Cosplay: Wearing Your Fandom

Japanese woman in cosplay outfit, Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan, Asia. Photography. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/151_2569803/1/151_2569803/cite. Accessed 14 Oct 2017.

For me personally, cosplay is the strongest and purest way to express your love for a fandom. Creating a costume from scratch by spending days and nights with your sewing machine or heat gun and using most of your hard-earned money to bring this dream to life takes passion and pure dedication. Before cosplay you just consumed the art and worlds of other artists by reading comics, watching movies or playing video games, but now you're becoming the artist yourself!
~Svetlana Quindt AKA Kamui Cosplay

We confess, our first introduction to cosplay was when we happened upon Shoichi Aoki's Fruits in the early oughts. This book of portraits of Japanese street kids in Tokyo's Harajuku district, taken from a popular fanzine of the same name, is probably more about fashion than cosplay, but it is about having fun with fashion. Though there are a lot of "Gothic Lolitas," you also find references to anime such as Sailor Moon popping up. But cosplay existed long before 2000. The first recorded cosplay (a portmanteau of costume play) involving an established character - as opposed to a masquerade or fancy dress party - took place at the 1st World Science Fiction Convention in 1939, according to Wikipedia, with fan costuming at conventions taking off slowly and primarily in party settings. The term cosplay was not actually coined until 1984, although fan costuming had been a phenomenon in Japan since the 1970s. Japan later became the home for cosplay cafés and the first World Cosplay Championship, one of many events for cosplayers.

Cosplay is not just a costume worn for a party or holiday. Cosplay costumes are drawn from any movie, TV series, book, comic book, video game, or anime and manga characters. Steampunk became a very popular look recently. Cosplayers often stay in character whenever in costume, although this kind of performance is more often seen in live-action role-playing (LARP). Some cosplayers just model their costumes without staying in character.You can buy costumes, or create your own from scratch - costumes are judged for accuracy, craftmanship, presentation, and audience impact in competition. There are those who cosplay "to create, learn, socialize, and be someone or something you've always dreamed of."

Other than cosplay-centered conventions, another place to find cosplay is, of course, any comic convention worth its salt - New Mexico has several options, including Bubonicon, Las Cruces Comic Con, and the Indigenous Comic Con (coming up in November!)  - or at the Renaissance Fair (locally, there's one in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe).

If you're interested in exploring cosplay, the library catalog has some titles that might help you along. As Kamui Cosplay says, "Being an artist means being free to express yourself and not be bound by skin color, sex or body shape. Dress up as whoever you want to be and enjoy all the different character interpretations you'll find on the convention floor."

How To Cosplay. Vol. 1.

The Hero's Closet: Sewing For Cosplay and Costuming by Gillian Conahan

The Costume Making Guide: Creating Armor & Props for Cosplay by Svetlana Quindt, aka Kamui Cosplay

Make: Props and Costume Armor - Create Realistic Science Fiction and Fantasy Weapons, Armor, and Accessories by Shawn Thorsson

Knits For Nerds: 30 Projects - Science Fiction, Comic Books, Fantasy by Joan of Dark, a.k.a. Toni Carr

Cool Japan Guide: Fun in the Land of Manga, Lucky Cats and Ramen by Abby Denson [eBook]

The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider's Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan by Patrick W. Galbraith

Leaving Mundania: Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-Playing Games by Lizzie Stark

Cult Film

Pythons In Armour. Photographer. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/115_2736202/1/115_2736202/cite. Accessed 21 Oct 2017.

Though many drive-ins have been shut down, and the practice of screening midnight movies in theaters has waned considerably from its heyday in the early 1970s, the thrill of sharing boundary-testing films in the dark can now be enjoyed just as well while curled up on the couch—no accompanying cult required... These films stubbornly refuse to be marginalized, lower budgets and lack of Hollywood gloss be damned.
~Themes: Cult Movies, from the Criterion Collection website 

The term “cult classic” gets thrown around a lot these days, usually to describe anything that wasn’t widely seen but has some vocal fans. There should be another word for that, because “cult” implies a whole other level of devotion. This list is about movies that inspire very unusual outpourings of support. Let’s put the “cult” back into “cult following.”
~Andy Hunsaker, "15 Movies With Crazy Cult Followings"

How do you define cult film? The two quotes above, the latter taken from the IFC website, seem to have a subtly different take on that question. Is a cult film just a B-movie or a midnight movie? Or is it something that has grabbed hold of at least certain moviegoers' imagination and become part of the culture of moviegoing, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show?

Criterion defines cult films from their own collection as Crumb, Eating Raoul, F for Fake, Fantastic Planet, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Eyes Without a Face, Harold & Maude, House, Koyaanisqatsi, Kiss Me Deadly, Man Bites Dog, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Repo Man, and Slacker. The IFC article, which, granted, is just the opinion of a single author, is more inclined towards Star Wars, The Big Lebowski, Evil Dead, Repo: The Genetic Opera, Clerks, Fight Club, Labyrinth, Star Trek, Serenity, and Showgirls. (Both lists do include David Lynch.)

Rolling Stone is more closely aligned with Criterion's definiton, but allows a little lee-way - "There's no single way to recognize a cult movie other than the simple fact that it's developed a fiercely devoted audience that watches it over and over, preferably at midnight in a theater packed with other die-hards." The website i09 also recognizes that you can debate cult status,  but we like their definition best: "A great cult movie is like a weird underground discovery, that feels so strange and wonderful, you suspect that you're the first person ever to appreciate it properly. But certain cult films have acquired fame and influence to rival any blockbuster, and have become part of our shared vocabulary."

How do you define cult film? Do you lean more towards a blockbuster big enough to warrant its own convention, or something more arty and obscure, perhaps involving audience participation at a late-night showing? Regardless of definition, many films, both popular and niche, have made their mark on our cinematic landscape. Our list of cult films, below, leans a bit more towards the midnight movie definition of cult, but we've thrown some more popular titles into the mix. Hope you find something that strikes your fancy!

The Blues Brothers	Blade Runner
Breathless	Brazil
Dark Star	A Clockwork Orange
Donnie Darko	Dazed and Confused
Easy Rider	Down By Law
Grey Gardens	Freaks
Heathers	The Harder They Come
The Lost Boys	The Hunger
Monty Python and the Holy Grail	Mommie Dearest
Office Space	Night of the Living Dead
Pink Floyd - The Wall	Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
Pulp Fiction	The Princess Bride
The Road Warrior	Reservoir Dogs
Taxi Driver	They Live
The Thing	This Is Spinal Tap
Time Bandits	Tremors
Two-Lane Blacktop	Zardoz

Young Adult Crossover

Close up of a young girl reading in the library. Photography. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/115_3955573/1/115_3955573/cite. Accessed 21 Oct 2017.

Teen Read Week ended recently, but we're still thinking about fiction for young adults - specifically, young adult crossover books, though the term "crossover" has a bit of a contentious history  -  you can read "A Brief History of the Crossover" on iO9, and Tor's website has a long-standing column called "Genre In the Mainstream" that dies into some of the issues surrounding genre crossover.

BookBrowse defines crossover as "books that are targeted at adults but are likely to be of interest/suitable for teens." The Oxford Research Encyclopedia says crossover may occur "from child to adult or adult to child audiences, or they may be explicitly published for both audiences... Children have been appropriating adult books for centuries," but only in the 21st century has it become a recognized genre. Author Maggie Stiefvater heartily agrees:

Some adults are the stereotypical teen, too. They love pop culture, they’re reluctant readers, they love to shop and gossip. I would argue that if you looked at the percentages, the number of those sort of readers are identical for ages 16 and 60. Age has nothing to do with it. That’s who these readers are... So what does this mean for crossover titles? Well, I think it means that the real power of a crossover title isn’t a novel’s ability to appeal to both teens and adults. I think the real power of a crossover title is a novel’s ability to appeal to a wide range of humans.

Stiefvater discusses titles like Twilight and the Harry Potter series as examples. She says that at all her book signings, the number of adults and teens attending has always been equal; that Harry Potter crosses age, and gender lines, because of the amazing world J.K. Rowling created. She suggests that there are adults who don't like child narrators in books, but they can forget that the Harry Potter books are written from the perspective of a child, because the world of the book "is, like our real world, concerned with many things, and so therefore, many different sorts of people can be concerned with it" and that "we have to give teens the credit they deserve. They are young adults. ADULTS. That means that they are as varied in their reading tastes and abilities as adults are." 

Adults reading novels aimed at young adults is, of course, not news. It was all the way back in 2014 that  Ruth Graham got readers all worked up with her essay "Against YA." It's a different world now - even the New York Times Book Review has a semi-regular column called "Y.A. Crossover." But what about teens reading books aimed at adults? Another author, Dan Josefson, made a list for Writer's Digest of some points that make a book appeal to both sets of readers, which are:

1. While you should certainly feel free to include characters of whatever age you choose, make sure there’s at least one teenager.
2. Make things more complex, not less.
3. It’s important, as in any other kind of book or story, that your writing feel honest and true.
4. In novels that involve both children and adults, issues of authority, of power and powerlessness, are often central.
5. The resolution of these novels is often tricky.  

Most of these points could be applied to any literary work, apart from always adding a teenager to the mix. There are adult books written with youthful protagonists, such as C. Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce series. And as Meg Wolitzer has pointed out, "individual taste is beautifully mysterious." Maybe your teen's varied reading tastes and abilities might be ready for some adult material.

Here are a few books marketed for adults that your teen might enjoy:

Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

March by John Lewis

Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

In the Sea There Are Crocodiles: Based on the True Story of Enaiatollah Akbari by Fabio Geda

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

Lowboy by John Wray

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

It's Fine By Me by Per Petterson

The Guineveres by Sarah Domet

The History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund

The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness

Boo by Neil Smith


But, if you're not ready for your teen to start reading adult titles, there's always New Adult, "fiction [which] encompasses books that feature protagonists in the 18-25-year-old age range (sometimes this is stretched to 30), and many popular titles feature college students in contemporary settings."

History of the Human Body

Hands. Photography. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/132_1280923/1/132_1280923/cite. Accessed 13 Oct 2017.

You've enjoyed popular works that combine science, history, and culture, such as books by Mary Roach (Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers) and Diane Ackerman (A Natural History of the Senses). Your interests are many and varied, and don't exclude the cosmetic. You are curious about the workings of the human body and how the body has been regarded over time - physiognomy and phrenology are ideas you've heard about before, for instance - and are not squeamish. You like to know how things work, and you don't mind finding out through observation rather than experimentation. If some or all of these statements apply to you, we have just the booklist for you!

Teeth

Teeth: The Untold Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle For Oral Health in America by Mary Otto

Hair

Hair: A Human History by Kurt S. Stenn

Plucked: A History of Hair Removal by Rebecca M. Herzig

Country Music Hair by Erin Duvall

Hair Fashion and Fantasy by Laurent Philippon

Of Beards and Men: The Revealing History of Facial Hair by Christopher Oldstone-Moore

Feet

Leonardo's Foot: How 10 Toes, 52 Bones, and 66 Muscles Shaped the Human World by Carol Ann Rinzler.

Nose

Being a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell by Alexandra Horowitz

Ears

Balance: A Dizzying Journey Through the Science of Our Most Delicate Sense by Carol Svec

Human Sexuality

The Anatomical Venus: Wax, God, Death & the Ecstatic by Joanna Ebenstein

Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Wilson

Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf

The Seeds of Life: From Aristotle to da Vinci, From Sharks' Teeth to Frogs' Pants, the Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Come From by Edward Dolnick [eBook]

Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story by Angela Saini [eBook]

Impotence: A Cultural History by Angus McLaren

Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body by Susan Bordo

Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners by Therese Oneill

General

Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body by Hugh Aldersey-Williams

Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin

The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel Lieberman.

Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums by Samuel J. Redman.

Illness & Death

In the Kingdom of the Sick: A Social History of Chronic Illness in America by Laurie Edwards

The End of Memory: A Natural History of Aging and Alzheimer's by Jay Ingram

Death's Summer Coat: What the History of Death and Dying Can Tell Us About Life and Living by Brandy Schillace

Make Mine Miniature: Crafting on a Small Scale

We have dabbled in a fair amount of crafts over the years - knitting, check; scrapbooking, check; sewing our own clothes (or at least costumes), check. But apart from a brief foray into knitting felted hearts to use as patches and an even briefer one into the world of mini-zines, we have generally shied away from anything miniature. The eyestrain! The fiddliness! The attention to detail! We've just never had the patience. But we are amazed by the amount of crafts that can be accomplished in miniature, from baking to creating tiny weapons to model-building to gardening to book-making. Do you like to create in miniature? Let us know your craft of choice in the comments! Or, for inspiration, check out our list below.

The Fairy House Handbook by Liza Gardner Walsh

Fairy Gardening: Create Your Own Magical Miniature Garden by Julie Bawden-Davis

Microcrafts: Tiny Treasures to Make and Share compiled by Margaret McGuire, Alicia Kachmar, Katie Hatz and friends

Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi: More Than 40 Itty-Bitty Minis to Knit, Wear, and Give by Anna Hrachovec

Amigurumi Toy Box by Ana Paula Rímoli

Carving Japanese Netsuke For Beginners by Robert Jubb

Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction: Build Implements of Spitball Warfare by John Austin

Miniature Scrapbooks: Small Treasures to Make in a Day by Taylor Hagerty

New Ideas for Miniature Bobbin Lace by Roz Snowden

Miniature Worlds in 1 1/2 Scale by Susan Penny

Basic Scenery For Model Railroaders by Lou Sassi

Pocket Pies: Mini Empanadas, Pasties, Turnovers and More by Pamela Clark

A Beginner's Guide to the Dolls' House Hobby by Jean Nisbett

Making Miniature Dolls With Polymer Clay by Sue Heaser

Minigami: Mini Origami Projects For Cards, Gifts and Decorations by Gay Merrill Gross

Terrarium Craft: Create 50 Magical, Miniature Worlds by Amy Bryant Aiello

Terrariums Reimagined: Mini World Made in Creative Containers by Kat Geiger

Exquisite Miniatures in Cross Stitch and Other Counted Thread Techniques by Brenda Keyes

More Making Books By Hand: Exploring Miniature Books, Alternative Structures, and Found Objects by Peter Thomas [eBook]

50 Yards of Fun: Knitting Toys From Scrap Yarn by Rebecca Danger

Mini Skein Knits: 25 Knitting Patterns Using Small Skeins and Leftovers by Lark Crafts

Hayao Miyazaki's Best Loved Children's Books

MIYAZAKI'S SPIRITED AWAY (2001). Photography. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/144_1539868/1/144_1539868/cite. Accessed 10 Oct 2017.

We can't help it - we're unashamed fangirls of the films of Hayao Miyazaki, as you can see from our past blog posts. So, when we found a list of Miyazaki's 50 favorite children's books, we were intrigued and wanted to share. There were some obvious ones - several "time-tested Western classics," and he made a movie based on The Borrowers, after all - and you can find a few of his choices namechecked in the documentary The Kingdom of Madness and Dreams. So, without further ado, we present to you the complete list of Miyazaki's favorite children's books, as available in the library catalog! We hope you find something you'd want to check out, or share with the children in your life, that will hopefully create a bit of  Miyazaki magic.

The Borrowers by Mary Norton

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

When Marnie Was There by Joan G. Robinson [eAudiobook]

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome 

The Flying Classroom by Erich Kästner

Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates by Mary Mapes Dodge

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Eagle of The Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by  Lewis Carroll

The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling [eBook]

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

The Hobbit by  J. R. R. Tolkien

Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en [eBook]

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by  Jules Verne

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

 

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

The Little Humpbacked Horse by Pyotr Pavlovich Yershov

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge [eAudiobook]

The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting

 

Happy Belated Birthday, Pema Chodron

Paper lotus flowers. Photo. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/300_260268/1/300_260268/cite. Accessed 29 Aug 2017.

Pema Chödrön, who was born on July 14, 1936, is an American Tibetan Buddhist. She was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown and is a graduate of Miss Porter's School in Connecticut and the University of California at Berkeley. Pema worked as an elementary school teacher in California and New Mexico and is a mother and grandmother.

When Pema traveled to the French Alps, she met Lama Chime Rinpoche and began her Tibetan Buddhism studies. She began her novitiate as a nun in 1974 and when the Sixteenth Karmapa to England where she was studying, Pema was official ordained.

Pema's most profound and enlightening experiences as a student were with her teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, until his death in 1987. In 1984, Pema moved to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and became the director of Gampo Abbey and established a monastery for Western monks and nuns. Pema teaches in the United States and Canada and has recently completed an extended silent retreat.

Reading Pema Chödrön's books can help people from any faith perspective - or no faith at all, take responsibility for one's feelings, entrenched complexes, and cultivate a compassionate detachment from fear, self-absorption, and delusions. Her wisdom and clarity makes even the most challenging day possible to get through with some compassion and grace. I turn to Pema Chödrön for guidance and to see how a grown-up would handle any situation. Pema Chödrön isn't a perfect person, which she cheerfully owns up to by sharing her own experiences that anyone could relate to. What she holds out is the hope of trying again to get back onto the path when we are lead astray by our pride and expectations.

Always Maintain a Joyful Mind: And Other Lojong Teachings On Awakening Compassion and Fearlessness by Pema Chödrön 

Comfortable With Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion  by Pema Chödrön

Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better by Pema Chödrön

How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends With Your Mind  by Pema Chödrön

Living Beautifully With Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chödrön

The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation by Chögyam Trungpa

No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva by Pema Chödrön

Practicing Peace In Times of War by Pema Chödrön

Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chödrön

Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves From Old Habits and Fear by Pema Chödrön

Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness by Chögyam Trungpa

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice For Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön

The Wisdom of No Escape: and the Path of Loving-Kindness byPema Chödrön

Budget Cinema: Some Incidents in the History of B Movies

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954) - ADAMS, JULIE. Photography. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/144_1533771/1/144_1533771/cite. Accessed 13 Sep 2017.

B movies had their heyday during Hollywood's Golden Age (late 1920s-early 1960s). During the Great Depression, studios and movie theaters tried to entice moviegoers into the theater with a bill that could last more than 3 hours, with two features, cartoons, a newsreel, and previews of forthcoming films. The main attraction would be the A film, with the B feature being a lower budget genre film (often sci-fi, Western, or film noir) that was quickly produced, frequently using talent that was either waning or on the rise. The big studios had separate B-units to produce these films. These early B films were tied to the Big Five studio system - before 1948, major studios had their own theater chains, and there was a complicated booking system for A and B features.

In the 1950s, feature films got longer - 70 minutes or more, rather than an hour - and the double feature fell out of favor. B movie became a blanket term used for genre films with formulaic plots and cheap production values. These films helped create the drive-in cinema business, which skyrocketed between 1945-55, and launched the career of one of the most famous names in the history of B movies, Roger Corman, and another big name in B, William Castle, who specialized in gimmicks. "For The Tingler, which starred Vincent Price, the theater seats were wired with buzzers, which would make the seats vibrate when the tingler supposedly escaped into the theater," the website B-Movie Central reports.

In the 60s and 70s, B movies came to include exploitation films, as the film industry's adherence to the Motion Picture Production Code relaxed and finally ended in 1968. Major studios were no longer making B films, and these exploitation films - which often "graphically depicted the wages of sin in the context of promoting prudent lifestyle choices" - ultimately became the whole market, ranging from "sexploitation" to "blaxploitation" films, except for the rise of  kung fu (sometimes called "Brucesploitation") and "slasher" films in the 1970s. Some famous names came out this era - John Waters, Melvin Van Peebles, Brian de Palma, Russ Meyer, George A. Romero, Tobe Hooper, Francis Ford Coppola - with some later achieving mainstream fame and others becoming cult classics. Easy Rider, with its themes of hippies, drug use, and communal living, became the first movie under the exploitation umbrella to debut at the Cannes Film Festival. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a spoof of B movie tropes.

As cinema moved into the 1980s, the era of the star-studded blockbuster began. There was still a lot of low-budget horror films being made, and Troma Pictures, which got its start in 1974, was still "disrupting media." But there were more independent films being made in the last years of the 20th century, and it's important to remember that an independent or arthouse film is not the same as a B movie.

It has been suggested that recent  technological advances have made it easy to make low-budget motion pictures again, and digital cameras allow any filmmaker to make films with reasonably good image quality and effects. Is the B-movie ready to make a comeback? Well,  The Guardian suggests:

So here’s a suggestion: a two-tier cinema system. Your blockbusters in one league, and a separate circuit for lower-budget movies, with much cheaper tickets. For a long time, this was how movies operated... Now it’s serious dramas that are the B-movies, pushed to the margins along with what we used to call 'arthouse' movies: challenging, non-mainstream, maybe foreign movies. These are cinema’s endangered species. So why not put them all in a separate type of cinema and charge half the price? It would be a cheaper night out for punters and a proving ground for new talent.

Or, do you agree with Wired that "In 2017, 'genre' is no longer a niche, and nearly *every *movie feels like a midnight movie—albeit the kind you no longer need need to stay up all evening to enjoy." Whatever your take on the subject, why not take a little time to delve deeper into B movies of the past? The library catalog is here to help, with some likely contenders listed below:


Hail to the Chin: Further Confessions of a B Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell with Craig Sanborn

Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir by Arthur Lyons

Opening Wednesday at a Theater or Drive-In Near You: The Shadow Cinema of the American '70s by Charles Taylor

The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, The Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made by Greg Sestero, Tom Bissell [eAudiobook]

Foxy: A Life in Three Acts by Pam Grier with Andrea Cagan

DVDs

The House on Haunted Hill

The Return of the Living Dead

Barbarella

The Blob

John Dies At the End

Evil Dead

They Live

Machete

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Brother From Another Planet

Tremors

Forbidden Planet

Schlock: Secret History of American Movies

American Grindhouse

Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

The Ed Wood Awards: The Worst Horror Films of All Time


Links

The 100 Best "B Movies" of All Time [Slate]

15 Awesome B-Movies You Need To See [Screen Rant]

Attack of the B Movies! 50 of the Best Schlocky Titles of All Time [Hollywood Reporter]

Beerstorming, One Draught at a Time

Five glasses of beer. Photography. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/156_2393568/1/156_2393568/cite. Accessed 9 Sep 2017.

The website for BeerAdvocate magazine lists 20 microbreweries in Albuquerque, and, frankly, we're surprised there's not more. There seems to be new breweries popping up all the time in the past few years! The ABQ Beer Week blog recommends "drinking local" - to support local economies, contribute to neighborhood revitalization, help the environment, and support local musicians - but we know everyone's taste is different, so we've compiled a list of books about the hoppiest drink around which includes guides, brewing information, cooking with beer, the history of brewing (did you know the pharaohs drank beer?), and even a couple of movies on the topic. We hope that whether you are a beer aficionado or not, whether you prefer craft beer, international or vintages brews, you will find something to whet your palate in the following offerings from the library catalog.

Beer Guides 

The Complete Beer Course: Boot Camp For Beer Geeks - From Novice to Expert in Twelve Tasting Classes by Joshua M. Bernstein

Vintage Beer: A Taster's Guide to Brews That Improve Over Time by Patrick Dawson

Beer For All Seasons: A Through-the-Year Guide of What to Drink and When to Drink It by Randy Mosher [eBook]

The Beer Geek Handbook: Living a Life Ruled by Beer by Patrick Dawson

World Beer: Outstanding Classic and Craft Beers From the Greatest Breweries by Tim Hampson

Great American Craft Beer: A Guide to the Nation's Finest Beers and Breweries by Andy Crouch [eBook]

Brewing 

So You Want to Start a Brewery?: The Lagunitas Story by Tony Magee

Craft Beer for the Homebrewer: Recipes From America's Top Brewmasters by Michael Agnew et al.

The Craft of Stone Brewing Co.: Liquid Lore, Epic Recipes, and Unabashed Arrogance by Greg Koch [eBook]

The Good Beer Book: Brewing and Drinking Quality Ales and Lagers by Timothy Harper

Beer Cookbooks

The American Craft Beer Cookbook: 155 Recipes From Your Favorite Brewpubs and Breweries by John Holl

The Brewmaster's Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food by Garrett Oliver


Beer History

The Comic Book Story of Beer: The World's Favorite Beverage From 7000 BC to Today's Craft Brewing Revolution by Jonathan Hennessey and Mike Smith

The Search for God and Guinness: A Biography of the Beer That Changed the World by Stephen Mansfield

Brewed Awakening: Behind the Beers and Brewers Leading the World's Craft Brewing Revolution by Joshua M. Bernstein


Local Beer

New Mexico Beer: A History of Brewing in the Land of Enchantment by Jon C. Stott

Albuquerque Beer: Duke City History on Tap by Chris Jackson


DVDs

Crafting a Nation

Brew Masters

Brewmore Baltimore: A Full-Flavored History