A Midsummer Night's Dream

Does this black-and-white version of the fairy queen Titania look familiar? A bit like Scarlett O'Hara, perhaps? Yes, that's Vivien Leigh.





"Over hill, over dale,
Through bush, through brier,
Over park, over pale,
Through flood, through fire,
I do wonder everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green."
(Act II, Sc. I, Lines 2-9)





"If we shadows have offended.
Think but this, and all is mended -
That you have but slumb'red here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend...
Give me your hands if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends."
(Act V. Sc. I Lines 418-425, 432-433)





Oberon: Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

Titania: What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence.
I have foresworn his bed and company.

Oberon: Tarry, rash wanton: am I not thy Lord?

Titania: Then I must be thy lady...

(Act II, Sc. I, Lines 61-65)




"The course of true love never did run smooth."
(Act I, Sc. I, Line 136)

What I'm Reading and Watching ~ Mini Update

Construction-related phone company issues in my neighborhood have temporarily taken down my wifi, but while I'm able to connect I thought I'd check in with a short post about what I'm reading and a movie I saw over the weekend.

At book spot #1 (the comfy spot on the couch), I just finished:

Review here. 

Taking its place on the couch will be:

That's my fun paranormal romance. (I hope it's fun. It should be - I've never read a bad Kate Douglas.) In reading spot #2, I have my Serious Literature:

I'm about 100 pages into the sequel to Shanghai Girls, a book that my grandmother, mother and I all read. When I finish it, I plan to read the last book I purchased at Barnes and Noble, which was Divergent by Veronica Roth. (Emma at Bubblymuppet recently read Divergent. And so did A Country Girl's World.)

For review, I'm reading this e-book on my laptop:

This is a new(ish - it took me about a year to get around to reading it) series from the author of Ivan and Marya. When I finish that, I'll read Miss Underworld by Racquel Kechagias, an Australian author, for review. 

The movie I saw on Saturday was Silver Linings Playbook. I liked it. I liked Tiffani; when she said, "There will always be a part of me that is dirty and sloppy, but I like that, just like all the other parts of myself," I knew she was a character I could identify with. The whole things was very well-acted, and Jennifer Lawrence is especially talented. It's nice to see her in roles other than Katniss Everdeen (although of course I love Katniss). 

But I am getting a little embarrassed at the number of book-based movies I'm seeing without having read the book first. I think I would like this as a book, though. I might read it some day. I read The Prestige after seeing the movie, and if anything I was glad I'd seen the movie first. 

I don't think I'm going to read the Castor Chronicles series, but I do plan to see the Beautiful Creatures movie in the near future. 

Let's All Do the Lyric Quote Meme! What Lyrics Describe YOUR blog?

Credit for the Lyric Quote Meme goes to young adult/new adult fiction writer Margaret Alexander. I stumbled across it via fantasy writer Rachel Horwitz's You Are What You Write blog. According to Rachel, the rules are as follows:

1. Thank the person who tagged you and link back to them. (No one tagged me, but I'm linking back to Rachel.)

2. Go to your music (on iTunes or wherever it is you store music) and choose three different songs that have lyrics that describe your blog. Pull out three short, one-liner quotes and make note of the song title and artist name.

3. Use ReciteThis to turn your song lyrics quote into a virtual poster.

4. Upload your three posters to your blog.

5. Include the rules on your blog, then link back to Margaret's Story Addict blog.

6. Tag 3-10 people. (I'm not tagging specific people - participate if you feel like it! Because...)

7. Hop in, even if you weren't tagged!

Song: "Bitches in Bookshops"

Artist: Annabelle Quezada and La Shea Delaney

Song: "Human Nature"

Artist: Madonna

Song: "Halo"

Artist: Beyonce

A Walking Study in Demonology With Cara Lockwood's Silly-Fun Chick Lit Series

"Oh make me over

I'm all I wanna be

A walking study in demonology..."

(Hole, "Celebrity Skin")

Excerpt

"It took every last ounce of Sam's willpower not to look at Rachel, to pretend that he didn't hear the light beat of her heart from across the church or smell her sweet, inviting scent.

"Every part of him wanted to hold her to his chest and not let go.

"The scariest thing was that he hadn't decided to kiss Rachel, his body had, taking control in a way he'd never experienced before. Even now, as he gritted his teeth, he wasn't sure he'd be able to keep himself away from her.

"He tried to make sense of what it meant, and then decided it didn't matter. He had to stay focused on his next bounty, which at this point looked like it would be Azazel."

My Review

Can't Teach an Old Demon New Tricks by Cara Lockwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Just like the first book in this series (which I read over a year ago), Every Demon Has His Day, this book is silly, goofy fun that combines chick lit with paranormal romance and horror-comedy. The heroine is Rachel, a young mom whose husband's body has been taken over by a demon named Pan. Pan is the father of Rachel's one-year-old son Cassidy, and the half-demon child (while not himself evil) exhibits some very unusual mischievous behavior. After the demon-husband unceremoniously splits, he's tracked down by the novel's hero, a fallen angel named Sam. Aligned with neither good nor evil, Sam is gradually becoming a mortal man, although most human women still find him irresistible. Rachel is not one of them. She's strongly attracted to Sam, but her primary concern is keeping Cassidy safe as Pan helps to waken Azazel, a very dangerous fallen angel who's planning to take over hell itself. The novel has some ridiculous scenes, such as the giant toddlers who descend on a Walmart-like parking lot and the angel SWAT team, so just go with it.

Serious literature? No. Fun? Yes.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

The Characters

Azazel: In Lockwood's telling, Azazel is a very powerful fallen angel who's been entombed in the Grand Canyon for thousands of years. He's high on the devil's most wanted list because of his scheme to take over hell. To do so, he has in the past attempted - and plans to try again - to sire a race of giants (the Nephilim) by seducing and impregnating human women, who die giving birth to his monstrously large offspring.

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Azazel is mentioned in the Bible. In the book of Leviticus, the ritual of the Day of Atonement is described, including the priest laying hands on a goat - the scapegoat - and confessing all the people's sins over it. The scapegoat was then released into the wilderness "for Azazel." The Book of Enoch (which most Jewish and Christian denominations do not consider to be a canonical part of the Bible) associates Azazel with the fallen angels, but other commentators consider Azazel a local deity associated with isolated stretches of the desert. 'Enoch' casts Azazel as a Prometheus-like figure who teaches humankind how to make weapons and wear make-up, among other things.

Folklorically, Azazel is associated with the angels mentioned in the Biblical book of Genesis who made children with human women (Genesis 6:1-4).

Azazel is also a Marvel Comics character, a mutant. In X-Men: First Class he's played by Jason Flemyng. Flemyng's co-star in that film, Michael Fassbender, played a character named Azazael on the U.K. TV series Hex (which I used to watch back when I had cable). Azazael was a fallen angel, and he fathered a child with the heroine-witch Cassie. Their son, Malachi, grew unusually fast and had demon-like powers.

Casiphia: She seems to be a demon Lockwood invented entirely. She has a lot of lust directed at Azazel, which he seems to return, even though it does not slow down his plan to impregnate a lot of human women, including many of the young beauty queens at the Dogwood Festival. She takes the form of a beautiful woman, and she has the ability to poison both humans and angels with her claw-like fingernails.

Casiphia is briefly mentioned in the Bible (Ezra 8:17), not as a demon but as a place. The Jewish Encyclopedia says its exact location is unknown (the entry is here).

Lilith: Lockwood describes Lilith as living in the form of an enormous snake. Her home appears to be a pet store, where she is attended by a human-looking demon, but any human beings who wander into her pet store by mistake are killed. Lilith is embittered against the human race because her demon children were killed, while humans are able to multiple. Otherwise, she's the traditional folkloric Lilith: first woman created, refused to be subservient to Adam, flew from the Garden of Eden and gave birth to many demon children by seducing men in their sleep.

When I think of Lilith, I can't help but think about an opinion column I read years ago, and still have affixed to an old diary. On Thursday, June 24, 1999, Ellen Goodman (a Boston Globe columnist) published "Lilith Too Much Woman for Adam (or Jerry)." In it, Goodman discusses the National Liberty Journal's (associated with Jerry Falwell and infamous for speaking out against the Teletubbies) crusade against the Lilith Fair music festival (which concluded in 2011). The charge was that Lilith Fair "celebrates a Pagan figure" known for seducing men. Goodman mentions the first printed reference to Lilith, in the 8th-9th century Alphabet of Ben-Sira. She quotes the editor of Lilith magazine (a Jewish feminist magazine first published in 1976), Susan Weidman Schneider, as saying, "The kernel of the story is that Lilith was a woman who wasn't afraid to take risks for equality. She wanted to claim her birthright as Adam's equal."

Goodman concludes, "Needless to say (I think it's needless), the Lilith Fair is modeled after the original image of the woman who wanted to have an equal voice....At the risk of sounding absolutely demonic, I'd rather sing doo-wop for Lilith than Jerry. The world according to Falwell ain't my idea of Paradise." I have loved Lilith ever since I read that, and I'm always slightly disappointed by unflattering portrayals of her.

The article taped to my March 20-April 30, 1999 diary. Like many writers,  I'm also an amateur librarian, with a filing system known only to myself. 

In modern media, Lilith is often referred to as the first vampire/queen of the vampires/mother of all the vampires. Lilith as a character featured prominently in Season 5 of True Blood. You can read about the folkloric Lilith extensively at Encyclopedia Mythica.

Pan: In Lockwood's telling, Pan is a sloth demon. He's so lazy, he's almost too lazy to do anything evil, even though he's plainly allied with Satan. He kills Kevin Farnsworth, taking over his body, and fathers Cassidy with Kevin's wife Rachel. (The issue of Rachel mourning for the real Kevin is never really addressed in this book.) Then he takes off, only to be hunted down by Sam. He offers to lead Sam to Azazel in exchange for his freedom, even though Pan ultimately ends up sent to hell anyway.

Theoi.com calls Pan "the god of shepherds and flocks, hunting and rustic music." He's not associated with sloth at all. He's depicted as a satyr, a half-man half-goat, and is sometimes pictured as part of the retinue of Dionysus.

In short, the folkloric Pan is variation on the Wild God of the Woods, a common theme in European mythology. He's the Horned One of Beltane and possibly Loki among the Norse gods (and in Marvel Comics).

A really good literary novel that features Pan as a character is Mrs. Demming and the Mythical Beast by Faith Sullivan. (You can get used copies super cheap on Amazon - get it. You won't be disappointed.) He's also reflected in "You" by Charlotte Stein, found in the erotic fairy tale anthology Lustfully Ever After.

Tiamat: In Can't Teach an Old Demon New Tricks, Tiamat is a water demon, although it's mentioned that the ancient Babylonians considered her a goddess whose body formed the world. She's not particularly powerful; she can be contained in a Mason jar, and when that jar is emptied out she becomes a raging flood. She destroys Rachel's house.

Encyclopedia Mythica calls Tiamat a huge Babylonian dragon who personified the oceans and chaos, as well as "the mother of all that exists." Thus, she is extremely powerful and important. It says in the Babylonian creation epic the Enuma Elish, Tiamat and her consort Apsu decide to kill their many offspring, who have begun to annoy them. Their plans are foiled when one of their children, Ea, kills Apsu. Tiamat becomes enraged and builds an army of monsters, but is ultimately defeated and slain by the young god Marduk.

The entry then claims that "The Deep" spoken of in the Biblical book of Genesis "derives from Tiamat." If I remember from studying the Enuma Elish in college, Marduk separates the parts of Tiamat's dead body to separate dry land from the waters, much like the God of the Bible separates the dry land from the waters.

In Conclusion

But every writer is free to use folkloric characters as inspiration for her own unique characters - J.K. Rowling certainly does it all the time in the Harry Potter series, and the results are enjoyable. This series isn't anywhere near as good as the Harry Potter books, but it's good for a fairly quick read with some amusing characters and funny dialogue.

'Leather Ever After' - BDSM Fairy Tale Retellings, Edited by Sassafras Lowrey

Erin O'Riordan here - yesterday I received an e-mail from queer author and editor Sassafras Lowrey about her latest release, Leather Ever After. I'm sharing her info because I love so many things about this anthology: the fairy tale theme, the witches, the playful erotic kinks. 

Would that I had time to review it - but that wouldn't be fair, since I already have so many unread e-books in my review queue. So check it out, and let me know what you think about it!

Sassafras Lowrey writes: 

Leather Ever After brings together 17 incredible kinky storytellers with a foreword by Laura Antoniou to pervert and delight beloved fairy tales - classics, and some of the more obscure alike.

Leather Ever After anthology:

Edited by Sassafras Lowrey, Published by Ravenous Romance
Forward by Laura Antoniou

Once upon a time, in a dungeon far, far away the kinkiest writers in the land were summoned to pervert beloved fairy tales with tales of dominance, submission, bondage and surrender. In these stories twisted
princesses take control of submissive princes, witches play with power and fairy tales come to life in our homes and dungeons…

In Leather Ever After, celebrated queer author Sassafras Lowrey brings together some of the most beloved leather writers in an enchanting collection published by Ravenous Romance. 

Table of Contents:

Foreword- Laura Antoniou
Introduction – Sassafras Lowrey

Each Step For Him – Lee Harrington
Blue Beards Ghost - Ariel Dalziel
House of Sweets – Miss Lola Sunshine
The Suitor – Miel Rose
Hair Like Gold – Nalu Kalani
The Mistress and the Pea – Cynthia Hamilton
The Red Shoes - Hosha
The Seven Swan Princes-- DL King
The Good Witch – Ali Oh
Snow Fight – Rob Rosen
Down Under – Raven Kaldera
Golden Twink and the Three Bears – Elizabeth “Jake” Hart
Iron Henry - Karen Taylor
The Wolf and little red – Alysia Angel
Not Enough Storms - Goldie Dartmouth
Cinderfella – Sossity Chiricuzio
Lady Leporine – Mollena Williams
The Little Boot Black – Sassafras Lowrey

Movie Review: Warm Bodies

Zombies - they're everywhere lately. On June 28th, Esther Wheelmaker will drop by Pagan Spirits to talk about her steampunk zombie novel  Gravely Inanimated. In the meantime, I've gotten into the Walking Dead graphic novel series after I took my nieces to the comic book shop on Free Comic Book Day 2013 and picked up a TWD book there. I'm halfway through Book Two.

But, as I must sometimes remind my dad, please don't spoil the TV show for me. I have only seen up to the part where Lori finds out she's pregnant and she doesn't know whether the baby is Shane's or Rick's. 

I didn't read Isaac Marion's book Warm Bodies. I came to the movie fresh, not knowing anything about it other than what I saw in the trailer on the big screen. If I remember correctly, the first time I saw the trailer was at The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Pt. 2. Appropriately, the DVD I got from Netflix featured the trailers for BD Pt. 2, The Hunger Games and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I intend to read Wallflower before I see its movie, but I haven't wanted to pay the $12 for that skinny lil paperback yet.

The movie centers on a zombie who comes to be called R; all he can remember of his name is that he thinks it started with an R. Eight years after the earth succumbed to the zombie apocalypse for reasons R can't name, he lives a bleak, sleepless existence with the other zombies, hanging around an airport. He wishes for more, but his cognitive faculties are limited. He does know that zombies all eventually deteriorate into what they call the Bonies, which look less human and more wraith-like and apparently have even less reasoning power.

Meanwhile, in what may be the last surviving colony of humans on the planet, Julie Grigio also dreams of more. She loves her boyfriend Perry, but wants to feel closer to him. Perry is loyal soldier in the military-like colony government run by Julie's dad. He'll have more time for romance once all the world's zombies have been shot in the head and re-killed.

Julie and Perry, along with Julie's best friend Nora and a handful of others, go out on a raid, collecting medical supplies for the colony from an abandoned pharmacy. They cross paths with a group of zombies, including R, who view them as lunch. Acting on what he refers to as The New Hunger, R chows down on Perry, eating his brain. Thus he receives some of Perry's memories, and strangely, he begins to feel protective toward Julie, saving her from other zombies.

After that grotesque start, the movie veers further from horror-comedy territory and more into the romance genre. Julie can see that R wants to be more like a living person again, and his efforts appear to be paying off. When Nora puts makeup on R to make him look less dead, he almost looks like a living person again. Eventually, Julie, her father and the other survivors have to question whether it's possible for the undead to return to life.

For most of this movie, I felt very bad for Perry. Julie doesn't seem terribly upset about his death or react very badly when R finally confesses that he ate Perry and hands her Perry's gold watch. The film's explanation is that the survivors have seen so much death, they've learned to get over it quickly and not get too attached to other people. Somehow, though, Julie becomes attached to R. When she thinks he's had to sacrifice himself to save her life, she's distraught.

Sometimes while watching this, I thought Julie's attraction to a walking corpse was a little weird. But then I'd think about how much I like vampires, and it didn't seem so bad. After all, Nora does inform us that R doesn't stink.

Except the skeletal-looking Bonies, most of the zombies in this movie don't look very deteriorated or grotesque - nothing like you see on The Walking Dead or in most zombie movies. R looks pretty normal except for his pale skin and eyes, which are weirdly blue with hardly any pupils. Their mostly-preserved state  is a hopeful sign that the ending will be far less bleak than in your typical zombie fare.

R is played by English actor Nicholas Hoult (the boy in About a Boy, young Beast in X-Men: First Class, and Jack in the recent Jack the Giant Slayer). Julie is played by Australian actress Teresa Palmer (6 in I Am Number Four, and the female lead in a quirky Australian thriller with Stephen Moyer that I enjoy, Restraint), and her father is played by John Malkovich. (I adore him.) Perry, whom this movie should really care more about than it does, is played by Dave Franco. He's a beautiful Jewish-American like his older brother James. He's been in a number of TV shows, including Greek, Scrubs, and Privileged.

Nora is played by Analeigh Tipton, which I understand was a controversial casting choice because Tipton is Caucasian and Nora is described in the book as being of East African descent. I would understand if you were to complain about this, because ethnic diversity in this movie is practically at zero. Does Hollywood seriously think that white people won't watch movies with African-American actors in them? Because whitewashing is ridiculous and stupid.

I didn't love this movie, but I did like it. I'm not sorry that I didn't read the book, which I understand is a little darker than the film version, because I think I like the more romantic version better. Three and a half stars, I'd say. Worth a watch, but not an instant favorite.

Did you read this, and if so, did you enjoy the book? Did you like the movie?

This is an affiliate link:

Till Zombies Do Us Part by Celeste Ayers. $0.99 from Smashwords.com
Noah and Amy are two teens in love. There is however one problem; the world as they know it was turned into nothing but a pile of chaos and zombies. As they battle for survival they’ll embark on a journey into the unknown while facing new trials that will put both their love for each other and their humanity to the ultimate test. Just how far will they be willing to go?

Oh How Pinteresting! #FictionalCharacters : Shipping 'Em Like FedEx

I found the coolest thing on Pinterest. It's Isabelle Disraeli's boards, each and everyone one of them devoted to a different pairing of fictional characters. Okay, I'm being a complete fandom nerd, but if you're into any of these fandoms, these pinboards are so nerdy they're cool.

There's a board devoted exclusively to one of my all-time favorite fictional couples, Wizard Howl Jenkins and Sophie Hatter from Diana Wynn-Jones' Howl's Moving Castle (and the Studio Ghibli film of the same name).

Howl-Sophie Board



There's a board for the innocent friendship between Lucy Pevensie and Mr. Tumnus the faun in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

Tumnus-Lucy Board



Isabelle has a few different Hunger Games fandom boards. Of course, there's Peeta and Katniss. There's also the Haymitch-Effie Trinket board, and one for the bittersweet romance of Finnick and Annie.

Peenis Board



Hayffie Board



Finnick & Annie Board



Harry Potter pairings? Oh, yes - many. Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Harry/Ginny, James/Lily, Severus/Lily, Sirius/Remus, Teddy Lupin/Victoire Weasley.

This happens to be Ron and Hermione.



Similarly, there are several boards for various pairings of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit characters. I liked the movies, but I never read the books, so I don't consider myself a big LOTR fan.

Some of the fictional characters aren't from books, of course. Here's my personal favorite, the Rinch (Reese-Finch) pairing from Person of Interest.

Rinch Board



Other TV shows represented include both the BBC Sherlock and Elementary, as well as Hannibal, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Hawaii 5-0...the list goes on and on.

Oh, and if comic book characters are your thing, you're in luck. There are several Avengers pairings, from Clintasha to Thorki. If you're more DC than Marvel, you might enjoy the Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle board.



Movies, anime, video games, Disney and Studio Ghibli movies, beloved books and comic books - Isabelle has a lot of the common and more unusual pairings from fan fiction. Check her out. It's my new favorite thing on Pinterest.