Coraline: Movie and Book

Movies made from books are hard. I loved Matilda, and was surprised to love it. Usually I just avoid movies made from books I love. I still think the Lord of the Rings books are better; I only ever saw the first movie. Only ever needed to see one. But Coraline was pretty great, although it was strange to see a movie of a book I have read aloud so many times, having taught it to several classes of sixth graders. I realized, as I was watching the movie and recognizing which lines of dialogue came straight from the book, that I know Coraline better than just about any book ever. I've read it out loud multiple times, and discussed it in depth with so many engaged readers. I loved it before teaching it, and had no idea how much more I'd love it after teaching it. My students loved it, connected with it, made these great associations and came up with their own amazing interpretations that hugely deepened my appreciation of it.

I am sad, now, that next time I teach Coraline, many of my students will probably not have the images they create in their heads as they listen and the illustrations by Dave Mckean as their first associations when they think of the characters. It might not be entirely a bad thing that instead of remembering my voice reading it, they'll remember the actors' voices, but it's such a book that leaves space for the reader to fill in the world. There is so much there that is left to the imagination for the reader to complete, making it his or her own book. The movie doesn't entirely take that away, but...

I'm also thinking that it could be fun to read the book with students and then show them the movie--I've done that with Miracle's Boys, and of course showing and discussing different film versions are an intrinsic part of how I teach Romeo and Juliet. But Romeo and Juliet is a play. Plays are meant to be seen and heard. I've used the miniseries of Miracle's Boys in part to talk about what's different, what works and what doesn't. I could do this with Coraline too. But I don't know--part of me wants Coraline just to be its own thing. Its own book.

I am still thinking about this, I can't articulate it well because it's not entirely articulated in my head.

Earthsea

I just finished the first book in Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series, A Wizard of Earthsea. I read till I fell asleep last night, then got up and read till the end. Then I put the next three in the series on hold at the library.

Laurel and I had been talking about them and race, and she'd said that she thought there were a few very subtle hints--so of course watching for them, I found them less subtle. Some are matter-of fact: When our hero, Ged, meets Vetch, another student who becomes a close friend, Vetch is described as "very dark of skin, not red-brown like Ged and Jasper and most folk of the Archepelago, but black-brown." He is also described as "plain, and his manners were not polished," but since Ged has just been dealing with Jasper, a "polite disdainful youth" who is the son of a Lord, while Ged himself is "a mountain villager who had never been among the sons of rich merchants and noblemen," Vetch's manners and appearance are clearly positive attributes.

& I thought this characterization was pretty awesome and not terribly subtle: "Before nightfall he saw away off on his left hand the long, faint shoreline of a great land, which must be Karego-At. He was in the very sea-roads of those white barbaric folk."

Not related to race, and seeming in one sense to be the sort of cliched wisdom one expects to find in fantasy novels, I thought this advice from the Master Summoner to Ged is actually extremely true and relevant to more than just those of us who are studying to be Wizards: "You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do...." [Italics and ellipsis in the original.]

Love Lockdown

I have been amused all week by the enormous butcher paper posters all over the middle school where I teach, advertising tonight's dance with its LOVE LOCKDOWN theme. The best posters say LET YOUR LOVE LOCK DOWN! I don't really know what that means.

Chivalry

This morning, sitting at a coffee shop on Killingsworth, I see two punk kids approaching--the boy gently pushes past the girl and opens the door, then rushes through himself before she can.

That smell, you know that smell?

They figured out the smell! Fenugreek seeds?!

At Albina Press on Albina

This woman is dressed amazing: hair up and back in a casual sort of twist but the bangs are doing something funny, off to the side; a gray t-shirt very tucked into high-waisted black and white flowery print pants that are almost capris but a little longer; and she has her black socks pulled all the way up but they still don’t quite meet the pants. There’s a couple inches of a gap on one side, and on the other side the pants are partly tucked into the socks. (Maybe it’s two different black socks not actually a pair? I can’t tell.) And then black suede shoes, flats with maybe 4 holes for the laces. I had pants vaguely like those at my most nerdiest, seventh grade, but I think they were blue and green flowered or something, and they were at least long enough. But that was in 1987. And anyway I never wore them because they were so high waisted. I was a nerd but I was still trying. Really hard.

Music, Radio

K-HiTS 106.7 has been playing their entire catalog A-Z. It's making me very happy, I'm so sad it will end today. I've been listening to more commercial radio in the past week and a half than I have since high school, probably, when I was devoted to... shit, what was that station that we all mourned so much? REV 105, but even before that I was devoted to an even poppier station... & DJ Kevin Cole who apparently is in Seattle now. I only remembered Kevin... somebody and googled kevin indie radio minneapolis... hah! Anyway--found the poppy alterna-station I loved in high school: KJ104. In a wikipedia entry about the history of REV105 which is pretty interesting, actually.

Anyway K-HiTS 106.7 is "oldies," which now is 60's and 70's although in my youth it was 50's and 60's. I think K-HiTS might be fudging the time span on either end, but I wouldn't put money on it. Anyway the list of all the songs they're playing is here. (If anyone wants to investigate the actually span of years covered, let me know, I'm curious. But my "25 things you didn't know about me" for facebook just takes precedence, sorry. Gotta have priorities.) This morning I heard "Whole Lotta Love" backed with "Who'll Stop the Rain?" which was beautiful. Deep, too. This afternoon, less beautiful, even excruciating, in fact: "You're the One That I Want" followed by "You've Got a Friend." Groan.

P.S. Elvis Presley's "All Shook Up," was released in 1957. Aren't we all glad to know that?

P.P.S. Do I win for most pointless blog entry? Probably not. But I hope I might be setting a record for myself, at least.