For those looking to buy me a birthday present (in three months), I have a suggestion: a tote bag with the text of an entire book on it! It will warm my nerdy heart.
As I was wandering about online today, I saw an ad for Litographs with the line "Best Gift for Booklovers" underneath it, and clearly had to click on the link. Look, spam does work. The products are pretty cute, and clearly cater to the teachers and librarians of the world, i.e. me.
Most everything they sell has the text of a classic novel on it arranged into a nice pattern. I particularly like the tote bags. There are my obvious favorites, like Pride and Prejudice and The Great Gatsby, but there are lots of other cool ones as well. How does one even choose? So again... gifts... hint hint.
Etsy always has a plethora of kitschy items like these as well. I can get lost on there for hours. Luckily, I'm usually too poor to buy anything. I do try to control the crazy cat-lady side of myself as often as possibly (plus I hate cats).
Last week, I discussed my Jane Austen love and how I wanted to watch the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice over the weekend. Well, I followed though, and it even became a party! Cucumber sandwiches, Colin Firth, and alcohol, oh my! Surprisingly, when I mentioned wanting to watch the movie, a bunch of others wanted to join in the fun. So six of us got together yesterday evening for the viewing and a drinking game. My version of a Pride and Prejudice party includes the following:
Food and Drinks
I considered actually cooking and baking, but alas decided that would be entirely too much work. Therefore, it wasn't the most authentic experience. I did manage, however, to obtain and produce some semi-Regency era tidbits. I did make (I mean there was lots of cutting and spreading of ingredients if that counts as making) cucumber sandwiches. I love me some cucumber sandwiches, and these were a hit. I even produced a second batch several hours later after much drinking. One friend also brought over salami and cheese and another came with mini-toasts with a pork and cheese topping that were quite delicious.
For drinks, I mixed up some punch. I had looked up the recipe for the Regent's (Edward IV's) Punch, and while not too hard, it still had too many steps for me. I have no idea what Arrack is. I chose the simpler route, a strawberry champagne punch that only involved mixing champagne, ginger ale, and triple sec together and throwing in a bag of frozen strawberries. Yummy. I think I seriously drank half of the punch. Not going to lie, I sort of want some right now. It's brunch time, right? We also had an assortment of beer for long-term drinking. I discovered a lack of English beer options at the store, so it really just came down to Newcastle.
I also bought a number of sweets that seemed British. I had blueberry scones, milk chocolate and toffee dipped butter wafers, vanilla meringues, and a variety pack of shortbread cookies with chocolate toppings. The chocolate and toffee wafers, from Whole Foods, stole the show. Half the time people were asking for the yellow bowl of them and the other half they were asking someone to take the bowl away from them.
Decorations and Clothing
For decorations, I simply placed all my copies of Jane Austen novels around the room and freshened it up with some flowers. I really wanted to have doilies, but unfortunately Walgreen's doesn't carry them (imagine that) and time was running out.
However, I did make some attempt to wear appropriate clothing. Now, I don't have any full skirted empire waist dresses, but I wore a long skirt that covered my ankles. Polite ladies do not show their ankles. I put on my dancing slippers - my ballet shoes - in preparation for dancing at the ball. I also donned a shawl and floppy hat for a minute to complete the outfit. A bonnet would have been perfect. I wonder where one gets a bonnet today?
The Drinking Game
Now the most important part of the night was the Pride and Prejudice drinking game. You can see our rules, which I mixed and matched from a number of games posted on the internet. Some rules worked better than others. We are a fairly loud group who talked through a lot of the movie; therefore, we missed a lot of the subtler mentions of things like money, esteeming or regarding someone, or Mrs. Bennet calling for Hill. We did manage to pick up on many mentions of Lady Catherine de Bourgh though.
The most popular rules contained visual cues. We loved horses, and there are lots and lots of horses. While I had meant men bending over in greeting by bows, we quickly added fabric bows on dresses and hats to the list as well. Crying, playing the piano (and I learned that a pianoforte is a specific type of piano), and womanly arts all went over quite well.
Our most enthusiastic responses regarded Lydia being slutty and Colin Firth being sexy. We spent a lot of time yelling, "Slut," at the television whenever Lydia came onscreen - I mean she's pretty much always doing something scandalous. We also waterfalled at the lake scene with Colin Firth. We decided that if you really wanted to get drunk, you should drink every time someone goes walking. That may be a new rule in the future. I'm not sure how much those experiencing the story for the first time actually followed it, but we had a lot of fun.
To leave you in a good mood, here's a skit of some guys playing a Jane Austen Drinking Game. The small dogs moments are hilarious. Sadly, Pride and Prejudice doesn't contain as many small dogs.
Needless to say, should you want to spend hours, days, weeks, or years reading and watching things related to Jane Austen, you could. Yesterday was a travel nightmare and I ended up listening to the entire audiobook of Austenland. It was decent, not awesome, but I nonetheless tried to find the movie version upon returning home. I didn't find a free version, so I ended up with the Lost in Austen miniseries, which I have continued watching this evening.
Here's where I imagine this journey taking me. Since Lost in Austen revolves around Pride and Prejudice, it makes me want to watch the best movie version of the actual novel - the 1995 BBC miniseries with Colin Firth. I mean how can you not love the famous scene where Colin Firth, as Mr. Darcy, walks out of the lake soaking wet in his white shirt? I think Saturday or Sunday of this weekend will be devoted to watching the whole miniseries.
Watching this version will invariably inspire me to watch Colin Firth reprise his role as Darcy in the modern reinterpretation of the novel, Bridget Jones' Diary.
I could go several different directions at this point. If I'm still in a Pride and Prejudice mood, I may watch the BBC miniseries of Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, which is essentially Pride and Prejudice with industrialism.
I may be tired of the P&P storyline, however, so I may switch to Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility. This movie actually started my interest in Jane Austen when we watched it in a high school English course.
On the other hand, I may want to stick with more modern versions and watch Clueless, an updated version of Emma. I do love Clueless.
And so on and so forth until the end of time. This might even devolve into book reading. I'll be back when I emerge from my cocoon of refined manners, bonnets, and endless cups of tea.
