The blog I followed the original thread from, getreligion.org (world religion-related news of all types) noted of the family at the bottom,
"and there’s one more thing. The family pictured in the advertisement is clearly from the Christian radical fringe, because they have three children — which is above the fertility replacement rate. Right?"
I find myself REALLY, REALLY hoping that this is a spoof and not someone's legitimate (the intention, not the effort) try to make money....
...to BSkove (good luck in your new identity search! don't forget to let me know when you settle on one!) for this one!
I can't BELIEVE I'm blogging about it, and T would agree, but it is a scene out of my worst nightmares!
Everybody's getting excited, scientists are salivating (how 'bout that alliteration!?) but let me tell you what would happen if I found THIS in my yard.....an aerosol spray of some flammable type and a lighter! I don't suffer the arachnids to live if I find them, I don't care how many mosquitoes they eat! An irrational fear is just that--irrational and my therapist and I have more important issues to discuss that what I think of some bastard bugs.
Some lady was talking about how beautiful it was, like a fairyland...no it's not lady, it's butt floss plain and simple. Some bug SECRETED that from its tail end and you call it magical? I guess I shouldn't be amazed that people are so(here and here are two of the most informative about social cobweb spiders in general) in awe of this structure, but I am so there you go...what to do about it? A matter of perspective I suppose as I see nothing beautiful about webs. My mother is terrified of snakes, which don't bother me in the slightest so others' phobias must keep me humble in regards to my own :)
If you do nothing for the rest of the day, visit Tales from the "Liberry" and read about his XYZ woes! Librarians who plunge toilets AND deal with wardrobe malfunctions...now that's real library life! htw
....I've just managed to drag myself into work after two days of ill health (Understatement of the Year award...possibly an Emmy). If I had anything funny and worthwhile to share, it has long since fled in the face of fever. I realize now, time sheet filled out for the day and turned in, that I'm really not back up to par but I will just have to press on and make sure to use plenty of hand sanitizer and clorox wipes whereever I alight. I am flattered that several of you found some amusement from previous posts. Ralph (who, in all my time there, never failed to honk, hiss, and just generally make a nuisance of himself in his efforts to be toothless and scary) certainly shares a special place in my memories, as will many incidents that occurred while Winston and Sam, two of my most favoritest grumpy old dogs, inhabited this earth and I was privileged to care for them...and their lake house :)
I have to go out and work my shift on the desk now. Wish me luck and no-crapE-patrons...it would be such a shame if I had to vomit on someone before lunch....
...of interesting (at least to me) crap from last week and the last few days!
I'm reading a great fantasy book right now! Gail Z. Martin's The Summoner: Book One of the Chronicles of the Necromancer. The main character is a little bit of a whiner but he has just cause and there are 307 more pages to go in this behemoth 637 pager so he has time to redeem himself if he works hard. I just finished The Blood of Flowers, a debut novel by Anita Amirrezvani, and I have to say that it went a bit too slowly for my taste but I still had to finish it because I liked the narrator and wanted to know what happened to her (and I do not skip ahead). The novel was set the 17th century in the Iranian city of Isfahan. A comet portends a strife-filled year and family tragedy soon follows. The narrator and her mother soon find themselves destitute with no close male relatives to protect them (boy am I glad that wasn't/isn't my lot in life!). The novel is a little Tracy-Chevalier-like in that it revolves around the Persian rug industry and the artistry of rug knotting in general, but I really felt like Mrs. Amirrezvani was trying to ride just a teensy bit of KhaledHosseini's coattails and she shouldn't have troubled herself to do so. It didn't happen but it is an enjoyable story nonetheless.
Was anyone else just blown away by Owen Wilson's attempted suicide? I feel like the last person in the world to ever find out about things but no one's been talking about it, I found out through Cinematical! He just doesn't seem like the suicidal type, but then I have to remember that he is an actor. It also makes me wonder what goes on in the life of a major celebrity to make them believe there is no hope or purpose left in their lives. I, lazy and unimportant as I and my life are in the grand scheme of life, headed straight to the doctor for meds when I had my first destructive thought. I constantly teeter on the edge of financial destitution (no budgeting talent anywhere), my house is a constantly a wreck, my family (while by no means psycho) could never be construed as functional, I can't get a date....but hey, at least I'm not in grad school anymore :) Anyway, what makes Owen Wilson feel like life is not worth living anymore?
On to more amusing topics....and I have to preface this with a story. I used to petsit for a lady who lived in some swanky houses with lake access. Due to the nature of the house and the provisions she left for me, I often invited my best friend to come over and stay with me. Nice house, nice eats, big deck overlooking the lake...it was like a vacation. Well, this couple had a paddleboat and I was given permission to use it whenever I stayed there. So M sees all the geese and swan out on the lake and decides that it will be a great idea to take some bread out to them and paddle around some. I unknowingly agree. Everything was very genteel and picturesque until we ran out of bread....then Alfred Hitchcock came for a visit
The geese were easy enough to dissuade with a few well timed splashes and some discreet screaming, but Ralph was not your average bird. Did you know that swans often mate for life? Well, Ralph knew this and he had recently lost his mate and consequently was quite grumpy. Why could I not remember the homeowner telling me about this earlier (Ralph had apparently attacked her elderly bulldog more than once just for stepping foot outside)? Before I can fully grasp what's going on, Ralph has glided up to M's side of the paddleboat and nipped her on the arm. M reacted like the hounds of hell were ripping her arm out of its socket, stood up, and began a panicked, prancing hysteria dance. Okay, we're in the middle of the DEEP lake, in the winter, pursued by an angry swan and about to take an impromptu swim. Since M is now out of reach, Ralph glides back over to my side. Spreading his sizable wings, puffing up the rest of his feathers, hissing like a demented snake, I'm sure Ralph is pretty scary....to other small creatures (and M, to judge by her screaming) but RALPH HAS NO TEETH and I refuse to be terrified of something that has no teeth. When Ralph struck at me like a snake, I gave it right back to him by slapping him so hard, his whip-like neck snapped his head into the water on the other side of his body. He came back up spluttering but guess what...Ralph backed off. It was only then that I noticed all the properties facing the lake now had people at windows and on decks and I realized how much noise had been going on with M screaming and me yelling at her to shut up. We paddled back to the dock and fled indoors.
All that to say, what would you do if a monkey made "sexually explicit gestures" at you? There is a small village in Kenya with an infestation of wild vervet monkeys that are destroying crops, killing livestock (they don't look that big in the photos) and may very well bring about the destruction of this village. The monkeys don't bother the men of the village but chase the women and children, throw rocks at them, and grab body parts (I couldn't REALLY tell if they meant the monkeys' own parts or the women and children's parts) so that they are afraid to leave their houses. Any harvested crops brought indoors for safety are still in danger as the monkeys are so bold as to break into the houses to get it. The vervets are a protected species so the villagers can't legally kill them and are trying to come up with other ways of getting rid of the problem. The monkeys are not fooled by women in men's clothing because they've tried. I'm just saying, couldn't they kick or pepper spray them or something? I am usually fervently against animal cruelty but if the alternative is starving to death....? It's a bad situation.
M and I had pizza for lunch today, but not pizza like this!
I couldn't figure out what whales had to do with shrimp pizza, but it was worth the watch!!!
The facial expressions are the best!
and now.....
THE AMAZING ANTINI BROTHERS!!!! no nets, no safety measures, all real!!!
If you are at all interested in Egyptology (as I and a group of my friends are), take a minute and go visit this great website from the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University in Georgia. I found it on a click-through from a Seed Daily Zeitgeist article on mummies and brains....yay mummies and brains!
afternoon ya'll htw
p.s. It is storming again....I wonder how long the A/C will last this time????
...could flow from my mouth (or my fingers, in the case of this blog) at this very moment. Here in Alabama the heat index is hovering close to 100ºF, cloud cover is minimal and the library's AC is out AGAIN due to yesterday's fleeting electrical storm at lunchtime. It's been out for a full 24 hours now and the building is sweltering. WE ARE THE ONLY LIBRARY IN THE COUNTY THAT DOES NOT CLOSE WHEN THE A/C IS OUT!!! We've already had half a dozen patrons come in to study and turn right back around and leave. My coworker asked me if I'd heard any word about us closing and I hated having to let her know that that's not what we do here...get a sweat rag and a bottle of water and settle in. I got the fans out of our workroom so Teri and I are not dying by any means, but I have sweat running down my scalp and back and I'm not feeling at my most professional...shouldn't situations like this be covered by OSHA? I guess not, other wise steel workers wouldn't have to go to work...
I don't mind in the least sweating when that's what I intend to do (exercising, working in the yard, cleaning house, etc.) but not while I'm at work in my wonderful, supremely-appreciated white collar profession. The white collar in question is currently transparent with sweat!
You aren't afraid to delve head first into a difficult subject, with mastery as your goal. You are talented at adapting, motivating others, managing resources, and analyzing risk.
You should major in:
Philosophy Music Theology Art History Foreign language
I swear I love Seed magazine's Daily Zeitgeist more and more each day...if you haven't subscribed to the Seed's Rss, go do it now! Mental Floss has nothing on them, nothing at all.
Take this article entitled "The Science of Magic." A bunch of scientists are knocking around Vegas (imagine being able to take that off as a business expense?!?!?!) watching magic shows and trying to come up with a theory on how the brain works. They are taken on personal tours of the acts of the best magicians on the strip...Teller even walks them through one of his (hey! all this time I thought he didn't talk!). I learned all sorts of interesting words I now feel obligated to throw into daily conversation: qualia, inattentional blindness, prestidigitation, philosophical zombies (sure to appear soon at a theater near you!), intermittent conditioning....
...lo and behold, near the end of the article Alex pops up! I have not read anything about Alex since I wrote about him in my Senior Capstone paper on animal and nonverbal communication in 1999 (here's an article from that time period...I probably cited it in that paper!). I'm glad to know he's still out there and kicking! I've always said that if I were ever to get a bird, it'd be an African Grey.
As much as I hate the corny, play-on-your-sympathies nature of Lee Greenwood’s epic patriot ballad, strains of “God Bless the USA” ran through my head as I read this blog entry about a Newsweek BeliefWatch column concerning government control in China. Is it a moratorium on the press, you may ask. No. Does it concern the suppression of inflammable ideas in a piece of literature, perhaps? Uhhh….no. According to this fine piece of journalistic tattling, the Chinese government is clamping down on those clowning around, violent reincarnation people. Buddhist monks will now be banned from reincarnating without government permission….I wonder who’ll be collecting the hall pass on that one?
There will apparently be strict rules surrounding the procedures by which one reincarnates. Oh no! I skipped that class too. I hate tests where you have to show your work! I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when that government/committee meeting took place. Who brought it up? Who thought it was a good idea? And last but not least….who thought they could monitor it? Will there be a confessing station for the unauthorized reincarnated? How will you know for sure?
This obviously just elicits more questions than it can ever answer and makes me want to take a hard look at our own government. I’ve never been overly political, though I do vote (and research my vote, thank you very much). I’m sure there are things that I miss by not following these people every step of the way in their race for the White House but I have always, and will continue to always, believe that all politicians are criminals at heart. I do not believe that there is one out there who totally has other’s best interests at heart.
Sorry Mr. Obama, but I don’t believe that you could have made it to the place in politics that you occupy with out climbing over some weaker than yourself, telling not a few lies, and looking out for number 1. I don’t fault you for that exactly, but what I do fault politicians for is trying to make us think otherwise. There are few times during the year that I am less concerned about not having television reception at my home than during a political push. The commercials are ceaseless and infuriating, attempting to get me to believe that each and everyone of them is working for me, has led a faultless (and here in the South, a Christian evangelical one at that) life and whose opponent was born out of the depths of hell, leading our country into an unorganized and lawless pit….you do get desensitized, people. Find a new campaign slogan! A L T H O U G H…..the U.S. government isn’t trying to regulate reincarnation ;)
Just as bad in my estimation is the state of Alabama’s continuing attempts to apply taxes to items that are not bought here. Why should Jane Doe or John Smith have to pay Alabama taxes on something they bought from someone in Texas or Hawaii or Juno, for that matter? Okay, my quasi-political/economic/social rant has come to an end.
You're going to get what you want, and no one's going stand in your way. (Even if it's just knocking out your roomie to get the last ice cream sandwich!) People who slow you down, simply need to be taken out - by any means possible. You are the master of charming, wooing, manipulating, and intimidating.
Your world is colored with offbeat, confident, and stimulating colors. You have a personality that's downright weird - and you wouldn't change it for anything. Loud and expressive, you voice your opinions fearlessly and strongly. And while you have a strong personality, you can be friends with almost anyone.
Your color wheel opposite is blue. Your confidence is something blue people truly envy.
My friend Erica introduced me to the fun concept of the celebrity best friend. What this means is that she (and now I) KNOW that if we could meet and hang out with certain celebrities, we’d be the best of friends with them. For Erica, that person is Keira Knightley. I can see their similarities and have no reason to doubt the possibilities of a friendship between the two. As for me, I think Fergie (the singer, not the Duchess of York…although I would certainly not be averse to hanging out with her either) and I would get along pretty well as friends. I’ll take the whole concept and kick it up a notch (thanks Emeril!) by debuting my dead celebrity best friend. It’s entirely possible that I’ll have more than one if I REALLY think hard about it but for now….
There was a USA Today article in my Bloglines inbox yesterday that got me kinda fired up and it had to do with one of my fav poets/storytellers, Edgar Allan Poe. I’ve heard it all before…darkness, depression, suicide, drugs and alcohol…I still like the guy. Maybe if he’d had better friends he wouldn’t have had such a tough time or maybe it didn’t matter, whatever. I still like him.
Let’s see…middle child, their father ditched them within a year of his birth, his mother died the year after that and he made the orphan circuit. Unhappiness trailed after him like an obedient dog through tough years at the University of Virginia, a short military career and on into his marriage to his first cousin, Virginia. By all accounts, Edgar and Virginia’s marriage was an amicable one so naturally he was devastated when she began to experience complications from tuberculosis, the scourge of the age. Her struggle with illness and eventual death in 1847 exacerbated Poe’s addictions, mostly to alcohol and it comes as no surprise that he died within two years of Virginia. His death came a mere 40 years after his birth and has been attributed to all sorts of beastly things like alcohol, drugs, cholera, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, heart disease, brain congestion and other agents although the exact cause has never been determined (Wikipedia). Autopsies were so out-of-fashion at the time…I guess they were never in-fashion...whatever.
To make the story even better, beginning in 1949 and continuing to this day (or at least the most recent January 19th) a dark, mysterious figure leaves a bottle of cognac and three roses on Poe’s grave each year on January 19th (Poe’s birthday). At least, that has been the story up until yesterday (or that’s when I found out about this anyway). The USA Today article has the headline “Edgar Allan Poe fan takes credit for graveyard legend.” Sam Porpora led the charge to revive Poe’s resting place, then a decrepit crumbling cemetery, as a historical monument. Due to the popularity gained from the mysterious yearly deposit, Porpora succeeded. Beginning in 1977, a yearly vigil was held to watch for what had become known as the “Poe Toaster.” Now Porpora is claiming that he was a Poe Toaster and that he and a group of the site’s tour guides and caretakers cooked up the scheme in the 1960’s (by telling everyone it had been going on since 1949) in order to cement the site’s fame.
Now, I believe it is pretty $h!tty for this man to ruin everyone’s enjoyment of this mysterious tradition. I can think of another tradition which is thoroughly enjoyed by those who believe in its power...make that two traditions. Much of the world goes to great lengths to make sure this tradition stays in place as long as possible. I am comparing the Poe Taster to that because I believe it resides at that level of greatness. I personally think Porpora’s done it because he’s 92 years old and wants his fifteen minutes before his dirt nap commences. Well, I’m here to tell you now that I refuse to kowtow to his fame-hungry lies! Oh no, not me! The Poe Taster is alive and well in my imagination and looks nothing like Sam Porpora. He’s getting a pretty good bit of flack from Poe scholars and enthusiasts as well so I don’t feel that much like a freak ;)
If you haven’t read Poe here are some of my favorites: The Fall of the House of Usher, The Masque of the Red Death, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, and his poem, “The Bells” (is there any more fun word to say than tintinnabulation…except maybe onomatopoeia?). I will admit to the secret thought that the guy who plays Bernie from Weekend at Bernies could definitely star in a biopic of Poe....
I found this table of modern IQ ranges for various occupations (HERE's the link if the thumbnail won't enlarge) through my SEED Daily Zeitgeist feed.....
...and was more than a little miffed that librarians (or some category I could lump myself into) were not represented. We could have shown those college professors and medical occs a thing or two I'm sure! Maybe another reader will find a librarian-ish slot, but I couldn't. I have never taken an official IQ test and don't know anyone who has. Is it like elective surgery or are they required for some obscure occupation or other? I'm sure there's a substantial charge...? I've taken loads of free ones off the web and stay in a comfortable and constant 124-128 range. I'm sure the curve is more than adequate for such easily accessible tests, but according to this table I'm not doing too bad and I'll take it, chump change or no!
Ah, who am I kidding? I just love tests and quizzes for no apparent reason! In high school (rural area, so 7-12 for me) I used to take every prep test to come down the pike...P-SAT, P-ACT, XYZ, PNMSQT, XYZ, DAT, GHWERY, PHMWRTUG....ok, some of those are not tests but they could have been based on existing naming systems. It was $5 or $10 to take them and I ponied up every time. Everyone thought I was such a goody twoshoes, smartypants, what-have-you when really, it was worth $5 or $10 to basically skip class until after lunch. The tests didn't count for anything, the teachers were ecstatic that I wanted to take them, I didn't want to start off the day in this or that class...presto! Take a test!
Alright, so is that TOO weird or are we all still friends? If so, I'd love to tell you how I got out of long division in 3rd grade!
I clicked through several blogs to get here, but I was originally in pursuit of info about the movie/movies in the works based on Terry Brooks' Shannara series. These books have been on the summer reading list for the local high school for my entire seven year tenure here at EO Library and the teens love them year after year, even the girls. These are not novellas either, published in the early 80's and weighing in at almost 500 pages apiece, The Sword of Shannara and Elfstones of Shannara are both a hefty read.
I have not made it around to Eldon's books yet, but I like the titles (The Crimson Sword, The Obsidian Key and soon-to-be-published, The Divine Talisman) and the cover art. Click on over to A Dribble of Ink to check out the interview with Eldon on how he came to be an author and screenwriter...or to drool, you know, whichever....
You are Linear B. Even those who can follow you think you're all Greek to them. Which, after all, is true - Linear B being the first known text for written Greek. To most people, you're incomprehensible. But what do you care? You're tough, hard, long-enduring and have greater nobility than most. Naturally, you don't admit to borrowing extensively from your brother Linear A.
This test tracked 4 variables. How the score compared to the other people's:
climb out from under your comfortable rock and read Khaled Hosseini's The Kite RunnerBEFORE you see the movie. You'll also be doing yourself a great favor if you pickup Hosseini's second book, A Thousand Splendid Suns!
as you may have deduced from my television commentary, I'm petsitting :)
Meet Petunia a.k.a. Tunie the Terrible, or so I hear...she's very sweet for me, but I do hide the tv remotes and cordless phones so they won't get buried in the back yard :)
This is Sigmund a.k.a. Siggy. He's an old feller (though not yeller) and is also very sweet. He tends to have a nervous stomach so I try to keep things nice and calm to avoid having to clean up the fallout :)
there are two cats roaming around, Maisy and Flush, but they are camera shy
okay, that's a book on accessing philosophical tenents through humor and this is even funnier. I, dear friends, am watching comedic genius! If you can find me anything funnier than Stephen Baldwin and Vanilla Ice learning bullriding, I'd like to see it. Ty Murray's Celebrity Bullriding Challenge has premiered tonight on CMT, not a station I'd normally watch but they had a funny video show called "Southern Fried (read: redneckiest) Home Videos" and it was like surfing YouTube for Darwin Award candidates. I saw that this show was coming on next and had to watch the train wreck. HiLaRiOuS! There is some serious chemistry going on between Stephen Baldwin and Rob Van Winkle :) This is seriously funny folks, check it out! night ya'll! htw
...not the kind you get for DUI's or reckless driving, but the kind you perform because it's the right thing to do. My library is forming a sort of mentoring/working partnership with a local nonprofit social aid organization called The Lovelady Center. From their website:
The Lovelady Center is a nine to twelve month intensive faith-based program that ministers to women and their children who arrive at the 100,000 plus square foot facility from:
The prison system Judges who order women to the center as an alternative form of sentencing Parole Board Community Corrections The Department of Human Resources (DHR) Self-check in by those who hear of the center Domestic violence and abusive situations
The Center has a library but it was filled with ragged, moldy and out-of-date books. For instance, there were 3 sets of encyclopedias with the newest set having a copyright of 1972...We went in yesterday and cleaned all of the old books out (they went to the facility's thrift shop), dusted the shelves, and took 10 or 12 boxes of current and topically relevant books to refill the shelves. We get lots of donations here at the library, plus we routinely weed our shelves of duplicate copies and other materials that have not circulated well. There is nothing wrong with these materials, they simply no longer fill a need here at my library. Our Friends group will take our nonfiction, but do not want the fiction discards so we went through those as well to pull out nice, gently-used copies of titles we imagined the ladies at the Center might like to read. Since we only keep one calendar year of the periodicals we subscribe to, we will also be donating the parenting and women's health magazines as well as any others that may appeal to the residents.
Yesterday was such a powerful experience. Many of the ladies I saw working around the facility were around my age, many had children, but they all had no money and no where to live and many had infants and toddlers. Anyone who thinks they are having a rough time of it should put in some time at a place like this. Donate some time to a homeless shelter, soup kitchen or halfway house.
This will be an ongoing partnership and Katie and I are planning to do booktalking programs and possibly a book group in the future if there is interest. The Center's library will have to have some new (or gently-used) furniture to replace the uncomfortable and ugly plastic chairs so we are looking around for some reasonably priced loveseats, endtables, chairs and lamps to take back over next week. The walls will be painted and we'll hang some nice looking art on the walls as we find it.
I am so excited about this project. I love the community I serve now, but this gets down to the nitty gritty of what it means to me to be a librarian. I want to offer an oasis of sorts to the ladies; somewhere to get help if they are pursuing educations and/or jobs, resources for becoming better mothers and citizens, community building and more! My soapbox begins to sway with my fervor I know, but until the new wears off this project I'll be fired up about it. I can hardly wait to get back next week and see what else we can do for these hardworking women.
Are you a duchenne smiler (genuine) or pan american smiler (fake...and yep, it was named in honor of the doomed airline's flight attendants)? Can you distinguish between fake smiles and genuine ones? I got 13 out of 20 correct but, contrary to popular results, I recognized most of the fake ones and missed more of the genuine smiles. Am I overly pessimistic or has half a lifetime of public service schooled me too well in the art of recognizing bull&hit when I see it :)
Visit Retrospectacle for the article on how smiles are perceived, (sorry Japanese patrons! I'll try not to be so insensitive in the future) and click the BBC quiz link after the second great photo of Mr. Smile to see how well you tell the difference. If you think about it, come back and comment on your results and how you feel about your bull&hitometer...
*enter the fanfare and trumpets, a few elephants, some tigers, a peacock and a chinchilla (just cuz they're cute!)*
Dr. L was über-thrilled at my progress, as was I, and I start a 5 week weaning process on the morrow! I'm nervous about not having the medicinal support, but at the same time pretty proud that I've managed to start beating the noonday demon. Will I be able to handle my own emotions without the medication? Have my emotional muscles gone lax with inactivity? I guess we'll see...but I'm feeling pretty strong about it at this point. I will go see the counseling therapist as often as I feel like I need to, but I will only have to go to Dr. L periodically for any meds I may need. My goal is to be off the Effexor all together by the end of the year if I can and as I said, I'm feeling pretty confident right now.
this post from The Loom, which I found through Seed Magazine's Daily Zeitgeist, truly resonates with me.
I decided, not long after the most recent tattoo, that my next one will be book/library science-related. I have some intense research to do in order to come up with exactly what I want, but the topic is set. Maybe next year some time but who knows if I'll be able to last that long. I don't know if it works that way for everyone, but once I got one I jonesed for the second and now it's even worse! I'd go out and get one after work tonight if I could come up with something I wanted but I'm not a bit impulsive about my tats. They result from research and introspection which I can't get my mother or my best friend to understand.
My roomie (the best friend) already told me that when she gets married I'll be wearing a shawl to cover the one on my back, but now I have a pretty big on on my right forearm so I guess I'll be wearing gloves now too...where, oh where, should my next tattoo go so she can't cover it up without me walking down the aisle in the coveted maid-of-honor position covered in a garbage bag?
Premiering December 28th, El Orfanato (The Orphanage) is only being produced by Del Toro but I'll be rushing to the theater nonetheless! A single mom decides to convert her childhood home into an orphanage, her son then acquires an "imaginary friend" who seems a little too solid, and screaming ensues. There's a great still of this really creepy kid/ghost/undead person/monster (SEE ABOVE) in a kinda horrifying burlap sack mask. It reminds me of some of the images I've seen for the new Joker in the upcoming Batman flick. (He'll forever be Jack Nicholson to me, though) Looks good, looks creepy, although it does bear a startling resemblance, in topic if not in time period, to El Espinazo del diablo so we'll see if any great differences pan out.
I have been closely following this film since I first read about it on Cinematical. Since then I've bought my own copy of the graphic novel, the first I've read that I liked...nay, LOVED! The images are so good, so scary. Just enough is shown that you know the rest that you can't see, you don't really want to see....wonderfully icky!
concerned friends will cheer to the fact that I've finally started the Harry Potter books, in audio, but I've started. Jim Dale is everything various friends have made him out to be...what a great narration talent! I have an hour commute one way to work so it takes only a few days to do away with a 7 CD book. Seven CD's = ~8 hours which in turn = ~4 days.
I'm noticing that OOTP has 23 CD's and 26 hours and 30 minutes so that'll take roughly 2 weeks to listen to with no outside trips anywhere. Probably GOF will be that long as well, maybe DH too. I'm particularly excited that it won't take me 7 years to finish the series as it has everyone else. Harry Potter....no lines, no waiting :)
On other fronts, I have my 3 month appointment with my therapist tomorrow and we are hopefully going to start the process of weaning off the antidepressant. I've been out of school now for a month, been on vacation, started going places after work with friends...just in general getting out more. I feel good, happier than I have in a long time. I signed up for an art class at the Museum in the fall, book making by hand, and am looking forward to that eagerly. Art on the Rocks is coming up soon also and it's toga night! I have instructions for making a toga all printed out, I just need to choose some fabric and decide just how over the top I'm willing to go :) I want the Vespa!!!
Gotta run! It's my shift on the reference desk! htw
I just posted this on my library's blog but I am SO excited about this book that I'll put it here too! Even if you do not normally read this genre (I sure don't), give it a try and see if you don't find something to love about Mia McMurry, I dare you! I will give a bit of a break to those who have absolutely no interest in chick lit. I have OCCASIONALLY read something I liked in that genre so I'm not 100% opposed to it and this books proves that there are writers out there with the cajones to do something different. That this is a debut novel amazes me even more...I've read alot of them and they usually have a certain roughness in common but I did not find evidence of it here. For those interested, read on. For those not, read on of course!
:)
Move over Sophie Kinsella! Clear a path Lauren Weisberger! Jennifer Weiner just needs to go home! Let me introduce you to my new favorite person, Mia McMurry! In Danielle Ganek’s debut novel, Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him, she introduces the reader to the world of the gallery girl.
“They call us gallerinas. We’re generally considered a loathsome breed, gallery receptionists. Aren’t we represented almost universally as obnoxious, entitled, pretty girls in great clothes? Yes, yes, stock characters in miniature art-world dramas, we’re pretentious creatures in intellectual fashion and high heels, dripping with attitude and sarcasm, rolling our eyes at visitors requesting something as mundane as the price list. God forbid you want to know where the bathroom is.”
Known for their condescending attitudes and general snobbery gallerinas have acquired quite a nasty reputation that Mia is determined to get rid of single-handedly simply through courtesy. She’s nice to all of the artists, dealers, and collectors who shove their way through the hard-to-open doors of the Simon Pryce Gallery in New York’s Chelsea art scene.
One artist in particular has her smitten (in a sweet kind of way, Mia has sworn off dating any artists or members of their entourage) at the moment and he DEFINITELY doesn’t fit the mold of hot emerging artist. Quite the opposite, Jeffrey Finelli is a short round fifty-eight year old man missing one arm. The night of his very first opening, the pinnacle of his career, the unexpected happens and Jeffrey is struck by a cab and killed. Instantly the popular opinion on his artwork goes from ho-hum effort to ultra in-demand must have and this is most especially true of his masterpiece painting entitled Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him, a figurative painting of his niece as a young girl.
As demand heats up for the titular painting, a buffoonish competition erupts between greedy gallery owners, back stabbing collectors with more money than brains and Jeffrey’s niece Lulu who feels she should get the painting because her uncle promised it to her. Mia is torn between loyalty to her eccentric boss, the affection of a new friendship with Lulu, and the possibility of love from an unexpected (and unwelcome) direction. Mia’s in trouble alright, but she finds that years of social training in New York’s Chelsea art scene have toughened her in unexpected ways and she just may be able to come out ahead of the game.
This spectacular “blue marble” image is the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our planet.
Someone rants about the postumous and co-authoring publication trend...Robert Ludlum has been publishing like mad despite the fact that he died about 6 years ago. V.C. Andrews' series refuses to die (there are even releases being scheduled for 2008) although she herself began pushing up daisies in 1986.
My favorite line from the article (which anyone remotely interested in the book/publishing industry should read):
I say it’s time to create another new bestseller list:
Books Supposedly By Famous Bestselling Authors But Really Not.
Then we could free up some spots on the real list for new good writers who haven’t had a chance to “build their brand.”
The blog I followed the original thread from, getreligion.org (world religion-related news of all types) noted of the family at the bottom, 
Coming soon to a theater near you!
