Bookish Butch – Page 91

Save The Words, Please

Good morning all.

I’m off to work, wish me luck,

I need a good day.

Anyway, just poped in briefly,

to tell you about this outstanding and not in the least affictitious site.

http://www.savethewords.org/

The objective of this site,

is to have you adopt and thus keep in use,

words that are about to removed from the Oxford English Dictionary.

What a hoot!!

In my usual overdoing it manner,

I adopted three.

Affictitious: artificial,fake,counterfeit.

Diloricate: to rip open a sewn piece of clothing

Boreism: someone who suffers from being boring.

I will be using these liberally but, appropriately,

I hope.

Come to think of it,

don’t words also stay alive through improper usage?

Food for thought.

Well gotta go.

Later girls

Reading Maugham

It’s a beautiful day.

The Canadiens slaughtered the New Jersey Devils 5-0.

I’ve had a decent week at the bookstore.

I still have a hacking cough,

but, all other symptoms seem to have disappeared.

I have put My Cousin Rachel aside,

it’s the kind of book you need to immerse yourself into,

all about atmosphere,

and I can’t seem to keep my concentration going.

So I have turned to my pal,

Somerset Maugham.

He almost never disappoints me.

He writes mostly about the complexity and often,

treachery of love.

His stories set in the far east and the south pacific,

that portray mostly low level British civil servants,

working, living or hiding in the colonies,

are well worth the read.

Since they are short stories,

no great time commitment is required.

Check out The Book Bag or The Colonel’s Wife,

you won’t regret it.

Small disclaimer,

these stories were written mostly in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s,

some of the attitudes towards women and natives are questionable,

especially by today’s standards,

but,

Autre temps, autre moeurs.

I don’t have much to say.

So,

Later girls

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Lots of rain right now.

The Canadiens lost.

The Alouettes our football team,

won the Grey Cup.

Back to back wins,

they rock.

The rain even stopped today for their parade,

cool.

I’m reading the Daphne Du Maurier,

My Cousin Rachel.

I’m liking it but, it’s early going

My cold is still hanging around,

and making me kind of morose,

will it never end.

I’ve taken to rubbing my chest with Vicks vapor rub,

not an attractive smell but,

The Dude loves it.

Cats are weird.

I’m starting to think about Christmas,

I like Christmas,

although I find the fact,

that it now seems to last 6 weeks,

a little bit disconcerting.

Some of the things I love about Christmas,

spending time with family,

especially my dad’s family that I seldom see,

I like them they are smart and argumentative.

I love watching my cousin’s kids OD on candy.

Christmas carols,

love them.

My favorites are either the very hokie,

Blue Christmas or Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,

or the sacred O Holy Night( The French Version Minuit Chrétien)

or Adeste Fideles.

I suppose Christmas brings out,

both the hokie and the sacred,

in me.

I love to find the perfect Christmas gifts for those I love .

I’m getting my mom this courier bag she has been lusting after.

She doesn’t know about it.

Shh it’s a surprise.

I love to watch It’s a Wonderful Life,

and The Bells Of St-Mary’s,

The Santa Clause, The Grinch and,

of course,

Charlie Brown.

Wouldn’t be Christmas without them.

What I want for Christmas?

Peace, Love and maybe,

a woman who thinks I’m the Cat’s Meow.

It’s Christmas you have to believe in magic.

Later girls

this is the first post on Christmas, expect more.

Library visit

It’s still cold,

but less so.

My lips hurt less,

look worse,

but, hurt less.

The Habs won last night,

high five!!

I am afraid I won’t be reading The Mere Future,

for the book club,

because I am disbanding the book club.

I have decided to join Cass, Amy and many others,

for GLBTQ challenge for 2011.

I love Sarah Schulman,

and will be blogging about her work,

and what it means to me,

shortly.

I don’t have the time or energy to devote to her right now,

she is a complex writer,

and deserves not to be read in a rush,

so later,

I promise.

At the Grande Bibliotheque today,

I decided to stay away from complex and dark.

I am still working my way through,

Genderqueer which is complex.

I have also read some good mysteries,

about dark, hard subjects,

so I need a break from the disturbing.

A few months ago,

tea drinker at http://teaandbooks.wordpress.com/,

reviewed Sarah Orne Jewett’s,

The Country of the Pointed Firs.

She made it sound quite tempting.

So when I spotted it today,

in a nice compact Modern Library edition,

in to the book bag it went.

The dust jacket describes the novel this way:

The Country Of The Pointed Firs is a concisely written and beautifully wrought episodic novel of a young woman writer’s summer sojourn in the Maine fishing village of Dunnet Landing. Through Jewett, the young woman conveys the effect of her deepening connections to the people of Dunnet Landing, especially the sibylline Mrs Todd, and her empathy with the mysteries of the coastal life…

Sounds good to me.

Since I read The Shipping News by Annie Proulx,

which I absolutely adored,

I have been searching for a book about a fishing village,

I hope this novel lives up to it’s praise.

I also picked up My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier,

I have never read any Du Maurier,

but, have been meaning to for some time.

I remember watching Rebecca,

the Hitchcock adaptation of the novel,

and being breathless with angst and anticipation.

Talk about lesbian subtext,

so I am trying a Du Maurier.

My mother, who has impecable book taste,

says Du Maurier is a good read.

The last book I picked up is a Somerset Maugham.

My love affair with his work,

although recent,

last few years,

is intense.

Creatures Of Circumstance is a book of short stories.

I think I have a good haul here.

I will let you all know.

Later girls

Freezing rain, day off

The weather this morning was dismal.

Freezing rain and skating rink sidewalks.

Mom,

who usually opens on Fridays was spooked.

Since, she developed arthritis in her hips,

she has become weary of falling.

Since, I didn’t want to work a twelve hour day,

in which I would probably make very little money,

and put up with weirdos.

Plus, Thursday had been very good.

I decided to take a freezing rain day.

My cold is better but, I’m still not 100%.

My lips look like refugees from a Leper colony.

The day off will help the cold and the lips.

In six years I have taken two snow days.

I took more,

when I had a collective bargaining agreement.

When you own a small business,

you don’t work,

no money comes in.

I have seen both sides of the fence,

I worked for a large telecommunications company for 14 years,

I have owned my very small used bookstore for six years.

A stable union job,

means health insurance and paid vacation and bosses.

Owning your own business means,

less money, no vacation and dealing with customers.

I like customers,

I did when I worked as a customer service rep,

and I still do.

I miss the pay but, I don’t miss the structure.

I like the freedoms that my oddball little business affords me,

There are tradeoffs in both,

I guess it’s a question of what is more important to you,

as an individual.

Today, I stay home cuddle up to The Dude and read.

Later girls

Pop music, helps

It’s pretty cold today.

I am reminded of a quote from Frank Zappa,

Frank Zappa Crappa,

of don’t you eat that yellow snow fame,

I read this years ago,

so I may be fuzzy on the details.

Zappa was being interviewed,

and was asked about his impression of Montreal.

Here’s what he said:

It’s so cold in Montreal the fuckin’ snot freezes in your nose.

The man had obviously been to Montreal,

possibly in February.

It’s not quite that cold right now, but…

It’s coming.

What I wanted to talk about today is song lyrics.

I don’t listen to nearly as much music as I used to,

not quite sure why,

probably a combination of factors.

Since I walk to work and do most of my shopping on foot,

I use public transit sparingly,

so I don’t listen to it on the metro or bus.

I like quiet when I walk around.

Sort of futile,

in my noisy neighborhood but,

hope springs eternal.

Sufice it to say,

I am not as up on pop music as I could be.

A few months ago,

a friend of mine remarked that pop music was in rare form right now.

“Really?” says I “How so?”

and she explains to me that Lady Gaga and the like are damn good.

I agree.

Lady Gaga is awesome,

that Bad Romance has got some dynamite lyrics,

and raw emotion.

From memory, not quoting

I want your love and I want your revenge

You and me could write a Bad Romance.

I want your ugly, I want your disease

Yep,

a far cry from Duran Duran.

What I like most about pop music is that underneath all the cliches,

there is real feeling.

I don’t think anyone would confuse Bon Jovi with Leonard Cohen,

but,

I for one,

like both.

It’s my life,

It’s now or never,

I ain’t gonna live forever

Has real symetry and reasonance and it is inspiring.

Ditto for

Baby I have been here before

Pop songs are a common language .

I know this room, I’ve walked this floor

I used to live alone before I knew you

Everyone knows Lady Gaga and Bon Jovi.

Pop songs help us remember parts of our lives,

they form a common generational thread and they help to bridge gaps.

They help us know that we are not alone and that sometimes

Love hurts,

or Lifts us up where we belong ,

That Everybody Hurts and Everybody dances Now and then.

Put on some music,

dance like noone is watching,

maybe have a good cry,

smile even though your heart is breaking,

get it out, let it in.

Have fun, combat the cold with the warmth of music and words.

Later Girls

Happy American Thanksgiving and wrestling with postmodernism

It’s cold and I have a cold,

a bad combination.

Bad but, not uncommon.

November SUCKS.

I hope my American friends have some nice weather.

Happy Thanksgiving, to those of you south of the border.

I have been reading Genderqueer,

the book I took out of the library a few weeks back,

reminds me I better renew,

I’m reading this book and I gotta tell you,

fascinating stuff this post modernism.

I’m not sure how much of it I’m getting,

a head cold,

may not be an ideal terrain for the assimilation of new ideas.

A head cold,

combined with a few decades since my college days,

makes it all the more tough.

But, one thing about me,

I love a challenge,

especially an intellectual one.

So I’ll keep plugging away.

I’ll keep you posted.

Later girls

Hell Gate by Linda Fairstein, a review

Bloody cold, making me cranky and miserable.

November feels like the longest of months.

I finished Hell Gate,

and it is well worth the read.

A good tight mystery.

The plot centers around the shipwreck of a vessel from the Ukraine.

The women on board,

were brought to New York under false pretenses.

They believe they are coming to the land of opportunity,

as domestic workers and restaurant wait staff.

In fact they are being brought in as sex slaves.

I have read a few novels with similar themes in the past few years,

a sign of the times,

I guess.

What I like about this novel,

is that there is no attempt to gloss over the horror

of these womens reality,

and yet,

there is no sensationalism.

The plot contains many twists about history and politics,

and the ongoing exploitation of women.

In keeping with her style,

Fairstein also educates us about the history of New York.

In Hell Gate,

we learn about the origins of Gracie Mansion,

which is the official residence of New York’s mayor.

For me it adds a little extra to a strong contemporary story.

Always entertaining, the history is anything but dry.

The plot has many layers and is not predictable.

The modern crime novel,

is a powerful tool for the discussion of ugly truths.

These stories need to be told.

When they are told with as much competence and compasion,

they add a very human texture,

to the statistics of the news and non-fiction.

This is a real good read about victims but,

also about the everyday heroes who work all over the world to stop this kind of horror.

In Linda Fairstein’s world they are Alex, Mike and Mercer.

Good, smart people,

sacrificing much to help others and,

to bring these exploiters to justice.

They are also funny and cranky and human.

Fairstein’s novels do much to debunk the myths about the honour of criminals,

and the ugly world of the sex trade.

She always makes me think and shakes my complacency.

Give her a try.

Later girls

Philosophy, Waters style

I have a cold and it was the full moon and I’m mucho hormonal.

Plus it’s been cold.

All in all, Not a great weekend.

On the plus side,

The Habs beat the Maple Leafs 2-0 on Saturday,

and the Alouettes are Grey Cup bound.

The Grey Cup,

in case anyone is interested,

is the Canadian equivalent of the Superbowl

and this year will be the 98 Th,

so not a new thing on our Canadian landscape.

I wanted to share with you all a quote I came across on Bookshelf Porn.

If any of you are not familiar with Bookshelf Porn,

you should be,

A challenge for the new year

Hey everyone,

I was in the mood for a change.

So, I changed the look of the blog.

This is how I sometimes feel.

So many books, so little time.

Ah, the never ending quest for bookishness.

This is a time of year,

where I start to think about the new one,

year,

that is.

As far as the blog is concerned I am going to be joining in

I love this picture of Colette.

Such style, such flair.

Btw, if you haven’t read any Colette you should, she’s great.

She also happens to be my mom’s favourite writer.

How cool is that!!

Back to the GLBT Challenge,

I got the idea to participate from Cass at http://bonjourcass.com/.

I don’t think I can manage a book every month.

So my goal is six, for the year.

This is the list:

The Price Of Salt by Patricia Highsmith-Because I have always wanted to read it.

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin-Because in spite of having read tons of James Baldwin, I have never read this novel, a glaring oversight.

Maurice by E.M Forster-Never read any Forster

Normal by Amy Bloom-Just because I really like the title.

The Gilda Stories by Jewel Gomez- Never read any Jewel Gomez

The sixth is to be determined.

Any suggestions?

I like the idea of a little bit of structured as well,

as whimsy reading.

I will read The Mere Future by Sarah Schulman,

for the 1 st of December as promised,

and then I will join this challenge for the new year.

I haven’t decided about any other challenges,

but, this,

I am commited to and excited about.

Well, that’s about it.

Later girls