It had to happen, sooner or later...

My local paper announces that a movie house here is hosting what might be called "The Buffy Horror Picture Show" (in fact, I believe it already has been; see story here) -- or perhaps "Buffy Mystery Theater 3000." They're having two showings on Saturday night of "Once More with Feeling," the notorious musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from a few years back, with audience participation encouraged, even to the point of providing a prop bag to each ticket-buyer with stuff to hold up or toss at key moments. And since the ep was filmed in "letterbox" format (with a wider aspect ratio than normally used on the show, or found on most TV screens made up to then), it lends itself to cinema-screen presentation.

Sing Along With Buffy!

I'm going; anyone else nearby wanna come with?

In Memoriam: Madeleine L'Engle Camp, 1918-2007

With thanks to catalana for the news: Madeleine L'Engle, author of many books for young adults including the famous A Wrinkle in Time series, has died in her Connecticut home at 89 after a long illness; see story here. That book was a key point in my becoming a fan of science fiction and fantasy, as I suspect it was for many others in fandom; although the sequels did not quite grab me as readily, the first book was enough to make her rep and win her a slew of kid-lit awards, including the Newbery and National Humanities Medals. ABC's Wonderful World of Disney made a movie of it a couple years ago (with Whoopi Goldberg in the pivotal role of Mrs. Whatsit) that didn't suck.

Were her books important to you, too, growing up? Or if not, which ones were? Please post recollections here. My own memories of curling up in a library nook involve, in addition to Wrinkle, the Heinlein juveniles, Don Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown mini-mystery collections (just reprinted in a snazzy new paperback set) and the Danny Dunn series, featuring a teenage trio and their college-professor mentor who explored all sorts of then-current and projected technology (anti-gravity paint, undersea agriculture, roboticized houses, and even the SETI program).