It is a truth universally acknowledged that any Janeite in possession of cold, hard cash must be in want of the new Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Austen’s “co-author” Seth Grahame-Smith serves up delicious thwarted love, delicious Regency manners, anddelicious “bone-crunching zombie mayhem.” And his new Austen parody also has lovely period-style woodcuts, such as the Bennet sisters’ Pentagram of Death, shown below:
As you can see, the ninja-trained Bennet girls are in fine form at the Assembly ball. Which is part of the problem with Grahame-Smith’s version of Austen’s classic novel: highly skilled in the deadly arts, the Bennet girls don’t need the arrogant, zombie-killing Darcy, the ineffectual, vomit-prone Bingley, the obtuse, lazy Collins, or any man at all.
Jane Austen’s world posits marriage as the most important financial decision of a woman’s life. Unable to make a living except as governesses, Austen’s heroines must marry prudently, or spend their lives in poverty and dependency. At the same time, they must resist the temptation to accept a mercenary match: they must not give up their chance for love.
Something very different is at stake in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. But what can we expect from a novel whose opening line is not about a wealthy man’s desire for a wife, but rather about a hungry zombie’s desire for brains?
After record-breaking floods in March, the Red River of the North is cresting this weekend for a second time.
My family members in Fargo-Moorhead are preparing for a second battle to defend their home. They and their neighbors have placed thousands of sandbags on top of the permanent levees.
They’ve faced blizzards on top of the flood conditions.
Springtime in New Mexico is a delight. The hiking is breezy and cool, the light is beautiful, and the air is full of blossoms. And there are birds in abundance: scrub jays and finches, raptors and thrashers.
Quick synopsis: on Monday we took a tram ride to the top of Sandia Peak and watched the sun set over Albuquerque:
Then we headed for Santa Fe, where exhibits on Gustave Baumann and Georgia O’Keeffe drew us indoors (but not for very long):
Our last stop was Albuquerque’s Rio Grande Botanic Garden, which features a new 4-acre Japanese garden. Like other Asian-themed gardens, the Sasebo Garden has blossoming cherry trees, koi ponds, fountains, and elegant pine landscaping. But it also has its own New Mexico flourish: eerie, leafless Rio Grande Cottonwoods towering over it all.
I love woodcuts, and on my recent trip to Santa Fe, I got to see some lovely Gustave Baumann prints at the New Mexico Museum of Art.
A Santa Fe legend, Baumann (1881-1971) did just about everything: woodcut prints, watercolors and drawings—even dolls and marionettes. His use of color is beautiful.
A belated farewell to folk-singer activist Odetta, who died in December, just two months after her last public concert. I loved her voice, her passion, and the exquisite sense of sorrow in her songs, especially in the one I loved best: “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”
Here’s an excerpt from her performance of “Water Boy,” highlighted in the Bob Dylan documentary No Direction Home [2005].
Despite enjoying modern animated films like Wall-E and Kung Fu Panda, I find I’m most drawn to old-fashioned stop-action animation. [Hence my affection for Henry Selick's Coraline.]
Watching Coraline last week in 3D reminded me how much I love Yuri Norstein’s work, how much I long to see a completed version of The Overcoat, which he’s been working on for 20 years.
Here’s one of Norstein’s most charming short animations: Hedgehog in the Fog.
Experiencing a 3D film as beautiful as Henry Selick’s Coraline is a lot like going on magical mini-vacation. Everything you see is dreamily unfamiliar. All of your senses are heightened and switched-on. And every moment is too good to last.
I woke up this morning to a soggy winter wonderland. A branch had snapped on my towering white pine, and my little VanderWolf pine was drooping sadly, all of its branches weighed down by heavy, wet snow.
