Category Archives: books

Halloween Movie Night!

I had this delusion I was just going to spend most of the day vegetating and alternating between reading Joe Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts and watching movies. Didn’t quite work out, although I did manage to combine a run and The Devil Bat (1941) – one of the few times I was glad the gym has installed individual tv’s on some of the treadmills. I had someone else turn it on, because most people watch CNN at my gym and I didn’t want to take the chance on a random sighting on day 2 of my CNN detox.

Devil Bat is so hilariously bad it was almost dangerous to watch while running. I love the opening sequence, where Mad Scientist Bela works to perfect his species of Giant Devil Bats using electrical manipulation of their glandular processes. He does this when he’s not busy inventing a new aftershave. His conversation with the stock footage bat before he carries the completely unconvincing rubber model into the laboratory is priceless. I mean that literally, it couldn’t have cost anything to produce that scene. And if it did, someone should have been fired. I swear the actual plot of this movie is: Mad Scientist hates his employer, develops a shaving lotion that causes Giant Devil Bats to attack whoever wears it, commits mayhem.

I’d planned to make tonight a triple-feature: The Haunting (1963), Evil Dead and the 1st Halloween, but those best laid plans and all. It’s okay, I’ve already decided that Halloween is going to last through election-day this year so that I have time to get through everything left on the Tivo, finish the Frankenstein marathon, and read the Joe Hill short stories and David J. Skal’s Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween. Both of those books have been sitting on the coffeetable mocking me ever since the start of the 10 day migraine that kept me from reading.

I was so tired tonight that I decided to postpone the movies and watch Halloween episodes from Buffy. I haven’t seen any of them in ages, they’re funny, and they don’t require much attention span. I picked season 2 (where everyone becomes their Halloween costume) after realizing I was too tired to even watch more than one tonight. I never mentioned it here, but I kicked off the 13 Days of Halloween fest with the Halloween episode from the final season of Angel, “Life of the Party.”

National book festival

I don’t think I should go spread pestilence at the National Book Festival, especially since I barely have the energy to stand up. I wanted to go and at least hear Tony Horwitz. Oh well, another time. Right now I need to go bleach out my brain because someone’s twisted imagination went into overdrive at Obama’s reference to McCain’s “orgy of spending” and the rest of us are paying the price.

I have no patience with politicians who try to ban books

I’m thoroughly uninterested in Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter. It shouldn’t be a campaign issue. Cynic that I am, I’ve entertained the theory that the kid is actually wearing a fake baby bump. If you didn’t grow up in the church or understand the mindset well, it may be hard to comprehend: this baby is gold to the McCain camp. Gold. They get sympathy for the attacks from the Left, which will also be spun as the Left wanting the girl to have an abortion, mark my words. More importantly, it’s got all the hallmarks of a feel-good Hallmark channel film. Young lovers, redemption, family togetherness, a wedding, love the sinner not the sin, blahblahblah.

Something that does worry me about Palin is the rumor that’s been swirling in library circles that she’s a book banner. I hadn’t seen (or to be honest looked for) any evidence of this until Jessamyn posted about it at librarian.net, with a link to a Time magazine article:

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving “full support” to the mayor.

I haven’t seen any official comment from the American Library Association, wonder what the First Librarian thinks of this?

Home

The combination of canceling my trip to Detroit and spraining my knee mean I’m going to be seeing even more of my home than usual, so this month’s June blogging theme: Home seemed quite appropriate. Maybe I should sift through and pull out all the home and housework related books to read and liven up the bookblog at the same time.

That might be too productive. Plus, we still have 15 days of Artomatic left, plus a month of tear-down so I shouldn’t get too ambitious about getting my life back. (You don’t really think we all just go home the day the show ends, do you?)

One thing’s for sure, I’m benched for the rest of Roller Derby season.