Sophelia's Weekly Five, Edition IV

Hello, good friends. I know I've been neglecting this blog quite a bit, but considering how my GPA seems to be rutted in an unending downward slide, blogging and writing have clearly taken a backseat -- no, trunk seat -- in my priorities.

Having said that, I'm still going to most likely waste a good deal of time writing this post.

Sophelia's Weekly Five, Edition IV

1. Spring Awakening = Awesomesauce

Yeah, we're pretty fly.

In spite of the fact that there is literally nothing to do in Durham, I am actually quite pleased with the fact that DPAC is close enough to the university that quite often the university actually buys the tickets for us to watch shows at DPAC. And so, just last week yours truly had the opportunity to attend the opening night of Spring Awakening at DPAC without paying a penny (... okay, ignore the 50k tuition bill).

Unlike the time I went to watch Phantom of the Opera at DPAC, when I the PotO maniac knew the lyrics to every song, I had the vaguest of expectations for Spring Awakening. The first time I ever heard of Spring Awakening, my good friend Astrid mentioned she was going to watch the performance by the all-boys high school in our area and she wondered aloud how in the world they were going to pull off the sex scene.

Well. So all I knew to expect was a sex scene. Of course, that really doesn't clear up anything either. You start asking yourself questions: how graphic is it going to be? Is it going to be vulgar? Artsy, with fancy lighting and shadows? Or as TA-DA! as Daniel Radcliffe reveling in his nude self in Equus (which I have not actually seen and am not exactly dying to do so)? While I enjoy watching musicals, I wasn't exactly jittery with excitement about this one -- unlike Phantom of the Opera or Wicked, I had no idea what the storyline was.

Well, I changed my mind the moment the schoolboys leapt off their chairs singing "The Bitch of Living", as pictured in the photo I have conveniently posted above. See that guy doing the air-splits on the right? Moritz was the definition of awesome possum. In the show I saw, he was played by this guy who is actually facebook friends with this girl from my high school (... yeah, I did a little facebook-stalking. You be quiet.) I wish I'd seen the original Broadway cast, just to see how how much better they could top off the cast I saw. Most of Moritz's songs were very rock-and-roll, and Moritz pulled it off with plenty off energy and swagger. It was brilliant. The leads were great as well. Melchior was played by Jake Epstein, who M was very excited to see because apparently he was pretty important in Degrassi (which I never watched and thus was indifferent about).

I have to admit that Spring Awakening was one of those plays I didn't really become that crazy about until I started listening to the soundtrack for hours nonstop as I studied for organic chemistry. Honestly, I like this musical a lot better than Wicked. I can listen to every single song on the soundtrack without skipping past; I can't say the same for Wicked -- I can listen to "Popular", "Defying Gravity", "Dancing Through Life", "I'm Not That Girl", "No Good Deed", "As Long as You're Mine", and "What is this Feeling" -- and pretty much everything else I just skip over instantly. I guess part of the reason is that Wicked is a very traditional kind of musical with the kind of saccharine "lesson-on-morality" flavor that I can't get used to, whereas Spring Awakening is rather dark and angry yet youthful and whimsical, ranging between haunting lyrical pieces and the explosive rock-and-roll numbers. My favorites? I'll listen to all of them, but I'm particularly fond of "The Dark I Know Well" (which is a rather disturbing one about sexual abuse), "Those You've Known", "Touch Me", "Totally Fucked", and pretty much everything where Moritz rocks it ("The Bitch of Living", "And Then There Were None", "Don't Do Sadness/Blue Wind"). The best scene, in my opinion, is the scene where Hanschen (if you've ever wondered what Malfoy would be like if he were gay, meet Hanschen) seduces Ernst with one of the best lines -- "Me? I'm like a pussycat. I just skim off the cream."

So what exactly is this play about? To sum it up in one word, Sex. But it's really more than that. It's about that liminal moment in a teenager's life where everything's changing, when you really realize the "bitch of living."

(Oh, and if you're wondering about the aforementioned sex scene, my seat was so high up on the balcony that I can't really give you any insight about how graphic it really was.)

2. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

So I included a little excerpt of this lovely book about a year ago without having even read the book. I chuckled a polite little "Ha-ha" at the scene where Mrs. Long gets her head cracked like a walnut and then made no attempt to acquire an entire copy of the book. For one thing, I liked Pride and Prejudice perfectly fine without the zombies (which, on the contrary, I have never been crazy about), and secondly, having picked at the book's carcass for AP Lit to the point that I could name the estates and corresponding salaries of each character gave me no desire to revisit the novel -- even if it did have zombies thrown into the mix.

By chance, this book happened to be sitting in the New Book section of the public library last Sunday (my first day home for Spring Break), and so I decided to give it a try. It turned out to be much more amusing than I expected. While I wouldn't exactly hail it as a work of literary acclaim, it is quite interesting to see how Grahame-Smith weaves the zombie-ninja element throughout Austen's prose. Sometimes it works (e.g. Lady Catherine and her ninja cadre; Darcy's proposal and Elizabeth's hilariously violent reaction); sometimes it doesn't (e.g. Charlotte Lucas' ultimate fate). Besides, the ninja element is rather empowering for the female characters, such as the Bennet sisters and Lady Catherine, who are much better at zombie-fighting than say, Mr. Bingley or Wickham (whose fate at the hands of Mr. Darcy was much to my liking). If you're one of those purists who are horrified by the heathen mangling of Jane Austen's classic, then you'd best stay away. However, if you have a guilty fondness for good parodies (like yours truly), then this is your cup of tea. And now, to conclude by enticing you with some quotes from the book:

"Elizabeth and Darcy merely looked at one another in awkward silence, until the latter reached both arms around her. She was frozen -- "What does he mean to do?" she thought. But his intentions were respectable, for Darcy merely meant to retrieve his Brown Bess, which Elizabeth had affixed to her back during her walk. She remembered the lead ammunition in her pocket and offered it to him. 'Your balls, Mr. Darcy?' He reached out and closed her hand around them, and offered, 'They belong to you, Miss Bennet.'"

"Elizabeth sheathed her sword, knelt behind him, and strangled him to death with his own large bowel."

"'Have your ninjas left you?'
'We never had any ninjas.'
'No ninjas! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without any ninjas! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your safety.'
Elizabeth could hardly help smiling as she assured her that had not been the case."

Speaking of parodies...

3. Nightlight

So I accompanied my mother to Barnes and Noble yesterday to buy Godiva chocolate for my tennis coach, and this book happened to catch my eye as I walked past the humongous stand of Twilight merchandise (because face it -- that's where B&N get most of their revenue from these days). I didn't get a chance to skim through it, but I managed to find an excerpt online that is too long for me to post here. However, I have to say I found the excerpt a little lackluster. Judging from critiques that have been floating around the Internet, the parody is amusing for awhile but quickly becomes just another shitty book. For your enjoyment, however, I will include this excerpt from the scene where Belle Goose first sets eyes on Edwart Mullen:

"It was then that I saw him. He was sitting at a table all by himself, not even eating. He had an entire tray of baked potatoes in front of him and still he did not touch a single one. How could a human have his pick of baked potatoes and resist them all? Even odder, he hadn't noticed me, Belle Goose, future Academy Award winner.

A computer sat before him on the table. He stared intently at the screen, narrowing his eyes into slits and concentrating those slits on the screen as if the only thing that mattered to him was physically dominating that screen. He was muscular, like a man who could pin you up against the wall as easily as a poster, yet lean, like a man who would rather cradle you in his arms. He had reddish, blonde-brown hair that was groomed heterosexually. He looked older than the other boys in the room - maybe not as old as God or my father, but certainly a viable replacement. Imagine if you took every woman's idea of a hot guy and averaged it out into one man. This was that man."

From what I've gathered reading around online, the basic premise is that Belle Goose is a ditzy, vampire-obsessed teenager who is convinced that the computer geek at school is a vampire and thus, she harasses him to make her his undead wife. I considered using my B&N gift card on this, but I think I'll wait for a better book to catch my eye. There's a much more hilarious Twilight parody here -- if this guy ever publishes it, I'd be much more willing to spend my gift card on this. With a synopsis like this, who wouldn't?

"In a sentence, this is a story about Bonita Ingénue a 15-year-old, misunderstood young woman who gets rescued from her provincial, boring life and whisked away to a fantastical world of exciting, sensual, magic and erotic, thick, penetrating whimsy. At the beginning of our tale, she leaves her hometown of Backstory, Massachusetts for the excitement and intrigue of Excitetrigue, Colorado. The kids at her new school are all impressed with how one dimensional and uninteresting she is and it’s only a matter of time before all of the popular boys ask her out on romantic dates in the hopes fingerblasting her. Even though Bonnie has her pick of the litter at school, she really has her heart set on Theo, the mysterious boy who lives just outside of town in Dragon Hills. Theo has feelings for Bonnie as well, but he also has a deep, dark secret. A deep, dark dragon secret. He is a dragon.

Bonnie accepts Theo for who he is and Theo appreciates how unobtrusive and malleable Bonnie is. Together, and against the wishes of Bonnie’s parents, they get into some pretty graphic dragon-fucking, and it’s a little bit weird, but beautiful if you just open your mind. Eventually Theo has to leave the town (I forget why) and Bonnie goes along with him and abandons her family (because if there’s anything Twilight tell us, it’s that chicks love sitting passively on the sidelines while violent, mysterious men make absolutely every important decision for them). There’s maybe a hunt at some point but otherwise most of the tail end of the book is more aggressive dragonhumping as Bonnie and Theo live out their days in Theo’s tower, blissfully unaware of the outside world as they enjoy a life that’s all sweat, asses and wings. You’ve heard of fire-breathing dragons, well, Theo is a desire-breathing dragon. (He also breathes fire.)"

4. Speaking of Twilight...


This was out a while ago, but I thought this was pretty fitting for those of you who hadn't seen this yet. I have to say, that first shot of Andy Samberg was fineeeee.

5. Alice in Wonderland

No, I have not watched this yet. But I have been following its production for nearly a year. You shall hear of my verdict after Friday... and most likely even later, depending on if I ever get around blogging again after this monstrous post. Critiques have been blah-blah-ing about this one, but Tim Burton is still king in my book regardless.

Alright. Hope that was a massive enough post to satisfy you all while I disappear until summer vacation. (Ha-ha! Yeah right, you blogging addict!)