The Girl On Fire, The Son of Poseidon, The Boy Who Lived and Others

I literally, a minute ago, put down Mocking Jay, the third and final book in The Hunger Games series. I've been completely blown away by the series, it was beautiful, terrifying and addictive. The story of The Hunger Games is that post apolcalyptic North America is separated into 12 districts and led by an autocratic capital, and the nation is called Panem. It's an ancient Roman model, with the Capitol overflowing with riches and the districts, like Roman provinces serving the Capitol in some way. Once a year "tributes" are chosen, two from each district and they enter an arena and fight to death in The Hunger Games, for Panem's entertainment. Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of The Hunger Games, goes off to the games in place of her younger sister Primrose, and inadvertently ignites a rebellion against the Capitol. Along the way she earns the love of her fellow tribute Peeta, which competes with the affection of her long time friend, Gale. There's so much more to it, but I absolutely could not do it justice. Read the books, they are completely worth it.

But allow me to put my reading of The Hunger Games into context. Many people are aware of the pop culture syndrome known as Post Potter depression. That is, people who find their summer's detached and meaningless without a new Harry Potter book to consume. I have proudly staved off this particular disorder, but only barely, and I've done it in a very specific calculated way. Rather than sink under the unbearable thought of losing Harry and friends, I've found myself other series to occupy my mind in the meantime.

The first one was Twilight. While Bella Swann and her hot monster love has about as little to do with The Boy Who Lived as possible, it did the job pretty credibly. I was consumed in who Bella would choose in the end (really? Do I need to get into my opinion on that one again?) almost as much as I wanted to find out if Snape was good or evil. I read all four books in one summer, I certainly didn't feel an empty longing to return to Hogwarts. Even if the finale was a bit of a disappointment, and not just because Bella was stupid and chose wrong, I appreciated what the books had to offer.

After Twilight, came Percy Jackson and The Olympians. Here I found what I really needed, a sometimes bumbling, homicidally brave, young male hero who had to save the world whether he wanted to or not. Plus he went on adventures, had a spunky smarter than him girl sidekick, and a hapless boy sidekick. He had rivals who turned out to be important allies, and parentage that isolated him from the rest of his friends. I actually had to wait a little bit for these ones, because the final book, The Last Olympian didn't come out until after I'd finished the previous four. AND there's a sequel series, The Heroes of Olympus which is keeping me in enough anticipatory excitement to fill a Hagrid sized void.

Post Percy was stranger. Nothing was showing itself to fill the void. Nothing to keep me from missing my favorite young witches and wizards. I tried James Patterson's Maximum Ride series, not for me. Even Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries, which were the basis of True Blood, which I adored didn't do it. But, what? What could possibly fill that hole, besides the endless indecisive whining of the world's most innocuous teenage girl beloved for unknown reasons by two hot immortals, or the epic adventures of teen age demi gods in New York city? Then it came, like a brief flash of glory...

WE ARE SEX BOB-OMB! 1...2...3...4!

Yes, his name was Scott Pilgrim. He was 23, he was dating a high schooler, he met the girl, literally, of his dreams, and had to defeat her 7 evil exes to win her love. Scott, Ramona Flowers, Knives Chau, Kim Pine et al, amused me sufficiently enough. And then this summer approached, and I made the decision, based on all the speculation about the film version, it was going to be The Hunger Games.

Anyway, being the freakish pop culture junky that I am, I imagined a little scene, in which Harry Potter, Bella Swann, Percy Jackson, Scott Pilgrim and Katniss Everdeen all sat down in some kind of hero support group:


Harry: Hello, you all know each other, but let's introduce ourselves anyway. My name is Harry Potter, and my parents were murdered by the most evil wizard of all time. I survived and became a celebrity, but I was raised away from that by my abusive relatives. Once I got to wizard school though, everyone thought I was awesome, and then lots of people died because of me. Next?

Bella: My name is Bella, and I fell in love with this mega hot guy at first sight, and it turned out he was a vampire and he loved me too, except, I don't know why because he is the greatest human to ever live and I am scum. Anyway, then he left me, because why wouldn't he, I'm awful? So, I started hanging out with this other guy, who fell in love with me, and I kinda liked him too, and it turned out that he was a werewolf, and then my boyfriend came back and I was all "See ya!" and I started a war and they both almost died and then I had the vampire's half vampire baby, and I became a vampire and then the werewolf fell in love with my baby, and we all lived happily ever after. Except for that whole, you know, vampire thing.

Percy: My name is Percy, my mom boinked the god of the sea, even though he wasn't supposed to do that anymore, so I was born and monsters were always trying to kill me, and then my mom got kidnapped by Hades and my Latin teacher turned out to be a centaur, and this guy who I thought was nice turned out to be manipulated by the Titan Kronos, and I had to lead a war against the Titans, and meanwhile, my best friend, who's mom Athena hates my dad was all in love with me, and I loved her too, except there was this other girl. That's not important, anyway, we won, but I still have to fight monsters a lot, and it sucks.

Scott: Hi, my name is Scott Pilgrim, and I'm awesome. I used to be in a band, and...I guess, I don't know, my girlfriend has seven evil exes, but it didn't start that way...I was dating this seventeen year old Chinese Girl, because my ex girlfriend became a rock star...but look, I got to use a SWORD, a ninja sword. And there was something about subspace...can we eat now?

Katniss: Um, I'm new, my name is Katniss. I grew up in a district of a totalitarian controlled super city, hunting in the woods with my best friend and singing bird songs with my father. Then my father died, and I had to take care of my little sister. Then she got selected to go to this tournament to the death and I volunteered to take her place, and it turns out the guy who they sent with me has always been secretly in love with me, which it turns out I love him too, except I also love my best friend and I really didn't have time to deal with those issues, because I was too busy trying to stay alive and stuff, and then they started calling me The Girl On Fire or The Mockingjay and I had to lead a rebellion when all I wanted to do was hunt and protect my sister and maybe figure out which guy I liked. And lots of people died and it was ALL MY FAULT.

Harry: I so get that. It's hard when lots of people die because of you. Also when they give you stupid names, like, "The Chosen One" or "The Boy Who Lived."

Bella: Who did you pick? That's the most important part!

Percy: Trying to stay alive when everyone wants to kill you is probably the worst thing ever!

Scott: What? I uh, fell asleep. Does my hair look OK?

And that friends, is how you beat Post Potter depression...

RIP Big Man

It's been a while since I posted, and I could easily write pages and pages and pages about the unbelievable loss to music that the passing of Clarence Clemons represents.

I nearly burst into tears yesterday, before he even died, because I heard "Edge of Glory" on the radio, and while the song is good, The Big Man's work on it is haunting and gorgeous.

But really, I can't stop thinking about the first time I saw a Springsteen concert and it was just billed, "Bruce Springsteen with special guests The Max Weinberg 7."

I was 13 and I was terrified that Clarence wouldn't be there...and then thrilled when he was.

It's all terribly, terribly sad.

The change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band
From the coastline to the city all the little pretties raised their hands
I'm gonna sit back right easy and laugh
While Scooter and the Big Man bust this city in half
With a 10th Avenue freeze out.
-10th Avenue Freeze Out - Bruce Springsteen