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Fun with Moby-Dick and Jane

 

This Early Reader series teaches children the fundamentals of literacy through “whole whale” spotting, a technique developed by Dr. "Cap'n" Ahab.   Lively illustrations of “old tars” harpooning large sea mammals will keep even ADD children enthralled.  

 

 

This is a Greek fairy tale about an cat who wanders around ancient Thebes with boots on. To punish himself for marrying his mother and killing his father, he blinded himself.  

Classic chldren's book about the dangers of food poisoning. (The rare first edition was scratch and sniff...)

Ashley Mole and Rat Butler sit on the verandah of Toad Hall enjoying a mint julep. . . .

Performed by The Speckled Band (featuring Clipse)

Thank you for being a colleague

Went off some falls, stopped the redheaded league

Your heart is true; you're a pal and a confidant. 



And if you threw a party 
Invited everyone you ever knew 

You would see the biggest gift would be from me 

And the card attached would say,
"My dear Holmes, heat it, it turns gluish.
"You get paper, it seems you get foolish.
Take it to Jacob and play, 'Which hue's the bluest?' "
Thank you for being a fiend.

Alas poor Yorik

I doth not liken Green Eggs and Ham

I doth not liken it, Hear me man!

I doth not liken it, pray thee tell

I doth not liken it, though I knew it well

Bleak House of Sand and Fog and Seven Gables

Often considered Charles Dubus Hawthorne III’s masterpiece, Bleak House of Sand and Fog and Seven Gables blends together several literary genres—detective fiction, romance, melodrama, and satire — to create an unforgettable portrait of the decay and corruption at the heart of the legal system of our society.

This novel revolves around a court case in Salem that has dragged on for decades — the infamous Kathy Nicolo and Colonel Behrani lawsuit, in which both parties claim the rights to an old house that has been in a venerable New England family for many generations. This lawsuit is gradually devoured by legal costs.

 

We meet a cast of idiosyncratic characters who live in this decaying, gabled mansion, still haunted by their dead ancestors… including the beautiful Lady Dedlock who hides a terrible secret; hilarious Mrs. Jellyby who’s so generous at the cost of her own family; Hepzibah, an elderly gentlewoman fallen on hard times, her silly brother Clifford, and young Phoebe who cheerfully cares for these two doddering relations.

 

Can the love of these characters’ transform a bleak house of sand and fog and seven gables? And will justice prevail?

Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, and Marilyn Monroe set their marital sights on an 18 year old street urchin named Jamal.

A mute boy, and his extraordinary dog, awake to find themselves chained by the feet. Held captive by a sadistic serial killer, Edgar's only chance for survival is by having his dog gnaw through his legs...

The most memorable section of this experimentally structured musical is narrated by the idiot governess, whose relentless singing of scales is tolerated by the rest of the family out of deference to her mountain-fixated mental illness.  Meanwhile, Friedrich, obsessed with the loss of Liesl's virginity to a craven Nazi messenger boy, commits suicide by throwing himself into a tub of wienerschnitzel.  The practical Louisa cynically looks after the rest of her increasingly insane family, eventually conspiring with an unscrupulous theater manager ( "Uncle Max" ) to pack them off on an exploitative tour of Switzerland.

A quadriplegic World War I veteran lies in his hospital bed pondering how geographical factors provided the means by which European nations conquered the world and maintained their dominance, despite being vastly outnumbered.

Through the Pothole: Further adventures of Alice Not in Wonderland

 

As it had been a very bad winter, Alice had many snow days from school. Quoting from the original story with certain changes and apologies to Lewis Carroll: Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the snowbank. They were done up from head to toe with hats, scarves, mittens, parkas, snowpants and boots. Alice could hardly move as she stretched to stand up.Suddenl;y a brown rat with red eyes ran close by her. Her sister was looking the other way and didn't see it. Alice thought she heard the rat say, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" Burning with curiosity, Alice ran down the street after it, only to see this large rat fall down a  huge pothole in the street in a polace where the snow had been plowed. In another moment, down went Alice after it. Alice never knew potholes could be so deep. She kept falling and falling and falling. At the bottom of the pothole, there was a tiny rusty key floating in a dirty puddle. Near the puddle was a tiny door that had the message: City Sewer System. Authorized Personnel Only. Alice thought, "Who could fit through a door so small?" Suddenly she noticed on the damp ground  a can of soda, unopened. "Don't people know how to recycle?" exclaimed Alice. She was very thirsty and as the can was unopened, Alice decided to risk drinking it.

 

 

I will leave Alice at this point. If anyone else wants to continue this story, be my guest!

 

Librarian 

 

Charlotte's Web Cam

 

 

There's a big hullabaloo going on over at Zuckerman's farm. It seems that his pig Wilbur is no ordinary pig. To check this out without having to get through the throngs of people at the farm, just get on your computer and take a look at Charlotte's web cam!

The queen of nursery rhymes takes on R.L. Stine.  Here’s one example:

As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven flies,
Each fly had seven eyes,
Each eye had seven warts.
Flies, eyes, warts and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?

 

            Impoverished bookseller/biographer Margaret Lea is shipwrecked on Lake Windermere, en route to visit reclusive author Viola Winter, and washes up on the shores of Illyria, the Duke Orsino’s Yorkshire estate.  The Duke, his brain and vision addled by absinthe, is convinced Margaret is his long-lost son, Cesario.  Viola Winter, addled by senility, is equally convinced Margaret is her estranged daughter, Olivia.

            With visions of inheritances dancing in her head, Margaret attempts to play both parts for both potential benefactors. The pot is sweetened even more when the Daily Mail offers her a tidy sum for revealing the secrets of her rich and famous would-be parents, but the payoff is dependent on her meeting a deadline that is just twelve days – and thirteen nights –away.

I thought I'd burned out on these, but this morning I woke up with several of them batting around in my head.  I'm not sure how to categorize them, but I think they're still mash-ups:

 

Welcome to the Monkeybars:  Kurt Vonnegut looks back to his school days

 

Now We Are Sixty:  A.A. Milne rewrites his classic for the Baby Boomer generation

 

The Tell-tale Fart:  Edgar Allen Poe takes on the Young Adult market

 

Cautiously Positive Expectations:  Charles Dickens revamped for the 21st Century reader

 

A Seasonal Carol:  (same as above) 

 

Celsius 232.7777: Ray Bradbury for the metric age

 

Rosemary's Teenager:  Ira Levin revisits the devil's spawn

 

 

 

 

Kevin Bacon plays a Prussian soldier turned scientist who has developed an invisibility serum that has literally erased his head. Elisabeth Shue reprises her role as Bacon’s onetime love interest, Katrina Van Tassel. Josh Brolin, who reportedly lost 60 pounds and wore lifts during filming, plays fellow scientist, Ichabod Crane. When Katrina and Ichabod fail to restore Bacon’s head, he becomes unglued and unleashes a murderous rampage on his colleagues.

The story of a young, broke, and funny Haitian immigrant whose rising star on the L.A. stand-up comedy scene plummeted during The Great Comedians Strike of 1979. 

The Wonderful World of Ozymandias

 

Follow Dorothy, The Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion, and the loveable Scarecrow as they journey through the ruins of the kingdom of Oz.   Will Dorothy’s clay slippers stand the test of time?