Tag: zoo

Young
I dreamed
I read
Anything
Everything
Young
I danced
I sang
Motion
Rhythm
Young
I loved
was loved
Possibilities
Passion
Promise
Young
Invincible
Unmarred
My mind full of me
Fearless
Thoughtless
Until youth ran from me
~D. Parker

Have you ever had one of those odd weeks, where you had to choose from odd choices? I did, and it seemed as though my viewing and reading, though vastly different, all had a common theme, at least, in my mind: choices.

Gone Girl. Mesmerizing, mostly due to Rosamund Pike’s luminously disturbing performance. The choices in this film and the fall-out of them had me speculating, head-shakingly weirded-out, kind of appalled and that wasn’t even by Ben Affleck’s ‘acting’. Pretty sure this goes into the movies-not-to-see-on-a-first-date category – https://yadadarcyyada.com/2015/02/14/20-movies-to-avoid-on-a-first-date/

Zoo. Sorry, not Zoo Station by U2, but that would be a cool theme song, this Zoo is the TV adaptation of James Patterson’s bestselling-creepy-makes-Blackfish-look-like-Disneyland novel about how animal behaviours are changing and becoming more aggressive toward humans (gee, I can’t understand why, we’ve been sooo nice to them) due to choices and changes we’ve made.

Annie. I love Annie’s gumption and her choice to never be limited, to meet her hard-knock life with a smile, a song, kindness, and courage. I tried to watch the latest version, I don’t care what you change, as long as you don’t mangle the songs…yup, they mangled the songs.

Poldark. You’d think the trials and tribulations of people in the 1800s would at some point cease to be enthralling and yet…not even slightly, BBC, Masterpiece me some more! 40 years after the first run of this series, Aidan Turner (The Hobbit movies, The Tudors, Being Human, TMI, etc.) was chosen to take on the famous role of Capt Ross Poldark and he might give Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy a run for his money…might.

Miss Emily: A Novel. Ireland’s Nuala O’Connor (Penguin) brings us this fictional re-imagining  of a time in the life of a writer known for her eccentricity almost as much as her poetry, Emily Dickinson.
When I read what I call a coat-tail book (a book that uses a famous historical or fictional character to bolster their success), I think, would this be as good if they hadn’t use a famous name? In this book, I found the main character being Emily Dickinson distracted from a well-written, at times disturbing, but ultimately intriguing story of overcoming trauma, adversity, and anxiety.
The story is told to us with the alternating voices of Emily and an Irish servant girl, Ada, who works for the unconventional Dickinson family in Amherst, Massachusetts. We see how the choices of the main characters and those around them affect lives, but more than that, how they respond to those choices.
With or without the charming voice of Emily Dickinson, an interesting read.

Our choices and the choices of others lead us down many paths, but none of those choices defines us, what we do after, that does.