I. Am SO excited for this. Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 book is one of the most beloved children’s books in the world, and one of my personal favorite books, so utterly magical. The first episode of this dodges the mistakes I’ve seen a lot of webseries make as far as labored explication and overly-long dialogue; it jumps refreshingly straight into the story with an outspoken, sarcastic Mary, yet also lets viewers engage with her immediately by referencing her tragic past. I expect to love this.
‘Emma Approved’ Behind the Scenes: Joanna Sotomura and Brent Bailey Unscripted
I was pretty disappointed in Emma Approved when the web series first aired, but one of the best tangential things about it was stars Brent Bailey and Joanna Sotomura falling in love offscreen. By the end of filming the two were boyfriend and girlfriend. The below unscripted video is clearly from early on in their relationship but is full of quippy, loose exchanges that showcase their easy, visible chemistry. It’s adorbs.
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Poetry: Wardship
This poem about being a foster kid by Vilaska Nguyen at Blue Fifth Review knocked my socks off.
Twelve hundred a month isn’t worth more than the top ramen on the pantry’s bottom shelf. The Progresso is off limits. So is the Diet Coke. She dares me to even lay eyes on the Cool Ranch because that’ll be the end of me. I can drink all the water I want out of the tap. The fridge is off limits, especially the juice inside. I can get ice from the freezer but only two to three cubes per cup with the tap water. That’s all I need to know about the kitchen. Television watching is okay so long as either she or Mr. Kenneth turned it on. They also have to be sitting in the living room. Other than that, it’s off limits. There’s only one bathroom in the house which means I have to wait my turn, whatever that means. I have to empty the trash when I get home from school. That’s the bag under the kitchen sink and the one in the bathroom. I’m not allowed in their bedroom where the other trash is. My bed is in the extra room with the computer which is also off limits. If Mr. Kenneth needs to relax sometimes with computer games, I have to leave the room and wait in the living room. But if no one’s there, the television is off limits. The phone is off limits too.
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Kdrama Review Hyde, Jekyll and I: First Impressions
Ordinarily, I’d stay as far away from a drama centering on a man with split-personality disorder as Indiana Jones from a pit of snakes – but it’s been a down weekend, I’ve rarely not liked Hyun Bin, and there’s a lack of dramas in my weekly TV schedule now that Pinocchio has aired. So I thought I’d give this a shot.
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Illustration Love: X-Wing and Steampunk City
A Star Wars X-Wing fighter and a steampunk city – more stellar work from Benjamin Carre
X-Wing
Steampunk City
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Poetry: Vibrations
The earth has music for those
who listen. ~Santayana
Around midnight, I ask again,
“Do you hear it?” It’s not the engines
from McClellan Field, nor the purr of the frig,
more something of earth or sky, or both.
Over the Aegean, a quarter moon
and single star spangle in dawn’s first light.
A smart man once said “Heaven is today,
not yesterday and not tomorrow.”
(sorry you missed it).
I look up the Aramaic word for heaven:
Shemeya,
(light, sacred vibrations, never ending).
And when I think complete silence,
that echo again, the pulse of a million suns,
the slip of comet’s tail—
immeasurable?
I want to find heaven on earth, a glimpse
of kindness in the everyday. An Arab country
gives our students new computers
after their school was tornado damaged.
Jeanine Stevens, Blue Five Notebook
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NBC ‘Constantine’ Episode Screencaps: Quid Pro Quo
NBC’s Constantine had an awful, offputting pilot, but afterward they immediately ditched their lead actress and retooled the show with a fiery artistic psychic on the run in place of the former female lead, and I decided to keep watching. It’s predicted to get cancelled, but the last four episodes have been just stellar genre television, atmospheric, funny, and suspenseful without being campy or gruesome. It also ended with one of those giddy, incredibly romantic scenes that is tailor-made to make me fall in mad love. Regardless, whether it gets cancelled or not, here’s an ode to Constantine in the form of episode screencaps (gallery under the tag).
Coffee and Irony 