Blast from the past mini-concert

Last night, some mention of an old Billie Gentry song and I had to look it up...as is the way of the computer, one thing led to another...my sister had his album and while I never liked him that much, I have always liked him doing this song (James Taylor has a new cover of it). Then there is this Petula Clark number that as a child made me yearn to be grown up enough to go "downtown". I could not believe I found this, remember it coming over the radio in our years ago kitchen. I remember singing this song before I was old enough to understand what I was singing about, her voice is so fab but those jumpsuits..., but I have to include the song that seemed wickedly sexy once upon a time. Oh, radio in the kitchen, Cousin Brucie and all the hits. I remember thinking this song was what "old people" must feel like. I also remember hearing about the guerilla fighting in Vietnam and asking my Mom how they trained gorillas to fight in the war, so color me naive back then. This eclectic selection was great fun to rediscover and post here. Hope you found an old fave.

Friday Round-up

Remember Andy of Mayberry? Opie? How about the Fonz and that show? A friend (hey Steph!) showed me this today at work, just too fantastic. Ron Howard is a brave man :)
And in the spirit of the upcoming holiday, couldn't resist including this either.
Had to include the monkey who looks spiffy in his costume, and I truly hope to see these curious thespians perform someday.
My son is about to go off to his school Halloween party looking quite smashing as a wizard, so must go, but first this only a former lit student could love offering from the most fabulous VSL site whose posts make my email perky.

We've been Ghosted!

What started and nearly ended as a very drag Monday at work, add to it the little one's cello lesson doublebooked and cancelled after we rushed dinner and showed up, totally bummed all the way around. And then...doorbell rings and ... no one is there! Dogs going beserk. We peek out peephole. Lantern broken, all dark, hmmm. Brave husband opens door and -we've been ghosted! A plastic mug of candy and a pass-it-on hand-out plus a ghost to mark that we got ghosted! We get to play, too? This is great fun. Can't wait to ghost some houses tomorrow night after we pick up some candy. Look out! We may be ringing your bell!

Day in the sort of country

An apple run up to Connecticut for Macouns and cider and the little farm thing in the back that all three kids have gone to over the years ( a ten year difference between the middle child and last child so, yes, we have been doing this forever). Emus remain the most terrifying creatures on earth to me (I am convinced they are direct descendents of these). The place has gotten a lot more "known" since we first ran up years ago (okay, not quite that bad), but still good fun and great apples.

Some favorite things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things...
Thank you, Nan! This is so much more fun!

Goblin Fruit

The new poem, Midnight Streets, is up at Goblin Fruit
http://www.goblinfruit.net

If you click on the little blue dot next to the title of the poem on the title page, you can hear an audio version of it (courtesy of my brilliant college son who set it up for me).

Turkeys!

Just about to leave for work (on a glorious Sunday afternoon, so sad) and my son runs over with great excitement , wild turkeys in the yard. And there they were - I think they are so beautiful, I truly do. When they wearied of us following after them, even though we were clearly enamoured, they FLEW up into A TREE. We were amazed. My husband, son, and I did not know they could fly up into trees, did you? And then they flew down into the back woods which no one but skunks, deer, bad little dogs, and apparently turkeys can access. Just so cool. I drove to work far less grumpy than when I had started.

A lovely surprise...

...to run across an unexpected review in New Pages. http://www.newpages.com/magazinestand/litmags/2008_08/litmagreviews_2008_09_2.htm
They reviewed the literary journal, Feile-Festa, and made positive note of my poem (Susan Moorhead, "History"). I am, of course, quite pleased.

Here's a link to the journal if you want to read the poem: http://www.medcelt.org/feile-festa/index.html

and this is a promise to sit down on Monday when I am finally NOT working (I am working all weekend, sigh) and read Nan's tutorial on how to put in links without all this long, unattractive, word scrambles, and figure it out at long last).

Our version of cozy, I guess

Been cruising the other blogs and admiring all the lovely autumnal scenes of rocking chairs and knitting, autumn walks and colored leaves, apple pies and ... well yes. All of the deep sigh, it's autumn, warm loveliness.

And while we do have tea and afghans, we are without a rocker and the ability to knit (despite a class where I was a horrible failure at it and vaguely scarred for life), and we are without, to my great and ongoing dismay, a fireplace, however, we do have a rat named Caden who is loving that popcorn, snug as a ... well, I guess snug as a rat tucked up my daughter's sleeve.

So that's pretty cozy. I guess.

(I would prefer a fireplace, however).

As long as Caden stays in sleeve, I'm okay. I like my rodents in fictional picturebooks and at a safe distance.

A Grimm-like fairy tale for grown-ups

"Stories were different, though: they came alive in the telling. Without a human voice to read them aloud, or a pair of wide eyes following them by flashlight beneath a blanket, they had no real existence in our world. They were like seeds in the beak of a bird, waiting to fall to earth, or the notes of a song laid out on a sheet, yearning for an instrument to bring their music into being. They lay dormant, hoping for the chance to emerge. Once someone started to read them, they could begin to change. They could take root in the imagination, and transform the reader. Stories wanted to be read, David's mother would whisper. They needed it. It was the reason they forced themselves from their world into ours. They wanted us to give them life."

-from The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

Read a banned book!

what can you do to celebrate banned book week which runs September 29 through October 6? Read a banned book, of course. Great fun is to scan the lists of banned books on the following link (which I will learn how to do nicely once I am not loaded up on Advil for the world's longest and saddest root canal ever) here:http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/explorebbw.cfm
even more fun to do is to note how many banned books you have read - and then ponder over the mystery of some of them as in "why?". A Wrinkle in Time, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, Alice in Wonderland, The Bible to name a few. If I wrote a book that was objected to or banned along with such excellent company, I would be thrilled.
The ALA site (American Library Association) is fun to explore if you haven't before - plus their online store has cool stuff like banned books bracelets.

A wet dog week

http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/gargoyle/2006/04/my_favorite_poem_rosemary_laug_1.htm

the rainstorm with Maine in its headlights has given us a week of weather so damp and thick that everything smells like a wet dog - the carpets, the furniture, the interior of the car. I would Febreeze the world if it wouldn't kill the fish, the frog, the tortoise ... yes, the tortoise who decided to hibernate when the sun was high and the yard full of greenery and has now decided to awaken and torture us all by slamming against the walls of his prison to be let out...he then lumbers through the house to slam against the glass doors facing the back yard...he so yearns to escape that I long to set him free, but my daughter insists that would be a very very bad thing as he would come to a very very bad end. Very quickly. If I were him, I would choose the one shining moment of escape but I don't get to call the tortoise shots around here.

Oh, yes. The dogs smell like wet dogs too.

writings about writing

Some one mentioned she had just read a good book on writing memoirs today - turns out it is by Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones author, one of the really good books on writing.
Here are a few others of note:
-Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (Once I read her book, Operating Instructions, I was hers for life).
- Walking on Water, reflections on faith and art by Madeleine L'Engle (I just bought myself a new copy (beautiful edition by Shaw) as she signed the old one which is falling apart and has moved into things to love but not play with category.
-Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury (wonderfully Bradbury which means very sane advice coupled with his enthusiastic madness).
-How to enjoy writing: a book of aid and comfort by Janet and Isaac Asimov (a favorite I reread just for the pleasure of their remarks...I meant him once, mistook him for someone else, and he was extremely gracious).
-Natalie Goldberg has several writing books out, all are good although I view "the bones" one mentioned above as her gold standard.
-A Broom of One's Own by Nancy Peacock is a recent favorite that I liked so much I bought my own copy after reading a library copy.

I just picked up two different titles by Katherine Paterson , the children's author, that look interesting, there's an Ursula LeGuin I want to get to... there are actually a lot of books by writers on the subject since writers like to write and that often includes writing about writing.
I do wish Neil Gaiman would write one but I doubt he ever will.

Why read these? Because writers frequently find themselves surrounded by nonwriters who find the whole business of sitting alone, scratching your thoughts out, and agonizing over your dreadful prose and lack of talent which torments you until you get a line just right and then you glow all day, well, others find all of this a bit strange (and they are probably right) and being one who writes can be a lonely place. like being the only believer in a religion nobody else follows.

Books by writers on writing are nice to dip into now and again, borrow some advice, but mainly a place to hang out with people who think the way you do - which can be a welcoming place to visit when your writing spirits are low. There are, of course, writing blogs by writers but even the best ones are places on the computer you should probably not hang around since, if you recall, you sat down at the computer to write your own stuff and now you are distracted checking mail, reading blogs, typing comments, cruising Etsy, and your story is just wandering about in your head, muttering to itself. Yeah.

Appreciated

I drive past this corner house several times a week coming home from work. While on a busy street corner, the yard is always full of blooms which spill over onto the sidewalk.

Always nice when stuck at a red light to have such a lovely thing to view.

part of a poem by N.M. Bodecker

Slugs are

peaceful, quiet

little fellows,

who have their

little sluggish tiffs

no doubt,

but hardly ever

bother

one another,

and never,

ever

stop

to slug it out.

poetry friday with a toothache

This toothy poem found on the sissyfish blog http://sissyfish.blogspot.com/2008/06/poem-with-teeth.html feels appropriate considering I am on a boatload of pain meds for dental work (note both ocean and teeth themes here) as well as feeling a bit freaked out by the escalating viciousness of the political front.
Obviously many people out there on both sides of the political fence have a lot of passionate opinions to air, but whether you are for one candidate or the other, the fact that some people are using politics to air their secret hatreds (as if that in any way will make this a better country or world) is so disturbing and very sad.

Splash on over

In blog etiquette this is probably the rudest thing - but come visit me at my other blog, Library Mermaid, as I get it up and running - and let me know what you think (not to mention the ongoing participation in dewey's book quotes challenge).

http://librarymermaid.blogspot.com

Eventually I hope to turn this blog back towards what it was originally meant to be, a blog about writing and words, but of course, when you like a lot of things, it's hard to maintain any kind of theme :)

Back in the saddle again

I couldn't access photos and whatnot on the new computer - or maybe it was the zicodin haze the ongoing root canal work has put me in...but I seem to be up and running (okay, walking) now at least.
Still haven't learned how to do the proper way to put in links even though Nan was patient enough to give me a tutorial (thank you again and I promise - am getting to it, been a rough summer!)
but here are two favorites - Comes a Time and Sugar Mountain...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHXU_bW44NU Puts me right back where I want to be.

quote of the day

The nine year old has to choose an instrument at school. He has narrowed down the choices but to make up his mind, we youtube a number of them playing. He chooses one right off the bat, we listen to a number of different people playing, and he wants what he wants. He sighs happily and says, " I now know what I will be when I grow up. A cello player and a biologist."

September song

Try to remember

the kind of September

when life was slow

and oh, so mellow.

Try to remember

the kind of September

when grass was green

and grain was yellow.

Try to remember

the kind of September

when you were a tender and callow fellow.

Try to remember,

and if you remember, then follow.