The 2-in-1 Book Series

Are you too busy to read every classic, fascinating, informative, and sensational book out there? Fear not. Drs. and Swinnard present a way to cut your reading time in half: the Plabnox 2-in-1 series. Each book in this series takes the first half of one book and the second half of another and merges them into one volume, allowing you, the reader, to kill two works with one tome. This month, Plabnox premieres the first eleven volumes in the 2-in-1 series. Summaries follow.

8. Emma/Powers of Horror

Synopsis: For Emma, raised to think well of herself, has such a high opinion of her own worth that it blinds her to the opinions of others. The story revolves around a comedy of errors: Emma befriends Harriet Smith, a young woman of unknown parentage, and attempts to remake her in her own image. Ignoring the gaping difference in their respective fortunes and stations in life, Emma convinces herself and her friend that Harriet should look as high as Emma herself might for a husband--and she zeroes in on an ambitious vicar as the perfect match. At the same time, she reads too much into an extensive treatise by Julia Kristeva on the subject of abjection and all it entails. Starting with Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan's theories, Kristeva examines horror, marginalization, castration, the phallic signifier, the "I/Not I" dichotomy, the Oedipal complex, exile, and other concepts appropriate to feminist criticism and queer theory.

9. S/Z: An Essay/The Secret (Fear Street Saga Trilogy, No. 2) Synopsis: Language is both a luxury and a discipline for Barthes. He pursues a subject through language until he meets an old gypsy who tells him his family will all die in a terrible fire. Terrified, he changes the family name to Fear, but he can't escape the curse.

10. The Da Vinci Code/Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Synopsis: Dan Brown masterfully concocts an intelligent and lucid thriller that marries the gusto of an international murder mystery with a collection of fascinating esoterica culled from 2,000 years of Western history. A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to question traditional and feminist sex/gender distinctions.

11. Little Women/Fetishism and Curiosity

Synopsis: The beautiful Meg, artistic tomboy Jo, doomed Beth, and selfish Amy: since the publication of Little Women in 1869, these four sisters have become America’s most beloved literary siblings. Louisa May Alcott’s rich and realistic portrait has inspired three movies and stirred the emotions of countless young girls. Set in New England during the Civil War, the novel follows the adventures of the March sisters as they struggle to pursue the pleasures, and displeasures, of narrative cinema.

Plabnox Doctors Seek Employment

Attention HR managers! The esteemed Drs. and Prosperina Swinnard are seeking employment. Below, please find our résumés. Contact us at plablognox@gmail.com to begin the hiring process. N.B. only the first 15,000 responses will be answered.

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Dr. Prosperina Swinnard
88 North 25th Street #4
Philadelphia, PA 19130
(008) 226-7122

Professional Experience

October 2004-June 2006: Spaulding High School (Barre, VT)
A/V Lady
-Acquired film titles for library and managed audio-visual equipment
-Proven leadership in expanding 30 minute lunch breaks into 90 minute affairs encompassing sexual intercourse in the cemetery of an adjacent town followed by creemees
-Consistency in arriving late to work by at least 25 minutes each day
-Ability to drive 65 mph to work in a 25 mph zone without being apprehended by police
-Skilled in taking multiple snack breaks throughout the work day

Summer 2005: The Gap (Burlington, VT)
Sales Associate
-Eagerly avoided customers at every opportunity
-Fluent in heaving sighs and producing disgruntled expressions
-Sought seated and sedentary work with energy and motivation
-Innovated the vanishing method of quitting by showing up for a shift with boyfriend parked outside with getaway car, acquiring last paycheck, and “going to the bank”—never to return again

July 2006-August 2007: Clarke Galleries (Stowe, VT)
Gallery Manager
-Skilled in keeping Firefox tabs in a work:leisure ratio of 1:20
-Gained experience in tactics of belligerence and insubordination
-Developed antagonistic relationships with gallery manager and all male clients
-Assumed new responsibilities begrudgingly and after lengthy negotiations which involved questioning and deconstructing hierarchies of power
-Constructed hand-crafted cardboard shipping boxes for multimillion dollar works of art out of a 15’ x 20’ x 8’ mound of scrap packing materials

September 2000-Present: Plabnox Cures (the world)
Co-Mastermind
-Authoring and designing a wide array of posts concerning social, cultural, political, and scholarly issues
-Virtuosic in self-congratulation

Other Interests and Skills:
Does not multi-task. Is not a team player. Borderline personality with comorbid hysteria, high level of anxiety, and antisocial and sociopathic traits. Types 72 wpm. Experience with Word, psychotic breaks, Excel, and illicit behavior.

References available upon request.

Behind the Virtual Curtain: a peek into the making of Plabnox

Dr. Swinnard: You can catch an assortment of diseases by doing that-- ones that will make your limbs fall off.

Dr. Swinnard: Won't they just disintegrate?

Dr. Swinnard: Wow.

Dr. Swinnard: If you do it, you should tape an instructional video and post it to Plab and youtube.

You're turning into your grandmother.

Dr. Swinnard: I want to post this on Plab.

Dr. Swinnard: Def.

Should I post it now?

The Poor Man's Greatest Hits Album

Plabnox Cures introduces "The Poor Man's Greatest Hits Album," featuring emotionally affordable versions of your favorite hits.

Track Listing:

8. Rhythm Province - A song that expresses the dream of uniting a province through music and dance.

9. Save the Best for Last – Piggy Peggy describes her cherished ritual of saving the red Skittles for last.

*The album is only available on vinyl.

Cineaste's Corner: "Raging Sharks"

"Raging Sharks" (Nu Image, 2004) is one of the most widely acclaimed examples to have emerged from the shark film movement of the 2000s. The film was produced and directed by Danny Lerner and stars such silver screen luminaries as Corin Nemec, Vanessa Angel, Todd Jensen, and Simona Levin, who plays Simona in the film. The lead shark won the year's best actor Oscar, and the supporting sharks sang their own operatic arias for the film's soundtrack.

Plot Synopsis:
The film begins with two different species of aliens chatting inside of a foggy spaceship. A collision with another spaceship sends a cylindrical container flying with enough momentum to travel millions of miles, eventually landing on earth in the middle of an ocean. The cylinder contains glowing orange crystals, later described in the film as "cold fusion" that can "power the planet for the next 500 years". Sharks begin eating the crystals, evidently causing them to become murderous. They kill divers, attack boats, and wreak havoc on an underwater lab (called "Oceania" on the DVD case, and "Oshona" on the caption in the film). The sharks also appear to gain the ability to cause huge explosions upon contact with any surface.

Dr. Olsen, his wife Linda, Simona, and other crew members are in the Oceania/Oshona lab to conduct deep-sea research. Most of the film is set in the lab, although at one point, Dr. Olsen is inexplicably shown driving around a city the filmmakers attempt to pass off as Boston. The lab crew is in constant radio contact with the Roosevelt, a submarine; the film never reveals the connection between Oceania/Oshona and the Roosevelt. A ship called the Paradiso is shown frequently in the film, but it seems to have no relationship to the lab, the submarine, or any other plot elements of the film. The ships and lab frequently flood and explode, but the damage is always gone within two scenes.

Halfway through, the film becomes a political thriller when the character Ben Stiles, initially thought to be a safety inspector, turns out to be an undercover Black Ops agent. Without warning, he starts to shoot a machine gun all over the lab, chase various female crew members down corridors, and fight with Dr. Olsen. After being stabbed, pummeled, body-slammed, and shot, Stiles finally seems to be dead and Dr. and Mrs. Olsen, the only survivors of the sharks' and Black Ops agent's attacks, leave the lab. Dr. Olsen dons a scuba suit and swims all the way from the ocean floor to a submarine inches below the surface, pulling his wife with him. Although she does not have an oxygen tank, she survives the entire swim without breathing. Neither of the Olsens shows any sign of suffering from decompression. Just before boarding the submarine, the presumed dead Stiles shows up again, having also swum the entire depth of the ocean without oxygen, but when he swims up to the Olsens, he is killed by a shark. The Olsens board the submarine, and the film ends.

Style:
Lerner's opus features a number of special techniques that enhance the film. Among the most common are slow- and fast-motion sequences; frequent use of stock footage (most of the underwater scenes, establishing shots of various vessels, shark images, and explosions are stock footage); and repetition of various shots (we see some of the same explosions five times, and some of the characters' reaction shots are reused). In some cases, the filmmakers reuse the same shot, but flip it horizontally to make it seem as though it is new footage.

Film Highlights:

Above: here, Dr. Olsen runs down a corridor at an astonishing speed.

Above: the film relies almost entirely on under-lighting.

Above: fine quality special effects, such as this depiction of an underwater explosion, are common in "Raging Sharks"

Above: in order to make Dr. Olsen seem as though he can defy physics by falling upward, the filmmakers took footage of Dr. Olsen tumbling down and placed it in the film in reverse.

Above: the aliens' spaceship, crafted by the special effects department from old Polaroid cameras.

Above: opening scene of aliens in a foggy spaceship.

Above: during a shark attack, a ship's crew defies gravity.

Above: the man in red chest-high trousers becomes so agitated he is only able to utter unintelligible gibberish.

Above: the sharks in this film make lion noises that are audible underwater.

Above: an unidentified old man, who never appears in the film again, mourns the death of a diver.

Above: Linda Olsen and a colleague have been conducting research in the lab for 10 years; in this clip, they discuss advanced aspects of marine biology.

Above: analysis of the sharks. On close inspection, these "lab results" turn out to be the HTML code for the Google homepage (visit Google and select "view source" from your browser's menu and the same text as above will appear).

Above: during a life-or-death moment, the submarine captain takes a coffee break.

Above: the submarine's high-tech computer alert.

Above: as Dr. Olsen attempts to help Simona, she inexplicably clings onto a bar and flaps her right hand (possibly an allusion to Ted Danson's classic hand flap in "when the BOUGH BReaKS")

Above: clip and still of one of numerous examples of abstract imagery placed in the film.

Above: a typical montage: a shark attacks a boat, causing an explosion (stock footage)

Above: the film's penultimate scene; after a harrowing swim from the ocean floor to inches below the surface, Dr. and Mrs. Olsen were fortunate to find clean clothes in their sizes on the submarine they boarded. Dr. Olsen also had a chance to wax his chest and shave.

Above: Stiles is revealed not to be an accident inspector but in fact a murderous undercover Black Ops agent; here, he jumps to the floor in slow-motion with an accompanying "whoosh" noise.

Above: Stiles utters one of the film's most memorable and oft-quoted lines: "Yeah, you better run...'cause I'm comin' lookin'!"

Above: montage of Stiles stills; notice his demonstration of the expressive male eyebrow.

Above: the film's final scene, made with stock footage of a submarine.

PC45°

PC45°, the newborn news show from Plabnox Cures Programming, will compete directly with Anderson Cooper’s CNN program AC360° during the same prime slot. Whereas Anderson Cooper examines issues on his show while spinning on his spinal axis and simultaneously orbiting the examined subject, in PC45°, Anderson Swinnard will analyze newsworthy items from only forty-five of the possible three hundred and sixty degrees by shifting back and forth at half of a right angle, while looking at only 12.5% of the news item.

Plabnox Cures Programming Presents...Containers

Plabnox Cures Programming is adding a new cooking show to its television line-up. “Containers,” starring Executive Chef Prosperina Swinnard, features the transferring of tasty meals, snacks, and beverages from one container to another. In a recent interview, Chef Swinnard revealed, “During the premiere episode, we'll be moving crème anglaise from a saucepan to a 12 oz. Tupperware container, and then we'll relocate guacamole to a bowl from a mortar and pestle.”

The show’s other creator remarked, “It’s the reversal of the standard cooking show which tells you how to prepare the dishes but assumes you already know how to use the necessary containers; we tell you how to contain everything but assume you already know how to prepare the dishes.”

Upcoming episodes will address transporting mango-lime-mint sorbet from the ice cream maker to a freezer container, and conveying beef stew to bowls from the kettle. “Containers” will debut Tuesday at 9PM on the Plabnox Cures Network.