50 States of Reading: Georgia

50 States of Reading: Georgia and Flannery O'Connor
Wise Blood

Southern Literary Trail: Georgia 

Sorry We're Closed

Sorry We're Closed for Christmas Sightings:

Mc Donalds,
the Library,
Book Bazaar,
Publix,
Lakeland is closed for Christmas.

What is to be done when everything is closed: clean house, read, and play on the computer?

 

Dune Finished Today!!!!!

Dune by Frank Herbert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finished Dune, after about five attempts in my life time.   I listened to the whole book, but that counts for me.  

A good read, allthough I want to read the other books to see if I clearly liked it.   Thinking about writing a more thorough review in the near future.  So stay tuned in for a next installment of Greg in Space.


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Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization by Graham Hancock
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The year 2012 is nearing closer and we will see if the Mayan prophecy is the end of a certain age.  We will see if there will be a deluge of fire that will clear the current civilized age.  Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth's Lost Civilization by Graham Hancock shows the reader that these deluge and new beginnings have occurred before, and will most probably happen again.


I was often bored in my studies of primitive culture.   But this book has made me re-examine my own beliefs about the ancients, especially the way that the primitive was taught in school.
The way antiquities was taught in high school and college seemed so cleaned up, sterile that I lost interest in the history.  But maybe there was more to the story.   The book renewed interest in re-reading Herodotus and Marco Polo.
 The one thing that was a stumbling block was that there was so much information that it was at times really really difficult to put all the evidence together and describe their meaning to my wife. I think one reason for this hodge podge of data is that Mr. Hancock, is so eager to share that he encumbers the reader with a deluge of data.
Graham asks the reader, "If there is a cataclysmic deluge what does civilization do to preserve the historical record?" He examines the preservation through examining myths, oral story telling, architecture, universal languages, astronomy, and the location of lost civilizations.


All in all I liked this book a lot and give it a hearty cluck cluck.          

Kennard Farmer Sings Soulfully

Kennard Farmer was a fellow section leader in her highschool band that my wife played in.  He played trumpet.  She played saxophone. He also worked with her at Subway.

Being a Dickhead's (is so) Cool.

Here is my theme song!!!! I hope you all like it.  I love my life as a dickhead, and all my friends are dickheads two too.

Page 36 Paragraph 1 Sentence 1 (Rick Reilly )

Game 7

And so the first-ever golf course Cow Chip Bingo game was, uh, formed.   
Shanks for Nothing  Rick Reily

Those were the wild days when my buddies and I would find a cow pasture and just play hack a ball.  We would play the ball where it laid no matter where it laid... we would watch for the farmer with the shot gun who had said, "You nasty kids stay off my farm."  But we were kids and we would all pile up in my pass me down Ford Taurus station wagon and head out onto Nelson Avenue.  We would find the old farmer asleep on Sundays watching John Elway help his hapless Broncos.  And we would take our clubs out of the back of the station wagon and start playing what we had titled "Cow Chip Bingo", because sometimes the ball would land in a cow pie and we would whack the literal shit off the ball.   We would be all mucked up by the dirty digging in the farmers field.  
Our parents would ask, "Where the heck have you been."
And we would say, "We were on old Ned's Farm playing golf."
That way of golf was probably what the Scottish hooligans had first in mind when they decided it a good thing to play, hack a ball, or cow chip bingo,  then some hifalutin old blarney who wanted to elevate the game to something respectable decided we need to play this game on the links.   

Rules of the Game: Choose any book in your library (fiction is best).  With the book in your hands, turn  the page to your current age.  Mine is 36, so I will be using page 36 of that book.   From the first full paragraph on that page, type/write out the first sentence.  Then from that sentence write, for one minute, (start out small) timed.  Allow yourself to write anything that comes to your mind, for a whole minute. Do not self censor.  Music may aid in this discover writing.   Rush type it.   Don't work for quality, work for continuous writing.  Just keep typing the whole minute.  Don't stop.  Don't think, just write. 
Happy 37th Birthday to Me, bring on 37 more

Page 36 Paragraph 1 Sentence 1 (Hunter S. Thompson)

Game 6

But now a dozen years later, I wouldn't have recognized him anywhere but here, where I should have expected to find him, in the Paddock bar on Derby Day...fat slanted eyes and a pimp's smile, blue silk suit and his friends looking like crooked bank tellers on a binge..." The Great Shark Hunt Hunter S. Thompson page 36

It was always the crooked bank tellers that you had to watch out for.   All the time they played the part of respectable.  But when the ties came off, watch out, for that was the time that they got loose, i mean really loose.   They would order a pitcher of Coors light and share the pitcher with a buddy, so they only needed two glasses,   the noise of the bar was a terrible din.
 the women peered at the drunken bankers thinking to themselves
Hmmm, which one of these could make me set for life.   Which one of these prigs would help me never work again.   It was worth the work to find the right guy, the one that would forever be your prince charming. Especially when most men were anything but a Prince Charming.

The men's eyes were wrinkled with the weight of analysis,  looking at numbers gave your eyes a glean that made them dead to the world.   They were weighted with the tie of respectability.  They fell into the catch 22;  they told themselves they had won, but in reality they lost their rights to be free to be hip to the currents that run beneath the floorboards.  



 That was the game being played at the Paddock bar on Derby day,  not sure if anyone was drinking mint juleps,  but everyone wore white lenin trousers, and there where stains on the gentilemens shoes that looked suspecially as Mr. Hunter S. Thompson said, like vomit.   Everyone wore a nice respectable hat for a day at the races.  And Thompson was right from far away the clubhouse looks like a postcard from the Kentucky Derby; but when you get closer total bedlam.

Rules of the Game: Choose any book in your library (fiction is best).  With the book in your hands, turn  the page to your current age.  Mine is 36, so I will be using page 36 of that book.   From the first full paragraph on that page, type/write out the first sentence.  Then from that sentence write, for one minute, (start out small) timed.  Allow yourself to write anything that comes to your mind, for a whole minute. Do not self censor.  Music may aid in this discover writing.   Rush type it.   Don't work for quality, work for continuous writing.  Just keep typing the whole minute.  Don't stop.  Don't think, just write.  Then compare what you wrote to what your chosen author wrote.

Page 36 Paragraph 1 Sentence 1 (John Irving)

Don Quixote is my Ideal...
Dreaming of Saving his Damsel in
Distress....

If there is a Damsel that wants saving.

Game 5
Socially, Jenny had that kind of graceless seriousness which  makes more frevilious people uncomfortable.
The World According to Garp John Irving

And boy I was one of those frevilious people, while she saved every cent to pay for her college, I was out with friends from the Nederlands.   I did not care what tomorrow would bring, as long as their were friends and plenty of drink.   But now I was supposed to have the bus money to get back to Egypt, and I was short of funds.   Man oh man.   What was I supposed to do, there was Jenny and there was me penniless.  Heck, what would you do if you were in the same situation?  I did not want to get stuck in Israel.  I tried to say no to my friends who wanted to take me out one more night.   But I couldn't turn them down.   I knew when I was spending that money that the money was going to be needed to get back, so why did I spend it?  I guess I was forced to be a vampire to the frugal Jenny.   I also knew that by asking her for funds there would be no chance for anything good out of it.   I would be missing my chance to make love to her, because she would see me as a frivolous man.  Oh the dangers of chasing windmills posed as giants.

Rules of the Game: Choose any book in your library (fiction is best).  With the book in your hands, turn  the page to your current age.  Mine is 36, so I will be using page 36 of that book.   From the first full paragraph on that page, type/write out the first sentence.  Then from that sentence write, for one minute, (start out small) timed.  Allow yourself to write anything that comes to your mind, for a whole minute. Do not self censor.  Music may aid in this discover writing.   Rush type it.   Don't work for quality, work for continuous writing.  Just keep typing the whole minute.  Don't stop.  Don't think, just write.   Then when you are finished read the page 36 from the chosen book, and compare your prose to the authors.

Funny Ha Ha

Airplane is Packed for PDX

Thanks to Corry Doctorow and the Blog Boing BOing... this is so true, I went to college at Pacific University in Forest Grove Oregon, outside of Portland between 1993-1997.  By the way, the guy that is appearing in the ugly underwear, is not in the whole clip, that is just the clip they decided to rest on.

Page 36 Paragraph 1 Sentence 1 (John Nichols)

Game 4
Atiliano Montoya's misfortune was promptly forgotten in the hoopla stirred up by Charlie Parker's whale.

The Magic Journey by John Nichols

Charlie Parkers whale was huge.  Charlie Parker's whale was a blue, a magnetic blue, that pulled visitors into the open all night gas station, that served big hunkin cinneman rolls. On the back wall was a picture of Lyndon B. Johnson gives a howdy folks, welcome to the west, the president is big brother, and he is watching you.  Don't even think about doing wrong here because if you do then I will send the secret service out for you.   The blue whale brought in all sorts.  From noisy teenagers buying pixie sticks, to old men hoping their cars would make that icon in the desert, that proclaimed all cars are safe once they make this gas depot.   It was an oasis and offered the best prices in New Mexico, especially on route 17.  So folks from all around came in hopes of stretching the dollar because social security doesn't pay what it use to.   The desert wind whipped across the desolate plane.
Rules of the Game: Choose any book in your library (fiction is best).  With the book in your hands, turn  the page to your current age.  Mine is 36, so I will be using page 36 of that book.   From the first full paragraph on that page, type/write out the first sentence.  Then from that sentence write, for one minute, (start out small) timed.  Allow yourself to write anything that comes to your mind, for a whole minute.Game 3-5: 3 Minutes.
Game 6-7 5 Minutes.  
 Do not self censor.  Music may aid in this discover writing.   Rush type it.   Don't work for quality, work for continuous writing.  Just keep typing the whole minute.  Don't stop.  Don't think, just write. 

Future-land Book Groups

No writer creates from scratch-we all engage in what Isaac Newton called, "standing on the shoulders of Giants."  We borrow, plunder, and remix the art and culture created by those around us and by our literary forebears.-Cory Doctorow in his book Little Brother.


What is the future of book clubs? How can libraries help reach and create communities of readers?  What or how do you engage online kids who do not gather in traditional ways. One place that works really good for Readers is Library Thing and Good Reads.
A good question, and here are some ideas.


1. Virtual Clubs  Does the club have to be in person? Could one do a game/virtual club.  They get points for reading certain book themes.  Then they get their picture or name posted on a board in a public place proclaiming their rank to the world.    (Everyone wants to be the pinball wizard, the high score earner).



2. One book One City  I remember when the Denver Public Libary did a Denver Reads book, and that was the official book for all of Denver. They had a lot of copies that could be checked out. You could create a club like that quarterly. Or twice a year. Or even once a year. That way you create a community of readers.


3. Tie in to Media  Mayhem in the Am. Get the hosts of Mayhem on the A.m. to do your PR by inviting them to partake in a Library Book Club where they read the book as a team and discuss it on air. Inviting callers to do the same. (Mayhem is the local Lakeland morning show on 1430 AM....) 


I am thinking that the bricks and mortar of the Library works well but sometimes we need to expand the walls due to there not be a traditional time where everyone can meet together.

Attention Deficit Uccelo Responds

"It's just because of how he is dressed..... "

The grey, short cropped, business-man, riding the Bart transit under the bay bridge,  looked down at his I-Phone.  

"Oh my goodness Daryl Hannah, a grandmother.

"The horror.

The horror.

How Horrible."

She once was an icon of sensuality, at one time she was every sixteen year old lesbians passionate muse. But now...and then blurting aloud:

"The grotesque it just creeps me out, man."

Page 36 Paragraph 1 Sentence 1 (Raymond Chandler)

Game 3: See Rules below.  The object is to continue a conversation with an author,  from a sentence of that author.
Quote:
The girl at the desk in the Kenworthy said, "The man called you three times.  Lieutenant but he wouldn't give a number.  A lady called twice.  Wouldn't leave name or number."
Raymond Chandler The Simple Art of MurderShort Story: Spanish Blood (A future Look at this scene.)
My automated voice answering service told me when I checked my phone.   My friends had been attempting to call me, and they assumed I knew who it was that called.  Go figures.   I tried the voice recognition software that I had installed on my phone, but the phone came up with a possibility of 20 girls and 20 boys total.  Should I call each person.   That seemed time consuming, and some of those people I would rather not talk to.   Technology offered solutions but at a price.  What a price?  Time was supposed to be saved by technology, but now I felt obligated to call each of the forty people and see if they were the one.   Are you the one who called me.  Yes or no,  I should write an email to all my friends, but then  I would seem out of touch with reality.

Oh technology, thou art, a time consuming succubus.

Rules of the Game: Choose any book in your library (fiction is best).  With the book in your hands, turn  the page to your current age.  Mine is 36, so I will be using page 36 of that book.   From the first full paragraph on that page, type/write out the first sentence.  Then from that sentence write, for one minute, (start out small) timed.  Allow yourself to write anything that comes to your mind, for a whole minute. Do not self censor.  Music may aid in this discover writing.   Rush type it.   Be sufficiently caffeinated. Don't work for quality, work for continuous writing.  Just keep typing the whole minute.  Don't stop.  Don't think, just write.

 

Goodnight Dune

My Brothers Favorite Book,
 Illustrated in the World of Frank Herbert 

Check out more of your favorite science fiction books mixed with your favorite children's book at: Hilobrow.

Page 36 Paragraph 1 Sentence 1 (H.P. Lovecraft)

Game II


It is said in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no none may kill a cat, and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him sitteth purring before the fire. H.P. Love Craft Dreams of Terror and Death

But my allergies do render me near death, from the dander of the cat.   The cat smiles at me, knowingly, distrubing me, every day that cat rubs her fur on me and my allergies rend me hopeless.  The air is full of that feline dander that renders me into my asthmatic spats.   I hate rules like this cat shall not be eaten on Thursdays before noon and 3:30, but on this planet this cat must never ever be eaten.   Felines make such great meals.   But now I am regressing into senseless hyperbole.

 Rules of the Game: Choose any book in your library (fiction is best).  With the book in your hands, turn  the page to your current age.  Mine is 36, so I will be using page 36 of that book.   From the first full paragraph on that page, type/write out the first sentence.  Then from that sentence write, for one minute, (start out small) timed.  Allow yourself to write anything that comes to your mind, for a whole minute. Do not self censor.  Music may aid in this discover writing. Written to the Podcast Ones and Zeros. 
  Rush type it. Don't work for quality, work for continuous writing.  Just keep typing the whole minute.  Don't stop.  Don't think, just write. 

Page 36 Paragraph 1 Sentence 1 (Gary W. Babb)

Here is something fun. Choose any book in your library (fiction is best).  With the book in your hands, turn  the page to your current age.  Mine is 36, so I will be using page 36 of that book.   From the first full paragraph on that page, type/write out the first sentence.  Then from that sentence write, for one minute, (start out small) timed.  Allow yourself to write anything that comes to your mind, for a whole minute. Do not self censor.  Music may aid in this discover writing. Written to the Podcast Ones and Zeros.
  Rush type it. Don't work for quality, work for continuous writing.  Just keep typing the whole minute.  Don't stop.  Don't think, just write.
One site that is really good at this is the One Minute Writer.

Here is my example: from Earth is Ours by Gary W. Babb:


In spite of everything, life had been good and he had been blessed with another soul mate to share life after he had lost Linda.
Losing Linda was traumatic one day she was there, the next day she was gone.  One day on the counter, there was a not that read: Dear Gregorio.  I can't stand this anymore.  You have been lazy, refusing to help me with the chores.  You sit there all day in front of the computer, and do not say what you said you would do.   We use to have such fun together and now you have become one of those ugly mean who wear wife beaters to K-Mart.

The Man in The High Castle-A Review

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Cluck It Loud.  A Good Book Worth Reading.

Well this book is fully loaded; and my review for it has taken a long time.  Part of the reason for the long time, is the fear that I will not quit get the gist of the book, how do I summarize something that is so broad in its perspective.
The first time I saw Blade Runner, and then heard that it was an adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, I fell in love with Philip K. Dick's mind, and his imagined worlds. I felt "cool" watching it and wanted to walk into that world.

I have always been attracted to the foreign feel of new places.   The cantina in Star Wars, the hyper reality of Cool World, the funny world found in Tank Girl,  were places that I explored in my dreams. I participated in this world once in Israel, at the London Underground, with a few friends from Belgium. A story for another time perhaps!?

So all of these thoughts and more kept me from writing a review of a good book. But as it is said in the movie Risky Business, "Sometimes you got to say what the... hey."

In some ways the story is an easy go.  It takes place in Denver, and San Francisco; in a future reality of 1964 America, but a 1964 America that did not occur. This world is ruled by both Japan and Germany after their winning of World War II (bummer).  Denver is in the DMZ, the no man's land between two great powers.
What gets complicated is the premise of the story: "What would happen if...or why we see what we see when we see it?"  What is the power that shapes our reality?  What happens to the people that are caught between hither and tether, when trifles clutter up a landscape?  How does one get out of the flotsam and jetsam universe one is currently a participant in?

Philip K Dick's answer to these questions lies in the infrastructure of ones current reality.   If one understands the infrastructure then one is better equipped with dealing with the flow of reality. Thus Robert Childan attempts to hold onto hope through his American Artitistic Handcrafts an American antique business.   His creed is that antiques have power to mold reality.  He cherishes the former pre-war Americana.  The authentic value of the past anchors the reality of the near future.

"Art or something not life is long, stretching out endless, like concrete worms. (Dick 184)

The artifact's value is assessed by the historians, critics and curators of antiquities.  Alexander pope wrote of this valuable role in his essay on criticism in 1711;

Critic fanned the poet's fire,

 And taught the world with Reason to Admire. 

 Then criticism the muses Handmaid proved 

to Dress her charms, and make her more beloved.

 The Critic creates a community of enabled others to embrace the art.
The individual does not matter, as long as there are key players to play specific parts.  The parts and past actions are only successful by their effect on the future.  "What has happened here is justified by what happens later." or Alexander Pope said, "It self unseen, but in the effects remain."
Time itself is the only variable that is not affected by outside forces.Time is played out by it's own rhythm of uncontrollable variables.   The role of the artist, is to seize time, freeze it, and make a shrine to that moment in time.

The artist provides the public a way to pause and reflect on their experience.

 "And if one person finds his way-that means there is a way An artist provides a way.

Once the art is created the critic puts order to the art.Critics frame our world viewpoint.  Who/what is the good, the weird, the obscene, and the copied.   The holy, the vile and the diabolical are shaped by the words of a critic.   The critic/historian shapes how facts are used in the retelling of the stream of time.  History is merely a tool, a gun from the Civil War Era, a lighter in the pocket of an assassinated president.

Give this book to your favorite libertarian so they can reflect and write about today's American Experience.

Flag of Brittany 

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Deli Clerk Has Work To Do

The customer yelled at the Deli Clerk, "You suck, you have no personality...at all."
She lit the air with her anger.
The deli clerk was trying his best, but today was not a good day. 

"There are days your best isn't close to being good enough."

Where did this comment originate? Why did it fall on the clerk?  Why this moment and not the next.  The customer had built up to this moment; she awaited a moment when she would be able to tell someone off.

The tension of the day had mounted, bill collectors, unsatisfied customers, angry bosses, annoying coworkers, boredom, her kid's Christmas wishes hanging in balance, all had boiled up to this moment in the grocery store.

And now she had her moment.
She did not hesitate.
She aimed and fired.
The flare of angered synapses hung in mid air.
Pow!
The clerk stood stun and look back with a filthy grin, and a deadened look.  Mam, you can feel anyway you like but you can't stop me from helping you. Bring it on.  I got a job to do.

The Wrestler Knows the Pain

          INT. SHOP-RITE - DELI COUNTER - DAY
          
          ANGLE ON Take-A-Number sign. It reads NOW SERVING: 54
          
          A crowd of AGGRAVATED CUSTOMERS stand waiting at the counter.
          A FAT GUY in a motorized cart clutching a 71 throws a fellow
          customer a "Do you believe these morons?" eye roll.
          
          Behind the counter are Randy and a COWORKER. Randy is putting
          a block of Havarti onto the slicer. He moves lackadaisically,
          distractedly.
          
          Wayne, noticing as he roams past, heads over.
          
                              WAYNE
                    Let's pick it up. Rush hour.
          
          Wayne gives him TWO QUICK CLAPS and walks off. Randy adjusts
          the machine's setting and begins to slice. He isn't moving
          much faster.
          
                CUSTOMER #1 (O.S.)               CUSTOMER #2 (O.S.)
          While we're young...             Any year now...
          
          Randy keeps right on slicing at his unhurried pace. He gets
          in a nice, meditative groove.
          
          Slice, slice, slice, slice, slice...
          
          He watches as his thumb inches closer to the spinning blade.
          He stares at his thumb. At the blade. His thumb.
          
          He JAMS HIS THUMB INTO THE BLADE.
          
          Blood squirts everywhere. On his coat. On the deli meat.
          
                                                                     99.
          
          
          Randy stares at the DEEP GASH, watching as blood pulses out
          in crimson surges. He smiles strangely at it.
          
          A customer GASPS. A commotion quickly spreads.
          
                                 WAYNE (O.S.) (CONT'D)
                    Randy!
          
          Randy turns and sees a shocked Wayne rushing toward him.
          Wayne takes Randy's arm and tries to lead him into the back,
          out of view.
          
                              WAYNE (CONT'D)
                        (conscious of customers
                         WATCHING)
                    Let's get that patched up.
          
          Randy roughly SHOVES him away. Wayne stumbles backwards.
          
          Randy, turning toward the onlookers, raises his thumb to his
          face. He dramatically smears the BLOOD ACROSS HIS MOUTH.
          
          Customers GASP. A woman SHRIEKS.
          
          Randy drags the gash across his cheek. He SMEARS A LINE OF IT
          under each eye like WARPAINT.
          
                              RANDY
                        (striking wrestling pose)
                    Let's get it onnn!
          
                              WAYNE
                    Somebody call the cops!
          
          Randy ROARS at Wayne. Wayne JUMPS BACK, frightened. Randy
          rumbles out of the deli area LAUGHING.
          
          
          SUPERMARKET AISLE:
          
          Randy dashes down an aisle. He dodges a WOMAN PUSHING A
          SHOPPING CART, purposely "over-dodging" her so he CRASHES
          INTO THE SHELVES and sends stuff flying. He dodges ANOTHER
          SHOPPER, dramatically crashing into the shelves again.
          
          
          FRONT REGISTER AREA:
          
          Randy charges past the CASHIERS, out of the supermarket.

Courtesy of the IMSDB

The Gladiator by Harry Turtledove

The Gladiator by Harry Turtledove
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Age Level: Young Adult
A great book for young adult readers.   For me it lost some of its flow when it went into exposition, and explanation of cold war politics.   However, for the younger reader it would be a great book.  The book   was interesting enough to finish, and gave me a new appreciation for Harry Turtledove.  I also have a renewed appreciation of the liberty enjoyed here in the United States of America.  I plan to read more Turtledove in the future, especially the Guns of the South.


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Beer Good! Yummy!

Here are 3 links to some of my favorite beer sites on the Web. I hope you enjoy.
1. Beer Advocate: They rank different beers for ya, and it is a very useful site.
2. Brews and Books: He loves Beer. He loves Books. What a great combination.

1. 3. Cigar City Brewing: I should have bought the six pack but I thought heck one beer will be enough. Oops. Sorry guys.  4. Pliny the Elder: When I mentioned this beer to the clerk at Whole Foods her eyes got really big, and her mouth began to water, unfortunately we can't get this beer in Orlampa area. 

Mefisto in Onyx

Mefisto in Onyx by Harlan Ellison

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I found the book by strolling through the Lakeland Public Library in the Science Fiction Section, I saw a smaller book in the H's. The title had both Frank Miller and Harlan Ellison on it, neat o!
Then I read the intro flap that said this book is addictive and has to be read in one sitting.
I thought "Yeah, I bet one sitting."
 I am really feeling inattentive today so in no way would this challenge be applied to me. I usually do not finish books in one time.
But then I read the name Bester. Oh, Oh, they speak of one of the Science Fiction icons.  Alfred Bester compared to this book, I have got to read it.
So I did. I began to read and could not put it down, way to cool.
One of those detective psychological thrillers with the tension of a tight wire suspended to a bridge.  And it was worth the read, every second of it.



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