Friday, November 24, 2006

Bad Splelnig

This is really interesting.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg 
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at 
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod 
are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the 
rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit 
a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by 
istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought 
slpeling was ipmorantt!

Saturday, November 04, 2006

The Great Cities of Cascadia

My island home of Guemes Island, Washington, USA is half way between Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is great to be living in such idilic setting as the fringes of the San Juan Islands yet accessible to so many great cities! Two hours drive North is Vancouver, the epicenter of cool for Western Canada. One hour North, the home of Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. If I had to live in a city Bellingham would be near tho top of the list for me. The salt water at your doorstep is home to the San Juan Archipelago, only one hour drive to real wilderness, mountains and the creatures that belong there.

Heading South from Guemes two hours brings you to Seattle the birthplace of Grunge and the home of the University of Washington an icon of learning in the Pacific Northwest. Salt water on one flank and fresh water on the other, parks and green spaces abound.

To the West and North from Seattle is the ever cool Port Townsend, a haven for wooden boats and people who eather lived through the "60s & "70s or wish they had. PT is a warm, diverse, artistic and stimulating town.

Further South from Seattle and just across the border of Oregon State is the best city of them all… Portland. Portland abounds with parks and green spaces, the best bookstore on earth—Powells. Public art everywhere, and great food! The freeways and public transit work great. Go there if ever you have a chance!

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

My Wooden Frog


He spends most of his existence sitting atop my computer tower. Not really a frog but a percussion instrument given to me by a dear friend hoping to promote what small musical talents that might be lurking within.

I have played him (her, it?) a few times since seeing the movie Touch The Sound the story of a deaf solo percussionist who hears the drums through her body.

The day after, I listened to CBC Radio while preparing breakfast and heard a story about two artists who are colorists (really into the fine points of color). Finely in tune with the small differences in color.

This started me along a line of thought which brought me to one of my favorite artists Andy Goldsworthy. The three of them have in common that they look (feel, hear, taste or whatever) very closely their worlds... their environments. How many of us in our daily lives can say we do much of that? How much smelling of the flowers have you done this week?

I think many would agree that we should be more sensitive to the world around us, if you have a nose... smell, if your eyes work... see, if you can taste… lick, if you still hear… listen, absorb, pay attention, anticipate. I am all for this and try in my own way to achieve this state. But I have to wonder that if you stop to smell all the flowers… would you ever get beyond the garden gate?

Our society values accomplishments, I do too. My day seems better if I have done things, built something, cooked a meal, checked things off my list but is the world… our society any better off for it? One strategy is to put some of the flower smelling and taking the time to greet old friends when you see them as line items on our lists.

I always know that Koyaanisqatsi (Life out of balance) is happening when I see an old friend or acquaintansce in the food store and first think of how to avoid them rather then how to engage them! Does this ever happen to you?

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Changing Seasons

Yep... Autumn is a great time of transition, weather changing, daylight shorter, busy days of summer behind and many long dark evenings ahead. Change is good, especially when you know that it ultimately brings you back to summer!

"Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all."  ~Stanley Horowitz

Post Crossed X

This is an example of something that the existence of the internet has made possible. PostCrossing is a web site that after registration allows you to request addresses of other members who want to receive post cards. You get an address, send a card and when the receiver logs it as received your address goes to the top of the list and is sent to the next person who requests an address. It is really great to check your mail box and know that odds are good that you have a post card from some distant and exotic sounding place like Budapest or Istanbul! Some people are real picky about what kind of card you send them (along with their address you get their profile and comments) but mostly they seem like great people like you that like learning a little about different cultures and finding surprises in their mail boxes.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Island Bound


I was not born on an island but when Mom and I arrived home from the hospital it was to an island. I grew up on nearby Horse Island jutting out into Lake Erie. I lived aboard boats moored at Terminal Island in Los Angeles Harbor. Now I call
Guemes Island my home.

There is something about island living... people ether feel trapped or sheltered by the surrounding waters. I for one feel sheltered, embraced... safe.

Although I love going to "Town" and the "Mainland" it is often difficult leaving the "Island", tearing myself away from the tranquility of island life. There are times when I am in a far place with dear friends or out in the wilderness that I could be gone a long, long time and miss little... funny how the mind and heart work!

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Digital Tunes



I am soo stoked about the advent of digital music for the unwashed masses like myself. So much choice and control! I really love it!!

Friday, September 01, 2006

Summer Reading

I do recycle my writing quite a bit so some of you may have seen this in an email already.

Summer here has been extremely busy! Lots of out of town guests which I really enjoy! Sun and hot weather day after day. Cooking outside often. Yet there is something nice about having the days shorten, the pace of life slow. There is a part of me that really enjoys the early mornings of winter, just after the grey rainy dawn, looking down the main street of our town (Anacortes, WA), seeing few people and the traffic signals blinking their lonely vigils.

I have not really ment for this blog to become a book review but that does seem to be what I write a lot about. Hmm... book recommendations there are soo many! Here are a few, each in a different genre, all the quoted text I copied from Amazon.com:



The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin
My latest read, really moved me!

"Steve Martin's second novel, The Pleasure of My Company, will discover much greater riches. While the book has a sense of humor, Martin moves everywhere with a gentler, lighter touch in this elegant little fiction that verges on the profound and poetic.
Daniel Pecan Cambridge is the narrator and central consciousness of the novel (actually a novella). Daniel, an ex-Hewlett-Packard communiqué encoder, is a savant whose closely proscribed world is bounded on every side by neuroses and obsessions. He cannot cross the street except at driveways symmetrically opposed to each, and he cannot sleep unless the wattage of the active light bulbs in his apartment sums to 1,125. Daniel's starved social life is punctuated by twice-weekly visits from a young therapist in training, Clarissa; by his prescription pick-ups from a Rite Aid pharmacist, Zandy; and by his "casual" meetings with the bleach-blond real estate agent, Elizabeth, who is struggling to sell apartments across the street. But Daniel's dysfunctional routines are shattered one day when he becomes entangled in the chaos of Clarissa's life as a single mother. Taking care of Clarissa's tiny son, Teddy, Daniel begins to emerge from the safety of logic, magic squares, and obsessive counting."


The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The first in a series of 4... lots of fun

"Imagine this. Great Britain in 1985 is close to being a police state. The Crimean War has dragged on for more than 130 years and Wales is self-governing. The only recognizable thing about this England is her citizens' enduring love of literature. And the Third Most Wanted criminal, Acheron Hades, is stealing characters from England's cherished literary heritage and holding them for ransom.
Bibliophiles will be enchanted, but not surprised, to learn that stealing a character from a book only changes that one book, but Hades has escalated his thievery. He has begun attacking the original manuscripts, thus changing all copies in print and enraging the reading public. That's why Special Operations Network has a Literary Division, and it is why one of its operatives, Thursday Next, is on the case.
Thursday is utterly delightful. She is vulnerable, smart, and, above all, literate. She has been trying to trace Hades ever since he stole Mr. Quaverley from the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and killed him. You will only remember Mr. Quaverley if you read Martin Chuzzlewit prior to 1985. But now Hades has set his sights on one of the plums of literature, Jane Eyre, and he must be stopped.
How Thursday achieves this and manages to preserve one of the great books of the Western canon makes for delightfully hilarious reading. You do not have to be an English major to be pulled into this story. You'll be rooting for Thursday, Jane, Mr. Rochester--and a familiar ending"


Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
This book really painted pictures in my mind!

"With precisely 35 canvases to his credit, the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer represents one of the great enigmas of 17th-century art. The meager facts of his biography have been gleaned from a handful of legal documents. Yet Vermeer's extraordinary paintings of domestic life, with their subtle play of light and texture, have come to define the Dutch golden age. His portrait of the anonymous Girl with a Pearl Earring has exerted a particular fascination for centuries--and it is this magnetic painting that lies at the heart of Tracy Chevalier's second novel of the same title.
Girl with a Pearl Earring centers on Vermeer's prosperous Delft household during the 1660s. When Griet, the novel's quietly perceptive heroine, is hired as a servant, turmoil follows. First, the 16-year-old narrator becomes increasingly intimate with her master. Then Vermeer employs her as his assistant--and ultimately has Griet sit for him as a model. Chevalier vividly evokes the complex domestic tensions of the household, ruled over by the painter's jealous, eternally pregnant wife and his taciturn mother-in-law. At times the relationship between servant and master seems a little anachronistic. Still, Girl with a Pearl Earring does contain a final delicious twist."



The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Farber
Huge, complex book! It took years of research to complete in such detail!

"Although it's billed as "the first great 19th-century novel of the 21st century," The Crimson Petal and the White is anything but Victorian. The story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men, Michel Faber's dazzling second novel dares to go where George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and the works of Charles Dickens could not. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favor, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself. When she is taken up by a wealthy man, the perfumer William Rackham, her wings are clipped, and she must balance financial security against the obvious servitude of her position. The physical risks and hardships of Sugar's life (and the even harder "honest" life she would have led as a factory worker) contrast--yet not entirely--with the medical mistreatment of her benefactor's wife, Agnes, and beautifully underscore Faber's emphasis on class and sexual politics. In theme and treatment, this is a novel that Virginia Woolf might have written, had she been born 70 years later. The language, however, is Faber's own--brisk and elastic--and, after an awkward opening, the plethora of detail he offers (costume, food, manners, cheap stage performances, the London streets) slides effortlessly into his forward-moving sentences. When Agnes goes mad, for instance, "she sings on and on, while the house is discreetly dusted all around her and, in the concealed and subterranean kitchen, a naked duck, limp and faintly steaming, spreads its pimpled legs on a draining board." Despite its 800-plus pages, The Crimson Petal and the White turns out to be a quick read, since it is truly impossible to put down. --Regina Marler"



The Shadow of the Wind By Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Books, mystery & romance... what else could you ask for?

"Ruiz Zafón's novel, a bestseller in his native Spain, takes the satanic touches from Angel Heart and stirs them into a bookish intrigue à la Foucault's Pendulum. The time is the 1950s; the place, Barcelona. Daniel Sempere, the son of a widowed bookstore owner, is 10 when he discovers a novel, The Shadow of the Wind, by Julián Carax. The novel is rare, the author obscure, and rumors tell of a horribly disfigured man who has been burning every copy he can find of Carax's novels. The man calls himself Laín Coubert-the name of the devil in one of Carax's novels. As he grows up, Daniel's fascination with the mysterious Carax links him to a blind femme fatale with a "porcelain gaze," Clara Barceló; another fan, a leftist jack-of-all-trades, Fermín Romero de Torres; his best friend's sister, the delectable Beatriz Aguilar; and, as he begins investigating the life and death of Carax, a cast of characters with secrets to hide. Officially, Carax's dead body was dumped in an alley in 1936. But discrepancies in this story surface. Meanwhile, Daniel and Fermín are being harried by a sadistic policeman, Carax's childhood friend. As Daniel's quest continues, frightening parallels between his own life and Carax's begin to emerge. Ruiz Zafón strives for a literary tone, and no scene goes by without its complement of florid, cute and inexact similes and metaphors (snow is "God's dandruff"; servants obey orders with "the efficiency and submissiveness of a body of well-trained insects"). Yet the colorful cast of characters, the gothic turns and the straining for effect only give the book the feel of para-literature or the Hollywood version of a great 19th-century novel."

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Good Idea!



Good Idea Rose... thanks for the comment and the encouragement. So here is what I have been audio-booking lately. Any thing Terry Pratchett, Memoirs of a Geisha & have just loaded the latest Steve Martin book - The Pleasure of My Company. I really liked Shop Girl and look forward to this one.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Is It Reading?

Is it reading... listening to an audio book on my iPod that is. Can I say "I am in the middle of reading Terry Pratchetts book The Truth" when actually I am listening to it. I have decided that yes I can. No need for excuses... saying "read" is so much easier, so much cleaner than saying "listening to the unabridged audio book on my iPod".

No, I haven't given up printed book by any means, this technique allows me to "read" books at times when I am doing solitary, monotonous pursuits like working in the wood shop or doing the dishes or cooking dinner. Never fear I will keep time open for pondering great thoughts with only the music of the spheres, but when I get the life lessons, world events and daily schedule sorted out it is really nice to get lost in a good book while earning the daily bread!

So suffice to say that between audio books and having my whole music collection at my fingertips I am really happy with my new iPod!!

Friday, June 09, 2006

Deja vu

Well one explanation I heard is that Deja vu is (as I remember) a mix up between your long and short term memories. When it happens your long term memory kicks in before your short term does and it then seems to you like you have been here before. I am not totally sold on that explanation 'cause back in the 70s I had a Deja vu that afterwards I was convinced that I experienced it months before in a dream. But as they say, "if you can remember the 70s you didn't live through them) ;- }

Bright Moon

Only half full yet on such a clear and still night the clearing was ablaze with moonlight. I watched the movie "Shop Girl". Written, produced and starred by Steve Marten. He has done some great things... and some dumb things. Now moving his talent from acting to writing. I noticed the book a year or two ago and haven't got around to reading it. A friend recommended the movie.

Between a complex and thought provoking movie and a half full moon on a clear night it was hard to give myself over to Morpheus .

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Saturday, April 01, 2006

YA Lit




Another young adult book I have read and enjoyed greatly is "Airborn" and sequel "Skybreaker" by Kenneth Oppel. Two books that read like an updated Jules Verne stories. Lot's of adventures, great characters both good and evil, very fast paced and happy endings! Also supported by a great website which gives you extra content! I really
love it when a great book also has a great website! The best of both worlds.

Friday, March 31, 2006

Inked Well!!


Yes, it is inked very well indeed! The book "Inkheart" and it's sequel "Inkspell" are the first two books of a planned trilogy by author Cornelia Funke. Intended for young adult readers, yet this story should appeal to adults, it certainly did to me! It will be a painful wait for the third book! Hopefully a movie will be along soon to tide me over!

Bored?

How can anyone be bored? So much to do and take interest in. So many places for your mind to take refuge from the hard ships of life or the monotamy of your job, your commute, or your wait in line.

Art for one thing can lift you from the daily grind, whether your creating it (with your hands or in your mind) or obsurving it in the nature around you or in the urban city scape you pass through.

People are the best relief from the dangers of bordom. They are almost everywhere and they need you as much as you need them even if they don't realize or admit it.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Where I Live

I am blessed to live in a wonderful area! An island nesteled close to the fertile planes of the Skagit Valley, between the great mountian ranges of the Cascades and Olympics. There is a place in the Skagit River delta where you can look around 360 degress and see the river, the salt water, fields of tulips, two volcanos of the Cascade mountians and the Olympic mountian massif.

As important as the great natural beauty is the warm hearted, friendly people who inhabit the area. The west coast of the USA is known for open minded, progressive and friendly people.