Literary Battles: Round 1

Well, friends, here it is: our much anticipated blog in which we pit certain literary characters against each other in an epic battle to prove who is best. As a disclaimer, not all of these characters are considered "literary".

     lit·er·ar·y/ˈlitəˌrerē/Adjective

     Concerning the writing, study, or content of literature, esp. of the kind 

     valued for quality of form.

So, as you can tell from the definition, to be literary, a writing has to be deemed to be of high quality. We felt the need to put in this disclaimer because we both were in the same AP English class in high school, and our teacher would be appalled if we used the term "literary" incorrectly.

Here they are: you suggested the battles, and we made them happen. Enjoy.

Battle #1 
The Chosen Ones: Anikain Skywalker vs. Harry Potter

In order for this battle to occur, we must first decide what universe it is taking place in. Is it the Star Wars Universe or the hidden England of J. K Rowling? Putting one character into the other's universe would render the other's powers useless.
Of course, we want this to be a fair fight. So, in the tradition of great literary minds (and we like to pretend we are great literary minds), we created our own universe where both would still have their powers. Yes, just imagine Hogwarts and the Death Star put together: a land of Voldemort and Darth Maul; of castles and spaceships; of the Order of the Phoenix and Jedis. We shall call this place HogStar or Deathwarts: your choice.
Everyone got his or her wand or light saber ready?


[Spoiler Alert: One of the characters in this fight is referred to commonly as "The Boy Who Lived".]


It's a few minutes before sunset. Anakin stands aboard the HogStar/DeathWarts awaiting the arrival of the other chosen one. Harry shows up, completely unaided by his two best friends, who never seem to be in the final battles. Anakin takes a swing at Harry, but Harry yells "Expelliarmus!" and quickly disarms him. Harry decides in this moment to think about his parents and of their sacrifice. Anakin seizes this moment and recovers his light saber. Many other spells are cast and sweeps with the light saber made. Just as it seems that Anakin has the upperhand, Harry casts a spell at Anakin, which drops his voice a few octaves and makes his breathing sound raspy. He later covers this up with a helmet. Anakin makes one last attempt at winning the battle, but as we all know the love of Harry's mother saves him from everything, including Darth Vader to be. Anakin, however, is not so fortunate. I guess his mom just didn't love him enough.
Harry Wins.


Battle #2
The Men of Austen: Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pride and Prejudice vs. Colonel Brandon of Sense and Sensibility

Oh Jane Austen. Her novels give us chivalrous and some not so chivalrous men and strong female heroines. What well-read young woman (or Keira Knightley or BBC fan) has not pined for one of her male leads? Well, perhaps not all of them. As for us, we have a thing for Mr. Darcy. The hidden romantics in us want to say Darcy wins automatically, but upon closer consideration, this may not be so.
In our scenario, Darcy and Brandon have gotten into a prolonged argument over whether Lizzy or Marianne is more accomplished. After several snubs in London, the two have decided to hold a duel to settle the matter once and for all. Darcy shoots first and misses. After all, shooting is not his strong point. He's better at being the brooding hero and such. Brandon however, has spent time in the army and is a much better shot. His bullet also goes awry, but not by much.
By this time, Elizabeth and Marianne have found out about the duel and have shown up. They are appalled and make their husbands promise to be friends.
It's a draw between Darcy and Brandon, but the winner of this match is clear: the wives.


Battle #3
Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice vs. Beatrice of Much Ado About Nothing

Chelsea thought this would be a fun battle because the characters are so similar. Both are witty, well spoken, unconventional heroines who are convinced that their hero is the last person in the world they could ever end up with. That said, this battle begins as a battle of wits.Our two heroines are well matched and the battle continues for hours. In the end however, we must remember: Beatrice will eat your heart in the marketplace.

[Side comment: These women are two of Chelsea's favorite characters in all of literature, which is saying something, as Chelsea reads a lot of books. It pains her that either should lose. However, Keisha reminds her that literary battles aren't for wimps and that one must win.]

Battle #4
Clifford the Big Red Dog vs. Curious George

This seems like a pretty easy battle to determine the winner of. Clifford is a HUGE dog, and Curious George is but a normal-sized monkey. But since the obvious is too easy, we don't think size should be the determining factor in this battle.
Clifford is a nice dog, and he never causes bad things to happen on purpose. Along with his human Emily Elizabeth, he helps his neighborhood and is an upstanding citizen. He gets into some bad situations, but he always makes the best of it.
In contrast, Curious George is a mischievous little monkey who would get into much more trouble if it weren't for the man in the yellow hat. Let's face it: Curious George is a menace to society, and the man in the yellow hat should have taken him back to the jungle a long time ago.
That being said, a fight would be no contest. Curious George would fiendishly attack Clifford, and Clifford may sit on him. Clifford when then become worried about Curious George and would have Emily Elizabeth call the paramedics to revive him. Curious George would then pretend to shake Clifford's paw but would actually fling poo into his eyes. (Monkeys do that sort of thing. We've seen it at the zoo.) This would immobilize Clifford, and the monkey would attack.
Sad to say, Curious George wins this one.

Well, there you have it. Thus concludes round one of our blog series on literary battles. We're thinking about doing these sort of posts regularly along with our other musings. Please comment or email us at keisha.chelsea@gmail.com with more suggestions for who you would like to see in our next installment of literary battles.
Thanks for reading dears.

We need help! (No, not that kind)

Dear readers,

We have recently come up with a brilliant idea. (We do that often.) We have decided that we want to write a blog post pitting literary characters against one another in a cage match, sumo wrestling, old west shootout type of way. As we discussed this, however, we could not agree upon who we would put aganist each other, thus leading to a Keisha and Chelsea cage match. It was not pretty.

So we have decided to leave it up to you. Which literary characters would you like to see in a match to the death? (Yes, we are aware they were never alive and cannot die, but go with it.)

Please leave your suggestions in the comment box. So, who will it be? Elizabeth Bennet vs. Beatrice? Pim vs. Estella? Shakespeare vs. Edgar Allen Poe? (We know the last ones are real, well at least 1.) We are sure that you will have wonderful suggestions.

Sincerely yours,

Keisha and Chelsea

P.S. We looked at our stats on blogger today and saw that we have readers in the UK, Germany, and even Columbia, as well as in the US. We cannot tell you how excited this has made us. Please drop us some comments and let us know what you think of our blog.

Transcendentalists: The Original Hippies

First off, we know that word in the title is long and scary. Anything with a long and scary name can't be like hippies. Oh, but it can. Think back to high school English, most likely your junior year. You studied these guys. Remember Emerson and Thoreau? Walden? Civil Disobedience? Fine then. Do a google search. We'll wait. Now that you have been reminded of the finer points of Transcendentalism, we present to you reasons why these guys were the first hippies.

1. A love of nature.
These guys really loved nature. In fact, Thoreau actually wrote about his experiences living in a cabin near a pond. He named it too: Walden. It was a sort of experiment: man communing with nature and not being materialistic. Just forget the fact that this cabin was very close to civilization and that he went home on the weekends. Every movement needs its phonies. All this nature-loving meant that the Transcendentalists weren't the most hygienic people. So, they "communed" with nature and didn't bathe. Sounds a lot like the hippies to us.

2. Groupies
At one point, this was a big movement. People really thought this was the way to live that would solve all of their problems. Keisha, is in fact, a modern day Transcendental groupie. She actually at one time considered travelling in her car to go hiking and communing with nature. She likes to think of herself as a modern-day Transcendentalist, but she sounds a little like a hippie.

3. Names
The leaders of this movement had long, odd, and difficult to pronounce names. We realize we can't blame then for what their parents named them, but referring to yourself as Henry David Thoreau or Ralph Waldo Emerson is a bit much. We googled hippie names, and here is a sampling: Cloud, Flower, Windsong, Natura, Zen. They are simpler to say but are just as pretentious as the names of the Transcendentalists.

4. Government Protests
Unfortunately, these were not the kind with signs and all. Thoreau just refused to pay taxes and spent some time in jail until his friends bailed him out. He was protesting a poll tax he was required to pay in order to vote. So, picture it as a public sit-in, only in jail.

5. Not Shaving



Thoreau: Note the scraggly beard.                Emerson: Love the bushy sideburns.
                                                                                                              
6. Peace and Love
We all know that the hippies were really into their peace signs and the whole "Make love, not war" thing. Well, that was started by the Transcendentalists. The Transcendentalists believed that they could transcend the materialism of this world through communing with nature. Also, they were a very pacifist sort of people. The Transcendentalists would have fit in just fine at a rally protesting the Vietnam War.

7. No Real Jobs
This point is mostly here because Chelsea believes the Transcendentalists were hack jobs who needed real jobs. Truly, they all lived off whoever had been published most recently. Walden Cottage was on Emerson's property and Thoreau was just a mooch. The hippies, of course, drove around in VW buses and sang around the campfire. Not much work going on there. Keisha was going to add a rebuttal to this and say something about how writing is a real job and so is public activism. Then, she realized that she is indeed a Transcendentalist groupie and has a dream of becoming a bum.

8. Woodstock
So, we have not been able to prove that the Transcendentalists had an actual Woodstock, but we like to think that they all got together and read poetry and essays to each other. We're pretty sure that there were some sort of drugs involved in this. Hey, they did love nature. This is all conjecture of course.

There you have it. Those are our reasons why we think that the Transcendentalists were the first hippies. Chelsea says that our high school English teacher would be disappointed if she saw this. Oh well. Good thing we've already graduated.

We leave you with some of our favorite quotes from Transcendentalists and from hippies:

"Imitation is suicide." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"All I can do is be me, whoever that is." -Bob Dylan


"A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting." -Henry David Thoreau

The Snowpocalypse

Bolivar has been hit with a monumental event. This storm has been named the Snowpocalypse. We present to you two views on this historical happening.

Chelsea: This is quite something! Southwest Baptist University has cancelled classes for not one, but two days. It has been quite a while since SBU has cancelled classes. I've heard it has been 23 years since SBU cancelled classes, but I think it's probably more like 1100 A.D the last time school was cancelled. Yes, SBU was around then. Even though SBU cancelled classes, they did still feed us. Thus, most of my dorm trekked the half-mile to Mellers. I know half a mile doesn't sound like much, but remember we were in blizzard conditions! I couldn't see the nose on my face. The other dorms complained, but they just don't understand what Memorial goes through.
The second way we know this truly is an event to go down in the books is Wal-Mart. I went to Wal-mart last night to fufill a want, nay a need for chocolate milk. There I saw simply shocking scenes (nice alliteration huh?). Wal-mart was out of bread. Really, I think there were 3 loaves of bread left. As I continued to the back of the store where they keep the milk,just so I have to pass the valentines aisle and think about how I will have only my cats to spend Single Awareness day with in the future. Anyway, there was also no milk. Well, there was milk or I would have been very sad. There were very few gallons of milk left and no half gallons at all. Wal-mart was out of basic foods-it's a rather scary thing.
Lastly, The National Guard was called in. That is a state of emergency.
There you have it- 2 proofs of just how scary this thing is.

Keisha: The professors here tried to scare me the first few days of classes. Four out of six have it stated in the syllabus that the only reason for cancelling class is a power outage. Today and tomorrow classes are cancelled, and as I sit in Chelsea's dorm room typing this blog, the lights are on and we're watching Glee, so obviously the campus is not without power.
There is a bit of snow here, but I'm not sure what the big deal is. People seem so impressed by how much snow there is in Bolivar, and yes, 11 inches is quite a bit, but really? I'm used to this kind of snow. In Trenton, Mo (where I've lived for the past few years), there was already a foot of snow on the ground before this round of snow storms. My old college didn't even cancel classes today. I find this all very odd. It amuses me how snow freaks out people who aren't used to it. Bolivar has actually declared a state of emergency and has contacted the National Guard. The people of Trenton just call their neighbors who own the tractor to blade out their driveways. It's a strange thing.
The real measuring stick of how crazy people are acting around here is Wal-Mart. I went yesterday, and there was actually a line of people waiting for carts. I have never in my life seen people at Wal-Mart waiting for carts. A lot of the food stuff, such as bread, milk, and Ramen, were gone. The check out lines were pretty long too. The lady at the jewelry counter was the one who rang up my purchases.
So in summary, it snowed here, people are going crazy, I don't understand it. I would like to close by saying, "Ha ha professors. Your syllabuses are incorrect."

The Greeks: Brilliant or just Depressed?

The idea of this blog is more to provide two different viewpoints on issues, mostly relating to literature or the happenings in our lives. That said, the conversation that this post is based off of, we feel, was too good to pass up. Enjoy.

While on a decently long car ride last week without a working radio, Keisha and Chelsea began to discuss Literature. As is the case with many conversations between us, it began with Hamlet. Keisha remarked that Hamlet has some funny bits, despite being a tragedy, whereas Greek Tragedy is just depressing and dramatic throughout. It was quickly decided the Ancient Greeks were emo. For those who haven't been in High School lately, emo is short for emotional and is the less extreme version of being goth. If you don't know what that is, go make friends with a high-schooler who is dressed in black.  We now present our proofs for why the Greeks were emo.

 Have you ever read Greek Tragedy? 
Things go from bad to worse to "is that even possible? " Poisoned dresses, children murdered by their mothers, finding out your wife is your mother and your children are your siblings and gouging your eyes out. It doesn't get much worse and those are only 2 plays. I would read more of them, but my therapist advises against it.


Togas
The real reason the Greeks wore togas was to show off their cut marks. The further up your arms and the deeper the cuts were showed how truly emo you were. The more emo you were, the higher in rank. Sleeveless togas worked perfectly to show off your cuts. Perhaps the artsy ones even made designs. Silly artists always wanting to show off. They took suffering for your art to an extreme.

Statues
This is exactly why the statues we find from ancient Greece have no arms. The decedents of the ancient Greeks became ashamed of their ancestors. They didn't want anyone to find the statures, complete with the cut marks. So they broke the arms off all of the statues. Somewhere, there is an ancient garbage dump full of nothing but marble arms complete with cut marks.

So there you have it. The Ancient Greeks were, without a doubt, emo. 
I believe in the same car ride, we gave Hamlet a happy ending, but I believe we will defer that to another blog post.