Tom Thumb, Salmon Fishing & John Carter

A few of my favorite things this last month or so.

This is one of this year's Beehive nominees. I was subbing at the grade school library and had to present the non-fiction nominees to the various classes. This book intrigued me. I read a fair amount at school, then I borrowed it from the library and took it to Kansas to finish.

These were some fun pictures of Tom Thumb, who was born with proportional dwarfism. This is him around age four.

P.T. Barnum had a miniature carriage made for Tom while they were abroad. It was was pulled by small ponies.

P.T. Barnum (who's biography must be just fascinating!) and Tom

One of Tom's wedding photos. He was 2 feet 11 inches tall and his wife was one inch shorter.

They stood on a piano at the hotel where they greeted well wishers of their marriage.

Then there was Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. I was a little hesitant, but I liked the actors, so I thought I'd give it a go. I thought it was wonderful!

Explaining how they'd get Salmon from the UK to the Yemen

The Sheikh and Alfred fishing. And might I say, the Sheikh was a very handsome man!

Finalizing their plans

Then there was John Carter. I thought it was really fun movie that took a lot of flack. Admittedly, it had a horrible title here the in US, but abroad they actually called it John Carter of Mars which I think was more helpful. I hadn't heard any great reviews of it and hadn't met anyone who'd seen it. Nonetheless, I still wanted to see it. I loved it! The story was fun, the visual effects were pretty cool, John Carter was attractive and some of my favorite actors were in it. I was a little disappointed that they ended it on a 'to be continued' note, but other than that, I really enjoyed it.

Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkus (one of the alien leaders)

Ciaran Hinds

Got to love James Purefoy!

Mark Strong

Some other great stills from the movie