Day: September 2, 2008

The Big Read: A Tale of Two Cities

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September 2, 2008

5:44 pm

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Happenings, On Writing


I have to give some respect to the French Revolution.

It was one of those portions of history that scared the crap out of me as a child. Along with the Dark Ages (seriously. The life of a serf? So not good.), the Plague, slavery / the “Reconstruction,” and the Holocaust, the French Revolution just seemed like one long, horrific nightmare from which the French, commoners and aristocrats alike, would have dearly loved to awaken.

Of course, I obsess over things that scare me. I read history books and drew pictures of madam guillotine (Why is it Madame? Or the maiden?) Why is it female? I mean, is it just the whole emasculating thing?). I inhaled books about the French Revolution. I struggled through The Scarlet Pimpernel when I was eleven. (I told my parents it was nonfiction [they didn’t look too closely]) — and I read A Tale of Two Cities — in the 8th grade without having it assigned.

Yes. It was a sickness. And, as with all panicky little obsessions, eventually my French Revolution mania faded, to be replaced by something else — a 10th grade obsession with evil Mary, who was trying to kill Good Queen Bess, if I recall correctly.

Some of us took our history classes way seriously.

It’s time to read A Tale of Two Cities again. Tomorrow, the madness begins anew. A knock at the door! Stitches dropped while heads roll! Mad Frenchmen and blood in the streets!

Are you reading?

Ah, Brockman, Ah, Powells. Snarking on Midnight Sun and Scholastic. Good times.

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Michael: The Palin of Preference

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September 2, 2008

4:07 pm

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Mockery

Most days, Maureen Dowd kind of gets on my nerves. But sometimes she’s kind of funny..

This chick flick, naturally, features a wild stroke of fate, when the two-year governor of an oversized igloo becomes commander in chief after the president-elect chokes on a pretzel on day one.

The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair, taking off her glasses, slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure, and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait. Putting away her breast pump, she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it’s close to Alaska. “Back off, Commie dude,” she says. “I’m a much better shot than Cheney.”

Then she takes off in her seaplane and lands on the White House lawn, near the new ice fishing hole and hockey rink. The “First Dude,” as she calls the hunky Eskimo in the East Wing, waits on his snowmobile with the kids — Track (named after high school track meets), Bristol (after Bristol Bay where they did commercial fishing), Willow (after a community in Alaska), Piper (just a cool name) and Trig (Norse for “strength.”)

“The P.T.A. is great preparation for dealing with the K.G.B.,” President Palin murmurs to Todd, as they kiss in the final scene while she changes Trig’s diaper. “Now that Georgia’s safe, how ’bout I cook you up some caribou hot dogs and moose stew for dinner, babe?”