Book to Screen a Give and Take
Readers! I bring you the trailer of the upcoming movie adaptation of banned classic The Giver by Lois Lowry. If nothing else, the sudden surge in popularity of dystopian novels, particularly aimed at younger audiences, has allowed this movie to exist after Jeff Bridges tried for years to make it happen. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. I really don’t like the characters being aged up and the medication being changed to injections because it makes the creepy shit seem more palatable or more overtly dystopian sinister rather than our own society’s creepy behavior mirrored back at us. Read More…
Overthinking Overdrinking: St. Paddy’s Purim
An Interfaith perspective on St. Patrick’s Day and Purim. I raise a glass to all my readers, be they Pagan, Catholic, Jewish, or none of the above. Let’s drink and be merry together regardless.
Sometimes it is hard to explain one’s interfaith background. Sometimes it causes confusion in a synagogue when you forget to take off your Celtic cross necklace, though to be fair, in my experience, more people understand the significance of tzitzit at a Pagan Pride festival than on the street in Providence.
Sometimes, however, it is just plain awesome. And this year is one such time.
This year, Purim, the drunken celebration often called ‘the Jewish Halloween,’ which commemorates yet another failed attempt to exterminate, convert, or otherwise make Jewishness not happen, comes just one day before St. Patrick’s Day, the most well-known and pervasively-celebrated Catholic saint’s day in Protestant-swarmed America. And being Jewish and of Irish extraction… well, pass the Manischewitz and the Guinness, bhoys, it’s shaping up to be a helluva weekend!
Now, I for one appreciate the fact that St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated by Irish and non-Irish…
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No Gaeilge?
To be honest, St. Patrick’s Day kind of stresses me out. Between the stereotypes, inaccuracies and downright falsehoods perpetuated about the Irish and the holiday itself, I end up feeling like I’m drowning in a sea of wrong. However, as I am merely an Irish American (and not all Irish at that) and do not speak the language (though I own several books on it in the eternal hope that I will remedy this), I end up feeling like the worst little pseudo-oppressed hipster when I try to correct or complain about anything, even if I have studied Irish history and mythology. And once danced in a Killarney pub with fellow Bound & Gagged banned books blogger, Hannah. Read More…
YA English Elective Gets Scarlet Letter
A high school elective english course focusing on the Young Adult genre is courting controversy this week after a group of parents took issue with the class booklist, including two books by New York Times Best-Selling author and YouTube vlogger John Green, Looking for Alaska and Paper Towns. Looking for Alaska has been challenged before (as have others on the list). In fact, it was the first book reviewed here on Bound & Gagged.
Bound and Gagged 