I had great success with my original #SummerOfShort and #SummerOfShort2 Secret of the Ooze!
And now this weirdo school year has reached its end which means it‘s time once again to spend my days with my wonderful kiddos while working my way through as many books with less than 300 pages from my TBR as I can.
Welcome to #SummerOfShort3!
School‘s out for summer! And our system is shifting schedules which means it is going to be a much shorter summer than usual.
Just like last year‘s #SummerOfShort, I‘m planning on reading books with less than 300 pages & hoping to plow through a few before it‘s back to work on August 1st.
Get ready for lots of pictures of my kiddos at various parks and libraries! Welcome to my #SummerOfShort2
pickIt is hard to both deconstruct something and celebrate it at the same time, but with The White Deer and The 13 Clocks (with which I kicked off the summer) James Thurber has written 2 fairy tales that somehow hold up and laugh at all the tropes without losing that special kind of magic.
A princess who might really be a deer sends 3 princes off on dangerous quests that all hold surprises. The language is lovely. Highly recommended.
pickStories from the making of Jaws are the stuff of film legend. Angry locals on Martha‘s Vineyard stole from the production and impeded the building of sets. The mechanical shark (named Bruce) rarely worked. Disastrous weather. Doubling its projected budget. A film crew and actors on the edge as the shooting schedule went out the window. All that and sailboats gliding into the frame during filming.
The end product is, of course, a masterpiece.
Spielberg didn‘t leave Martha‘s Vineyard for the 5 1/2 months it took to film Jaws. He was there every day as it grew further and further over-budget and over-schedule. After returning to the mainland he was plagued with nightmares that he was still on the island, still shooting Jaws.
#SummerOfShort
“In another minute, the boat capsizes and sinks, and the sea is full of swimming men, small boats maneuvering to effect rescues, and a lot of debris and parts of tripods, slates, scripts, coffee cups, lights, cameras, and action.”
Two ships were made to play the shark-hunting Orca in Jaws, Orca 1 to do most of filming on and Orca 2 to intentionally sink at the end... only Orca 1 ended up going down as well.
#SummerOfShort
pickThe formula:
1. One of Bertie‘s buddies has a problem (usually how to get a girl or how to get money from a relative)
2. Bertie‘s butler Jeeves suggests a solution.
3. The suggested solution makes the problem even bigger.
4. By the efforts of Jeeves or just plain luck the bigger problem twists itself into a solution.
Toss in some By Jove!‘s and drown it in booze.
Despite the repetition, the writing was as bubbly as champagne and I loved it
I‘m spending the last night of summer vacation in my traditional manner, rewatching Monsieur Hulot‘s Holiday.
Sending positive thoughts to all teachers, students, and the parents of students who are starting a new school year!
It‘s back to work tomorrow, and while the last few weeks got kind of slumpy, I think my #SummerOfShort experiment turned out pretty well.
With my lovely wife at work, my days were consumed by these wild and wonderful little guys, but by focusing on #TBR books with less than 300 pages I was able to get through way more than in summers past.
so-soI enjoyed this less than I wanted to. It was a solid fantasy with the trappings of ancient Japan, but I never really bonded with the main character, Shikanoko. I do not relish the thought of spending another 3 books with him, especially due to a horrible act he commits in the last few pages.
That said, the rest of the cast is vast and interesting, with complex shading given to characters that would have been forgotten about in other narratives.
