Required Summer Reading

Just for shits and giggles (and it does make me giggle a fair amount, I'll tell you):


Sooooo... It's been awhile since I posted. I've been busy working, and spending lots o'time with my husband and kiddoes, and visiting my mommy et al out of town, and participating in Emily's wedding (pics to come--I think). I'm leaving for Spain SOON, and I'm kind of freaking out about it, if you want to know the truth (to quote H. Caulfield). I have also been trying to get a bit of reading in before I leave, and I finished the Philip Pullman trilogy last week. I cried all through the end of the book. It's an amazing story, and you don't know where it's going about 90% of the time (unusual for me + young adult fiction), and it's really really good to read. And then you get to the end, many things click into place, and it's just HEART-wrenchingly awesome and painful. I am still processing many things about the book, but I'll tell you this: it is in the running to be one of my top-ten all time favourite books. Ever. I mean, if you take the three together as one work, that is. Because they're like Lay's potato chips: you can't eat just one. (Was that Lay's? Or Pringles? I can never remember.) I really am loathe to talk much about the books, though, because one cannot summarize without spoiling parts of the plot and some important thematic elements. I suppose the most important thing to tell you is that the book is a sort of spiritual/philosophical treatise, told through the story of this girl called Lyra. There are several other main characters, but some of them don't come in till the second book, so I wouldn't want to give away which characters become important and which ones are less so. Suffice it to say that the books are a refutation of the fatalism of the religions with which we are familiar in this world, and instead the trilogy seeks to offer an alternative cosmology and dogma. In fact, I feel that the Pullman trilogy is a parable which represents most of my religious/spiritual beliefs. It's just SO GOOD. Go read it. Right now. Please.

I have also started reading a comic (oh, 'scuse me, ahem... 'Graphic Novel') called Castle Waiting by Linda Medley. It is so great. My husband--who knows my tastes to a tea, and indulges them so generously--recommended it to me, and bought me my very own hardback of the first collection (which is all the story that's been published so far). It is sort of a reworking of many popular fairy tales and childhood stories that we in the European-influenced world are familiar with. It uses some of the most popular myths as a backdrop for fleshing out this world and this story in which a castle (Sleeping Beauty's castle) is sort of "left behind"--abandoned. But the servants wait on. Meanwhile, this pregnant woman on her own seeks out the castle as the place to birth and raise her child. We don't know what she's running from, but we presume it's the father of the baby, right? Anyway, the whole story is just hilarious, and full of good witches and bad witches and wisewomen, and storks and bears who talk, and demons and princes and blacksmiths and ladies-in-waiting et al. Linda Medley draws beautifully clearly and with a lot of whimsy, adding to the overall cleverness and fun of the unexpected tales she turns.

So go read. And wish me luck as I "Vaya con Dios" to España. ¡Oy!

Possibly the best one

I promise this is the last one. (Maybe.)

Again with the bustedtees.com

Puns and off-colour allusions are better than work

From the website bustedtees.com:

Blood for Oil--Literally

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- American Red Cross officials are offering the chance to win free gasoline as an incentive to get more people to donate blood.

This summer, each donor will automatically be entered in a drawing to win 35-hundred dollars' worth of gasoline. Entries for the first drawing, July 23rd, are already being accepted. An identical raffle will start July 23rd and run through September 16th.

Every day, the Red Cross also will award a 25-dollar gas card to a randomly selected donor.

The Red Cross chapter runs about 25 blood drives each day throughout southeastern Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey. During summers, it struggles to get blood donations.

Allright, everyone.... How much do you love your SUV? Bleed for it, bitches!

Patron Saint of Mediocrity: NOT Buckle

Thomas is reading this book from the late 1890s called The History of Civilization in England by Henry Thomas Buckle. It is a thick tome which covers a variety of topics and the classification of which I can only identify as anthropology. Now, British anthropology of the 1800s varies widely from that which we would consider sound today, but what Thomas has read to me has struck me by its breadth of consideration as causalities in the course of human events.

This morning, Thomas read these excerpts to me. They refer to King George III. Perhaps you can see a parallel to another 'King' George we all know so well... (When reading, substitute "Americans" for "Iraqis.")

"The determination of the king to oppress the Americans was so notorious that, when the war actually broke out, it was called the 'King's War,' and those who opposed it were regarded as the personal enemies of their sovereign." Footnote continuation by Nicholls: "The war was considered as the war of the king personally. Those who supported it were called the king's friends; while those who wished the country to pause, and reconsider the propriety of persevering in the contest, were branded as disloyal." (465)

"His reign, indeed, was the golden age of successful mediocrity; an age in which little men were favoured, and great men depressed...." (466-467) *Ahem* C student at Yale *ahem*...

Mediocrity is a theme Buckle returns to time and again in his book; this of course puts me in mind of Salieri, the tragic character in the movie Amadeus. My sister and I, inspired by how much the knowledge of the limitations of one's own talent can drive one insane and make oneself evil, used to muse about Salieri in his drowning mediocrity. He hated himself for not having Mozart's abilities, and he hated Mozart for not appreciating his own.

While this is a creative interpretation of real, historical people, and who really knows what Salieri thought of Mozart, I think Buckle would have appreciated Salieri's internal torment. At least Salieri knew he was mediocre, and wished to be great. In our age, people revel in their mediocrity and call it "individuality," inspired by nothing and striving for nothing, complacent and lazy, while more industrious people and nations pull their puppet strings without them even seeing.

And one last, parting thought from Mr. Buckle. Here he refers to Burke, an important member of Parliament during the time of George III. He wanted, late in his life, to wage utter war on France, and detroy it completely. Below is Buckle's reaction to Burke's evil intentions. And with regard to the end of his quote, can you think of "any other man"? I can think of at least one, and more if you count his war hawks...

"It was to be a war to force a great people to change their government. It was to be a war carried on for the purpose of punishment. It was also to be a religious war. Finally, it was to be a long war. Was there ever any other man who wished to afflict the human race with such extensive, searching, and protracted calamities?" (475)

Reclusion is SO a word. Is not! Is so. Is not! Is so. Is n--

I changed my blog template--again. I hope you all don't mind. I liked the other layout (it featured a picture of what I am pretty sure was a plaza in Buenos Aires); however, the columns were too narrow and it frustrated me. So. Hopefully this will allow better formatting of pictures and text.

I will write more soon; I am a little bit down today, and a LOT tired, and mostly thirsty and just wanting to read. I am in intellectual reclusion.

recluse |ˈrekˌloōs; riˈkloōs; ˈrekˌloōz| noun a person who lives a solitary life and tends to avoid other people. adjective archaic favoring a solitary life. DERIVATIVES reclusion |riˈkloō zh ən| noun ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French reclus, past participle of reclure, from Latin recludere ‘enclose,’ from re- ‘again’ + claudere ‘to shut.’