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 Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2008 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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Winter Hours
Hardcover
By Mary Oliver
| Quote: | | The material issue of a house, however, is a matter not so much of imagination an spirit as it is of particular, joinable, weighty substance - it is brick and wood, it is foundation and beam, sash and sill; it is threshold and door and the latch upon the door. In the seventies and eighties, in this part of the world if not everywhere, there was an ongoing, monstrous binge of building, or tearing back and rebuilding - and carting away of old materials to the (then-titled) dump. Which, in those days, was a lively and even social place. Work crews made a continual effort toward bulldozing the droppings from the trucks into some sort of order, shoving at least a dozen categories of broken and forsaken materials, along with reusable materials, into separate areas. Gulls, in flocks like low, white clouds, screamed and rippled over the heaps of lumber, looking for garbage that was also dumped, and often in no particular area. Motels, redecorating, would bring three hundred mattresses in the morning, three hundred desks in the afternoon. Treasures, of course, were abundantly sought and found. And good wood - useful wood - wood it was a sin to bury, not to use again. The price of lumber had not yet skyrocketed, so even new lumber lay seamed in with the old, the price passed on to the customer. Cut-offs, and lengths. Pine, fir, oak, flooring, shingles of red and white cedar, ply, cherry trim, also tarpaper and insulation, screen doors new and old, and stovepipe old and new, and bricks, and, more than once, some power tools left carelessly, I suppose, in a truck bed, under the heaps of trash. This is where I went for my materials, along with others, men and women both, who simply roved, attentively, through all the mess until they found what they needed, or felt they would, someday, use. Clothes, furniture, old dolls, old highchairs, bikes; once a child's metal bank in the shape of a dog, very old; once a set of copper-bottomed cookware still in its original cartons; once a bag of old Christmas cards swept from the house of a man who died only a month or so earlier, in almost every one of them a dollar bill. (From PART ONE, Building the House, pgs. 8-9) |
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| Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2008 12:46 pm Post subject: |
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Sonnets to Orpheus
Hardcover
By Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated by Edward Snow
Bilingual Edition
| Quote: | 6
Is he native to this realm? No,
his wde nature grew out of both worlds.
They more adeptly bend the willow's branches
who have experience of the willow's roots.
When you go to bed, don't leave bread or milk
on the table: it attracts the dead --.
But may he, this quiet conjurer, may be
beneath the mildness of the eyelid
mix their bright traces into every seen thing;
and may the magic of earthsmoke and rue
be as real for him as the clearest connection.
Nothing can mar for him the authentic image;
whether he wanders through houses or graves,
let him praise signet ring, gold necklace, jar.
Ist er ein Hiesiger? Nein, aus beiden
Reichen erwuchs seine weite Natur.
Kundiger boge die Zweige der Weiden,
wer die Wurzeln der Weiden erfuhr.
Geht ihr zu Bette, so laBt auf dem Tische
Brot nicht und Milch nicht; die Toten ziehts --.
Aber er, des Beschworende, mische
unter der Milde des Augenlids
ihre Erscheinung in alles Geschaute;
under der Zauber von erdrauch and Raute
sei ihm so wahr wie der klarste Bezug.
Nichts kann das gultige Bild ihm verschlimmern;
sei es aus Grabern, sei es aus Zimmern,
ruhme er Fingerring, Spange und Krug.
(From First Part, pgs. 16-17) |
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| Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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From the PokerPulse Gambler's Guide to Christmas:
The First Christmas
The National Gallery of London
Hardcover
Text and Illustrations attributed to Frances Lincoln
Extracts from the Authorized Version of the Bible
(the King James Bible), the rights in which are vested
in the Crown, are reproduced by permission of the
Crown's patentee, Cambridge University Press
| Quote: | And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, "Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." (Text is beside a wondrous color plate of The Adoration of Kings by Jan Gossaert, p. 16) |
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| Posted: Sat Mar 07, 2009 12:46 pm Post subject: |
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Frida's Fiestas
Recipes and Reminscences of Life with FRIDA KAHLO
Hardcover
By Guadalupe Rivera and Marie-Pierre Colle
Photographs by Ingnacio Ruquiza
Recipes adapted by Laura B. de Caraza Campos
Text translated by Kenneth Krabbenhoft
Recipes Translated by Olga Rigsby
Book design by Julio Vega
| Quote: | The hot winds of March had begun to blow when Ash Wednesday arrived and with it the meatless meals of Lent.
When we sat down to eat one Thursday, I noticed that Frida was very upset. She had just read a newspaper article that linked my father romantically with an attractive Hungarian painter (Irene De Bohus). The reporter, who was a woman, declared that Rivera was going to marry the Hungarian as soon as he divorced his current wife, the painter Frida Kahlo. ...
In the library she took out her hidden treasures to show me. There, in two wood-and-glass cases, was the splendid pre-Columbian jewelry that my father had given her over the years. There also were her collection of folk toys and her retablos on votive themes. She showed me marbles made of old glass, in all sizes. The many-colored cat's eyes in the center made them seem like magical objects, whose shifting hues could predict the future. ...
Later Cristina drove us over a rough road to the edge of the holy city. Here was don Tomás's house, surrounded by magueys and organ cactus, agaves and prickly-pear plants. Don Tomás was tanding in his doorway, and when he saw us, he cried, "Doña Frida! We've been waiting for you since yesterday afternoon! I felt the sadness that brings you to us. I'm very happy to see you have arrived safely. Please come in, come in to my home."
He gave us something to drink, then asked Frida to go with him through the hallway to the garden. When he had finished speaking and the talk turned to other things, that simple, quiet man was suddenly transformed into a menacing creature like Quetzalcoatl, the Teotihuacán deity. A strange light shone in his eyes, and he spoke prophetic words.
"Niña Fridita," he said, "you have more suffering before you, but you will die sheltered and protected by the one who causes your present pain. You and don Diego will not be able to live apart. Sometimes you are united in love and affection, other times hatred keeps you apart. But you will die together and after your death be a single shining star, sun and moon in conjunction. Have no doubt, my dear girl; you are destined to live forever in this universe, each one merged with the other in eternal eclipse."
With these words, his prohecy was finished, and he was once again the humble, mild-mannnered peasant who had waited for us amid the agaves and magueys, in the doorway to his house, with the peace of time reflected in his face. (From March, Teotihuacán, Where Live the Sun and Moon, pgs. 145-147) |
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| Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2009 10:49 am Post subject: |
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The Capilano Review
Magazine Subscription
Tristram's Book
By an otherwise unreadable Frostback, Brian Fawcett
Based on the tragic romance of Tristan and Iseult
No. 19 (1981)
| Quote: | Isolde was the daughter of the King and Queen of Ireland. Her mother, also named Isolde, was a powerful healer who taught her daughter that uncommon skill. The younger Isolde was called Isolde the Fair, and she was known near and far as an intelligent and extraordinarily beautiful woman.
The world of Tristram and Isolde was the Arthurian world, which is to say, a world of political and religious intrigue, small and vulnerable national kingdoms, and heavily structured systems of loyalty and commitment that were meant to provide human beings with the means to live within the maelstrom of war and venal ambition around them. Tristram entered that world when, after an education that made him a master of music, hawking and hunting, he came as a young man to live in Cornwall with his uncle. He was handsome, tall and muscular, and skilled in battle beyond his years.
A short time after Tristram arrived, a huge knight, the brother of Queen Isolde of Ireland, landed in Cornwall to extract from King Mark a tribute of money and young women. As was the custom of the day, the tribute would have to be paid unless this knight, called the Morholt, could be defeated in single combat. ... Young Tristram then offered himself as Cornwall's champion ...
A long and vicious battle ensued. It ended in victory for Tristram, who drove his sword through the Morholt's visor into his skull, where a shard from the sword broke off and remained. Tristram did not escape injury either; the Morholt wounded him in the groin with an envenomed sword.
Lacking the expected tribute, the Irish ship departed the harbour at Tintagel, bearing the corpse of the Morholt with the shard still lodged in his skull. Tristram quickly sickened with his poisoned wound. No cure could be found for him, and a soothsayer made it known that a cure could be obtained only in the land in which the venom was brewed. So Tristram was transported to Ireland, put ashore and abandoned by men rightfully fearful for their Cornish lives. He waited there for what was to befall him, playing on his harp sad songs ... to ease his passage into death's dark kingdom. But death did not hear him. Isolde the Fair heard him, and she marvelled at the lonely music, its sadness and its beauty.
Isolde the Fair took him in and healed his wound. He, in return, played for her pleasure and soon they were friends, walking together across the flowering heath day after day until his strength returned. It was in Ireland that Tristram first killed a dragon ... , and with that brave deed he paid the debt of his healing. ...
... She saw his sword, which he had carelessly left exposed, and noticed the notched blade. She recalled the shards taken from the skull of her uncle, the Morholt, fitted them with Tristram's sword, and felt all her affection for the young turn to rage and hate. ...
So Tristram returned to the castle of King Mark and to the rejoicing of Cornwall's people. Once there, Tristram sang the praises of Isolde the Fair to one and all, and especially to King Mark. ...
King Mark demanded, since this Isolde was so fair, and since he, Mark, was both queenless and without an heir, that Tristram return to Ireland to obtain the hand of Isolde the Fair in marriage for him. ... Tristram's praise of the young woman who healed him grew out of desire and not merely gratitude. Yet Tristram had no alternative because it was his nature and the nature of the times for him to do the bidding of his chosen king. He left in sadness and with little hope.
By a fortunate turn of winds, his ship became lost, and Tristram found himself in the realm of King Arthur, where by chance, also was the King of Ireland, who had been summoned there by accusations of treason and commanded to do battle for his honour against Sir Blamor de Ganis, cousin of Sir Lancelot. The Irish King feared for his life until Tristram championed his cause and defeated Blamor, receiving as his prize an irretractible boon ... the hand of Isolde in marriage - not for himself, but for King Mark.
From that time to the promised marriage, events passed as they were meant to, except for one. Isolde was unhappy at the prospect of marriage to an enemy, a middle-aged uncle of the man she had sought so lately to kill. Her mother, Queen Isolde, gave to Brangwen, the lady-in-waiting to Isolde the Fair, a potion made of wildflowers. This potion had the singular property of giving whoever drank it a lifelong passion for the person first looked on afterward. The Queen instructed Brangwen to give the potion to Isolde and King Mark in their chambers after the nuptials in order to seal their marriage with delight in one another.
But as the ship carrying Tristram and Isolde neared Tintagel, they grew thirsty, and, finding nothing to drink, they searched through the luggage and found the bottle that contained the potion. It looked and tasted like wine - a very good wine - and they drank it all in the presence of the other. They conceived a passion for each other they could not deny, then or ever.
There were resultant intrigues. ...
The third episode takes place in France, where Tristram travelled to help a young Duke named Cariados. This duke had a younger sister who was also named Isolde, Isolde of the White Hands. One day, some time after the Dukedom had been secured from its enemies, Tristram, now a man of around fifty, sat by the seashore with his harp, singing songs in praise of his Isolde. Cariados came upon him and, thinking the songs were meant for his sister and wanting to repay the debt he owed to his much-loved benefactor, devised to have them marry. Tristram was too worn with care to refuse and, seeing no alternative save the gravest of insults to Cariados, married the young woman. Yet true to Isolde the Fair, he came to his senses and did not consummate the marriage, revealing to the younger woman his life-long love of the other Isolde.
News of the marriage travelled to Isolde the Fair, and she, half-crazed with love and rage, sent word to Tristram of her rage alone, and that she would not consent to see him ever again. Tristram grew despondent and, letting down his normal guard, fell prey to one of Mark's assassins, a dwarf cousin who had long dogged Tristram's way and, who, in the dark of night, managed to wound Tristram in the groin with an envenomed spear. Tristram wasted slowly away and, on his deathbed, asked that word be sent to Isolde the Fair, for he had known for long that in her alone was to be found a cure.
Tristram instructed the messenger to raise white sails on the returning ship is Isolde the Fair was coming to his side, black if she refused. Isolde of the White Hands heard these words and, as a white-sailed ship came into harbour bearing Isolde the Fair, Tristram, too weak to rise, asked his unloved wife what colour sails the ship bore to the winds, knowing black sails would be his funeral shroud.
"The sails are black," she said. (-- pgs. 5-9) |
| Quote: | | Tristram's Book was recorded on June 23rd, 1980 as a rdio performance for five voices and was subsequently aired on CFRO 102.7 (FM) Vancouver Cooperative Radio on June 30th, 1980. Voices were Jon Furberg, Alban Goulden, Penelope Connell, Brian Fawcett and Bill Schermbrucker. Al Neil accompanied the voices with piano improvisations. |
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| Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 10:12 am Post subject: |
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Immigrants and Boomers
Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America
Paperback
By Dowell Myers
| Quote: | Baby Boomer Retirements and the Workforce Challenge
California and the nation are on the threshold of some of the most rapid social and economic changes in many decades. ... In 2005 there were 9.7 million baby boomers in California between the ages of 40 and 59, accounting for 51.0 % of the prime working-age population. By 2020 they will be 55 to 74 - squarely situated for mass retirement from the workforce. They will be replaced by younger, possiby less-educated workers. ...
How Big Are the Shoes?
The most acute changes will probably unfold just 10 years from now when it proves difficult to fill the shoes of so many retirees. The example that follows is about California, but every state faces similar losses from the reitrement of the baby boomers. Specifically, three million workers from the ababy boom generation will exit the California workforce between 2010 and 2020. (Similar losses will continue between 2020 and 2030.) This workforce loss will stem from all sources, including death and out-migration from the state as well as simple retirement. The departees will be replaced by young adults who are newly entering the labor force. Over four million young workers are expected to join the labor force between 2010 and 2020. Although this number is larger than the number of retirees, it is very deficient compared to previous decades. ...
The anticipated annual losses of the baby boomers fromt he workforce will be most acute in the years between 2015 and 2020 and will drive down annual growth of the labor force to barely 0.6 % per year. As discussed in chapter 3, labor force growth is expected to slow by even more in the United States as a whole to 0.4 % per year - and it could fall to negative rates in some slower-growing states. These growth rates amount to roughly half the already low rates of labor force growth currently experienced in both California and the United States ...
Future Job Skills Requirements
As if the retirement-driven slowdown in overall labor force growth were not a large enough problem, it coincides with a period of expected increase in skill requirements. This is part and parcel of the shift toward a creative, high-tech, and information-based economy. Over the course of recent decades the California economy has steadily shifted toward industries that require higher education, and within those sectors, releance on workers with BAs or more advanced degrees has only intensified. For example, the fastest-growing area of the economy is the broad services sector, in which many of the workers are highly education: in 2002, 25% of workers in this sector held a BA degree, and 15.9% held a more advanced degree. Moreover, skill requirements in this sector have been increasing gradually over time.
Forecasts of economic growth in California call for continued increases in college-educated employment. ... a reasonable conclusion is that the California workforce needs to increase the overall share who are college graduates by about one-quarter by 2020. ...
Will the Workforce Decline in Quality?
... One has to ask if both the United States and California workforces are approaching a point where average skill levels might even decline. This trend is out of sync with the growing demand for higher-skilled workers, and is also out of step with the economic incentives for higher education due to the growing premiums paid to college graduates versus high school graduates.
A major basis for concern is the changing ethnic makeup of the working-age population. ... Census Bureau projections of the population ... demonstrate that the combination of faster-growing ethnic groups with much lower educational attainment will lead to a decline in the overall educational attainment of the workforce in the antion and most individual states. This conclusion is reached if it is assumed that esisting gaps in educational attainment between racial and ethnic groups will persist in the future. ... (From Chapter 10, Growing the New Skilled Workforce and Middle-Class Taxpayer Base, pgs. 204-209) |
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 10:15 am Post subject: |
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From Impossible Odds:
Lucy's Eyes and Margaret's Dragon
The Lives of the Virgin Saints
Hardcover
By Giselle Potter
| Quote: | These are the stories of brave women who fought to follow their hearts. Their devotion to virginity may oppose our modern notion about powerful women, but in the world they inhabited, taking a vow of chastity was not a passive act; it was a rebellion against the conventions and men that ruled them. These early saints were not swayed from their ideals or turned away from their goals, even under the threat of violence. They met their fierce punishment with smiling grace rather than fear.
Miraculous events helped the virgins through their battles. They became unmovable, fireproof, and airborne. They lost eyes, breasts, and beauty, and then regained them. Saint Margaret emerged from a dragon's belly unharmed, and Saint Agnes grew long hair to defend her modesty as she was led naked through the streets to a brothel. During their lives such miracles caused these women to be condemned as witches and heretics; after their deaths, the miracles led to their canonization as saints.
Many texts question the existence of some of these women, but whether they are mythical characters or heroines of history, they still have admirers around the world. Girls wear wreaths of candles on Saint Lucy's day, and eat hard-boiled eggs on the eve of Saint Agnes's feast day so they may dream of future suitors.
These virgin saints are examples of strength and courage for all women. We may take comfort in the thought that they may be watching over us, protecting us from illness, bad eyesight, difficult childbirth, fire, or cumbersome husbands. (From the Introduction) |
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| Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 12:16 pm Post subject: |
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With the Skin
Poems of Aleksander Wat
Hardcover
Translated and edited by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan
| Quote: | Paris Revisited
At every new return
my first day in this city -
like the first day of creation:
and I see, I see that it's good.
Here a thousand voices
sound reveille to life!
The memory of places sings,
a pathetic cantatrice -
and her voice is not getting old
and her echo never fades
refracted from venerable stones
in eternal repetition
ever the same, not the same,
live, never dying,
woven into a frivolous
tune in the street.
Here a thousand voices
sound reveille to life!
Call and forbid you to die!
Summon, restore to life!
A thousand lips entice you!
A thousand charms cast spells:
fulgurant reason
in eyes met by chance,
a smile that opens lips
like a flower after the night,
sweet tenderness of the air
in the avenue of trimmed chestnuts,
a call of a wandering tune
and the smell of earthly foods
and a rainbow on the pavement
of an old church across the square ...
And a young man's faded shadow
who - so long ago! - was discovering
this world for the first time.
Here a thousand voices
sound reveille to life!
Rise from the dead,
son of misfortune!
Bow humbly to this land,
kiss the calloused hand
of the old city of Paris.
(-- pgs. 40-41) |
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| Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 9:33 am Post subject: |
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The White Tiger
Paperback
By Aravind Adiga
| Quote: | Though we slept in the same room, just a few feet apart, we never said a word to each other - never a Hello, or How's your mother doing, nothing. I could feel heat radiate out from him all night - I knew he was cursing me and putting spells on me in his sleep. See, he began every day by bowing in front of at least twenty pictures of various gods he kept in his side of the room, and saying, "Om, om, om." As he did this, he looked at me through the corner of his eye, as if to say, Don't you pray? What are you, a Naxal?
One evening I went to the market and bought two dozen of the cheapest idols of Hanuman and Ram I could find and brought them back and packed them into the room. So both of us now had the same number of gods in the room; and we drowned out each other's prayers in the morning while bowing before our respective deities. (From The Second Night, p. 66) |
| Quote: | What would be my destination, if I were to come here with a red bag in my hand?
As if in answer, shining wheels and bright lights began flashing in the darkness.
Now, if you visit any train station in India, you will see, as you stand waiting for your train, a row of bizarre-looking machines with red lightbulbs, kaleidoscopic wheels, and whirling yellow circles. These are your fortune-and-weight-for-one-rupee machines that stand on every rail platform in the country.
They work like this. You put your bags down to the side. You stand on them. Then you insert a one-rupee coin into the slot.
The machine comes to life; levers start to move inside, things go clankety-clank, and the lights flash like crazy. Then there is a loud noise, and a small stiff chit of cardboard colored either green or yellow will pop out of the machine. The lights and noise calm down. On this chit will be written your fortune, and your weight in kilograms.
Two kinds of people use these machines: the children of the rich, or the fully grown adults of the poorer class, who remain all their lives children.
I stood gazing at the machines, like a man without a mind. Six glowing machines were shining at me: lightbulbs of green and yellow and kaleidoscopes of gold and black that were turning around and around. (From The Sixth Night, p. 211) |
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| Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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New York Underground
The Anatomy of a City
Hardcover
By Julia Solis
| Quote: | In early February 1935 it was snowing heavily in New York, and on 123rd Street near the Harlem River several men were busy with their shovels. One of them, Salvatore Condulucci, saw an open sewer manhole and decided it was an ideal place to dump the snow. After a while he peeked into the opening to see if it was filling up and noticed that something was moving down there. ...
... It was an authentic alligator - and a large one at that. Unfortunately the reptile was not used to the cold New York climate. Starved, almost frozen, it opened its mouth and snapped its jaws. The sight of the sharp teeth scared its rescuers; they took their shovels and beat the animal until it was dead. ...
... It was almost eight feet long. ... it was decided that it had fallen off a steamer from Florida and crawled into one of the sewer conduits toward the city. ...
This was how it was reported by the New York Times the next morning - and it is still the most famous story about the city's sewers. Since then the urban legend of alligators roaming beneath New York City's streets has flourished, occasionally beefed up by unverified reports of further sightings. It was not until more than half a century later, in the summer of 2001, that another alligator made an unexpected public appearance in the waters of Manhattan, yet the myth has persisted in various manifestations; in novels, such as Thomas Pynchon's V, movies, comics and other pop culture media. The novelty store Archie McPhee's sells a pale New York Sewergator and the Web site sewergator.com has compiled an entertaining variety of material on the subject. (From Chapter Five, An Alligator Marks the sewers, pgs. 41-42) |
| Quote: | V.
Paperback
By Thomas Pynchon
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| Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:36 am Post subject: |
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District and Circle
Hardcover
By Seamus Heaney
| Quote: | Anything Can Happen
after Horace, Odes, I, 34
Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head
Before he hurls the lightning? Well, just now
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses
Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth
And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,
The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers
Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,
Setting it down bleeding on the next.
Ground gives. The heaven's weight
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.
(-- p. 13)
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Recommended books on Sirius Radio's excellent Celtic Crush Playlist, May, 2009:
| Quote: | Five Points - Tyler Anbinder
Michael Collins : a biography by Tim Pat Coogan, 1990. ISBN 0-09-968580-9.
Eamonn DeValera: a biography by Tim Pat Coogan
The IRA or The Troubles by Tim Pat Coogan
(Any of these four books will give you a good background to the history of Ireland - in a fairly detailed but readable manner - over the last 100 years)
The Great Hunger by Cecil Woodham-Smith is a dispassionate but striking book on the Potato Famine of 1845-47 that caused so many Irish to emigrate to the US.
Ten Men Dead - The Story of the 1981 Hunger Strike - David Beresford. This is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand modern Irish history.
Tarry Flynn or The Green Fool - Patrick Kavanagh He is better known as a poet and do check out his poetry. But these two small books contain a wealth of information of what it was like to grow up in rural Ireland of the last century.
Country Girls Trilogy - Edna O'Brien. Three wonderful books written by a great writer and a rebel in the soul. Ms. O'Brien is as readable as she is profound.
100 Favorite Irish Poems I love this site and perhaps it will lead you to full works of the poets represented therein.)
http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/100poems.html
The Commitments, The Van or pretty much any book by Roddy Doyle. Easy to read, lots of fun but will also introduce you to the complexities of modern Ireland.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man or Dubliners - James Joyce. These are two excellent and slim books to get a feel for Sunny Jim's work before you make the life decision to tackle Ulysses. Don't despair if you find yourself bogged down in this greatest of novels; it's happened to us all. Just have a drink, pop open any page and begin to read aloud. But whatever you do, don't miss Molly Bloom's closing soliloquy. It's one of the wonders of literature - and more than that in a way that words fail to do justice.
The Secret Scripture or any novel or play by Sebastian Barry. A very modern writer who delves into the past. Barry is true poet who uses beautiful language and creates unforgettable characters that leave a mark on you.
Astrakhan Cloak - Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill or any collection of her poetry. An earthy, yet spiritual, look into the soul of a powerful Irish woman.
Collected Stories - Frank O'Connor. A very readable writer with a remarkable insight into the Irish soul. Also try his biography of Michael Collins, The Big Fellah, should Coogan's be unavailable or too bloody dauntingly long.
Station Island or any collection of poems by Seamus Heaney
Horse Latitudes or any collection of poems by Paul Muldoon
Any collection of short stories by William Trevor
Borstal Boy - Brendan Behan
Amongst Women or The Dark - John McGahern
Year of the French - Thomas Flanagan
Star of the Sea - Joseph O'Connor
At Swim Two Birds or The Poor Mouth - Flann O'Brien
Strumpet City - James Plunkett
How Many Miles to Babylon - Jennifer Johnston
Book of Evidence - John Banville
Banished Children of Eve - Peter Quinn
The Gathering - Anne Enright
The Year of the French - Thomas Flanagan
Green Suede Shoes - Larry Kirwan (I hesitate to recommend one of my own books but this will give you a sense of Wexford, a special town that you may choose to visit in the first chapters. It will also provide you with a relatively dry-eyed look at a life in the music business of the last 30 or more years)
Demand a monthly Celtic Crush playlist by writing to the PokerPulse gamblers' pal, program host Larry Kirwan of the band, Black 47, at blk47@aol.com. Listen to the show Saturday mornings 9-12 noon on Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 18 The Spectrum.
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Last edited by editor on Tue Jun 23, 2009 10:58 am; edited 2 times in total |
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 10:50 am Post subject: |
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Bill the Conqueror
His Invasion of England in the Springtime
Hardcover
By P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | 'Well?' said Flick eagerly.
Bill smiled another glassy smile.
'Everything's all right, darling,' he replied. 'As right as it can possibly be. Uncle Cooley has gone away promising me vast fortunes and thinking me the most wonderful fellow in the world.'
'So you are,' said Flick.
Bill frowned thoughtfully.
'I wonder,' he mused. 'I'm the luckiest, I know,' he said. 'I've only got to look at you to realize that. But...Look here, you know, I've been thinking over things, and from start to finish I can't see a single think in the whole business that I've actually done myself. It was you who first got on Slingsby's track. It was Judson who introduced me to Prudence Stryker. It was Prudence Stryker who told me where Slingsby had buried the body. It was Horace who obligingly chose the moment when I was standing under the window to shove his head out and drop that bag of books. It was Judson who got Roderick out of the way in time to prevent ...'
Flick ruffled his hair lovingly.
'I shouldn't worry, precious,' she said. 'Don't you know it's the one sure sign that a man is really great when he has all sorts of people working for him? Look at Pierpont Morgan and Henry Ford and Selfridge and all of them - they don't do the work themselves. They just sit and let other people do it for them. That's what shows they are such great men.'
'Something in that,' said Bill gratefully. 'Yes, there's certainly something in that.' (-- pgs. 311-312) |
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 1:14 pm Post subject: |
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To Kill a Mockingbird
Hardcover
By Truman Capote's pal, Harper Lee
| Quote: | Finders were keepers unless title was proven. Plucking an occasional camellia, getting a squirt of hot milk from Miss Maudie Atkinson's cow on a summer day, helping ourselves to someone's scuppernongs was part of our ethical culture, but money was different.
"Tell you what," said Jem. "We'll keep 'em till school starts, then go around and ask everybody if they're theirs. They're some child's, maybe - he was too taken up with gettin' outa school today an' forgot 'em. These are somebody's, I know that. See how they've been slicked up? They've been saved."
"Yeah, but why should somebody wanta put away chewing gum like that? You know it doesn't last."
"I don't know, Scout. But these are important to somebody..."
"How's that, Jem...?"
"Well, Indian-heads - well, they come from the Indians. They're real strong magic, they make you have good luck. Not like fried chicken when you're not lookin' for it, but things like long life 'n' good health, 'n' passin' six-weeks tests...these are real valuable to somebody. I'm gonna put 'em in my trunk."
Before Jem went to his room, he looked for a long time at the Radley Place. He seemed to be thinking again. (-- pgs. 39-40) |
Listen:
| Quote: | To Kill a Mockingbird
Audio CD
Narrated by U.S. actor Sissy Spacek, a Southerner herself
There are others but this would be our version of choice. |
View:
| Quote: | To Kill a Mockingbird
DVD
Featuring Robert Duvall in his break-out role and Gregory Peck, reminding us of a time when Hollywood still had leading men - so long.
ESL students need have no fear of the mild southern colloquy in this film classic. It was made at a time when elocution was still an important asset in the acting trade. As Robert Graves so neatly put it, goodbye to all that. |
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editor
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| Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 3:53 pm Post subject: |
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The Heart of a Goof
Hardcover
By P.G. Wodehouse
| Quote: | | Confidence! That was what Wallace Chesney lacked, and that, as he saw it, was the prime grand secret of golf. Like an alchemist on the track of the Philosopher's Stone, he was for ever seeking for something which would really give him confidence. I recollect that he even tried repeating to himself fifty times every morning the words, 'Every day in every way I grow better and better.' This, however, proved such a black lie that he gave it up. The fact is, the man was a visionary, and it is to autohypnosis of some kind that I attribute the extraordinary change that came over him at the beginning of his third season. (From The Magic Plus Fours, p. 126) |
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editor
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Posts: 2940
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 3:47 pm Post subject: |
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The Grandmother of Time
A Women's Book of Celebrations, Spells, and Sacred Objects for Every Month of the Year
Paperback
By Zsuzsanna E. Budapest
| Quote: | Spell to Bring Fast Luck
Seven Job's tears are needed for this spell. (These are common fare in occult supply stores.) Stuff these seeds in your pillow and sleep on them every night. Of course, opening up your pillow and sewing it shut again after you put in these seeds makes a bit of a mess. But it's worth it. (From Anna's Spells, Rituals, & Celebrations for December, p. 237) |
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