Tag Archives: writing

Oct 22 2014
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Horror

Magic – The Movie, the Novel, and Creepy Killer Dolls in Fiction/Films

Happy Tuesday, Bookshelf Battlers!

This post is a tough one for me because in honor of this site’s month-long celebration of Halloween Horror Fiction, I’m tackling a subject that gives me the heebiest of jeebies – creepy killer dolls.

Earlier this month, I went to my local theater a bit late hoping to catch Gone Girl.  Alas, it was all sold out.  Being already there and not wanting to waste the evening, I saw *Gasp* Annabelle instead.  I did not want to.  Why?

Because I really hate friggin’ creepy killer doll movies.

There I said it.  Don’t judge me.  You know you hate them too.  You know you watch one of those movies and for at least a week later, no matter how educated and worldly you might be, you look at every doll you pass by as if it is harboring secret evil desires.

Annabelle turned out to be a decent movie but the subject still freaks me out.  Don’t even get me started on Chucky from Child’s Play.

Oddly though, like watching a car wreck, I inevitably end up watching these movies and today I’m here to tell you about a rather spooktacular one from long ago.

The novel?  Magic by William Goldman.  If you’ve never heard of him, many of his novels have been turned into films.  He wrote The Marathon Man in which an evil Nazi dentist violently tortures a man while uttering the iconic line, “Is it safe?”  Yet, surprisingly he also is the author of the much beloved and adored fantasy tale, The Princess Bride.  He is an example of an author who managed to move amongst different genres and do so effectively.

Yet, the man who gave us Inigo Montoya also gave the world a Chucky precursor known as “Fats” – a rude and obnoxious ventriloquist dummy.

Here’s the plot:

Believe it or not, but in the 1978, venerable Sir Anthony Hopkins, a virtual Sir Laurence Olivier, arguably one of the most accomplished thespians of our day, appeared in this wacky movie sporting a bowl cut.  Hopkins played Corky, a down and out magician.  Corky revitalizes his act by adding Fats to it, and the duo are a it.  His agent, Ben Greene, played by Burgess Meredith (you may know him as the Penguin from the 1960’s campy version of Batman) is prepared to take Corky to big time celebrity status.  But the idea of being in the spotlight frightens Corky, so he retreats to his childhood home town.

There, he is reunited with his former girlfriend, Donna played by Ann-Margaret.  She’s with Duke, who treats her terribly.  Fats, who is basically a result of Corky’s split personality run amuck, gets jealous and starts ordering Corky to kill people he feels threatened by.  That’s about it.

Here’s a creepy clip.  Don’t watch it if you a) are adverse to bad language b) are adverse to creepy killer doll movies or c) want to get to sleep tonight without having creepy killer dolls on the brain or d) are adverse to seeing a legendary actor with a bowl hair cut:

In the end, this is one of those “so bad that it’s good movies” and if you’re looking for scary movies to watch this Halloween, you can’t go wrong with this one.  Also, I mainly wanted to celebrate the author.  Some people can write about a creepy killer doll.  Some people can write about the brute squad.  Few people are able to do both effectively.

Tune in tomorrow, where I hope to have yet another spooky tribute to scary fiction.  I’m challenging myself to write one post a day until Halloween.  And as always, I’ll be tweeting away at @bookshelfbattle so feel free to follow.

In the meantime, what creepy killer doll movie and/or book creeps you out the most?  Feel free to discuss in the comments below.

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Oct 20 2014
3 Comments
Horror

A Partial List of Steven King’s Scariest Works

Needless to say, bookshelfbattle.com ‘s month long celebration of Halloweenish Literature would not be complete without adding Steven King, the Master of Modern Horror Fiction, into the mix.  In no particular order, here are five of what I believe to be the prolific author’s scariest works:

1)  The Shining – Am I wrong or can everyone agree that this is King’s central masterpiece?  The movie version, in which a stir-crazy Jack Nicholson shouts, “Here’s Johnny!” as he puts his face up to a hole in a door he just wacked open with an axe has to be one of the scariest scenes Hollywood has ever produced.  King recently came out with a sequel, Doctor Sleep.  I haven’t read it but reviews have been positive.  In conclusion – all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  Redrum!  Redrum!

2)  Misery – I put this one high up on the list for a reason.  Most of King’s works have a supernatural element.  Danny Torrance, the little boy from The Shining, for example, had special powers that saved the day when his father lost his marbles.  The plot of Misery on the other hand, has no otherworldly occurrences and though unlikely, could possibly happen.  A famous author drives has a car accident due to snowy road conditions.  “His number one fan,”  Annie the Nurse, finds him, drags him home, and nurses him back to health.  Sounds nice, right?  Wrong.  Turns out Annie’s psychotic and she holds the writer hostage, doing everything she can to keep him from leaving.  She drugs him, and at one point even hobbles him.  Forget every CGI fake special effects laden movie monster you have ever seen.  One of the scariest moments of movie history is when Kathy Bates (who plays Annie in the film version opposite James Caan who plays the writer) hobbles her “guest” by putting a wooden block between his ankles and striking his feet with a sledge hammer.  “Cock-a-doody-poopy!”

3) Carrie – Awkward girl abused by crazy mother gets made fun of one too many times.  When the cool kids dump a bucket of pigs’ blood on her at the prom, she loses all control of her eerie superpowers and unleashes them.  Yeah, I suppose everyone has experienced abuse at the hand of a bully at one point or another while growing up, but maybe Carrie could have just let them off easy and used her powers to give them all wedgies?  There have been two remakes as far as I recall but none beats the original film version starring Sissy Spacek.

4) Christine – Car gets possessed by a ghost.  Teenage car owner goes crazy.  Disturbing shenanigans ensue.  Moral of the story- always check the Carfax.

5) Cujo – Again, like Misery, I put this in King’s “scarier because it could potentially happen” column.  As scary as Christine may be, it is highly unlikely that your used car is possessed by a ghost.  It may be possessed by a million petrified french fries under the back seat, but not a malevolent spirit.  The plot of Cujo, on the other hand, is entirely possible – actually, more possible than Misery.  The whole story centers around a mechanic’s rabid dog, Cujo.  Donna Trenton and her son, Tad, go to the home of local mechanic Joe looking for some car repairs.  Cujo, once a mild-mannered St. Bernard, has developed a nasty case of rabies from a bat bite, and much to the Trentons’ chagrin, has killed Joe.  Cujo traps Donna and Tad in their car, which fails to start (it was there for repairs, after all!) and the majority of the novel centers around Donna protecting Tad while they are trapped in the car and essentially held hostage by a ravenous canine.  Say what you want, but rabid dogs do exist and to me, they’re a hundred times scarier than say, non-existent zombies that drag their feet and go, “Ergh!” and “Argh!”

Did I miss one of your favorite Steven King novels?  Feel free to post it below:

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Oct 19 2014
4 Comments
Writing

PC vs. Apple/Word vs. Pages – Which is the best for writers?

I’m a longtime PC guy thinking about switching it up to Mac.  Macs look nice and sleek but whenever I take a peak at one in the store and see all the ways its operating system is different from Windows I feel like I’m about to get dumped into the middle of downtown Mumbai without knowing anything about the local language or customs and being expected to find my way home.

On the other hand, there is something about Microsoft Word that bugs me.  It tries too hard to anticipate what it thinks I want to do that sometimes it keeps me from doing what I actually want to do.  Change a margin for effect on one paragraph on page 1 and it still wants to change it on page 50.  Do a numbered list and it tries to do a number list everytime you subsequently write a number.  Can Pages be any better?  But – doesn’t most of the civilized world already use Word and therefore my writing most be Word formatted to receive any kind of consideration?

THE QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Is an Apple or a PC a better computer for writers (and also -Word or Pages – which is better for writing?)

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Oct 18 2014
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Horror

Public Domain Horror Fiction – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Calm and content one moment, a ball of rage the next – hasn’t everyone felt this way at one time or another?  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is a tale of conflicting emotions run amock.  It’s a story of how anger can boil under the surface of any otherwise seemingly reasonable man.

Not only that, but it is totally the precursor to The Incredible Hulk.

Enjoy this version brought to you by Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42

“With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.” – Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Bookshelf Battlers, thank you for joining in the discussion.  The Public Domain Horror Fiction posts have really started a nice surge of viewer stats, so please feel free to share with friends.  And don’t forget my twitter hashtag – #tweettheraven where I’ll be posting Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven all month.  Follow @bookshelfbattle for more booktastic news.

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Oct 17 2014
2 Comments
Horror

Public Domain Horror Fiction – Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Green face.  Bolts in the neck.  Lumbering walk.  Says, “Grr!  Arrgh!” all the time.  No wonder that Frankenstein monsters did not take pop culture by storm in the way that vampires did.  While there are umpteen million stories about a heroine who must choose between a vampire or a werewolf, you’ll never see one where she has to choose between a vampire or a Frankenstein monster.

Still, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is an epic tale of a) man’s desire to cheat death b) man’s awareness of his own mortality c) man’s futile attempts to control nature through science and well, if you learned any other lessons from reading it, feel free to post them below.

Published in 1818, Mary Shelley’s copyright over this work isn’t coming back to life, even if you strap it to a table and wait for a lightning bolt to zap it.  Thank you Mary for writing a work that has withstood the test of time.

And thank you Project Gutenberg for preserving it:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41445

“How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.”

– Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

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Aug 31 2014
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Monthly Wrap-Ups 2014, TV About Books

Previously on Bookshelf Battle…August 2014 Wrap Up

In honor of the end of the True Blood HBO Series (based on the Sookie Stackhouse Novels by Charlaine Harris):

BILL and SOOKIE sit at a booth at Merlotte’s.

BILL:  Soo-keh.  Soo-keh.  Listen to how I pronounce your name prominently in the manner of a Southern gentleman.

SOOKIE:  That don’t mean no thang Bill.  I still ‘aint decided whether I love you or Eric or Alcide.  Actually, I sure ‘nuf reckon I don’t like Alcide even though he’s the only one of y’all that ‘aint tryin to eat me for breakfast.

LAFAYETTE strolls over from the kitchen.

LAFAYETTE:  Mmm mmm, Sookie Stackhouse you look prettier than a basket of buttered biscuits.  Girl, have you been readin’ that Bookshelfbattle.com?  Can you believe that tired old has been ‘aint even written one book review this month?

SOOKIE:  That’s ok Lafayette.  He still tries his best.  And he’s a proponent of literature.  Didn’t you read his <a href=“https://bookshelfbattle.com/2014/08/03/the-poets-battle-the-road-not-taken-robert-frost/”> post about the Road Not Taken by Robert Frost?</a>

LAFAYETTE:  Hooker, please.  You know I don’t look this fabulous by sittin’ around readin’ blog posts about philosophical poetry.

LAFAYETTE snaps his fingers and walks off.  SAM walks over.

SAM:  Hi Sook.  Bill.

SOOKIE READS SAM’S MIND AS THE “SOOKIE READS A MIND MUSIC” PLAYS

SAM’S THOUGHTS:  Geez, I hope Sookie doesn’t realize that I add absolutely nothing to the plot and just serve as yet another man who is in love with her but she refuses to love because she’s only into dudes that keep putting her into danger or try to eat her for breakfast for some strange reason.

SAM hands them some menus and exits.

MEANWHILE AT JASON’S HOUSE

JASON and JESSICA are under the covers, talking.

JASON:  We ‘aint bad people for cheatin behind Hoyt’s back are we?  What with me bein’ his best friend and you bein’ his girlfriend and all?  Tarnation, I sure do sound like I’m from the South, y’all.

JESSICA:  I think it’s ok.  Hoyt’s like an ancillary character at best.

JASON:  Alright then.  Hush puppies and crawdaddies, I sure do sound like I’m from the South, even though I’m an Australian.

JESSICA:  I still feel bad about it though.  Our affair is as sordid and scandalous as <a href=“https://bookshelfbattle.com/2014/08/09/james-patterson-weighs-in-on-amazon-vs-hachette-battle/&#8221;>the ongoing dispute between Amazon and Hachette.</a>

JASON:  Boy howdy, you really crowbarred that one in, didn’t ya’?

AT FANGTASIA

PAM:  The other day I clicked on bookshelfbattle.com  – He’s supposed to be reviewing books but instead he’s blabbing on and on like an idiot about  The Simpsons.  Like anyone cares to read about  <a href=“https://bookshelfbattle.com/2014/08/24/lyrics-to-tito-puentes-senor-burns/&#8221;>Tito Puente’s Senor Burns Song.</a>

ERIC:  Hi!  I’m Eric Northman!  You might remember me from such historical events as the Vikings’ Dominion over Scandanavia and that time Godrick and I were Nazi werewolf hunters!

PAM:  My God.  You’re not watching that damn Every Simpsons Ever Marathon on FXX are you?

ERIC:  I am!  How the hell else do you expect anyone to find out what channel FXX is on before the Fall shows come rolling in?

PAM:  And I suppose you wasted your time reading that post about <a href=“https://bookshelfbattle.com/2014/08/23/hi-im-troy-mcclure/&#8221;>Troy McClure’s filmography?</a>

ERIC:  I did!  And it was delightful!

GINGER walks in.

GINGER:  I think Bookshelfbattle.com sucks.

ERIC stares deeply into her eyes.  The “Someone is Getting Glamored” Music Plays

ERIC:  You do NOT think that bookshelfbattle.com sucks.

GINGER:  I do NOT think that bookshelfbattle.com sucks.

ERIC:  You think it is the best contribution to the literary world ever made.

GINGER:  I do.  The author of bookshelfbattle.com makes Shakespeare look like a pile of crap.

ERIC:  Well, let’s not get carried away here.

AT THE POLICE STATION

ANDY:  Damn it, Holly!  This show has more plot holes than a piece of swiss cheese!

HOLLY:  Now Andy Bellefleur don’t you go gettin’ on the writers’ cases again.  You know they try their best!

ANDY:  How come when some people drink V they act like they go on a big time drug hallucination trip and other times, when people are hurt, they drink it and they don’t trip at all?

HOLLY:  I don’t know.  I guess if you drink vampire blood when you’re hurt then you don’t trip?

ANDY:  Ridiculous.  And that time I pulled that car over and those people were in the back with Sam and I opened the back door and it was Sam shape-shifted into an alligator?  Where’d the other people go?  Sam eat them or something?

HOLLY:  I don’t know.

ANDY:  And all the vampires ever do is try to eat people and then complain about how vampire/human relations will never progress until humans trust them.  How the hell are humans going to trust them when vampires are trying to eat them all the time?

HOLLY:  I suppose it doesn’t make sense.

ANDY:  And Stackhouse joins the force and is instantly my second in command?  Are there no other cops that I can work with?

HOLLY:  I guess sometimes the show gets silly.

ANDY:  And Sam turns into a bug and flies into that lady’s mouth and exploded her from the inside out.  Gratuitous violence if you ask me!

HOLLY:  Yeah, and I suppose that time Bill turned that vampire woman’s head around backwards so he didn’t have to look at her face while they had relations got HBO a few irate phone calls.

ANDY:  And Jessica ate like four of my faerie daughters and then I forgive her five minutes later!

HOLLY:  It’s best not to try to make sense of it.  Just go with the flow.

BACK AT MERLOTTE’S

SOOKIE AND BILL still at the booth.

BILL:  So, you see, Soo-keh, I was assigned to spy on and capture you by the Vampire Queen.

SOOKIE:  So you didn’t love me?

BILL:  Not at first, but then I loved you later.

SOOKIE:  Why did the Queen want me?

BILL:  For your delicious faerie blood – which is what attracted me to you.

SOOKIE:  So you don’t love me?  You just love me for my faerie blood?

BILL:  No, I love you.  Can I have some faerie blood?

SOOKIE:  This is all so gosh darn confusin.’

ANDYand Holly walk in.

ANDY:  Tell me about it.

JESSICA AND JASON walk in.

JASON:  Ok!  So I had sex with 90 waitresses!  They meant nothing to me!  I can’t help it!  I got like a disease or somethin’!

JESSICA:  I don’t give a rat’s ass, Jason!  And to find out about that expression and others, read about the bookshelfbattle.com <a href=“https://bookshelfbattle.com/2014/08/22/the-writers-battle-expressions/&#8221;>Expression Challenge!</a>

ANDY:  Please, the bookshelfbattle.com expression challenge was dumber than a box of rocks.

SOOKIE:  That’s true.  That challenge did not cut the mustard.

SAM looks up from the bar.

SAM:  Expression challenge?  Sounds like the best idea since sliced bread…

ANDY:  Enough!

GHOST TARA materializes.

GHOST TARA:  Well, well, well, ‘aint this some shit!  I been nice and friendly to all you white folk for six seasons and what do you do?  Kill me off in the first episode of Season 7 without even showing it!  Shit, before the credits even roll!

ANDY:  Yeah!  That was stupid!  And you know what else is stupid about this show…

LETTIE MAY bursts in.

LETTIE MAY:  My baby Tara!  My baby Tara!  She tryin’ to speak to me!

GHOST TARA:  I’m right here, Mama.

LETTIE MAY:  I can’t hear you, Tara!  I’m tryin’ to find Tara!  Oh, someone give me some drugs!  I need lots of drugs to communicate with Tara!

GHOST TARA:  Right here, Mom.  You don’t need drugs.

LETTIE MAY:  Girl, don’t sass me.  If I say I need drugs to talk to you then I need drugs to talk to you.

LAFAYETTE saunters into the room.  He looks at GHOST TARA and raises the palm of his hand in a “TALK TO THE HAND” Gesture.

LAFAYETTE:  Hooker, please.  Don’t even come in here with your tired Scooby Doo lookin’ ass tryin’ to haunt all the white folk.  Auntie, let’s get you home.

LAFAYETTE turns to SOOKIE.

LAFAYETTE:  And you!  Ungrateful hooker!  Seven seasons I been holdin’ your hand through all the dark times and you don’t let me say one of my sassy catch phrases in the finale!  (He bobs his head around in a circle and snaps his fingers)  For shame, Sookie Stackhouse!  For shame!

LAFAYETTE storms off.

ANDY:  And no one finds it on that Tara, a main character, croaks and no one takes a minute to feel sad about it?

HOLLY:  Shut up, Andy.

JASON:  Oh my God!  Y’all look out the window!  It’s fifty Hep V vampires comin’ to kill us!

SOOKIE:  There’s too many of them!  What are we gonna’ do?!

A black hole opens in the middle of the room.  Three high school students and a wimpy British man walk through it.

BUFFY:  Xander!

XANDER:  I know, I know.  I’ll stay here while you and Willow go kick butt because my only special power is sarcasm.

BUFFY and WILLOW walk out the door.  BUFFY stakes half the vampires.  WILLOW casts a spell that blows up the other half with lightning bolts.

They return.  The group mingles and talks for five minutes.

BY THE POOL TABLE:

GILES:  Your faces don’t turn bumpy?

BILL:  Nah, HBO couldn’t afford it.

IN A BOOTH:

SOOKIE:  So Bill’s all gentlemanly when he tries to eat me.  And Eric is all like “I’m a bad ass that doesn’t care about anything” when he tries to eat me.  They both want to eat me but I love them anyway.  I can’t figure out which one I love more.

BUFFY:  I know.  And Angel killed half of Europe hundreds of years ago but he’s all sweet and sensitive now that he got his soul back.  And Spike killed the other half of olden times Europe but, well, he’s trying to be nicer.  They’re both so cute.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BAR:

SAM:  I love Sookie and I don’t try to eat her but she won’t give me the time of day.  And Alcide loved Sookie and he didn’t try to eat her but she didn’t love him either!  It sucks to love a woman that rejects you for vampires who just want to eat her.

XANDER:  Tell me about it.

 

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Aug 31 2014
1 Comment
Books

Labor Day Reads

We here at the Bookshelf Battle Institute for Excellence in Learning How to Read English Good believe that you should spend this Labor Day Weekend basking in those last few precious moments of sun before the Fall rolls around and Mother Nature makes you get out your sweaters and jackets again.  Save the reading for when the snow is piled up ten feet outside your window this Winter.

But – supposedly this is a holiday dedicated to celebrating those who labor, and has nothing to do with getting in one last day off before the weather goes South, so here are, in no particular order, some books to read if you want to learn more about the plight of the downtrodden working man:

1)  Hard Times by Charles Dickens – Oppression of the masses!  Factory workers in love!  The rich get richer!  The poor get poorer!  Workers get covered with soot and talk in cockney accents!  That’s pretty much every Charles Dickens’ novel ever written  but the plight of the poor is especially prevalent in this one.  Arguably, it’s not Dickens’ most memorable work, nor is it his best, but it’s a good piece of literature and, well – I don’t know if you need to give a SPOILER WARNING for a book that was printed in the 1800’s (I mean really, you had your chance to read it already, sheesh!) but suffice to say, Mr. Gradgrind forces all of the wit, whimsy, and dreams out of his kids, forcing them to focus on the practical.  “Stop dreaming and start making some money!” is pretty much the speech that every parent gives to a youngster sooner or later.  And it’s not necessarily bad advice (dreams are great, but paying your bills and being able to eat is good too) but Gradgrind goes a bit overboard and his son ends up a loser while his daughter ends up married to an old man twice her age.  In short, try to find a decent living and keep your dreams intact at the same time.

2) Of Mice and Men – Many of John Steinbeck’s novels are about the plight of the working man.  In this one, George and Lenny are migrant farm hands in California.  They move from farm to farm, the bumbling, dim-witted Lenny usually makes some mistake that enrages the local farm folk, forcing them to pack up and wander off to in search of a new gig.  They make it to another farm where they meet an old man and together, the three of them cook up a dream to save up their money and buy a small patch of land which would allow them to become their own bosses.  It almost pans out until – well, hey listen I’ll let you read it but take a note ladies, don’t allow enormous, musclebound dummies who don’t know their own strength to stroke your hair.  Really, it’s just common sense.

3)  Les Miserables – Victor Hugo’s epic novel turned Broadway Musical turned movie tells the tale of Jean Valjean, who stole a loaf of bread, did hard time for it, and had to take on a new identity just to get away from the shame of it.  He prospers as a town Mayor and factory owner, but when Fantine is forced out of her job at his factory due to gossiping old biddies, he goes on a quest to save her daughter, Cosette and is always just moments away from being nabbed by the obsessed Police Inspector Javert.

Surely you’ve all heard this little diddy:

THE CONFRONTATION LYRICS – LES MISERABLES

JAVERT:

Valjean, at last!  We see each other plain.  Monsieur le Mayor.  You’ll wear a different chain!

VALJEAN:

Before you say another word, Javert!  Before you chain me up like a slave again!  Listen to me!  There is something I must do.  This woman leaves behind a suffering child.  There is none but me who can intercede.  In Mercy’s name three days are all I need.  Then I’ll return.  I pledge my word.  Then I’ll return…

JAVERT:

You must think me mad! I’ve hunted you across the years!  Men like you can never change.  A man…such as you!

It’s funny, people get mad when Valjean doesn’t give Javert the three days, but when you think about it, a police offer can’t really be all like, “Oh sure man, no problem, take all the time you need and I’ll just arrest you whenever it’s convenient for you.”

4) Death of a Salesman – Depressed and old and little to show for a life of being a salesman, Willy Loman commits suicide.  Maybe don’t read this one actually, it’ll just bring you down.  Your high school English teacher probably made you read it anyway.

So, let’s recap:  We have four novels dedicated to the downtrodden working poor and they’re all about the characters either killing themselves, killing each other, or otherwise dying miserably.  Apparently there are no novels where someone just gets a job and enjoys punching a time card everyday.  Kind of sad really.  Work=death according to the most popular books about the lower class.  How about a  book just about the Labor Day holiday itself?

 

5) Labor Day – Joyce Maynard’s novel turned movie about a depressed mother and her awkward son.  They’re taken hostage by an escaped convict.  Wrongfully accused, they rally around the man and almost run away with him until the police catch on and haul him back to the slammer for a long, long time.

 

OK I give up.  It looks like there are no happy, uplifting books about the subject of labor or Labor Day itself.  This list was a total waste!  Have a nice weekend anyway, I’m off to go grill some burgers.

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Aug 29 2014
2 Comments
Books

1,000 Twitter Followers in Three Months!

How diddly doodly blogarinos!  (Sorry, been watching a lot of the Every Simpsons Ever Marathon).

Forgive a bit of shameless self-promotion here.

Something awesome happened tonight – my Twitter feed reached 1,000 followers.  Since I only started blogging/tweeting in earnest in June, I’d say that’s pretty fantastic.

Can we make it to 2,500 by Christmas?  Then there would be even more people following the booktastic goodness.

If you’re on Twitter, feel free to follow me @bookshelfbattle

It’s been a great ride so far – tossing in books, literature, writing, and pop culture into one giant blender and pressing puree!

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Aug 27 2014
2 Comments
Writing

Writer’s Battle – More Expressions

HAPPY AS A CLAM – – Really? I have found every clam I have ever met to be downright morose.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE – This means “to be in a difficult situation with no visibly correct answer.” To be more accurate, the expression should be, “Stuck between a rolling boulder and a hard place.” Because really, if the rock is already there and the hard place is right next to it, and there’s enough room between them, and assuming the rock is immobile and the hard place aka a wall isn’t going anywhere, then you should be able to walk between the two with great ease. Just be careful to not end up like that guy from that movie that had to cut his arm off after a rock fell on it.

TAKE IT WITH A GRAIN OF SALT – I had dinner once with a newcomer to the country and used this phrase. He thought I was trying to tell him to put salt on his food. I had to explain that it was an expression that meant “to be skeptical of a statement that has been told to you.” I assume the connotation is that if you have a piece of steak on your fork, it might look deceptively tasty, but you might want to put some salt on it just in case. Of course, this expression was invented before people realized too much salt is bad for you.

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER ON THE OTHER SIDE – In other words, people always assume that others have it better than they do. You think your grass stinks but your neighbor’s grass looks all lush and green. It could be you are paranoid because at the end of the day, grass is grass. Or, it could be you are absolutely right and your neighbor is an expert gardner, astute in the art of watering, mowing, and fertilizing grass to give it that beautiful emerald glow whereas your grass looks like a dried up hay field. There are sometimes when the grass is actually greener but rather than hate on a person with greener grass, you should try to learn from him.

YOU CAN’T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO – Wrong. I have literally been the rightful owner of every piece of cake I have ever eaten. I go to a party. The host hands me a piece of cake. The host has transferred ownership of the piece of cake to me. I now have it. And now I eat it. Mindblown.

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Aug 26 2014
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Writing

The Writer’s Battle – Expression Challenge Continued

Just a few more, in no random order:

LIKE WATER OFF A DUCK’S BACK – Has anyone ever poured water on a duck to test this? Last I noticed, ducks still get wet. I’m not aware that ducks have a teflon coating.

I DON’T GIVE A RAT’S ASS – Well, if the point is to convey you don’t care, then I suppose this would qualify. By saying this, you’re actually saying that you don’t care enough about something to even give the butt of a verminous rodent for it. Even so, I’m trying think when in our history were rat butts ever considered a form of currency.

IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE – Please, like rocket science is that hard. If you had a degree in rocket scientology, you could build those things all the time.

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT – People usually say this right before they say something disrespectful. “With all due respect sir, you smell like the business end of an elephant on a hot August day.”

YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU – Used to convey the message to people they should spend their money now because they can’t spend it when they’re gone, i.e. “you can’t take it with you.” Although, that’s not really accurate because Egyptian Pharaohs took their stuff with them all the time.

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