Mirrordrum's trek to 75 in 2013
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Charlas75 Books Challenge for 2013
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2mirrordrum
Link to 2012 thread
Books read in 2013
Finished in January
1. Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier (NLS, Gabriella Cavallero 9 hrs.)
2. Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett (audible.com, Nigel Planer, 10 hrs.)
3. In a Dark House by Deborah Crombie (NLS, Terry Donnelly, 13 hrs.)
4. The Blind Contessa's New Machine by Carey Wallace (NLS, Aasne Vigesaa, 6 hrs.)
5. Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth (audible.com, Diana Bishop, 7.5 hrs.)
6. Being There by Jerzy Kosinski (audible.com, Dustin Hoffman, 3 hrs.)
7. The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng (audible.com, Anna Bentinck, 15 -1/2 hrs)
Finished in February
8. Murder by the book by Rex Stout (audible.com, Michael Prichard, 7 hrs.)
9. Sailor Twain: or: The mermaid in the Hudson by Mark Siegel (GN)
10. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo (NLS, Catherine Byers, 9 hours, 23 minutes)
11. The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng (audible.com, Anna Bentinck, 15 -1/2 hrs) (reread)
12. Coraline by Neil Gaiman (NLS, Lisette Lecat, 4 hrs.)
13. Middlemarch by George Eliot (audible.com, Juliet Stevenson, 36 hours)
Finished in March
14. Mountains beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (audible.com, Paul Michael, 11 hours)
15. Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde (audible.com, Juliet Stevenson, Samuel West--beat that with a stick--and a supporting cast of several, 1.5 hrs)
16. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (audible.com, Noah Galvin, 6.5 hrs)
17. Water Like a Stone by Deborah Crombie (NLS, Terry Donnelly, 16.75 hrs)
18. City of Glass: The Graphic Novel (New York Trilogy) by Paul Auster
19. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (NLS, Martha Harmon Pardee, 10 hrs.)
20. The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (audible.com, Alan Rickman, 15 hrs.)
21. Death in the Garden by Elizabeth Ironside (NLS, Lisette Lecat, 11 hrs. 20 min.)
22. The Nao of Brown by Glyn Dillon (GN)
23. Tomato Red by Daniel Woodrell (audible.com, Brian Troxell, 4 hrs. 48 min.)
Finished in April
24. Catwings by Ursula LeGuin
25. Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat (audible.com, Robin Miles)
26. Felicia's Journey by William Trevor (NLS, Graeme Malcolm)
27. Double Indemnity by James M. Cain (audible.com, James Naughton)
28. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (audible.com, Juliet Stevenson)
29. One Was a Soldier by Julia Spencer-Fleming (NLS, Martha Harmon Pardee, pearl ruled but i trudged through 12 hrs out of 15 so i'm counting it!)
30. Headlong by Michael Frayn (audible.com, Frederick Davidson, 11 hours)
31. Snow by Orhan Pahmuk (LP loo read. took me 8 months to read in large print but well worth it!)
Finished in May
32. Anteater of Death by Betty Webb
33. Sum It Up: 1,098 Victories, A Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective by Pat Head Summitt
34. Black Orchids by Rex Stout
35. Zen Ghosts by Jon J. Muth
36. The Three Questions (Based on a story by Leo Tolstoy) by Jon J. Muth
37. The Keeper of Lost Causes: The First Department Q Novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen (audible.com, Erik Davies)
38. Promised Land by Robert B. Parker (audible.com, Michael Prichard)
39. Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson (audible.com, Susan Jameson, 12 hrs, 18 mins.)
40. The Tiger in the Grass: Stories and Other Inventions by Harriet Doerr (large print loo read)
41. A thousand mornings by Mary Oliver (poetry)
Finished in June
42. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
43. Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
44. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
45. Squares and Courtyards: Poems by Marilyn Hacker
46. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman (NLS)
47. Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener by M. C. Beaton
Finished in July
48. Where Memories Lie by Deborah Crombie (NLS, Patricia Kilgarriff, 10.5 hrs)
49. The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
50. The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
51. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
52. Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver (audible, Jim Dale)
53. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (audible.com, Morven Christie, Lucy Gaskell, 10 hrs.)
54. Call for the Dead by John le Carre (audible.com, Michael Jayston, 4.5 hrs.)
55. Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010 by Adrienne Rich
56. Decider by Dick Francis (audible.com, Simon Prebble, classic Francis--probably one of his best although the heroic stoic trope remains basically unaltered)
Finished in August
57. A superior death by Nevada Barr (NLS, Suzanne Toren, 9.5 hrs.)
58. Restless by William Boyd (audible.com, Rosamund Pike, 10.5 hrs.)
59. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan (audible.com, Juliet Stevenson)
60. Our man in Havana by Graham Greene (NLS, John Horton, 6.5 hrs.)
4richardderus
I've never seen that Rembrandt! It's beautiful.
Hi Ellie! *smooch*
Hi Ellie! *smooch*
6alcottacre
Glad to see you back with us. Happy New Year!
7mirrordrum
>4 richardderus: hi, RD. it is rather byooteeful, isn't it? *mwah mwah mwah*
>5 lkernagh: cheers, Lori. it's not one i was familiar with. i was looking for something completely different--a sculpture of Rodin that i saw at the exhibit when it came through Knoxville, et voilà, up this popped. i grabbed it. have a wonderful year in books.
>6 alcottacre: i'm glad to be amongst you again as well. happy new year to you yourself, Stasia. may we all read together joyfully in 2013.
>5 lkernagh: cheers, Lori. it's not one i was familiar with. i was looking for something completely different--a sculpture of Rodin that i saw at the exhibit when it came through Knoxville, et voilà, up this popped. i grabbed it. have a wonderful year in books.
>6 alcottacre: i'm glad to be amongst you again as well. happy new year to you yourself, Stasia. may we all read together joyfully in 2013.
8mirrordrum
>3 drneutron: whoops, didn't go far enough up. hi, Jim.
10PaulCranswick
Ellie - Great to see you back here in 2013. Predict 100 posts by the end of the month this year! Happy New Year!
11mirrordrum
snitched from PaulCranswick who got it from Eris.
Book Title Meme using titles from books you read in 2012:
Describe Yourself : The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Describe how you feel : Divergent
Describe where you currently live: At Bertram's Hotel
If you could go anywhere where would you go: The Scorpio Races
Favourite form of transportation: Ill Wind by Nevada Barr
Your best friend is: Master Georgie
You and your friends are: Invasion of the Dykes to Watch Out For
What's the weather like?: Snow by Orhan Pahmuk
You fear....: The Hound of the Baskervilles
What is the best advice you have to give: Disco for the Departed
Thought for the day: Kindness Goes Unpunished
How I would like to die: A Superior Death
My soul's present condition: State of Wonder
Book Title Meme using titles from books you read in 2012:
Describe Yourself : The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Describe how you feel : Divergent
Describe where you currently live: At Bertram's Hotel
If you could go anywhere where would you go: The Scorpio Races
Favourite form of transportation: Ill Wind by Nevada Barr
Your best friend is: Master Georgie
You and your friends are: Invasion of the Dykes to Watch Out For
What's the weather like?: Snow by Orhan Pahmuk
You fear....: The Hound of the Baskervilles
What is the best advice you have to give: Disco for the Departed
Thought for the day: Kindness Goes Unpunished
How I would like to die: A Superior Death
My soul's present condition: State of Wonder
12ffortsa
Hi, Ellie. That painting is lovely, and a new image for me too. Here's to a healthy and joyful year, with lots of books.
14mirrordrum
Remarkable Creatures
Mary Anning and her dog, Tray, with Golden Cap outcropping.
article on Anning from Cal-Berkeley.
Lyme-Regis fossils
Icthyosaur
also see: ichthyosaur specimen with beautiful fin structure
Ammonites
Tracy Chevalier (above) with plesiosaur fossil discovered and restored by Mary Anning in Lyme Regis
Plesiosaurus was one of a number of extinct species of the Jurassic Period whose fossils were first discovered by Mary Anning in Lyme Regis. this isn't one of her specimens, just an example.
15DeltaQueen50
Just stopping by to wish you all the best in 2013, Ellie. Whoosh! I go away for just over a week and now I am scrambling like mad to catch up with everyone.
18PaulCranswick
Ellie - A tad quiet over here. Hope everything is fine and you are having a wonderful weekend.
19mirrordrum
hey Paul, my partner and i got consecutive vicious viruses and that's knocked me back a bit. plus, i end up doing the needful in the real world and then going to Joe's for fun and not taking care of business here.
good to see you. you encourage me to get on it!
the weekend is quite nice though confusingly warm. wish the same to you.
good to see you. you encourage me to get on it!
the weekend is quite nice though confusingly warm. wish the same to you.
20ffortsa
Sorry to hear about the bad buggies, Ellie. Jim has has a couple of bad episodes too, and is tucked up in bed against the shivers at the moment. I hope both of you recover soon.
21alcottacre
#14: I thoroughly enjoyed Remarkable Creatures, so I appreciate you posting that picture. Thanks, Ellie.
Happy weekend! I hope you (and your partner) get over your virus soon.
Happy weekend! I hope you (and your partner) get over your virus soon.
22mirrordrum
>21 alcottacre: thanks, Stasia. we're fine. :)
i think i'm going to move some of the remarkable creatures images from my 2012 page to this page. fascinating stuff.
i think i'm going to move some of the remarkable creatures images from my 2012 page to this page. fascinating stuff.
23alcottacre
#22: Good!
24PaulCranswick
Ellie - back again to wish you well and prompt you back into action!
Have a great weekend.
Have a great weekend.
25mirrordrum
>i'm having a very fine weekend, thankee, Mr. Prompter. so pushy you are. ;)
26jnwelch
Hi, Ellie! Hope you and your HSO are feeling better. I join Stasia in looking forward to more remarkable creatures (loved that book, too - just gave a copy to my goddaughter).
27alcottacre
Thanks for moving the pictures over, Ellie.
28cammykitty
Wow, interesting pictures. The Rembrandt is gorgeous, and the fossils are really interesting too.
29richardderus
Hi snookums, swooping through on my broomstick leaving a cloud of *smooches*
30mirrordrum
you have a smooch broom? wow. cool beans. :)
31mirrordrum
>28 cammykitty: great book, Remarkable Creatures. just had to go find pics of the fossils Mary Anning found, cleaned and assembled. amazing woman. glad you like 'em, Katie. :)
33mirrordrum
hey mark. thanks for stopping. i'll bet you looked for ellie instead of mirrordrum. the Rembrandt is new to me. glad you like it.
35PrueGallagher
Hey Ellie - now that I know where you live I shall drop from time to time....love the Rembrandt also; it is luminous. Whatcha listening to?
36cammykitty
Yes, those tentacle must have taken forever to make. Seems like it should be a white whale though. ;)
37mirrordrum
>36 cammykitty: i was thinking more 20,000 leagues. there was a giant squid in that.
38mirrordrum
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
this is an exceptional book with a stunningly fine narrator. i may have to see if i can get it in large print just to review some parts and see if i can create a bit more flow. as it was, it moved into my dreams.
Tana Rata tea plantations in Cameron highlands
The Chinese word 苦力 (pinyin: kǔlì) literally means "bitterly hard (use of) strength", in the Mandarin pronunciation. In Cantonese, the term is 咕喱 (Jyutping: Gu lei). The word refers to an Asian slave.
Yugiri (Evening Mist), the name of Aritomo's garden, was also the name of a Japanese Fubuki-class destroyer developed after WWI and used to great destructive effect in the Pacific during WWII.
i doubt that this was unintentional. is it a form of shakkei or counter-shakkei? is there such a thing?
Japanese gardens
Elements / Borrowed Scenery: shakkei
When the builder of a Japanese garden takes into consideration nearby or distant landmarks that could be seen from the garden—mountains, cascades, or works of architecture—he is essentially using “borrowed scenery” (the Japanese term is shakkei). Although the practice was originally associated with certain Buddhist beliefs related to geomancy, it later became a purely aesthetic concept related to the spatial arrangements of Chinese and Japanese landscape painting. Because Kyoto is bordered on the west, north, and east by low but very visible mountains, borrowed scenery was easily incorporated into garden designs.
http://learn.bowdoin.edu/japanesegardens/elements/borrowed/borrowed.html
also: http://www.zen-garden.org/html/page_obj_shakkei.htm
Katsushika Hokusai and horimono tattoos
the term "coolie" is used frequently throughout the book to refers to laborers, often to the laborers on Magnus Pretorius' tea plantation. i had thought that this was an term developed in the US for Chinese laborers. i looked in a variety of sources and have, reluctantly, settled on information from Wikipedia whose primary source is the online OED, which i can't afford, with a secondary source being Britannica.com.
According to Wikipedia from, but not directly quoting, OED, "coolie is derived from the Hindi word kuli (क़ुली). The origins of the word are uncertain but it is thought to have been originally used by the Portuguese (cule) as a description of local hired laborers in India. That use may be traced back to a Gujurati tribe (the Kulī, who worked as day laborers) or perhaps to the Tamil word for a payment for work, kuli (கூலி). An alternative etymological explanation is that the word came from the Urdu qulī (क़ुली, قلی), which itself could be from the Turkish word for slave, qul. The word was used in this sense for laborers from India, China, and East Asia. In 1727 Dr. Engelbert Kämpfer described "coolies" as dock laborers who would unload Dutch merchant ships at Nagasaki in Japan."
excellent review from California Literary Review. this helped me trying to piece together the parts from a first listening. i'm now embarked on a second audio reading.
this is an exceptional book with a stunningly fine narrator. i may have to see if i can get it in large print just to review some parts and see if i can create a bit more flow. as it was, it moved into my dreams.
Tana Rata tea plantations in Cameron highlands
The Chinese word 苦力 (pinyin: kǔlì) literally means "bitterly hard (use of) strength", in the Mandarin pronunciation. In Cantonese, the term is 咕喱 (Jyutping: Gu lei). The word refers to an Asian slave.
Yugiri (Evening Mist), the name of Aritomo's garden, was also the name of a Japanese Fubuki-class destroyer developed after WWI and used to great destructive effect in the Pacific during WWII.
i doubt that this was unintentional. is it a form of shakkei or counter-shakkei? is there such a thing?
Japanese gardens
Elements / Borrowed Scenery: shakkei
When the builder of a Japanese garden takes into consideration nearby or distant landmarks that could be seen from the garden—mountains, cascades, or works of architecture—he is essentially using “borrowed scenery” (the Japanese term is shakkei). Although the practice was originally associated with certain Buddhist beliefs related to geomancy, it later became a purely aesthetic concept related to the spatial arrangements of Chinese and Japanese landscape painting. Because Kyoto is bordered on the west, north, and east by low but very visible mountains, borrowed scenery was easily incorporated into garden designs.
http://learn.bowdoin.edu/japanesegardens/elements/borrowed/borrowed.html
also: http://www.zen-garden.org/html/page_obj_shakkei.htm
Katsushika Hokusai and horimono tattoos
the term "coolie" is used frequently throughout the book to refers to laborers, often to the laborers on Magnus Pretorius' tea plantation. i had thought that this was an term developed in the US for Chinese laborers. i looked in a variety of sources and have, reluctantly, settled on information from Wikipedia whose primary source is the online OED, which i can't afford, with a secondary source being Britannica.com.
According to Wikipedia from, but not directly quoting, OED, "coolie is derived from the Hindi word kuli (क़ुली). The origins of the word are uncertain but it is thought to have been originally used by the Portuguese (cule) as a description of local hired laborers in India. That use may be traced back to a Gujurati tribe (the Kulī, who worked as day laborers) or perhaps to the Tamil word for a payment for work, kuli (கூலி). An alternative etymological explanation is that the word came from the Urdu qulī (क़ुली, قلی), which itself could be from the Turkish word for slave, qul. The word was used in this sense for laborers from India, China, and East Asia. In 1727 Dr. Engelbert Kämpfer described "coolies" as dock laborers who would unload Dutch merchant ships at Nagasaki in Japan."
excellent review from California Literary Review. this helped me trying to piece together the parts from a first listening. i'm now embarked on a second audio reading.
39LovingLit
I loved the Garden of Evening Mists too, Ellie. I just loved it. It was a powerful yet subtle read. Im glad you thought well of it too.
40msf59
Hi Ellie- Good review of The Garden of Evening Mists. It was a top read for me last year. I really hope to find & read his first novel. What are you reading next?
41mirrordrum
>39 LovingLit: hi, Megan, you of the land of all things Xena.
i'm going to have to go back and listen to the beginning and end of "Garden" again. in audio, the beginning of a book often fades away by the time i get to the end. i felt as though there were many threads and complexities that slipped through my fingers. of course, the last time i decided to revisit the beginning of a book, i ended up rereading (listening to) it in its entirety 3 times. oh well.
>hullo Mark. i was thinking last night that it's already on my list for top reads of 2013. i have so many books going at once that i added a Nero Wolfe (Rex Stout's massive detective) reread to sort of clear my palate before returning to Middlemarch and Mountains beyond mountains on the iPod. on my NLS player (at the bedside) i'm reading Behind the beautiful forevers, Water like a stone and, egad, er, Spies by Michael Frayn.
after Middlemarch, i'm planning on starting Hardy's Return of the Native as the narration by Alan Rickman is well nigh irresistible. i wish i hadn't already read Ready Player One so i could read it for the first time. i may well have to sneak in a Terry Pratchett as a side dish.
have a great weekend.
i'm going to have to go back and listen to the beginning and end of "Garden" again. in audio, the beginning of a book often fades away by the time i get to the end. i felt as though there were many threads and complexities that slipped through my fingers. of course, the last time i decided to revisit the beginning of a book, i ended up rereading (listening to) it in its entirety 3 times. oh well.
>hullo Mark. i was thinking last night that it's already on my list for top reads of 2013. i have so many books going at once that i added a Nero Wolfe (Rex Stout's massive detective) reread to sort of clear my palate before returning to Middlemarch and Mountains beyond mountains on the iPod. on my NLS player (at the bedside) i'm reading Behind the beautiful forevers, Water like a stone and, egad, er, Spies by Michael Frayn.
after Middlemarch, i'm planning on starting Hardy's Return of the Native as the narration by Alan Rickman is well nigh irresistible. i wish i hadn't already read Ready Player One so i could read it for the first time. i may well have to sneak in a Terry Pratchett as a side dish.
have a great weekend.
44EBT1002
Ellie, I'm so glad you enjoyed The Garden of Evening Mists. It was definitely one of my favorite reads in 2012.
And I love the Rembrandt at the top of your thread. I've not seen that painting before and it's lovely.
And I love the Rembrandt at the top of your thread. I've not seen that painting before and it's lovely.
47richardderus
Another smooch-swooping
48thornton37814
I have Mountains Beyond Mountains on a TBR list. Did you enjoy it?
49jnwelch
Hi, Ellie. So glad you enjoyed The Garden of Evening Mists. What a great book. I'm still thinking about the decision she made at the end. And thanks for the links. Borrowed scenery is such an interesting idea. I hadn't heard of it before this book.
What a lot of great books you're reading right now! Do you feel intellectually elevated?
What a lot of great books you're reading right now! Do you feel intellectually elevated?
50mirrordrum
>48 thornton37814: hi Lori. mountains is going to be my first 5-star read for 2013 and will unquestionably end up as one of the best of the best for the year. i'm only half way through and have about 5 hrs to go. it's the audio version and it's exceptional. Kidder is a superb author and Farmer an extraordinary man. it's one of those 'should be required reading' books that's hard to turn off. highly recommended.
51mirrordrum
LADY WINDERMERE. Why do you TALK so trivially about life, then?
LORD DARLINGTON. Because I think that life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it. (Moves up C.)
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. What does he mean? Do, as a concession to my poor wits, Lord Darlington, just explain to me what you really mean.
LORD DARLINGTON. (Coming down back of table.) I think I had better not, Duchess. Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.
Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde
LORD DARLINGTON. Because I think that life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it. (Moves up C.)
DUCHESS OF BERWICK. What does he mean? Do, as a concession to my poor wits, Lord Darlington, just explain to me what you really mean.
LORD DARLINGTON. (Coming down back of table.) I think I had better not, Duchess. Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.
Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde
52mirrordrum
i've liked seeing the world from this perspective since my college days when i first saw a map like this.
53ffortsa
LOL. I turned my tablet upside down to view the map, but thanks to modern technology it just kept turning back. An interesting view.
54DeltaQueen50
Isn't it interesting that a simple thing like turning a map can suddenly make it look like an entirely new planet!
56mirrordrum
>53 ffortsa: it just kept turning back? really, Judy? it won't let you look at things upside down? now that's both spooky and just really, really rude! i hate it when machines boss me around.
>54 DeltaQueen50: ayup, DQ. i like looking at various perspectives. i was wondering why "we" chose to draw maps this way and apparently it has to do with the pole star being the fixed point that navigators could use and it was to the north so that somehow became up on the map. i read that early Asian maps had, lessee, east at the top because of the sun rising from that point.
my interest is very much in the geopolitical implications of putting Europe and North America at the top and Africa and South America at the bottom, although thinking about it a lot uses up too many brain cells for me to get deeply into it.
Gall-Peters is one of my favorites b/c it gets rid of the distortions that make the northern continents disproportionately large and minimizes the size of southern continents. here it is in mini. more info than you really wanted, huh?
i know it has drawbacks but haven't spent time looking into them. i'm too busy floundering through the Annawadi slum in Mumbai and partying at Ellen's.
>55 msf59: hi Marky! i'm about half way through Kidder. i found i was getting overwhelmed reading Beautiful forevers and Mountains beyond mountains simultaneously, wanted to rehear Garden of evening mists immediately as i felt i'd missed so much due to audio, and for some reason, plunged off on Graham Greene's End of the affair, another spirit lifter. so i've got about 6 hrs left in the reread, 2 hrs left in 'forevers,' an hour or so in 'end,' i dunno what in the Kidder book, 5 hrs in Middlemarch and i forget what else. keepeth me busy! howz by you, my friend? i'm so enjoying your thread even when i don't post.
>54 DeltaQueen50: ayup, DQ. i like looking at various perspectives. i was wondering why "we" chose to draw maps this way and apparently it has to do with the pole star being the fixed point that navigators could use and it was to the north so that somehow became up on the map. i read that early Asian maps had, lessee, east at the top because of the sun rising from that point.
my interest is very much in the geopolitical implications of putting Europe and North America at the top and Africa and South America at the bottom, although thinking about it a lot uses up too many brain cells for me to get deeply into it.
Gall-Peters is one of my favorites b/c it gets rid of the distortions that make the northern continents disproportionately large and minimizes the size of southern continents. here it is in mini. more info than you really wanted, huh?
i know it has drawbacks but haven't spent time looking into them. i'm too busy floundering through the Annawadi slum in Mumbai and partying at Ellen's.
>55 msf59: hi Marky! i'm about half way through Kidder. i found i was getting overwhelmed reading Beautiful forevers and Mountains beyond mountains simultaneously, wanted to rehear Garden of evening mists immediately as i felt i'd missed so much due to audio, and for some reason, plunged off on Graham Greene's End of the affair, another spirit lifter. so i've got about 6 hrs left in the reread, 2 hrs left in 'forevers,' an hour or so in 'end,' i dunno what in the Kidder book, 5 hrs in Middlemarch and i forget what else. keepeth me busy! howz by you, my friend? i'm so enjoying your thread even when i don't post.
57mirrordrum
space holder
58mirrordrum
space holder
60mirrordrum
hi, Joe. *waves back*
62EBT1002
Ellie, I love maps that try to get it right, as in... get it accurate. So good to challenge our ethnocentric view of the world.....
I'll be interested in your comments about Behind the Beautiful Forevers.
I'll be interested in your comments about Behind the Beautiful Forevers.
63EBT1002
Ellie,
We watched two Pac-12 games last evening: a double overtime win by ASU over Arizona (poor Wildcats) and the first half of a blowout by UCLA over USC (yawn). Our Huskies (not those Huskies, our Huskies!) are third in the conference but I fear they'll fall when they have to play Cal and Stanford.
We watched two Pac-12 games last evening: a double overtime win by ASU over Arizona (poor Wildcats) and the first half of a blowout by UCLA over USC (yawn). Our Huskies (not those Huskies, our Huskies!) are third in the conference but I fear they'll fall when they have to play Cal and Stanford.
64mirrordrum
i just finished rereading Garden of Evening Mists because with a book like this in audio, one reading gives me the barest glimpse. i was still so taken with it after finishing it a second time that i ordered a large print copy (50 smackers) from the UK. it ain't easy to find!
found a good review in Asian review of books. i posted the entire review below as the link i gave takes you to a general page, very user unfriendly, from which one must do a search.
found a good review in Asian review of books. i posted the entire review below as the link i gave takes you to a general page, very user unfriendly, from which one must do a search.
65mirrordrum
we get a selected list of PAC-10 games: the farm (Stanford), Cal and UCLA. oh, btw, Charli Turner Thorne is the lead article for WCB on ESPN, if you care. i still don't know why Nikki Caldwell left UCLA w/ the recruiting thing and support she had going. ah well. she's having a time in the SEC but that's where she wanted to be.
as an Old Blue, of course i'm hoping Cal will continue to do well (sorry), but in any other game, i'd be more than happy to cheer for the Huskies. i se they play the buffs on Sunday. will see if JB can find them so we can take a look.
as an Old Blue, of course i'm hoping Cal will continue to do well (sorry), but in any other game, i'd be more than happy to cheer for the Huskies. i se they play the buffs on Sunday. will see if JB can find them so we can take a look.
66jnwelch
Darn, I couldn't find the Asian review of books review of The Garden of Evening Mists via that link, Ellie. I get something called I Dream of Rome.
Glad you liked the book so much! Me, too.
Glad you liked the book so much! Me, too.
67mirrordrum
you have to search for it. i had hoped i had a direct link. i'll find and post it in toto. i was trying to avoid that.
68mirrordrum
NB the reason i've reproduced the review in toto is that i can't get a direct link to it and had to search on a site not particularly user friendly.
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
reviewed by Manasi Subramaniam
27 July 2012 — “Every aspect of gardening is a form of deception,” the gardener Nakamura Aritomo tells his protégé Yun Ling in Tan Twan Eng’s The Garden of Evening Mists.
The Japanese garden borrows scenery from the outside world through the principle of shakkei. Simultaneously, it conceals its actual features through the principle of miegakure. To walk through a Japanese garden, then, is to constantly discover that you have been mistaken—the things that seem to belong to the garden do not, and the things that belong to the garden seem not to exist. It is a series of surprises—now you see it, now you don’t.
Fiction - indeed, any art form - is much the same in its employment of clever disguise. It reveals only what it wishes to; it borrows freely from its settings; perspectives are unreliable, and it is only by following the winding paths that the actual landscape is discovered. At the same time, it is aesthetically pleasing, a vehicle for contemplation, a deeply private space.
Teoh Yun Ling first hears of the gardener of the emperor of Japan when she is seventeen. But he is to haunt her for a lifetime. While travelling through Japan, her sister, Teoh Yun Hong falls in love with the art and aesthetics of the Japanese garden and longs to make one of her own. But during the Japanese occupation of Malaya, the sisters are interned in a brutal and grotesque camp of which Yun Ling is the sole survivor. After the War, she devotes herself to prosecuting Japanese war criminals, desperately trying to avenge the cruelties she and Yun Hong have suffered at the hands of the Japanese. Yet, it is to a Japanese man that the memory of her sister leads: Nakamura Aritomo, who has quit Japan and lives in Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands, spending his days in the creation of Yugiri, the garden of evening mists. Yun Ling, who openly despises the Japanese, is apprenticed to Aritomo during the darkest period of the Malayan Emergency, and the land is fraught with murder and terror as the communist guerrillas, the Malayan nationalists and the British colonisers strive for control over the country. In the midst of a life constantly torn by war, Yun Ling must somehow find peace.
The narrative takes two streams, both in the first person, told by Yun Ling, separated only by tense. In the present, the older Yun Ling returns to Yugiri as a retired judge in the 1980s and finds herself revisiting several pasts, most particularly, her time with Aritomo, and begins writing her memoirs, which form the past. Between the two streams are several inlets that glide into side-narratives, like the unforgettable war story of Yoshikawa Tatsuji, a Japanese professor visiting Yun Ling, and the many digressions of Magnus Pretorius, a charming veteran of the Boer War. Aritomo’s departure from Japan is cloaked in secrecy, as is Yun Ling’s astonishing escape from internment. The characters are entangled by their complex pasts; histories, both personal and national, intertwine in Tan’s elegant, panoptic tale.
This is a good old-fashioned story with a plot that arcs gracefully, maintains suspense, and stays true to characterisation. Yun Ling’s independent spirit and her anger seep like ink-stains into the narrative, but its distilled essence is a quieter appraisal of the dichotomy of memory, its treacherous failures, its cruel conveniences, its fadeout and deliverance. Outside Magnus’s house are two statues—one is of Mnemosyne the goddess of memory and the other is of her twin sister, the goddess of forgetting, whose name, of course, has been forgotten.
Here, too, the garden is the conceit. “A garden borrows from the earth, the sky, and everything around it, but you borrow from time,” Yun Ling accuses Aritomo, “Your memories are a form of shakkei too. You bring them in to make your life here feel less empty. Like the mountains and the clouds over your garden, you can see them, but they will always be out of reach.” The garden that Yun Ling intends to make is about more than a desire to preserve the memory of her sister, though, for in many ways, it was the idea of this garden that kept the sisters hopeful through their long internment. The Japanese garden, with its many deceptions and beauties, becomes a well-formed metaphor for the ways in which our lives are lived.
The writing too has the lush beauty and artistry of a Japanese garden. The storytelling is ornate—sometimes ostentatious—burying moments and vistas deep in heavy imagery: “In the low mists over the hills, an orange glow broods, as if the trees are on fire. Bats are flooding out from the hundreds of caves that perforate these mountainsides. I watch them plunge into the mists without any hesitation, trusting in the echoes and silences in which they fly. Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting silences between words spoken, analysing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us?”
Thankfully, this is not a story of forgiveness or of coming to terms with anger. As a war hostage (“a guest of the emperor,” as the Japanese called them), as a prosecutor, even as Aritomo’s apprentice and later his heir, Yun Ling is driven forth by a marked fury. Her overt contempt and pointed jibes lend cathartic relief to her storytelling. The denouement, especially, is an unusual, well-told revelation, luminous with possibility and incredibly satisfying.
Editor’s note: The Garden of Evening Mists has just been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.
Manasi Subramaniam works in publishing and theatre and has an MA in Renaissance Literature. She reads incessantly and is always on the look-out for powerful, authentic stories. She is a published author of fiction and poetry for children and adults and a former recipient of the Commonwealth short story prize for Asia. She loves Shakespeare, the Beatles and the Mahabharata. Her personal weblog is manasis.blogspot.com.
Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon Books Ltd, February 2012)
© 2012 The Asian Review of Books.
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
reviewed by Manasi Subramaniam
27 July 2012 — “Every aspect of gardening is a form of deception,” the gardener Nakamura Aritomo tells his protégé Yun Ling in Tan Twan Eng’s The Garden of Evening Mists.
The Japanese garden borrows scenery from the outside world through the principle of shakkei. Simultaneously, it conceals its actual features through the principle of miegakure. To walk through a Japanese garden, then, is to constantly discover that you have been mistaken—the things that seem to belong to the garden do not, and the things that belong to the garden seem not to exist. It is a series of surprises—now you see it, now you don’t.
Fiction - indeed, any art form - is much the same in its employment of clever disguise. It reveals only what it wishes to; it borrows freely from its settings; perspectives are unreliable, and it is only by following the winding paths that the actual landscape is discovered. At the same time, it is aesthetically pleasing, a vehicle for contemplation, a deeply private space.
Teoh Yun Ling first hears of the gardener of the emperor of Japan when she is seventeen. But he is to haunt her for a lifetime. While travelling through Japan, her sister, Teoh Yun Hong falls in love with the art and aesthetics of the Japanese garden and longs to make one of her own. But during the Japanese occupation of Malaya, the sisters are interned in a brutal and grotesque camp of which Yun Ling is the sole survivor. After the War, she devotes herself to prosecuting Japanese war criminals, desperately trying to avenge the cruelties she and Yun Hong have suffered at the hands of the Japanese. Yet, it is to a Japanese man that the memory of her sister leads: Nakamura Aritomo, who has quit Japan and lives in Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands, spending his days in the creation of Yugiri, the garden of evening mists. Yun Ling, who openly despises the Japanese, is apprenticed to Aritomo during the darkest period of the Malayan Emergency, and the land is fraught with murder and terror as the communist guerrillas, the Malayan nationalists and the British colonisers strive for control over the country. In the midst of a life constantly torn by war, Yun Ling must somehow find peace.
The narrative takes two streams, both in the first person, told by Yun Ling, separated only by tense. In the present, the older Yun Ling returns to Yugiri as a retired judge in the 1980s and finds herself revisiting several pasts, most particularly, her time with Aritomo, and begins writing her memoirs, which form the past. Between the two streams are several inlets that glide into side-narratives, like the unforgettable war story of Yoshikawa Tatsuji, a Japanese professor visiting Yun Ling, and the many digressions of Magnus Pretorius, a charming veteran of the Boer War. Aritomo’s departure from Japan is cloaked in secrecy, as is Yun Ling’s astonishing escape from internment. The characters are entangled by their complex pasts; histories, both personal and national, intertwine in Tan’s elegant, panoptic tale.
This is a good old-fashioned story with a plot that arcs gracefully, maintains suspense, and stays true to characterisation. Yun Ling’s independent spirit and her anger seep like ink-stains into the narrative, but its distilled essence is a quieter appraisal of the dichotomy of memory, its treacherous failures, its cruel conveniences, its fadeout and deliverance. Outside Magnus’s house are two statues—one is of Mnemosyne the goddess of memory and the other is of her twin sister, the goddess of forgetting, whose name, of course, has been forgotten.
Here, too, the garden is the conceit. “A garden borrows from the earth, the sky, and everything around it, but you borrow from time,” Yun Ling accuses Aritomo, “Your memories are a form of shakkei too. You bring them in to make your life here feel less empty. Like the mountains and the clouds over your garden, you can see them, but they will always be out of reach.” The garden that Yun Ling intends to make is about more than a desire to preserve the memory of her sister, though, for in many ways, it was the idea of this garden that kept the sisters hopeful through their long internment. The Japanese garden, with its many deceptions and beauties, becomes a well-formed metaphor for the ways in which our lives are lived.
The writing too has the lush beauty and artistry of a Japanese garden. The storytelling is ornate—sometimes ostentatious—burying moments and vistas deep in heavy imagery: “In the low mists over the hills, an orange glow broods, as if the trees are on fire. Bats are flooding out from the hundreds of caves that perforate these mountainsides. I watch them plunge into the mists without any hesitation, trusting in the echoes and silences in which they fly. Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting silences between words spoken, analysing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us?”
Thankfully, this is not a story of forgiveness or of coming to terms with anger. As a war hostage (“a guest of the emperor,” as the Japanese called them), as a prosecutor, even as Aritomo’s apprentice and later his heir, Yun Ling is driven forth by a marked fury. Her overt contempt and pointed jibes lend cathartic relief to her storytelling. The denouement, especially, is an unusual, well-told revelation, luminous with possibility and incredibly satisfying.
Editor’s note: The Garden of Evening Mists has just been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.
Manasi Subramaniam works in publishing and theatre and has an MA in Renaissance Literature. She reads incessantly and is always on the look-out for powerful, authentic stories. She is a published author of fiction and poetry for children and adults and a former recipient of the Commonwealth short story prize for Asia. She loves Shakespeare, the Beatles and the Mahabharata. Her personal weblog is manasis.blogspot.com.
Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon Books Ltd, February 2012)
© 2012 The Asian Review of Books.
69richardderus
What a wonderful point about Yun Ling's rage propelling her. A good review, thanks for posting.
*smooch*
*smooch*
70mirrordrum
ayup, RD. i hadn't pinpointed that--i was aware of her anger but would never have grasped the point the way Subramaniam did.
i visited her blog. one of her bits starts "Recently, I almost got arrested for trying to kiss Oscar Wilde's tombstone. It might have been poetic, but rather than rot away in a Parisian jail, I thought I'd write, instead, about the turbulent aftermath of Oscar Wilde's own forbidden kisses."
i dunno where you are on Wilde but i liked the piece she wrote. your writing is enough like his here and there that, even though i know you are disapproving of plays, i thought you might be interested.
i visited her blog. one of her bits starts "Recently, I almost got arrested for trying to kiss Oscar Wilde's tombstone. It might have been poetic, but rather than rot away in a Parisian jail, I thought I'd write, instead, about the turbulent aftermath of Oscar Wilde's own forbidden kisses."
i dunno where you are on Wilde but i liked the piece she wrote. your writing is enough like his here and there that, even though i know you are disapproving of plays, i thought you might be interested.
71scaifea
I'm a great fan of Wilde (even though I've definitely not read enough of his stuff), so I've bookmarked the link and I'll definitely have a look later. Thanks for that! Love the way it starts out.
72mirrordrum
nothing to do with books, just wanted to put this down somewhere. watching Bonnie Raitt's 2000 induction into the US Rock 'n' Roll hall of fame. she says, "i'm proud (to be here) partly because i don't just put on an electric guitar, i know how to ride it. let's hope this marks the beginning of lots more women getting out of the kitchen and into the kick ass fire."
74mirrordrum
and not too many ride a guitar like the way she does, either, but i love her old blues best. :)
75mirrordrum
segue from Mark's thread and thinking about fathoms. this is so very much apropos of my Dad. must get his ashes to the Pacific somehow.
from Ariel's song in The Tempest
Full Fathom Five
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,--ding-dong, bell.
--William Shakespeare
from Ariel's song in The Tempest
Full Fathom Five
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,--ding-dong, bell.
--William Shakespeare
76msf59
Ellie- Great review of the Eng book! I read and loved it late last fall. I am looking forward to his first book. Love the poem! Strong stuff!
77mirrordrum
>76 msf59: i was quite taken with the review as well. i listened to the book twice because in audio, i knew i was missing a tremendous amount. and i'm on the waiting list for the LP version so i can revisit bits and pieces.
i neglected to attribute the poem above before you read it but have now done so.
i neglected to attribute the poem above before you read it but have now done so.
78mirrordrum
Full Fathom Five --Jackson Pollock
1947 (210 Kb); Oil on canvas with nails, tacks, buttons, coins, cigarettes, etc, 129 x 76.5 cm (50 7/8 x 30 1/8 in)
--------------
detail of above
1947 (210 Kb); Oil on canvas with nails, tacks, buttons, coins, cigarettes, etc, 129 x 76.5 cm (50 7/8 x 30 1/8 in)
--------------
detail of above
79mirrordrum
top 10 nonsense words
http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-words-about-nonsense/bunkum....
http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-words-about-nonsense/bunkum....
81jnwelch
>70 mirrordrum: That link now connects to a most excellent article on the Shakespeare authorship question. The underlying elitist idea that a "son of a glove maker" couldn't have written those beautiful plays and sonnets has always bothered me, as has the idea of the massive conspiracy, with no leaks, that would have been necessary to conceal the identity of the true author, the Earl of Oxford (or whomever). She makes some great points in it.
>75 mirrordrum: "Those are pearls that were his eyes" pops up in Eliot's The Wasteland in the Game of Chess section:
“Do
You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
Nothing?”
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
>79 mirrordrum: I love "blatherskite"! Have you noticed that most splatherdabs just dispense loads of blatherskite?
>75 mirrordrum: "Those are pearls that were his eyes" pops up in Eliot's The Wasteland in the Game of Chess section:
“Do
You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
Nothing?”
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
>79 mirrordrum: I love "blatherskite"! Have you noticed that most splatherdabs just dispense loads of blatherskite?
82mirrordrum
thanks, Joe. the Wilde page was moved to another place. all fixed now. i love that her stuff is posted in 'The Hindu.'
i am not sufficiently literate ever to have read The Wasteland. too many of the sciences, both hard and soft, and not enough literacy. *sigh*
i am not sufficiently literate ever to have read The Wasteland. too many of the sciences, both hard and soft, and not enough literacy. *sigh*
83msf59
Ellie- I like the Pollock paintings! I don't "get" much of the abstract stuff, but his work is striking. Did you ever see the "Pollock" film with Ed Harris? It's very good.
I really like that photo in #80 too!
I really like that photo in #80 too!
84PaulCranswick
Another fan of Jackson Pollock's paintings - I think I'll get my daughter to make up a batch over the weekend!
They look like interesting cuts of marble or travertine IMO.
They look like interesting cuts of marble or travertine IMO.
85EBT1002
Yeah, I like Pollock, too, although I'm with Mark on "getting" them. I guess it's less about getting a work than it is about understanding the impact of his body of work. (??)
Ellie, the Pac-12 Women's Tournament is being hosted here in Seattle, starting tonight. My Huskies should be able to beat the hapless Ducks, but in any case I'm looking forward to four days packed with women's basketball. Odds are high that Sunday's championship game will be between Stanford and Cal --- that should be an excellent match-up.
Ellie, the Pac-12 Women's Tournament is being hosted here in Seattle, starting tonight. My Huskies should be able to beat the hapless Ducks, but in any case I'm looking forward to four days packed with women's basketball. Odds are high that Sunday's championship game will be between Stanford and Cal --- that should be an excellent match-up.
86jnwelch
IMHO, Ellie, The Waste Land is well worth the read. It's not all that long, and it's, to me, an amazing poem. His life was in the pits when he wrote it.
87scaifea
Oh, yes, do get round to reading The Waste Land at some point. It is just lovely. And don't forget The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which is also heartbreakingly beautiful.
89ffortsa
Joe, someone did an analysis of Pollack's work recently, and concluded that his paintings are composed of fractals which excite the human brain. Who knew?
90mirrordrum
i like Pollock, but haven't a clue despite having seen movie (love Ed H) and read a bit about his work, always phrased in terms i start out not comprehending. there are some i like very much. this isn't one of them. i just liked that it's entitled Full fathom five.
>85 EBT1002: oooh, E, in Seattle? are you going? i'd love to see the Bears take it this year. love it! i don't think the Ducks have been in the NCAAs since 96 or 97 when they played the first round at UT and doris burke got all excited about Jenny Moe or Mome or whatever her name was. a very tall post and DB kept saying "go motown, go motown." like it was yesterday i remember.
>85 EBT1002:-87 okay, you lot. i tackled the Waste Land last night. naturally, i enjoyed reading it and loved the FIRST THREE STANZAS, which is as far as i got because i started trying to make sense of it. first, of course, came translation of the epigram from the Satyricon, and that was a long Google sidebar, and i proceeded from thence.
how is someone (such as i) supposed to know that "(the burial of the dead) sets up the main themes of the poem by associating the “Unreal City” of modern London and its living-dead with the loss of any genuine mythic consciousness? do other people get that who aren't steeped in the classics and lit? do people get the biblical references in the 2nd stanza? the references to the Grail romances, the Tarot? do they know that Madame Sosostris of l. 43 is a parody of Madame Blavatsky? Blavatsky, or counterparts, occur in all kinds of books, including, iirc, Dorothy Sayers, certainly in Possession, but i couldn't make the leap here.
anyway, i had a mog-bindling couple of hours trying to get through the first part with 6 other pages open on the Tarot, the Grail, mythic themes etc. etc. connections formed and then fell apart, i went aha and then forget why i'd aha'd. i loved it and when my eyes screamed enough, i was frustrated at having to stop and elated at having started. so it was all good.
eyes still squawking so not sure if i'll revisit tonight. sadly, not available in LP, bugger all.
anyhoo, thanks for the encouragement. i need it. :)
>85 EBT1002: oooh, E, in Seattle? are you going? i'd love to see the Bears take it this year. love it! i don't think the Ducks have been in the NCAAs since 96 or 97 when they played the first round at UT and doris burke got all excited about Jenny Moe or Mome or whatever her name was. a very tall post and DB kept saying "go motown, go motown." like it was yesterday i remember.
>85 EBT1002:-87 okay, you lot. i tackled the Waste Land last night. naturally, i enjoyed reading it and loved the FIRST THREE STANZAS, which is as far as i got because i started trying to make sense of it. first, of course, came translation of the epigram from the Satyricon, and that was a long Google sidebar, and i proceeded from thence.
how is someone (such as i) supposed to know that "(the burial of the dead) sets up the main themes of the poem by associating the “Unreal City” of modern London and its living-dead with the loss of any genuine mythic consciousness? do other people get that who aren't steeped in the classics and lit? do people get the biblical references in the 2nd stanza? the references to the Grail romances, the Tarot? do they know that Madame Sosostris of l. 43 is a parody of Madame Blavatsky? Blavatsky, or counterparts, occur in all kinds of books, including, iirc, Dorothy Sayers, certainly in Possession, but i couldn't make the leap here.
anyway, i had a mog-bindling couple of hours trying to get through the first part with 6 other pages open on the Tarot, the Grail, mythic themes etc. etc. connections formed and then fell apart, i went aha and then forget why i'd aha'd. i loved it and when my eyes screamed enough, i was frustrated at having to stop and elated at having started. so it was all good.
eyes still squawking so not sure if i'll revisit tonight. sadly, not available in LP, bugger all.
anyhoo, thanks for the encouragement. i need it. :)
91scaifea
I'm a Reader-Response sort of gal, so I think that you don't need any sort of prior knowledge to enjoy something so lovely at Eliot's poetry. Just relax, read, and let the beauty flow and swirl all around you. To the devil with all that hokum about what it's supposed to be 'about'. I first read The Wasteland as an 'ignorant' undergrad who knew nothing of literary criticism, and I loved it nonetheless. I've read it several times since, at various stages of my education and career, and I've loved it every time for different reasons and in different ways. As a classicist, I now 'get' many of the classical references, and sure, that heightens the experience for me in some ways, but not having known them in the beginning was just fine, too. The poem belongs to the reader, not the poet, in my way of thinking, and I'm certainly sorry that it was ruined for you in this particular way.
I humbly suggest that you seek out the Prufrock poem and read it without reading anything else about it. And let yourself fall in love with it.
I humbly suggest that you seek out the Prufrock poem and read it without reading anything else about it. And let yourself fall in love with it.
92jnwelch
Sounds like a wonderful experience with The Waste Land, Ellie. Yes, to me, like other great art, you can read it all without knowing those things you mention and get a lot out of it, but it's a richer experience with the kind of studying you're doing. And I thought The Waste Land Facsimile & Transcript with Pound's annotations was a really cool complement, although I'm probably veering perilously close to excess with that one. You get to see what Eliot took out, and my goodness is the poem better for it.
ETA: *nods in agreement with Amber*
ETA: *nods in agreement with Amber*
93mirrordrum
was thinking of the last stanza today and decided i'd stick it in here. so very British and so resonant today, as the sun warmed the porch where the cats sheltered and dozed out of the chilly breeze and i got outside for the first time in a couple of weeks.
then my oldest friend wrote me of her despair and feeling of helplessness about a situation with her sister, whom i know. i read a piece i wish i hadn't about climate change from, er, NOAA? somehow i ended up thinking of those last lines and squaring my shoulders and taking a breath.
and soon, now, very soon, there will be the flambeaux on the chestnut and the chestnuts after and another summer and another fall and maybe another winter. and we will save some of the chestnuts to feed the raccoons and the squirrels if it is cold.
IX
THE chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers
Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,
The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.
Pass me the can, lad; there's an end of May.
There's one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,
One season ruined of your little store.
May will be fine next year as like as not:
But ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.
We for a certainty are not the first
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.
It is in truth iniquity on high
To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,
And mar the merriment as you and I
Fare on our long fool's-errand to the grave.
Iniquity it is; but pass the can.
My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;
Our only portion is the estate of man:
We want the moon, but we shall get no more.
If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours
To-morrow it will hie on far behests;
The flesh will grieve on other bones than ours
Soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts.
The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A.E. Housman
then my oldest friend wrote me of her despair and feeling of helplessness about a situation with her sister, whom i know. i read a piece i wish i hadn't about climate change from, er, NOAA? somehow i ended up thinking of those last lines and squaring my shoulders and taking a breath.
and soon, now, very soon, there will be the flambeaux on the chestnut and the chestnuts after and another summer and another fall and maybe another winter. and we will save some of the chestnuts to feed the raccoons and the squirrels if it is cold.
IX
THE chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers
Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,
The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.
Pass me the can, lad; there's an end of May.
There's one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,
One season ruined of your little store.
May will be fine next year as like as not:
But ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.
We for a certainty are not the first
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.
It is in truth iniquity on high
To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,
And mar the merriment as you and I
Fare on our long fool's-errand to the grave.
Iniquity it is; but pass the can.
My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;
Our only portion is the estate of man:
We want the moon, but we shall get no more.
If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours
To-morrow it will hie on far behests;
The flesh will grieve on other bones than ours
Soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts.
The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A.E. Housman
94mirrordrum
Hmong woman
95mirrordrum
Two Poems by Sergey Aleksandrovich Yesenin (1895-1925)
The golden grove has ceased to speak...
Translated by Dimitri Obolensky/Adapted by Michael Coffey
The golden grove has ceased to speak
In the joyous language of birches,
And the cranes, sad in their flying past,
No longer regret anyone.
Who's there to regret? Is not every man in this world a wanderer?
He passes by, visits, and again departs the house.
The broad moon over the pale blue pond,
Together with the hemp-field, dream of all who have departed.
Alone, I am standing in the bare plain,
While the cranes are carried far away by the wind;
I am full of thoughts about my joyous youth,
But I regret nothing from the past.
I do not regret the years squandered in vain,
I do not regret the lilac blossom within my soul.
In the garden, a fire of rowan-berries is burning,
But it cannot warm anyone.
The rowan berries, in clusters, will not be scorched,
The grass will not grow yellow and perish.
As the tree gently lets fall its leaves,
So I let fall melancholy words.
And if time, after scattering them in the wind,
Should rake them together into a futile heap...
You'd just say that the golden grove
Has ceased to speak in the language I love.
-------------------
I don't pity, don't call, don't cry...
Translated by Lyuba Coffey
I don't pity, don't call, don't cry,
All will be gone, like haze from the white apple trees.
Seized by the gold of withering,
I will never be young again.
My heart touched by the chill within,
You will not beat as before,
And the cotton birches of the countryside
No more will lure me to gad about barefoot.
Wandering spirit! Less and less
Do you stir the flame of my lips.
Oh, gone, my freshness,
Stormy eyes, high water of feelings.
Now, I've become tame in my wishes,
Life of mine? Did you come in dreams to me?
As if at an echo-filled early Spring hour
I rode by on a rose-colored stallion.
We all, we all decay in this world,
The copper flows quietly from the maple trees.
Let it be in centuries blessed,
That it happened to me to bloom and die.
The golden grove has ceased to speak...
Translated by Dimitri Obolensky/Adapted by Michael Coffey
The golden grove has ceased to speak
In the joyous language of birches,
And the cranes, sad in their flying past,
No longer regret anyone.
Who's there to regret? Is not every man in this world a wanderer?
He passes by, visits, and again departs the house.
The broad moon over the pale blue pond,
Together with the hemp-field, dream of all who have departed.
Alone, I am standing in the bare plain,
While the cranes are carried far away by the wind;
I am full of thoughts about my joyous youth,
But I regret nothing from the past.
I do not regret the years squandered in vain,
I do not regret the lilac blossom within my soul.
In the garden, a fire of rowan-berries is burning,
But it cannot warm anyone.
The rowan berries, in clusters, will not be scorched,
The grass will not grow yellow and perish.
As the tree gently lets fall its leaves,
So I let fall melancholy words.
And if time, after scattering them in the wind,
Should rake them together into a futile heap...
You'd just say that the golden grove
Has ceased to speak in the language I love.
-------------------
I don't pity, don't call, don't cry...
Translated by Lyuba Coffey
I don't pity, don't call, don't cry,
All will be gone, like haze from the white apple trees.
Seized by the gold of withering,
I will never be young again.
My heart touched by the chill within,
You will not beat as before,
And the cotton birches of the countryside
No more will lure me to gad about barefoot.
Wandering spirit! Less and less
Do you stir the flame of my lips.
Oh, gone, my freshness,
Stormy eyes, high water of feelings.
Now, I've become tame in my wishes,
Life of mine? Did you come in dreams to me?
As if at an echo-filled early Spring hour
I rode by on a rose-colored stallion.
We all, we all decay in this world,
The copper flows quietly from the maple trees.
Let it be in centuries blessed,
That it happened to me to bloom and die.
96mirrordrum
SPRING
I lift my face to the pale flowers
of the rain. They're soft as linen,
clean as holy water. Meanwhile
my dog runs off, noses down packed leaves
into damp, mysterious tunnels.
He says the smells are rising now
stiff and lively; he says the beasts
are waking up now full of oil,
sleep sweat, tag-ends of dreams. The rain
rubs its shining hands all over me.
My dog returns and barks fiercely, he says
each secret body is the richest advisor,
deep in the black earth such fuming
nuggets of joy!
-- Mary Oliver
I lift my face to the pale flowers
of the rain. They're soft as linen,
clean as holy water. Meanwhile
my dog runs off, noses down packed leaves
into damp, mysterious tunnels.
He says the smells are rising now
stiff and lively; he says the beasts
are waking up now full of oil,
sleep sweat, tag-ends of dreams. The rain
rubs its shining hands all over me.
My dog returns and barks fiercely, he says
each secret body is the richest advisor,
deep in the black earth such fuming
nuggets of joy!
-- Mary Oliver
97msf59
Ellie- I am just checking in. I love the Spring poem. I want actual Spring to arrive too! I am tired of bundling up everyday. How are your current reads coming? Good, I hope.
99mirrordrum
hiya, Mark. my reading is going swim, if a bit overwhelm, ingly, thank you.
i'm in one of those moods where i keep being vaguely dissatisfied with what i'm listening to and moving to something else. never happened to me quite this way when i could read well visually. i presently have going, lessee, in paper, Snow(large print) by Orhan Pamuk, Nao of Brown, City of Glass: The Graphic Novel by Paul Aster, and a book of poetry. in audio, it's Water like a stone by Deborah Crombie, Death in the garden (quite good) by Elizabeth Ironside, Chbosky's Perks, Return of the native narrated extremely well by Alan Rickman, and New York Trilogy by Paul Aster of which City of glass is the first part. oops, forgot Olive Kitteridge.
i usually like to have at least one non-fiction and one humorous book, such as a Terry Pratchett, going, but that ain't about to happen. :)
must pop over and see what you're up to.
i'm in one of those moods where i keep being vaguely dissatisfied with what i'm listening to and moving to something else. never happened to me quite this way when i could read well visually. i presently have going, lessee, in paper, Snow(large print) by Orhan Pamuk, Nao of Brown, City of Glass: The Graphic Novel by Paul Aster, and a book of poetry. in audio, it's Water like a stone by Deborah Crombie, Death in the garden (quite good) by Elizabeth Ironside, Chbosky's Perks, Return of the native narrated extremely well by Alan Rickman, and New York Trilogy by Paul Aster of which City of glass is the first part. oops, forgot Olive Kitteridge.
i usually like to have at least one non-fiction and one humorous book, such as a Terry Pratchett, going, but that ain't about to happen. :)
must pop over and see what you're up to.
100jnwelch
Lovely poems, Ellie, and I like the painting. Is North Yorkshire Paul Cranswick's old haunts? Hope all is well in your part of the world.
101mirrordrum
i think so (about the lovely and about North Yorks), though the Yesenin poems are sad. and he died when he was, what, 30-something? not, mind you, that Oliver can't tear you up. she's got one entitled 'Lead' (ha i found it here) that i can scarcely bear. i read it every once in a while to remind me to try to have the courage she has always had along with the humor and delight.
102jnwelch
Oh my, Lead is some poem. I've read a good bit of hers, but somehow missed that one, so thank you for the link.
Here's the James Wright one you liked:
A Blessing
By James Wright
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
Here's the James Wright one you liked:
A Blessing
By James Wright
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
103msf59
Ellie- That is a gorgeous painting by McLachlan. I might have to swipe that one from you. It looks like you are juggling some books. Good luck. I hope Olive is still working for you.
104mirrordrum
swipe away, Paul. :)
McLachlan's new to me and i just stumbled on that image. i think i was looking for some images of Barbridge, UK where one of my books takes place and found that. couldn't possibly track back but don't need to.
i like some of his work very much and some not so much. i'll pm you the link to his painting site if you haven't already found it.
McLachlan's new to me and i just stumbled on that image. i think i was looking for some images of Barbridge, UK where one of my books takes place and found that. couldn't possibly track back but don't need to.
i like some of his work very much and some not so much. i'll pm you the link to his painting site if you haven't already found it.
105mirrordrum
Edward Gorey at home amongst books and cats
106mirrordrum
Pollock's fractals. according to an article in Discover mag (thanks, Judy, for inspiring me to seek it out), his #14 (grey) is the best example of Pollock's use of fractals.
107richardderus
Pollock interests me because his art is creation set in time. This, this piece *right*here*, this is how the artist created it at the moment of creation and it's never been edited or smoothed out or made into something else. This is the creation moment, and that is all it will ever be.
Fascinating to me.
Fascinating to me.
108mirrordrum
fascinating, RD. i'm going to be pondering that for a while. i like the way you expressed it. it's a keeper!
i was just intrigued that Pollock, supposedly, created fractal paintings and that brains prefer fractals (one study, nothing like conclusive). i didn't take it anywhere else. thanks for opening up a whole new can of brain whoop for me. actually, my brain just sort of went "whoa!" and stalled in amazement at the new landscape. :)
i was just intrigued that Pollock, supposedly, created fractal paintings and that brains prefer fractals (one study, nothing like conclusive). i didn't take it anywhere else. thanks for opening up a whole new can of brain whoop for me. actually, my brain just sort of went "whoa!" and stalled in amazement at the new landscape. :)
109mirrordrum
from Return of the Native Eustacia Vye, the Queen of Night.
"Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not quite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind to be entirely in her grasp for a while, she had handled the distaff, the spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world would have noticed the change of government. There would have been the same inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here, of contumely there, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas, the same captious alteration of caresses and blows that we endure now."
and
"The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it over is to look as if you had lost them; and Eustacia did that to a triumph. In the captain's cottage she could suggest mansions she had never seen. Perhaps that was because she frequented a vaster mansion than any of them, the open hills. Like the summer condition of the place around her, she was an embodiment of the phrase "a populous solitude" -- apparently so listless, void, and quiet, she was really busy and full.
To be loved to madness--such was her great desire. Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover."
thank you Classic reader for the words and Alan Rickman for having soooo much fun with the audio.
"Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not quite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind to be entirely in her grasp for a while, she had handled the distaff, the spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world would have noticed the change of government. There would have been the same inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here, of contumely there, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas, the same captious alteration of caresses and blows that we endure now."
and
"The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it over is to look as if you had lost them; and Eustacia did that to a triumph. In the captain's cottage she could suggest mansions she had never seen. Perhaps that was because she frequented a vaster mansion than any of them, the open hills. Like the summer condition of the place around her, she was an embodiment of the phrase "a populous solitude" -- apparently so listless, void, and quiet, she was really busy and full.
To be loved to madness--such was her great desire. Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover."
thank you Classic reader for the words and Alan Rickman for having soooo much fun with the audio.
110richardderus
Oh lovely! Gorgeous words for such a gorgon!
114mirrordrum
>110 richardderus: i haven't encountered her terrible aspect yet, RD. just meeting the woman, really, but the description is for to die! my favorite part is that "The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it over is to look as if you had lost them." extraordinary. know nothing, absolutely nothing, about Hardy. must learn more.
115EBT1002
Ellie,
Lovely poems.
I am glad you've been acquiring works by William Trevor. It was Paul who turned me on to him and I'm very glad.
And I think I would like Edward Gorey a lot. Books and cats. And lots of both. And naps. Perfect.
Lovely poems.
I am glad you've been acquiring works by William Trevor. It was Paul who turned me on to him and I'm very glad.
And I think I would like Edward Gorey a lot. Books and cats. And lots of both. And naps. Perfect.
116mirrordrum
hey Ellen. i find it amusing that a man with his fiendish sense of humor could loll so easily. what a great face, too.
i finished Olive Kitteridge--an exceptional book--and promptly started NLS' recording of Trevor's Felicia's Journey. i've only just started but thus far, thoroughly enjoying it. so glad you recommended him.
also made the mistake of starting Pat Summitt's Sum it up narrated by Sally Jenkins. already laughing out loud in just the first 15 minutes. how shall i ever return to Return of the native, excellent though it is?
i finished Olive Kitteridge--an exceptional book--and promptly started NLS' recording of Trevor's Felicia's Journey. i've only just started but thus far, thoroughly enjoying it. so glad you recommended him.
also made the mistake of starting Pat Summitt's Sum it up narrated by Sally Jenkins. already laughing out loud in just the first 15 minutes. how shall i ever return to Return of the native, excellent though it is?
117mirrordrum
Este mensaje fue borrado por su autor.
118EBT1002
Pat Summit's book is funny? Huh. I wouldn't have expected that.
Are you getting wrapped up in March Madness? I'll be traveling tomorrow but I suspect P will be pretty much in front of the t.v. watching women's games until time to pick me up at the airport.
Are you getting wrapped up in March Madness? I'll be traveling tomorrow but I suspect P will be pretty much in front of the t.v. watching women's games until time to pick me up at the airport.
120thornton37814
Pat Summitt's book arrived here yesterday. One of our professors came by and saw it. She said that she'd tried to get it at the Knox County library but that the waiting list was pretty long. She was excited that she could get it here. I'm sure we'll have a waiting list on it soon, but I'm glad she didn't have to wait to read it. It's on my "to read" list, but I had so many things I had two or three books I wanted to try to finish the month and a few that I need to read in early April so I thought I'd let someone else read it until I was ready to check it out. I'm glad that it's good. I might have to shoot for the end of April or first part of May on it.
121richardderus
Yodeling through...wafting smooches...
122cammykitty
Great Pollack images. He fascinates me because - it's just scribbles - but it's somehow really cool scribbles. How did he know to do that? What was his artistic premise? He certainly had an aesthetic. I can see it, but I certainly have no words to discuss it.
124richardderus
I brought cake.
125mirrordrum
jeebus! i feel like Amahl--night, er, well, day, visitors and cake and spring water and everything. dropped by to post a poem and what lo! a stampede.
lovely to see everyone. wish i cld respond but hands/eyes being overused on a volunteer project w/ an April 3 due date and they're not happy. work before play.
blowing smooches, scattering cake crumbs (such a yummy cake), blessed with water, away i go. back whenever i can get here.
oh, Lori--Pat's book is wonderful. i'm only about an hour into it (audio). Sally J. moves it beyond Pat to pre-Title IX and the impact of Title IX, to the real legacy of this woman. well, thus far anyway. beat that with a stick, Geno. ;)
Go Blue Hens!
lovely to see everyone. wish i cld respond but hands/eyes being overused on a volunteer project w/ an April 3 due date and they're not happy. work before play.
blowing smooches, scattering cake crumbs (such a yummy cake), blessed with water, away i go. back whenever i can get here.
oh, Lori--Pat's book is wonderful. i'm only about an hour into it (audio). Sally J. moves it beyond Pat to pre-Title IX and the impact of Title IX, to the real legacy of this woman. well, thus far anyway. beat that with a stick, Geno. ;)
Go Blue Hens!
126mirrordrum
came upon mention of this in Return of the Native, didn't know the reference, looked it up, liked it, am posting it. talk about ruination!
The Destruction Of Sennacherib's Host At Jerusalem
"The Lord sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valor, and the leaders
and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria: so he returned with shame of face to
his own land." - 2 Chronicles xxxii. 21.
The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest, when summer is green,
That host, with their banners, at sunset was seen:
Like the leaves of the forest, when autumn hath blown,
That host, on the morrow, lay wither'd and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed ont the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.
And there lay the steed, with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
The tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
Lord Byron
The Destruction Of Sennacherib's Host At Jerusalem
"The Lord sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valor, and the leaders
and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria: so he returned with shame of face to
his own land." - 2 Chronicles xxxii. 21.
The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest, when summer is green,
That host, with their banners, at sunset was seen:
Like the leaves of the forest, when autumn hath blown,
That host, on the morrow, lay wither'd and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed ont the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.
And there lay the steed, with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
The tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
Lord Byron
127jnwelch
Strong stuff, Ellie. I'm imagining Alan Rickman doing justice to it.
Hope all concerns were assuaged and your volunteer effort was successfully concluded today. We're looking forward to having you back!
Hope all concerns were assuaged and your volunteer effort was successfully concluded today. We're looking forward to having you back!
128mirrordrum
interesting bit of crapemyrtle. this was taken last weekend and 'shopped a bit.
129richardderus
Sennacherib! Haven't heard that name since bible study. Forty-two years? Forty-four?
130mirrordrum
reminds me of the battle of the Pelennor (sp?) in LOTR-RotK. goodness knows, JRR was liberal and wide-ranging in his borrowing.
131EBT1002
A bit delayed here, but the Cal women did well up to a point. I was disappointed that they lost to Louisville, who went on to get clobbered by the Evil UConn Huskies. Huskies as national champs? Yeah, well, I'm ready to move onto baseball for all that.
Go Mariners!
Oh.....
Never mind.
Go Mariners!
Oh.....
Never mind.
132mirrordrum
Tomato Red by Daniel Woodrell, audiobook superbly narrated by Brian Troxell.
“You're no angel, you know how this stuff comes to happen: Friday is payday and it's been a gray day sogged by a slow ugly rain and you seek company in your gloom, and since you're fresh to West Table, Mo., and a new hand at the dog-food factory, your choices for company are narrow but you find some finally in a trailer court on East Main, and the coed circle of bums gathered there spot you a beer, then a jug of tequila starts to rotate and the rain keeps comin' down with a miserable bluesy beat and there's two girls millin' about that probably can be had but they seem to like certain things and crank is one of those certain things, and a fistful of party straws tumble from a woven handbag somebody brung, the crank gets cut into lines, and the next time you notice the time it's three or four Sunday mornin' and you ain't slept since Thursday night and one of the girl voices, the one you want most and ain't had yet though her teeth are the size of shoe-peg corn and look like maybe they'd taste sort of sour, suggests something to do, 'cause with crank you want something, anything, to do, and this cajoling voice suggests we all rob this certain house on this certain street in that rich area where folks can afford to wallow in their vices and likely have a bunch of recreational dope stashed around the mansion and goin' to waste since an article in The Scroll said the rich people whisked off to France or some such on a noteworthy vacation.
That's how it happens.
Can't none of this be new to you.”
I bought Tomato Red because it was on sale on audible.com. I’d never heard of Daniel Woodrell or “country noir” but after that first paragraph-long sentence, oh, I was well and truly hooked.
I like noir and this is noir, alright. It’s dark and spare, brutal and dangerous and you know from the start it’s going to break bad. It’s occasionally funny, though always with an edge. Woodrell pulls you in: “you know how this stuff comes to happen,” and “can’t none of this be new to you.” Even if, at the beginning, you think you don’t know, you do know by the end. Or I did.
Sammy Barlach, the narrator of Tomato Red, will do most anything to find a place to belong. He’s always wanted to be the life of the party, and he’s always had a craving to be a hero. He’s a small-time thief who describes himself as “a kickaround mutt from Blue Knee, Arkansas, on my own slow ramble through sincere poverty and various spellbinding mishaps."
One of these amusingly-told mishaps starts the book when Sammy, high on crank, breaks into a high-end house in an attempt to please his new trailer court buddies: “I needed friends and . . . I could maybe yet return to the trailer park as both the hero and the sudden life of the party.”
Once in the house, he’s coming down from the crank and can’t do more than cop some vodka and cheese, stagger down a hall and crash in a wing-back chair. He awakens a day later to find a girl in a black gown and a very young man in a tuxedo standing over him. “Are you dangerous?” the girl asks. “You look dangerous.”
He takes these two for the owners of the house until the guy says “the law is out there with flashlights. Time to choo-choo, Sis” and all three take off running together. Jamalee and Jason Merridew, long-time residents of Venus Holler, the truly dirt poor part of West Table, are about to become the friends Sammy’s been looking for.
Jamalee is the “Tomato Red” of the title, with hair a color that would “look natural on something growing in the garden, but not on someone’s head.” She’s 19, tiny and wild and has big dreams.
Jason, Jamalee’s 17-year-old younger brother, is gay and stunningly beautiful. He’s going to be Jamalee’s ticket out of town to the heavenly high life of some place like Beverley Hills or South Florida. Her plan is to have a beauty salon in the fashionable part of town where Jason’s beauty can be used to lure rich women into compromising situations and then blackmail them.
Jason’s lack of inclination for sexual relations with women doesn’t bother Jamalee one whit, even though Jason is working through a major attraction to one of his male teachers. Sammy respects Jason because “a country queer like that is going to have his interior qualities tested a whole lot. You’ve got to have a suitcase of respect for such as come through that daily—nightly, too . . . .”
Bev, their mother, is a 40-ish hooker, “a Barbie who has gone to seed on roadhouse whiskey and pan fried chicken.” She lives and does business right next door to Jason and Jamalee in Venus Holler and, hon, there’s always a cold one in the fridge you can drink on the sofa while you wait for your appointment.
You know from the start that the life these folks are leading is a perpetual train wreck because of bad chances, bad choices, and because, like many of the rest of us, these folks don’t learn from their mistakes. As Woodrell says, “there are whole levels of American culture where they’d have to attend a class on how to apply for a job. I’m not trying to be mean; I’m just telling the truth. You’d actually have to tell them things like, ‘Now, don’t go in with liquor on your breath.’ Shit like that. Well, they’re not necessarily aspiring to the middle-class dream.”
The difference between them and folks with money is that when we face bad chances and make bad choices, we generally have both money and a social network to protect us. Sammy and the Merridews, poor and incapable of moving beyond poverty, do not.
This reality is clearly presented in Tomato Red and it breeds anger, violence and a lot of crazed, self-defeating behavior. Yet Woodrell doesn’t apologize for or patronize his characters. Even Sammy realizes, “I had been born shoved to the margins of the world, sure, but I had volunteered for the pits.”
Underpinning this are themes with which we're all familiar: the desire to belong, to escape from pain, to be happy, to exact justice and to wreak vengeance on those who do us harm or hold us in contempt.
I cared about Woodrell’s main characters. I wouldn’t want to hang out with them and their despair tastes bitter, but it’s too familiar to me not to believe and not to wish it could be different.
If you like noir, or even if you don’t, give Tomato Red a try. It’s a short, tough, superb book by an author who should be better known. It will leave you winded and amazed. I listened to it three times in succession and could easily have turned right around and listened to it again.
The complete first chapter can be found on the New York Times books site. there's also a excellent feature article on Woodrell from the Arts and Entertainment section of the UK Independent in June 2006.
“You're no angel, you know how this stuff comes to happen: Friday is payday and it's been a gray day sogged by a slow ugly rain and you seek company in your gloom, and since you're fresh to West Table, Mo., and a new hand at the dog-food factory, your choices for company are narrow but you find some finally in a trailer court on East Main, and the coed circle of bums gathered there spot you a beer, then a jug of tequila starts to rotate and the rain keeps comin' down with a miserable bluesy beat and there's two girls millin' about that probably can be had but they seem to like certain things and crank is one of those certain things, and a fistful of party straws tumble from a woven handbag somebody brung, the crank gets cut into lines, and the next time you notice the time it's three or four Sunday mornin' and you ain't slept since Thursday night and one of the girl voices, the one you want most and ain't had yet though her teeth are the size of shoe-peg corn and look like maybe they'd taste sort of sour, suggests something to do, 'cause with crank you want something, anything, to do, and this cajoling voice suggests we all rob this certain house on this certain street in that rich area where folks can afford to wallow in their vices and likely have a bunch of recreational dope stashed around the mansion and goin' to waste since an article in The Scroll said the rich people whisked off to France or some such on a noteworthy vacation.
That's how it happens.
Can't none of this be new to you.”
I bought Tomato Red because it was on sale on audible.com. I’d never heard of Daniel Woodrell or “country noir” but after that first paragraph-long sentence, oh, I was well and truly hooked.
I like noir and this is noir, alright. It’s dark and spare, brutal and dangerous and you know from the start it’s going to break bad. It’s occasionally funny, though always with an edge. Woodrell pulls you in: “you know how this stuff comes to happen,” and “can’t none of this be new to you.” Even if, at the beginning, you think you don’t know, you do know by the end. Or I did.
Sammy Barlach, the narrator of Tomato Red, will do most anything to find a place to belong. He’s always wanted to be the life of the party, and he’s always had a craving to be a hero. He’s a small-time thief who describes himself as “a kickaround mutt from Blue Knee, Arkansas, on my own slow ramble through sincere poverty and various spellbinding mishaps."
One of these amusingly-told mishaps starts the book when Sammy, high on crank, breaks into a high-end house in an attempt to please his new trailer court buddies: “I needed friends and . . . I could maybe yet return to the trailer park as both the hero and the sudden life of the party.”
Once in the house, he’s coming down from the crank and can’t do more than cop some vodka and cheese, stagger down a hall and crash in a wing-back chair. He awakens a day later to find a girl in a black gown and a very young man in a tuxedo standing over him. “Are you dangerous?” the girl asks. “You look dangerous.”
He takes these two for the owners of the house until the guy says “the law is out there with flashlights. Time to choo-choo, Sis” and all three take off running together. Jamalee and Jason Merridew, long-time residents of Venus Holler, the truly dirt poor part of West Table, are about to become the friends Sammy’s been looking for.
Jamalee is the “Tomato Red” of the title, with hair a color that would “look natural on something growing in the garden, but not on someone’s head.” She’s 19, tiny and wild and has big dreams.
Jason, Jamalee’s 17-year-old younger brother, is gay and stunningly beautiful. He’s going to be Jamalee’s ticket out of town to the heavenly high life of some place like Beverley Hills or South Florida. Her plan is to have a beauty salon in the fashionable part of town where Jason’s beauty can be used to lure rich women into compromising situations and then blackmail them.
Jason’s lack of inclination for sexual relations with women doesn’t bother Jamalee one whit, even though Jason is working through a major attraction to one of his male teachers. Sammy respects Jason because “a country queer like that is going to have his interior qualities tested a whole lot. You’ve got to have a suitcase of respect for such as come through that daily—nightly, too . . . .”
Bev, their mother, is a 40-ish hooker, “a Barbie who has gone to seed on roadhouse whiskey and pan fried chicken.” She lives and does business right next door to Jason and Jamalee in Venus Holler and, hon, there’s always a cold one in the fridge you can drink on the sofa while you wait for your appointment.
You know from the start that the life these folks are leading is a perpetual train wreck because of bad chances, bad choices, and because, like many of the rest of us, these folks don’t learn from their mistakes. As Woodrell says, “there are whole levels of American culture where they’d have to attend a class on how to apply for a job. I’m not trying to be mean; I’m just telling the truth. You’d actually have to tell them things like, ‘Now, don’t go in with liquor on your breath.’ Shit like that. Well, they’re not necessarily aspiring to the middle-class dream.”
The difference between them and folks with money is that when we face bad chances and make bad choices, we generally have both money and a social network to protect us. Sammy and the Merridews, poor and incapable of moving beyond poverty, do not.
This reality is clearly presented in Tomato Red and it breeds anger, violence and a lot of crazed, self-defeating behavior. Yet Woodrell doesn’t apologize for or patronize his characters. Even Sammy realizes, “I had been born shoved to the margins of the world, sure, but I had volunteered for the pits.”
Underpinning this are themes with which we're all familiar: the desire to belong, to escape from pain, to be happy, to exact justice and to wreak vengeance on those who do us harm or hold us in contempt.
I cared about Woodrell’s main characters. I wouldn’t want to hang out with them and their despair tastes bitter, but it’s too familiar to me not to believe and not to wish it could be different.
If you like noir, or even if you don’t, give Tomato Red a try. It’s a short, tough, superb book by an author who should be better known. It will leave you winded and amazed. I listened to it three times in succession and could easily have turned right around and listened to it again.
The complete first chapter can be found on the New York Times books site. there's also a excellent feature article on Woodrell from the Arts and Entertainment section of the UK Independent in June 2006.
133jnwelch
Wow, that's one fine review, Ellie. Thumb from me. Sounds like a good 'un.
BTW, according to Amazon, "Ang Lee is currently directing a movie based on Woe to Live On, Woodrell's second novel."
BTW, according to Amazon, "Ang Lee is currently directing a movie based on Woe to Live On, Woodrell's second novel."
134mirrordrum
thanks Joe. it only took me 3 weeks to write the damn thing. gawd.
that movie's an old one. i forget the final title but apparently it's not very good. Woodrell's later book Winter's Bone has also been made into a movie. i've not watched it yet as i want to listen to the book first.
i really do believe this is a book you might enjoy. wish you could do audiobooks as the dialect and accent are difficult to do in your head if you don't hear it on a regular basis. of course, what i hear is NC mountain poor not Ozark mountain poor and they're very different but there's a common "flow" or "music" to the way each is spoken.
that movie's an old one. i forget the final title but apparently it's not very good. Woodrell's later book Winter's Bone has also been made into a movie. i've not watched it yet as i want to listen to the book first.
i really do believe this is a book you might enjoy. wish you could do audiobooks as the dialect and accent are difficult to do in your head if you don't hear it on a regular basis. of course, what i hear is NC mountain poor not Ozark mountain poor and they're very different but there's a common "flow" or "music" to the way each is spoken.
135jnwelch
Good point on the audiobooks. I can do them; I just normally don't unless we're on a long car trip. I'll mull - I see what you mean about the dialect and accent.
137mirrordrum
"bleak grit." great visual, Judy. yeah, one does get the sense that it's not, you know, all dewy violets and roses. of course, living poor in Appalachia, or the Ozarks isn't pretty at all though the mountains, where they haven't been destroyed by the coal companies, are beautiful beyond belief.
138mirrordrum
i stumbled on this and it addressed something i was contemplating whilst glorying in Tiger in the grass by Harriet Doerr. so i stuck it here, not wanting to lose it. one need not be a Believer to be interested in wisdom accrued from the practice of Belief.
"Therefore, as the occasion demands, let us talk about the unholy vice of self-esteem, the beginning and completion of the passions; and let us talk briefly, for to undertake an exhaustive discussion would be to act like someone who inquires into the weight of the winds.
From the point of view of form, vainglory is a change of nature, a perversion of character, a taking note of criticism. As for its quality, it is a waste of work and sweat, a betrayal of treasure, an offspring of unbelief, a harbinger of pride, shipwreck in port, the ant on the threshing floor, small and yet with designs on all the fruit of one's labor. The ant waits until the wheat is in, vainglory until the riches of excellence are gathered; the one a thief, the other a wastrel.
The spirit of despair rejoices at the sight of increasing vice, the spirit of vainglory at the sight of the growing treasures of virtue. The door for the one is a multitude of wounds, while the gateway for the other is the wealth of hard work done.
Observe vainglory. Notice how, until the very day of the burial it rejoices in clothes, oils, servants, perfumes, and such like.
Like the sun which shines on all alike, vainglory beams on every occupation. What I mean is this: I fast, and turn vainglorious. I stop fasting so that I will draw no attention to myself, and I become vainglorious over my prudence. I dress well or badly, and am vainglorious in either case. I talk or I remain silent, and each time I am defeated. No matter how I shed this prickly thing, a spike remains to stand up against me."
from The ladder of divine ascent by St. John Climacus
"Therefore, as the occasion demands, let us talk about the unholy vice of self-esteem, the beginning and completion of the passions; and let us talk briefly, for to undertake an exhaustive discussion would be to act like someone who inquires into the weight of the winds.
From the point of view of form, vainglory is a change of nature, a perversion of character, a taking note of criticism. As for its quality, it is a waste of work and sweat, a betrayal of treasure, an offspring of unbelief, a harbinger of pride, shipwreck in port, the ant on the threshing floor, small and yet with designs on all the fruit of one's labor. The ant waits until the wheat is in, vainglory until the riches of excellence are gathered; the one a thief, the other a wastrel.
The spirit of despair rejoices at the sight of increasing vice, the spirit of vainglory at the sight of the growing treasures of virtue. The door for the one is a multitude of wounds, while the gateway for the other is the wealth of hard work done.
Observe vainglory. Notice how, until the very day of the burial it rejoices in clothes, oils, servants, perfumes, and such like.
Like the sun which shines on all alike, vainglory beams on every occupation. What I mean is this: I fast, and turn vainglorious. I stop fasting so that I will draw no attention to myself, and I become vainglorious over my prudence. I dress well or badly, and am vainglorious in either case. I talk or I remain silent, and each time I am defeated. No matter how I shed this prickly thing, a spike remains to stand up against me."
from The ladder of divine ascent by St. John Climacus
140cammykitty
Love the panda illustration!
142mirrordrum
yeah, kinda hit me hard. not from a religious sense as i'm not religious but b/c i realize more the older i get, and the more self-deceit i try to shed, how hard it is to be honest.
part of what i love about Harriett Doerr, aside from her sheer craft as a writer, is her ability to look at and write about things with awareness of what she observes and, i believe, with full awareness that she's a biased observer. she is never glib and has courage and honesty. she knows living (in the world) is both beautiful and terrible and she writes about both facets unflinchingly and with radiance.
part of what i love about Harriett Doerr, aside from her sheer craft as a writer, is her ability to look at and write about things with awareness of what she observes and, i believe, with full awareness that she's a biased observer. she is never glib and has courage and honesty. she knows living (in the world) is both beautiful and terrible and she writes about both facets unflinchingly and with radiance.
143maggie1944
Ellie, I have finally caught up with you. Hope to be more of a regular visitor now. Great good chewy stuff here.
144msf59
Hi Ellie- Just checking in. Love the panda picture. I might have to steal that one for myself. It's very doubtful the Ghosts of Nagasaki will be available on audio. Sad face. But I will ask the author and see what he thinks.
^We saw this cute fella at the San Diego Zoo, early last year.
^We saw this cute fella at the San Diego Zoo, early last year.
145richardderus
Ellie, saw this and thought of you:
146mirrordrum
>143 maggie1944: hey, Karen. welcome to shabbiness. :)
>144 msf59: hi Marky. i think they've had a baby in the last 6 months or so. great pic. i've watching the newbie off and on: first exam, 2nd exam, learning to crawl, etc. etc. here's one from this month of baby and Dad. it's hyperlinked to the original.
>145 richardderus: hmmmm. i like it. reminds me of Fahrenheit 451 with Oskar Werner. isn't there a scene where he grabs a burning book and tries to put it out? it's been 30 or 40 years since i saw it so my memory may be making things up as memories are wont to do.
on the other hand, as Cocteau said, and i quote from memory il faut bruler vif pour renaitre "it is necessary to burn (oneself) alive in order to be reborn." i'm not sure that isn't true for relationships in some sense. purification of fire and all that it implies. of course, fires differ. it might be possible to have a marshmallow/hot dog roast type fire and do just fine. ;)
>144 msf59: hi Marky. i think they've had a baby in the last 6 months or so. great pic. i've watching the newbie off and on: first exam, 2nd exam, learning to crawl, etc. etc. here's one from this month of baby and Dad. it's hyperlinked to the original.
>145 richardderus: hmmmm. i like it. reminds me of Fahrenheit 451 with Oskar Werner. isn't there a scene where he grabs a burning book and tries to put it out? it's been 30 or 40 years since i saw it so my memory may be making things up as memories are wont to do.
on the other hand, as Cocteau said, and i quote from memory il faut bruler vif pour renaitre "it is necessary to burn (oneself) alive in order to be reborn." i'm not sure that isn't true for relationships in some sense. purification of fire and all that it implies. of course, fires differ. it might be possible to have a marshmallow/hot dog roast type fire and do just fine. ;)
148jnwelch
Yay for Jon Muth! That's a beaut, Ellie. And great pic just above.
Not sure what fire MBH and I've been burning, but we've been keeping it going for nigh on 30 years (anniversary approaching). Our plan is to be together 85+ years. We'll see how we do. Methuselah's record seems unbreakable, doesn't it?
Not sure what fire MBH and I've been burning, but we've been keeping it going for nigh on 30 years (anniversary approaching). Our plan is to be together 85+ years. We'll see how we do. Methuselah's record seems unbreakable, doesn't it?
149richardderus
I suspect the difference is sitting around the same fire versus throwing each other in the fire.
151richardderus
Bone jewer Miss Ellie. I have a near occasion of sin to expose you to: Five Audiobooks You've Never Heard of is a really cool list.
152mirrordrum
"Oh! Piglet," said Pooh excitedly, we're going on an Expotition, all of us, with things to eat. To discover something."
"To discover what?" said Piglet anxiously.
"Oh! just something."
"Nothing fierce?"
"Christopher Robin didn't say anything about fierce. He just said it had an 'x'."
"It isn't their necks I mind," said Piglet earnestly. "It's their teeth. But if Christopher Robin is coming I don't mind anything."
http://www.acc.umu.se/~coppelia/pooh/stories/ch8.html
"To discover what?" said Piglet anxiously.
"Oh! just something."
"Nothing fierce?"
"Christopher Robin didn't say anything about fierce. He just said it had an 'x'."
"It isn't their necks I mind," said Piglet earnestly. "It's their teeth. But if Christopher Robin is coming I don't mind anything."
http://www.acc.umu.se/~coppelia/pooh/stories/ch8.html
153mirrordrum
>151 richardderus: i used to read June Jordan in the late 70s or 80s. had either forgotten or maybe didn't know she was a Prof at Cal. ah, great minds! so i got hers and Ian Graham's. never heard of him but it started amusingly and i liked the idea. tried to get Paul Krassner's book but audible.com lists it and doesn't sell it go figure.
it's very sweet of you after all this ragging i do in my head about how come all the cool books you post about are NEVER in audio to send me a list that are actually audiblized.
SWAK and oh reservoir and a toot allure.
it's very sweet of you after all this ragging i do in my head about how come all the cool books you post about are NEVER in audio to send me a list that are actually audiblized.
SWAK and oh reservoir and a toot allure.
154mirrordrum
The Moths by Mary Oliver
There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know
what kind, that glimmers
by mid-May
in the forest, just
as the pink moccasin flowers
are rising.
If you notice anything,
it leads you to notice
more
and more.
And anyway
I was so full of energy.
I was always running around, looking
at this and that.
If I stopped
the pain
was unbearable.
If I stopped and thought, maybe
the world
can’t be saved,
the pain
was unbearable.
Finally, I noticed enough.
All around me in the forest
the white moths floated.
How long do they live, fluttering
in and out of the shadows?
You aren’t much, I said
one day to my reflection
in a green pond,
and grinned.
The wings of the moths catch the sunlight
and burn
so brightly.
At night, sometimes,
they slip between the pink lobes
of the moccasin flowers and lie there until dawn,
motionless
in those dark halls of honey.
*italics added
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/mary_oliver/poems/15876
also see
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/143/4#!/20599741/1
There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know
what kind, that glimmers
by mid-May
in the forest, just
as the pink moccasin flowers
are rising.
If you notice anything,
it leads you to notice
more
and more.
And anyway
I was so full of energy.
I was always running around, looking
at this and that.
If I stopped
the pain
was unbearable.
If I stopped and thought, maybe
the world
can’t be saved,
the pain
was unbearable.
Finally, I noticed enough.
All around me in the forest
the white moths floated.
How long do they live, fluttering
in and out of the shadows?
You aren’t much, I said
one day to my reflection
in a green pond,
and grinned.
The wings of the moths catch the sunlight
and burn
so brightly.
At night, sometimes,
they slip between the pink lobes
of the moccasin flowers and lie there until dawn,
motionless
in those dark halls of honey.
*italics added
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/mary_oliver/poems/15876
also see
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/143/4#!/20599741/1
155maggie1944
Trotting through to see what you are reading/listening and moving along to more reading today! Whoo hooo!
156mirrordrum
i have reluctantly finished two books. the first is Harriet Doerr's Tiger in the grass, a book of 15 short gem-like pieces of near-perfection written with, as ever, never a word wanting or wasted and a wonderfully clear and discerning eye.
the second is Kate Atkinson's first novel, Behind the Scenes at the museum, which won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year. like Doerr, maybe like any excellent writer, she looks and writes quite unflinchingly about all of life's smallest details, both the mundane and the awful, and in so doing, widens our view.
there's a great piece by Atkinson herself from the Guardian on BtSatM. my favorite para in the article is the following:
"If you were to ask me what the book is about (the most loathsome question you could ask - why bother to write the thing if you then have to explain it? It is what it is) and I was forced to answer, I would say, "It's about things." The book is a repository for the past, for mine, for other people's, for the city's, a place of safekeeping for the fragile. (The Lost Property Cupboard of the book is a deeply held belief of mine. Everything Will Be Returned at the End.) The book saves things that might otherwise be lost, it gives them a value, just as the footnotes of the book - a rabbit's foot, a glass button - represent so much more than they appear to." it amuses me that she calls this a loathsome question and then answers it. she would.
i can't even imagine growing up in a place like York. naturally, it makes me think of Dame Judi.
i'm wondering if the huge building in the background is the Castle Museum she mentions and that, in her dream, gave birth to the story's title. i should hate all the tourists camping and screaming everywhere!
i always resented the tourists who came, white as fish bellies, to my beach on the Pacific every summer and behaved, to my childish, judgmental and unforgiving eye, with despicable ignorance. my early disdain for tourists was an unfortunate thing as i determined very early never to be one and it's limited me.
the second is Kate Atkinson's first novel, Behind the Scenes at the museum, which won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year. like Doerr, maybe like any excellent writer, she looks and writes quite unflinchingly about all of life's smallest details, both the mundane and the awful, and in so doing, widens our view.
there's a great piece by Atkinson herself from the Guardian on BtSatM. my favorite para in the article is the following:
"If you were to ask me what the book is about (the most loathsome question you could ask - why bother to write the thing if you then have to explain it? It is what it is) and I was forced to answer, I would say, "It's about things." The book is a repository for the past, for mine, for other people's, for the city's, a place of safekeeping for the fragile. (The Lost Property Cupboard of the book is a deeply held belief of mine. Everything Will Be Returned at the End.) The book saves things that might otherwise be lost, it gives them a value, just as the footnotes of the book - a rabbit's foot, a glass button - represent so much more than they appear to." it amuses me that she calls this a loathsome question and then answers it. she would.
i can't even imagine growing up in a place like York. naturally, it makes me think of Dame Judi.
i'm wondering if the huge building in the background is the Castle Museum she mentions and that, in her dream, gave birth to the story's title. i should hate all the tourists camping and screaming everywhere!
i always resented the tourists who came, white as fish bellies, to my beach on the Pacific every summer and behaved, to my childish, judgmental and unforgiving eye, with despicable ignorance. my early disdain for tourists was an unfortunate thing as i determined very early never to be one and it's limited me.
157msf59
Hi Ellie- Hope you are having a great weekend. Speaking of Atkinson, I just started the audio of Life After Life and it grabbed me immediately. This woman can do no wrong, IMHO.
158mirrordrum
>hey Mark! lovely to see you. i have found this to be so of KA. i have Life after life on my iPod along with the next two of her Jackson Brodie mysteries after Case histories, which i listened to 3 times in a row with no break. i am presently enjoining myself to read someone else before i return to her, but it's a hard sell. :)
have a most excellent week.
have a most excellent week.
159maggie1944
Oh, my, you two have convinced me I must pull Life After Life off my shelf and put it within my eye's shot. I have several books hovering at my margins wanting me to return to them, and read! Read! Read! I am so grateful for the leisure time within which I may do just that. Thanks for the encouragement with your nice words.
160richardderus
I liked the TV version of Jackson Brodie well enough.
Happy touristing through litrachoor, Ellie, it's much more aesthetically defensible.
Happy touristing through litrachoor, Ellie, it's much more aesthetically defensible.
161EBT1002
I want to read Life After Life in June. I have it on hold at the library but I'm in a long queue.....
162mirrordrum
>161 EBT1002: ooh, that makes me want to read Tey's The man in the queue again. the mind moves in a mysterious way.
both of Atkinson's that i've read have been excellent: Case histories (read 3 times in succession) and Behind the scenes at the museum (which i just finished and am considering listening to again). they're complex enough, and i like them enough, that a single listen often doesn't do it as i can't flip back and forth as with a book. i hope Life after life is good enough that people will sample her others as well.
both of Atkinson's that i've read have been excellent: Case histories (read 3 times in succession) and Behind the scenes at the museum (which i just finished and am considering listening to again). they're complex enough, and i like them enough, that a single listen often doesn't do it as i can't flip back and forth as with a book. i hope Life after life is good enough that people will sample her others as well.
163mirrordrum
currently reading:
AUDIO
iPod
Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver
Code name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
A constellation of vital phenomena by Anthony Marra
The end of the affair by Graham Greene
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell stunningly narrated by Prunella Scales
NLS
Nada by Carmen Laforet (may Pearl rule this one--it's all constantly coming to naught)
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
Where memories lie by Deborah Crombie
Binocular vision: New & selected stories by Edith Pearlman (ongoing)
Her smoke rose up forever by James Tiptree, Jr. (dystopic short stories ongoing)
Poetry
Tonight no poetry will serve by Adrienne Rich
Squares and courtyards by Marilyn Hacker
Say goodnight grace notes by Jack McCarthy
Loo reads
Judi Dench: With a crack in her voice by John Miller (nibbling at it)
Savage beauty: The life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford (Wow! 900+ pages of amazing)
AUDIO
iPod
Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver
Code name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
A constellation of vital phenomena by Anthony Marra
The end of the affair by Graham Greene
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell stunningly narrated by Prunella Scales
NLS
Nada by Carmen Laforet (may Pearl rule this one--it's all constantly coming to naught)
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
Where memories lie by Deborah Crombie
Binocular vision: New & selected stories by Edith Pearlman (ongoing)
Her smoke rose up forever by James Tiptree, Jr. (dystopic short stories ongoing)
Poetry
Tonight no poetry will serve by Adrienne Rich
Squares and courtyards by Marilyn Hacker
Say goodnight grace notes by Jack McCarthy
Loo reads
Judi Dench: With a crack in her voice by John Miller (nibbling at it)
Savage beauty: The life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford (Wow! 900+ pages of amazing)
164mirrordrum
oh my goodness. i just found her biography, James Tiptree, Jr.: the double life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips, on NLS and have downloaded it. it gets very good reviews.
i can now nix 2 recordings from NLS that i don't like, one of them is Let the great world spin, and install this. i am spoiled, spoiled, spoiled. i can't believe i found it in audio.
James Tiptree, Jr.
i can now nix 2 recordings from NLS that i don't like, one of them is Let the great world spin, and install this. i am spoiled, spoiled, spoiled. i can't believe i found it in audio.
James Tiptree, Jr.
165msf59
Wow, Ellie! As usual your current reading leaves me very impressed. Hope you are enjoying Liesl & Po & Code name Verity. I loved both of those. I also just started A constellation of vital phenomena and can already tell it's going to be a gem. Hope you are liking it.
Also, I LOVED the Pearlman collection.
Also, I LOVED the Pearlman collection.
166maggie1944
I am also impressed. I'm letting myself be consumed with preparing my house for sale. We've seen some "heating" in the market here, and I probably want to grab a chance. Either that, or win the lottery. Nonetheless, I am reading The Aleppo Codex about the best copy of the Jewish Bible and where it has been and not been all these years. Written a bit like a mystery, but true, I think.
Picture above >164 mirrordrum: is lovely.
Picture above >164 mirrordrum: is lovely.
167jnwelch
Looking forward to your take on Liesl and Po, Ellie. I think it's in my future, but your thoughts will help on that.
168mirrordrum
>165 msf59: i think Vital phenomena is excellent, Mark. it's scary because brutality and its effects are described without sensationalizing them. in an article in the NY Times on Constellation of vital phenomena, Charles McGrath quotes Marra, "to make a book convincing, it’s less important that the right tree be in the right place than that the characters are emotionally real. I did the best I could to make the environment and the setting as realistic as possible, but I hope it’s the characters and the emotional reality that make the book true.” as far as i'm concerned, he succeeded wonderfully. it's astounding that Marra is only in his 20s.
169mirrordrum
last night, i had to take a break from everything i'm listening to on the iPod and listen to Prunella Scales narrating Cranford. Prunella Scales alone makes me laugh and i just needed a good, basic Brit classic.
170mirrordrum
i also want to note that Colin Firth's narration of The end of the affair, the one i'm listening to in fits and starts, got audiophile's book of the year award and i can see why.
171mirrordrum
>166 maggie1944: hey Karen. good luck with the house stuff.
The Aleppo Codex sounds fascinating. one of my favorite reads last year was Sisters of Sinai. what an extraordinary book. AC sounds as though it might be equally, though differently, fascinating. audible.com has it. thank you for giving me yet another book to add to the tottering pile.
The Aleppo Codex sounds fascinating. one of my favorite reads last year was Sisters of Sinai. what an extraordinary book. AC sounds as though it might be equally, though differently, fascinating. audible.com has it. thank you for giving me yet another book to add to the tottering pile.
172maggie1944
Well I think you may thank my book group.
Oddly, I received a phone call from the Universe, someone wanting to buy in my manufactured home community. And she calls me back and said she would like to see my house!
I think something is trying to tell me something.
Oddly, I received a phone call from the Universe, someone wanting to buy in my manufactured home community. And she calls me back and said she would like to see my house!
I think something is trying to tell me something.
174scaifea
>169 mirrordrum:, Oooh, I *love* Prunella Scales!
175msf59
Ellie- I am over halfway done with Constellation and it continues to sing. I have a strong feeling this is going to be a Top Read contender for this year. Hope it's still working for you.
176mirrordrum
>174 scaifea: i *know*, i *know*! have you listened to or seen her as E. F. Benson's Miss Mapp? i have the audio books, not sure they're still available, in which she narrated both Miss Mapp and Mapp and Lucia. she's incredible. failing that, you can get Mapp and Lucia from netflix (or buy it from amazon) with Geraldine McEwan as Lucia and Nigel Hawthorne as Georgie. i like the audiobooks better but the show is *great* fun and worth every penny. 1985. i can scarcely believe it. anyway, Nigel, Geraldine and Prunella are quite young. must see or read.
Mr. Benson is reputed once to have declared *I* am Miss Mapp! brilliant books. absolutely delicious.
Mr. Benson is reputed once to have declared *I* am Miss Mapp! brilliant books. absolutely delicious.
177mirrordrum
>175 msf59: i've got about 2 hrs to go, Mark, and it will probably be one of my bigs this year too. i wish i could remember how i got interested in it. can't think for the life of me.
178msf59
Ellie- I have a 100 pages left. I'll be wrapping it up on Saturday. I heard about it early on but the 2 rave reviews from Books on the Nightstand quickly put it in my hands.
180mirrordrum
Maddy's 1932 Coventry Eagle Silent Superb (minus dings and dirt)
181EBT1002
>180 mirrordrum:: Nice.
182mirrordrum
currently reading:
AUDIO
iPod
Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver got sidetracked and must get back to it
Code name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (keep pausing as i can't bear to finish it)
The end of the affair by Graham Greene an award-winning narration by the divine Colin Firth
The crossing places by Elly Griffiths--what a stunner so far. it's trumping everything else. a slightly overweight, madly knowledgeable archeologist, who's also rather anti-social and shares my views on tourists and fireworks, a tidal marsh in Norfolk (UK not VA), lots of stuff on henges, cursūs (cursuses) and other Neolithic goodies and a mystery. what's not to love? i find it spellbinding and it keeps me on Google assuaging my 'satiable curtiosity.
NLS
Where memories lie by Deborah Crombie
The light between oceans by ML Stedman nearly bailed on this and so glad i didn't.
The story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
Prime Suspect by Lynda LaPlante
Binocular vision: New & selected stories by Edith Pearlman (ongoing)
Her smoke rose up forever by James Tiptree, Jr. (dystopic short stories ongoing)
Poetry
Tonight no poetry will serve by Adrienne Rich
Squares and courtyards by Marilyn Hacker--not as crazy abt this as others have been. it sometimes seems contrived, but what do i know?
Say goodnight grace notes by Jack McCarthy
Old lights for new chancels by John Betjeman
Full woman, fleshly apple, hot moon by Pablo Neruda
Loo reads
Judi Dench: With a crack in her voice by John Miller (nibbling at it and enjoying every moment)
Savage beauty: The life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford (Wow! 900+ pages of amazing)
Is journalism worth dying for? by Anna Politkovskaya--got this after finishing Constellation of vital phenomena to get a real world view and am doing my best with minuscule text font. dear God.
Large print book for couch
Behind the scenes at the museum by Kate Atkinson because with KA, once is never enough.
AUDIO
iPod
Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver got sidetracked and must get back to it
Code name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (keep pausing as i can't bear to finish it)
The end of the affair by Graham Greene an award-winning narration by the divine Colin Firth
The crossing places by Elly Griffiths--what a stunner so far. it's trumping everything else. a slightly overweight, madly knowledgeable archeologist, who's also rather anti-social and shares my views on tourists and fireworks, a tidal marsh in Norfolk (UK not VA), lots of stuff on henges, cursūs (cursuses) and other Neolithic goodies and a mystery. what's not to love? i find it spellbinding and it keeps me on Google assuaging my 'satiable curtiosity.
NLS
Where memories lie by Deborah Crombie
The light between oceans by ML Stedman nearly bailed on this and so glad i didn't.
The story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
Prime Suspect by Lynda LaPlante
Binocular vision: New & selected stories by Edith Pearlman (ongoing)
Her smoke rose up forever by James Tiptree, Jr. (dystopic short stories ongoing)
Poetry
Tonight no poetry will serve by Adrienne Rich
Squares and courtyards by Marilyn Hacker--not as crazy abt this as others have been. it sometimes seems contrived, but what do i know?
Say goodnight grace notes by Jack McCarthy
Old lights for new chancels by John Betjeman
Full woman, fleshly apple, hot moon by Pablo Neruda
Loo reads
Judi Dench: With a crack in her voice by John Miller (nibbling at it and enjoying every moment)
Savage beauty: The life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford (Wow! 900+ pages of amazing)
Is journalism worth dying for? by Anna Politkovskaya--got this after finishing Constellation of vital phenomena to get a real world view and am doing my best with minuscule text font. dear God.
Large print book for couch
Behind the scenes at the museum by Kate Atkinson because with KA, once is never enough.
183mirrordrum
i'm finally putting up the only piece i have of my grandmother's quilting. this was probably done in the late 50s or early 60s.
through her life she'd done a lot of traditional quilts. i remember double wedding rings, diamond patterns and garden quilts. no crazy quilts that i can remember. all were stitched with cloverleaf or wiggly lines or other stitched patterns. we had a number of them, worn and thin from use. they were what i grew up with as blankets and i took them for granted, of course.
by the time she'd moved to live with us, she was doing quilting with a huge black treadle Singer quilting machine. i recently saw one like in a shoe repair store in Maryville. same vintage, treadle and everything. i'd like to go back and get a photograph.
at any rate, she ultimately created primarily full-sized quilts or ornamental pieces in the style of the one below. people would bring in chintz or polished cotton fabric with large patterns of flowers or birds or paisley or children's designs. she'd put on backing with appropriate batting--a long process involving a lengthy table and lots of pins and, quite frequently, my mother--and then she'd machine stitch over the pattern to make it appear 3-dimensional. she was quite an artist in her own way. and strong? wow. she'd pull full-sized quilts through that monster machine all day long.
the image below is a large detail from a piece my parents commissioned as a Christmas gift for some very dear friends. it's about 17" x 22". when it was framed and hung it was really very impressive, though you can't tell it now. after the Davises died, it came back to my Dad and he had it hanging in his place till his death.
the image is hyperlinked to a page with a few photographs of the full piece and other bits of detail. they're all heavily shopped to try to reduced the effects of fading, staining and wear.
all the very dark black is stitching. what fascinates me is how she decided what to stitch and what not to stitch.
through her life she'd done a lot of traditional quilts. i remember double wedding rings, diamond patterns and garden quilts. no crazy quilts that i can remember. all were stitched with cloverleaf or wiggly lines or other stitched patterns. we had a number of them, worn and thin from use. they were what i grew up with as blankets and i took them for granted, of course.
by the time she'd moved to live with us, she was doing quilting with a huge black treadle Singer quilting machine. i recently saw one like in a shoe repair store in Maryville. same vintage, treadle and everything. i'd like to go back and get a photograph.
at any rate, she ultimately created primarily full-sized quilts or ornamental pieces in the style of the one below. people would bring in chintz or polished cotton fabric with large patterns of flowers or birds or paisley or children's designs. she'd put on backing with appropriate batting--a long process involving a lengthy table and lots of pins and, quite frequently, my mother--and then she'd machine stitch over the pattern to make it appear 3-dimensional. she was quite an artist in her own way. and strong? wow. she'd pull full-sized quilts through that monster machine all day long.
the image below is a large detail from a piece my parents commissioned as a Christmas gift for some very dear friends. it's about 17" x 22". when it was framed and hung it was really very impressive, though you can't tell it now. after the Davises died, it came back to my Dad and he had it hanging in his place till his death.
the image is hyperlinked to a page with a few photographs of the full piece and other bits of detail. they're all heavily shopped to try to reduced the effects of fading, staining and wear.
all the very dark black is stitching. what fascinates me is how she decided what to stitch and what not to stitch.
184mirrordrum
meet Bess and Tommy, our new neighbors across the fence. they've spent the last week settling in. it's delicious to have them after 2 years of vacant pasture since Boomer (2700 lb pet steer) and Zippy (pet goat) died within a month of each other 2 summers ago.
they're purebred Charolais. Tommy will be taken away in October to live the studly life and we don't know how long they'll keep Bess. she's 10 years old and i guess her owners decided she was too old to keep dropping calves so we get to enjoy her. she deserves a rest and a nice pasture with doting friends, neighbors and admirers who stop in the street to squeal and wave and gape.
they're purebred Charolais. Tommy will be taken away in October to live the studly life and we don't know how long they'll keep Bess. she's 10 years old and i guess her owners decided she was too old to keep dropping calves so we get to enjoy her. she deserves a rest and a nice pasture with doting friends, neighbors and admirers who stop in the street to squeal and wave and gape.
185richardderus
Ooooh I love Charolais! I asked Mama, when I saw my first one, "are those ghost cattle?" They're eerie.
186mirrordrum
the fuzzbies. the photos linked to represent only one family of two that we cosset w/ dog kibble and supplies of fresh water.
the image below is a hyperlink to a page with more shots of the entire group and a high res shot of this little girl. she got caught on the redbud trunk right outside the kitchen door and didn't know whether to go up or down. i took shameless advantage of her predicament.
all other shots were taken through a window into the westering sun through a screen. *sigh* i shopped them as best i could and they're tolerable. i mean, they look like raccoons, ya know? this batch are(is?) known as Tilt (the mom) and the Tiltettes. JB calls her "Tilt" b/c of her lopped ear.
oh the stories one could tell.
the image below is a hyperlink to a page with more shots of the entire group and a high res shot of this little girl. she got caught on the redbud trunk right outside the kitchen door and didn't know whether to go up or down. i took shameless advantage of her predicament.
all other shots were taken through a window into the westering sun through a screen. *sigh* i shopped them as best i could and they're tolerable. i mean, they look like raccoons, ya know? this batch are(is?) known as Tilt (the mom) and the Tiltettes. JB calls her "Tilt" b/c of her lopped ear.
oh the stories one could tell.
187mirrordrum
notes on Crossing places by Elly Griffiths.
i'm barely into the book itself and have already been off doing researches. the book is set in Norfolk, England and centers around the intertidal flats and salt marshes that i'm assuming are near the site of Seahenge near Holme-next-the sea. i'll have to check a hard copy version to be sure.
Holme-next-the-sea location from Google map
perhaps the most interesting entity? character? feature? in the book is not the protagonist, Ruth Galloway, wonderful as she is, but the location itself along with the Neolithic sites found there.
Neolithic “Crossing places” are causeways that allow entrance to or crossing through a barrow, cursus or other enclosure.
“Causewayed Enclosures & Barrows
The earliest monuments in Britain appeared in the early Neolithic, circa 3900 BC, and took the form of causewayed enclosures and barrows. A causewayed, or interrupted ditch, enclosure is a roughly circular area delineated by ditches and embankments that are interrupted every few meters to form a large number of crossing places. While most of the known causewayed enclosures are in southern England, there are also known examples in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The earliest known sites, that include Maiden Castle, Dorset, and Windmill Hill, date back to between 3900 and 3700 BC and were often used to "pen" domesticated animals and cultivate plants, although many sites, including Hambledon Hill, that dates to between 3800 and 3600 BC, appeared to be more ceremonial, and even funerary in nature.”
http://www.sourcinginnovation.com/archaeology/Arch11.htm
Seahenge
one of the monuments that gets early attention is Seahenge, which must have been extraordinary in situ before it was moved “for safety” to King’s Lynn Museum. the idea of a tree buried upside down in the middle of the henge is awe-inspiring.
Seahenge timber-circle before it was removed.
and in another view
here's an in-depth discussion of Seahenge.
also, for Judy, here's a link to a marvelous site on Megalithic stuff including a nice page on the Great Cursus Barrows at Stonehenge in Wiltshire. this has nothing to do with the story but shows some shots of barrows.
and here's a great aerial view of the barrows from Goggle maps.
finally, here's a piece on cursūs or cursuses (pl of cursus) with an artist's impression of the Stonehenge cursus with causeways.
these types of structures or monuments do appear in Crossing places but the area she's describing is fictional. i just went fossicking about to see if i could find information to inform me about not only the saltwater marshes and tidal flats in Norfolk but also the kinds of monuments she talks about.
188msf59
Morning Ellie- That's a nice list of current reads. There are some gems in there. How do you manage to juggle so many? Wow. I love the quilt work too. That is gorgeous.
Hope your week is going well.
Hope your week is going well.
189maggie1944
That looks like some really interesting reading, Ellie. And the guilt is just wonderful. Love.
190ffortsa
Seahenge looks fascinating. I wish your link had some pictures of barrows and causewayed enclosures. maybe Wikipedia?
191mirrordrum
>185 richardderus: so now they'll be ghost cattle, RD. i like it! i'd never heard of Charolais until Scott and Michelle, whose pasture it is. Scott's brother raises Charolais and these two are breeding stock.
>188 msf59: hey Marcus. i've juggled as many as possible since my 20s, i guess. it's harder with audio and i frequently overstep. i never used to lose track but it's harder holding the thread with audio.
>189 maggie1944: yes, Karen, guilt is a wonderful thing. *grin* the quilted piece really was quite stunning in its original state.
>190 ffortsa: i've got some of those links marked. i just hadn't posted 'em. will see if i can get them sorted and up today. check back later, 'kay?
>188 msf59: hey Marcus. i've juggled as many as possible since my 20s, i guess. it's harder with audio and i frequently overstep. i never used to lose track but it's harder holding the thread with audio.
>189 maggie1944: yes, Karen, guilt is a wonderful thing. *grin* the quilted piece really was quite stunning in its original state.
>190 ffortsa: i've got some of those links marked. i just hadn't posted 'em. will see if i can get them sorted and up today. check back later, 'kay?
192maggie1944
jeeze! louise! my computer just does not like for me to have a good reputation for being able to spell, and write, and stuff. Quilt! quilt!
guilt is good too, in its place. And then there's gilt!
guilt is good too, in its place. And then there's gilt!
193mirrordrum
>192 maggie1944: cracked me up.
194richardderus
Quilt is good, gilt is better, guilt can go rot.
xo
xo
195maggie1944
As ever, RD rules the rules!
196mirrordrum
fwiw, Chicago Press is offering a free e-book, God: The Autobiography, a selection from their summer crop of Chicago Shorts (http://e2.ma/click/091pf/owrzlzb/4srdrb).
Franco Ferrucci’s God: The Autobiography begins the story of his creation. But, says god, “I admit, right from the start, that it was foolish to create winter … for all my love of the light I still have my dark side. Winter wasn’t my only half-baked idea.” Ferrucci’s god is, in the words of Umberto Eco, “a supreme but imperfect entity” and the “extraordinary” story Ferrucci concocts is “religiously enlightened and orthodoxically heretical.” The god of this autobiography is a tender and troubled soul, in need of understanding companions—and readers.
Franco Ferrucci’s God: The Autobiography begins the story of his creation. But, says god, “I admit, right from the start, that it was foolish to create winter … for all my love of the light I still have my dark side. Winter wasn’t my only half-baked idea.” Ferrucci’s god is, in the words of Umberto Eco, “a supreme but imperfect entity” and the “extraordinary” story Ferrucci concocts is “religiously enlightened and orthodoxically heretical.” The god of this autobiography is a tender and troubled soul, in need of understanding companions—and readers.
197mirrordrum
>194 richardderus: not all that crazy about quilts or gilt. perhaps i just haven't seen gilt in the proper context. seen plenty of quilts. interesting, yes, but would i want a house full of them? nahsomuch.
198mirrordrum
Pieter Janssens Elinga (Dutch Golden Age painter, 1623–1682) Woman Reading 1660
200richardderus
>198 mirrordrum: Lovely lovely image.
201mirrordrum
>199 jnwelch:, 200 i do love the Golden Age Dutch painters though i'd not have wanted to be a woman at the time. i'd love to have seen a Vermeer IRL but feel lucky to get to see them online at least.
202maggie1944
I join you in your admiration of the painters, and their accomplishments. I, too, am infinitely glad I am a woman in this era, and not that.
203arubabookwoman
I love the image of your grandmother's quilt. Are you lucky enough to have any of her work? (I'm also a fiber artist, although I have made bed quilts for my children and grandchildren).
204mirrordrum
Well! I thoroughly enjoyed this auspicious start to Elly Griffiths' Ruth Galloway mystery series. Ruth, a forensic archeologist, co-stars with DCI Harry Nelson and the fictional Saltmarsh in Norfolk, England to deliver a neat little piece that goes down easily.
Ten years before the story begins, a little girl named Lucy Downey disappeared near the Saltmarsh. When a child’s bones are discovered in the marsh, DCI Nelson asks Dr. Ruth Galloway to help the police determine the age of the bones on the chance that they may be Lucy’s remains. The body is indeed that of an Iron Age child, so Lucy is still lost and soon after Ruth becomes involved, another child disappears. Evil is afoot.
I like Ruth. She lives on the edge of the Saltmarsh, teaches archeology at the local university, is a zaftig size 16, and counts Iron Age burial sites to put herself to sleep. She has a weakness for bugle beads, sequins, and diamanté but wears only plain dark clothes because of her weight. Her specialty is forensics and she’s an expert in bone preservation and a mine of information on Iron Age archeological sites, especially those in the Saltmarsh.
The mystery itself is unremarkable. There is a cast of rather quirky secondary characters and some misdirection and a red-herring or two that are fairly standard fare. Someone is writing cryptic, taunting letters about the missing girls to DCI Nelson that generally confuse things. I actually enjoyed those, though, as they had me searching the internet for archeological things mentioned therein like "cursuses" and "causeways." I learned stuff from doing that, always a plus for me. There's a little romance thrown in largely, I suspect, as a sop to the romantically inclined. It didn't interest me but neither did it put me off. Galloway does have an enjoyable sense of humor and an ability to create tension without causing satiety.
The marsh, in league with the sea, provides some absolutely white-knuckle moments. The archeological material throughout is wonderful.There are also thought-provoking questions raised within the narrative flow about the comparative virtues, or vices, of leaving sacred sites in situ versus removing them to museums to preserve them artificially. The writing is good, sometimes very good, and the denouement satisfactory.
This is a book in which, for me at least, the setting trumps human characters as the most compelling force in the story. The Saltmarsh and the tides that maintain it are ruthless, unforgiving and beautiful to those who love them. We meet it in winter when it is a dark presence with secrets and mysteries far more fascinating than those contrived by mere humans. The marsh, it is said, does not easily give up what it has once claimed, but humans, scraping at the surface, do occasionally break its hold.
Author Ellie Griffiths, like Ruth Galloway, fell in love with the real salt marsh in Norfolk while on an archeological dig. Her love of the place and her knowledge of archeology shine through the book and that alone would make it well worth reading. The main character, too, is a draw for me. I look forward eagerly to her next one.
This is a review of the audible.com edition superbly narrated by Jane McDowell.
205mirrordrum
i've finished 3 good books in a row: Crossing places, The story of Lucy Gault, which i found exceptional, and Graham Greene's The end of the affair. i'm going to be a bit hard to please for a while.
real life permitting, i hope to write a review of, or at least some thoughts on, Lucy Gault.
i've started Don Quixote on my iPod and Rushdie's Midnight's children on the NLS player but will want shorter pieces to interweave with these galumphing great volumes, 40 hrs and 22+ hrs. respectively. that's a whole lotta ear hours.
i shall have to poke around and see what else i might like. i tried some mystery fluff but it bored me stiff. simply couldn't do it after 3 good reads. sooooo, we shall hear what we shall hear.
real life permitting, i hope to write a review of, or at least some thoughts on, Lucy Gault.
i've started Don Quixote on my iPod and Rushdie's Midnight's children on the NLS player but will want shorter pieces to interweave with these galumphing great volumes, 40 hrs and 22+ hrs. respectively. that's a whole lotta ear hours.
i shall have to poke around and see what else i might like. i tried some mystery fluff but it bored me stiff. simply couldn't do it after 3 good reads. sooooo, we shall hear what we shall hear.
206maggie1944
Oh, I must say your review has made me want The Crossing Places. Just the kind of mystery I love, spooky in places, and lots of collateral knowledge sprinkled throughout.
Hi, Ellie. Hope life is treating you well.
Hi, Ellie. Hope life is treating you well.
208jnwelch
Oh my, what a good review of Crossing Places, Ellie. I thumbed it, I did. It's on my wish list. I want to read about that salt marsh, among other things!
Intriguing Tegan Broznya artwork, too.
Hope your weekend's off to a good start. We take off tomorrow for a week in the top part of Michigan's mitten, gathered there with my dad, sisters, spouses, and some progeny.
Intriguing Tegan Broznya artwork, too.
Hope your weekend's off to a good start. We take off tomorrow for a week in the top part of Michigan's mitten, gathered there with my dad, sisters, spouses, and some progeny.
209mirrordrum
serendipity is lovely--at least sometimes. there i was looking for an image of a cheese and pickle sammich and stumbled on this and liked it:
Sometimes It Occurs To Me That I Am Dead
No and stop and stay are meaningless.
Clothes are not quick enough,
It is ridiculous
how I long for the rough wool collar of a coat,
the tight brim of a hat, the cold grip of shoes.
I was clumsy when I started;
a woman shrieked and dropped a plate,
a man dropped to his knees.
I hate the gritty suck of concrete
but have grown to love the slow swim of glass.
If I am tempted by floors I will be done for.
I try to remember what falling meant:
the explosion of breath,
a splintering of bone, the hammer
of earth swinging up.
If I lean forward and close my eyes
the world spins, passing through me like indigestion.
A tree x-rays my lungs, a blackbird sings
as it slides through my ribs.
Mandy Coe
Winning Poem of the Ilkley Literature Festival poetry prize 2006
Sometimes It Occurs To Me That I Am Dead
No and stop and stay are meaningless.
Clothes are not quick enough,
It is ridiculous
how I long for the rough wool collar of a coat,
the tight brim of a hat, the cold grip of shoes.
I was clumsy when I started;
a woman shrieked and dropped a plate,
a man dropped to his knees.
I hate the gritty suck of concrete
but have grown to love the slow swim of glass.
If I am tempted by floors I will be done for.
I try to remember what falling meant:
the explosion of breath,
a splintering of bone, the hammer
of earth swinging up.
If I lean forward and close my eyes
the world spins, passing through me like indigestion.
A tree x-rays my lungs, a blackbird sings
as it slides through my ribs.
Mandy Coe
Winning Poem of the Ilkley Literature Festival poetry prize 2006
210mirrordrum
>203 arubabookwoman: hey Aruba. in re: the quilt see above. glad you like the pics.
>206 maggie1944: i think you'd enjoy Crossing places, Karen. it's a quick read and i have high, if not exalted, hopes for future volumes. i'm banking on Griffiths' love for archeology and the Norfolk area and greater familiarity with her characters and sheer practice to make the books get better.
>208 jnwelch: hullo luv. you're kind to thumb the review. thanks. you *know* how they strain my brain. i think you might like it. you'd certainly speed through it. hope to make it to your place before you book for the week. hope you have a wonderful time. watch out for the offspring, though. they can trip a person up, specially if they're diminutive and speedy.
how i'd love to have seen Tegan Brozyna's works at the Brooklyn Museum, or whatever it is. textiles fascinate me.
>206 maggie1944: i think you'd enjoy Crossing places, Karen. it's a quick read and i have high, if not exalted, hopes for future volumes. i'm banking on Griffiths' love for archeology and the Norfolk area and greater familiarity with her characters and sheer practice to make the books get better.
>208 jnwelch: hullo luv. you're kind to thumb the review. thanks. you *know* how they strain my brain. i think you might like it. you'd certainly speed through it. hope to make it to your place before you book for the week. hope you have a wonderful time. watch out for the offspring, though. they can trip a person up, specially if they're diminutive and speedy.
how i'd love to have seen Tegan Brozyna's works at the Brooklyn Museum, or whatever it is. textiles fascinate me.
211mirrordrum
another Mandy Coe.
Go To Bed With a Cheese and Pickle Sandwich
It is life enhancing.
It doesn't chat you up.
You have to make it.
A cheese and pickle sandwich
is never disappointing.
You don't lie there thinking:
Am I too fat?
Too fertile?
Too insecure?
Your thoughts are clear,
your choices simple:
to cut it in half
or not to cut it in half,
how thin to slice the cheese
and where you should place the pickle.
From a cheese and pickle sandwich
you do not expect flowers,
poems and acts of adoration.
You expect what you get:
cheese... and pickle.
You want, you eat,
and afterwards you have eaten.
No lying awake resentful,
listening to it snore.
Safe snacks.
It comes recommended.
---------------------------
Mandy Coe, from Pinning the Tail on the Donkey (Spike)
and 101 Poems that Could Save Your Life
Edited by Daisy Goodwin, Harper Collins
Go To Bed With a Cheese and Pickle Sandwich
It is life enhancing.
It doesn't chat you up.
You have to make it.
A cheese and pickle sandwich
is never disappointing.
You don't lie there thinking:
Am I too fat?
Too fertile?
Too insecure?
Your thoughts are clear,
your choices simple:
to cut it in half
or not to cut it in half,
how thin to slice the cheese
and where you should place the pickle.
From a cheese and pickle sandwich
you do not expect flowers,
poems and acts of adoration.
You expect what you get:
cheese... and pickle.
You want, you eat,
and afterwards you have eaten.
No lying awake resentful,
listening to it snore.
Safe snacks.
It comes recommended.
---------------------------
Mandy Coe, from Pinning the Tail on the Donkey (Spike)
and 101 Poems that Could Save Your Life
Edited by Daisy Goodwin, Harper Collins
212jnwelch
Oh, I'm becoming a Mandy Coe fan! I like both of those a lot. The first one is a bit of amazing, and the second one features . . . a cheese and pickle sandwich.
213mirrordrum
213 the end of the cheese and pickle one reminds me of Maggie Smith on her acting career: " "One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, and one's still acting." same with a cheese and pickle sandwich, imo. one of life's basics.
214maggie1944
Yes, pickles and cheese. My dad made the best cheese and pickle sandwiches and I continue to make them just as he did.
215msf59
Hi Ellie- I love that Elinga painting! I also used it as a thread topper awhile back. I enjoyed Lucy Gault too. It was my first Trevor.
Hope you had a good week.
Hope you had a good week.
216DeltaQueen50
Hi Ellie, I really enjoyed the poetry of Mandy Coe that you have posted, especially the Cheese and Pickle Sandwich one. Sometimes that's exactly what you need in life - a Cheese & Pickle Sandwich!
218mirrordrum
>216 DeltaQueen50: i know, i know. i've ordered one of her books. she intrigues me.
219maggie1944
Ellie, sometimes I pick up the computer and hold it close to my face so I can read. I love >217 mirrordrum:.
220EBT1002
Ellie, I liked but did not love The Crossing Places but your review reminds me of some of its strengths. I might want to read the next one (?) in the series.
221richardderus
*smooch*
222jnwelch
Excuse his French, Ellie, but I thought you'd enjoy this one from a Tumblr "Books that should be written":
223mirrordrum
ain't it the Buddha's truth! giggling also helps. he's the world's greatest giggler.
224arubabookwoman
Wow--thanks for the link to Tegan Brozyna's web site--I've never heard of her, but now love her work.
225mirrordrum
>224 arubabookwoman: you're welcome. glad you like her work.
226richardderus
*smooch*
227msf59
Hi Ellie- Just checking in. Hope the week is going well. Have you been reading anything worthwhile?
228mirrordrum
Currently reading as of 07/25
IPod
Sweet tooth by Ian McEwan
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Ask the passengers by A. S. King
NLS
The sister by Poppy Adams
Midnight’s children by Salman Rushdie
CD/tape
The league of frightened men by Rex Stout (reread)
The nine tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers (reread)
Print
Judy Dench: With a crack in her voice by Judi Dench
The book thief by Markus Zusak (will probably have to switch back to audio as I can’t find an LP version for sale under $76 to save me and Inter Library Loan items can only be checked out for 2 weeks and that’s an impossible time frame for me.)
Tonight no poetry will serve by Adrienne Rich
She had some horses by Joy Harjo
Behind the scenes at the museum by Kate Atkinson (reread)
Savage beauty by Nancy Milford
Crazy brave by Joy Harjo—maybe. Love it but print is so squinchy it makes me dizzy and it’s not in audio or LP. Blast!
IPod
Sweet tooth by Ian McEwan
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Ask the passengers by A. S. King
NLS
The sister by Poppy Adams
Midnight’s children by Salman Rushdie
CD/tape
The league of frightened men by Rex Stout (reread)
The nine tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers (reread)
Judy Dench: With a crack in her voice by Judi Dench
The book thief by Markus Zusak (will probably have to switch back to audio as I can’t find an LP version for sale under $76 to save me and Inter Library Loan items can only be checked out for 2 weeks and that’s an impossible time frame for me.)
Tonight no poetry will serve by Adrienne Rich
She had some horses by Joy Harjo
Behind the scenes at the museum by Kate Atkinson (reread)
Savage beauty by Nancy Milford
Crazy brave by Joy Harjo—maybe. Love it but print is so squinchy it makes me dizzy and it’s not in audio or LP. Blast!
229mirrordrum
>227 msf59: hi Mark. you just beat me to the punch. was writing up what i'm reading. that sounds a bit odd but you get the drift.
230msf59
Wow, Ellie! You are juggling quite an array of books. I've had my eye on sweet Tooth and NEED to read more McEwan. I was surprisingly lukewarm on the Rushdie. We did a Group Read of this one, a couple years ago.
The Book Thief is wonderful! I hope you can continue.
The Book Thief is wonderful! I hope you can continue.
231cammykitty
Can't wait to see what you think about the Tiptree biography. I meant to read that this year, but it's beginning to look like I'm not going to get to it. :(
232jnwelch
I'm struck by that major league book-juggling, too, Ellie. You're living on someone else's land than mine for most of them, except I loved both The Nine Tailors and The Book Thief. I did read Don Quixote, but liked it better as an idea than I did the reading.
233EBT1002
Ellie, I'm impressed by how many different books you are reading at one time. I have two going at present and that is near my max (I can sometimes do three, but that is absolutely it!).
Happy weekend. :-)
Happy weekend. :-)
234maggie1944
Good day to you. I am also one who keeps a bunch of books started laying around my place. I'm trying to develop a neatness habit so I don't have them all over the place any longer, but I do have at least 5 - 6 in a book shelf next to my bed, all have a book mark somewhere in them. Some I am half way through but I only pick up occasionally. Some I started, and then became distracted by another. Fickle.
The easiest book for me to put down in favor of another is the history type of book. It will not be changing in the days it waits for me to return. And the build up of interest by the author tends to be more even than that in fiction.
OK, I doubt I'll be making much progress on them today. House stuff calls.
The easiest book for me to put down in favor of another is the history type of book. It will not be changing in the days it waits for me to return. And the build up of interest by the author tends to be more even than that in fiction.
OK, I doubt I'll be making much progress on them today. House stuff calls.
235PaulCranswick
I am by nature one of life's messier individuals and love the clutter of my books arranged around me. SWMBO is a compulsive cleaner on the other hand which makes for some very interesting "discussions". It has taken a long time for her to respect my space and for me to not make a mess everywhere else.
Have a lovely Sunday, Ellie
Have a lovely Sunday, Ellie
236maggie1944
My dogs generally do not complain. However, the Real Estate divas and my friends insist that I need a neat house to show to others if I expect them to hand over the money for it. I have done my morning rituals but no more than that today and it is already creeping very close to noon. Tomorrow.... work. Reading is in the forefront today, and I like that.
237scaifea
>228 mirrordrum:: Ah, a woman after my very own heart - I love that you read at one time just about the same number of books as I do!
>222 jnwelch:: *SNORK!*
>222 jnwelch:: *SNORK!*
238mirrordrum
not been much up to posting but had to post this. let it be said that, like the rest of you, i'll read most anything. i'm looking for a blender for my HSO to make good smoothies during chemoradiation TX and ran across this review of an Oster on amazon.com. just had to share. NB: i did not write this. wouldst could i but write so well . . . and in reviewing a blender, no less.
"The most amusing thing about this blender for me was the packaging. You're got the Oster logo and "America's #1 Blender Brand" front and center, but my favorite thing is the little bullet points next to a picture of the blender with strawberries and bananas and a martini glass (?) full of what we are led to believe are blended apples and strawberries. They read:
- Revolutionary Ice Crushing Blade
- 450 Watts of Ice Crushing Power
- Ice Crush Mode Creates Snowy Ice in Seconds
- Easy to Clean
- Ergonomic Controls
Did I mention that this thing can crush ice? I get the feeling that the packaging is aimed at guys who really want to try frou frou drinks like raw apples and strawberries in a martini glass (or whatever kind of glass it is), but don't feel secure enough in their masculinity to buy a blender. But what real man wouldn't want to be at the helm of 450 watts of ice crushing power? Genius.
In other words, this blender won't mince or sissify your food--it'll crush it into oblivion, the way a real man's blender should. That's right.
The squat, powerful appearance of the blender only further underscores that this is the kind of thing that you'd see in use of reruns of The World's Strongest Man. It's a powerlifter of a kitchen appliance, not some dainty figure skater. This thing will pulverize your food, make no bones about it."
i *really* needed a laugh and, by gum, i got one. hope somebody else finds it as chortle inducing as i did.
"The most amusing thing about this blender for me was the packaging. You're got the Oster logo and "America's #1 Blender Brand" front and center, but my favorite thing is the little bullet points next to a picture of the blender with strawberries and bananas and a martini glass (?) full of what we are led to believe are blended apples and strawberries. They read:
- Revolutionary Ice Crushing Blade
- 450 Watts of Ice Crushing Power
- Ice Crush Mode Creates Snowy Ice in Seconds
- Easy to Clean
- Ergonomic Controls
Did I mention that this thing can crush ice? I get the feeling that the packaging is aimed at guys who really want to try frou frou drinks like raw apples and strawberries in a martini glass (or whatever kind of glass it is), but don't feel secure enough in their masculinity to buy a blender. But what real man wouldn't want to be at the helm of 450 watts of ice crushing power? Genius.
In other words, this blender won't mince or sissify your food--it'll crush it into oblivion, the way a real man's blender should. That's right.
The squat, powerful appearance of the blender only further underscores that this is the kind of thing that you'd see in use of reruns of The World's Strongest Man. It's a powerlifter of a kitchen appliance, not some dainty figure skater. This thing will pulverize your food, make no bones about it."
i *really* needed a laugh and, by gum, i got one. hope somebody else finds it as chortle inducing as i did.
241richardderus
HA! Classic idiocy in packaging lanced with discerning humor. I'll bet sizable sums you DID write that. Sounds like you, anyway. *smooch*
242mirrordrum
okay, i can do this. i can respond to posts on my thread. piecemeal, perhaps, but i can do it. *furrowing brow*
first, the reading list has gone to hell in a handbasket. the eyes have truly gone fakakta so all non-LP reading ist un neingehappenish dinge. that temporarily kaputlitsches Dench and Crazy brave.
i finished Tonight no poetry will serve by Adrienne Rich, which i liked alright, but it does read like a 'later work' which, of course, it is.
real life has also intruded into my ability to concentrate so the Tiptree biography, Rushdie and Cervantes are at least temporarily tabled to be replaced by, now don't laugh, Dick Francis' Decider and anything else i fancy that doesn't require much cognition. 'whatever works,' i say.
>230 msf59: hey Mark. i read McEwan's Amsterdam last month and it was truly a strange piece: a sort of crime novel with some absolutely sublime writing on music and some quite uninspiring "why done it" stuff. you know the who from the git go. sometimes i think he's working his way through a variety of genres. we'll see how Sweet tooth turns out. it's an MI5 piece i've only just started, lured on by the yummy narration of Juliet Stevenson.
i was swept away by both Saturday and Atonement and those were my first two of his. Amsterdam was in the ballpark only very spottily. for those spots, though, and short as it is, it's worth a visit.
okay, i'm off to thread my way through the mosquitoes and up the street before it starts to rain. i'll be back later.
first, the reading list has gone to hell in a handbasket. the eyes have truly gone fakakta so all non-LP reading ist un neingehappenish dinge. that temporarily kaputlitsches Dench and Crazy brave.
i finished Tonight no poetry will serve by Adrienne Rich, which i liked alright, but it does read like a 'later work' which, of course, it is.
real life has also intruded into my ability to concentrate so the Tiptree biography, Rushdie and Cervantes are at least temporarily tabled to be replaced by, now don't laugh, Dick Francis' Decider and anything else i fancy that doesn't require much cognition. 'whatever works,' i say.
>230 msf59: hey Mark. i read McEwan's Amsterdam last month and it was truly a strange piece: a sort of crime novel with some absolutely sublime writing on music and some quite uninspiring "why done it" stuff. you know the who from the git go. sometimes i think he's working his way through a variety of genres. we'll see how Sweet tooth turns out. it's an MI5 piece i've only just started, lured on by the yummy narration of Juliet Stevenson.
i was swept away by both Saturday and Atonement and those were my first two of his. Amsterdam was in the ballpark only very spottily. for those spots, though, and short as it is, it's worth a visit.
okay, i'm off to thread my way through the mosquitoes and up the street before it starts to rain. i'll be back later.
243maggie1944
"kaputlitsches" is a lovely word. I'd forgotten "kaput" until you mentioned it. I also like the French: "ça ne marche pas" so English's "it doesn't work" becomes "it marches not"! Love it.
244mirrordrum
>231 cammykitty: lovely to have you stopping by, Katie. :) the Tiptree biography seems as though it might be a bit depressing so i've put it off for now. goodness knows, if it reflects the origins of Tiptree's extreme dystopia, it ought to be depressing. i can only tolerate one of her stories every so often.
>232 jnwelch: you know, Joe, i got started on Don Quixote because of Will McEvoy's references to Quixote and Camelot off and on in HBO's Newsroom series, with which we're happily besotted. it's one of those books i've always thought i *should* read but never have. i'll see what i think in a couple of months. your response maaaay just push me to watch Camelot instead. i think Will (and writer Aaron Sorkin) probably like Camelot better anyway. i just thought it would be nice to know what they're talking about, beyond the cliched references. right now, the movie sounds a whole lot more appealing or far less demanding.
>233 EBT1002: yay, Ellen. happy belated, or as it may be, forthcoming, weekend to you too. and don't be impressed by the reading list. i blame it on my mother, a librarian herself, who started and then encouraged my book lust and never censored my reading.
a favorite story about her, told on LT before, was her response when, in high school, all my friends were snickering and giggling over Peyton place, which they had been absolutely forbidden to read by their parents. naturally, i asked her about it. "well, lambkin," she said, "of course you can read it if you want to, but i don't think it will interest you very much."
still haven't read it and haven't the faintest curiosity about it to this day.
>234 maggie1944: Karen. hullo. what a treat. you wrote, "I do have at least 5 - 6 (books) in a book shelf next to my bed, all have a book mark somewhere in them. Some I am half way through but I only pick up occasionally. Some I started, and then became distracted by another. Fickle."
well, i don't think it's fickle. to me, it's like food. my tastes vary not only within a day but over blocks of time. now that my reading is mostly auditory, the narrator's voice also factors in. and sometimes i like a book so much that i'll drag it out as long as possible. Code name Verity was the latest of these and when, with absolute perfection, it delivered a gut punch, i was glad i'd savored it.
must rest the pieces parts. rather enjoying this. hope to be wittering on again tomorrow and then get to others' threads.
>232 jnwelch: you know, Joe, i got started on Don Quixote because of Will McEvoy's references to Quixote and Camelot off and on in HBO's Newsroom series, with which we're happily besotted. it's one of those books i've always thought i *should* read but never have. i'll see what i think in a couple of months. your response maaaay just push me to watch Camelot instead. i think Will (and writer Aaron Sorkin) probably like Camelot better anyway. i just thought it would be nice to know what they're talking about, beyond the cliched references. right now, the movie sounds a whole lot more appealing or far less demanding.
>233 EBT1002: yay, Ellen. happy belated, or as it may be, forthcoming, weekend to you too. and don't be impressed by the reading list. i blame it on my mother, a librarian herself, who started and then encouraged my book lust and never censored my reading.
a favorite story about her, told on LT before, was her response when, in high school, all my friends were snickering and giggling over Peyton place, which they had been absolutely forbidden to read by their parents. naturally, i asked her about it. "well, lambkin," she said, "of course you can read it if you want to, but i don't think it will interest you very much."
still haven't read it and haven't the faintest curiosity about it to this day.
>234 maggie1944: Karen. hullo. what a treat. you wrote, "I do have at least 5 - 6 (books) in a book shelf next to my bed, all have a book mark somewhere in them. Some I am half way through but I only pick up occasionally. Some I started, and then became distracted by another. Fickle."
well, i don't think it's fickle. to me, it's like food. my tastes vary not only within a day but over blocks of time. now that my reading is mostly auditory, the narrator's voice also factors in. and sometimes i like a book so much that i'll drag it out as long as possible. Code name Verity was the latest of these and when, with absolute perfection, it delivered a gut punch, i was glad i'd savored it.
must rest the pieces parts. rather enjoying this. hope to be wittering on again tomorrow and then get to others' threads.
245jnwelch
Ha! What a great story about Peyton Place, Ellie! I wish we had something comparable with our kids. We didn't restrict their reading, but never had one come up like that. What a perfect answer she gave.
247mirrordrum
>239 drneutron: wow! hi Jim. ayup, it's the real manly deal. coolest thing is, the review, iirc, was written by a man.
>240 jnwelch: a rickety Bass-o-matic sounds a bit frightening, Joe. and loud. i have a sort of Ash (Ian Holm) in Alien vision of it bezerking, disassembling wildly into many parts and spinning round the room decimating everything while leaving the things to be blended quite untouched. be careful. did you know Bassomatic was "the symmetric-key cipher designed by Phil Zimmermann as part of his email encryption software?" (via Wikipedia but apparently correct)
>241 richardderus: i need a *smooch*-a-matic for you, sweetums. you lose your bet. i shall be awaiting the sizable sums. :)
>243 maggie1944: as far as i know, Karen, i made up "kaputlitsches." my family was a great fan of the late, great Stanley Unwin's Heinrich Schnibble via the Saturday Evening Post who made up such "Germanic" English words/phrases as (be sure to read w/ appropriate German pronunciation):
propeller - der airfloggen fann
self starter - der airfloggenfann flinger
control column - das pushenpullen schtik
rudder pedals - der tailschwingen works
pilot - der tailschwingen pushenpullen werker
student pilot - der dummkoff lernen fliegen
forced landing - trieen gobackonner ground mitout kraschen
first solo - trieen gobackonner ground mitout kraschen alone
precationary landing - looken virst den kraschen
crosswind landing - trieen gobackonner ground mitout kraschen sidevays
parachute jump - trieen gobackonner ground mitout der fliegenwagon
weather radar - das olektroniken stormengeschniffer
my favorite of his in audio is Goldiloppers And The Three Bearloders. when i need a really good larf, i visit Mr. Unwin on youtube. i suspect that John Lennon may also have been a fan.
>240 jnwelch: a rickety Bass-o-matic sounds a bit frightening, Joe. and loud. i have a sort of Ash (Ian Holm) in Alien vision of it bezerking, disassembling wildly into many parts and spinning round the room decimating everything while leaving the things to be blended quite untouched. be careful. did you know Bassomatic was "the symmetric-key cipher designed by Phil Zimmermann as part of his email encryption software?" (via Wikipedia but apparently correct)
>241 richardderus: i need a *smooch*-a-matic for you, sweetums. you lose your bet. i shall be awaiting the sizable sums. :)
>243 maggie1944: as far as i know, Karen, i made up "kaputlitsches." my family was a great fan of the late, great Stanley Unwin's Heinrich Schnibble via the Saturday Evening Post who made up such "Germanic" English words/phrases as (be sure to read w/ appropriate German pronunciation):
propeller - der airfloggen fann
self starter - der airfloggenfann flinger
control column - das pushenpullen schtik
rudder pedals - der tailschwingen works
pilot - der tailschwingen pushenpullen werker
student pilot - der dummkoff lernen fliegen
forced landing - trieen gobackonner ground mitout kraschen
first solo - trieen gobackonner ground mitout kraschen alone
precationary landing - looken virst den kraschen
crosswind landing - trieen gobackonner ground mitout kraschen sidevays
parachute jump - trieen gobackonner ground mitout der fliegenwagon
weather radar - das olektroniken stormengeschniffer
my favorite of his in audio is Goldiloppers And The Three Bearloders. when i need a really good larf, i visit Mr. Unwin on youtube. i suspect that John Lennon may also have been a fan.
248EBT1002
Love the story of your mum and Peyton Place. She did it perfectly - left it up to you but gave you a recommendation based on knowing you. Those are the best book recommendations, aren't they?
249maggie1944
Purrrrfict: der tailschwingen pushenpullen werker
gives just the right feeling of lack of awe for airplane driver; kind of like a bus driver these days
Thanks
good fun
gives just the right feeling of lack of awe for airplane driver; kind of like a bus driver these days
Thanks
good fun
250jnwelch
I wonder whether Dan Ackroyd and Phil Zimmerman ever met? I couldn't resist Dan's sales pitch, but it's time for a replacement. Plus Dan's was just plain a gross-out.
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bassomatic+dan+aykroyd&view=detail&m...
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bassomatic+dan+aykroyd&view=detail&m...
251richardderus
weather radar - das olektroniken stormengeschniffer
BWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAA*gasp*HAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
BWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAA*gasp*HAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
252ronincats
Oh, my dad used to read from the Heinrich Schnibble books to us when we were kids--broke us up every time!
253mirrordrum
oh heav'n save us. the Mann-Booker Long List is out, which i suppose everyone knew but moiself, and 4 are now on audible.com. I MUST HAVE Ruth Ozeki's book and, i gather, TransAtlantic as well. i need to win a lottery.
23 July 2013
Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (Fourth Estate)
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (Granta)
Harvest by Jim Crace (Picador)
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris (Sandstone Press)
The Kills by Richard House (Picador)
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury)
Unexploded by Alison MacLeod ( Hamish Hamilton)
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (Bloomsbury)
Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson (Mantle)
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Canongate)
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (Doubleday)
The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín (Viking)
- See more at: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/longlist-2013-announced#sthash.VGPCTT8Q.dp...
23 July 2013
Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (Fourth Estate)
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (Granta)
Harvest by Jim Crace (Picador)
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman by Eve Harris (Sandstone Press)
The Kills by Richard House (Picador)
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury)
Unexploded by Alison MacLeod ( Hamish Hamilton)
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (Bloomsbury)
Almost English by Charlotte Mendelson (Mantle)
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Canongate)
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (Doubleday)
The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín (Viking)
- See more at: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/longlist-2013-announced#sthash.VGPCTT8Q.dp...
255mirrordrum
Adlestrop
Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Edward Thomas
thanks to Ian McEwan for pointing me to the above, and then walking me through it, in Sweet tooth. i'd never read it.
Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Edward Thomas
thanks to Ian McEwan for pointing me to the above, and then walking me through it, in Sweet tooth. i'd never read it.
256mirrordrum
>253 mirrordrum: i neglected to say, Ellen, that i need the lottery to be given on the express condition that i may only spend it on books (audiobooks are acceptable) and that an equivalent sum will be donated to the charity or charities of my choice. i fret under the strain of moral dilemmas even in imagination. ridiculous, but there it is. thus are helping professionals made, i suppose, with all our flaws and misplaced sentimentalities. i do believe, though, that the best helping pros have a streak of hard-headed realism, common sense and a willingness to get into shite up to the elbows and use teeth and toenails PRN as well as compassion. i should know. i live with one of the best.
257EBT1002
^ I like the way you think. I admit that I would likely indulge my fantasy to spend winters on Kauai and summers in Portland, OR, but I would also give much to charity and buy lots of books.
:-)
I'm also a helping professional, although in a less messy milieu, I think. Still, we are who we are.
:-)
I'm also a helping professional, although in a less messy milieu, I think. Still, we are who we are.
259mirrordrum
Lightwell Library: Skylight With a Lofted Circular Bookcase
Read more: http://dornob.com/lightwell-library-incredible-skylight-lofted-circular-bookcase...
260mirrordrum
>257 EBT1002: Ellen, your "we are who we are" reminded me of a very silly first season X-files ep that started with a whacked out guy in an Arctic station saying "we are not who we are." i never did figure that one out. the high point of the ep was that Scully wore a flannel shirt i wanted very badly. it was also notable for reeeally horrible cgi work. and Scully in a flannel shirt. they hadn't got their groove on yet. i dunno. it's late. did i mention the flannel shirt?
261mirrordrum
Lights Out
by Edward Thomas
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.
Many a road and track
That, since the dawn's first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.
Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends;
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.
There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter, and leave, alone,
I know not how.
The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19219#sthash.8PQ4WTam.dpuf
by Edward Thomas
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.
Many a road and track
That, since the dawn's first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.
Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends;
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.
There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter, and leave, alone,
I know not how.
The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19219#sthash.8PQ4WTam.dpuf
262mirrordrum
>258 jnwelch: me too, Joe. obviously. not surprisingly, he was killed in France in the battle of Arras, April, 1917.
Battle at Arras
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying tonight or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be for what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me,
disappoint.
7 January, 1916
Ian Sansom wrote in The Guardian ' "If anything explains the continuing appeal of his poems, it's probably that Thomas seems to have no clear idea of what he's doing or where's he's going; the effort is all. Many of the poems feature a first-person narrator who is tramping along, overlooked by others, a visitor in the landscape, passing by beguiling streams and fields, often in the rain, listening to much thrush-song and 'parleying starlings' and 'speculating rooks', and getting absolutely nowhere. Happiness, life and love all lie just out of reach - a leap, or a walking-stick's length away."
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/719#sthash.ZJMU72Xi.dpuf and in Sansom's review in the Guardian.
Battle at Arras
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying tonight or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be for what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me,
disappoint.
7 January, 1916
Ian Sansom wrote in The Guardian ' "If anything explains the continuing appeal of his poems, it's probably that Thomas seems to have no clear idea of what he's doing or where's he's going; the effort is all. Many of the poems feature a first-person narrator who is tramping along, overlooked by others, a visitor in the landscape, passing by beguiling streams and fields, often in the rain, listening to much thrush-song and 'parleying starlings' and 'speculating rooks', and getting absolutely nowhere. Happiness, life and love all lie just out of reach - a leap, or a walking-stick's length away."
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/719#sthash.ZJMU72Xi.dpuf and in Sansom's review in the Guardian.
263jnwelch
Jeez, what a shame he died in the war. Good and interesting poetry. Thank you for posting it. I like Sansom's comments. "No clear idea of what he's doing or where he's going" - that sounds like a war experience all by itself.
P.S. Is this the Scully flannel shirt?
P.S. Is this the Scully flannel shirt?
264mirrordrum
yeah. it's a baby Gillian. i saw similar caps last night but they were pixelated all to hell. your versions are infinitely better. thanks a bunch.
266mirrordrum
the image is a hyperlink to a high res image of a plaque placed in a square in Frankfurt commemorating the book burning that took place there on May 10, 1933. around the outside it reads, “Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.” (“That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also.”) ~H.Heine
i was reading The book thief but my ILL period ran out and i had to return it less than half finished. JB (my HSO) ordered me the one even remotely affordable copy in LP we could find. so i'm waiting patiently. i'll undoubtedly reread it in audio. i came across the image above while trying to find photographs of book burnings in Germany.
267maggie1944
Thank you, so much, for giving us this image. So important! We must never forget.
268mirrordrum
good things.
first thing. i had a delightful visit last week from 2 out-of-state friends with their 8-year-old daughter and approximately 18-month-old son who has a passion for tractors. so soon it happens with the machinery. i have no idea how their moms are doing as it was all about the kids. i warned them before they came that it would be. :)
second thing. i went up the block for a stroll the other night and while i was moseying along, the sky went all Maxfield Parrish behind the oaks to the west then ignited into a wild twilight-of-the-gods intensity. i pretty much backed home down the middle of the road.
as i got to the driveway, the color was fading and the streetlight was coming on. i looked up and saw a spider spinning her web against the light. i watched her for a while and thought of a piece from Loren Eiseley's "Judgment of the birds" from The immense journey.
"It was cold that autumn evening, and, standing under a suburban street light in a spate of leaves and beginning snow, I was suddenly conscious of some huge and hairy shadows dancing over the pavement. They seemed attached to an odd, globular shape that was magnified above me. There was no mistaking it. I was standing under the shadow of an orb-weaving spider. Gigantically projected against
the street, she was about her spinning when everything was going underground. Even her cables were magnified upon the sidewalk and already I was half-entangled in their shadows.
“Good Lord,” I thought, “she has found herself a kind of minor sun and is going to upset the course of nature.”
for some reason i still can't fathom, The immense journey was on the required reading list in frosh Eng at Cal in the early 60s. at 17, it quite blew my mind and is one of my life-changing books. i've read it so often that bits of it are always with me, though much of the science is now out of date and his musings sometimes seem a bit heavy-handed. i had to fossick around a good while to find the book in my disordered shelves and then the passage itself, cut waaay short here. it was lovely to meet up with him again.
third thing. finally we have many bumble bees, the small ones, making glad the day as they gather great baskets full of pollen from our monkey grass wilding. we didn't plant it. it just arrived and is spreading all round. we're torn because it's non-native but invites bees better than anything else we have except our hideous, rag-tag native wild asters. what to do? we have no honeybees anymore and very few bumblebees this year so it's quite exciting to hear them humming away. for a real treat, see Pablo Neruda's "Ode to bees" in Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon, translation by Stephen Mitchell. failing that, here it is translated by Margaret Sayers Peden.
fourth thing. some wonderful soul posted "How to sing Bel Canto: Sutherland and Pavarotti in rehearsal" (1979) to YouTube a couple of months ago. what joy. i assume it was the rehearsal for their Lincoln Center concert. the same person posted a fine live version from Lincoln Center of "signor ne principe" from Rigoletto, of which they did only a small piece in rehearsal where La Stupenda caught Pavarotti out in an error. the concert piece lifted me right out of my seat, cheering and shouting.
i had been looking in a desultory fashion for bits and pieces about bel canto since reading Bel Canto by Anne Patchett a couple of years ago so this was a delightful find. how reading does open doors.
well! nothing to lift the spirits like a recital of some of one's blessings.
first thing. i had a delightful visit last week from 2 out-of-state friends with their 8-year-old daughter and approximately 18-month-old son who has a passion for tractors. so soon it happens with the machinery. i have no idea how their moms are doing as it was all about the kids. i warned them before they came that it would be. :)
second thing. i went up the block for a stroll the other night and while i was moseying along, the sky went all Maxfield Parrish behind the oaks to the west then ignited into a wild twilight-of-the-gods intensity. i pretty much backed home down the middle of the road.
as i got to the driveway, the color was fading and the streetlight was coming on. i looked up and saw a spider spinning her web against the light. i watched her for a while and thought of a piece from Loren Eiseley's "Judgment of the birds" from The immense journey.
"It was cold that autumn evening, and, standing under a suburban street light in a spate of leaves and beginning snow, I was suddenly conscious of some huge and hairy shadows dancing over the pavement. They seemed attached to an odd, globular shape that was magnified above me. There was no mistaking it. I was standing under the shadow of an orb-weaving spider. Gigantically projected against
the street, she was about her spinning when everything was going underground. Even her cables were magnified upon the sidewalk and already I was half-entangled in their shadows.
“Good Lord,” I thought, “she has found herself a kind of minor sun and is going to upset the course of nature.”
for some reason i still can't fathom, The immense journey was on the required reading list in frosh Eng at Cal in the early 60s. at 17, it quite blew my mind and is one of my life-changing books. i've read it so often that bits of it are always with me, though much of the science is now out of date and his musings sometimes seem a bit heavy-handed. i had to fossick around a good while to find the book in my disordered shelves and then the passage itself, cut waaay short here. it was lovely to meet up with him again.
third thing. finally we have many bumble bees, the small ones, making glad the day as they gather great baskets full of pollen from our monkey grass wilding. we didn't plant it. it just arrived and is spreading all round. we're torn because it's non-native but invites bees better than anything else we have except our hideous, rag-tag native wild asters. what to do? we have no honeybees anymore and very few bumblebees this year so it's quite exciting to hear them humming away. for a real treat, see Pablo Neruda's "Ode to bees" in Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon, translation by Stephen Mitchell. failing that, here it is translated by Margaret Sayers Peden.
fourth thing. some wonderful soul posted "How to sing Bel Canto: Sutherland and Pavarotti in rehearsal" (1979) to YouTube a couple of months ago. what joy. i assume it was the rehearsal for their Lincoln Center concert. the same person posted a fine live version from Lincoln Center of "signor ne principe" from Rigoletto, of which they did only a small piece in rehearsal where La Stupenda caught Pavarotti out in an error. the concert piece lifted me right out of my seat, cheering and shouting.
i had been looking in a desultory fashion for bits and pieces about bel canto since reading Bel Canto by Anne Patchett a couple of years ago so this was a delightful find. how reading does open doors.
well! nothing to lift the spirits like a recital of some of one's blessings.
269mirrordrum
and finally, current books. having a bit of a time getting stuck into anything properly and have had to curtail the number of books i'm reading. one of those times when the book must fit the circumstances. had to 86 all the print books, temporarily i hope. finished, pearl-ruled or postponed a number of books and am now reading:
NLS
Special topics in calamity physics by Marisha Pessl.
The great railway bazaar by Paul Theroux. bad recording and not a great narrator but i really want to read this one.
the sister by Poppy Adams. this is a very strange book. i don't know if i'll finish it.
Our man in Havana by Graham Greene. well, it's Graham Greene, so it's delicious.
iPod
The swimming pool library by Alan Hollinghurst.
this one takes place in the pre-AIDS early 80s in England but to me it's reminiscent of John Rechy's City of night (60s) and Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the dance (70s). i was intrigued by the title and a review in the NYT by Catherine Stimpson encouraged me to read it. so far, so good. very well narrated, too. >eta i was just listening to it and it struck me how accurate Mary Renault's gay men's banter was in The charioteer. the vernacular hadn't really changed all that much between 1945 (or thereabouts) and 1988.
Snuff by Terry Pratchett. not my favorite Pratchett thus far, but Pratchett is Pratchett. good for a laugh and plenty of bends in the brain.
NLS
Special topics in calamity physics by Marisha Pessl.
The great railway bazaar by Paul Theroux. bad recording and not a great narrator but i really want to read this one.
the sister by Poppy Adams. this is a very strange book. i don't know if i'll finish it.
Our man in Havana by Graham Greene. well, it's Graham Greene, so it's delicious.
iPod
The swimming pool library by Alan Hollinghurst.
this one takes place in the pre-AIDS early 80s in England but to me it's reminiscent of John Rechy's City of night (60s) and Andrew Holleran's Dancer from the dance (70s). i was intrigued by the title and a review in the NYT by Catherine Stimpson encouraged me to read it. so far, so good. very well narrated, too. >eta i was just listening to it and it struck me how accurate Mary Renault's gay men's banter was in The charioteer. the vernacular hadn't really changed all that much between 1945 (or thereabouts) and 1988.
Snuff by Terry Pratchett. not my favorite Pratchett thus far, but Pratchett is Pratchett. good for a laugh and plenty of bends in the brain.
270richardderus
Hello smoochling, glad the books are pleasing. Amazing how Mary Renault got her details right in every book she wrote. I re-read The Praise Singer not that long ago and liked it quite well.
Sending good-mojo hugs and a scoche of jealous-sauce for your Maxfield Parrish-blue sky.
Sending good-mojo hugs and a scoche of jealous-sauce for your Maxfield Parrish-blue sky.
271jnwelch
Love the word "fossick", Ellie. Thanks for the Neruda poem. I generally like Stephen Mitchell's translations, especially his Tao Te Ching, so I'll look for his version.
Looking forward to your reaction to Special Topics. Becca loved it, I thought it was over-written.
I don't remember The Charioteer well enough from when I read it, but I liked all of hers when I was a youngster.
Scary sky with orb-ital spider - add in maybe a piercing howl from down the street and the smell of ancient ruins, and you're looking at an opening between worlds.
Looking forward to your reaction to Special Topics. Becca loved it, I thought it was over-written.
I don't remember The Charioteer well enough from when I read it, but I liked all of hers when I was a youngster.
Scary sky with orb-ital spider - add in maybe a piercing howl from down the street and the smell of ancient ruins, and you're looking at an opening between worlds.
272mirrordrum
>270 richardderus: so that's how you spell "scoche," RD. i've never seen it in print before. so glad to see, per your thread, that my magic worked and you had a Max-Parrish-blue sky of your very own and a true blue moon to go with it. one does one's humble best to bring balm to those afflicted by the sauce of jealousy.
>271 jnwelch: i've obviously taken "fossick" for granted, Joe. it was a gift from Ngaio Marsh many years ago. i fell in love with it not knowing she was a Kiwi and that it's primarily used in Oz, En Zed and came from Cornwall (?). don't know why Cornwall. i just assumed it was a regular word that i'd missed somehow. i believe i found it in Scales of justice. there's a droll piece on its origins at the word detective site.
Special topics is overwritten and affected but i really don't mind now that i've gotten over muttering to myself that she sounds as though she's just graduated from one of the 7 sisters and is flaunting it in a tiresome way.
yeah, Loren Eiseley could truly do spooky. one of my favorites is his piece "The snout." lots of ooze and slime and things coming ashore that sidle and ogle and that, his wife said, "need watching."
>271 jnwelch: i've obviously taken "fossick" for granted, Joe. it was a gift from Ngaio Marsh many years ago. i fell in love with it not knowing she was a Kiwi and that it's primarily used in Oz, En Zed and came from Cornwall (?). don't know why Cornwall. i just assumed it was a regular word that i'd missed somehow. i believe i found it in Scales of justice. there's a droll piece on its origins at the word detective site.
Special topics is overwritten and affected but i really don't mind now that i've gotten over muttering to myself that she sounds as though she's just graduated from one of the 7 sisters and is flaunting it in a tiresome way.
yeah, Loren Eiseley could truly do spooky. one of my favorites is his piece "The snout." lots of ooze and slime and things coming ashore that sidle and ogle and that, his wife said, "need watching."
273richardderus
You mojo'd me that moon, didn't you, so I'd re-tightum you! Clever boots. It was amazing. I love moon-changes. My favorite way to keep time.
Has NLS got Close My Eyes by Sophie McKenzie yet? Terrific little suspense novel with a bit of something extra.
Currently savoring I, Claudius, slowly sipping its heady sparkling prose. Am a delighted book drunkard.
Has NLS got Close My Eyes by Sophie McKenzie yet? Terrific little suspense novel with a bit of something extra.
Currently savoring I, Claudius, slowly sipping its heady sparkling prose. Am a delighted book drunkard.
274mirrordrum
i confess it, caro. if it takes la bella luna for tightum and tightum for tiffin, well, what could i do?
audible has Close my eyes but not NLS. NLS does have I, Claudius and i decided to download that.
d'you know i've never read anything by Graves? not even his poetry. well, i've read one or two but don't really like them much. i own PBS's exceptional I, Claudius but never read the book. you've inspired me.
i think rather than Close my eyes i'll buy Without fail, my first Jack Reacher. i'm more in the mood for a male narrator than a woman just now. Close my eyes has gone on the wish list, however.
i'm restless, tossing and turning between books, fidgety and hard to please. maybe one of these will settle me down.
audible has Close my eyes but not NLS. NLS does have I, Claudius and i decided to download that.
d'you know i've never read anything by Graves? not even his poetry. well, i've read one or two but don't really like them much. i own PBS's exceptional I, Claudius but never read the book. you've inspired me.
i think rather than Close my eyes i'll buy Without fail, my first Jack Reacher. i'm more in the mood for a male narrator than a woman just now. Close my eyes has gone on the wish list, however.
i'm restless, tossing and turning between books, fidgety and hard to please. maybe one of these will settle me down.
275msf59
Morning Ellie- Just checking in. I miss seeing you around. I hope all is well and your books are treating you kindly. I finally started the Good Earth, after decades of wanting to read it. It was a favorite of my Mom's too, along with the '30s film, which I did see eons ago.
Enjoy the day!
Enjoy the day!
276maggie1944
*waving*
I am trying still to catch up with my favorite threads. The new eyes are working relatively well, but the reading glasses ($20 from the drug store) could be improved upon. The doc tells me I can check and see if I need some prescription readers in about a month. So, my reading has been limited but I am doing as much as I can tolerate. So, I'll be around, but perhaps a little less than normal.
I hope all is good with you and that you are enjoying I, Claudius.
I am trying still to catch up with my favorite threads. The new eyes are working relatively well, but the reading glasses ($20 from the drug store) could be improved upon. The doc tells me I can check and see if I need some prescription readers in about a month. So, my reading has been limited but I am doing as much as I can tolerate. So, I'll be around, but perhaps a little less than normal.
I hope all is good with you and that you are enjoying I, Claudius.
277jnwelch
she sounds as though she's just graduated from one of the 7 sisters and is flaunting it in a tiresome way. Perfect sum-up of what annoyed me about her writing in Special Topics, Ellie.
I enjoyed that column about the origins of "fossick", including his wishing we'd use "whilst" more in the USA, and fantasizing about using it in the 7-Eleven.
I enjoyed that column about the origins of "fossick", including his wishing we'd use "whilst" more in the USA, and fantasizing about using it in the 7-Eleven.
278mirrordrum
taking a break from the daily round to cheer a bit. JB has finished her 3rd chemo and her white count is normal and her weight is steady!!! she's 1/2 way through chemo and 20 more nukes to go! she's having to go liquid now and yesterday i invented a pnut butter, banana and bread-soaked-in-milk shake that she can swallow w/ a 10-on-a-scale-of-1-10 sore mouth, tongue and throat. the woman is a champion! and i? well, i'm simply brilliant. we are both insanely blessed. also we totally rock.
the oncology dietician said JB's only the 2nd person she's talked to that even knows what an avocado is, let alone being willing to use them regularly in a chemo-radiation diet. srsly.
will respond to lovely visits above after chores are done. just needed to tell *some*body our good news. it's been a scoche* bit scary from time-to-time, as life tends to be.
>thanks RD and can 'scoche' be used as a modifier, i wonder or is that a redundancy.
the oncology dietician said JB's only the 2nd person she's talked to that even knows what an avocado is, let alone being willing to use them regularly in a chemo-radiation diet. srsly.
will respond to lovely visits above after chores are done. just needed to tell *some*body our good news. it's been a scoche* bit scary from time-to-time, as life tends to be.
>thanks RD and can 'scoche' be used as a modifier, i wonder or is that a redundancy.
279mirrordrum
>271 jnwelch: Joe, your comment about wolves caused me to remember one of my favorite Saki stories, Reginald's drama. it's taken me a while to find it. it begins thus:
"Reginald closed his eyes with the elaborate weariness of one who has rather nice eyelashes and thinks it useless to conceal the fact.
"One of these days," he said, "I shall write a really great drama. No one will understand the drift of it, but everyone will go back to their homes with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction with their lives and surroundings. Then they will put up new wall-papers and forget."
"But how about those that have oak panelling all over the house?" said the Other.
"They can always put down new stair-carpets," pursued Reginald, "and, anyhow, I'm not responsible for the audience having a happy ending. The play would be quite sufficient strain on one's energies. I should get a bishop to say it was immoral and beautiful--no dramatist has thought of that before, and everyone would come to condemn the bishop, and they would stay on out of sheer nervousness. After all, it requires a great deal of moral courage to leave in a marked manner in the middle of the second act, when your carriage isn't ordered till twelve. And it would commence with wolves worrying something on a lonely waste--you wouldn't see them, of course; but you would hear them snarling and scrunching, and I should arrange to have a wolfy fragrance suggested across the footlights. It would look so well on the programmes, 'Wolves in the first act, by Jamrach.' And old Lady Whortleberry, who never misses a first night, would scream. She's always been nervous since she lost her first husband. He died quite abruptly while watching a county cricket match; two and a half inches of rain had fallen for seven runs, and it was supposed that the excitement killed him. Anyhow, it gave her quite a shock; it was the first husband she'd lost, you know, and now she always screams if anything thrilling happens too soon after dinner. And after the audience had heard the Whortleberry scream the thing would be fairly launched."
there is then a bit about the plot and the tragedy and the piece ends:
"And the wolves?"
"Oh, the wolves would be a sort of elusive undercurrent in the background that would never be satisfactorily explained. After all, life teems with things that have no earthly reason. And whenever the characters could think of nothing brilliant to say about marriage or the War Office, they could open a window and listen to the howling of the wolves. But that would be very seldom."
not my favorite, but the "wolfy fragrance suggested across the footlights" has stuck with me for nigh on 45 years. perhaps my favorite of all those i managed to read is The unrest-cure. i'm a great fan of Clovis.
"Reginald closed his eyes with the elaborate weariness of one who has rather nice eyelashes and thinks it useless to conceal the fact.
"One of these days," he said, "I shall write a really great drama. No one will understand the drift of it, but everyone will go back to their homes with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction with their lives and surroundings. Then they will put up new wall-papers and forget."
"But how about those that have oak panelling all over the house?" said the Other.
"They can always put down new stair-carpets," pursued Reginald, "and, anyhow, I'm not responsible for the audience having a happy ending. The play would be quite sufficient strain on one's energies. I should get a bishop to say it was immoral and beautiful--no dramatist has thought of that before, and everyone would come to condemn the bishop, and they would stay on out of sheer nervousness. After all, it requires a great deal of moral courage to leave in a marked manner in the middle of the second act, when your carriage isn't ordered till twelve. And it would commence with wolves worrying something on a lonely waste--you wouldn't see them, of course; but you would hear them snarling and scrunching, and I should arrange to have a wolfy fragrance suggested across the footlights. It would look so well on the programmes, 'Wolves in the first act, by Jamrach.' And old Lady Whortleberry, who never misses a first night, would scream. She's always been nervous since she lost her first husband. He died quite abruptly while watching a county cricket match; two and a half inches of rain had fallen for seven runs, and it was supposed that the excitement killed him. Anyhow, it gave her quite a shock; it was the first husband she'd lost, you know, and now she always screams if anything thrilling happens too soon after dinner. And after the audience had heard the Whortleberry scream the thing would be fairly launched."
there is then a bit about the plot and the tragedy and the piece ends:
"And the wolves?"
"Oh, the wolves would be a sort of elusive undercurrent in the background that would never be satisfactorily explained. After all, life teems with things that have no earthly reason. And whenever the characters could think of nothing brilliant to say about marriage or the War Office, they could open a window and listen to the howling of the wolves. But that would be very seldom."
not my favorite, but the "wolfy fragrance suggested across the footlights" has stuck with me for nigh on 45 years. perhaps my favorite of all those i managed to read is The unrest-cure. i'm a great fan of Clovis.
280jnwelch
That's most excellent news about JB, Ellie. Jeez Louise, I wouldn't want a 10 out of 10 sore mouth, tongue and throat, but I'm glad she's handling it so well. And you do both totally rock! :-) Lots of positive thoughts beaming your way from Chicago.
I haven't read any Saki/H.H. Munro stories - what the heck is the matter with me? The bizarreness of Reginald's Drama certainly fits me, and I'm impressed with Reginald's arranging to have that wolfy fragrance suggested across the footlights. I could see our Steppen (ahem) wolf Theater trying to put this one on, with all the snarling and scrunching off stage.
The Unrest-Cure cracked me up. One of my favorite lines involved sister Huddle: "It was not her day for having a headache, but she felt that the circumstances excused her, and retired to her room to have as much headache as was possible before the Bishop's arrival." Lovely.
I haven't read any Saki/H.H. Munro stories - what the heck is the matter with me? The bizarreness of Reginald's Drama certainly fits me, and I'm impressed with Reginald's arranging to have that wolfy fragrance suggested across the footlights. I could see our Steppen (ahem) wolf Theater trying to put this one on, with all the snarling and scrunching off stage.
The Unrest-Cure cracked me up. One of my favorite lines involved sister Huddle: "It was not her day for having a headache, but she felt that the circumstances excused her, and retired to her room to have as much headache as was possible before the Bishop's arrival." Lovely.
281maggie1944
Sending positive energies from the pac n.w. to you, too, Ellie. And I bow to your creativity. Well done, friend.
282mirrordrum
>275 msf59: hiya, Marky. it's nice to be missed. :) i don't think i realized there was a Good earth movie. egad! it's a thunderstorm all of a sudden and the leaves are all blowing sideways.
shut down time.
shut down time.
285richardderus
Saki, Seiki, and scoches...all superlatives, all unmodifiable, much like Ellie and JB are.
*smooch*
*smooch*
286mirrordrum
back to responding to visits--it was quite a nifty little storm, btw.
>276 maggie1944: *waving back* at Karen. ah, yes, the eye thing is a process. it will come round, though. thanks for the +++ energies. back at ya. and how about the 3 Ts tonight against DT and the Merc? TW just purely shut down DT in that first quarter!
>277 jnwelch: well, Joe, all on account of RD, i've at least tabled Special topics whilst i dally with more attractive joys.
"whilst" is one of my favorite words and i have to sort of stand on my tongue, or fingers, not to use it. i picked it up from reading the LPW books aeons ago. there's a scene i love in the PBS version of Strong poison that i know by heart in which Edward Petherbridge as LPW uses "whilst" in a conversation with Miss Climpson and that cemented it.
did you know Jamrach, mentioned in the wolfy fragrance piece, was a real person who did stuffed animals or something like that? there's a novel with his name in the title. let me look. yep, it's called Jamrach's Menagerie. i have it in my wish list at audible.
>280 jnwelch: maybe you have to be my age to have been exposed to Saki. i don't know. i read him a lot for fun when i was in high school and early on at Cal and then off and on till i couldn't read and now there he is on line. what fun. i suspect it was my mother who got me started. she'd have known Saki.
>276 maggie1944: *waving back* at Karen. ah, yes, the eye thing is a process. it will come round, though. thanks for the +++ energies. back at ya. and how about the 3 Ts tonight against DT and the Merc? TW just purely shut down DT in that first quarter!
>277 jnwelch: well, Joe, all on account of RD, i've at least tabled Special topics whilst i dally with more attractive joys.
"whilst" is one of my favorite words and i have to sort of stand on my tongue, or fingers, not to use it. i picked it up from reading the LPW books aeons ago. there's a scene i love in the PBS version of Strong poison that i know by heart in which Edward Petherbridge as LPW uses "whilst" in a conversation with Miss Climpson and that cemented it.
did you know Jamrach, mentioned in the wolfy fragrance piece, was a real person who did stuffed animals or something like that? there's a novel with his name in the title. let me look. yep, it's called Jamrach's Menagerie. i have it in my wish list at audible.
>280 jnwelch: maybe you have to be my age to have been exposed to Saki. i don't know. i read him a lot for fun when i was in high school and early on at Cal and then off and on till i couldn't read and now there he is on line. what fun. i suspect it was my mother who got me started. she'd have known Saki.
287mirrordrum
>284 msf59: i know, Mark, isn't it scrumptious? the right hand has so much movement. it reflects both the absorption in her face and the movement in the pages. one feels that she's both reluctant to leave the piece she's reading and yet eager to move on. and i like the juxtaposition of roughness in everything but her smooth, concentrated face. it was my favorite of all of his i looked at.
how lovely to have a visit from you.
how lovely to have a visit from you.
288mirrordrum
gorgeous
You are a murderer
No you are not, but really a wrestler
Either way it’s just the same
For the ring of your entangled body
Clean as leather, lustful as a lily
Will nail me down
On your stout neck like a column, like a pillar of tendons
The thoughtful forehead
(In fact, it’s thinking nothing)
When the forehead slowly moves and closes the heavy eyelids
Inside, a dark forest awakens
A forest of red parrots
Seven almonds and grape leaves
At the end of the forest a vine
Covers the house where two boys
Lie in each others arms: I’m one of them, you the other
In the house, melancholy and terrible anxiety
Outside the keyhole, a sunset
Dyed with the blood of the beautiful bullfighter Escamillo
Scorched by the sunset, headlong, headfirst
Falling, falling, a gymnast
If you’re going to open your eyes, now's the time, wrestler
Image: unknown
Text: Sleeping Wrestler by Mutsuo Takahashi
from Poems of a Penisist, 1975, translated by Hiroaki Sato
You are a murderer
No you are not, but really a wrestler
Either way it’s just the same
For the ring of your entangled body
Clean as leather, lustful as a lily
Will nail me down
On your stout neck like a column, like a pillar of tendons
The thoughtful forehead
(In fact, it’s thinking nothing)
When the forehead slowly moves and closes the heavy eyelids
Inside, a dark forest awakens
A forest of red parrots
Seven almonds and grape leaves
At the end of the forest a vine
Covers the house where two boys
Lie in each others arms: I’m one of them, you the other
In the house, melancholy and terrible anxiety
Outside the keyhole, a sunset
Dyed with the blood of the beautiful bullfighter Escamillo
Scorched by the sunset, headlong, headfirst
Falling, falling, a gymnast
If you’re going to open your eyes, now's the time, wrestler
Image: unknown
Text: Sleeping Wrestler by Mutsuo Takahashi
from Poems of a Penisist, 1975, translated by Hiroaki Sato
289mirrordrum
>285 richardderus: ah, so scoche bit is redundant. though, unlike saki and scoche, JB and i are highly modifiable and, indeed, greatly modified. it's the work of years and, ultimately a good, though often unnerving, thing. and you, my dear, are . . . i have no words.
290richardderus
Uh oh...no words...that can't be good...
What a cool poem, and the image is a perfect illustration of the text.
What a cool poem, and the image is a perfect illustration of the text.
291jnwelch
Lots of good stuff, Ellie, including most excellent painting and poem. I love the Edward Petherbridge LPW/HVs. The Ian Carmichael LPWs were a little too over the top for me, but the Edward P. ones gave him the right dignity and depth.
We actually had good theater productions here of the Lord Peter/Harriet ones at Lifeline Theater. Took the kids and they liked them, too.
We actually had good theater productions here of the Lord Peter/Harriet ones at Lifeline Theater. Took the kids and they liked them, too.
292mirrordrum
thanks to an extended and delightful colloquy with RD, i was inspired to go rooting around in my audio books to see if i could find my E. F. Benson collection. i knew i had Queen Lucia and Mapp and Lucia somewhere. in the process of looking for them, i came upon a completely pristine recording of Miss Mapp. i fell upon it like a hungry creature on a banquet and have been in hog heaven ever since.
the tapes, made with Geraldine McEwan doing Queen Lucia and Prunella Scales doing the other two are now out of print, or whatever it's called when they stop making recordings, and i can't find them anywhere. i have a minor goldmine here. i also stumbled on Lucia in London, but as it's recorded by Nadia May, i don't know that i can bring myself to listen to it.
i am having an E. F. Benson fest. i can't even drag myself back to Graham Greene.
the tapes, made with Geraldine McEwan doing Queen Lucia and Prunella Scales doing the other two are now out of print, or whatever it's called when they stop making recordings, and i can't find them anywhere. i have a minor goldmine here. i also stumbled on Lucia in London, but as it's recorded by Nadia May, i don't know that i can bring myself to listen to it.
i am having an E. F. Benson fest. i can't even drag myself back to Graham Greene.
293mirrordrum
Mapp and Lucia's street in Rye, England known as Tilling in E. F. Benson's Miss Mapp and Mapp and Lucia. Mallards (home of Miss Mapp and later Lucia) is at the end of the street and perhaps Georgie's cottage is one of those on the right.
Miss Mapp's giardino segreto at Mallards
Miss Mapp's garden room at Mallards
said E. F. Benson of the above: "this is Miss Mapp's garden room and I am Miss Mapp!"
Prunella Scales as Miss Mapp
Benson's home in Rye had originally been Henry James' home called Lamb House. in Benson's Miss Mapp and Mapp and Lucia novels, Rye and Lamb House were used as the settings for Tilling and Mallards respectively.
Miss Mapp's giardino segreto at Mallards
Miss Mapp's garden room at Mallards
said E. F. Benson of the above: "this is Miss Mapp's garden room and I am Miss Mapp!"
Prunella Scales as Miss Mapp
Benson's home in Rye had originally been Henry James' home called Lamb House. in Benson's Miss Mapp and Mapp and Lucia novels, Rye and Lamb House were used as the settings for Tilling and Mallards respectively.
294richardderus
*blissed-out sigh* How I loved reading the Mapp & Lucia books. Prunella Scales! And Geraldine MacEwan! *further blissed-out sighs*
295EBT1002
Ellie, your thread is a gold mine. First, #266 is wonderful. Thank you so much for posting it. It's a perfect reminder of the power of books, the empowerment of reading, and the use of illiteracy and censorship by those who hope to oppress.
#283 - I would love to be able to study that one in person.
Still seeking out the first in the Miss Mapp series.
#283 - I would love to be able to study that one in person.
Still seeking out the first in the Miss Mapp series.
296mirrordrum
too pooped to post except for this. maybe later.
Ota Janeček
Ota Janeček
297maggie1944
Nice. Such movement and grace expressed. Thanks.
298mirrordrum
still with the pictures
now this is how to ride an airship (inspired by Joe's thread).
the graphic is by Anineal on deviantart.com.
now this is how to ride an airship (inspired by Joe's thread).
the graphic is by Anineal on deviantart.com.
299richardderus
...how beautiful...utterly, completely, pants-pissingly terrifying, but so beautiful.
300mirrordrum
yeah, she's ain't half bad for a kid. personally, i think older is . . . oh, you mean the view. silly moi.
301mirrordrum
time to move on along. 300 posts, especially given my penchant for long ones, is making this tiresome to load. can't believe i'm going to have 2 this year. any visitors, c'mon along.
Este tema fue continuado por Mirrordrum's continuing trek to 75 in 2013.