To the Lighthouse

Have I mentioned before that I lovelovelove Virginia Woolf? Because I really do. There is something about her writing style and my sensibility that clicks perfectly. So it should be no surprise that I am completely gaga over To the Lighthouse (1927).

In this book, as in many Virginia Woolf books, not that much actually happens. The book is divided into three sections. The first, "The Window," is the longest of the three and describes a day at the vacation home of the Ramsay's. Mr. Ramsay, a professor of something (metaphysics perhaps?) and his wife have eight children and a crowd of weekend guests with them in their vacation home that overlooks a bay with a lighthouse in the distance. Much discussion is devoted to whether or not a group of them will be able to sail to the lighthouse the next day. In the second, very brief and much more abstract section, "Time Passes," time... passes. And in the third section, "The Lighthouse," we return to a single day at the vacation home, ten years after "The Window," and finally visit the lighthouse.

So why would I like this book?

Woolf uses a stream-of-consciousness style of writing in which dialogue and internal thoughts are interspersed and the point of view travels seamlessly from character to character. With this the reader gets a more intense and real-feeling picture of the lives of the characters and their relationships with one another. We see what Mrs. Ramsay thinks of herself, and what everyone else thinks of her, and back and forth between all the characters as they interact with one another in everyday sorts of ways. We feel along with the characters as their happy feelings are shattered by an tossed off comment or action, and later their sense of isolation and disconnection is evaporated by a glance or a phrase. Much like real life, important things aren't always happening, and the things that seem important to the characters go unnoticed by everyone else.

Reading this shortly after As I Lay Dying brought up all sorts of parallels between the writing styles of Faulkner and Woolf. They were contemporaries (To the Lighthouse came out a few years before As I Lay Dying) and I wonder if they ever read one another. These books in particular both use a changing point of view (between family members and neighbors/houseguests) and stream-of-consciousness style to explore the relationships of a family that is changed by a death. Although Woolf's novel (while sometimes very bleak) is ultimately much more hopeful than Faulkner's. I'll definitely have to think on that some more...

[I was going to put a scan of my copy of To the Lighthouse up to illustrate this post, since I love the design, but it looked so gross and dirty when I scanned it. It really doesn't look that disgusting in person, but let this be a lesson to those who design book covers: white probably isn't a good idea.]

[And if the idea of "books" with "covers" totally disgusts you anyway, then knock yourself out and read the entire text of To the Lighthouse here.]

[Update: Reading this post over I feel like I make the book sound kind of boring and unapproachable. But really, I found reading it to be energizing, exciting, and relaxing all at once. And I know I'm a fast reader, but this really did read quickly. Don't be frightened away!]

Mr. Wizard

Dr. M comes up with another fabulous invention: The Beeritar. We will be developing a gift set that packages this with the very popular Beer Phone. You will be able to buy two Beer Phones and two Beeritars in a handy six-pack. I predict that this innovation will be our ticket out of this dump. See you later, suckers!

Alice in Email-land

This week I finished reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 37 sections, delivered to me via e-mail, upon a timeline of my choosing (which was one installment a day) -- all thanks to the fantastic innovation of dailylit, a site with hundred of public domain books all neatly split up into bite sized bits for your reading pleasure. Think you have no time to read? How often do you check your email? Do you have two minutes a day to devote to slowly ingesting some great text? I think that you do.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is, of course, totally great. And really well suited to this delivery format. I hadn't read it since I was a kid, and it was, in many ways, quite a bit weirder than I had remembered. I love Alice and her fearless acceptance of the weird goings on in Wonderland. The only thing I missed by reading this online were the wonderful illustrations, but, of course, those are available online too. What can't the Internet do?

[I'm reading Henry James' The Turn of the Screw in 50 installments next...]

Just Dial a Number

I don't remember exactly how I got this copy of Just Dial a Number by Edith Maxwell (1971), but I know it was sometime in junior high. It seems like my aunt gave it to me when she was cleaning out her books, or maybe I got it at a garage sale somewhere. Either way, I kept it unread on my shelf for many many years, and then brought it home to Austin the last time I was at my parent's house.

When I got this book, I was on a major Christopher Pike jaunt (closely followed by an equally excessive Stephen King fascination). I think I thought this book, with its evocative title, dark cover illustration, and declaration that "a prank phone call leads to terror" on the front cover would be a teen horror book along the lines of Chain Letter.

Instead, the "terror" in Just Dial a Number is more on the lines of a guilt-riddled adolescent girl than a creepy horror fest. Cathy and her friends are seniors in high school who recently put on a play in which her only line was "Someone tried to kill me" -- which she whispers into a phone before dying. Back at her house after the show and fooling around, the four friends decide to dial a number at random and have Cathy say her line from the play. Unfortunately, their joke is taken seriously by the woman who answers the phone -- she and her husband think the caller on the other line was their daughter and rush home to help her, dying in a single-car accident on the way.

The book does a nice job of contrasting Cathy's reaction to the accident with that of her boyfriend and her other friends. Her guilt is focused into an obsession with the orphaned girl, a sophomore at their school. As she becomes more and more involved in the girl's life, an eventual outing of her involvement in the parent's death is inevitable.

This young adult novel was published in 1971, and although many of the teenage issues still ring true today (popularity, boyfriends, parents, etc.), some are rather dated (lots of "should I or shouldn't I" over pot at parties, gender roles -- particularly in the character of the mother, a climax set in the turn-on tune-in drop-out community of San Francisco). Although it didn't deliver the teenage horror promised by the title, I found this book to be quite enjoyable, particularly if you are a fan of young adult fiction for teenage girls. And if you aren't, brother, I don't want to hear it.

[Back cover available here.]

As I Lay Dying

The latest selection from the ultra-elite Smarter Than You Bookclub is As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (1930). This is the first novel of Faulkner's that I've read -- I'd previously read some short stories that I liked, but for some reason had never dipped into the longer works. I really enjoyed this one, and managed to read half of it on the way to Chicago and the other half on the way back home.

This novel follows the Bundren family as they journey to bury their wife and mother, Addie, back in her hometown. The story is told through a first person point of view that shifts between the husband, the sons, the daughter, the neighbors, and even the dead mother herself. The combined viewpoints coalesce into a deeply drawn picture of the individuals, the family as a whole, and their relationships with one another. I really enjoyed this.

I don't want to get into too many details (gotta save something for the bookclub, yo), so instead I'll mention that the copy of this book that I ordered off of Amazon came with two California lottery tickets from a year ago stuck into the back. In addition, don't you find it odd that the first three pages of a google image search for "As I Lay Dying" are almost entirely related to this metal band, with only two pictures of the Faulkner novel?

Chicagoed

I have returned! Chicago was lovely, and I experienced maximum archival geekouts.

Sadly the body slices exhibit was not in place at the Museum of Science and Industry [they also charge extra to go inside the submarine (which was still cool from the outside) and for the traveling CSI exhibit. This = lame]. They did, however, have a truly great exhibit of robot toys.

I was on a tight budget, so I didn't experience much of the restaurant culture, but I did have fun eating granola bars and triscuits and making bourbon cocktails in my awesome hotel room. Overall, I just can't wait to go to Chicago again.

Full photo set here.

Oh and also...

I will be unplugged for the next few days as I venture to Chicago for the annual archives geekout extravaganza. [Although really, what I'm most excited about seeing is this.]

The Dain Curse

What will I do when I've read all of Dashiell Hammett's books and stories? Read them again, I suppose, because I don't want to stop reading them...

I just finished reading yet another of his novels, The Dain Curse (1929) -- which was originally serialized in Black Mask before being slightly reworked as published as a novel. The original foundation of the story shows through, as the novel is broken up into three distinct parts, all revolving around the same girl: Gabrielle Leggett/Collinson/Collins/Dain, who may or may not be under the grip of a family curse.

The story goes through many twists and turns (involving diamonds, robbery, murder, cults, drug use, sex, human sacrifice, adultery, etc.), as well as a set of interlocking mysteries that build and telescope into one final answer. Like many of Hammett's stories, not every loose end is tied up, and many aspects of the plot don't fit together, but as a reader, you just don't care. The characters, particularly Hammett's unnamed detective The Continental Op, are what the action is really about.

If you haven't read Hammett, and you have any love at all for mysteries, detective stories, or fun, well-written pulp, you must check him out. And although The Dain Curse is a little all over the place, even for Hammett, it is still worth dipping in to.

[And click here (and scroll down) for a gallery of some of the different covers The Dain Curse has been graced with over the years. I love this.]

Horror Poster Art

I just finished reading Horror Poster Art (2004) edited by Tony Nourmand and Graham Marsh. I have a great love for movie posters, especially pre-1980s posters. I also love horror movies (as you can tell from the list Dr. M and I have been watching). Combining movie posters and horror movies into one book was a winning combination.

Normound and Marsh broadly define "horror" in their retrospective of movie posters, including movies that could also fit into the categories of suspense or science fiction. The book is nicely produced with beautiful full page shots of posters and well written blurbs about the directors, movies, and artists featured in the book. They also don't limit themselves to US or UK versions of posters, and include many examples from Japan and Eastern Europe. Incidentally, I learned that Poland has the craziest movie poster tradition I have ever seen in my life. Check this collection out -- you will not be disappointed.

Rinkitink of Oz

The tenth book in L. Frank Baum's Oz series is the very non-Oz Rinkitink in Oz (1916). We can blame the lack of Oz in this Oz book both on Baum's documented general lack of interest (except of course, financial interest) in the long-running Oz series, and the fact that the bulk of the book is actually an adventure story that Baum wrote in 1905.

To make up for the lack of Oz in the story itself, Baum begins the book with a geographical placing of the islands of Pingaree, Regos, and Coregos (where the story takes place) in relation to the land of Oz. They are kind of nearby it. He also ties the story in with the land of the Nome King (who we have visited before), and as always ends it up with a big banquet in the Emerald City.

Although I think the lack of Ozzyness is a little silly in an Oz book, Rinkitink of Oz is actually a very nice little adventure story. It involves a young prince of a prosperous island nation named Inga. His parents and all the citizens and wealth of the country are taken away by evil warriors while he is taking a nap up in a tree. He then sets off with the pudgy king of a neighboring island (that's King Rinkitink!) and his talking goat, along with three magic pearls he got from his father, to save his parents and his people from working as slaves in the mines and fields of King Gos and Queen Cor.

This quest eventually leads him to the land of the Nome King where he has to save himself in various trials as he works to free his parents. Just when things are getting exciting, Dorothy gets beamed in by Ozma to save the day and bring everyone back to Oz for the obligatory banquet. This time we get a laundry list of our favorite characters, but no real interaction between the new characters and the old group.

This story follows Baum's familiar pattern of a young child and an adult to which he or she is not related going out in the world to save something or somebody and meeting up with danger and adventure along the way. And obviously this formula works...

[Read the whole thing here. Do it! Or else just read the Wikipedia description, you lazy thing.]

Documenting Our Pee Party

Dr. M's bathroom break series on Film Watching Robot is really one of his greatest ideas ever. What is more fun than stopping a movie to go to the bathroom (or grab another beer or such), and then taking a picture of the TV when the movie is paused? The only thing that could possibly be more fun would be spending $60 on this toilet bowel costume and then never taking it off. [There is actually a dazzling display of odd costumes on that site, my favorite probably being the fart meter.]

Check back often for further pee pauses!

First Lensman

I just finished reading First Lensman (1950) by E. E. "Doc" Smith, which was culled by the lovely Choo from her duplicates pile and lovingly placed on my pile of sci-fi to be read. First Lensman is the sequel to Triplanetary, and continues the Lensman series. Although it is the second book in the series (which, according to Wikipedia was the first group of science fiction novels conceived as a series), it was actually written last. The series originally started with the last four books, which were published in Astounding Stories. After their success, Smith reworked an earlier story into the novel Triplanetary, and then wrote First Lensman to connect Triplanetary to the other books.

So: many people don't like First Lensman as much as the rest of the series, since it is essentially an afterthought. Since I haven't read the four books that make up the original series, I'm going to have to say that I thought First Lensman was pretty good.

After saving the world from the iron-hungry Nevians in Triplantary, Costigan goes back to work with Virgil Samms and the rest of the rough-and-ready, very honorable, very manly, honest and trustworthy gang. They realize that they are going to have to create a Galactic-level force to monitor the universe, keep down the bad guys, and have everlasting peace. But how are they to do this when they can't understand half the aliens they meet? Enter in the Arisians, the ancient "good" race that has been orchestrating Civilization as we know it. They have finally found a man who is worthy of wearing their special Lens: Virgil Samms. He goes to their planet, gets this little lens thing on a wristwatch, and suddenly he is able to telepathically communicate with any other intelligent being.

As First Lensman, Samms chooses other people who are strong and good enough to wear their own lens, and sends them to Arisia for their induction. He naturally thinks that his smart, brave, intelligent, and totally foxy daughter Virgillia Samms (who mostly goes by Jill) would be a perfect Lenswoman. Jill, however, comes back from Arisia with a surprise -- she didn't get a lens. As she explains:

Women's minds and Lenses don't fit. There's a sex-based incompatibility. Lenses are masculine as whiskers -- and at that, only a very few men can ever wear them, either. Very special men... Men with tremendous force, drive, and scope. Pure killers, all of you; each in his own way, of course. No more to be stopped than a glacier and twice as hard and ten times as cold. A woman simply can't have that kind of a mind!

Ah well, at least she's got her looks. [And some totally awesome body language reading capabilities that are practically good as mind-reading. Seriously very fun.]

The bulk of the book deals with the build-up of the Lensman force and its fight against the political machine in North America that is trying to disarm the Lensman and destroy the Galactic Patrol. Plus some really rough outer-space drug trafficking.

Smith is great when he does what he does best -- action sequences, new technologies, and descriptions of other planets and aliens. The writing slips a bit when romance is in the air, and the political stuff can get a little dry, but overall there is a lot to like here. Not the least of which is the totally rocking cover on this 1970 edition of the book.

[Back cover here, if you are a cover completest like me.]

Indulgences

I've got a couple nights to myself while Dr. M explores the great white north -- having a few days in the apartment alone is both really fun and kind of boring. What is fun about it is that I can indulge in all my bad habits, but the downside is that my bad habits aren't very interesting. And Dr. M wouldn't even say anything about them were he here. Actually he would most likely encourage them.

Bad habits I have explored so far:

1. Have another cocktail.
2. Look at a million celebrity blogs.
3. Play online games like DailyPuzzle, TextTwist, and Zuma until my eyes hurt.
4. Stay up too late reading.
5. Put off any errands that involve getting into my car.
6. Not writing out a grocery list. Yet.

See -- boring. Maybe I should try heroin? Lost weekend? Take up smoking? Secret identity? I somehow feel like I'm wasting my days of alone time. Maybe tomorrow's bookclub will get a little out of control....

[the image above comes from a image search for "bad habits," which honestly doesn't turn up as many funny pictures as I expected...]

Power Down

If you live in Austin and have an account with Austin Energy, you should totally sign up for the Austin Energy PowerSaver program -- all you do is give them your contact information and agree to conserve energy between 4:00pm and 8:00pm when they contact you (which will be up to ten times during the summer). For that you get a nifty kit including: weather stripping, outlet sealers, two compact fluorescent bulbs, and a nightlight. For free! I just got mine, and am currently enjoying the energy efficient glow of my first compact fluorescent bulb. Don't you like free stuff? And conservation? Of course you do.

Now turn off that light.

Gifted

First a little background on my next read, Gifted by Nikita Lalwani (release date September 11, 2007). We all know how much I love LibraryThing, right? Well, now I love them even more since I received a free advanced reader's copy of this book through their Early Reviewers program. I think this program is awesome not only because I love to read anything on earth and I like free stuff, but also because they use crazy LibraryThing algorithms (with other factors like number of reviews and expressed interest) to match readers up with books. Those algorithms must have worked in my case, because I really enjoyed reading Lalwani's debut novel.

Gifted is the story of Rumi Vasi, a young math genius, and her family. Rumi's parents immigrated from India to Wales, where her father, Mahesh is a mathematics professor, shortly before her birth. Mahesh and Rumi's teachers notice that she has a great talent for mathematics. When the teachers suggest that Rumi be put into a gifted program at school and enter Mensa, Mahesh decides to create a strict program for Rumi's education on his own, as he strongly believes that anyone can be a "genius" if they separate themselves from distractions and push themselves to excel. This program moves Rumi into more and more advanced studies, but also isolates her from her fellow students, her family, and herself. Rumi eventually sits for her exams to enter Oxford University at the age of 14, but the pressure is mounting and it is evident that something will have to change for Rumi.

Although the storyline sounds predictable, Lalwani's writing makes it very fresh and intriguing. She avoids some of the pitfalls of coming-of-age novels by alternating the perspective from Rumi to Mahesh, to Rumi's mother Shreene. All the conflicts in the book are nicely balanced (daughter vs. father, teenager vs. adults, intellectualism vs. popular culture, Indian vs. Welsh, husband vs. wife, tradition vs. innovation, etc.), with no single aspect threatening to take over the narrative and push it over the edge. The climax and ending of the book were just right -- satisfying without explaining too much, and meaningful without being overly dramatic. This was an excellent read, and I look forward to reading more of Lalwani's work in the future.

He's not heavy, he's my box

I am working on a giant project at work that involves moving, lifting, opening, dumping, shifting, filling, and inventorying a couple hundred boxes. I started it yesterday and should (nearly) finish tomorrow. Today every muscle in my body aches, even my finger muscles. I don't think those have ever ached before...

This is enough typing for my poor fings. Hopefully I am still mobile tomorrow.

The Cuisinart family is coming for you!

Here is another addition to my set of oddly staged Cuisinart advertisements. This one is mostly creepy because everyone is staring right at us with their freaky smiles. It is also creepy because it is the same family from this other ad. Where will this family eat next?

Yawn

I am still recovering from a mega-family-visit-fun-fest. Photographic evidence available here, should you need something to pass the time.

A Change is Gonna Come

My latest random book read was A Change Is Gonna Come : Music, Race, and the Soul of America (1998) by Craig Werner. In this book, Werner discusses black music in America and its relation to the political and social movements from the 1960s through the 1990s. Although I found much of the content of this book to be interesting, Werner's writing style threw up a big brick wall that I had a hard time getting beyond as I read the book. Plus I stopped halfway through to read Harry Potter.

So, here are some of my problems:

Werner is obviously qualified to write this book. He is a professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, and has written many books and articles in this subject area. He is also a white guy from the Midwest and (from some asides in the book) appears to be an ex-hippie. This shouldn't disqualify him from writing a book about black music in America, but because of the nature of the book (often informal, drawing broad conclusions about artists intentions, social movements, cultural views), I think his personality (including his race, age, and experiences) should be more integrated into the book and not just mentioned in passing in the preface. And it made me cringe on more than one occasion when he told us how black people were feeling at a certain time and place, without citing any actual black people.

Werner is a little overly dependent on a few key metaphors to tie his narrative together: primarily "the moan" (as in the gospel moan), and "call and response." Does everything related to all African-American music really have to be brought back to call and response? Even Phil Spector gets the metaphorical treatment:

"... [t]here wasn't much real call and response between Spector and his singers. In the end, that left Spector himself isolated and blue. When Spector's musical genius passed over the borderline into paranoid silence and isolation, no one was in a position to call him back." (p. 40)

This quote is also a pretty good example of the overly enthusiastic prose that Werner falls into over and over again -- particularly at the beginning or end of a chapter, or when he is trying to transition between one thing and another. He makes these sweepingly broad statements using really florid and awkward language, and often tries to fit in one of his key metaphors to boot. A few examples:

"Disco was without question the most powerful forum for women's expression during the seventies." (p. 207)

"Intensely aware that fluidity requires openness, Seal refuses to dictate how his songs should be interpreted." (p. 323)

And my absolute favorite:

"[Ani DiFranco's] guitar -- and she may be the most powerful rock guitarist since Jimi Hendrix -- has been fighting all along." (p. 343)

The Ani DiFranco comment highlights another weakness in the book -- his discussion of the 1990s. This is to be expected, since he wrote the book in the late 90s, there wasn't a lot of distance between himself and the music he was discussing. Still, his love of DiFranco, Hanson, Boyz II Men, and the Spice Girls date the book a wee bit. He also has a tendency to move away from black artists in this time period (although he really seems to have listened and read about a lot of rap and hip hop, you can tell it isn't really his thing -- especially when he writes a few chapters about Bruce Springsteen's career in the 1990s instead).

Also, Werner seems to have had the idea that he should discuss female musicians in this book, but instead of integrating them into the text, he has a tendency to (with the exception of big names like Mahalia Jackson or Aretha Franklin) either note that women were important to a certain genre without devoting much space to discussing individual artists, or just give a laundry list of artists and songs from a certain era.

Finally, Werner often pushes his analysis of individual songs and artists to extremes, drawing conclusions about their meanings that seem to go way beyond the intentions of the creator or the impressions of the audience (I mean, is every song in the world imbued with political meanings? Really? Can't a black person occasionally write a love song that is just a love song and not a cry for freedom?). But in contrast with this overly academic style, Werner throws in a painfully informal and "hip" writing style. He often calls artists and political figures by their first names (a major pet peeve of mine -- if you don't personally know someone famous, either refer to them by their last name, or use their full name. And for God's sake, never refer to Martin Luther King, Jr. as Martin), and uses slang and colloquialisms that are a little out of place.

Obviously I'm having fun picking apart Werner's writing style. There were still some good things about the book -- including his discussion of music and the Civil Rights Movement, a history of the major Soul labels in the 1970s, and all the quotes from artists that pepper his book. This is definitely a history of black music for white people (in one section he helpfully tells us how to pronounce RZA and GZA). In the end, I'd say its worth reading, but you might not have that much fun reading it.

[Pictured above is Mahalia Jackson with Elvis Presley and Barbara McNair.]

Bloody Awesome

I donated blood today, and if you live in Austin (or anywhere really) you should too, as they are mega-low on the blood donations this summer [unless of course you are scared to death of needles like Dr. M]. Not only will you have the fun of answering a series of semi-embarrassing questions (they aren't so bad, although I don't often get asked if I've ever accepted money for sex or had sex with an African), but you will also get tasty Nutter-butters, or the cookie or snack of your choice afterward.

Or you could just purchase this blood drop mascot costume for $1200 and wear it around. Doesn't that seem like a lot for a costume? I guess mascot costumes must be more heavy duty than your usual Halloween/costume ball fair.

Hawey Podda

I just realized that, although I have come up with many a Harry Potter related post in the past week or so, I never did write up what I thought of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). And since it is my personal quest to write a little something about every book I read, it must be done.

Of course, you can't really write about this last book in the series without writing about the series as a whole: I really liked this series. Isn't that crazy? No, I guess not, since practically every human on earth is either reading the books, watching the movies, or both. And because I can't succinctly verbalize exactly what it is I like about these books, and because I don't want to give away any plot details for those who haven't read it, I'll just blurt out some observations here. All stream-of-consciousness blog-style:

I like that the world has another really great children's series to latch onto. And I like that the characters, the plots, and the whole Harry-Potter-Universe actually do grow, deepen, complicate and change as the books progress. I love series. I love really long books. I love good and evil and sacrifice. I like all the descriptions of the everyday life of wizards and witches. I like that Rowling doesn't recap everything that happened in previous books. I love Neville. The movies are nice as reminders of the books, but they aren't nearly as great as the books themselves. The ending of the series is satisfying. I like having things both ways. I like that there is one real cuss in the series (that I counted, anyway). I love the battles. I kind of love Snape, even though I sometimes hate him (although I love Alan Rickman -- why isn't there more Snape in the movies?) I like that some characters really die. I love reading. I love that friends loaned me every volume of this series except the first one, as I don't have room for all these gigantic books in my house.

I love Harry Potter!

Damn.

Right now the World Heavyweight Champion is The Great Khali (7'3" -- a very big dude, played by Dalip Singh Rana). And the World Cruiserweight Champion is Hornswaggle (4'5", Finlay's sidekick -- a "leprechaun" played by little person Dylan Postl). Usually Hornswaggle jumps up from under the ring while Finlay is fighting, and distracts the referee so Finlay can bash his opponent with his shillelagh, and doesn't actually compete himself. You can read how he won the championship (and watch a clip) here. The following clip will show you why I love to watch wrestling (this is pre-championship for both men, but it's the only clip I could find of the two of them together).



[Do yourself a favor, and check out the "Finishing and signature moves" section on the Wikipedia pages for each of these wrestlers. You won't be disapointed.]

Share time

So, I subscribe to a lot of magazines. Really. I've pared them down a bit in recent years, but I still have quite a few that come every month or so and beg me to read them. In the past, I worked at a relatively big place with a break room where I could drop old magazines. But now My work is small and doesn't even have a break room. And Dr. M has left the working world for student-times. But I can't just recycle the magazines, because they deserve better than that. So I need you, dear readers. If any of you would like me to pass old issues of the following magazines your way, just let me know. Preference to folks in Austin, but I would even mail small batches out to select friends out of state.

Choose from:

• Harper's Magazine [one of my favorites, I've subscribed since high school and I shall never stop!]
• Jane [actually I read that Jane has been axed by its publishers, so there might only be one or two issues of this one to share]
• Seed [super awesome science/culture magazine]
• Smithsonian
• Interview [I like the pictures]
• Bitch [don't let the "feminist" part scare you -- this is a pretty great magazine]
• Blueprint [this is a new magazine from the Martha Stewart empire -- I like it, but I don't think I'm going to renew it. I've still got a couple issues on the way, though.]
• Spin
• Oxford American [this is a great one -- excellent essays, fiction, and photographs exploring southern culture]

Don't be shy -- ease my magazine subscription guilt!

DC Potter

Have you watched DC Cab lately? I saw it about a billion times as a kid, and then made Dr. M rent it the other weekend for nostalgia purposes. I still think it's pretty fun to watch, but that might be childhood memories rubbing off of it.

Anyway, the big climax of the movie revolves around the two children of an ambassador getting kidnapped right when our hero drops their maids off in his cab. I just spent half an hour trying to find a picture of these kids: they look exactly like a tiny version of Harry Potter and Hermione. All private school uniforms, round glasses, frizzy hair. I think J. K. Rowling might have based her character design on these two. Seriously, watch the movie and see what you think. And take a picture of the screen because shouldn't everything be on the internet now?

And since I can't provide an illustration of what I'm talking about, how about a little Gary Busey clip? While little-kid Kristy thought he was pretty funny, grown-up Kristy thinks he makes the movie worth watching:



[In addition, I finished reading the new Harry Potter last night (thanks choo!). I thought the ending was very satisfying. Now I have a Harry Potter Hangover from reading 350 pages in one night and staying up too late.]

Ew.

I told you flip flops were bad.

Pottered

Can't talk. Must read Harry Potter. Why does work have to get in the way of my reading?

[Get your own lightening bolt tattoo here!]

The Scarecrow of Oz

The ninth book in the Oz series, The Scarecrow of Oz (1915), was also reportedly one of Baum's favorites. Perhaps he liked it so much because he wrote in two characters from his non-Oz books, and let them prance around in Oz for a bit. In the preface we certainly get more of his passive-aggressive "thanks" to all the children that won't let him stop writing Oz books:

I am deeply grateful to my little readers for their continued enthusiasm over the Oz stories, as evinced in the many letters they send me, all of which are lovingly cherished. It takes more and more Oz Books every year to satisfy the demands of old and new readers, and there have been formed many "Oz Reading Societies," where the Oz Books owned by different members are read aloud. All this is very gratifying to me and encourages me to write more Oz stories. When the children have had enough of them, I hope they will let me know, and then I'll try to write something different.

Our two new characters are Trot, a young girl, and Cap'n Bill, a boarder at her mother's boarding house and her best friend. Cap'n Bill used to be a ship's captain, but he lost his leg (now he has a wooden one) and spends most of his time now just hanging out with Trot. The two go out on a little boat, but get sucked into a whirlpool and spit out in an underground cave. They are both a bit worried, but each tries to keep their spirits up for the other person's sake. After a day or so, a strange creature (the Ork) washes up in the same cavern.

The Ork sat upon its haunches much as a cat does, but used the finger-like claws of its front legs almost as cleverly as if they were hands. Perhaps the most curious thing about the creature was its tail, or what ought to have been its tail. This queer arrangement of skin, bones and muscle was shaped like the pro­pellers used on boats and airships, having fan-like surfaces and being pivoted to its body.

The Ork and our two heroes eventually escape the cave, having a few adventures on the way, and after a series of stops (on an island where the only inhabitant is a real jerk, and in the Land of Mo where it rains lemonade and snows popcorn), they fly over the deadly desert and land in Jinxland, an isolated corner of the Land of Oz that is separated from the rest of the country by a range of mountains and a big gulf.

Oh, and on their way they run into Button Bright, who we previously saw in The Road to Oz.

Jinxland is a lovely place, but it is under the thumb of an evil king (King Krewl), and no one there even knows about the lovely Ozma back in the Emerald City. The king is trying to marry his niece, Gloria, off to the rich but awful Googly-Goo. She, on the other hand, is in love with Pon, the gardener's assistant. But actually, Pon is the son of the previous king (King Phearse), who was overturned by King Krewl. And Gloria is the daughter of King Kynd, the king who was killed by Pon's father. Got it? Basically, Gloria is the true ruler of Jinxland, and Pon is royalty.

Because Gloria won't submit to her rich suitor, the King pays a wicked witch to freeze her heart and get her to stop loving Pon. That works, but she doesn't love or care about anything else either and still won't marry Googly-Goo. The wicked witch also turns Cap'n Bill into a grasshopper with a wooden leg, which makes everyone sad.

Luckily Glinda the Good has been reading about all this in her magic book, so she sends the Scarecrow to help out. Eventually the Scarecrow, with the fortuitous return of the Ork and his fellow Orks, is able to get rid of King Krewl, put Gloria on the throne, turn everyone back to normal, and get the whole gang over the mountains and into Oz and back to the Emerald City for a celebration (a rather familiar ending for the Oz books).

[And, as always, you can read the full text here. This site is even more awesome, though, as the creator has scanned in the illustrations from the book and embedded them with the text. Very fun.]

Three Things I Love

1. Getting into a really hot car after freezing all day at work.

2. James Yun, aka Jimmy Wang Yang. He is super fun to watch, is cute, and also seems nice.

3. Every cat on earth. Even mean ones. Even your cat.

What do you love?

Three Things I Hate

[Off the top of my head. Not necessarily in order of dislike.]

1. Flip Flops (these are not good for your feet, people. Okay at the pool, bad for walking around.)
2. Matt Hardy (He is soooo boring -- why do people like him? in addition to hating his dumb wrestling moves, I also hate his hair, his facial hair, and his pants.)
3. Unnecessary abbreviations, both spoken and written. We have enough time to just say the complete names of people, couples, films, and events, and to spell out every letter of our words. Believe me.

What do you hate?

Tomorrow: three things I love.

Triplanetary

My latest science fiction read, Triplanetary by E. E. "Doc" Smith (1948), was given to me from the duplicates pile of the lovely choo. E. E. Smith was a chemical engineer who started writing science fiction in the 1920s and pioneered the space opera genre of sci-fi.

Triplanetary is the first book in the Lensman series, and (from what I can read on the Internets) was kind of a prequel to the rest of the books in the series that was fashioned together from earlier writings by Smith. The bulk of the book is the serialized novella "Triplanetary," printed in Amazing Stories in 1934 [and which you can read here thanks to Project Gutenberg -- and even if you don't read it all, scroll down through the text to see the Amazing Stories covers and illustrations that accompanied the serial. Nice.]

This book begins with two ultra-long lived, all-powerful alien races. One (the good guys) has the goal of encouraging Civilization and democracy and attaining peace in the universe. The other (the bad guys) want to rule all the planets in the universe with an iron fist. The good guys find out about the bad guys, but they are more powerful so they hide their own existence. The bad guys carry on with their plan, while in the background the good guys encourage the growth of democratically enlightened and technologically sophisticated societies on Earth and nearby planets. The good guys have foreseen that to save the universe, they will eventually have to mate with a highly-evolved form of human, uniting the strengths of the two races and ensuring the destruction of the bad guys.

The problem is, the bad guys keep noticing the nascent societies and infiltrating them with bad-guy-spies that end up destroying all the good guys' work. We are led through Atlantis (good guy society) and its destruction (by the bad guys); Rome (good guy society) and its fall (by the bad guys -- Nero was a spy, don't you know); World War I (instigated by bad guys) and World War II (also bad guys). Finally, about halfway through the book we end up in future (from that point on, the text is basically that of the 1934 serial by the same name). There our space opera really begins, with a valiant hero, his brave but womanly love interest, and lots of cool space ships, physics, aliens, and guns.

I won't get into all the details here, except for one: on a distant and unknown planet a highly developed aquatic race called the Nevians have managed to harness the atomic power of iron and make it do amazing things. The problem is, they have hardly any iron on their planet. So they make an insanely cool spaceship to go out into the universe and find some. Eventually they run into Earth and start sucking all the iron out of Pittsburgh with their special ray. This ray shoots into the city and immediately vaporizes and takes any iron in all the buildings, machines, earth, and people. That's right, if this ray hits you, all the iron in your blood is removed. Your blood turns white and you die instantly. Now that is a cool ray.

I really enjoyed this book -- Smith has an entertaining writing style, with nice action sequences, and fun science stuff. His weak point is romance, but there isn't too much of that to get in the way of the fun. I plan to continue on with the lovely Lensman series.

[Back cover here.]

Carmelized Onion, Canadian Bacon and Fried Egg Sandwiches

Go make this sandwich right now:

1. Thinly slice one yellow onion
2. Heat two teaspoons of canola oil in a non-stick frying pan
3. Toss in your onions, along with 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of tarragon vinegar (if you have it, otherwise I'm sure another kind of vinegar would be fine)
4. Cook those onions over medium-high for about 8 minutes, stirring frequently, until they are golden and smell delicious and carmelized
5. Remove the onions from the pan and set them aside
6. Put two pieces of Canadian bacon in the pan and cook for about one minute on each side
7. Take that bacon out of the pan
8. Wipe the pan clean with a paper towel, spray on a little cooking spray, and break two eggs into the pan.
9. Cook the eggs over medium-low heat for about two minutes on each side, or longer if you don't like runny yolks
10. Toast some good hearty white bread, put one egg, one slice of bacon, and a ton of onions into the sandwich.

Eat it!

I want to eat these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the rest of my life. Also for dessert.

[Oh, and pictured above is actually a fried egg jellyfish, not something you should put on a sandwich. I considered that he might make the post less appetizing, but I couldn't resist him when I did an image search for "fried egg." Isn't he neat?]

Nothing but Blue Skies

I think I was in a bad mood when I read Nothing but Blue Skies by Thomas McGuane (1992). Well, actually I know I was, but I think I might have taken my mood out on this book. I really like 92 in the Shade, the movie McGuane wrote and directed, based on his novel of the same name. And I also liked his screenplay for Rancho Deluxe. Sadly, Nothing but Blue Skies just didn't do it for me.

This book tells the story of Frank Copenhaver, a successful Montana businessman whose wife has just left him for another man. Frank does not take this well, and slides down an emotional slope that leads him into frantic and unpredictable sex with his wife's best friend, too much drinking, bar fights, arrests, neglecting of the business interests, loss of money, and lots and lots of fly fishing. This book has some very funny comic scenes, and I think if the tone of the book had played more towards absurdist comedy, I would have liked it better. As it is, the comedy is cut with more serious contemplations of Frank's life, particularly the (I think) rather tired yearning for his young hippy days and Big Chill-like questioning of his current rich-guy status (Where did our ideals and fun-times go? Why am I so old and rich now?).

Other books have done the middle-aged man crisis of identity better than this, and while I would gladly read more McGuane (maybe some 70s stuff), I can't wholeheartedly recommend this one.

[I can, however, recommend the author photo from the book jacket. Nice.]

[In addition, did you know McGuane was married to Margot Kidder for one year (and they had a child together), and then married Jimmy Buffet's sister?]

Of Walking in Ice

Of walking in ice : Munich -Paris, 11/23 to 12/14, 1974 is the diary Werner Herzog kept as he walked from Munich to Paris in 1974 as a sort of self-created pilgrimage to save the life of his seriously ill friend, writer and film critic Lotte Eisner. It was published in German in 1978, and then translated and published in English in 1980.

If you have ever heard Herzog speak, or listened to one of his DVD commentaries, it is impossible to read this book and not have his dead-pan German accent echoing through your head. This has the effect of making many passages seem a little more funny than they were probably intended to be, but that isn't a bad thing. I read this documentation of Herzog's tough journey through the wintery German and French countryside during our recent never-ending spell of rain, and since it pretty much never stops raining on him through the entire journey (seriously, in the three weeks there are maybe two hours where he isn't freezing, soaked, and depressed by the grayness of nature and the suspicion of the people), I kind of felt like I was right there with Herzog on his journey.

And apparently it worked, because Eisner didn't die for another nine years...

[Back cover here.]

Julienned

What do you get when you take the produce above, chop away at it for an hour or so (together with some green onions and a buttload of cilantro, sadly unphotographed) and then mix it up with a combination of lime juice, fish sauce, sambal oelek, sugar and water? Something like this. It is a Thai flavored cole slaw mega veggie explosion that I took to a friend's fourth of July bbq, and I think it turned out reasonably well, although since the chopping intensity to eating enjoyment ratio wasn't quite to my liking, I probably won't be making it again. Unless I get an awesome new knife that I want to put to the test.

Stanley Elkin's Greatest Hits

My latest read was Stanley Elkin's Greatest Hits (1980) by -- you guessed it -- Stanley Elkin. This is one of Dr. M's books, and he has been telling me that I should read it, as I would really really like it. Darn it if that Dr. M isn't right some of the time.

This is a collection of novellas, stories, and parts of novels taken from Elkin's other books. It has made me want to read everything by Elkin I can get my hands on. I find it very hard to summarize something that I really like, particularly when it is made out of so many discrete pieces, but lets just say that Elkin plays with language, is both funny and sad, has fun with the ways words fit together, and can draw up some very real and memorable characters. Plus one section ends with about 30 pages of a guy having sex with a bear, and it is honestly a very moving and appropriate way to end the story. No joke.

What's Lame:

Getting ready to drive to a park for a Sunday afternoon walk and discovering that your back two tires are totally flat. Then waiting for two hours for a tow truck and noticing that one of the front tires is half-flat too. Then having the mechanic tell you that someone apparently pierced your tires with an ice pick. Then having to pay for three new tires.

Enemies? Random vandalism? Karmic vengeance? The jury is still out...

Mini-SB Update

Watching Brewster McCloud last night reaffirmed the SB status of young Bud Cort that started when I first saw Harold and Maude back in high school. He is seriously adorable. And surprisingly sexy. I looked around for a still of his chin-ups in underwear scene from Brewster McCloud with no luck. If anyone finds it, let me know, because that is some hot stuff. Yowza.

Tik-Tok of Oz

And now, dear readers, it is time to review the ninth book in the Oz series: Tik-Tok of Oz (1914). In this book, Queen Ann Soforth, the ruler of Oogaboo, a very small and out of the way corner of Oz, decides to conquer the entire country so that she can rule over more people. First she gathers together an army of 17 of the 18 men in her kingdom (one refuses to go). All the men are officers except for the courageous and ambitious Jo Files, who volunteers to be the private. In civilian-life, Files is a farmer who grows a particularly intriguing crop:

Jo Files had twelve trees which bore steel files of various sorts; but also he had nine book-trees, on which grew a choice selection of story-books. In case you have never seen books growing upon trees, I will explain that those in Jo Files' orchard were enclosed in broad green husks which, when fully ripe, turned to a deep red color. Then the books were picked and husked and were ready to read. If they were picked too soon, the stories were found to be confused and uninteresting and the spelling bad. However, if allowed to ripen perfectly, the stories were fine reading and the spelling and grammar excellent.

Files freely gave his books to all who wanted them, but the people of Oogaboo cared little for books and so he had to read most of them himself, before they spoiled. For, as you probably know, as soon as the books were read the words disappeared and the leaves withered and faded--which is the worst fault of all books which grow upon trees.

The army heads out to conquer Oz, but quickly gets lost due to Glinda's benevolent interference. It doesn't take much time, though, before they run into the second group of voyagers in this story, led by Betsy Bobbins. Betsy is clearly our Dorothy stand-in: she is from Oklahoma, she got in a ship wreck and washed up near Oz, and along with her came her mule, Hank. Hank and Betsy soon run into the Shaggy Man, who is looking to rescue his brother from the Nome King (his brother was a miner in Colorado, who was captured by the King). To round things off, the group plucks a Rose Princess from a royalty tree tended by a bunch of rose-people. The rose-people, however, refuse to be ruled by a woman and so the Rose Princess comes with the gang to find The Shaggy Man's brother. Next they run into Tik-Tok, who was thrown into the bottom of a well by the Nome King, and after they wind him up and dust him off, he is ready to help. Plus Polychrome shows up too (remember her? The rainbow's daughter?).

The two groups meet up and decide to work together to defeat the Nome King and rescue the brother. Things are going rather well until the Nome King magically leads their path right into The Hollow Tube that slides them through the center of the Earth and out the other side into the kingdom of (get this): Tititi-Hoochoo. That's right: Tititi-Hoochoo. T-H is the ruler of a kingdom of fairies -- everyone in the kingdom is royalty except him, and since he is The Private Citizen, he gets to be in charge. T-H has already warned the Nome King that if he sends anything else through The Hollow Tube, he will regret it. With the help of a dragon named Quox, the Nome King gets his comeuppance, the brother is saved, and with the by now familiar deus ex machina of Dorothy, Ozma and their magic mirror, everyone comes to the Emerald City to have a final chapter of reunion.

Best of all, at the end of the book we find out why Toto never talks, even though all the other animals that come into Oz start talking right away:

"Do all the animals in Oz talk as we do?

"Almost all," answered Dorothy.... "but I've a little fuzzy black dog, named Toto, who has been with me in Oz a long time, and he's never said a single word but 'Bow-wow!'"

"Do you know why?" asked Ozma.

"Why, he's a Kansas dog; so I s'pose he's different from these fairy animals," replied Dorothy.

"...The same spell has affected Toto, I assure you; but he's a wise little dog and while he knows everything that is said to him he prefers not to talk."

"Goodness me!" exclaimed Dorothy. "I never s'pected Toto was fooling me all this time." Then she drew a small silver whistle from her pocket and blew a shrill note upon it. A moment later there was a sound of scurrying foot-steps, and a shaggy black dog came running up the path

Dorothy knelt down before him and shaking her finger just above his nose she said:

"Toto, haven't I always been good to you?"

Toto looked up at her with his bright black eyes and wagged his tail.

"Bow-wow!" he said, and Betsy knew at once that meant yes, as well as Dorothy and Ozma knew it, for there was no mistaking the tone of Toto's voice.

"That's a dog answer," said Dorothy. "How would you like it, Toto, if I said nothing to you but 'bow-wow'?"

Toto's tail was wagging furiously now, but otherwise he was silent.

"Really, Dorothy," said Betsy, "he can talk with his bark and his tail just as well as we can. Don't you understand such dog language?"

"Of course I do," replied Dorothy. "But Toto's got to be more sociable. See here, sir!" she continued, addressing the dog, "I've just learned, for the first time, that you can say words--if you want to. Don't you want to, Toto?"

"Woof!" said Toto, and that meant no.

"Not just one word, Toto, to prove you're as any other animal in Oz?"

"Woof!"

"Just one word, Toto--and then you may run away."

He looked at her steadily a moment.

"All right. Here I go!" he said, and darted away as swift as an arrow.

And, as always, you can read the whole thing here.

Gettin' All Spry on Grolsch

Did you know that the fifth volume of Man Why You Even Got To Do A Thing, the zine by everyone's favorite depressed cat Roast Beef (from Achewood), is available for your purchase and reading pleasure? Well it is. And I just read it. And it was awesome. So buy a copy, or if you are nice you can come over and read mine.

Charlie's Back in Town

Nothing pleases me more than when I buy a book based solely on its cover, and the writing and story end up being really great. That was exactly what happened with the awesomely covered Charlie's Back in Town by Jacqueline Park (1975).

I admittedly only looked for a couple of minutes, but I'm having a heck of a time finding out anything about the author. There aren't that many great female crime writers out there, and I think that Park is one of them. But the only other book I can find that she might have written is the 1997 novel The secret book of Grazia dei Rossi. There is an actress named Jacqueline Park who had a bunch of small mostly TV roles in the 1950s, is that her? Charlie's Back in Town was nominated for the 1976 Edgar Award Best Paperback Original Mystery Novel, so it seems like she should have written some more crime novels. My guess is that Jacqueline Park is a pseudonym, but I wish I know what other names he/she wrote under... I will have to devote more time on the Internets to this issue.

So, the book: Our hero, John Mace, is the only law officer in a small town in Canada that is just outside of Toronto (he is actually the elected reeve, which must be a Canadian thing because I had never heard the term before). [As an aside, the town in the book is called Easton, but you wouldn't know that from the back cover, which calls the town Weston.] The Toronto airport is in his jurisdiction, and a murder in the parking garage draws him into a convoluted and mysterious group of people. The dead guy is Charlie Sellers, a local shady big-shot who made tons of money in the stock market, lost it all (and the money of a bunch of other people) and skipped town. He remade his fortune in Houston and is back settling old debts and paying back those who screwed him over in the past. Charlie is a pretty sleazy dude, and just about everyone who has ever come in contact with him has a good reason for wanting him dead. This includes: his brother, his brother's fiance (who used to be Charlie's lover), his ex-parter, his ex-partner's wife (who also used to be Charlie's lover), and a whole series of gangster underlings and bosses.

But who really did it? And is John Mace, an ex-military guy prone to ennui and self-doubt, really the best man to solve the crime? Should he cede control of the case to the big-city cops? And what about all these other bodies that keep turning up?

Park does a nice job of balancing Mace's psychology and personality with the mystery and police procedural aspects of the book. The characters are well-written and the story is intriguing. Plus I didn't figure out who did it until it was revealed at the end. A very satisfying book.

Restrained

This baby table-cage both intrigues and repels me.

Questioning the Universe

My latest dip into my overflowing bookshelves came up with a spot of non-fiction: Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries: Discourses on Gödel, Magic Hexagrams, Little Red Riding Hood, and Other Mathematical and Psuedoscience Topics by Martin Gardner (2003). It really is about all those things. And probably fifty more.

I first heard of Martin Gardner when I worked for the math archives. He comes from a philosophy background, but is well known for his writing on recreational mathematics. He has written about a billion books, some of which (like this one) contain reprints of his columns. Gardner is a great popular journalist, with broad interests and a whole swath of venues in which to air his (sometimes contentious) opinions on everything from quantum physics, to religion, to literature. He is entertainingly contrary on certain topics, and particularly fun to read when he attacks such pseudoscientific disciples as primal scream therapy, distant healing, and therapeutic touch.

The science articles in this book are fascinating, particularly "Multiverses and Blackberries" and "Can Time go Backward?" The mathematics articles are also interesting, although a lot of the details were a little bit beyond my personal interest in mathematics (I like the ideas, but not the numbers). The religion section is great. The Literature section introduced me to Gardner's work in the land of Oz (Kristy gift hint: get me this book). And the Moonshine section was the best of all.

It is hard to encapsulate what a book that covers some of the major aspects of human knowledge is about. And that is why this book is fun to read.

Snacktackular

What do you get when you combine Flava-puff, Jeff Foxworthy beef jerky, and Clamato Energia energy drink? A party, my friends. A funny-flava party. And in case you were wondering, all of these items taste pretty good. Especially after several drinks.

[In addition, I made this dip which was not funny. Instead, it was just super tasty: soften some Neufchâtel cheese in the microwave for 20 seconds or so, stir in 2-3 cloves of minced garlic, spread that stuff in a pie plate, then put two chopped tomatoes, a bunch of chopped green onions, and some shredded cheese on top. Put the whole deal in the fridge for at least 3 hours, and then serve it with crackers and chips. Yum.]

Graphic Shit

I swear that a bird shit on my windshield the other day in the exact shape of the animated Paul McCartney in The Yellow Submarine. It was kind of like his head with a really long neck (where the shit dripped down) and no body.

But it rained on my car before I could take a picture.

Would I lie about something like this? Dr. M can back me up. It was uncanny.

Slaughterhouse Five

There are no telegrams on Tralfamadore. But you're right: each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message -- describing a situation, a scene. We Tralfamordians read them all at once, not one after the other. There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.

That's right, folks. The latest selection for our nicely growing book club is Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969). This was the first of Vonnegut's books that I ever read, and that was back in junior high. All I remembered about it was something about WWII and that I liked it. Well, my memories of the book were totally on target, although there is a little more going on than just something about WWII.

In this book, Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time. He floats around between his service in the war, his time as a German prisoner of war, the firebombing of Dresden, his marriage, his work as an optometrist, his abduction by aliens, his speaking career, and his death. Not necessarily in that order. Although he started jumping around in time much earlier, it wasn't until he met up with the Tralfamordians (see above, where they describe their literature) that he learned of their different perspective on time, which made his jumping around make a lot more sense.

In a strange coincidence, I've just been reading some articles on quantum physics and the notion of time that pretty much say the exact same thing as the Tralfamordians. Maybe they are onto something?

I won't say too much more, since the bookclub hasn't met yet, but if it's been awhile since you've read this book as well, you should pick it up again.

Does having nothing to say make me cool, or lame?

For some reason this week I am totally busy, and yet have nothing to report thus far. I have read some books, but I just got home from the grocery store and I've still got a batch of pineapple chicken salad to whip up before going to see a movie at the Paramount, so no time to write anything of substance now. Maybe tomorrow?

Until then, you could check out some of the stuff I've written on booktruck if you have finished the rest of the internet and need something to occupy your time.

Little Wizard Stories of Oz

When L. Frank Baum restarted his Oz series in 1913, after attempting to end it for good in 1910, he published both The Patchwork Girl of Oz and a series of short stories featuring the Oz characters. These short stories were originally published as individual books for young children, but were later collected (in 1914) into a single volume titled Little Wizard Stories of Oz.

The stories are set up much like fables, with morals at the end, and each involves two of the now very familiar Oz characters. The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger teach us that "it's better to be a coward than to do wrong," and "it's better to go hungry... than to be cruel to a little child." The Wizard of Oz teaches Dorothy that "it is really dangerous for a little girl to wander alone in a fairy country." After the Nome King accidentally breaks Tik Tok in a fit of rage, he realizes: "When I am angry I always do something that I am sorry for afterward. So I have firmly resolved never to get angry again." Ozma and the Little Wizard (who is the Wizard of Oz) don't really learn anything, but they teach some mean Imps a lesson by changing them into various things until they learn to behave. After Jack Pumpkinhead falls off the Sawhorse, he learns to take better care of his head. And the Scarecrow and the Tinman learn not to stand up in boats and not to trust crows.

Some of these life lessons are probably more applicable to the average child than others, but they are all pretty fun to read. Plus the whole thing will take about 15 minutes, as it is a super shorty.

As always, you can read them for yourself here or, if you are hip to the new audio technology, you can download the audio files and listen to them on your Ipod or compubot or what-have-you. [And that librivox.org site is pretty cool if you poke around in it -- I am more of a reader than a book-on-tape listener, but if you like to listen to books in your car or on your Ipod, then check that site out.] Isn't technology nice?

The Glass Key

I'm mixing up the science fiction with a taste of my other favorite genre, the crime novel. I recently read The Glass Key by the always awesome Dashiell Hammett (1931) [and isn't this the best cover ever? It is the 1972 Vintage Books edition and it rocks]. Hammett is one of my favorite crime writers, and rumor has it that this was Hammett's favorite of his own works.

The main character in The Glass Key is Ned Beaumont. He isn't a detective or a cop, he is a gambler who happens to be best friends with Paul Madvig, a mobster turned politician who is working to get "his" senator and the rest of his party elected to office so that he can run the town through the system instead of around it. Just because Ned isn't a detective doesn't mean he isn't involved in solving any mysteries, however. The senator's son is mysteriously murdered, and everyone in town thinks Paul did it because the guy was making time with his underage daughter. But Paul doesn't want anyone to think he did it because he is angling for the senator's sexy daughter. Ned just wants to get the money his bookie (who mysteriously left town all of a sudden the night of the murder) owes him. So who really killed the senator's son? Why does Ned get beat up so much? Can Ned and Paul's seriously strong friendship (Ned's main character traits are few words and ultra-loyalty) handle all the accusations, love triangles, and double-crossing that takes place in this book?

Read it and find out. Seriously. You will love this book. I'll even loan my copy to you if you ask.

Do it!

Is it the End of Secret Boyfriend Wednesday?

Dear readers, we have traveled together on a crazy whirlwind of a secret boyfriend wednesday ride. One year ago tomorrow I posted my first weekly SB: the lovely Tim from the British office. I still stand by Martin Freeman and all the rest of my 50 posted SBs (50! I had no idea there were so many). I'm not out of SBs, but from now on the revelations will be less predictable. All good things must come to an end, my friends, and weekly secret boyfriends are no exception.

So, to end it where we began it, in a strangely circular fashion, I give you Jim from the American Office (who I always call Tim, since the British version is burned into my brain). Cheers to you, John Krasinski, and congratulations on being the 50th, and final SB Wednesday honoree.

Craft Lessons, Now with Extra Links!

Haven't you always wanted to make a potato stamp? I know we used them back when I was in preschool, although I'm pretty sure the teachers cut out the designs for us. I could have used a teacher to help me with my design on the potato stamps we made this weekend, but I think my tiny triangle turned out okay (although not nearly as cool as Josh's gross skull stamp). It all started when my sister came up with a craft plan to create some homemade wrapping paper for a wedding gift. If anyone can convince four drunken adults to make some potato stamps, it is Jill.

Now for a tutorial!

Potato Stamps the Jill-bot way:
1. Cut the potato in half
2. Trim sides for clear stamping
3. Trace out your design with something pokey
4. Cut out that negative space
5. Put your potatoes stamp side down on a paper towel to dry out
6. Paint some concentrated watercolor on your stamp
7. Stamp it! (Oddly not pictured)
8. Repeat
9. View your marvelous work
10. Wrap a present with it

Full potato stamp documentation here.