Saturday, April 3, 2010

Creepy Child Thoughts Revisited

(Alt. Title: What reading does to kids. Namely me, but perhaps...)

Just some odd thoughts for today, since no particularly intellectual ones are popping into my head at this very moment...

-- Not that I saw this in movies I watched when I was younger much, but when the bad guy/killer/whoever did that finger-across-the-neck sign, I used to get confused. (Or rather, start thinking about it in an overly rational way, leading to confusion.) Just slashing someone across the neck wouldn't necessarily cut their head clean off. Which was the only way I thought about fictional, not-of-natural-causes deaths for quite a while. Like, no one was *really* dead until they got their head sliced off. Preferably by guillotine or some other blade-type-thing. (Which would be in the opposite direction, not across the neck but straight down on top of it...) I have no idea how I formed this opinion, really. Which in retrospect, creeps me out.

On a related, macabre note, one random early-ish memory I have is that whenever we would pass the limestone quarry* I would think about how it would be funny if the car swerved off the road and into it, because then we'd all be stranded and have to eat limestone or become cannibals or something and die. There were always some plants and rainwater in the ditch the limestone had made, though, so the more I thought about this the cooler it seemed.**

--Roald Dahl still kicks ass. I spent the end of a very long power outage yesterday re-reading Matilda out of boredom; which is possibly why I'm thinking about the above notes again. (I tried to move things with my mind a lot. Quite a good use of time...) Lots of death and awesomely weird names of things and people and the overall message of "Adults, especially really old people, suck and are not meant to be trusted. It's fun and worthwhile for children to manipulate them, because children are good and pure and awesome." Yay. :-D

Moral of the story blog: Kiddies, DFTBA. Read, be a nerd, be as weird as you want*** Mix everything in your house into goo just to see what color it turns. Run into your closet and find Narnia. Eat tons of chocolate. Walk backwards. Stand in the rain. Do things people tell you not to, it's fun and it's how you learn.****


Footnotes:
* Which now has no limestone and is fenced off ominously.
** Ironic, considering I was very much an "indoor child"...
*** This is pretty much an example of how you'll turn out. Choose wisely. (I feel the need to add something like "*grins eerily*" here. So, *grins eerily*.)
**** Or at the very least, entertaining at the time...

2 comments:

Vita said...

Concerning Matilda:

1) ROALD DAHL IS THE BEST. Definitely my second favorite children's author (J K Rowling wins first place. That can't be denied). When I was in elementary school, my sister and I spent two summers writing a stage adaptation of that book. Great times.

2) Have you seen the infomercial for that game where you can move balls with your mind (given that you're using specific balls and you're wearing a thingy on your head, all for the price of $19.99!)? IT SEEMS SO AWESOME, although I am dubious about how well it works. (I was reminded of this by your attempting-to-move-things-with-your-mind adventure, in case it seems unrelated.)

Renata said...

Yes! It seems jokes indeed. I Googled it, apparently the headband reads your brain waves (A-hypo-something, B-hypo-something) which control a fan on the bottom of it.