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Monday, April 14, 2014

TwinLit

A great many of my favorite stories involve twins in one manner or another. For whatever reason, they must just make for a compelling tale.

One of my all-time favorite books is The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy.



Estha and Rahel are two-egg twins from Ayemenem in Kerala, India. The death of a family member brings them back there in 1993 after being separated for 24 years. Estha no longer speaks, Rahel's own damage is not as obvious but just as grievous. The book brings us back to the summer of 1969, when the twins were seven years old. This was when their cousin from England came for a visit, and also when their mother had an illicit love affair with an Untouchable. Thus begins the telling of events that led to their family being torn apart.

One of the devices Roy employs that I really enjoy is capitalizing words that seem of great import to children. I have long hoped she would write another novel, but all of her other work seems to be political/social nonfiction.

Here are some quotes from The God of Small Things:

“And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. Big Things lurk unsaid inside.”

“This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt.”

"Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.”

“As Estha stirred the thick jam he thought Two Thoughts and the Two Thoughts he thought were these:
a) Anything can happen to anyone.
and
b) It is best to be prepared.”

“If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her, if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win.”



Another favorite of mine is The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.



This is a gothic suspense novel, a "ghost story" in an unorthodox way. There may not be an actual ghost, but the story is full of haunting. A famous novelist who is notorious for not revealing anything about her past or personal life hires an amateur biographer to finally hear her story. She tells about growing up with her twin sister, and the dark family secrets that shaped their lives. The twins were Emmeline March, so complacent she was generally assumed to be mentally retarded to a degree, and Adeline March, angry and violent. And of course there is the haunting...

The name of the book stems from the fact that the authoress has penned a book of short stories entitled Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation. Intriguingly, it only holds twelve stories. Her own story is the thirteenth.

I also strongly recommend this novel to all other book lovers. Perhaps these quotes will help explain why:

“All morning I struggled with the sensation of stray wisps of one world seeping through the cracks of another. Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes -- characters even -- caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you.”

“There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere.”

And then there is this little gem of a disclaimer:

“Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.” 



This next book does not have to with twins, exactly, but rather with a pair of people cloned through magical means. This is Imajica, by Clive Barker. Many of you may know him as a master of horror, the mind who birthed such movies as Hellraiser and Lord of Illusions. And though there are always elements of horror in his novels, the ones that I love are the more fantastical ones that are filled with wonder, rather than just fearful things and gore. Examples of these are Galilee, Weaveworld, Sacrament, and of course Imajica.



This omnibus actually consists of two books, The Fifth Dominion and The Reconciliation. The world is actually composed of five dominions, and ours, the fifth, was cut off from the rest long ago. We (at least most of us) have since lost all knowledge that any of the others exist.

Gentle and Judith live in our world. Gentle's memory only goes back a few years, each successive period becoming fuzzy and fading as time goes on. He meets Judith, even though it turns out they knew each other once long, long ago. When he meets someone else from his forgotten past, he is reintroduced to his own history. He travels to the other dominions, where he makes the discovery that the man ruling them, the Autarch, is a sadistic clone of himself. His mad wife is identical to Judith.

It turns out that long ago Gentle attempted to work magic to make a copy of Judith, because he and another man were both in love with her. Things went wrong (all because he couldn't keep it in his pants) and a duplicate of himself was made as well. (P.S. Gentle and the crazy queen lady are the originals, Sartori the Autarch and Judith are the copies. Real Judith went cray-cray, must be from all the dudes loving her all the time).

Gentle learns that every 200 years there is the opportunity to reconcile Earth with the other dominions, and when he himself made the attempt long ago, things went horribly wrong and a lot of people were hurt. He blamed himself, and thus ordered his friend to wipe his memory so he didn't have to deal with his grief and shame. Now he will try to set things right.

Another cool aspect of the story is the whole god thing. God inhabits the First Dominion. There were goddesses too, but he didn't like sharing power, so he had them all imprisoned or put out of action one way or another. Interestingly, he is actually one of the antagonists of this story.

“Study nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Worship nothing except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing except in the certainty that you are your enemy's begetter and its only hope of healing.”

“Fuck Heaven. I haven't gotten Earth sorted out yet.”



Then there is Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True.


Dominick Birdsey's identical twin brother Thomas suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. One day Thomas cuts off his own hand in a public library, acting in sacrificial protest and believing doing so will stop war in the Middle East. The story revolves around the hardships involved in a life of loving someone who is mentally ill.

“I am not a smart man, particularly, but one day, at long last, I stumbled from the dark woods of my own, and my family's, and my country's past, holding in my hands these truths: that love grows from the rich loam of forgiveness; that mongrels make good dogs; that the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things. This much, at least, I've figured out. I know this much is true.”

“But what are our stories if not the mirrors we hold up to our fears?”

“So, you are not so much interested in exploring your feelings about Joy's betrayal. Or the failure of your relationship. You are merely giving me a tour of the museum.'
'The museum? ... I don't follow you.'
'Your museum of pain. Your sanctuary of justifiable indignation.'
'I, uh...'
'We all superintend such a place, I suppose,' she said, 'although some of us are more painstaking curators than others. That is the category in which I would certainly put you, Dominick. You are a meticulous steward of the pain and injustices people have visited upon you.”



The above are some of my most favoritest books ever. Now I'd like to talk about a movie. However, pointing out the fact that involves twins will spoil it for anyone who has not seen it before. It's several years old now, and how can you know if it's one you haven't seen yet until I reveal the name, at which point I've already ruined the surprise for you? Still, I feel the need to include a
                                                 SPOILER ALERT!




I really enjoyed the movie The Prestige, starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, and Scarlett Johansson. Oh, and David Bowie as Nikola Tesla :)



This movie tells the story about two stage magicians who have a deadly rivalry with one another that spans years. How far are they willing to go? And at what cost?

"Now you're looking for the secret. But you won't find it because of course, you're not really looking. You don't really want to work it out. You want to be fooled."


"Are you watching closely?"


"Nothing is impossible, Mr. Angier. What you want is simply expensive."


"I apologize for leaving without saying goodbye, but I seem to have outstayed my welcome in Colorado. The truly extraordinary is not permitted in science and industry. Perhaps you'll find more luck in your field, where people are happy to be mystified. You will find what you are looking for in this box. Alley has written you a thorough set of instructions. I add only one suggestion on using the machine: destroy it. Drop it to the bottom of the deepest ocean. Such a thing will bring you only misery."



This last one is a video game. Again, however, revealing that its story revolves around twins is a
                                                     SPOILER AERT!






Beyond: Two Souls is an 'interactive drama action-adventure video game' developed by Quantic Dream. The same group responsible for some of my other absolute favorite video games, Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain. These are all more like interactive movies, and your choices and actions affect the outcome of the story.





The game uses motion capture, so that the characters you see on screen look and move exactly like the actors portraying them. This one stars Ellen Page (from Juno) and Willem Defoe, among others.



 The results are stunning.




And the story...well, it's pretty darn amazing.

Her whole life, Jodie Holmes has had a spirit-like entity linked to her. Aiden cannot roam to far from his human host, they are well and truly bound. Through him, Jodie can manipulate objects without touching them and can even possess other people. She is raised in the government's Department of Paranormal Activity, where she is studied vigorously. Two of the doctors become like father figures to her.



Little girl Jodie draws a picture of Aiden for the doctors. They ask if he hurts her or other people. She says no, but he is mad sometimes, because he doesn't know why he's stuck here like this.

The story is told in a nonlinear fashion, but throughout the game you get to play as Jodie at many different ages and points in her life, including as a child living in a research facility and an angsty teenager. As a teen, one of the scientists a the DPA invites Jodie to her daughter's birthday party, to get her out and about with other normal kids. The others tease her mercilessly, are awful to her, and end up locking her in a small closet under the stairs. But Jodie has Aiden to help her. And this is where you get to choose how Jodie handles the situation. You switch to playing Aiden (did I forget to mention that you control him during the game, too?), at which point you can have him just free Jodie and then go home with your tail tucked between your legs...or you can teach those little shitheads a lesson. For instance, through Aiden you can lock all the windows and doors, hurl furniture at the teens, and set that place on FIRE! Bwahaha!

As a young adult, Jodie is forcibly recruited to the CIA, where she learns to kick some serious butt. You know, for the times when having Aiden throw police cruisers through the air gets old.




She gets sent on a mission in war torn Somalia. After successfully killing her target, she learns that the CIA has lied to her in order to gain her cooperation in their pursuits. Angry, she abandons them and runs away, warning them that anyone who comes after her will be killed. (And thus begins the tossing of police cruisers.)

During her time on the run, Jodie faces moments of desperation and dejection. I've read that there are actually a couple of instances where you can choose to have her kill herself, but then the game ends, and what fun is that?

Jodie contemplates ending it all while in a warzone in Somalia


She meets many wonderful people while on the run, like the little group of other homeless people who let her hang with them.




Or the Navajo family who lets her stay on in exchange for her helping out on the ranch.



This seems like a good time to point out that, if you so choose, you can have Jodie enter a romantic relationship (or two) during the game. Your main two options are Jay, the older Navajo son, and Ryan, fellow CIA agent.

With Jay at breakfast on the ranch. How do you like your eggs? Fertilized, please!

Also good to note, there will come a time when Jodie and Ryan get captured and tortured...



and if you choose to hold your tongue instead of giving in when they threaten Ryan...


This is what you see later in the game:

I love you, arrrrrrgh!
Anywho, I'll try to wrap this up even though I am tempted to describe every amazing thing about this game. Willem Defoe misses his dead wife and daughter and finally goes all crazy and drops the membrane between this world and "the beyond," unleashing Big Bad Things into the world. Only Jodie and Aiden can stop it. When she reaches a place between worlds, Jodie finally learns the truth - that Aiden is, in fact, her twin brother who was stillborn. His soul has been tied to her ever since. At this point you can decide if Jodie returns to the land of the living, or goes to join the spirits beyond, including Aiden and any characters who may have died in your playthrough of the game. (And there are several who can live or die, depending on your actions and choices in the game.) The catch is that if you go back to life, Jodie immediately notices that she can no longer sense Aiden; he is gone. Very sad :(

After struggling for a while with everything that has happened to her, everything she has done, and the fact that her life has been changed irrevocably, you can choose what Jodie decides to do at that point. If you started the romances, she can choose to go be with Ryan, or with Jay. She can choose to strike out alone, making a new life for herself, by herself. Or you can choose to go help raise that homeless chick's baby you delivered in the crack den that one time...

No matter which ending you choose, Jodie gets a message through one means or another. In my game I chose to be with Ryan, and when he and Jodie go sailing to a deserted island, Jodie suddenly sees letters appearing in the sand before her: "STILL HERE." So even though she can't feel him anymore, her twin brother she has been bonded with since birth/death is still with her. Aw :)

On that note, I'll leave this post with some more pictures. Because I love this game. In case you couldn't tell.

Poor little Jodie sees dead people, and they want her to pass on messages





"Are you still mad at me?" "Too cold to be mad."

heehee



Thursday, April 10, 2014

Sylvan Beach

Now for something totally different.

Today we switch gears from the recent themes of murder, sociopaths and vampires to talk about a nice little place to visit that's not too far from here.

Sylvan Beach at Oneida Lake (http://www.sylvanbeach.org/index.html) can be a fun little getaway that can be managed as a day trip, or longer. No matter what you're into, you can probably find some fun here. There is, of course, the beach itself, and all the things that go along with that: swimming, sunning, boating, fishing, etc.


Our little slice of beach behind our camp

Relaxing on the beach in sun, reading a book = the good life

My sister relaxing out where the back of the camp led onto the beach

There are many camps available to rent by the week during the summer season. Certain nights you can enjoy fireworks displays from the beach outside of your camp.


Hanging out behind our camp
The whole damn fam


Posing for a picture with Dad

My mom hanging out back with my son

Fireworks over Oneida Lake




There are nearly 15 bars. Every Tuesday night during a certain span of time in the summer is biker night, where motorcycles park on Main Street for free when their owners come for the live bands, food and drink.

All bikers welcome
 
Then there is Canal Fest, a weekend when free entertainment is offered, including crafters, vendors, and classic cars in the Village Park.



Sylvan Beach is home to plenty of good restaurants. The Canal View Cafe (http://canalviewcafe.com/) offers waterfront dining. One of my family's favorites is Yesterday's Royal (http://www.yesterdaysroyal.com/), which not only serves food and homemade ice cream, but houses a player piano and this neat thing:

Grandma will read your fortune

For a price...(just ask Tom Hanks)

At Yesterday's Royal, back when my son ate foods other than macaroni and cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches



There are other ice cream shoppes, miniature golf, and more. And then, of course, there is the amusement park (http://www.sylvanbeachamusementpark.com/). I've never been there at Halloween time, but apparently the amusement park turns creepy for "Halloweekends at the Sylvan Beach Haunted Amusement Park."

Sylvan Beach Amusement Park


What cuteness!

Not too far from Sylvan Beach is Fort Rickey Discovery Zoo (http://www.fortrickey.com/).


Feeding the animals

Peeking at a peacock
Talking with a tortoise

Hi there!

And now, a look back at my husband and I relaxing at Sylvan Beach over the years.


2007

2008

We took a couple of years off when we had a young baby, but came back the summer he was 2

Which would have been 2011

At which time, Baby #2 was on board.