Sweet honey piglet

I finished The Exorcist again yesterday. It was my third time through the book and I’m still blown away by it. If I could meet one living author I haven’t met yet, it would definitely be William Peter Blatty. There is so much going on in that book, and continuing through The Ninth Configuration (which I’m rereading now) and on into Legion. It’s just unbelievable to me that so many people refer to The Exorcist as "that movie" where the girl pukes on the priest. It’s not even about Regan, really.

I hope my AP kids get that when we read the book next month.

Oh, this wasn’t actually a reread of The Exorcist, since I listened to it on CD, read by Blatty himself. He really got into the demon parts, too. He did much better reading his own work than Toni Morrison did with Beloved.

While on the subject of books, I have to comment on Carrie Jones and the success she’s having with her latest, Need. Of course, I thought the book was awesome when I got to read an ARC. It’s really taken off, though. Lots of people seem to agree with me on it. Too bad they won’t agree with me on how bad rap is … Anyhoo, I took my oldest daughter and her new friend to the Moore branch of the Pioneer Library System today and while they played on a computer with "a really cool keyboard" I looked up Need. The Moore branch has two copies. One was out, the other was on hold, and there was a waiting list for them. If you’re at all interested in paranormal young adult books, you really need to get yourself a copy of this one.

I did not get much writing done this weekend. (A little, but not much.) Yesterday was a failed trip to the medieval fair on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman. My youngest daughter wasn’t feeling well and it was really windy, so the dirt and grass was blowing around and she wasn’t able to deal with it very long.

Today was a computer battle. I tried to fix the old desktop, which has been crippled with viruses for a long time. I no longer have the Windows XP installation discs, so I had to revert to the Windows ME system that came with it, which is a totally crap operating system. It’s running better, overall, but is already hanging up like it did back when I ran ME when I got the computer. And there are still some lingering issues that won’t allow me to install Norton. And, of course, Microsoft is no longer offering any support for ME. Grrrrrrrrr! When it rains cash maybe I can get a new computer for the wife and kids to use.

Tomorrow my AP kids will wrap up discussion of Beowulf and Grendel. On Tuesday I’m going to show them The Legend of Boggy Creek, then they get to write an essay on unreliable narrators. The Legend of Boggy Creek. That scared the hell out of me as a kid. It’s still a decent movie, except for the damn singing in the middle. Anyway, Grendel, maybe, was a Bigfoot-type creature, so it all ties in. Right?

9 responses to “Sweet honey piglet”

steve_vernon

April 6, 2009 at 9:07 am

The Legend of Boggy Creek. Man, I was practically raised in the woods and was frightened of our local creek for at least two weeks after seeing that movie.
Hope you warp a few new young minds.

Reply
1. sewedel
  
  April 7, 2009 at 4:01 am
  
  I hear ya. We had a little thread of water called Bogey Creek running through my hometown and I was just sure they’d misspelled the name on the bridge sign and that the Fouk monster was going to put his arm through our bathroom window while I was taking a crap sometime.
  If Boggy Creek doesn’t warp the little minds I’m sure The Exorcist will.
  
  Reply
audentiori

April 6, 2009 at 1:20 pm

It’s probably very hard to find, but you could use the short film “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” for writing styles too. I remember reading it in college, after having seen the film years before.

Reply
1. sewedel
  
  April 7, 2009 at 3:59 am
  
  I love that story and have used it in summer school. Is the film the old Twilight Zone episode? I haven’t seen it, but read that they did it.
  
  Reply
  1. audentiori
    
    April 7, 2009 at 4:27 am
    
    I think the story was that Serling had seen it (I think it was a short French film) and featured it in Season 3 or so of the Twilight Zone. It’s quite well done, and the “twist” is done very nicely in the film.
    Actually I found it here, and better quality than when I searched for it last fall: http://www.viddler.com/explore/nzgmediefag/videos/12/
    Now I’m going to have to watch it again. I think I have the story somewhere on the shelves, I’d like to catch up with it again too.
    
    Reply
glamberson

April 6, 2009 at 4:58 pm

I’m having similar XP problems, resulting in my disaster yesterday. I wonder if that virus they were talking about the other day is the culprit.

Reply
1. rick_hipson
  
  April 7, 2009 at 12:29 am
  
  Instead of trying for Norton, why not try AVG instead? Tends to slip under the virus radar a bit more and works very fast and reliably.
  Saw Beowolf and Grendel the other night for the first time and loved it. Hope you class enjoys it too.
  
  Reply
  1. sewedel
    
    April 7, 2009 at 3:53 am
    
    I’m not familiar with AVG. Plus, I already paid for Norton for another year. Tell me more?
    Oh, we’re not watching Beowulf and Grendel. I showed my regular English IV class The 13th Warrior and last year’s animated Beowulf. The AP kids really pissed me off today by showing up and more than half of them hadn’t read Grendel and hadn’t even read the last few pages of Beowulf we didn’t get to in class on Friday. I just want to scream at them, “What the FUCK are you doing in an advanced literature class if you won’t fucking read???”
    
    Reply
    1. rick_hipson
      
      April 7, 2009 at 11:19 pm
      
      I can’t even imagine how frustrating that’s gotta be!
      As for AVG, it’s a free virus scanner, but don’t let that fool you – I’ve used it for a long time on a well trusted techno geek’s advise and have been very happy with it. I used to use Norton so just out of curiosity I ran Norton just before installing AVG. Then I ran AVG, once installed and it caught crap that Norton had missed which was good enough for me not to look back. You can always google it if you wanna check it out, but CNET.COM is a trusted location to get it. It’s kept free by business donations and such and doesn’t take up near as much memory as some of the other guys do. Hope that helps and good luck either way.
      
      Reply

Steven E. Wedel

Sweet honey piglet

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Sweet honey piglet

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