one step away

I saw this a few weeks ago on the NYT and thought, 'we are one step away from being in a dystopian novel.' As Joe pointed out, watching is not yet mandatory. Of course, I question whether it would have to be....

This is a thing...

Classes for the Potterphile

Filled with the spirit of...something...

"It is required of every man,that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world-oh, woe is me!-and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness." - Dickens, A Christmas Carol

The holidays mean something different for everyone. For me it is generally an experience in trying to find a balance between loathing materialism and overindulgence in the joyous act of giving and receiving.
Also, taking a day to cook glorious amounts of food and be with Joe....to just be.

One of my favorite first lines of a book belongs to A Christmas Carol..."Marley was dead: to begin with"... Dickens is an absolutely brilliant writer and I think he captures it best when allowing the three ghosts to convince Scrooge that he should use his mind and body...his spirit, to the best of his ability. To savor life, to make and build rewarding friendships and to build a loving family. Frankly, I do not think it has anything to do with Christmas, it has to do with being alive and 'using well the days.'

Perhaps though, we need a gentle reminder; for some that is found in the celebration of the birth of Jesus, for others in the festival of lights, for others in choosing a noble fir and adorning it with baubles and other shiny things, even still, for others it is about the giving and receiving of gifts, or Chinese food or working a lousy shift at the movie theater...no matter which, the holidays are...in some way...sacred.

"I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child and yet been [adult] enough to know its value..."

When algorithims fail...

Google uses algorithms to display ads (in a very minimal way). When referencing a page of a book I do not currently have in my possession (I heart googlebooks), ads come up, very discreetly on the side of the page, I generally ignore them...

The book I was referencing just now "Lawn People" is a political ecology study of the lawn that questions why lawns have such power over people and why, despite a desire to be good ecological citizens, we pour billions of dollars into chemical lawn care each year....whoopsie!

Soccer [blanks] the world

I still need to find out if Soccer Explains the World, but I'll tell you, today, I'd say it creates community throughout.

I heard the US score and advance this morning. Not because I was watching a gamecast, or listening to the play-by-play on the radio, but because I heard the cheer go up while sitting at my computer writing.

Die hard soccer fan or not, there's something about the World Cup...

In a future life...

...I want to do this:

Read All Day

Right now I am dragging along in one book and will soon give in to the pleasures of re-reading.

A soda machine Dirk Gently would like.

...or the pensive soda machine
...or what gave me the giggles on Saturday
...or the day that spell-check failed

Brussel Sprouts

I love them. Who knew?

Joe and I both thought we hated them, but then we went to see Michael Pollan speak on his new book and were handed the latest edition of Edible Portland which had a full spread article on the 'foul,' tiny, green, things...so we thought...why not? Upon further inspiration from a friend at work, I purchased a small sample at the grocery store, tossed them with some olive oil and salt and then baked them for 1/2 hour. Yum.

On a side note, seeing Michael Pollan speak was both entertaining and thought provoking, I am enormously happy to have had the opportunity.

That's it that's all.

Seven & Seven

So, this week I finished two series books; both I had no strong interest in reading when I picked up the first book of the series on loan and both completely took me in, capturing my heart and my imagination. I finished Harry Potter on Saturday and the Dark Tower on Monday. I'm glad all seven Dark Tower books were out when I took the series up (I imagine those who started it in the '70's are wishing they had waited too...since the final book was released in 2003)--there were five Harry's out when I gave Sorcerer's Stone a whirl and after devouring the rest, it became an exercise in 'forced' patience to wait for the continuation of the story. Having read the Harry Potter series more than once, reading each book back to back, I see them in the same light as Lord of the Rings, just one long story, so I was definitely anxious for the final chapters. I loved the endings of both of the series and now that they are done I can read them easily again and again without any anxiousness. Although I probably won't revisit the Dark Tower for awhile. I am incredibly thankful for both series-- in keeping up the fight of good and evil and in keeping generations eagerly reading. And most of all for helping me to lose myself whenever I please.

Bookstore Banter

A customer that I helped to find a travel guide today had some "friendly" advice for me..."always go with Lonely Planet. Every other guide is just in the corporate back pocket, all about the money...especially those Frodo's guides."

heh heh, Frodo guides...I wish.

So it goes...

1922-2007

...further notes from the bookstore

As of this morning we are no longer allowed to have MP3 players on the floor while the store is closed. Apparently listening to music is "multi-tasking" and we are "not very efficient multi-taskers." So no shutting the world out for the first two hours of my day until the store meets shelving productivity standards.
Right.
Somebody get me out of here.

...and today's stupid customer question is: "Where is your non-fiction section?"

Notes from the Bookstore

...if one more person comes in asking for "Osama Obama's" new book I think I might die from laughing.

Question of the week.

Customer: "It's this book about genes and it has a greenish kind of cover."
Me: "Do you remember anything else about the book?"
Customer: "Not really, can't you find it? It was on Amazon."
Me: "Well I've done a search on 'genes' and 'genetic' and each returned over 300 results, most of which are not in stock."
Customer: "Well can you get on Amazon's website? I can get it from them."
Me: "Er...no, no I can't access competitors websites, sorry."

What are the chances?

While shelving in Math/Science/Nature yesterday a book on probability fell on me off the top shelf. Twice.

Heh heh heh.

Tilting at Windmills

At this point they came in sight of thirty, forty windmills that there are on plain, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to his squire, "Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

--Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (Ch. 8)

What a calling, to be both crazy and to work to restore a golden age; to restore a sense of peace and happiness to the world...er through battle (of course in this case it happens to be windmills). Of course the word restoration may be too far-fetched as I cannot recall such an age in human history. A little help?

"The worst thing that could happen to anybody, would be to not be used for anything by anybody."
-- Kurt Vonnegut

Too much Potter on the brain

I was watching Joe study for his weekly exam and thought to myself how wondrous it would be to study for tests with the aid of a pensieve :)
(Image courtesy of OOTP, JK Rowling)

Er..the unsolicited book review

I wanted to write and tell you about my favorite discovery in books this past summer….his name is Christopher Moore, and the book that did it was “Fluke,” I encourage any and all with a sense of humor to check it out. It’s brilliant. It’s so brilliant, in fact, that I purchased all of his paperback novels after I finished reading it.

So I wanted to write a message extolling his creative genius, but I realized that to date, what with studying and packing and working that I have only read 2 of the 7 books…meanwhile Joe has been nibbling away on them and will soon be finished. Despite this fact, I have been eyeing his most recent book (still in hardback) with keen interest and noted that a version 2.0 would be arriving in store this holiday season (for those that are paying attention, the title is “The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror”). Confused by this version action I checked book sites and even the personal site of the author himself (www.chrismoore.com) I was unable to find an explanation. So…on a whim I thought I’d use the contact button and query the author himself. Not only did I receive a response, but it was thankful, helpful, kind, it actually answered my question directly and in less than 5 hours after I posted to his website. What a remarkable person :) How fucking cool is that?