Footloose: The Remix

I don't see new movies a whole lot. So looking for "a movie I've recently seen" to write about for this post, I searched recent movie releases on the internet. There were maybe 3 on that list of 50 I've seen. It makes me want to go rent some movies.

Footloose is one of the few I've seen. The first Footloose film was made in 1984 so this version is obviously a remake of the original. 

The back cover reads: "Big city teen Ren MacCormack moves to a quiet town and discovers that the hard-line minister has outlawed loud music and dancing. But everything changes when Ren challenges the ban, revitalizing the town and falling in love with the minister's daughter Ariel."

I never got into the first version of this film, but I do enjoy this version. The 2011 version has been "countrified!" It also is a bit modernized which is probably why it has caught my eye more than the first. If you're a fan of the first, check this one out too!

Memoir writing

I don't like writing about myself. Despite how ordinary and boring everyone lives are supposed to be, I feel like mine is especially ordinary and boring. The hardest part is finding something that anyone would want to read about. The worst thing would be for someone to pick up a memoir I spent countless hours on and say, "why do I care." Once I found something that I thought may be interesting to someone somewhere, it became a bit easier to write. At this point, I have random sections of semi-awesome writing. Now I just need to put them in an order that will be meaningful. I've been playing with the order of it, because the order in which the scenes come changes the feel of the piece all together. So hopefully I can figure out a way for it to be as powerful as possible.

I decided to write about my grandfather because he was 10 when he died and I never got to know him. This bothers me, a lot, and as much as I try to get rid of the heartache it gives me, it is still there. I've written countless poems and prose pieces about him and even if they aren't about him, he seems to sneak in there somehow. I figured it is time to address the issue once and for all. I'm going to connect my desire to know him and the only thing I vividly remember about him, which is a physical place. I'm being an overachiever by combining the person and the place rather than choosing one. I hope it turns out to be something someone will enjoy.

9/11 Remembered

On September 11 of every year, Americans take a step back and remember. We all have our own stories of where we were and what we were doing. I happened to be 9 years old, sitting in a 4th grade classroom. I remember my teacher and some of the kids I used to be friends with. The rest is nothing but a blur. We weren't showed what was happening at that time. I wish I could say I saw history being made, but I didn't. What I know now is all from videos and news casts that can be replayed over and over again. But today is more about the heroes and the ones lost than the minute by minute details. It's about remembering the people stuck on the hijacked planes with no way out, the people in the towers with no way to escape, and it's about the people who put their lives on the line for others in trouble.It's also about how America came together and mourned for people who were nothing but strangers, and continue to remember them to this day.

All of this comes rushing in my head on this day every year. But when I walked into my 1st grade classroom this afternoon, I realized my students weren't even alive 11 years ago. To them, 9/11 happened a long time ago. To them, it's just some date in a history book.

The Hunger Games

Despite the hectic summer I just left, filled with nonstop working, I managed to read a book. Actually, I managed to read three. The well known Hunger Games Series captured my attention more than any other book in a very long time. Suzanne Collins has such an amazing gift of putting the reader in the story with the characters that it sometimes was hard to separate that world from my own.  It started with The Hunger Games where 24 children were selected to participate in  a fight to the death.   She ended the book in such a way that I instantly got in the car and drove to buy the next book. I simply couldn't wait to begin the next one. The next book, Catching Fire, simply carried on the thrill of the first. And the series ends with the final book, Mockingjay. I won't spoil the endings of any of these novels for those of you who haven't read it and desire to do so. But the second book ended in a suspenseful way as well. Luckily, I was smart enough to buy the second and third books at once, that way I could immediately start the third. These novels go down in my top list of favorite novels. I suggest buying all three at once to save time and gasoline.  Paul Sweeney once said, "You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend." I couldn't have said it better myself.