puddlestash

How Annoying Is This?

2012-01-15T20:34:00.001-05:00

That's One Big Arachnid!

2011-12-16T21:09:00.004-05:00

Canada's Parliament Buildings between the fifth and sixth legs!

Yen

2011-09-10T20:45:00.004-04:00

After hiking for about three years on this one trail in Japan, my nephew Chris was rewarded by seeing a mountain in the distance from the exact vantage point of whoever painted the same image as it appears on a certain denomination of Japanese currency.
I think it's so neat!
Visit --> MY BLOG. The hike is not near as far!
******

This is Poutine...

2011-09-04T18:56:00.007-04:00

The Chicken Peppercorn© Poutine, to be exact, pretty much guaranteed to make you walk way slower after eating it -- even though apparently Lance Armstrong starts his mornings with this also!
[CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO RETURN TO ORIGINAL BLOG-POSTING]
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Lexi's Opinion

2011-07-27T02:51:00.002-04:00

A Gaggle of Quails

2011-07-25T05:00:00.002-04:00

I Kissed a Bear And I Liked It

2011-05-01T23:18:00.003-04:00

Is This Just Wrong?

2011-04-24T22:55:00.003-04:00

Your Answer....

2011-01-26T07:21:00.002-05:00

Saturday Snapshot

2010-12-26T16:44:00.004-05:00

Scruffy is tired out after a demanding Christmas!
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ZOOM! ZOOM!

2010-12-19T14:04:00.002-05:00

Does This Make Cents?

2010-11-17T20:45:00.004-05:00

The Right Answer

2010-08-21T16:36:00.002-04:00

Not McKidding....

2010-07-04T21:54:00.002-04:00

Gotta Euthanize ol' Big Blue...

2010-05-06T23:02:00.002-04:00

Desktop Wallpaper

2010-04-10T22:39:00.004-04:00

The Big Answer

2010-02-28T16:09:00.014-05:00

Why is it that we so seldom hear solid philosophical wisdom in sermons?
That was the question.
I think that I can answer it by employing only one word, found in Volume M of any 26-volume dictionary.
Money.
Sounds simplistic or over-stated? It is a bit of both perhaps, and yet, not. Depends on how long you think it through.
Religious homiletical discourse, [in a word, sermonizing], for such activity to be subsidized by the hearer's wallet opening up at the end of things, it has to involve moral obligation. Commands and stuff like that. Even guilt. A toss of guilt has to be in there. Preferably a “god” watching over the proceedings, etc. Were it not for this perception [which must be perpetuated by the beneficiaries] the church’s funds would dry up in a few weeks time.

And all of the above-stated presuppositions rely upon a devotion to irrationality, for their existence!
I am convinced that if preachers really and TRULY annunciated what they know to be true in experience and intellectual honesty, church doors would close with a resounding boom across all of North America and, indeed, the world over.
Religious leaders, pastors, etc., are not nearly as dumb as we happily believe them to be.
Of all people, these on the front lines KNOW that prayer does not at all "work". They are the very ones present at the most bedsides where people are invariably croaking, with not a single one healed.
You would have to be an absolute moron or technically brain dead I think, to keep seeing such a plethora of unanswered prayer and to sit in your office listening to the mountains of personal problems that Christian people have in their relationships to not conclude that there is really no difference between believers and non-believers when it comes to practically lived “life and death” issues.
In other words, no discernible “god” out there working on behalf [or not] of either side of the “faith” spectrum.
Robert Schuller knows this.
They all know it – but they must keep shoving the pablum into the dribbling baby faces. Why? Well, because babies need to be fed, and even more importantly, the ministers need to be remunerated.
If they said on Sunday what they really know to be true, ministers would be out of a job. No different than I myself would be immediately fired if I told my General Manager that I harbor thoughts of burning our main warehouse down to the ground first thing Tuesday.
So – let us recap – [Wow! Maybe I am Anthony Trollope…..!]….

To bring it home…. to make it even more real to myself, I had to think of a corollary scenario. I had to think of a situation in which I think I would be in the presence of real honest, even disinteresed, philosophical discourse.
I thought of Christopher Hitchens.
SCENE: A group of people are listening to Hitchens for one hour. There’s me [faded jeans, hair disheveled] in the midst. All of us mesmerized by the philosophical wisdom and just the overall SENSE of what he is saying. Reveling in the glorious debunction!
Then, at the end, when the applause subsides -- a bit or organ music comes up and Mr. Hitchens says he is going to pass around an empty KFC bucket and he would like it if everyone put 10% of their gross earnings into the thing, thank you very much. As a sort of fee for what they just heard.
[P.S. There is an ATM machine in the foyer!]
THE ENTIRE PLACE WOULD RISE UP AND TELL HIM TO GO HAMMER HIS FRIGGING HAT!
Am I right?
Well, if so, I am rightfully right!
Go write a book, buddy. [He did].
Make a DVD. [Done].
But don’t tell me to give you serious amounts of money just because you can stand there and talk for a few minutes!
And yet -- this is exactly the process in church....... with the added insult of the upshot that what we’ve all just heard is utter rubbish!
From any rational, intelligent perspective, this is the case.
How do they get away with it?
Well, friends, there is only ONE way.
By REMAINING in the absurd. By dumbing down. By providing NOT wisdom -- but "emotional therapy sessions" [to quote Schuller].
By playing the game of belief in what is essentially unbelievable...... namely, that there is a GOD that deperately needs our money, and that our particular religious institution is the executor of that transaction.
Think about it.
No other place on earth would get away with this. Admittedly, the government comes close with their fiscal idea of “give us your money and we’ll distribute it wisely”, but they do not hold a candle to the church.
Money is the reason that Schuller was able to interupt my breakfast today with his absurdities. His presence in my apartment has absolutely nothing to do with the “blessings of God” on his ministry. It has everything to do with the myriads of fools writing cheques, while I scrape away at a grapefruit.

I’ll let Emily say the rest:

Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
I just wear my wings,
And instead of tolling the bell for church,
Our little sexton sings.

God preaches, -- a noted clergyman --
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I’m going all along.

*******

Emma

2010-01-24T23:04:00.003-05:00

The Falls

2010-01-17T20:22:00.002-05:00

Books of 2009

2010-01-01T16:01:00.004-05:00

Snow by Orhan Pamuk
The Varieties of Scientific Experience by Carl Sagan
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Libra by Don DeLillo
Until I Find You by John Irving
Garbo Laughs by Elizabeth Hay
Consolation by Michael Redhill
Beyond Belief by Elaine Pagels
Mothers and Sons by Colm Toibin
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
The Time in Between by David Bergen
The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby
The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud
The Romantic Movement by Alain de Botton
House of Meetings by Martin Amis
Afterlands by Steven Heighton
The Shadow Boxer by Steven Heighton
Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Ecstasy of Skeptics by Steven Heighton
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
Hello To The Cannibals by Richard Bausch
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain De Botton
The Innocent by Ian McEwan
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
The Spire by William Golding
The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
Herzog by Saul Bellow
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Keep by Jennifer Egan
Eternal Life: A New Vision by John Shelby Spong
The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving
The Story of B by Daniel Quinn
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
His Illegal Self by Peter Carey
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
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Feline Alcohol Syndrome

2009-12-06T14:34:00.001-05:00

Am I Right?

2009-10-12T21:52:00.001-04:00

Skull and Steel

2009-10-09T22:46:00.003-04:00

Excerpt from "I Have A Picture" by Cipriano Bookpuddle --

Ever notice that when we describe human loss of composure we use terms that refer to explosions and rapid rise in temperature?
“He really blew his top!” etc.
It’s an accurate description of the way Dad’s anger tended to surface. All at once and full of heat. We all show our rage in various ways, ranging anywhere from a steamy slow oozing type of thing, like porridge bubbling in a pot, to sudden unexpected geyser-like bursts that seem to come out of nowhere. Dad’s “ventings” tended towards this latter type of seismic upheaval, and were equally volcanic in their urgency. The end of the world is at hand! Why? Because there’s no salt on the table, or the drinking water’s not cold enough.
With a certain twist to it, I think I’ve inherited a bit of this hotheadedness. The “twist” is in the frequency of the eruptions. In other words, my boiling point is set quite a bit higher than Dad’s was, but like Dad, when the lid is blown, look out kids, because it’s like a pressure-cooker malfunctioning! The Chernobyl meltdown!
Dad was like Old Faithful in Yellowstone Park… you could pretty much get off the tour bus, get your camera ready, and expect geyser-like outbursts from him at regular intervals on any given day. Me, on the other hand, my outbursts are more… historic in nature. Like Mount Vesuvius and the story of Pompeii. I may only erupt once every couple hundred years, but holy cow, a whole city may be covered by the resulting lava flow.
At those moments, I say and do things that are not only irrational, but highly dangerous. I can think of one incident that illustrates Dad and I both blowing our lids simultaneously. It happened in the garden on Argyle Street…

I cannot remember why I was so mad at Donna. But oh, was I ever mad.
There we were in the garden out back… Mom, Dad, Donna, and I, like a scene from The Waltons.
But I was furious about something and, picking up a nearby rake, I flung it as hard as I could at my dear sister. Swirling horizontally, hurtling towards her head, I can see it again in my mind as though in slow motion…
Whack!
Skull and steel.
The toothy tines of the rake caught her just above the eye and knocked her flat!
Can you imagine? Can you imagine for a moment what the outcome of that action could have been? What an inch lower would have meant?
…Old Faithful did not give me much time to think about it!
Off like a shot, in a literal race against death itself I made the near fatal mistake of running INTO the house. Now how stupid is that?
Within seconds Dad had me cornered and commenced thrashing at me with the unexaggerated ferocity of three (or maybe four) rabid bears. I don’t remember much about his actual technique, except that it was grizzly indeed. And Mom could not save me, because she was busy putting Donna’s eye back in its socket. All in all, it was by far, the most memorable beating I ever received from Dad, and the best deserved!
In fact, this example is not a good one in describing irrational anger, because Dad would have been entirely justified in tearing my liver out in this particular case. But I just mention it as a way of saying that he was a force to be reckoned with. And not just because he could so easily maim you physically. He was not typically violent. He just projected an image of someone with whom you did not want to incur wrath.
-- Back to The Puddle --

*******

Hack away...HACK AWAY....

2009-09-28T21:47:00.004-04:00

What a way to go!

Her Selfish Grief

2009-09-26T12:36:00.002-04:00

Maggie, Signing Books!

2009-09-23T21:24:00.002-04:00

Jennifer.....

2009-09-11T23:42:00.004-04:00

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Answers to [NOT SO] Famous Firsts

2009-08-26T20:14:00.003-04:00

1) Crome Yellow -- ALDOUS HUXLEY
2) Poor Folk -- FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY
3) Player Piano -- KURT VONNEGUT
4) The Voyage Out -- VIRGINIA WOOLF
5) Grimus -- SALMAN RUSHDIE
6) Jonah's Vine Gourd -- ZORA NEALE HURSTON
7) The Town and the City -- JACK KEROUAC
8) Cup of Gold -- JOHN STEINBECK

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Britney, Reading For Stress-Related Issues

2009-08-10T22:56:00.002-04:00

See What I Mean?

2009-07-30T22:35:00.001-04:00

London

2009-06-20T13:25:00.002-04:00

Happy Holidays!

2009-06-11T21:35:00.005-04:00

Jane Austen
- or -
George Eliot

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Montreal From An Upper-Level Starbucks Window

2009-05-26T14:24:00.002-04:00

Dance at Bougival

2009-01-24T11:12:00.003-05:00

"Dance at Bougival"
1882-83, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
-- Pierre-Auguste Renoir --
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→ TO THE DANCE ←

Sagan's Response

2009-01-16T22:41:00.003-05:00

Questioner:
In reality He is there. God is love.

Carl Sagan:
Well, if we say that the definition of God is reality, or the definition of God is love, I have no quarrel with the existence of reality or the existence of love. In fact, I’m in favor of both of them. However, it does not follow that God defined in that way has anything to do with the creation of the world or of any events in human history. It does not follow that there’s anything that is omnipotent or omniscient and so on about God defined in such a manner. So all I’m saying is, we must look at the logical consistency of the various definitions. If you say God is love, clearly love exists in the world. But love is not the only thing that exists in the world. The idea that love dominates everything else, I deeply hope is true, but there are arguments that can very well be proposed, from a mere glance at the daily newspapers, to suggest that love is not in the ascendant in contemporary political affairs. And I don’t see that it helps to say, forgive me, that God is love, because there are all those other definitions of God, that mean quite different things. If we muddle up all the definitions of God, then it’s very confusing what’s being talked about. There is a great opportunity for error in that case. So my proposal is that we call reality “reality,” that we call love “love,” and not call either of them God, which has, while an enormous number of other meanings, not exactly those meanings.

-- from The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, by Carl Sagan --

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Cheese-Grease Rorschach Tests

2008-10-29T21:35:00.010-04:00

OK, admittedly, at first I was a bit timid. I only put two cheese-puffs on the paper, nothing too radical yet, but stay tuned. It gets plum crazy! With this first one [above], were I in the psychiatrist’s chair, I am instantly calling out, “Piano falls on headless man!”

Things are getting a bit inventive and/or brave here. I’ve added one more cheese puff. Sort of like some sort of Inuit art or something.

Whatever.

I’m gonna look at this one sideways and say, “Crab on the beach!”

You know what? I don’t know why, but when my shrink shows me the above picture, I’m just gonna wince and say, “Crushed testicles!”

Now here is where I began to add other elements. I threw in the remnants of a dead yellow highlighter and two hunks of the plum I was eating at the time. The plum-images are uneven because one side of the plum had the skin on it. DUH!
OK… on the psychiatrist couch I am looking at this and saying, ummm…. “Guy taking a leak on another guy, neither one of them using hands, and the guy on the right has a way worse case of hemorrhoids than the guy on the left.”

[BACK TO ORIGINAL POST]

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WARNING: May Cause Dizziness...

2008-09-19T22:24:00.000-04:00

The Power of... WOW! CAN SHE READ?

2008-09-02T22:18:00.004-04:00

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The REAL Me...

2008-07-18T21:18:00.004-04:00

-- Keep reading, folks! --

Don't mind me. Don't let me distract you!
-- Cip --
[No dolphins were harmed, in the taking of this photo!]
**************

July's Selection!

2008-07-14T21:28:00.001-04:00

Saramago Excerpt...

2008-06-22T20:18:00.034-04:00

Excerpt from page 232 of The History of The Siege of Lisbon.

Raimundo Silva ran his hand over his forehead for a second, then said, I used to dye my hair but no longer, white roots are not a pretty sight, forgive me, in time my hair will get back to its natural color, Mine has stopped being natural, because of you I went to the hairdresser today to have these venerable white hairs tinted, They were so few I wouldn't have thought it worth the bother, So you did notice, I looked at you closely enough, just as you must have looked at me and asked yourself how a man of my age could be without white hairs, No such questions entered my mind, it was obvious that you dyed your hair, who did you think you were deceiving, Probably only myself, Just as I've decided to start deceiving myself, It comes to the same thing, What do you mean by the same thing, Your reason for dyeing your hair, mine for no longer dyeing it, Explain yourself, I stopped dyeing my hair in order to be as I am, And what about me, why have I tinted my hair, To go on being as you are, Smart thinking, I can see that I'll have to practice mental gymnastics daily in order to keep up with you, I'm no more intelligent than you are, simply older. Maria Sara smiled quietly, Irremovable evidence that clearly worries you, Not really, our age only matters in relation to that of others, I suspect I'm young in the eyes of someone who is seventy, but I'm in no doubt that a youth of twenty would consider me an old man. And in relation to me, how do you see yourself, Now that you've tinted the few white hairs that you possess and I'm allowing all of mine to show, I've become a man of seventy in the presence of a girl of twenty, You can't count, there is only a difference of fifteen years between us, Then I must be thirty-five, They both laughed and Maria Sara suggested, Let’s come to an agreement, What agreement, That we say no more about people’s ages, I’ll try not to bring up the subject again...

Same text as above, with annotations.

Raimundo Silva ran his hand over his forehead for a second, then said, [Note: no quotation marks for speech →] I used to dye my hair but no longer, white roots are not a pretty sight, forgive me, in time my hair will get back to its natural color, [Note: new speaker, Maria →] Mine has stopped being natural, because of you I went to the hairdresser today to have these venerable white hairs tinted, [Raimundo →] They were so few I wouldn't have thought it worth the bother, [Maria →] So you did notice, [Raimundo →] I looked at you closely enough, just as you must have looked at me and asked yourself how a man of my age could be without white hairs, [Maria →] No such questions entered my mind, it was obvious that you dyed your hair, who did you think you were deceiving, [Raimundo →] Probably only myself, [Maria →] Just as I've decided to start deceiving myself, [Raimundo →] It comes to the same thing, [Maria →] What do you mean by the same thing, [Raimundo →] Your reason for dyeing your hair, mine for no longer dyeing it, [Maria →] Explain yourself, [Raimundo →] I stopped dyeing my hair in order to be as I am, [Maria →] And what about me, why have I tinted my hair, [Raimundo →] To go on being as you are, [Maria →] Smart thinking, I can see that I'll have to practice mental gymnastics daily in order to keep up with you, [Raimundo →] I'm no more intelligent than you are, simply older. [← Wow, the first full stop in a long while. But notice, no new paragraph!] Maria Sara smiled quietly, [Maria →] Irremovable evidence that clearly worries you, [Raimundo →] Not really, our age only matters in relation to that of others, I suspect I'm young in the eyes of someone who is seventy, but I'm in no doubt that a youth of twenty would consider me an old man. [Maria →] And in relation to me, how do you see yourself, [Raimundo →] Now that you've tinted the few white hairs that you possess and I'm allowing all of mine to show, I've become a man of seventy in the presence of a girl of twenty, [Maria →] You can't count, there is only a difference of fifteen years between us, [Raimundo →] Then I must be thirty-five, [Narrator jumps in →] They both laughed and Maria Sara suggested, Let’s come to an agreement, [Raimundo →] What agreement, [Maria →] That we say no more about people’s ages, [Raimundo →] I’ll try not to bring up the subject again...

Note: The above discourse goes on in the same comma-laden SENTENCE for nearly the entirety of the next page. [page 233].
Not to mention that the same paragraph wherein this excerpt was extracted was already into its third page of existence!
This is the wonderful world of Saramago.
What may seem awkward at first, becomes seamless with time.
As you read him, you get to anticipate the flow of thought and shifts in dialogue. And this lends itself to an overall experience unlike the reading of any other author. You begin to tumble headlong and feel an exhilarating sense of actual participation with the text.
You will never be more IN THE MIND of an author than when you are reading Saramago.
Sincerely,
Cipriano
[Note: My very blog-alias, Cipriano, I have shamelessly stolen from the identity of the principal character in Saramago’s novel, The Cave.
Not to mention that the above passage in The Siege also inspired the basic gist of My Recent Poem... basically, I do all my best plagiarizing from things Saramagian!]

Three Answers

2008-05-23T21:29:00.003-04:00

Here are my own answers to the Three Questions quiz.

#1.
My answer is a) McDonald’s.
Lately I have been real enamored of their new colossal Angus Burger© with Bacon & Cheddar. No offense to any orthodox Hindus out there, but seriously, this thing is made from half an entire cow, and that’s just the way I like it!

#2.
My answer is b) The Pyramids of Egypt.
Since I was a kid, they have fascinated me and I have always wanted to go there. Plus, I hate shopping. Plus, I have seen the movie Apollo 13 and I have seen the news footage of the tragic Shuttle exit and re-entry, both historical events freeing me from all desire to go to outer-space strapped to an atomic bomb!

#3.
My answer is d) Keep reading.
Even though c) [getting totally ripped] is quite tempting, I am quite sure that I would have been so into the book I was reading I may have not even HEARD the announcement, nor noticed the delay!
I imagine that most readers of this blog would concur!

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Just Because...

2007-11-20T20:05:00.001-05:00

Umm, yeah. From an admitted “amateur” biologist’s perspective, here’s how I believe things took place. It was just, NOTHINGNESS, and then:
BIG BANG → Primordial slime → Cells → Amoebas → Things with gills → Salamanders → Macaroni, and other tubular pasta → Sloths → Oprah’s Book Club© → Normal Humans → Hamburgers → Cats → and then….. [drum roll]...

NICOLE KIDMAN!

Yes, Ever Deluded! But, Ever Faithful!

sincerely,
Cip Kidman
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Creature Comforts: Secrets and Lies

2007-09-11T21:40:00.001-04:00

FINNER gets De-Boned!

2007-09-10T22:50:00.001-04:00

What an amazing clip!

Cross-reference this, with my SHARKS "R" US blog!

The Missing Dollar

2007-08-17T07:22:00.000-04:00

Answer to The Missing Dollar.
The answer is in the way the question is worded.
You cannot add what one person HAS to what someone else has PAID and come up with any kind of a meaningful number. You have to subtract.

Each man has paid $9. $9 x 3 = $27.
The bellhop has $2. So… subtract that $2.
The difference is $25.
The hotel clerk has that $25.

To look at it from the standpoint of the original $30.
Each man has $1.
The bellhop has $2.
The hotel clerk has $25.

And I have to get to work…. so I can make some money!
Cheers!
-- Cip
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Fish Cruelty

2007-06-23T19:38:00.000-04:00

Mexico!

2007-06-21T23:44:00.000-04:00

Cip, sipping!

Street scene.

Life's a Beach, Part 1

Life's a Beach, Part 2

My sisters.

I don't want to leave here.

Find the hidden Cipriano.
[Hint: I am not wearing a brown bikini top!]

Chillin' out.

******

The Boy's Got ISSUES!

2007-06-11T21:00:00.000-04:00

See what I mean?

I'm not sure what's worse.
The drinking...

... or the porn!

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First Lines Quiz [Answers]

2007-05-27T12:19:00.000-04:00

1) Lord of The Flies by William Golding

2) One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

3) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

4) 1984 by George Orwell

5) The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger

6) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

7) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

8) Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

9) Tess of The D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

10) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

11) The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame

12) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

13) The Stranger by Albert Camus

14) The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

15) Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

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What Is A Paradelle?

2007-05-17T21:10:00.000-04:00

The paradelle is one of the more demanding French fixed forms, first appearing in the langue d'oc love poetry of the eleventh century. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only those words.

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A Burnt-Out Case [Review]

2007-04-27T20:54:00.000-04:00

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, as I have so many of Greene's others... in fact, this one is my favorite so far.
For me, a significant theme in the book is that it is very difficult to run away from one's true vocation.
In A Burnt-Out Case, the main character Querry tries to do just that.
He feels that he has lost the passion he once had for his gifting in architecture, and he tries to run and hide in obscurity... to go into an early retirement.
Due to his immense fame, he needs to go far (geographically) to do this; hence, he finds himself at the end of an arduous tsetse-fly infested boat ride in the heart of an isolated leper colony in the Belgian Congo. Here, with the help of the many priests who run the colony, and a nosy journalist thrown into the mix, Querry will find out just how hard the ground is in which he attempts to bury his talents.
My one criticism, well no, it is not a criticism, but.... perhaps just something I considered to be the one (albeit minor) "possible" flaw in the story's denouement, is as follows. (NOTE: To criticize Graham Greene seriously makes me fearful of the next lightning storm.)
However, towards the end, Mme. Rycker has accused Querry of a terrible indiscretion, and this throws her husband into a somewhat understandable fit of rage. The priests also, believing Mme. Rycker's accusations, reject Querry, and he is humiliated and unjustly condemned. Querry knows how serious the situation has now become. But he does not take it seriously. In his defense, he simply claims to Rycker, "I haven't even kissed your wife. She doesn't attract me in that way."
A key fact here is that he is actually telling the truth.
Rycker's jealous rage is unjustified. Another key fact is that Mme. Rycker also knows that nothing happened between them, and talks about that fact freely with Querry just minutes after his tumultuous verbal exchange with her husband.
I kept asking myself... why didn't Querry arrange this interview with Mme. Rycker at a time and place where Rycker himself could have secretly overheard their conversation?
In this way, Rycker could have clearly overheard his wife contradicting the allegations that she had written in her diary! In this way Querry would have cleared his name.
Read the book and see if you don't agree with me!

The only reason Querry could have logically been as non-concerned about the issue as he was, is because he was so gentlemanly and honorable, he did not want Mme. Rycker to experience the wrath of her husband, and was willing to bear that burden himself.
And bear it he did!
A truly excellent book!

**********

Zeus, the Wonder-Cat!

2007-04-16T00:11:00.000-04:00

Zeus, profoundly lusting after himself!

Zeus, in a hurry to get that barbeque fired up!
**********

Seinfeld, on Halloween...

2006-10-31T21:32:00.000-05:00

Candy was my whole life when I was a kid.
First ten years of my life, I think the only clear thought I had
was: "GET CANDY!"
That was it. Family, friends, school, they were just obstacles in they way of the candy.
I'm out for the candy here. I'm just thinking: "Get candy! Get candy!"
That's why you have to teach kids not to take candy from a stranger if they're playing in the playground, because they're such candy idiot moron brains...
They're just: "This man has candy, I'm going with him."
"Goodbye. Whatever happens to me. Get candy, get candy..."
"Don't go! They'll torture you, they'll kidnap you."
"It doesn't matter, he has an 'Oh Henry'. I have to take that chance."
"Get candy, get candy..."
So the first time you hear the concept of Halloween when you're a kid your brain can't even process the information.
You're like: "What is this? What did you say?"
"What did you say about giving out candy? Who's giving out candy?"
"Everyone that we know is just giving out candy?"
"Are you kidding me? When is this happening? Where? Why? Take me with you!"
"I gotta be a part of this. I'll do anything that they want."

[Pause…]

"I can wear that."
"I'll wear anything I have to wear."
"I'll do anything I have to do to get the candy from those fools! They’re so stupid they're giving it away."

So, the first couple of years I made my own costumes which of course sucked:
the ghost, the hobo...
Then, finally, the third year, begging the parents, I got the Superman Halloween costume.
Cardboard box, self-made top, mask included.
Remember the rubber band on the back of that mask?
That was a quality item there, wasn't it?
That was good for about 10 seconds before it snapped out of that cheap little staple they put it in there with.
You go to your first house: "Trick or..." Snap! "It broke. I don't believe it!"
So I had my little costume, I was physically ready, I was preparing myself, I did not try on the costume prior to Halloween.
Do you remember... This is an obscure one but...
On the side of the box, I remember from my Superman costume, it actually said:
"Do not attempt to fly!"
They printed that as a warning 'cause kids would put it on and try to fly off the roofs.
I love the idea of the kid who's stupid enough to think he actually is Superman... but smart enough to check that box before he goes off the roof.
"Let me see if it says anything about me being Superman..."
"Oh, wait a second here, I..."

So, anyway, but my hopes were up and I was thinking that this is probably the same exact costume that Superman wears himself.
When you put these things on, it's not exactly the super-fit that you are hoping for.
It looks more like Superman's pyjamas, that's what it looks like.
It's all kinda loose and flowing.
The neck line kinda comes down about there... flimsy little ribbon string in the back.
Plus my mother makes me wear my winter coat over the costume anyway.
I don't recall Superman wearing a jacket.
Not like I had: cheap cordoroy, phony fur.
"Boy, I'm Superman but it's a little chilly out and I'm glad I have this cheap little 10 year old kids jacket."

So I'm going out trick-or-treating but the mask's rubber band keeps breaking and keeps getting shorter. I'm fixing it, it's getting tighter and tighter on my face.
You know, when it starts slicing into your eyeballs there and you...
you're trying to breathe through that little hole...
getting all sweaty.
"I can't see, I can't breathe but we gotta keep going, we gotta get the candy."
And a half an hour into it you just take the mask: "Oh, the hell with it."
Bing-bong! "Yeah, it's me, give me the candy."
"Yeah, I'm Superman, look at the pant legs, what do you care?"

Looking at those last years of trick-or-treating you're getting a little too old for it.
Still out there, going through the motions.
Bing-bong! "Come on lady, let's go."
"Halloween, doorbells, candy, let's pick it up in there..."

They come to the door... they always ask you the same stupid questions:
"What are you supposed to be?"
"I'm supposed to be done by now."
"You wanna move it along with the Three Musketeers?"
"I got 18 houses on this block, sweetheart."
"Just hit the bag, we hit the road. That's the way it works."
Sometimes they have that little white bag twisted on the top...
You know that's gonna be some crap candy.
Doesn't have the official Halloween markings on it.
"Hold it, lady. Wait a second. What is this? The orange marshmallow shaped like a peanut?"
"Do me a favor, you keep that one."
"We have all the doorstops we need already. Thank you."
"We're going for name candy only this year."

From, I'm Telling You For The Last Time.

************

Pillars of the Earth

2006-06-04T23:51:00.000-04:00

Ken Follett describes The Pillars as a "word of mouth" book. He feels that its popularity is due largely to "the personal recommendation of one reader to another." (source: the author's preface to the Jan.'99 Plume edition).
Interesting, since this is exactly how I myself was introduced to the book. While at a friend's I noticed it on his shelf, and as I thumbed through it I was literally shocked at the animation with which a few Pillar-cultists in the room began DEMANDING that I read it. It was a non-optional situation. I took. I read.
It's become one of my favorite novels of all time, and it's definitely true... there's just something about it that makes you want to tell everyone else to read it. Once, while queued up in the aisle of a de-boarding 737 the guy behind me saw my book and said "Great story isn't it?" Seriously, if you read it, you will tell others to read it... Follett is 100% accurate on that!

So what makes it so great?
Well for one thing, here we have immense subject matter (the building of a huge cathedral), and for a period of over fifty fictional years Follett pulls this thread through all of the lives of those who will serve either in the strengthening or smashing of this cathedral-dream. What results is all of a piece. The story is so captivating that at times I had to stop reading and tell myself to settle down. So believable at every turn. Secondly, it is remarkable in the way it stays in the memory. Usually a book of this length tends to sort of blur soon after the initial reading. But now, almost a year after I've read it, intricacies of the story are still seared in the memory. I can still turn to any page at random and immediately the particular scene is re-kindled in my imagination, the setting as clear as when I originally read it.

Finally, the book is as great as its characters. It would be difficult to find anywhere in recent literature a character as calculating and devious as Waleran Bigod; as devoted and consistent as Philip; as unassuming as Tom Builder; as noble and captivating as Aliena; as gifted and winsome as Jack; as resourceful and spontaneous as Ellen... and the villainous evil that lurks and erupts in William Hamleigh makes Shakespeare's Iago look like Winnie The Pooh!
Follett says in his 1999 preface: "Many people asked me to write a sequel. (I will, one day)."
We must be patient. When it comes out, I predict that the only disappointing thing about that book is that it too... will end.

***********

Slammerkin

2006-05-26T22:27:00.000-04:00

I read upwards of forty books of fiction a year... this one is among the most memorable of the past couple years. I do not see a flaw, I am not sure of any way it can be improved upon. I just think it is superb, in its style and content... to be honest, I think that Donoghue creates someone here, in this character of Mary Saunders, even more memorable than Anna K., and believe me, I am a die-hard Tolstoyite!
Mary is forced into extremities, she is driven into a latter half of an 18th century London that, quite frankly, will use her to its (and her) limits. Anyone who knows history knows that London is ready for such a challenge.
Does relocation help Mary? Her move to a more rural setting?
Not really. Vice is not population-specific. Vice is everywhere.
Mary gets caught in a web she did not want to weave. She makes a valiant and sincere attempt to change her ways with a risk-laden move from London to Monmouth... will her intentions be able to get her through the realities that await her?
This book is about the difference between intentions and realities. How the best intentions, can go astray!
Nathaniel Hawthorne would have got a kick out of Donoghues's work. It is so unequivocably good. Every sub-character will jab you in the butt to remind you that he/she is real, much less the main ones... which (believe me) you will never forget.
Donaghue is a genius. Some sort of literary savant. The book is worth whatever price, and a generous tip besides.
You will laugh, and you will weep.
What price tag can you affix to that?
Affix it, and pay it. This book is worth it.

*********

To Kill A Mockingbird

2006-04-28T00:04:00.001-04:00

This story takes place over a three-year period during the Depression era, in a small fictitious town in the Southern U.S., ripe with racial prejudice. We view things through the 8 to 11 year-old eyes of the young girl Scout Finch. After the death of their mother, Scout and her older brother Jem are raised by Atticus, their almost too perfect father. (He often reminded me of Adam Trask in Steinbeck's East of Eden). You could not ask for a better, more patient, and more understanding father than Atticus. As the town's defense lawyer he takes up the case of Tom Robinson, a Negro unjustly accused of raping a white woman.
The resulting courtroom drama shakes the previously idyllic world of his two children, especially Scout. The children raise many legal and moral questions for Atticus, and he compells them to come to their own conclusions about the case.
What is brilliant about the book is how these children have a precocious understanding of justice... their very innocence and unbiased judgement points out the true horror of racial prejudice. Sitting in the courtroom, they are able to clearly understand the TRUTH that seems to elude an entire jury of adults.
Much more can be said in praise of this book, as there are many side-stories going on at the same time as this court case is proceeding. The timeless wonder of it all is how Harper Lee dovetails all of the other incidents to leave us with a sense of the ennobling nature of childhood. Sometimes children can look upon the effects of injustice and have their own sense of "justice" strengthened, rather than diminished. It takes great empathy and inner spirit to acheive this, but, To Kill A Mockingbird shows us that it is possible.

**********

Flannery O'Connor

2006-03-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

The Complete Stories, by Flannery O'Connor.
A dear friend suggested a few Flan stories to me, and I guess I got hooked. With this volume consumed, I can now say I have read all of the published short stories of this fantastic writer.
O' Connor's work is fantastic in the way my dictionary describes the word. "Conceived by unrestrained fancy." These stories are nearly always shocking, actually very shocking. They are powerful character driven things, and rather than describe them as "horror" stories as I see some reviewers do, I would moreso call them "grotesques."
They involve characters that are not so much "horrible" or "horrorful" as much as they are simply ludicrous, or incongruously composed or disposed. Caught up in all manner of inner bigotries, hypocrisy, fanaticism of one sort or another (most often religious). O'Connor characters often turn out to be homicidal, suicidal, brutal, obsessed, the opposite of what they appear to be, and always, if nothing else... shocking!
I am no connoisseur of the short story genre but all I know is that these stories without fail, intrigued me. Opened a door to further contemplation, and went a bit beyond what they said.
For sheer brilliance of sentence structure, visualization, suspense, I think it would be fair to say that there are few writers that have ever written as clearly as Flannery O' Connor.
When I am reading literature, characters better dang well talk good, and talk like people, not like characters. The dialogue in this collection is one of its strongest points. Impeccable down-south vernacular.
As for verisimilitude, well that is another mentionable thing here. If they are anything, these stories are bizarre, and yet they retain that quality of appearing to be true. Appearing to be possible. But the last thing that they are (hear me now, if hearing nothing else), these are NOT happily-ever-after stories.
Hell no.
They are most often direct flights into the realm of the reprehensible and least optimistic aspects (propensities) of human nature.
For those who care, my own favorite story was probably The Lame Shall Enter First.

All the best to you,
Cip!

**********

A Fantasy Classic

2006-03-23T22:55:00.000-05:00

The Well At The World's End by William Morris.

Don't let the dismal fact that this book is twenty-zillionth on the bestseller list discourage you.... it is well worth reading the thing.
I first came to this book through the published endorsement (hence, not personal) of the great C.S. Lewis, who made his first reading of The Well in November of 1914. He read it many times thereafter.
In my ONE reading of the two volumes, I can attest to the fact that this is a beautiful story, a rich fantasy, a vibrant fairy-tale with no fairies.
Among other things... a love story.
Strictly speaking, as regards genre, it is a "romance". The chivalric, bardic story of Ralph of Upmeads, the least likely of the King's four sons, who devotes his life to the quest of the Well at The World's End... a fabled well which promises to reward its discoverer with perpetual youth.
If you are in love with Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings (and who isn't) you should definitely consider having an affair with The Well At The World's End. Let me defuse the daunting issue of Morris's use of archaic language. Be ye warned, in every sentence you will constantly encounter words such as forsooth, hitherward, quoth, whither, rideth, erstwhile, deem, draweth, betwixt, and I wot not else.
At first I thought this would be really intolerable. But I quickly adapted to it, and even found it kind of "not vile".
Remember... Volume 2 is essential. It's not a sequel, it's a conclusion. Get both volumes, and escape the world of car horns and remote control for a bit.
And as regards it's place on the bestseller list? I am reminded of the wise words of the great Henrik Ibsen, who once suggested that "the solid majority is always wrong."

*********

Bonhoeffer

2006-03-19T01:25:00.000-05:00

No theologian of our century has so seriously questioned the premises of our Christian beliefs as Bonhoeffer has. And no one has dared to thrust the Church into the "world" and so honestly explored the implications of doing so, as him. And certainly no one has brought to the world a vision of Christ large enough, embracive enough, to make full-hearted involvement in the secular efforts of our time a Christian imperative. At the mere age of 39, such a light as this was extinguished, and who has there been to take his place?
When we are reading L&PFP, we are reading fragments of incomparable genius... fragments that at one point or another were packed in tin cans and buried in the garden of Dietrich's best friend/nephew-in-law (Eberhard Bethge). Because of Bethge's own arrest in October of 1944, many letters were lost... these that survive reveal to us enough of Bonhoeffer's wrestlings with "religionless Christianity" and the "non-religious interpretation of biblical concepts" to conclude that his ideas came from no one who preceded him.

The friendship that Dietrich shared with E. Bethge was indeed profound, and as such, he speaks with him in these letters with greater intellectual depth and honesty than is evident in most of his other correspondence. At one point he even expressed the opinion that the success of any of his thought and writing depended on whether or not he would again be given the opportuinity to freely interact with Bethge. That time never came for Dietrich. On April 9, 1945 he was executed at the concentration camp at Flossenburg.
Especially poignant is the abrupt end of the contact between Dietrich and Eberhard, and the frustrated attempts of his parents and fiance to locate him. Unbeknownst to all of those closest to him, Dietrich had been transferred to Buchenwald, and one can only inadequately imagine the pain of such loss of contact. Bonhoeffer is a hero of the Christian faith, and I feel that in many ways, the reading of this book ought to be some sort of non-optional Christian event.

On February 23, 1944 he wrote: "The important thing today is that we should be able to discern from the fragment of our life how the whole was arranged and planned, and what material it consists of. For really, there are some fragments that are only worth throwing into the dustbin (even a decent 'hell' is too good for them), and others whose importance lasts for centuries, because their completion can only be a matter for God, and so they are fragments that must be fragments... If our life is but the remotest reflection of such a fragment... we will not bemoan the fragmentariness of our life, but rather rejoice in it."