The Book is Better

I've been on a Harry Potter movie marathon this week, something to keep my mind occupied while I'm re-gearing between books. I have the first five, and I spread them over three days. It's an excellent way to pass some time.

Last night, when I finished THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, I wanted to go back and fact check a couple of items against the book. I hate that so many of the scenes are altered, making Harry look weak - especially when he has the prophesy and Lucius Malfoy confronts him. In the movie he hands it over. If I remember correctly, in the book, that is far from accurate.

I was planning a late night anyway because I was expecting a call from the West coast, so instead of flipping to the appropriate spot in the book, I started at the beginning.

Whoa!

These books lend themselves well to the visual medium, no doubt about it. But the difference was overwhelming. It was like going from watching a black and white silent movie to reading in luscious Technicolor. The imagery J.K. Rowling evokes just can't quite make it to the screen. They come close - I did a step by step match-up of the beginning of the book and the movie, and the movie captures the essence of what the book describes. But reading it, glorying in the details, was a far more satisfactory experience for me. There's just so many minute details that the movie encompasses into one broad stroke, which is an art unto itself.

As a writer, I can only imagine how difficult it is to adapt a popular novel to the screen. Every reader has a completely individualized experience when reading a book. Characters form in your mind, and each person's description is a little bit different. I had this problem when we were choosing a reader for the Taylor Jackson audio books - I know EXACTLY what Taylor sounds like, deep, husky, slightly southern, slow and decorous. But what I hear in my head may be completely different than what every other reader hears in theirs.

The same goes for a film adaptation, and that's where a really visionary director can make all the difference. I had major issues with the first Twilight film, I felt like it skimmed over too many of the importance parts. But NEW MOON was just the opposite, I thought they did a great job of mining the little details that make Meyer's stories so unique.

So there you have it. Some movie adaptations are a hit, and some are a miss. Regardless, when someone tells me the book is better, I do listen.

What's your favorite adaptation? Least favorite?

Twyla Tharp, Genius

"The call to a creative life is not supposed to be torture. Yes, it is hard work and you have to make sacrifices. Yes, it is a noble calling; you're volunteering in an army of sorts alongside a phalanx of artists who have preceded you, many of whom are your mentors and guides, upon whose work you build, without whom you have no fixed point of reference. They form a tradition that you have implicitly sworn to protect, even while you aim to refashion it, and sometimes even shatter it.

But it's also supposed to be fun."

~Twyla Tharp, THE CREATIVE HABIT

Le Tombeau d'Edgar Poe

Last night, the Nashville Symphony did a performance dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe featuring Stravinsky's SYMPHONY OF PSALMS and Rachmaninoff's THE BELLS. As you can imagine, we bought tickets early. How can you not love the idea of music inspired by Poe's writing?

In between the two Russian masters was a piece by composer Dominick Argento called Le Tombeau d'Edgar Poe. It was quite brilliant, playing off of my favorite Poe poem, Annabel Lee. Listening to this unique interpretation, I was struck by a realization. So much of our social networking is dedicated to saying something. Something important, eloquent, worthy. I've blogged for years with this purpose in mind: to edify, educate and elucidate my purpose.

What I rarely do is share my inspirations. They hit me daily, in large ways and small. It can be something as simple as the smile of a stranger, or as complex as a movie script. Poems, fragments of conversations, links I find interesting - my zeitgeist - has been largely missing.

So this space will now have some less elucidating, education and edifying pieces. No less worthy, I think, but perhaps more an exploration of my own personal zeitgeist without extensive essays to "explain" my thoughts.

Let me start with Le Tombeau, then. The Tomb of Edgar Poe, inspired by the brilliant Annabel Lee. How apropos.

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

~Edgar Allan Poe

Review of the Quo Vadis Habana Notebook

Oh boy, do I ever know what I’m going to be passing out to everyone this year.

The wonderful Karen Doherty from Exaclair, Inc., the exclusive U.S. distributor of Clairefontaine, Exacompta, Rhodia, Quo Vadis, and a bunch of other really fine paper products, sent me a Quo Vadis Habana notebook to test run.

As you all know, I am a paper freak. I covet nice paper, and pristine notebooks to capture my thoughts. Earlier this year I bought myself a Moleskine and started keeping all my thought in one place in an attempt to work in a more streamlined, GTD life style. I like the Moleskine, but the paper is yellowish, and I can see the notes from the previous page, which means I end up starting a new page every time I have a thought. 

My friend and fellow author Jeff Abbott turned me on to Clairefontaine notebooks and their lovely, clean white paper. I’ve become a bit of a convert, and this revelation has sparked an extensive search for the perfect notebook.

Clairefontaine makes the nicest paper in the world – heavy, very white and no bleed regardless of the pens I use. There’s nothing better than the heavy, steady feel when turning the pages. So you can imagine how excited I was to get the Habana, loaded with it's yummy Clairefontaine 90g paper.

The Quo Vadis Habana notebook is a great size too, 6” x 9”, bigger than my Moleskine by just the right amount. (Sadly, my Levenger pen keeper is too small to fit around the edge, so I’ll have to order a new one.) The notebook opens and lies almost flat, and has a solid backing that isn’t too stiff. The pen slips along the page, allowing notes and thoughts to flow unhindered. And the extra inch of space means I rarely have to stop and flip a page in the middle of a thought. For folks like me who hate to waste paper but don’t like to have multiple thoughts on the same page, this is perfect.

All in all, I have to give this notebook 5 stars. And I’m going to be passing them out as Christmas presents to all my friends and family who love the feel of an elegant notebook, and I’m going to the store to take a gander at their highly-rated planners.

Check out the excellent Quo Vadis blog here for lots of great info, reviews, and random musings.

A Halloween Ghost Story

I love New Orleans. When I was in grad school, my husband and I decided to start a political consulting firm. We signed a candidate in Mobile, and went down over a weekend to meet him. We quickly realized he wasn't the candidate for us -- he kept suggesting ways to get around the FEC filing laws, talked about how he was going to split apart his political donations for home improvements -- you get the idea. So we cut the trip short and drove over to New Orleans. Hubby made a reservation at the Maison Dupuy, an utterly charming and highly romantic hotel in the Quarter, and I fell in love. With the city, the people, the vibe, and a little bit deeper with hubby. It's one of those shining memories, a day and night of pure bliss.

We went into a million clubs, danced and drank too much, wandered through the Quarter all night . . . it was a wonderful twenty-four hours. The only things we didn't get to do was go to a club known as the Dungeon. Hubby had been there on another trip and wanted to show it to me, but we just ran out of time.

Fast forward a few years. Hubby and I were now married, and decided a three day excursion down to New Orleans might be a fun way to blow off some steam. I had a good sense of the town now, and I wanted to do a ghost tour. I loved our vampiric guide -- with his pearly smooth skin, his long fingernails, velvet frock coat, he embodied the New Orleans I'd read about in Anne Rice novels. He told us a lot of great, gruesome tales, but I didn't "feel" anything.

Now, let me back up and admit that I've always been a bit attracted to the paranormal. I've had some bizarre, unexplainable situations. Lest you think I'm a bit off, I have this weird six sense about bad things. Especially when I was younger, I would tell my mom something bad was going to happen, and it always did. Supposedly, most of the women in my family have this heightened radar, so it wasn't a huge deal. The big one was when I woke up and told my mom something horrible was going to happen to President Reagan that day. He was shot six hours later. Ever since, I've done my best to tamp down those "hunches." I feel better that way. I'd rather not know.

Okay, so my bonafides are in place. I'm a little sensitive to weirdness. And I loved reading Anne Rice. I'd always been entranced by her New Orleans, and wanted to see it through her eyes. The ghost and vampire tour went a long way toward satisfying that need, but I still felt . . . I don't know . . .  unfulfilled.

After the tour, the group split off. I was tempted to follow our guide and see what he did next, but he disappeared (probably had a gig to play, or blood to drink, or something.) Hubby really wanted to make sure I got to see the Dungeon this trip, but the doors don't open until midnight. We decided to kill some time at Pat O'Brien's. We had a great dinner, and I sampled the infamous hurricane. Just one. Hubby had two. We weren't drunk. We weren't even buzzed. Just having a good time in Crescent City.

It was now about a quarter to one, and time to head down to the Tombs. Our waiter had been a ball all night. In between giggles, we asked him the shortest path to the Dungeon. He gave us directions, we paid our check and left the restaurant.

If you've ever been to New Orleans, you know that it's just like New York. It never sleeps. There's always (or at least there were before Katrina) crowds about in the Quarter. We walked up Bourbon Street to Toulouse, turned left and started down until we hit the entrance for the Dungeon.

There's a wide plank wooden door, with antique hinges, the whole nine yards. Hubby reached for the handle of the door, and it was locked. We pulled on it a few times and were completely puzzled. It was 1 AM. The place was supposed to be open.

That's when we realized there was no one around. No one. On Toulouse Street, just a block off Bourbon, at 1 in the morning -- it was completely empty and silent. We looked at each other and started to feel a little strange. We're standing there, discussing what to do, whispering to each other because we're really creeped out. The hair on the back of my neck suddenly rose. We turned to our right, and the waiter from Pat O'Brien's was standing there. No footsteps, no clatter of shoes on the cobblestones, nothing. He literally appeared.

We looked at him, and said a shaky hello. All of my warning signals were screaming at me. But I couldn't move. I was frozen to the spot. He shook his head gravely and looked me right in the eye.

"They will eat you alive," he said. "Get back up onto Bourbon Street."

And then he disappeared.

There was no sound, no moment, not even a whisper of a breeze. Silence, and emptiness. He was just gone.

We practically ran up to Bourbon Street. We didn't look back. We went straight to the hotel and to our room. We locked the door, and stashed a chair under the antique knob for good measure.

Two years ago we went back to New Orleans. Another three day trip. Had a great time, ran around, went to a couple of "private" clubs, got a drink spilled on my shirt and scored a free t-shirt that said "No Beads Necessary." After a long night roaming the streets, we decided to try the Dungeon one more time.

The door was unlocked this time. We crossed through the dingy front, across the moat, into the bar. We walked through, staring at the skulls, debating whether to get something to drink. There are a lot of mirrors on the walls, it's very dark and freaky -- just the kind of place people who like to be scared would hang out. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched. The hair on my neck, the shiver down my spine, everything in me screamed Get Out Of Here Now. I told hubby we needed to leave. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. And as I left, I heard the odd strains of deep laughter, ringing in  my ears alone.

I'm going back to New Orleans again. I'll stay in the Quarter. But I won't be going back to the Dungeon. Something, someone, evil resides there.

Wine of the Week -- Vampire Merlot   It's quite good.