Those of you who visited this blog late last night--and my stat-box says there were about twenty of you--may have seen a partial review of the first section of If There Be Thorns. It was late, I was sleepy, someone at Blogger put the Post button next to the Save button . . . mistakes were made.
Just wanted to post an apology and an explanation of why that post is no longer here. You weren't hallucinating, and there was nothing wrong with your browser. But hey! At least there's proof that If There Be Thorns is a thing that will happen!
Meanwhile, Part Seven of the Petals on the Wind recap is up, and we're one week away from the new Flowers movie!
Showing posts with label when real life attacks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label when real life attacks. Show all posts
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Friday, March 30, 2012
Oops, I Did It Again
For the second time since the inception of this blog, Your Humble Narrator almost died. This time it was pneumonia. I'm much better now, but I'm starting to blame the books.
Updates are forthcoming! But then again, so is tornado season, and we all remember what happened last time. I promise, I won't stop blogging for anything less than an F3.
Burt Reynolds' people have not written back. :-(
Updates are forthcoming! But then again, so is tornado season, and we all remember what happened last time. I promise, I won't stop blogging for anything less than an F3.
Burt Reynolds' people have not written back. :-(
Friday, November 4, 2011
The Show Must Go On
While I promised myself that this blog would be a space for pure scholarly reflection/snarking, and that I would not let my Real Life make any inroads into the snark, Real Life continues to happen to me. But this time, in a good way! And after such a long absence, I feel you deserve the fun anecdote version:
Upshot is that there were three major reasons the blog went on hiatus. One was the tornado. Not only did I lose access to my notes and computer for about a month's time, Your Humble Annotator kind of had more of a breakdown than she wanted to. I really couldn't write anything for a while after that. I was completely out of funny.
Two was my school work, plus the addition of a new job, which made more of a strain on my time than anticipated. At least I was writing again, but my writing involved the influence of blackface minstrelsy on the commercialization of early jazz records and the patterns of reversals of fortune versus morality in Defoe's Moll Flanders. Again, not much funny to be had there.
The third problem: I, um, don't actually own the books.
I had in my possession three VCA books: Flowers in the Attic, Heaven, and My Sweet Audrina. The rest of the series came in the form of an enormous, dubiously legal PDF of the Complete Works of V.C. Andrews, which had an alarming tendency to veer off into Cyrillic characters. By the time I broke off the recapping, I was not so much reading as translating, piecing together sentences that were, at best, two-thirds English. It was tedious and frustrating and may be the reason why the first second of the Petals recap had that feeling of being rushed.
So this is where I was last week, when I finally heeded my elderly mother's call to visit her. She had just had a largely unsuccessful yard sale. What she really wanted, of course, was for me to take some of this junk off her hands before she called the Salvation Army for the rest of it. I ended up digging through ancient and disintegrating Avon boxes (remember those?), trying to hunt down my first-generation My Little Ponies so that I could show my Brony husband what his fandom evolved from.
Then I came to a dead halt.
In another Avon box, tucked way in the back of a closet so that they would not leak their scent of shame on the rest of the items, I found these:
There's a few pretty major omissions in this set: I'm missing the final FitA book, Garden of Shadows, for one, which is sad because not only do I think that book may well be the final one touched by the pen of V.C. herself, I actually thought it was pretty okay. Also missing is Dark Angel, the second book of the Casteel series, which features an extensive foray into one of finest Andrews tropes, the Boarding School from Hell. Hidden by the unavoidable glare (it's a really foil-laiden cover) is Rain, in which we are treated to the Tragic Mulatto of the Andrews world, since they were running out of offensive stereotypes by that point. Seriously, there are series here that I was only marginally aware existed (who the fuck are the DeBeers?) I do, however, now own all the Landry series, which I originally was not going to even touch, but they are stuffed with such wacky twin-swapping shenanigans that I am nearly convinced they are genius on a level too high for me to comprehend.
I also somehow ended up with two Audrinas. JUST LIKE IN THE BOOK!
Basically, I now I have no excuses. I have to finish this thing. You can thank my mother. Actually you can thank her by taking some yard-sale goods off her hands. She's got a pretty cool vintage console TV for only $25, if anyone's interested.
Upshot is that there were three major reasons the blog went on hiatus. One was the tornado. Not only did I lose access to my notes and computer for about a month's time, Your Humble Annotator kind of had more of a breakdown than she wanted to. I really couldn't write anything for a while after that. I was completely out of funny.
Two was my school work, plus the addition of a new job, which made more of a strain on my time than anticipated. At least I was writing again, but my writing involved the influence of blackface minstrelsy on the commercialization of early jazz records and the patterns of reversals of fortune versus morality in Defoe's Moll Flanders. Again, not much funny to be had there.
The third problem: I, um, don't actually own the books.
I had in my possession three VCA books: Flowers in the Attic, Heaven, and My Sweet Audrina. The rest of the series came in the form of an enormous, dubiously legal PDF of the Complete Works of V.C. Andrews, which had an alarming tendency to veer off into Cyrillic characters. By the time I broke off the recapping, I was not so much reading as translating, piecing together sentences that were, at best, two-thirds English. It was tedious and frustrating and may be the reason why the first second of the Petals recap had that feeling of being rushed.
So this is where I was last week, when I finally heeded my elderly mother's call to visit her. She had just had a largely unsuccessful yard sale. What she really wanted, of course, was for me to take some of this junk off her hands before she called the Salvation Army for the rest of it. I ended up digging through ancient and disintegrating Avon boxes (remember those?), trying to hunt down my first-generation My Little Ponies so that I could show my Brony husband what his fandom evolved from.
Then I came to a dead halt.
In another Avon box, tucked way in the back of a closet so that they would not leak their scent of shame on the rest of the items, I found these:
 | ||
| Not featured: Avon box. |
There's a few pretty major omissions in this set: I'm missing the final FitA book, Garden of Shadows, for one, which is sad because not only do I think that book may well be the final one touched by the pen of V.C. herself, I actually thought it was pretty okay. Also missing is Dark Angel, the second book of the Casteel series, which features an extensive foray into one of finest Andrews tropes, the Boarding School from Hell. Hidden by the unavoidable glare (it's a really foil-laiden cover) is Rain, in which we are treated to the Tragic Mulatto of the Andrews world, since they were running out of offensive stereotypes by that point. Seriously, there are series here that I was only marginally aware existed (who the fuck are the DeBeers?) I do, however, now own all the Landry series, which I originally was not going to even touch, but they are stuffed with such wacky twin-swapping shenanigans that I am nearly convinced they are genius on a level too high for me to comprehend.
I also somehow ended up with two Audrinas. JUST LIKE IN THE BOOK!
Basically, I now I have no excuses. I have to finish this thing. You can thank my mother. Actually you can thank her by taking some yard-sale goods off her hands. She's got a pretty cool vintage console TV for only $25, if anyone's interested.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
"I feel fantastic and I'm still alive . . . "
The blog continues, despite a significant gap due in part to Your Humble Annotator having a mild mental meltdown (as you do when your 'hood gets wiped off the map) and a therapeutic trip to New York City to visit an old friend and unwind from the stress of being sideswiped by an F5. Two words: culture shock.
Nevertheless, the blog will continue shortly. I am shooting for Saturday/Sunday for Part Two of Petals on the Wind. Stay tuned.
Nevertheless, the blog will continue shortly. I am shooting for Saturday/Sunday for Part Two of Petals on the Wind. Stay tuned.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Background Blogging: Back in Business
Aaaaand we're back!
As stated in the previous post, I was in one of the heavily impacted areas of the April 27th tornadoes in Alabama. We missed a direct hit by about a block, I'm thankful to say. However, immediately afterward, the most modest estimate for getting electrical service back to our neighborhood was a month . . . and considering everything else going on, we felt like assholes even asking about things like internet.
If you would like to help the tornado victims (i.e., my own personal neighbors), here's some places to start:
Text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to the relief effort.
Amazon.com has a list of supplies needed in this area. You buy and Amazon will ship directly.
You can also donate to the Alabama Food Bank.
It's hard to even give an idea of exactly how bad this thing is without physically importing you to my 'hood and walking you around for a couple blocks--and I couldn't even do that, because the National Guard is on the ground here and there's places they wouldn't let us go. Suffice it to say that I know the world is moving on--the royal wedding, Bin Ladin's assassination--but this area is not going to recover within the next news cycle. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts in the months ahead.
Blog-news: I posted up some comments that got stuck in moderation while I was indisposed. If you didn't see your comments before, they should be there now! I also got a headstart on Petals in the Wind once the power came up, and the first installment should be up on Friday if the internet holds.
Glad to be back! Let's get this party started!
::spits on hands::
As stated in the previous post, I was in one of the heavily impacted areas of the April 27th tornadoes in Alabama. We missed a direct hit by about a block, I'm thankful to say. However, immediately afterward, the most modest estimate for getting electrical service back to our neighborhood was a month . . . and considering everything else going on, we felt like assholes even asking about things like internet.
If you would like to help the tornado victims (i.e., my own personal neighbors), here's some places to start:
Text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to the relief effort.
Amazon.com has a list of supplies needed in this area. You buy and Amazon will ship directly.
You can also donate to the Alabama Food Bank.
It's hard to even give an idea of exactly how bad this thing is without physically importing you to my 'hood and walking you around for a couple blocks--and I couldn't even do that, because the National Guard is on the ground here and there's places they wouldn't let us go. Suffice it to say that I know the world is moving on--the royal wedding, Bin Ladin's assassination--but this area is not going to recover within the next news cycle. Please continue to keep us in your thoughts in the months ahead.
Blog-news: I posted up some comments that got stuck in moderation while I was indisposed. If you didn't see your comments before, they should be there now! I also got a headstart on Petals in the Wind once the power came up, and the first installment should be up on Friday if the internet holds.
Glad to be back! Let's get this party started!
::spits on hands::
Friday, April 29, 2011
Background Blogging: Serious Business Edition
Hullo, me lovelies:
Without getting into too many details, Yr. Humble Annotator has been temporarily displaced by the recent tornadoes in Alabama. Me and mine are fine, my house is fine, and--alas!--my gianormous file of the Complete Works of V.C. Andrews is fine, but things are very chaotic at this time, so the start of the Petals in the Wind recaps is on semi-indefinite hiatus.
Rest assured, in the next few days or weeks, things will settle down. Sooner or later, I'll feel the need of the sort of wonky, wacky, craptastic magic that only a V.C. Andrews novel can provide, and we'll get this show on the road again.
Thanks for understanding.
With love,
The Fifth Dollanganger
Without getting into too many details, Yr. Humble Annotator has been temporarily displaced by the recent tornadoes in Alabama. Me and mine are fine, my house is fine, and--alas!--my gianormous file of the Complete Works of V.C. Andrews is fine, but things are very chaotic at this time, so the start of the Petals in the Wind recaps is on semi-indefinite hiatus.
Rest assured, in the next few days or weeks, things will settle down. Sooner or later, I'll feel the need of the sort of wonky, wacky, craptastic magic that only a V.C. Andrews novel can provide, and we'll get this show on the road again.
Thanks for understanding.
With love,
The Fifth Dollanganger
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