The Cloistered Vandal

The crossing guard's nightmare

Posted on July 17th, 2017

Filed under: Elijah Wood, Fotr, Bracatus

Book title: The Fellowship of the Ring

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

Film director: Peter Jackson

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: TBD

Bookdrop date: TBD

Reference: Non-horrible cover

Note: There would seem to be an infinite supply of movie tie-in covers associated with The Lord of the Rings trilogy—particularly with The Fellowship of the Ring—and there is only so much one can say about them. The scene depicted on this particular cover shows Frodo confronting Shelob, which Tolkien called “an evil thing in spider-form." When we showed this cover to the young honorary Crosspatch Earthworm, he scrunched up his face and said, “That doesn’t even happen in that book." Indeed. Shelob appears in the book The Two Towers and in the film The Return of the King, which causes one to wonder if anyone at Random House ever bothered to watch the movies or read the books.

How does your garden grow?

Posted on June 12th, 2017

Filed under: Bracatus, Jodi Foster, Matthew Mcconaughey

Book title: Contact

Author: Carl Sagan

Film director: Robert Zemeckis

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: TBD

Bookdrop date: TBD

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: It is possible that Earth does not need to be friends with beings from any other planets. First contact could instead be made by an army of 45-year-old men each armed with nothing but a spread gun and 30 lives.

...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

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.

Change starts here

Posted on July 24th, 2016

Filed under: Bracatus, Sharon Stone, Elden Henson, Kieran Culkin

Book title: Freak the Mighty

Author: Rodman Philbrick

Film director: Peter Chelsom

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Apanas Coffee & Beer, Austin, Texas

Bookdrop date: 9/16/2016

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: Kevin’s mother looked familiar to Max. He couldn’t quite remember where he had seen her—total recall had never been a gift of his—but then she uncrossed and re-crossed her legs while wearing that short skirt, and he remembered. The memory sent the two of them on a harrowing quest that tested every instinct—a quest to restore modesty with the most basic of undergarments. They did not know that females wore entirely different types of unmentionables, or that the discovery would trigger a new quest to places they would never have imagined.

The Naughty Fairies

Posted on July 21st, 2016

Filed under: Bracatus, Scarlett Johansson, Nicholas Art

Book title: The Nanny Diaries

Author: Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

Film director: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: TBD

Bookdrop date: TBD

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: He wanted a bedtime story, the little brat. Nothing would do but a tale of Neverland. And of course the story involved the near demise of a beloved fairy. Certainly that meant a round of clapping and cacophonous affirmations as to the existence of such creatures. The exercise naturally saved the poor sprite’s life. And, true to the nanny’s luck, it also brought several others back from the brink who were neither beloved nor grateful. Life is magical, after all, but also surreal and irksome.

Frodo's Lament

Posted on February 25th, 2016

Filed under: Lotr, Elijah Wood, Bracatus

Book title: The Fellowship of the Ring

Author: J.R.R. Tolkein

Film director: Peter Jackson

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Fat Cats Organic Coffee and Desserts, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 3/21/2016

Reference: Original (mercifully unavailable) | Non-horrible cover

Note: He stared in astonishment, trying not to believe what he was seeing in the mirror. A brilliant, red, north-star pimple had appeared on his face—his 50-year-old face—right as he was about to meet the queen of the elves. His brain numbed at the injustice his skin and hormones were inflicting upon him. Why this? Why now?

Little did he know two more would follow soon, that they would be epic, and that for centuries, generation after generation would tell tales of them in Middle Earth and beyond.

Knights and Rodents

Posted on February 11th, 2016

Filed under: Bracatus, Nicholas Sparks, Diane Lane, Richard Gere

Book title: Nights in Rodanthe

Author: Nicholas Sparks

Film director: George C. Wolfe

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: TBD

Bookdrop date: TBD

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: He insisted that he was a mouse, not a rat. She earnestly believed that, in spite of a minor flesh wound, she possessed two working arms. They were doomed to live out their denial-filled days isolated and alone. But in the Land of Sparks everyone is a lover, and anything is possible.

Also, please notice the links at the top of this page. We are on Facebook and Instagram, both accounts being run by Crosspatch artist Bibamus. Please follow and like if you are so inclined, as Bibamus succumbs easily to discouragement when engagement numbers are low.

Tramp Haven

Posted on August 20th, 2015

Filed under: Bracatus, Julianne Hough, Josh Duhamel, Nicholas Sparks

Book title: Safe Haven

Author: Nicholas Sparks

Film director: Lasse Hallström

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: TBD

Bookdrop date: TBD

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: For them, it was nothing but an ordinary day on an ordinary weekend, but for her, there was something revelatory about the notion that wonderful moments like these existed. And that maybe, just maybe, it would be possible for her to experience the spaghetti kiss she had been dreaming about since childhood. When she looked up at him, it was suddenly easy for her to imagine that her fears were pointless. That he would love her no matter what she told him, and that he was the kind of man who loved her already and would always, no matter what, give her the last meatball.

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