The Cloistered Vandal

...with a side of fava beans, please

Posted on April 17th, 2017

Filed under: Bracatus, Anthony Hopkins

Book title: Hearts in Atlantis

Author: Stephen King

Film director: Scott Hicks

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: TBD

Bookdrop date: TBD

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: "Sometimes when you're young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you're living on someplace magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up and our hearts break into two. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don’t. Of course, I suppose, technically, when I break someone’s heart I do it literally. And I eat it afterward. In those cases, the person does indeed die from the process and everything works out for the best." — Ted “The Cannibal" Brautigan

Oh, good grief

Posted on February 20th, 2017

Filed under: Bibamus, Zac Efron

Book title: The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud

Author: Ben Sherwood

Film director: Burr Steers

Crosspatch Artist: Bibamus

Bookdrop location: TBD

Bookdrop date: TBD

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note:

Well! Here comes Ol' Zac Efron!

Good Ol' Zac Efron....Yes sir!

Good Ol' Zac Efron...

How I hate him.

(For the record, we at The Crosspatch Collective actually have fond feelings for Mr. Efron. We are all too old to have discovered him via his Disney Channel exploits, but we very much enjoyed our first experience of him in the little film Me and Orson Welles. We also apparently saw him in Firefly without realizing it was him.)

Pound Foolish

Posted on January 23rd, 2017

Filed under: Bibamus, Suzuka Ohgo

Book title: Memoirs of a Geisha

Author: Arthur Golden

Film director: Rob Marshall

Crosspatch Artist: Bibamus

Bookdrop location: TBD

Bookdrop date: TBD

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: Suppose that you and I were sitting in a room overlooking a garden, chatting and sipping at our cups of green tea while we talked about something that had happened a long while ago, and I said to you, “That afternoon when I met so-and-so… was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst afternoon." You might set down your tea and insist that such a thing is not possible without plaigarizing Dickens. But that afternoon, my brother gave me a toy boat he made from a newspaper. Its journey down the gutter swollen with rain was the most exciting thing I had yet seen in my short life. But then the clown appeared in the storm drain and offered me a balloon.

Trust me, your mother was right when she told you never accept a balloon from a storm-drain clown.

Scylla vs Charybdis

Posted on January 9th, 2017

Filed under: Bracatus, Winona Ryder

Book title: How to Make an American Quilt

Author: Whitney Otto

Film director: Jocelyn Moorhouse

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: TBD

Bookdrop date: TBD

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: It seems that every four years, we in the United States witness the most divisive election in our short history as a nation, and the 2016 election was no exception. It brings to mind the story of a weary traveler coming to a road’s fork in the back woods of Kentucky. Not sure which direction to choose, he hails a farmer in a nearby field for advice. The farmer says, “It don’t matter much which road you take. No matter what, you’ll wish you chose the other one." For the record, we here at the Crosspatch Collective voted for Kang the Destroyer.

She who smelt it...

Posted on November 10th, 2016

Filed under: Bracatus, Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd

Book title: Where the Heart Is

Author: Billie Letts

Film director: Matt Williams

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: TBD

Bookdrop date: TBD

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: Down at the Super Walmart, one is able to find almost anything. One can find new tires, candles, graphic tees, gas being passed, and a tactical gas mask for the occasion. And though one may find a movie poster suggesting otherwise, one will not find Natalie Portman living there. Then one will find the difficult lesson that movie studios and, subsequently, book publishers are not always truthful purveyors of reality.

Everybody needs a little NUJV

Posted on October 24th, 2016

Filed under: Bibamus, Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard

Book title: The Help

Author: Kathryn Stockett

Film director: Tate Taylor

Crosspatch Artist: Bibamus

Bookdrop location: Morning Sunshine Breakfast Treats | Cedar Park, TX

Bookdrop date: 4/11/2017

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: "Listen ‘a me, Ringo. Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision. You gone have to ask yourself, 'Am I gone believe what them other bugs say about me today?' You is kind. You is smart. You is important. Now you go bang that drum."

Is that what I think it is?

Posted on October 13th, 2016

Filed under: Bibamus, Zoe Saldana

Book title: Rosemary’s Baby

Author: Ira Levin

Film director: Agnieszka Holland

Crosspatch Artist: Bibamus

Bookdrop location: Lamppost Coffee, Round Rock, TX

Bookdrop date: 11/11/16

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: "But I will strengthen the arms of the Baby, and the arms of the Assassin shall fall down; and thou shalt know that I am the Mother, when I shall put my sword into the hand of the Baby, and he shall stretch it out upon the Assassin. And I will further misquote the holy book for dramatic effect and general badassitude as I rain down upon thee a great vengeance and rhetorical flourish, and thou shalt know that I am the Mother whose baby thou wilt not threaten, and whose feet thou wilt not rub."

Whence come those wonderful toys?

Posted on September 26th, 2016

Filed under: Bibamus, Jack Nicholson

Book title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Author: Ken Kesey

Film director: Milos Forman

Crosspatch Artist: Bibamus

Bookdrop location: Mozart’s Coffee Roasters, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 10/29/16

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: He’s a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the ward of Arkham Asylum and takes over...

He’s a lusty, profane, life-loving fighter who rallies the other patients by challenging the arbitrary definition of sanity put forth by the establishment...

He’s a happy, loopy, harbinger of death locked in an epic battle of wills with a costumed bat. Who’s to say who’s a psychotic maniac and who’s not?

Brought to you by the letter K

Posted on August 8th, 2016

Filed under: Fidelia, Kate Winslet

Book title: The Reader

Author: Bernhard Schlink

Film director: Stephen Daldry

Crosspatch Artist: Fidelia

Bookdrop location: Peggy’s Coffee House | Temple, TX

Bookdrop date: 10/9/2016

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note:

“Good things could still happen?"

“Of course they can, Bert. In fact, I’m sure good things will happen. Because who’d want to see a movie with a sad ending?"

...

“Titanic."

“What?"

“Titanic had a sad ending."

—Bert and Ernie, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland

For the record, as per usual, the Crosspatch Collective side with Bert in this exchange. And also Hugh Jackman.

Share the spew

Posted on August 4th, 2016

Filed under: Prof Dr Sen Rebecca Darnell, Haley Joel Osment, Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt

Book title: Pay It Forward

Author: Catherine Ryan Hyde

Film director: Mimi Leder

Crosspatch Artist: Prof. Dr. Sen. Rebecca Darnell

Bookdrop location: TBD

Bookdrop date: TBD

Reference: Original | Non-Horrible Cover

Note: The assignment was a simple one: Think of a way to change the world, and do it. One young man had a simple idea: Make the world sick by vomiting on three people, who would each in turn vomit on three people, until the whole world was spewing chunks.