Mister Sandman? Bring me, Dream.

When I was growing up, trips to the bookstore with my mother were a regular treat. No sarcasm.

I would ask her how much I could spend, she would give me a limit, and then we'd part ways for at least an hour.

There were difficult decisions to be made. $25 could be split so many ways. It could be one to maybe even two hardcover books. It could be up to 5, if I played my cards right, paperback books. Maybe more, if I was feeling Dover-Thrift-y.

Or it could be one graphic novel.

As I didn't have a driver's license until I was almost 19 and didn't have money until I was in my twenties (and not much at that), I relied on my mother's bookstore trips to get the bulk of my graphic novels and comics.

When I was about 15 (maybe a little before I turned 15), I discovered Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, which, the time, had just recently finished its original run. I picked up the first volume collection, "Preludes and Nocturnes" and immediately fell in love. 

It was so perfectly paced. So delicately worded. Everything about it was so precisely... meant. The only issue I ever had with it was the quality of the art at times. Which is my major qualm about most comics most of the time.

But the story... the story is the thing.

I continued to read the series, but was only able to buy about one volume per year. Yeah. One per year. 

Once I did have a license and some money, I then relied solely on finding the next volume in person. No online purchasing. I'm not sure why I did this, as I love to buy stuff online, but there was something great about walking into a bookstore or comic store, finding the Vertigo books, and looking for the right volume. Often, the one I needed would be the only one missing (currently, this is my issue with Y: The Last Man). But the day I saw it and had the $20+ to buy it? That was a great day.

But then came my super-broke years, coinciding with the heart-breaking realization at the end of Worlds' End, which then I was just stuck with and unable to read the follow-up of. 

And I couldn't buy The Kindly Ones for ages yet, because it was so freakin' big and expensive.

The day I got my first big paycheck, I bought it. And read it.

And then I became overworked and at some point forgot that I had already bought and read it. For I bought it again last year. And read it again, saying, "Hmm, I've clearly read this before..." and then noticed there was already a copy (of a different edition version, at least, on my shelf).

But then, this year, I finally bought The Wake. And then proceeded to stare at the cover of my copy of The Wake. I knew what was coming- but would it measure up? Would I be heart-broken to see it end? I know there have been additional stories by Gaiman and others, in more recent years- but this was the original intended story. I knew it was going to have AN ENDING. But I wasn't ready for the ending, despite the thirteen years of build up.

In the end, I spent New Years Day, a terrible blizzard-y day anyway, reading The Wake. And it turns out, really, most of the story was actually already told. Which shouldn't be a surprise, as there had been 9 volumes worth of story the preceded it. But have you ever realized how many long arc multi-part stories often leave ALMOST EVERYTHING IMPORTANT to the last installment? I was expecting that. Instead, I got a well crafted story that had been wrapping things up all along. Something all stories should do but never actually do. Except for this one.

In some ways, it was a little too wrapped up. Half of the issue was indeed the ending and a respectable ending at that. But the rest was... added fluff. I know others will disagree, but I cared a lot more to see the actual wake and fall-out than to read about Shakespeare's life again or about a man and a kitten in a desert. And it made me appreciate those stories less because they came after the fact. I don't know why, exactly, I feel that way.

I thought I would have so many more thoughts on the subject once I finally finished the story. I thought I was going to have my mind blown and fucked with one last and very hard time. But, instead, I was given a lovely story with a lovely end. And I almost feel like I understand what it is to sit side-by-side with Death as you realized "Oh, this is it? Huh." but she continues to sit with you while you come to terms, quite and accepting of everything about you.

Okay, maybe that's not exactly what it feels like. Finishing Sandman was not like meeting Death.

But I don't really know where to go from here. When I finished the previous volumes, my mind would be reeling and I'd be both hopeful to soon pick up the next volume while also cautious of getting one step closer to the end, ending an experience that started when I was a very different person, and through various different versions of myself, I continued to love this series. What would happen when it ended? What would happen when I reached that book with the ominous title of "The Wake". 

I don't feel the need to pick up any of the spin-off or follow-ups. Not yet. It's too soon. But I feel like something needs to happen to signify that it was a major thing to finally finish the series. But I don't know what.

Because I don't know what I feel like, having finished it. What do I do now?

I mean, other than continue to think about how to put together an amazing Death costume for C2E2, that is.

Catching Fire: This Is How You Spread Blood-Borne Pathogens!

On Thursday night, the roommate and I started texting about seeing Catching Fire and realized that it was actually being released at 8 pm on Thursday rather than midnight.

So, we saw a 10 pm showing at our local theater, surrounded by pajama-clad teenage girls. Which made it so we not only got the show of getting to see the movie based on the book we've both read, but getting to hear the reactions of the teenage girls and how they differed from our natural reactions AND I got an extra show in how indignant my roommate was about the Twilight-y behavior from our fellow audience members.

There was also then the fact that it was after 10 pm and we were both bone tired to begin with. We then also became a little punchy and started a rather terrible running joke of how various things in the movie are ways that you end up with a blood-borne pathogen of some sort. There were a lot of not-so-sterile looking needles happening, among other things.

But the other thing was that Catching Fire allows, among all the terrible death and destruction, to give Jennifer Lawrence some time to be hilarious. Her best moment, by far, being a silent moment.

It's all in the face, really.

I had to find a way to get a screen cap. It was too amazing. Okay, maybe not in this screen cap. But... go see the movie. It's amazing. Jennifer Lawrence is amazing.

Oh, but there is the fact that about an hour and a half into the movie, I suddenly remembered how much the last third of the book made my skin crawl and made me just want to read faster to get away from the ridiculousness. Holy crap, a lot of that stuff gets a lot more terrifying in the visual format.

I told the roommate that I wasn't sure at all if I would go see the third and fourth films in the theater when they came out. The Hunger Games is a diminishing returns series in book form. I don't know if they can (or, rather, will) fix Mockingjay to be a bit less like pulling teeth. Catching Fire is good, don't get me wrong, I just don't know if I ever want to sit through the last third or so of the book ever again. Also, this movie was ridiculously more violent. No more shaky cam trying to hide the violence for the tween audience. You see defenseless and innocent characters brutally beaten and/or killed with nary a cut away compared to Hunger Games. Also: swearing. But that comes with the Johanna territory.

Yes, I Am Still Talking About Anne Shirley

As I mentioned before, when I'm feeling down I seek comfort in the greatest Canadian heroine of the 20th century: Anne Shirley.

Watching Anne of Green Gables every time it was on PBS (or, even better, on the two tape collection) was a major past-time in my family. My mother loved it. My sister loved it. My godmother was usually the person we borrowed the tapes from. And I had no chance but to love Anne of Green Gables, too.

I was young enough that when I did the majority of my watching of Anne of Green Gables (and the sequel, which at the time was called Anne of Avonlea but has since been retitled to Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel) the follow-up TV series, Road to Avonlea, was still airing on Disney. But Avonlea without Anne Shirley is like a day without sunshine.

So, as I was feeling pretty crappy this past 4th of July as well as feeling rather miffed at my fellow Americans, I decided that I'd watch Anne of Green Gables while drinking a tumbler of Mexican tequila mixed with German cherries and cherry juice. And then I kept watching as the weekend went by. There is very little on television at this time of year, so why not just keep re-watching Anne of Green Gables?

And then I pulled out the old battered copies that my mother had received as a child in the 1950s. With artwork depicting a slender and sleek redheaded woman that looks nothing like Megan Follows and also nothing like any early 20th century Canadian girl I've ever imagined.

The books were a bit of a letdown, the first time I started thumbing through them. I've seen the tv specials so many times in my life- I remember when I used to also get scared when Diana was helping the limping Anne through the woods and Anne would start talking about the ghosts they imagined living there. That's how young I was the first, oh, dozen or so times I watched the specials. So, to go back as an adult and realize that Montgomery's writing isn't exactly the greatest was a little startling. The books are decent enough- it's not like they're terrible, but they're easy reads with a lot of flowery writing. Similar to Little Women, in some respects. There's very little action, however, with a lot of talking and I've come to realize that they're much better when being read outloud. As otherwise I'll just start to glaze over from the plethora of new names and silly little conversations that don't read in my head nearly as entertainingly as Dear Lucy Maud intended them to be.

So, that's how I spent a whole sick day from work this week- listening to the audiobook of Anne of the Island, only to realize that there's no audio version for Anne of Windy Poplars (at least not one available on Audible, iTunes, or even Librivox). It's a little intriguing to realize what was grabbed from Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, and Anne of Windy Poplars to make the second television movie and what was kept. There's a rather heart-breaking death in Island that was completely ignored, but I wonder if it would've been worth including. Possibly not The twins, Davy and Dora, were pretty much completely removed and I can't really blame them (although, they did end up on the tv show towards the end). Minnie May Barry ends up basically taking Davy's place.

Thankfully, they also removed most of the proposals Anne received while at university. The girl has FIVE proposals by the summer she graduates. FIVE. And only one repeat customer!

For what it's worth, the second special is still good but not nearly as good as the original. I would've liked it more if they kept the story in Avonlea or at least on the island. I don't care for all that prep school meangirls nonsense. I would've preferred to see Anne going to her birth place and maybe a bit of Stella and Aunt Jimsie or Miss Lavender and more Marilla and Rachel than we were given. And having Gilbert as a friend for a bit before the whole weird distance-y mooning deal. However, I do love watching Colleen Dewhirst's scenes and trying to guess if she was wearing jeans under her dress or not (apparently, she was at times, I can't blame her!).

"Hello, John Blythe. I'm totally wearing jeans under this dress- want a peek?"

And, of course, the second TV special gets extra points for including not one but TWO members of the Kids in the Hall.

I think the thing that really gets me about the Anne of Green Gables tv specials is that they has no right being as good as they are. If you've ever had the misfortune to see the animated version, you know how terrible it can get. In the animated version, you don't end up loving Anne. You end up wanting to smack her and then kill her, she's so disgustingly ignorantly upbeat.

But Megan Follows has such an amazingly perfect performance in the 1985 special that never makes Anne's flights of fancy sound saccharine and one-dimensional. Anne Shirley may be an optimist and a romantic- but Megan Follows knew as a teenager to play Anne as someone that is trying to convince herself that everything is okay. She knew that the only way an orphan could keep her head up and stay as determined as Anne did was to use her fantasies for escape and for courage.

I think my favorite moment is when Miss Stacy comes over for dinner. Because normally I hate the type of moments like that one. Anne discovers a dead mouse in the sauce for the pudding but, before she can both remove the mouse and fully confess to having forgotten to cover the sauce to prevent that, a comedy of errors results in the sauce being served to everyone for dessert. Then, just as her treasured teacher is about to take a spoonful of cream with a hint of dead mouse- Anne shouts "PLEASE DON'T EAT IT MISS STACY!" and startles everyone into a near heart-attack. She then confesses about the mouse, apologizes for her faults and then, to her surprise, Marilla and Miss Stacy start to laugh heartily at Anne's drama. It's as they laugh that Megan Follows has one of her best moments- Anne struggling to understand her emotions- embarrassment, relief, confusion, and a little bit of weariness at not finding the moment funny despite how much everyone (well, you can't tell if Matthew is in on it) is laughing. It's perfect.

Anne was such a good character to get to know as a young girl. I was never one to "pretend out loud" but I felt like I got to by proxy via watching Anne. As a kid (and, well, as an adult) I was prone to speak flowery a little too often and wrote more than my fair share of bad poetry (at one point, I wrote a freeverse poem for each of the girls in my little middle school clique. All of them pouring my heart and soul into how much I appreciated each girl for her uniqueness. Thankfully, I never showed them to those girls.). Anne got that. Anne was that. Anne was the safe knowledge that it's okay to be the girl that's reading and walking at the same time. Anne was the comfort that it was okay to not yet be interested in boys, despite your friends being completely obsessed with boys. Anne was the distance needed to see that when a parent yells at you, it's often out of fear or worry rather than hatred. Anne was the dream that you don't have to go only as far as people think you will go.

And, most importantly, Anne was the realization that friendships, not romances, are the strongest and most emotional relationships you will have outside of family.

Sadly, the roommate does not share my love of The Anne-Girl yet. Mostly because she has never seen any of it. I will fix that, eventually.

Oh, and you might've realized I didn't bring up the third special. Because there was no third special. Don't be ridiculous. I also tend to feel that Annes House of Dreams and all later books are too boring, though.

Austen Settee Limits: An Introduction

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single person in possession of a good obsession, must be in want of a life.

- An Invisible Robot Girl Misquoting A Lady

She started writing as a teenager. Her first known attempt to get published was just before she turned 22. The following year, she sold what would become Northanger Abbey to a local bookseller but it didn't get published. She continued to write.

Her first published book came out when she was 35.

By the time she turned 40, she had three popular novels published, a highly anticipated fourth novel on the way, and even the Prince Regent was a fan.

Then she started to show signs of illness. She continued to write. The fourth novel, Emma, was a hit. But her brothers soon lost all their money, which was helping to support her, her mother, and her sister. She continued to write, finishing a fifth novel, Persuasion, and starting a sixth.

She didn't finish the sixth novel. She didn't live to see her 42nd birthday.

Around what would've been her 42nd birthday, six months after her death,  Persuasion and, finally, Northanger Abbey were published. It was then that her name was put on one of her books for the first time.

A tragically short life for a woman that we're still talking about 200 years later.

 I've noticed that I've been a little... super fond, I guess, about some of my favorite Austen tv and film adaptations. And most nights when I'm trying to fall asleep, I do so while listening to an Austen audiobook. And have a few things to say about each and every one. So, I've decided  to make a regular feature on this blog be Austen Settee Limits. I'll write about the straight up adaptations, the modernized takes, the fanciful rewrites, and even some comic books and web series (you're watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube, right?).

Any suggestions on where I should start the discussion?

Show Your Cards

So... DC and Summit have apparently just arrived in the 21st century and realized, after already hiring Orson Scott Card, that he's a bit of a controversial figure. Something I figured out when I was 15 and, after having read all of Ender's Game, purchased a copy of Speaker for the Dead and made the mistake of reading the foreword by Card. And then attempted to also read Speaker for the Dead.

At that time, the only other book I dropped like a hot potato was Jany Eyre. Because as much as I loved Jane and her "I will dress plainly because it's how I like to dress dammit and I will be smart because I want to be dammit again" ways, I hated Mr. Rochester twice as much. Before I even knew he had a wife in the attic. But at least I dragged myself across the stupid "hear him calling me" finish line on that one.

I really liked Ender's Game. It was a great slow-burn to a great final reveal and didn't try to tell you how to feel- it just handed you the facts and let you have your own emotions about what you just read. Speaker for the Dead did the same. But the facts took my emotions to weird and uncomfortable places. More uncomfortable than 15-year-old me was willing to go. I was ready to commit to learning more about Ender's sister Valentine because she seemed like a great character and then... I just didn't feel comfortable reading further. And no one else was very interesting in the story. And I can't even remember what the foreword by OSC in that book SAID now, but I remember that it was one of those moments where I just felt like I had accidentally ended up in line for the men's bathroom when I meant to get in line for the snack bar.

And then, as I got older and times changed, Orson Scott Card revealed himself to have beliefs that I strongly disagreed with. To a point that has left me, and many other people, conflicted about our feelings about separating the artist from their art and when you can take one without the other.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the Card-fueled Hot Water:

1) I don't know if DC is past the point of no return on their deal with Card, but I know that Summit is- they have a movie. If it's too late to back out, both companies should figure out a way to balance out their dealings with him. Donations to organizations that support Gay Rights would be a good place to start.

2) Summit should consider secretly asking OSC to "disown" the movie and therefore give the impression that they wanted to make an adaptation of Ender's Game based on the material alone and giving the impression that things were being seen eye-to-eye between Card and everyone involved with the movie.. Sort of like how Alan Moore didn't want anything to do with the Watchmen movie (not that I'm suggesting that Moore was asked to disown it. I know the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen story).

3. NOM is a hilarious name for a terrible organization. Hermoine Granger couldn't come up with a worse anagram.

Alyssa Rosenberg has said more on the topic and has said it better than me (and sooner).

For the Rich Child Within You:

Amazon.com is offering the "Harry Potter Page to Screen: The Complete Filmmaking Journey (Collector's Edition) [Hardcover]" set for 40% off for Cyber Monday. That's making it a cool $600 to purchase one of the 3,000 copies that will be sold worldwide.

$600 for books about the making of somewhat decent adaptations of very good books? Eh. I'd much rather have real versions of some textbooks from Hogwarts myself. I'm sure they'll have no trouble moving these 3,000 sets, though. No problem at all.

My favorite quote I've heard about this sale today comes from the lovely ladies at The Mary Sue, in reference to how The replica Monster Book of Monsters is actually a false book for hiding items:

"Because if you have a friend over, they’re not going to totally attempt to open a replica of The Monster Book of Monsters as soon as they see it on your shelf and then find your Horcrux."

Personally, I've gone to much more troubling lengths to hide my horcruxes than that.

Not that I've made any horcruxes.

Those don't exist.

Ooh, look- shiny books about okay movies!