Shredded Cheddar

2012-01-20T23:50:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

Reading Diary: The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel) by Michael Scott

"I want you to remember that everything you know--or think you know--about myth and legend is not necessarily false, nor is it entirely true. At the heart of every legend there is a grain of truth. I suppose that much of your knowledge comes from movies and TV. Xena and Dracula have much to answer for. All minotaurs are not evil, the Gorgon Medusa did not turn every man to stone, not all vampires are blood drinkers, the Were clans are a proud and ancient race."

Josh attempted a laugh; he was still shaken . . . "You'll be telling us next that ghosts exist."

Scathach's expression turned serious. "Josh, you have entered the Shadowrealm, the world of ghosts . . ."

One of my friends is a huge Harry Potter fan who prides herself for having discovered the series a full year before Pottermania really hit the rest of the world. But she was also the first to give me the best critique that can ever be made of J.K. Rowling: "She just invents, Enbrethiliel. I don't know how else to describe it. I read something by Tolkien and it feels so thoroughly thought out, but Rowling just puts in whatever will fit."

Not being very familiar with the oeuvre of either writer (at the time), it took me a while to see what she meant. I get it now.

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2012-01-13T20:49:00.001+08:00

+JMJ+

These Dreams: Who Believes in Friday the 13th?

Let me begin by apologising to anyone who (still) comes here for the Horror posts. This one isn't about Jason Voorhees at all--and no one is sorrier than I am.

Blogging requires just as much training and discipline as every other extreme sport (LOL!), and it seems I've let myself go too much to jump back to my usual cheddary standard at the blink of a cursor. But it is Friday the 13th today and I do have something to say that is vaguely luck related.

If I were in better shape, this would be a "Twelve Things about Just My Luck" post (or a McFly Monday post)--and the world would be graced with my personal opinion of Lindsay Lohan (and more McFly pop). But I'm just warming up at the moment, so let me just tell you about a crazy I dream I had, which was definitely inspired by a well-known scene from that movie.

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2011-12-26T23:30:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

The Last Poem . . . of 2011

And because I'm "honest to a fault," I'll admit the bulk of it was written in 2012. =P (Ah, backdating . . .)

This poem would have been done much earlier, had I not insisted on having the prompts my way this time around--and I had some very definite ideas.

The main image in the question immediately made me think of mountains--and what sealed the deal was a trip back to my Favourite Place on Planet Earth, whether there is a small hill with all the gravitas of Everest. My poem, I promised, would be about Corregidor.

It just took longer to write than I had dared to think . . . but at least it comes with pictures!!!

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2011-12-12T23:35:00.003+08:00

+JMJ+

Twelve Things about Arachnophobia

12. "Just what the world needs. More bugs." But does the Horror genre need "more bugs"? I'd say no--but that's because I'm not a huge fan of Creature Features. I like it when a threat has a human face. In my n=1 opinion, Man vs. Nature isn't half as scary as Man vs. Man or Man vs. Self--both of which, in Horror, are actually Man vs. Devil.

11. That's why I would have said, twenty minutes into this movie, that the real villain was the single-minded scientist whose research expedition enables the heretofore isolated arachnids to penetrate human civilisation. He's definitely the ~~type~~ trope who'd put his private aims over the welfare of others.

10. Honestly, though, the lone escapee spider has far more personality. It seems to know exactly what it's doing when it hitches a ride to the United States. Both Charles Darwin and H.G. Wells would be proud.

9. But this South American spider isn't the only character making a big move . . .

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2011-12-07T23:14:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

Ending the Year with a Poem

Word & Question . . .
Come and Play with Us!

Reverse psychology works so well that sometimes I use it on myself. That's why my best strategy for overcoming blogger's block is to write a post telling my readers not to expect anything new for a while. And then, of course, all the new stuff starts pouring out immediately. I had thought to do something like that to spark my book blogging by announcing that Shredded Cheddar was now a movie blog . . . but it looks as if, with my usual atrocious aim, I turned Shredded Cheddar into a poetry blog instead. LOL!

Still, some blogging is better than no blogging. And if you are a fellow Poetry Player, check out this month's host and schedule:

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2011-12-04T23:17:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

Twelve Things about The Road

12. One of the first things my friends and I discussed after seeing this was whether the title fits the film. They didn't think so, but I do. =P

For there is a road in the movie. A haunted road. A haunted road with thematic significance inasmuch as the characters' cars are tied to the imagery of escape and the ghosts in the movie are trapped.

11. In general, "Road Horror" has a lot going for it. The only thing scarier than a haunted house is the haunted great outdoors. You can run out of a building, but where can you go if the way to safety is itself unsafe? Ghosts are more frightening when they can follow you.

As roads are more frightening when
they just lead back to the beginning
. . . over and over and over again.

10. The story itself is all about going back to the beginning. No matter how far forward the viewer goes, he finds himself further back than he expected. (Yeah, that's just my fancy way of saying that the story is told backwards, through several flashbacks, and is constantly looping.)

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2011-11-30T21:56:00.001+08:00

+JMJ+

Poems from the Prompt and the Procrastinating

Do I suck or what? =P Thanks to the beautiful deception of backdating, anyone who comes across the W&Q will never know how late this poem was posted, but those of you who know the truth may now point and laugh.

My prompts nearly killed me at first, but after I figured out I had to approach them with a sense of humour (rather than a sense of vague insult and paranoia), they were much friendlier to me.

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2011-11-22T23:15:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

The Right Price at the Right Time

This Week's BBB Hosted by Lesa
@ Baja Greenawalt's Cozy Book Nook

Having been really busy lately (and not just with the guitar), I haven't been doing much reading, browsing in bookstores, or even blogging about books. I actually feel that I don't remember how to do this, so I apologise in advance for the quality of this post.

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2011-11-21T23:52:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

McFly Monday

Why do I love this band so much?
Why, God, why?

It's time to come clean . . . The real reason I haven't been blogging over here that often is that, despite my genius at multitasking, I simply can't type the brilliant posts you come here for and practice the guitar at the same time.

And you can bet I've been practicing the guitar.

I haven't been this dedicated since . . . well . . . since Team Taylor Tuesdays. =P

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2011-11-16T22:41:00.003+08:00

+JMJ+

If Nothing Else This November . . .

I may not have the mental energy to finish one of my own smackdowns, but there is nothing I want to do more than write another poem.

Who's with me???

(Yes, I know it's really late in the month for this . . . but if we can all promise to get our poems in by 30 November, it should be all right. E-mail me your prompts if you're in!)

2011-10-31T23:50:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

McFly Monday: Happy All Hallows' Eve!

Who can name all the movies referenced in this video?

Is it wrong that I wish the latest smackdown were over so that I could do McFly Mondays every week?

In other news, I can almost promise that regular blogging (*cough*LocusFocus*cough*) will resume this week.

Now excuse me while I go and ~~listen to more McFly~~ read a scary book . . .

2011-10-24T23:54:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

ANTM Themed Shoot Smackdown, Round 2
(Revisit Round 1 and the Intermission)

Thanks so much for your patience! Here are the survivors of the "Smize" Sixteen . . .

Snakes vs. Fierce Eyes --> Fierce Eyes

Celebrity vs. Hapa --> Hapa

No Makeup vs. Mannequin --> No Makeup

Seven Deadly Sins vs. Controversial Issues --> Seven Deadly Sins

Museum Art vs. Classical Statues --> Classical Statues

Circus Freaks vs. Fuerza Bruta --> Fuerza Bruta

Flowers vs. Birds --> Birds

Fakes vs. Psychos --> Psychos

And now this is the part where I take over and decide which photo shoots are most
representative of what America's Next Top Model stands for. But if you scroll down, you'll see another mini face-off that welcomes your vote!

(The best part about this smackdown is that we will never run out of images! Tired of the photos from Round 1? We have new ones in the same categories for Round 2!)

Round 2
The "Know Your Angles" Eight

2011-10-12T23:22:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Poems and Progress

I guess I've tried everyone's patience enough. (Forgive me, Dylan?)

It has been absurdly difficult to write my October poem. The prompts I was given made me think of salad, and I'm not very inspired by salad. I don't think I'd be done right now if it hadn't been for ~~Bat~~ an unwitting Good Samaritan, whose response to my prompts was a quote which began, "Fuit homo missus a Deo cui nomen erat . . ."

If both your Latin and your Scripture are decent these days, then you already know the nomen. But you can also pretend you don't and try to guess it from the poem . . .

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2011-10-10T23:03:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

ANTM Themed Shoot Smackdown, Intermission
(We're still taking votes for Round 1!)

It's probably not the best idea in the world to call an intermission before we're even halfway through a smackdown, but this blog has to do what this blog has to do.

Let's look at some group shots now . . .

vs.
Gondola (Cycle 15) vs. Mud (Cycle 16)

Group shots are tough. A model who really gets the concept might find herself with partners who struggle with it, and so no matter how strong she is individually, she will not produce a strong photo. But when everyone is standing out, there is also the danger of getting lost in the background. It's a little like a competition--a microcosm of ANTM itself (and perhaps the modeling industry in general). Here we have two very different group pictures: one in which the models are elaborately costumed as Venetian courtesans and another in which they are wearing mostly mud.

Which one gets your vote?

Image Sources: a) Cycle 15, b) Cycle 16

2011-10-09T23:39:00.001+08:00

+JMJ+

Tutor Tales, Volume 34

Of all the tutees I have ever had, Scrap Metal has been the hardest nut to crack. His nanny hinted as much when she said she had been taking care of him before a year before he said anything halfway nice to her.

It happened earlier this year, when she had finished preparing his dinner and was about to leave him alone in the dining room (as per his preference that he eat alone or only with family members). No one was more surprised than she when he suddenly called her again to say:

"Stay here with me while I eat."

A command rather than a request, yes, but given the little boy in our story, it was a real breakthrough . . . and very sweet.

I was thinking of this last week, when I arrived for a tutorial while Scrap Metal was in the middle of a bowl of cereal. He pushed the cereal away and went immediately to work. I could tell he was still hungry, so I kept telling him we could take a break for five minutes so he could eat, but he kept shaking his head. Finally, it hit me . . .

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2011-10-05T22:24:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

Word and Question . . . Back and Backdated

You'd think I'd be able to do these things on time, right?

At least you would, if you were an optimist like me. =P Indeed, such an optimist am I that despite the fact that I still owe two poems from last month, I'm going to jump into this month with the rest of you . . .

Here is the deadline for prompts, adjusted accordingly: 10 October.

Here are the rules for everyone who doesn't know what this post is about: Do you like "Playing Poetry"?

2011-10-03T23:58:00.001+08:00

+JMJ+

ANTM Themed Shoot Smackdown!

This blog has been around for two years, but this is only our fifth tournament bracket. That's partly because the things I know well enough to feature in a series don't always come in groups of sixteen or more; and the things that do, make me feel ready to do the smackdown only after we've finally declared a winner. =P

So when it hit to me that Tyra Banks had already produced sixteen ~~seasons~~ cycles of America's Next Top Model, I got really, really excited.

My original plan was to do an ANTM Winner Smackdown . . . but as I lined up all the winners (with some runners up, for the mini face-offs and possible wild card slots), I realised that their professional work wasn't half as entertaining as some of the things they had done on the show. And it's really the show I want to celebrate here. So I've adjusted the smackdown accordingly, with a new theme that will serve us well come Halloween!

One last thing: if some of the pictures look awkward, that is because I cropped them. =/ Yes, that's right: I mutilated art in the name of formatting. At least cutting up a digital image is not as permanent as taking a knife to a canvas (which is not to say that some canvases don't deserve it); and you can always see the originals if you click on the image sources given below.

ANTM Themed Shoot Smackdown
Round 1
The "Smize" Sixteen

vs.
Snakes (Cycle 1) vs. Fierce Eyes (Cycle 11)

Tyra Banks likes to say that her signature pose is the "smize"--a word she has coined that means "to smile with one's eyes." It involves tightening the muscles around your eyes to intensify their expression. I can't be the only fan of the show who has spent at least an hour in front of the mirror working on her own smize. Now the question is which of these two shoots sells the smize best: one in which the model gives new meaning to the term "snake eyes" or one in which all you can see of her face are her eyes.

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2011-09-28T20:28:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Poems Both Greasy and Graceful

Visit the "Playing Poetry" Page!

Those who have been checking this blog faithfully (because you're awesome like that) know that this post wasn't here last Wednesday.

What happened was that I actually looked at the calendar and realised that I wouldn't have a 35 September to fall back on if I didn't start posting the poems I promised this week. =P

Besides, it just came to my attention that I now owe ~~three~~ four poems!

Keep checking back as I post them one by one . . . UPDATE: Bat's poem is done! Two more to go . . . UPDATE: So is Stilwell's! (Sort of!) One more to go . . .

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2011-09-25T02:34:00.003+08:00

+JMJ+

Not the N-word

My grandmother is a mestiza, or the Philippines' version of a Creole, and all her childhood, she was accustomed to being the most light-skinned girl in the room. It all changed when she took a trip to Spain in the late 1940s. She was exotically dark even to the olive-skinned Sevillians, and young men would come on to her by addressing her as "Negra."

I remember sharing that anecdote with some of my students, whose horrified reactions showed they had missed the context entirely. It wasn't really their fault, the young things. These days, the nice description for a dark-skinned girl as morena . . . which isn't much of a compliment, as the modern beauty craze is the perfect skin lightening moisturiser. =P

Then there are the odd generational factors . . . Young men are just not as forward with girls as their fathers used to be (I blame the feminists who never got hit on and don't want the rest of us to get hit on either) . . . and it's worth wondering whether exposure to US pop culture has given Filipinos an acquired aversion to the "n-word."

Now, I'm not a big fan of shaming language. I know how powerful words can be, how effective they are in both building up and knocking down, and think that we'd be better communicators (both speakers and listeners) if we understood this. I also think that the best communicators combine this fine sensitivity with skin thick enough to repel bullets.

3 Words
That Sound Racist but Really Aren't

2011-09-18T23:38:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

Blogging by the Numbers

According to everyone who has read a source I'll never be able to cite, it takes 21 days to form a habit. Applications of this include not giving up on your diet or your fast before the twenty-first day--because after you get over that hump, you won't just last 40 days (if you take my meaning), but be able to keep going for as long as you like.

I'm sure this applies to blogging, too. I told myself that as long as I didn't abandon Shredded Cheddar for longer than twenty-one days at a time, I'd always come back to it.

This totally slipped my mind when I decided to take a 31 day break from Locus Focus.

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2011-09-14T03:18:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

Grace is the Word

You know you want to know more . . .

See what I did there, Frankie Valli?

Regular readers of Shredded Cheddar know that updates have been a bit slow lately. I'm sorry about that and will try to resume regular posting soon. I'm especially sorry to those who were looking forward to a September round of Word & Question.

Let me try to make some lemonade out of this with a Grace/Grease Month . . .

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2011-09-11T23:59:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

Reading Diary: A Planet Full of Doofuses by Bob Wallace

This book is a mish mash. But then, the inside of my head is sometimes a mish mash (I occasionally say, "Now where was I going with this . . . ?")

There is some humor here, specifically satire; some little plays, some fiction, some serious stuff. There's even a cartoon. If you like all of it, or some of it, that's good. If you don't and instead froth and get outraged (and I've seen a lot of that) . . . well, I can’t please everyone. Not that I want to.

A word . . . about where the ideas for these articles came from. I don't know. They just popped in my head, sometimes whole. Sometimes they seem to write themselves. It’s mystifying.

I hope you enjoy reading them. I enjoyed writing them. Well, mostly.

I "met" Bob Wallace almost eleven years ago, when I e-mailed him about something he had written that I didn't agree with. Today, there are few things he has written in which I can't find something to agree with. Take one of his articles (not included in this anthology, unfortunately) with his thoughts on education, in which he says . . .

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2011-08-29T23:43:00.001+08:00

+JMJ+

Writing Diary, Entry #28

"Know your audience," writers are told. To which I now add, "Know your editor, too." Your editor may actually know your audience better than you do and be able to guide you.

When I started writing, I didn't meet my editors in person. All communication was done through e-mail: I liked it that way,and they seemed to prefer it, too. (Ah, technology!) Then I became a contributor to a magazine with an editor-in-chief who is all about the face-to-face meeting and the personal touch. Although I wrote my first article for her in my usual "blind" fashion, we met in person very soon afterwards . . . and it made all the difference in the world.

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2011-08-28T00:01:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

Twelve Things about Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension

12. The only thing I love more than time travel is the parallel dimension. (There are some who say you can't have one without the other--but never mind them now.) It's so fascinating to see What Might Have Been, had something in the timeline been tweaked in a totally different direction. It's doubly fascinating to see What You Might Have Become.

(For those of us whose life genres are not SF, there are always ordinary doppelgangers. I happen to know that my double lives in Austin, Texas, has access to a black Escalade, and does not play the guitar. This is a fact.)

11. If you think about it, the ideas of parallels and doubles are already embedded in every Phineas and Ferb episode. Take Perry the Platypus, who is both the Flynn-Fletcher family's pet and a secret agent tasked with foiling the plans of mad scientist Dr. Doofenschmirtz.

Then, of course, there's Candace, who is the only one who ever notices when her brothers are up to something. Just her bad luck that whenever she drags her mother over "to bust" the boys, whatever they were working on at the time mysteriously vanishes. She must feel as if she's straddling two dimensions herself. No wonder she's a bit high strung.

So it makes sense for Perry to be the heart of the story
--and for Candace to be the main protagonist.
Formula tweaking can be fun!

2011-08-26T07:06:00.001+08:00

+JMJ+

Thirty Movies, One Day, Six Words Each

Six-word memoirs really are handy things, aren't they? I didn't plan to use them in my Tenner of Books I Love Too Much to Review "Properly", but when I tried them out for a bit, they proved the perfect fit. That's why they're back in this post, which is about movies.

I found a 30 Day Movie Challenge on the blog Diversion 2.0 and decided it would make a worthy sequel to the first (and so far only) My Life in Movies post. No, I'm not yet thirty years old . . . but dagnabbit, I like making lists. Especially movie lists. Heck, I've already given myself a rule for making them: No repeats. Once a movie makes one list, it can't make another.

And that's why Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl isn't here. =P Guess which category it would have fit into perfectly?

Yes, there will be more . . . but I'm not going to promise that they'll all also have six-word memoirs!

#1 -- One of Your Favorite Movies
(But Not Your Favorite Favorite)

Aliens

Hudson had me at "Game over!"

2011-08-23T23:45:00.007+08:00

+JMJ+

Beyond Book Blogging

This Week's Topic:
Books You Loved But Never Wrote a Review For

For those of my readers who don't already follow The Broke and the Bookish, despite my best efforts to be a gateway drug to the book blogosphere, the last Top Ten Tuesday Tenner was all about Books Teenagers Should Learn "to Speak". After linking up, I went through all the other participants' posts to see which ten texts would be voted onto the syllabus of a high school run by dedicated book bloggers. They were a mixed, if mostly Anglo-American bag . . .

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (54 mentions)
Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling (51 mentions)
The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins (37 mentions)
The Works of William Shakespeare (33 mentions)
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (33 mentions)
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (23 mentions)
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (20 mentions)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (19 mentions)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (18 mentions)
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (13 mentions)

It's edifying to see some classics there (although the definition of "classic" now seems to be "any book old enough for my parents to have read at my age"). That they are outnumbered by hard-hitting, controversial "message" novels reflects another modern trend of calling books "great" primarily because they address immediate issues. Yes, some of these may end up "passing the test of time," as we say--but I'll wager another giveaway that they didn't make so many lists because of that classic quality. Heck, there are a couple of "classics" that I'll wager made the list for the exact same reason.

There are also a couple of those "books that get teens reading"--because these days, "great" is often used interchangeably with "cool." (I should know: I do it myself!) I just wish teenagers did more reading on the side so that such books could be supplements to classroom reading rather than the main texts . . . but apparently, we don't live in that ideal literate world.

What I find most interesting, though, is the inclusion of three different Dystopian novels. (Five, if you remember that The Hunger Games is a trilogy.) I'm all about dystopia and even assigned one of these texts during my last year of full-time teaching. But I'll have to analyse this in another post.

This post is all about one topic I likely won't be tabulating data for . . .

A Tenner
Books I Love Too Much to Review "Properly"

2011-08-22T23:37:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

EBooks and Bargains

Peek into everyone's mailbox but Kristi's (?!?!)
@ The Story Siren

The past couple of weeks have not been great for this business of blogging about books, and I was going to put it off further until I was feeling fizzy with words and ideas again . . . but I know from experience that you have to find your own fizz.

And so desperate am I to fizz again, that I'm breaking my usual IMM rule of "Only books received through the post" by featuring two books that came to me not through traditional mail, but through electronic mail.

Read more »

2011-08-17T02:12:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

A Word to Chill and a Question to Thrill

Thanks for Vvb32 for being our August 2011 host!

You'd think someone with pretensions to Horror blogger status would be really inspired by the "Thrills and Chills" theme that gave us an extra challenge this month . . . but I was mostly intimidated. =P

I might watch a lot of Horror movies, but I could never write a script for one of them. And I definitely get spooked on a dime, but none of my scary stories seem to have the same effect on others.

Let's see what effect this poem has on you . . .

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2011-08-16T03:09:00.006+08:00

+JMJ+

Reading Diary: BSC #7 Claudia and Mean Janine

"So," said Janine out of the blue, "may I ask how your agency plans to function once your founder is residing in a different district?"

"You may," I replied, stalling. I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Oh, I understand," said Janine. "You want to play games. Well, I'll comply. All right, how does your agency plan to function once your founder is residing in a different district?"

"Huh? . . . Janine, talk in English, will you?"

"I am!" Janine looked hurt again. "I can't help it if this is the way in which I speak."

"And I can't help it if I don't understand you."

Meet the Kishi sisters, Claudia and Janine, whose ~~terrible dialogue~~ struggle to understand each other is the main conflict of this Baby-sitters Club book. And let me say from the outset that I'm not too crazy about that.

There were four books between this and the last Claudia-narrated novel, and honestly, after Stacey's angst over her diabetes, Mary Anne's overcompensating widowed father, Dawn's double whammy of single motherhood, and Kristy's mother's second marriage, Claudia's rivalry with her sister seems kind of shallow. And Ann M. Martin probably thought so, too, because she threw in a stroke for their beloved grandmother Mimi, for good measure.

And yes, it can all be related to baby-sitting . . .

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2011-08-15T23:45:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Tutor Tales, Volume 33

This post is all about my eleven-year-old tutee Skid Breaker, who moved to the Philippines one year ago for the sake of his English.

He still struggles with the language today--particularly with the level of reading comprehension expected from him in his fifth grade classes. He's not very verbal to begin with, but I'd say his biggest hurdle is an inability to step back and watch himself when he's learning.

A few weeks ago, he was having an awful time with a lesson on long and short vowel sounds. He simply couldn't tell the difference between them, even when he said the words aloud, and had resorted to guessing. (At least when you have only two possible choices, you have a 50% chance of getting the right answer!) And I couldn't understand why he wasn't hearing the difference, when the contrasts were as plain as day to me. We were both getting really frustrated when it suddenly hit me that the problem was that he wasn't seeing them. The English alphabet and Korean characters are very, very different, after all.

So different, that I had to film another (horrible, terrible, awful, etc.) video to show you what I mean.

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2011-08-14T23:06:00.013+08:00

+JMJ+

Twelve Things about Tooth Fairy

12. There is another movie with the title The Tooth Fairy (and a third with the title Darkness Falls) that I'd be reviewing instead if this were an ideal world. All I have to say for myself is that I was baby-sitting and couldn't watch what I wanted . . . although there is nothing that could make me want the one I watched. =P

11. Well, I did like the word play here. Even before Derek Thompson becomes one of many winged Tooth Fairies, he is the Tooth Fairy of minor league hockey. It's the kind of nickname you end up with when you can hit other players hard enough to knock out a tooth or two.

What I find most interesting, however, are the puns . . . "You can't handle the tooth! And that's the tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth!" You'll find a lot of teeth in this movie, you see, but it's a challenge to spot the truths.

10. What? Think I'm being too hard on a movie that doesn't pretend to be more than a low-grade Fantasy?

I believe that fantastic elements and universal truths can (and should) co-exist in fiction. And well, the first problem with Tooth Fairy is that even its own fantasy elements can't co-exist with each other.

Read more »

2011-08-12T23:06:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

Writing Diary, Entry #27

Now I add a fourth magazine to my collection of publications that I've written for: MOD. Buy the August 2011 issue of this glossy women's monthly to see my review of Food Presentation by Michelle Valigursky. (Yes, there are other features--all of them much bigger than my own--but mine are the ones you love, right?)

I got my own copy last week, eagerly flipped through it to find my contribution, started reading it . . . and then felt my usual excitement stop a bit short. There was something about the third sentence that just didn't fit.

Some background now, so you see what I mean. Here is the opening paragraph of the copy I e-mailed to MOD:

Read more »

2011-08-04T23:22:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Twelve Things about Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare

12. After seeing this, I was certain I wouldn't want to write a Twelve Things post about it. Freddy's Dead is just that bad.

Three weeks later, it has a Twelve Things post! =P There's a very ~~good~~ disturbing reason for this, so keep reading if you want to get to it.

11. Since I wasn't sure whether to start with something the movie gets wrong or something the movie gets right, I decided to go with something it gets wrong and right at the same time: the "expansion" of Elm Street.

First, some background . . . Note that Freddy has been able to feed on "fresh meat" since A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (See my Twelve Things post!), but even then he could only go after targets in a certain area--which this movie identifies as the town of Springwood. Apparently, there have been countless "offscreen" kills in between this installment and the previous one, ANoES5: The Dream Child (Yes, I have another Twelve Things post!!!), and as a consequence, all of Springwood has run out of young people. And well, Freddy doesn't prey on the old and senile. He's got standards, you know. =P

Read more »

2011-08-03T23:57:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

New Game, New Host!

This August, our host is vvb32 of vvb32 reads! =) She is also hosting her own August Thrills-and-Chills event, which is why the rules are getting another new themed twist this month . . .

Horror
Paranormal Activity
Thriller
Vampires

Make sure your prompts fit this exciting bill!

2011-08-02T23:23:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Two for the Price of One

On this Two-fer Tuesday, I give you not just two memes in one post, but two memes about one book. I love the economy of it all.

Hosted by Misty @ The Book Rat

May I draw your attention to the labels/tabs for this post. Middle Grade Author Andrew Clements now has a tab of his own although I've read only one of his books and own only two, because I've still managed to write about three of them on this blog in less than a week. How about that?

Now behold the third Clements book . . .

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2011-08-01T23:21:00.001+08:00

+JMJ+

Reading as a Life Challenge

You'd think that a lit nerd would have some decent social skills, right? I mean, literature is just brimming with complex characters, tangled relationships, witty dialogue, sharp satires of society, and insight into the human condition. How could a bookworm fail to fit in?

Yet it happens all the time . . . and I'm just talking about myself!

This is what comes of one's having been trained to read anything. One will often say anything, too.

Read more »

2011-07-31T23:50:00.006+08:00

+JMJ+

Young Detectives: C is for Clements

Sometimes I wonder why I bother to sign up for other people's Reading Challenges when the only ones I seem to give any attention to are my own. =P

If you're new to this exercise, the rule is simple. I read a YA or MG Mystery and write an open letter to the author about what I think of his "young detective."

You're very welcome to grab the badge and join in yourself. Let me know about your post and I'll link to yours in my next one. =)

Read more »

2011-07-30T23:19:00.001+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: Take Sixty-Two!

Welcome to Wizarding World Day!

Today is also Neville Longbottom's birthday. Potter-heads know Neville as the real hero of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. They'll also know Hermione Granger as the real protagonist. (Who's that boy with the glasses again? =P)

A couple of weeks ago, I said that I might not host Locus Focus in August. I still have a week to figure out whether I'm up to it or not. I'm flirting with a Mountain High theme challenge, because I've been neglecting high-altitude settings . . . but I'm really not sure. (Something else I'm flirting with is the idea of retiring Locus Focus after Take Ninety-Nine. Perhaps this meme--which has never gone viral, by the way--really has just run its course.) In the meantime, though, let's party like only Rowling's wizards know how to do. Here is one of my favourite settings from her Wizarding World . . .

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2011-07-29T23:14:00.001+08:00

+JMJ+

Tutor Tales, Volume 32

Do you know what really frustrates me at work? Seeing that the children who need all that extra help with their schoolwork have virtually nothing to read at home.

A couple of days ago, while looking over Scrap Metal's assignment notebook, I was reminded that one of his July projects in Reading class was an oral book report. Since I hadn't heard anything about it since the start of the month, I asked him whether he had prepared for it himself.

"Oh, yeah! The oral book report!" he said, slapping his forehead. "That's for tomorrow."

"Tomorrow???" I squeaked. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

His eyes widened and his shoulders hunched up: a common defensive gesture which makes many seven year olds too cute to kill.

"Well, what book were you planning to do your report on?"

"I don't know. I don't have many books."

Didn't I know it?

Read more »

2011-07-28T23:37:00.003+08:00

+JMJ+

Theme Thursday 3

Explore different writing styles and descriptive approaches
@ Reading between Pages

There are a couple of weekly link ups I like to join because they turn the spotlight on books I own but haven't read yet. I think those books are as much a part of my library as those I've reread so much that I have whole paragraphs burned into memory.

This will be the first time, however, that I will be featuring a book I don't even own. I haven't borrowed it or even held a copy in my hands--and I didn't even know what the cover looked like until I had to find an image for today's post. The first three chapters were excerpted at the end of my current read, and it is from them that I find the passage that most wonderfully matches this Thursday's theme . . .

This Week's Theme:
Action

2011-07-26T23:55:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Reading Diary: BSC #6 Kristy's Big Day

"I feel like we're in a movie," I said.

"The Bride of Frankenstein?" asked Sam. ". . . I Married a Witch?"

"No!" It's just that . . . well . . . think about it. Mom and Dad get divorced, Mom meets new guy, new guy has two kids, new guy turns out to be millionaire, Mom and new guy get married, we move to mansion. But that doesn't mean it has a happy ending."

"Yeah, stay tuned for Part Two," said Charlie. "I know what you mean. It's hard to believe."

"And scary."

"But," said Sam, turning serious, "we can make it work . . ."

Yeah, because whenever a divorced parent enters into a second marriage, it's always the children's responsibility to make it work. As someone who once sabotaged her mother's wedding just because . . . I'm not buying it.

But I suppose that after the harsh satire of single motherhood Ann M. Martin just gave us in BSC #5: Dawn and the Impossible ~~Mom~~ Three, it was time to play nice. So she does.

The whole Baby-sitters Club does, really. Because there's one thing that five thirteen-year-old girls can do to help pull off a wedding that has to be ready in two weeks . . .
Read more »

2011-07-25T23:10:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Mail and More: It's Monday!

See almost 400 participating bloggers' new books
@ The Story Siren

When I picked up my latest book packages at the post office, I suddenly fancied buying a map of the world, putting it up on a cork board, and using push pins to mark all the places I've ever received mail from.

No fear: I wouldn't blog it or make the senders' locations public in any way (no matter how vaguely). I just thought it would be interesting to see all the places I've never been to--some of which I had never heard of before I started blogging--where my name and address were, for a few fleeting moments, written by one person and read by at least one other.

Here are my two latest books, both shipped from the Western Hemisphere (I trust that's vague enough? LOL!) . . .

Read more »

2011-07-23T23:26:00.006+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: Take Sixty-One!

Welcome to Distant Isles: The Movie Edition!
(Remember that next week is Wizarding World Day!)

Some Saturdays are better than others. I don't know what this one is.

Last week, I didn't feel competent to write about any island setting but the one in a Juvenile Series novel I wouldn't even pass on to a child. (Yes, last Saturday was that bad.) And of course I now wish I could do it all over again, with a setting like Jonathan Swift's floating island of Laputa. But we have moved on and now it's time for the Movie Edition.

You might be wondering why I can't be a bit sneaky and use a certain screen adaptation of Gulliver's Travels to write about that setting, anyway. Well, it's because I decided early on that I wanted an island that didn't exist in any book before it existed in a movie. (Hi, Kate!) And after ruling out some of the best islands ever to grace the big screen (taken from or inspired by the books of Michael Crichton, William Golding, Ian Fleming and even Henry de Vere Stacpoole), I realised there was only one way to go . . .

Read more »

2011-07-22T23:46:00.010+08:00

+JMJ+

Friday Night Movie: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

0:24 . . . No one is laughing now This prologue is heartening proof that the filmmakers had their heads in the right place.
1:12 This is so unspeakably hilarious . . .
1:37 You know, I was just remembering the loveliness that was The Blob and now here I am with another theme song. =)
2:23 I am already envious of the sense of humour that produced this movie.
2:58 Attack of the killer tomatoes! AtTAAACK of the killer toMAAAtoes! Why is this song so catchy???
3:03 There's a novel???
3:24 Ah, Houston? We have a problem up here . . . People told me this film was funny, but they didn't tell me it was priceless!
3:55 And now the sauce--as well as the plot--thickens! ;-)
4:18 This would be more badass if we didn't just see that investigator harmlessly licking tomato juice from his finger.
4:37 =|
5:12 Let me guess . . . A tomato got into the helicopter?
5:35 A kamikaze tomato! And that answers my question. =)
6:45 The first significant difference from The Blob? We jump straight to credulity. Because it's so much funnier when everyone takes bloodthirsty produce seriously.
6:49 Why him? . . . Because he's got a vegetable garden. That's why! I simply can't believe this movie never won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar.
7:02 Oh, God! Who'd have thought? All we wanted was a bigger, healthier tomato! It's like The Terminator with the machines replaced by garden produce! =D
8:59 I'd love to watch this while high. =P

Read more »

2011-07-21T23:51:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Reading Diary: Meet Felicity: An American Girl

"Oh, I wish I could wear breeches," she said.

"What?" asked Ben.

"Breeches," said Felicity. "Gowns and petticoats are so bothersome. I'm forever stepping on my hem and tripping unless I take little baby steps. Small steps are supposed to look ladylike. But I can't get anywhere. 'Tis a terrible bother. In breeches your legs are free. You can straddle horses, jump over fences, run as fast as you wish. You can do anything."

. . . Felicity sighed. ". . . You're lucky to be a lad. You can do whatever you like."

A few months ago, I asked a friend of mine--a real history buff--whether he had heard of the American Girls books and movies. He said that he had, and had even watched a bit of the Felicity movie. But this isn't a franchise he's particularly happy about because it has--

"Too much female empowerment for me."

ROFL! And . . . BINGO!

I've read enough of both (high culture) Shakespeare and (pop culture) "Wallpaper Historical" Romance novels to have a high tolerance for girls in ~~adventures~~ breeches, and so I didn't bat an eyelash when Felicity "borrows" what she believes is a necessary addition to her wardrobe. But I agree that any book which is supposed to recapture what it was like to grow up in Colonial America is weakened by yet another pesky modern protagonist in period costume. (You know: a Sue.)

Read more »

2011-07-20T23:43:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Wednesday Night Trailer: "The Threat of Nature's Perfect Eating Machine!"

And where there's a Wednesday Night Trailer, there is (or shall be) a Friday Night Movie. =)

In about forty-eight hours, I be live blogging Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, to be counted toward that "Monsters vs. Alien" challenge you might remember from aeons ago.

Read more »

2011-07-19T23:26:00.007+08:00

+JMJ+

The Language of Books

This Week's Topic:
Books That Should Be Required Reading for Teens

The last time I joined this meme, the topic was "Books I Have Lied About", which I amended into a list of Books I Simply Let People Assume I Knew Better Than I Did. And it turned out to be one of those "universal" themes I like so much: apparently, every reader lies about books in one way or another (Except, that is, for Lesa and Deb! =P), and some lies are more widely told than others.

Here are the seven titles, two authors and one genre that showed up on the most literary confessions, whether the lie was about loving them, hating them, finishing them, or simply being familiar with them:

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
William Shakespeare
Charles Dickens
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Romance Novels
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Now on to this week's topic, which gave me a lot of trouble. I used to be a full time English Lit teacher in an all-girls private school. When I started, I had big dreams about introducing young minds to "the Canon." By the time I resigned, I hated the idea of "required reading" about as much as my students did.

Now, I still think that certain books are--if you don't mind a gross understatement--better worth our time than others. I also believe that we shouldn't let cries of elitism or racism or whatever make us say that all books are "equal" or any reading is good "as long as it's reading." I enjoy my share of fluff and I love it--but if we are as serious about education as we say we are, then we must remember that it is about language. Everything that can be learned has its own grammar, logic and rhetoric. (Yes, even maths!) And the level of learning any person has achieved is always obvious in the way he "speaks" what he knows.

When I was in uni, I took a paper called Classical Traditions, which looked at mythological allusions in relatively "modern" poetry and fiction. The lecturer made a big deal about past writers' familiarity with the ancient myths, saying that they were as "fluent" in them as we moderns are in, say, Disney characters. The main difference being that one who can "speak myths" can be understood over two hundred centuries (at least!), while one who only "speaks Disney" is trapped in a span of a few generations. I think a proper education should make us bigger than our own age. Don't you?

A Tenner:
Books Teenagers Should Learn "To Speak"

2011-07-16T23:34:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: Take Sixty!

New to Locus Focus?
Read This First!

Distant Isles is an exciting theme. Islands mean many things in many books, and a few months ago, when I promised someone who suddenly went on blogging sabbatical that we would have one month just for island settings, I had a whole bunch in mind, from novels by J.M. Barrie, Daniel Defoe, Kenneth Grahame, Ann Halam, Madeleine L'Engle, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells, and Johann Wyss, to name a select few. And if I were less frazzled with life, I'd definitely have one of those elite islands here for you in this post.

As things stand, however, I can only share the one island I kind of hoped I wouldn't have to write about . . . and say that with the way things are going, I'm not sure whether I can host Locus Focus at all in August. =(

Heaping insult upon insult, the following book counts as the third to be featured on Locus Focus in which the title is the same as the setting--which kind of brings down the triumph Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins achieved last week. (See Locus Focus: Take Fifty-Nine.) Ah, life . . .

Read more »

2011-07-15T23:59:00.010+08:00

+JMJ+

Twelve Things about Without a Paddle

12. The title is awkward enough for me to guess that Up the Creek was already taken--and now that I've seen the earlier movie's trailer, I wonder whether it had any significant influence on this one.

11. I really, really like this movie. It's so gosh-darn likeable: one of the few "low-brow" flicks I will always stop to watch, should I happen to channel surf into it when I have a couple of hours to kill.

The others, you ask?
The only one that comes to mind right now is
the remake of The Parent Trap.

10. And now for another totally subjective movie connection. There's something about Without a Paddle that makes me think: "Goonies with grown-ups!" (What, Stilwell? Are you going to disown me again?) And in the hands of a different producer, this movie would probably make a legitimate double-bill partner for Richard Donner's greatest movie. (Thank you for that, Steven Spielberg.)

9. One last bit before I get to the meat of this movie . . . Why do I have the feeling that I'll appreciate the humour so much more after I get around to watching Deliverance?

Read more »

2011-07-14T23:28:00.003+08:00

+JMJ+

Themes and Thoughts

Read themed excerpts from other people's current reads
@ Reading between Pages

In case all the very-late-and-shamelessly-backdated posts haven't clued you in, I've been too busy to blog properly over the last few days. And since too busy to blog means far too busy to read, I don't actually have a "current read" of my own. This post is cobbled entirely from my tutorials with Skid Breaker and the book he is required to read for English class.

This Week's Theme:
Body Parts

2011-07-13T11:42:00.003+08:00

+JMJ+

A Word and a Question Walk into a Blog . . .

Read everyone's poems @ Salome Ellen!

UPDATE:
Then link up a poem of your own in
the Poem in Your Post Blog Hop @ What She Read

Last month, I may have said something about working "elemental movement" into this month's poem. Please disregard that. =P

In the meantime, I hope you like my answer to what happens when a word and a question walk into a book blog . . .

Read more »

2011-07-12T23:45:00.003+08:00

+JMJ+

(Another) Two-Meme Tuesday

Read MizB's teaser @ Should Be Reading
and play along with two lines from your own current read!

The following two lines are taken from a book I already "reviewed" (or rather just described) on this blog. It also has its own TBR Tuesday post that tells the story of how I found it. And although it didn't deliver that non-fiction Locus Focus post I promised in June . . . I have a feeling I'll be writing about another of its locations in the future. Yes, I'm still reading it--and yes, it's that good.

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2011-07-10T23:16:00.008+08:00

+JMJ+

Twelve Things about A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child

12. If you're counting, this one is #5 in the ANOES franchise, the point in any popcorn series at which screenwriters are beyond scraping the bottom of the barrel for plot points. =P

On the other hand, if you got over the premise of the fourth film (See my Twelve Things about A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master!), you probably won't bat an eyelash at how Freddy returns in this one, through the dreams of the newest--and youngest--"Elm Street Kid".

11. Oh, those Elm Street Kids! You know I love them. But something else I love just as much is continuity. So when the two survivors of The Dream Master return, with a new group of ~~fodder~~ friends and seemingly no memory of the six classmates they lost so horribly to Freddy's nightmares only a year or two before, I feel bad.

Come on, Alice! Nothing to say about your brother Rick? And don't your new gang remember how Sheila had a fatal "asthma attack" in the middle of a test? That's not something anyone in the student body forgets, whether or not he also witnessed it.

Read more »

2011-07-09T23:52:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: Take Fifty-Nine!

Welcome to the Distant Isles Challenge!

Islands are interesting. I'll be more equipped to tell you why when July is done. As usual, I'm never more ready to begin a task than when it's finally over.

So just take it all on faith with me for now. Islands are interesting--especially as settings. Just keep reading, okay? =)

Now for "administrative" matters. Please note that 23 July will be a Movie Edition day. You can all ~~blame~~ thank The Mike for this inspired idea. =P

Following that, the last Saturday of this month, 30 July, will be "Wizarding World Day", in honour of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. (I might not be a Potter-head, but I know when to ride a trend.) If you want to participate, the only rule is: No hogging Hogwarts. There are surely enough rooms in the castle to divvy up among ourselves--and of course, it's not the only wonderful place in the wizarding world!

Read more »

2011-07-08T23:55:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Faerie Tale Theatre Production Smackdown, Final Winner!
(Revisit Round 1, Round 2, Round 3A, Round 3B, and Round 4)

The Princess and the Pea = 5 Votes
The Snow Queen = 1 Vote
Pinocchio = 1 Vote

Well, of course a "princess story" won! Walt Disney's dark, shadowy legacy sees to that all the time. ;-)

Seriously, The Princess and the Pea was a strong contender from Round 1--and one of the two productions I was absolutely sure would make it to the ~~Final~~ Faerie Four. (My other "sure bet"? Cinderella! I still can't believe you all voted for Sleeping Beauty instead. =P)

Thanks to everyone who cast a vote in this smackdown and kept me on my toes! Rediscovering these productions wouldn't have been half as fun without you! =)

But this isn't the winner's announcement you're most excited about, is it? (LOL!)

Read more »

2011-07-07T23:13:00.007+08:00

+JMJ+

Character Connection 30

Read about Aibileen Clark and other fantastic characters
@ The Introverted Reader

This will be the last post having anything to do with this year's Philippine Literature Giveaway (which I don't want to keep calling the "June Giveaway" this far into July).

I was actually going to write about someone else from this novel, but changed my mind after Lesa and I started discussing the metaphors in this realistic novel. Today I feature a character who does double-duty as both a symbol and a three-dimensional human being.

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2011-07-06T23:48:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Dreaming of Prompts and Poems

Thanks to Salome Ellen, our host for July!

I first learned about Word & Question when I was in grade school, but never found anyone willing to play with me. (Well, not quite: my mother did try. But she didn't quite get the part about the poem answering the question. So after our first game, I didn't force her to play again.) You can imagine I brought the game up at every birthday party, slumber party or boring afternoon that ever came up . . . to no avail. Some people just don't think playing with words is fun. =(

Little did I know that there was such a thing as the Internet that would enable me to play W&Q someday with friends from all over the world. I'm so glad that time has finally come!

So thanks to everyone who joins up whenever he or she can. I just wanted you to know that our blog-based friendship managed to make one of my dreams come true.

(Gosh, did I just get sappy on all of you? Ewwww . . . My apologies!)

2011-07-05T06:09:00.006+08:00

+JMJ+

Option 12: Cave and Shadows by Nick Joaquin

"They're pagans, or want to be: all those who come here?"

"Oh, no. They only want to be healed, they come for the miracle. But I don't mind. In one way or another I am reviving anito worship among them. Which is not hard really since the old religion still lives in them, however deeply submerged. I have only to stir a bit to make it rise back to the surface. But maybe, yes, they are all pagans already, or again, without knowing it. They may go home Christians but their Christianity will be even more pagan than before. It shouldn't be long before they realise what they really are and shed all the vestiges of what they thought they were. The old religion is coming back, Mr. Henson, to undo four hundred years of history."

For the second year in a row, my June-into-July Giveaway ends on the kind of glorious note you could only get from a Nick Joaquin novel. (At least the Reading Project part ends for me. The Get a Free Book from Enbrethiliel part--which is what everyone else cares about--will not run its course until Friday.)

Having said that, be aware that this is a high note unlike any you've heard before (which I say not to be condescending, but to reflect the fact that it was a high note unlike any I've heard before). If Merlinda Bobis (author of Option 11: Banana Tree Summer) is correct about the same things tasting different on everyone's tongues, then this might be a real shock to your unsuspecting palate. Heck, even I find it a bit difficult to swallow.

Read more »

2011-07-04T04:14:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

Twelve Things about A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

12. I knew something was wrong early on in the movie, when the three survivors of the Horror extravaganza that was A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors showed up to open this new chapter, and I felt absolutely no emotional connection to any of them.

First of all, Tuesday Knight just isn't Patricia Arquette. But then again, even Rodney Eastman and Ken Sagoes, reprising their roles as Joey and Kincaid, left me similarly cold. And that's truly odd when all you have to say to get me to love a character is that he's an "Elm Street Kid." (Magic words, I tell you.)

11. As for the "fresh meat" in the cast . . . they were a mixed bag. =/ I don't expect to be deeply invested in characters who are just "Freddy fodder," but I do like feeling that they're regular teens who really are friends. That's not too much of a demand, is it?

10. I did like Brooke Theiss, who plays Debbie, instantly--and not just because she was in 80s sitcom Just the Ten of Us with other NOES alumnae Heather Langenkamp and JoAnn Wilette. She just really stood out.

Read more »

2011-07-03T23:14:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

Option 11: Banana Heart Summer by Merlinda Bobis

The sound of deep frying was a delectable melody. Instantly loud and aggressive, when the turon hit the pool of boiling coconut oil, then pulling back. The percussion was inspired to be subtle.

"Ay, it sounds and smells like happiness," I said, nose and ears as primed as my sweetened tongue. Happiness that is not subtle at all, I could have added. Such is the fact about the turon, which is half a slice of sugar banana and a strip of jackfruit rolled in paper-thin rice wrapping, then dusted with palm sugar and fried to a crisp brown. How could such fragrance be subtle? My nose twitched, my mouth watered, my stomach said, buy, buy.

"So you're an expert on happiness?" Nana Dora asked. Her face glowed with more than sweat and fire from her stove.

This post is doing double duty for my June Giveaway (which has obviously just spilled over into July) and the Foodie's Reading Challenge I signed up for last year but haven't read anything for until now. This wasn't one of the books I originally committed to read, but it has proven an effective appetiser.

Merlinda Bobis hooked me with that first scene of frying turon--one of my own favourite snacks from childhood--and the idea that happiness has a sound and a smell, and presumably, also a taste. Anyone who loves food knows exactly what happiness tastes like.

Read more »

2011-07-02T23:40:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: Take Fifty-Eight

If you've been counting, then you'll know that this shouldn't be Take Fifty-Eight. There was no Locus Focus post last week--which means that this one should be Take Fifty-Seven. Yeah, I have a funny "story" about that . . .

You see, June is the only month I really set aside to read Filipino literature. And I only started doing that last year when I got that (absolutely inspired) idea for a Philippine Literature Giveaway. The chances of a "local book" getting featured on Locus Focus any other time of the year are dismal. Do I really want to shortchange these great books during the one month I actually pay attention to them???

When you're done reading this post, I hope you take a look at Locus Focus: Take Fifty-Seven, which I backdated into last week. There's even a little surprise at the end, thanks to someone who wrote her own "Foreign Shores" Locus Focus a few weeks ago and then forgot to link up. =P

Read more »

2011-07-01T23:34:00.000+08:00

+JMJ+

Faerie Tale Theatre Production Smackdown, Round 4
(Revisit Round 1, Round 2, Round 3A and Round 3B)

There were moments when I thought we'd never make it to this point . . . but here we are! =D

vs.
The Princess and the Pea vs. The Snow Queen

Over three exciting and intense rounds--for that is exactly how they seemed to me--The Princess and the Pea managed to take down Thumbelina (which might be short, but is also scrappy!), The Tale of the Frog Prince (which has Robin Williams at the peak of his game!), and the wildcard contender Goldilocks and the Three Bears (which I daresay is actually the better of the two--ROFL!). Finalists don't come as formidable as this!

As for The Snow Queen, it stormed through the smackdown, soundly thrashing Hansel and Gretel (and its real child actors!), The Pied Piper of Hamelin (and its clever rhymes!) and even wildcard entry Jack and the Beanstalk (and its special visual effects!). That's certainly nothing to sneeze at!

The time has come to settle this once and for all, for the sake of a happily ever after.

But before you do, one last wildcard . . . ;-)

2011-06-29T23:20:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Character Connection 29

Read about Mrs. Murphy the Tiger Cat
and other great characters
@ The Introverted Reader

I can't believe that this is only my second Character Connection post for June! You'd think that with a giveaway to promote, I'd work harder at these things. =P

Today, I have a character from another novel I'm about to toss into my June Giveaway pool. She's one of the minor figures, whom another writer might have allowed to fade into the background--but I daresay you'd never know it from what I've found to write about her. Her own author doesn't fumble any of the characters in her generous ensemble cast, and I'm really looking forward to telling you more about that novel over the weekend.

Read more »

2011-06-28T23:17:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Option 10: By Sword and Fire: The Destruction of Manila in World War II by Alfonso J. Aluit

While this work is concerned with the destruction of Manila towards the end of World War II in the Pacific, it begins with a history of Manila and a reconstruction in words of its physical condition up to February 1945.

It is our aim to show insofar as is practicable what actually was destroyed, not only the physical structures and material treasures of a city 400 years old, but also the way of life, the social organisation of the people.

Only if one understood and appreciated what it was that perished would the loss truly make sense . . .

Not that I'm making excuses for myself or anything, but this book doesn't really need a Locus Focus post to sell it. I've already written about it in a TBR Tuesday post and in a Theme Thursday post--and frankly, the Locus Focus I was drafting wasn't building on Aluit's ~~storytelling~~ journalism as much as rephrasing everything he had said and spoiling his point by making it more obvious. And that's not what my meme is all about, is it?

Anyway, if you check out the June Giveaway post, you'll see that By Sword and Fire is already in the pool of prizes. As it deserves to be.

Read more »

2011-06-27T23:57:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

If I Had a 90s Soundtrack . . .

Now, I have no talent for putting playlists together. The secret to making one song flow properly into (or even sit amicably next to) another is beyond me. But if I had to put together a compilation album that sounded like the 1990s as I heard them, these two tracks--as different as they seem--would definitely make it in . . .

+

And I bring this up now because I recently heard them come together in a single song.

What's that? You don't believe me? Oh, ye of little musical imagination . . .

Read more »

2011-06-26T23:03:00.001+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: No Take

Right now you're wondering where yesterday's Locus Focus post is. As soon as I figure it out, I'll let you know! But even without looking, I'm willing to bet my whole blog that it's buried under the big heap of reality that came crashing down on my shoulders a few days ago. =/

UPDATE: Here it is! =P Locus Focus: Take Fifty-Seven. Enjoy! LOL!

If you had a "Foreign Shores" setting of your own all ready to publish, I apologise for yoking your neatly worked out schedule to my own shot-to-heck one. Since I do want to write one more Locus Focus post for a June Giveaway book, I'm extending the theme to next Saturday.

As for the rest of July, I'm pretty set on Island Settings. No cheesy name for them yet, but I'm willing to take suggestions. Sounds good, I hope? =)

2011-06-25T23:35:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: Take Fifty-Seven!

New to Locus Focus?
Read This First!

Today, still in keeping with my June Giveaway and its sort-of complementary Foreign Shores theme, I present another place from a book about to enter the prize pool.

Sadly, it's not the "non-fiction setting" I promised earlier in the week, but it's still pretty good.

(Notice I didn't write "earlier this week." Even I'm not that Orwellian! LOL!)

Read more »

2011-06-24T23:42:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Faerie Tale Theatre Production Smackdown, Round 3B
(Revisit Round 1, Round 2 and Round 3A)

It's finally here!!! Can you believe it??? (I know I still can't . . .)

This week, two "Prince and Princess" faerie tales get to face off. Writing this post was an interesting experience for me, because I hadn't realised before I began how thematically related these two stories actually are. Another case of learning as I go and finally being ready to host a smackdown only when the smackdown is actually over. =P (But you like learning with me, right?)

At the end of this post, you'll get another chance to influence the outcome of this bracket when the winner faces off against one of our wild cards. Remember that casting a vote for a Faerie Tale Theatre Production gets you one extra entry in the June Giveaway.

Round 3B
The Faerie Four

2011-06-23T23:48:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

For the Love of Themes

Read themed excerpts from other people's current reads
@ Reading between Pages

As meme hostess Kavyen explains, Theme Thursday is "a wonderful opportunity to explore and understand different writing styles and descriptive approaches adopted by authors." I totally see where she's coming from.

Pick a theme--any theme: as long as it's universal enough, you'll find it in good literature across historical, geographical and cultural divides.

When I was in uni, I took a paper called "The Novel" in which I had to read Pride and Prejudice and Emma by Jane Austen, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Howards End and A Passage to India by E.M. Forster, Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad, and Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence. The course description in the catalogue had the professor's quip that "Women in Love" is not just one title among the bunch, but also a theme shared by all the books assigned for reading. I daresay that the title of the other "bookend" novel could serve a similar double purpose: these books are also all about different forms of "Pride and Prejudice".

See why theme is such a lovely thing to a reader?

This Week's Theme:
Male Person

2011-06-22T23:38:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Option 9: Tall Story by Candy Gourlay

"I have sorry. My English is . . . barok."

Barok. Baroque? Broken?

"It's okay, Bernardo. I understand everything."

How many times had Bernardo apologised for his English? I couldn't seem to make him understand that it really, really was okay.

In a funny way, I think I do get a lot of Tagalog. Language is just like a film soundtrack. I've heard Mum and Dad say, Hey that piece of music was the soundtrack of my childhood! Well. Bernardo's barok English was just him singing his soundtrack in another key. Not his key. My key. When I thought about it that way, it wasn't the funny, broken English that I heard, but the story he wanted to tell.

And what a story it was . . .

This is another book that probably shouldn't be in the June Giveaway pool because it already has UK and US editions--and will have an Italian translation coming out soon. (!!!) So if you want to read it, you won't really need me to mail you a copy from all the way over here. And that kind of kills the point of the giveaway, you know? =P

But Tall Story gets in the pool, anyway, for two reasons: a) I really, really like it; and b) I want to stop feeling guilty, for just a couple of seconds, for promoting the heck out of books that most people might not be able to read for years to come. At least you know that no matter how the giveaway turns out, you'll be able to walk to a local bookstore and order your region's edition of Tall Story. And that's win-win! =D

Read more »

2011-06-21T23:45:00.003+08:00

+JMJ+

Life As a Reading Challenge, Chapter 7

Until very recently, I've been weathering a bad season for Reading Challenges (official) and reading projects (unofficial) alike.

My first and very basic personal challenge/project of writing down the title of every book I read this year took a completely unnecessary blow last March, when I couldn't figure out whether to count both new reads and rereads. So I just ended up not writing anything down. (Ridiculous, I know.) But it wasn't as bad as what happened a month later, when I found myself with enough material for another list: Books Started and Then Abandoned in 2011. For an even more basic personal reading challenge/project--one that is so obvious that it has hitherto gone unsaid--is that of finishing whatever I start.

Read more »

2011-06-19T23:32:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

Option 8: The Secret by Lin Acacio Flores

So what if it was a mystery why the girls weren't allowed in the building anymore to enjoy the gym and the library?

So what if she had seen Sister Carentia enter the building with a huge basket on her arm and then lie about going there?

So what if Sister Carentia's cheeks turned as red as the tomatoes she was slicing when asked what was in the building?

Your curiosity will get you into trouble again, Rica scolded herself. Like, when you got caught peeking into the nuns' cloister. Then you were not allowed to play at all during recess for a whole month . . .

When I was making a list of six new books to throw into the June Giveaway pool this year, The Secret was the first title I wrote down. I discovered this novella about ten years ago, when my younger sister had to read it in grade school, and I remember liking it so much more than all the other local books she had been assigned over the years.

Well, I've just reread it and discovered I was grading on a curve! =P It's really not half as good as I remembered.

So how in the world did it manage to make the pool???

Read more »

2011-06-18T23:54:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: Take Fifty-Six!

New to Locus Focus?
Read This First!

Today I have another setting from a book that is in our June Giveaway pool. What I don't have (yet) is a cover image. =/

For some arcane reason, the publishers haven't seen fit to release a single promotional scan of the cover. The book is reasonably well known: it's still in print, very visible to browsers, familiar to many young readers I've tutored, and used to be required reading in one of the biggest grade schools in the metro (if not more than one!). And yet it is virtually invisible on the Internet.

I took a decent photo of the cover with my family's new camera--but of course, I can't find the USB cord and so can't upload it. (Typical.) Until then, I'll be using the logo of the Kuwentista ng mga Tsikiting (loosely translated as "Storytellers for Tots"), an association of writers for children to which the author belongs.

Read more »

2011-06-17T23:45:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

Character Connection 28

Read about Christopher Boone
and link up your own Character Connection post
@ The Introverted Reader

Did I really say that I would be resuming the Faerie Tale Theatre Production Smackdown today? Really and truly?

You're never going to anything I say again, are you? =/

But I hope that the following character, from a novel that has just slipped into the June Giveaway pool, will at least persuade you to forgive me. He's really wonderful, and I can't think of anyone worthier of leading out this month's crop of Character Connection posts.

Read more »

2011-06-16T23:52:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Writing Diary, Entry #26
(Alternatively Titled: "On Prequels and Sequels")

There's something about prequels that I just have to love. I suppose I should thank George Lucas for getting the ball rolling with The Phantom Menace, but it wasn't until this year, when I was hit with the double whammy of Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and X-men: First Class, that I became not just a fan, but also a believer.

If you want to read my thoughts on X-men: First Class, you can check out my Twelve Things post.

For the same on Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, you'll have to be living in the Philippines and willing to buy a copy of next month's Atlas TV Guide. =P

Read more »

2011-06-15T23:49:00.006+08:00

+JMJ+

A Place and a Question

Welcome to this special edition of Word & Question! This month, I changed the rules a little: instead of submitting a word, all players had to submit the name of a place. That's to tie this monthly activity to my June Giveaway, which lets one lucky reader win a book from the Philippines. (Remember that if you're playing this game for points/entries, you must be linked up by 29 June!)

Speaking of giveaways, haiku wizard Vvb32 has her own special giveaway of a book by a Filipina writer! Link up your poem a second time on her Word and Question: Deadhorse post and get a chance to win Her Wild American Self by Evelina Galang. This offer is also open to anyone willing to compose a haiku using the prompts Vvb32 received in this game--and yes, it's international! =D

By the way, if you didn't get to read all the poems from last month's game, you can always go back to Very Sleepy People and get updated!

UPDATE: For more poetry, visit this week's Poem in Your Post Blog Hop. I've already linked up this post and hope you'll join us by linking up your own as well. =)

Read more »

2011-06-12T23:08:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Option 7: The God Stealer by F. Sionil Jose

They were the best of friends and that was possible because they worked in the same office and both were young and imbued with a freshness of outlook. Sam Christie was twenty-eight and his Filipino assistant, Philip Latak, was twenty-six and was--just as Sam was in the Agency for International Development before he assumed his post--intelligent and industrious.

"That is to be expected," the official whom Sam replaced explained, "because Philip is Ifugao and you don't know patience until you have seen the rice terraces his ancestors built."

"You will find," Sam Christie was also told, "that the Ifugao, like the Ilocanos, no matter how urbanised they already are, retain a sense of inferiority. Not Philip. He is proud of being Ifugao . . ."

--from the short story The God Stealer

F. Sionil Jose is a writer I am very ambivalent about. On the one hand, his Po-on is one of my favourite Filipino novels of all time. (That's why it remains Option 4 in this year's June Giveaway.) On the other hand, it's only one of five novels in his Rosales saga--and I couldn't stand three of the other four enough even to finish them. (The last one I didn't even bother with. And frankly, I couldn't tell you which is which.)

That's why I'm a bit nervous about throwing the short story anthology The God Stealer into the giveaway pool this year. It has thirteen different stories (Oooh! Lucky number! LOL!), but only a few I really love. In fact, there are some I hadn't read until I said to myself, "Hey, why don't I include that story about the Filipino named Philip and the American named Sam?" and bought this specific collection so I could reread it. And there are a couple of stories I don't like at all and the rest I have yet to read. I'm probably not the best person to recommend this book, but it's in the pool, anyway. Caveat lector.

Having said that, let me give you a sampler of the other stories I am familiar with . . .

Read more »

2011-06-11T23:29:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: Take Fifty-Five!

Welcome to the Foreign Shores Challenge!

Today I am hosting not just Locus Focus, but also the June Giveaway in which I offer one reader the chance to win a book from the Philippines. This means that while the settings I feature in June will definitely be foreign to those who are eligible to enter the giveaway, they won't also be foreign to me. (Okay, it's cheating a bit . . . but we're still friends, right?)

The seventh book up for grabs is The God Stealer, a collection of short stories by F. Sionil Jose, the title work of which is his most anthologised piece of short fiction. I'll have a proper post on the whole collection up soon, but today let's just focus on the setting of the jewel in its crown. (Pun not intended.)

Read more »

2011-06-08T16:49:00.006+08:00

+JMJ+

Playing Poetry with a Lucky 13 Twist

This month, I am giving away another book from the Philippines to one lucky reader . . . and that is why our latest "Word & Question" gets to be "Place & Question"! (Yes, that's probably a non sequitur.) You don't have to enter the giveaway to join the game, but you will have to play along with our twist.

The rules are exactly the same, except that your word should also be the name of a place. Send your prompts to me before the first deadline in the following schedule:

Read more »

2011-06-07T23:45:00.012+08:00

+JMJ+

JUNE GIVEAWAY!
Just when you thought I had forgotten about it . . . ;-)

Remember these books from last year? They're back in the giveaway pool for this year!

And in case you don't remember or are new to this giveaway, I've provided links to each non-review posts inspired by these six books.

Barefoot in Fire: A World War II Childhood by Barbara Gamboa-Lewis
Locus Focus #6 -- Number 75, Ortega Street

The Manila We Knew edited by Erlinda Enriquez Panlilio
Locus Focus #5 -- The Escolta

The Woman Who Had Two Navels by Nick Joaquin
Character Connection #9 -- Pepe Monson
Locus Focus #8 -- St. Andrew's Convent
Teaser Tuesday -- Excerpt

NEW BOOK: The God Stealer by F. Sionil Jose
Locus Focus #55 -- Ifugao

NEW BOOK: Tall Story by Candy Gourlay
Character Connection #28 -- Bernardo Hipolito

NEW BOOK: By Sword and Fire: The Destruction of Manila in World War II by Alfonso J. Aluit
Theme Thursday -- Male Person

Smaller and Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan
Character Connection #7 -- Gus Saenz, SJ

Owl Friends by Carla M. Pacis
Locus Focus #4 -- Loob Bunga

Po-on by F. Sionil Jose
Character Connection #8 -- Eustaquio "Istak" Salvador
From Reading for Believers: First Impressions? and On Tagalog vs. English

NEW BOOK: The Secret by Lin Acacio-Flores
Locus Focus #56: The Grade School Building

NEW BOOK: Banana Heart Summer by Merlinda Bobis
Character Connection #29 -- Maria Corazon Alano

NEW BOOK: Cave and Shadows by Nick Joaquin
Character Connection #30 -- Nenita Coogan
Locus Focus #57 -- The Cave

I'll be adding more to their number as the month unfolds,
so keep checking back for updates! =)

2011-06-06T18:06:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

Reading Diary: I Can't Keep My Own Secrets: Six-word Memoirs by Teens Famous + Obscure

This is the story of six . . .

Most memoirs are books written by one person and are meant to be read from start to finish. There's one overall story with a beginning, middle, and end, plus some characters you get to know pretty well.

This is not one of those books.

This is a book with over 600 authors (all aged thirteen to nineteen) and 600 characters (all real, as far as we know) and 600 stories (which can be read in any order). What every story has in common is that each was written about the author's own life, and that each is the exact same length: six words.

The introduction includes that legend about Ernest Hemingway I've always loved: the one in which he was challenged to write a short story in ten words and came back with six:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

There is a whole novel in those six words, for those who know how to read them.

Romance author Mary Jo Putney once said of Hemingway's style that it is "as devoid of emotion as it is of adjectives." While I generally agree with her critique, I wonder if a six-word Putney Romance novel would be any match for our six-word Hemingway classic.

But novels are hard--and as I glance around my glass house, I realise I have no business throwing down gauntlets. Let's stick with the memoirs.

Read more »

2011-06-05T23:06:00.003+08:00

+JMJ+

Twelve Things about X-men: First Class

12. This is going to be a wordy "Twelve Things" post (So what's new?), but for those who like their reviews short and sweet, I offer this one word to stand for everything I feel about this movie . . .

BEAUTIFUL

Okay, you may stop reading now. =P

11. Some of my recent activities have convinced me that it takes more creativity and skill to answer the question, "What happened first?" than the more conventional one of "What happened next?"

Prequels are very easy to screw up. (Just ask George Lucas.) But when they are good, oh, they are very good. This one is very good. Even those who have little idea who the X-men are can go to see it and be edified.

Read more »

2011-06-04T18:34:00.014+08:00

+JMJ+

My Life in Movies

Before I let Shredded Cheddar go back to looking like a book blog, I thought I'd make another stab at movie blog status. And it seemed like a good idea to start with a movie meme (Yes, those do exist!) that's been going viral around the movie-verse.

The rule is simple. For every year you've been alive, pick a movie.

So of course I'm going to complicate it.

You see, while I was making this list and picking my obvious favourites from each year, I found myself reminded of movies I haven't thought of in the longest time, but which would have easily made this list, had I tried this twenty, ten or even five years ago. That's because I keep discovering "old" movies that I didn't see when they were still "new"--usually because I was too young for them when they first came out. And that's kind of interesting, in this light of this exercise, which remembers when old movies were new--no matter how long ago they came out.

That's why I thought I'd make a series of My Life in Movies lists and start with those films that I wasn't too young for. Although I might not have seen all of these in their year of release, I saw them close enough to the date to have been young with them, too.

1982
The Last Unicorn

No other movie could make me so happy to reveal my real age to all of cyberspace. So much of what I understand of loneliness and longing was shaped into something bittersweet and beautiful by this movie. (And now you know why, despite my great love for Zombies, I will always choose Unicorns.)

2011-05-28T23:04:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: Take Fifty-Four

New to Locus Focus?
Click here first!

You might have noticed that I completely missed yesterday's Faerie Tale Theatre Production Smackdown post. I'm very sorry about that, and even sorrier that I can't even promise that it will be here next week. =( Due to a bunch of reasons that I don't want to get into, I've decided "to unplug" for a while.

I would have unplugged even earlier, but . . . I was really looking forward to this last Locus Focus post of May. We opened the month with the mythical high school library in The Breakfast Club; I reminded you all of my love of Horror with a look at the lake from which the Friday the 13th franchise rose to spread its evil; and most recently, I wrote of the golden Austria resurrected and frozen in the celluloid of The Sound of Music. Those cover alma mater, Mother Nature and motherland--and I was going to do Sancta Mater Ecclesia today because that's how I roll--but then I couldn't think of a single Catholic movie to feature. (Not that it really matters, as all the "Places of Prayer" settings I did in April mean my triumphalist quota is looking pretty good.)

Besides, I have to announce a Theme Challenge for June! Remember that next month is when I offer one lucky reader the chance to win a book from the Philippines. Predictably enough, it's also when all my Locus Focus settings get to be taken from Philippine literature. Of course, I don't expect any of yours to be--not if I want you hanging around (LOL!)--but I do want to extend the fun. (For, yes, it will be fun!!!) What do you think of a "Foreign Shores" theme in which you pick a setting in a country where you have never been?

Read more »

2011-05-26T23:49:00.008+08:00

+JMJ+

Character Connection 27

Read about Miss Alexia Tarabotti
and link up your own post
@ The Introverted Reader

This is the last Thursday of May and therefore the last Character Connection post on notable mothers in children's literature. I started this short series with Beverly Cleary's Mrs. Huggins, whom I've loved ever since she told Henry he could bring home a dog he found on the street. Then I wrote about Mrs. Darling, who turns the sentimental tables on child readers of J.M. Barrie's classic novel. Most recently, I made my case for one of my favourite characters of all time, Meg Murry-O'Keefe, whose choice to be a mother of seven is misunderstood by even the writer who created her.

So whom do I have for you today? Read on and find out . . .

Read more »

2011-05-25T03:13:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Meet . . . My Latest Bargains!

Read about Lesa's surprise at the mall
and link up your own BBB post
@ Baja Greenawalt's Cozy Book Nook!

In an earlier post, I mentioned getting most of my "teaching materials" from used bookstores. I'm lucky to be able to buy them at bargain prices because I need a lot!

Anyone who is learning a new language, like my tutees Star Shaker and Skid Breaker, needs to devote some time to reading "real world" texts in that language. But it can be a real challenge to find texts that fit the student who has to read them. Remember that the books have to be both easy enough for the student to read on his own, yet challenging enough to get him to stretch himself a little. And then they have to be interesting. Who wants to read a boring book?

Thanks to a combination of superior "browsing skills" (part of every good reader's skill set) and sweet serendipity, I stumbled upon some books that proved to be a beautiful fit for Star Shaker.

Read more »

2011-05-24T23:58:00.007+08:00

+JMJ+

Confiteor

This Week's Topic:
Books I Have Lied About

The first time I joined Top Ten Tuesday, it was to share my list of ten Books I Wish I Had Read in Childhood. What I liked about it was that there were so many common books across the lists. That fascinated me so much that I went through every post and made a tally of all the titles in order to come up with everybody's Top Ten. Allow me to share the results with you now . . .

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (23 mentions)
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (18 mentions) *
The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket (12 mentions) *
The Clue in the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene (12 mentions) *
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (32 mentions) *
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (29 mentions) *
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (13 mentions) *
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster (11 mentions)
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (11 mentions)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (11 mentions) *

* These books stand for the whole series

The second time I joined this linky party, I wrote about Books That Were in Such Great Condition That I Bought Them without Knowing When I'd Read Them. It wasn't half as much fun that time around because everyone had such different lists. There was no real point of reference--no shared generational experience.

And so I decided I wouldn't participate in the meme again until another universal topic, like the first one, came along . . . which has happened again this week.

Apparently, lying about books--what one has read, what one hasn't read, what one has enjoyed, and what one hasn't enjoyed--is something everyone can relate to. I admit to telling my share of literary fibs in my youth . . . but I have since reformed. =P These days, any problem I have has less to do with being too ashamed to admit the truth than in having no shame at all.

Yes, I read Romance novels--but not the newer ones because I can't bloody stand "strong women" or "kick-ass heroines" or non-virgins in general. (Save it for the hero, you hussy!) No, I haven't read that Big Important Classic you think I've read. Yes, I actually enjoyed Twilight, although I have fun mocking it, too. No, I didn't at all enjoy A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And I think Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is actually superior to Jane Austen's original novel on the essential point of Elizabeth Bennet's character development.

See? Honest to a fault these days! =P But I might as well let you in on my shady past . . .

A Tenner
Books I Simply Let People Assume I Knew Better Than I Did

2011-05-23T23:24:00.003+08:00

+JMJ+

Tutor Tales, Volume 31

The alphabet is to any kind of English lesson (Language Arts, Literature, ESL/EFL, etc.) as tropes are to a drinking game. Add some music and you just sweeten the pairing further.

Words by Maurice Sendak, Lyrics by Carole King

I used this song to introduce Alphabet Lists to Star Shaker and Skid Breaker. These are, as you must have already guessed, lists with twenty-six entries that correspond to the letters of the alphabet, whether it's as a song about playful alligators or a Cinematic Alphabet.

We opened this unit with a worksheet that looked a little like this:

Read more »

2011-05-22T22:46:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Behold the Badges: Ethical Animals

Thanks to Lucia of iLive, iLaugh, iLove Books
for this original design!
And thanks to Birdie of Birdie's Nest
for inspiring the name!

Click on the first link to see more of Lucia's work. All her badges are very cute--but more importantly, they all capture the attitude of the blog or meme they were created for.

When I asked Lucia to make the "Ethical Animals" badge for me, I told her I wanted three things:

a) animals that were reading
b) at least one mouse
c) no "cartoon" animals, please

A few days later, she sent me a selection of designs--a mix of "real" and "cartoon" animals, not all of which were mice--saying that she thought I might like to look the latter over, anyway. And sure enough, despite the fact that the animal readers are both cartoony and obviously lacking a mouse, they turned out to be exactly what I wanted for my feature. (And who knows? They could be reading about a mouse.)

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2011-05-21T23:12:00.005+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: Take Fifty-Three

New to Locus Focus?
Start Here!

There are a myriad of minor themes within the greater "maternal" theme that graces Shredded Cheddar all the month of May: alma mater (Did that!), Mother Nature (Did that without knowing!), Motherland (Doing it now!), and so on . . .

(I know what I want to do for next week, but so far, finding the right movie for it has been tough. We'll see what happens, aye?)

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2011-05-20T23:59:00.001+08:00

+JMJ+

Faerie Tale Theatre Production Smackdown, Round 3A
(Revisit Round 1 and Round 2)

There's something about the Final Four of a smackdown that makes everything so much more dramatic. I always look forward to this point because it's the last time I have any say in the results, and I can never predict what the four contenders will be.

And given my new passion for "wildcards," neither can I predict whether the Top Two will be from this Final Four. Scroll down when I'm done with my part of the post, and you'll get to vote again!

Round 3A
The Faerie Four

2011-05-19T23:39:00.012+08:00

+JMJ+

Character Connection 26

Read about Anna Karenina
and link up your own post
@ The Introverted Reader

Last week, I brought up the poignant truth that no matter how close we are to our parents, there are some things about them that we'll never know. And these things aren't always the minor moments in their lives, but often include the real game changers.

The mother I feature today did many amazing things when she was a young girl--and one really awesome thing when she was pregnant with her first child--but none of her children, not even that first one, may ever hear of them.

(This is going to be a long post . . .)

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2011-05-18T03:58:00.003+08:00

+JMJ+

A Dozen Poems, with Room for More!
(This is now also an entry in the Poem in Your Post Blog Hop--a way to meet other bloggers who love poetry)

Read the rest of the May poems
@ Very Sleepy People

Thanks again to Lindsay for being our host for this month! =)

She describes her poem as "more than just a valiant failure"--which reminds me a little of Hilaire Belloc's estimation of the first Crusade as "nothing but an epic" . . . and a lot of my own May poem. =P

I hope she and I aren't setting the trend for everyone else . . .

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2011-05-17T04:20:00.011+08:00

+JMJ+

Reading Diary: Matilda by Roald Dahl

Mrs. Phelps looked along the [library] shelves, taking her time. She didn't quite know what to bring out. How, she asked herself, does one choose a famous grown-up book for a four-year-old girl?

Her first thought was to pick a young teenager's romance of the kind that is written for fifteen-year-old schoolgirls, but for some reason she found herself instinctively walking past that particular shelf.

"Try this," she said at last. "It's very famous and very good. If it's too long for you, just let me know and I'll find something shorter and a bit easier."

"Great Expectations," Matilda read, "by Charles Dickens. I'd love to try it."

Matilda is one of those delightful books about other books--or rather, books about reading. The brilliant title character loves books and she is our heroine; her disgusting parents don't see the need for books, and they are our first villains. And it is when her father actually rips up a library book that Matilda takes the utterly unconventional step of punishing him. (I've never made my peace with that, if you must know.)

And what to make of the fact that the book comes with a reading list: those books picked out for Matilda by Mrs. Phelps, the kind, wise and discreet town librarian? I've always been a bit thrown by the reading list.

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2011-05-16T01:00:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Bargain Book Bonanza in My Mailbox

Peek into other people's mail boxes
(and see why Kristi isn't sharing this week)
@ The Story Siren

There is something about the "In My Mailbox" meme that makes a stodgy literalist out of me. Although I have new books all the time, I only join this linky party when those new books also come in the mail.

You'd think the fact that I don't have a mailbox would have snapped me out of it a long time ago. (I really don't. Along with the other residents of my building, I get my letters and parcels straight from the receptionist, who sorts them for us when the mail comes in.) But no . . .

Anyway, here is what came in the mail for me last week:

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2011-05-14T23:52:00.013+08:00

+JMJ+

Locus Focus: Take Fifty-Two

New to Locus Focus?
Start Here!

Leave it to my marvelous meme to combine my two month of May themes of motherhood and the movies. Last week, I featured a film set entirely in a modern high school, the divorced single mother of almae matres. (See Locus Focus: Take Fifty-One.) Today, I give you a setting from a genre not immediately associated with mothers--although they are a major trope--and a franchise that only got off the ground because of a mother--although she has since been overshadowed by her more famous devoted son.

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2011-05-13T23:31:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Smackdown Intermission

Until Blogger restores my Character Connection 25 to me, I won't be blogging anything long and complicated. [UPDATE: The link works again, but you'll find a new post rewritten by me rather than the original post restored by Blogger.]

But that doesn't mean everyone else can't have a bit of fun with another face-off . . .

vs.
Jack and the Beanstalk vs. Puss in Boots

In both stories, a small hero who inspires more doubt than confidence goes head to head with a much larger opponent. Here we have the famous Jack who kills a giant . . . and the celebrated cat who outwits an ogre. In these tales, brains always win over brawn!

Vote in the combox, as usual! =)

2011-05-12T23:16:00.002+08:00

+JMJ+

Character Connection 25

Read about Matthew Shardlake and other great characters
@ The Introverted Reader

Let me begin by admitting that it was probably a good thing I lost this post last "Friday the 13th." =P It wasn't one of my best.

My problem while writing it was that I knew what I thought of the mother I had decided to feature . . . and if I might say so, they were wonderful thoughts . . . but I didn't like the way they were turning out as I wrote them. That's why I'm actually grateful for this second chance to get it right. The following character analysis might still be far from perfect, but at least it manages to be better.

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2011-05-10T23:33:00.006+08:00

+JMJ+

Two-Meme Tuesday

Check out Lesa's incredible haul
and other Bargain Book Bonanza posts
@ Baja Greenawalt's Cozy Book Nook

If there is one thing that baffles me about the book blogosphere, it would be the fixation on "hot" new releases and "hot" new authors. Most of the writers I read are dead and most of the books I'm really curious about have been around for decades. Even then, it takes me years of seeing them around before I actually get to them. So imagine how long it would take your average "newborn" book. =P

What I love about the Bargain Book Bonanza meme is that we're encouraged to share "old" bargains as well as "new" ones. And that's only appropriate when you remember that most books that are available at a bargain are "old"!

For this week's BBB, I present my small collection of "old" books by a certain dead author . . .

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2011-05-09T23:52:00.004+08:00

+JMJ+

Twelve Things about Scream 4

12. I was very nervous going into the cinema. A friend of mine likes to argue that there is no way the fourth movie in any franchise is going to be good. The first movie is always the best, he says; the second can live up to it, and on rare occasions be even better; the third won't be able to do either; and the fourth will simply suck.

And now that I have seen Scream 4, I want to ring him up and say that he has officially been pwned! For this is one of the best, most intelligent Horror movies I have ever seen. Thank you, Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

11. It might be a bad idea to start the Twelve Things with the most important Thing, but my decision to do so anyway shows you how inspired I was by this movie's superlative opening sequence. It doesn't quite top the classic "purity" of its counterpart from the first film; but it is head and shoulders above that of the third and went where the second never dared to step. The suspense coefficient was off the charts, but even then, I didn't see the real genius of it until I was trying to explain it to someone else, and found myself saying:

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