It's Monday, What are you Reading?

This is my first time participating in Sheila @ Book Journey's Monday meme: What are you reading?  And mapped out my week as a reader.

Plans this week is to read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen in honor NaNoWriMo.  I bought this book years ago and didn't read it because something scared me off from it.  This is one of the first non-library books I've allowed myself to read in...years really.

Also, I'm going to finish the children's non-fiction book: "The Great and Only Barnum" by Candace Fleming and Ray Fenwick.

Obviously I have Circuses on the brain.

I'm listening to "Alice I have Been" by Melanie Benjamin, whom I've actually chatted with through #litchat and found to be lovely.  Nothing is wrong with the book but I have been having trouble turning on the CD player to listen to it, which is never a good sign.

What are you reading this week?

Bruce Campbell Week Part Three: Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way

Shhh.

I'm whispering because I don't want Bruce Campbell to hear this.

Especially since we're best friends now after he retweeted my previous blog entry.  (Allow me my delusions.)

I wish I had loved: Make Love!*  *the Bruce Campbell Way.

But I didn't.

It's all had such promise.  Bruce Campbell on the cover dressed as he was in that awesome Old Spice commercial (see below).  A comedy novel by the King of the B-list about a B-list actor trying to get off of the B-list.  I loved If Chins Could Kill.  I liked Man with the Screaming Brain.  I love Bruce Campbell. What could go wrong?

The thing about Make Love!* *the Bruce Campbell way is that while it is fictionalized, real people's names are used: Renee Zellweger, Richard Gere, Mike Nichols, Christopher Plummer.  Bruce Campbell is "himself" (one prays the real Bruce acts nothing like this).  I suppose the idea was that they're celebrities, so how do we really know if they're acting out of character right?

Well, we know they're acting out of character because no one on God's green earth talks are behaves the way that this book portrays.

I know that, as I read the book, I was supposed to shut off my brain and enjoy the zaniness.  I couldn't.  I knew too much that what I was reading was completely contrived and unfunny.  In fact, it made me cringe.  Have ever wanted to see Bruce Campbell -not a character, but the man himself- doing things so moronic that it made you embarrassed for him?  Me neither.

Someone on Amazon said it's like he wrote a fan-fic of himself and I have to agree.

I still love Bruce Campbell but when it comes to his fiction novels...his films and autobiography are very entertaining.  Leave this one lie.

Bruce Campbell Week Part Two: Man with the Screaming Brain (Comic)

Today, we discuss the great Bruce Campbell as a comic book writer.

In 1986, Bruce Campbell was a man with a dream.

His dream was to make a corny, 1950s style science fiction flick.  And in 2005, that dream became a reality.  (Yes, it took 19 years.)  Man with the Screaming Brain was born.

The Man with the Screaming Brain is talked about a little in If Chins Could Kill, though I've never been entirely sure why this was the story that Campbell lobbied for for years.  Not that it's bad.  It's exactly what you're expecting from a campy scifi-picture show movie.  I just think it's an interesting insight on Bruce Campbell that this is the story that he felt called to share with the world.  My kind of guy.

He felt so called to share this story with the world that, in addition to the movie, there is a comic book version released by Dark Horse comics.

I read the comic book before I watched the movie.  Campbell says of the comic:
"I'm calling the comic a 'director's cut,' mainly because it doesn't cost you more to set the scene at the edge of a cool cliff, or at night like it does in the movies.  The comic is closer to what the original intent was - dark and noir-like."

The Plot: Campbell plays William Cole, who travels with his unsatisfied wife Jackie to Bulgaria to oversee some business interests there.  They meet former KGB-turned cab driver Yegor and when they run afoul of the murderess gypsy Tatoya, she kills all three of them.  Luckily, Bulgaria's friendly neighborhood mad scientists are there to place part of Yegor's brain in place of the damaged part of Cole's brain, and Jackie is placed in the body of a robot.  The two halves of the brain work together to get their revenge.

I'm a huge MST3K fan, so all I could think about as I read this story was of the movie The Atomic Brain, where there's a man with a dog brain, a woman with a cat brain, a girl with a dead brain (zombie), and an old woman's brain in a cat.  I like these mad scientists who don't believe in waste, no brains or usable body parts left behind.

Because of that, I feel the story accomplishes everything it set out to do; it feels just like a cheesy 1950s scifi movie.  The comic is a fun read, though I think you just have to pair it with a watching of the movie, because it's Bruce Campbell's delivery and facial expressions that really sell it, though the comic does have an awesome look to it.

I give it 4 misplaced-brains out of 5!

Bruce Campbell Week! Part One: If Chins Could Kill

It's November, a time to look back on all our blessings to reflect on what we're thankful for.

This Mild-Manner Librarian is thankful for Bruce Campbell.

Bruce Campbell is the second man I ever loved.  The first was the Red Power Ranger, Jason, and, in hindsight, that was just lust.  The first time I looked at a boy and thought, "Hey, he isn't icky."

Then I started watching a leather-pants clad Bruce Campbell in "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." and there was a new man in my life.

 > 

Side by side comparison, there is not contest.

Unlike the Red Power Ranger, my love for Bruce Campbell endures to this day.

But what does this have to do with books, Librarian Blogger, you may ask?

Well, my friends, the mighty Bruce Campbell is not just a god among actors, he's also an auteur.  And I'm reviewing three of his works this week.

Now, I'm not a horror gal for the most part, so my exposure to Bruce Campbell had mainly been limited to Brisco, then Xena and Hercules, the sadly short-lived Jack of All Trades, then later his appearances in the Spiderman Movies and finally Burn Notice.  Evil Dead what now?

It took me a while to hear about Evil Dead, and then there was a long time that I just felt an overwhelming guilt as a Bruce Campbell fan for not having seen it.  Then, I came across a co-worker who loved Bruce Campbell as I did, and she loaned me his book: If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor.  I never returned this book. (Sorry Carrie. I also lost the book and bought another one, then found out that her copy was in the Take a Book, Leave a Book area at my work at the time, so the Bruce Campbell joy continues to be passed on!)

In, If Chins Could Kill, one of the highlights is the section on the making of Evil Dead.  How they did so much with so little, how Campbell would come home every morning dowsed in syrupy fake blood while church goers would stare at him, and, of course, detailed notes about "Shemping" a low budget movie.

If Chins Could Kill came out in 2001, so if you haven't read it I don't know what the hell you're waiting for.  Still, there could be unenlightened among us who have not read it just as someone who counts Bruce Campbell as her second love didn't watch Evil Dead until the late 2000s (shame face).  I suggest it for Bruce Campbell fans, diehard or otherwise, but also for the beginning film-maker.  You get to see the ingenuity that went into making a horror movie on no budget.  Also, you see how Hercules and Xena basically home-grew a film industry in New Zealand.  There's a lot to learn from his sections about almost being "The Phantom" and the desperate attempts to keep Brisco on the air, which included Rodeo visits.  It's a fun, delightful read.  Also, there are pictures.  Pictures of Bruce Campbell.

And, after reading all about the making of Evil Dead.  I got the courage to watch it, figuring that since I knew all the behind the scenes info I wouldn't be scared.  Finally, I could be a true Bruce Campbell fan!

I didn't sleep at all that night.

I give If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-movie Actor 5 chins out of five.

And now for something completely different: A Conversation about Princess Leia and Han Solo

It all starts with this picture.


Holly despairs that a girl feels a need to make Vader Pink to be comfortable being him.  I say that I think it's empowering, since all the girl characters aren't that great in Star Wars that she made Vader her own.  Then this conversation happened:


Holly: True, the female characters are sex slaves and a girl who loves a cocky guy who doesn't say he loves her back, even in the face of being frozen in carbonite.


Me: I know! If I were Leia and he pulled that whole "I love you"/ "I know" thing on me, I'd have yelled down at him: "You know what? Nevermind, buddy."  And Lando Calrissian would be all like, "Dude, that's cold," while he was being frozen in the carbonite.  Then Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and the Stormtroopers would all be snickering in their helmets.  It would have been glorious.


Holly: It would have been!  I mean, I sort of get the guy machismo, you're surrounded by enemies and you don't want to be a sniveling baby.


Me:  Yeah, but he's been the one initiating things the whole time and then the minute she sort of breaks down he's all like, "Sucka! I was just trying to have sex with you the whole time."


You know what a woman loves?  Being embarrassed in front of a room full of her enemies.  Screw you, Han Solo/Harrison Ford (because I know it was your ad lib).

Marian Librarian Reviews Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce

So I was going to save this conversation for when I took a month or two to talk about Fairy Tales, but today is Halloween and I look like this:

And now this song is stuck in my head:

So we're talking about Red Riding Hood today.

In her collection of short stories, Cloaked in Red, Vivian Vande Velde talks about how Red Riding Hood is a truly bizarre little story about a girl named after clothing going into wolf-infested woods at her mother's behest, talks to a wolf, gives him all the information about where she's going, and then is saved by a deus ex machina-like woodsman.  She wonders why we are fascinated a story with unmemorable characters, forgettable setting, terrible plot, and indeterminable themes.  Then she writes eight short stories surrounding the tale.

Of course, I wish that she might have ended her brilliant introduction with why she was so drawn to such a "terrible" story to write it 8 times over.

I have to say, in previous years I would have never thought of Red Riding Hood as a viable costume because she's really a terrible heroine who sort of blunders head first into danger and has to be rescued.

Then I read Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce.

This is a modern-day, twisted fairy tale.  A wolf attacks a grandmother and the two little girls she's raising.  The eldest defends the younger sister and loses an eye in the attack.  Afterwards they commit their lives to fighting wolves (who are more like we would consider werewolves).

What follows is a really wonderful story of two sisters, one driven to the point of fanaticism (Scarlet), the other desperate to fulfill her life's debt to her older sister (Rosie), even if it costs all of her wants and dreams.

These girls aren't Buffy; they have no superpowers.  In one review they said these heroines were "real enough to bleed."  I definitely agree.  They're vulnerable yet strong and came out of fights worse for wear.  They're excellent reimaginings of Red Riding Hood, who was ultimately just a girl who talked at length to a stranger.

As much as I loved the March Sisters as characters, the book has flaws.  The plot "twists" can be seen miles away, the monsters are just that: Monsters.  Their motivation?  They're awful monsters.  I give it some leeway on this because the main character's are so compelling and fairy tales tend to go for the black and white.  I just felt these issues were keeping this book from crossing from good to great.  Still, we need more strong heroines in all literature and this book gives us two wearing that fantastic red cape.

This book came into some controversy because of a passage where Scarlet, a victim herself, narrates about how the pretty girls she's watching to see they won't be attacked by wolves are inviting trouble without even knowing it.  Some took that as the same as blaming a rape victim, and because of that thought it was removed from a list of 100 YA books for Young Feminists.  Mind you, there is no rape in this book at all.  Just a victim narrating about how she perceives a group of girls as making themselves victims.

Here is an example of taking what a character says to be what the author is saying.  Scarlet is a victim dealing with trauma, of course she's projecting.  It's interesting because characters, male and female, have been thinking terrible things ever since pen was put to page, yet Scarlett is punished because her thoughts aren't feminist enough.  I bet my thoughts aren't feminist enough either, Scarlett, but we do try don't we?

So now I'm dressed up like Red Riding Hood trying to articulate why she endures.

I think she's stuck around for the same reason that 50% of Lifetime movies are about stalkers and we're obsessed with true crime stories.  Red Riding Hood is a victim, the wolf is a serial killer, and the woodsman saved her at the last second.  Or maybe there's something to the imagery of a girl in red standing out in a lush forest of green, being watched from the shadows.

But even better is Pearce's Red, or Reds in this case, Scarlet and Rosie, who are ready to bite back.

Happy Halloween!

Comic-Reading Librarian: The Long Halloween

There are a couple schools of thought about comics and graphic novels at the library.

Snobby Librarian: Doesn't get it. Why are you reading that trash and why do I have to appeal to the lowest common denominator and have them on my shelves?

Ambivalent Librarian: I've read/heard of Persepolis and Invention of Hugo Cabret, but do you see how the women are portrayed in this manga crap?

Ostracized Librarian: Gets talked about after spending her break reading those comic books.  Aren't those for 12 year old boys?

So I think maybe you can guess that I'm an Ostracized Librarian.  I'm also going to make a sweeping generalization and say that most people who work in libraries who aren't against comic books work in Youth Services.  Youth Services people want kids to come to the library and read ANYTHING, so we don't turn up our nose at it if there are pictures.  Some of us know that comics are actually good, and not all men in tights lifting cars over their heads.

So every Halloween I read The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale and then get snickered at by the other librarians behind my back.

Let me just go on record here as saying that I am a Two-Face girl, through and through.  He's always been my favorite in the Rogues gallery, probably because I love a man in a good double-breasted suit.  Also, I adore his story.  He and Batman are two-sides of the same coin (intended imagery!).  Both obsessed with justice, but working towards it from opposite ends of the spectrum of good and evil.  Also, of all the rogues he's most conflicted about his life of crime.  Not a lot of remorse coming from Joker or Poison Ivy, but Harvey Dent is still in there, and we can see him.  So that makes me an unapologetic fan-girl of this story.

The premise is that murders are being committed on every holiday by a killer who has it out for the Mob Scene in Gotham.  Rogues Gallery favorites all make appearances, cementing themselves as super-villains instead of thugs, and the origin of Two-Face plays out.  I really enjoy how his origin wasn't completely rushed and botched like it was in The Dark Knight movie.  (Post complaints below)

If you haven't read it, but you like Batman, go read it.  What's great is that someone who has long been left behind by convoluted DC continuity (which the re-launch did not fix, no matter what they say) can still read and enjoy this story if they know anything about Batman.  It's meant to be a continuation of Batman: Year One by Frank Miller, but I actually don't love that story and think you can do just fine skipping it.

Loeb is a divisive figure in comics.  This book, and Superman for all Seasons are critically acclaimed.  His works on the Ultimates and Ultimatum, definitely a sore spot for fans.  I admit that while I loved this story and to a slightly lesser extent its sequel, Dark Victory, the sort of re-hash of this style he does in "Hush" didn't do it for me.

Also, I don't love the boxy art of Tim Sale in this book, but I got over it because I was engrossed in the Noir murder mystery with the tuxedo wearing, mafia-fighting Batman I love.

If you love Batman or Two-Face, pick it up.  What's more Halloween than reading a book about lunatics in costume and murder-most foul?