Random question. If you were going to spend 3 weeks looking at magical realism, what books would you teach together. Pick 3. And, ftr, it can't be all Garcia Marquez.

Ooh, I love this question.

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
1000 Years of Solitude by Marquez
The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Divakaruni

And I'd throw some poetry by Neruda in the mix, maybe. And a short story by Charles de Lint.

Will you be teaching this, Kat? I'd love to know how it works out.

Well, IIRC the animated 3-D thingie will be based on Clone Wars, the animated show done by Genndy Tartakovsky (the guy who did Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack ). I thought CW was pretty good, as Tartakovsky had a fair amount of freedom in plots, characters, etc.

What does he mean by a 3-d thing? Some sort of claymation?

Clone Wars is all those 5-minute animated shorts I happen upon in the middle of something else on Cartoon Network, right? I've no idea what the plot is, but it looks to me like "Samurai Jack In Space" so I can't complain (yet). As with Jack, good use of music to set tone and pace.

What does he mean by a 3-d thing? Some sort of claymation?

I think that means computer-generated, as opposed to traditional hand-drawn animation.

Clone Wars is all those 5-minute animated shorts I happen upon in the middle of something else on Cartoon Network, right?

The first 20 chapters were all three minutes (except the last one was longer). There are also five more episodes that were about 12 minutes each IIRC.

They should totally do it Harryhausen style. I'd watch that.

It's weird. People who really should know better keep trying to tell me I'm actually a SW fan. How many different ways can I say that a universe in which Jar Jar outlives Maul is not a universe in which I feel welcome? But it's such a huge geek tag -- dude, do Buffy and Lord of the Rings not suffice? Trek, for christ's sake. I'm so much more of a trekker than ... what to Star Wars fans call themselves?

I'm hoping something shiny distracts him long enough for them to hire someone else to write/direct.

We should be so lucky. *sigh*

Some of the Clone Wars are full episodes not just five minute bumpers.

1000 Years of Solitude by Marquez

Is this like One Hundred Years of Solitude to the power of ten?

It's just barely possible that a case could be made for some of Gloria Naylor being magical realism, if you wanted to get a Murrican in there -- in particular, Linden Hills (inspired by Dante's "Divine Comedy" -- probably the Inferno, but possibly a bit of Purgatorio as well) and Mama Day (inspired by "The Tempest," though not much survives except an island and a terrible storm and vast amounts of love). And possibly some Louise Erdrich, and definitely Mark Helprin.