Edgar Allan Bro

Okay, so I'm going to use my blogger acct today to post these hilarious pictures.

A friend sent me this awhile back, and then last night when I was showing my husband I googled Edgar Allan Bro and found so much to love!

According to Urban Dictionary

edgar allan bro

63 up, 5 down

A melodramatically depressed bro who expresses himself poetically. Listens to Snow Patrol, Thursday, and Taking Back Sunday. Josh is being such an Edgar Allan Bro, all writing morbid poems on his livejournal. Stop writing poems on your LJ, and quit being such an Edgar Allan Bro! Oh and my personal favorite.  I am extremely intrigued about the Poe movie being released in 2012 with John Cusack playing Poe. And the possible Poe television show coming out this year. Will do research and see what I can discover about these this week.

For the Love of Vocabulary

I'm going to reveal myself as a geek right now, and admit that I LOVE words. Love them. As a teacher, I am willing to spend a small amount of time on proscribed vocab...I once observed a teacher who spent more than half her teaching time on vocabulary, and that's just...icky. Time is better spent increasing vocabulary through reading, imho.

I think I have a somewhat formidable vocabulary, but when I started writing The Fall I was overwhelmed and intimidated by a lot of things, most of which stemmed back to reworking something by Poe. Or course the vocabulary was intimidating.

The following is a vocab list of words and phrases from The Fall of The House of Usher that I wanted to use.

Dull

Dark

Soundless

Clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens (this is circled- meaning I don't think I used it)

Melancholy

Pervaded

Insufferable Gloom

Vacant eye-like windows

rank sedges (not sure I used this either as there was already some confusion on what a tarn was)

white trunks of decaying trees

sinking, sickening of heart

black and lurid tarn

unruffled luster

sullen

ethereal

ghastly and inappropriate splendor (this is the title for the sequel..kidding, kidding, what would it be about? but A Ghastly and Inappropriate Splendor would be an awesome title for...something)

tenebrous

Somewhere someplace there is a tattered internet copy of The Fall of The House of Usher that I carried around for over a year (I think it's in my desk at work) that has lots of other words and phrases highlighted. I really hope I can find that, as it seems like it almost became a part of me and my life. :)

Poe...Even Non-Readers Pretend They Like/Appreciate/Understand Poe.

I think about Poe a good bit. What? I'm a high school English teacher, the plant on my desk is named Edgar, and the students decorate him with origami ravens...

I read a lot about Poe last summer to get myself ready for my current writing project. Here's the weird thing, you almost never hear anyone saying that they HATE Poe. Or that they never heard of him. So, the thesis for this blog entry is... even people who don't read Poe like to pretend they read Poe. Which makes one wonder, why> Do people pretend to read Dickens? Shakespeare? Steinbeck? Well, yes, that's called High School English class. (I read all my books, thank you. It was the thing I was best at in school...still upset that I didn't see what everybody else loves about The Great Gatsby, but I do love me some To Kill A Mockingbird).

But Poe is different because it's COOL to read and like Poe. And by cool I mean emo-goth-fantabulous.
I have compiled, for your reading pleasure...some reasons why people who don't read Poe like to act like they read Poe. :)

• Cool dark ambiance
• The Collected Tales and Poems can be a really great fashion accessory, it goes great with black plastic glasses, black trench coats, and all sorts of hats.
• Perfect for pretending to read while pretending to listen to The Cure.
• It's preferable to read a story by someone who married their cousin, than to actually marry your cousin.
• Ravens are creeeeepy
• Nevermore rhymes with Lenore and Annabel Lee rhymes with Sea, and rhyming is fun!
• Gaily bedight, a gallant knight, who says awesome stuff like that?
• In theory pre-mature burial is pretty sick.
• If sick is synonymous with cool, or even if it isn't, Poe is the sickest author around.