Old Favorites

I've recently discovered that a lot of things I liked as a kid were actually really old (to varying degrees). 

For example, in middle school, everyone had these books of silly poems. Where the Sidewalk Ends, and Falling Up were the two main ones. I liked the poems, but I never got my own copy of the books. Where the Sidewalk Ends was written in the 70's. Yet it was still really popular. (Some of the poems would be frowned on these days XD But many of them are still brilliant). 

I checked them out from the library, and I think this may be the first time I've read through all of them.

 

I also had a beautiful book of flower fairies. They were poems accompanied by amazing illustrations of different types of fairies.  A few years ago, I found a compilation of all the books. And a couple years ago, I discovered that the flower fairies were actually created in the 20's. 

And finally, as a kid my Grandparents had a beautiful picture book of the Owl and the Pussycat. I found a copy online last year for nostalgia purposes, and I still love the illustrations.

Then a few weeks ago, I discovered that the poem was originally written in the 1860's. 

It's kind of comforting to find things that are so old and still so popular.

Talking Too Much

I watched the movie Luca with my parents last week. It's my second time watching it, and I liked it a lot. 

My dad had a comment that I found curious. He said it had too much dialogue.  I've never heard anyone say that about a movie. I've also never thought that myself. I know why he said it though. He stinks at following dialogue, especially if characters have accents. And we were watching Luca without subtitles. He just had trouble following what was going on.

I wonder what other people think about the amount of dialogue.

Man, it's been so long since I found a good fantasy book that I just want to sing it to the world. (Talking about the Wax and Wayne series - I hope the last book comes out soon! )

I am very bad at holding back when I've found an amazing book or movie. But I've done a good job this time.

Kissy-face orangutan

Incomplete Soundtracks

 I have a lot of movie soundtracks. I love listening to them. But it always confuses me when the music is out of order. I guess I can see why they might separate musical numbers from background music, but sometimes even the background music is all over the place. 

And there are often songs that are missing altogether. Sigh. 

The emotions of the music follow those of the movie. They don't make much sense when the order is flip-flopped.

Handmade stuff is hard to get

There's a shop at the zoo, and someone said I should ask them about selling my plushies. So I did. He said they'd have to have boxes and boxes of inventory. Yeah, stores definitely are not possible for most individual creators. They only want factory made stuff.

 But they used to have some hand-made stuff... I dunno. 

And the stores that do sell locally made stuff often have to double the prices so they can keep their shop open. By then the products cost so much that no one wants to pay for them.

(It literally took me months to realize that I've forgotten to post more zoo photos @_@ )

So here's some Yosemite toads

Here's the close-up drawing I did of the dusk dragon's head.

 

I haven't come up with too many Fern stories recently. But the few I have had are much more detailed than usual. It doesn't feel like writing notes is enough anymore. I just wrote a really short one - about 2 pages. They write really fast, I think because I only write a Fern story if I already know exactly what's going to happen. Usually when I write something, I just fill in as I go.

Encanto

I just saw Encanto, and thought I'd discuss it for story development purposes. And music purposes. Some of those songs are super catchy.

First of all, I enjoyed it. I've only seen the movie once, so this is just my first impression (Though I have heard the songs multiple times).

 

You don't get very far before you see the cracks in the family. The first sign is right after the first song, where Mirabel's cousin says (callously) that Mirabel didn't get a gift. Her family doesn't try to cover for her or anything. She's just excluded, which becomes more and more obvious. But then you start to notice the stress around other characters. For example, the phrase "golden child" always makes me cringe because it makes it seem that the other kids are worthless. And as we see here, it puts excessive pressure on that "golden child." I was glad that the cracks in the family ended up being vital to the story, because they were worrying from the beginning. 

That song "We Don't Talk about Bruno" is kinda ridiculous, but I love it. I've listened to it a bunch of times. The beat is so catchy and I want to dance to it. Plus I'm such a sucker for songs that overlap multiple character melodies all at once.  The only other song I know that does it so well is "One Day More" from Les Miserables. 

I love the uncle's animation at the beginning of the song. And the fact that he tells his wife that he's going to stop adding commentary, and then he keeps doing it anyway. Man, everyone's so mean to Bruno. Poor dude. And the shapeshifting cousin says "he fasts on your screams." That's pretty intense. Then again, maybe he's just trying to scare Mirabel. He does seem pretty mischievous. (Despite how much people seem to dislike Bruno, his family is so happy to have him back).

I didn't realize they were setting Bruno up to be the villain. But that's probably because I saw something before I watched the movie, and it was comparing Bruno and Hector (they have very similar fates. And there are even controlling grandmas). So I subconsciously knew he wouldn't be a bad guy. 

During the song "Surface Pressure" I recognized the style of music and realized who the writer was. It's a good song. But a lot of the song visuals in this movie were kinda strange. My friend said they were overwhelming, which makes sense (Even Mirabel's outfit is kind of "busy"). Most of the songs have symbolic images going with them, but they kinda go over the top. Especially Surface Pressure. 

Not long ago, there was a song with a herd of singing reindeer. Now it's dancing burros. 

I liked "What Else Can I Do." There are some amazing lines about plants - a hurricane of jacarandas, a river of sundew. But why did the flowers start spewing out multi-colored dust? Is it supposed to be rainbow pollen? Mirabel doesn't get any on her - just Isabella.

One of my main complaints about the movie was that there were too many characters. It's really hard to pull off a kid's movie with a ton of characters. The movies just aren't that long, but it can be done. It might have worked better if most of the characters didn't also have powers that you were supposed to remember through the course of the movie. They even make fun of this at the beginning of the movie, saying how many kids are in the house, and how impossible it is to keep track of all the powers. Most of the family members have some kind of role. The two sisters definitely. The shapeshifting cousin didn't really do anything important though. And the youngest cousin was important, because he showed that the kids in the family were still getting magic - it underlines that only Mirabel's left out. But once he got his powers, he pretty much vanished from the scene. (I wanted to see more of him with the animals! Plus he'd been so close with Mirabel before)  I love the designs of the three cousins though. They're all so cute.

I watched a couple interviews from the movie creators. They said that Disney had never done an extended family before. But what about Coco? Were they not counting Pixar movies? The extended family in Coco worked better partially because most of the family acted as a single unit through the movie. They also didn't have individual powers you needed to remember. But also in Coco, they singled out a few family members who had larger roles. In Encanto, there was Mirabel, and then most of the rest of the family had equally important roles (Mirabel's parents had almost no role - it was a long time before I remembered who they even were).

Also the backstory kinda left me scratching my head. So, Abuela was granted a miracle to save her and her family. The miracle created a new, safe place for them to live. Okay, that makes sense. It also made them a magical house that was actually alive. And it also gave all of the kids (almost all of the kids) magic powers as they grew older. That's a really elaborate miracle. 

I still don't understand why Mirabel didn't get a gift. Something to do with saving the house, but why?

 Well, maybe things will make more sense when I see the movie again. 

I liked that by the end they realized they didn't need a magic house or powers to be a happy family. Though they got them back anyway, because it's Disney.

Reading Update

 Deep Creek: Finding hope in the high country, Houston

A sort of memoir about a writer who bought a beautiful ranch. There was a section about how horrible forest fires leveled everything around her. By some miracle they missed the main part of her ranch. I've been evacuated from a fire before, so that part kept me on the edge of my seat.

Never Cry Wolf, Mowat

 The account of one of the first people to go into the wild to study wolves. At that point, society's view was that wolves killed everything they saw, and the world would be better off without them. But this guy realized that wasn't true at all. It was the human hunters that were killing everything. He learned a lot from a couple Inuit friends, and he has some pretty entertaining parts of his story. Unlike other books I've read about studying animals, this one reads more like a story than a report. 

Beauty and the Beast, Villeneuve

This is the original version of Beauty and the Beast from the 1800's. The first half of the story is pretty much what you'd expect it to be. But then it goes on. It tells the whole story of how the prince became a beast. He was targeted by a mean fairy, who said he could only break the curse if a woman fell in love with him, and he could never be nice to her. A nice fairy found the beauty who would be able to fall in love with him despite those conditions. 

 

The Hero and the Crown, McKinley

A rare fantasy that I enjoyed. I've liked both books I've read by this author, so I'll look for some more. Though the way she writes her final battles is kinda strange. There's always these strange magical factors that make things confusing and hard to follow.

The Color of Magic, Pratchett

This read more like a gag manga than anything @_@ But it looks like it was his first book. I'll keep going, because I hear about this author all the time, and I've only read a few of his books.

Voyage of the Turtle, Safina

This guy has some really good animal books. This one was about leatherback turtles, and oceans. As always, he has some fascinating stuff.  

 

Mistborn, Sanderson

Yeah, I already wrote an entire post about these books.

Unbroken, Hillenbrand

This is the author that wrote Seabiscuit, which was an incredible story with amazing research. So I thought I'd try her other book. Whooo, this was super heavy. A true story about an Olympic athlete that ended up in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in WWII. Once again, amazingly researched. But certainly not for the faint of heart. Still, it's important to know history. At least it has a happy ending for him.

A Sand County Almanac, Leopold

This book really made me want to get outside. And it also really made me want to write about nature.  And I'm sure his goal was to drive you outside, so he succeeded well.

Rooftoppers, Rundell

I feel like this book ended before it was actually over. It stopped right in the middle of what should have been the climax, and left a lot of unanswered questions. 

The Wolverine Way, Chadwick

Okay, usually these books about studying animals are kind of bland. But this one was entertaining! I loved wolverines before (we have the most charming wolverine at our zoo. He may be an old man, but he'll still say hi to people, and do somersaults when he gets excited), but this book made me love theme even more. 

The Line Between, Beagle

A book of short stories by the author of The Last Unicorn.  This actually had a short story that takes place after the book. Man, that was like going back and seeing old friends. It made me super nostalgic. 

 

Becoming Wild, Safina

Another great book on animal behavior. This one looked at macaws, chimps, and whales. All super smart, amazing creatures. 

Mama's Last Hug, de Waal

More animal behavior! It had good info - angles I hadn't thought of much before. 

Nemesis, Asimov

Finally a book from him that actually kind of respected women XD

Sour Puss, Brown

Another of the Mrs. Murphy mysteries. Someone actually gave me some of these books many years ago. I ended up starting with this one, so maybe they gave me books that were out of order. I was totally lost, because I didn't know any of the characters that had been introduced in previous books. Well, there's a reason I like to read books in order XD It was much better reading it now, when I actually understand what's happening.

Plant Rescue

I recently went to a plant nursery. There was a little table set up behind a pillar. It was for discount "rescue plants." They were maybe a bit wilted, or with a few crispy leaves. But with a bit of love, they'd be fine. 

I bought two. I would have bought them all if I could, because I'm a sucker @_@ 

I love this idea. Don't throw live plants away! They're still perfectly good. I wish all nurseries had a rescue table.