From VQR online: a defense of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight: “… any writer who can create a world so vivid and compelling that it pulls us away from reality and into a place created solely through words and imagination, well, then I think that’s what makes a good book”
From The Economist: “[The Texas Renaissance Festival] is the largest Renaissance festival in the country; it had more than 400,000 visitors over eight weekends this year. But more than 150 of these productions have popped up in America since 1963, when a “pleasure faire” was first held in southern California.”
L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz was commentary on agriculture and the debate between gold, silver, and the dollar standard. “The Scarecrow portrays the American farmer, while the Tin Man represents the workers, and the Cowardly Lion depicts William Jennings Bryan…in the original story Dorothy’s slippers were made of silver, not ruby, implying that silver was the Populists’ solution to the nation’s economic woes. Meanwhile, the Yellow Brick Road was the gold standard, and Toto (Dorothy’s faithful dog) represented the Prohibitionists, who were an important part of the silverite coalition. The Wicked Witch of the West symbolizes President William McKinley; and the Wizard is Mark Hanna, who was the chairman of the Republican Party and made promises that he could not keep.” – Jeffrey Saut (via.)
On a (way too long) text file of articles I want to write is the idea that the whimsical Amelie world of tea-sipping mousey-haired Tumblettes (Lula magazine, Joanna Newsome, Erin Featherstone dresses, Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper-nostalgic graphic design) is the feminine counterpart, the fantasy counterpart to your average hipster guy’s sci-fi geek pride. (An addendum to this.) But first I’d have to reread that Piers Anthony book about the girl who cuts herself. From LCRW: a review of Benjamin Parzybok’s Couch, “Besides romance, fantasy is perhaps the last of the popular genres to get an overhaul for the 21st century. Not much has changed in the genre since the invention of Bilbo Baggins. Hundreds of writers have slavishly imitated—or outright ripped off—Tolkien in ways that connoisseurs of other genres would consider shameless. What Parzybok has done here in adapting the same old song to a world more familiar to the reader is to revive the genre and make it relevant again. And by making the magical MacGuffin a beloved household item that nearly everyone has a complicated relationship with, he gives the story the depth and allure of the best modern literary fiction.”
-
A collection of interesting ideas curated by
Joanne McNeil. About ➚
Sponsors
