The Case of the Changing Editions, or, Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery Chapters 13-17

Dinner was tasty, I must say. (I made Pad Thai pizza. Make some pizza dough, top with pad thai sauce, steamed chicken, scrambled egg, cilantro, mung bean sprouts, green onions and mozzarella. Tasty.)

Anyway, back to Nancy. If you’re just joining the Nancy Drew 1930 v. 1960 Bungalow Mystery play by play, start at the beginning:

Chapters 1-4, Chapters 5-8, Chapters 9-10, Chapters 11-12

The Case of the Changing Editions, or, Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery Chapters 11-12

I picked up all the stuff I had lying around the living room, put away the groceries, and started making dinner. Time for more Nancy! If you’re just joining us, I’m doing a chapter-by-chapter analysis of Nancy Drew #3: The Bungalow Mystery–the 1930 edition and the 1960 edition (the 1960 is the one that’s currently available.)

Chapters 1-4, Chapters 5-8, Chapters 9-10

The Case of the Changing Editions, or, Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery Chapters 9-10

Be sure to read the first and second installments of this Nancy Drew comparison!

The Case of the Changing Editions, or, Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery Chapters 4-8

Ok, I’m back with more Nancy mania for you! I went to the coffee shop this afternoon and read the next 4 chapters! I’ve noticed a few things–

The 1930 edition has much shorter chapters– I’m about 12 pages further into the 1960 edition. Also, the 1960 has a much faster moving plot, where in 1930, they go into a lot more detail on various escapades… This chapter-by-chapter analysis shows some BIG differences in plot outline…

(Read the first installment here)

The Case of the Changing Editions, or, Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery

They’re re-realeasing Sweet Valley High, but with some updates. The various blogs/discussion lists I read are fairly upset, especially as the Wakefield twins have gone down 2 sizes from a “perfect size 6” to a “perfect size 4”. Yes, this reflects actual changes in how women’s garments are sized, yes this probably contributes to body image issues… blah blah blah. Frankly, I never liked SVH, so I really don’t care. I think many of the complaints people are lodging can be lodged against a great many of teen series and… yeah, I don’t really care.

BUT! It gave me the idea to do something else: Did you know that Nancy Drew was radically written in the 60s to make it more PC? (Hilarious given how un-PC she is by current standards.)

I feel weird blogging about this, because Geek Buffet founder Dana is much more the Nancy expert than I am, but she has kindly loaned me some of her original edition Nancy Drew’s. I thought it would be a fun experiment to read the 1930 edition of The Bungalow Mystery alongside the one that is currently available (the 1960 revised edition).

So, join me as I do a chapter-by-chapter analysis!

Blatant or Latent?

Last night, Mark and I went out to dinner in Durham, NC. We went to the area of a few blocks of trendy independent restaurants, bookstores, and retailers intent on appealing to cool college students. We parked in a well-maintained public parking lot, surrounded by a very upscale apartment complex on one side, the shops on the other side of the street, and the swanky restaurant where Mark’s company had its holiday party on a third side. Given daylight savings time, it was still broad daylight.

As we got out of the car and started to cross the parking lot, we were stopped by a 30s-ish white guy in an expensive SUV. He rolled down his window and said, “Excuse me, can you tell me if this area is safe? I don’t know anything about Durham.” I honestly think it took me a couple of seconds to be able to answer him.

To say that he knew nothing about Durham was obviously an overstatement, because he clearly knew just enough about Durham to have 1) found his way to the trendy part of town, and 2) formed a very poor and stereotyped opinion of the city. And just to be clear, he wasn’t asking if this was a safe place to park his car. He was asking if he was going to get mugged or shot.

10 Things I Hate About You

In honor of Friday, something frivolous for all of us:

Today I have been pondering the mystery of why, out of all my favorite movies, I can’t seem to get enough of 10 Things I Hate About You. No matter how much I love a movie, I usually hit some kind of limit for how often I’m willing to see it. Not so with 10 Things. I once watched it 3 times in one weekend, which is unheard of for me. Even the soundtrack is addictive. But why?

Yes, it’s got the lovely Julia Stiles, who I generally adore, and the even more lovely Heath Ledger, who really needs no further explanation. There’s even the cute guy from 3rd Rock from the Sun, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Allison Janney, in a hilarious departure from her more staid West Wing role. Fine recommendations, all, but there must be more to it.

Brad Bird, Todd Haynes and the real audience of Barack Obama’s race speech

For me, the most striking part of Barack Obama’s uberspeech about race Tuesday was the extent to which he seemed to be talking directly to the individuals in the media, and not just in a facile “okay, this is a chance to change the weekly narrative” way.

Blogroll Additions: Many, Many Grinnell Blogs

The first blogroll addition was our friend Mike S.’s grad school blog, Ad Nauseam, on which he ponders issues of grad school life and being part of the academy in general. Though he himself is a literature person, and does indeed post on literature-specific issues, he also explores things like how an almost-done PhD TA is supposed to address professors, the role of academic blogging vs. peer-reviewed article publishing, and the point of theoretical work within the context of various field, just to point to a few of his recent post topics. Academics, go forth and read!

The second blogroll addition is where the “many, many Grinnell blogs” comes in, as Geek Buffet’s intrepid poetloverrebelspy/Hilary has started a blog to compile all the other blogs by past and present Grinnellians of all sorts, Grinnell Bloggers. One of our previous blogroll updates got a comment requesting such a thing, so here ya go! It’s quite an impressive list. Thanks, Hilary!

Yo-Yo Ma on Transnationalism

Last week’s “This I Believe” essay on NPR was by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who had some interesting things to say about transnationalism: A Musician of Many Cultures. Given that I just went to a conference on international education, this seemed particularly relevant, especially since the sessions I attended focused a lot on why study abroad experiences and cultural competency skills are important for more than just foreign language majors. Some excerpts:

I believe in the infinite variety of human expression.

I grew up in three cultures: I was born in Paris, my parents were from China and I was brought up mostly in America. When I was young, this was very confusing: everyone said that their culture was best, but I knew they couldn’t all be right.

I felt that there was an expectation that I would choose to be Chinese or French or American. For many years I bounced among the three, trying on each but never being wholly comfortable. I hoped I wouldn’t have to choose, but I didn’t know what that meant and how exactly to “not choose.”