P&P and LBD

Guess what today is?
Today is January 28th, 2013 and that makes it the 200th anniversary of the publications of Pride and Prejudice! Yay alliteration and congrats Jane Austen!
It's a brilliant book and there are a couple of wonderful film/mini-series adaptations (Collin Firth!). However my favorite by far is the current vlog-style-adaptation-on-You-Tube-produced-by-John-Green's-brother-Hank-Green-of-nerdfighteria. It is the most clever and engaging adaptation I've ever seen. I may like it even better than the book, although my inner-lit-major recoils at that blasphemous thought.

Lydia-as-Lizzie and Lizzie-as-Darcy
for a Jane-Austen-Dance-Scene
It's super clever in context, trust me. 

This web series is really amazingly well done though, so well done that I actually like Lydia! The loud-crazy-ditsy-trouble-attracting-little-sister-Lydia, at this point I adore her and her videos are some of my favorites. (And I may or may not stand around hipster-filled-concerts overly-engaged with my best-y about the lives of fictional characters, but I sure wouldn't admit that over the interwebs)
Regardless of my border-line-unsanity though, you should check out the Lizzie Bennet Diaries to celebrate P&P's bi-centennial birthday. Go now and watch the first handful by clicking on this poorly constructed sentence.  But ye've been warned, once you are hooked there is risk of severe addiction. These guys not only are on youtube, they tweet, and pin and have facebooks and the cleverness abounds everywhere.
To top it off Lizzie may have answered a question from me in one of her videos and it may have been my favorite internet moment ever. Although this kid's peptalk may be my new favorite moment on the internet now -- you should check out that too.
Happy birthday Lizzie, Jane, Lydia, Bing, and Darcy! And well done Miss Austen and the LBD team!

Day of the Brave

The United Nations made October 11th international Day of the Girl, which is particularly fitting as the recent attacks on Malala has brought a more attention to the issues she has been writing about and fighting for since she was eleven. Because this girl so-freaking-amazing-awesome that she has been standing up to the taliban since she was barely double-digits-old. I pray and hope she and her classmate fully recover. It is impressive to see how powerful the ideas of this young lady are, that they're seen as a threat to the taliban. Malala is an epic example of what a dis-proportional-positive-effect educating girls provides for their community.

Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani blogger fighting for girls to be able to go to school