Boilerplate

A video about Boilerplate, a fictional robotic man put into real-life historical scenes by his two creative authors. I just got this book and am enjoying it a lot. Great vision and ideas.

The Boilerplate page is here.

Remembering Book Row

No comparable substitute has developed [to New York City’s Book Row], no, not even in cyberspace or those overpopulated Internet burbs. Thanks to the broadband interests and proud diversity of the booksellers there, on Book Row there wasn't just a book for every need, mood or taste. Often there was a whole section of applicable books or even an entire bookstore for every taste, mood, need. The variety, independence and heterogeneity of the dealers and their books made Book Row a haven for reading and collecting diversity where Vive la difference meant three cheers for nonconformity. In their place have come drearily homogenized chain stores, a global electronic whirlpool erratically accessible mainly to persistent onliners with superhuman patience for slogging through vast swamps of World Wide Web distractions, and a wistfully few widely scattered individual bookshop survivors.

From Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade by Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador (2003).

The only survivor of the many used bookstores that once populated Book Row in New York City appears to be the Strand Bookstore.

Random Observations and Trivial Events

WHAT'S YOUR PEN NAME?

Looking for interesting blogs dealing with writing, I came across a website that features something called a Pen Name Generator. You type in your name, indicate what gender you are, and after you submit the information it somehow generates a pen name for you. According to this gizmo, my pen name should be Jon Stall, which sounds to me like slang for a stopped-up toilet.

GIVE US A BREAK

Advertisers have figured out that they can no longer get away with advertising some products like they did in 1958. Remember all those old-time ads that featured women who apparently did nothing but sit at home and worry about whether their husband's collars were white enough, or if their floors had any waxy buildup? Those commercials made it appear that all women cared about was (1) housework and (2) pleasing hubby, and advertisers have figured out that nowadays that approach won't get them anywhere, because women -- if they ever were really that way, which I doubt -- aren't like that anymore. They have lots of interests besides housework.

So, if we can change an advertising stereotype concerning women, why can't we change the one which portrays all men as sports-obsessed TV junkies? I swear, every other commercial I see, especially in the fall, is about how guys will do anything -- lie to their wives, neglect their kids, spend more money than they should -- for the ability to park their butts in a chair, eat snacks and drink beer with "the guys," and watch televised sports from early Saturday morning to late Sunday night. I even heard a new AT&T cell phone ad on radio today, featuring a guy whose cruel wife was forcing him to quit watching TV sports to spend time in the park with her and the kids. But, alas!, his new AT&T phone connected with the Internet, so (whew!) he was able to spend all that time in the park checking on scores while he pretended to play with the kids.

Stop it. Just stop it. Yes, there are no doubt some absolutely maniacal, sports-crazed doofuses out there, like there are crazed doofuses of many different stripes, but I don't know any guys who worship sports above all else, do you? I do know guys -- myself included -- who will watch a game or two that interests them, but they have a lot more going on in their lives besides sports. If you can quit with the ads showing women falling in love with their vacuum cleaners, please quit with the sports addict ads.

DOGS CALL IT P-MAIL

At least three or four nights a week, Mrs. Muley and I try to take our two sheltie dogs for a walk. Our smallest one loves to hike his leg and leave his calling card on the curb about every 50 feet, while our larger dog waits to do his duty in a little patch of grass by a fence. Before he does, however, he must sniff vigorously like a bloodhound along the length of the patch, lingering longer on some smells than others.

It finally hit me the other night -- my dogs are just as connected to their world as I am to mine. When they're out on a walk, what they're basically doing is communicating with other dogs -- both sending and receiving messages. What I think of as doing a lot of time-consuming sniffing is really the same thing I do when I get to work each morning and fire up the computer. My dogs are checking their e-mail from the day before. And they never get spammed.

ANY TAKERS?

Visiting my local big box bookstore the other day, I couldn't help but notice a large table near the entrance filled with books relating to the upcoming Presidential election. There were books by Obama and McCain, books about Obama and McCain, books about how either the Democrats or Republicans are idiots, and books about how the country should vote one way or the other or risk bringing terrible destruction down on everyone.

My thought was -- I know publishers are always trying to make a buck, but is anybody buying these things? I mean, I've got to think that in this particular campaign, there are very few truly "undecided" voters who might need the information in one of these books to help them know which lever to pull in November. Most people, I'm betting, have known for quite some time which candidate they're voting for, and would rather spend their book budget on something else, like a good mystery or graphic novel, or maybe one of those hundreds of books with cute photos of puppies and kittens.

A Smattering of Quotes

"When I was a student, I had two ideas about history, and one of them was that history was about dead men who had done dull things. History was dates and governments and laws and war and money - and dead men. Always dead men.

But I also read historical novels. And I adored them. People in historical novels loved, fought, and struggled to survive. They died violently; they were beset with invaders and famine and plague. They wore splendid clothes or picturesque rags. They performed miracles of courage and strength just to get something to eat. It was from novels that I learned that history was the story of survival: even something that sounded boring, like crop rotation or inheritance law, might be a matter of life and death to a hungry peasant. Novels taught me that history is dramatic. I wanted my students to know that, too."

--Laura Amy Schlitz, from the foreword to her 2008 Newberry Award-winning book Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!

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"... And because in all other monasteries and nunneries all is composed, limited, and regulated by hours, it was decreed that in this new structure there should be neither clock nor dial, but that according to the opportunities and incident occasions, all their hours should be disposed of; for, said Gargantua, the greatest loss of time that I know, is to count the hours. What good comes of it? Nor can there be any greater dotage in the world than for one to guide and direct his courses by the sound of a bell, and not by his own judgment and discretion."

--Rabelais, in Gargantua and Pantagruel

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"There’s no reason to think that reading and writing are about to become extinct, but some sociologists speculate that reading books for pleasure will one day be the province of a special 'reading class,' much as it was before the arrival of mass literacy, in the second half of the 19th century. They warn that it probably won’t regain the prestige of exclusivity; it may just become 'an increasingly arcane hobby.' Such a shift would change the texture of society. If one person decides to watch 'The Sopranos' rather than to read Leonardo Sciascia’s novella To Each His Own, the culture goes on largely as before — both viewer and reader are entertaining themselves while learning something about the Mafia in the bargain. But if, over time, many people choose television over books, then a nation’s conversation with itself is likely to change. A reader learns about the world and imagines it differently from the way a viewer does; according to some experimental psychologists, a reader and a viewer even think differently. If the eclipse of reading continues, the alteration is likely to matter in ways that aren’t foreseeable."

--From "Twilight of the Books," New Yorker, December 24, 2007

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"It has often been said there's so much to be read,
you never can cram all those words in your head.
So the writer who breeds more words than he needs
is making a chore for the reader who reads.
That's why my belief is the briefer the brief is,
the greater the sigh of the reader's relief is."

--Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor Seuss Geisel

The Secret of "P"

Having not read this classic Raymond Chandler mystery, I am quite confused. Just why do you brand an otherwise attractive woman with the letter "P"? What descriptive personality or physical trait is it supposed to warn others away from? Preppiness? Persnicketyness? Phoniness? Pettiness? Permissiveness? Prissiness? Pit odor?

Or does it refer to some sort of unwanted or controversial medical condition? Psoriasis? Psychotic episodes? Periodontal disease? Plantar's warts? Pigeon toes? Perforated ear drums? Plastic surgery?

Could it refer to her somewhat unorthodox choice of career? Podiatrist? Pundit? Parking lot attendant? Pit boss? Pearl diver? Praline maker?

Just maybe, considering my discussion here, it identifies the wearer as one of the new century's most scorned home improvement show characters: popcorn ceiling owner!

May I Borrow a Battery? My Book is Dead

I went on Amazon.com one day recently to check out something or other, and the opening page, instead of giving me the usual recommendations by categories, was almost completely given over to introducing me to a new product called the Amazon.com "Kindle." It's basically the company's version of an electronic book reader, which they say they've been working on for three years to perfect.

Explaining the genesis of his company's new product, Amazon.com CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said, "The booklover in me often has asked the nerd in me, 'Is there a way to get the emotions and experiences I love from books, but combined with the possibilities of advanced technology? Can something as evolved as the book be improved?"

Now, maybe I'm just hopelessly mired in the technological mud, but when I sit down in a nice chair with a good book (the pulpy-paged type), one thing I surely never think about is how to transform the book in my hands into another electronic gizmo, which I must pamper and recharge and repair when it gets broken. I'm quite happy, thank you, to just let The Brothers Karamazov be The Brothers Karamazov, and not lament the fact that any book I flip the pages of can't also get me stock quotes, show YouTube videos or allow me to spend more money with Amazon.com. This ability may represent an "improvement" to Mr. Bezos, but I beg to differ.

I'm glad that books have not really "evolved" since their invention, despite Mr. Bezos's claim. Yes, they're a bit smaller and made of different materials than they were in Gutenberg's day, and we no longer have to fashion them entirely by hand or crank them out one at a time on a crude press, but the essence of a book is still the same -- pages of text between two covers, pages turned one at a time and enjoyed at the leisure and pace of the reader.

I don't know how many times I've seen people come out with these "electronic book" gizmos, announcing (or implying) that the printed book is on its long-overdue deathbed, only to have the gizmo, and not books, soon bite the dust.

Then again, maybe an electronic book is inevitable. Maybe there's so many people these days whose attention spans have been worn down to the nub by a steady dose of TV and DVDs and video games that they won't -- or can't -- read a book without some sort of electronic diversion handy. But then again, I don't think those people are the ones truly longing for a good book to savor. Let's face it, the target audience for any new electronic book is not likely to go out and download Dostoevsky or Dickens or Joyce to read on it.

I am content to get drenched as I leave my finger in the dike. Invent what you will, and while I applaud your technical genius and even let out a "hey, cool!" every now and then, I'm happy to keep my books just as they've always been.

Random Observations and Trivial Events

SO, WAS J.P. MORGAN THE TIN MAN OR TOTO?

I was reading an article in the Nov. 30, 2007, edition of the New York Times, a review of the new SciFi Network miniseries "Tin Man," described as a modern-day "high-tech refashioning" of L. Frank Baum's book The Wizard of Oz. About midway into the article, I ran across this paragraph:

Baum said that he sought simply to produce a modern fairy tale, but his symbolism was hardly subtle. The novel came to be understood as an allegory for debates about turn-of-the-century monetary policy stemming from outrage over the subjugation of agricultural interests to the imperialism of bankers on the East Coast. (In the book, unlike in the 1939 film, Dorothy's shoes are made of silver, not rubies. The notion of silver shoes ambling on a yellow brick road is thought to stand for Baum's advocacy of bimetallism, a shift from the gold standard that would have given farmers access to cheaper money).

At first I though the writer of the piece was joking, but then I realized he was dead serious. Do you mean that L. Frank Baum sat down and dreamed up Dorothy and Toto and tornadoes and munchkins and flying monkeys because his heart was aching to cry out about bimetallism?

Maybe this is true, but it only served to remind me of all those cruel, horrific English literature classes I endured in high school and college where every seemingly straightforward sentence had to be analyzed for its "deeper meaning." The old man in the sea wasn't really after a fish, he was after fame, or youth, or whatever the heck that astronaut in 2001 was looking for. I was asked to believe that authors NEVER wrote simply because they wanted to tell a good story, or wanted to make a pile of money and become famous. They always fashioned some piece of fiction as just a tricky smokescreen to hide their real messages about the alienation of man, the search for significance and their own repressed sexual desires.

Speaking of sex, I once made the mistake of taking an English class in college which combined study of Shakespeare with a study of Freud (I would kill two bards -- I mean birds -- with one stone, I thought). Boy, talk about digging up innuendo and hidden messages. All things in the text that were pointed or straight (like swords, castle towers or trees) were supposedly "male symbols," while all things rounded, or at least not pointed (like pillows, bowls and heads of cabbage) were "female symbols." Everything any character did in any Shakespeare play, according to this professor, had to do in some way with S-E-X. Sheesh, what a load of psychobabbling rubbish. I felt both angry and slimy after each class, and I considered thwacking my professsor on his rounded head with my Bic pen to relieve my frustration, but I was afraid he would interpret this act as some sort of a bisexual assault, or possibly an attempt at conception.

MY DAY RUNNER HAS OUTRUN ME ANOTHER DAY

I think the feeling of being so busy as to be almost overwhelmed is a universal one in today's world. I guess we're just on the same wavelength, or at the same place in our lives, but If I was ever forced to accuse someone of sneaking into my brain and stealing my own thoughts about the issue, it would be Rod Dreher in this spot-on post on his Crunchy Con blog.

Bite Into These Beans

The Harry Potter phenomenon has given birth to any number of products spun off from the original novels by J.K. Rowling, including movies, calendars, mugs, bed linens, pajamas, board games and too many others to list here.

One of the most popular products to come on the market as a Harry Potter tie-in is Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, which of course are one of the treats enjoyed by Harry and his friends in the books. One of the unique things about Bott’s Beans is their unusual flavor palette. When you bite into one of these jellybeans, you might be welcomed by a traditional sweet flavor, such as cherry or licorice, but you also might find (to your horror or pleasure, depending on your bent) that you have bitten into a jellybean featuring flavors such as pickle, sausage, booger, vomit, rotten egg, earwax or dirt.

From what I hear, kids love the “nasty” flavors, even if they say they are disgusted by them. I’m sure that the shock value of biting into earwax and vomit has probably subsided a bit by now, since so many kids have experienced that, so I am proposing some new “gross” flavors that the manufacturers might want to consider.

Proposed New Flavors of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans:

Theater seat gum
Chinese toy factory
Liquid paper
Grout
Bile
Ship channel spume
Lutefisk
Witch hazel
Dog breath
Mohair
Taxi seat
Mucilage
Pustule
Nursing bra
Scabies
Charismatic preacher sweat
Styrofoam
Baby burp
Grandpa’s mustache

Turning a Page in Life

Isn’t it entirely possible that each of us harbors some sort of fantasy involving “leaving it all behind,” “it” being the secure job, the 9-to-5 existence, the totally tethered life, and heading out for unknown places as a romantic, risk-taking, free-spirited vagabond?

I think so, and recently I met someone who not only acknowledges those fantasies, but is doing something tangible to make them happen. It was at our public library’s used book sale, where I was working. I was in the “Hold” area, where people who fill bags full of dog-eared books they want to buy can temporarily stash them so that they can go out on the floor again, arms free, to buy even more.

When I got to the Hold area to begin my shift, I noticed about 20 bags full of books marked “T.Baker,” and wondered who this person was. I finally met her when she came to drop off another bag, and over the next few hours (as she dropped off probably 10 more bags) I got to know a bit more about why she was seemingly so book-crazy. She was in her late 20s or early 30s, and had driven in from a city more than three hours away to attend the sale.

When I first spoke to her, I told her I had come up with three possible theories to explain her mounting pile of bags:

1. She was preparing to move to an incredibly remote part of Alaska, where the nearest library, post office or Fedex station was a two-week journey by kayak and dogsled;

2. She was an insatiable reader, a literary nymphomaniac, devouring books like a drug addict pops pills; or

3. She was buying stock for a bookstore.

It turns out that the third scenario was correct, but the woman was not just dutifully buying stock to throw on the shelves of some dusty strip center bookstore. No, she has a full-time day job in a big city at a big corporation (which she despises) and knows that she is scheduled to get laid off in 2008. I’ve never met someone so happy (and eager!) to get canned.

Preparing for unemployment, she has started an online used bookselling business in her spare time, selling books through both eBay and amazon.com. That’s why she was buying all these books (more than a thousand dollar’s worth by the end). When she finally loses her steady job, she intends to sell used books full time, traveling across the country, hitting library used book sales, thrift stores and garage sales to buy new stock. She won’t get rich, she knows, but she says she loves books, and travel, and this is a dream of hers to combine those two. And, in her new career, every Ding Dong or Whopper or convenience store munchie she buys while traveling will be tax deductible.

I have to say, the idea of being able to head out on the road, at your own pace and on your own timetable, and go wherever your heart leads you, is a tempting one for me. Of course, if I tried to imagine the details of her situation at all, the picture gets a bit less rosy – the bad food, the smelly stores and rude people, living lean when sales are down, sleeping in cheap motels or even the back seat of the car to save money, being alone at night in yet another small town – some or all of that might indeed be ahead of her, but she isn’t worried about that now. She’s gloriously happy and excited by life, and it shows.

Given the chance, and even forced to do so by circumstance, wouldn’t we all be willing to leave behind the computer screen and the telephone and day planner and interoffice memos, and just fly away singing? At least on some days I think we just might, and damn the odds.

Self-inflicted Book Meme

I imagine that taking the time and trouble to fill out a lengthy meme simply because you came across it yourself on someone else's site (and not because a friend tagged you with it, and you only complete it so that the guilt caused by your contemplation of ignoring it entirely will cease oozing out of your pores like pus) is considered bad form, or possibly a sign of lunacy, such as calling up a telemarketer and begging them (please! please!) to tell you about all the sweet deals they have to offer you.

However, when I was on my "Reacquaint Myself with the Blogosphere" tour today, I came across a book meme on Pages Turned called the Calvino Meme, and it intrigued me so much I decided to fill it out, as if it had been sent to me by a fellow blogger I owed money to.

And, in the same spirit in which I found it, I will not create any more bad karma in the world by tagging any of you with it. If you choose to answer it on your blog, it's your own pus. I mean fault.

Books You’ve Been Planning To Read For Ages

The Divine Comedy by Dante

I want to read it, even though I’ve heard it’s not all that funny.

Bleak House by Dickens

I have made a life commitment to read all the novels of Charles Dickens, but for some anal retentive reason I am sticking to a resolve to read them in order of publication. I figure that if I don’t do this, I’ll never get around to finding the wherewithal to tackle such dull entries as Barnaby Rudge, which I’ve already slogged through. I’ve heard so much about what a great, entrancing masterpiece Bleak House is, but I’m only now reading Martin Chuzzlewit, so I’ve got a ways to go before I can tackle Bleak and not feel somewhat guilty.

The Story of Mankind by Hendrik Van Loon

When I was a young schoolboy, a couple of the other bookish kids I ran around with at Frostwood Elementary in Houston and I had a contest to see who could finish reading this tome, the thickest book we could find in the school library. It's not really all that long by adult standards (especially if you've read Tom Clancy or one of Dickens' doorstops), but for some reason I've never been able to get further than a few chapters into it.

Far from the Madding Crowd by Hardy
Ulysses by Joyce

The Books You’ve Been Hunting For Years Without Success

The Proven Way to Lose Weight, Have Great Sex and Make a Fortune By Doing Whatever You Fancy at the Moment, However Self-indulgent and Trivial

I can’t find this magical classic anywhere, no matter how hard I search.

The Books You Want To Own So They’ll Be Handy Just In Case

The Oxford Unabridged Dictionary

I want the real shelf-sagging McCoy, not the thing on compact disc. I want a dictionary you have to carry in a wheelbarrow.

The Books You Could Put Aside Maybe To Read This Summer

Does this mean that you put them aside because they're so dull you could wait six months to read them without any problem? Or are they so good and juicy that you're "saving" them for leisurely (ha!) vacation reading? I'm not sure, so I can't answer this.

The Books You Need To Go With Other Books On Your Shelves

I'm collecting the entire All-American Ads series of books by Taschen. They each have hundreds of wonderful, full-color magazine ads from a decade or two of the 20th century, which offer a neat look at what kinds of things ordinary folks spent their time dreaming and partaking of. I own the ones for the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, but they're somewhat pricey, and I haven't bought more yet. I still need the ones for 1900-1919, the 1920s, the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. There's not one yet for the 1990s.

The Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified

Old books of etiquette, such as the ones by Emily Post. It's amazing how things taken entirely for granted today were considered weird or downright scandalous just a few decades ago. For example, in the edition released the year I was born (1960), it says that public airings of buttocks cleavage and multiple facial piercings were not acceptable at a cotillion.

Any kind of pop-up books, the more intricate and innovative the better.

Books Read Long Ago That It’s Now Time to Re-read

All the novels of Jane Austen, especially Pride and Prejudice

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, one of my all-time favorites and one of the few books that made me laugh so hard I hurt.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Many of the novels of Kurt Vonnegut

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Books That If You Had More Than One Life You’d Certainly Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered

The 11-volume, colorful and quite dusty railroad train of books on my top shelf known collectively as The Story of Civilization by the Durants, which I bought cheap at a Barnes and Noble sale many years ago and have yet to crack.

Quote of the Day:

"If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms around their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”

--Charles Spurgeon

Is Book Browsing an Endangered Pastime?

Since re-entering the blogosphere a few days ago after many months away, I’ve been busy checking through the blogs of some people I had read regularly back in the days. It’s been sort of like showing up at a high school reunion after many years – some people are exactly the same, while others have changed.

For one thing, there must be some kind of jammin', fertile electro-emissions coming from the computer screens when someone visits a blog site, because it seems at least half of the women whose sites I used to visit are now pregnant. In fact, most seem to be ready to deliver any day. There’s apparently been some very productive time spent away from the keyboard in the past half year or so. You rascals, you.

And I just about did one of those classic Oliver Hardy big-eyed double takes when I read the incredible news that Jeff was engaged. Man, people are getting together every which way around here! Did my mere absence cause all of this? (By the way, congratulations, Jeff).

My topic of the day, if I must have one, is books. Specifically, old, used, second-hand books, and the reading of them. In visiting my old cyber haunts, I came across this link to an essay by a Canadian, David Warren, lamenting the demise of antiquarian booksellers. An excerpt:

The Internet has been taking over their function -- inefficiently, since the main point of visiting a second-hand store is to discover books, not track them down. But the real cause lies deeper. Today, we have, especially among university graduates, a full generation of people who cannot read a book. This is especially true of graduates in the humanities, who have the additional disability of never having been exposed to one. They have learned only “theory,” from things that are not books. And their money is reserved for other “consumer durables.”

I also can relate to his description of his book acquisition habits, although I’m probably not as successful a winnower:

I once had a large library, of which I was inordinately proud. Thanks to accidents and vagaries of postmodern life, I now have a much smaller library, but one that has through the winnowing of necessity become more truly useful. So many books that I only piously hoped to read, went on to other pious hopers, leaving me only a core to which I cling, as to an identity.

If you’re like me, someone who actually enjoys spending hours wandering around a used bookstore or a large public or university library, just browsing the aisles to see what’s on them, then you’ve probably already gotten the feeling that this is an endangered pastime. More and more libraries are ditching their “physical” books, which take up space and must regularly be cleaned and re-bound, for “electronic” books that can be accessed so cleanly and easily in the four square feet of space it takes to support an Internet portal.

I work as a volunteer for my local public library’s used book sale. It’s our job throughout the year to sort and store all of the used books people donate. I was surprised to learn just how many of those discarded books are from the public library itself. Their only sin is that they’re not new or “hot” books, possibly covering subjects or by authors that are no longer in style, and I guess, therefore, irrelevant to the modern reader. It’s been eye-opening to me to see what librarians these days think isn’t worth saving shelf space for.

At the college where I work, long-range plans are being studied that would make indiscriminate browsing of the type I enjoy almost impossible. They’re thinking of one day going to an “off-site book retrieval system” of some sort. What that means is that they won’t actually get rid of the physical books, they’ll just store them where the public can’t get at them. To do so, we’ll have to fill out a request slip with the title, author and call number, and then some sort of mechanical Rube Goldberg contraption will reach into the bowels of the storage warehouse, put the book on a moving pathway and eventually deliver it to the circulation desk. That way, the library folks can get rid of those big shelves and have lots of extra room for more couches and computer terminals and espresso machines.

The main problem with this system, and with visiting electronic used booksellers on the Internet, is that it eliminates, or at least severely impairs, browsing with no specific end in mind. You pretty much have to know either the title of the book you’re looking for, or its author. There will be no more of, say, wanting to see what types of books the library or bookstore might have on one subject, and then getting completely captivated by books on another entirely different subject that were noticed along the way.

I have found some of my favorite books and authors by sheer indiscriminate browsing. I’ll go into the library looking for one certain book, find it, and then start looking at the books standing nearby on the shelves. If I notice an interesting title, or an attractive or exotic binding, I’ll pull out the book and start flipping through. Many times I’m disappointed, but I cherish those times when I find some author, possibly many years dead and unread for generations, who tickles my fancy.

I mean, how in the world are you supposed to pick out an attractive art book – or a book to read to your child before bedtime – unless you can phsyically pick them up and flip through them? Yes, yes, I know you can conceivably look at any book online, but how much time and trouble does that take? You can take down a book and decide quickly by looking into it if it’s not for you, then pick up the next and repeat the process. Imagine how much more complicated (and how less enjoyable) that task is online.

Of course, I know that you can go into a big chain bookstore like Barnes & Noble or Borders and browse to your heart's content. And if the book you're in the mood for is something recent, or something eternally popular, then you might very well be in luck. But you'll find none of the quirky, old, forgotten books that reside in libraries or used bookshops. And the selection will be a mile wide and an inch deep. Take the works of Charles Dickens. Sure, almost any chain bookstore will stock copies of Great Expectations or David Copperfield or Oliver Twist. But how many will stock every one of Dicken's novels? And will there be all those interesting books about Dickens and his life and times, and the other books analyzing Dickens' works, which a good library will have close at hand? Doubtful.

Oh, well. At least down here in Texas we have the Half Price Books chain, which is where I spend a sizeable amount of my disposable income each year (although I have to drive to either Austin or Dallas to visit one). They seem to be doing a boffo business, so I don’t see them disappearing anytime soon, even if the public libraries here go with one of these soulless retrieval systems.

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #7

Oh man, please tell me this one's fake.

Random Observations and Trivial Events

1. What do you think when you see a place of business sporting a sign that says “under new manage- ment?” Does it inspire a positive response in you? My feeling is that the only businesses that display such a sign are ones that have gained quite a bad reputation, either for bad service, bad products or both. I mean, if a successful business had built up a sterling reputation in the community, the last thing a smart new owner would want to do is to let people know the management had changed, for fear that they would begin to have doubts about whether the quality would continue. Right? In short, the only business owners wanting to advertise a change in management are the ones who sincerely hope those past unpleasant incidents with food poisoning or sexual misconduct or police raids will soon be forgotten.

2. Once a year, the City of Waco graciously holds something called a “Hazardous Waste Day,” where you can haul down all the stuff they deem hazardous – old paint cans, old batteries, unused lighter fluid, motor oil, etc. – and dump it for no charge. My question is, why do they only have these special days once a year? Yes, I imagine they cost the city money, but do they think people wait patiently for an entire year before throwing away things like old paint and oil? Sheesh, no. If there’s not an easy way of disposing of it safely, then we will likely toss it in the weekly garbage, where it will be taken to the landfill, and cost a lot more in the long run in terms of trash, cancer-causing agents and the underground creation of large, radioactive monsters that arise from the dump and wreak havoc on surrounding suburbs.

3. Here on campus I see all these college students looking bleary-eyed lately, and I know they are high on caffeine and going without sleep studying for finals. For all I know, it’s the first time they’ve studied all semester. I remember the stress and fear that came with finals, and I’m tempted to really feel sorry for the students, but then I remember that after a week of taking tests, they’ve got three months to basically sleep in late, party and do nothing they don’t want to do. Let ‘em suffer awhile, I say.

4. I know this probably sounds goofy, but I’ve seen the trailer for the new “Poseidon Adventure” movie (a re-make) that’s opening this month, and I want to see it. The original movie (the one where Shelley Winters constantly got stuck and Ernest Borgnine complained all the way through) was one of my favorites as a kid.

5. I was behind a college student at the convenience store the other day, and I noticed that she bought one item – a large bottled water – and paid for it with a credit card. I thought, this says something about modern society in a nutshell. We’re paying for things like water that we could easily get for free, and to do it, we’re in effect borrowing money from a bank at interest. I’ve done this before, too (with Dr Pepper, of course), so I’m not exempt.

6. I have been unable to finish a book, cover to cover, these last two or three months. Some books I have gotten almost all the way through, some I have gotten to the end of only by skipping big parts in the middle, and some I’ve abandoned after only a few chapters. But there's not one book I have read every word of. A lot of these were great books, classics, ones I was excited about reading, so I can’t blame the material. What is my problem?

7. On second thought, don't answer that.

Today’s quote:

”Do you think we should drive a stake through his heart just in case?”

--Actor Peter Lorre, to Vincent Price at Bela Lugosi’s funeral

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #6

Any of you ladies interested?

More Reasons to Be Happy

I'm stil working on trying to write a few movie reviews, and since I have nothing new to offer today, I've decided to update and re-run a post I did soon after I started blogging last year. Hope it gives you a few laughs.

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Sixteen years ago, a short but squat little book titled 14,000 Things to Be Happy About hit bookstores. In the book's opening pages, author Barbara Ann Kipfer said that the work was the fruit of a 20-year effort to write down the "little things" that made her happy.

The compact, simple volume has proven to be quite a welcome counterpoint to the public flow of information over the years, seeing as how just about every newspaper and TV news program nowadays could be subtitled 14,000 Things to Feel Crappy About.

I have passed by this book many times in the bookstore, but I finally decided to take it off the shelf and have a look. The way I figured it, if push came to shove I could only name maybe 2,000 things to be happy about, and I thought, why am I missing out on 12,000 others?

I found a lot to agree with in Kipfer's choices. Who among us doesn't have happy thoughts about making love, music, nature walks, rereading a good book, singing old hymns in church, small at-home dinners, opportunity, doing something against all odds, and "this thing called love?" For my personal taste, I was glad to see that Kipfer included such favorites as the Hallelujah Chorus, the Art Institute of Chicago, Bob and Ray and Kahlúa chocolate torte.

Of course, we aren't all made happy by the same things. I guess Kipfer is a different sort of person, or maybe she was running out of obvious ideas and had to stretch, but I find it hard to hop on the Happy Bus for salespeople, the ring of the telephone, loud radios, "morning mouth," listening to the news, cold hands, "food debris under a high chair after an attempted feeding," planning your future with the help of an Ouija board, grass stains, spittoons, Spam, sour milk, seeing a grown man cry, or Gene Shalit's mustache. Especially Gene Shalit's mustache.

A few entries just had me puzzled. Are we supposed to feel emotional one way or the other about brake fluid, isosceles triangles, dial tones, Naugahyde or "the suck of a pump?" And aren't a few of the items a bit dated? Is anyone truly made happy anymore on a consistent basis by mood rings, the Senate Watergate hearings, Senator Howard Baker, Polaroid Land cameras, shower microphone soap, Montgomery Ward, Tab soda commercials, 3 1/2" computer diskettes, AMC Pacers or "boogie dancing?"

In case Ms. Kipfer ever wants to release an updated and expanded version of the book titled 14,030 Things to Be Happy About, I offer her these potential additions free of charge:

* No TV series planned starring Pillsbury Doughboy
* Pouring hot oil on enemy combatants from high atop castle walls outlawed by Geneva Convention
* Barney show no longer inserted between features on U.S. to Asia flights
* Despite rumors to contrary, Jerry Mathers, Paul McCartney and Abe Vigoda still alive and well
* Euell Gibbons televised appeals to begin eating pine trees fell on deaf ears
* Scurvy eliminated in most North American fishing fleets
* Only 70 years until U.S. Tricentennial
* Proposed leisure suit revival killed because of high oil prices
* Treaty of Oregon setting U.S.-Canada boundary still preventing bloodshed after 160 years
* Country singers dying slow, lyrical deaths from TB a thing of the past
* Metric system and Esperanto never caught on in U.S.
* Thanks to commentary translation track by marine biologist on DVD set, Flipper's words now understandable
* Last insurance claims from Krakatoa eruption finally settled
* Despite decades of wobbling, Weebles still do not fall down
* "Dark Side of the Moon" now distributed to all world people groups, including prehistoric tribes in Asia
* Haggis still banned from most U.S. restaurants
* Cloning of zoo pandas will prevent embarrassing public ridicule over mating failures
* Widespread notoriety of classic "pull my finger" prank has greatly decreased its use
* Constitutional ammendment to add Millard Fillmore to Mount Rushmore failed
* Charlie Tuna's death wish still unrequited
* Lakehurst, N.Y., relatively free of fatal blimp accidents since 1936
* William Shatner finally has decent hairpiece
* Slow tectonic forces still centuries away from ripping Florida from U.S. mainland
* Goofus' behavior still considered bad example in "Goofus and Gallant" cartoons
* Reverse of Colorado commemorative quarter will not feature John Denver in granny glasses
* Cancerous test mice denied legal standing by lower courts
* General Francisco Franco still dead
* Banana Splits reunion postponed indefinitely
* Loss of U.S. control of Panama Canal has not prevented timely shipments of Yu-Gi-Oh cards to East Coast
* New series "Star Trek: Shore Leave Tiki Lounge" killed at pilot stage

Today's Quote:

"Once, craftsmen of all kinds were referred to as artisans, people who considered their work to be an art. There's no reason we can't create a life that allows us to approach our work and our lives in this way, as artisans –– people who, in the words of George Bellows, 'make life more interesting or beautiful, more understandable or mysterious, or probably in the best sense, more wonderful.'"

--Paul and Sarah Edwards
from The Practical Dreamer's Handbook

Random Observations and Trivial Events

1. After browsing the spines in the bargain DVD bins at the video store, I have determined that one of the most popular movies on the planet is apparently titled “Security Device Enclosed.” I have never heard of this flick, however, and IMDB has no listing for it. Has anyone seen it who can provide a review? It sounds like something maybe starring Sylvester Stallone or Steven Seagal.

2. I have never read the book, but I found this funny "abridged version" of the Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged while trolling around blogs the other day.

3. I have occasional moments of olfactory epiphany. I’ll get hold of a certain scent –- usually riding on an outdoor breeze or slipping out of some busy kitchen –- and instantly I am transported back in time, to joyous days of childhood or times of adventure or courting. The feeling doesn’t last long, but it is powerful enough to stop me dead in my tracks sometimes.

4. I am somewhat frustrated that so many of the hot series now on TV are sequential instead of episodic. That's a fancy way of saying that each episode continues the story line into the next episode, like a soap opera. I am frustrated because, although I don't get to watch much TV at all, I hear about great shows I might enjoy checking out if only their story lines weren't so far advanced. For example, it seems everywhere I hear what a great, riveting show "24" is. If I just tuned in one night and watched a new episode, I'm sure I would be fatally lost and confused. "Who's that character? And who's that? And why is that guy plotting against that one? Wait a minute, why'd he shoot that guy and not the other one?" To truly get up to speed, I 'd no doubt need to go back and watch the previous four seasons worth of episodes, but who's got time for that?

5. I am so in awe of natural artists such as my daughter Rebecca and fellow blogger Jenn at "My Life is a Cartoon." They can draw just about anything, it seems, and are so creative with not only their pictures but their thoughts. I think I'd die happy if I just had half their talent to draw people and things.

6. I can't seem to find an answer to this burning question: there's "new," and then there's "brand-new." What does the extra word "brand" signify? Why is it there? Is there a real difference between the two words? Don't they mean the same thing?

7. I have finally decided to give up on Little Women halfway into it, and try it again when I'm more in the mood to read it straight through. I will leave you, though, with one excerpt I had marked. It's a very old-fashioned, non-PC bit of advice that Mrs. March gives to her daughters about what they should strive for in life. I think I'll share it with my own daughters when they're a bit older.

"I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished, and good; to be admired, loved, and respected, to have a happy youth, to be well and wisely married, and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send. To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman; and I sincerely hope my girls may know this beautiful experience. It is natural to think of it, Meg; right to hope and wait for it, and wise to prepare for it; so that, when the happy time comes, you may feel ready for the duties, and worthy of the joy. My dear girls, I am ambitious for you, but not to have you make a dash in the world -- marry rich men merely because they are rich, or have splendid houses, which are not homes, because love is wanting. Money is a needful and a precious thing -- and, when well used, a noble thing -- but I never want you to think it is the first or only prize to strive for. I'd rather see you poor men's wives, if you were happy, beloved, contented, than queens on thrones, without self-respect and peace."

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #5

I'm working up a few movie reviews, but until I finish them, here's another in my series of romance covers you'll never see. This north-of-the-border bodice-ripper might have been made into a movie with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald back in the 1940s.

(By the way, I am not the creative graphic artist who came up with these parodies. I pulled them off a web site somewhere, and if I had saved the URL I would give it to you).



Today's Quote:

"Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise."

--Margaret Atwood
in Cat's Eye

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #3

I don't know, I see maybe Patrick Swayze or David Hasselhoff in the movie version.

Rejected Romance Novel Titles #2

Random Observations and Trivial Events

1. I just noticed a new entry to the “Dummies” series of books called something like Getting Pregnant for Dummies. Don’t we have enough of this going around already? And do you really need a book to tell you how to do this? I’m wondering what the company will do for an encore. Will there ever be a book in the best-selling “Dummies” series titled Learning Disabilities for Dummies? Or a book in the “Idiot’s” series titled The Idiot’s Guide to Interbreeding?

2. Don’t laugh, but I have just started reading the book Little Women. And no, it’s not because I think it’s a photo book you look at long ways. I’ve heard so much about this American classic, I feel I’ll be missing out on something if I don’t read it. The heroine of the story, Jo, is a tomboy who I’ve heard described as the only woman in 19th century American fiction who was allowed to be opinionated and independent and “get away with it,” meaning that she didn’t have to relinquish it for the sake of some guy. I want to read about her and see how Louisa May Alcott created her (a character very much like her, I’ve been told). Any Little Women fans out there?

3. Speaking of literary classics, there’s a number of others that I’ve so far neglected to read, and this year I’m going to try and tackle at least a few of them. On my 2006 reading list so far:

The Divine Comedy by Dante
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
The four books in The Chronicles of Narnia I haven’t read yet

Any other suggestions for a good "classic" read?

4. Through various sermons I’ve heard lately from three different pastors, I’ve been getting the message that God has a plan for me, and that if I’m not having fun at what I’m doing for a living, God probably wants me doing something lese, something that uses the unique talents he’s given me. I’m on board with this assessment, but my question is – how do I find out what this “perfect work” is? The short, answer, or course, is pray about it, but I seem to be unable to discern God’s will for my life through prayer. I guess that’s my real question here – any tips on how to do this?

5. Finally, I was listening to a few minutes of an A&E “Biography” show on Frank Gifford this morning while I was getting ready for work, and I heard a funny story. The show was talking about how when Kathie Lee married Frank Gifford, he was already old enough to have grandchildren. It mentioned that when Kathie Lee had her first child by Frank, some of his old football and broadcasting pals were a little taken aback. When Frank called Don Meredith to tell him the news, there was a long pause, and then Meredith said “Don’t worry, Frank, I’ll find the guy who did this to her.” Years later, when Kathie Lee was pregnant with their second child, Frank called Meredith with the news, and again heard a long pause, followed by, “Dang it! I killed the wrong guy…”