B Tal captured this photo at the New England Holocaust Memorial.
Imagine a World
“Ilse, a childhood friend of mine, once found a raspberry in the camp and carried it in her pocket all day to present to me that night on a leaf. Imagine a world in which your entire possession is one raspberry and you give it to your friend” — Gerda Weissman Klein, Holocaust Survivor
See the picture on Flickr.
“The steam that blew the whistle never turned the wheel.”
—
“Believe me, I sympathize with you; it just comes out as laughter.” — my co-worker Beth.
“… because we watched a debate from the House of Representatives about the Iraq Resolution, and it did seem like – you ever been to Trafalgar Square, where they have the, uh, speaker’s corner where, like, crazy people get up on a box, and go, “Harrumph! And Roosevelt stole my couch!” You know, that kind of stuff? They seem like, like crazy people…
“People who get in involved in politics and run for office are the extremists and people on the fringe. Because regular, reasonable people have shit to do.” — Jon Stewart
“Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.”
–Sam Brown
The Wall Street Journal writes about a new social networking site called LibraryThing.com — for people to create catalogs of their books. Similar to software like Booxter or Delicious Library, you record all of your books in a cataloging data set. But in this case the database is stored online, and is shared with other users.
The software is free for up to 200 books (haaa!) and $10 for a year or $25 for life. I haven’t investigated to see how data can be exported from the program after being entered, but I would think that would be a must-have feature.
I’m currently using Booxter to catalog my books. Sort of. Everything’s in a uproar now. But I chose it because it’s cheap and it exports the data to a tab-delimited file that I can use to create a database. After using it awhile, I sort of changed my mind and wished I’d shelled out a bit more for the Delicious Library software, because it also catalogs DVDs and video games, which I now have libraries of as well. If you’re looking for slot machine games online, then try out joker123.
But LibraryThing.com is interesting for the social networking component — you can tag your books like Flickr… and you can see what other people have bookmarked, too. I’m going to poke around in it a bit further.
Next year, I’m going to read Proust. I’m going to tackle In Search of Lost Time (AKA Remembrance of Things Past, or more precisely “À la recherche du temps perdu”), from beginning to end.
I say next year because I’m still working my way though this year’s reading plans. I’m made some progress, especially when I was stressed out, since I tend to read more as a coping mechanism.
I have strayed pretty far and wide from the list though. Although I planned not to buy any books, I have picked up a few things here and there. And I just put a bunch of books on hold at the library. And then there’s Stephanie’s library, currently being unpacked and placed on shelves in our new home, which opens a whole new world of reading options for me.
But I really want to read Proust. I’ve read a few reviews from people who’ve tackled the seven-volume set, and they are glowing — according to some people, Proust Can Change Your Life. Even if you don’t buy that, some people maintain that Proust’s book changed Paris. Dan Ford, one of many prolific Amazon reviewers, has an entire site about his project of Reading Proust including recommendations of the best translations to get – he recommends the more recent Penguin translations, published in the U.S. by Viking.
Either way, it sounds like a challenge I’d like to tackle.
Right after I finish this other challenge that I’m not even halfway through.
My favorite quote from the comments on this discussion about what is the optimal time to arrive at a party:
This only works if all guests judge by the same criteria. They do not. In many circles, late arrivers are seen as lazy, irreponsible, disorganized, rude, or to posers or strivers who try to cram as many parties as possible into a single evening.
Hee. I usually try to arrive as early as I can, but not so early that I’m in the hosts’ way while they prepare. If I know the host well, I’ll ask if they need prep help and show up when they need it, so they can have everything ready and be able to have fun and socialize at their own event instead of having to worry constantly about running it.
Regarding the same-sex marriage ban:
“I don’t believe there’s any issue that’s more important than this one,” said Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican.
Note where the guy is from — a state who’s citizens are still displaced all over the country, who had a major U.S. city destroyed last year.
Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her
by Melanie Rehak
A great exploration of the history of the popular girl detective novels and the women who wrote them. I learned a couple of surprising things — that Nancy Drew was far and away the most popular of the Stratmeyer Syndicate’s kid book series, blowing away the Hardy Boys by a mile. I was also surprised to learn how much the Syndicate actually contributed to the novels. I was always under the impression that the ghostwriters, like Mildred Wirt Benson, got a raw deal because they wrote all the books but never got credit. But in reality the writing was more of a collaboration between the Syndicate (which was primarily Harriet Stratemeyer Adams) who created all the characters and wrote detailed plots; and the ghostwriters, who filled in the details and dialog. That’s kinda cool — I’m terrible at working out a plot, but I can write great scenes and dialog.
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
by Malcolm Gladwell
Re-read this after a quick read last year.
Deception Point
by Dan Brown
A fun mindless thriller that was entertaining and relaxing.
The Time Traveler’s Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
I loved this complex novel about a man with a genetic mutation that causes him to be thrown backward and forward through time. Far from a fun or interesting quirk, his time travel is distressing and difficult — he can’t take anything with him; not even the fillings in his teeth. He can’t control where or when he goes, but shows up at various points in his own life, especially at traumatic events. But he also gets thrown back to visit his future wife when she was a child, beginning a romance that transcends time.
The Seven Daughters of Eve
by Bryan Sykes
A great science novel that’s not too intense or boring. Sykes is a Oxford scholar and human geneticist that has discovered a way to trace, through DNA, our matrilinial ancestry.
What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
by Thomas Frank
I just started this, and it’s shaping up to be an entertaining and interesting read.
From the crushworthy site NonSequitur:
So while many liberals may perhaps share the satisfaction of having been right about Iraq and Afghanistan from the very beginning, this does not mean (1) that they are gleeful over the damage that has been done to America, and more perniciously, (2) that they brought it about or desired it. The current weakening of America’s standing in the world was one of the arguments against silly saber rattling and thinly justified foreign misadventures, not the desired outcome. Taking them to task for having been right all along, as is the current fashion among those who were wrong all along, is like blaming mathematics for your inability to add.