Author: LobaBlanca

Holiday Flashback: Twas the Night Before Christmas

~ LobaBlanca

As much as I love Rankin/Bass holiday specials, I’m shocked that I completely forgot about their cartoon version of Twas the Night Before Christmas. This used to be one of my favorite Christmas specials when I was a little kid. I suspect it was the singing mice. Or Joel Grey. Either one always gets me. Thankfully, and who knows for how long, someone has posted this cartoon on YouTube. I can only describe my response upon discovering it as “great joy and gratitude.”

Merry Christmas Eve, denizens, if that’s your holiday swing. If not, I wish you the most wonderful Tuesday ever in the history of the universe.

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/bOUFMmprpLI

BookBin2013: Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison

~ LobaBlanca

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Earlier this year, I found myself under a barrage of questioning from friends, both nerdy and non, all asking me the same thing: “Are you watching that new Netflix show, Orange Is the New Black?” It was weird and somewhat unnerving that people from all angles of my existence were asking about this show and showing utter shock when I responded no.

I hardly watch any television anymore. I mean, sure, I still watch CSI…because Jorja Fox and Elisabeth Shue. Otherwise, I typically tend to shy away from getting into TV shows. They just seem to constantly disappoint me. I’m far too critical for my own good sometimes. Also, why on earth would I want to watch a show about an upwardly mobile, city-dwelling Whiter-than-Casper yuppie who is suddenly faced with serving time in a federal prison for a crime she committed almost a decade prior? Sounded like a recipe in cliches and stereotypes that I didn’t think sounded interesting at all.

However, this constant questioning and surprise over my lack of participation caused enough curiosity that I finally looked up this Netflix show, just to figure out why everyone was asking me about it. And the obvious answer was?

Galina “Red” Reznikov. Known in my world as Captain Kathryn Janeway.

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Oh, yes. This was something I needed to watch.

I typically don’t like things that pique the interest of the Hype Machine (which this show obviously was doing), but I put those reservations on the back burner because of my lifelong devotion to Kate Mulgrew. For the most part, I’m incredibly glad that I did. First, the expected nitpick from me: The show was created by Jenji Kohan, who created the Mary-Louise Parker-helmed Showtime series Weeds. Minus the first season, I hated that show. It took turns so dark and twisted, I finally gave up watching, for fear of ODing on Dramamine just to keep up. Kohan’s MO seems to be giving you characters that you love, instantly like, or even love to loathe…and then making them thoroughly hate-worthy in the least enjoyable ways.

I really hope she doesn’t do that with the characters of OITNB, although the first season ended in such a way that I’m beginning to wonder. Truthfully, though, the primary character, Piper Chapman, is probably the least likeable character of the whole cast. No, the strength of this show lies within the capable hands of one of the most amazing ensemble casts I have ever witnessed in any series. I’ve made note of this before, but it bears repeating that it’s a shame that many of these incredibly talented actresses couldn’t finally catch the break they deserved until being cast as prisoners. Yay for diversity…behind bars.

Seriously, though, the women on this show are amazing: In addition to Mulgrew and Taylor Schilling as Piper Chapman, there’s Danielle Brooks, Uzo Aduba, Laverne Cox, Samira Wiley, Dascha Polanco, Taryn Manning, Michelle Hurst, Natasha Lyonne, Yael Stone, Selenis Leyva, Constance Shulman…they are all so amazing in their roles. You’d think with a show with so many “moving pieces” as this one, it would be easy to overlook characters or forget certain ones in between appearances. Not so with this cast. Each of these actresses brings something so delightful to her character that you remember her, no matter how often or infrequently she appears.

But what does all this have to do with a book review? Glad you asked. After watching the first season and hitting a raging case of withdrawal upon finishing, I put myself on the library wait list for the book on which this series is based. There actually is a Piper, although her real name is Piper Kerman:

With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money 10 years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to 15 months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187

Flashback Friday: The Year Without a Santa Claus

~ LobaBlanca

It’s that time of year once more, denizens, in which I journey back to those nostalgic memories of Christmases past and bring a little holiday joy into the lair while doing so. For me, holiday television viewing is almost predominantly owned by Rankin/Bass Productions. I’ve referenced these purveyors of stop-motion and traditional animation before, but this time I’d like to reference one of their stop-motion cartoons that wasn’t quite as popular as their more famous fare, like Frosty and Rudolph: The Year Without a Santa Claus. Featuring Mickey Rooney as the voice of Santa and Shirley Booth as the voice of Mrs. Claus, this show didn’t air in regular rotation for very long in comparison with other Rankin/Bass offerings (I believe it stopped appearing on regular television in the early 80s, which means it was only out there for five or six years; ABC Family now plays it every year, which I guess is one tick in favor of cable television).

I actually don’t remember a whole lot from the show itself. My favorite parts, however, were the Miser Brothers: Heat and Snow. Together, they sing two parts of a song that I still love. It’s silly and bouncy and actually converted quite well to a cover by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. Don’t believe me? First, here’s the original:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/hGRkNaMFp6w

And here’s the cover:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/sPJjBNa7WYY

See? Not bad. If you want “bad,” all you need do is listen to this cover, performed by Harvey Fierstein as Heat Miser and Michael McKean as Snow Miser for the 2006 live-action version of this special. Oh, denizens, I really, truly wish I was kidding on this one. I apologize now, but I’m going to have to post a link to this since I have mentioned it. It’s terrible. You have been warned:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/IGhT_ylXN8s

Eek. And did they really try to sexy up this special with scantily clad girlie dancers? Seriously, who thought this would ever be a good idea? Tick another one off in the support of my disdain for remakes…

Oh, and by the way? Team Heat Miser, all the way.

BookBin2013: Voices from the Street

~ LobaBlanca

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Here’s a visit with a favorite author who hasn’t made a BookBin appearance since I reviewed his novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said back in 2009. Anyone who knows me knows that I love Philip K. Dick. While I haven’t read a lot of his works, I have always regarded the ones that I have read as top-shelf contributions to the science fiction genre. One of my ongoing frustrations with our local library (which for all intents and purposes, is quite lovely in almost every regard) is that the only one of Dick’s novels that they’ve had in a very long time is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Own it. Love it. Want something new.

So when I did a random database search on a whim and discovered that they were hiding one of Dick’s books somewhere other than the science fiction section, I could barely keep from running to the location. Seems that one of his earliest rejected manuscripts, penned sometime in the 1950s, finally made it into print in 2007. Surprisingly, Voices from the Street is not a science fiction book. It’s as grounded in present-day reality (for the time it was written) as anything could possibly be.

The story centers on Stuart Hadley, a young handsome lad with a pretty wife, a new baby boy, and a dull but promising job selling televisions. He’s also coddled, disaffected, and temperamental, with a constant sense that he was meant for more than the confines of his “normal” life. He wants to be an artiste, bohemian, spiritual, separate. He seeks fulfillment through various means and…well, in the end, it’s truly a Philip K. Dick novel, even without the electric sheep.

In this novel, Dick captures several personality layers through an array of complex and disparate characters…the damage of disconnectedness left by war, the ennui of privilege, the false witness of spirituality, the emptiness of having, the futility of wanting. His prose is dark, direct, never afraid to keep plummeting down the rabbit hole, never feeling the need to hold back on anything. His dialogue is vicious at times as his characters hold conversations reserved either for the closest of friends or the people one deems unworthy of censorship. Characters are blas

Flashback Friday: Chain Lightning 600 Dominoes

~ LobaBlanca

What’s this, you say? A new Flashback Friday? An honest-to-prophets, brand-spank-me-new blog post from the delightfully in absentia LobaBlanca herself? To what do we owe the honor tonight? I don’t know, really…but enjoy it while it lasts, denizens. You never know when the muses will withdraw their benevolence.

So I love dominoes. Not the actual game of dominoes. I do know how to play the game, but not being a fan of games in general, I don’t really like it. No, I like setting up elaborate domino schemes and watching them tumble in properly syncopated style. I haven’t actually done such a thing in years, but when I was little, I used to do it all the time. See, one of my aunts gave me one of the greatest gifts ever for my birthday one year: The Chain Lightning 600 domino set.

Some of you might be familiar with the similar Domino Rally set, which is apparently back on the market as of 2012. This was the more popular of the two sets. Domino Rally had larger dominoes, plus it had easy-to-build bridges that actually had flip-up dominoes attached to them. So you didn’t really have to have any patience or skill to build those. All you had to do was flip your wrist to make the attached dominoes stand up.

Chain Lightning had bridges, too. However, you had to add your own dominoes. And they were little tiny things. Took a steady hand and nice supply of patience to build up one of those. Took even more of both to use the design templates that came with this frame that you could use to lower the template so you could add the dominoes, and then raise the template back up so you could remove it without knocking over the dominoes. You don’t even want to know how many times I knocked over a template that I’d just spent several minutes adding.

Photo courtesy of Daysgonebytreasures
Photo courtesy of Daysgonebytreasures

This set might have been what started me on my illustriously long-lived career as more potty-mouthed than a sailor.

Still, I kept at it and got pretty damned good at using the templates and also coming up with my own designs. I would go into our dining room, which was empty at the time, and spend hours, just me and a giant bag of dominoes and my imagination. Bonus if I could make it through a building session without the dog coming through and knocking over at least part of whatever I was building.

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XM1bDL5CQa4

What makes me laugh the most about this video is the same template design that gave them problems used to give me the same problems. I always assumed that it was somehow user error. Now I see that there must have been something wrong with the design.

Sometimes I wish I still had a space where I could build things with dominoes. Then again, I know my personality. If I still played with dominoes, I’d be one of those crazy people who spent days and days building elaborate things like…well, like this:

//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/9E7Ep3U06Nc

Of course, we all know that, instead of an “Around the World” tribute, I would build some kind of tribute to something worthwhile…Star Trek or Scooby Doo. Maybe domino diaramas dedicated to all the Peanuts characters.

Oooh. I’m liking these ideas…

Unleashing the Writer: Switchbacks, Starshine, and Sunrise

~ LobaBlanca

I still exist, denizens. I haven’t holed up in a shopping mall to hide from the zombie apocalypse or gone looking for the Blair Witch or spelunking and never returned.

Apparently, I have been watching a lot of horror movies lately. What? It is October.

Things are running at warp speed on many planes of my existence right now, and sadly, I have had to reduce my time here at the lair in response. Only temporarily, though, I promise. I think about you all often, and I have been working on things to post here. I just need to find the time (and energy) to finish them.

Case in point? I’ve been working on this particular piece for an embarrassingly long time. It’s about our trip to Haleakal? National Park in Maui to watch the sun rise. It was one of the most beautiful natural events I have ever experienced, for many reasons. I desperately wanted to capture some of that morning’s events. I hope that’s what I’ve done with this piece. Even if it’s not that great, you at least get some lovely photos at the end, for your effort 😉

Eyelids begrudgingly slip open, pupils swiftly dilating, as my brain registers but refuses to comprehend the startling electronic trill or the cool blue glow against the otherwise perfect blackness of the room. The digital numbers pulse gently as my eyes struggle to focus and my brain drags itself from the shallows of an uncertain sleep. Those numbers: 2:45. In the morning.

In the morning.

Several fuzzy, futile attempts at addition and I realize that in “our time,” it’s really 7:45 a.m. In another world, thousands of miles out of sight and blissfully out of mind, I’d be at the office, pouring my first coffee of the day and mixing blueberries and cinnamon into my oatmeal. Morning rituals designed to ease my descent into another workday.

Cool blue numbers flicker to 2:46. Morning rituals are temporarily on pause and there’s no way but up today.

Roll out of bed and dress: T-shirt, long-sleeved shirt, jeans, baseball cap, and hiking shoes. Pack a sweatshirt and a hoodie. Try not to feel utterly ridiculous at the incongruity of such a wardrobe when it’s still a solid 75 degrees outside. Paradise should not require hoodies.

She’s already packed Kashi bars and fruit strips in her backpack, plus the water bottles the hotel staff so kindly left when they prepared the room for our arrival the previous day, and is standing next to the door, similarly sleep-deprived yet incongruously wide awake. “Don’t forget your cameras. We’ve got to go.”

Hustle across the softly lit lobby to the sound of waves cresting and crashing against the distant shoreline. We marvel at the fact that we’re not the only ones scurrying about. Families wait in irritable impatience for the valet to pull around their minivans. Other couples slouch toward their self-parked rentals. One young woman unrepentantly drapes one of the hotel’s bed spreads across her shoulders as she traipses off into the darkness. It’s surreal and slightly absurd, but the night-shift staff all smile knowingly at us as we pass, completely unsurprised. Nothing more predictable than the tides or tourists, I suppose.

Finally in our rental car, top definitely up for this excursion, and out on the main highway, I settle into a comfortable speed, roll down the windows and listen to the cadence of tires spinning us toward our destination. No other sounds but that. No other lights but our headlights, piercing the nothingness of night. We’ve left the other tourists behind as I roll through the blackness in this still-unfamiliar beast of a rental that growls obstinately at the slightest press of my foot against the accelerator. He’s seen rough roads, this one, even for a relatively new model. I can’t help but wonder where those roads might be.

I’m about to find out.

The GPS finally directs us off the main highway and onto a narrow road barely visible minus the crisp British voice entreating me to “Turn here.” I obey, and the ascent begins immediately.

The rental’s four speeds dwindle to one–a churlish, lumbering grumble as I force it upward along a seemingly endless parade of switchbacks that float out of early mists and bend onward into blinding blackness. Only the distant glimpse of headlights far behind and below shatter the surreal solipsism of this long night’s journey into day.

The world diminishes to the breadth and depth of our high beams as we wind upward, stopping once to pay our entrance fee into the park (even this early, the booth contains a pleasant-faced ranger, donned in forest green and topped by Smokey the Bear headgear) before continuing on to the parking lot at the very end of the line. We glide past a sign that marks our elevation

BookBin2013: Batgirl Volume 2: Knightfall Descends

~ LobaBlanca

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Finally back to my own collection…although, admittedly, this is a recent purchase and not one of those myriad books languishing in the literary limbo of my own devising. Still, this collection and the other two that I recently purchased are stories that I have been waiting to continue for quite a while now. I simply can’t wait to read these.

It’s been since January of this year that I paid a visit to Gotham City to see what’s new with two of my favorite members of the Order Chiroptera. I’ll be talking more about my visit with the Lady Kane soon enough, but this is about the Knightfall Descending upon the lovely Barbara Gordon.

Writer Gail Simone continues to spin quite a yarn for Gordon as she re-acclimates herself with her role as Batgirl. There’s a nice bit of back story in the beginning, a bit of “top of the world for a moment or two” as we see her fighting alongside Batman and Robin, followed by a decision to leave the darkness of fighting the criminal world to live a normal life…only to realize that, as the first issue of this collection points out on its last page, “Sometimes, the darkness finds you.”

That darkness is, of course, what Gordon continues to struggle with as she tries once more to regain the full prowess of her role as Batgirl. There is other darkness as well throughout this novel, both within the fortress of Gordon’s personal life as well as throughout the expanses of her home turf. Quite a bit, actually. Gotham’s sinister underside spills into the lives of its heroes, painting every corner with blood and menace, revenge and desperation all the shades of the grimmest spectrum.

Overall, the stories within this novel were interesting enough to keep me reading. I also believe that they are putting into place some elements that will set the stage for even more interesting storytelling to come with Batgirl’s upcoming third collection, Death of the Family.

[Loba Tangent: I have already pre-ordered this collection, which apparently ties in with several other Gotham-related graphic novels that all share the same title, and am counting down the days until its October 29 release. The cover art alone makes me want to get my hands on this one!]

Speaking of art, Ardian Syaf is still doing the bulk of the penciling for Batgirl, and is still doing an admirable job. I’m not really all that fond of the cover of this particular collection (done by artist Stanley Lau). I feel like that cover is all about one thing: “Hey, look, it’s Batgirl’s crotch!” However, Syaf’s still treating Batgirl as if she’s more than crotch shots, butt shots, and boobs. I wish they drew Batwoman a little more like Syaf draws Batgirl.

Speaking of Batwoman (which I like to do quite often, thank you), she makes a crossover appearance toward the end of this collection! And answers that most important question: Who would win in a fight between Batwoman and Batgirl? (Guess you’ll just have to read the novel to learn the answer.) Even though I still think that Batwoman artist J.H. Williams III is the stronger artist, I really liked Syaf’s treatment of Batwoman. He made her a little sportier looking as well, while still giving her the rather…generous proportions that Williams bestows upon her in her own comics. Syaf might be a good choice to take over Batwoman’s world as well, now that…

…but that’s a conversation for another post.

Final Verdict: I liked this collection. I found some of the revelations to be interesting and titillating enough (especially the ones involving Gordon’s family members). I do feel that this was a bit of a “bridge” collection…stories that are not necessarily the greatest, but that are setting us up for something that might transcend greatness in the telling. For that reason alone, I’m glad I picked back up with Barbara Gordon and her Batgirl journeys.

Fabulous Photo Friday: Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania

~ LobaBlanca

Hey, denizens, do you know what Loba’s favorite mammal is?

Yes, that’s right. My favorite mammal is the naked mole rat!

…

Of course, it really is the wolf. I have always loved wolves. I find them to be magnificent, loyal, beautiful creatures. I own numerous books on them, read about them all the time, donate money several times a year to defend them, and just generally think they’re more awesome than even Star Trek.

That’s how much I love wolves.

So when we recently found ourselves heading up into parts of Pennsylvania other than Philadelphia, I took it upon myself to map out how far of a drive it would be from our actual destination to a place that I have wanted to go for many, many moons: The Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania in Lititz.

[Loba Tangent: The name of the city is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable. I learned this the hard way. I’m trying to help you avoid the same embarrassing lesson.]

Believe it or not, there are states in this country with such lax exotic animal laws that people can actually adopt wolves. As utterly ridiculous and downright stupid as that sounds, it’s even worse that there are people out there who go through with adopting these wild animals, either for the status symbol or just because they’re morons.

[Loba Tangent 2: Actually, I think anyone who tries to bring a wolf into their home for whatever reason falls into the “moron” category. These are wild animals. If you want something domesticated to guard your house and poop in your yard, do what everyone else does and buy a dog. There are lots of them in kill shelters and rescues that would love to be your pet.]

The Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania, and other sanctuaries throughout the United States, come to the rescue of these wolves when the people who bought them finally realize that, “Hey, trying to keep a wild pack animal alone in my apartment for 8+ hours a day is a really stupid idea.” The sanctuary takes in these wolves, from places as far away as Montana and Wyoming, who live in that terrible limbo realm of not domesticated enough to be be pets, but too domesticated to survive in the wild.

The staff of the Wolf Sanctuary love their pack, respect that they are not dogs, let them have their space, do not intrude into the natural ways in which wolves interact, dominate, submit, and howl away their days. They do their best to tend to the wolves’ needs in ways that do not require that they enter into the wolves’ zones or impede upon the wolves’…sanctuaries.

I was admittedly worried about how I would feel about these wild animals being placed on display (I even have a bit of a problem with zoos, but I understand that a lot of zoos do worthwhile research that benefits both the captive animals and their free counterparts…so I deal). The sanctuary, however, is doing a wonderful job of protecting these wolves while giving them as much space and freedom as they can.

Of course, I took my DSLR, because…wolves. There really isn’t any need for further explanation, right? I took lots of photos, but only some of them turned out the way I wanted them to. It’s quite difficult to capture constantly moving animals while trying to focus out the chain-link fence that separates you from them. But I succeeded a few times. And sometimes, the fence is there, but the photo came out well enough that I don’t mind.

Here, then, are some of my favorite shots from our visit to the Wolf Sanctuary of Pennsylvania. Enjoy!

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High Flying, Adored

~ LobaBlanca

So yesterday was my birthday, denizens. How old did I turn? Well…let’s put it this way: Captain Janeway and her crew once discovered a planet that housed several people, including Amelia Earhart, who all disappeared in a particular year. The name of the episode in which Janeway made this discovery was how old I turned (yes, I’m going to make you work for this, and, yes, it’s going to be in a thoroughly geeky way).

Speaking of flying (Amelia Earhart segue, FTW!), I spent part of my birthday morning in a plane. I then spent part of my birthday morning plunging out of that plane, falling at approximately 120 mph toward the ground 2.5 miles below me. While strapped securely and snugly to a rather lovely man named Mario.

I’m very thankful that Mario was so delightful because Mario and I became very close. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.

First, here’s me, properly suited up, rigged, and boasting a bad-ass “Danger” sign on my back:

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I had requested a special “BAMF” sign since it was my birthday, but all they had were these signs. I made do. Besides, the Danger sign was way better than the little hat they made us all wear, which reminded me of the line that Jimmy Doogan says to the umpire who tried to correct Doogan when he was yelling at Evelyn Gardner for missing the cut-off:

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Second cinematic reference…buckle your seat belts, it’s just going to get geekier…

So, to give you an idea of how high up we were, this was our plane at the halfway mark to our ascent. We circled at this altitude to let some solo students jump. Apparently, you have to jump a certain number of times from the halfway mark before you can do any solo jumps from 13,500 feet. That little cross-shaped speck? That’s our plane:

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Finally, we reach our altitude and I’m second in line to dive. We hunker down and kind of duck-walk to the door because: A) Mario and I are now properly attached to each other, and B) the plane was not big enough to allow us to stand up. Here’s a shot of me looking down at the ground before Mario put my head back in the safety position. I love looking out the windows of planes as we fly places. I could have stood at the edge of the plane’s door, just staring down at the earth for hours…

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But that wasn’t the point of this adventure. And so it was 1…2…3…and away we go! Take a look at Mario in this shot. I might have wanted “BAMF” for my sign, but Mario actually is a BAMF. He’s been a tandem instructor for 16 years now, and he’s done this particular move more than 6,000 times. He was awesome in every sense of the word:

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Those first few seconds are astonishing and breathtaking and completely disorienting, as you watch earth and sky trade places several times while you tumble away from the plane:

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But then you right yourself (or rather Mario rights you both) and you regain your senses enough to be able to flash your “gang” signs for the camera:

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I told you it was just going to get geekier.

You know what draws my attention more than the scenery in this shot? The fact that my shoelace is untied!

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But I hadn’t realized this fact at this point in the jump…probably because I was too busy having my breath stolen away from me every single second we were falling by glorious vistas like this:

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I just love this shot. You can be King of the World all you want, Leo. Mario and me? We’re way above all that:

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Did I mention that in addition to being totally bad-ass, Mario was also supremely silly?

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Also, I would like to point out that, yes, I do realize that wind rushing past my face at 120 mph makes me look like an extra from the Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder.” There’s really nothing I can do about that. I just wanted to acknowledge my awareness of this fact. And now that I have pointed this out to you, you cannot unsee the comparison. You’re welcome.

Meanwhile, Mario is still silly:

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But he’s still fully aware of where we are in our descent and totally in control. It’s at this point, he’s checked his altimeter and he’s now getting ready to signal me that I should pull the release to deploy our parachute. But not before I finish giving a final thumbs-up:

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And…boom. I’m now aware of the fact that my shoelace has come untied. Yes, it does drive me a little crazy the rest of the way down:

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Actually, all I do is keep my one foot under the shoe that is untied so that it doesn’t have the chance to come loose, and then I spend the next several minutes having a great chat with Mario and getting to steer the parachute a little before Mario treats me to a few awesome spins and swoops over absolutely gorgeous landscape. As much as I loved the adrenaline rush of the freefall, I think this was my favorite part of the jump. It was so serene, so beautiful, so unbelievable.

And here we near our final destination. I love how this photo makes it look like we’re leaving a contrail behind us:

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Mario gives me excellent instructions right up to the end and we have a perfect landing…

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…and a groovy birthday hug!

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And, to wrap it all up, I receive a certificate of achievement and the LARGEST bumper sticker I think I’ve ever owned:

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This was, by far, the most amazing birthday gift I have ever received, and a million “thank yous” would cover only the first second of this fantastic journey. I have wanted to skydive for many years. Now that I’ve finally done it? I would do it again in a heartbeat. It is incomparable in exhilaration and in beauty. I would also highly recommend Skydive Orange if you are anywhere near Virginia and feel the need to plunge out of a plane while harnessed to someone as awesome as Mario. Every single instructor I met there was astounding and totally adept and totally professional…while still being totally silly and totally groovy. None of them was as astounding as Mario though. He rocked. And if you do decide to do this, and you’d like documented proof that you did, I highly recommend Christian for your photography and videography needs. He’s the brave soul who hung onto the side of the plane and jumped with Mario and me, to get every moment of my momentous descent. He rocked, too.

And when you’re finished? Get thee to a winery. There are several around Orange, Virginia, including my absolute favorite, Keswick Vineyards, which provided both the refreshment and the scenery for this perfect ending to a perfect morning:

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BookBin2013: N0S4A2

~ LobaBlanca

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I suppose it was inevitable that I would finally encounter a work from my latest literary heart-throb that simply didn’t enrapture me in the same ways as his other works. I just wasn’t expecting that moment to come so quickly in our relationship. Yet so it went with Joe Hill’s latest offering N0S4A2.

In this particular world of Hill’s devising, there are people who are able to create conduits to other places, either real or fictional, through the power of their minds. For young Victoria “Vic” McQueen, she learns that she can find missing items for people by using her ability to create conduits thanks to her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike and the “ghost” of the Shorter Way Bridge that once stood in ruins near her house. On the flip side, there are people like Charlie Manx, who uses his ability to create a conduit through his connection to his Rolls Royce Wraith (a rather possessive possessed car, if you ask me, Christine) to steal children away to “Christmasland,” a place of his own devising that allows him to drain the children of their life rather vampiristically (in a metaphorical sense) while letting them live in what he considers to be the perfect childhood utopia…a place where it is always Christmas, always happy, always festive. Of course, McQueen and Manx cross paths early in the novel (it only makes sense since one is a stealer and one is a finder), and cross paths again years later, to settle the score from the previous encounter.

Hilarity…well, you know the drill.

I’m not really certain what exactly didn’t click with me with this newest tale from Hill. I enjoyed the fact that the protagonist was a strong-willed girl with a wicked imagination and a pretty fascinating secret ability…and who would grow up into a flawed but still likeable, still imaginative young woman, damaged by that ability and seeking respite from the scars of that damage.

The supporting characters were also quite interesting and multifaceted, for the most part. I think, though, that the ultimate failing of this book, for me, was in both the story and its antagonist. First, I’m kind of through with vampires. And while this book isn’t exactly a vampire tale, the invocation of vampirism through the slightly-too-cute-for-its-own-good title forces me to envision Charlie Manx’s draining of life from the children he kidnaps as akin to the actions of that fabled creature of the night. Plus, there’s the hook teeth and the only traveling after dark that really hit it home.

Really, though, more than vampires, Charlie Manx slowly began to evolve into one particular character in my mind, based on descriptions of his physical appearance, his age, his mannerisms, his olden-days slang…halfway through the book, I realized that I was picturing Manx as an even more ill-tempered C. Montgomery Burns.

I’m willing to bet that Hill would not think this was excellent at all.

Of course, I then began to imagine Manx’s latest henchman, Bing Partridge, as a cross between Smithers and Barney. I even started picturing Vic McQueen as sort of like Lisa Simpson. Unfortunately, I also started to picture her lover as Comic Book Guy (for reasons that are quite obvious if you read this book). Again, all this was not helping at all with the horror element.

Worst. Comparisons. Ever.

Plus, there’s the fact that Hill crammed as many in-jokes as possible into this book, both in reference to his own previous books and most definitely in reference to his father’s works. N0S4A2 contains a panoply of Kingian references and allusions, which I admit both amused and irritated me. I’m glad that Hill is starting to be a little less tetchy about people knowing he is King’s son. However, a few times his “wink-wink” throwbacks to some of his father’s greatest hits (Cujo, Pet Sematary, Christine) teetered very, very close to too cute. I don’t want “cute” in a horror novel.

It wasn’t until after I read the book that I learned that I probably should have looked for the audio version instead. The entire book was read by none other than Kate Mulgrew. You have no idea how intriguing and frightening this is to me. I feel like I need to experience this story as narrated by Captain Janeway. I will absorb her powers and make a nice Kiev (and if you get that joke, Red’s got a place on her kitchen staff just for you).

Final Verdict: I’m still very much enamored of Hill as a writer, but I definitely did not consider this to be one of his better offerings. Still, if I can get my hands on a copy of Kate Mulgrew reading it? You bet your sweet Cujo I’m gonna give that a whirl.