Books I think are worth your time

Wasting time is a specialty of mine...except when it comes to books and short stories. Don't waste your time on LAME authors (hint hint hint: DH LAWRENCE), or on novels by authors who later get so experimental and obscure that you wonder if they are dealing with dementia, or on poetry that is so abstruse that you feel dumb when reading it.


This is a partial list of reading that will not waste your time.  The links are included, in case you want to lick them up at Amazon. post your reviews / comments about the titles on the list, if you like!

"CLASSICS"...whatever that term means nowadays.... Some you will recognize, some may be new. If you haven't read the titles you recognize - don't. Read the titles you have no idea about and be surprised :)

Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
Dombey & Son - Charles Dickens
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neal Hurston
Death Comes for the Archbishop  - Willa Cather

Titles that belong on the "classics" list: 
Cane - Jean Toomer
The Woman Warrior - Maxine Hong Kingston
HIS Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman


Will be classics as soon as the literary geniuses of the world realize that works in translation don't suck and belong in the so-called Literary Canon:


The Dictionary of the Khazars - Milorad Pavich (male of female edition are the same, save for one paragraph) 
My Name Is Red - Orhan Pamuk



Happy Reading!

This week's obsessive listening list:

Manic Street Preachers: "A Design for Life" 

Crowded House: "The World Where you Live" 

Oasis:  "D'you Know What I Mean"

Mansun:  "Disgusting", "Wide Open Space", "Tax Loss", "Serotonin"

The Smiths:  "Headmaster Ritual" 

Blur:  "There's No Other Way" 

XTC:  "Senses Working Over-time"

Echo & the Bunnymen:  "The Killing Moon", "The Cutter" 

Nick Kershaw:  "Wouldn't It Be Good" 

Siouxie & the Banshee:  "Cities In Dust"

That, my friends, is a play list. Now it needs a title...suggestions? 

Go? Don't go? I don't know.

The inept interpreter of one of my favorites books (aka Peter Jackson ak PJ: Primo Jerk) is directing The Hobbit Movie. My intestines are all cranky just thinking about how he and his screenplay writers are going to defile Tolkien's work. I made a decision not to go to the movie opening in 2012, because his interpretation of The Lord of the Rings was shameful. It's not what he got wrong, it's what he changed in the story to pander to Hollywood and viewers who may not have read LOTR.  As a matter of course, people who hadn't read LOTR had asked me what the big deal was all about. I tried to explain that the character subtleties and deep camaraderie that forged and maintained the fellowship were lost in the film, and that the subplot of the dangers of material pride over creation (which can be traced to Feanor in the Silmarillion, by the way) was lacking, so all one got was a movie about good vs. evil.

So why didn't people get it?  I suggest the cause is that script writing suffered at the expense of  creating a visual spectacle. Note to PJ: it's called dialogue, PJ...that's what moves the story - not your sweeping aerial shots of New Zealand and faux fight scenes and redaction of the text in pivotal parts. Loser. I understand that textual fidelity is difficult, but really PJ, Tolkien laid it out there, and all you had to do was follow it. Don't take my word for it, read the Guardian article; they're Brits, they take Tolkien seriously ... I hope. The article calls what PJ is doing with The Hobbit it 'tinkering' with the story; I call it tragic, in the Aristotelian sense that it evokes fear (I'm afraid to go) and pity (what gets done to Prof Tolkien's genius is truly pitiful). 

My mind was made up not to go and then, this rumour slips out by none other than Ian McKellan (Gandlaf).

If the delectable Mr Cumberbatch is the voice of Smaug, that is no reason to go...or is it?

What to do, what to do....

Reminding myself: "they are still young...they are still young"

The problem: a double sink -clogged

The place: summer housing for women ages 18 -20, and one anomalous 47 year old

The question: how long has the sink been like that? 

The response: since this morning

The clarifying question: is anyone coming to fix it?

The response:  maintenance doesn't work on weekends, so we have to wait until Monday. We did try looking everywhere for a plunger".

>>insert the needle scratching off the record sound here<<<

A suggestion for a solution: I have a car, so I'll go get some Liquid Plumber(TM). 

A counter-solution: isn't that expensive and  really toxic?.

So, what did I learn from this? The younger ladies in the house may not know how to shut of lights, or know what is / is not recyclable, but they do know a caustic product when it is mentioned as a solution to a problem.

I'm too old for this.

Ecstasy on a spoon

Previously on this blog I had mentioned the raisin / peanut butter heaven on a spoon.  I now offer, for your peanut butter pallet, the greatest pairing on a spoon:  **Nutella and **Teddie Peanut Butter.




 
Dear GOD!!!! What took me so long??? Was I blinded by the easy availability of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and a childhood fascination with them? Have I lost my PB creativity? Why am I so late to the part?  Well, better late than never, I suppose, and now I'm a Nutella+Teddy PB devotee. Now the challenge will be how to make it portable....


Don't be a wimp: try it and enjoy it, and then create clever with recipes that include both PB an Nutella and send them to me, dammit. ( I have no domestic skills in the culinary arts, and could use the help...I could also use some help with GRE Math prep, if anyone is interested)
**Nutella is a registered TM of Nutella USA / Ferrara SRL 
 **Teddie is a registered TM of Leavitt Corp USA:
I don't own these images, so call off the lawyers.

Apocolist Now

I have a list of things that will remain after society collapses under the baptism by thermonuclear device (and here, the Sun may actually count as a device...I mean really, it is going to happen...just not this week) or by virulent strains of highly transmittable diseases. This week's list entry:

                                                                       

(images: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/plants/)

Lots of chatter on the web about a 2007 study that found that as CO2 levels increase, urushoil (that nasty oil that makes me itch till I've removed several layers of flesh) becomes more potent...which may explain why as I kid I got a rash twice, and as an adult, I just look at any of the above a break out. I don't have the interest in looking into the validity of the research, or the article, but I will take the Wall Stree Journal's word for it.

This is a great 2 page info sheet, lovingly prepared by the CDC (aka your tax $...so order it and feel like that the  35% deduction from your check is doing something for you). Complete info on how to deal is on the CDC / NIOSH site, as well.