TWITTERATURE is the brainchild of @AcimanandResnsin (you can follow them on Twitter).
They cooked up this idea at the UChicago - tweet great literature in 20 tweets or less. Fantastic.
A little jealous I didn't think of that. :( Boo for boring old me.
@penguinusa has published their tweets in book format. Great fun to read.
Yes, I realize irony of buying this in paper format when it's available in ebook (didn't think to check first).
Best twitter feed in TWITTERATURE is the Hamlet feed - HYSTERICAL. Sort of wish they did "Rosencranz&Guildenstern Are Dead" feed, too
Best tweet: "Gatsby is so emo. Who cries about his girlfriend while eating breakfast...IN THE POOL?"
However, unimpressed by PRIDE AND PREJUDICE tweeting; most definitely could do better (you can tell @AcimanandRensin are male, no offense)
Have heard rumblings that TWITTERATURE will supplant actual work; total bollocks because TWITTERATURE only funny if you've read original
Case in point: never read THE DEVIL IN THE FLESH so tweeted version not funny to me, however, tweeted ANNA KARENINA or ILIAD was ROTFL
Do have to give language warning, lots of f- and other-bombs + sex slang; doesn't bother me but is off-putting to some.
Great read for literature freaks (like moi).
(haha, am totally clever for doing TWITTERATURE review as tweets; probably not that original, though; meh)
(also, I realize Twitter doesn't do embedded links but you gotta humor me on that one)
Current book-in-progress: The Complete Stories, Illness, What are Intellectuals Good For?, and A Jury of Her Peers
Current knitted item: baby sweater for my new niece (I might actually want to knit on that)
Current movie obsession: You've Got Mail
Current iTunes loop: John Mayer anything (love, love, love)
06 January 2010
05 January 2010
Teaser Tuesday: Twitterature
Just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are here, up to their shenanigans. YAWN.(This one's not quite so random because I just had to share a few tweets from their Hamlet but I did randomly pick the tweets - sooo funny)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Anyone miss them? Didn't think so.
~p 33, Twitterature, by Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin
04 January 2010
The Ascent of Money
I downloaded to my nook because I'm obsessed with my new toy picked up Niall Feguson's The Ascent of Money because I really want to start understanding where the bits and pieces of the economy came from. Given that Ferguson's book is more of a history book than an economics book, I thought this would be a pretty good place to start. Ferguson does go through quite a bit of history regarding the world of finance. We learn about bubbles and busts and the stock market with the Renaissance banking systems of France and Italy (and why the stock market wasn't well-loved in revolutionary France). We learn about the evolution of the mortgage and how it morphed into this massive, risk-laden, multi-corporation enterprise. It's very useful information and very fascinating, particularly the evolution of usury in Renaissance Italy when the practice was still banned by the Vatican. However, I did have to keep a running tally of banking/finance terms because, and it's not Ferguson's fault, the world of finance has it's own strange English dialect (it's worse than learning medical terms because at least those have similarities of stems and origins).
I didn't quite agree with Ferguson's analysis of a few economical ferragos at times. He most definitely comes down on the Friedmanite side of things and favors the "free-market" (I don't think it's all that free and a free market definitely has problems). I found it interesting that Ferguson would refute or counter the argument of someone like Paul Krugman, who argues from a stance critical of Friedmanite and "Chicago Boys" economics, but he doesn't mention Naomi Klein. There's an extensive bit about the Latin American market upheavals in Argentina and Chile, of which Klein writes extensively in The Shock Doctrine (and she is particularly critical of US intervention and Friedmanite dealings in those juntas) but Ferguson does not allude to her work. An omission like that makes me think Klein has the evidence that Freidmanite market theory doesn't work they way it should and Ferguson had no good counterargument available ("head-in-sand" doctrine). Ferguson also has this long afterword that is boring, particularly when he starts quibbling over reasons why the book is titled The Ascent of Money; it's not that interesting.
Coincidentally, the January 11 issue of The New Yorker ran an article about the recession and the possibility that the "Chicago School" devotees might have to realign their thinking and look at Keynesian theory again. There are some "true believers" and some devolving into apostacy. What do I think? It's all a giant clusterf*ck - deregulation, greediness, government ineptitude, and generalized stupidity. The article in The New Yorker was very interesting, particularly the conversation with Paul Krugman (aside: I get The New Yorker on my nook now - it's fantastic!).
Current book-in-progress: The Complete Stories, Illness, What are Intellectuals Good For?, and Twitterature
Current knitted item: baby sweater for my new niece
Current movie obsession: The Edge of Love
Current iTunes loop: John Mayer anything (love, love, love)
I didn't quite agree with Ferguson's analysis of a few economical ferragos at times. He most definitely comes down on the Friedmanite side of things and favors the "free-market" (I don't think it's all that free and a free market definitely has problems). I found it interesting that Ferguson would refute or counter the argument of someone like Paul Krugman, who argues from a stance critical of Friedmanite and "Chicago Boys" economics, but he doesn't mention Naomi Klein. There's an extensive bit about the Latin American market upheavals in Argentina and Chile, of which Klein writes extensively in The Shock Doctrine (and she is particularly critical of US intervention and Friedmanite dealings in those juntas) but Ferguson does not allude to her work. An omission like that makes me think Klein has the evidence that Freidmanite market theory doesn't work they way it should and Ferguson had no good counterargument available ("head-in-sand" doctrine). Ferguson also has this long afterword that is boring, particularly when he starts quibbling over reasons why the book is titled The Ascent of Money; it's not that interesting.
Coincidentally, the January 11 issue of The New Yorker ran an article about the recession and the possibility that the "Chicago School" devotees might have to realign their thinking and look at Keynesian theory again. There are some "true believers" and some devolving into apostacy. What do I think? It's all a giant clusterf*ck - deregulation, greediness, government ineptitude, and generalized stupidity. The article in The New Yorker was very interesting, particularly the conversation with Paul Krugman (aside: I get The New Yorker on my nook now - it's fantastic!).
Current book-in-progress: The Complete Stories, Illness, What are Intellectuals Good For?, and Twitterature
Current knitted item: baby sweater for my new niece
Current movie obsession: The Edge of Love
Current iTunes loop: John Mayer anything (love, love, love)
03 January 2010
Shades of Grey
Huzzah! My first finished book of the new year. Jasper Fforde does not disappoint. Do you want strange worlds but similar to our own? You got 'em. Compelling main characters with integrity? You got 'em. Strong female characters (and I do mean strong - there's rarely a wuss in the bunch)? You got 'em. You want some sly humor? You got it. Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron is the first book in his new series, Shades of Grey, and it has everything I want in a Fforde novel.
The world conjured in this series is a little like our own - there's tea, jam, bacon (if the Greys don't eat it all first), team sports, linoleum, forks and knives - but it is also quite different, particularly in respect to color (also, there aren't very many spoons). One's place and path in life is determined by one's ability to see colors in the visible light spectrum; Purples (and Ultraviolets) are upperclass with classes arranged in descending wavelength and Greys (those who see no color) at the bottom of the heap. This is the world of Eddie Russett, sent to East Carmine to conduct a chair census and learn some humility. But the Outer Fringes don't quite follow the Rules like Eddie is used to and he soon finds his well-planned life turned topsy-turvy in only a few days. He meets Jane, a Grey, and is immediately drawn to her devil-may-care-about-the-Rules attitude.
Shades of Grey is delightful and just what I expected of a Jasper Fforde novel - witty, clever, and absurd - so I was prepared to enjoy Eddie's story as I have all the other Ffordes. However, there is a darkness to this novel and it goes deeper than the multinational Goliath Corporation of the Thursday Next novels. The dystopian world of Chromatacia is evocative of We, Brave New World, and 1984 with issues of class, self-determination, and freedom at the heart of the story. The suggestion that something unspeakably sinister lurks at the heart of Chromatacia sets the stage for a fantastic story arc to carry through the next two books in the trilogy. It's very exciting because I started to wonder if Eddie would come out of this first volume in one piece; this is quite a different feeling compared to the Thursday Next series where I am never in doubt as to whether Thursday is going to come out on top. I also greatly enjoyed Fforde's ability to build the world of Chromatacia, making it understandable and believable to the reader, without resorting to stretches of exposition. Shades of Grey has a little something for everyone - action, romance, thrills, yucks - and it's a great book to start off the new year.
For a little "something extra" visit the Jasper Fforde website - click on the "Shades of Grey" graphic to access the special features for Shades of Grey and see what was rolling around Fforde's bean while writing the book.
Current book-in-progress: The Ascent of Money, The Complete Stories, Illness, What are Intellectuals Good For?, and Twitterature
Current knitted item: baby sweater for my new niece
Current movie obsession: The Edge of Love and Maurice (note to self: would you just put My Boy Jack in the DVD player and let it run while you clean the house or something so you can at least say you "watched it"? oy)
Current iTunes loop: Filmspotting #286
The world conjured in this series is a little like our own - there's tea, jam, bacon (if the Greys don't eat it all first), team sports, linoleum, forks and knives - but it is also quite different, particularly in respect to color (also, there aren't very many spoons). One's place and path in life is determined by one's ability to see colors in the visible light spectrum; Purples (and Ultraviolets) are upperclass with classes arranged in descending wavelength and Greys (those who see no color) at the bottom of the heap. This is the world of Eddie Russett, sent to East Carmine to conduct a chair census and learn some humility. But the Outer Fringes don't quite follow the Rules like Eddie is used to and he soon finds his well-planned life turned topsy-turvy in only a few days. He meets Jane, a Grey, and is immediately drawn to her devil-may-care-about-the-Rules attitude.
Shades of Grey is delightful and just what I expected of a Jasper Fforde novel - witty, clever, and absurd - so I was prepared to enjoy Eddie's story as I have all the other Ffordes. However, there is a darkness to this novel and it goes deeper than the multinational Goliath Corporation of the Thursday Next novels. The dystopian world of Chromatacia is evocative of We, Brave New World, and 1984 with issues of class, self-determination, and freedom at the heart of the story. The suggestion that something unspeakably sinister lurks at the heart of Chromatacia sets the stage for a fantastic story arc to carry through the next two books in the trilogy. It's very exciting because I started to wonder if Eddie would come out of this first volume in one piece; this is quite a different feeling compared to the Thursday Next series where I am never in doubt as to whether Thursday is going to come out on top. I also greatly enjoyed Fforde's ability to build the world of Chromatacia, making it understandable and believable to the reader, without resorting to stretches of exposition. Shades of Grey has a little something for everyone - action, romance, thrills, yucks - and it's a great book to start off the new year.
For a little "something extra" visit the Jasper Fforde website - click on the "Shades of Grey" graphic to access the special features for Shades of Grey and see what was rolling around Fforde's bean while writing the book.
Current book-in-progress: The Ascent of Money, The Complete Stories, Illness, What are Intellectuals Good For?, and Twitterature
Current knitted item: baby sweater for my new niece
Current movie obsession: The Edge of Love and Maurice (note to self: would you just put My Boy Jack in the DVD player and let it run while you clean the house or something so you can at least say you "watched it"? oy)
Current iTunes loop: Filmspotting #286
02 January 2010
Chess: In Concert
I got Chess: In Concert from Netflix a while back because:
a) I love Josh Groban (playing Anatoly)
b) I love Idina Menzel, too (playing Florence)
c) The guy playing Freddie (Adam Pascal) was Roger in Rent (awesome)
d) Chess has some fantastic music including "Anthem", "I Know Him so Well", "Someone Else's Story", and "One Night in Bankok"
e) The production was shot at the Royal Albert Hall which is ginormous
I was pretty excited to see this because I have the soundtrack to both the original Broadway Chess recording and this new one, too. They are quite different in structure because Chess was reworked by Tim Rice a number of times in the early 1980s when it first debuted and then other productions tend to mold the story as needed; the "In Concert" production was re-worked by Rice to most closely resemble the original London storyline with a few bits kept from the updates.
I can't say anything about the singing or orchestrations of this performance. Great voices all around, good balance between the soloists, choir, and orchestra in this huge, huge performance hall. Good costuming and use of the black/white motifs of the chessboard. Josh Groban acted quite well (I think this is an intended step toward musical theatre for him) although he could have tried a little bit of Russian accent particularly as the other actors potraying Russians laid it on thick. Idina Menzel .... amazing (I still can't figure out why she was cast in a non-singing role in Enchanted; makes no sense).
The only drawback to the production was the choreography and dancers. I thought the choreography was on the poor side for a big production, very stylized, and, after the third-time through the modern, pseudo-improv-inspired 'Chess match' piece, it was pretty boring. The big set-piece opening to "One Night in Bangkok" was a lame pastiche of South East Asian dance arm movements and hand patterns; the one thing I know about Thai/Balinese/Cambodian, etc. traditional dance is that all the movements are very precise and are very symbolic (the choreo here also looked really under-rehearsed and sloppy; you might not notice from the back of the arena but you certainly notice on close-up from the camera). I would rather have seen a group of dancers trained in the actual traditional dance type performing to the "One Night in Bangkok" introduction. It would have lended a little more atmosphere and looked lovely (there is surely a SE Asian dance company or group in or around London who could have been asked).
I'm debating whether to purchase this concert DVD; I have the CD, so I have the best of the production already, but I do like the overall look (and Josh is pretty cute).
Current book-in-progress: The Complete Stories, Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters, Illness, and Twitterature
Current knitted item: baby sweater
Current movie obsession: must. watch. My Boy Jack and return it before watching The Edge of Love
Current iTunes loop: "Chill Tracks" mix (currently on an Amy Winehouse/Evanescance shuffle....odd)
a) I love Josh Groban (playing Anatoly)
b) I love Idina Menzel, too (playing Florence)
c) The guy playing Freddie (Adam Pascal) was Roger in Rent (awesome)
d) Chess has some fantastic music including "Anthem", "I Know Him so Well", "Someone Else's Story", and "One Night in Bankok"
e) The production was shot at the Royal Albert Hall which is ginormous
I was pretty excited to see this because I have the soundtrack to both the original Broadway Chess recording and this new one, too. They are quite different in structure because Chess was reworked by Tim Rice a number of times in the early 1980s when it first debuted and then other productions tend to mold the story as needed; the "In Concert" production was re-worked by Rice to most closely resemble the original London storyline with a few bits kept from the updates.
I can't say anything about the singing or orchestrations of this performance. Great voices all around, good balance between the soloists, choir, and orchestra in this huge, huge performance hall. Good costuming and use of the black/white motifs of the chessboard. Josh Groban acted quite well (I think this is an intended step toward musical theatre for him) although he could have tried a little bit of Russian accent particularly as the other actors potraying Russians laid it on thick. Idina Menzel .... amazing (I still can't figure out why she was cast in a non-singing role in Enchanted; makes no sense).
The only drawback to the production was the choreography and dancers. I thought the choreography was on the poor side for a big production, very stylized, and, after the third-time through the modern, pseudo-improv-inspired 'Chess match' piece, it was pretty boring. The big set-piece opening to "One Night in Bangkok" was a lame pastiche of South East Asian dance arm movements and hand patterns; the one thing I know about Thai/Balinese/Cambodian, etc. traditional dance is that all the movements are very precise and are very symbolic (the choreo here also looked really under-rehearsed and sloppy; you might not notice from the back of the arena but you certainly notice on close-up from the camera). I would rather have seen a group of dancers trained in the actual traditional dance type performing to the "One Night in Bangkok" introduction. It would have lended a little more atmosphere and looked lovely (there is surely a SE Asian dance company or group in or around London who could have been asked).
I'm debating whether to purchase this concert DVD; I have the CD, so I have the best of the production already, but I do like the overall look (and Josh is pretty cute).
Current book-in-progress: The Complete Stories, Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters, Illness, and Twitterature
Current knitted item: baby sweater
Current movie obsession: must. watch. My Boy Jack and return it before watching The Edge of Love
Current iTunes loop: "Chill Tracks" mix (currently on an Amy Winehouse/Evanescance shuffle....odd)
01 January 2010
New Books for the New Year
I didn't go crazy this Christmas buying books for myself (I bought a nook so the acquisitions budget is a little thin) but I did get a few for myself, one for Christmas (yay), and a couple with my gift card today.
Books bought:
The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley (recommended by Kat)
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (as hard as it is to believe, I have never owned this; when I read it previously I was reading my dad's copy from college)
The Life and Times of Chaucer by John Gardner
The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington (recommended by the awesome SF/Fantasy moderator at the BNBC, Paul Goat Allen)
Return to the Hundred Acre Wood by David Benedictus
Love Letters of Great Women edited by Urula Doyle
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
The Sea by John Banville
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
The Elements: A Visual Explanation of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray
(ok, so that's more than a few but it is spread out over a month and not as many as last year)
Book I received for Christmas:
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho (it's a UK edition courtesy of my SIL's ability to bargain shop - cool!)
I also got some James Bond DVDs (awesome) and the Harry Potter Clue boardgame; I bought another boardgame - Liebrary - with another gift card (got a few of those).
Books bought:
The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley (recommended by Kat)
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (as hard as it is to believe, I have never owned this; when I read it previously I was reading my dad's copy from college)
The Life and Times of Chaucer by John Gardner
The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart by Jesse Bullington (recommended by the awesome SF/Fantasy moderator at the BNBC, Paul Goat Allen)
Return to the Hundred Acre Wood by David Benedictus
Love Letters of Great Women edited by Urula Doyle
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
The Sea by John Banville
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
The Elements: A Visual Explanation of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray
(ok, so that's more than a few but it is spread out over a month and not as many as last year)
Book I received for Christmas:
By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho (it's a UK edition courtesy of my SIL's ability to bargain shop - cool!)
I also got some James Bond DVDs (awesome) and the Harry Potter Clue boardgame; I bought another boardgame - Liebrary - with another gift card (got a few of those).
Out with the old, in with the new: Good-bye, 2009! Hello, 2010!
It was a pretty good year - still have both my jobs, my family is happy and healthy (and about to expand by one when my new niece comes), my cats are both as spoiled and ornery as ever, and I'm still a DC for AXS. On the resolution front, my 2009 resolution to BE HEALTHY kind-of bit the dust but I'm not any fatter than I was at the beginning of the year so I will take stasis at a slight edge over continually expanding. So BE HEALTHY is back on the resolution slate for 2010 (I have groceries to prove it).
I also started book-blogging in a more earnest fashion this year around March/April - about the same time I joined Twitter, found some fantastically awesome book-bloggers to folllow/read, and got some inspiration for my own blog. I participated in Book Bloggers Appreciation Week for the first time, too (which was a blast!). I'm still pretty ADD about my reading meaning the books-started to books-finished ratio is not spectacular (and some were started a year or more ago).
Books started in 2009: 110 (or thereabouts, I don't have a good system for this)
Books finished in 2009: 83
Books that got the DNF label: 1
(an important new step because books I'm stuck in the middle of usually go back on the shelves to languish until I pack to move house)
This is also the first year where I used nearly every page of my book journal in a single year. A book journal usually lasts me 2 years (I bought 4 of the same kind in a sale - I'm on the last volume since they're no longer available) but only 15 leaves or so will not be used for 2009-started books. I'll be moving on to a different type of journal, looks similar but with "archival" pages (I actually bought it for the looks, haha)
In 2010 I would really like to hone in on actually finishing the majority of books I start rather than staring forlornly at the "in-progress" stack, wussing out about making a decision, and going off to start another book. I also need to start deploying the "DNF" more often; if I really have zero interest in a book after 50-100 pages then it really needs to hit the road and head for the outbox. I do have a couple of challenges on the horizon for the year (Women Unbound, The Complete Booker [it dovetails nicely with my own Booker Project]) and I'd love to give a Banned Books Challenge or Clear Off Your Shelves Challege (because that was great!) another shot. I also have my Newbery Project and new Nobel Project floating around, too. Challenges and I aren't terribly good friends because I really do lack the ability to "plan" my reading so I'm not going to commit to too many unless I'm pretty sure I can do it without adding to the ADD-ness of my reading (the BNBC groups go a good job of that already). I would also like to do a little blog-upgrading, maybe adding a page (can you do that with a blogger template?) for challenges, etc. to declutter/organize - my HTML/web design ability is completely self-taught so I may have to wait for a "bloggiesta" weekend and get some advice from the saavier bloggers.
On the knitting front I need to make sure I link my blog posts about knitting with my Ravelry page as I go. I know a lot of bloggers like to separate out their different hobbies/interests into multiple blogs....but I think that's a bit much for me to update (I have enough trouble with one blog as it is). Besides, I read and knit and dance, it's all part of me.
I would also like to return my "update template" to the bottom of my posts. I do like it and it does help keep me on track (particularly with Netflix movies, three of which are languishing in a drawer, needing to be watched). So the first update of the new year:
Current book-in-progress: insanity, top-priority reads are Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde, The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson, The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor, Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters edited by Kathleen Ragan, Illness by Havi Carel, Electronic Literature by N. Katherine Hayles, and The Best NonRequired Reading 2009 edited by Dave Eggers (must get these done, asap)
Current knitted item: baby sweater for my new niece, top-down sweater for me, and (sadly enough) that pair of socks I've been knitting for a year
Current movie obsession: watch and return Fame, My Boy Jack, and Chess in Concert so I quite wasting money
Current iTunes loop: omg, John Mayer's new album (amazing): Battle Studies
I also started book-blogging in a more earnest fashion this year around March/April - about the same time I joined Twitter, found some fantastically awesome book-bloggers to folllow/read, and got some inspiration for my own blog. I participated in Book Bloggers Appreciation Week for the first time, too (which was a blast!). I'm still pretty ADD about my reading meaning the books-started to books-finished ratio is not spectacular (and some were started a year or more ago).
Books started in 2009: 110 (or thereabouts, I don't have a good system for this)
Books finished in 2009: 83
Books that got the DNF label: 1
(an important new step because books I'm stuck in the middle of usually go back on the shelves to languish until I pack to move house)
This is also the first year where I used nearly every page of my book journal in a single year. A book journal usually lasts me 2 years (I bought 4 of the same kind in a sale - I'm on the last volume since they're no longer available) but only 15 leaves or so will not be used for 2009-started books. I'll be moving on to a different type of journal, looks similar but with "archival" pages (I actually bought it for the looks, haha)
In 2010 I would really like to hone in on actually finishing the majority of books I start rather than staring forlornly at the "in-progress" stack, wussing out about making a decision, and going off to start another book. I also need to start deploying the "DNF" more often; if I really have zero interest in a book after 50-100 pages then it really needs to hit the road and head for the outbox. I do have a couple of challenges on the horizon for the year (Women Unbound, The Complete Booker [it dovetails nicely with my own Booker Project]) and I'd love to give a Banned Books Challenge or Clear Off Your Shelves Challege (because that was great!) another shot. I also have my Newbery Project and new Nobel Project floating around, too. Challenges and I aren't terribly good friends because I really do lack the ability to "plan" my reading so I'm not going to commit to too many unless I'm pretty sure I can do it without adding to the ADD-ness of my reading (the BNBC groups go a good job of that already). I would also like to do a little blog-upgrading, maybe adding a page (can you do that with a blogger template?) for challenges, etc. to declutter/organize - my HTML/web design ability is completely self-taught so I may have to wait for a "bloggiesta" weekend and get some advice from the saavier bloggers.
On the knitting front I need to make sure I link my blog posts about knitting with my Ravelry page as I go. I know a lot of bloggers like to separate out their different hobbies/interests into multiple blogs....but I think that's a bit much for me to update (I have enough trouble with one blog as it is). Besides, I read and knit and dance, it's all part of me.
I would also like to return my "update template" to the bottom of my posts. I do like it and it does help keep me on track (particularly with Netflix movies, three of which are languishing in a drawer, needing to be watched). So the first update of the new year:
Current book-in-progress: insanity, top-priority reads are Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde, The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson, The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor, Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters edited by Kathleen Ragan, Illness by Havi Carel, Electronic Literature by N. Katherine Hayles, and The Best NonRequired Reading 2009 edited by Dave Eggers (must get these done, asap)
Current knitted item: baby sweater for my new niece, top-down sweater for me, and (sadly enough) that pair of socks I've been knitting for a year
Current movie obsession: watch and return Fame, My Boy Jack, and Chess in Concert so I quite wasting money
Current iTunes loop: omg, John Mayer's new album (amazing): Battle Studies
31 December 2009
'Tis the Season: Cue the returns!
Now we enter the part of the holiday season where we become lucky to even make money because people are returning their holiday gifts. The season of returns is greatly complicated by:
- people who do not read the return policy printed on the back of the receipt
- people who did not get a receipt and wish to return their gift (for which you get store credit at the lowest-selling price at the discretion of the manager; we absolutely will not give you cash for the list-price of the item so if you have an issue with your gift you need to be honest with the giver and ask for the receipt...or just suck it up and quit whining)
- people who got a gift receipt and only want cash for the item (gift receipt = store credit for the purchased price or you can exchange for a different item and we'll credit the purchased price of the returned item; take it or leave it)
- An embarassed customer asked for the nearest location of a competitor bookstore; she'd been gifted with their gift certificates and we don't have one of their stores in the area, closest is about 90 minutes away (awkward)
- A little kid hugged me after I helped him find the Percy Jackson books (I generally don't like being touched by strangers but happy little kids who like to read books....I'll make an exception)
- Totally gave some 10-year-old-ish kid the death-glare for getting a boat-load of manga off the shelf and leaving it everywhere in the graphic novel aisle...then I asked if there was anything he wanted us to hold at the cashwrap for him to purchase (he said no); came back 5 minutes later and the kid was gone but he'd put all the books back (never underestimate the power of learning how the death-glare and "mom" voice work on children)
- A mom dragged her teenage daughter over to have the poor kid thank me for helping Mom find the books the daughter loves so much (I felt sorry for the daughter because, yeah, being forced to thank someone you don't know is pretty awkward and it's doubly awkward when you're desperately trying to be cool; I told her she was quite welcome, I was glad she liked the books, and, PS, mothers do grow out of the "embarassing" phase)
- A college student asked if we "had the textbooks for his class" and I said I could order them if he would give me the titles; he looked confused and asked why I needed the titles (yup, this is our future; having to explain to a college student that I am not clairvoyant was the highlight of the conversation...I also had to explain that the UI has a campus bookstore and most of the professors order the textbooks there; which begs the question...what did he do during the fall semester?)
Little Women, read by Barbara Caruso
I picked up Little Women in an unabridged audio recording because I really wanted to read it again for the Women Unbound Challenge (the audio recording was pretty good, although I couldn't decide if the narrator (Barbara Caruso) was going for a subdued English accent or subdued New England accent; her German accent for Professor Bhaer was pretty good). It's a good place to start because everyone gets their knickers in a twist over Jo's choice to give up writing and become a mommy with her Professor.
There are five major female characters in Mrs. March and her four daughters and each of them demonstrates some aspect of feminism, in a way (I've been reading Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers and American suffragism wasn't quite in full swing when Alcott wrote her most-famous novel). Mrs. March always tries to be a good, upstanding citizen, helping with veteran's organizations and providing food and clothing to those in far more dire straights than the Marches; she is never "idle" in the lazy sense. Meg realizes she doesn't need a huge house and piles of money to have a happy home (compared to the rich and priviledged Sally Moffat/Gardiner whose house is not filled with the sounds of family or husband; Sally's mercenary marriage did not bring her happiness or comfort); Meg is kind of devoid of personality and seems quite conventional as a character who is pretty much made to be wife and mother from the start with no other aspirations. Over the years, and many times I've read Little Women, Beth has come to symbolize the idea that dying with dignity and acceptance is important; I had to skip the two tracks where Beth dies - it always makes me sob, sentimental writing or not, and sobbing while driving isn't the best idea. Amy has never been my favorite March sister, too prissy, too willing to play the society game, but she does come round in the end and marries for love (although I've always wondered if she would've married Laurie if he were less rich).
Which brings me to Jo. Jo is always my favorite March sister, impetuous, hot-tempered (totally guilty of the same on my part), passionate, and creative. Jo does change quite a bit over the course of the novel, learns to bite her tongue and mind her temper (she doesn't morph into a compete doormat but at least learns to think before she speaks, which is a hard lesson for any of us), writes "rubbish" and then learns to write better things (which can be seen as having her creative juices squelched but since I like well-written stuff better than sensationalistic crap I tend to see that as a growth of the artist within Jo, rather than pumping out schlock for the money), and ends up with an appropriate companion in Professor Bhaer. I'm pretty partial to Professor Bhaer (must be those German genes that make up 80% of my DNA) and he is pretty progressive in that he does tutor women (Jo included) so he gets a plus in my book; I suppose Alcott could have had Jo running Plumfield school by herself, as a dignified spinster-writer-headmistress, but then there would be no Professorin (as someone who is on the verge of despairing of finding any sort of companionship I identify with Jo's despair after losing Beth). I always read about how people complain that Jo quits writing but I think she actually does continue writing (after Aunt March leaves her Plumfield and Jo decides to turn it into a school there is mention that Jo keeps publishing; maybe - I don't have a copy of the book at hand - plus she writes the lyrics for the song sung during the last chapter).
A favorite part of Little Women is the early section on "Playing Pilgrims" - using the sections of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to comment on the Marches' burdens and solutions to their problems. The girls all have problems we can identify with - materialism, envy, idleness, conceit, short-tempers - and try to overcome those burdens using the allegory of Christian. It is overtly Christian in tone but there are good lessons to learn (Jo's lesson of learning to think before she speaks comes at the cost of losing her opportunity to travel Europe) and most of the girls' lessons are worth learning for both men and women. No one likes a gossip or flirt (even now, when "flirt" translates into "player"), saying hurtful things can come with a price, money and material possessions don't buy happiness, and continual idleness leads to problems.
Little Women isn't a corset-burning feminst tract (the most recent movie adaptation tried to dial up the feminism by adding scenes: Meg doesn't wear a corset and Professor Bhaer takes Jo to a suffragist meeting) but Alcott doesn't have a novel full of doormat female characters, either (Meg starts heading to doormat status but she doesn't have that much personality to start). Home and family are the central aspects of the novel and Alcott does emphasize loving relationships, rather than mercenary ones, so that is a step in the right direction, even if her women aren't of the career variety.
There are five major female characters in Mrs. March and her four daughters and each of them demonstrates some aspect of feminism, in a way (I've been reading Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers and American suffragism wasn't quite in full swing when Alcott wrote her most-famous novel). Mrs. March always tries to be a good, upstanding citizen, helping with veteran's organizations and providing food and clothing to those in far more dire straights than the Marches; she is never "idle" in the lazy sense. Meg realizes she doesn't need a huge house and piles of money to have a happy home (compared to the rich and priviledged Sally Moffat/Gardiner whose house is not filled with the sounds of family or husband; Sally's mercenary marriage did not bring her happiness or comfort); Meg is kind of devoid of personality and seems quite conventional as a character who is pretty much made to be wife and mother from the start with no other aspirations. Over the years, and many times I've read Little Women, Beth has come to symbolize the idea that dying with dignity and acceptance is important; I had to skip the two tracks where Beth dies - it always makes me sob, sentimental writing or not, and sobbing while driving isn't the best idea. Amy has never been my favorite March sister, too prissy, too willing to play the society game, but she does come round in the end and marries for love (although I've always wondered if she would've married Laurie if he were less rich).
Which brings me to Jo. Jo is always my favorite March sister, impetuous, hot-tempered (totally guilty of the same on my part), passionate, and creative. Jo does change quite a bit over the course of the novel, learns to bite her tongue and mind her temper (she doesn't morph into a compete doormat but at least learns to think before she speaks, which is a hard lesson for any of us), writes "rubbish" and then learns to write better things (which can be seen as having her creative juices squelched but since I like well-written stuff better than sensationalistic crap I tend to see that as a growth of the artist within Jo, rather than pumping out schlock for the money), and ends up with an appropriate companion in Professor Bhaer. I'm pretty partial to Professor Bhaer (must be those German genes that make up 80% of my DNA) and he is pretty progressive in that he does tutor women (Jo included) so he gets a plus in my book; I suppose Alcott could have had Jo running Plumfield school by herself, as a dignified spinster-writer-headmistress, but then there would be no Professorin (as someone who is on the verge of despairing of finding any sort of companionship I identify with Jo's despair after losing Beth). I always read about how people complain that Jo quits writing but I think she actually does continue writing (after Aunt March leaves her Plumfield and Jo decides to turn it into a school there is mention that Jo keeps publishing; maybe - I don't have a copy of the book at hand - plus she writes the lyrics for the song sung during the last chapter).
A favorite part of Little Women is the early section on "Playing Pilgrims" - using the sections of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress to comment on the Marches' burdens and solutions to their problems. The girls all have problems we can identify with - materialism, envy, idleness, conceit, short-tempers - and try to overcome those burdens using the allegory of Christian. It is overtly Christian in tone but there are good lessons to learn (Jo's lesson of learning to think before she speaks comes at the cost of losing her opportunity to travel Europe) and most of the girls' lessons are worth learning for both men and women. No one likes a gossip or flirt (even now, when "flirt" translates into "player"), saying hurtful things can come with a price, money and material possessions don't buy happiness, and continual idleness leads to problems.
Little Women isn't a corset-burning feminst tract (the most recent movie adaptation tried to dial up the feminism by adding scenes: Meg doesn't wear a corset and Professor Bhaer takes Jo to a suffragist meeting) but Alcott doesn't have a novel full of doormat female characters, either (Meg starts heading to doormat status but she doesn't have that much personality to start). Home and family are the central aspects of the novel and Alcott does emphasize loving relationships, rather than mercenary ones, so that is a step in the right direction, even if her women aren't of the career variety.
26 December 2009
A Christmas Carol, read by Patrick Stewart
I got an audiobook of A Christmas Carol so I could "read" a different book while driving and I found the version performed by Patrick Stewart. I can't comment much on the actual story of A Christmas Carol; the message has become pervasive in our society and I'd be surprised if I ever ran into someone who didn't at least know where Ebenezer Scrooge came from. I've read the story at least once a year in some form since high school (or watched it, heelllooo, Muppet's Christmas Carol) so the fact that this audio set is abridged didn't really bother me; I already know the story. What I was interested in was Patrick Stewart's performance - and it was AMAZING. He uses so many different accents - the RSC one for narration, a clipped, staccato one for Scrooge, a more nasal London accent for Bob Crachit - that it is easy to keep the many characters straight. I really enjoyed this reading and will definitely listen to it next Christmas season.
24 December 2009
'Tis the Season: Part 4 and Happy Holidays
I didn't work this last Saturday (it was the weekend before Christmas and the "powers that be" decided it would be so-much-better-for-desperate-customers to staff the customer service desk with people who have less than one months' experience rather than have the experienced booksellers even working at all; Merry Christmas and ho-ho-ho). On to the funnies (or not so funny as you'll see):
- A customer kept exclaiming "Epic!" at the end of every sentence while I was explaining how store orders work; it got so bad I started wondering whether he had Tourette's or a drug problem (maybe he just gets really excited about the little things, who knows)
- Some lady complained that we didn't have enough staff working (lemme explain some basic economics to ya...)
- A toddler was having a completely serious half-English/half-gibberish conversation with a plush Cookie Monster in the midst of the chaos that is the children's section during Christmas; outside of my own nieces, that's probably the cutest thing I've seen in a very long time
- At an author signing, someone asked the author's publisher (publicist? didn't quite catch who that guy was) if the book had any vampires in it; the publisher/publicist said "No" and the author jumped right in and said "Yes, tell them yes! It can have anything they want in it!" (the book is a novel about a father-son relationship; the author was being completely sarcastic but the publisher/publicist didn't look terribly amused)
- A mom had a long list of classics her English-major daughter wanted for Christmas (Jane Eyre, Northanger Abbey, Adam Bede, Barchester Towers, Mrs. Dalloway, Sons and Lovers, etc); I had everything in the store but two titles (out of about 14, she bought nine of them); she was so happy I found everything for her in under 5 minutes, without having to look it all up on the computer, that she asked me to recommend a book for her to read for fun "just for myself" - I had her buy The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (having a happy customer ask for a personal recommendation is as good as a gushing "thank you" in my book)
- "I need a book that tells you how to use those sticks" - dead serious, that's an exact quote; so I'm like sticks....chopsticks? um, I-ching? camping?.... Nope, knitting needles; his wife wanted to learn to knit (oh boy, do I have a lot of knitting books and, BTW, here's a card for my favorite LYS, the owner loves to teach new knitters)
- Someone was looking for books to take to a friend living in a foreign country and read me off a list of "banned" authors she found online but didn't know anything about: Khalil Gibran, Chinua Achebe, Milan Kundera, Iris Chang, JD Salinger, and Salman Rushdie; I didn't even have to type anything to find books for those authors in the store because, well, I know who all of them are and at least one of them has a notorious literary history (you guessed it, I went straight for The Satanic Verses because the customer had no idea Rushdie had a fatwa issued against his life in the 1980s...and that's like OMG, HUGE...and then she asked me what a fatwa is/was so I explained...and then she told me she grew up in a Muslim country...and now I'm thinking "What the hell?" I recommended a few other titles - Midnight's Children, The Prophet, Things Fall Apart, The Unbearable Lightness of Being - but she went with The Satanic Verses; never underestimate the power of banning a book/threatening the life of an author on the ability to attract attention like a black hole)
- two days before Christmas a customer complained that we had nothing he wanted to buy as gifts; he wanted all the popular stuff we sold out of over the weekend and are waiting on a re-stock to arrive (it's not my fault you saved your Christmas-gift shopping until the last minute and you want the hot items your fellow humans beat you to because they were smart and went shopping over the weekend; you need to shut up and buy some gift cards)
- I don't know what's in the water lately but customers keep asking about my "I read banned books" button attached to my name tag (I wear it all the time; no one asked me about it during Banned Books Week); best question came from an older man who asked me what banned book had I read most recently (I'm still reading The Satanic Verses and finished American Psycho in September)
- also had a customer get snotty with me because I refused to sell her a copy of a book we were holding for another customer (lemme explain the concept of first-come-first-served: we take holds over the phone and Internet so next time call ahead before you drive two hours to buy something we can't sell you because another customer asked for it before you did; PS: I am impervious to whining, complaining, and bribery)
- a very lovely specimen of the human race smeared feces all over a stall in the women's room (we didn't find it until after close because no one told us about it and I can guarantee it happened after 930pm because that was the last time I checked the bathroom for messes; none of us are paid enough to clean up dried-on shit)
- A man who was previously observed "pleasuring" himself in the children's section of the store, and who got away before we could confront him (or have him arrested), was observed AGAIN in kids reading pornographic magazines and watching the little kids play with Thomas trains; a customer pointed him out but he got away before our kids' bookseller confronted him (consider this a PSA: we can't do much about this creeper/pedophile until we can get a good description/picture to the police - he disappears before we get a good look at him and the general description of "old white dude with a ball cap" isn't very specific - so please don't leave your children unattended in our store or in any store, period; we're not babysitters and there are some seriously bad people hanging around)
20 December 2009
The Help
Kathryn Stockett has been tearing up the bestseller lists with her debut novel The Help so I decided I would make it my first-ever book to read on my nook. Stockett deserves all the praise heaped on her book; I loved the way the narrators rotated the story between the three of them (Aibileen, Minny, and Miss Skeeter), I loved how there was just enough dialect to hear the voice in my head but not so much as to make it unreadable, and I loved how much I cared for Aibileen, Minny, and Miss Skeeter (and how much I really hated Miss Hilly - hag). This was such an enjoyable book - even though it was terrifying at times because of the time period and characters - and I was sorry to see it end (although it ended on a perfect note and a little cliffhanger).
The Help shows me my niavete; dead serious, as much as I know how poorly people of color were treated (and in many places still are no matter how many laws protecting their rights) it still blows my socks off that one person would treat another as sub-human just because of skin color. I'm from Iowa and my high school was pretty evenly split among white-kids-with-money and poor-white-trash; our minority students were nearly all Asian, all fairly well-off, so I just never saw anyone mistreated because of race. I actually witnessed hatred based on homophobia before I witnessed hatred based on race. Reading through The Help I just wanted to step into the book and tell "Miss" Hilly (she really is a horrible person) that all that crap about catching diseases from black people is the biggest lie I've ever heard in my life; ooh, just makes my hair stand on end. I would like to think that, placed in the same 1960s South, I would at least take Miss Skeeter's position and not toe-the-party-line of racist ideology.
There is a feminist thread running through The Help and the burgeoning feminist wave does come to bear in the novel. WASP-y Miss Skeeter has graduated with a college degree...but no husband or fiance (gasp, shock and horror, because you have to get married and sprog; look what it did to Miss Leefolt who is lurching around in some odd post-partum depression fog). She is given the opportunity to get her toe in the door in the world of journalism and to come through she must do something that is monumentally unpopular and she must convince the black maids (the "help" of the title) to tell her their stories, both bad and good. She also must confront her own passive racism, that she has taken advantage of "the help" for so many years without thought to how hard the women work, for how little take-home pay, and how tenuous their employment remains.
I wish I read The Help earlier in the year - now I must amend my "best-of" lists!
The Help shows me my niavete; dead serious, as much as I know how poorly people of color were treated (and in many places still are no matter how many laws protecting their rights) it still blows my socks off that one person would treat another as sub-human just because of skin color. I'm from Iowa and my high school was pretty evenly split among white-kids-with-money and poor-white-trash; our minority students were nearly all Asian, all fairly well-off, so I just never saw anyone mistreated because of race. I actually witnessed hatred based on homophobia before I witnessed hatred based on race. Reading through The Help I just wanted to step into the book and tell "Miss" Hilly (she really is a horrible person) that all that crap about catching diseases from black people is the biggest lie I've ever heard in my life; ooh, just makes my hair stand on end. I would like to think that, placed in the same 1960s South, I would at least take Miss Skeeter's position and not toe-the-party-line of racist ideology.
There is a feminist thread running through The Help and the burgeoning feminist wave does come to bear in the novel. WASP-y Miss Skeeter has graduated with a college degree...but no husband or fiance (gasp, shock and horror, because you have to get married and sprog; look what it did to Miss Leefolt who is lurching around in some odd post-partum depression fog). She is given the opportunity to get her toe in the door in the world of journalism and to come through she must do something that is monumentally unpopular and she must convince the black maids (the "help" of the title) to tell her their stories, both bad and good. She also must confront her own passive racism, that she has taken advantage of "the help" for so many years without thought to how hard the women work, for how little take-home pay, and how tenuous their employment remains.
I wish I read The Help earlier in the year - now I must amend my "best-of" lists!
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