Sarah E. Morin's Blog, page 15
January 28, 2015
A “Lunartic” for Audiobooks
It’s here! It’s here! My copy of Marissa Meyer’s Fairest arrived yesterday. I have not geeked out so much over the new release of a book since the 7th book of Harry Potter. I have discovered a new word for fans of The Lunar Chronicles. “Lunartics.”
image by Photokanok at freedigitalphotos.net
I am resisting the urge to Google the internet buzz at this point because countless lunartics already gulped this book down and posted about it. I actually am still on Chapter 2, because I bought the audiobook version. I rarely buy audiobooks, because so much of my enjoyment then depends on the narrator. The wrong narrator can kill a great book. I check audiobooks out from the library, though. If after the first chapter I hate the performance, no money lost.
In the case of Fairest, it was a known quantity. Rebecca Soler narrated the first 3 books of the series: Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, and returned for this new one. So far in the series, her timing is spot-on. In a story peopled with colorful characters from the world-over (and the Moon-over), she gives each a distinct inflection. Several times she has to attack accents. Her Cress, Iko, and Captain Thorne are especially vivid and funny.
The real test for me comes when the reader performs the opposite gender. Science would be able to tell you what sine waves or whatever make the male and female voice about more than simple pitch. There is nothing more distracting for me then when our butch hero sounds like a little boy, or our sassy-sweet heroine sounds like the Wolf disguised poorly as Grandma.
I listen to audiobooks while doing chores around the house. Indeed, my laundry would live in the dryer if I had to fold it without a story or Moody Radio on in the background. This week, my socks may thank Rebecca Soler for facilitating their matchmaking endeavors.
Image courtesy of Suat Eman at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Rebecca Soler is a fantastic performer, but my favorite fiction narrator may be I know, right? I thought he could only do buff, slightly goofy heroes. But that’s because of my limited exposure to his movie roles. Take away the visual element, and the man can become anybody. And he does wonderful things with a verb. For example, if a cat squeezes between the slats of a fence, Fraser will drag out the word “squeeze” as “SQeeeeeeZE.” It’s hard to spell this effect, but you can hear the cat sucking in a breath and threading itself through the narrow hole.
Image courtesy of samarttiw at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I highly recommend Fraser’s performance of Cornelia Funke’s Inkspell. On the movie screen, he’s the dad (Mo). In the audio book, he’s EVERYBODY, and so well.
I listen for slightly different qualities in non-fiction books, which tend to be more prose-oriented than dialogue-heavy. For history or biographies, I’m listening for a blend of wry practicality and the weight of destiny. I want to feel like I am simultaneously hanging out casually with great figures of history, sharing a sandwich, and hovering overhead, looking at them climb their inevitable path to greatness or tragedy.
David McCullough (who often narrates his own biographies) and (who played the grandfather on Gilmore Girls) are two of my favorites in non-fiction. I have never listened to any audiobooks by Morgan Freeman, but I’ve heard his documentary voiceovers, and would be a fan of any audiobook he recorded. I’d listen to that man read a phonebook.
Do you listen to audiobooks? What do you listen for in a performance?
So it may be taking me longer to get through Fairest, but I don’t mind dragging out the pleasure. I can savor each word, like dark chocolate.
And get the laundry done.
January 26, 2015
A Lunar Fangirl Moment
Fairest, the 4th book in Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles, comes out in 6 hours.
Excuse me while I go over here in a corner and have a little fangirl moment.
Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
You can see my reviews of the first 3 books in this series here:
January 25, 2015
My Kingdom For Any Mode of Transportation But a Horse
Back in college I spent several years writing a draft of a fantasy/sci fi novel. I was never able to finish it, mainly because the plot started out cute and Mogli-sized, then grew to gremlin-sized and started causing havoc. But it was one of my best attempts at world-building.
One of the details I was adamant about was that I wanted this world (another planet, but not futuristic) to have another mode of transportation besides horses.
Why, you ask?
I have nothing against horses as a whole. Especially talking horses, like Mr. Ed. I once read that every girl at some stage in her adolescence develops a disease in which she falls in love with horses. I succumbed to the illness around 7th grade.
Then I actually rode a horse.
His name was Gus. He was a rental horse at a state park. Gus knew he had a complete novice on his back. At the end of our expedition with a guide down a forest trail, Gus decided he didn’t want to go back to the stable. He tried to take off with me down the highway.
Thus ended my romance with horses. As well as any aspirations I ever had to name future children or pets “Gus.”
I come from a long line of fine horsewomen, so shh—don’t tell them that I’d much prefer to transport myself by pogo ball than get on a horse again.
But we shouldn’t fully blame Gus for making me look for a replacement for horses in my fantasy story. My main reason was simply this:
Speculative fiction ought to speculate.
If you just said, “Duh,” I hug you. I’m sure you agree that fantasy has relied on horses for far too long. Why limit ourselves to standard historical beasts of burden?
I applaud the stories of dragon-riders, in stories ranging from Anne McCaffrey’s books to Eragon to How to Tame Your Dragon. But by now, dragons are old staples in fantasy. It’s just as hard to find a new angle on dragons as horses.
Oh, and transportation by unicorn or winged horse falls under the same category as horse for me. We’ve been on that track since Pegasus, 2000-some years ago.
My solution was to create a largely pedestrian society, with specialized boots and foot masseuses. I went into 3 pages of public footcare etiquette. (This may explain why the book was never published.) Other animals took over some of the work horses would do. Example – dogs were letter carriers. Buffalo-like creatures hauled wagons.
Here are some of my favorite non-horse, non-dragon means of animal-based transportation in books/movies:
Racing snails in The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. Love the irony.
Image courtesy of m_bartosch at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The Great Eagles of the Misty Mountains in Lord of the Rings. They can get you to Mount Doom and back in 1 minute of screen time, while it takes a hobbit 10 hours of screen time to travel the same distance.
Image courtesy of Tina Phillips at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Tauntauns in Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. Also useful as emergency blankets on ice planets.
Image courtesy of Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The winged creature the Nazgul rides in LOTR. In the book, we hear more about the paralyzing effect of this creature flying overhead than its actual appearance. Tolkien writes: “Neither quill nor pinion did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank.” This beast is “nursed with fell meats.” I enjoy how the movie realizes this beast, especially in regard to its “croaking cry,” like overblown speakers. I’d never own one – the neighbors are sure to complain.
Image courtesy of renjith krishnan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Oliphaunts (aka mumakil). OK, that’s a lot of LOTR references. But oversized war elephants? Admit it, you get chills too when they charge into battle in Return of the King.
Image courtesy of justingun at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Reindeer. It only seems normal because we’ve been raised on Santa stories. But teams of flying reindeer, with a glowing nose as a headlight? Pretty weird. And don’t forget, reindeer-pulled sledge (non-levitating) is the chosen means of transit for the Witch in C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Image courtesy of suphakit73 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The dog in Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I love when the sled outraces him, and he hops up on the back and rides when he’s supposed to be pulling it.
Proginoskes in Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle. Progo is a cherubim, with scads of wings. Our heroine Meg is transported through one of his many eyeballs.
Stingray in Finding Nemo. He’s a bus. He’s a schoolteacher. Stop, you’re both right.
Image courtesy of criminalatt at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Pigeon in Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems. Because it’s a pigeon. Driving a bus.
Image courtesy of Adam Hickmott at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Busfish in Julie Czerneda’s Hidden in Sight. She describes a public transportation system on an aquatic planet. You ride in the mouths of giant cod-like fish. There are safety mechanisms to make sure the fish don’t swallow you.
Image courtesy of Arvind Balaraman at FreeDigitalPhotos
What are some of your favorites?
January 23, 2015
National Readathon Day
So evidently Saturday, Jan 24, is National Readathon Day! Brilliant. So I can do what I would be doing anyway, only smile smugly at people and feel entirely justified when I hold up a finger and say, “I’ll get to that after I finish this chapter.”
I tried that technique as a kid.
Dinner? After this chapter.
Chores? After this chapter.
Sleep? Where are your priorities?
What I should have done is had a holiday like National Readathon Day. Which is even better than a plain old excuse to read books, because it promotes literacy and raises $ for funding National Book Foundation programs.
What will you be reading?
January 22, 2015
Library Card Rumors
Last night I infiltrated the inner sanctum of a library.
I went to a child safety training offered at a local library. Although I live at libraries, this was not my home library, but a different one in the county. I arrived early, and fiddled around on the computer catalog. I have recently discovered author Karen Witemeyer, and devoured everything my home library has. Did this library have her others?
Yes indeedy. Head in the Clouds was the title, which also describes me for the adventure that followed that night.
After the training, I went to the circulation desk. “Can you address a library card rumor for me?”
The guy at the desk widened his eyes. “Uh, a rumor?”
Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
This is the trouble of being a writer. Sometimes I word things a little too creatively. And no doubt that’s the trouble with librarians, who love words as much as I do. They hear words too creatively. There followed a long pause as we each envisioned library card scandal.
People have been using library cards as false IDs!
Library cards are really an alien tracking system so they can run tests on human bibliophiles!
If you swipe your library card under a certain key pass in a certain hotel, it will get you into the headquarters of a government spy ring!
“Uh, let me call in some help for this one,” he said. He whirled around and summoned a librarian with more seniority.
I couldn’t see his face, but I just imagined him mouthing the words, “Code Red! Code Red! She’s onto us!” Any moment I’d be whisked back to a tutoring room (the one by the crime novels) and questioned. (“Exactly which rumors have you heard about the library cards, miss?”) A brain wipe might be necessary.
The new librarian (I’ll call her Agent Alpha) looked deceptively non-government-spy-ring. She had rosy cheeks, curly grey hair, and a smile sweet as gingerbread cookies.
“May I help you?”
Her voice was the kind that reads Berenstain Bears or Amelia Bedelia during story hour in the children’s section. Natural, calm. She exuded the comforting persona of a Mrs. Claus, only younger.
Wow. Great cover.
Despite my lingering suspicions that I had stumbled onto a library card conspiracy, I smiled confidently. “Is it true–?” I realized it sounded like an inquisition. I tried again. “People say if you have a library card in the town next over, you can use it here.”
The first librarian I’d encountered (I’ll call him Agent Gamma) shifted his eyes to Agent Alpha. I imagined his thoughts. Which people say this? Do we have a mole? I’ll call out counterintelligence to squelch the word on the street.
Agent Alpha winked. “It’s true,” she whispered.
Agent Gamma and I both raised our eyebrows. “It’s true?”
“It’s our best kept secret, but yes, our patrons can apply for our Reciprocal Benefits Program.”
Image courtesy of digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I bet in the inner ring, they called it RBP. They probably had a whole alphabet-soup-bowl of mysterious acronyms.
Agent Alpha gestured toward a computer in a dark corner. “Just step over here and fill out some forms.”
Now she glanced meaningfully at Agent Gamma. “You come, too. I’ll show you how to register her, in case you ever have to handle one of these cases again.”
That sounded ominous, but she dazzled me with another reassuring smile. I trotted over like a sheep led to slaughter. Amazing what I’ll do for the promise of access to more free books.
I obediently gave her my contact info, driver’s license, favorite color, dog’s maiden name, and library card from the other library. When I handed the last over, she stared at it for a moment. I use that thing so much it looked like the dog had chewed it.
“I’d normally issue a new patron a new card, but that doesn’t apply for Reciprocal Benefits,” said Agent Alpha.
I could not tell whether she feared for the well-being of any books she entrusted to me in the future, or whether she took pride in seeing such a well-worn library card. It takes time to break in a library card to the perfect level of comfort, like a pair of well-worn jeans. And you can buy stone-washed jeans and fake the oldness, but they have yet to invent a way to do that for library cards.
Image courtesy of thawats at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
At least in the civilian world. Maybe Agent Alpha knew a way.
Then came the reverse trick-or-treating. I got a free canvas bag emblazoned with the library’s logo, pamphlets, printouts of upcoming events. Then she lulled me with the sweet, practiced recitation of library policies. It was like listening to a favorite bedtime story, only with enough changes to keep the old tale fresh. I kept interjecting eagerly, like a child insisting, “That’s not the way I know the story!”
“My library has a 1 hour forgiveness policy the next morning with late books,” I said.
“Oh, here you get them back by closing time.” She beamed again, but I saw the measuring look in her eyes. Was I going to be a serial overdue offender?
She raised a finger. “I almost forgot. We need to call your home library to make sure you’re in good standing.”
I swallowed. Would they go easier on me if I confessed my crimes upfront?
“I—uh—think I might have one book overdue.”
Her eyes twinkled or flashed. It was hard to tell. “We’ll see in a moment.”
I had not realized how desperately important joining this secret society had become until now, as Agent Alpha pressed the receiver to her ear. Agent Gamma and I could only hear one side of her conversation.
“Oh, I see.” She smiled. “I’ll let her know.” Her face fell. “I’ll let her know,” she said again, with an entirely different inflection. Her eyes fixed on my face.
The jig was up.
She hung up the phone.
“You are overdue.”
Oh, the stigma! I hung my head.
“She tried to renew it for you on the phone, but you’ve reached your limit.”
I felt the promise of shelves and shelves of unaccessed books slipping away from me. Farewell, Karen Witemeyer!
“However, she said you are otherwise in excellent standing.” She donned the full cheeriness of her Ms. Claus persona and handed me the free canvas bag. “You’re all set.
I bounced up and down. “It’s Christmas!”
Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Agent Alpha laughed. “Go have fun!”
Oh, dangerous words to a bibliophile! I frolicked from the new releases to the biographies to the fiction. Be still, my heart! I had infiltrated another library and now all their resources were mine. MINE! My own. My precious.
I let loose a cackle of delight. Some old guy stared. I scampered safely away to the Vo-Wi shelf in fiction.
And grabbed my book by Karen Witemeyer. Which I’ve already finished reading, btw.
January 21, 2015
Do You Want to Build A ___________________?
I personally love the movie Frozen. Even if you hate it, you probably started singing the moment you saw this blog title. It’s one of the most recognizable motifs in recent musical movie history. We just can’t Let It Go.
I work with young’uns for a living. They consist of a typical range of lovers and haters of the movie Frozen. One of the things we do for fun in their lunch room is write polls on the dry erase board. I have learned a lot about their favorite books, music, and quotes this way. I have also learned that the majority of them would NOT eat SPAM Pop-Tarts.
This winter, I had “Do You Want To Build a Snowman?” stuck in my head. I needed desperately to change it up, so I wrote this one-line mad-lib as the poll of the week:
Do you want to build a _______________?
Bless you young’uns, for coming up with the following suggestions:
Do you want to build an ancient empire?
Do you want to build a better mousetrap?
Do you want to build a huge bicep?
Do you want to build an energy-efficient lightbulb?
Do you want to build a cactus?
Do you want to build a Lego Batplane?
Do you want to build a skyscraper?
Do you want to build a Death Star?
Do you want to build a triple-scoop ice cream cone?
Do you want to Build-a-Bear?
One of them wrote a song based on a craft activity we’d been doing:
Do you want to build an airplane
With paper and a straw?
Image courtesy of scottchan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I think my favorite answers are the ones that don’t make sense. Because exactly how would you build a cactus? It’s fun to envision.
Image courtesy of foto76 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I think you would need thimbles.
I also enjoyed the really long answers that ruin the rhythm. One kid wrote a paragraph. It reminded me of the Broadway musical Wicked, when Galinda rambles to her parents about her “impossible to describe” roommate, Elphaba.
Of course I had to sing everything aloud with the new and improved lyrics. I can’t say it got rid of the earworm (that’s the official word for “a song stuck in your head”). But it certainly made the song refreshing again.
Now that I have gotten this song stuck in your head, please try out the system!
Do you want to build a _______________?
January 19, 2015
MLKJD
― Martin Luther King Jr.
Great words from a man who took his own advice well. Thanks for everything, Dr. King.
January 17, 2015
Grocery Store Etiquette
If you wish to be refined
as you stand in the checkout line
always grab one of those bars
that separates your food from thars.
Nothing makes people so edgy
as mixing with a stranger’s veggies.
Do not allow your pecan pies
to slip the line and socialize
with the next person’s frozen peas.
Much better have some rare disease
than infringe on someone’s space.
Keep your produce in its place.
Isolate your own bananers
if you wish to please Miss Manners.
Only the ruffian commingles
his corn chips with another’s Pringles.
True, that while in the aisles
all that food was stacked in piles,
crammed together on the shelf.
But in line, keep it to yourself
and etiquette shan’t be demeaned.
Keep your foodstuffs quarantined.
Oh, never let your ice cream melt
and leak on the conveyor belt,
and always try to avoid
slowing the line for a tabloid.
But the most heinous check-out sin
is forgetting to fence in
your food with those little rods.
This offends the grocery gods.
Take it from your local grocer.
No other grocery crime is grosser.
(This was my entry for a contest sponsored by the Indiana State Federation of Poetry Clubs. It won 1st place, I’m guessing because people can relate to those little rods!)
On Other Stupid Things to Laugh At – Checkout Lanes
I confess I am amused by stupid little things. Eye exams. Grocery store lines. Before a recent ice storm, I went to Kroger. It was packed, as people prepared for another Snowmagedon. Carts in lines 8 deep, all lanes open. Like Christmas Eve, but with no expectations of anything more exciting to open the next day but a bag of chips.
Image courtesy of Mister GC at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
And the chaos and bustle absurdly put me in a really good mood.
I’m not sure I can explain why it did. I think because after a while, there is nothing you can do about the long line anyway, so you might as well enjoy yourself.
My friend KK said she felt a similar feeling when on a rollercoaster. When things were completely out of her control, she could actually relax because there was no burden of decision making.
Image courtesy of ponsulak at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I got in the wrong checkout line twice. First, the express lane, for which I was disqualified on account of having a surfeit of salsa jars. Then I picked a lane with a big sign that said, “produce scale broken,” but didn’t realize it for 15 minutes. I backed out of that lane, and started chatting with perfect strangers as we played a slow motion game of Cart Tetris.
“There is a celery shortage, did you know that?”
“No, but there is also a cream of chicken soup shortage.”
This old lady and I started exchanging casserole recipes. At the front of the lane I thanked my clerk for her good service until she probably thought there was something wrong with me. Can’t help it—I thought of all the impatient people behind me, and how hours of that must wear on the staff.
I am not so nice to staff on a normal day. I’m not mean, but I don’t thank them profusely. I just do my thing and rush out. Yet being stuck at the checkout lane for 45 minutes made me jolly enough to hum Christmas carols, 3 weeks AFTER Christmas.
I bet the other people in line wanted to punch me.
Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
So you are wondering what checkout lanes have to do with unruly fairy tales? Well, here it comes, where my imagination and too much time standing in line produce DEEP THOUGHTS. I made up this little story in line:
The self-check lane sometimes doesn’t deign to recognize my existence. I hold the barcode up, rotate the can, do a little dance, talk to it. No beep of acknowledgement. Touchscreens sometimes don’t recognize me either – I think when my hands are cold. And those automatic sinks? Forget about it.
But you know, I think it’s turnabout-is-fair-play. What if self-check lanes are taking their vengeance on us for every time we ignore the human staff at live checkout lanes? Like, for every time you go through the checkout on a cell phone, or fail to make eye contact with another live human being, the self-check lane remembers it. And next time through, it treats you like a non-entity, too. It exacts a toll by refusing to ring up your item. You don’t see us, we don’t see you.
This is completely a sci fi piece in the making. REVENGE OF THE CHECKOUT LANES.
The plot will be a little Matrix-like, but resolved when grocery shoppers and scanning machines sign a treaty: the Magna Cart.
Image courtesy of Supertrooper at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
What stupid thing has amused you lately?
January 15, 2015
Cheating on the Eye Exam
Or
WHAT’S THE OTHER ONE FOR?
Went to the eye doctor yesterday,
and though my new glasses are tops,
I really wanted a monocle.
I’m a nearsighted cyclops.
Well, I’m no cyclops, but I really did go to the optometrist yesterday. My optometrist cracks me up, because after every answer you give, he praises your feedback. “Which is better, number one or number 2? Great! Wonderful!” I started laughing because he was making me feel like I was winning Jeopardy. “That’s a perfect answer! Good job!”
What, am I going to be valedictorian of the School of Poor Vision? I’ll earn an A in Astigmatism?
image by David Castillo Dominici, freedigitalphotos.net
I can tell it’s habit for him. He must get people worrying and apologizing that they can’t read lines as he’s fiddling with their prescription. So he reassures them to get them to relax and stop squinting. Well, his undue amount of praise kept making me laugh, and when I smile my eyes all but disappear anyway. (My mom and I are forever having people tell us not to squint in photographs, but it’s either that or not smile.)
Behold me squinting.
So I’d grin at the lavish praise for bad eyesight, he’d compensate by telling me that was just the right answer!, and I’d only squint more for laughing.
One of my dearest college friends and I had a long dinner discussion once over the compulsion to cheat on eye exams. It’s easy to cheat, because optometrists rarely change their letters up, and you just memorize them. But it’s a true lesson in how cheating really cheats yourself, because then you wind up with weak glasses for the next year. I bet in optometry school they warn the doctors about this flaw in human nature. That patients will want to cheat on the eye charts.
Image courtesy of ponsulak at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Confession time: do you cheat on eye exams?
