Hitchcock Workshop: Creepy and Delicious November 5, 2009

What food in your refrigerator makes the best fake blood? How should you angle the camera if you want someone to appear menacing and creepy? These are the types of questions that preoccupied Alfred Hitchcock, the masterful director of macabre, tightly-plotted, classic suspense films like The Birds, Rear Window, and Strangers on a Train. Hitchcock was famous for his precision as a director: shots were carefully plotted far in advance, editing was scrutinized, and special effects (like the sound of a stabbing) were achieved through imaginative use of everyday objects.

On Thursday, October 22nd, 2009, in honor of Teen Read Week, the Loft hosted a film workshop devoted to the works of Hitchcock. Inspired by the theme of the week – Read Beyond Reality – we decided to “Think Like Hitchcock,” and explore the world as captured by the late ingenious film director. What follows is a wrap-up of that dark and drizzly afternoon.

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The day started off small. We watched scenes from Rope, Vertigo, Spellbound, and Psycho, analyzing each for their point of view shots, editing, inventive camera movements and set mechanics, and simple special effects. We talked about how Hitchcock used these elements to increase a sense of dread in his audience. The dream sequence in Spellbound (designed by Salvador Dali), as well as the grisly childhood accident flashback and final gun-in-your-face POV shot were riveting. We leafed through Bill Krohn’s excellent book, Hitchcock at Work, and discussed the use of storyboards and grand locations like the Golden Gate Bridge in Vertigo and Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest.

One thread in conversation centered on Hitchcock’s aprupt endings, how it seemed like he was more obsessed with the cinematic process of reaching the end of each film than the actual endings themselves. We discussed how, in a way, this is a model approach to life – endings and beginning are brief, it’s what you do in the middle, the attention and care that you pay to living, that count.

Maybe if Marion Crane in Psycho had understood this she would have noticed the door opening behind her, the blurry figure approaching…

When we watched the shower scene in Psycho and Marion’s screams and Bernard Herrman’s classic score rented the air the whole room stopped dead – teens on computers, teens looking for books, teens studying – and everyone turned to watch. When it was over, and Marion lay slung over the edge of the bathtub, the water dripping off her fingertips, the room exploded with Hitchcock chatter. Who knew? Turns out there were some serious Hitchcock buffs in our midst.

Which was great because they all joined us for the second half of the workshop, what I dubbed The Fruit Stabbing.

When Hitchcock was making Psycho he asked his props master to line up a whole slew of fruits and vegetables and knife each one to find the best stabbing sound. With about 8 teens in the center of the Loft we re-created this Psycho production moment; I challenged them each to “think like Hitchcock,” to choose the best effect for their own murderous shower scenes.

On a table I laid out a cantaloupe, honey dew melon, tomato, carnival squash, pineapple and more, and I stabbed each of them with a large butcher knife. Some fruit were an obvious No, like the too-ripe papaya, but others, like the squash, gave us pause. Sides were chosen, with friendly arguments erupting regarding the best sounds of the knife. (Check out pics from the Fruit Stabbing in the Loft Flickr stream in the margin to the right).

Lore has it that Hitchcock settled on a watermelon. Our group was finally torn between a pineapple and a large, onion-shaped turnip. Finally, after careful consideration and a final vote, the turnip won.

Then we devoured the produce.

I never imagined the Hitchcock workshop would turn into a discussion about food, nor did I imagine it would become a delectable feast, but we’d obviously worked up an appetite. The teens were ravenous. While Loft staff cut up the melon we started talking about spaghetti squash, inspecting the inside of the turnip to figure out exactly what it was (with some even biting into the vegetable raw) and generally chowing down. We ate up almost everything – cantaloupe, honey dew melon, even the tomato was consumed like an apple. And I was worried about wasting food.

While we ate we also talked about our favorite Hitchcock films with The Lady Vanishes, Vertigo and The 39 Steps recommended as favorites. Yum.

When it was over, the table covered in fruit flesh, seeds, and rinds, one teen checked out Spellbound to take home, while others vowed to seek out more Hitchcock soon. I kept a pretty squash for myself.

Thank you, everyone, for a great event!

(Jarrett, The Loft)

Creature of the Night By Kate Thompson October 31, 2009

The instant Bobby sees the abandoned Skoda(car) in the driveway, he starts formulating a plan. It was his ma’s decision, not his, to leave Dublin; away from his friends that maybe aren’t the best influence, away from ma’s own set of problems.  Well, she may have moved them down to Ennis, but he would get back to Dublin. In Dublin, there’s his cousin Fluke, Psycho Mick, and Beetle; his gang. They steal cars and wallets, and use the proceeds to get high.

It’s too quiet out in the country, and there’s nothing to do. There’s always something to do in Dublin; a car ‘to borrow’ and take for a ride, something, anything.  PJ Dooley, the man who owns the cottage they’re renting seems decent enough, if not a little bit too trusting.

His mother, Mrs. Dooley pays them a welcoming visit. Along with the eggs, she brings the story of the only child to have lived in their cottage, a little girl; a little girl who was never allowed outdoors, and was never seen by anyone except her parents and a nurse. This is the same child, whose cries would wake Mrs. Dooley and cut her to the bone with the pain in them.  To make the visit stranger still, as she leaves, Mrs. Dooley tells them to be sure to put out the little green bowl full of milk each night for the fairies. To city folk like Bobby and his mum, this seems ridiculous, but his little brother Dennis is happy to play along.

The idyllic country scene is shaken like an Etch a Sketch when Bobby steals the Skoda and high tails it back to Dublin. Things don’t go as planned. Bobby ends up being hauled into a police station after Mick crashes the car. Smooth talking and a bit of finger pointing get him off the hook, and a ride back to Ennis. This is where things change.

Lars, the Skoda’s owner may have mysteriously disappeared, but he’s not forgotten. PJ Dooley is determined to have Bobby work off the value of the car, in order that he should be able to send it  to Lars’s mother.

Remember the bowl of milk to be left out for the fairies? Dennis, Bobby’s little brother does. Bobby is woken up night after night by the sound of Dennis down in the kitchen, chattering away to someone. Dennis says he’s talking to the little woman.

As the story progresses two things are clear: hard work is good for Bobby, and there’s a mysterious force at work. As you turn the pages, you can feel it tightening around your chest. Something is going to give; the picturesque scene can’t and won’t stay as is. Will it be Psycho Mick, the creditors, or someone else from their past in Dublin? Maybe the girl who lived in their house; Bobby heard a disturbing story about her. Or what about that ‘little woman’ Dennis is always going on about?

Short chapters make this book fly by. Bobby isn’t always the most upstanding citizen, but you can’t help liking him. His voice rings true. You find yourself desperate to find out what or who is the creature of the night.

(Bridget, The Loft)

Sharon Flake Comes to the Evanston Public Library! October 28, 2009

On Thursday, October 29, at 7 pm, Sharon Flake will speak at the Evanston Public Library in the Community Room!  Flake is the author of the following acclaimed YA favorites: Money Hungry; Begging for Change; The Skin I’m In; Who Am I Without Him; and Bang!

 

To welcome Sharon Flake to the Evanston Public Library and to celebrate her stories, the Loft’s theatre troupe will perform a scene from Money Hungry. The dance troupe Variations will also perform! Don’t miss it! FREE.

YOU are one-third daffodil October 28, 2009

Did you know…

Most toilets flush in E-flat. -Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Bacteria account for 10% of our dry body weight. -Crispin Tickell

Two-thirds of the world’s people have never seen snow. -Canadian Weather Trivia Calendar 2008

The words “tomato,” “coyote,” “avocado,” and “chocolate” all come from the Aztec language Nahautl. -Marginal Revolution, February 22, 2006

At birth, most babies cry at C or C-sharp. -Financial Times, July 31, 2003

 

 

Facts shorn out of context can potentially bolster a weak opinion, and facts cunningly combined with other carefully selected pieces of information can distort truth. Sometimes it’s what people do with facts that is the most perplexing – and the most disturbing. Nonetheless, this entertaining compilation of facts has been collected to “amuse and astound,” and “perhaps to inspire its readers to see the world slightly differently.” I will spend the day wondering if the fact that most toilets flush in E-flat sheds any light on the history of music masterpieces.  (Christie, The Loft)

YOU Are One-Third Daffodil and Other Amusing Facts to Amaze, Amuse, and Astound, compiled by Tom Nuttall.

Teen Read Week October 20, 2009

What YA books have rocked your world lately? Let us know by posting a comment below. In the past few weeks, some of the books that Lofters have been excited about are:

Marcelo in the Real World, The Hunger Games, Ash, Catching Fire, Shooting Star, Never Die Easy: The Autobiography of Walter Payton, Fire, Front and Center, and Never Cry Werewolf.

Join us for our exciting end-of-the-week programs in the Loft (Hitchcock Film Effect Workshop, Science Cafe, and a Self-Defense Workshop)!

Teen Read Week – Chat with YA Authors Oct 19-23 October 17, 2009

Read something out of this world just for the fun of it, and let us know what you’re reading by leaving a comment below! We’ll be posting news all week about teen read week activities (sign up for Loft events if you haven’t already). Chat with young adult authors at the Readergirlz blog at 8 pm/Central, Monday, October 19th – Friday, October 23rd. Here’s the schedule.

Monday, October 19: Beyond Imagination

Justina Chen Headley (NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL)
Alyson Noël (EVERMORE)
Zoe Marriott (DAUGHTER OF THE FLAMES)

Tuesday, October 20: Beyond Hardship

Lorie Ann Grover (HOLD ME TIGHT)
Elizabeth Scott (LIVING DEAD GIRL)
Lynn Weingarten (WHEREVER NINA LIES)

Wednesday, October 21: Beyond Daily Life

Holly Cupala (TELL ME A SECRET)
Lisa McMann (WAKE)
Cynthia Leitich Smith (ETERNAL)

Thursday, October 22: Beyond Our World

Melissa Walker (LOVESTRUCK SUMMER)
Cassandra Clare (CITY OF ASHES)
Patrick Ness (THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO)

Friday, October 23: Into Our Beyond

Dia Calhoun (AVIELLE OF RHIA)
Sylvia Engdahl (ENCHANTRESS FROM THE STARS)

The Girl Who Threw Butterflies by Mick Cochrane October 15, 2009

Life is as unpredictable as a knuckleball. Molly learns that the hard way — her father has just died in a mysterious car accident. Her mother is in that ”distant, ticked-off, unreachable place.” Molly is left to navigate on her own the morass of 8th grade and grief. And the one thing that she knows can help her the most is BASEBALL.

 

Remembering the long afternoons playing baseball with her father, mastering the art of throwing a knuckleball, Molly decides to try out for the baseball team — the boy’s baseball team: “‘You don’t just aim a butterfly,’ her father used to say. ‘You release it.’ ” He told her that the knuckleball isn’t just a pitch but an attitude toward life, a way of being in the world — a philosophy… 

 

In Mick Cochrane’s The Girl Who Threw Butterflies, the characters are so well-drawn, the descriptions of baseball make me want tickets to the World Series and drew me into the magic of the game, and the rich metaphors and story brilliantly capture the transitions and struggles in the life of an 8th grader. For example, from her father “Molly understood that keeping score was a kind of storytelling, an almost magical translation of loud and dusty events in the world — a stolen base, an around-the-horn double play, a triple — into pencil marks, a kind of secret code, numbers and lines and shapes, like cuneiform or hieroglyphics, the handiwork of some ancient scribe.” From the baseball team Molly discovers that as the pitcher, if there’s a runner on first base, it’s her responsibility to talk to the shortstop and second baseman. It’s her job to call out who should take a bunt if the first and third basmen are both charging it. If Coach Morales touches his forearm, it means steal a base. If he touches the bill of his cap, it means bunt.  Molly loves this entire system of wordless communication.

 

She wonders if she could apply this system to the rest of her life, like when her locker is defaced, or when she’s sitting across the table from her mother at dinner. She would love to try and communicate some of their dinner conversations using signs. But then again there are many nights when she doesn’t see how she possibly could, because half the time she doesn’t even know what she wants to get across.

 

Even the signs and scorebook don’t show just how nervous a pitcher is, or how exuberant a teammate is when he clears the plate with a double, with all the attendant whistling and cheering. Or how terrible Molly feels if her knuckler has gone completely wild. “You’re cruising along one minute, feeling like you can do no wrong. Life is good, all’s right with the world. And then all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, things change.” Baseball = 8th grade = life.

(Christie, The Loft)

Change-Up by John Feinstein October 8, 2009

Stevie and Susan Carol are back! The intrepid "kid reporter" heroes of "Last Shot," "Cover-Up," and "Vanishing Act," return to the sports beat in John Feinstein's latest, "Change-Up: Mystery at the World Series."

It’s late October and the underdog Washington Nationals have just defeated the New York Mets to win the National League championship for the first time in 76 years.  Sniffing out a story in the Nationals’ locker room, 14 year old “kid reporter” Stevie Thomas meets Norbert Doyle, a quiet, reserved pitcher recently called up from the minor leagues.  Doyle’s back story is the stuff of dreams and Hollywood movies.  After losing his wife in a gruesome car accident, he toiled away unsung in the minors for close to 20 years while also raising twin kids as a single dad.  And now here he is, in his late 30s without a single major league win under his belt on his way to the World Series.

But, to Stevie, something’s not sitting right about Doyle’s story.

What’s worse, Susan Carol’s hiding things from him, including the details of her budding relationship with Doyle’s son.

Encouraged by his mentor at the Washington Herald, Stevie launches an investigation that takes him three hours away to Lynchburg, VA where he learns the toil of real shoe-leather reporting – analyzing police reports, conducting interviews, fact-checking, and barely escaping a vicious dog attack – and slowly begins to chip away at the dark secret encased in Norbert Doyle’s past.

But, what is he after?  And what does it have to do with baseball?

John Feinstein’s latest, Change Up: Mystery At the World Series, is a feast for baseball fans.  One of the things so exciting about Feinstein’s books is the way he applies his passion for sports, knowledge of the games, and experience as a real life sports reporter to the page.  When he describes a game play by play the writing crackles.  He captures the mounting tension of a possible no-hitter, the magic of witnessing baseball history. He sits you there in the press box where seasoned reporters trade off-the-cuff sports anecdotes, and he brings alive the locker room tension between print journalists looking for a relevant story and the boorish TV guys looking for a cheapo sound bite.

It’s great fun. Fans of Feinstein’s other “kid reporter” sports mysteries (Last Shot, Cover-Up, and Vanishing Act) will relish another well-plotted and gripping book led by Stevie and Susan Carol. But, with Change Up, Feinstein takes his usual whip-smart game to a higher level by focusing on the demands of investigative reporting, making it an excellent read for anyone who dreams of working as a writer one day.

A lot of the book reads like a tribute to the hard, unglamorous work of print journalism. As Stevie is drawn deeper into Doyle’s back story he learns the ropes of what it takes to be a great reporter – the inner fortitude and ingenuity you’ve got to tap when you hit a wall, the rigorous, painstaking process of gathering accurate information, and a commitment to your readers, the public, who deserve nothing short of the truth.

(Jarrett, The Loft)

Youth Job Fair on Wednesday, Oct. 7 October 3, 2009

Need a job? If you are 16 & up, come to the Youth Job Fair here at the Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave., from 1-4 pm this Wednesday, October 7.  Candidates should arrive by 3:30 p.m. Twenty employers looking to hire qualified candidates ages 16 and up are expected to attend. A resume and professional dress are recommended. For more information visit www.youthjobcenter.org or call (847) 864-5627.

Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson October 1, 2009

In observance of Banned Books Week, I picked up Laurie Halse Anderson’s Twisted to read.  It’s been challenged in a high school in Kentucky – Anderson’s blog has been tracking the details of the challenge – and earlier this week it looked like it was going to return to the AP English classes in which it was offered.  But, now the superintendent is holding the book back.  He wants “evidence” that this book is relevant, that it’s worthy of being classified as “college level” material. Well, here’s my best defense.

Twisted is a book about what it means to be a son, what it means to be a man, what it means to be a family.  It’s a book about what it’s like to stand on the cliff’s edge overlooking hell, feeling burned, tortured, seared, blistered by the heat, and then, instead of running, instead of submitting and throwing yourself into the inferno, choosing to face it, to fight back against it, to stand tall, to do what’s right and to fight for the light.

Like Anderson’s first novel, Speak, and her latest, Wintergirls, this is a book about a teen’s descent (in this case, a boy named Tyler) into isolation, humiliation, self-loathing, and pain, and the events that brought him there.  It’s about the high school (and corporate) cultures that harm, shut out, falsely accuse, mock, punish and fear the person who struggles, who acts out of conscience.  These are the systems, so easy to disappear into, that easily believe the worst about a person, that worsen or animate his fall with a leg stuck out to trip him, a fist in his face, and a pint of milk poured anonymously down his back.

This is a book about the cruelty of the suburban economic ladder, how its rungs deform people, and the false belief that final entry into the upper class – the outward appearance and acquisition of American wealth – will save your soul and your family’s soul.  It’s a book about the invasive pathogen of that mistaken belief, the invasive pathogen that can eat a family up, almost kill it dead.

But, Twisted is also about love, humor, and hope.  It’s about the few nourishing souls – a friend, a sister, a teacher, a mother – who try to get through to Tyler, who stick with him even when he’s at his worst, who care enough to believe the best about him, who are unimpressed by postures, but who understand the need to let the rage out.

Anderson skewers those false creeds of masculinity that subtly or overtly beset boys everywhere – that you must be unfeeling, that you must “bag” a girl no matter what the circumstance, that respect for the opposite sex is optional (even disposable), that you must be physically strong to have worth, and that the drive for power above all else is the worthiest pursuit.  “The only thing on was commercials. Buy our razors and be a man. Buy our pit sticks and be a man. Spray this junk down your shorts and women will crawl all over you. Get a second mortgage. Buy a second car. Buy our razors.”

A “real man,” Anderson’s book argues, admits he’s weak, does the dirty work of standing up for what’s right, challenges loved ones when they’re hurting you, and doesn’t take advantage of others.

And it says all this with a funny, wry, fast-moving plot led by a really likable, believable character. Like in Speak, Anderson knows how to make us laugh, how to point up the absurdity in, well, life, even in the midst of a serious downward spiral.  See how the family, after a visit from the police and Tyler is tacitly accused by them of sexual misconduct, stalking, being generally a pervert and a freak, and after he’s pounded and snatched at and mocked and beaten in school for what he didn’t do to the most popular, beautiful girl around, just see how the family still dons reindeer antlers and bright red sweaters that Friday and forces themselves to pose happily for a Christmas photo.

The end of Twisted is full of hope.  Tyler, baseball bat in hand (because that’s the sort of weapon it takes to smash through the anger, cruelty, lies, and false fronts of angry detachment and criticism constructed by his father), descends into the basement to save his family’s life.  He’s a boy owning up to his weaknesses and fighting off his demons (real and imagined) and his story is told in the language of real, young adult life.

I don’t know what it means that a book is “college level” material. Did the book make me take a hard look at myself and past choices I’ve made in my life? Check. Did it make me think hard about the choices I will make in the future as a parent, a husband, a brother, and a son? Check. Did it make me wrestle with questions of family and the responsibilities of parents and teachers and each of us to be decent and assume the best of each other? Check. Did it make me resolve to face tough emotional conflicts instead of shrinking from them? Check. Did the book make me cast a harshly critical eye at the pursuits of money and sex and image that distract us and alienate us from one another? Check.

I don’t know if these are “college level” issues. But, I know that they’re deeply human issues and they’re evoked here with layered, engaging, and enjoyable writing. I don’t ask for much more in a book.

The sad irony in banning Twisted would be in the fact that those who would seek to censor it only prove the ultimate point of its story – that the more we hide from who we are and what the world is really like, the more small, rigid and twisted we become.

(Jarrett, The Loft)