The ten most successful movies of 2014 have something in common: none are original stories. Two are based on books, five on Marvel comics. The 16th top grossing movie of the year, “Interstellar,” is the first on the list that isn’t a sequel or a prequel, isn’t a live action version of an animated classic, isn’t adapted from a comic.
Reevaluating Recovery
Apocalypse Soon
The subterranean saferoom lies approximately 20 feet under the ground. A pair of dead mice on the floor contributes to the unwelcoming air of the place. Dimly lit, the room has a low ceiling. In the main part of the house, there lies an adjacent saferoom separated from me by a thousand-pound bombproof door which is opened by cranking a massive revolving handle.
For the Record
Live and Let Die
Over the Top
Thad Pryor's Appeal
Dear Dean Edmonds,
On Thursday November 19th I met with Rochelle Mason and Cesar Cervantes, who had been informed (by whom I do not know) that I was involved with recent controversial posts on the anonymous social media app Yik Yak. Although they had no evidence other than a rumor “through the grapevine” as Ms. Mason put it, I came clean, believing that honesty was the best course of action given my embarrassment and shame for my actions.
Stay at Home, Dad
In 2011, Colby Lewis took a couple days off from work to spend with his family after the birth of his second child. The radio waves erupted in anger, questioning how the man could abandon his professional duties and scorning the idea that a father has any kind of role after childbirth. As a pitcher for the Texas Rangers, Lewis became the first Major League baseball player to ever take paternity leave and the first to take advantage of a recent policy granting players 24-72 hours off for the birth of their children. A maximum of 72 hours seems a trivial amount of time to embrace a new child and to adapt to the changing familial structures, yet the decision sparked outrage among some in the sports media.
Animal Dads
In nature, animal fathers get a bad rap. You’ve probably heard the story about the grizzly bear that ate his own cub or the guppy that swallowed his fry only moments after its birth. If you searched for examples of deadbeat dads, you’d find a wealth of information: the assassin bug devours his young like caviar and the power-hungry lion makes the perfect evil stepfather. But while the good animal dads may be few and far between, these seven examples offer a variety of unusual and admirable parenting techniques.
Behind the Heart-Shaped Sunglasses
Today, many recognize the line, “Light of my life, fire of my loins,” as the hook from Lana Del Rey’s song “Off to the Races.” However, those who have actually read Vladimir Nabokov’s masterpiece, Lolita, know it is the book’s opening line. Those familiar with both find Del Rey’s allusion offbeat since the references seem to suggest that she sees herself as the young “nymphet,” Lolita.
In Search of Middle Ground
When I was a kid, I would call all sorts of things “dumb” and “lame, and my father, a conservative, would reprimand me for using words that he said “disrespected the disabled.” I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. “That isn’t even what ‘lame’ means,” my kid self scoffed at him.
Eventually, I grew up and deviated from my father politically. I also discovered that what he had told me was right—according to the “liberal agenda” that he so often decried. I learned of the concept of anti-ableism, discussed mostly by politically liberal circles, which discourages the use of words like “lame,” “dumb,” “crazy” and other adjectives that have historically been associated with physical or mental impairment. The movement against ableism stresses that these words perpetuate the social stigma surrounding mental illness and disabilities.
Lately, I’ve been trying to phase such words out of my vocabulary. Meanwhile, what surprised me is the fact that my George Bush-supporting father agrees with everydayfeminism.com, a left-leaning website I worship.
A Letter to My Father
Despite marrying and having children with a woman who is half Chinese, you taught me to pass as “white.” You never did this explicitly, but the rules of the game dictated that if you taught me to live as a “white” person, with all the mental, physical and social regulations that come with it, I would have better chances of success in life. You knew this in the same way you tried to scare me with stories of gay predators when I was young. Society had deemed them dangerous and sick, and you simply wanted to keep me safe. Dad, it’s time to throw open the curtains and see your window. It’s up to you to break it.
First They Killed His Father
Who are you wearing?
Revelations
In 1976, a nurse named Karen Quigley walks into a hospital room in Charleston, South Carolina. Her patient is a 26-year old male with thick, bushy brows, blue-green eyes, a wide nose and a head of wavy dark hair. He has a herniated disc, and a pinched spinal nerve is sending sharp pain down his leg. He asks for something to read, so she loans him her pocket Bible. While reading, he has the urge to make marks in it. He asks his mother to buy him another copy, so as not to write in the nurse’s.
About a week later, he is discharged from the hospital, but still has extreme difficulty walking. He sets up a hospital bed in his duplex. His mother stays in town. He continues reading the Bible, and he remembers the nurse’s name.
Daddy's Boy
There are beautiful wooden racks built into the walls holding bottles of wine. The lighting is low, glowing orange or off-red. The wood floor is dark oak. Most of the diners are men, except for a table of three women. This is a masculine space.
Two men talk in the center of the fancy restaurant. They drink tall frothy beers. The OLDER MAN and the YOUNGER MAN are presumably father and son as they look alike and have a more than 20 year age difference. Both have broad shoulders and lean muscular builds. The older man is dressed as if he just came from work. He wears a trim midnight blue suit and the younger is in khaki pants and a washed blue oxford.
Give Daddy Some Sugar
She looks average enough wearing a polka-dotted button down, a green camisole and jeans. Her hair is dark brown, deeper than chestnut but not black. The standout feature on her petite face is her almost opaque hazel eyes; they’re larger than the rest of her facial features, but in a way that’s striking. She looks demure, even shy, amidst the dinnertime rush. At first glance, it’s hard to imagine this girl has a sugar daddy.
A Dream Deferred
My dad has cried three times in his life: the day his older brother died, the day his mother died and the day I called him a failure. The words came at the height of our most intense argument. My senior year of high school I was in a serious relationship with my closest friend. My parents never explicitly forbid me from dating, but it was an assumption they hoped I wouldn’t question.
Your Father Went Here Too?
With admissions decisions looming, I sat in my college counselor’s office seeking words of comfort. I had applied early decision to Colorado College, and there was not much else I could think about for those few days than how crushed I would be if I were denied.
“Don’t worry, you’re in,” Mrs. Meineke told me.
I wondered if she was only saying that because she knew my dad went to CC thirty years ago.
But she was right. I got in.
Letter from the editor - Daddy
Dear daddy,
There’s a poem by Philip Larkin I’d like to share with you (he wrote it back when people still read poems, so you might have heard of it). It sounds the battle cry for those of us who suffer from “daddy issues:”
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you…