A Literary Game

Using only books you have read this year (2009), answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title.

From: D.G. Meyers: A Commonplace Blog

Describe yourself: The Poincare Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe (Donal O'Shea)

How do you feel: The Old Curiosity Shop (Charles Dickens)

Describe where you currently live: The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: There and Again (George MacDonald)

Your favorite form of transportation: Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science came to Europe through the Islamic world ( Deckle Edge) or The Time-Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffeneger)

Your best friend is: The Tie that Binds (PG Wodehouse)

You and your friends are: Tycho and Kepler: The Unlikely Partnership that Forever Changed Our Understanding of the Heavens (Kitty Ferguson)

What's the weather like: Gates of Fire (Steven Pressfield)

You fear: The Tides of War (Steven Pressfield)

What is the best advice you have to give: The Poetry of the Universe (Robert Osserman)

Thought for the day: Quantum Philosophy (Roland Omnes)

How I would like to die: Mr. Dixon Disappears: A Mobile Library Mystery (Ian Sansome)

My soul's present condition: The Blue Flower (Penelope Fitzgerald)

Running for Haiti's Kids

I've been so inspired by the example of the Livesay family, a family of "former Minnesotans in our 4th year serving in Haiti." Their blog can be found at http://livesayhaiti.blogspot.com

I'd like to invite anyone and everyone to contribute to the Medika Mamba project which is helping so many children recover from malnutrition. This is a way to directly impact the lives of little children for good. Tara Livesay writes on her blog:

ALL money donated will go directly to purchase Medika Mamba that will be used to help kids in Haiti recover. Please consider sponsoring me as I train to run to benefit malnourished children in Haiti.

I don't see how anyone can watch this and not be moved:


Go to the Livesay blog and make a "chip-in" contribution before October 4, 2009.

I remember

A Facebook Group entitled "I grew up in New Orleans in the Seventies", (well actually it was Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans), which I recently joined, prompted me to sit down and "stream of consciousness"-like write down memories from my childhood in New Orleans.

I remember…

Royal Castle, Krystals, Time Saver, Frost-Top, Monkey Hill, The Levee, Drive-In on Veterans, Midnight Mass on Christmas, Oyster Po-Boys from Schwegmanns, Gaylords, The Zephyr and the Wild Maus (overcoming the fear that I would fall off the edge) at Ponchartrain Beach, The wading pool at the Ponchartrain Beach pool before it closed. Boiled crabs on newspaper spread out on the picnic tables at the Lakefront, Fitzgerald's Seafood restaurant on the pier at West-End, The colorful fountain at West-End, the swings at West-End park, Sno-balls with cream on top, Riding the street cars up St. Charles Avenue to the dentist office on Canal Street. The SS President on the Mississippi River. The rotating restaurant/bar at the top of the World Trade Building. Horseback riding at City Park: (MonkeySee Monkey Do, Country Boy were a couple of the horses' names I remember), Horseback riding at Audubon Park, The boat pulling inner tubes (fall off and the boat stops and waits for you to swim back to your tube) at the Ponchatoula River. Inner tubing down the river (almost drowned once), Manuel's Hot Tamales from the street vendor cart, "Get your Tamales, Get your Red Hot Tamales" wrapped in newspaper. Rock concerts at the Warehouse, Cotton Club swimming pool. Beignets and Café Au Lait in the French Quarter. The French Market (so many smells, so many varieties of vegetables and kind of scary at night) in the French quarter. Driving across the Ponchartrain Bridge (paying the toll) to picnic in Mandeville. Riding bikes from home in Metairie to the Lake Front. Watching scary movies with Morgus the Magnificent, Lakeside Shopping Center when it was an open air shopping center, Disco at Fat City, D.H. Holmes, Maison Blanche, Crawfishing in the swamps- so much fun wearing wader boots and filling up burlap sacks full, the best part, having a big crawfish boil after.

 

Abundant Harvest!

I recently signed our family up for a weekly delivery of fresh, locally grown, in-season, organic vegetables. The picture above is of the first week's box. Every Saturday morning we bring back the crate that held last week's produce and pick-up a new box overflowing with fresh vegetables, fruit and herbs. Now I just need more recipes for eggplant and kale… Oh yeah , and more time to cook. Well at least I have an incentive. It's so much fun to see what's in the box each week.

From the Abundant Harvest Website:

"Abundant Harvest Organics is an alliance of small family farmers in Central California dedicated to growing superior organic produce and getting it to you in the simplest manner possible; that is, without the use of chemicals or packaging materials. We grow locally and supply locally, cutting the need for expensive and wasteful fuel and packing resources."

I feel so much more "in-touch" with the agricultural process because the produce is all locally grown and in-season. If you live in the Los Angeles area and are interested in finding out if there is a delivery location near you, this is the website:

www.abundandantharvestorganics.com

Still Searching for Treasures in the Heap

The Bookworm: By Robert Buchanan (1841-1901)

With spectacles upon his nose,
    He shuffles up and down;
Of antique fashion are his clothes,
    His napless hat is brown.
A mighty watch, of silver wrought,
    Keeps time in sun or rain
To the dull ticking of the thought
    Within his dusty brain.

To see him at the bookstall stand
    And bargain for the prize,
With the odd sixpence in his hand
    And greed in his gray eyes!
Then, conquering, grasp the book half blind,
    And take the homeward track,
For fear the man should change his mind,
    And want the bargain back!

The waves of life about him beat,
    He scarcely lifts his gaze,
He hears within the crowded street
    The wash of ancient days.
If ever his short-sighted eyes
    Look forward, he can see
Vistas of dusty Libraries
    Prolonged eternally.

But think not as he walks along
    His brain is dead and cold;
His soul is thinking in the tongue
    Which Plato spake of old;
And while some grinning cabman sees
    His quaint shape with a jeer,
He smiles, — for Aristophanes
    Is joking in his ear.

Around him stretch Athenian walks,
    And strange shapes under trees;
He pauses in a dream and talks
    Great speech, with Socrates.
Then, as the fancy fails — still mesh'd
    In thoughts that go and come —
Feels in his pouch, and is refresh'd
    At touch of some old tome.

The mighty world of humankind
    Is as a shadow dim,
He walks through life like one half blind,
    And all looks dark to him;
But put his nose to leaves antique,
    And hold before his sight
Some press'd and withered flowers of Greek,
    And all is life and light.

A blessing on his hair so gray,
    And coat of dingy brown!
May bargains bless him every day,
    As he goes up and down;
Long may the bookstall-keeper's face,
    In dull times, smile again,
To see him round with shuffling pace
    The corner of the lane!

A good old Ragpicker is he,
    Who, following morn and eve
The quick feet of Humanity,
    Searches the dust they leave.
He pokes the dust, he sifts with care,
    He searches close and deep;
Proud to discover, here and there,
    A treasure in the heap!

ht:Laudator Temporis Acti

There and Back, Again

Here are some more quotes from George MacDonald's There and Back. I especially enjoyed all the references to books and reading in the story. The book is full of them because of the author's love of literature and story, and also because the main character of the story is a book-binder by trade and a book-lover too.

 

"I would rather learn to read, though—the right way, I mean—the way that makes one book talk to another."

 

 

What is feeling but poetry in a gaseous condition? What is fine thought but poetry in a fluid condition? What is thought solidified, but fine prose; thought crystallized, but verse?

 

She had yet to learn that books themselves are but weak ministers, that the spirit dwelling in them must lead back to him who gave it or die; that they are but windows, which, if they look not out on the eternal spaces, will themselves be blotted out by the darkness.

 

Only those who haunt the slopes of literature, know that marvels lie in the grass for the hand that will gather them. Multitudes who count themselves readers know no more of the books they read than the crowds that visit the Academy exhibitions know of the pictures they gaze upon. Yet are the realms of literature free as air, freer even than those of music.

 

For what are books, I venture to say, but an army-corps of the lord of hosts, at whose command are troops of all natures, after the various regions of his indwelling! Even the letter is something, for the dry bones of books are every hour coming alive to the reader in whose spirit is blowing the better spirit.

 

The good in a true book, he would say, is the best protection against what may not be so good in it; its wrong as well as its right may wake the conscience: the thoughts of a book accuse and excuse one another. In saying so, he took the true reader for granted; to an untrue reader the truth itself is untrue.

 

"Look here: I am very fond of a well-bound book; I should like all my new books bound in levant morocco; but I don't care about it; I could do well enough without any binding at all."

"Of course you could, sir! and so could I, or any man that cared for the books themselves."

"Very well! I don't care about religion much, but I could not live without my Father in heaven. I don't believe anybody can live without him."

 

There and Back

I just finished reading There and Back, George MacDonald's novel about a book-binder who comes into his rightful inheritance and finds true love. George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a Scottish author, poet and Christian minister. His fantasy works influenced both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein. You may recognize the title of MacDonald's novel in the sub-title to Tolkein's, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again.

There and Back begins with this note from the author:

Some of the readers of this tale will be glad to know that
the passage with which it ends is a real dream; and that,
with but three or four changes almost too slight to require
acknowledging, I have given it word for word as the friend
to whom it came set it down for me.

 

The dream, recounted in the last chapter of the book as Barbara's dream, brought tears to my eyes and stirred a deep longing within me. May it bless you as well:

 

Barbara's Dream

"One morning, after what seemed a long night's dreamless sleep, I awoke; but it was much too early to rise; so I lay thinking--or more truly, I hope, being thought into, as Mr. Wingfold says. Many of the most beautiful things I had read, scenes of our Lord's life on earth, and thoughts of the Father, came and went. I had no desire to sleep again, or any feeling of drowsiness; but in the midst of fully conscious thought, found myself in some other place, of which I only knew that there was firm ground under my feet, and a soft white radiance of light about me. The remembrance came to me afterwards, of branches of trees spreading high overhead, through which I saw the sky: but at the time I seemed not to take notice of what was around me. I was leaning against a form tall and grand, clothed from the shoulders to the ground in a black robe, full, and soft, and fine. It lay in thickly gathered folds, touched to whiteness in the radiant light, all along the arms encircling, without at first touching me.

"With sweet content my eyes went in and out of those manifold radiant lines, feeling, though they were but parts of his dress, yet they were of himself; for I knew the form to be that of the heavenly Father, but felt no trembling fear, no sense of painful awe--only a deep, deep worshipping, an unutterable love and confidence. 'Oh Father!' I said, not aloud, but low into the folds of his garment. Scarcely had I breathed the words, when 'My child!' came whispered, and I knew his head was bent toward me, and I felt his arms close round my shoulders, and the folds of his garment enwrap me, and with a soft sweep, fall behind me to the ground. Delight held me still for a while, and then I looked up to seek his face; but I could not see past his breast. His shoulders rose far above my upreaching hands. I clasped them together, and face and hands rested near his heart, for my head came not much above his waist.

"And now came the most wonderful part of my dream. As I thus rested against his heart, I seemed to see into it; and mine was filled with loving wonder, and an utterly blessed feeling of home, to the very core. I was at home--with my Father! I looked, as it seemed, into a space illimitable and fathomless, and yet a warm light as from a hearth-fire shone and played in ruddy glow, as upon confining walls. And I saw, there gathered, all human hearts. I saw them--yet I saw no forms; they were there--and yet they would be there. To my waking reason, the words sound like nonsense, and perplex me; but the thing did not perplex me at all. With light beyond that of faith, for it was of absolute certainty, clear as bodily vision, but of a different nature, I saw them. But this part of my dream, the most lovely of all, I can find no words to describe; nor can I even recall to my own mind the half of what I felt. I only know that something was given me then, some spiritual apprehension, to be again withdrawn, but to be given to us all, I believe, some day, out of his infinite love, and withdrawn no more. Every heart that had ever ached, or longed, or wandered, I knew was there, folded warm and soft, safe and glad. And it seemed in my dream that to know this was the crown of all my bliss--yes, even more than to be myself in my Father's arms. Awake, the thought of multitude had always oppressed my mind; it did not then. From the comfort and joy it gave me to see them there, I seemed then first to know how my own heart had ached for them.

"Then tears began to run from my eyes--but easily, with no pain of the world in them. They flowed like a gentle stream--into the heart of God, whose depths were open to my gaze. The blessedness of those tears was beyond words. It was all true then! That heart was our home!

"Then I felt that I was being gently, oh, so gently, put away. The folds of his robe which I held in my hands, were being slowly drawn from them; and the gladness of my weeping changed to longing entreaty. 'Oh Father! Father!' I cried; but I saw only his grand gracious form, all blurred and indistinct through the veil of my blinding tears, slowly receding, slowly fading--and I awoke.

"My tears were flowing now with the old earth-pain in them, with keenest disappointment and longing. To have been there and to have come back, was the misery. But it did not last long. The glad thought awoke that I had the dream--a precious thing never to be lost while memory lasted; a thing which nothing but its realization could ever equal in preciousness. I rose glad and strong, to serve with newer love, with quicker hand and readier foot, the hearts around me."

THE END

 

Akdamut – A Pentecost Poem

Translated from the Aramaic and Source of the hymn: "O Love of God"
Source: http://www.edhaor.org/

Akdamut-First Day Of Shavuot ("Sabbath and Festival Prayer Book" edited by Morris Silverman with Robert Gordis, 1946. USCJ and RA, 185-88.)


Were the sky of parchment made,
A quill each reed, each twig and blade,
Could we with ink the oceans fill,
Were every man a scribe of skill,

The marvelous story
Of God's great glory
Would still remain untold;
For He, Most High,
The earth and sky
Created alone of old.

Without fatigue or weary hand,
He spoke the word, He breathed command;
The world and all that therein dwell,
Field and meadow, fen and fell,

Mount and sea,
In six days He
With life did then inspire;
The work when ended,
His glory ascended
Upon His throne of fire.

Before Him myriads angels flash,
To do His Will they run and dash;
Each day new hosts gleam forth to praise
The Mighty One, Ancient of Days;

Six-winged hosts
Stand at their posts -
The flaming Seraphim -
In hushed awe
Together draw
To chant their morning hymn.

The angels, together, without delay,
Call one to another in rapturous lay:

"Thrice holy He
Whose majesty
Fills earth from end to end."
The Cherubim soar,
Like the Oceans's roar,
On celestial spheres ascend,

To gaze upon the Light on high,
Which, like the bow in cloudy sky,
Is iris-colored, silver-lined;
While hasting on their task assigned,

In every tongue
They utter song
And bless and praise the Lord,
Whose secret and source,
Whose light and force
Can ne'er he fully explored.

The heavenly hosts in awe reply:
"His Kingdom be blessed for e'er and aye."
Their song being hushed, they vanish away:
They may ne'er again offer rapturous lay.

But Israel,
Therein excel -
Fixed times they set aside,
With praise and prayer,
Him One declare,
At morn and eventide.

His portion them He made, that they
His praise declare by night and day:
A Torah, precious more than gold,
He bade them study, fast to hold;

That He may be near,
Their prayer to hear,
For always wear will He
As diadem fair
His people's prayer
In His phylactery,

Wherein is told of Israel's fame
Who oft God's unity proclaim.
'Tis also meet God's praise to sing
In presence of both prince and king.

Memorial Day 2009

How Sleep The Brave

HOW sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there!

William Taylor Collins

From Greek Class to the Gallows

I collect quotes about (among other things) classical education in literature. Here's a classic from William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis, chapter 2:

Miserable trifler! A boy who construes δε and instead of δε but, at sixteen years of age is guilty not merely of folly, and ignorance, and dulness inconceivable, but of crime, of deadly crime, of filial ingratitude, which I tremble to contemplate.

It reminds me a bit of my Greek Prose Composition class in college. Read the entire scene, it's hilarious. Notice the progression from mistakes in construing Greek to the gallows… (Thanks to laudatortemporisacti for the reference.)

It was at the close of the forenoon school, and Pen had been unnoticed all the previous part of the morning till now, when the Doctor put him on to construe in a Greek play. He did not know a word of it, though little Timmins, his form-fellow, was prompting him with all his might. Pen had made a sad blunder or two when the awful Chief broke out upon him.

'Pendennis, sir,' he said, 'your idleness is incorrigible and your stupidity beyond example. You are a disgrace to your school, and to your family, and I have no doubt will prove so in after-life to your country. If that vice, sir, which is described to us as the root of all evil, be really what moralists have represented (and I have no doubt of the correctness of their opinion), for what a prodigious quantity of future crime and wickedness are you, unhappy boy, laying the seed! Miserable trifler! A boy who construes δε and instead of δε but, at sixteen years of age is guilty not merely of folly, and ignorance, and dulness inconceivable, but of crime, of deadly crime, of filial ingratitude, which I tremble to contemplate. A boy, sir, who does not learn his Greek play cheats the parent who spends money for his education. A boy who cheats his parent is not very far from robbing or forging upon his neighbour. A man who forges on his neighbour pays the penalty of his crime at the gallows. And it is not such a one that I pity (for he will be deservedly cut off), but his maddened and heart-broken parents, who are driven to a premature grave by his crimes, or, if they live, drag on a wretched and dishonoured old age. Go on, sir, and I warn you that the very next mistake that you make shall subject you to the punishment of the rod. Who's that laughing? What ill-conditioned boy is there that dares to laugh?' shouted the Doctor.

No wonder classical education has a bad rep!

15 Books: A Meme

I received this on Facebook. It was hard to narrow the list to fifteen but here they are:

Instructions: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me.

1. The Bible (I became a different person after I started reading the Bible when I was sixteen yrs. old)
   
2. How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen (Reading this book a few years ago made me realize that I had lost a part of my identity by losing my childhood insatiable appetite for reading and changing it to thinking of reading as something to be done only for a specific purpose. Reading is part of who I am as a person, and I had lost part of myself by denying it. )
   
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (IMHO quite possibly the best book ever written. As many times as I read it I always come away a better person for having read it again.)
   
4. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Wolfe (Helped me realize the importance of setting aside a space (and time) for writing.) Still working on that one.
   
5. Appointment in Jerusalem by Derek Prince (Amazing (true) story of a woman's journey of faith.
   
6. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte (Another one that I never get tired of rereading.)
   
7. Grammatical Man: Information, Entropy, Language, Life by Jeremy Campbell (Great book on information theory and language, the main topic of my Ph.D. dissertation.)
   
8. John Adams by David Mccullough (My favorite biography)
   
9. The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer (Schaeffer was a prophetic voice to his generation.)
   
10. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (The best conspiracy theory novel I've read. I love The Name of the Rose too, but had to narrow the list to 15.)
    
11. The Way of Holiness by Andrew Murray (My favorite devotional book by my favorite devotional author.)
    
12. Thank You Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (Really any Jeeves book. Jeeves and Bertie Wooster are my two favorite fictional characters. I can't read Wodehouse without cracking up. He makes me smile.)
    
13. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein ( I can get lost in his prose.)
    
14. Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis by Michael Ward (Ward discovers a hidden structure in the Lewis' Narnia novels based on the 7 planets of medieval cosmology. Incredibly well written and convincing.)
    
15. Kite Runner by Khaled
    Hosseini (This book put a human face on the struggle in Afghanistan for me.)

May 15, 1618

I just finished reading a book about Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe, Tycho and Kepler by Kitty Ferguson. According to the book it was on this date, May 15, in 1618that Kepler discovered the 3rd law of planetary motion.

The 3rd law is the harmonic law which states that “there is an exact relationship between the squares of the planets’ periodic times and the cubes of the radii of their orbits.” Kepler was so excited by the discovery that he wanted to give way to a “sacred frenzy”, as he put it:

I feel carried away and possessed by an unutterable rapture over the divine spectacle of heavenly harmony... I write a book for the present time, or for posterity. It is all the same to me. It may wait a hundred years for its readers, as God has also waited six thousand years for an onlooker.

The dedication prayer of his book, Harmony of the Worlds reads:

I should pray, devout and supplicating, to the Father of lights: O Thou Who dost by the light of nature promote in us the desire for the light of grace, that by its means Thou mayest transport us into the light of glory, I give thanks to Thee, O Lord Creator, Who hast delighted me with Thy makings and in the works of Thy hands have I exulted. Behold! now, I have completed the work of my profession, having employed as much power of mind as Thou didst give to me; to the men who are going to read those demonstrations I have made manifest the glory of Thy works, as much of its infinity as the narrows of my intellect could apprehend. My mind has been given over to philosophizing most correctly: if there is anything unworthy of Thy designs brought forth by me—a worm born and nourished in a wallowing place of sins—breathe into me also that which Thou dost wish men to know, that I may make the correction: If I have been allured into rashness by the wonderful beauty of Thy works, or if I have loved my own glory among men, while I am advancing in the work destined for Thy glory, be gentle and merciful and pardon me; and finally deign graciously to effect that these demonstrations give way to Thy glory and the salvation of souls and nowhere be an obstacle to that.

Interviewing With the Stars

Aimee and I had the privilege of participating in a "meet and greet" with Shawn Johnson, the Olympic gold medalist. Shawn took a day off from her rehearsing for the Dancing with the Stars finals to promote the Lunchables Lunch Your Tummy Right Tour. As part of the promotion, Lunchables is awarding 50 kids with a VIP ticket to Camp Wodward. Lucky winners will find a ticket inside a "specially marked" Lunchable.

My friend and blogging mentor Donna, aka Socalmom, told me that she had given my name as a "blogger" who has an interest in gymnastics (our daughters are on the same gymnastics team). Well I didn't receive the email but she told me Aimee and I were invited anyway. It was being held at a local gym in Burbank. We've been to this gym before and I remember it was really small.

I had no idea what to expect. Actually, I was expecting a huge crowd jammed into this small gym, kind of like the meet we had attended there several years ago. I didn't think we'd actually get close enough to talk to her, let alone sit down and ask her questions one-on-one, well actually four-on-one.

I felt kind of like I should say I was representing Horse and Hound magazine.(Like Hugh Grant in Notting Hill.) There were reporters from the LA Times and other media. Donna and I both were handed a gift bag from Lunchables. I opened it up and my mouth dropped when I saw it contained a Flip VideoCamera. I could get used to this kind of thing.

Another blogging mom, Sweatpantsmom, was there with her two daughters. Her two girls, aged 10 and 13, had their questions for Shawn prepared and neatly written out. They went in first. I said to Aimee, "Think of some questions for Shawn!" Then they ushered us into the gym and introduced us to Shawn. The four of us (Aimee, Donna, her daughter Megan and me) had about ten minutes to interview her.

Shawn was extremely sweet and poised. She seemed genuinely interested in the girls and gave some really great advice on dealing with fears and what it takes to stick with the sport. I was very proud of Aimee and Megan coming up with some great questions. You can watch the entire interview on YouTube here. (Thanks to Donna for posting it.)

After our time with Shawn she spent time with the girls on the team at the Burbank gym. We sat on the side and watched as the girls were allowed into the room. They didn't know that Shawn was going to be there. The reaction on the girls faces as the realized it was Shawn Johnson was priceless. Donna posted it on YouTube here.

Gotta run, I'm on my way to the store to buy some Lunchables.

Writing advice from Nora Roberts

I have to confess that I have never read a book by Nora Roberts. She just doesn't write the kind of books I like to read. But, I admire her because she is a successful author. I read this recent interview with her this morning and appreciated her perspective on reading and her advice on writing. So here are some excerpts from:

There Ain't No Muse: A Conversation with Nora Roberts

Conducted by Clarissa Sansone

What is your writing and revision process like?

Nora Roberts: Well, first: There ain't no muse. If you sit around and wait to channel the muse, you can sit around and wait a long time. It's not effortless. If only. Well, if it was, then everyone would do it, and where would we be then? So I work really hard to make it as fluid as possible, as readable and entertaining as possible.

I'll vomit out the first draft: bare-bones, get-the-story-down. I don't edit and fiddle as I go, because I don't know what's going to happen next. Once I get the discovery draft down, then I'll go back to page one, chapter one, and then I start worrying about how it sounds, where I've made mistakes, where I've gone right, what else I have to add, where's the texture, where's the emotion. I start fixing. And then, after I've done that all the way through again, I'll go back one more time, and that's when I'm really going to worry about the language. And the rhythm, and making sure that I haven't made a mistake, that I've tied up all the loose ends reasonably.

Do you have the time to actually sit down and read books very often?

NR: I think if you don't read, you'd never have the chops to write, and why would you, if you didn't love stories and want to lose yourself in what someone else has sweated over? I love to read, and I really think books are the most important tool in a writer's toolbox.

Are you an omnivorous reader?

NR: Oh yeah. There may be times when, after a really long day at the keyboard, my brain is too tired to read. And that's when I get my stories on TV. Once I start a book I'm a gobbler, so it's very rare that I'll read a couple chapters and put it down.

Read the entire interview at borders.com

Tax Dog Cometh?

I wonder if I can hire her to do my taxes? I am so late this year. I had to mail an extension request at the last minute.

100 Books Meme: How Many have you read?

This has been around for a while, but I ran across it at the Jane Austen World and thought it was time to tally up. I think I counted 65. A couple seem to be repeats.

 

If you would like to participate, just copy and paste this list of books into your own blog or Facebook notes, and follow the instructions below, or add up the books you've read.

This list was compiled in the U.K. by the BBC. The average adult has read only 6 of the books on the list. (Really?)

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own blog.

 

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The
Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60
Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

A Budget Speech

The (AP) news headlines from yesterday read:

Obama budget could bring $9.3 trillion in deficits
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush's presidency, congressional auditors said Friday.

Wow! Well I am just about speechless about this, but I came acros a historic speech which I feel could be applied to this occasion.

Excerpts from Gladstone's attack on Disraeli's Budget (1852)
('A Budget which may imperil our safety')

"I vote against the Budget…, not only because I disapprove upon general grounds of the principles of that Budget but emphatically and peculiarly because in my conscience is my firm conviction that the Budget is …the most subversive in its tendencies and ultimate effects which I have ever known submitted to this House.

It is the most regardless of those general rules of prudence which it is absolutely necessary we should preserve…Sir, the… is a noble assembly, worthy of its historical and traditional associations; but it is too much to expect that we should teach the executive its duty in elementary matters of administration and finance…

You are now asked to vote for a Budget which consecrates, as it were, the principle of a deficiency, and which endangers the public credit of the country, and which may peril our safety—if, indeed, the circumstances of the present day are circumstances of uneasiness;…

I say, then, that I vote against this Budget, feeling that in giving that vote I do the work, so far as depends upon me, which you ought to join with me in doing.

I do not express that sentiment in an offensive, manner, but I say it because I feel deeply attached to the institutions of the country,…and I feel it my duty to use that freedom of speech which I am sure, … you will tolerate, when I tell you that if you give your assent and your high authority to this most unsound and destructive principle on which the financial scheme of the Government is based…,

My belief is that the day will come when you will look back upon this vote—as its consequences sooner or later unfold themselves—you will look back upon this vote with bitter, but with late and ineffectual regret."

Ode to Spring

O spring, O spring,
You wonderful thing!
O spring, O spring, O spring!
O spring, O spring,
When the birdies sing
I feel like a king,
O spring!

by Walter R. Brooks

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING!

In case the first poem was a little too juvenile for you, here's another one by Robert Frost:

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

The Lorica of St. Patrick

(St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer)
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In preachings of the apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices,
From every one who desires me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a mulitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and evil,
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that reward may come to me in abundance.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation

St. Patrick (ca. 377)

Gymnastics Tie-Breakers

Tie-Breakers

Some of my myriad readers (LOL) may know that my 10 year old daughter is a competitive gymnast. She’s been doing gymnastics since she was three. She moved up this Spring to the Optional level 7. US competitive gymnastics starts with 3 compulsory levels where every gymnast does the exact same routines to the exact same music. It makes for some very looong meets when you hear the same dinky music over and over again about 300 times or so. In the optional levels every gymnast picks (in conjunction with her coach of course) her own music and has her routines choreographed especially for her. It’s so much more fun that way.

I know that every sport has its ups and downs, pros and cons, but I am becoming intimately familiar with the ins and outs of this wonderful sport called women’s artistic gymnastics. You may think I’m about to write about the latest crisis at the gym, and it’s a doosey. I’ll just say that there was about a week or so where things were really shaping up at my daughter’s gym, after the knee thing and then the ankle thing.

Well, I would write about it, except that I’m still processing it, and the thing is still unfolding, so we’ll just keep a positive attitude and press ahead. Once things settle down I’ll give an update on that.

But I learned something yesterday from my friend, who also happens to be the meet director for some of the largest and best gymnastic meets in Southern California. She explained to me how ties at gymnastics meets are handled differently by different states.

In California, if two or more gymnasts get the same score on an event or in the all around, then the place medal or ribbon is awarded to all of the girls with the same score as a tie. This is what we’re used to since all but two of Aimee’s meets have been in California.

I thought there was something wrong when we recently went to a meet in Las Vegas, Nevada. I don’t remember exactly, but I think it was a four-way tie on one of Aimee’s events. The ribbons and medals were awarded to the girls 2nd place, 3rd place, 4th place, 5th place (and Aimee got the 5th place ribbon.) I didn’t think it was fair since they all had the same score.

Now I understand, they use tie-breakers in Arizona. The places are awarded according to the highest all-around score. In the meet in Arizona, since Aimee only competed in 3 out of the 4 events, her all-around score was naturally low, hence the 5th place.

Tie-breakers in the all-around are awarded according to who got the highest score on any event.

I think I like the California system better. But I was glad to have that question answered. Thanks Stephanie!

Spring Forward Tonight!

Daylight Savings Time

In Spring when maple buds are red,
We turn the Clock an hour ahead;
Which means, each April that arrives,
We lose an hour
Out of our lives.

Who cares? When Autumn birds in flocks
Fly southward, back we turn the Clocks,
And so regain a lovely thing—
That missing hour
We lost last Spring.

By Phyllis McGimley

Galileo's Daughter

I wrote a while back about accepting the Astronomy Reading Challenge. I just finished one of the books I picked to read about an astronomer, Galileo's Daughter, by Dava Sobel. I've been wanting to read this book for a while now, but for some reason I was under the impression it was a novel, not a biography. That was probably because I've read both of the Rashi's Daughters novels (and waiting patiently for the third one to be written). This also explains why I never found it when I looked for it several times in the fiction section of the library.

Anyway, it is a biography, and it's more of a biography of Galileo than his daughter, which is just as well, because Galileo was the famous astronomer, not his daughter. The book is uses the correspondence between Galileo and his daughter, who was a nun, to frame the story of Galileo's life. There are 124 surviving letters, all of them from Suor Marie Celeste to her father Galileo; none of Galileo's letters to his daughter have survived.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it is well-written, interesting and informative. I was especially interested in Galileo's thoughts on the intersection of science and religion. Even though he was convicted of heresy by the Inquisition for expounding the view that the earth moves around the sun, Galileo remained a faithful believer in the Scriptures and in the God-given ability of man to discover by means of his senses and intellect the way the universe works.

“I believe that the intention of Holy Writ was to persuade men of the truths necessary for salvation, such as neither science nor any other means could render credible, but only the voice of the Holy Spirit. But I do not think it necessary to believe that the same God who gave us our senses, our speech, our intellect, would have put aside the use of these, to teach us instead such things as with their help we could find out for ourselves, particularly in the case of those sciences of which there is not the smallest mention in the Scriptures; and, above all, in astronomy, of which so little notice is taken that the names of none of the planets are mentioned. Surely if the intention of the sacred scribes had been to teach the people astronomy, they would not have passed over the subject so completely.”

Do You Speak Yat?

Do You Speak Yat?

I do. First, let me explain what Yat is. Yat is a dialect of English spoken by native-born New Orleanians. The word comes from the greeting, “Where y’at?” which is the New Orleans way of saying. “Where are you at?”, meaning. “How are you?”

After more than 30 years of living away from New Orleans, most of my distinctive New Orleans accent has vanished, however it is still faintly discernable when I try to pronounce words like “iron”. It comes out something like “irn”. I still remember my grandmother’s (the one we called Mia, another New Orleaniism.) burl, and url (for boil and oil), and zink (for sink).

So, I’m reading Dava Sobel’s “Galileo’s Daughter”. Yesterday I read that while Galileo was in Rome being tried for heresy (He had the nerve to suggest that the earth moves around the sun instead of being stationary at the center of the universe), his hometown in Tuscany was being decimated by the bubonic plague. This is where the connection to the New Orleans dialect comes in: those stricken by the plague would develop festering sores called bubos.

When I was growing up we called any little cut, scratch or bruise a “bobo”, not a “booboo”, but a “bobo”. So when I was reading about bubos in Sobel’s book it got me wondering if bubos were related to my childhood bobos. After looking up the origin of bubo, I doubt it, bubos are strictly related to infectious sores from diseases like the bubonic plague. Bobos were simple little childhood booboos that your mom could kiss and make all better.

Some other “yat” expressions I remember from my childhood:

Dodo: sleep

Make big dodo (go to sleep)

Cap: An expression my dad used to call other men, usually a stranger, I’ve found out it’s a shortened form of Captain.

Cher: dear, my grandmother (the one we called Granmere), used this a lot, it means dear.

Minoux: a word for cat, we had a cat we called minoux, but shortened it to mimi

Alligator pear: These used to grow on a vine in our backyard, also known as mirliton. I’ve seen them in grocery stores in California called chayote squash.

More to come…

Lincoln's 200th Birthday

Lincoln The Railsplitter by Norman Rockwell

Of this work Norman Rockwell wrote, “I hope this painting might inspire the youth of this land to appreciate this man who believed so much in the value of education.”

“Lincoln the Railsplitter” depicts Abe as a young man during the time he pursued the occupation of surveyor in Sangamon County in central Illinois - a time documented in “The Prairie Years” by Carl Sandburg. (The book served as an inspiration to Rockwell as he created this work.) Lincoln prepared to be a surveyor as he would later prepare for his law career, by immersing himself in various text books. The painting depicts just such study, portraying the future president with an axe in one hand, and holding a text book with the other. A railsplitter’s tool is draped over Abe’s shoulder, and the painting also includes an image of a log cabin and a newly build split rail fence, with remnants of felled trees in close proximity.

Quote from The Butler Institute of American Art, who purchased Rockwell's original painting in 2006.

Rainy and Cold

trip to Disneyland on Monday:

Den of Vipers and Thieves

The quote below from our seventh president, Andrew Jackson, came to mind when I read in the news how corporate bankers, after begging billions of dollars of taxpayer money from the federal government to avert going under, proceeded to hastily give themselves billions of dollars worth of executive bonuses:

“Hey buddy, can you spare a few billion in chump change for a poor banker?”

Here’s what Andrew Jackson had to say to a delegation of bankers in 1832:

“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.”

Inauguration Day!

Here's a scene from the very first inauguration day.

Wodehouse on The Art of Fiction

I enjoyed this interview with P.G. Wodehouse so much that I thought you might enjoy it too. He sounds like such a character, in fact like a character in one of his stories. In spite of being rather unfocused on the practical details of life, he managed to write 96 books, and countless short stories over a career that spanned 73 years (1902-1974).
Gerald Clark wrote this about Wodehouse in 1975, shortly before his death at 93.

Read the entire article here at the Paris Review.

When I first went to see him, I telephoned P.G. Wodehouse and asked for directions from New York to his house on Long Island. He merely chuckled, as if I had asked him to compare Euclid with Einstein or attempt some other laughably impossible task. “Oh, I can’t tell you that,” he said. “I don’t have a clue.” I learned the route anyway, and my arrival for lunch, only ten minutes late, seemed to astonish him. “You had no trouble” Oh, that is good. That’s wonderful!” His face beaming at having in his house such a certified problem-solver, a junior Jeeves almost, he led me without further to-do to a telephone, which he had been dialing all morning in a futile effort to reach a number in New York. He had, of course, done everything right but dial the area code, an addition to the Bell system that had somehow escaped his attention since he had last attempted long distance. He was intensely pleased when New York answered, and I sunned myself in the warm glow of his gratitude for the rest of the day. All of which is by way of saying that Wodehouse, who lived four months past his ninety-third birthday, had discovered his own secret of long life: He simply ignored what was worrisome, bothersome or confusing in the world around him.

BiblioMysteries

Me at Seven

I found myself relating at some level to this description of Israel Armstrong, the unlikely librarian-hero of Ian Sansom's The Case of the Missing Books. The book, set in the small Northern Ireland village of Tumdrun, is full of quirky and amusing characters. Here's a sample:

Books had spoilt him; they had curdled his brain, like cream left out on a summer’s afternoon, or eggs overbeaten with butter. He’ d been a rather bookish child. Right from the off, the youngest of four, the kind of child who seemed to start reading without anyone realizing or noticing, who raced thru non-fiction at an early age and an extraordinary rate, who read Jack Kerouac before he was in his teens, and who by the age of sixteen had covered most of the great French and Russian authors, and who as a result had matured into an intelligent, shy, passionate, sensitive soul, full of dreams and ideas, a wide ranging vocabulary, and just about no earthly good to anyone. His expectations were sky-high and his grasp of reality was minimal.
Israel had grown up in and around libraries. Libraries were where he belonged.

Libraries to Israel had always been a constant. In libraries, he’d always seemed to be able to breathe a little easier. When he walked thru the doors of a library it was like entering a sacred space, like the Holy of Holies! The beautiful hush and the shunting of the brass-handled wooden drawers holding the card catalogues, the reassurance of the reference books and the eminent OEDs, the amusing little troughs of children’s books, all human life was there. And you could borrow it and take it home for two weeks at a time, 9 books at a time.

… his pocket bulging neurotically with emergency paperbacks and newpapers. Just in case he was ever caught short without something to read…

I noticed with interest that Sansom has a new addition to the Mobile Librarian Series: The Book Stops Here: A Mobile Library Mystery. I'm adding it to my to-read list for 2009.

Happy Birthday Bud

Seventeen Years Ago today!

Where did this little guy with his Teddy go?

2009 International Year of Astronomy

These are 2 photos taken New Years evening about 7pm, looking SW, with my little Samsung Digimax digital camera. The picture on the left shows the crescent moon, and the picture on the right shows the moon (not sure what happened to the crescent, probably fuzziness because I changed the setting on the camera between the two shots.)But changing the setting also allowed Venus to show up in the picture. Anyway, one of my New Year's goals is to learn more about Astronomy.

So I noted with interest a couple of things: 1. That 2009 has been named the International Year of Astronomy. and 2. The International Year of Astronomy Reading Challenge 2009.

From: The Classical Bookworm Blog

Your mission:

Read one book from each of the categories of: History;Astronomers, Cosmology; Astrophysics, and Sci-Fi, and complete the two "extra-vehicular activities" described below.

EVA 1: Do some stargazing with a field guide and blog about it.

EVA 2: Visit your local planetarium or observatory and blog about it also.

I accept the challenge. I've been wanting to read Dava Sobel's Galileos' Daughter so that will be my selection from History and Astronomers. I bought Dava Sobel's The Planets last year but didn't finish it, so that will be my selection from Cosmology/Astrophysics. I'll have to investigate the Sci-Fi options but I'm thinking one of C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy novels.

I'm looking forward to EVA 2. I haven't been to the Griffith Park Observatory since it reopened after renovations several years ago. I've been planning to take a trip there for a while so I'll report back when the assignment is completed.

Happy New Year!

2009!

You crown the year with Your goodness,

And Your paths drip with abundance!

Wishing you and yours a year crowned with His goodness and dripping with abundance!