Lightbulb Over Head Blog

Last night I learned that the series I’m currently reading, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, is being made into a movie. I learned this by stumbling across the following preview.

The worst part about seeing a preview for a movie you’ve been dying for someone to make is that when you happen upon it, you usually have to wait months or even a year until it comes out. Now I’m sitting here and I’m practically squirming on my couch. This movie isn’t due out until President’s Day 2010. I’m in agony. I can’t even do research on the movie without running into people posting comments that contain spoilers about the end of the series. Even though I want to look up more movie production news, I have to restrain myself.

When the Harry Potter books were made into movies, I knew there was such a massive, dedicated following that the production and creative team would really try to make the movies for the readers. Based on my opinions of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, that seems like it turned out to be an accurate prediction. However, a few of my discoveries have led me to believe that this may not be the case for the Percy Jackson series.

Don’t mistake me. I am completely ecstatic that Rick Riordan’s books are being made into feature films, but I’m fearful that they won’t be respected- and they deserve to be! I’m almost finished with the third book in Rick Riordan’s series, The Titan’s Curse, and as far as I’ve read, I can certainly vouch for the quality and creativity of his writing. I’m a big sucker for classical mythology so I’ve been very impressed with the way Riordan makes us view ancient myths from a modern perspective.

Alexandra Deddario plays Annabeth in "The Lightning Thief"

When I saw the trailer initially, I jumped out of my skin. Then I hopped around my living room like a little girl which probably drove my room mate crazy. After I had calmed my giddiness, I searched for the movie on imdb.com. As I scanned the impressive cast list, I was a bit confused to see characters listed that don’t appear at all in the first book, which shares the title of the upcoming movie, The Lightning Thief. The cast list includes Pierce Brosnan as Chiron, Uma Therman as Medusa (which I am extremely excited about!), Catherine Keener as Sally Jackson (perfect casting, in my opinion), and my absolute acting hero Kevin McKidd as Poseidon. I fell in love with him during his work on the HBO series Rome. I’m a little worried that Annabeth is being played by Alexandra Deddario because she seems, simply based on appearance and her actual age, to be way too old. Deddario is twenty three years old and Annabeth is twelve in the first book of the series. This is nothing Miss Deddario can control, so let me emphasize that I’m not saying she is a poor choice for the role based on her acting merit. I’m just surprised they cast someone who looks so old in a role described repeatedly as very young during the course of the written series.

I’m not exactly confident in the choice of director for the film either. Chris Columbus, who I’ve seen do some very visually stunning shots but haven’t seen get the best performances from his actors, is adding The Lightning Thief to a resume that includes Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Rent. The two Harry Potter movies he directed are my least favorite of the lot and I’m worried he’ll play a part in “dumbing down” the Percy Jackson series in the same way. I did not think he got good performances out of his child actors in the first two Harry Potter films and I know he’ll face the same challenges here. I will say, however, that his direction of Mrs. Doubtfire is highly commendable and that movie is one of my favorites.

I can’t exactly explain my forboding feelings regarding this movie. I want The Lightning Thief to be good. It’s not like a play where if you get it wrong the first time, there could be a revival in years to come if the script is good enough. You can hardly tell from this teaser trailer what to expect. It only shows bits from one scene that occurs near the end of the book. This also worries me because I feel like they may have shuffled around events from the book. On the other hand, I could be way too worked up about this. I just want the film to stand up to Riordan’s masterfull series, which I’m positive I will be reviewing at some point in the near future.

This morning, I killed a man.

That’s a lie. I didn’t “kill” him, but for exactly three seconds after the following event transpired, I harbored murderous thoughts in my heart.

I was walking down the street and skipping to the next track on my iPhone when a man, who was apparently walking behind me, RAMMED into my left arm so roughly that I was shoved against the glass window of GNC on Lexington Avenue. Then, this man had the AUDACITY to glare at me and say “Watch it!” while motioning in a frantically pissed off fashion at the device in my hand. The man was older and had gray hair. He was certainly spry and didn’t carry a cane, but he had an undeniable crotchety quality.

Firstly, Sir, you approached from my rear. Even if I hadn’t been looking at my iPhone at that exact moment, I wouldn’t have seen you coming. “Why?” you ask. Well. Simply put, I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. If I did, they would be covered in hair. For those of you who are unaware of this fact, I have very long, very full brown hair.

So you know what, man? YOU WATCH IT.

Seriously, after this happened, there were three seconds where I could have killed him. If I hadn’t been regaining my balance at the time, I might have. Plus, as he stalked off, he walked BETWEEN a man holding the hand of his young daughter. That’s right. He’s a homewrecker.

That’s a lie.

He’s not a home wrecker, but what kind of man has the choice of the ENTIRE SIDEWALK and chooses to walk between two people, nay, a man and a child holding hands?

This incident reminded me of a time I was rushing to catch a train to class at NYU. I was transfering like I did every day. Pause. Let me tell you how much I hated this transfer. Firstly, its a long, sweaty, stupid transfer. It looped all around the underground station and I think everyone who had to transfer there hated it because from what I could tell, everyone looked like they were in the calvary in the movie Gladiator. They were bearing down with clenched eyes and brandishing their backpacks, briefcases, and umbrellas menacingly. Their mission was to make it to the platform and race up the stairs to the train. However, this was harder than one would think.

These stairs led to the Sophie’s Choice of subway platforms. The train never came to the same platform, so essentially, everyone would stay huddled between the two stairwells as other people rushed by and jostled you on the way to their other less complicated commuting situations. You had to crane your neck and listen through the ambient noise to guess which platform the train was pulling into and then race at break-neck speed to the correct stairwell. Anyone who has ever been on the NYC subway knows how hard it is to listen carefully to anything. If you guessed wrong you missed the train.  Basically everyone was huddled in silence like Anne Frank in the attick or slaves on the Underground Railroad until the train pulled in. Once it did, there was a frantic stampede up the stairs. I’m pretty sure there have been casualties at this station, but everyone is so frantic to get to where they’re going that no one notices if any of their comrades in “commuting battle” fall. You also have to race the closing doors of the train and that damnable vixen who announces them. Every time she says “Doors Closing,” I want to slaughter a white kitten.

On the day in question, I was dashing up the stairs and I was at the back of the pack. The woman in front of me should have had a walker, but she didn’t. No one was helping her up the stairs. I couldn’t even help her because we were sandwiched in so tightly. Time was ticking down and we finally made it up the stairs. People were filing into the train. Me and the walkerless broad SHOULD have been able to make it, but that would be too easy and there wouldn’t be a story, now would there?

She stopped at the door with arms outstretched, looking for the train number, letter, or maybe even a sign from God himself, but for whatever reason, she made no move to enter the vehicle.

“Doors Closing.” Ding dong.

The doors slid shut with her still gaping and scratching at her dry freckled scalp, which yes, I remember quite clearly.

“COME ON!” I screamed at her and threw up my hands. After I bellowed, she turned around and stared at me, her eyes wide and teary with obvious terror at my outburst. After the adrenaline died down, my heart sank and I felt pretty awful. I appologized demurely and walked all the way to the other end of the platform in shame to wait for the next train, praying it would come to the same platform so I wouldn’t have to repeat the whole bloody ritual again.

You can hate me if you want because I yelled at an elderly lady, but I tell you this because I think New York is full of these sorts of moments. Just today I was walking through Time’s Square with a friend of mine. The streets were packed with people here for the weekend of the 4th of July and some tax protest was also going on. I felt trapped and claustrophobic. As we were crossing a street, I felt like we were in that scene from Footloose where they play chicken on the tractors. No one was moving to allow anyone to pass so the two sides of the the street were converging on each other like batallions on opposite sides of the feild. It was as if the sides of the parted Red Sea were crashing down on Yul Brynner and his Egyptian chariots.

Time’s Square is often like this, but today something bizarre happened. My friend grabbed my backpack as he walked behind me. He wasn’t pushing me, but because we were both walking forward, I now lacked the ability to stop if I needed to for fear of tripping him up or creating a massive pedestrian traffic jam. It made me think of how we pass through time. There’s no fast forward or rewind, you just keep moving whether you like it or not. I had a miniature panic attack in my chest and I actually think I yelled out “Stop Pushing me!” even though he wasn’t. I’m told I caused a scene, but honestly, it was such a stressful mom.

Does these things happen to everyone or just me? It must happen to us all. I know I’m certifiable, but I don’t think I’m so far off base that my experiences aren’t relatable.

After a few evening errands, my friend and I ended up in Washington Square Park. I had wanted to check out the new fountain installation because I hadn’t seen it yet. As we entered the park, I was immediately hit by a lilting drum beat and the quivering vibrato of a jazz saxaphone solo. It was divine. We spotted a bench and sat down. The fountain was pumping at full force, pushing and pulsing high into the air. Whenever the breeze moved towards us it took a refreshing, non-invasive mist of water in our direction. We talked of Twitter, recent plays we had seen, and our fears that we might be going crazy, amongst other things. They sky was like a painting. Its not often I take a moment to actually look at the sky while I’m in the city. Sure, I look at the buildings and skyscrapers, but not the sky itself. The clouds were long, fluffy pillows and they were catching the firey orange light from the setting sun. Then, my friend giggled and pointed to a perfect bubble that was floating towards us in the air. At the same moment be both miraculously exclaimed, “It’s a Glinda Bubble!” Then we convulsed in laughter till our sides hurt. A man in the park had a bubble wand and was dragging it around the fountain as he danced to the many different musical strains springing like creative fonts from all the corners of the park. There was also a strange Asian boy dancing with a hula hoop who I must admit was pretty mesmerizing.

After our restful moment in the park, I decided to buy the first installment of Percy Jackson and the Olympians from the “teen fiction” section of the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore. It was kind of embarrassing to buy a book from the teen fiction shelf, but I did it anyways. I can’t be stopped when it comes to modern fictional interpretations of mythology.

So at the end of the night I sit here on my couch and despite the rough start to the day and some comedicly stressful reflections, July 1st had a rather pleasant end. All of these intense moments just seem to add up to the right equation. And that’s just life in the big city.