Dec. posting meme day 11 & 12
Sorry, yesterday was a really, really bad day, and that was without the death of Carrie Fisher, so I missed the 27th posting date. Between it being my dad's birthday (I'm just realizing more and more each year that I'm completely alone now and have no family left), and there's been some really negative weirdness (I know it's not just me, even other people have said dude that's terrible) around my Yuletide fic, and then Carrie, who was…well, I've been with her since opening night of Star Wars in May 1977. So. Yeah.
Anyway, getting back to things:
For the 27th,
kirbyfest asked If there was a cancelled TV show you could bring back, which would you pick? With the same cast (this is a fantasy, so pretend this is totally possible even if someone has passed away), or rebooted with a new cast?
Yes, hands down, Now and Again. It was a brilliant, witty, clever, unique show with some of the most amazing performances (Dennis Haysbert's Dr. Theo Morris at the top of them) and musical selections and spot-on New York guest stars, and thanks to a pissing contest between CBS (the network) and Paramount (the production company), CBS cancelled it after one of the cliff-hangeriest endings I've ever seen. I would resolve that cliffhanger stat, of course, and pick up right where we left off, so I'd also need a time machine because 16 years have passed. :-D It had mild sci-fi, action, romance up the wazoo, and just…tonally, cinematographically, acting-wise, there was nothing like it. Over the years I've seen it cut up (the original opening sequence was over 20 minutes long), chunks cut out that were crucial to the story, and there's apparently a DVD version with none of the amazing music they used (I don't even know if they allowed Dr. Morris to, when his human creation awakens for the first time, sing "Close to You"). It's just a travesty how badly this incredible show was treated, but if I could bring it back, I would treat it like my most precious baby.
December 28:
anoel What are some of your favorite childhood books?
The weird thing about being this old--and having moved so much in my early life--is that I can't remember the names of the books anymore! When we were really little my sister and I were in the Weekly Readers Book Club, and we got monthly shipments of about ten books, five for sis_r and five for me. I remember one time getting so excited about our books being there, and Mom was on the phone, and us running around and around her while she tried to talk on the phone, getting wrapped up in the long phone cord, and my mom just losing her shit. After she hung up she told us we couldn't open the book box till later as punishment, so my sister picked up the phone (this was one of those heavy old '60s phones) and bopped me in the eye with the handset, pow, two black eyes and when we were finally allowed to look at our books, I couldn't read them. One of the books in the shipment was one of my favorites--all I remember is that it had a girl witch, and it was bright and colorful, but that's all I remember (I can't believe this: I found it! It's called The Witch of Hissing Hill and here's an Etsy seller with a copy. I don't think this has survived into the modern era, and one Etsy seller was even advocating tearing it up for scrapbooking needs, arg). I think another one that I loved dearly was in that shipment, or it could have been another time: Ping, the story about a little duck on the Yangtze River.
I wore out two copies of The Velveteen Rabbit--I read it so many times and I carried it everywhere I went, so both copies disintegrated in rainy Seattle, as you can imagine. I don't remember a lot of kid's books, because I was reading at such a high level that they let me go into the older kids' libraries and I wanted to scope out more "grown-up" books, so a great deal of what is really crucial to people I know from their experience reading it as a kid is lost on me, the little showoff, bad form Past Me you missed out on some cultural touchstones. I do remember that I'd loved Where the Wild Things Are and that I discovered what might be my actual favorite forever book in a section away from Maurice Sendak's other books because it was so "grim": Higglety Pigglety Pop: or, There Must Be More To Life. I…that book. It is just so creepy and weird and I loved it and I thought Jenny and I could have been the best of friends.
Later, in my pre-teens, I discovered this insanely creepy book about dreams kids have, where this photographer tried to re-create different children's dreams and most of them were these bizarre nightmarescapes. I checked that book out so many times from the local library that the librarian started making sarcastic notes on the checkout card. But once it was gone from that library, I was never able to find it again, and a few years ago I asked for help on MetaFilter and lo and behold, someone actually knew right away what the book was: The Dream Collector by Arthur Tress. One of these days I might still try to buy a copy of that, though some of them still make me shudder even as an adult.
Others I remember liking were the Danny Dunn series, and I think I loved reading Nancy Drew even though it frustrated the shit out of me with all the girly nonsense and the sexism back in the day. I read all the Hardy Boys, too--I often gravitated to books that were way, way too adult for me (Valley of the Dolls, anyone?) or they didn't like me reading because they were for boys, but I was interested in adventures and being free to do whatever you wanted, and there weren't a lot of titles back then for a kid like me.
Anyway, getting back to things:
For the 27th,
kirbyfest asked If there was a cancelled TV show you could bring back, which would you pick? With the same cast (this is a fantasy, so pretend this is totally possible even if someone has passed away), or rebooted with a new cast?
Yes, hands down, Now and Again. It was a brilliant, witty, clever, unique show with some of the most amazing performances (Dennis Haysbert's Dr. Theo Morris at the top of them) and musical selections and spot-on New York guest stars, and thanks to a pissing contest between CBS (the network) and Paramount (the production company), CBS cancelled it after one of the cliff-hangeriest endings I've ever seen. I would resolve that cliffhanger stat, of course, and pick up right where we left off, so I'd also need a time machine because 16 years have passed. :-D It had mild sci-fi, action, romance up the wazoo, and just…tonally, cinematographically, acting-wise, there was nothing like it. Over the years I've seen it cut up (the original opening sequence was over 20 minutes long), chunks cut out that were crucial to the story, and there's apparently a DVD version with none of the amazing music they used (I don't even know if they allowed Dr. Morris to, when his human creation awakens for the first time, sing "Close to You"). It's just a travesty how badly this incredible show was treated, but if I could bring it back, I would treat it like my most precious baby.
December 28:
anoel What are some of your favorite childhood books?
The weird thing about being this old--and having moved so much in my early life--is that I can't remember the names of the books anymore! When we were really little my sister and I were in the Weekly Readers Book Club, and we got monthly shipments of about ten books, five for sis_r and five for me. I remember one time getting so excited about our books being there, and Mom was on the phone, and us running around and around her while she tried to talk on the phone, getting wrapped up in the long phone cord, and my mom just losing her shit. After she hung up she told us we couldn't open the book box till later as punishment, so my sister picked up the phone (this was one of those heavy old '60s phones) and bopped me in the eye with the handset, pow, two black eyes and when we were finally allowed to look at our books, I couldn't read them. One of the books in the shipment was one of my favorites--all I remember is that it had a girl witch, and it was bright and colorful, but that's all I remember (I can't believe this: I found it! It's called The Witch of Hissing Hill and here's an Etsy seller with a copy. I don't think this has survived into the modern era, and one Etsy seller was even advocating tearing it up for scrapbooking needs, arg). I think another one that I loved dearly was in that shipment, or it could have been another time: Ping, the story about a little duck on the Yangtze River.
I wore out two copies of The Velveteen Rabbit--I read it so many times and I carried it everywhere I went, so both copies disintegrated in rainy Seattle, as you can imagine. I don't remember a lot of kid's books, because I was reading at such a high level that they let me go into the older kids' libraries and I wanted to scope out more "grown-up" books, so a great deal of what is really crucial to people I know from their experience reading it as a kid is lost on me, the little showoff, bad form Past Me you missed out on some cultural touchstones. I do remember that I'd loved Where the Wild Things Are and that I discovered what might be my actual favorite forever book in a section away from Maurice Sendak's other books because it was so "grim": Higglety Pigglety Pop: or, There Must Be More To Life. I…that book. It is just so creepy and weird and I loved it and I thought Jenny and I could have been the best of friends.
Later, in my pre-teens, I discovered this insanely creepy book about dreams kids have, where this photographer tried to re-create different children's dreams and most of them were these bizarre nightmarescapes. I checked that book out so many times from the local library that the librarian started making sarcastic notes on the checkout card. But once it was gone from that library, I was never able to find it again, and a few years ago I asked for help on MetaFilter and lo and behold, someone actually knew right away what the book was: The Dream Collector by Arthur Tress. One of these days I might still try to buy a copy of that, though some of them still make me shudder even as an adult.
Others I remember liking were the Danny Dunn series, and I think I loved reading Nancy Drew even though it frustrated the shit out of me with all the girly nonsense and the sexism back in the day. I read all the Hardy Boys, too--I often gravitated to books that were way, way too adult for me (Valley of the Dolls, anyone?) or they didn't like me reading because they were for boys, but I was interested in adventures and being free to do whatever you wanted, and there weren't a lot of titles back then for a kid like me.