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I’ve decided to start up a little game for anyone who’s interested. As you may or may not know, I’m in the revision stage of my novel. I’ve already used up two red pens. I thought that it might be fun to post one interesting, odd, or intriguing sentence from the novel every day(ish) on my twitter account, as I’m trudging through. See if you can figure out what’s going on. I’ll post the first one here and on twitter. Follow me on twitter to see more and to play along. Here goes:
“He was prepared for the question, but he didn’t want to answer it just yet.”
Another design from BLAZONED:
The Raven
In Western culture, ravens, because of their black feathers, rasping call, and tendency to eat carrion, have always been harbingers of doom. Yet, ravens are extremely smart. They can be taught to speak. They learn through trial-and-error. They have been observed to play and even mourn for their dead. These behaviors have also made ravens a symbol of wisdom, as evidenced by the Norse god Odin’s two ravens who fly around the world every day and tell him of everything.
Edgar Allan Poe used the raven’s reputation to his advantage in The Raven, his poem about lost love and longing.
Filed under: Random | Tags: advertising, humor, mannequins, Old Navy, Random, Twilight Zone
Always. There are no exceptions. How the marketing execs at Old Navy missed that memo is completely beyond me. Seriously. There was a Twilight Zone episode. It had Anne Francis in it and everything.
And to make matters worse, they put mannequins in the stores that look like the ones in the commercials. Really? How is that a good idea? I won’t set foot in an Old Navy until they’re removed. Shopping there is stressful enough without having to constantly look over my shoulder for fear a demonic talking mannequin is going to bludgeon me to death with its own disarticulated arm. I just don’t need that right now.
Filed under: Random | Tags: comic books, Dana Point, Green Lantern, Random, superhero
Okay so not really. This is a picture of a street sign in Dana Point, CA. If you don’t believe me, you can see the street on Google. The headland is named after Richard Henry Dana, Jr., who spent time in the area and wrote Two Years Before the Mast, a memoir of his time as a sailor in the early 1800s. Consequently, when the area was developed in the 1920s, they named the streets after the colored lanterns sailors used to signal one another.
Although the hometown of Hal Jordan, the second Green Lantern, is Coast City, which is supposedly somewhere in California.
Getting this picture has been a goal of mine for a while. The only thing that would make it more awesome would be a traffic signal with a Green Arrow.
Filed under: Reading | Tags: Booking Through Thursday, books, memes, movies, Reading
What book do you think should be made into a movie? And do you have any suggestions for the producers?
I have a list, actually. I’m a very visual thinker, so I’m always thinking about how a particular scene might be filmed. I do the same thing when I’m writing, too. I find that it’s a really good trick when I’m stuck. So here goes:
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. I love these books. They’re such fun to read. Currently, there are nine in the series, with a tenth one coming out soon. The author, Alexander McCall Smith, spent a lot of time in Botswana, where the books are set, and his descriptions of the landscape and the people are so rich an vivid that you can just see the sun setting over the Kalahari. It’s almost as if Botswana were another character. So I was very excited to hear that HBO and the BBC actually have made a limited series out of the books. It starts airing in the U.S. on March 23.
The Historian. Obviously, I’m a sucker (no pun intended) for Gothic horror. I had to actually stop reading The Historian after dark. It creeped me out that much. I would love Elizabeth Kostova’s atmospherics to be transferred to the big screen. Supposedly, the film rights to the book have been picked up, but as often happens, things are mired in development.
The Janissary Tree. Actually, any of Jason Goodwin’s three detective novels, The Janissary Tree, The Snake Stone, and The Bellini Card would be fun movies. Goodwin does not write traditional mysteries in that his setting is 19th-century Istanbul, and his detective Yashim is, well…a eunuch. Goodwin is a historian of the Ottoman Empire, and he personally knows every square inch of Istanbul. His books are packed with beautiful descriptions of the city, and again it’s almost as if the city itself were another character. Also, none of the books lack for action as Yashim is alternately chased by and chases various suspects through the city. The one problem is that the setting may be a little too exotic for Hollywood.
The Arabesk Trilogy. This series of novels, Pashazade, Effendi, and Felaheen, by British writer Jon Courtenay Grimwood, are set in an alternate history where the United States brokered an early end to World War I. Set in a 21st century where the Ottoman Empire rules most of North Africa and France and Germany still have emperors, the novels center around genetically enhanced but mentally unstable Raf and his adventures in Alexandria, Egypt, known in the novels as El Iskandriyah. Once more, its the descriptions of the setting that make these novels stand out. The one issue, which could be a problem or an advantage, is that Grimwood is a little postmodern in his leanings, and much of the plot is told out-of-sequence.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. This book is just brilliant fantasy. Susanna Clark’s conception of how magic works is inherently visual. Much of the magic in the book surrounds the use of mirrors, for example. Also, I would love to see the tall-ships made out of rain used by the British to trick the French and blockade their ports during part of the Napoleonic Wars. The problem here is the length of the book. My edition is 782 pages long. Again, here the film rights have been purchased by New Line Cinemas, but my advice is this: Under no circumstances should anyone who is not a loyal subject of Her Majesty the Queen be involved in this project. There is something so inherently British about the book that only a Brit could do it justice.
Are you listening, Hollywood?
Filed under: Graphics | Tags: BLAZONED, Celtic, Gaelic, harp, Ireland, Irish
In honor of St Patty’s day coming up, an Irish Harp from BLAZONED:
Irish Harp
Throughout the Middle Ages, the harp was the most popular instrument in Ireland, and the Irish harp, or Cláirseach, has been a symbol of Ireland since the thirteenth century. Primarily, in Celtic society, the harp was used to accompany bardic poetry. Today, the harp is still on the coat of arms of Ireland.
The words in the design are from the Gaelic song “Mo ghile mear,” which is usually translated as “My dashing darling,” or “My shining love.” The full version in both Gaelic and English can be seen here.
