Archive for February, 2009

February 28, 2009 @ 10:14 am | Filed under: Links

• Matthew Yglesias » Relative Prices Blogging

  “In Agatha Christie’s autobiography, she mentioned how she never thought she would ever be wealthy enough to own a car – nor so poor that she wouldn’t have servants.”

• Octopus removes valve, floods floor of Santa Monica Pier Aquarium – Boing Boing
• The amazing Amazon Kindle is bad news for the publishing industry. – By Farhad Manjoo – Slate Magazine

  “Say Barnes & Noble signed a deal to sell the next Twilight book at a huge discount. But with a catch—the book would be published in invisible ink, and in order to read it you’d need to buy a special Barnes & Noble black light. This is ludicrous, of course, and no bookstore would ever attempt such a deal. But what’s the Kindle other than a fancy digital decoder ring?”

  (Personally, I don’t agree that the Kindle is bad news for publishing–my hunch is that it’ll get more people reading, and the more people read, the more books they tend to buy. But this guy’s point about Amazon requiring all e-books for the Kindle to be sold ONLY through Amazon, yeah, that could be a problem.)

• On a different Kindle issue:# Neil Gaiman’s Journal: The end of the Audiobook argument

  ” An audio book, read by someone who’s good at it, is an audio book, an experience that’s different to, sometimes complementary to, the words on the page. A computer reading to you is a computer reading to you. And at the point where they can read books to us as well as we can read them aloud to each other, we will have other things to worry about.”

• The Web Guitar Teacher: 1.99 Video Guitar Lessons

  Short web tutorials for specific guitar riffs. Cool.

• Imaginary Blog: February 2009 Carnival of Children’s Literature: Valentine’s Edition

February 28, 2009 @ 2:00 am | Filed under: Links

(Whoops, sorry for some duplicate link-posting. My Delicious plugin hadn’t been working so I manually posted links on Saturday. Now the plugin is working again and this autopost went up in the night.)

• Take Note: Doodling Can Help Memory on Yahoo! Health – “Researchers in the United Kingdom found that test subjects who doodled while listening to a recorded message had a 29 percent better recall of the message’s details than those who didn’t doodle.”

(more…)

February 27, 2009 @ 5:58 pm | Filed under: Music

February 26, 2009 @ 8:49 pm | Filed under: Books, Family

Besides doing as much of this as possible, of course.

Jane is thirteen and busy, busy, busy. Art class, piano, ballet, Journey North, Shakespeare Club. The number of activities makes my head spin but is delicious to her. She’s learning her lines for a Taming of the Shrew scene. Mastering the jump attack in Zelda: Twilight Princess. Beginning to polish her repertoire for Piano Guild auditions. Enjoying the Think Piece questions from Julie Bogart’s Bravewriter Boomerang. (Today’s Murder on the Orient Express think piece led to a long and hearty discussion of the death penalty.) Reading all the Agatha Christie she can get her hands on (which, thanks to a kind librarian, has been a lot). Reading Jane Austen. Quoting articles from Muse magazine. Making dolls. Reading stories to Rilla at naptime. Plugging away at Latin and algebra. Baking cobbler when I’m too busy. Crocheting hair scrunchies by the dozen.

Rose likes life at a mellower pace. Her fiery personality adds enough spice to her life, I think. One by one, she has chosen to opt out of the activities her sisters enjoy. She still takes art and piano lessons, which seems like a lot to me, and is one activity more than Jane was doing at her age. She has a small vegetable garden out back, thanks to my mother’s labors during my postpartum days, and she spends a lot of time outside playing with bits of leaf and twig. She’s writing quite a bit: journal entries, stories, letters. Has been (like the others) glued to the Warriors books lately. Is deeply attached to her horse in Zelda. Clamors to be the one to hold the baby during his morning nap. Chops all my potatoes and onions for me. Still loves to play dress-up. Practices Amazing Grace on the piano ten times a day, as long as I don’t tell her to.

Beanie: busy bouncy Beanie! Loves to start her day with a snuggle on the sofa, just me and baby if possible, but she’ll make a space for the other wee ones if they’re awake. Just finished reading Understood Betsy; said it had a very satisfying ending. (I agree.) Loves copywork with a passion that is enchanting to behold (and mystifying to her mother, who loathes writing by hand). Doesn’t go to piano lessons any more (her class was canceled due to a drop in enrollment) but is learning here at home, with her sisters’ help. They’ve been through the book before her. Likes to fix my breakfast for me: a bowl of strawberry yogurt, almonds, granola. Wishes we had a trampoline. Is learning to draw in 3D from Mark Kistler’s book. Writes me coded messages. Wishes she got to hold the baby more. Wants to have a tea party with her friends: key event, facepainting. Is looking forward to receiving her First Communion. Can’t help being drawn into Little Bear when her younger brother and sister are watching. Wishes we had a pool. Forgets the job you gave her even before she’s out of the room. Is reading the Redwall books. Listens to Suzanne Vega every chance she gets. Spends long minutes smiling into the baby’s eyes. Says she doesn’t remember ever being cooed at before, and that being cooed at is the best thing in the whole world.

As for me, besides all the usual mom stuff, and the crammed-in-when-I-can writing stuff, I’m fiddling with fabric, working on a quilt square for the online bee I’m part of. And (as you know) I’ve been reading a lot lately. Not as much this month as I did in January, but then I’m on my own again as sole adult in charge. Last month I had my mom for two weeks and then Scott was off work for another two weeks. Nice. Now I read in the very early mornings and late at night—on the iPod, as often as not. I am finally, finally working my way through Ulysses. Very slow going, yes, but oh my what a treat. I find myself staring at single sentences, single words even, tasting them over and over, scarcely able to believe that they’ve been there all along, ripe for the picking. Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. Birdsweet. The void awaits surely all them that weave the wind. DailyLit tells me I am 4% of the way through the book. I can’t think of books in terms of percents, but I know I’m only just getting started, though I’ve been at it for weeks, a page or two at a time. Every few days I sit down with my big fat Ulysses Annotated and unpack quantities of allusions, and then I have to go back and reread what I read before with better understanding. I am loving this.

Am also reading via DailyLit the YA thriller Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. I look forward to each night’s brief installment. There aren’t many books I would like to read this way, parceled out in small daily doses, but for these two—for dramatically different reasons—it’s working.

Have not yet finished rereading Portrait of a Lady, long way to go. Started Inkspell Inkheart right after Christmas and set it aside: still mean to finish that one. Have a TBR stack as high as the moon. You know how it is.

Well, that’s half the family. More than enough for one post, eh!

February 26, 2009 @ 1:12 pm | Filed under: recipes

In the comments on the cobbler post, Andrea shared this nugget of information about making whipped cream:

“FYI: If you did ever overbeat the cream, thus turning it into butter? Just beat in some additional cream and it will magically turn back into whipped cream…”

That is so good to know. Who knew?

February 23, 2009 @ 8:51 pm | Filed under: Links

Busy, happy weekend with some of Scott’s family. Wish the rest of them could have been with us. His parents and his oldest brother flew in from the East Coast for the baptism and much merriment. Uncle Jay is one of the best guys I’ve ever met. Absolutely the most generous. My children are crazy about him, and there was much weeping following his departure this afternoon.

It had been too long since we last saw Scott’s parents. So nice to see them laughing it up with our noisy throng. Scott’s mother stood proxy for the dear godmother who lives far away. There’s a story behind that beautiful christening gown; we’ve been talking about it in the comments. Such an honor to have my children be part of its long history.

After they left this afternoon, I caught up a bit on blogs and tweets.

Look who else was baptized on Saturday! Beautiful.

Karen and Faith shared this link to Austenbook, which made me laugh out loud at least six times. Perfect timing, too. I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice. Again. Couldn’t be helped. I read Shannon Hale’s Austenland and, well, after that I had no choice.

Related: this time around, I read P&P on an e-reader. My iPod Touch, to be precise. It’s the third or fourth book I’ve read on the Touch, and this was the first time I found myself really enjoying the reading experience (as distinct from enjoying the book itself). I will always, always prefer a real book, the rustling paper, the satisfying weight of it, the smell of ink and tree. But…I admit it. There are some advantages to electronic reading. With my Touch, I can read with one hand, turning pages with the barest tap of a thumb. I can lie in the dark nursing the baby and read without any light source other than the device itself. Last week I tried to curl up with a nice fat library book beside my slumbering child, and I dropped the book on his head. You begin to see the advantages of a “book” no bigger than a playing card.

I’ve been experimenting with the various e-readers available for the iPod Touch and would like to post some reviews, but I’m too busy reading.

(No really, I’ll get to it eventually.)

Lots of friends have shared the scoop on these nifty Homeschool Connections online seminars. They are reputed to be extremely fun and informative. Great lineup of speakers.

I still haven’t taken my photos for the Illegal Books Meme, but lots of other people have. And I will, too, as soon as I get a chance.

Speaking of CPSIA, I really appreciate the post roundup in the Love2Learn sidebar.

Did you see Beck’s rant about The Ten-Year Nap, that book that so annoyed me last month? Beck too, and she didn’t even have to read it:

(Do my) mundane daily routines and ever-more tenuous connections to increasingly independent children compensate for all that lost promise? asks the Publishers Weekly blurb on Amazon’s page for The Ten Year Nap. And then I barfed, or I WOULD if I wasn’t in some sort of decade-long coma, apparently.

If Beck lived in SoCal instead of Canada, I would totally make her a cobbler.

February 23, 2009 @ 12:45 pm | Filed under: Photos

February 22, 2009 @ 11:25 am | Filed under: Twitter

• But this is embarrassing: we had so many books on hold at library that they called, asked us to pick ‘em up earlier than our usual Sat run. #

(more…)

Tags: Twitter

February 21, 2009 @ 8:20 am | Filed under: Photos

A few peeks from our week…

Guess whose big sisters got hold of him? He may have the villainous beard, but they’re the ones with nefarious purposes.

Rilla needed a sling to match mommy’s. Mine, by the way, is now serving its sixth baby! I’ve had it since Jane was a bairn.

I am in love with this sweet dolly. Jane made her for Rilla, totally by herself. I want a big sister like Jane.

(Psst DHM and Mama Squirrel, thanks for reminding us of our dear Miss Suzy! Rilla had not met her yet…)

February 19, 2009 @ 9:05 pm | Filed under: Books

I read a lot last month. That’s because during the first half of the month, I was too pregnant to do much else, and during the second half I was snuggled up with a snoozing lump of baby. My hands are too full for writing, most of the time, but reading, ah, that’s something I can do.

World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler, a novel set in the not-far-off future, after a sweeping political and economic event (described only in vague terms) has dramatically altered American society. There’s no more oil. The grid is down: no electricity, no long distance communication, not much government to speak of. Bombs have destroyed Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. A flu epidemic has wiped out masses of people. In the narrator’s small upstate New York community, the survivors have cobbled together lives from the refuse of their former existence; abandoned houses (most of the houses are abandoned, now) are stripped for parts, and the unsavory character who has taken control of the old landfill is one of the chief power-wielders of the community. The narrator and his neighbors seem perpetually dazed, still shaken by the waves of tragedy and loss that washed the old way of life away. The events of the book force the narrator to wake back up.

I have a great fondness for post-apocalyptic literature and film, so this book’s premise was right up my alley. The narrator’s state of shell-shocked numbness keeps the reader somewhat at a distance, but it’s a believable numbness and perhaps a merciful distance: there is so much loss, so much pain, so much quivering uncertainty about the future. Kunstler’s vision of the various ways society gropes to reshape itself is convincing and minutely detailed.

The Uncommon Reader: A Novella by Alan Bennett. What a little gem. Scott checked it out from the library and said he thought I’d enjoy it. As usual, he was right. The Queen of England discovers, by chance, that a library bookmobile visits the palace grounds. To the astonishment of the librarian, she checks out a book—and finds herself on a literary rabbit trail, hopping eagerly from one book to the next. Surprising, original, delightful.

The Moving Finger (Miss Marple Mysteries) by Agatha Christie. Everyone deserves a Christie break now and then.

The Music Teacher by Barbara Hall. Really wanted to like this novel. So much potential in the setting and cast of characters: the novel is about a woman who gives violin lessons in a small music store, the only female on the staff, half in love with one undeserving coworker and flattered by the attentions of another. Eventually I grew tired of the relentless melancholy and bad choices. I admit I lose patience with people (even fictional ones) who seem determined to be miserable.

Which is why the next book, Meg Wolitzer’s The Ten-Year Nap, annoyed the bejeebers out of me. Don’t get me wrong: Wolitzer can write beautifully. But oh what a bunch of whiners in this novel. I kept wanting to shake them and shout, “Knock it off! Quit your bellyaching and DO something! Read to your kid! Take a walk! Bake some bread! SOMETHING. Anything.” I’d read rave reviews. People loved the “honest” look at the misgivings of women who gave up promising careers to stay home with their children. I’m sure many women do have those misgivings. But, look, you make your own happiness. The women in this novel seemed to me to be sleepwalking, drifting through their days in a state of vague discontent, trapped in the hamster wheel of their own minds. I have little respect for people who refuse to wake up.

The Twilight of American Culture by Morris Berman.

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi. Had this one on the library reserve list for a long time. Really enjoyed it—sort of. Seemed like Nafisi was trying to untangle some knotty emotional threads about the Iranian Revolution and her own choices during those stormy years and the decade following. The eyewitness-to-history narrative was fascinating, but became terribly repetitive as the book went on. The best parts of the book are her literary discussions, her thoughtful unpacking of Gatsby, Daisy Miller, Lolita, Pride and Prejudice, and other works. Here Nafisi shines, and it’s easy to see why her students became so attached that many of them returned to audit her classes year after year. Best of all, Nafisi got me reading: she made me hungry to revisit old favorites (Austen, Gatsby) and curious about books like Lolita that have spent far too many years on my TBR list. I wanted to hear what Nafisi had to say about them, but I loathe spoilers, so I had no choice: had to read the books. Am very glad I did.

These next few titles, then, are books I read between sections of Reading Lolita.

Daisy Miller by Henry James.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. For the, I don’t know, sixth or seventh time? I can open this book to any page and just sit there tasting sentences.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Creeped me out in the worst way—but I couldn’t put it down—and jiminy crickets what gorgeous, sumptous writing. And beneath the creepiness, the terrible sadness, the bleak impenetrability of Humbert’s cage—worse even than the cage Lolita is trapped in.

(And a February note: my James kick has continued. First Washington Square, new to me. Now, Portrait of a Lady, the first half of which I loved passionately in college, a love that turned to outrage during the second half, because at that point in time I had no stomach for a book with a likeable heroine who did not find felicity in romance at the end. Now, nearly twenty years later, perhaps because I am comfortably immersed in a still-crazy-in-love marriage, I am finding that I can allow the novel to be the novel it is, not the happy-ever-after tale I wanted it to be in college.)