May the emoji be in your favor.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
18 Perfect Words You Need To Start Using Right Now
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Just another mantrum Mondaze. Via Urban Dictionary.
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This New "Game Of Thrones" Filming Location Could Confirm A Huge Fan Theory
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, July 14, 2015
If you don’t want to know what MIGHT happen in Season 6, it’s probably best to look away now.
If there's one thing we know about Game of Thrones fans, it's that they like to speculate.
And for the next nine months the thing they'll most likely be speculating about is how Jon Snow can be brought back from the dead. But nine months is a long time, so allow us to give you something else to think about...
HBO
Earlier this week HBO announced some new filming locations for Season 6. One of which was Castillo de Zafra in Guadalajara, Spain.
The 12th Century castle was built on top of a rocky outcrop on a hillside. And as you can see from this picture, there seems to be very little surrounding the castle.
Matt Trommer / Getty Images
To many people who have read the books, there is one Westerosi location that this looks like above all others: The Tower of Joy.
For those who haven't read the books, the Tower of Joy was the place where Eddard Stark found his sister Lyanna in a bed of blood, at which point Ned made Lyanna a promise moments before she died.
The theory – commonly known as R+L=J – says that the blood was the result of childbirth, and that the child in question was Prince Rhaegar Targaryen's. Knowing that any child of a Targaryen would be slaughtered by Robert Baratheon, Ned promised Lyanna that he would raise the boy as his own, telling everyone (including his wife) that the child was his bastard. If you hadn't worked it out by now, that child was Jon Snow. Half Stark, half Targaryen, the theory goes that Jon Snow is literally the song of ice and fire. You can read more about this theory here.
CC / Via es.wikipedia.org
As this all happened 17 years before the events of the show, the inclusion of the tower could mean that we get to see flashbacks.
Which could mean, if we're very lucky, that R+L=J will be confirmed at some point during Season 6.
There are those who claim this castle could be Casterly Rock, though the fact that this location is miles from the coastline seems to dispute this. So what other evidence is there that we could see flashbacks to the Tower of Joy during Season 6?
14 Things You Need To Know About Chris Colfer's Fantasy Book Series
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, July 14, 2015
While the world is most familiar with Chris Colfer for playing Kurt on Glee, there's more to the 25-year-old than singing and acting. Colfer is also the author of a New York Times best-selling children's series, The Land of Stories.
In the first book in the series — The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell which was released in July 2012 — we meet twins Alex and Conner Bailey who accidentally teleport into different fairy tale worlds when they read their Grandma's book of fantasy stories. The fourth installment in the series — The Land of Stories: Beyond the Kingdoms — was published on July 7 and now readers get to follow their favorite characters as they embark on even more adventures.
BuzzFeed had the chance to catch up Colfer and talk about his writing process, the possible movies based on the books, and the advice he'd give to his younger self. Here's what he had to say:
1. Chris Colfer came up with the idea for The Land of Stories when he was very young.
BuzzFeed: When did you first come up with the idea for The Land of Stories?
Chris Colfer: I first came up with the idea for The Land of Stories when I was about 7 years old. I loved fairy tales and reading and I so desperately just wanted to jump into the stories that I read.
Seven years old is very young.
CC: There’s a thin line between creativity and insanity.
2. The goal behind his fantasy series is to escape reality.
Do you remember what your inspiration originally was for those stories?
CC: I had a pretty complicated childhood because I had a sister that was constantly sick and going in and out of the hospital. I think I used reading and fairy tales as a way of escaping and I so desperately wanted to truly escape and magically travel into a magical world where problems weren’t real.
3. There isn’t just one main character in The Land of Stories — there are two.
Why did you decide to have two main characters — Alex and Conner — instead of just one protagonist?
CC: I’m a gemini, so the main characters represent both sides of me. I thought that would be a great, unique way of portraying the protagonist.
4. Colfer’s feminist beliefs influences how he writes certain characters.
Do you have a favorite character?
CC: Of course! I hope it’s not obvious, but I love Mother Goose. I have a lot of strong female characters in my series because I’m a bit of a feminist. They’re always really fun to write for, and none of them are alike.
5. The actor enjoys writing fiction because of how much freedom it gives him.
Do you prefer writing books or screenplays for TV and film?
CC: It’s funny because whatever I’m doing at the time, I always think the opposite is much easier. When I write books, I’ve been lucky enough to have complete creative control and I can tell the exact story that I want, whereas sometimes when I’m working on a film script or something for television, I’m constantly getting notes from studio executives. I have more freedom writing books.
6. There are a number of different fantasy worlds included in The Land of Stories: Beyond the Kingdoms.
How do you decide which fantasy worlds you want to include in The Land of Stories for your characters to explore?
CC: This is the first book where the characters travel into literary worlds rather than just general fairy tale worlds. I selfishly decided to use Oz, Neverland, Wonderland, Camelot, and the Sherwood Forest because those were my favorite books growing up and I also think they’re some of the most recognizable worlds in fiction.
7. Even though the books are fiction, the author puts a *lot* of himself into the novels.
How much of yourself do you put into the novels?
CC: Being an actor has actually made me a stronger writer because with each character, I’m able to put myself in their shoes and almost take it on as a role. I act out what they would say, what they would feel, and how they would go about expressing themselves. Not only is there a little bit of me in each main character, but I also put myself into the villains, too. Writing the Enchantress in book two —The Land of Stories: The Enchantress Returns — was basically how I got out all my frustrations about relationships. There’s this great chapter where she has all these souls of the men that she loved in jars and I always thought that’d be wonderful, just to jar up your exes and bottle up your heartbreak.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
8. Colfer channels all of his emotions into fiction writing.
What kind of creativity does this outlet provide you with compared to other artistic mediums?
CC: I’m able to channel whatever I want into writing The Land of Stories, whereas when you’re on TV there are so many days — especially when you’re on Glee — when you have to be happy. There’s lots and lots of happiness, and there are some days when you’re just not happy. If you’re in a terrible mood, sometimes you have to do the exact opposite of what your heart wants to do. When you’re writing books, you’re able to channel whatever emotion you’re going through at the time.
9. And he loves hearing from his readers.
What’s your favorite part of writing for children?
CC: Hearing from the children. I love hearing from the kids about how much they love the books, how they share copies, how they play pretend with the characters, and how they want to see a movie because they fall in love with the characters so much.
10. We’re probably going to see The Land of Storiesadapted into equally lovable movies.
Is there going to be a movie?
CC: I think so, yeah. We’ll see. I’m really particular about it because I’ve always said from the beginning that I’d rather it be a good book that 100 people read than a terrible movie that 100,000 people see. The offers have started coming in and I’m trying to find the right people to do it with.
11. But Colfer doesn’t want the actors who play the two main characters to be known.
Have you thought about who you want to play Alex and Conner, the main characters in the story?
CC: In a dream world I’d love for it to be Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis, but they might be busy or they might not want to play 12-year-olds. But I actually really want them to be unknown actors. One of the reasons why I did not label the city that they live in is because I wanted all of the kids who read the books to be able to relate to them and see themselves within the characters. I would hope that with no familiarity of the actors playing the characters, kids would also relate to the movie.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
12. Readers are going to find a lot of important messages in this latest book.
What do you hope readers take away from The Land of Stories: Beyond the Kingdoms?
CC: I unexpectedly wrote so many lessons throughout the book, but I honestly just want the readers to have an adventure. I want the book to be something that they can escape into and just be entertained for a little bit. Hopefully along the way, readers might take away some messages. Whatever messages they find are theirs to keep.
13. Colfer thinks other young writers who have ideas for stories shouldn’t hesitate to write them.
What piece of advice would you give to a young writer who doesn’t know how to get started?
CC: Just do it. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to even be legible, just get it out of your system and then go back and perfect, perfect, perfect. But don’t be intimidated by other writers or other authors because if you have a story that you want to tell, then you deserve to write it.
14. And he has some advice for his younger self.
If you could go back in time and say something to your younger self, what would you say?
CC: Do something with your hair. Anything at all, just do something.
The Land of Stories: Beyond the Kingdoms is on sale now.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Harper Lee's New Book Is Making Things Awkward For People Named Atticus
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, in To Kill a Mockingbird.
AP Photo
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view," the lionhearted lawyer Atticus Finch tells his daughter Scout in one of the most famous lines of Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird. "Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
Since news first emerged of a radically new version of Atticus in Lee's follow-up novel, Go Set a Watchman, "climbing into the skin" of people named in honor of the once righteous protagonist makes for a pretty awkward experience.
Set for release on Tuesday, the new book depicts a version of Atticus Finch quite different from the principled attorney who defiantly defended a black man falsely accused of raping a white women in 1930s Alabama while espousing wise words of compassion and tolerance to his children. Set in the 1950s, Watchman sees Scout returning home to the fictional town of Maycomb to find her father now arthritic and crotchety, spewing segregationist views, and associating with the Ku Klux Klan. “The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people,” he says. “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?”
Given its central place in the American literary canon, readers have been left reeling at the character's shocking new face. "The depiction of Atticus in Watchman makes for disturbing reading," New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani wrote in her critique of the new book, "and for Mockingbird fans, it’s especially disorienting."
The new work is especially disorienting, though, for people who were so attached to Mockingbird they named their children in honor of the genteel Finch patriarch. "Atticus Finch is the most noble person in American literature. I remember thinking if I have a son someday, I'm gong to name him that," Clarence "Bud" Grebey, 56, of Stamford, Connecticut, told BuzzFeed News on Monday.
"His commitment to helping others as an attorney, his lovingness as a dad. Who wouldn't want that man as a father?" Bud said. "In the first book, at least."
Although Grebey ultimately felt Atticus was too unusual for his son James Atticus Grebey to have as a first name when he was born 24 years ago, the name has surged in popularity in recent years. In 2014, 846 baby boys born in the U.S. were named Atticus, according to the Social Security Administration, which was a new record for the name. Stars like Casey Affleck and Jennifer Love Hewitt have sons named Atticus, and it's currently the 370th most popular name for newborn boys in America.
"My mom was hoping for a girl so she could name me Scout, but she got me instead," Atticus Kelbley, 31, told BuzzFeed News. The Philadelphia resident said he used a variation of his middle name during his school years to avoid being bullied for what was once an unusual name, but by age 18 was happy to go by Atticus.
"Seventy percent of the time I meet someone new, the first topic of conversation is To Kill a Mockingbird," he said, adding that his mother had told him she was unlikely to read the new book for fear of spoiling the image of her beloved Atticus Finch.
Talia Betourney
The stunning revelations about the character have been complicated by the circumstances in which Watchman was originally written, rediscovered, and now released for publication. Despite being set two decades after Mockingbird, Lee in fact wrote Watchman first in 1957. After the book was rejected for publication, she worked for two years with an editor on reimagining the story, which eventually became Mockingbird.
There's also been concerned speculation from readers that Lee, who famously shunned media attention and refused to publish additional works after her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel was released in 1960, may not have had the mental capacity to fully consent to the new work's release — although publisher HarperCollins has vehemently denied this, issuing a statement from the author that she is "happy as hell" with Watchman's release.
James Atticus Grebey, who said he once considered "reinventing" himself before starting college by using Atticus as his first name, told BuzzFeed News that Watchman, which he viewed as a "never-intended-for-publication rough draft," had "complicated the Mockingbird canon." Grebey, a former BuzzFeed editorial fellow, said that now when his middle name comes up people will need to chose which version of Atticus Finch they think of.
Talia Betourney
"That's annoying to have to deal with," he said, "but it's better than the unthinkable alternative: that Atticus Finch changed in a horrible, unpredictable way that sometimes happens in real life, but doesn't need to happen in fiction."
"For me, the real Atticus, the one I'm named after, is, and will always be, a paragon of virtue and not a bitter racist," he said.
Atticus has also been a popular name in the commercial world, signifying trustworthiness and integrity. Two Blink-182 members, for example, started a rock-themed clothing brand named Atticus that features a finch logo.
For business owners like Lucy Valena of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the development is causing a headache. For six years, her café, Voltage Coffee and Art, has sold a popular burnt-sugar vanilla latte affectionately called "the Atticus Finch" because of its "old-fashioned and righteous taste." Valena, 30, said she's going to read Watchman before she considers changing the drink's name.
"When we read a novel we think of the characters being preserved forever because the novel begins and ends and we have this little world that's sort of untouchable," she told BuzzFeed News.
"That then decades later a new novel can come out in very strange, problematic ways and kind of flip the entire concept... It's a kind of amazing postmodern thing that's happening," she said.
Spare a thought, too, for bibliophile cat owners who have a keen appreciation for a good pun. Talia Betourney, of Morgantown, West Virginia, purchased a 12-week-old American shorthair kitten just two weeks ago and fulfilled an ambition she had held since high school by naming her new pet Catticus Finch. The 19-year-old, who said she intends to study law because of her admiration for Lee's protagonist, has been left heartbroken by the new character development.
"It’s so unfortunate," she said of the revelations emerging so soon after she named her new kitten. "All my English-major friends are making fun of me relentlessly."
Admitting he now had mixed feelings about the character who inspired his son's middle name, Bud Grebey said he was somewhat philosophical about the news. "This character belonged to Harper Lee. It's her character," he said. "I think the whole world wants the Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird to be theirs because of what he represents to them. But at the end of the day it's her prerogative to change her character."
Seventeen-year-old Atticus Altuna, of Tucson, Arizona, told BuzzFeed News his mom had been a huge fan of the 1962 film adaptation, idolizing Gregory Peck's Oscar-winning turn as Atticus Finch.
"I read the book when I was in middle school and saw the movie," he said. "I thought it was pretty awesome. I liked his determination and whatnot, his moral fiber."
The teenager admitted, however, that he hadn't yet heard anything about the new book.
LINK: Atticus Finch Is A Racist In “To Kill A Mockingbird” Sequel
LINK: Here’s How People Are Reacting To The First Chapter Of “Go Set A Watchman”
LINK: There Might Be A Third Harper Lee Novel
HarperCollins
35 Hilarious Books Guaranteed To Make You Laugh Out Loud
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Because everything’s better when you’re laughing.
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
Mindy Kaling's writing makes you feel like she's directly gossiping with you about her hilarious life experiences, from being a shy, chubby child afraid of her own bike, to her career as a successful comedy writer and actress. By the end of this book you'll feel like you and Mindy are best friends, with more inside jokes than you could ever imagine.
—Submitted by katiem4493674a4
Ebury Press
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Me Talk Pretty One Day narrates David Sedaris' move to Paris from New York with hysterical stories about his struggle to learn French, along with ridiculous passages about his crazy family members like his brother, who speaks in constant hip-hop slang to his clueless father. Make sure you don't read this while eating or drinking, as you will spew and choke from gut-busting guffawing.
— Submitted by Nita G.
Back Bay Books
The Hardest "To Kill A Mockingbird" Quiz You'll Ever Take
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Test your knowledge before the sequel drops July 14.
What Type Of Downworlder Are You?
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Or maybe you’re a Shadowhunter?
10 "Macbeth" Quotes That May As Well Be From "House Of Cards"
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, July 14, 2015
There Might Be A Third Harper Lee Novel
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Harper Lee’s lawyer suggested there may be a manuscript of a third novel in the To Kill a Mockingbird author’s safe-deposit box.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
HarperCollins
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
HarperCollins
I decided then to take a closer look at those pages. I went to the safe-deposit box and pulled out the Lord & Taylor box. I began to thumb through its contents when I came across a title page that said: Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee, York Avenue, New York, New York. I read enough of the first page to know this was not To Kill a Mockingbird. It opens with Scout, all grown up, returning to Alabama by train from her home in New York City. I thought the Watchman manuscript could have been the sequel to Mockingbird. And something else was in the Lord & Taylor box. The manuscript for Watchman was underneath a stack of a significant number of pages of another typed text.
Via wsj.com
The First Chapter Of "Go Set A Watchman" Will Break Your Heart
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, July 14, 2015
The SPOILERS at the start of this train ride will give you MAJOR feels.
Last week, Harper Lee gave fans of To Kill A Mockingbird an early sample of its sequel, Go Set A Watchman, by releasing its first chapter on The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal.
Harper Collins
She's now a New Yorker, is still wearing pants, and is on her way to visit Atticus in Maycomb.
Universal Pictures
8 Times SDCC Restored My Faith In Fandom
Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, July 14, 2015
I went to my first San Diego Comic-Con and came back a new woman.
Hello friends. I have gathered you all here today to proudly announce that I am no longer a Comic-Con virgin. I went, I saw, I conquered, and now I stand before you a new woman. In my 26 years of fangirling, the only other time I've felt this kind of rush, this kind of deep camaraderie was the first time I stumbled upon fictionalley.org. And even that headlong dive into my first (and forever) fandom was checked quickly by insidious 'ship wars, the Big Name Fan/regular fan divide and the feeling of being lost in a crowd, a lurker looking in at a party that I was only tangentially part of.
Over the years my fandoms and my love for them grew, but so did my awareness of the ways they fucked up. Misogyny, racism, even just plain-old schoolyard bullying among fans now constantly temper the unbridled love I have for my favorite fandoms. And that's a great thing. That means for every fanboy who insists that stormtroopers can't be black, there's a hundred fangirls who are aware of the problems in their favorite works and are incredibly happy to see a world they love reflect the one that they actually live in. But it does make it hard sometimes to reach that place of deep unproblematic love that we all once had as young fangirls. That's how I felt anyway, until I went to SDCC.
Now I've been to Comic-Cons before, and I'm a member of the press, so I've definitely stuttered all over my words while meeting my favorite actors and gazed slackjawed as my favorite comic book artists did personalized sketches for me. I've waited in disgustingly long lines waiting for insanely packed panels and talked to random strangers just to marvel at their cosplays. I've drunkenly declared each and every Comic-Con party the best one ever, no really, I totally mean it this time. But by the time I go home and settle back into the internet, the rush of the weekend is gone and I'm back tagging my problematic faves with #SweetSummerChild.
But there was something just a little more magical about San Diego.
Because I have the audacity to be a woman of color who writes on the internet about things that men consider to be theirs, the internet for me often becomes a cesspool of comments ranging from the illiterate to the genuinely life-threatening. Often the one shining light amid all of that is a small band of internet friends. Other women, other writers, other fangirls whom I've never met in real life but who know me weirdly well anyway because we often find ourselves in the same dark corner. There's nothing else like the sweet, sweet bond that comes from being told that there's no place for us here, and that our love and our way of expressing that love for fandom is somehow less valid than everybody else's.
Meeting those women, those writers, in real life in San Diego was so incredibly validating. I finally matched soft-spoken voices and booming laughs to the sharp and cutting words they use on Twitter. I was gifted with their insightful thoughts and experience about how to get the most out of the minefield that is the press room. And most importantly we got to collectively side-eye and laugh at the shade that is occasionally thrown our way in press rooms by men who think the size and quantity of their camera equipment makes them better than everybody else in the room. There is nothing more satisfying than being part of a group of professionals who support each other and getting to experience it in more than 140 characters at a time was immensely rewarding. Thank you ladies, for forever keeping me from logging off permanently.
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