Magic Mirror, on the Wall, Who is the Fairest One of All?

BECAUSE I CARE to send copy and paste
the very best, this just in from NPR:

Snow White Rising: 

Why This Princess
and
Why This Moment? 

by Neda Ulaby

"Snow White is having a moment.

The new movie Mirror Mirror stars Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen. In June, another Snow White movie opens starring another Oscar winner, Charlize Theron, in the same role. And Disney's working on a new animated film loosely based on Snow White set in 19th century China. So what makes Snow White so right for right now?


Once upon a time, it was Cinderella who was Hollywood's hottest starlet. The Cinderella Story was cinematic catnip. The Princess Diaries, Ever After, Two Weeks Notice, Ella Enchanted, Maid in Manhattan ... and yes, yes, obviously Pretty Woman, when Roberts was a couple of decades away from playing anyone who might worry about wrinkles.


But there's a new ingénue in town. She's fresh, she's frosty. And her image hasn't changed much since Walt Disney set the Snow White standard in 1939. Snow White is, of course, the story of a poor girl whose beauty earns her the envy of an evil queen. She's sent off to die and winds up in a coma, but she prevails, thanks to a prince and seven short heigh-hoing men of some renown.


After decades of the cold shoulder, why is Snow White suddenly white hot? Maria Tartar is a Harvard professor with an expertise in fairy tales. 'It may be that there is something about the boomer anxiety about aging that is renewing our interest in Snow White,' she says. 'In the Disney film, there's that terrible moment, that terrifying moment when the Wicked Queen drinks the potion, turns into an old hag, and we see the aging process.'


The new Snow White movie, Mirror Mirror, is also meant for families with little kids, just like Disney's version was. But screenwriter Melissa Wallack wanted to make the story contemporary. Part of that meant acknowledging baby boomer grandparents' concerns about aging. 'What's interesting now,' Wallack says, 'is that almost the first time really in history, you can remain young. Everyone now is out there shooting themselves with Botox.' In the movie, in fact, Julia Roberts gets an Evil Queen spa special with scorpion bites, bee stings, bird poop, and grubs digging around in her ears.


Wallack says every time she opens a magazine or turns on the television, she sees actors like Angelina Jolie looking as young as they did decades ago. That was not the case for stars of an earlier generation, like Elizabeth Taylor, Lauren Bacall, or Katherine Hepburn. She says ours is an age where chemical peels and other enhancements are pitched to almost everyone. 'You can kind of stay in this state of youth forever,' she observes.


The second Snow White movie coming out this summer is darker, much more high tech, violent and visually sumptuous. It stars Twilight's Kristen Stewart as Snow White and Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen. The tension between the princess and the queen, says Harvard professor Maria Tartar, might also help explain Snow White's recent revival. 'Maybe the mother-daughter rivalry that has caught our attention with so many women trying to remain youthful now.'


You can even see that, says Tartar, on a reality show fairy tale like Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It's filled with beautiful princesses, sham weddings —and like Snow White, an older versus younger woman dynamic. 'The mother's constantly competing with her daughters for attention, and she's got these gorgeous daughters; she becomes more anxious than ever about aging.'


Tartar says fairy tales are a way to explore such elemental human concerns. What fascinates her is which ones bubble up and why. Right now it's not just Snow White, she says. There are also a bunch of Sleeping Beauties in the works. She wonders — why Snow White right now, and why a 'catatonic girl' like Sleeping Beauty?


Maybe it's some sort of backlash, Tartar says, about women now outnumbering men in college or outpacing them at work.


Or maybe it's not. Maybe there's a female fantasy about how great it would be to get to sleep undisturbed for a couple thousand."

. . . . . . .

SEVEN WORDS:

An apple a day keeps
you-know-who away!

Heigh-ho-ly yours,

SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo and ZuZu.

IMAGE CREDITS:
Snow White bait = National Awakening
Witchy woman = Favim.com

Oh, My Papa

(Liberace and Dorothy Malone in Sincerely Yours, 1955)

“SOMEDAY I WOULD like to make a movie that makes people laugh and makes people cry, and then makes them leave the theater in a quick and orderly manner so that others may come in.” –Jack Handey

HAPPY

Jack Handey

FRIDAY,

you’ns!

. . . . . . . 

COMING FROM A BROKEN home in a small rural town (You know, the kind where people on the other side of the street make it their business to know you’ve passed wind before you’ve dropped a foot off the curb to cross over to them, and even before you ever knew those leftover baked beans were going to come back and haunt you?) and being an at-the-same-timey Catholic attending a finger-pointy parochial school, was tough.

YEAH,

for the longest time,

the Pope wasn’t on speaking terms with my she-chose-divorce-rather-than-keep-sacred-the-institution-of-marriage Momsy (a problem which sooner or later got resolved, because, hey, I wasn’t excommunicated from the "nun-runned" grade school I attended, now was I?), but after the archbishop finally got Pius XII to grant my sinner mom a “secret”dispensation, giving her permission to no longer hang her head in shame and return her to the Communion line, if she agreed to do any and all the grovjobb (<--Saying “grunge work” in Swedish even if if you're not Swedish makes it sound better, wouldn’t you agree?)

the Domincan penguins
my teachers

threw her way, that of which she did do wholeheartedly. (And, if she was “volunteering” for them from home, you can bet she was simultaneously

{Well, hello there, Venial Sin!}

dangling.

Uh-huh, soon afterly, she would be declared The Patron Saint of Single Parenthood and, Possibly, Unwed Mothers.), things got better in Academialand--and the town we lived in, too--for my sister and me. Actually, for St. Momsy as well.

BUT THAT DIDN’T mean I had a father to call my own, now did it? (Yep, Real Dad, who ended up being allergic to child support payments, had pretty much ridden off into the sunset right at the get-go.) So, I made them up as I saw fit. And, Yes, I DID make darn tootin’ sure I had several, starting with Liberace. Then Michael Anthony, moola delivery boy on the TV series The Millionaire, whose job easily explained why he was away so much of the time. Also the Fuller Brush Man, our dentist, and

Larry Fine.

Walt Disney and Norman Rockwell, too. (Please not to worry that I have guaranteed myself a hand basket to Hell, as I always had the presence of mind to regularly confess these lies to Father Malloy, who I would adulty-later convince myself could likewise be my real dad, after having watched

Richard Chamberlain’s
portrayal of Ralph de Briscassart

in the TV mini-serires, The Thorn Birds.)

My point, and I do have one, is

F. Scott Fitzgerald,

my “real” father (<--the one I ultimately settled on even though, in terms of my birthday, the time frame makes no sense), is kind of in the news today:

While there have been glimpses of the production via on-set

papaRATsy

shots over the past few months, the very first stills from the Baz Luhrmann-directed classic remake, The Great Gatsby,  have just been released! The two photos feature its trio of leading stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Tobey Maguire. (BY THE BY: The Great Gatsby, "an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's [same-titled] Long Island-set novel, where Midwesterner Nick Carraway is lured into the lavish world of his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Soon enough, however, Carraway will see through the cracks of Gatsby's nouveau riche existence, where obsession, madness, and tragedy await," also stars Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, Gemma Ward and Callan McAuliffe, and is set for a Christmas Day 2012 release.” –swiped from an article I read today, but darn, I can’t seem to give-credit-where-credit-is-due locate it!

. . . . . . .

SEVEN WORDS:

Something about a penguin
makes me smile!

Love,

SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo, ZuZu, Real Dad, and “real” Dad.

IMAGE CREDITS:

Dominican Sister of Sinsinawa

Gatsby book = HERE

Sr. Penguin = Keeping It Real in the Suberbs

Fr. Ralph = Zap 2 It

Dominican doll = Nun Better

Gatsby stills = Movieweb

Billy Joel = Silent Journalist

Parlez-vous KeRr4zY Français?

THOSE WHO JUMP off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.

. . . . . . .

FIVE WORDS:

(Yup, that'd be bathing-capped me doing the forward tuck dive.)

Careful in the deep end.

Sink or swimly, I'm taking the plunge,

SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo and ZuZu.

CREDITS: French bridgework photographed by Tony Grider, Divers = Zazzler

The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

HERE'S
this week's

scoop scope (<--To get the gist, preface that with "horo."):

ARIES (March 21 - April 19)

SOMETIMES EVERYTHING seems so dark and without hope. When you begin to feel this way, it's important to remember that these are the natural consequences of being realistic.
. . . . . . .

FOUR keep-your-chin-up WORDS ( Maybe?):

. . . . . . .

Good day-ly yours,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo and Zuzie.

CREDITS:
Horoscope = The Onion
Black and sepia photograph of actress Marie Dressler (Leila Marie Koerber) with her hands on her chest, wearing a lamp shade over her face, her eyes wide, 1909, courtesy of Free Historical Stock Photos

It All Started With a Question:

A CAROLINA GIRL searching for love, if given the chance, where would she find it?

SAD BUT true, yet, too, lived happily ever afterly (<--And likewise, me, because Miss Duke ultimately decided on this big-time fan's all along favourite and pick for her!), my for-the-last-several-weeks guilty pleasure (CMT's reality series Sweet Home Alabama, "Paige's Finale," Season 3, Episode 310) has come to a close.

TWO WORDS:

Spoiler Alert!!!

STRAIGHT FROM the horse's mouth (CMT News) -->Paige Duke has found her man! After exciting dates, big drama in the house, and delivering heartbreak on the tailgate of a pickup truck, she finally revealed her choice on Friday night:

Paige Duke Chooses Jeremiah James Korfe
Yay YaY! YAY!
Paige picking Jeremiah is like what Goldilocks said
when she tasted Baby Bear's bowl of porridge:
"This one's just right!"

Love is in the air-lyly,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo and ZuZu.

P.S. You can cLiCkY-cLiCky HERE for a look-see!

Yeah, It’s True. Ms. Somers Would Run the Battery Down by Leaving the Lights on and the Radio Playing Between Shots.

"IF YOU EVER drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone." --Jack Handey

HAPPY
Jack Handey
FRIDAY!

REMEMBER LAST SUNDAY when I mentioned that, earlier in the week, I had opened the window and influnza, but I was making the most of it by enjoying the perks: high-fever dreams, one of which I shared with you, because why should I have all the fun?! Well, as promised in that blog's comment section, SMACZNEGO! I'm "treating" you to one more! (Plus, I gotta store it somewhere before I forget it completely--you know how fleeting these things can be--and this space will probably do it nicely.):

I'M ON A PLANE headed to some sort of patriotic, I guess, cannonball festival out east. My carry-on is a dime store American flag lodged in a giant embroidery hoop with a threaded needle woven into it to look like I've been sewing. It's my ticket to get into the festival.

WE LAND. A man holding a sign that reads "Betsy Ross" greets me, because I don't really know where I'm going. A woman wearing a Betty Rubble costume hails down another man holding a sign that has "Betty Ross" written on it. I don't remember seeing Betty Rubble on the plane.

(the photo she keeps in her wallet)

"I told you to wait in the car," snaps Angelina Jolie to an attractive man trying to follow her out of the limousine they've just arrived in.

"The bunnies aren't what they seem," he retorts and gets back into the limo.

WE ENTER a park where Angelina has organised an Easter egg hunt. Since both regular and plastic eggs have been outlawed, all the squeeze lemons you could imagine are "hidden" in a parking lot in spots quite visible, even to closed eyes.
"It's just another excuse to flour and fry something," someone offers. We go to a Paula Deen look-alike's house with the "eggs" I've collected. I read a sign hanging on "Paula's" kitchen wall:

NOAH'S LONG, WET STORY
BEGINS IN GENESIS 7:15

THEN I WOKE up,
and yep,
to the sound of rain outside my window.

Genesis 7:15. It's funny how, in my dreams, I can recall a Bible passage mentioned one day in my first grade religion class, when Sister Mary Madeline told the story of The Ark, which ended up to be the only time during my parochial school years when the Old Testament was ever referred to because, from that point on, it was all about Jesus, Catechism, Saints, and "Our Seven Good Friends," The Holy Sacraments. And it's weird to be able to remember something so exacty as that (in my high-temperature slumber, no less), yet I can never awakey remember where I left my car keys! Pretty Twilight Zone-y, huh

. . . . . . .

RATS. I NEED TO run to the store, but... ... ... HM.
I think I'll go take a nap because, who knows?

(SparkleFarkle Somers?!)
Maybe I'll find my keys!

TWO WORDS:
Sweet Dreams!

Luv ♥,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo and ZuZu.

CREDITS:
Bunny Trickster = Dadtrends.com
Bradley the Pittster = logoi
Sparkle Somers = Kip's American Graffiti

Erin Go Brockovich! Oops! I Mean Erin Go Bragh!

HAPPY
Jack O'Handey
FRIDAY
on a
Saint Patrick's Day
wee, early morn to ye! <--Yeah, yeah. I know.
I'm likewise late with that, too, aren't I?

WELL, IT'S BECAUSE I care about you guys. Especially on days when I'm feeding you holiday-y time-sensitive Handeyisms (Yep, when this self-proclaimed Irishman-for-a-day wants you to kiss the Blarney Stone, not any old rock will do now, will it? I'm just saying.), one of which I and a couple two, three...four five pints o' green beer spent all of today trying to track down. But after scouring every Deep Thoughted nook and cranny I could think of left me with nary a JH quote referring to Saint Patrick's Day (<--Nope not even one. Can you believe it? Me neither.), and then when furthering my search by taking the high road AND the low road nearly ended me up bonnie, bonnie banking Loch Lomond instead locating a few words from Jack about Irelandia, I found myself crutching on a favourite Irish adage of mine to see us through.

SEVEN WORDS:

When life gives you lemons,
make shillelaghs.

THAT'S RIGHT, the clock on my wall says 11:05 PM and what can I say? It looks like I'm going to just have to settle. Yeah, sorry, but this is as close as I could get with a March 17th-y O'Handey blurb:

(St. Patty, the Apostle of Ireland
and patron saint of snake whisperers everywhere,
looking none too happy about my selection)

"Some folks say it was a miracle. Saint Francis suddenly appeared and knocked the next pitch clean over the fence. But I think it was just a lucky swing." --Jack O'Handey Handey

. . . . . . .

Hope a pot of gold found you today-ly yours,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo and ZuZu.

CREDITS:
Traditional Blackthorne shillelagh found HERE
Lemon rainbow courtesy of Angelo

Stevie Nicks Thinks Hard-Boiled Egg Yolks are Gumballs

"I THINK SOMEONE SHOULD have had the decency to tell me the luncheon was free. To make someone run out with potato salad in his hand, pretending he's throwing up, is not what I call hospitality." --Jack Handey

HAPPY
Jack Handey
FRIDAY SATURDAY! SUNDAY

• • • • • • •

NINE WORDS:

I was better
and then I got over it.

FOR THE LAST couple of days and especially nights, a nasty flu bug that my husband carelessly innocently brought home from his latest mid-life crisis adventure trial-membership kettlebell gym class (Since the man has nary a muscle moved his entire life, this indeed MIGHT JUST KILL HIM. Oops! Did I just say that? It must be the fever talking. Please read on-–>), because he’s going through a stage where he thinks it’s “way cool” common courtesy to high five sweaty, exuding-great-quantities-of-obviously-germ-infested-bodily-fluids people his kettlebell buds after having successfully watched female twenty-somethings perform double-bell front squats or kettlebell sots presses each and every completion of physical fitnessy repetitions (<–THAT’S IT. Enough with the mincing words crap already. I’M ANNOYED–> because, YES, a splash of Purell® now and again--especially again-is far too much to ask of this Jack LaLanne reincarnate, as it somehow "tarnishes" his image!), for Puppet and me to share has been poking me with a mighty big stick. A real pointy, big stick. And not just big,

GINORMOUS!

NOT TO WORRY, though. My daughter’s already in the fast lane on the road to recovery and I think I’m going to be okay, too. This can’t last forever, right? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ll live. But in the meantime, I’m ca$hing in on two of the perks being this sick has to offer:

1. Build a blanket-fort in the livingroom to hole up in for the duration ✔
2. Write down all the wEiRd dreams that are the result of high fevered, drift-in/drift-out sleep, so they can be shared with family and friends who have to hear them whether they want to or not, because they are reading this ✔

Why, look!
YOU'RE IN LUCK!
Here comes just hours ago’s
Technicolor dreamscape now!

A sky-wonderful night brings a heavy KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! at my door. It’s Stevie Nicks and it’s time for the picnic. Stevie (She much rathers I call her that instead of “ma’am.”) doesn’t actually like the word “picnic” and tries to come up with something more ethereal. At the same time, she agrees to come along --even though having a picnic was her idea in the first place.

“It’s no longer ‘snowing’,” she says, pointing to her nose. Then, she winks. “I quit when my nostrils were often mistaken for those belonging to Louis Stevens.”

"I think
Shia LaBeouf is handsome,”
I tell her.

We are suddenly on vacation
and we bring a cow with us.
It doesn’t matter.

“I kept these out of the potato salad recipe
for us to chew for dessert!” says Stevie, holding a

(What this lady's fiddling around with,
only tons more and in a plastic sack.)

Ziploc® bagful of hard-boiled egg yolks. Then she plants them in a garden. Freddie Prinze Jr. arrives with his wife, Sarah Michelle Gellar. Stevie informs me that he and I are r♥mantically involved. Even though the very idea of it bores me, I perspire-y thank God that Michelle is out of earshot. Freddie morphs into Keanu Reeves and Sarah is Jennifer L♥ve Hewitt. Now I’m interested. In Keanu.

“The meaning of your name, ‘Keanu’?” cosmic Stevie cosmically asks, cosmically. She takes a rogue egg center from her flowing skirt pocket and pops it into her mouth. With eyes like platters, she spits it out, landing it next to her left platform boot. “It’s Hawaiian for ‘picnic’,” says Keanu. “Crystalline,” replies Stevie. “Knowledge,” adds Jennifer, but no one seems to care. She studies for a karaoke exam.

Lindsey Buckingham
drives up,
chauffeuring a limousine filled with

The Mamas and the Papas.
They wave from the sunroof, minus John Philips
whom Lindsay, now played by Captain and Tennille’s

Daryl Dragon,
will be pinch-hitting for,
just as soon as he gets them to their next gig.

“Look at that paint job!” I shout.
“Nature Valley Granola!”
Cass Elliot shouts back.

Stevie's mouth opens to sing "Let's Stay Together,"
but in Al Green's voice.

That's when I wake up to, what else? You guessed it, the television airing a Lay's Potato Chips commercial whose background music is Al Green singing "Let's Stay Together"! Man, first, the President of the United States. Then, Lay's. Now, Stevie Nicks.

EIGHT WORDS:

Al Green is having
a particularly good year.

• • • • • • •

Wow! Was that worth it or what?!

L♥ve, SparkleFarkle~~~~~~✵

Rest in peace, my Mollo and ZuZu.

CREDITS:
Blanketland = HERE
Louis Stevens = listal.com
Shia LaBeouf = GQ magazine
Cow on vacation originally featured at Themetagroup''s Blog
Egg lady image intially downloaded by Chest of Boks
Singing Stevie = Disney Dreaming
Lindsey Buckingham = last.fm

Come Get Your Twofer On!

*at the blog door holding the legendary
SparkleFarkled Confetti Bucket,
coaxes reader’s little mittie into taking a handful*

“I WISH SOMEBODY would invent a fruit that had no seeds, tasted delicious, and would scream when you ate.” –-Jack Handey

Young Karl

HAPPY
Jack Handey
FRIDAY
on a Two for One
MONDAY!

UH-HUH, my treat: a pair (Count ‘em, TWO!) of beginning of the week celebratory Handeysms, because I’ve got big, BIG news and, yeah, I am just that happy on account of it! I’ll explain in just a smitch, but right now,

toss your dip of confetti
and then DUCK!
Because here comes
Jack Handey Quote number two:

“LIKE JEWELS in a crown, the precious stones glittered in the Queen's round metal hat.” –-Jack Handey

FOUR WORDS:

Reason for the "Season"

I HAVE JUST been crowned editor
of the TV.com’s Person page dedicated to

Karl Pilkington,

a man with no qualifications, very little education but is now known the planet over as a shaven chimp and discovered talent by Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant whose world’s roundest head

(Mr. Pilkington even gave step-ahead-of-him Charles M. Schulz' Charlie Brown a run for his money, seen here forethoughtingly sizing up the situation.)

has oft times been described as an orange (Yes, because you can never be sure if sensitive eyes or those belonging to minors are tipped this way, I courteously left out Ricky’s lively expletive that typically precedes the fruit he compares Karl to.) and is the title star of An Idiot Abroad (a travel documentary television series created by and featuring Karl Pilkington and his former radio show colleagues Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant whose ongoing theme is that Pilkington has no interest in global travel and so Merchant and Gervais make him travel while they themselves stay in London and monitor his progress) and, presently, An Idiot Abroad 2: The Bucket List (during which Karl is coerced into round two of the world’s most hilarious social experiment, as Gervais and Merchant force him to complete “the ultimate list of things to do before you die.”) which airs its season finale next Saturday (The Science Channel, March 10th, 10:00 pm ET/9:00pm CT)!

And even though the website's original bio summary is still in need of a lot more "bangers" (<--submit left out information) and plenty more "mash" (<--additional trivia blurbs and quotes), I happily extend this invitaion to you: Come for a LOOKSEE! (<--cLiCkY-cLiCkY!),

Karl-happy,
SparkleFarkle~~~~~*

Rest in peace, my Mollo, ZuZu, and Davy Jones.

IMAGE CREDITS:
Chuck and Chuck = Bleeding Cool
Crowned orange originally downloaded by Back of the Cereal Box
Orange Karl in a sea of likewises originally downloaded by Head Like a F****** Orange blog
Young Karl = The Cult Heroes Rogue Gallery
Mouthy Orange originally downloaded at Live Medical