To Read Or Not To Read, That Is The Question

My name is Abby McGrath and I am a sci-fi/fantasy nerd. I’m not ashamed to admit it. So why are other people? For that matter, why do some people feel that fantasy is stupid and not even worth reading?

Rather than give the typical “people are stupid” answer, I’ve decided instead to post my major arguments for reading sci-fi/fantasy:

1) It’s an escape from reality. Sometimes real life can be a real bummer. The solution? Losing yourself in mythopoeia (a big word made by Tolkien that just means fictional world created by a writer). Your problems seem trivial compared to Frodo’s quest to destroy the ring or Eragon’s quest to become a Dragon Rider, which gives you a new perspective. And speaking of character’s problems:

2) The problems are way more interesting than in real life. Boyfriends and girlfriends cheat on each other all the time. Men at work complain about how much they hate their jobs. Your life sucks. We get it. But in fantasy, boyfriends and girlfriends betray each other to nefarious wizards. Men at work complain about how long they have to wait to go into battle. Your life sucks, but the lives of the whole kingdom are in your hands. Much more interesting.

3) It’s inspiring. The vivid imagery and descriptions of characters makes your imagination go wild, explode if it’s really good fantasy. Soon you may start to create your own illustrations or write weird fan fiction based on what you’ve read. You enter a world within the fantasy world.

4) It IS relatable. Contrary to popular belief, fantasy is applicable to real life. The morals that they teach us are important to know- half of Dumbledore’s quotes are more valuable than anything you’ll find in a “real” book. Plus, all characters have qualities that are similar to our own personalities, even animals and aliens. After all, Kirk did say about his friend Spock the Vulcan: “of all the souls I have encountered....his was the most human.” ‘Nuff said.

Sci-fi/fantasy is extremely fascinating, and it IS worth reading. If you don’t agree with me, fine. All I can say is you’re missing out. 

ART LINKS!!!!!!!!!!

Art Blog

Artwork on Teen Ink

AP Art

These links are what I will be using in my new blog I'm starting entirely devoted to my artwork, especially in the new AP Art course I'm taking. The first link will take you to the blog itself, the second to my profile on Teenink.com which features some of my artwork, and the last link is from College Board and has all the information about the AP course (which unless you have no life, you don't have to click on if you don't want to). Don't worry, I'm still going to post my random rants in this one, - you can't get rid of me that easily. ;) Please follow the link to the new art blog!!!!!!!

-No Robots Allowed-

Let’s not deny it anymore: if the apocalypse doesn’t kill us, the robots will. Or, before they do, they’ll take over the world and use us as our unwilling slaves. So, if you want to survive in a dystopian, robot-controlled society, here’s some advice:

1. Never let the robots know you’re onto them. This means you should NOT freak out at every beep you hear like SpongeBob and assume that robots are taking over the world.

2. Make whistling noises like R2-D2 while the robots are working so that they think they’re hitting the wrong buttons, you know, for laughs.

3. Robots generally can’t swim, so live on a boat and they’ll never be able to take you away without rusting like the Tin Man (unless Dorothy and Toto remembered to bring the oil can, the morons).

4. If you dress up like the Tin Man in order to spy on the robots by blending in, you’re only fooling yourself.

5. In this society, if you ask a stupid question, you won’t get a stupid answer, cause the robots will spend hours being confused by human stupidity.

6. Ask any robot to compute the exact value of pi and you get a few hours of freedom easy.

7. Force a couple of robots to watch WALL-E and maybe they’ll feel something for once.

8. Robots don’t believe in magic, so pointing a wand at them and telling them that you’re Dumbledore probably won’t get you anywhere. But that shouldn’t stop you from trying. ;)

9. If you’re daring, you could blow up some robots the way they did on the Enterprise and do all sorts of illogical things like making phaser noises at Scotty and “killing” him, confusing the robots. It won’t change the situation much ‘cause the robots outnumber us, but it would still be pretty funny.

10. Lastly, DON’T dance the robot. They take offense to that.

P.S. If any robots see this, you didn’t hear it from me. ;]

Have you Any Dreams you'd Like to Sell?

I had a really weird dream last night. My friend and I were at a pep rally in A.C. Moore (yes, the art store, but it was like a maze), and for some reason we had to go into the big back room and we were attacked by this freakishly tall man. We escaped, I don’t remember how, and then in that room we started a celibacy club, complete with sashes like Julia's in 1984. Everyone in our honors English class wanted to join, but we found out that the only reason they did was to get out of doing work and to get the free food we offered. So then my friend and my other friend that appeared out of nowhere went back to the English class and our teacher really wasn’t surprised that free food was preferred over her teaching. And then I woke up.

I’ve stopped trying to analyze the bizarre things that happen inside my twisted skull. I guess the moral of this story is you can get anybody to go anywhere if you promise them free food? I don’t know.

My sick dreams aside, I’ve started to come up with ideas for a story. It’s about a 17 year old girl who moves into a house and finds a cursed book from the 18^th century with loads of writing and artwork in it. Some of the artwork however, is by an emo boy around her age, who she meets and tries to discover the book’s origins with. I don’t know just yet exactly what’ll happen, but it’ll be cool. It’ll certainly make more sense than that dream.

I had my last art class yesterday and made this beautiful, surrealist-inspired collage:

“But open your eyes and you’ll be surprised to find out how much more something different can mean.” ~Roach, Starship, (another Starkid musical on YouTube)

A Mid-Springbreak Night's Dream

Spring break is almost half over, and what have I done besides waste my time watching reruns of Adventure Time and Project Runway? Not much.

I had all these great plans for art projects I was going to do, and I haven’t done anything really. I don’t know if it’s because I’m feeling uninspired or what, but I don’t like it. Not one bit.

I’ve been trying so hard to get my creative energy back. Yesterday, I spent most of the morning lying on my parents’ bed with paper and a box of crayons. It was awesome, but it didn’t help me much.

I’ve also been thinking about writing but incorporating some artwork in there too. Don’t know how that’s gonna work out.

Holy Musical B@man comes out on Friday! Starkid’s newest parody musical!! Even though I’ve never seen a single Batman movie, I’m pretty psyched. Friday at 9 pm it’ll just be me, my laptop, and a half-pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Hell yes.

Guess that’s it. I’ve decided to end each blog post with a quote or song lyric that somehow has to do with my life at this moment.

“I want adventure in the great wide, somewhere, I want it more than I can tell. And for once it might be grand to have someone understand I want so much more than they’ve got planned...”~Belle, Beauty and the Beast