Brave! Loyal! Courageous! All qualities we associate with Charlie Sheen. I guess that’s why we call them actors. Image via Wikipedia
THE “YOU’RE LUCKY YOU’RE FROM FRANCE” AWARD GOES TO…
Alexandre Dumas!
Yes, Alexandre Dumas, you wrote one of the best novels of all time, and all we dysfunctional literates can do is mock your last name. Here’s proof that if your last name is Dumas, you’d better be from France and not the United States.
Alexandre Dumas. I apologize for making fun of your name. Only a dumas (American pronunciation) would do that. Image via Wikipedia
PRONUNCIATION GAME
Read each sentence below this paragraph twice. The first time, pronounce Dumas properly (Doo-mahs), and the second time, pronounce Dumas the American way (dumb-you know what)). How does the meaning in each sentence change?
The Three Musketeers is the best book that Dumas ever wrote.
Can we agree that Dumas is one of the best French authors ever?
I’m not surprised that Dumas is French.
Yeah, that gets old pretty quickly.
WHY ARE THEY CALLED MUSKETEERS IF THEY SWORDFIGHT SO MUCH?
If I remember correctly, the musketeers do use their muskets a few times in the novel. However, swords were more effective for close range fighting, and frankly, a swordfight is more exciting to film for a movie than a bunch of guys firing muskets, missing, taking 30 seconds to reload, firing, missing, taking 30 seconds to reload, firing, missing, then saying, ‘Screw it (in French),” and grabbing their swords.
SPEAKING OF MOVIES…LAZY RESEARCH ALERT!
Which cinematic version of The Three Musketeers is the best one?
The Gene Kelly version has the best action sequences (and awesome color, as well)!!
The Three Musketeers/Four Musketeers movies from the 1970’s had the best acting. Plus, Raquel Welch as Constance … OMG! OMG! OMG! Yeah, OMG is pretty juvenile, but seeing Raquel Welch as Constance can make a grown man say OMG! Yes, Constance, you must have clean legs when visiting the Queen.
In the 1993 Disney version of The Three Musketeers, Charlie Sheen was a musketeer. Yes, Charlie Sheen was a musketeer. One more time, Charlie Sheen was a musketeer. In fact, he was one of several American musketeers (none of which really even tried to act) in what is probably the WORST THREE MUSKETEERS MOVIE EVER!
Since there were so many American musketeers in this movie, and the plot was nothing like that of the novel (Yes, that matters. The Three Musketeers is a great book!), it is fair to use the American pronunciation of Dumas when saying, “That 1993 version of The Three Musketeers was one Dumas movie!”
*****
UPDATE- June 20, 2018
Yeah, I know this is a lame blog post. As tempting as it is to delete it (and it’s tempting), I’m leaving it up to show my development as a blogger/writer. Yes, I know this post sucks. I’m pretty sure I knew it sucked when I wrote it, but back then I saw this blog as practice because I knew nobody was reading it and I could experiment a little. Some experiments go horribly wrong.
*****
CHARLIE SHEEN’S NEW GAME SHOW
Speaking of Charlie Sheen… (No, this story isn’t true.)
After a few months of being booed off of various stages in major cities across the country, Charlie Sheen starts fading from the public view, and his cash flow starts disappearing. Needing a new gig, Sheen takes on a new game show, and it’s called “Winning, with Charlie Sheen.”
A troll contestant, almost always one of Sheen’s hangers-on who tells Sheen how brilliant he is, competes with Charlie Sheen, answering a bunch of trivia questions, and the winner gets a date with a porn star of the winner’s choice. The problem is that Charlie Sheen wants to win every game, and it soon becomes apparent that the producers are feeding Sheen the questions (or answers) ahead of time. When this becomes obvious, ratings plummet, and a quick fix has to be made.
The host intentionally gives Charlie Sheen the wrong questions (or answers) before the taping, and then begins the show. After a few minutes, it’s apparent that “Winning” actually has a competition going on. The problem is that the troll contestant is just as smart as Sheen, so neither of them are getting the answers right.
“What’s the distance between the earth and the moon?” the host asks.
“Too far to drive,” Sheen answers, wiping his hair back in exasperation.
“A few thousand miles, at least,” the troll says, getting desperate because he really wants a date with a porn star.
“What’s the capital of Washington?”
“W,” says the contestant.
“It’s a trick question,” Sheen proudly answers. “Washington is a district, not a state, and doesn’t have a capitol.”
“If you multiply 15 times 5,000, what do you have?”
Both contestants try to figure the math in their heads, but both come up with the wrong answer.
Time is almost up, and one of the contestants needs to get an answer right so that the show can end. So the host attempts to frame the question in a context that Charlie Sheen can understand.
“If you have 15 porn stars,” he says slowly, reframing the previous math question, “and you pay each one $5,000 to spend the night with you,” he continues with the math problem, “what do you have?”
Charlie Sheen’s eyes light up. “A really great deal!”
Again, we dysfunctional literates have very few rules (for now) about the books we read, but this rule seems to have few exceptions.
Rule #3- No books more than 500 pages long.
How many stories are truly worth the effort it takes to read (much less write) 500 pages? A few might be worth it, but not many. Usually a novel longer than 500 pages means that the editors didn’t do their jobs (or in the case of 19th century Russian authors, the translators didn’t do theirs either).
ATLAS SHRUGGED
Not that Ayn Rand should be compared to 19th century Russian writers, but is the story of Atlas Shrugged worth 1200 pages? If it were 500 pages, maybe even 550 pages, but 1200? If you need to start drinking power shakes and hitting the weight room before reading a novel, then the book might be too long.
IT’S NOT GREEK MYTHOLOGY!
What a disappointment! We dysfunctional literates love Greek mythology, and when I saw Atlas Shrugged, I got excited, thinking, ‘This is bigger than Bullfinch! How could it not be awesome?”
After reading a few pages, a grim realization began to set in. John Galt was not a Greek mythological character.
The book, at 1200 pages with small print breaks the Dysfunctional Literacy Rule #3. Rumor has it that there is a 60 page speech in the book. I could barely read The Gettysburg Address, and that was written by a real president, not a fictional character. And this 60 page speech is supposedly a 60 page speech. It’s not a three page State of the Union with an hour’s worth of fake applause so that a bunch of politicians can mug for the cameras.
POORLY WRITTEN “ADULT SCENE” ALERT!
Rumor also has it that there are poorly written adult scenes in the book. We at Dysfunctional Literacy might not enjoy a poorly written adult scene as much as we used to, but we at least appreciate the attempt. 30 years ago, many of us would have crawled across broken glass to read a poorly written adult scene, but now we have cable and the internet, where poorly written adult scenes are readily available and sometimes free. Still, it might be worth reading Atlas Shrugged for the awkward adult moments if the novel were 500 pages instead of 1200. But alas, many of us will never know.
THE IRONIC ATLAS SHRUGGED MOVIE
Wouldn’t it be ironic if Atlas Shrugged were made into a movie, but very few movie theaters were willing to play it? That’s so ironic that Alanis Morissette wouldn’t understand it. Or maybe it really isn’t ironic, in which case Alanis Morissette and I can point fingers and mock each other’s ignorance.
*****
UPDATE- June 20, 2018
Yeah, I know this is a lame blog post. As tempting as it is to delete it (and it’s tempting), I’m leaving it up to show my development as a blogger/writer. Yes, I know this post sucks. I’m pretty sure I knew it sucked when I wrote it, but back then I saw this blog as practice because I knew nobody was reading it and I could experiment a little. Some experiments go horribly wrong.
We at Dysfunctional Literacy have very few rules at this time, but we’re making them up as we go along, so by the time we’re done (And we’re not sure when we’ll be done), there might be a lot of them.
Rule #1- There are exceptions for every rule.
Yeah, that’s not as dramatic as Fight Club’s rule, but you’ll soon see we have more range.
Rule #2- No more than three books per series.
We dysfunctional literates don’t read any series that goes over three books, or if we begin reading such a series, we stop after three books. How many stories truly deserve more than three books? Not many do. If The Lord of the Rings could be told in three books, then so should just about any other story. Even The Bible is only two books, and if God only needs two books, then…
HEY! THE BIBLE IS MORE THAN TWO BOOKS!
No, The Bible consists of two books: The Old Testament and The New Testament.
Okay, the “chapters” in the book, like Genesis and Psalms, are called Books in The Bible, but that’s only because God is involved. God could call The Ten Commandments a book, and it’s a book, but only because God said so. God could say, “Let there be light!” and call it a book, and it would be a book because God said so. We at Dysfunctional Literacy are not arguing with God about the definition of a book because a book is whatever God calls a book. We’re not arguing with God.
We’re arguing (very politely, of course) with those of you, human beings, not God, who know full well what we’re talking about, that you can’t publish Genesis by itself, sell it as a book, and expect people to buy it. You also know that all of these Dysfunctional Literacy rules have exceptions, and if anybody gets an exception from these rules, it’s going to be God. But you’re not God, so for practical purposes (not God purposes) The Bible is two books, and you know fully what we mean, so quit wasting our time with some silly semantic argument.
WORST LITERARY GOD JOKE EVER!
God visits a publisher in his dream and says, “I command you to publish all of my books from The Bible separately, give them new covers, and charge a separate price for all of them. A separate book for Genesis. A separate book for Job. A separate book for each of them.”
The publisher quickly awakens in a cold sweat, not because he’s talking to God, but because of the idea God is suggesting. “But God!” he says. “Those individual books are too small, and they’re too many of them. Nobody would buy them all.”
“You question the word of God?” God says, indignation in his voice. “Make these books available on reading devices as well, and charge $9.99 for each.”
“What?” the publisher sputters. “People won’t stand for that. They won’t buy it. Even worse, they’ll one-star each book in their reviews and complain about overcharging for digital content that doesn’t cost anything to produce.”
“Who would dare to one-star the word of God?” God roars, sending spasms of fear throughout the publisher’s body.
“Not I,” reiterates the publisher, who is barely able to speak. “But why do this, God?” the publisher asks. “The Bible is the best selling book of all time. Do you really need the money?”
“No,” God grumbles, his voice lowered. “I just want to have more book titles published than L. Ron Hubbard.”
DISCLAIMER!!
Yes, we’re pretty sure that God doesn’t care about book sales, but if any author could irk God, it might have been L. Ron. Hubbard.
We dysfunctional literates get sidetracked easily.
*****
UPDATE- June 20, 2018
Yeah, I know this is a lame blog post. As tempting as it is to delete it (and it’s tempting), I’m leaving it up to show my development as a blogger/writer. Yes, I know this post sucks. I’m pretty sure I knew it sucked when I wrote it, but back then I saw this blog as practice because I knew nobody was reading it and I could experiment a little. Some experiments go horribly wrong.
Dysfunctional Literacy 