09/18/2018
So, I’m trying to read more. I need to do it for several reasons, but part of it is I want to write more consistently over here and having a weekly post where I write about what I read each week will help with that. So this will be a weekly thing, not necessarily replacing the normal posts, but perhaps a little more consistently published.
This week I finished three books– JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, and 826DC’s You Will Be Able To Say A Thousand Words.
03/08/2018
The first time I did one of these posts, I wrote about the original Disney princess. Now, I’m going to talk about my favorite. Beauty and the Beast is as much of an artistic triumph as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, if not more, given that it won at least some of the Oscars it was nominated for. While Belle is not necessarily the Disney Princess– that would probably have to go to Cinderella– she is almost always included in and on any merchandise for the brand (see my post on the Disney Princess brand for more info). Plus, Belle and Ariel were the first to ring in the Disney Renaissance, which put Disney back on the map in terms of being a studio powerhouse.
As with the last post, we’ll be looking at the history of the character and her story, as well as go into the production of the film and its impact on popular culture at large. I’ll also take a dive into some of her other portrayals, both within the Disney company and without (though certainly not all of them, and I’ll explain that as well). It’s called a tale as old as time for a reason, and Disney’s film is no exception.
12/31/2017
2017 was a rough year for media and those who love fiction. Almost every major franchise underwent major polarizing events, from Harry Potter to Marvel to Star Wars and Star Trek, and that’s not to mention the changes to the landscape. The only thing I can say is that I hope it allows new creative voices to shine with less of the weight of what comes before them.
There was a lot to like this year though. I personally enjoyed Justice League and Wonder Woman and The Last Jedi and the new Thor movie. Coco was true to form for PIXAR, the new DuckTales is a phenomenal blend of Gravity Falls and the Donald Duck comics, and Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and Stranger Things were incredibly bingable. Doing this blog is still fun (though apologies for another unintended hiatus!) and is definitely something I want to continue, though I might switch around the schedule and the way I plan out posts. We went to some stranger places, some academic places, and some downright obscure places, but I talked about the things I loved, and maybe some things that you love as well.
Here is a few of them.
12/31/2016
Well, that’s it. If you’re reading this, you made it. Congratulations.
2016 hasn’t been the best of years. But even still, some good things were there. There were several major anniversaries, including Star Trek, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and others. Rouge One and Captain America: Civil War and Moana were fantastic. There’s a vaccine for Ebola, child mortality continues to fall, and DiCaprio won his Oscar. I’m not going to go through the pretense that any individual life, especially my own, was any more or less important to anyone else’s this year. I only really started in April, and it’s been somewhat scattered at that, but we had some good times here. I do this for a lot of reasons, but fun is certainly one of them.
If you’ve read this blog at all, you know I’m bad at these intro paragraphs, so let’s get into the content. Here are some highlights and hidden gems of this year.
04/22/2016
Let’s talk about music.
The English language is interesting in the fact that I can say both “I did band in high school” and “In high school, I did band”, and yet find that the second statement is far more accurate. Not that band was the totality of my existence, I had school work and such courtesy of the IB program, but when I wasn’t doing school stuff, I was probably doing something music related. Usually involving one of the three bands I was in. Of course, I’ve also been playing piano outside of band since I was in Kindergarten, plus there was my involvement in my church’s music program. So music is a big part of my life.
I’m not sure where the idea of a desert island playlist comes from (there’s a British radio show that does something like it, but I’m not sure that’s where it started), but the basic concept is that you pick a few albums that you would take with you to a desert island if you had to live there for the rest of your life. Some go by songs, especially after the decline of the album in the past decade, but I’m a traditionalist so albums it is. These are ten albums that I would be able to listen to for the rest of my life.
02/08/2016
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.”
–Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society
Now, I would hardly call myself a Poet. I have written poetry, but that doesn’t make me a Poet. For one, I have very little chance of dying of TB any time soon, nor is my father obsessed with bees. I am not a disillusioned veteran of a world war, and there are no rumors that I am a vampire. I do shut myself into my room probably more often than I should, but I actually use commas– probably too much.
I am a writer though, and I have been a writer for longer than I have called myself that. And art has always come naturally to me, I can play a few instruments (mostly percussion), I draw, I paint, I sing. My obsession has always been in the creation and discovery of the new. So yes, I write– poetry, prose, music, etc. It is the natural extension of myself and my thoughts. But it is not a “want”, not really. It is something I love, and something I love doing, but it is something that comes not from a place of desire but a place of urgency. I can no more want to breathe than I want to write.
And I suppose that’s part of the problem I have with explaining why I “chose” to do this, which is what the prompt is really asking. I didn’t chose this, I was going to be a chemist. I was going to wear lab coats and wash test tubes. Not that science isn’t a path to creation and discovery (I’ll link to a post here where I talk about how art and science are really the same thing once I get the chance to write one), but it’s generally considered the far more sensible option. I’m still trying to be sensible, working on adding a Technical Writing major and applying for internships. But the creative impulse is far from sensible. It overwhelms and envelops– it’s kind of like the Force. And unlike most people, artists can’t turn it off. At least I can’t.
At Orientation, I was given some advice that I thought I was following– “Do what you’re good at, not what you’re passionate about.” I had thought I was lucky– I’m decent at science, and I am certainly passionate about it. And yet here I am. Because of changing majors, I was thrown into a crisis of identity that I am still trying to overcome. All I know now is that I am a writer, I always have been, and I don’t think I could be anything else.
video by melodysheep
12/31/2018
A Year in Review: 2018
valeriemclean1919 2018, Comics, criticism, DC Comics, DCEU, Disney, literary analysis, literary criticism, Marvel, MCU, Year In Review About Me, About Writing 0 Comments
2018 had a lot going on, media-wise. We started Marvel’s endgame with Avengers: Infinity War, Jodie Whittaker took up the mantle of the Doctor, and an actual, unmistakable Science Fiction film won Best Picture at the Oscars. On top of that, Black Panther made all of the money, Neflix’s reboot of Queer Eye premiered, and the new title in the Smash Bros. series was released with a new storyline aspect that shocked much of the fan community.
Over here, in this small corner of the internet, we’ve gone a few new places, visited some old (and some really old) favorites, and played with some new ideas that will be carried through to the new year (I keep promising to normalize the schedule, maybe 2019 will be the year that it happens!). In addition to talking about stuff I like, which is this blog’s main purpose, I talked about a few things I didn’t (and explained why), and a few things that I like, but maybe with an asterisk. We also talked shop on the actual building blocks of story and some academic concepts that create the stories that we like to talk about.
So let’s talk about them just a little more.
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