Drunk Literature

So if you spend time on the internet, chances are you have heard of a little show called Drunk History. Basically it's this show when people get absolutely wasted and try to explain history. For some reason, my best friend Claire and I decided to make our own version of the show last December.

We did Drunk Literature instead of History, since we're both avid readers. As you know, I'm working at a bookstore while trying to get a full-time job in the book publishing industry. Claire is a certified English teacher. So yeah, you could say we like books.

Our first season (aka all the videos we filmed in one night before Claire threw up on herself; know your limits, kids), which you can watch below, consisted of the following titles:

• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
• Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Now that Claire has returned from Salt Lake City, (and then again from Greece,) we're talking about doing another season. We'll be a little safer about it this time; shots are only for if you're multiple drinks behind the other person. The problem is that we don't always read the same books, especially when it comes to the classics.

Last season we went into my basement library and just pulled books off the shelves that we thought we could talk about. We want to plan this one a little bit more. Thus, I made a list of classic literature that I have read that we have yet to discuss. I defined "classic" here by looking at the selection on the $5 classics table at a local Barnes & Noble and by what books had Sparknotes versions available. Thus, my list is non-exhaustive and includes some titles that some (or even most) would argue are not "classics." Nonetheless, these are the titles I put forth as potentially for season 2:

• Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
• Night by Elie Wiesel
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• The Odyssey by Homer

Of course, there is no way we could get through all of these; some Claire hasn't read (like Moby Dick, which I actually read twice before I even met her, which is weird) and some (*cough*Hunger Games*cough*) she vetoed.


We ended up filming Season 2 last night*. Many of the titles were on the list, but we also came up with a few more. Nevertheless, we will probably continue to use this list for future seasons.


*All of the footage, we discovered, went missing when my laptop died. We re-shot an abridged version in half an hour, so S2 will be kind of weird.

Merry Maidens

What a cute logo!

Since I've been talking a lot about LIW on this blog, I thought it was high time I talked about the LIW I was involved in, Merry Maidens.

It's a modernized gender-bent adaption of Robin Hood. It was created by Anya Steiner, the same mind behind Northbound, an adaption of Northanger Abbey that I really liked. When Anya posted on tumblr that she had moved into the Chicago area and was looking for volunteers to help her with the show, I immediately sent her an email. I was so excited to be a part of this project.

#LadyCrew

That was in September. Soon, I met Anya (top right) and we talked scripts and our mutual love of the genre. She sent me a draft to look at. It wasn't long before I got to meet her other recruits, Jenna (bottom right) and Sarah (center). Sarah was a stage director looking to learn about film and webseries. I think the best way to describe Jenna is that she comes from fandom. She always seemed to be working on something for a convention.

Then casting happened.

While I was disappointed I couldn't be physically present at casting (long story), I was so excited to be involved. The first video audition I saw was Sissy Anne Quaranta's (below, left) audition for Robin. It was absolutely nothing like what I had imagined Robin being like-- it was a hundred times better.

Do you ship them yet?

I next watched her callback with Evey Reidy (right). A couple seconds in, I had to stop it. Was that-? No, it couldn't be. Maybe? After watching the rest of the video, I told Anya that I liked their chemistry, and asked if I should know Evey from somewhere. But of course. She was Nancy in Jules & Monty, based on Romeo & Juliet, another show that I adored.

After that, the audition videos became a bit of a blur. Some of the choices were obvious, others not so much.

I missed the table read and the first couple days of shooting. While I was happy to go on vacation, I had really wanted to be there and meet everyone. I shouldn't have worried. The filming process took longer than expected, so I had plenty of time to get to know the cast. It wasn't that we weren't filming everything that we planned on in a day. With a couple exceptions, we remained remarkably on schedule. It was that we had to work around peoples schedules so we only filmed a couple episodes a day, and we only usually filmed once a week, and there were a couple episodes Anya wasn't happy with so we re-shot, and some episodes that had to be filmed on multiple days, and a few episodes that Anya wrote between shoots and had to somehow schedule in, and the fact that we didn't start filming until January so we had to wait until it was warmish (read: not freezing) to film our outdoor scenes.

My Merry Maidens Family.

When we wrapped filming in early April, I didn't know what to do with myself. It had been such a big part of my life for so long. I didn't want to lose the new friends I had made. We had a premiere party at Justin's (left, in the mask) place before Merry Maidens aired. It was cool to see them all, but of course, it is really hard to get all of us in the same place at once. The only time it happened was for the last day of filming.

The show had been airing for a couple weeks now, and it is so fun to watch people react over twitter. I love seeing the hilarious things Marissa (center, back) and Cat (center, in the pirate's hat) caption the videos with when they share them on Facebook, and I love still feeling connected to the Merry Maidens family.

The Hawkweed Prophecy

I'm really loving being in this groove of actually reading books on a regular basis. I don't know how long it's going to be before I post this, because I know I have some more timely blog posts that I'll want to put up, but for context, about a week went by between reading The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett and reading The Hawkweed Prophecy, Irena Brignull's debut novel.

I should note that I read the ARC, not the official book, which came out in September.

So it's this magical switched-at-birth story, where one of the mothers, Charlock, is witch, and one, Melanie, is not. Due to a prophecy that foretold that either Charlock or her sister Raven would bear a daughter who would one day be queen, Raven switched the children at the moment of their birth, ensuring that her daughter would be queen.

The two daughters, Poppy (born a witch, raised by "chaffs," which is the coven's word for muggles) and Ember (born a "chaff," raised by witches) both grow up feeling out of place in their respective worlds. Weird things always seem to happen around Poppy, and Ember can't even muster the smallest bit of magic. This causes strain in both their families.

When Poppy and her father move north, Poppy and Ember form an unlikely friendship. But, of course, there has to be some more drama, so both girls fall for the same guy. Leo.

I quite enjoyed this book. While I felt that the romantic subplot was unnecessary and the dramatic reveal at the end predictable, I understand that this is a teen novel and that is what you get when you keep reading YA; lots of predictable plot twists (because you already know how this genre works) and unnecessary romantic subplots (because apparently that's something teens care about).

My favorite part of the book was the friendship between Poppy and Ember. I am always here for awesome girls loving and supporting each other. I feel like female friendships and sisterhood is an element missing from a lot of mainstream media. Which is probably why I like webseries so much.

It read like a movie. Very visual, and a fast read. Which shouldn't be surprising, as Brignull is an acclaimed screenwriter, according to her bio on the back of my copy. Overall, would recommend if you want a little bit of YA fantastical escapism with lots of awesome female characters.

Although, just once, I'd like to see a switched-at-birth story that supports the nurture argument of nature vs. nurture, at least partially. Gimme a "chaff" raised witch who can't do spells for shit, but can follow a potion recipe perfectly. Gimme a witch raised "chaff" who can't figure out how to control her powers, or who has trouble casting spells without lessons, because she didn't grow up watching those around her doing it.

New York City

A photo of NYC taken while on the Staten Island Ferry

As you may know, most of the publishing industry is located in NYC. I have been planning to move there ever since I decided upon this career path, despite having never visited. Until September, my mother had never visited either, and was convinced I would hate it- city life and crowded streets and all that.

In September, my mom took her first trip there, and when she came home, she admitted that maybe she was wrong, maybe I would like it.

A photo of some of my friends and I during our time at DPI.

At the end of May, I was offered a job interview at an agency. HR did not want to do a phone or Skype pre-screen or initial interview; they wanted me to come in. So I did. I took off with a couple day's notice and spent four amazing days in NYC.

Unfortunately, it happened to be the week of BEA, so none of the contacts or friends I had made during DPI were available to meet up or do informational interviews. So the trip became more of one for pleasure than for business, which I fully took advantage of.

We somehow ended up 3rd row center for the 2nd act.

I got to see three Broadway shows (A Bronx Tale, School of Rock, and Book of Mormon), the taping of Live with Kelly and Ryan, the Fifth Harmony concert for Good Morning America, and dozens of landmarks. My boss at TLM also happened to be in town, so she took me out to breakfast before my interview.

I also got to see Anna, who was my best friend from ages 2-12. I had completely forgotten she moved to the area for med school, and was so happy to hear from her once she caught wind I was in the city.

I think the interview went well. I felt like a strong candidate, and should be hearing back soon about going back for a second interview.

____________________________________________________________
Thoughts from later:

One of the many treasures of Central Park.

I did not get the job. I didn't even get the second interview. But I'm still so glad I went. New York isn't this magical place to me anymore. It's real. I loved being there- despite the stress of my phone issues, which I'm now realizing I didn't even mention.

While I am extremely disappointed that the job didn't work out, I feel renewed in my determination to move to NYC. I can do this.

The Books I Never Read

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I went to a really liberal high school, which emphasized reading books by women and people of color over old dead white guys. While I really liked this focus, it meant that a lot of the "classics" got left out.

So here is a non-exhaustive list of the books I never read for school... and have still yet to pick up:

• Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn* by Mark Twain
• Emma by Jane Austen
• The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• The majority of Shakespeare's works**
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Black Boy by Richard Wright
• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

* There is a small chance I actually read this one. I can't remember if I read Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, but I think it was Sawyer.
** Especially Hamlet, which many classes at my high school read. Exceptions being Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.