Frosty the Snowman: A Tale of Terror and Holiday Cheer

Woops! I haven't done one of these in a long time. I meant to post this little ditty sometime during Christmas, but at first it seemed rather irreverent, then I just plum forgot about it.
So anyway...
A long while back, after posting the rewritten "Every Body (Backstreet's Back)" lyrics, I received the following challenge via comment from none other than M.A.D. (aka Mary Ann DeBorde; reader, writer, and fellow zombie lit enthusiast):

Mary Ann: Okay. I am now OFFICIALLY tossing down the gauntlet to ya (hehe)

ZG: Bring it!

Mary Ann: Let's see what morbid, post-mortem deliciousness you can do with... FROSTY THE SNOWMAN!

ZG: *gasp!* Oh, it's on like Donkey Kong!

And now, without further ado, or faux-macho posturing, I give you the dark and twisted tale of...

Frosty the Snowman

Frosty the snowman was a dark and twisted soul,

With a brimstone pipe and a broken nose

And two eyes that burned like coals.

Frosty the snowman is a fairy tale, they say,

He died in the snow but the children

Know he came back to life one day.

There must have been a curse trapped in that

Old candle they found.

For when they burned it on his grave

On his coffin he did pound.

O, Frosty the snowman

Was alive as he could be,

And the children say he would slice

And flay and come after you and me.

Thumpetty thump thump,

Thumpety thump thump,

Look out, here he comes!

Thumpetty thump thump,

Thumpety thump thump,

The devil's on the run.

Frosty the snowman knew

He'd soon meet his demise,

So he said, "Let's run,

We'll kill everyone

Now before I'm exorcised."

Down to the village,

With a big blade in his hand,

Running here and there all

Around the square hissing,

"Catch me if you can."

He led them down the streets of town

Right to the traffic cop.

His blade never paused a moment

Even when he hollered "Stop!"

But Frosty the snow man

Was banished by a priest,

But he waved goodbye saying,

"I can't die,

I'll be back again to feast."

Thumpetty thump thump,

Thumpety thump thump,

Look out, here he comes!

Thumpetty thump thump,

Thumpety thump thump,

The devil's on the run.

Share that one with the kiddies. On second thought, don't. It even creeps me out, and it came my brian!



My Take On: The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson

Seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox has just awoken from a year-long coma—so she’s been told—and she is still recovering from the terrible accident that caused it. But what happened before that? She’s been given home movies chronicling her entire life, which spark memories to surface. But are the memories really hers? And why won’t anyone in her family talk about the accident? Jenna is becoming more curious. But she is also afraid of what she might find out if she ever gets up the courage to ask her questions. What happened to Jenna Fox? And who is she really?

This futuristic book looks at the consequences of medical advancements and asks what it means to be human.

I don't want to write a rave, but I'm afraid that is what this will turn into anyway. The truth is that this book was just plain amazing. The characters and back story, the questions asked and answered, the relevance of the story--it all lined up for me to make for very good reading.

  Jenna is a pitiable and relatable girl who has one problem: She can't remember anything about her life. Not her favorite color, or if she had friends, or what foods she likes. She can recite literature as if were before her eyes, yet she struggles with basic colloquial English and with reading peoples' faces. These and other things about her life lead her to make a disturbing and life and altering discovery--the likes of which I'm sure you'll be able to guess before the book reveals it, but which I will not be mentioning lest I ruin the story for you.
  This book had, not only some serious moral questions about how far is too far with the advancements of medicine and prosthetics, but also religious undertones that kept me satisfied. Jenna's grandmother, who seems to hate her for unknown reasons, is a devout woman, and through her Jenna comes to question the existence of her very soul. It was interesting, to say the least, reading about Jenna's identity struggle and having it put on such a profound level. It was also deeply satisfying to see how that particular struggle resolved itself.
  The whole book, while focusing mainly on Jenna and her search for the truth, also shows the true life struggle of a family going through the nightmare of nearly losing a child and coming to grips with that beloved child growing into their own person. What they ultimately need to learn is that it's not about letting go so much as holding on less tightly.
  Jenna struggles, not just with her humanity and the world around her, but with her role as the object of adoration of her devoted parents and the pressure she feels to be perfect and please them.
  Awesome story telling, great character development, loads of depth, and an ending that you'll read two or three times before setting the book down make this lightly-scifi tale of the meaning of humanity worthy of...

...five zombies.

An excellent book with a lot of depth and morality, and just the right amount of scifi-ness, makes this one of the best I read in 2010.



My Take On: Nomansland by Lesley Hauge

Sometime in the future, after devastating wars and fires, a lonely, windswept island in the north is populated solely by women. Among these women is a group of teenaged Trackers—expert equestrians and archers—whose job is to protect their shores from the enemy. The enemy, they’ve been told, is men.

When these girls come upon a partially buried home from the distant past, they are fascinated by the strange objects—high-heeled shoes, teen magazines, make-up—found there. What are they to make of these mysterious things, which introduce a world they have never known? And what does it mean for their strict society where friendship is forbidden and rules must be obeyed—at all costs?

Reminiscent of The Giver but with a feminist twist, Nomansland is a powerful, shocking story that will challenge young readers’ perspectives and provoke much discussion over the timely and controversial issues presented.

Nomansland is a love it or hate kind of book. You're either going to love the symbolism and thought provoking nature of it, or you're going to hate the lack of action and dialogue-driven writing.
Personally, I loved it. Based on the synopsis, I was expecting more action. I mean, it's about teenaged equestrian archers fighting off men, right? Yes and no.

The story is a first person account of Keller, a young Novice Tracker, who discovers that the world she knew isn't what it seems. The writing was without flourish, but then, so was Keller and the world she lived in. The landscape was as harsh and grey as the society she was raised in; iron skies to match the iron fists.
What really makes this book stand out to me is the thought provoking views of femininity and the question: What does it mean to be a woman? To some members of the austere Foundland society, it means sneaking into the nursery where the girl children live to sing them to sleep; to others it means pinching your cheeks till their quite red in a forbidden attempt to look beautiful; but to most of the women, it is a mystery.
Keller was raised thinking that anything "feminine" was evil; they call these evils Pitfalls. There are seven Pitfalls: reflection, decoration, coquetry, triviality, vivacity, compliance, and sensuality. It is these seven rules that give the women their identity and keep them from dwelling on such trivial things as vanity and friendship, yet at the same time they cause their lives to be trivial and empty in a different way. The Pitfalls are seen as the very root of the weakness from the Time Before that Keller's society tries so hard to forget. Their women are one, they are unified, they are strong. Yet they are lonely. And they have no idea of the true power of women because they are raised in fear of their true selves, of every womanly inclination.

In this society, girls are raised from birth to fear men, who were portrayed as slavering barbarian animals bent on savaging and conquering them and their island. They live a delicate balance between fear and loyalty. I'd say that there was a certain level of Stockholm-Syndrome going on in this tale because Keller both loved her society and was willing to toil and even die for it, yet she lived in constant fear that the leaders would come bearing the Seed or that they would be locked away in the Darkness, possibly never to return, or else receive cruel beatings. Their society practiced a variety of evils that I found appalling, the most offensive of which pertained to the murder of all male infants and the forced impregnation of chosen women, though these points were veiled or not really spoken of. They were incredibly, and realistically, taboo.
There were many views of femininity portrayed in this novel--from out and out fear and misunderstanding of it, to the vain embrace of beauty as the pinnacle of it, to a disordered view that one sex can exist completely without the other, and even a healthy view of masculinity and femininity's compatibility. I feel that all sides were told here; from rational to irrational; from true womanliness to extreme, radical feminism. For me, reading from a Christian perspective, I found the most normal, healthy, and true understanding of what it means to be a woman in those characters who, despite the threat of punishment and the fear that they were raised with, discovered that man and woman were not meant to be enemies. They complement each other because they were made for each other, and one cannot live solely without the other, not in the way that the Foundlanders did.

I give Nomansland...

...five zombies!

I was afraid Nomansland would be a thinly veiled feminist rant about how women don't really need men or how they can deny their nature, but I need not have been worried. The moral of this story is that womanhood is a uniquely powerful blessing. Some people make it seem like a burden or a disease, and that makes me sick, but Hauge portrayed womanhood as being a strength and, ultimately, that woman cannot exist without man, and vice versa. That's what makes this one of the best books I read in 2010.

Walk For Life

Today's the big day. Bigger for some than others, such as those lucky enough to go to DC, but big nonetheless. I'll be participating in a local Walk for the Respect of Life later today to show my support for life and to execrate1 the legalized murder that is abortion.
It would be easy for me to just say that I'm "ProLife" and be done with it, but I think it would really be far more productive to explain why I am. It would also make for more interesting reading for y'all.

The reasons I utterly detest abortion are simple. A life is a life, and every life is a gift from God. To destroy something, and by "something" I really mean someone, that He created is evil. It's evil to kill a baby in their mother's womb, just as it is evil to kill a baby in their mother's arms. Your pulling a trigger. Your ending a life.

But that brings up that whole, "When is a life a life?" debate, which you'd think would be a whole nest of thorns that could never be untangled, but really it's quite easy to debunk. Life begins at conception. Simple as that. An embryo in the womb is a human being from the moment the cells come together; what else could it be other than human life? An unborn baby, no matter how early on in the stages of development it is, is a living human being from the moment it was conceived because it was created by the union of two humans. It cannot be anything but a human being. Furthermore, and brace yourselves, because I'm pulling out the big guns, the Bible says, after the angel of Lord visited Mary and she conceived by the Holy Spirit, that she visited her cousin Elizabeth because she was also with child, and, "When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out, 'Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb [Jesus].'"2 Jesus was Jesus from the moment he was conceived, and the same is true for us as well because He was True God and True Man. And notice the wording; Elizabeth didn't say, "Blessed will be the fruit of your womb." She said, "Blessed is." That one verb explains simply and completely the value of a human life from conception to natural death.

Another reason I loathe abortion is because of the havoc it wreaks on our world and on individual souls. In our world, the further propagation of abortion increases sexism. Now, hear me out. We've been led to believe that birth control has set us free, that being able to "do it" the same as guys and not have to worry about getting pregnant has given women a leg up in the world. But the truth is that birth control and abortion turn sex and the natural consequences there of--that being the creation of another human life-- into something less than it was ever meant to be, and thus it turns partners into something less than they are meant to be. By saying that sex is for anything other than giving love, you are saying that people are meant for something less love. It turns people into objects of pleasure, into material things with less value. But every human being who has ever or will ever live, even if they are denied the fundamental right of being born, is of far more value than you could ever hope to comprehend. God loves each and every one of us as if we were the only person He had ever created. You are unrepeatable and irreplaceable, as is every other human being. That is why it's so wrong to kill someone, even an unborn or unwanted baby, because God so loves that person that He gave up His only Son.
As for the aforementioned havoc wreaked on individual souls: Killing is a sin. A big, big, big sin. It stems from pride, which is putting yourself or your will above the divine will of God, and such an act destroys the sanctifying grace in your soul. Basically, it runs Jesus' presence out of your soul and utterly destroys the relationship you have with God. I cannot possibly stress how bad this is. It's the difference between heaven, eternal happiness in the Presence of God, and hell, eternal separation from the divine and glorious Presence of God. We're talking life and death here, the life of your soul. So, one of the biggest reasons I hate abortion is because it will cause people to lose eternity with God. God wants to be with all of you in heaven. It's what you were made for. But if you choose to kill a person, to destroy someone that God loves in defiance of His will--and his will for pregnant ladies is that they bear children--then you are in extreme danger of losing that eternal happiness.
Now I want to make a couple things crystal clear; I am not condemning anyone. It's not my place to do so, and even if were, I wouldn't want anyone to. Furthermore, I hold only grief and remorse in my heart toward those women who choose to subject themselves to such a horrendous and scarring procedure. I can't imagine what that must make you feel, and I wish that i could turn everyone of you away from it for your and your baby's sake.

And lastly, I have a little story to share: Dorothy Day, a woman who is destined to be a saint, had an abortion. But she repented. She realized that what she had done was fundamentally wrong and offensive to God, and she asked for His forgiveness. She joined His Church, and turned her life completely around.
I once heard someone very wise say that the True Cross is located before the gates of hell, and that Jesus will do anything to keep even one soul from going through them.
I hope that by walking today and by posting this, that I'm helping Jesus turn people away from this most grievous sin and toward His eternal love and forgiveness.

Please join us in prayer to end abortion and save lives3--and souls.

footnotes_____________________________________________

1.  Definition of EXECRATE

     transitive verb

    1: to declare to be evil or detestable : denounce

    2: to detest utterly
2.  NAB, Saint Joseph Edition. Luke 1:41-42.

3.  3,600 lives a day.

Contest Alert!

Here's DL1, the skinny, the deets, the 411 and what all the hullabaloo is about: Ren2 of All by MySHELF3 is hosting a contest in celebration of her new layout!
One winner will have their choice of the following titles:

Dead is Not an Option by Marlene Perez

Outside In by Maria V. Snyder

Serpent's Coil by Christy Raedeke.

Ends Jan. 20th at 11:59 pm.
For more details and to enter click HERE.

Good luck!



footnotes__________________________________________________
1.  "LD" stands for the "low down", a slang phrase meaning "information". Not to be confused with "DL" which is an abbreviation of "down low", meaning to keep something secret.
2.  The blogger formerly known as Dahlia
3.  The blog formerly known as Dahlia's Eclectic Mind. Personally, I'm glad she's changed the title to something with less Cs. It was sort of like a tongue twister, trying to type that!

My Take On: Flight #116 Is Down by Caroline B. Cooney

Teenager Heidi Landseth helps rescue people from a plane crash on her family's property, and the experience changes her life forever.

Just as the synopsis is brief, so too will my review be.

"There is no such thing as time... man invented it, but pain and fear are not acquainted with it,"1 though, Caroline B. Cooney proves that she is the master of it. This book is an old fall back for me because no matter how many times I read it, it still excites me, still gets the old juices flowing.

The story follows several characters' perspectives in a minute-by-minute, blow-by-blow writing style that lets you see the full scope of the event and feel a range of emotions. The change from calm to chaos to yet more chaos might seem a bit jarring to some, but that was the point. I enjoyed the stark difference between the nothingness of the families' breathless wait in the airport to the hellish havoc of the Dove House Crash2.
The story focuses on Heidi, an undervalued rich kid who happens to have a plane crash in her on her estate; Patrick, a junior EMT who longs for something, anything, to happen in his small town so he can really test his merit; Carly, a teenaged passenger on board the flight who wants nothing more than to go home and be reunited her with her twin after having run away; and Daniel, another teen passenger who, along with his younger brother, is going to his father's second wedding against his will. The story follows several other characters, but these are the main narrators.
In the space of one night, all of their lives are changed, some ended, by this one event. And we have a front row seat to the excitement! And I'm not being morbid; what really makes me love this book is the heroic, Good Samaritan nature of it. Everyone who showed up on the scene, and everyone showed up, had so much love to give. That was the point that Cooney returned to again and again: Love. Not everyone was a saint, and not everyone had a lot to contribute, but everyone did give, even if all they could do was brew coffee or hold a hand. And so many of the amazingly real, down to earth characters had a lot more than they could have conceived to give. take Heidi for instance; her parents have no pride in her and she feels that she is pretty near useless, but she rises to the occasion so well and keeps her head on her shoulders. She saves lives and makes friends and grows a sense of value in herself that she hadn't had before.
Okay, before I go on too much longer--I give this book...

...five zombies!

So my review wasn't as brief as I first intended, but it's not War and Peace long, so I'm pleased.

Happy reading, cheerio, and God bless you all,

footnotes___________________________________________________

1.  Quote taken from page 124.

2.  Heidi's century-old, palatial home was called Dove House because it looked a like a ginormous English dovecote. So, plane crash + Dove House = Dove House Crash. Heidi was not happy about this development.

The REAL #1 Killer in America

More lives are lost to this than to
                                   heart disease,
                  cancer,
                                   lung disease,   
          accident,
                       you name it.

In fact, in 2005, 49% of all deaths in the United States were caused by this.

And it was 100% preventable.

But don't take my word for it.



Visit AbortionBlackout.org

When I found this site earlier through Twitter1, I was blown away by the numbers. I felt like something drained out of me. 3,600 people are killed every day. By their mothers. It made me feel cold. Innocent human life taken by the ones that should cherish it the most.

So please. Watch the video. Visit the site. Face the facts. Make a change.

footnotes_____________________________________________________

1. I found the link in a tweet by @Sr-Lisa, a sister in Rome, Italy, who enjoys graphic design and techy stuff. Her tweets are excellent; none of this trivial stuff that you see clogging up the Trends.