We enjoy stirring videos of Memorial Day with graves draped in colorful American flags
as lovely music plays in the background.
We watch and listen to stirring Memorial Day parades,
flags snapping in the breeze and bands playing stirringly as they march in unison. People in our country's neighborhoods will be having the biggest and best barbecues,
but the forgotten spirits of those slain upon a thousand distant foreign fields
might take us to the cemeteries on Memorial Day.
Would they tell us that we could eat all the barbecue we want on the Fourth of July
if we just murmured a small thanks over their graves today?
No one sets out to be a hero, and certainly no one wants to die a bloody, violent death. But thousands upon thousands found themselves in terrible situations where they needed a hero,
so that is what they became. They died so that we would have a chance to live as best we could.
We couldn’t enjoy sun-drenched summer days like today without their sacrifice.
Living in the world today is a challenge unlike one that has ever been seen in the past.
But as thousands rose to the occasion when all seemed dark, we, too, can rise to tackle the obstacles facing us.
Yes, today is a day where we mourn the loss of precious lives and innocence.
But today is also a day where we celebrate the victory of the human spirit over darkness ...
“Lover," she whispers, and closes her eyes. It falls upon her. "Love is like dying.” ― Stephen King
I could not let Friday the 13th pass without my own nodding to it:
“Last night I was in the Kingdom of Shadows.
If you only knew how strange it is to be there. It is a world without sound, without colour. Everything there — the earth, the trees, the people, the water and the air — is dipped in monotonous grey.
Grey rays of the sun across the grey sky, grey eyes in grey faces, and the leaves of the trees are ashen grey. It is not life but its shadow, it is not motion but its soundless spectre.
Here I shall try to explain myself, lest I be suspected of madness or indulgence in symbolism. I was at Aumont’s and saw Lumière’s cinematograph — moving photography” — Maxim Gorky, 1896
The first horror films are surreal, disturbing pieces, owing their visual appearance in part to expressionist painters and in part to spirit photography of the 1860s, and drawn from Gothic literature. They draw upon the folklore and legends of Europe, and render monsters into physical form.
Often cited as the 'granddaddy of all horror films', this is an eerie exploration of the mind of a madman, pitting an evil doctor against a hero falsely incarcerated in a lunatic asylum.
Through a clever framing device the audience is never quite clear on who is mad and who is sane, and viewing the film's skewed take on reality is a disturbing experience.
Perhaps I am a cynic, but the field of horror movies has gone incredibly dry.
Protagonists are hard to like or sympathize with, and because of this we have no fear of the monster.
What was once a genre that relied heavily on the emphasis of a musical score is now a genre that suffers from the bloat of bad thrash rock.
The worst culprits are films that try to keep us scared the entire time, not seeming to realize we need room to breathe.
You may not agree that The Exorcist is the scariest movie
ever, but it probably also isn’t much of a surprise to see it at the top of my
list.
William Friedkin’s adaptation of the eponymous novel about a
demon-possessed child
and the attempts to banish said demon became the
highest-grossing R-rated horror film ever and the first to be nominated for
Best Picture at the Oscars
“Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.” ― Stephen King
WHAT WAS A RECENT HORROR OR THRILLER THAT MADE YOU SHIVER?
Countless women and children mourn for a mother-child relationship that is not as it should be. The Hallmark cards and commercials depict Mother’s Day as all smiles. But for many people, the celebration taps into pain and sorrow. For mothers who lost children before childbirth, during, or after, the Day can be hollow and mocking. To those mothers if they have a world-view that includes an afterlife,
the thought of an eventual reunion can bring some comfort. Mother’s Day can be an opportunity to not only celebrate but to remember and comfort others.
The day need not be happy to be important.
To adults grieving the death of a mother, whether a few months ago or many years, ask them what was special about their mothers. “What do you remember most? What lessons did she teach that remain in you?” To a mother whose child is across the globe fighting in a war:
Pray for peace. Let her talk about her fears. Don’t try to take away her fear, just listen. An estimated 56 percent of all abusers -- physical, mental and sexual -- are women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most common form is psychological.
Neglect and emotional abuse are every bit as damaging as sexual abuse. Numerous studies have shown that maternal behaviors like constant criticism, withholding affection or humiliation can take a toll on children, adversely affecting their academic achievement, social growth and self-worth. Learning to move forward from a painful past is difficult, though not impossible. And psychiatrists still don't understand why one sibling fares well psychologically and the other can be destroyed. So if you had or have a loving relationship with your mother, treasure the blessing that so many others did not or do not have.
Both publishers and booksellers celebrated the news that
print book sales were up 9.1 percent last year.
A huge increase in fiction units sold led the way, with
young adult fiction sales jumping 30.7 percent,
adult fiction up 25.5 percent,
and children’s fiction up 9.6 percent, respectively.
All told, print book sales
have risen more than 18 percent since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.
NOW THE BAD NEWS
The statistics on female readership are specifically
troubling.
For decades, women read nearly twice as many books as men, but the
gap has narrowed significantly.
The average American woman read 15.7 books last
year compared to 19.3 books five years ago.
While male readership declined only
slightly over the same time period, going from 10.4 books in 2016 to 9.5 in
2021,
This decrease in the number of books women read will particularly impact
fiction sales, given that women account for 80 percent of all fiction sales in
the U.S., U.K., and Canada.