Pinning/Oh, How Pinteresting ~ Theme TK

On Mondays I hook up with Pinning! at A Night Owl Blog/Baxtron{Life}. 

On Wednesday, it's Oh, How Pinteresting! at The Vintage Apple. 

I've had the hardest time coming up with a theme for today's post! After several abortive attempts (I did one with magazine covers and one with comic book characters, but I wasn't happy with either one of them), I just have to come to the conclusion that today's post was meant to be random. 

I think studying geography, history and trivia for my upcoming Jeopardy! tryout has pushed the creativity out of my brain for the moment. 

I still haven't seen the Hunger Games movie, but it's at the top of my Netflix queue. 

Having just finished watching the entire series Lost, I can tell you that my fondest Catching Fire hope is still that Michael Emerson will play Beetee in the movie. I liked Ben Linus way more than I was supposed to, seeing as he was the villain. He can quote Steinbeck extensively (which is hot). 

My very first date when I was a young teen took me to the '90s movie version of Of Mice and Men, with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich in it. It's so not a romantic movie. 

Ben was wrong about one thing, though: Ernest Hemingway never fought in the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway drove an ambulance, exactly like Frederic in A Farewell to Arms. This is an upcoming edition that will showcase some of the many and various endings Hemingway wrote for it. 

...as portrayed in In Love and War. If you haven't seen it, do. Sandra Bullock and Chris O'Donnell - what's not to like? 

If you go to Hemingway's childhood home in Oak Park, Illinois, you'll see his first book, Cat, which he wrote and illustrated when he was four. If he had gone on to write children's bedtime stories:

Yoda's reading material is a little more instructive.

This makes me laugh, because I had a fit this morning over a sign that abbreviated et cetera as ect. Yikes - pet peeve alert. Isn't it common knowledge that et cetera is Latin for and others, and isn't the Latin word for and, et, pretty easy to remember?!? 

That said, you have my complete sympathy if you have a learning disability and/or if your life circumstances did not allow you to have the education you would have preferred - I do not in any way mean to mock or belittle people in these cases. I'm not trying to be a jerk. 

This always happens when I go to the movies.

The last few movies I've been to (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Magic Mike, if I remember aright) have been proceeded by previews for the new (U.S.) Sherlock Holmes series, with Lucy Liu as Watson. I look forward fondly. I enjoyed Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, too. 

I so wanna read this - but it's unavailable in the U.S. 

I'll leave you with this thought: a history of mosquito-borne illnesses in American literature, parts 1 and 2. Part one: Henry James.

"Welcome to Europe, Americans. Quickly accede to European social mores or you'll contract a subtropical disease and DIE."

Part two: James Jones. 

"Welcome to Guadalcanal, Americans; you now have malaria. Shake it off; the medical aide tent is reserved for life-threatening gunshot wounds." 

Why Reading the Classics is Still Important for Youth Today (Guest Post)

There is a shared culture when it comes to growing up in America, there is no doubt about that. Our country is a country that has a respect and fondness for the past, even as we keep moving forward and doing things that in the past were unthinkable. 

One of those shared cultural experiences happens in elementary school, in which most kids throughout the country are taught to read the same books. Everyone knows who Dr. Seuss is, who Rudyard Kipling is, who Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are and who Shel Silverstein is. These are all things we become accustomed to as children, and it gives us a shared language. The process continues throughout the rest of schooling as well, as we all get older we begin reading Shakespeare, George Orwell, Frederick Douglass, Kurt Vonnegut, Oscar Wilde, John Steinbeck and dozens of others.

These books, as well as many others that are both newer and older, are considered the classics. They are considered the books that every person should read because it will shape how they look at the world, and how they act and think within that world. But, an unfortunate thing occurs when we get out of school, we stop reading. There are tons of classics out there, but we read only a few in school, and then stop doing it altogether. It is a shame because there is a lot more we can share with each other through our experiences with these classics. Learning does not stop with school, it should continue throughout life, and so should reading the classics. There are more classics out there than you can imagine, and you can spend a lifetime reading them, without reading them all. Here are some reasons why you should read the classics:

Cherish the mind

With the decrease in reading there has been a huge increase in health club memberships. In some way, this is a roundabout argument, in which humans have begun to be more obsessed with their bodies than they are with their minds. After all, when you walk down the street or step into a bar, a potential mate can not see your mind, but they can see your muscles. The mind is the key to living a long, fulfilled life, not the body. That is not to say that you should neglect the body, but rather that you should not do so in sacrifice of cultivating your mind. That is why you should read the classics.

You get a better vocabulary

In today’s text crazy world, in which vocabulary has been slaughtered at the altar, reading the classics can curb those tendencies toward monotony and the destruction of language.

About the Guest Author: William is a freelance writer for numerous publications, both online and in print, in article form and in blog form. He writes on numerous subjects, including pop culture, history and even car insurance.