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