As I re-watched one of my favorite episodes of the British TV show "Doctor Who," which features a story surrounding Agatha Christie, I was inspired. Wouldn't an episode featuring Jane Austen be the best thing since sliced bread? I shared this desire with a Whovian fan club I belong to on Facebook. Then I began imagining what interactions between the Doctor, his companion and various characters in Jane Austen's life might look like. As easy as these have proven to write, this is undoubtedly only the first of several installments of the sort. The vignettes below are not presented chronologically, by the way. "Ten," of course, denotes the Tenth Doctor, and Donna is his companion in the fourth season of the reboot. *** Jane's mom: "And is this your wife?" -both Doctor and companion deny it vigorously- Mom, as if offering consolation: "Oh, never mind, there are still many wonderful ladies you may meet." Doctor, as aside to com...

Today is "The Day of the Doctor" for Whovians like myself -- that is, fans of the British TV show "Doctor Who." However, I must go to work this afternoon, so I shall miss the worldwide premier of the 50th anniversary special episode. Sad, isn't it? Well, not really. Because in the grand scheme of things, a TV show is just a TV show. A couple of Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicators charts for some laughs! Prayers for each Myers-Briggs type ("Lord help me be less independent, but let me do it my way."), LOTR by personality type and Star Wars in MBTI ! Maps showing the etymology of different words in Europe. Funny: Most people in Europe think a pineapple's proper name is "ananas." The album for the movie "Inside Llewellyn Davis," a movie by the same guys who did "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," is out! I managed to listen to it via NPR's First Listen post , but apparently the audio is no longer available the...

The experiment of the movie-less month continues, and I’ve read no less than two collections of Agatha Christie short stories in the last couple of days. And started a Martyn Lloyd-Jones collection of sermons on the Sermon on the Mount (which I’m really enjoying). Yeah, I miss watching movies, and yeah, there are (many) times when I feel like all I want to do is sit down and unwind watching a fun little fictional story. But this is becoming a really great month. For your entertainment this week…. How to find a modern-day Mr. Darcy. This article is completely serious. (via me ol' roomie ) And on a related note, I present: Pride and Prejudice, The Game. Also found via the roomie. You had one job. ONE JOB. (Via a Facebook friend.) A writer for Speculative Faith penned a two-part series on the relationship between Amy and Rory in the splendid British sci-fi show Doctor Who . That pair is probably the best married couple depicted on modern screens, just FYI. (Via a Facebook DW f...

Indiana weather is pretty bipolar. We had snow the beginning of this week, then it warmed up enough on Wednesday that I ran outside and took a 1.5-mile walk along the river. Thursday I went up one of the boulevards and whiled away the time I walked by speculating on the floor plans of all the gorgeous houses I passed and judging which house was my favorite. You don’t have to be superhuman to commute by bicycle – you can even wear jeans if you want! In the summer I commute by bike as much as possible, but I’m wearing khakis to work for the most part. Extrinsic motivations aren’t all that effective – at least not when compared to intrinsic ones. A book review on the Evangelical Outpost. The secrets of Grand Central Terminal , an interactive photograph. Mouse over the dots and you’ll learn all sorts of fascinating things about the place. My favorite is the whispering gallery! (Via Challies .) This essay from a gay activist made the rounds on Facebook a few days ago, and it’s worth a...

Y’know, I can hardly imagine that many girls spend their Friday nights watching obscure movie renditions of classic Jane Austen novels. This girl? Well, if it was Friday, Sept. 7, that’s exactly what she did. I plucked a BBC version of Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” from the top shelf of the library’s “P” section in the DVD collection on my way home from work. Somehow, this particular movie had escaped my notice in the tens of times I’ve poured over the movie section, wondering what movie to watch this or that evening. Fun fact: I’ve never been to a movie rental store on my own and can’t fathom why anyone would pay to watch a scratched-up DVD. What makes me giggle about these movies, first, is the blurbs. You know, the puffy promo quotes from publications that people-wh0-sort-of-care-about-movies are supposed to pay attention to. Ergo: “A fairy tale for adults! A splendid motion picture!” –from some woman named Georgia Brown writing for The Village Voice. !!s original. “The best pictu...

If you haven’t already guessed by the post title, I finished reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies this morning. Wow, that made me laugh so much. And I took probably half a dozen double takes when a well-loved (and well-remembered) quote got changed up to fit with the zombie gag: “A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages; she must be well trained in the fighting styles of the Kyoto masters and the modern tactics and weaponry of Europe. And besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions…” See? Spliced in there, brazenly, without the second author batting an eye. I picture him sitting there at his laptop keyboard, gleefully thinking up how many silly zombie references he can cram into the narrative without obliterating the original story entirely. All in all, it was a hilarious book. I did not read it as serious literature, and I ...

Once in a while—read, about once or twice a week—I’m so tired from whatever work I was doing that day that I feel like doing absolutely nothing, either physically or mentally. What’s the most mind-numbing, still activity there is that does not include napping? Watching movies, of course! One of the ladies in Bible study had a garage sale at her bookstore, where I picked up a VCR player and a TV for fifteen bucks. Sure, the TV has a red cast, but it’s a TV and the VCR works great. Even has an automatic rewind, as I found out last night when I waited a while before stopping the video. And my uncle gave me a small DVD player (like you could get from Family Dollar or something) a few months ago. You have to watch that it doesn’t overheat, but if the movie starts skipping I just put a small bread pan full of ice under it. Does the trick wonderfully. (Same thing can be done with overheating laptops!) Anyways, all that to say, I have a decent setup for watching movies over in the living roo...

After watching “Bride and Prejudice” with my friends, one gal (who had seen B&P) said she actually possessed a Bollywood adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility.” Naturally, I was all agog to see it. And fortunately I did, pronto. “I Have Found It” is very different from “Bride and Prejudice,” not least because you have to use the subtitles because it’s legit Indian. It still has fantastic costumes and lots of musical numbers, and the star of the show is the same gal (speaking really really fast Indian this time though, or whatever the language was…. Punjabi or Tamil I’d guess). Odd thing was, they were really really random musical sequences stuck in there. One was in Scotland of all places… Scotland has nothing to do with the storyline; it was just pretty, apparently. (Same thing with the sequence in Egypt.) But it was a decent adaptation, really. And I thought the equivalent of Colonel Brandon was fantastic in his role. And to think, I was not even aware of the ex...

The heroine of many a modern novel writhes and reels her way through the story, chews and flings away fifty half-smoked cigarettes, is perpetually stifling a scream or else not stifling it, howling for solitude or howling for society, goading every mood to the verge of madness, seeing red mists before her eyes, seeing green flames dance in her brain, dashing to the druggist and then collapsing on the doorstep of the psychoanalyst; and all the time congratulating herself on her rational superiority to the weak sensibility of Jane Austen. That is, the “weak sensibility” of a woman who (according to G.K. Chesterton) “was certainly not of the fainting sort.” The obvious irony that he pointed out made me laugh. (Quotes from his essay “On Jane Austen in the General Election,” included in Come to think of it… published in 1931.)

Yep. My dad and I watched it again—at his behest. That makes twice in one single week. And I still loved the movie! Reasons? I can recognize all the little episodes in the movie as adaptations from episodes in the book. Take the sister’s snake dance, for instance. Totally a ripoff of Mary’s embarrassing pianoforte performance. Music. Awesome. My dad watches this with me. And he says it’s his new favorite movie. And to top off the astounding occurrence, we watched Becoming Jane , too—this same night. Not as fun of a movie—weird acting I thought, but that could be just me—and of course, not a musical, so it would be hard pressed to top Bride & Prejudice. Overall not a movie I’d bother watching more than once. My mom and I were guessing throughout the movie which Austen character the leading man was supposed to resemble. I settled on Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility , with a dash of Darcy thrown in at the beginning, but I could also see some Wickham in there too. Of...

This morning—before my brother was up—my dad and I decided to watch Bride and Prejudice , the Indian (like from India) rendition of my all-time favorite novel by a similar name. And man, am I glad we did! I think the most fascinating part of this movie was all the color . Every woman in the movie wore a brightly -colored sari , and of course with costume changes the choice of bright colors changed. The camera shots took advantage of all the color involved, especially during the song-and-dance scenes. Oh yes—this was a musical! Which made it even better (and even less likely to be tolerated by my brother, who fortunately still has not emerged from his room). This was definitely a Bollywood musical; the music was identifiably Indian (think Slumdog Millionaire ) though most of the songs were sung in English. Of course, the names from Austen’s novel had to undergo some changes to become part of the Indian culture, so Elizabeth became Lalita, Jane became Jaya, and so on with all th...

If you follow my Twitter updates (or checked on the sidebar over there earlier), you may already know that I watched two film renditions of my favorite book today to ring in the new year. The old "Pride & Prejudice" from 1940, with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson, I'd seen before and enjoyed quite a lot. The new one was interesting, mostly because it was set in our modern day in Utah (of all places!). Now, having almost memorized the book, I am able to quickly compare movie quotes as well as adaptations of scenes. So, I'm peculiarly well-suited to watching these things and enjoying them. That said, this one in Utah was probably a made-for-TV movie (since none of the actors were big shots in the least) and felt like it. Also felt like a teeny-bopper movie in some respects--the colors, the costuming, and the fact that the gals sort of talked like Valley Girls. However, much of the wit was kept intact (though not all, unfortunately), and the movie did an admirab...

My sister had her graduation party, as did another good friend of ours (well, friend mostly of my brother, but we've known the family for ten years, probably). So Saturday was filled to the brim, and Friday was taken up planning for Saturday. And Sunday, of course, was Father's Day. :) My daddy got to watch "Live Free or Die Hard," the only Die Hard that's not rated R (and consequently it's acceptable in our house). I enjoy it almost as much as Dad does, to be honest. The script/characters are quite amusing. So, come Monday, and I find out that several books are waiting for me at the library! :) These books were: --Jane Austen's "Emma" --Jane Austen's early works --Jane Austen's "Sanditon" and other short novels (more early works) --and "A History of the Ancient World," by Susan Wise Bauer. Can you tell I'm on a Jane Austen kick? :) (By the way--if you're an Ohioan, call or e-mail your legislature and the ...

What a day. Exhausting, and I haven't even been to work yet! I found out yesterday that one of my apartmentmates was going to a contra dancing thing this afternoon, and wanted people to go with her. She's said that it is really fun. From what I understood, it was like the dancing from the five-hour version of the movie "Pride & Prejudice" (which is of course based upon my favorite book!) and resembled square dancing just a little... so I figured I may as well. It sounded fun enough. So, clad in our fun, twirly skirts, we arrived a little before two o'clock this afternoon, and danced... for three straight hours !! Some of contra dancing was completely new to me... I've never done long line dance things before, besides the Virginia Reel; but that was half to two-thirds of the dancing there. I was also new to certain of the moves (I had to learn a different swing from what I knew in square dancing), and quite unused to all the twirling that happens in co...