Fidget

… as in the movie, a 6-episode mini series. We thoroughly enjoyed it - and the book is totally amazing; I would recommend it. It’s not an easy book to read, but so rich in characters, language and deep thoughts. Seeing the movie reinforced the top-shelf quality of the book for me. BN and I read it aloud to each other last year, and it took a long time, sporadically reading it at bedtime (dozed off during a few chapters!) and in the car on vacation. But by the time we were done we felt so well acquainted with the many characters that the town (or is it a county?) of Middlemarch felt like home. It’s a sign of the quality of the characters that I truly hated one of them, Rosamond Vincy. She is pure evil. The final scene with her and Dorothea did not sufficiently endear me to her to change my mind that she was the most believably selfish person I have ever met. (I mean, read about.) In the movie they portrayed her as slightly more sympathetic. But still right on. Everyone else was well cast, too. I thought Dorothea just seemed a bit too old. She was perfect for the part but if she looked a bit younger that would have been better. Ladislaw was handsome in an exotic way, but you couldn’t read his expression so he didn’t quite live up to himself in the book. Lydgate grew on me - at first I thought he looked too boyish, no aristocratic features. But he did a wonderful job so I’ll forgive him his not-perfect-looks. Mary Garth - perfect. Caleb Garth - wonderful. Bulstrode - what a complex guy! He worked. And Mr Brooke was a perfect match, too. One thing I missed from the book, though of course they couldn’t fit it all into even 420 minutes - was the scene with Borthrop Trumbull auctioning off the antique fender. That might have been one of the funniest scenes I have ever read, especially in a classic novel. Maybe that’s why it was so funny - I was surprised to discover George Eliot had a silly streak.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I think it’s a basic human desire to be “on the inside,” to have secret knowledge, to belong to the group of people who are “in the know.” Isn’t that what tempted Eve back in the garden? Since the time of Christ, devotees of attaining secret knowlege have been referred to as Gnostics.

I felt a little manipulated, reading this book. Dan Brown is a very cunning author. As the codes, secrets, connections and riddles converge, they reveal concepts that I found very offensive, twisting the truth that my life is built upon. But, one of the main promoters of these ideas turns out to be the unexpected villain, so you are tricked into transferring your disgust onto him while the other “insiders” seem pretty much OK by comparison.

The fact of the matter is, you don’t have to join a secret society to get access to the way, the truth, and the life: “… since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19-20) No one group of people - whether intellectuals, governments, organized religion, secret societies - has a monopoly on the truth.

I also didn’t like how sex-saturated the book was, but not because I believe sex is dirty and sinful as Dan Brown accuses the Catholics of insisting. No… I believe God gave us sex as a gift, for men and women to enjoy in the context of marriage, as an earthly picture of the union we will eventually have with God in heaven. The church is intended as the Bride of Christ! (That’s the reason Jesus never got married – as the book explains, marriage was an integral part of the Jewish culture and a good Jewish man would always marry.)

“‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery — but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5:31-32

This is another comfy hat for my friend CG who is on the home stretch for her chemotherapy. Some ladies at church hosted a lovely tea party for her last week and everybody wore hats and brought hats to give to C.

So, it’s starting to get a little ridiculous. This is what I saw when I got up this morning. Or, actually, once I was up, showered, and walked out to the living room - BN chuckled as I looked out the window and my jaw dropped.

It SNOWED. A good couple of inches. What month is it again? oh, yeah… April. April-stinkin-20th!

I just checked the Weather Widget. It’s supposed to get up to the high 50’s later this week. Oh, goody.

There’s a woman at my church, LS, who loves to throw elaborately themed parties. Last night, her home was transformed into “the Hip Kitty,” a beatnik cafe. In the invitation, we had been instructed to write a beat poem and wear our cool threads. We sat 4 to a table and sipped faux martinis and munched hors d’oeuvres. This is what I wrote for the poetry reading:

While We’re There

I declare and how to stare
my wild and more than mild extraordinary child
melt the walk and north to talk
from there to you on shore
what’s in store we’ll try some more if it’s enough we won’t fall short
of his last bale of wool to cushion the prickle
of southern pride and northern cold
before were old
the shortest life is one that took
awhile to save
and knights and knaves can’t solve the crime of misinterpretation
sweeping the nation
under the rug.
We feel unknown but it’s more obvious to seem methodious
and melodic like the tunes you know by sight without a name or a label
to force unstable
and while I’m able I’ll hawk your wares.

While we’re there let’s check the timetable
as we’re able the west was won by the cat’s curiousity.
There’s no you in curiosity
and curios are even farther from the truth.
In my youth I thought it uncouth when muddy dippers
would double dare and howl to scare.
Please believe I’m all that I seem and more besides
and I hate to see you cry.

When we’re through and so will you
show some style of colors dialed.
Drill in to the interaction of distraction come to roost
and must distrust what youth forsooth,
I swear the spare was all that’s there
on the left side of the dashboard mirror.

***

[Thanks to BN for encouraging me to just jump right in and try writing stream-of-consciousness. It’s not hard at all!]

A Seattle blogger coined a great term for the odd season in between Winter and Spring. “Unsprung.” Perfect.

One week ago today it was in the 80’s here in Eugene. As I write this, what is falling from the sky includes a few flakes of snow. I’m just sayin.’

by William Goldman

I remember when I saw the movie for the first time, it was at a girls’ slumber party and I think we must have been in 4th or 5th grade. Me and another girl were so afraid of the R.O.U.S.’s that we had to run out of the room for that part.

So, it was fun to read the book. It’s definitely amusing, but it’s not art. There are a few “aw, sweet” moments. Lots of amusingly silly parts. A fair amount of cheese-factor. And parts get downright annoying, because Mr. Goldman is always piping up with rambling anecdotes about his real life, tinged with the fantasy of the supposed real author of the book, Morgenstern, and the supposed real location of the story, Florin. I mean I guess it kind of works as a foil for the fairy tale, but maybe he just does it a little too much. And the “introductory” material is a bit weird. Made me feel about Goldman as I would about someone that struck up a conversation with me in the airport and started telling me all these personal details about his life. Just a little “too much information,” or whatever. Oh, well. I’d say if you’re a fan of the movie, you’ll enjoy this book.

Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day. Supposedly it got all the way up to 74, which felt more like high 80’s since we’d been stuck in the low 50’s in recent months. I was driving around town in the earlier part of the day, doing errands and gathering supplies for my silkscreening class that I’m taking at the Craft center. Later in the afternoon BN and I took a bike ride to Coldstone Creamery, which was doing a brisk trade on the sudden hot day.

No matter that this week has been cold and rainy again…

I got this yarn from the bargain bin at Ben Franklin, more than a year ago I think. I’d been working on this scarf since before Christmas, it was my fill-in project for when I was between more significant things. I like it. It came out nice and long, even though I only had 1 skein of the main yarn. More info at Ravelry.

by Orson Scott Card

I knew this book was pretty good because my husband couldn’t put it down while he was reading it and he’s usually able to avoid most distractions during the school year.

Well, yeah, it’s a page turner! Great concept, excellent execution, and never a dull moment. Even if you don’t like sci-fi, you might like this. (And if you liked Harry Potter, you’ll love it.) It’s a very human book. Little Ender (he is astonishingly young) is pushed to his limits by the grown ups running his world, and you feel pushed right along with him. Frank Herbert frustrated me in Dune, sometimes things were so obvious (or it was obvious what he should have done to make it a better book! sorry, but that’s how I felt…) and other times I felt like a chapter had dropped out and I’d missed something important (the movie’s that way too!). Isaac Asimov frustrated me in Foundation, introducing new characters every few chapters and then forgetting to ever mention them again. But this book really works, really pulls you in, makes you feel that you know Ender like he knows himself.

One more thing: I swear, the technology is prophetic. None of the laptops or video games or internet concepts, complete with blogs, feel hokey. It feels like something someone would have written about this year, rather than the 70’s and 80’s. Way cool.