Week’sEnd Linky Wrap-Up

Best from around the web this past week….

• The Wizard of Oz,Steampunk Style Fabulous illustration by Jennifer L. Meyer. [via Nymeth on Twitter]
• recipe: Cream of Winter Squash & Tomato Soup . Yum.
• Add to my Must Read List: The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
• Help Make Puerto Rico Prosecute the Murder of 19-Year Old Jorge Steven Lopez Mercadoas a Hate Crime -Angering,horrifying,chilling. [via @The Undomestic]
• Tom Cruise’s Audition for New Moon
• Offset your Infidelity with Cheat Neutral Do you have difficulty being faithful? Fear not: CheatNeutral allows you to offset your infidelity by paying another couple not to cheat. Um,say what? Oh,I see. Carbon Offsets for those who haven’t figured out polyamory yet
• Vaccine Ingredient Calculator Nice to know exactly what’s in that stuff [via @NaturalPapa]
• Ten Webcomics You Should Read LGBT or Feminist friendly
• Crock Pot Recipe: Sweet Potato Stuffing Definitely making for THAT day – you know, some call it Turkey Day.Others call it Native American Genocide Day.Toe-may-toe,toe-mah-toe.
• Siblings who like each other and cooperate? oh,I understand – you must homeschool. Great article about the values homeschool teaches in regards to cooperation vs competitiveness. [via @Homeschool_Mom]
• Recipe: Pasta with Butternut Parmesan Sauce .Yes, I have squash I need to figure out what to do with.
• Must Have Children’ s Book: We’re Having a Homebirth! Looks like it tells it like it is. Always good, in my opinion.
• Four Good Reading Challenges for 2010 Oh,you book bloggers. Why do you do this to me?
• Top 100 Sex Bloggers of 2009 Quite a few of my regular reads made this list. Definitely going to make a point to check out the ones I’ve not read before
• An Open Letter To My Daughter Totally ditto to this.  Not just as it applies to that stupid vampire crap but in the real world with real relationships.Also, isn’t anyone else alarmed that Edward is a little creepily obsessed with stalking Bella? As one of my daughters yelled at Bella while watching Twilight,”“Some guy tells you he could kill you & you say that’s OK??? Are you a freakin’ moron!?”.
• Even more to add to the reading list: 15 Books Written by Women in 2009

[NoNaBloMoJo-JoJo] yeah,right.

Day 17…wait.18? of November.That November Blogging Month thing went well for me,eh?

In my defense, I had kids with flu (most likely H1N1) and I had that first trimester thing going on.

Also in my defense, I just didn’t feel like writing every day.

I can never follow or stick to these online memes. That doesn’t stop me from joining them,though. Intention counts for something.

One thing I continually decide I want to committ to and never can is reading challenges. Being the Book Whore that I am, I follow a lot of great book blogs & see all these fantastic challenges and am immediately overcome with the desire to raise my hand and hop up & down in my seat, yelling,”Oh! MEMEME!!”

As it turns out, my reading habits are far too capricious to stick to a set list that needs to be read in a set time frame. Oh, I will eventually read all those books I chose for whatever challenge it was but definitely not by the time the challenge is over.I also inevitably end up with a ton more books added to my own To Read List after following the blogs of all the participants in the challenge. I participate vicariously through their commitment to the challenges.

One GREAT challenge going on right now is Women Unbound ,a challenge that focuses on books relating to women studies. I follow the blogs of quite a few women who are participating in this challenge and love seeing the book lists of what they’re choosing to read. Can’t wait to see the reviews as they delve into this challenge.

On a related note, Guerilla Girls posted a list of Best Books of 2009 by Women.  Looks like I have more books to add to my To Read List.

 

 

I’m laughing at clouds So dark up above The sun’s in my heart And I’m ready for love

[Win]

I don’t see how this could possibly be seen as a FAIL

[Also Not A Fail]

from here

Conversation my uber-geek hubby & I had over this photo:

Him: Why? Why would a storm trooper be singing in the rain?

Me: If you had a storm trooper costume, you’d do all sorts of goofy things with it,too

Him: Would not.

Me: Would so.

Him: Well…. not THAT I wouldn’t.

(I think he would)

[Library Loot]

This was my Book Club Book for next months meeting, chosen for it’s macabre & creepy storyline to accompany the month of October.

Set in Medieval times,  the story features a female doctor who “the dead speak to”. Meaning, she’s a sort of a Temperance Brennan or Sara Sidle during a time when women were most definitely not supposed to be doctors,let alone speak to dead bodies. .Educated & raised in Salerno, Adelia is ordered by the King to travel to England  to investigate the gruesome & brutal  murders of 4 children in Cambridge that the Jews are being blamed & persecuted  for. Under the guise of  acting as assistant to her manservant, she avoids the inevitable questioning and accusal of witchcraft.

The mystery of the novel is a gripping plot on it’s own but it’s the character of Adelia ,with her early “feminist” views  and examination of anti-semitism,anti-woman, superstition and plain churchy stuff in Medieval England that give the story depth & interest.

[blog title: "Singing in the Rain", of course]

“It is a happy talent to know how to play” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Time for Thursday Tea .

Page Beginning of "Tamara Drewe" by Posy Simmonds. The Littlest One in the background, in his element.

I’m reading “Tamara Drewe” by Posy Simmonds, a graphic novel ,which, as the synopsis explains, is “loosely inspired by Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, Tamara Drewe follows a year at Stonefield, a bucolic writer’s retreat run by Beth and Nicholas Hardiman, where Dr. Glen Larson, an American professor and struggling novelist, is staying. The ambitious young Tamara Drewe, mourning the loss of her mother, has returned to her family home nearby. A bookish girl not so long ago, Tamara is now a gossipy columnist at a London paper and undeniably sexy. She quickly has every man in the vicinity—Glen, Nicholas, and the handyman, Andy—falling at her feet, while teenage best friends Casey and Jody become infatuated with Tamara and her ex-rock-star fiancé, Ben. Meanwhile, long-suffering Beth sees to the needs of the writers while managing the farm, the household, and the many affairs of her husband, a best-selling detective novelist.”

So far,Im enjoying this. Beth is just learning about her husband’s affair. Their marriage is defined as a more or less , “an open marriage”, yet she was blindsided and in the dark about his current affair. As anyone who has had an open-marriage can ytell you, when there is no reason to lie….but someone still is lying, there’s a reason and it usually leads to no good!

You can  read the entire graphic novel here,too.

My current tea is an Earl Grey , totally NOT intentional but as it so happens, the cliched English tea does seem to be the perfect companion to a book set in the English countryside. I’m drinking mine iced and  this particular brand of tea is Wegman’s store brand.

Now about that kid of mine, playing in the dirt. This kid is a testament to the practical parenting practice of buying second-hand clothing only. There is no way those pajama pants will ever be anythng other than dirt color now …and that’s ok. We could buy every cool & excitng outdoor toy on the market and this kid would still choose to play in this patch of dirt in the backyard. This 5 small patch of dirt is a biome supporting construction vehicles,dinosaurs, spaceships, robots,cars & trucks, jungle & farm animals and superheroes. It’s a good time for a 4 year old.

That paintbrush seems to be very important

“You stay right here at the fire,Bear,and sleep in the warm”

It’s Tuesday…where are you?

I’m in a cottage in the woods, being groomed by 2 little girls and their mother. It’s all very odd…one minute I was running through the village in my bear suit, scaring children and the next,I was in the snow, making my way toward the door of this cottage. Starnger still, I seem to no longer be a man but a bear.

tender morsels by margo lanagan

This morning, in reality and not book form, it is very chilly in upstate NY. I was huddled under a comforter reading this morning. Hopeful last night was the last very cold night and Spring is finally here. The temp dipped down to low 30’s last night.  I’m so over the cold.

[blog title from pg 125 of tender morsels by Margo Lanagan]

His spells portrayed the spirit as a frail thing, constantly under attack and in need of strength, always threatening to die inside you

Thursday Tea via Beth Fish Reads.

Here’s how it works: Tell us what tea you are drinking (and if you like it). And then tell us what book are you reading (and if you like it). Finally, tell us if they go together.

The Tea

Gunpowder Green Tea My oldest son, the tea afficianado, introduced me to gunpowder green tea and since then,I consider it one of my favorite teas. The tea leaves are rolled into pellets ,resembling gunpowder that unfurl when steeped. The tea itself is a darker,richer green tea than typical greens and has a more robust flavor.

The Book

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. Set against a backdrop of the thick of the Civil War, Joe Inman struggles to get back to Ada (who isn’t exactly having a fun  time on the farm herself) in North Carolina. I’m not far but I’m enjoying it so far.

A Match?

Tea named after gunpowder. Brutality of war. Yep.They go together.

[blog title from the book, page 14.]

The Mississippi Delta was shining Like a National guitar

I swear,people…some day soon, you’ll get a real blog post from me. Until then,I’m still one day late and feel like only doing bite sized blurbs.

People have asked about my kid’s progress so far biking across the country. My mom drove him to Tennessee earlier this week because she wanted to see Graceland and other Tennessee-things so he’s staying with her, doing the touristy thing until tomorrow, and then he’ll be off on his own with the bike.

I’m doing daily updates on my  blip.fm, tracking his trip with music. I’ll probably throw in some tracks from his 10 CDs he took with him ,too.

Wednesday Media Mix, 3.11.09

[Listen] Some people don’t like music being categorized into genres at all. Are genres helpful, or do they hinder a musician’s creative potential?

I do not like confining music to genres.I think it says so in one of those points on my 100 Things About Me list somewhere.  And have you noticed the genre classifications for music these days? I look at what some stuff is labeled and think ,”What the hell is THAT?”. Clearly, someone out there feels it’s necessary to define genres even further .Possibly because more and more artists are pushing the limits and trying to break barriers and musical parameters the industry & consumers have pre-defined and they don’t fit into some neat little pre-set notion of what rock or country music is supposed to be, so it has to be something OTHER than what it is.

I say it a lot, about a lot of different things but when it comes to music, it is what it is. If you like it, listen to it. Why do we have to call it anything ?

oh…and one of my huge pet peeves about music and genres -

Say you’re talking about a musical artist you recently discovered to a friend. Friend says, “Well, what kind of music is it?”. So, you’re forced to come up with a label. You say ,”Well, I guess it would be considered hip-hop..sort of?”. Automatically, friend’s face looks like they smelled something nasty and says,”Ohhh, I don’t like hip-hop.I only listen to alternative rock”  So, right away…genre defined – it’s a no-go because of some other music listened to in that genre that turned that person off at one time or another…and god forbid they listen to something defined as outside their usual listening zone.

I hate that people have such a closed mind about music. It’s like trying new food. Listen to something new once in awhile. You might discover new taste bus sensations.

[Watch] Are there types of movie genres you tend to watch with different social circles? (I.e., maybe you watch romantic comedies with your parents, action flicks with your spouse, horror movies with a special friend, etc.)

Most movies I like don’t interest my hubby but I can count on him wanting to watch comedies or something action-packed with me…and certain TV series, like Dexter,Big Love & Queer as Folk. My oldest son is who I tend to watch foreign, “award winners” and old film noir.

I watch documentaries alone. Would anyone like to be my Documentary-Watching Buddy? I’m tired of hitting pause when I have a profound thought about what’s happening on the screen and having no one to share it with. (Oh…but if my hitting oause annoys you, i can wait until the end for any discussion, I swear)

[Read] Is there a type of genre you feel a little ashamed to enjoy reading?

The Twilight series was a guilty pleasure. Other than that, I really don’t read anything I’m ashamed of reading.

[blog title from "Graceland" by Paul Simon]

To a world where madness craves To a world where hopes enslaved Oh, Ill tremble for my love always

Everyone in the blogosphere and twittersphere  (at least the bits I read) have decided to jump on the Twilight bandwagon.

I read the first 3 Twilight books at a rapid pace last year, devouring them and immersed in teenage angst and hormones. After I finished each book, I’d pause for a moment and realize that I had just read a lot of drivel, written badly… and that the entire plot was ripped off from a better written,classic piece of literature.  And then i wanted more. The books are not Brain Candy. They’re Brain Crack.

So, these books are written by a Mormon stay-at-home mom who was inspired by a “dream” she had. I guess this is supposed to give me inspiration that I too can write a bestselling novel while whiling away my life at home with my kids…and I don’t really need to have any talent! I’ve been skeptical from the get go about this whole “Mormon housewife-writer of vampire stories”.

The only thing that redeems her a little is the playlist (there’s one for each book ) she  used while writing. While reading the books, you can definitely tell the musical influence and as someone who often lets the music I listen to inspire my art, I can find some common ground. I love the musical correspondence and if you know about it before delving into the books, it really adds atmosphere. I often make up my own soundtrack while reading books,anyway. Whenever I read a book, I find myself thinking of perfect musical accompaniment or vice-versa…i hear a song and think, “Ah, that goes with such-and-such a book”. (“The View From Heaven” by Yellowcard goes with The Lovely Bones. “The River Below” by Billy Talent goes with It by Stephen King. You get the idea. I could name numerous songs for ever book I ever read but I’ll spare you all )

But I’m still skeptical of a Mormon s@hm mom writing good vampire stories.  It could be that I’ve read too much Poppy Z Brite but I really just wanted Edward & Bella to fuck already. I’ve become accustomed to my vampire love stories having massive quantities of blood and explicit sex, typically combined. All that sexual tension was intense and exciting for a bit but there’s only so long that can stay interesting. While reading each book, I would throw it down and yell, “Gah! Just take off your clothes and fuck already! Jeezus…”

I realize….this would ruin the whole “Abstinence Until Marriage” message the author wanted to deliver to the massive teen audience. And there wouldn’t have been any expectation for each book. “Are they gonna “do it” finally? Ooh, I can’t wait! SQUUUEE!”. What on earth would she have written without that element?

FYI: I tried to read the last book. The endless “Oh, I can’t wait to spend eternity with you…you’re so beautiful..I love you sooo much” was WAY too much for me. Gag worthy,even. Do people in the real world go on and on like that pre-wedding? If so,ew and no wonder I’ve never had any desire to get married. Gag. That stuff is for Disney princesses , not a girl about to marry a vampire.

I read just until after the marriage and the subsequent disappointing,anti-climactic consummation. Dammit, I wanted details. I wanted to know EXACTLY how each bruise and mark left on her happened. That would have been some hot erotica right there.

Bella….ah,Bella. If I could reach through the pages of a book , she’d have welts on her face from me slapping her so many times and whiplash after I tried to shake some sense into her. As she wrestled with her boy choices, I would have calmly sat her down and explained the concept of polyamory. Dear Bella, You CAN have your vampire AND your werewolf too!”

Why she would choose the vampire is a mystery to me . Yeah, he’s gorgeous but he’s as old as dirt and cold.  I have this man I sleep with on a regular basis who is always cold. He does this annoying thing where he climbs into bed with his ice cold feet and hands then  has the nerve to plant said feet between my thighs and hands on my belly to use me as his personal warming station. Many nights I’ve thought to myself, “Ok, this man is a vampire. Can I please have the very hairy, very hot werewolf now?”

So, to my dear friends I have momentarily lost to a fantasy realm of virgins,vampires,werewolves and teenage angst…enjoy yourselves. I’m spending my week getting caught up on Mount Washmore, creating a huge piece of artwork to cover up this huge unsightly hole in my living room wall and making preparations for Thanksgiving din-din. (oh,fuck! I forgot the take the turkey out of the freezer……)

[title from " Tremble for my Beloved" by Collective Soul]

All, you old-time queens, from new orleans, who lived in storyville You sang the blues, try to amuse, here’s how they pay the bill

It’s Tuesday, where in the world are you?

Since I am a multi-book reader , I’m in a couple places at the moment.

I’m in New Orleans, trying to figure out what in the ever-loving hell is up with Ignatius J.  Reilly.

I’m also trying to build a fire using just my hatchet, a rock and beech bark shavings. I’m in pretty sorry shape…bit all to hell my mosquitoes,spiked by a porcupine, starving…all after surviving a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness

[title from "Farewell to Storyyville" , Billie Holiday & Louis Armstrong]

“When I get a little money, I buy books. And if there is any left over, I buy food.”-Erasmus

Books Acquired In State Of Weakness (aka :”I have no willpower when it comes to book sales”)

When you’re hunting through pants pockets in the laundry for spare change  and asking the kids if they have any money so you can go to the last day of the book sale ($2/bag!)  you might have a book problem.

My house is now 70 books richer (some books were camera shy & didn’t make it for the photo op). I made a “rule” (which was clearly meant to be broken) ,that when new books come into the house,I must purge an equal amount from our bookshelves and send them out into the universe.

There are not 70 books I can part with. I need more bookshelves.