Richardderus thread #18 for 2011

Man Reading by artist Lessandra Grimley...*sigh*

THIS thread is for NEW books read, those published from 2009 to the present.




The Books off the Shelf thread for 2011 is up, though sort of nekkid. My goal there is now 30 books from my shelves read and donated, shared, or generally gotten out of the house.




This thread is for any book I review that was published in 2008 or before, whether I own the book or not, and for whatever reason isn't a book I will get off the shelves.




Review #1: ...thread 3
Review #2: thread 4
Review #3: thread 5
Reviews 4 & 5: thread 6
Reviews 6-8: thread 7
Reviews 9 & 10: thread 8
Reviews 11-13: thread 9
Reviews 14-17: thread 10
Reviews 18-20: thread 11
Reviews 21-24: thread 12
Review 25: thread 13
Reviews 26 & 27: thread 14
Reviews 28-32: thread 15
Reviews 34 & 35: thread 16
Reviews 36 & 37: thread 17

Books are reviewed in post:

42. Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter...#125.

41. Hurricane Story...#86.

40. Love at Absolute Zero...#70.

39. In Winter's Shadow...#58.

38. Kidnapping the Lorax...#50.

Hi Richard - I like the picture:)

Hope your life is getting better.

But WHAT is he reading, one wonders?

Woot - no.4 in? Shocking for me! Oh and sunny and cool? Sulk. Nearly 30 today - tooooo hot for me. So leaves are falling and it feels like mid-summer. V weird...

Hugs anyway! X

Edit to add - no fair! I got gazzumped from no.4 spot whilst writing... Sulk :(

Once I get caught up with my studies, since I finally got my textbook, the day before yesterday, I would love some good reading.

>5 BekkaJo: Our high tomorrow? 14. *gloat*

>4 laytonwoman3rd: Something really fat since it's propped on his feet. I choose to fantasize imagine that it's Islandia or The Magic Mountain.

>3 calm: Thanks calm! It's very significantly better, since it's no longer 30!! (jabjabdigdig at Bekka)

>6 ChristopherHall: Welcome Christopher, nice to see a fresh face in the thread! I take it that the textbook in question is Religions of the World, since that's your first catalogued book. That's a fascinating subject to me. Are you at all inclined to read fiction? Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is a really interesting story version of the life of the Buddha, if you haven't read it. Short, tightly constructed, and very involving.

*sticks tongue out - yes, I know, thoroughly childish. Don't care, too hot*

I was in London on Wednesday in a suit - a SUIT. Yuk. When I stepped off the plane into the evening in Jersey (about 7.30pm) it was still 23. Extra YUK.

Still - watching three nude crazy happy 3 1/2 year olds pelt around in a garden being hosed down (whilst drinking wine no less - me not the kids before anyone comments), takes the edge off :)

Well, since that is also the topic at hand, that sounds like a great read. I will have to visit Barnes and see if I can pick it up. I would love to begin a library of books Ive read.

Stopping by to say Hello. I've enjoyed lurking on your other thread, your threads are always interesting!

Nice pic, sexy guy.

I read Siddhartha in ... 9th? grade and was immoderately moved by it.

I'm not seeing the reading man and feel totally left out. It might be the filters here at work and I'll be able to view it at home.

Always nice to see a new thread from you, what will be in the first message.?.?.
Again a nice picture Richard! All that and he is reading too :-)

Got you starred! Hope you are feeling much better.

*starred* and glad to hear you are up and rarin' to go! *smooch*

Starred your 18th thread for the year. :)

*hands out Jameson to everyone in the new thread*

It pays to arrive early :)

*takes glass*
Ah, just what the day prescribed.
Cheers to the new thread

Hey I am just glad I get to chime in before message #50!! Glad you are revived dear Richard. : )

Hello there, Richard. *Hugs*

Morning RD! I like the New Thread! And the new picture. Hunks Read too! Have a great weekend.

>9 BekkaJo: Oh Bekka...just because it's 12.8 and sunshiney here right now is no reason to go all bratty-ratty! *heeheehee* Dunno why wine for a 3-1/2-yr-old would be a bad thing. *I* drank wine at 3-1/2 and I'm just fine. *hic*

>10 ChristopherHall: Are you familiar with the LibraryThing collections feature? It lets you gather and categorize your books in various different ways. If you're interested and need help learning about LT's many features, feel free to ask...everyone around here is friendly!

>11 ChelleBearss: Howdy do, Chelle! Glad to see you again, Lurkerincess!

>12 karenmarie: Half-clothed men reading books are almost always going to catch my interest. Reading in bed with Mr. Man is one thing I really do miss about him.

>13 mamzel: Oh dear! Maybe your firewall won't let jpegs from unknown sources come through. I hope you see it when you get home!

>14 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita! He really dresses the place up nice, doesn't that reading man?

>15 ronincats: I am a lot more chipper now, and thanks...that dose of plague was horrible.

>16 LauraBrook: Laura! How nice to see you! *smooch*

>17 BookAngel_a: Yeah, isn't it sad? Last year I was more popular. Folks don't love me anymore. *snivel*

>18 ty1997: *clink* How are you, sweetness? Back from the wilds of Asia?

>19 katelisim: *clink* Cheers, my dear!

>20 Berly: *smooch* Hello love...much, much better over here, and glad to see you're out and about, too!

>21 Ape: Stephen! *hugs* Doing okay?

>22 msf59: Well, *WE* read, so it's obviously true that hunks read, right MarK?

Doing okay, yeah, sure. Persistent cough is becoming worrisome though...

Persistent how long? What kind of cough, dry and painful? Wet and heavy? Throat or chest cough? Details.

Over a week (maybe 8-9 days, I've lost count,) was painful for the first few days, accompanied with head cold symptoms for 2, and then I almost "got rid of it" for a day or two. Now it's back, and it's a wet and mucus-y chest cough. If it continues a few more days I'll have to assume it's pneumonia/bronchitis and have it checked out, I suppose.

Try this: Take 3 aspirin (not tylenol or anything else), drink *shudder* hot tea and honey (not sugar) and go to bed. Every 2-3 hours, more tea; every second tea, 3 more aspirin. Not gone by Monday, time for the doc.

Thanks, Dr. Dear. I have very similar symptoms, (and I haven't been anywhere near Stephen). Went to the doctor early on, when it was just a wretched sore throat that I thought might be strep--it wasn't. I'm not going back unless they put me on a slab and tote me. But I do like the sound of your prescription.

All I have is Ibuprofen! :(

>31 laytonwoman3rd: It works well for me, because the aspirin is a vasodilator, the tea is a mild stimulant, and honey has a lot of good carbs to rev your system up. Plus drinking that much tea means piddling a lot, which flushes virus out of your system, which reduces the load on the immune system.

>32 Ape: It pays to spend 99c and get a sample-sized bottle of real aspirin. It really is the only good pain reliever. I wish I could take it for pain, but it makes gout worse.

Hi, Richard. I've starred your 18th thread. Glad you're feeling better.

>34 tymfos: Hi Terri! Welcome!

While at the vet today, I met a young man with a male akita...poor dog weighed only 28kg! He should have weighed at least 45kg. He was rescued by the ASPCA and the young man adopted him today. The akita liked me and was perfectly willing to follow me home. Such a sweet dog! And the young man who adopted him gets my vote for kindest heart going. Akitas aren't easy companions to have in crowded places. I thought of my treasured puppydog as I left there...how can anyone be unkind to a dog? How can anyone starve a fellow creature to death? What is wrong with people?

I just heard this morning of the thousands of pets abandoned each year, just left on the street. People seem to excuse themselves by assuming that dogs and cats 'know' how to survive on a city street or in the wild, but most domestic animals don't have the experience to do that. I don't understand how people can abandon a pet - how hard is it to take it to a shelter?

25 > I was back, but now I'm away again. Finishing up a few days holiday visiting Dublin and tracing my roots in West Ireland, headed to the UK for work.

My first day interning at the library. . . they found two puppies abandoned in the parking lot by the loading area. Both were blind and deaf. I don't remember which breed they were, but I guess it's not a rare condition. The poor things. The guys that found them brought them to a no-kill shelter, which sent us a nice letter back with an adorable picture.

Nice decor!

Hi, Richard ~ Lovely image to see first thing in the door! Hope to have time to follow your thread #18 more regularly going forward.

Re leaving animals at shelters, I just finished Dog On It and the scene where Chet was left at the shelter and what he and the other dogs there endured was the only part of the book I hated. Richard, you know the scene I mean? I was crying before it was over and wanted to run out and adopt every dog (okay, and cat) (and bird) left at every shelter in the county. If I ever win the lottery...

I wasn't familiar with the breed Akita - just looked it up - gorgeous dogs, and I too cannot understand could mistreat or abandon such creatures. My greyhound is a rescue, though thankfully he does not seem to have been ill treated previously - and the greyhound re-homing agency I got him from tried to persuade me to take a second one as companion. I'd have loved to, and my house and garden are big enough, but the difficulty of fitting them both in a car for transport, or finding friends willing to look after two big dogs not just one when I'm on holiday, made me regretfully decline. When I retire I think I'll become one of those mad dog ladies with a house full of them!

>36 ffortsa: I remember my mother wanting to drop a cat we had beside a dumpster behind a restaurant because "it'll know how to survive." I was so hysterical she finally took it to the shelter.

>37 ty1997: Oh, how wonderful! I am really really jealous, I mean glad, that you're getting to do this! One August before I die, I want to rent a house that's in Co Mayo called Cong or Clang or something. Use it as a base and drive all over the country. Spend six weeks just swanning about being fat and American. (I'm good at both those things.) Enjoy yourself!

>38 katelisim: SOmetimes I really hate humans.

>39 mckait: Ain't it?

>40 Storeetllr: I have completely blocked this scene from my memory. I don't have the smallest frisson of recognition, I am DELIGHTED to say! *peers portentously over glasses* And if we are to remain on speaking terms, you will refrain from reminding me.

>41 gennyt: I totally support this life-choice, and shall join you in it.

One of my neighbors was walking her gigantic German shepherd this afternoon, and was attacked by a different neighbor's unrestrained dog. Her boy defended her, and they came into our yard shaken but unhurt, thank goodness. I called the cops, took them to the offending owner's house, and can honestly say I feel sorry for that pooch. He's cooped up in a little yard with two other dogs, spends all his time pacing because he's never walked or taken for some play-time, and so finally he snapped.

At the very least I expect the owner will get a citation. But really I'd like to see the poor animal placed in a more appropriate home. What a shitty rotten way to treat an animal. The dog's fed and watered, I don't know about regular health care, but letting him go stir crazy is a crime! Well, it should be, anyway. *grumble* people

Mea culpa, Richard. I will forget it completely and never mention it again. (And be pleased if I can forget it completely, really.)

Chiming in to join the ranks of those dumbfounded and disgusted by people who can mistreat animals (and children).
Oh, and my best friend used to have an Akita (his girlfriend got it in the breakup - but we don't hate her or anything (they're still friends)); what a beautiful - if slightly high-strung - dog. And very loving and lovable.
Oh, and anyone with a dog who needs more exercise is welcome to borrow Charlie for an afternoon - our border collie gets more running-around time than ever with a 3-year-old hot on her tracks all day.

people suck.. ( reference to animal abuse above)
I have seen things that would make you unswallow..

It is sad how some people treat and look at animals...

As a kid, both my brother and I, tried numerous times to smuggle in a found dog. Sadly we were never allowed to keep them and had to bring them to the shelter.

My daughter asked me if we could have a dog the other day - to which I responded, 'Honey, where would we put it?' (we have 4 people in a tiny house). She cocked her head to one side and thought about it for a while then said, 'Maybe we'd better not' and pottered off. If a kid of three can understand the simple concept that dogs need space, why can't grown ups? Sigh.

She did come back later talking about fish though...

some dog need less space than you might think, actually

Review: 38 of seventy-five

Title: KIDNAPPING THE LORAX

Author: PATRICIA K. LICHEN

Rating: 3* of five

The Book Report: US Secretary of the Interior Lacey Thurman is set to make a speech at a timber-industry gathering in the Benson Hotel. Plans are known to be afoot for a green group, Planet Now, to stink-bomb the conference in protest. Security is tight, a Federal official can't be left to the tender mercies of the protesters, right? Well...someone forgot that the conference has been on the Secretary's schedule for some time and therefore gave ill-wishers a chance to plant a mole in the hotel. Walden, Fern, and Tracker (not their real names) are impatient with the tomfoolery of stink-bombing a conference...what good will that do?...but they aren't above using the hijinks for their higher-risk, and they hope more effective, plan: Kidnap the Secretary and sensitize her to the plight of the forests the US Government manages for the benefit of the people...who contribute to political campaigns, THOSE people.

The plan succeeds. Sort of. The Secretary, called "The Lorax" throughout the book, is whisked in her pretty blue suit and her sensible heels to the middle of the forest, subjected to more exercise than any Federal official has ever been required to perform in modern history, and generally made cognizant of the wonders of the forest and its web of life. She and her female kidnapper, Maggie aka Fern, form a Stockholm-Syndrome-style bond. Maggie even loses a finger in her quest to re-educate this Beltway-dwelling politico on the proper place of humankind on Earth.

What ending do you suspect is coming down the pike, based on those facts? Sentimental silliness about Gaia-the-mother, bone-crushing sadness about idealism gone wrong? Nuh-uh. Lichen makes the ending real, the stakes being so high. She takes the easy, expected route, and then she says...Reality and Art can't avoid each other forever. Here it is. Live with it.

My Review: I got this book from Ms. Lichen as a Goodreads First Read. I was expecting something less professionally edited, something with a more homemade feel. I was pleasantly surprised at the level of writing ability shown in the book, and was actually involved in the story for quite a bit of the way. I was completely irritated and annoyed that the men were characterized, to use the word loosely, in such a one-dimensional and condescending way. The men's ultimate fate had a curled-lip, "feminist" feel of unsympathetic gynocentrism. As I am not at all a fan of the notion, palpably incorrect, that Woman is Superior, this factor popped me out of the story on many occasions.

But then there is the story itself: Most people can't imagine spending a night away from their gadgets, still less a night without electricity, hot running water, 911 access, a mattress...all of which middle-aged Lorax/Lacey is forced to do, reluctantly, with poor grace, but ultimately with a dawning sense of connection to the world, the *actual* world, around her. She is us...Lorax, thou art but shard of our fracturing pot. And this was for me the heart of the book, the point of the exercise: Sit in your comfy chair and read about this poor, poor lady and her travails. Sneaking in behind the story comes the grappling hook of the plight of the only world we have, and the almost desperate need of those of us like Lacey, who live in our cocoons made of pleasure and ease, to be awakened before the nightmare becomes the only reality we have.

It's nicely done. I'd recommend it to you with more enthusiasm if I didn't have the big attitudinal reservation. But I still recommend it.

it actually sounds like a nice shenanigans filled read!

>51 mckait: I suspect you'll like it. Being one of those unsympathetic gynocentrists and all. :-P~~~

As I am not at all a fan of the notion, palpably incorrect, that Woman is Superior Personally I think that Dog is Superior... or at least has more sense than most humans, male or female. But that does sound like quite an interesting book!

>53 gennyt: No argument from me, Genny. Dog trumps Man every time.

I'm watching "Ancient Aliens" and rolling my eyes. It's fascinating, but the idea of spacemen coming to Earth and doing secret stuff seems like a real load of hooey. Perchance my belief in time travel (side to side, not back and forth) sounds like hooey too. Maybe there *is* a god.

*bwaaaaahaaaahaaaaaaaa*

Animals generally trump humans. They don't dress up their bad behavior with fancy rationales. I struggle reading books about humans mistreating animals, or animals being hurt in any way; it's just impossible to accept.

I'm actually having a "conversation" with Cassie the cat right now. She kind of chirps at me, and if I make a noise back, she tilts her head to one side and "replies". Don't worry, I'm not going crazy! It's just very funny; she obviously is intent on communicating something to me beyond the standard "I'm hungry" and "I'm thirsty" or "play with me, I'm bored."

Stella periodically does that same thing. She decides she needs to say something, and she makes these clearly intentional sounds while looking into my eyes. I always agree with her, just seems safest.

My lovely greyhound Ty has just vomited on the living room carpet - the only room on the ground floor which has carpet, anywhere else would have been much easier to clean up. I don't think I like this particular form of conversation!

Review: 39 of seventy-five

Title: IN WINTER'S SHADOW

Author: GILLIAN BRADSHAW

Rating: 4* of five

The Book Report: The last days of Camelot as narrated by Guinevere. Arthur lost in battle, Gawain and Mordred at daggers drawn over the death of Gawain's beloved son, death comes for all in the epic Battle of Camelot...Guinevere dies to the world by becoming a nun, and later the abbess of her nunnery. In this book, Guinevere's rupture with Arthur comes because she dishonorably attempts to rid the kingdom of horrible Mordred, not because she dallies with Lancelot. Frankly, I like this version a whole lot better because it makes internal sense to me, being the way I would expect Guinevere to have behaved based on her established character. Guinevere then reflects on the crash-and-burn of her hopes and Arthur's to save some small corner of the world for Roman knowledge and enlightenment. She sees, at the very end of her life, the Irish monastic ark that preserves a tiny fragment of Classical culture for the ungrateful future, and rests herself easy at last.

My Review: This is a reissue of the 1981 YA title that formed part of Bradshaw's first major commercial success. I got the book as part of the Goodreads First Reads program.

Bradshaw uses the Britonized spellings of the well-known characters' names: Gwynhwyfar, Medraut, Gwalchmai, none of which I felt comfortable with until about halfway through the book. She has a real gift for the characterization of these people, unlike some Arthurian follow-ons. She makes each of the people who come forward in the narrative into a very real presence. It's a lot of work to make a character consistent internally, but she does it, and despite the fact that she didn't have to because the characters are already so well-known.

This is book three of a trilogy. Frankly, it shouldn't matter much if you read them in order because I assume you're at least passingly familiar with the legend on which the books are based. Still, in order, the books are Hawk of May as narrated by the eponymous Gwalchmai or Gawain, being the story of his rebellion against his terrible mom Morgan le Fay/Morgawse, and service to her detested bastard half-brother Arthur; Kingdom of Summer, the tale of Gawain's penance for seducing the daughter of a king he was on Arthur's embassy to, and the death of his rotten mother at the hands of his big bully brother; finally this book.

I like the sound of that one. Time I read something Arthurian again,

>57 gennyt: Oh dear. Must the toast always fall buttered side down? Yes, it must. Likewise the child/dog will urp upon the surface most unpleasant to clean.

>59 gennyt: It's well worth it!

Nice!
Agreed, dogs and most other animals trump most humans I know..
to warm here and getting warmer.

ick

Nice of you not to use the "c" word, even though I knew you meant the "c" creature, dearest.

Richard- Good review, (as usual) of IN WINTER'S SHADOW It sounds like a good one. I think I asked you this over on my thread but have you been watching the current season of "Breaking Bad"? This Sunday is the finale and it's been freakin' fantastic. Best show of TV!

I think Bryan Cranston is nothing short of brilliant in the show! Right now I'm happily ensconced in front of BBC America, "Top Gear" and then History's "Ancient Aliens"...good TV abounds in the modern world.

Ancient Aliens is hilarious. One of the better comedies on TV right now.

you are welcome dearest... as long as you know that is what I meant...

:)

Oh boy oh boy oh boy tonight's "Ancient Aliens" is called Aliens and the Founding Fathers!!!

THOMAS JEFFERSON reported a Close Encounter!

Giorgio Tsoukalos has *the*best*hair* on Planet Earth today.

Ancient Greeks and Romans believed in extraterrestrials because they couldn't imagine there were so many wasted opportunities.

Benjamin Franklin wrote about extraterrestrials existing in Poor Richard's Almanack!

Okay. George Washington reported...that is to say ADMITTED...that he saw and consulted with little green men during the Valley Forge winter.

No. Not kidding. Documented fact that he admitted as much.

All y'all birthers yippin' about Obama being Indonesian just shut the hell up.

Review: 40 of seventy-five

Title: LOVE AT ABSOLUTE ZERO

Author: CHRISTOPHER MEEKS

Rating: 2* of five

The Book Report: Gunnar Gunderson, physicist and dweeb, looks for love and finds it.

My Review: "It is impossible not to like Gunnar Gunderson," says critic Sam Sattler of Book Chase (pulled directly from the back cover of the book). I am here to tell you that it is indeed possible, nay incumbent upon, the critical reader to dislike dull, nerdly, clueless Gunnar. A Candide manqué, a feebly drawn Bertie Wooster sans Jeeves, Gunnar elicited in me no strong desires. He made me laugh exactly once: The author describes Gunnar in the throes of his errrmmm crisis of completion as seeing A CHECKERBOARD! I split my sides. A checkerboard! Fountains of feathers, explosions of fireworks from deep oceans of perfume, celestial travel...I've read some fun and funny descriptions of what folks see when aaahhhmmm arriving at the station after the choo-choo ride, but this one...!

But most of the book is just a litany of Gunnar's ghastly gormlessness. His own mother can't be bothered most of the time. His father's death brings forth in Gunnar only the desire to see if he's got a hospital gown on in the deathbed. The charming lassie who ends up, inexplicably to me, responding to this wet mass of protein with favor got the strongest response of anyone in the whole book from me: "NOOO! Save yourself, you're too good for him!"

Which, come to think of it, was also my reaction to my daughter's first husband. Are all srtraight women this sucky at choosing men?

"Are all srtraight women this sucky at choosing men?" Speaking only for myself, you understand, but NO. I chose a pretty darn fine one.

Reading a library book called Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter when I was struck by a thought: I am a pretty visually sophisticated person, and I have a decent grasp of literary forms up to and including metaphor and simile. So what does it say when I come across a description of a painting, one that I have seen in the flesh mind you, and have to set the book down and think through the author's verbal portrait of the painting in question?

You're the third person I know who has trounced Love at Absolute Zero.....with those odds, i'll give it a pass!

Are all straight women this sucky at choosing men? Dunno, we seem to be wired that way.....some just get lucky.

;-}

Narrow field?

Very narrow field if one has high standards!
;-)

I myownself put it down to the ghastly odds of finding a compatible soul across species boundaries.

I tend to agree with you on that, Richard...for myownself as well

;-P

Admit I'm underwhelmed by the people who tell me I can't afford to have high standards...

I haven't heard that talk in a long time. Sheesh.

Popping in to say hello after my time away, Rdear.

>58 richardderus: I loved Hawk of may and went on to the rest of the Trilogy some years ago. Glad to see it's back in print. Gives you some sense of the "nasty short and brutish" side of warfare among men with swords mounted on horseback

Hallo RD - hugs and smooches from your own Horrible. Have a fantastic weekend.

"nasty short and brutish" ? pass.....

I love me some Top Gear! Just got my hands on a book by each of the boys, and am looking forward to checking out their writing. Have you ever read any of their stuff, Richard? Would be happy to share the love...

Are all straight women this sucky at choosing men?

I hope so. :)

Review: 41 of seventy-five

Title: HURRICANE STORY

Author: JENNIFER SHAW

Rating: 5* of five

The Book Report: Very, very pregnant photographer, husband, dogs, and cats, all escape New Orleans barely ahead of Hurrican Katrina. Son is delivered, family is displaced, much of New Orleans is destroyed, to our lasting national shame, and family returns to rebuild and resume living in the place they love and call home. The story isn't new, and it's not the first time anyone anywhere has told it in this words-and-images fashion.

My Review: But no one else anywhere has Ms. Shaw's extraordinary and amazing eye; her terse prose style, so beautifully suited to both story and images; or her quite astounding luck in being published by this amazing press, Chin Music.

The book itself is worthy of being purchased simply to put on your front room's most prominent table. It is gorgeous. Bound in real cloth (my dog is still sniffing it, she's never encountered real cloth binding before) which is printed (let me assure you that this technique is faaar from simple, and its failure rate is significant; the technical demands on the printer, the designer, and the person making the color separations are quite significant; and the aesthetic that demanded this *exactly*right* production is quite rarefied) with an eerie, atmospheric image of great subtlety, the object itself begins its acquaintance with you by offering an uneasy glimpse into the mind of its makers. This will not be a candy-coated, literal, easy-to-process exercise in the journalism of indignance.

Opening the book, one reads the perfectly serviceable prose of two brief essays, one by Rob Walker, a former New Orleanian, and one by Ms. Shaw. Now we are mise en scene (oh, the badness of the pun), and the next page-flip takes you to spread 01: "We left in the dark of night." That's all she says in words. The photo facing the page bears a moment of painful clarity, expressed in a simple image of a red toy truck's tailgate retreating down a highly textured, shining road. The dark world closing in claustrophobically around this single spot of life, vividly red, the beautiful shining cobblestone-like texture of the road, the smoothness of the chiaroscuro (used properly, readers of Louise Penny's latest book!)...well, I could wax rhapsodic until you beg for mercy, but I won't. No point. Has to be experienced.

The use of toys and models to create the photo story is delightful. If I see one more image of people on a roof waving at the news copter while their house gives way beneath them, I shall scream blue murder. I avoid picture books of 9/11 for the same reason: I can't bear it. I've seen it! I've seen it! Stop smacking me! I won't look! But Shaw doesn't smack me. She wallops me ten minutes after I've seen her images. Dolls, with their awful starey eyes, usually make me uneasy. They still do here, but they are meant to, and they are deployed in simple, uncontrived story-telling, not some absurd, doomed effort to be archly Commenting On Life. The documentary "Marwencol" has much the same effect on me, and the same affect on its medium, as Shaw's dolls do.

And I must mention one thing in particular: Shaw's son is represented here by the King Cake baby. It's a nice, quiet, unpretentious symbol of her son's heritage. To someone without New Orleans knowledge, it's invisible and unnecessary to appreciate the story; to someone who knows what the symbol is, it's poignant and fitting.

Love New Orleans or loathe it, care about personal stories or not, this beautiful object should be in your home if for no other reason than to demonstrate quietly that you have excellent aesthetic taste and a real love for the object we call book. And the best part? It's only $18.

Buy one. Tell me I'm wrong. I dare you.

What a wonderful review!

Chelle, it's a wonderful book! I cannot say it often enough: Amazon sells this for $12, and there is every reason to buy it and very few excuses not to. *makes shooing motion* Go! Go! Buy!

fantastic review.. sounds like one of those must haves....
very nice rd ! I am probably going to add it to my shuddering wish list .. sigh.
Off to thumb you r review :)

Another powerfully excellent review, RD. A thumb and a *smooch* for you!

>89 mckait: It really and truly is, loveycuddles. I'd send it to you, except I won't. Ever, d'you hear?! Mineminemine!! *smooch*

>90 LauraBrook: Thank you, Laura! I appreciate the compliment. Now, go buy one.

Well, you did it, you tool, you. You caused me to fill an Amazon basket for the second time this month. (Naturally one cannot simply order a $12.00 item---one must accumulate enough to qualify for free shipping.) The Chin Music Press books are irresistible. No doubt about it.

#92 laytonwoman3rd - I personally have Amazon Prime and have had it for probably 6-7 years now. For $79/year, you get "free" shipping and 2nd day delivery. Almost instant gratification. We buy books, DVDs, CDs, cat food, clothing, gardening stuff, Gevalia coffee, sheets and other linens, shoes, soup, etc. We debated getting the Panasonic plasma TV from Amazon, and except for a fluke at HHGregg, would have done so and saved $150 shipping and about the same in sales tax. We can purchase something and have it sent to anybody we want to for the same "free" shipping. For me personally it prevents me doing exactly what you did - fill an Amazon basket to get the free shipping. My smallest purchase was a "NEW CAR CASSETTE FOR IPOD ZUNE MP3 CD TAPE DECK ADAPTOR" for $2.96, no shipping. Largest was daughter's Canon camera and accessories. Can hardly be beat.

Great review, RD. Tactile appreciation of books is of critical importance to moi - I love your description of it.

It's good to see another Hurricane Story lover! For anyone who hasn't had the experience, run....don't walk to the nearest copy. I'm glad you did a review, Sweetie...I'm still too awestruck...One thumb from moi.

;-}

hmm
I don't even blame you ... not a bit.
Amazon has it for 12 little dollars.
:)

I want Wonderstruck, too..

>92 laytonwoman3rd: *evil Muttley laugh* *checks portfolio for Amazon profit spike*

>93 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible! *smooch* And Linda3rd, that Prime purchase also includes access to Amazon's streaming video world. It is so so worth it.

>94 jdthloue: Oh don't I know it, Jude?! I can't be amazed enough. I really *get* how it could be impossible to write a review. *smooch* and thanks for the thumb!

>95 mckait: So you're ordering them both? Good!

Richard - wonderful reviews, as always:)

I've got the Bradshaw trilogy ... somewhere ... might be worth digging it out.

Not both.. sigh..
Very broke due to the job search etc..

I am looking forward to this afternoon..
Dan @ work, Cory @ Amy's and just the furkids and me
hanging out with some salami/ cheese for dinner :)

I hope to do some serious reading before Cory gets home.
but then.. the blasted laptop is so near to hand.......

What an unusual-sounding book, Richard. Thanks for posting your excellent review about it. You've definitely piqued my curiosity.

Fabulous review of Hurricane Story, Richard. It's now on the top of my wish list, and I'll look for it this week.

#93, 96 Is everybody here working for the Dark Lord????

*hangs a rope of garlic bulbs on the door*





I seriously doubt that my shipping charges for non-book items add up to $79.00 per year on Amazon or anywhere else. I'm still quite fond of doing business locally whenever possible. And streaming video isn't a consideration here with our sluggish internet speed. But I will keep your recommendations in mind.

>97 calm: Thank you, calm! I'd give the Bradshaws a nudge up the pile were I you. Something very appealing baout them, 30 years on.

>98 mckait: Serious reading?! Oh wait...you mean devote serious time to reading farb, right?

>99 jnwelch: Very, very unusual, Joe, and really worth your investment. It's not terribly often that I am so smitten by the physicality of a book, so I run and jump and holler when I am. But you noticed that, I'm sure.

>100 kidzdoc: ... ... ... DARRYL came to my little-bitty thread...?

*faints*

>101 laytonwoman3rd: I am a huge fan of Amazon because the nearest real bookstore, ie not a chain but with a decent selection of new books, is in Manhattan. That's 40min away. Nuh-uh. So I trade my soul for convenience and cheapness. Were it otherwise, I would trade with a local establishment in preference to a faceless corporate entity. More's the pity, it ain't so I don't. *sigh*

Oh, I have that problem with book-buying too, Richard. I just don't shop for much else at the Big A Mart, because so far, I can still do most other business with local independent companies, or at least retailers I've known and trusted for a long time.

Yeah, I spend most of my miscellaneous-merch money locally. I ordered three little Vornado space heaters from Amazon a year or so ago, and they were SO much cheaper ($60 each instead of $99 each) that even shipping made no difference (not Prime material). But honest and truly, the movie thing is a huge huge boon to me with my fast internet connection and 23-in plasma screen monitor. Then I got a Roku. *bliss*

I am regularly brought up short by the amazing and fabulous world we live in today...I have access to Library of Congress materials online, reference librarians at the New York Public Library who do wonderful work just because I ask them nicely in an email, can watch most of the PBS shows I enjoy online at 3a, can buy any-damn-thing I want from my desk chair, chat with people I have learned to care for solely through the electronic world we all created around our guiding passion for books...it's just such a gift, such a delight.

#104 You are absolutely right, and it's nice to hear someone say something positive about the world we're living in for a change. I'm kind of tired of the "things have never been this bad before" mantra.

LOL Things have always never been this bad before! Reading history offers such a valuable perspective on living life in the present. Rotten politicians? HA! Look at the 18th century's horrors! Mean religious people? HA! Try the Spanish Inquisition! Unhealthy eating habits? HA! Try starvation from famine at any time! Scary scary vaccines? HA! Try losing every other child to some disease or another!

Much as I want things to be more in line with my desires, I recognize that this is a wonderful moment of astonishing opportunity to be happy, healthy, and free from want. And also a horrible moment of lack, hunger, and horrifying repression.

Same As It Ever Was. Same As It Always Will Be.

The internet is indeed wonderful. Anything that can regularly present me with things that make me go "!?!?!?" is definitely a good thing. Like this.

I hear limitless free pornography is nice as well, or possibly ruinous to all future generations. I'm not really sure.

By the way, I'm seriously impressed. A 5-star review? But you NEVER do that.

Marvelous review, Richard.

>106 richardderus:: Too right. When my mother bewailed the state of things in general, I would point out that we no longer hang, draw, and quarter...oth, the despicable activity involving animals fighting animals still goes on. Hmmm...now that I think that over a bit, perhaps the old punishments had a place after alll...

I am unapologetic about my love for Amazon. It brings things
to my door that cost far less than things found locally, including books.
Used books and new are cheaper for me. Perhaps it is petty of me, but
while I feel bad for the plight of local workers, I don't shed any tears for them.
Goddess knows that no one shed any for the twenty thousand plus of my
Ohio River neighbors when we suffered at the hands of steel makers who
fled the country. No one lined up to help, it didn't make the national news
when every other house for blocks around was up for sale or taken by banks.

So, I will buy from Amazon, enjoy my Prime, and my streaming video, in the
home we only just managed to hang onto when the airlines too, decided to
let the ex steelworkers who were their main source of employees go, and
face an uncertain future yet again.

Just my 2 cents. :)

What makes you think I am defensive..I certainly am not.

I was simply stating my own opinion.
I do think your *soothing noises * comment is rather condescending.....

I was simply stating my own opinion. As was I.

So in your opinion, I was being defensive?
Fair enough.. in my opinion, you continue to be condescending.

Rdear, congrats on the Hot Review.

Lovely review of Hurricane Story, Richard

Wow! I go away for a day and something happens that I can't follow. Sorry y'all disagreed about something.

Stephen, you're right, I seldom give out 5-star reviews. That should tell you something about the impact this book had on me!

Gail, Terri, thank you for the congratulations! I really really liked this book. I found it so bewitching as to cause me to dream some of its images.

Morning, RD! I, too, live a minimum of 40 minutes from the closest bookstores. Amazon, the local PTA thrift stores, Habitat for Humanity store, and Bookmooch are all invaluable sources of books for me. They're all more convenient and I get books less expensively than I would otherwise.

Have a super day! I'm off to read a bit more, drink a bit more decaf coffee, then snuggle back into bed until about 10 or so.

words words and words.. you know how it is..
have fun today!

Beautiful, beautiful day spent at a local historical site called Rock Hall. So relaxing! Warm, sunny day, perfect for driving, and when we got there, the grounds were pleasant and the house really interesting.

Most fun for me: The Antiguan sugar planter who built the place is an ancestor of mine. Josiah Martin's second son left Long Island for North Carolina, and ended up in Virginia, thence westward to Kentucky, and finally to Texas after four generations.

All I ever knew before was the man's name and his dates, the fact that he imported sugar through New York, and was a Loyalist in the Revolution. Many gaps filled in, and that was loads of fun...AND a complete surprise!

Wow... what a great way to learn more about an ancestor. Sure beats Ancestry.com!
It looks gorgeous.. glad you had a chance to do this today.
:)

http://longisland.about.com/od/landmarksattractions/ss/Rock-Hall-Museum_5.htm

Interesting story...and yeah.. I think I could live there..
:)

So cool about your trip to Rock Hall, Richard.

>121 mckait: Yeah, totally!

>122 jadebird: Thanks! What a surprise...no idea the place existed before today. How I wish that I'd belonged to this branch of the family. 600 acres within 20mi of New York City?! *swoon*

I travel a lot of a living. Amazon delivers just about anything I want, while I'm away, so it's waiting there for me when I get home. From books to kitchen utensils to bulk grocery to entertainment centers. Definitely worth my $79.

That said, I very much try to support local businesses when I am home. But sometimes ordering via Amazon and having them deliver to my door is much more convenient than slogging out in the Chicago winter to find the store that has what I want/need.

Review: 42 of seventy-five

Title: JOAN MITCHELL: Lady Painter

Author: PATRICIA ALBERS

Rating: 3.9* of five

The Book Report: This is a life, not a biography, in the sense that it offers more of a rounded picture of Joan Mitchell than a rigorous analysis of her milieu and her position and her place in history. Mitchell, a hard-drinking, hard-loving, hard broad, is famous if you know who she is, and invisible if you don't. I suspect that would make her really, really mad. Mitchell was a daughter of privilege, wealthy dermatologist father and novelist/poet/editor (Marion Sobel Mitchell) mother, who felt unloved and grew into a figure-skating champ, then an early Abstract Expressionist/Action painter, then the wife of serial monogamist/avant garde publisher Barney Rosset (an old friend of ours), whose life-work running Grove Press was all due to Joan telling him about her friend's failing little publishing company, and finally ending her days as an expatriated eminence grise of feminist art in America. How she hated that! The expatriating part she loved, living in a small French village where Monet had honed his Impressionist chops; the feminist part? Loathed it from the depths of her gin-soaked soul. She felt no kinship with Woman. She felt no unmixed feeling, frankly, on any subject. She was a difficult, dangerous friend and a worse enemy. She was deeply disagreeable, arguing to no great purpose about anything with anyone, and seldom offering any kind of apology for the havoc she caused in the lives and worlds of those around her.

She died of cancer at sixty-seven, after drinking, smoking, and boinking enough for three dozen misspent youths. Barney was sincerely distraught. I suspect he never got over her. He talked about her quite a lot...the other four wives, not so much, unless there was some child or grandchild related reason to do so. I don't imagine anyone else had an unmixed response.

Her work was...it remains...well...go here to see Field for Skyes, which she painted to release the grief of losing her beloved Skye terrier Bertie. It's an IMMENSE piece of art, but even in the inkydinky Internet form, it's lovely. In person, Mitchell paintings are all about paint...the effects of different techniques of putting paint onto a painting are crucially important to the visual experience of the painting. In photos, that's simply not possible to reproduce. But enough survives to give you a chance to experience Mitchell's passion. Like it or don't, and I don't much, Mitchell's work is strong and intense and accomplished. What it isn't, and what I suspect she knew it wasn't, is great.


Field for Skyes, Hirshhorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institution

My Review: Books about art are, unless they're big and all in color and lushly produced, like safe sex: enough of the real thing survives that you're inclined to continue, but it ain't like the real damn thing, and no amount of skill or wishing or forcing yourself to believe is gonna make it so.

Patricia Albers does a decent job conveying the chaos and the bleakness of Mitchell's life. She does a lot less well at giving any hint as to why the woman didn't kill herself in existential crisis...does ANYthing make Mitchell happy? I couldn't say...but the inevitable moment when Albers must speak to us, her readers, about paintings she cannot show us in a 400+-page mostly text book, points up this book's major failing. Here, from p249, is Albers describing Mitchell's painting Ladybug, painted per Albers very shortly after the death of Mitchell's beloved singer Billie Holiday in 1959:
"Luscious garden hues -- cadmium red, celadon, cobalt blue, ultramarine, slurry brown, carmine, ochre, acid raspberry -- splash and streak through this luminous nine-foot-wide oil. Some colors optically blend. Others pop from the picture plane, thanks in part to the painter's astute use of red-green and blue-ochre polarities. (The latter, along with Ladybug's architectural exactitude and play of colors against aerating whites, evoke the late work of Cezanne.) Mitchell's gloriously variegated brushstrokes push and tug and shimmer and float, like the edges of planes jostling in a shallow space or foliage lifted and twirled by a breeze, kissing the light, then heaving away." (There's more, but I'm tired of typing this stuff.)

This is Ladybug, on view at the Museum of Modern Art:


I've seen the painting with my own two baby greens and, to be frank, I would not picture anything like that painting from those words. And lest it be said that everyone's experience of art is subjective, I counter that I've seen a LOT of art and even a lot of Mitchells...I, an experienced and sophisticated viewer, should be able to recognize a painting I've actually seen from this kind of description.

So...would I recommend the book to you? No, not unless you're an art aficionado possessed of a strong and broad visual vocabulary. It wouldn't hurt to read the stuff about the world of the 1950s New York School of Abstract Expressionists in here, but that's frankly not enough to make it worth your while to pick the book up. Dare if you must. But keep Google Images open and use it freely and frequently if you're braving these waters without your own mental map. Shoals abound for the innocent and the unwary.

But for the initiate, this grimoire of grimness illuminates (how ironic) some dingy corners of an important passage in American and world art. In the end, I'm glad I read it, but I suspect many would not share my interest.

Dislike that "art"

I am glad you read it too, instead of me.

Thanks for taking one for the team, RichardDear.

*smooch*

Horrible

>126 mckait: Disliking is fine, of course, but whatever your response to it, this is art. No one can truthfully say otherwise.

>127 karenmarie: ...but...Horrible! I felt sure you'd race right out and get yourself a copy! This should be delicius delight for you, no?

*evil Muttley laugh*

hmm so they say. When Adam came home after his first semester of Art College, and gave me .. that.. sort of art, he said the same thing. I am still skeptical, but to each his own. When I look at art I like to see something I recognize, not something I see in my head when I am mad.. :P

I will look at my sort and others can look at theirs. It works out.

RD- Finally catching up sir! Good to see you in fine form! Loved the Hurricane Story review and will seriously look into acquiring a copy.
In regards to Amazon, while I was in line waiting for my copy of Wonderstruck to be signed, I struck up a conversation with a woman. I told her I wished I would have picked up a copy of Hugo Cabret online and brought it there, instead of paying 30 bucks for a new copy. She proceeded to lecture me on the importance of buying independent and I should never buy online. Valid points but money is money and keep in mind I just spend nearly 40 bucks for Wonderstruck and the author talk.

I can't appreciate abstract art, the way I should, but I do find a lot of it quite mesmerizing.

I'm struggling today after having my eyes dilated at the optometrist's, so my reaction to Ladybug isn't to be trusted, but it looks like a whirlwind to me. I like it a lot - there's a real sense of motion in it and if not for the fact that I'd fall down immediately, I'd do a little twirl in empathy.

The 'grimoire of grimness' (nice phrase!) is not one for me, I think - though I do like Field for skyes (ladybug not so much - too frenzied for my taste).

Richard, you absconded with twelve of my dollars. Actually, Amazon did, at your behest. The (lovely-sounding is the term here, but think something along those lines but more appropriate) Hurricane Story is currently being dispatched to my abode, where my roommate shall scurry it to my ever-growing pile of packages and mail. I look forward to experiencing it.

Went to the London Portrait Gallery and the London Gallery (just the highlights and more contemporary stuff) yesterday. This affirmed my fandom of Georges Sauret.

>129 mckait: Fair enough. But then beware of little judgments like "art" in 126, okay?

>130 msf59: Sounds like a real busybody, that one. Best to avoid people like that...I usually tell them I'll be glad to shop wherever they want, on their credit card.

>131 ffortsa: LOL I don't encourage downfallings, so perhaps I should remove the image.

>132 gennyt: Thanks, Genny!

#128 - RD - you know me pretty well, so you probably won't be surprised when I say that Ladybug looks like a frog in a blender. Unlike a frog in a blender, it is sort of appealing. I honestly could see it on the wall in my library.

*another smooch*

>133 ty1997: Seurat is amazing, but I see why pointillism never became the major movement that impressionism did. That has to be the MOST rigorous kind of painting I can imagine doing!

Glad you're having a good time in London, you rotten human being you. I hope you're as moved by Hurricane Story as I was.

>135 karenmarie: Really?! I'm glad!

...

The 'artist' above and similar 'artists' can be likened to cartoonists, I think. Cartoonist can draw, and they can draw anything, but they usually lack the technical ability to render their art with any amount of detail. The lack TEXTURE. Their images are flat and simple. Are they artists? Why yes, sure, of course they are. Not GREAT ones, but artists nonetheless.

The 'art' as seen above is similar, although also the opposite. Artists like that have an amazing sense of emotion, and texture. They express themselves in wonderful, 'artistic' ways. But they lack the technical ability to draw THINGS. They draw, say, a vase of flowers. At least not without making it hideous. Are they artists? Why yes, sure, of course they are. Not GREAT ones, but artists nonetheless.

These two types of artists are great at what they do. Within their niche, they are fantastic, if not one-dimensional. That's okay though. They are ARTISTS. Good ones? Eh...no, but still artists.

To use books as an analogy, similarly to the above art, I could open up Microsoft Word and pound on my keyboard. I could do so in a certain way to symbolize anger. I could lightly tap upon certain areas of my keyboard at different times to symbolize different emotions, and maybe I could arrange the letters in a chaotic yet somewhat discernable way. Does that make me an artist? Why yes, sure, of course. Does it make me a great novelist? Nope, not at all.

I appreciate their enthusiasm. Their pursuit of the thing they love and their persistence despite their lack of talent is cute, and perhaps even inspirational. I think it's wonderful they can find happiness doing what they do, and wish the same could be true for everyone! What a wonderful world we would live in if everyone thrive in the thing they are passionate about. I confess I find it rather odd, but ultimately I am glad there are people who can look at their ugly paintings and still manage to find them appealing. While I am not one of those people, I understand that different people have different tastes, so it's nice to know that people can be horrible at what they do and still be appreciated for it.

That's all. :)

As I said,I will look at my sort and others can look at theirs. It works out.
I don't bother with abstract, as I don't enjoy it.. I don't begrudge it to those who do..
As I said, my son is an artist. Differing opinions make the world go 'round..

>139 Ape: Oh that's right, encourage her! Go on! Make it worse, do!

>140 mckait: It's not and never will be the opinion to which I take exception. It's the expression of a judgment that is, plainly put, wrong. No one can tell you what to like, but conversely, don't try to say directly or indirectly that something you don't enjoy but thousands do isn't "art." That's akin to the book snobs saying that Stephen King doesn't write works of merit. Not stuff you enjoy, okay; no merit? How completely wrong.

ofergawdsake richard...
sorry that I used the offensive quotation marks...
I meant to imply that it is not art to me.. and it isn't ..
as I have tried to explain since then.

I am allowed to feel that way..

If you would like me to remove
the offensive punctuation, I will..

>141 richardderus:. LIKE

Don't know about the book, though

;-}

>142 mckait: *sigh* There's a stink bug in your hair.

>143 jdthloue: I suspect you and Joan Mitchell would've hated each other, then loved each other, in an endless cycle, Jude. She was powerfully convinced that there was more than surface appeal in the best of anything. She was also a drunk and mean as a broke Republican. No sense reading about her when the upside has vanished, eh?

It's not and never will be the opinion to which I take exception. It's the expression of a judgment that is, plainly put, wrong. No one can tell you what to like, but conversely, don't try to say directly or indirectly that something you don't enjoy but thousands do isn't "art."

But aren't you expressing judgement against my (plainly right) opinion? Just because you don't agree with me or enjoy the same things as I do doesn't make me any less right! :P

:P~~~~~~~

>145 Ape: Oh, do be quiet, you silly boy, or Poppa will have to spank you.

>146 mckait: ;-P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ape, you assume that people who create abstract art can't do draftsmanlike work, but that's rarely the case. I recall taking my mother to a Matisse retrospective at MOMA. When we were done, she couldn't understand why a man who could create the early, representational work, would abandon it for wavy lines. Nothing wrong with Matisse's ability to draw - he was just after something else at the end.

And Picasso is famous for saying to a patron that it took him a long time to become a child, referring to his last period of art. His early work proves he can be as accurate and representational as any good artist, but he was after something else too.

Which is to say, don't assume ABILITY is lacking when CREATIVITY produces something unrepresentational. These works are intentional. You don't have to like them, but you shouldn't automatically disparage the skill of the artist.

mean as a broke Republican.
*sigh* There's a stink bug in your hair.

I do love you so much, Richard Dearest.

Somehow I got my hands on Hurricane Story quickly, and it was quite different and thought-provoking. I'm impressed with her mind and skill. Thanks for recommending it, Richard. I never would've found it on my own in a million years.

147: I'm sure the horrible welts on my ass will be more aesthetically pleasing than that person's artwork. :P

148: Ah, well, fantastic. So I'm supposed to appreciate it because the artist CHOSE to paint hideous pictures? So if a great technical artist gets kicked in the head by a horse, goes mad, and smears their own feces on a canvas, creating something similar to the picture above, I'm supposed to appreciate it because it was the artist's intention to paint poorly? Interesting... :)

I wonder what the first person to paint a yellow square on a canvas
and splashed blue and green and red spatters on it had in mind?
seriously...

And I also wonder what the first artist or art critic to see this painting thought?

And I wonder, who was the first person to stand in awe at the glory and beauty of it said?

I mean, just as there had to be a first time ancient man picked up a bit of charcoal and drew
a representation of his/her day , there had to be a first time that someone decided that instead
of drawing the stream outside the window, decided to ... paint it in an abstract way, right?

Just wondering..

>151 Ape: I never said you had to like it. Or appreciate it. I merely said that you can't tell what the artist CAN do by what he CHOSE to do.

>152 mckait: There are undoubtedly tons of literature out there on just that topic. Remember that the Impressionists were excoriated for not painting in a sufficiently representational manner, but someone decided the work was vital, interesting, artistic and valuable. I assume the same is true of Rothko, Miro, and all those others whose work is now museum standard.

I saw a wonderful show at MOMA a few years ago, comparing Pizarro (I think) and Cezanne, who painted in the same years, sometimes side by side, starting with very representational or at least recognizable impressionistic work. The comparisons showed how each progressed, and the commentary was quite illuminating. Cezanne got farther and farther away from what some would regard as representational, while Pizarro took a more conservative path.

I'm not judging anyone's taste in art. Mine is certainly - um - episodic? Eclectic? Patchy? I'm only saying that non-representational art does have a method to its madness, and is not necessarily the work of untalented frauds. Any of us can try to understand it or decide it's not worth the trouble - a strictly personal decision.

About art: Judy has said it far more ably than I have been able to. Opinions and interests differ, but absent interest and study and familiarization, it's not safe to assume a posture of judgment.

Gee, Horrible, all's I did was say some stuff and you go and make me blush!

Joe, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Hurricane Story really got to me.

Hurricane Story creatrix Jennifer SHaw did a blog interview over here that I found enlightening.

Here is an unauthorized quote from the interview on a topic I myownself really wanted to know about:
SB: What was the impetus for you to re-imagine your experiences from this challenging time by using miniatures and toy cameras?

JS: I think I needed to process the Katrina experience on my own terms. I had done some documentation of the disaster’s physical aftermath, but didn’t quite feel that I owned that work – if that makes any sense – or that it was saying anything that hadn’t already been said. I knew that I had complete ownership of my own story and there were elements so surreal they were dying to be told.

Exactly how the idea to recreate the saga in miniature was sparked is hard for me to pinpoint. Perhaps looking at the king cake babies on our spice rack and going “hmmm… baby?” Recently I came across a photograph taken during the evacuation, in September of 2005. My friends’ children had put tiny rescue vehicles into a glass vase with water. At the time it struck me as an apt metaphor for what was happening in New Orleans – enough to both remark on it and photograph it - and I wonder if that wasn’t the initial seed that opened my subconscious mind to the possibility of using stand-ins to describe the events.

Shaw is an interesting and articulate advocate for her work.

There are undoubtedly tons of literature out there on just that topic

How can that be? I mean, was there really someone there to see the first time that happened?
Or was it like today, when the talking heads speculate on what the politicians are thinking?And then they wrote the tons of literature .I am not trying to be confrontational.. just wondering about it, since it happened to come up.

I will be in line with those who look at art when I like it but not try to take it apart and understand it.
That reminds me of poetry in English class. How often do we really know what was intended by the
poet/artist unless they themselves make it known? And to me, I would rather either look at
or read and take out of it what I will. Back in the days when I wrote poetry, I always felt that it might mean one thing to me, but it certainly might take on another meaning to a reader. Again, just me.

But as I have said repeatedly.. that is simply my opinion. If others feel that they need to understand art or poetry instead of just enjoy it, or allow it to give them what it will.. that is for them to choose..

My son and I have had some interesting discussion on this, but now I am out of this discussion. I have to clean the basement!

When my children were very small I took an art class for therapy (out of the house, speaking with words containing more than one syllable). The hardest thing I found to paint was abstractly. I was way too left-brained to incorporate random stuff in my paintings. I always thought that paintings like that were painted by people who laughed their a...s off when critics raved about their creativity.

It's the same with books. I dislike James Patterson (to put it mildly) but am in the minority with my opinion. He just won't get any of my hard earned money.

>125 richardderus: Books about art are, unless they're big and all in color and lushly produced, like safe sex: enough of the real thing survives that you're inclined to continue, but it ain't like the real damn thing, and no amount of skill or wishing or forcing yourself to believe is gonna make it so.

Damn skippy! The two dimensional representations of many of my favorite paintings or collages lack the impact of seeing the real thing, although I like to buy exhibition catalogs for further study.

Great review of Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter. BTW, I love Ladybug; thanks for posting it.

I'm not very educated about art per se. I fell in love with the Impressionists in my teens, and tend to have mostly an emotional response. I like to look at Rubens nudes and fantasize about those days when that was the epitome of female beauty--I would have been fashionable! And there are some portraits that just leap out of the light by various artists here at the Museum of Art in San Diego. Most abstract art leaves me fairly cold, but there are a few that fascinate me. I always figure that visual art is like a book--it's what it evokes in me that determines my response and if I don't have the cognitive/emotional matches to make it meaningful, then I won't like a book or a painting that someone else loves.

Won't comment on the ART discussion..I wasted two years of college kidding myself I could be an Art Major...i'm great at technique but lack ...what?...ideas?....spirit?.....talent? Ack!

Just checking in, Sweetie....Had to take my copy of Hurricane Story upstairs...don't what the Philistines pawing at it!

*smooch*

I have, in advance of tomorrow's book circle, reviewed Graham Greene's pre-WWII English thriller Brighton Rock in my thread...post #66.

Read Brighton Rock lo these many years ago during a Graham Greene marathon...one of the few books that my dad and i both liked/loved/appreciated

;-}

Daggone it Richard...you just keep getting away from me. No sooner do I get you starred then you're off to another contiuum.

Anyway, thank you thank you thank you for finding Hurricane Story for us. My copy arrived today from those evil Amazonians (I too am an impulse buyer Prime member) and I am stunned speechless. I have a niece who is a professional photographer living in New Orleans. (She went to spend her 21st birthday in the land of the bon temps and has never come back home). Her birthday was the day Katrina hit. I know she will be in awe of this work and plan to send her one.

It is absolutely spectacular, and has been tucked into my carry-on as the only real print book going with me tomorrow on our latest trip.

Smooches..........

>162 jdthloue: *wavey wavey* at crosspost!

>163 tututhefirst: Oh goody good! You're hit by the book bullet! *does happy dance* And Tina...how's this for freakish...this gorgeous object, this spectacular creative coup, was SELF-PUBLISHED ON LULU before being discovered and for-real-published by Chin Music!

I love real-life Cinderella stories, don't you? *smooch*

Good morning, Richard! *waves* Just passing through, trying to catch up.

>165 tymfos: Hiya, Terri! *waves back*

>165 tymfos: Ditto

>167 jadebird: Ren! How lovely to see you here! Somehow I've lost your thread, so I don't know how you're doing, but I hope the answer is "never better!"

Waving hi - and thinking it's time I read some Graham Greene.

You have some sort of eReader, don't you Cushla? In that case, a perfect companion on the long trip back to Aotearoa would be Brighton Rock!

Just a warning - Jim couldn't find it available for Kindle.

It is available on several sites ... you might need to change the format..

>171 ffortsa: For real?! How very surprising. BTW Judy, if I haven't mentioned it before now, I can't come tonight. The plague is kickin' my ass. Fever went down to 100 first time today an hour ago, from 101.5, so driving is out. Would you mind reading my review to the group? If you don't want to, that's perfectly okay, of course.

>172 mckait: But not for Kindle?!? Gadzooks! Such are the vagaries of the stupid, inconvenient capitalist system.

Sorry you are still feeling low, my friend..

Woah, when did this thread start....*checks date at top*
Oh, Sept 30. I must have missed that (woops)
So hello! Sorry to hear you have a plague, not the plague I hope. (I have only read the first and last few posts so may have missed something important).
Take care.

>174 mckait: Thanks, Kath. *koffkoff*

>175 LovingLit: Oh no, Megan, it's THE plague. I'm dying by inches. You see, the Christian god really does run the UNiverse and she hates me. I can tell. She never sends me Christmad cards.

Cool! Can you take a picture of your bubo? Please!

I swear I don't ask people online to show me their buboes often...I'm just curious about what those massive swollen things look like.

persians... russian blues..

nah! *browses shelter website* ( just in case. )

Sorry you're ill. And sorry I didn't get the message until now, after our meeting. It went well (and more politely than previously, I thought), although you were deeply missed, as was Stella.

Among the consensi(?) was that Pinkie is a sociopath - seems a little facile to me, even if technically true. He may not even be damned. How ironic, and how torturing, for Pinkie to end up in heaven, wouldn't you think? Ok, maybe Purgatory. But, if he already has no hope, it's the seven circles for him.

I was thinking that in the tension between good and evil, on one side, and right and wrong, on the other, Ida's right and wrong may not be the winner. Poor Rose. What hell has Ida's careless success consigned her to in the end?

We ended with a fine time regaling each other with stories of Catholic education and celebration gone awry, always amusing.

You've been sick a lot lately, sir. Not acceptable. You must get well with all deliberate speed.

Buboes are all in places I can't see to get a picture of, you unsympathetic little ghoul. *kids these days, I swaNEE*

Cat-shopping. Oh the pain. See? SEE? My death will cause only rejoicing among the women of the world! In cahoots with that god from the Old Testament, damn her hide. *koffkoff*

Glad y'all had a good time! I don't think I'm sick again...I think I'm still sick, and I've never properly recovered. It's the plague, I'm sure of it. Only plague could kill by inches, ache by ache, fever-dream and night sweats and ick-ptui tummy. Oh well. No one needs me, I'll just sit here in a corner and rot.

And I heard all you females rolling your eyes! Stop it! Stop it now! Men are NOT big babies! I'm really dying of plague!

Hope your plague heals up quickly! I may have caught a bit of it ... or a cold, not quite sure.
Feel better!

poor Richard, there there
*pats shoulder*

Oh Richard, hope the plague moves on and finds another victim.

Buboes are all in places I can't see to get a picture of, you unsympathetic little ghoul. *kids these days, I swaNEE*

I'm not unsympathetic! I'm perfectly capable of feeling bad for you. For example, I think it's terrible you can't see your own bubo. *Sniff* :(

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week can't end quickly enough.

(venting alarm complete. return to your usual positions.)

>181 ChelleBearss: Oh dear, Chelle, I sure hope it's not this miserable whatever-it-is that lingers. I've taken so much zinc trying to get rid of this horror that I clank when I pee.

>182 LovingLit: THANK you, Megan. See? See? Kiwi women know when to soothe and humour! (misspelled in honor of your country's bizarre insistence on aping the Brits)

>183 avatiakh: Thanks, Kerry, though honestly I don't wish this on anyone not a Republican Presidential candidate.

>184 Ape: LOLOL

>185 ty1997: You're in London now, right? So just about three to five more hours and you're done and free, always assuming the clients don't want you tomorrow. Ah, the life of an international call boy...so glamourous!

Richard, darling Richard, please don't say it!

No one needs me, I'll just sit here in a corner and rot.

We all love you dearly. We're sorry you're dying of the plague (bubonic, septiacemic, or pneumonic? just curious) and hope that you're among the very small percent that survive.

Don't let y. pestis win.

*smooches and gentle pats* from your own Horrible

Southern note: husband's grandmother and great aunt used to say, and husband's mother still says, "I swaNEE". But they pronounce it SWAnee.

Thank you, Horrible. *battens on sympathetic attention* Maybe this septicemic plague won't carry me into Eternity after all. *air smooch so as not to pass on germs*

I wonder where the old-southern-lady thing of saying "I swanee" started? My mamaw said it, and my mother refused categorically to utter it because she said it sounded so old-lady-ish. (She uttered this sentence when 75.) She did speculate once that it was somehow tied to ""Way Down Upon the Suwanee River" but I don't know.

{{{hugs}}} Richard - hope you feel better soon.

Don't worry Richard, you know I'm sympathetic on the inside. I'm just bad at expressing it, that's all. So, when are you cooking breakfast? I'm starving...

:P

>190 calm: Thank you, calm! I swaNEE, I begin to feel better already!

>191 Ape: Frozen pancakes. There's the toaster. Rinse your plate when you're done.

Frozen pancakes? Well there's your problem! You don't have the plague, you've just been eating terrible food! :(

They're for *you* silly. *I* had sausage and eggs. Besides, they're my homemade pancakes frozen. A batch of batter makes a lot more pancakes than I can eat, so I freeze the supernumerary ones.

3:00pm now. Hopefully out by 5:00pm. And shouldn't even have to work more than a few hours this weekend. *twitch* weekend *twitch*

The one thing that has kept me sane the last 24 hours, my grounding point if you will:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/puppies-the-size-of-soda-cans

awwwwwwww

SO CUTE! :D

puppy!!!!!!

Margie got a new cat. That means that she has 4 , too. I am trying to get her to name it richard.

>197 Ape: I KNOW!!!!

>198 mckait: There's a stink bug in your hair.

He is a Siberian.. and is all fluffy

richard is a good name for a cat.

Puppies: eternally better than kittens.

#196 Cutest thing ever! Or at least for this week anyway...

> 201 they are almost equally cute.. with kittens coming in a smidge ahead most of the time.

Oh, Rdear, you're not feeling well!

Cool cloth for forehead, soothing soup in your choice of flavors, pats and sympathetic listening are yours.

And a slug of good whiskey won't hurt, either.

From answer.com:
It is a Southern way of saying "I swear" but it's not used very much anymore. It's pronounced "I SWANee"

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_'I_suwannee'_southern_slang#ixzz1anMHo2XI

>200 mckait: Oh look! The stink bug's heading for your back!

>201 ty1997: I knew there was a reason I asked you to marry me. If I recover, that is. If I don't, you can have my books.

>202 BekkaJo: Heck, this two-hour window will do fine.

>203 mckait: And there's another stink bug heading for your cleavage!

>204 Matke: *air smooch* so as not to infect dear Gail with the plague (incidentally, if anyone sees that unsympathetic little ghoul Stephen, tell him that scientists have finally sequenced the genome of the Black Death)...my slug of whiskey is sitting right here, cold and sweating just like I am.

>205 ronincats: RONI! That's hiLARious! And thanks for clearing that up. *smooch*

157 posts down, ha! No way will I make that up, but love for you all the same.

scientists have finally sequenced the genome of the Black Death

Oh, interesting! *Googles* See, I thought you were worthless when you were sick, but clearly you are still a good source for information. (That was sympathetic, wasn't it?)

*smooch* back! Woo hoo, I got a smooch from Richard! I almost put a link to a graphic I found on that search, but hesitated--though you DO like dancing boys.

*Gasp* I'm so sorry Roni had a picture of a dancing boy and didn't post it, Richard! What a missed opportunity for you.

That was definitely sympathy...

Richard ( the cat) was temporarily missing yesterday. Work being done on his new home sent him into hiding.. under the sofa. He is back and fine now.. I think that is a good sign for the two legged richard.

>207 London_StJ: *hugs* and *smooches* to darling Crypto!

>208 Ape:, 210 We need a new word here..."sarcaspathy: the expression of false sympathy for another, delivered in a cruel and sarcastic tone, intended to express deep and abiding contempt and loathing."

I think that covers it....

>209 ronincats: Dancing boys?! WHERE?!? Octavio and Reinhold are resting, need fresh blood.

>211 mckait: That cat's name better NOT be Richard or I will personally trap every stink bug in metro Pittsburgh and dump them all on your kitchen floor AFTER you've scrubbed it. Still living.

Great GIFs! You know where to find 'em! xo

Awww, c'mon, no deep and abiding contempt and loathing! You're practically unloathable! Although I must say I like sympatharcastic better.

Hope you're feeling better today, Richard. Hot soup (I find chicken noodleis or sweet & sour best) helps me when I get a nasty cold. I've haven't tried it with the Black Death, but it can't hurt.

>186 richardderus: bizarre insistence? bizarre insistence? bizarre insistence?!
The Queen's English is good enough for me mister ;)

>215 Ape: PoTAYto, poTAHto...

>216 Storeetllr: I'm not, but thanks for asking! I've spent a very busy day doing stuff I'd never dream of doing while ill if I wasn't being promised a result I dearly, dearly, dearly want (oodles of money).

I've eaten three bags of Kettle Chips sea salt and vinegar flavor. To call the compulsion to eat them a craving is ludicrously understating the case.

>217 LovingLit: Yes, bizarre. After all, *I*'m a queen and you're not aping *my* spelling. Which is normal. Being Murrikin an' all.

re:

I've eaten three bags of Kettle Chips sea salt and vinegar flavor

pregnant?

If I am, fire up the candles in the window and start lookin' east a lot more carefully.

I watched the first episode of "Bedlam" on BBC America yesterday during a break. I was sooooooooooo booooooored. Pretty young man comes to live in converted goofy garage where, it would seem, his adoptive family did some mean and nasty things to the goofys who were committed to their "care" in the last century or so.

He wanders around half-naked quite a bit...an agreeable sight...and the joke is that he sees ghosts as well as how they died so he can put them at rest after they express their anger at being abused to death by causing creme de menthe to cascade down walls and windows, and burble up the drains.

Dreary. "Medium" is a lot better.

>218 richardderus: lol, OK then. Colour Color me happy.

Kettle chips and boring BBC America do seem to be effectively combating the plague.

If I am, fire up the candles in the window and start lookin' east a lot more carefully
had me

>221 LovingLit: HA! Made a convert. Now to work on the " versus ' to begin a sentence. (Actually, there I agree with the Brits...single to start, double within single makes a lot of sense.)

>222 jnwelch: Don't forget lots of sleep.

>223 mckait: Another great GIF!

224> Savour that win.

>225 ty1997: That's it! Spanking for you! Wicked, wicked boy!

hmm ...now ya did it

Spanking isn't very honourable. Though I guess some folks find it favourable.

>224 richardderus: um, what the?

Mmmm, salt & vinegar chips.... Any left?

(Oh, hope you're feeling much much better today, too.)

Good Monday morning, RD!

hugs and smooches from Horrible

>227 mckait: Now who did what?

>228 ty1997: *sigh*

>229 LovingLit: The single "inverted comma" shudder that y'all stubborn misspellers use to open and close sentences, where us good-spellin' Murrikins use double...ones..., actually makes a lot more sense than our system. But no one here ever heard me say that!

>230 scaifea: *laughs maniacally*

Sorry, no.

*stuffs case of Kettle sea salt and vinegar chips deeper under bed*

>231 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible! *smooch* right back, a little too sore still for hugs

Salt and venegar chips make my tongue feel weird.

Salt-and- Vinegar **smooch**. (hug is optional)

:-}

>232 richardderus: aaaaah I getcha now. An I just got what Murrikins means too....turns out Im a bit slow.
I personally use the (") rather than the (') and have no idea which is considered "correct" in any country!

>233 Ape: I'm so clever that when my boy asks for chips I give him salt and vinegar so that his little face screws up and his little brain goes "yuck, I dont like chips". Problem solved!
*chomp chomp on a bag all to myself*

>233 Ape: That's part of the fun!

>234 jdthloue: *smooch* right back!

>235 LovingLit: Clever indeed! And also kinder to him in the long run. Chip addiction is a nasty, cruel thing.

"Murrikins" surprises me with how inscrutable some Murrikins find it, but I canm sure see how a Kiwi would be completely bumfuzzled. Sorry for being obscure.

just checking in.. DM still there?

Out with her chainsaw removing trees, yeup.

No, not kidding...a little like watching the world's shortest lumberjack at work. Hair and makeup flawless, of course. Magritte would've painted this.

Interesting...

Why is she removing trees?

They's daid. One poor old dogwood in front of the house gave up the ghost sixty years on, and there are some maples that're in the final throes. We're getting the nor'easter here too, so there's no better time to get this done.

yikes.. srsly..

What nor'easter? Rain on Wednesday?

At least it's not a dust storm in Lubbock!

>241 mckait: ...!!...

>242 ffortsa: Rain and wind here...with all of our trees, and it being fall, have to concern ourselves with the inevitable branch failures. Point taken about the hype machine, though. It's probably gonna be 30mph breezes and an inch of rain.

We had more wind here at the tip of Manhattan the other day, not a cloud in the sky, but real danger of being blown clear to Hempstead. Sorry about the trees, although the image of DM wielding a chain saw is quite thrilling.

I love fall for exactly this kind of weather: Wind, clear skies, cool and dry most of the time. Luuurrrrve it.

I love having all the trees around us, but the downside is maintenance. Can't ignore 50-ft oaks and sweetgums and beeches and pines. A limb falls on a roof and they's trouble in Paradise.

TDM's out there now, really it's just bizarre how she can look like a fashion plate in the midst of mulch.

We had a 7" in diameter, 12-foot long branch fall from one of the oaks a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately it fell near the house, not on the house. The hazards of having trees near the house.

Your weather sounds like our weather right now, Richard Dear, although ours is in the mid-high 70s. But, wind, clear skies, and dry. Lurve it too.

I hope your day is going well.

Day's been quite nice, actually, since just at the moment I'm at the liberry. Still beautiful weather, all the books I need are in this branch (!), and the reference librarian helping me is *gorgeous*. I'm debating whether to ask for his number or just throw him down on the copier and ravish him. Leaning toward the ravishment just now.

*Wonders about sending rd books in prison*

You're sweet to consider it, but it won't be necessary as I opted to ask if I could call him to go out for a thank-you dinner, which met with his approval. Very David Arquette-looking. Nice smile.

that's a relief!

* awaiting link to new thread*

RD...did the tree down thingie last week before we left for weekend in FL....BLAST of wind lasting less than 3 minutes but took down a 50 foot poplar across the entire driveway. Mr. Tutu had to trudge up (a good 600 Ft...too long for electric cord) with ax and break the tree up enough to let us out and the world in (UPS was scheduled for book delivery after all!). Later fired up the big chain saw and got things under control, but managing the trees (we're on acres and acres of them) can become a full time job if one allows that obsession.

Hope you had an enjoyable dinner...

ACRES of them...*trembles in awe before Mr. Tutu*

WILL HAVE a nice dinner...next week sometime is the current plan, leaning towards Tuesday. He's off on Wednesday, as I was informed with a very high-wattage smile.

Color me optimistic, but I think my interest is reciprocated here.

hi Richard Dear
I hope you feel a tiny bit better with the thought of a dinner next week!

Hi Rd- Glad you are enjoying the cool fall weather. We are getting that here too, although rain & wind are moving in for the next couple days, which might make work suck a bit.
I'm having another Christmas Swap again this year, if you are interested stop by the Thread. We had a good time with the last one.

>252 richardderus: Dinner date with a library guy! Awesome.
And yay for asking him out before ravishing him. It's a lot better that way!

ETA um, where are the thread police when I need them!?

Great news about a dinner date with the library guy.

I hope you are feeling better. I'm #12 thumbs up for your excellent review of Hurricane Story. It is now on my tbr pile.

Well Richard, I've egg on my face. After crowing about Hurricane Story when I received it, I find I am completely underwhelmed by the book after having sat down and read it. Good grief...I'm sure there is a story of great import there, but I'm danged if I could find THE STORY. The pichers are very nice, the format cum cloth cover is lovely, but come on! This is a cute little Hallmark gift store book for someone who needs a good eye exam. It's a small wonder she had to self publish. Sorry. I'll post a review later this week, but it ain't gettin' more than 2.5 stars from this lady.

Excuse the intrusion, but I work for Jennifer Shaw's publisher, Chin Music Press, and I would like to correct the record. We are not a self-publishing operation. Jennifer did self-publish Hurricane Story, and then we re-published her work. To see the other work we've done, see our publisher's page at http://www.librarything.com/publisher/718/Chin-Music-Press/ and http://www.librarything.com/publisher/720/Broken-Levee-Books/.