Top 7 best horror stories in Literature

This month our top 7 list is about famous tales in literature that will send chills up and down your spine! Get ready to get goosebumps all over as you read 7 of the most famous short stories ever written in the history of Literature:

1)      The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe

The first place in our list goes to the master of horror Edgar Allan Poe! In this story we can see how one person can gradually go from being a nice and caring husband to a murderer! 

2)      The Monkey’s Paw  by W. W. Jacobs

A good story about lucky charms and about how careful we need to be with what we wish for! In this story, a man is given a fetish (a lucky charm) which grants him 3 wishes. Little did he know that his wishes would bring upon him consequences that would make him rue the day he was born. 

3)      The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

This classic has been made into so many movies and cartoons throughout the centuries that I'm pretty sure anyone might have heard about  this story.

4)      The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman

One of my personal favorites! Many may argue that this is not a horror story and that it should not have been included in this list, but I still think that one of the possible readings we can get from this story is under a paranormal stance. A must-read!

5)      The Bottle Imp by Robert Lois Stevenson

6)      The Horla by Guy de Maupassant  (both versions are nice)

This story is about a being that torments a poor soul in France. The story has been written twice, one of the versions is a 1^st account of some paranormal accidents that were written in the format of a diary whereas the second version of the story is a 3^rd person-narrated short story. Both versions are nice as they give you different insights on the story.

7)   Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

   

A classic story I had to read in college and that I will remember for the rest of my life. This one is about a meeting in the woods with the “dark one” and his “followers”. If you are into horror stories, you must read this one!

Some further recommendations:

8)      The tumb by H. P. Lovecraft

9)      The mask of the red death by Edgar Allan Poe ( and all of Poe’s stories lol)

10)   Noite na Taverna (this is not a short story, but it is one of the best horror stories ever written in human kind! Lol )

Frankenweenie: uma história de superação ou de escapismo?

Primeiramente eu gostaria de explicar a minha ausência nesse blog ( não que alguém a tenha percebido). Eu tenho andado um pouco sem inspiração para escrever nesses últimos meses. Parte desse desânimo deve ser por causa do meu  cansaço, já que escrevi a minha TCC, terminei algumas matérias da faculdade, li uns 5 livros, tudo isso só nesse ano. Enfim, não anda fácil pra ninguém, e eu não sou exceção. Contudo, eu assisti um filme hoje a tarde que me "perturbou" um pouco e por isso voltei ao blog para expor os meus sentimentos em relação ao desenho.. 

Alguém aqui já assistiu o novo filme do Tim Burton chamado Frankenweenie? Então, para quem ainda não chegou a assistir o filme, a história é a seguinte: um menino chamado Victor perde o seu cãozinho. Não aceitando a morte do seu bichinho de estimação, Victor decidi reviver Sparky, inspirando-se nas aulas de ciências . Ao saber que Sparky voltou a vida, um dos colegas de Victor espalha que o garoto conseguiu ressuscitar o seu animalzinho e o fato desperta inveja nos outros colegas de sala, já que todos estavam competindo pelo melhor projeto na feira de ciências. Motivados pela inveja, os colegas de sala de Victor descobrem como trazer os mortos a vida e começam a ressuscitar seus animais de estimação para poderem competir na feira de ciência em pé de igualdade. A história acaba com os animais mortos sendo mortos de novo, já que ao voltarem para esse plano, os animais se tornaram malvados, e com Sparky  doando a própria "vida" para salvar a vida do seu dono, Victor.  No final do filme Sparky morre, mas é trazido de volta ao mundo dos vivos e o filme acaba assim. 

Agora vamos aos fatos que me deixaram meio pensativo após ver esse desenho.A maioria das pessoas já presenciaram a morte de alguém querido. Um amigo, um parente, um animalzinho, o que seja. Será que não seria mais saudável fazer uma história na qual o personagem principal aceitasse a perca do seu cachorrinho ao invés de ficar tentando revive-lo várias vezes? Podem me chamar de radical, ou de querer ver coisas onde não tem, só que não seria melhor mostrar a morte como algo que não há como ser vencida e que o que temos que fazer é entender o que aconteceu, aceitar o ocorrido e seguir em frente? 

Bruno Bettleheim escreveu um ótimo livro chamado A psicanálise dos contos de fadas em que ele dá uma interpretação para alguns contos de fadas famosos e disserta sobre a importância das histórias infantis para que a criança possa se tornar um adulto saudável. Se me lembro bem, porque faz 4 anos que eu li esse livro pela última vez, ele também fala sobre o processo de identificação que a criança faz com os personagens das historinhas infantis com as quais ela tem contato. Através dessas histórias as crianças se identificam com os vilões, como os mocinhos, aprendem o que é ser malvado e o que é ser bom, aprendem os "gender roles" (papeis de gênero) da sociedade na qual estão inseridas, e etc. Depois de ver esse filme, fiquei pensando se esse processo não ocorre também com desenhos animados. Será que Frankenweenie não está apresentando uma visão muito alegre sobre a morte e deixando de lado o aspecto inevitável e irremediável da morte somente para que as crianças tenham um final feliz? Não seria um final feliz o entendimento de Victor de que Sparky morreu e que ele deve seguir em frente sempre guardando no coração o amigo perdido?

De fato, eu não sei responder as perguntas que eu levantei aqui, mas achei que seria interessante  dividi-las com alguns amigos e de registrar nesse blog um questionamento que eu considero válido. Espero continuar com meus posts, alguns em português e outros em inglês. So stay tuned for more! 

1st post of the year

So I'm back and as my first post of the year, I'd like to announce that I spent every day of my last couple of weeks in 2012 watching Asian series, animes and movies and that I am willing to share my experience to all those who want to watch some nice Asian stuff. Twice a week I will be posting a simple, spoiler-free, movie review in which I will write my impressions on the movie and also will try to describe the plot without giving off any piece of information that may spoil your fun. So stay tuned for more.

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!

Well, 2012 is almost over and  all I can say is that I do hope you have had a great year! In case you haven't had the best year of your life, DO NOT KILL YOURSELF! (lol) Let us all hope that 2013 will be a far better year, full of opportunities and lots of fun! I'm pretty sure we will have lots of opportunities in 2013, so all we have to do is to "seize the days" to follow! May our 2013 be spent amongst our friends and kin, our health be better,  our salary increase, and last but not least , may we have lots of fun in order to make 2013 a most memorable year! 

Keep on visiting my blog and thank you so much all of you who have been  reading and contributing my posts.  

Feliz Natal e um próspero ano novo para todos! 

Danilo Neves

Why so intolerant?

There are three things in the world that get on nerves so bad that I have to count to 1000 just to keep myself under my own grip. Those are: people trying to convert me using the argument: “my religion is the correct path to heavens”, people who are too lazy to study anything, and those who do not agree with gay marriage. I live in Brazil and as every nice citizen should feel, I felt extremely proud of my country when on May 05th the legal union for homosexual couples was allowed. What I heard from people, however, is that such a thing should have never been allowed, and such a thing was an “abomination” to “God”. Then, full with indignation, I decided to write a post on this controversial theme showing some of the reasons why every person who considers himself or herself a RATIONAL being should agree with gay marriage despite of his or her religious background. First, marriage itself is not religious but a social institution. Christianity has indeed preached for years that only men and women have the right to wed, but what most people forget is that there are many other groups out there that are not Christian and they want to have the same rights as anybody else! And for all those who think that marriage among homosexuals should not be allowed based on the “fact” that the bible condemns it , I’m sorry but I have some news for you: our country is not under a theocratic regimen, but under a democracy. And to all those religious simpletons who were raised in a church and think they know the bible just because they have read it once: people are not obligated to live under the rules of a book they don’t even believe in! I wonder how they would like if a Buddhist told them that Christian couples can’t get married just because Buddha said so! (No offences to the Buddhists, I just used them to represent any religion other than any bible-oriented ones) Another “argument” that aggravates me is when people say: “I don’t agree with gay marriage because I wouldn’t like to see two men kissing in a public place”, or, “I don’t support gay marriage because I’m afraid of what will become of our children”. To all those who feel offended when they see two men or two girls kissing when they only want to show AFFECTION, you should simply stop staring at them and let them be happy! Why is it that people have to meddle with other people’s business? If you feel so bad when you see a gay couple kissing, imagine how much worse they feel when they want to say “ I love you” to the person they love and they simply CAN’T or when they see other (straight ) couples are kissing and they can’t do the same! Now here comes the question: why can straight people show affection and gay people can’t if they both pay the same amount of taxes and they both contribute to the development of our society just as much? All in all, what I’m trying to get across is: let other people be happy and do never try to impose your religious view on other people because I’m sure that you wouldn’t like if they did the same to you! I am not much a religious person myself, but I do reckon that the bible, as any other religious book, has many nice messages that are indeed worthy learning and following and one that I think is interesting is this one that is on Matthew 7: 12, it goes like this: “ (..) in everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets”. For those who might have problems understanding what is written here, I guess that this message applies in our context in the sense that we should not try to take away other people’s right to be and live their lives whichever way they want because we would not enjoy if they did the same to us.

Gender roles and sexism in Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Harry Potter

Gender roles in children’s books are things teachers and parents alike should think about when buying/assigning a book for a child to read. Are the books that our kids have been reading exempt from what we have long fought against? That is, are children’s books exempt from sexism, homophobia, misogyny and all others sources of prejudice? Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and Harry Potter are nice examples of children’s books that will probably be read forever and as such, we should reflect if they are fit for children to read, if they carry good examples for kids and also why children like these books so much. To start with, and taking for granted that most readers are familiar with the plot of these three stories, I would like to pose a question to my reader: how strong is sexism in these stories?

Considering the end of Peter Pan in which Peter remains in Neverland as a child-like “deity”, and contrasting it to the ending of Alice in Wonderland in which after lots of problems, Alice goes back home, we should ask: why it is that Peter Pan has the right to remain in Wonderland (his own dreamland) and live all sorts of adventures as the “master” of the island, whereas Alice needs to go through a large number of dangers and nuisances when she is also living in her own dreamland? Also, let’s consider Wendy in Peter Pan. She practically becomes a housewife in Neverland while her brothers, along with all the other lost boys, have their share of fun and excitement! It seems as though, women and men take on different roles in society even if they are living in a completely imaginary, parallel world. This idea that girls cannot have a powerful position in society, even if they are in a fictitious wonderful dreamland, is discussed further on in the books of the Harry Potter series. At the same time that there are very influential women characters in the series, such as Hermione and Professor Minerva, these women characters still haven’t any position as high as that of the other male characters, Harry Potter, Dumbledore and Voldemort. 

My personal thought on this issue is that, despite their beauty, both Wonderland and Neverland (and I daresay Hogwarts) are not places fit for little girls, which is nothing more than a reflection of the gender roles that have been ascribed to women since the Victorian period. Values which still linger in our 21st century society. Sexism exists and it can be found in all types of arts, reinforced by all kinds of gender roles, and if we don’t fight against them, they will never stop existing. I’m not trying to say here that the books I mentioned shouldn’t be read, but that their plot and characters should always be taken with a pitch of salt. To reflect about how women and men are portrayed in children’s book and to show children that they don’t have be to Wendys in real life is to foster critical discussions and to help children understand that they do not have to comply with gender norms, which in my opinion, is the goal of education! So let us teach Harry Potter, Alice, and Peter Pan, but always keeping in mind our role as critically thinking teachers.

Reference: "The boy who lived: From Carroll's Alice and Barrie's Peter Pan to Rowling's Harry Potter" by Billone, Amy Christine.

Top 7 k-pop bands

I believe most everyone has already heard or/and danced Psy’s major youtube hit “Gangnam style”( in case you haven't, don't waste time and watch it NOW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0), however let us not forget that there is a lot more of Korean music where Psy came from! To those who, like me, enjoy listening to new stuff every now and then, I made a list of my 7 favorite Korean bands/ singers and their “best" songs. Make sure to check them below and let me know which is your favorite K-pop band/ song" 

Galera, todo mundo já ouviu o hit do Psy Gangnam style, né? (Se você ainda não viu, assista AGORA por que super vale a pena conferir: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0). Além do Psy, várias outras bandas coreanas também tem bombado na internet e por isso eu fiz esse post com as minhas 7 bandas de K-pop favoritas! O que vocês acharam? 

7- Wonder Girls- Be my baby (English version)

6- SISTAR- So cool

5- A1B4- Baby Goodnight

4- HyunA (4 minute) - Bubble Pop

3- Super Junior- Sorry, Sorry

2- 2NE1- I'm the best

1- SNSD (Girl’s Generation) -The Boys (English version) / Gee  (I'm sorry guys, SNSD is my favorite band, so I can't just pick one song! I had to pick at least the two ones I LOVE the most!!) 

So guys, what did you think of my ranking? Do you have any suggestions?

Então galera, alguma sugestão de alguma banda/ música que deveria entrar para o Top 7?
PS: These is MY top 7, so don't criticise me!