball bounced off my foot and went flying into the bleachers, where  it clipped Bill on the side of the head and bounced off the wall behind him.  After a collective gasp from the audience, the entire group burst into raucous laughter.  It was the most embarassing moment I’ve ever experienced, and I rushed into the locker room and locked myself in one of the toilet stalls where I sat and wept silently and steadily for what seemed to be an eternity.  I could barely look at Bill after that, and my schoolgirl crush was completely and utterly dead.

The funny part of all this is that Bill actually tried to talk to me a couple of times after that dreadful day.  I couldn’t reciprocate, though.  The humiliation was way too overwhelming.  Now that I’m older and wiser, I believe I’ve finally figured out why he developed a sudden (and fleeting) interest in me.  It’s very simple:  guys like to be bonked on the head.  Also, they sometimes need to be bonked on the head in order to become aware of your existence.  Men are elemental like that.  If I had known then what I know now, I would’ve laughed with the crowd, retrieved my ball, and finished the routine.  Maybe Bill and I could’ve become friends, especially if I were to bonk him every once in awhile.

The End

I think I may have gone a bit overboard this holiday season with the giveaways!  It was so much fun rewriting Christmas carols that I kind of went nuts.  In addition to the two giveaways I’ll be hosting, I also rewrote Frosty the Snowman and Away in a Manger as contest introductions.  You won’t be reading those, though, because they’re so awful that I cringe whenever I think of them.  In the recent past, I have rewritten the Oompa Loompa song and several Blake poems.  Someday I’ll figure out how to incorporate them into this blog.

Anyway, enough of that.  This is the second and last of my Christmas Giveaways.  Here goes:

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Chartroose we have heard on high,
Singing book praises left and right,
And fellow bloggers in reply,
Echoing their fond delight.
Gloria, read chartroose’s way-o,
Gloria, read chartroose’s way-ay-o.

Now is time for joyful days,
Since chartroose is so generous,
She will give one book away,
Each week leading up to-oo Christmas.
Gloria, read chartroose’s way-o,
Gloria, read chartroose’s way-ay-o.

The first book I will give away,
Won a grand prestigious prize,
Angle of Repose has much to say,
About our morality and our lies.
Gloria, read chartroose’s way-o,
Gloria, read chartroose’s way-ay-o.

If you’d like to play this game,
Leave a comment down below,
Chartroose will draw a single name,
Next Monday at around noon or so.
Gloria, read chartroose’s way-o,
Gloria, read chartroose’s way-ay-o.

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I will give away three used novels–one each week through Dec. 18th.

Good luck!

The Five Days of Book Bliss

(Adapted from The Twelve Days of Christmas)
Please Sing Along!

On the first day of book bliss,
My chartroose gave to me,
Keith Partridge standing by a tree.

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On the second day of book bliss,
My chartroose gave to me,
Two hurtful loves,

And Keith Partridge standing by a tree.

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On the third day of book bliss,
My chartroose gave to me,
Three French men,

Two hurtful loves,
And Keith Partridge standing by a tree.

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On the fourth day of book bliss,
My chartroose gave to me,
Four falling words,

Three French men,
Two hurtful loves,
And Keith Partridge standing by a tree.

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On the fifth day of book bliss,
My chartroose gave to me,
THE LORD OF THE RINGS!

Four falling words,
Three French men,
Two hurtful loves,
And Keith Partridge standing by a tree!

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Okey-dokey, this is the first of two Christmas giveaways I have devised.  I’ll post this one every Friday from now through December 19th.  There will be five drawings.  The first giveaway drawing will be for the David Cassidy biography, and I’ll draw a name on Wednesday, November 26th.  If you’d like to try to win this, please leave a comment.  If you want any of the other books or the Rings movies, you’ll have to wait until their time has come.  There will only be one winner each time, so, for example, if you want just one of the four “falling” books, too bad!  You’re going to get all four!

By the way, the Cassidy biography is the only new item I’ll be giving away (because it’s brand new).  Hey, do ya’ think I’m made of money?

All David Cassidy fans should leave a comment below.  Good luck!

I believe I bit off a bit more than I can chew (har) with this challenge.  Last week, Jack and I decided to try to rewrite a Lovecraft story for Halloween, and here is my feeble attempt.  Rewriting Lovecraft is not easy due to his tendency to go on and on in his descriptions of horrible settings and events before finally coming to the denouement of the story.  The climax (HAR) is almost always well worth the wait, though.  I still enjoy reading Lovecraft, especially during this time of year. 

I started writing this with the intent of doing justice to ol’ Howard Phillips by trying to imitate his style at least a little bit, but by the end I was sick of the entire effort and ended up rushing through the most exciting bits.  I apologize for this in advance.

Without further ado, here is The Sandwich Whore (based on The Dunwich Horror, by H. P. Lovecraft, © 1929).  You can find the full-text of many Lovecraft stories, including The Dunwich Horror here.

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The Sandwich Whore
by chartroose, October 31, 2008

I.

Sandwich is a small mountain village nestled far above the pretentious granola city of Boulder, Colorado.  Hardly anyone visits Sandwich, at least, not deliberately.  Hardly anyone even knows it exists, and those who have stumbled upon Sandwich accidentally are later filled with an inexplicable sense of dread whenever an Arby’s or Subway or other sandwich-related commercial is aired on television.  “Make it a manwich night” is a phrase that sends shivers through even the toughest accidental visitor.

The town was founded in the mid-1800’s by an ignorant clan of Irish miners named Watkins.  They were later joined by a disreputable British family, the Castles, who had been thrown out of practically every American city or village they tried to settle in.  The Castles had started out in Boston and had gradually moved westward with each successive generation until finally ending up in Sandwich, Colorado.

The Watkins and the Castles were a match made in Hell.  When they weren’t fighting, they were breeding, and when they weren’t breeding, they were conducting unspeakable nefarious experiments on the local flora and fauna.  They even experimented on their own offspring when they were in a party mood.  Sometimes, during drunken bashes, the old folks would speak of an unnameable terror that was brought into being by a long-dead resident named William Watkins.  The terror was driven out and locked away in a dungeon somewhere nearby, and, according to local legend, it was patiently waiting to be set free.

Due to inbreeding among and between the two families, each subsequent Sandwich generation became more repulsive than the one preceding it.  By the middle of the 20th century, the two families had created their own race of mentally deranged and physically deformed offspring.  Extra fingers and toes became the norm, especially among the male inhabitants.  Scoliosis was quite common in Sandwich, as were a variety of repugnant skin conditions, including severe suppurative acne.  Every new generation was a little bit dumber and a whole lot uglier than the one before it.

Occasionally, residents of nearby mountain communities would spot one of the aforementioned Sandwich people creeping through the woods, usually bearing a dripping carcass of some indeterminate origin.  Sometimes, the creeper would pause to bite into the raw animal flesh and proceed to masticate the bloody remains with obvious drooling pleasure. 

II.

Wilma Watkins was born in a cave high above Sandwich township on October 31, 1983.  Luverne Watkins, her mildly retarded mother, had given birth to an illegitimate son several years before.  The child was so hideously deformed that Luverne carried him high into the mountains a few days after his birthday and threw his bent body down a mineshaft.  Infanticide was common in Sandwich, along with matricide, patricide and all other forms of homicide.  The only “‘cide” that Sandwich could have used a little more of was spermicide.

The birth of Wilma Watkins came as a total surprise to Luverne.  She was a very large young woman, so the expansion of her sizeable belly went unnoticed by everyone in town, including herself.  On October 31, 1983, Luverne was in her “secret cave” hiding from her father, Old Watkins.  Old Watkins took great pleasure in beating (and having sex with) his only daughter on a regular basis.  Earlier that morning, Luverne had rushed out of their ramshackle farmhouse when Old Watkins stabbed her hand with a fork as she helped herself to another bowl of kidneys and brains.  

Luverne began to have contractions while she was ascending the mountain.  By the time she reached the cave, she was certain she was going to die.  She lay down on a threadbare blanket and proceeded to scream so hideously with each labor pang that the residents down below cowered in their hovels, certain that the unnameable terror was preparing to storm down the mountain and devour them all.  As dusk was beginning to fall, Luverne staggered back down the mountain, carrying a tiny, bloody, blanket wrapped bundle in her arms.  She disappeared into her father’s house and was rarely seen after that day.

III.

Wilma grew up in that isolated farmhouse on the outskirts of Sandwich, and her childhood was anything but normal.  Her mother’s mental retardation and neglect, coupled with Old Watkin’s cruelty, fashioned her into a strange and lonely being.  She had attended school for a little while, but Old Watkins withdrew her when her third grade teacher told him that Wilma was one of the most beautiful and intelligent children she had ever taught.  He wanted Wilma to be as homely and stupid as her mother, for he knew that smart and attractive women were much more likely to rebel against authority. 

Nobody (except her teacher) cared that Wilma disappeared from the world, and, like her mother, she was all but forgotten by everyone in town.  As she grew older and stranger, she began to wander the mountains during the spring and summer months, straying further and further from home with each passing year.  Old Watkins became frail and bedridden, and Luverne, ever the devoted lover, rarely left his side.

Shortly after her seventeenth birthday, Wilma discovered an old ghost town hidden deep in the mountains.  This town was not on any map, and its last inhabitant had died about twenty years earlier.  There were two buildings left standing:  one was an old cabin that had caved in on itself, and the other was a large and astoundingly intact structure that appeared to be some kind of meeting hall.  Wilma was immediately drawn to this place.  She became the new tenant that very same day.

IV.

Wilma discovered the crypt the next morning.  The stairs leading down into the underground cavern were hidden beneath a huge wooden table at the front of the hall.  As she peered into the darkness, she caught a whiff of sweet flesh-smelling air emanating from somewhere deep in the dark hole.  The stench was unlike anything she had ever smelled before–it repelled her and made her mouth water at the same time.  She was too frightened to venture into that long darkness, but she also instinctively knew that the thing or things that were imprisoned down there in the dank chill would soon control her every thought and action.  She was ready for it.

She returned to the farmhouse one last time to gather some supplies to take to her new digs.  While rummaging in a shadowy corner of the cellar in case there were some overlooked canned goods or old linens that she could take with her, Wilma uncovered a stack of old books.  She loved reading and was always thrilled when she happened upon a book every now and then, so she was delighted with her find.  She tossed the books on top of her rapidly expanding pile of household items.

The next day, after several trips back and forth from the farmhouse to her new residence, Wilma was finally ready to call it quits and relax for a little while.  She grabbed a long slender book from the pile she’d thrown on the big table and felt an immediate electric jolt course through her body.  At the same time, a sharp piercing squeal arose from the darkened crypt.  “This is it,” she thought as she opened the cover.  “This is the moment you were born for.”

V.

Neatonummibuns was handwritten on the title page in bold black letters.  Underneath the title was an inscription which read, “Enter at your own risk!  William Watkins, October, 1953.”  After repeating the strange title to herself several times until she was sure she had it right, Wilma took a deep breath and turned the page.  The book was filled with spells and incantations written in a nearly indecipherable coded language. Several frustrating days and nights were spent poring over the strange book before Wilma finally cracked the code.  Swallowing her fear, Wilma pushed the heavy table aside and approached the crypt entrance.  In a resonant voice, she incanted, “Lettuce, bacon, pickles, cheese–bring Dog-Sowbreath to me please!”

Almost immediately, an ear-splitting squeal arose from the cavernous crypt.  The squeal was followed by the sound of a cage door slamming open.  A few seconds later, the underground stairs resounded with the clatter of gigantic hooves striking against rock.  As the entity clumped up the stairs, Wilma was once again struck by the mouth-watering aroma of sweetly roasted flesh.

The creature emerged from the staircase and faced Wilma.  She gasped in astonishment and backed several steps toward the door as she took her first look at Dog-Sowbreath.  The creature was about nine feet tall, and its naked torso was covered with a flaky, crusty skin.  Viscous and smelly maroon-colored fluid oozed from every orifice of its flat and circular shaped body.  Its arms and legs resembled pig appendages, and the gigantic head jutting above its strangely configured torso was pinkish in tone and covered with fine and prickly white hairs.  Huge tusks jutted out of its elongated, thin-lipped mouth, and a porcine nose and opalescent pointy ears completed the creature’s bizarre facial apppearance.

“I am Dog-Sowbreath,” the creature proclaimed in a low-pitched squeal.  “Eat me!”  The creature tore off a piece of its torso and held it out to Wilma.  Wilma noticed that it was filled with sweet smelling meat.  She ate. 

VI.

Over the next few weeks, Wilma resurrected several more Great Old Sandwiches.  Dog-Sowbreath was soon joined by Cthulmoomoo, Eatahamburg, and the Nameless Sandwich, which resembled a giant pita stuffed with crab salad.  Wilma ate pieces of every one, thus binding herself to them for all eternity. 

For awhile, Wilma and the Great Old Sandwiches roamed the hills above Sandwich, Colorado.  Sometimes, when they grew bored or restless, they’d terrorize some of the mountain communities, but they usually kept to themselves.  When the Great Old Sandwiches needed to refresh their outer bread or inner fillings, Wilma would chant a simple spell and the Sandwiches would be young again.

Recently, Wilma and the gang have set up shop in the Flatiron mountains above Boulder.  The Great Old Sandwiches are concocting an evil plan to make night forays into the city, where they will force some of the more rabid vegetarian residents to eat their meat and become sandwich whores like Wilma.  They figure that this foul scheme should take about ten years to complete. 

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Well, that’s it!  As you know, I like to host giveaways, and today is no exception.  I will be sending this cute little Cthulhu sucker stick-on doll  to the first person who writes the names of five Lovecraftian Gods in the comments section of this post.  It doesn’t matter if they’re Elder Gods, Outer Gods or Lesser Gods as long as they were concocted by Lovecraft himself.  Good luck!

Oh, and one more thing before I go…HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 

Hi everyone, Alastair Cookie here.  This my first Monsterpiece Giveaway, and it very special, so pay attention!  In honor of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, chartroose has decided to hold a drawing for an object that played a crucial role in the most popular children’s books of all time: the Harry Potter series.  Harry Potter had great monsters, but no cookie, which remind me…

Hey, chartroose, me need cookie you promised!  Me hungry!  Me need cookie!  Yum, here they are.  Thank you, chartroose.

Excuse me a second.  Um-num-num-num-num-num!  Um-num-num-num-num-num!  Ahhh!  That better!

Urrp…where was I?  Oh yes, the famous Harry Potter object that chartroose is giving away is this one: 

Chartroose is giving away two of them because she love book bloggers and she love monsters!  That two things!

 ”Two monster books to count, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!”

Get away Count!  This Cookie Monster gig!  Go back to your castle and count dead sheep!  Get away! 

Ugh, that was stressful, so me, Cookie Monster, need to relax.  Cookie Monster need love.  Show me love, chartroose, and give me more cookie!  Cookie mean love!  Love, love love–cookie, cookie, cookie!  Thank you, chartroose.

    Hey, this cookie have vampire bats on them!  Very funny!  Um-num-num-num-num-num!  Um-num-num-num-num-num!  Braaack!  (excuse me).  Delicious!

Umm, back to the giveaway.  The monster books verrry special.  They soft and cuddly and they say grrrr if you pull their tongues.  Me want one, but me want cookie more! 

If YOU want a Monster Book of Monsters toy, leave a message in the comments section of this post.  Make sure your e-mail address is legitimate, so chartroose doesn’t have to do all the work.  U.S. residents only, please.

May the best monster lover and cookie lover win!  The drawing will be held on Wednesday, September 17 at around noon. 

This has been Monsterpiece Giveaway starring me, Alastair Cookie.  Good-bye, and good luck!

(Me don’t feel so good now).

I know this kind of thing has been done to death, but I just can’t resist having even more fun with it!  Bybee gave me the idea when she mentioned the nearly endless plethora of chick-lit covers adorned with shoes in the comments section of my last post.  I agree with her observation.  Shoes have to be the most overused chick-lit cover art, followed closely by the headless torso shot.  I’m going to post some fine examples of this innovative art movement.  I’m also going to examine some mommy-lit covers.  Mommy-lit is becoming more and more popular now that so many of the original chick-lit readers have aged beautifully, married their Prince Charmings, experienced exquisite lovemaking time and time again and popped out a couple of cute little cherubs that they can hug and cuddle and adore forever.  Let’s take a look at these covers, shall we?   

First, chick-lit shoe covers:

I really need to try the Anne Frank novel, since I’ve always suspected that many Nazi’s were cross-dressers.  Here’s a little known fact:  Josef Mengele was wearing a red-sequined floor-length gown and heels to match when he drowned in Brazil.  The heavy costume pulled him right to the bottom of the ocean (  =

Have you noticed how they only show legs and high heels on these covers?  They hardly ever show the entire person.  Why is that?  Why are the legs so often cartoons instead of real legs?  And why are the heels so extremely high?  I don’t know a single woman who wears heels that high, do you?  (If you DO know women like that, I believe I can guess your ancient professional roots)!  Every woman I know wears flat comfortable shoes 99% of the time.  Even the shortest women in my sphere wear low heels, but, then again, I’m from Colorado.  We’re kind of rough-n-tumble out here.  Maybe, in New York, scads of women run around in extremely high heels, enduring nearly constant mind-numbing pain with every step they take, spraining their ankles every couple of blocks and sometimes slipping and falling on wet pavement.  Yeah, I’ll bet that’s it!  The reason why we only see cartoon legs and no faces is due to the fact that every woman who sports heels like these for any length of time wears a look of such complete anguish on her visage that chick-lit book covers can’t show their faces.  Their faces would be way too frightening for sweet and innocent chick-lit buyers to deal with.   The legs have to be cartoon drawings because the legs of real high heel wearers are ugly.  They’re covered with bruises and scabs and open pustulating sores from the numerous high heel related accidents most of these women experience on a daily basis.

Next, here are some chick-lit torso covers:

The first two novels have something to do with eating “meat.”  How disgusting!  With that in mind, it’s obvious that these covers were designed by men, because faceless meat-eating women are easier to have sexual fantasies about.  Also, it’s quite a turn-off to display a face shot of someone masticating a huge chunk of beef.  The woman on the second cover really does look like a streetcorner prostitute, doesn’t she? 

The next two novels are entitled A Girl’s Best Friend.  I greatly prefer dogs to diamonds because you can’t pet a diamond for any length of time without cutting your hand.  Why is it, though, that the girl with the dog is wearing such an extremely short dress and the requisite heels and sitting in such an uncomfortable position on the floor?  Is she from New York?  Did the dog run under her feet and trip her so she “fall down go boom?”  This must be why her face is absent from the cover.  She’s weeping copiously, and a bawling woman is an unattractive woman.  I guess her dog really isn’t her best friend after all.  He sure looks guilty, peering out from behind her badly bruised tush! 

The diamond cover is totally sexual in nature.  See the chartreuse “balls” hanging behind the smirking woman?  Chartreuse liqueur has long been famous as a potent aphrodesiac.  Notice the “come hither” curve of the smirking woman’s sensuous lips?  Need I say more? 

The last cover is very interesting, and it’s the most appropriate of the bunch.  The title of the novel is Match Me if You Can.   In case you haven’t figured this out yet, the book cover is a puzzle.  You need to find the matching half if you can (maybe there’s a prize involved) and then you can see the whole woman!  See, it’s pretty easy to figure these things out if you think about them carefully and logically.

Now for the mommy-lit covers!

Mommy-lit covers are the most varied of all, and many of them don’t even feature women.  The novels that do have one thing in common with other forms of women’s novels: they never show the woman’s face unless it’s in cartoon form.  It’s simple to figure out why mommy faces are absent from mommy-lit covers.  Can you guess?  It’s a social issue.  It’s because mommies lose their identities once they have children.  They are no longer desired sexual objects or even spike heel wearing masochists anymore.  It’s all about the kids, kids, kids–diapers and bottles and school and teen sex and self-mutilation and STD’s and trailer parks and welfare when all is said and done.  Yes indeed, mommies don’t need faces.  All they need is hands to serve and hips to push those puppies out!  And, speaking of puppies, look at the first cover.  This cover shows a common tragedy that happens to pets once babies start taking over the family.  They’re killed because they aren’t wanted or loved anymore.  In this case, the unfortunate little Yorkie is having rock-filled bunny slippers thrown at his head.  Notice the evil looks on the slippers’ faces?  The poor little fella won’t even know what hit him! 

I’m going to skip over Tales from the Crib and look at Slummy Mummy and The Yummy Mummy.  These pithily titled novels display some common mommy stereotypes on their covers.  You can tell that slummy mummy is lower class because she has her skirt tucked into her underwear on one side.  This is definitely “ghetto style.”  Upper class women normally tuck a large stick in between their butt cheeks when they want to make a statement. 

The last cover shows another stereotype:  the MILF.  The MILF in this picture has to hide because the other mommies may become jealous of her sex appeal and throw something akin to rock filled bunny slippers at her.  The MILF is adjusting her lower heeled shoe to show that she’s inferior to normal chick-lit women.  Even though she’s attractive, she’s a mom, which places her in the sensible heel, ill-fitting shoe, but I’d still do ya’ category, which is quite a bit below the young, single, spike-heeled, I’d do ya’ all over the place category.  Got it? 

I’ve thought of a few more titles to add to the Slummy Mummy and Yummy Mummy collection:

↑

Dummy Mummy, and

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Crummy Mummy!

(I wonder if she’s wearing heels.  If so, this explains a lot).

Kazuo Ishiguro, 2005, 288 p.

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I would love to meet and get
to know this man.  He’s my
new hero!

(Caution: There are spoilers in this post)

If you are one of the two people who have not yet read this excellent novel, try to get your hands on a copy as soon as possible.  In my humble opinion, Never Let Me Go is one of the best books I’ve read in at least a decade, if not longer.  It has been added to the Chartroose Shortlist of the best novels of the 21^st century.  Since it’s only 2008 and I’ll be dead long before the 22^nd century arrives, and I’m basically a nobody, this probably doesn’t mean much, but hey, it’s my ego list and I’m sticking to it!  I started out listening to a borrowed audio version and ended up buying a copy to finish reading with my eyes instead of my ears.  This means I was extremely impressed, because I hardly ever buy books!

There are undoubtedly a gazillion reviews of Never Let Me Go floating around the blogosphere, and there are quite a few book bloggers who are better reviewers than I am (like Dorothy, Victoria, Stewart and Verbivore) so I’m going to avoid taking the obvious approach to my review of the novel.  Earlier today, I did a bit of thinking about the story.  What is Ishiguro really trying to tell us here?  This was no small task, because Never Let Me Go is chock full of symbolism.  It’s so allegorical that I’m sure that I overlooked about 99% of the true meaning, but my OCD was kicking in, so I absolutely had to try to figure it out!

Never Let Me Go is about children being cloned and raised to adulthood for the purpose of donating vital organs to their “originals” when they are fully grown.  After donating several organs, usually two to four, the clones “complete” (die) at around age 30.  Although it’s never stated in the novel, I think they must start out donating organs with a spare, like a kidney or a lung, and then end up donating the biggies that will kill the donor, like hearts and pancreases.

Never Let Me Go may be about clones, but it’s not really about clones at all.  It’s about society—the haves and the have-nots; the way the majority of us regard the underclasses and those less fortunate than we are; the way we objectify everyone and everything that isn’t like us.  Like I mentioned in a previous post, Never Let Me Go is about conformity, and not just the conformity of the clones, but the conformity of everyone.  It’s also about alienation.  The clones weren’t even considered to be human—society thought they didn’t have souls (obviously in order to subconsciously justify the immorality of the entire business).  One of the “guardians” at their idyllic boarding school expressed this opinion by saying that, “…There were times when I’d look down on you from my study window and feel such revulsion…” (p. 269).

On a deeper level, Never Let Me Go is about the futility of life.  It’s a “what’s-the-point” kind of Nihilistic dystopian novel (without the anarchy) that shows that nothing can save us from the inevitable—not love, not art or beauty, not anything.  It’s a Borg book, saying that we might as well allow ourselves to be assimilated because resistance is futile.  The cloned kids don’t rebel against the inevitable, but then, neither do the Borg, do they?  And while, at the very end of our lives, we may ”rage, rage against the dying of the light,” with every ounce of strength and determination at our disposal, Death is always the winner.  Always, with no exceptions. 

Now for the neat-o part of this post:

Science first—

• About 97% of our cloning efforts have ended in failure. Scientists have cloned or attempted to clone sheep, cats, mice, goats, cows, horses, mules, pigs and rabbits. Currently, cloned mice are being used for health research.
• Scientists in the UK successfully cloned their first human embryo in May of 2005. They are still trying to figure out how to isolate stem cells from clones.
• Several years ago, a couple of U.S. universities suspended their cloning research due to lack of funding and/or lack of success. Harvard recently regained approval to restart their cloning project. Harvard researchers intend to use clones to harvest stem cells to help combat juvenile diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
• A Las Vegas based for-profit company called Clonaid has claimed that it has cloned a human baby, but they seem to have nothing to show for it.

My favorite cloning (and related) novels:

This feature length animated film will be released in August:

And, last but not least, humor—

Happy Mother’s Day!  Remember that our main purpose as wimminfolk is to procreate and procreate and procreate, no matter how miserable all this chile’bearin’ may make us.  Us wimmens must keep poppin’ out dem chillen’ until our innards is hangin’ down by our feet, or our husban’s take us behind the shed an’ shoot us because we’s too ol’ to bear ‘em (both the husban’s and the chillen’) anymore.

I was having some stomach issues this morning, and while I was lying on the couch recovering from the latest bathroom run, the “Today Show” had a segment on the Duggar family.  They are expecting their 18th child.  After watching their touching display of family unity for a few minutes, I had run back to the bathroom again, and this time, it wasn’t just my stomach problem that made me vomit.  Now I’m at work (and as you can see, I’m working very hard).  Before I get started on my mysterious librarian alchemy, I’d like to give all you mommies this lovely Mother’s Day gift:

This is the Duggar family.  Aren’t they wholesome?  I know this has nothing to do with books, but some wimmen read when they ain’t poppin’ out chillen’.  Maybe a few of those readin’ an’ chile’bearin’ wimmen will find this and be amused.  If enough readin’ an’ chile’bearin’ wimmen find this site and let me know they enjoy it, I can change the moniker to “Bloody Hell, It’s a Baby Barrage!”  This would make me very happy indeed.   

I’ve never paid much attention to World Book Day, but now that I’m more into books and authors than ever before (largely because of this blog), I’m going to celebrate by creating a challenge for myself.  Here it is:

1. Find a world map, close my eyes, and place my finger on a random country, continent or landmass of some kind.
2. Interlibrary loan (or purchase) a novel written by an author from my randomly chosen geographical location.  If there are no translations that I can find, I’ll repeat steps 1 & 2 until I find one.
3. Read and review the novel.

The British Isles are excluded because I read British authors all the time, so it wouldn’t be much of a challenge unless I decided to read James Joyce.  Then it would be TOO MUCH of a challenge. 

Okey-Dokey, here goes  –  the country that I’m going to read is…Greece!  Awesome!  I’m going to try to choose a contemporary Greek author.  I’m past my Homer, Sophocles and Euripedes stages of development, so none of that stuff is allowed.  Oh, and no mythology either!  (Drats!)

——————————————————————————(Approx. 45 minutes later…)  Okay, this was kind of difficult, but I finally found one listed at a local academic library.

Here is the book:

Woot!  I’m looking forward to this!  Maybe I’ll start reading more world literature and continue to expand my horizons.