Worried Animals and Time Travel

 A few of you provided responses to yesterday's Report with your quotes.  One was thrilled with the inclusion of P.G. Wodehouse, while lamenting the Guardian's failure to include Anna Karenina and Catcher In the Rye (though Catcher is mentioned in passing for its similarity to Huckleberry Finn), as well as their terrible oversight of A Tale of Two Cities.  Another interestingly turned my proposal that the rest of the book bears a heavy influence on the lasting fame of the opening line, noting that a strong opening line (and ten pages or so) can be just as crucial to the rest of the book.  If the reader or publisher can put the book down after the first few pages, it's going to have a hard time making a lasting impact...

And before you put this report down before reading the rest of it, let's get down to business.  In a rather appropriate find on my sick day, I stumbled upon these 35 Animals Who Are Kind of Worried About Me!  I must say, I'm not pleased with the Overreacting Cat who doesn't believe I was actually not feeling well...  The hedgehog in 30 is worried about how few of the opening lines I recognized myself from Wednesday's post, while 17 knows how much I've been listening to One Direction.  (Shut up, eagle, they tell me I'm beautiful!)  33, maybe I should hire you to edit the Report.  And 32, I can't promise you everything's okay, but if a dog and a cat can cuddle like that, I'm more inclined to say with some certainty that things will be.

But let's consider again the anxieties of Eagle 17.  Boy bands seem to be making a bizarre resurgence of late.  How did this happen?  I decided to do some research.  I haven't arrived at a conclusion, but I have found a great Radio Time Machine tool to help.  While the Machine allows exploration of the Billboard Top 100 all the way back to 1940, I find I'm stuck in the 80s and 90s.  As the Breakfast Club implores me not to forget about them, Deniece Williams gives the boy a hand, and Dionne Warwick tells me I can always count on her, for sure (that's what friends are for), I am suddenly jarred by Rock Me Amadeus (What the hell is that?!).  I leave the 80s for the comfort of my childhood 90s, where TLC reminds me not to go chasing waterfalls, Toni Braxton wants me to un-break her heart, and R. Kelly believes he can fly, and I find that every song reminds me either of riding in a minivan or rollerskating at Happy Wheels.  (Remember that, NH readers?!)  Trust me, this is a musical adventure while worth plugging in headphones and exploring.  You might just learn something.  (Did you know that Lady Marmalade was in the top 100 twice?! Once in 1975 and then once in 2001!)

Anyway, enjoy the musical time travel.  If you check out 1970, be sure to congratulate Will Arnett's parents on their hilarious new baby!

In the beginning there wA-Z...

Another overcast day here in Alexandria.  Curse the day that storm-bringing corgi crossed my path!  Much relieved no die-hard Nolan or Malick fans attacked yesterday's report!  Today's will be focused on sentences, but that doesn't make it any less potentially contentious.  It's a bit wordy, but how can you write about sentences without being wordy?!

The Guardian has put out a list of " The 10 best first lines in fiction," which will no doubt be the subject of much disagreement.  Of course, every such list always is.  "Where is my favorite line?! I call shenanigans!" say the commenters.  But this time, I think they're right.  These selected lines seem weak, many of them only riding on the success of the novel that follows.  Nothing earth-shattering about the opening to Ulysses, in my mind.  Pride and Prejudice is one I agree with, though the opening sentence is one of the few I read in that entire novel... But where is Lolita (light of my life, fire of my loins)?  And Peter Pan and Farenheit 451?  The American Book Review list is better.  And includes one that suggests that maybe we cannot separate the opening sentence from the rest of the novel so easily:  "A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead."

So what do we think?  Is the greatness of an opening inextricably connected to the text that follows?  And what openings do you love that these top countdowns missed?

Interestingly, one reader, without knowing the sentence-based nature of today's Report, provides a fascinating Wikipedia page that is at once entertaining and enlightening.  A pangram is a sentence containing every letter of the alphabet at least once.  You no doubt know the English "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog," but there are so many other great English examples.  I think my personal favorite might be, "Public junk dwarves hug my quartz fox."  But things really get interesting after English... Remember that there are a great many other alphabets, each with their own pangrams that, when translated into English, seem often to be things of beauty reflective of the culture.  Consider the Japanese sentence that contains all kana (containing all kanji characters would be impossible):  "Awaken from dreaming to the voice of the crying bird and see the coming daylight turning the east sky-blue; shrouded in mist is a flock of ships on the open sea."  (That would make a great opening sentence, actually.)  Or the Persian example, which the submitter observes is reminiscent of their mournful poetry: "Zabih's returning after a long time made me forget a lot of my infirmities and pains which had caused a deep scar in the depth of my soft heart so many years ago." 

Of course, some are still just hilarious.  The poor Latvians dealing with the fact that, "Stupid hippies right here are freely trying to taste cellophane boa."  And Portugal describes Java's strangest zoo:  "One-eyed zebras in Java want to fax for giant ladies from New York."  Others are hilariously reflective of things we think about the country.  Poland has a pangramatic way of dealing with problems:  "Come on, drop your sadness into the depth of a bottle!"

Remember to celebrate your freedom to use accurate GPS today; exactly twelve years ago, Bill Clinton announced that it would no longer be restricted to US Military use.  And for those of you about to begin exams, remember:  "The s exy prof gives back no quiz with mild joy."

Movie Previews and Recreating "Tree of Life"

A bit of a rainy morning today, at least it was earlier... And it looks like rain for the rest of the week, too.  So perhaps the corgi was not a sign of good things, at least not weather-wise.  Like the old sailor adage says, "Corgi on Monday, Stormy til Sunday."  The weather suggests it will be a great week for video gaming.  So don't feel so bad about playing at work.

But for the non-gamers out there, maybe the rainy forecast is inspiring thoughts about movie theaters.  (Is there a better way to pass a rainy day than in a dark room full of strangers? I don't think so.)  But, you ask, what would I see at the theater?  Well, luckily you won't need to ask yourself that for the rest of this summer after this Summer Movie Preview!  So many "Must Sees," from superheroes to Sundance sweethearts.  Possibly one of the biggest superhero summers in movie history, actually.  Marvel's five-year hero project finally comes to a head, uniting Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, and Captain America with Black Widow and Hawkeye to form The Avengers, and Christopher Nolan's raving fanboys will no doubt proclaim his "do-no-wrong" greatness with the release of The Dark Knight Rises.  I'm most excited for The Amazing Spider-Man, even though the reboot has some fans of the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire original a bit confused... But seriously, if Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone aren't the hottest on-screen couple of the summer, then there must be a movie I haven't heard about yet where Ryan Gosling dates Natalie Portman (Hollywood, get on that).  As for Indies, anyone who wants to join me for Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, Safety Not Guaranteed, or Beasts of the Southern Kingdom, let me know.  And, of course, [our red-headed readership] must be all excited about Pixar's Brave celebration of gingers.

But this summer cinema season seems tragically devoid of a Tree of Life-esque cinematic exploration of literally everything ever.  Where will we go for breathy voice-over, long lingering shots of the galaxy, dinosaur bonding, and sweeping shots of the Earth from on-high?  No need to search for the way of grace or the way of nature, we've got at least part of your solution right here.  These beautiful images of earth from above are just what the doctor ordered.  And the still frames move only slightly slower than some of the shots in Malick's film!  Toss on Jurassic Park in the background and whisper the captions to yourself, and you're practically reliving the movie!  All you need now is to invite Brad Pitt over to yell at your kids while Jessica Chastain quietly encourages them and Sean Penn makes occasional and baffling appearances.

If you're looking for a more entertaining ambitious piece of cinema, I'd recommend taking some time to view Citizen Kane today.  It's the film's 71st anniversary, after all!

Mornings.  Reports.  Always you wrestle inside of me, always you will.

Miss NH and Mario (Abridged)

I've returned from the wilds of New Hampshire in one piece and am back (however briefly today) at my normal reporting desk.  But what a whirlwind NH weekend it was!  Sarah, as those who follow the Mousseaus closely on Facebook or Twitter know, was second runner-up in the Miss NH pageant, and the winner of the pageant's two academic achievement awards.  So, for those wondering where the brains, beauty, and talent are in the Mousseau family, there's your answer.

Frequent readers of the Huffington Post, though, may now mentally lump Sarah in with this lovely lady.  Well, entertaining as the connection is, there's a significant gap not covered by HuffPo.  That woman is a former Miss New Hampshire USA, an entirely different pageant from what Sarah entered.  The battering beauty (not Sarah) was part of the Donald Trump sponsored Miss USA beauty pageant.  Sarah was a contestant in part of Miss America, a scholarship program that includes a talent portion that the Miss USA pageant lacks.  Though perhaps Ms. Houde would have fared well in talent, demonstrating her ultimate fighter skills.  Or maybe she should keep an eye out for a Hunger Games-esque pageant to enter in the future.

And speaking of games, here's another link from my weekend explorations of the internet:  Super-Condensed Mario!  Each level of the original NES Mario game, condensed onto one screen each.  Get the coins.  Get to the top of the flag.  Simple, but not always easy.  I'm about halfway through now, after sporadic play this weekend.  The traditionally annoying Hammer Bros are just as frustrating as ever.  I wonder if the creator will follow up with a condensed Lost Levels.  Anyway, thought a game link like this was appropriate for a Monday, as it would give bored readers something to do in the evenings this week.  And would serve as an excellent procrastination tool for student readers who don't want to start to study for exams just yet... Perhaps a contest?  Can anyone beat all the levels by the time the week is out?  And how about getting all the coins and the highest flag placements?

A final note, for those worried that this will be a long and difficult week:  On the way into work today, I passed a corgi.  Surely a sign of great things to come!  (I think I have adopted the dog as my spirit animal.)

Til tomorrow, enjoy Cloris Leachman's birthday!