Adventures in the World of Books and Movies, Part I

It's a well-known fact that my mother has great love in her heart for Jane Austen and her many literary works.  It is also a well-known fact that my mother has memorized all of the aforementioned literary works and their various film adaptions.

It is a slightly less well-known fact that I actually enjoy reading only one of said literary works, thus eternally shaming and tormenting my English-major mother. But hey, Pride and Prejudice is the only one I've read in the past 8 years, so it's possible that my opinions have changed since I was still homeschooled.

Either way, that's why when I learned that a major portion of the assigned reading was in fact P&P, I didn't run away screaming: "Pages and pages of itty-bitty print! British girls complaining about men not falling in love with them! AIEEEEEEEEE!"

Having watched the BBC film adaptation at least 5 times through, and having read the book about the same number of times, it's safe to say I've reached my memory threshold for Bennet & Co. That is to say, I remember all the good lines, who (whom?) everybody is (does, loves, owes, has, is related to, etc.), and the plot (and setting, and theological arguments, and moral arguments, and feminist arguments, and all the other things my mother gushes about in her virtually nonexistent spare time).

Anyway, while at the grandparents a week ago, the Keira Knightley version of P&P was on. Keira Knightly is an actress. From somewhere that makes unfaithful adaptations of great literary novels. She is known for having a unique smile and the other female endowments necessary to be an actress. Anyhoo, she was Elizabeth Bennet in the non-BBC version of P&P. Mom said I should watch it.

-- "Why?"
-- "Because it's bad, and will allow you to fully appreciate all the wonderful plot pieces that it omits."
-- "Seems legit."

It was horrendous. I'm usually an expert at analyzing failure, wierdness, other people, or really anything else, but I couldn't get it. There were so many things wrong my brain hurt. I'm sure all the actors and actresses are wonderful people when they're not playing from a bad script, but I could get past the 17 times I said "Wait! That's not in the book!" in the 5 minutes that I watched the movie. I was told that the K.K. adaptation is the most unfaithful Austen film except for Mansfield Park, and I never really like Mansfield Park in the first place.

Comparatively, I liked the non-BBC Collins better than the BBC one, but I think that's kind of the point. You're not supposed to like him. As for everybody else... meh. BBC is just so perfect. You can't top that. So don't try beating Brits at their own game. That's today's lesson.

Cheers,
Isaac

The Move

Well, the move went fairly well, all things considered.

We thought we were mostly ready.

 So we got the truck.

And we got doughnuts and coffee. 

People from Stephen's church had volunteered to come help us load, so . . . coffee and doughnuts.  (It almost killed Theo, as you can imagine, to hear, "They're not for us; they're for the movers," seventeen times before 8am.)

So, it turned out we were not quite so almost-ready as we thought we were.  People who arrived thinking that they'd spend an hour or two throwing boxes on the truck instead packed and loaded and packed some more.  All day.

They were sweet about it, though . . .

. . . and left very kind messages, instead of the things they were really thinking, for us to find when we started unpacking.

Several of them worked on the parsonage grounds, too, making it nice for the next pastor and his family.

Amos helped.

Theo was very, very helpful, too!

(We actually did ask him to take that one off so we could put in something else first.  He's not going the wrong way.)

We got it all packed and on the truck by the end of the day Saturday.

Pop-pop came down Sunday night to help.

No, really--he came to drive the truck.

And we rolled out Monday morning!  It was a very long drive.

We tried to keep our happy faces on as much as we could.

And we stopped along the way to visit with people.

We stopped at Grandma Jackie's for lunch the first day.

She was glad that Amos was such a good eater.  (She always worries about babies not getting enough to eat.)

We stopped at The Lake to spend the night.

We stopped at Chipotle and Chick-Fil-A and our other favorite places for meals.

We enjoyed the drive as much as we could (in Tennessee, for example) and put our game faces on for the rest.  (Virginia is a lot longer than you think, especially when you're traveling on 81.)

And finally, late in the evening on Tuesday, we arrived!

Our new home, waiting for us.  Yay!

Are We There Yet?

New job, new city, new house, new church: why not a new blog, too?

Well, here we are, then.

This will be mostly like the old blog, except without all of xanga's :ahem: idiosyncrasies.

You'll notice that we're still unpacking here, as well as in the house, so . . . you know, ignore the mess, try not to make too many "helpful" suggestions, and bring pie, if you can.

True story: this pie was just brought to us by the "Food Ministry" team from the church we visited this past Sunday.  As far as bribes to come back go, it's pretty solid.  We'll have to check out all the other churches, though.

Another true story: when we first moved back to North Carolina after our time in Paris, we visited all the United Methodist churches in our town.

The first week, we visited a church that was having Stewardship Sunday, where they collect all the pledge cards (if you don't already know, don't ask) and have a little celebration after church.  This was a relatively new thing at the time, just like the Chimes of the Trinity (also don't ask), and you could see people looking around and asking themselves, "Is this how we should be doing this?"

Well, they looked at us visitors and said, "Well, why don't you join us?  It's a free lunch and all!"

And we, being grad students, said, "Gosh, that would be lovely."  At it was.  A lovely fried chicken catered dinner.

So the next week, we went to the church down the road, and that was the week it was having its Stewardship Sunday!  And they were having their celebration after church, and it was partly catered and partly potluck, but they said, "Hey, why don't you join us?  Don't worry about not having anything for the potluck--just come enjoy a free lunch!"

And we, being grad students, said, "Gosh, that would be lovely."  And so we ate more fried chicken, and all the traditional North Carolina potluck items, like cole slaw and potato salad and banana pudding and thoroughly boiled green beans with fatback.

The next week?  Guess.  (You'll never guess.)  The big UMC church downtown that we visited?  Stewardship Sunday.

I swear, I am not making this up: we hit five Stewardship Sunday celebrations the first two months.

We also took advantage of at least four churches' VBS weeks, but that's another story for another time.

Well, we've hit two UMC churches so far here in [our town], Alabama.  We've got three more to visit (I think).  I'll let you know about the rest.