By Popular Request (Heather)

The Art of Pie.

Pie should not be difficult to make. I think it's hard for me because I stubbornly refuse to use recipes.

However, I used the apple pie recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens standard cookbook, and I followed it so closely (well, for me, anyway). What happened?

It burned.

Black.

I blame the oven. It was overenthusiastic. It had nothing to do with the fact that I put it in to bake and promptly went back to bed.

The tragedy of the burning of the apple pie was that I didn't exactly follow the crust recipe. I made a crumble for the top, involving hazelnuts ground up in the food processor I tend to forget about. It should have been divine. It would have been divine, had it not burned.

So I did what any self-respecting food artiste would do. I took it to the company dinner anyway, and then guilted my friends into eating it, burnt crust and all.

That was a dry run, the week before actual Thanksgiving day. The real pie was yet to be created.

In my own defense, my trusty BH&G cookbook had no recipes for berry pie. I call that gross neglect in covering the basic food groups, but that is immaterial.

I went online, because that's what we milliennials do when we want to cook. I found dozens of raspberry pie recipes. So I glanced through enough of them to assume I had got the hang of it, then I went to the kitchen and started shelling hazelnuts again. This time it wasn't as time consuming because I had a nut cracker that actually believed in cracking nuts. And because Gingey helped (Yay, Gingey!).

The root of the problem was that I assumed that when you see cornstarch as an ingredient, you can just estimate how much you need, and I didn't put nearly enough. Not only that, but I forgot to follow the recipe I invented for the crumble top, and I put excessive amounts of butter.

I'd like to say we had raspberry pie for Thanksgiving, but it was more like raspberry soup. However, the point is that it tasted good. That, after all, is essential to the art of baking a pie.

Proof that it tasted good? Gingey ate at least four "slices".

Incidentally, I bought some more raspberries yesterday, and I still have an entire bag of hazelnuts left. For anyone who has the patience to come over and help me crack them, there will be pie with your name on it. And it will be a work of art.

On Blogging

It's hard to blog (is it strange to you how many verbs are seeping into polite conversation?) without an Internet connection, so I'm just going to make a list of the topics I would have posted about in the past few months had I shelled out the funds for it.

Mistborn, book review of an obsession-inducing trilogy

The Art of Pie

Turkey Day. Yuck. Haven't we figured out it's about the mashed potatoes?

Anyone Can Draw (?)

I don't agree that All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. But I probably did learn it when I was five.

You did not give birth to that dog, so why do you refer to yourself as its "mommy"? The limitations of the English language

Expound if you will.

The Truth

The truth is that I am not as nice as I assume I am.

We live life based upon a set of assumptions about ourselves, otherwise every moment would be too overwhelming to survive, and not just for those with the emotional range of a teaspoon.

However, sometimes I find myself in situations where I am decidedly not the person I assume, and it is uncomfortable. I say things that are unkind. Or I interrupt people. Or I talk endlessly about myself and don't really listen to people. Or I even encourage them in negative thoughts, conversations, and behaviors. Then I think about it later and realize my actions were contemptible. I realize that I had no business to say or do what I did, and I wonder how I let myself get out of hand, because I'm supposed to be better than that. My self respect is intact because I wake up every day assuming that I am not the sort of person who does those kinds of things.

So today, most of all, I am thinking about the ability to re-evaluate my life and repent. The Lord gave that blessing to me, because I sure need it—and that is what I am most grateful for. Today hasn't been about a gluttonous turkey fest (my fam went out of town, and I stayed behind to be with my sister, who had to work; I cooked a nice meal, without any turkey, and was just happy to be able to do something nice for someone else for a change). It's been about what I can do to change my attitude, my thoughts, my words, and my deeds and actually be the person He wants me to be.

Bad experiences don't mean anything if you don't respond to them with faith, so my leap of faith is starting now, with being thankful for the people I usually talk badly about. There are people who have hurt me deeply; I have allowed their choices and/or personalities to make me angry. But it's not my place to get angry, it's my place to be grateful, for the good and for the bad.

The truth is also that I happen to be one of those people whose life is overwhelmingly full of good things over bad things.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope you have as much to be grateful for as I do.

A Truth Universally Acknowledged

This is going to be a long, somewhat pretentious post.

I think people assume I like Jane Austen a lot more than I really do. Occasionally, a friend will assume that I have even gone as far as to read some of the endless (brainless) Jane Austen spinoff books. I must admit to having read one of them, Jane Fairfax. It was awful, and I will never touch another one again, even if it isn’t a bodice-ripper, which most of them are. For the record, Jane Fairfax was a tame, if stupid, retelling of Emma, from the point of view of the titular character. Can you see that working?

The fact is that when it comes to literature written by women, I prefer Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, and even Virginia Woolf. My favorite book in the world will probably always be Jane Eyre, and Middlemarch, Daniel Deronda, and North and South will remain in the top 10. I can’t say I will re-read Virginia Woolf often, but when I read The Waves, I wanted to underline the entire text, it was so beautiful.

However, I do love Jane Austen and will freely admit to having read all of her completed works, including Love and Freindship and The History of England, comic pieces she wrote in her teens—some of them multiple times. (No, I have not forgotten how to spell. She wrote the novella before spellings were standardized, and that has always been its official title.) And if you want a good, solid spoof, her early works are screaming at you. There are few books I could classify as being funnier than L&F and HofE.

Sometimes I come across recommendations for books on Amazon.com, and I can’t seem to leave them alone. Eventually I add them to my wishlist, and at some point they end up in my hands. This was one of them. I resisted for a long time, but temptation got the best of me, and I caved in a big way.

But it was thirty-three chapters of what I love best! I make fun of myself often and roundly for liking to read the introduction to a book just as much as I like to read the book itself—and I can’t seem to get over a mania for Norton Critical Editions of classic works—because of all the fun literary essays in the back. With that explained, what could be better than an entire book of literary essays by intelligent people—most of them great fiction writers themselves—about Jane Austen? My favorites were probably by Lionel Trilling, who I am guessing is a famous Jane Austen scholar. He started one of his essays by recounting the creation of a university class focusing entirely on Jane Austen, and realizing it was so full the only fair way to pare it down was to have each student come to his office for an interview. He was startled and dismayed to find out that not only did all these students come and interview, but they were not at all put out by having to justify their reasons for taking the course—in essence, they had to persuade him of their worthiness to be on the roll in the first place. What followed were bribes, letters of reference by former professors, and desperate pleas … and in the end, those who were excluded were very bitter. What other college class could create such a scenario?

Other essayists included Virginia Woolf (of course), Susannah Clarke (the incomparable author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell), C.S. Lewis, Eudora Welty, and E.M. Forster, just to name a few. I must say, too, that these people know how to write a good essay. I didn’t get tired of reading about the same person or the same six books until the very end. And even though I was heartily glad to have gotten through the entire collection, I was a little sad there wasn’t more.

Talk about pontification.

One of the greatest things I take away from this experience is a greater appreciation for a writer who can capture the comedy of everyday life. It is quite fair to state that there is nothing in Jane Austen’s work that is paradigm challenging, or that stands out as making them essential to the canon of great literature. This is even more true if you are coming from the perspective of a male.

But as a woman, Jane Austen is worthwhile for several reasons, the most prominent of which is that her work shows, in a way that is light-hearted and amusing, issues that women have dealt with and continue to deal with no matter what era they live in. What do you do when the people you are hanging out with are giving you a bad reputation? What do you do when the sister you love is destroying her future? What do you do when your family members are idiots? What do you do when you don’t have any money but you still want to be respectable? What do you do when it looks like the only respectable life is earned through securing the hand and heart of a respectable man, but there are so few respectable men to be found? What do you do when you have a sincere desire to see everyone around you happy, but they are constantly stepping on you? What do you do when someone you love and trust disapproves of a decision you made?

Real dilemmas, tackled in a hopeful and fun way.

Jane Austen looks at the small picture, focusing on three or four families in a country village. She lived through the war with Napoleon. She had a family member lose a husband to the guillotine. She wasn’t stupid or unaware of the big picture.

But she wrote about relationships, because for women, everything boils down to relationships. Shakespeare writes about kings and princes, Dickens writes about great philanthropists and adventurers, Dostoyevsky writes about the philosopher. They are great authors, and their works are much more striking as contributions to a societal significance. Jane Austen, well, she helps people feel connected.

Inequality

I have probably been reading too much mass media lately, because I find myself very cynical about the future. But one morning a few days ago, as I was doing some cooking, I was reminded of a story told by one of the speakers in General Conference not long ago. I’m going to paraphrase that story.

Two men shared a field that they both worked to plant, tend, and harvest. One of the men lived alone, while the other one had a large family. One day, perceiving an inequality, the first man decided it wasn’t fair that he should get a half share of the harvest when he had only himself to provide for. So he went out in the night and transferred a large portion of the harvest to the pile of his neighbor and went to bed happy. Meanwhile, the second man perceived an inequality. He decided it wasn’t fair that he should get a half share of the harvest when he had so many sons to help him and his neighbor was all alone. So he went out in the night and transferred a large portion of the harvest to the pile of his neighbor and went to bed happy. In the morning, when the discovery was made what had happened in the night, they talked it over and were touched and amused, and they parted friends.

What strikes me about this is that neither one of them had very much—they were just simple farmers—but both of them were able to see that they had blessings beyond those of their neighbor, and their first thoughts were of sharing. I would assume that the sonless neighbor would have shared food from his own table if there were ever any want in the house of his friend. I would assume that the family man neighbor would have taken in his friend in their waning years so that he wouldn’t suffer old age uncared for.

This story wasn’t about a Utopia, or an idealistic dream of world peace and equality. There wasn’t any protesting or sitting around in parks. It wasn’t someone demanding his rights or shirking his responsibilities. Neither one of them went to the government to demand that their neighbor’s taxes be raised, and neither of them whined that they had less and should therefore be entitled to more of a share. Neither of them sat in opulence and judged the other’s difficulties or asked for a loan to buy something that would make their workload lighter. They didn’t give away anything they didn’t have. They didn’t complain that they didn’t have money to hire someone else to do the heavy work. They didn’t call each other a liar or a hypocrite; they didn’t blame each other for not having more of a harvest.

They worked hard, they thanked God, and they loved their neighbor.

The American people are generous. I think maybe not all, but most, want what is good for their neighbors as well as what is good for themselves. And if that isn’t true, well… we have a hard road ahead of us. But I, for one, would wish to live my life like those two fine farmers, refusing to see myself as less fortunate than my neighbor, and striving to always eradicate what inequalities I can.

Curry

As a former teacher, I feel quite adept at giving grades. I kind of hate doing it, though. Mastery of reading, writing, listening, and speaking is very hard to quantify. But it’s pretty much a law that teachers in public schools have to give grades, so I did it a lot—so much that I sometimes internally grade things in my regular life. The result? A progress report on my new apartment.

Refrigerator: 70
This grade is based on performance, as well as interference in regular daily activities, such as sleeping. Full marks for functionality, but minus 10 for freezing my cottage cheese and minus 20 for making noises that sound like someone breaking and entering through my kitchen window after dark.

Air Conditioning Unit: 80
I started to rate this one lower, but the A/C can’t help the fact that I forget to turn it off sometimes when I leave for work. The minus 20 is actually for rattling the building so violently my closet door clicking up against the sticky paint job in its frame begins to sound like a Harley engine. I generally try not to whine about stuff like this, but when you live by yourself, nights can be a little scary, and any extra noise is unwelcome. Still, an 80 is a B, and I do appreciate having a cool place to live.

And now, on to a list of comparisons for effectiveness at removing the reek of tobacco left behind by the previous resident:

Leaving the windows open: 10
Only effective the moment the window is actually open, thus not so useful when it’s hot outside or when one would like to sleep and feel safe.

Home Fragrance Mist, Kimono Rose: 20
I really like the smell of this stuff, but it fades within half an hour. Plus, it doesn’t smell as good as it did in the store.

Scentsy warmer, Flirtatious, Coconut Lemongrass: 50
I am particularly fond of the Flirtatious smell, too, in spite of the prejudice I feel against it for its ridiculous name. The problem with Scentsy is that the little scented wax bricks don’t last forever, and you can only leave it on for five hours at a time—obviously not when you’re absent. So they’re great when I’m home, but I want something to get rid of the reek that punches me in the face when I walk in the door.

Scentsy warmer, Coconut Lime Verbena: 60
This one gets an extra ten points because it’s very strong. It was much more effective against the smell of eighth graders, though.

Bath and Body Works Scentportable, Pink Sangria, Pink Lemonade: 75
One of these is in my closet, the other is in the living room. They are very nice after they’ve been out for a few days. Eventually I’ll have to replace them. It’s a good thing I got them on sale. I always meant to save them for my car.

Yellow curry, cooked over the stove with garlic, mushrooms, and lentils: 100
What else is there to say? I made dinner earlier this week and thoroughly enjoyed it before putting away the leftovers. I forgot all about it. Then, when I stepped in the door after work for the next two days, all I smelled was curry.

Which of these things does not belong here? There you have it. Even after subtracting points for staining my countertop, thus disqualifying me from reclaiming my cleaning deposit when I move out, curry wins.

☺

Beauty is ...

watching the newest Jane Eyre movie twice in one day. I love this movie so much it's ridiculous. The DVD cover is a disappointment, to be sure, and my sister and I decided a long time ago that sidewhiskers are, without exception, one of those fashions (like bangs from the '80s) that are best forgotten. But I still love it with an immortal passion.

Want v. Need

People usually talk about wants and needs in the context of spending money, but after a discussion with family members yesterday, I'm left with some questions about this dilemma—but referring to doing stuff instead of buying stuff.

They pretty much said all of my problems might be solved (yup) if I could figure out how to turn off my need to be nice.

Apparently most people are nice because they want to be, and I'm nice because I need to be.

Maybe, though, I don't really need to be nice, I just think I do. I'm sure I'm not the only one, which is why I'm blogging about it (although I've said before and will say again that this blog shares entirely too much personal information).

Am I the only one with this problem? Because the truth is that when you're trying to decide how to spend money, or time, or other resources, it's not too hard to distinguish between what you need and what you want. But when it comes to deciding whether you want to do something nice for someone because you want to, or because you need to in order to feel okay with yourself, it gets much trickier. If you try to turn it off, it creates horrible cycles of inward guilt and angst and agony, usually ending in rage.

Then, there is the insulting insinuation that I'm not really nice of my own initiative, but because I have an emotional illness. What can one do to counter that?

I was never a Friends watcher, but I was told about an episode where the Lisa Kudrow character was accused of being selfish because she got so much pleasure out of doing nice things for people, and the point was that there really isn't any way we can do something purely, unconditionally philanthropic because there's always payoff.

I'm afraid I might have meandered a bit too much with this one, but what I really wanted to say was—does it really matter why you do nice things, as long as you're doing them?

Because I'm not that nice to begin with.

The Tree of Life

Terrence Malick. You either love him or don't get him, I think. I've been interested in his films since I fell in love with The New World, which is basically a poem written to Pocahontas and early America in the form of a movie.

Now, I'm usually willing to believe that if most people hate it, it isn't good. But Terrence Malick's films are one exception, particularly The Tree of Life. This was no Where the Wild Things Are. I bring that up because it was another highly anticipated film that a lot of people went to see and walked out booing. To each his own, really, but I was a booer on that one. However, I felt the loud booing and complaining about The Tree of Life was completely unwarranted.

Have you seen 2001: A Space Odyssey? It is the closest comparison to The Tree of Life I can come up with. Pretty much a beautiful series of images, with a little bit of dialogue and lots of questions as whispered voiceover, it was graceful and ponderous and stylistically daring. I loved it.

Malick has a way of using actors who are already famous in ways that people aren't used to seeing them—in The New World it was Colin Farrell, Christian Bale, and Christopher Plummer—and mixing them up with unknowns like Q'Orianka Kilcher, whose innocent beauty was enchanting. The Tree of Life claimed to star Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, but the real star was Hunter McCracken, in a performance that leaves almost every child/adolescent actor looking like a piece of candy or a dirty kleenex.

Child actors are an interesting study. For example, Shadowlands is a biopic of C.S. Lewis made several years ago, starring Anthony Hopkins and Deborah Winger. I highly recommend it, but to this day, I'm not sure if Joseph Mazzello was good or if Attenborough just knew how to use a kid in a heck of an effective way. In the case of Hunter McCracken, I'm pretty sure it was both. He had so much screen time it couldn't have been just the stellar directing.

I think that the touch that took it from being just an interesting series of images that were both cleverly and lyrically filmed (can a picture be lyrical? I say yes) to being what Roger Ebert describes as "a film of vast ambition and deep humility, attempting no less than to encompass all of existence and view it through the prism of a few infinitesimal lives ... [with] fierce evocation of human feeling" is the music. Alexandre Desplat did the score, but only a few minutes of that actually made the cut. Most of it was timeless pieces by Holst, Smetana, Berlioz, Mahler, and others, with my personal favorite piece, "Lacrimosa" by Zbigniew Preisner. Just listen to it.

Grief really is the universal theme, and what I liked about this film is that it truly was simply a meditation on the grief one feels over losing a family member—how knowing that life has been going on and on for so long and people have been living and dying for centuries doesn't make any person's individual sorrow any less cosmic. But all the same, life is beautiful regardless of all of that.

It might have been a long, slow, meandering film with a few really strange scenes, but I loved that Malick tackled such a subject, and that he did it with sensitivity and taste.

And then ....

I found $20.

My friend just taught me that phrase. Has it ever happened to you? You've been telling a story, and it's just not going where you expected it to, and the people who are listening are obviously tuning out, their eyes glazing over or searching the room for a polite comment they can make that will serve to distract and interrupt you? You get the hint (duh), and instead of branding yourself forever as the teller of boring stories, you wrap it up quick with a completely unrelated punchline—"And then, I found $20."

Try it. It's brilliant.

Commencement

Who actually likes going to Commencement ceremonies? I don't see any hands raised.

I taught my first class of 8th graders five years ago, and they just graduated on Friday night. Go them! As a token of my sentimental heart, I even braved being in the car for another fifty minute drive (one way) so I could be there.

What I will say for this small town is that they sure know how to put on a graduation. It was outdoors in their stadium, and at the end of May, the weather is usually nice for it—nice for people like me, at any rate, who don't start sweating the second it gets above 70 degrees. The breeze was nice enough to keep things comfortable but not so strong that it messed up my hair. That was a good thing, because I used a flat iron for the first time in about a year.

The other great thing about it was that the wind kept hitting the microphones so we didn't have to hear very much of the speeches. I was slightly disappointed I couldn't hear the salutatorian better, but oh, well. He's a good kid, and I could guess what he said.

And—here's the most remarkable thing—all the administrators and community organization representatives kept their speeches short and sweet! Nothing over five minutes. Wow. It shifted the focus to the actual graduates, who were able to walk leisurely down their strip of track, get their diplomas, hug the announcers, and get their tassels switched.

It was all over in less than 90 minutes. I think that might be record timing.

Nonverbal Punctuation

I just noticed that people punctuate with things like smiley faces [ :) ] and other facial expressions. Our written language is becoming more sophisticated, maybe.

But also more confusing. My 8th graders asked me once why I was using frowny-faces on the dry erase board. It was because I was giving them a dictionary-style definition--

Frown : ( noun ) an unhappy facial expression, otherwise known as a colon and an opening parenthetical mark.

Heavy-handed Metaphors

Amazing Grace is one of my favorite movies. Beautiful story, beautiful script, beautiful acting. It's even based (somewhat loosely—I do so love Rufus Sewell, but he/the writers took some serious liberties with the character of Thomas Clarkson) on true events.

In one of the scenes, Wilberforce and Pitt have a footrace across the yard, with no shoes. At the end, Wilberforce says something about how he can never feel the thorns until he stops running; Pitt replies that he just needs to keep running.

"Is that some heavy-handed metaphorical advice for me, Mr. Pitt?"

How does this apply to today? It doesn't. Not really. I'm always trying to think of fantastic extended spiritual metaphors for my experiences with running. It doesn't work—everything I come up with just sounds pretentious.

So, for the record, I used to have a vague idea that if once I ran a marathon, distance running would forever after become a no-pain, no-sweat walk in the park. Not so. Running is killing me! Sometimes I don't even want to do it.

I had to positive self-talk my way from beginning to end this evening, and it was only 3 miles.

To give myself a little credit, I am learning to run a new way, and it takes its toll on some leg muscles I haven't developed yet. That, and there is the full time job that has to be worked around.

Sometimes I wish I had some heavy-handed metaphorical advice from Billy Pitt. After all, he became Prime Minister at the age of 23.

Style

I am just now reading The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. I wonder, after having this long-standing love affair with words and phrases and clauses and sentences and paragraphs, how I never knew enough to actually read this book.

It seems I thought I didn't need to read it, expert that I am in the mechanics of the written word. Not so. Chock full of examples of such terms as participial phrases, pronominal possessives, and adjectival modifiers, it is every language lover's dream come true.

I think it ought to be required reading for every speaker and writer of the English language.

Are People Getting Crabbier?

The other day I was in CVS buying conditioner and a new scrubby sponge. As I completed my transaction, the line suddenly got really long, and the cashier was visibly stressed. Then a customer came up asking an odd sort of question, saying she had been told by the guy in the back to come to the front. The cashier promptly set her phone to intercom, and yelled into it,

"Raymond, do your job right!"

Wow. I thanked her and gave her a nervous smile before going on my merry way.

I don't condemn, because I have worked in retail before, and it's a tough business, but I really wonder why that's suddenly acceptable behavior when even a few years ago it would probably have gotten her fired.

One of the titles of the TLA workshops was "Are People Getting Crabbier?"

My answer to that is an emphatic YES.

On Books (Part Ten)

I know everyone read my post about meeting Gary Schmidt, so I won't go into that again, but I just finished reading Okay For Now. It was joyous.

Well, mostly. I can't say I don't have reservations about the ending, but overall it was wonderful. You know, that kind of wonderful that makes you laugh out loud (ask D, she heard me over the course of several days) and cry sudden tears.

How the diddly does an author manage to weave Jane Eyre into a story about a teenage boy from a dysfunctional family during the Vietnam Era? I'm not even kidding. I recognized that familiar feeling of angst that you feel when you start reading Jane Eyre—the angst that comes from hearing an intimate first-person account of an abused child who has no-one to turn to and no-one to trust—at the beginning of the book. Little did I know that he was actually going to start quoting Jane Eyre, and that the parallels would spring up multitudinously from that point on.

This is the reason I love Gary Schmidt. He did it with The Wednesday Wars, and he did it again with this one. Great, unpretentious beauty.

That, and the little, ironic jokes he cracks that you might miss if you're not paying attention—so that when you don't miss them, you totally feel like it's an inside joke that very few people even care about—just like my Shakespeare prof used to do back in the college days. And also, even though everything is a little too contrived in these books, I still really enjoy his depiction of kids who don't care about a whole lot finding sudden inspiration and renewed love of life by devoting themselves to unexpected talent in one of the art forms. In The Wednesday Wars it was theatre, and in Okay for Now, it's drawing—which goes right back to Jane Eyre! Doug learns how to draw from one of the public librarians' guidance, combined with his fascination with the works of Audobon. And, because this is Gary Schmidt writing, everything he looks at in the pictures, and everything he draws, has meaning elsewhere in Doug's life—and that's a good thing, because Doug's life was pretty crappy for the most part.

The title of this post leads one to believe that it is about more than one book, which it is. Right about the time I started reading Okay for Now, I also started a new job, which in and of itself is rather wonderful, but I'm not going into that here. The point is that even when you're gainfully employed, finding the time to read isn't that difficult. However, finding the time to read entire books at once sure is.

I can't remember the last time I started reading a book that short (only 360 pages), that I liked that much, and that I was also willing to put down when it came to doing other stuff. It reminds me of when I read The View From Saturday, and around the middle I thought, "Wow, I want to stop reading after this chapter, because I like this book so much I want it to last as many days as I can make it last."

As opposed to, "Wow, this book is so good I'm not going to do anything else until I finish it!"

Do you have those types of thoughts?

Yes, yes. We established a long time ago that I read too many books. But maybe I'll read fewer books now that I edit accounting manuals all day (which is much, much more fun than it sounds—trust me).

Texas Library Association Annual Conference!

What could be more fun than going to Austin to meet up with 6,000 other librarians? It's a great place for meeting up with people and networking, not to mention going to super-fun sessions on various topics such as "Powerpoint on Steroids," helping teachers with research projects, helping students get ready for college, and arranging library programs to encourage kids to read more books. The last one, which I actually attended first, is always a learning experience because even after all these years it still doesn't make sense to me that anyone would need encouragement to read more books—I've been trying to convince myself for years that I need to read fewer books.

The best part is always the book signing. Last year Janeheiress stalked Shannon Hale in order to get her autograph, but I didn't have to resort to author stalking. My awesome friend D and I were wandering around, collecting as many free books as we could get ahold of, when I passed a booth where the attendant was holding up a copy of Gary Schmidt's newest book, Okay For Now.

I said, "Oh, I love Gary Schmidt!"

She said, "He's sitting right there."

Sure enough, he was. Sitting right there. What else was there to do but buy the book and tell him while he signed it how much I (and some of my 8th graders) loved The Wednesday Wars. And as he was handing me back my book, Richard Peck walked up and cracked a joke. It took me a few seconds too long to process that it was Richard Peck, because authors look like normal people and he has a voice like a car salesman, exactly the sort of voice you would expect from a writer of such side-splitting comedies as A Long Way From Chicago and The Teacher's Funeral—if I had realized sooner who it was I would have shook his hand. As it was, I just stared with my mouth open while he walked away, presumably to get some lunch in the crowded and overpriced Exhibition Café (yeah, I bought a vegan wrap and 2 pieces of fruit for $10.75—yummy food, yucky prices).

Another highlight of the week was eating dinner at The Oasis, with a lovely, peaceful view of Lake Travis at sunset. The fish tacos were pretty good, but not as good as the ones I make at home (and where the heck did my modesty and humility run off to?).

I didn't mean this post to feature food so much, but I have to admit that a large portion of how much fun I think I have on a trip out of town is due to how good the food is. What's the point of going to a different city if you can't splurge on stuff you never get at home? So on the last day of the conference, we walked to the crèpe place a few blocks from the conference center. I ordered the Norwegian, and the waitress was so great she let me get rid of the tomato and replace it with asparagus. It was quite wonderful to eat a smoked salmon and asparagus crèpe while sitting outside in the April sunshine.

And finally, what is better than a Belgian waffle maker in your hotel lobby? Well, a Texas-shaped Belgian waffle maker, of course.

Austin is a lovely place. I think I'll go back sometime soon.

Rage

The only way to curb it is to spend a little time at the book store. Who stays mad after browsing the titles of Robert Jordan? Knife of Dreams!

Interesting Juxtaposition

Last night I finished reading Saint Patrick of Ireland, by Philip Freeman, and this evening I finished Alexander the Great: Journey to the End of the Earth, by Norman F. Cantor. It wasn't a deliberate attempt at comparison, just the order in which my requested library materials became available. I stumbled across Saint Patrick while actually browsing for the book on Alexander, which wasn't available at the library, and given that it's March, I thought it would be nice to do some further reading. And Alexander is so often mentioned in discussions regarding ancient history, but I recently realized that in spite, or perhaps because, of a very poorly made documentary I watched, I knew nothing about this man designated as "Great."

What struck me most about the Saint Patrick book was that the author really didn't say much about Patrick. By writing a book about him, he presumes to know quite a bit, but most of the book was phrased along the lines of "Patrick might have done _____ during _____ (insert a 50-year range)." It's nice to be honest and approach a subject cautiously, but if halfway through your research you realize you don't have enough substance to write a decent book with a reasonable amount of factual information, do your future readers a favor and give up for something more worthwhile. Don't just fill in the gaps with cheap shots at other historians much more entertaining than yourself. Yes, I am referring to the ever-popular Cahill, who write How the Irish Saved Civilization, because even though the premise of his book was a little off and the Irish didn't exactly "save civilization," it was such an absorbing read, and full of some great trivia. However, the one thing that came across very strong in Freeman's book was the translation of Patrick's Letters and Confession. His fervent zeal for the souls he was converting is refreshing, considering that the Christian church at the time was generally financially driven. For a man to seek an official position in the church not for temporal security or tax exemptions, but as the means of bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ as he knew it to the nation that enslaved him in his youth, well, it's touching and inspiring. His love for the people he converted was so evident in his letters.

Alexander's biography was much more interesting, because the author stuck to facts throughout, only delving into speculation in the final chapter, in which he pondered the numerous ways Alexander had a lasting impact on the world—a legitimate activity, considering Alexander's empire, and six of the seven cities he formed and named after himself, collapsed almost immediately after his death at the young age of thirty-three. What was really cool is that I also just finished watching a six-part documentary on the history of India, and Alexander's conquest effectually ended there.

I'm not so sure about all this reading of ancient history. It's pretty horrible to contemplate that even the "Golden Age" of Classicism celebrated brutality and abuse in numerous forms, or at the least turned a blind eye on appalling social injustice. Men's rights were regularly trampled on, not to mention the fact that women and children had no recognizable rights at all. And they had some seriously gross rituals and customs. I might say something to the effect that it makes me grateful I live in a modern age, which would be unequivocally true, but it also gives me reason to ponder human nature and why societies end up with horrible traditions like the ones I've been reading. No specific answers yet.

Les Mis

Les Miserables is the best musical ever. Not objectively, really, but I think a lot of people would say it is. Its popularity is so overwhelming that even after it has closed multiple times on broadway, the public still loves it. I've been a fan ever since sophomore year of high school, when marching band did a very odd, cut up version of it on the field which, in retrospect, was very bad. I remember the announcer's proud statement that "Attack on Rue Plumet" depicts a famous battle in the French Revolution ... inward bleeding ensues, as that particular song is about a contemplated street robbery by a band of thugs, and the story itself has nothing whatsoever to do with the French Revolution. Well, it served its purpose. I checked out the Original Cast Recording from the library, read the libretto, learned all the real songs, read the unabridged novel the following year, and saw the stage tour the year following that (even in the nosebleeds, I cried buckets when Gavroche died). Beautiful story. Beautiful message. Beautiful, if loose, adaptation to stage.

This is why PBS aired yet another Les Miserables in Concert special recently. I saw the one they did fifteen or so years ago. Dad and I watched some of it last night, and now I need to say my piece so I can get over it.

First of all, I really wonder who was in charge and what they were on when they decided to cast Nick Jonas as Marius. I'm perfectly willing to have an open mind about the so-called talent of former Disney Channel stars, and I'm sure part of it was motivated by a desire to reach a younger, hipper audience, but it was hard to listen to even a few words come out of his mouth without cringing. And Eponine? It's possible she might be half American and half British, but there's no excuse to switch back and forth with the accent. I'm probably really hard on put-on accents. Back in college, a lovely production of "An Ideal Husband" was very nearly spoiled for me because whoever played Sir Robert couldn't do his accent right. But this Eponine had more than just an accent problem going against her. Her delivery was off, big time, and she had a Keira Knightly complex with her lips. The two of them muddling their way through Eponine's death scene got so painful we just skipped to the next song. Cosette was okay, I guess, and I know this is mean spirited, but when the girl who plays the beautiful damsel in distress looks like a blond-haired beaver it's a little distracting.

The big chorus parts were a trainwreck, particularly "One Day More," which is usually one of my favorites. I don't know exactly why it failed so miserably; something was off with the tempo and the different parts couldn't seem to balance right, but it was more than that.

The really puzzling thing was that as spot-off as so many of the parts were, three of the most important parts were spot-on. I've heard a lot of different Jean Valjeans, and most of them were quite good, but none of them were as good as this particular guy. His performance of "Bring Him Home" was practically flawless—such a sonorous voice, with beautiful delivery. And Javert, even though his recitative was a little delayed, had some serious power. He might have been better singing a bass part, but I still enjoyed him. Finally, Lea Salonga, who played Eponine the last time someone tried something like this, was re-cast as Fantine. And yup, she's still just as good as when she was Eponine, Mulan, Miss Saigon, and even Princess Jasmine. I love her.

It really makes me wonder. If Nick Jonas is the future of the stage musical ...

Born to Run

I just finished reading Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall. Wow!

Some people you meet are just really hard core, and this book was all about them. Except for excessive quotations of people dropping the f-bomb, I highly recommend it to everyone.

McDougall tells a meandering story that doesn't really even seem like a story because he goes off on so many tangents, but they all sort of tie together in the end—at a showdown race featuring some of the greatest distance runners of the Western hemisphere, in the middle of nowhere. He's a journalist and writes like a journalist (although his is of the magazine style, which still has creative integrity, as opposed to the newspaper style, which is really an anti-style): sensationalist, hyperbolic, and full of narrative cliché. In spite of it, and even because of it, I was completely absorbed from start to finish.

The major question he wanted answered from the start was really why so many doctors tell people that running is bad for them. He was an athlete who jumped from sport to sport and never encountered any problem until he attempted distance running. In search of a cure for the pain, he began to wonder if running really is so bad, why do some of the healthiest people in the world run so much and never get injured.

What's not to love about a book full of ultra-running anecdotes including barefoot running, vegan diets, beat poetry addicts, crack-pot scientists in search of the key to the reason humans have survived so successfully as a species, and Bushmen hunting parties; centered around a fighter who dropped out of time and memory for a life of solitary running all over the mountains and canyons of southern Mexico, scores of miles away from even a telephone?

It makes me want to go for extreme living. I thought I was pretty hot stuff for having run a marathon, but reading Born to Run has made me realize that a marathon is just ho-hum old news to these people. Last night, motivated by what I had read so far, I went for my very first run in my Vibram five finger toe shoes—I even went without my headphones, and didn't even miss them. People say when you run "barefoot" for the first time your calves get really sore, so I opted to do only a mile. I felt so great after a mile that I didn't want to quit. Alas, it was getting dark and I had told my brother that if I didn't return in less than 15 minutes he had to come looking for me. So I did one extra block and went in, but I'm so excited about those shoes!

And I'm excited to have new stuff to think about as a result of reading the book. Thank you, Heather, for the book recommendation. Stellar, as usual.

Creepy

So last night a friend posted on Facebook that she wanted someone to go kayaking with her today. I was so there.

The unfortunate thing about having pulled off a feat like running a marathon is you start to think you're invincible or something. We took off in the kayaks on the lake. I was a little less than enthusiastic about the particular lake, given that it has a terrible reputation for being polluted and dirty and a dumping ground for all kinds of nasty things—as well as a habitat for alligators and poisonous snakes. However, my person was not actually going to be in the lake.

Well ...

Everything started out fine, I guess. I couldn't figure out why my kayak insisted on veering to the left the entire time, but I just used my buff muscles to keep it in check. It's kind of a windy day, but I love wind, and waves are pretty cool too.

We got pretty far out, and then found a little cove where the water was calm. That was actually when I started to get nervous, because we kept seeing little circles of bubbles, and both of us felt something (not a rock) bang against our oars at some point.

I was glad to be heading back, even though it was against the wind.

A heavy wind combined with a rather large wave, and this clumsy redhead fell into the lake. The middle of it. Nowhere near the shore. Actually, that was probably a good thing, as I didn't want to risk a run-in with any water moccasins or alligators.

Panic at a time like that can kind of paralyze you. The odd thing is I don't usually panic. Unless large bodies of water are involved. I'm steeling myself for the nightmares I'm going to have tonight. Okay, I take that back. I do panic. I remember beginning to panic last week when I thought for a moment a friend and I were stuck in an elevator. But not nearly as much as I panicked when I fell into the lake and started drowning.

I used to be enough of a swimmer to keep myself alive. I also used to float a lot more easily. I'm going to take that latter as proof that my body fat percentage has been drastically reduced.

The bottom line is, there I was in the middle of the lake, drowning. I don't know how one climbs back into a kayak in the middle of a lake, so I did what any reasonable person would do—I screamed for help. But I have one of those voices that don't carry. At all. When I used to want to get the attention of my middle school kids, I'd raise my pitch rather than my volume. You can't raise your pitch when you're drowning in a lake. After two or three attempts to call out to my friend, she turned back and saw that I was in the middle of the lake.

The only thing I could do was grab on to the back of her kayak, leave mine behind, and try to row back to shore. After about 30 minutes (during which I clung to a hook on the back of her kayak, floating on my back with my legs hooked around the back of it and desperately terrified I was either going to swallow some of the nasty lake water or be attacked by an alligator), we got to a place with a ladder up to a little dock. A really nice man gave us a ride back to where we parked.

Just a few more problems. First, I was going into hypothermia. I think. When my friend suggested that, I laughed, but apparently it's not a laughing matter. Even after a very hot shower and some dry clothes, my lips were blue and I couldn't stop shaking. Second problem, the kayak.

When it dumped me out, it also dumped my flip-flops. Can you imagine being a boater, going out onto the lake and seeing a tumped-over kayak and a pair of foam flip-flops? I'd be worried there was a body nearby. So the police were called, and they referred my friend to the Lake Patrol, who very kindly made sure everyone was okay then went out in their boat to fetch the abandoned kayak.

About the time she went to meet them and get it back, I had finally stopped shivering and relaxed enough to have some fruit snacks and watch Spirited Away.

I'm really looking forward to summertime, when the livin' is easy.

I Was A Fan

This morning, a great soul was put to rest, and he will be greatly mourned by his fans.

Because cats know that the only proper feeling a person should have for them is adoration.

My kitty died this morning, so I'm feeling sad. I'm resorting to a flippant blog post to keep the tears back. He was fifteen years old. I usually get really annoyed when people grieve in public over their pets; other people's beloved Fluffies and Barkleys and Harleys don't mean anything to me, and I always had a prideful sense of the superiority of my own pet. But I'm just like everybody else after all.

He hated kids and almost always bit them if they got within a few feet of him. He liked to make really unearthly yowls when he was in a room by himself. He treated my sister like he was her abusive boyfriend (he stalked her, got jealous of her friends, got vengeful when she didn't go to bed when he thought she should, and even threw up in her boyfriend's prom shoe out of spite). He wouldn't come when he was called, but he would come when he heard that characteristic rip of a string cheese being opened. His favorite place to sleep was in a basket of towels, straight out of the dryer. He had a strange thing for Crayola markers, and I will never forget having to explain to my history teacher that my cat ate my poster. In his later years, he became a lap cat, and he kept me company through a lot of graduate school assignments.

And I have enough kitty fur on my clothes to keep me from forgetting him for several years, just in case I ever would.

Connections

I'm feeling a major let-down after running that marathon a while back. It's not the greatest thing for your mental energy to go from running 30+ miles every week to running zero. Or, in the case of this week, eleven. Poor me. I'm so out of shape.

Because I've been out every evening for one thing or another (gosh, this unemployment business is getting busier and busier!), I haven't cooked anything all week. So my best solution was to get my brother to help me make cookies. I thought it would be a good idea to add some marshmallows to an already yummy chocolate-peanut-buttery glob of stuff that's really not healthy.

Unfortunately, marshmallows make cookies go pfthththth ....

In Brother's immortal words, they look like bird turds.

But now we have this fabulous idea to crumble them up and mix them in with some homemade chocolate ice cream.Yes, there is a major reason why exercise must be a vital part of my life.

So, on to another subject. I don't generally think it's a good idea to write blog entries of this type, but I think this one will be okay. I hope it comes across in the spirit of fun and slight self-mockery I intend it to, as opposed to a package of whining. Few things are worse than people whose online presence consists of nothing but a whining pity-party.

First, I ask a question: isn't the whole point of having a closet to have a space where you can put all the stuff you don't want anyone to see?

I don't necessarily have skeletons in my closet, but I do have dirty gym clothes and a disorganized pile of odds and ends. It mystifies certain Rational family members that I don't really like it when people go in there; it has become a very emotional issue of late, as we have been undergoing quite a lot of home maintenance, and the only entrance to the attic is—you guessed it—through the ceiling of my closet.

It also happens that I have a lot of clothes that don't go in the dryer, and I had them hung up to dry on hangers in the closet doorway while I went for a brief trip out of town. Who should come over while I was gone, but our A/C guys? Not only did they remove my clothes in such a way that got them covered with attic mess, but the attic mess was all over the floor—not just in and around the closet.

Aaargh!

While I know it's no-one's particular fault, and no-one is specifically out to get me, I still felt violated. I went into the depths of despair and started feeling like a loser because I don't have a job and I just can't get my cover letter right.

What does not having a job have to do with the maintenance dudes messing up my closet and interrupting the drying of my clothes? Absolutely nothing.

Here's the point of this story. When I told my mother, she totally got it. No long drawn-out attempt to make sense of that connection was even necessary.

She is priceless.

You look so ... so .... stoopud.

I read a comment on a blog one time about Jane Eyre, where the poster said something to the effect of, What's not to like about a story where two ugly people get together?

Indeed.

I'm sure I've written a review of Jane Eyre before, I just don't remember when or where. It might have even been on my blog. Perhaps the old blog that I deleted a few years ago. However, as many reviews as I've already written (in theory), I am going to write another one. Haters should stop reading here, because Jane Eyre is still my favorite book.

It must be admitted that I loved Jane Eyre at the age of fourteen because it was the first literary romance I ever read. I knew nothing of the story—nothing. A local bookstore was closing, and my parents were of the opinion that bookstores and libraries were capital places to spend Family Home Evening. I was perusing, and my mother held up a copy of the book that was to change my life forever. A Puffin Classic, with a purple cover and a picture of a rather gothic-looking mansion and a long-dressed, bonnet-clad girl in front of it. And stormy skies behind. Who could resist?

Well, probably a lot of people could have, but not this budding literary, sentimental mind of mine.

I took it home and proceeded to stay up all night reading it. Thus, the creation of a very bad habit I have yet to break ...

It was just so good. I got caught up in the suspense, not being of that class of people who figure out the ending of a story five minutes in and then just complain of its predictability throughout the rest of it. I suppose the story is pretty predictable, knowing what I know now and having read the book about twelve times.

What does predictability matter, though, when the story is full of such overblown passion? I didn't catch any of the allusions, as I was still largely unaware of them as literary devices in the first place. But it is peppered with talk of the most exciting stories from the Bible, from Greek myth, from Persian literature, and Shakespeare, and ancient history, and science, and folklore. Even at fourteen, I sensed class, even if I couldn't identify it.

So I've discussed in a little too much depth what I thought of it at fourteen. How do I justify cherishing such a passion for this washed-out, over-adapted piece of melodrama?

It's all in the characters, of course. As a reader is meant to, I identify with Jane. Not with being "poor, obscure, plain, and little" because I'm not exactly that, but with feeling a constant battle between what I ought to do and what I want to do. At one point, Rochester said Jane "mutinied against fate"—what an interesting concept. So many stories are built upon the idea of an inescapable fate, and it seems that Charlotte Brontë's entire aim was to prove that there is no such thing, and that fate and religion (or, in Victorian vernacular, "divine providence") are impossible to reconcile. Adherence to the laws of God frees the human soul from any oppressive fate a person might feel bound to.

What a character Rochester is. (On a side note, I am now dying to see the new movie. I used to think Toby Stephens was the most fabulous casting choice anyone could have made, but when I read the part where Jane is at Gateshead and lonely and bored and starts to sketch Rochester's face, she actually described none other than Michael Fassbender. I wonder if he'll be any good.) He's such a moral mess, but he somehow makes you like him anyway, because he never tries to hide the fact that he had a succession of three very wicked relationships with very stupid women; and he saw through the superficial pride and arrogance of people like Blanche Ingram. He always had good intentions—he was just too romantic and impulsive and gregarious to go without. It's interesting how little is said about his youth, etc. but you get the impression that he was very spoiled. He is, and he never forgets it. What I really like the best about him is that he is always willing to admit when he is wrong, and willing to make amends to people when he hurts them. I think his feelings and behavior towards Adèle made an impression on Jane—his insistence that the right thing to do would be to take responsibility for her and do what he could to make her happy and healthy, in spite of his dislike of her and his distaste for the memories she invokes. It is a stark contrast to how Jane's aunt Reed treated her when she was an unwanted, friendless orphan.

As for the much-neglected St. John Rivers, I had some very interesting insights as I read about him this time. I wonder—Jane decided that it would be just as wicked to counterfeit romantic love in order to marry someone for reasons of propriety as it would be to counterfeit marriage in order to have a romantic relationship. And St. John was much more manipulative than Rochester was; he would have married her so she could be part of his own glory and ambition, rather than for the honest belief that she would be happy with him. He used every trick in the book to get her to bend to his will, from playing on her insecurities about her personal appearance, to passive-aggressive silence, to twisting her own words to imply a promise she had not really given, to forceful, almost physically violent entreaty. Compared to him, Rochester really is kind and sweet. People are fascinating. I could imagine meeting people like that.

I could keep going, but I think I've written quite enough for the present. I'm glad, though, that I read it again and could rediscover its genius.

Comfort Books

I blog about comfort books a lot. Today was a comfort book day. I'm not sure why.

While reading my email, I came across Goodreads' Jane Eyre challenge, and I tried to enter it, but it wouldn't let me. Then I started thinking about how much I might really want to see the movie when it comes out next weekend, so I looked it up. Of course it's only limited release, so if I want to see it I will have to go to the Angelika.

And then I realized that it's been years since I read the book. I just love that book. I thought I had moved past it, but I think I will just accept here and now that whenever I start to think I've moved past something, whether it be a personal tendency or behavior, or an infatuation with a book, I rarely truly move on.



Reading Jane Eyre for the twelfth (?: I lost count around nine, so this is an approximation) time is just as tumultuous and intense as it was the first time! I got about 1/3 through and put it down because it's just so overwhelming. It's not the comfort book I really needed.











Now, here is a comfort book:

I Ran a Marathon

on Saturday. The entire thing was on the beach. Literally. It was fun. It took a very. long. time. 26.2 miles is a long way. I will do another one. Probably.

The thing is, running on the sand uses muscles you never knew you had, and whoa did that hurt. The first thing I said, to everyone's amusement, was, "That was hard." I have been known to say clever, witty things every so often, and you'd have thought that running for as many hours as I did, not to mention all the months I spent training and knowing that at one point I would cross the finish line, I could have come up with something more quotable.

I've decided that all the things people say about marathons are true. At some point it stops being physical and becomes mental. Positive thinking is everything. You can transcend physical pain and exhaustion and do the improbable—it just takes lots and lots of built-up willpower.

It doesn't hurt that at the end, I got a free mango orange smoothie and a nice, warm bath. And this time, I had an entourage of five people to cheer for me when I crossed the finish line! Thanks, family. You're wonderful. :)

The Five Thousand Year Leap, by W. Cleon Skousen

I can't remember what I was reading—some sort of political commentary—that recommended this book. It has been sitting on my nightstand for several months, and I finally made it a priority. This, as with previous book reviews I have posted on this blog, is less a book review than a disorganized and arbitrary expression of thoughts that have occurred to me as a result of reading the book.

The political climate of today, as in most previous days, is turbulent. Most people I know are uncomfortable and/or unwilling to discuss political issues. I don't necessarily fault them for that, but I do find it lamentable. I wish we could engage in open and friendly discussion of what is best for our nation, and that the dialogue could be based on reason rather than juvenile name-calling and finger-pointing. It seems to me that too many people are confused by the words tolerance and agreement and can't really seem to emotionally distinguish the two.

I myself am not exactly sure where I fall in the mess of political opinion. There are several people whose opinions and judgment in general I trust implicitly but whose political views I find myself continually reluctant to espouse. I've made a concerted effort over the past several years to become informed, and to avoid jumping to ignorant and simplistic conclusions based on brief and shoddy news coverage. I attended a political rally just to see what it was all about.

After reading Skousen's work, I decided that my loyalty is to the Constitution. I was under the impression that the validity of the Constitution is under attack. Then I began my daily reading one of the online newspapers I subscribe to, and the very first article I came across rendered my decision obsolete, because everyone has his/her own definition of what the Constitution actually says, and I am not really seeing the proponents of either sides of controversial issues claiming that the Constitution has lost its value and authority. Just about everyone would, if asked, claim loyalty to the Constitution. Or maybe they wouldn't.

Regardless of all that, I do know that if we are ignorant of the political issues that surround us (and it seems to me we are generally heading in a direction to become less so), we are destined to be ruled by a less than savory government.

By examining the thinkers and writers who influenced the Founding Fathers, Skousen attempts to re-clarify many misunderstood or misrepresented ideas and principles set forth in the Constitution. I wouldn't say, like Glenn Beck has (by the way, I have neutral thoughts about Glenn Beck; I neither like nor dislike him), that every American citizen should read this particular book, but every American citizen should, somehow, become knowledgeable about the creation and history of the American government.

One person's take, no matter how well-researched and unmotivated by political agenda, is not enough to be content with. Therefore, I will be reading more. Me, read? What a novel concept.

And finally, I firmly believe that a nation of people who do not, individually and collectively, take responsibility for themselves and their families is never going to have a healthy political scene.

So let's all be responsible, okay?

Can You Hear It?

It is a fact that my nephews are the cutest and smartest little boys on the planet. This has been proven.

Anyway, my sister-in-law was telling me about a book that she read to the oldest nephew (he's four). She forgot the title of it and had to go back and look it up, but it is called Can You Hear It? and is published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had the local library system send it to me, and it is so great!

This book is arranged around thirteen pieces of classical music that come on a CD inserted in the front cover of the book; the text is questions and prompts about the music and the accompanying art prints. It is didactic in nature, designed to invite small children to listen carefully to the music and make connections between music and art.

Generally, books like this get on my nerves—I mean the ones that are specifically designed to be used as a lesson. Not only are they usually inane and patronizing, they are also badly written and boring.

Not so with Can You Hear It? The music choices were both sophisticated and kid-friendly, and the art was, well, from the Met. I wasn't overly impressed with the Met when I was actually there, with the exception of the Modern exhibit (I really like Marc Chagall!), but it must have been because I was tired from sleeping in a crooked bed and walking all over Manhattan in the snow. That, and I had some lingering annoyance from the pigeons who kept trying to steal my hot dog on the steps of the museum.

All that aside, the art was good. Much like the music, it was sophisticated but still accessible to children.

Some people have expressed the opinion that people who like children's books lack maturity. I find the opposite to be true.

It is my opinion that most of the greatest stuff (art, music, universal truth) is accessible to children. Some of it is created specifically for them. I feel very strongly against watering things down for the little ones, and the book just confirmed my opinion. Expose them to great stuff in its simplicity, and they will appreciate it.

Proof? My four-year-old nephew loved it. But like I said before, he's pretty great himself.

Civilization

I just finished reading How the Irish Saved Civilization. Remember when this book was the trendy thing, back in 1995? I do. Well, there's a reason for that—it's a great book.

History isn't exactly my strong point. I'm rather conceptual, and I have trouble remembering specifics with any precision. This is why I delve into the fluffier, more popular history books. You know, the ones that read like a novel.

I have probably read more nonfiction over the past six months than I have the rest of my life put together (not including mandatory reading in college). What I've noticed is that repetition and multiple perspectives are the key to understanding. The lights keep coming on brighter and brighter for me, at least regarding the Ancient World.

Thomas Cahill's work is so lyrically written it ought to be read out loud. He writes a nice, pretty, short little book full of summarization and generality, and most people regard the premise to be, while not outright incorrect, at least skewed.

That's fair enough, I guess. A major portion of the book is focused on Saint Patrick, whose life and work I was under the impression had been rather unreliably documented. Cahill either knows more than most historians, or he makes more assumptions. But either way, I found Patrick, or Patricius, fascinating to read about, from his Romanized Celtic childhood, to his enslavement in Ireland, his subsequent miraculous escape and return home, and finally his sincere and heartfelt mission to bring Christianity to the foreign, disorganized people who had stunted his education and ruined his youth.

And this compact history of Ireland helped me form a much clearer picture of what happened in Western Europe during both the Classical Age and the Middle Ages, because he didn't just focus on Ireland. Before even mentioning Ireland, he described the events that led to the Fall of Rome, and followed that up with the type of culture the Romans had created before they fell—succinctly described through the life and works of Augustine of Hippo.

I knew there were several parallels between our own society and that of Ancient Rome, but I didn't realize how many parallels. This was apparent in reading the introductory chapter, before any of the author's concluding commentary. The other thing that occurred to me, though I don't think for the first time, is that throughout history, it is interesting what happens when a society is materially and politically stable enough to become literate. After a while, it grows stagnant, and most of the art becomes mere cheap, shadowy imitation of the former great work. Cahill uses Ausonius and Virgil as examples. And I was reminded of how much I prefer Virgil over Homer, as odd as that may sound. Note to self: if I ever decide to publish anything, I will need to make sure I'm not copying Twain or Hawthorne. Or Jonathan Edwards (hehe). Virgil was, according to Cahill, the only person to successfully write a national epic. Or something along that line. Greece had its Homer, and England Shakespeare—but apparently they just sort of happened. Virgil's Aeneid was more contrived, and by all tradition should not have been successful. But it was. Maybe this is why we always talk about the elusive "Great American Novel."

At any rate, the book was both entertaining and enlightening, as long as the reader understands that the big picture is focused on Ireland and its people as the heroes. I don't see anything wrong with that, as Cahill never claims to be giving a clinical and objective examination of such an interesting era of our past.

It's like the book I read a few months ago, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. The author was obviously in love with Genghis Khan, even though he has gone down in history books for centuries as one of the cruelest, barbaric of villains. It isn't fair to expect someone to write a book about a person or group of people in history without having an intense love and favoritism for them. That much was obvious when I contrasted that book with one I came across about Attila the Hun. Attila's author felt no passion for him, and the parts I managed to get through were singularly boring.

I'd be happy to read many other works that glorify specific cultures and people, and look forward to the rest of my reading life being peppered with other such colorful histories.

Showaholic

I just got back from a 3 1/2 day trip to New York. While there, Sis and I went to four Broadway shows. At one point, I would have thought that excessive in the extreme. Now, I am determined that if I ever do go back to New York, I will see as many shows as possible. Museums are cool, as are skyscrapers and monuments—but I did not realize what an experience it is to attend a quality stage production.

This post really should have pictures. I might try to add some later, if Sis doesn't mind my stealing them. She's the photographer.

We went to The Fantasticks the night we arrived. Indeed. Good, clean, Shakespearean-derived, family-friendly fun. There is a reason it is the longest running show ever. But it was a good thing that was the first one, because it would have seemed tame and lame compared to the others. It was on a tiny stage, had a total of 10 people performing (8 actors and 2 musicians), and was a cute, clever little show. As long as you're willing to embrace the cheesiness, which I always am when it comes to musicals.

Because of Sis's fear of over-scheduling ourselves, we didn't plan on Phantom of the Opera. That was my idea, and she was not so excited about it, actually. We went to the ticket booth the day of and purchased half-priced tickets, but the seats were amazing. What I learned:

* Even if you pay four times as much for the good seats, you will enjoy the show ten times more than if you do nosebleeds. I will never do nosebleeds again.

* Sometimes the original cast isn't as good as later players. I can't imagine seeing and hearing a better group of singers/actors/performers than ours. I would not have believed such good singing was even possible had I not heard it myself—and not just from the leads. Let's be honest. Raoul has always gotten on my nerves a little, in spite of my traditional fascination for the clean-cut, honest-to-goodness nice guy. He's such a pretty boy. I didn't know that someone could actually give him a presence and make him real. This was masterfully done by Sean McLaughlin. He was rather wonderful. And the character of Madame Giry doesn't come through in the recording at all, so I was pleasantly surprised by Cristin J. Hubbard, who didn't sing too much but whose intensity complemented that of the leads. Carlotta was good; Sis pointed out that in this version she was actually a good singer. Additionally, André and Firmin were splendid. I loved the scenes with all the note-reading. They're kind of stupid if you just listen to them, but watching them performed is fun. And, finally, Hugh Panaro as the Phantom and Sara Jean Ford as Christine. Wow! Just ... wow. Looking at the press photos you would never expect that kind of talent. Again, I didn't even know that kind of talent existed.

* Musical theater is just as much about acting as it is singing. Duh, but true. This goes back to my previous statement about getting a good seat. When you can actually see the expressions on the faces of the players, and when the players are good, it becomes an experience beyond just a good show.

* Nothing really good in life can be packaged up and sold. The experience of a good show is one you have to have first-hand, in person. If you haven't, you can't say you like or dislike them.

* I think that Broadway shows are different from Hollywood productions in that they actually do find the serious talent, as opposed to the people with the most notoriety.

So even though Sis has seen the movie too many times, and we've regularly listened to the original cast recording since our early teens and have all the songs memorized, that show was above and beyond expectation.

Our third show was Spiderman. It hasn't officially opened yet; we got tickets to the pre-show, so there was a possibility of some of the LED display screens overheating and turning off, as well as other lighting and technical glitches. There is also all the hype about the injured crew members and the death of one of the people in charge. But our viewing went without a perceptible hiccup.

The reason you see Spiderman is for everything but plot. The music, particularly the Arachne songs, was great. Actually, the Arachne songs were heavenly. She was first introduced with beautiful acrobats swinging from the tops of the rafters, weaving gold banners as they swung lower and lower towards the floor. I was surprised at that, considering that they were composed by Bono and The Edge. Not that I don't think they're good, but I didn't anticipate their coming up with that sort of a sound.

The money that went into the show was obvious—display screens and set changes and stunt characters flying all over the theater. My expectation for Spiderman was high, and it didn't disappoint. Some of the show didn't quite come together as well as it might have, but I still liked it. Oh, and I just found out, from Sis telling me what was on Wikipedia, that they're still working on the ending. That makes sense, then, why it was a little lame.

And even though it won't be the same, I'm excited for when the recording is released.

The last show we saw was Wicked. Sis was particularly desirous to experience this one, as touring musicals don't make it to where she lives. I saw the tour a while back. I wrote about it on this blog, too. That was fun, but again, it was not the same as seeing the real thing. I don't have too much to say about it, other than that I liked it. A lot. We agreed that we liked our Elphaba, but not as much as we like Idina Menzel. Ours let the fervor of her delivery get in the way of her singing, particularly during the first half. A minor detail. Glinda was just lovely. I think, also, that there is a big difference between the show at home and when it's on tour, not just because of the talent factor, but the company's familiarity with the sounds of their own stage. The singing comes across more clear, easy to understand, and vibrant.

Yay Broadway! Yay New York!

The Best is in the Beginning?

We watched the latest Wallace and Gromit short this evening. I thought it was pretty lame. And I'm even a fan of their uber-silly alien comic.

Maybe I get uncomfortable with stories where the chubby girl is the villain.

Mostly, though, it has caused me to think about artists, how some of them do their best work first, and some develop into their role as creators of classic works.

Which is better, I wonder?

A lot of people say Keats is only as famous as he is because his life was cut so tragically short and his work showed more the promise of genius than actual genius.

And then, there is James Joyce, whose Finnegan's Wake is an acknowledged work of genius that absolutely no-one understands.

Suffice it to say that my favorite claymation short remains A Close Shave.

"What's wrong with Wendsleydale?"

Zero

I finished reading Zero: the biography of a dangerous idea this morning. It was a great read. Among other things, I learned that:

* The Babylonians' number system was base 60, and their notation obviously made sense to them, but not to me, because 1 and 60 were apparently represented by the same character.

* It was the Hindus who originally used the base-10 system that we call the Arabic numerals generally used today.

* Aristotle is to blame for fear of the number zero. His philosophy discounted the existence of nothing, or void. The Greeks were extremely afraid of nonexistence, to the point that it seeped into Christianity--which is why, when Dionysius created the Gregorian calendar, later revised by the Venerable Bede, he started with the year 1 instead of the year 0. Now we are forever confused, and just about everyone celebrated the turn of the millennium a year too early. Consequently, he also calculated Christ's birth about four years off.

* The Mayans had a much more interesting calendar. 18 months of 20 days: 0-19. Could you imagine writing zero as the date on your paper as a student?

* Pythagoras and his cult had people put to death for supposing the existence of irrational numbers, and numbers and shapes were interchangeable to the Greeks.

* The Romans' biggest contribution to mathematics was the murder of Archimedes. And they were the ones who didn't admit the existence of negative numbers. Ouch.

* Even Descartes, who formed the Cartesian plane, didn't admit negative numbers existed.

* Pascal used probability to justify having faith in God.

* A whole bunch of stuff about black holes and event horizons and wormhole theory and string theory that I understood well enough to understand it but not well enough to explain it.

And finally, in Appendix A, it is proven that

* Winston Churchill was a carrot.

"Try this; your taste buds will dance and sing!"

This one is for Dad and Janeheiress, who can't see me eating anything without asking what it is.

There are many great side effects to being a serious runner, not the least of which is the necessity of eating more food. The more I run, the more I need to eat, but I'm trying to find things I like that are actually good for me. I love food. Here is a list of particularly yummy stuff:

1. Belgian waffles
2. Hummus
3. Chocolate Cream of Wheat
4. Fresh green beans
5. Fresh spinach
6. Red bell pepper
7. Pesto
8. Tortellini
9. Avocado
10. Pineapple
11. Strawberry chocolate protein smoothies

I had items 5 - 8 together for lunch today, with a side of item 4. This afternoon I'll go for another run, but today is a short day, so only 5 miles.

Life is very, very good.

James Horner

My sister and I have lots of favorite phrases, but one of them now is, "back when James Horner used to be good." Because he's pretty much become the king of recycling.

I used some of my Christmas money to buy the soundtrack to The New World. I just love that movie. Love it. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of cinema ever. Terence Malick was very daring to make a movie like that, knowing full well that most people would hate it because it's "slow." To the average viewer, I guess slow equals boring. I happen to disagree.

Even though most of the music is directly copied from Braveheart, some of it is "just, like, you know, really good" (another favorite phrase). There's a part in the movie with just a simple little piano melody going on in the background. I was sure it would be on the soundtrack, in spite of not hearing it in any of the clips I caught on iTunes.

Sure enough, the part I wanted wasn't there.

I don't want to complain too much, because I really do like the soundtrack. It's nice.

But why is it that I always fall in love with the music that isn't included in the OST? Is it me? Or is it the recording companies?