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Aug. 19th, 2009 09:06 amMorning, y'all.
I have not had an easy time waking up the past two mornings. I think it's possible I may be fighting off a cold. I have had a scratchy throat since yesterday, and by the end of the work day yesterday, I was exhausted and feeling like crap. I'm less exhausted now, but that may change during the day. We'll see. I can't remember the last time I had a cold. It's been over a year. Maybe a year and a half. I usually get two bad colds a year. I've been lucky. Hopefully that lucky streak will continue.
I have a date night with J, but he's sick too (I may have caught a cold from him), and so he won't be spending the night. Poor guy. He is just not built for getting up early, and finds it easier to drive home from Boston at midnight than to do so at 7:30am the following day. I understand. I'm the other way around, but I know not everyone is. I may pick up something fast and easy (shut up, snarky people) for dinner if I'm feeling like crap.
I'm re-reading a book of retold fairy tales these days. Love it. I have always loved fairy tales, and there's so much that can be done with them. I never get tired of hearing them told in new ways, or even old ways. I think the thing that re-awakened that love in me was reading Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples" (an adult and disquieting retelling of Snow White, for those of you who haven't read it). Reading his Stardust also helped, because while it's not a classic fairy tale, it has all the proper elements and tropes of a good fairy tale, and satisfied me in the same way that the classics do. I want to read or watch a good reworking of "Beauty and the Beast" one of these days. That's always been a favorite of mine.
What makes Labyrinth fall short for me as a fairy tale, much as I love it? The ending. A coming-of-age quest story should not end with "Oh, it was all a dream!" which it basically does. She doesn't really defeat the Goblin King or change him in any way, only escapes him with her brother. She escapes back into the arms of the friends she's conjured from childhood comforts, still a child. I think a good fairy tale would have ended with Sarah's defeat of Jareth causing him and the goblins (and the goblin city) to be transformed, and with her remaining as his queen. She faces the darkness, changes it, and is thereby changed herself into an adult.
OK, enough fairy tale ranting. I got carried away. :)
I have not had an easy time waking up the past two mornings. I think it's possible I may be fighting off a cold. I have had a scratchy throat since yesterday, and by the end of the work day yesterday, I was exhausted and feeling like crap. I'm less exhausted now, but that may change during the day. We'll see. I can't remember the last time I had a cold. It's been over a year. Maybe a year and a half. I usually get two bad colds a year. I've been lucky. Hopefully that lucky streak will continue.
I have a date night with J, but he's sick too (I may have caught a cold from him), and so he won't be spending the night. Poor guy. He is just not built for getting up early, and finds it easier to drive home from Boston at midnight than to do so at 7:30am the following day. I understand. I'm the other way around, but I know not everyone is. I may pick up something fast and easy (shut up, snarky people) for dinner if I'm feeling like crap.
I'm re-reading a book of retold fairy tales these days. Love it. I have always loved fairy tales, and there's so much that can be done with them. I never get tired of hearing them told in new ways, or even old ways. I think the thing that re-awakened that love in me was reading Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples" (an adult and disquieting retelling of Snow White, for those of you who haven't read it). Reading his Stardust also helped, because while it's not a classic fairy tale, it has all the proper elements and tropes of a good fairy tale, and satisfied me in the same way that the classics do. I want to read or watch a good reworking of "Beauty and the Beast" one of these days. That's always been a favorite of mine.
What makes Labyrinth fall short for me as a fairy tale, much as I love it? The ending. A coming-of-age quest story should not end with "Oh, it was all a dream!" which it basically does. She doesn't really defeat the Goblin King or change him in any way, only escapes him with her brother. She escapes back into the arms of the friends she's conjured from childhood comforts, still a child. I think a good fairy tale would have ended with Sarah's defeat of Jareth causing him and the goblins (and the goblin city) to be transformed, and with her remaining as his queen. She faces the darkness, changes it, and is thereby changed herself into an adult.
OK, enough fairy tale ranting. I got carried away. :)
