And it's in... Belgium.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Shackleton Speaks Encore
So, we were river swimming the other day, Shackleton and I. We had a big long stretch of Cotton Brook to ourselves and I was giving him a gentle push downstream in our inner tube when I noticed a mother duck crossing into the river ahead of us with eight ducklings behind her.
"Shack look at the ducks!"
[nothing.]
"Do you see them?"
"Shhh."
"Why?"
"They might attack."
I'm not making that up and he actually was worried about a duck attack, analogizing from the mother bear situation.
----
I was reminded about that episode when he just announced that, for today, he is not going to use his hands for anything.
"Shack look at the ducks!"
[nothing.]
"Do you see them?"
"Shhh."
"Why?"
"They might attack."
I'm not making that up and he actually was worried about a duck attack, analogizing from the mother bear situation.
----
I was reminded about that episode when he just announced that, for today, he is not going to use his hands for anything.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Since Not Enough Has Been Said About Fifty Shades...
I read once that the whole world over, romance stories are for the ladies and the porn is for the gents. I guess E.L. James should, maybe, get a little credit for the mash-up in her Fifty Shades of Grey tsunami. Apparently, she gave the people, the lady people at least, what they want.
But isn't that appalling? Not the mash-up or the porn so much as that this 10th-grade-girl-fantasist illiteracy is what the reading public wants, or will accept?
I finally downloaded the free sample of the first book on my Kindle. I was pretty sure I would hate it, and that really doesn't quite cover it. Granted, I didn't read the whole series. (Wild horses, wild horses hopped up on meth, could not have dragged me through that). I saw enough in the first few chapters to know that I was in for cardboard characters and every weary romance cliche ever typed: steel gray eyes, breathlessness, bodices (or their 21st century equivalent) shredded. Granted, I didn't get to the sex. I lost interest way before that.
I see in the Wikipedia article about this phenomenon (linked above) that some people who should know better have said (I am paraphrasing) that it is at least a breezy page turner. It is not. It's just bad writing, the way porno is bad film. "Did you call a plumber ma'am?" "Oh yes, I did. As you can see I didn't quite finish my shower." Barf.
It looks like what criticism there has been has come from feminists disturbed by "Anastasia Steele's" (that name is red flag number one) willingness to be sexually dominated. Oh, please. The real horror is how awful the writing is and that no one seems too much bothered by that.
People Who Know have been saying for a while now, at least since the middle of the Harry Potter series (which got sloppier as it went), that it doesn't matter how badly expressed a story may be: only the story matters. Here's proof. And it makes me sick at heart.
Not everything has to be Shakespeare, of course, but even when we're out for a good time, we ought to hold the purveyors of that good time to high standards. I mean, give me Maeve Binchy or Colleen McCullough - give me something. Can't we, and shouldn't we, demand story AND at least moderately skillful conveyance thereof?
I know I am lining myself up with those nose in the air types that Cole Porter once so brilliantly mocked:
Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose.
Anything goes.
But the fact that this crap - which should never have found its way off E.L. James' pillow - is at the top of all the best seller lists is truly depressing to me.
Sigh. I know. Why should I be surprised? I've been on this earth and among my fellow creatures for 47 years. I wonder if Anastasia Steele and Christian Gray attend lawnmower races?
Thank you for listening. I am lowering my nose, taking my wet hankie, and leaving the heath. If someone tries to sell me a copy of Fifty Shades on the way down, though, I'm going to give him or her what for.
But isn't that appalling? Not the mash-up or the porn so much as that this 10th-grade-girl-fantasist illiteracy is what the reading public wants, or will accept?
I finally downloaded the free sample of the first book on my Kindle. I was pretty sure I would hate it, and that really doesn't quite cover it. Granted, I didn't read the whole series. (Wild horses, wild horses hopped up on meth, could not have dragged me through that). I saw enough in the first few chapters to know that I was in for cardboard characters and every weary romance cliche ever typed: steel gray eyes, breathlessness, bodices (or their 21st century equivalent) shredded. Granted, I didn't get to the sex. I lost interest way before that.
I see in the Wikipedia article about this phenomenon (linked above) that some people who should know better have said (I am paraphrasing) that it is at least a breezy page turner. It is not. It's just bad writing, the way porno is bad film. "Did you call a plumber ma'am?" "Oh yes, I did. As you can see I didn't quite finish my shower." Barf.
It looks like what criticism there has been has come from feminists disturbed by "Anastasia Steele's" (that name is red flag number one) willingness to be sexually dominated. Oh, please. The real horror is how awful the writing is and that no one seems too much bothered by that.
People Who Know have been saying for a while now, at least since the middle of the Harry Potter series (which got sloppier as it went), that it doesn't matter how badly expressed a story may be: only the story matters. Here's proof. And it makes me sick at heart.
Not everything has to be Shakespeare, of course, but even when we're out for a good time, we ought to hold the purveyors of that good time to high standards. I mean, give me Maeve Binchy or Colleen McCullough - give me something. Can't we, and shouldn't we, demand story AND at least moderately skillful conveyance thereof?
I know I am lining myself up with those nose in the air types that Cole Porter once so brilliantly mocked:
Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose.
Anything goes.
But the fact that this crap - which should never have found its way off E.L. James' pillow - is at the top of all the best seller lists is truly depressing to me.
Sigh. I know. Why should I be surprised? I've been on this earth and among my fellow creatures for 47 years. I wonder if Anastasia Steele and Christian Gray attend lawnmower races?
Thank you for listening. I am lowering my nose, taking my wet hankie, and leaving the heath. If someone tries to sell me a copy of Fifty Shades on the way down, though, I'm going to give him or her what for.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Guerilla Mouse Attack Survival Story, And Another Tip
I paid $4.95 at 10 last night to watch The Artist on pay per view. (That's the silent film about the affair between two actors on opposite sides of the talkies divide that won the best picture Oscar this year). At around 11, as I was trying to catch my breath, so full of admiration was I, Maisy hopped up and started barking at the curtain. I knew this meant she had seen a mouse. The new house has a mouse issue. It's a regular Tom and Jerry situation. In my little office there, I found a pile of dog food neatly piled beneath a corner of a bookcase, not twelve inches from my chair. I opened the door to the porch one night and a mouse ran away from the front door. That is a bold mouse. I mean, yes, he ran away, but he was obviously planning on coming through the front door.
All right - I did't actually see the mouse that interrupted The Artist or I might not have survived to write about it here. It was more a psychological attack, as far as it went. But since it was late and I couldn't risk being physically attacked by the mouse, as the mother of school-aged children, I fled to bed with a plan to get the DVD from Netflix or something eventually. I am sure you will be cheered to know that this frightening tale has a happy ending. When I turned the TV on this AM, incredibly, The Artist was still on and it at exactly the point in the movie where I had retreated to my bedroom. LOVED it. What fetching stars! What beautiful photography! The cars! A terrier! We were late for Shack's guitar lesson but he and I were transfixed. See it if you can.
Notes from Twitter
I figured out yesterday how to do a "hastag" topic on Twitter. My proposal was for "#cutofftitles"
E.g., "The Davinci Cod, The Sound and the Fur, The Good Ear, Papa's Got a Bra" You get the idea. In doesn't seem to have caught on - the theory is anybody can jump in on these topics. I am still hoping for a few more contributors so if you have a good cut off title, please share. Bon weekend!
All right - I did't actually see the mouse that interrupted The Artist or I might not have survived to write about it here. It was more a psychological attack, as far as it went. But since it was late and I couldn't risk being physically attacked by the mouse, as the mother of school-aged children, I fled to bed with a plan to get the DVD from Netflix or something eventually. I am sure you will be cheered to know that this frightening tale has a happy ending. When I turned the TV on this AM, incredibly, The Artist was still on and it at exactly the point in the movie where I had retreated to my bedroom. LOVED it. What fetching stars! What beautiful photography! The cars! A terrier! We were late for Shack's guitar lesson but he and I were transfixed. See it if you can.
Notes from Twitter
I figured out yesterday how to do a "hastag" topic on Twitter. My proposal was for "#cutofftitles"
E.g., "The Davinci Cod, The Sound and the Fur, The Good Ear, Papa's Got a Bra" You get the idea. In doesn't seem to have caught on - the theory is anybody can jump in on these topics. I am still hoping for a few more contributors so if you have a good cut off title, please share. Bon weekend!
Saturday, June 23, 2012
What Happened to Saturday Night?
I got wondering about that as I sat down here (after dinner on Saturday) with nothing better to tell than that I have been reading Paradise Lost aloud to myself in stolen moments all weekend and that I am looking forward to another hit of Milton at bedtime. That would be 10 PM. If I make it that far. Also, Milton will be my only company...
Ooo la la!
I wonder what my 23-year-old self would make of my current existence?
I got a little consolation from Yeats. (Better and better isn't it?) Not for me these days those "dying generations at their song." I'm off for "monuments of unaging intellect": e.g. Milton.
Really, it could be worse.
Yeats tonight also helped a little with my continuing literary rejections. See: "Against Unworthy Praise."
It starts like this:
O HEART, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause,
Even Yeats wanted applause! He felt shabby about it and manages in this poem to talk himself around. Luckily for him, and the English-reading world, he had a muse who got booed offstage and didn't apparently care.
[...] what her dreaming gave
Earned slander, ingratitude,
From self-same dolt and knave;
Aye, and worse wrong than these.
Yet she, singing upon her road,
Half lion, half child, is at peace.
You tell 'em Bill!
Not that I think of literary agents who have had said "no thanks" to me as dolts and knaves. (Well, maybe the ones who include helpful tips on how to write in their canned responses). I'll leave that to the judgment of future generations.
Wink wink.
Ooo la la!
I wonder what my 23-year-old self would make of my current existence?
I got a little consolation from Yeats. (Better and better isn't it?) Not for me these days those "dying generations at their song." I'm off for "monuments of unaging intellect": e.g. Milton.
Really, it could be worse.
Yeats tonight also helped a little with my continuing literary rejections. See: "Against Unworthy Praise."
It starts like this:
O HEART, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause,
Even Yeats wanted applause! He felt shabby about it and manages in this poem to talk himself around. Luckily for him, and the English-reading world, he had a muse who got booed offstage and didn't apparently care.
[...] what her dreaming gave
Earned slander, ingratitude,
From self-same dolt and knave;
Aye, and worse wrong than these.
Yet she, singing upon her road,
Half lion, half child, is at peace.
You tell 'em Bill!
Not that I think of literary agents who have had said "no thanks" to me as dolts and knaves. (Well, maybe the ones who include helpful tips on how to write in their canned responses). I'll leave that to the judgment of future generations.
Wink wink.
Friday, June 08, 2012
Sore Backs, Sunrise, Sunset
We have dragged the washer and dryer (the ones that sat in the barn of the Last House for twelve years) up three flights of stairs here at the new house, plugged them in (this was harder than it sounds since a new standard in dryer plugs came into being during these 12 years); we have just fetched the Understudy's new mattress and box spring from the lowest-end of big box stores (tied to the top of the van, natch) and hauled them up the same three flights. And that is that. No more. Next time I move it is going to be feet first and in a box that someone else is carrying.
In other news, we attended two graduations this week. Shack finished fifth grade and elementary school (yes, there is a ceremony for that these days). The Understudy finished eighth grade and will be starting high school next year. Cue ceremony. This is a once in a lifetime congruence in our little family, with both kids moving on to the next level at school. Sigh. They will be participating in a neighborhood production of Fiddler on the Roof next week. Everytime I hear "Sunrise, Sunset" I burst into tears.
On a lighter note, school, the learning part of it at least, has basically been over for a week. Today, the Understudy and her class took a bus to an amusement park two hours away. She returned home at 7:30 PM sun burnt and cranky. Shack and his classmates had a picnic and then swam the afternoon away at the local indoor swimming pool. My favorite moment of the day came when I picked him up from the elementary school, for the last time ever.
Me: How was swimming?
Shack: It was great! I invented a new game, "handcuffed swimming,"
Sometimes I wish he would never change.
If you have kids and haven't cried about it lately, here's one for you.
Bon weekend.
In other news, we attended two graduations this week. Shack finished fifth grade and elementary school (yes, there is a ceremony for that these days). The Understudy finished eighth grade and will be starting high school next year. Cue ceremony. This is a once in a lifetime congruence in our little family, with both kids moving on to the next level at school. Sigh. They will be participating in a neighborhood production of Fiddler on the Roof next week. Everytime I hear "Sunrise, Sunset" I burst into tears.
On a lighter note, school, the learning part of it at least, has basically been over for a week. Today, the Understudy and her class took a bus to an amusement park two hours away. She returned home at 7:30 PM sun burnt and cranky. Shack and his classmates had a picnic and then swam the afternoon away at the local indoor swimming pool. My favorite moment of the day came when I picked him up from the elementary school, for the last time ever.
Me: How was swimming?
Shack: It was great! I invented a new game, "handcuffed swimming,"
Sometimes I wish he would never change.
If you have kids and haven't cried about it lately, here's one for you.
Bon weekend.
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