Satisfying
posted in Books, Garden, Pop Culture, Wildlife |There is something profoundly satisfying about being able to toss a small bomb at a living creature and feel righteous about it. It gives me a teeny tiny glimmer of understanding about people who are willing to subsume themselves into hatred and prejudice; it’s visceral.
In other words: I threw a firework at a pair of moose who were in the yard and felt a warm glow of achievement as these huge critters went barreling off through the woods. Into one of our neighbors’ back yards. Oh, well. They’ve lived here a long time, surely they already have the moose thang sussed out, unlike us hapless Alaska newbies.
Aside from that, nothing is roiling my brain right now. OmegaGranny sent me a link to a blog post about kids books and end-of-the-world catastrophism, prompted by a write-up in Newsweek.
Eh.
Frankly, the majority of stuff that kids read right now is so fluffy and frilly and substance-less that a few more meaty books here and there don’t bother me. After all, we’ve got Barbie and Bratz and My Little Pony and CareBears and sweetness and light all over the place. (Speaking of “sweetness and light”, have you seen JibJab’s take on the latest presidential campaign, in particular the very amusing part about Barack Obama? And you should read their blog about pulling it all together, too.)
Good old-fashioned disaster lit just takes one back to an earlier, more gritty age, when Cinderella’s stepsisters cut off their toes and heels to try to fit into the glass slipper, and one princess’s evil stepmother was forced to dance at her wedding in iron-hot dancing shoes. It’s not like catastrophe, disaster, vengeance, killing, and what-not is anything new. Bambi’s mother, for instance, is shot. And Disney movies are run through-and-through with dead or absent moms.
Anyway, if the disaster lit wasn’t written specifically for juveniles, you can be assured that the juveniles will just find grown-up disaster lit to read. Or movies to watch. Poseidon Adventure, anyone? Towering Inferno? On The Beach? Godzilla?
I think that humans are hard-wired to want drama. Humans against humans! All against the backdrop of war! or disaster! You’ve got yer Ulysses. You’ve got yer Beowulf. You’ve got yer Bayeaux Tapestry, Don Quixote, Les Miserables, Gone With The Wind, The Day After Tomorrow… Probably those ancient humans who did the cave paintings in Lescaux had their own version of the disaster/drama/horror story while sitting around fires and eating freshly slain bison.
Right now, my personal desire is for a rockin’, sockin’ disaster novel that ends up with the End Of All Moose, and the Flourishing Of All Veggie Gardens. I’ll settle, however, for a few books that are due to show up in my mailbox within a week or so, good old-fashioned escapist fantasy and science fiction, replete with–of course–catastrophic end-of-the-world shenanigans…
(ETA: Ack! I forgot to mention Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog! You must check it out within the next two days, before they make you pay for it!)
