Pixels & Pizza by Aimee Stewart – Buffalo – 1000 pieces
Well, sort of in progress. I’m still sorting it – and that’s a start, right? 1000 piece puzzles take a lot longer for me to sort these days; I get so antsy to start assembling and want nothing more than to be done with sorting, so I take frequent breaks. In the back of my mind, I know that if I get the sorting done that I’ll be happier with the assembly so I keep slogging through it little bits at a time.
I’m very excited to start working on this image; there are SO MANY words, it’s got a fabulous 80s feel to it, and the colors are so bright and bold – it’s gonna be a great time – I can tell!
I sorta had a good time assembling this puzzle – a puzzle image that shouldn’t exist if you ask me. I honestly had to stop several times while I was working on this because after assembling a book cover that I wasn’t familiar with I would look up what it was about and why it was banned; I just kept getting more and more frustrated, angry, and sad. In a supposedly free country why should anyone get to decide what someone else reads? The answer is…..they shouldn’t. Ever.
This puzzle had me pretty damn fired up, so if you’re just here to see the puzzle and hear me talk about the assembly you should stop reading after this paragraph. It was a good quality puzzle with a beautiful collage image that was entertaining to assemble when I could dissociate my brain from the reason these books were put together to make this image in the first place. Just like The Nineteenth Amendment the rest of this post is about the subject matter of the puzzle rather than the assembly.
This blog is about puzzles, not politics – but this puzzle is a collection of books that have been banned because of politics and repressed prudes and/or zealots thinking they can control what others think or read or learn or feel. Screw that. Screw them.
There are many books here that I may not want to read because they just aren’t my taste, but that doesn’t mean I get to keep others from reading them because I don’t like the subject matter or the content. What’s next? Big bonfire in front of the library? Or should we just set the libraries on fire and get rid of every book that has anything questionable at all?
They’ve just enacted laws in several American states that would mean jail time for librarians who help children get a banned book – because they’re providing them with “obscene” materials. Who decides whether or not a book is obscene? Well, it could be the angry lady down the street or some puritanical priss who’s never used the word damn and thinks ladies showing their ankles is scandalous, or just about anyone at all; apparently others can now decide what is inappropriate for you and/or your children to read. WTAF?!
*can you tell I’m still fired up about this?* 🤬
I’ve chosen three books to highlight, two of them I’ve never read and the other one of them is my favorite book of all time – it’s one I’ve read many, many times. I cannot fathom censoring books for any reason, but the reasons given for “challenging” and/or banning these books really p*sses me off.
This informational book for kids ages 8-10 was written by a certified sex educator and teaches children about their bodies, sex, and people and families of all kinds. It has been censored in just one state 36 times – just one state! Here’s why, “because it addresses sex education and is believed to lead children to ‘want to have sex or ask questions about sex’.” Sex and sex education is a touchy subject with many people, but not allowing your kids to learn about their bodies and sex can lead to terrible consequences. How you choose to do it in your home with your children is completely up to you; but taking away the opportunity for other parents to use this book to help teach their children is NOT ok.
Sigh. My favorite book. Yes, it has talk of a sexual assault and the N-word in it; but it’s used to tell the story in a way that highlights how destructive racism is and can be. And wanting to go back and whitewash the language and/or the storyline makes no sense to me. It’s how some people spoke and acted at the time (ignorant and racist as it was), but pretending that events fictionalized in this book never occurred in the real world and that people didn’t actually speak that way is beyond stupid. It’s so beyond stupid I don’t even have words to describe how asinine it is.
It brings to mind a quote…”Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”
The Librarian of Basra is a true story of a woman who rallied her community to protect and save as many of the library’s books as possible when war broke out. Why was this banned you may ask? Well, according to many racist, xenophobic idiots – sorry, I mean *parents* – it “promotes a religion other than Christianity” and “takes places in the violent settings of Afghanistan and Iraq.”
It’s a book for children, it isn’t violent – it just takes place in countries where a war was happening; and talking about another religion isn’t promoting it, it’s being truthful to the story.
I gotta say, if you’re raising your children so that they do not even know about other countries, other religions, or that violence and war exist – they are in for a rude awakening when they go out into the real world. A very rude awakening indeed. Honestly people, what has happened to us?
As you can tell, book banning makes me very upset. The United States of America is supposed to be a democratic republic – not a theocracy or a dictatorship. Your religion, political leanings, or set of beliefs are yours to have and enjoy but they shouldn’t ever be allowed to infringe on the rights of others to have a different religion, political party, or set of beliefs.
You don’t get to decide what is appropriate for my children or myself to read, and you don’t get to take away the opportunity for us to check a book out of a school or local library because you don’t like it.
In fact, it’s none of your damn business what anyone in my family is reading, thank you very much!
Such a bright, colorful, entertaining puzzle – where do I begin? We all know how much collage puzzles make me happy, and this one was no different. The piece shape is quite evident in the finished image, but it doesn’t take away from how much fun I had putting it together. In addition to their many images with book covers, Re-marks has quite a few of these stamp collages as well – I’ve not been disappointed with any of them. 😁
I was so glad the border had a pattern, it was easy to pick out the pieces while sorting; the cut was very random and there were many, many pieces that looked as though they would be edges that were not. It was quite helpful to be able to see at a glance whether or not the pieces were actually part of the border.
This puzzle had a very loose fit, but was otherwise good quality. The random cut made for interesting piece shapes, and the image reproduction was good, though somewhat shiny.
These were two of my favorite stamps, but they were all so interesting and beautiful – it was hard to choose just a few to show up close.
Goofy – Ravensburger (Disney Treasures from the Vault) – 1000 pieces
This beauty was gorgeous and extremely entertaining, and the puzzle massage at the end was SOOOOO satisfying – it’s been forever since I’ve assembled a Ravensburger. Their finish has an unmistakable feel to it, and it was lovely to run my hands over it once it was complete. 👋
Disney Treasures from the Vault special edition Ravensburger puzzles – there’s a crap ton of them! This is the first one I’ve seen in person though, and I just couldn’t help myself; the poor thing looked so lonely on the shelf, it needed to be adopted and come home with me where it would get the love it deserves. There’s one for Pluto that also is a collage of “posters”, I’d love to get my hands on that one. Many of the other special edition vault puzzles are just a single image of certain characters, and they’re not as attractive to me for some reason. Although I might feel differently if I were to see them in person rather than online.
Doing a 1000 piece puzzle isn’t so intimidating if it’s a collage (at least for me), so getting this one going wasn’t a problem at all. Easy to sort, easy to assemble – but not too simple. All around it was great fun, and I can’t ask for much more.
My kids and hubby tell me that we’ve seen this short, but as usual there is no recollection of it whatsoever.
Unusually this was one of the most entertaining sections to assemble. I had my money on one of the brighter sections being the most fun, but nope – it was this one. I can’t really explain why it was so enjoyable, it just was.
Doesn’t this look like fun? If you answered yes – get yourself a cookie, you were absolutely right! Even though it’s 1000 pieces (and I hadn’t done one that big in a more than a year 😲), it didn’t seem like a larger puzzle because it felt as though I were assembling a bunch of smaller puzzles, little bits at a time.
As an added bonus it’s a panoramic puzzle, so there was much less leaning over the board to reach the top of the image than there normally is. I adore panoramic puzzles, they’re so much easier on this old body.
The quality was the usual for Re-marks. There weren’t any issues at all other than a slightly loose fit, but even that wasn’t too bad. The pieces are a good thickness, there were a good variety of piece shapes, and the image reproduction was crisp and clear (just a bit shiny). Their catalog of collage images is just too good to pass up, so whatever quality issues the brand has doesn’t matter much to me. My head gets turned by a pretty “face” on the box and before you know it the puzzle has been adopted and has come home with me.
I haven’t really seen many musicals in the theater, but I have seen the movie West Side Story many, many times. We also had a record of the soundtrack when we were little, and my sisters and I knew every word of every song. My parents love to tell the story of them taking us all to the movies to see it for a matinee; and as soon as the first song started playing there were three young girls singing along at the top of their lungs. Luckily the other people in the theater weren’t too upset with us, perhaps we were just too cute. Apparently we even got some applause after that first song! 🤩
I haven’t seen this show, but I’ve heard lots of good things about it and would love the opportunity to watch it. Music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper – yes please! It’s too bad they don’t record the show and put it on a streaming service for the rest of the world to see. A streaming service with theatrical shows would be amazing for those of us who don’t live in or near New York. In fact, a streaming service that has plays and musicals from around the world (not just Broadway) would be an excellent idea. I would definitely be a subscriber – how about you?
I don’t recall ever hearing about this show, but reading all those signs makes me think I would absolutely love it. Coming of age in the 80’s means I love all that music, all those hair bands, all that arena rock – it’s one that would most likely have me singing along at the top of my lungs, just like when I was a little girl at the movies. 😁🎶
