babelonium: January 2005

the new Holy Grail

No, I mean it. We watched Elf the other night, and it is definitely going to be one of those movies that I quote every chance I get. It was just too absurd yet sweet not to.

Some of my favorites:

Hello, Buddy the Elf! What's your favorite color?
[See, I told you... - bb]

You sit on a throne of lies!

Francisco...that's fun to say....

Have you seen these toilets? They're GINORMOUS!

and for some reason, I think this is the best of the lot, but the least useful:

What about this: a tribe of asparagus children, but they're self-conscious about the way their pee smells.

because I LOVE her, that's why

Have you met Mimi Smartypants? Do so, forthwith.

I have read not much of anything this past week, book-wise, ever since Andrea-the-Ukrainian-stained-glass-person told me about Mimi Smartypants. I spend most of my free time in front of my computer, laughing my ass off. And you should too. (But your own computer, own ass.)

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

I picked up Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader on a whim once, mostly because I am fascinated by other people's reading habits. She turned out to be an engaging, charming writer, and someone I definitely identified with. (The chapter on her family's propensity for correcting other people's grammatical mistakes made me laugh, blush with recognition of incredibly arrogant things I have done in that regard, and laugh some more.) So when Nick Hornby extolled the virtues of this book in Polysyllabic Spree (which book has been directing my reading choices ever since I read it a month ago), I immediately ordered it from Powells. (Except here's the problem - I just went back to the Hornby and nowhere in that book is it mentioned. Nor is it mentioned in the other book that recently provided me with a reading list as long as my arm, So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading. OK, so where and how did I happen to order it?)

At any rate, I am heartily glad I did, as it's a wonderful book. It details the story of a Hmong girl with epilepsy, and the cultural clashes between her parents and her doctors. I can't even begin to describe it more than that - it's a compelling read, try it out. It is also the exact nonfiction I needed to cleanse my brain re: the Neutrogena shampoo idea of my previous post.

book slump....here battah battah....

All right, I am in a book slump. Help me.

I started Philip Roth's Plot Against America, which Gina assures me is worth it, but I am still not so riveted. Not that I don't trust you, dear...

I am halfway thru the 3rd Laurie King/Mary Russell mystery, and while it's as charming and compelling as ever, I don't want to OD on Laurie King and totally spoil a good thing, like I did with FiveStar bars. (Although the round of stomach flu that hit me the morning after I ate two peanut butter ones probably has something to do with that too). Also the reason I bought the second Kate Martinelli mystery but haven't started it.

I got Gregory Maguire's Wicked out of the library, but at the same time I bought a used copy of Patrick Suskind's Perfume, which is what I really wanted to start but I have library books that have to go back first, so I feel like they should be read first.

So I am skimming through Ken Kamler's book about extreme doctoring (in extreme places, like Everest and the Amazon, not like doctoring with a shortage of anesthesia or anything) for lack of any more compelling reasons to read something else. I need the equivalent of Neutrogena shampoo for my brain - you know, the shampoo that strips off the residue from all the other shampoo you use?

Margaret Atwood speaks...

and we listened. She was terrific. She delivered this beautifully written, coherent lecture about the idea of novels v. fiction, and how different types of fiction work, and, ultimately, what it means to be human, particularly in her books, and how she bases her "speculative fiction" upon what she terms factoids...and oh....Suzanne, help me out here, you're the writer. My brain was mushy. She was smart and funny and dry and very charming and likeable. She even handled the dumb questions gracefully, and told one well-meaning 9th grade teacher that she writes her books for grown-ups, not fourteen year olds. (I know several very intelligent and discerning 13/14 year olds, but I was right there with ole Margaret on this one.)

Suzanne bravely stood in line to get a copy of Oryx and Crake signed, and I told her that if she got Ms Atwood to go out for drinks, to give me a holler. I told Suzanne last night, and mean it wholeheartedly, that if any of my friends could coerce an author into going out for drinks, it would be her. Although Gina had a chance to seduce David Sedaris once....I think it's just me lacking author pizazz.

Suzanne told me this morning that Ms Atwood seemed "a little fragile for purple hooters" - my suggestion was PHI and what does one drink there BUT purple hooters?

I had left my copy of Oryx at home by mistake so did not stand in line, but it probably all worked out for the best anyway as I am always sort of disappointed when I finally get to meet an author in a situation like that anyway, that they
don't immediately realize what an intelligent and discerning reader I am and
scoop me off for drinks and a nice long chat about books.

books for babies

This is from Jessa crispin on bookslut -

"It turns out that the "Books for Babies" program is not structured like the "Toys for Guns" programs, so if you show up with babies, you can not exchange them for books. Completely blows my weekend plans."
---------------------------------------------
I guess I'm stuck with the kids.

in other words

I heard Christopher Moore, on NPR this morning talking about his book In Other Words . I think it's definitely going to be worth checking out. Just the term "korinthenkacker" did it for me...: )

Willy Wonka

So Finding Neverland is a movie I definitely want to see, and apparently its stars are going to work together again in the remake of Willy Wonka. (If you scroll down the linked page, theres a pic of the shooting, with Depp and Highmore. Looks ok.) Has anyone else seen Gene Wilder's version lately? I remember thinking, "This would be so much better if only I were stoned." It's a freaky little movie; I will definitely be interested in the remake. But what's next? The Wizard of Oz? The Sound of Music? I still have this sneaky little feeling that some things really should be left alone.

Blockbuster

I just finished Tom Shone's Blockbuster. It was entertaining but ultimately...well... incoherent. It reminded me in tone and style of Elizabeth Wurtzel's Bitch - disjointed, with random thoughts stuck in all over, more like lots of little essays cobbled together into a book. Which is not to say that it wasn't very entertaining or that the writing wasn't passable, and it definitely makes me want to go rent Jaws.

So then I picked up Sara Nelson's So Many Books, So Little Time, about her year of reading a book a week. (Ha, how hard is that?) I thought I could just dabble in it a bit till I fell asleep but I wound reading almost the whole thing, and now have another list as long as my arm to check out. Thank God Moneyball hasn't shown up in this one yet, or I'd be forced to read it!

Off I go to the library to pay my overdue fines. They're still the best bargain going.

Newbery/Caldecott awards

The American Library Association has announced the winners of their children's literature prizes.

Newbery Medal: Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata
Caldecott Medal: Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes
Coretta Scott King Award (Author): Remember: The Journey of School Integration by Toni Morrison
Coretta Scott King Award (Illustrator): Ellington Was Not a Street illustrated by Kadir Nelson

------------
The only one of these I know is Ellington Was Not A Street, which is a beautiful book by the poet Ntozake Shange about her childhood and her family's ties with such noted African-Americans as WEB DuBois, Dizzy Gillespie, and of course, Duke Ellington (these are the only ones I can remember, I know there are more). But I'll be sure to check out the others.

Also Katherine Paterson is speaking at the Carnegie Music Hall on Saturday. She is the author of one of my all-time favorite books (let alone children's books), A Bridge to Terabithia. I can't make it but I wish I could. I'd love to hear her speak.

the monthly checkup - what are we reading?

I have been enjoying greatly my forays into Sherlock Holmes territory. I finished the second Laurie King, A Montstrous Regiment of Women, two nights ago and am rationing beginning my third. So I picked up yet another Nick Hornby suggestion, Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer. It starts out with Spielberg and Lucas, Scott and Cameron, and jumps into dissecting the movie business, starting with a look at Jaws (Ba-dum....ba-dum....). The writer seems to be about the same age as we are roughly, and so catching alot of the references to movies of my childhood makes it very fun reading. I'm also learning something about the way the movie studios have morphed in the past 100 years, and it's fascinating.

Sitting on the pile for this week is Philip Roth's Plot Against America; Library: An Unquiet History; and As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl. (I was distressed to discover that I owe the library 10 bucks in overdue fines, so can't reserve any other titles till I pay that. Humph.)

auction

I just got an email from Dargate Auction Galleries, and they have old books in the upcoming auction. Why did it never occur to me that you could get books at auction?

I happen to own a Mother Goose just like the one listed, so that was a bonus! : )

Anyone interested in checking this out with me?

Feminine? Feminist? FemiNUTS?

This is from Laura Kipnis on Slate:

"Femininity is a system that tries to secure advantages for women, primarily by enhancing their sexual attractiveness to men. It also shores up masculinity through displays of feminine helplessness or deference. But femininity depends on a sense of female inadequacy to perpetuate itself. Completely successful femininity can never be entirely attained, which is precisely why women engage in so much laboring, agonizing, and self-loathing, because whatever you do, there's always that straggly inch-long chin hair or pot belly or just the inexorable march of time. (Even the dewiest ingénue is a Norma Desmond waiting to happen.)"

Here's the whole article, if you want it.

Um, can we talk about this? I mean, femininity is the opposite of masculinity. No more, no less, right? What does it mean to you guys to be feminine? Does femininity exist only in those pinky, frilly, Barbie, boobies consumer stereotypes?

I rarely wear make-up, fix my hair, or wear pretty things; I run and sweat and stink. Yet I think I'm pretty feminine. Am I wrong? And am I wrong (un-feminist)to think of femininity in terms of masculinity? Is that a betrayal to the sisterhood?

Space Dork

This amazes me!

I wish I had a company called Titan so I could use this on all my corporate logo stuff.

Do you realize that the probe left Earth two months before Teddy's first birthday? It's taken nearly the full length of Teddy's life for this thing to get where it's supposed to go. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

I am always taken aback by how cool all of this science is. Plus, I think Saturn has something to do with my astrological make-up, which automatically makes it the coolest planet.

Sing It, Blondie

I admit that this freaks me out. I am by no means a fundamentalist Christian, but my Catholic upbringing has resulted in enough faith/fear that I've been singing "It's the End of the World as We Know It" since I saw the first tsunami pictures, but I don't necessarily feel fine.

I came across the Rapture site in Arianna Huffington's article on Salon today, wherein she takes the current administration to task for being Tony Manero-like in its "fuck the future" attitudes toward budget deficit, the environment, world peace, et al.

All of this stokes that niggling fear that GWB really does think it's his job to personally bring about the Rapture.

Great. Thanks.

Jessa Crispin rules

A quote from today's Bookslut blog:

"Book #4, the Super Secret Project book is finished and it will appear on another site, sometime in the future. I loved it so much, however, I had serious problems deciding what to read next. Go with the sf-y bits and follow that into a Stanislaw Lem book? Try to find a book that would be equally meaty and try to finally finish The Executioner's Song? Maybe match its whimsical nature with a rereading of Lanark?

"The answer came unexpectedly as I checked the ten day forecast for Chicago. Starting Thursday, I have absolutely no plans to leave the apartment for at least a week. Highs of 14? Are you out of your fucking mind? It's settled. I'm reading Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. [This is the part I love - bb]I only wish I could link specifically to the edition I have, which has the best line from an author bio ever: "Fyodor became acquainted at an early age with misery, misfortune, and death." I also learned that his father was killed by "enraged serfs." It's too bad this edition is out of print. "

Suzanne, for some reason, this strikes me as something you will get a big kick out of. I don't know why.

Take Me To Your Leader

I have to write a short paper on a leader I admire (busy work, as far as I can tell, for my Library Management class). This leader should be someone well known, and can be from history.

I may have to resort to Margaret Sanger, because I am drawing a blank on any leaders I respect and admire from the present time. Can anyone suggest a current leader to restore my faith in modern humanity?

Thanks.

Brad & Jen and all that is important...

I enjoy Rebecca Traister, even when I disagree with her. And she's written a helluva piece for Salon, defending my dear Rachel - er, Jen while pilloring the annoying and too-pretty-to-be-a-real-man Brad.

not one damn dime day

OK, if you checked the link, you'll see Not One Damn Dime Day most likely is an ineffective form of protest. I don't care: it still makes a point. Couple it with Rob Rogers' editorial cartoon in today's paper (which beautifully sums all up as he so often does): Two men are standing on a corner. One holds a sign saying "Tsunami Relief, Please Give." The other man is George Bush, holding a sign saying "Need $40 million for a party, please give."

It is OBSCENE that a standing president is spending 40 million dollars on his inaugural festivities when soldiers are doing without body armor and other protection in Iraq (let alone being in Iraq at all, but I digress...), people whose lives were swept away by tsunami waters are doing without clean water, necessary drugs, clothing and food, or a chance to begin rebuilding their lives, thousands of people in this country have no or inadequate health insurance, children in this country go to bed hungry every night, people in Third World countries are still dying of malaria and measles and cholera - perfectly preventable diseases that have been all but obliterated in this country. The list could - and does - go on and on and on. Aren't there a gazillion better things to spend that money on than a giant party? (as an pertinent aside, see Dennis Roddy's column from Sunday's Pst Gazette about our responsibilities during "normal times" to the needy of this world.

Do I ever really wonder why the Islamic extremists and other more moderate people in the rest of the world hate America? Not for one blessed minute. Sometimes I hate us.

Mystic River

Complex little book. Now I need to see the movie. I know Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, and Sean Penn are in it - I had fun trying to figure out who played who. I won't know till I see the movie I guess. Actually I don't *want* to know until I see it.

It reminded me in a way of Richard Price's Freedomland. Very gritty and real. And no pat ending.

I read this courtesy of Nick Hornby - I think I would like to take on the role of the person in his life who reads these sorts of books and then tells him about them. According to Polysyllabic Spree, the position is open.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice

OK, I have never been a big Sherlock Homes fan but now I am. I liked this book about Holmes and his apprentice Mary Russell so much that I went out tonight to buy the second and third books in the series, as well as Laurie King's first novel (different detective). I think I may even be a little bit in love with ole Sherlock now, and intend to go read his stuff. In fact, I was eyeballing the new annotated Sherlock Holmes collection tonight in B&N.

I had picked this particular book up a while ago since it was on Anna Quindlen's list of Ten Mystery Novels I'd Most Like to Find in a Summer Rental (her lists are in her wonderful little book How Reading Changed My Life , and the price of the book was worth even just the lists in the back of the book), and good old Anna has never steered me wrong yet. It's thanks to her I read Gone with the Wind, House of Mirth, Lonesome Dove, Can You Forgive Her?, Paris Trout, My Antonia, and East of Eden within the past 2 years or so. In fact, looking at it now, I see that the adventures of Sherlock Holmes makes the same mystery novel list. Ok, that settles that. The game's afoot!

Tsunami relief

Red Cross seems to be the easiest (thru the Red Cross website or Amazon).

I recently read an article (I thought on Salon but I can't track it down) about the ways in which relief organizations use their funds. Some of them use something insane like 80% of your donations for overhead costs, which means less relief bang for your buck. So...check this for some info on your charity of choice:
http://www.give.org/news/tsunami.asp

The death toll has topped 150,000. The orphanages are packed with children who have lost parents. Judging by the pictures I've seen, the morgues are packed with parents trying to find their dead children.

I had no idea what a tsunami really looked like until I saw video. Check it out; it is, in the true sense of the word, awesome.
http://jlgolson.blogspot.com/2004/12/tsunami-video.html

This particular link was the best at giving you the feeling of the impact and size of the waves (scroll down the previous page linked till you find it):
12:04am est 12/30/2004
Video Mirrors: 2 (6.2 MB) "The most amazing tsunami video I've seen" -Wizbang)

And in the interest of those who may want to show it to their interested kids, there are no dead bodies in that particular one.

Although anyone who knows me knows how I feel about the censored and cleaned-up version of news we get here in the States. We must be protected. God forbid we grasp the enormity and tragedy of the situation by seeing what conditions are really like. Just like we had to be protected after September 11. Ergh. See, I SAID don't get me started.

What kind of intelligence do you have?

I saw this link on my friend David's blog. It's a pretty cool quiz. Here's my result:

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.
An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.
You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.
A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.

You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

------------------------------------------------

how do you organize your books?

Being a librarian, I am somewhat obliged to use a standard system. So I settled on Library of Congress, mostly because more books have LC numbers than Dewey numbers so I could just look them up rather than create them. Although the elegant simplicity and beauty of the Dewey system made me long to use it. And fiction is alphabetical by author.

Most recently bought books live in my bedroom piled on my dresser or next to my bed, althought they eventually wind up catalogued and on the library shelves until I am hit with the urge to read one. My favorite books in life live on my bedroom mantel, and my favorite grown-up authors' books live in the living room bookcase. So now that I am building bookshelves for my library, I started thinking of how other people organize their collection.

Henry Petroski wrote a very interesting book called The Book on the Bookshelf about the function and history of *bookshelves* but the best part is the last chapter about how people organize their books. Worth a look if you get your hands on the book. I had to read it for a class my last term in library school.

What do you guys do?

Bryn Mawr Vassar

It's now only open Wednesday-Saturday, from 10am to 4pm. I was really looking forward to getting to frequent the joint now that I'll be in Oakland twice a week, but nevermind. How about being open until 6:00 just one night a week? Jeez!

2004's Most Popular Names

I don't know why I care about this, but it fascinates me.

Back to Work

Give me an inch and I'll take a mile. I should never take vacation time, because I get too bitter about coming back to work.

So what have you guys been reading? I read the Polysyllabic Spree as well, and I loved it. I wish I could hang out with Nick Hornby. And I want to check out Marah, thanks to his loving fanboy raving.

Speaking of fanboys, I read Chris Turner's Planet Simpson. Turner was pretty much preaching to the choir with me, but he put a lot of things into words that for me had only been feelings or instincts about the show, and he gives some nice background about the writers. If you're a fan, it's a nice read. And you'll laugh. A lot.

I also read My Old Man by Amy Sohn. Someone listed this as one of their favorite books of 2004, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I was entertained, and the book is mildly thought provoking (along those "am I really a grown up yet?" lines we discussed earlier). The problem is that Sohn is young and smart and KNOWS IT. She's snarky and a little too fond of herself, and a little too disdainful of people like, well, me.

I'm about halfway through Human Capital, which is cool in a trainwreck kind of way. I know several awful things are likely to happen, and I can't look away. The characters are wealthy McMansion types, but one is pretty likeable so far, and there are some pretty cool kids...I'm interested to see where things go. If nothing else, the book is making me grateful that I don't make the kind of money these people do. Old money from a trust would be super, but I'd never want to live like these people.

That's about it for my books for now. I have some stuff to pick up at the library, and I have a Jonathan Ames and In Cold Blood to read, as well as The Golden Compass, but classes start tomorrow, so I'm nervous about how much reading time I'll be getting.

babelonium

1/31/2005

the new Holy Grail

because I LOVE her, that's why

1/30/2005

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

1/27/2005

book slump....here battah battah....

1/25/2005

Margaret Atwood speaks...

1/21/2005

books for babies

1/19/2005

in other words

1/18/2005

Willy Wonka

Blockbuster

Newbery/Caldecott awards

1/16/2005

the monthly checkup - what are we reading?

1/15/2005

auction

1/14/2005

Feminine? Feminist? FemiNUTS?

Space Dork

1/13/2005

Sing It, Blondie

1/12/2005

Jessa Crispin rules

Take Me To Your Leader

1/11/2005

Brad & Jen and all that is important...

not one damn dime day

1/10/2005

Mystic River

1/07/2005

The Beekeeper's Apprentice

1/05/2005

Tsunami relief

What kind of intelligence do you have?

how do you organize your books?

1/04/2005

Bryn Mawr Vassar

1/03/2005

2004's Most Popular Names

Back to Work

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