Sunday, May 25, 2008

Weekly Geeks 5


Guten Tag, Weekly Geeks! This week’s theme was suggested by Renay. She says, “I thought it would be cool to ask people to talk about other forms of story-telling.”
This week’s theme is once again one you could approach several ways. You might want to tell about the forms of storytelling (aside from books) you love. Maybe you enjoy TV shows, movies, music, narrative poetry, or Renay’s favorite, fanfiction. You could give us an overview of a type of storytelling, such as listing your favorite movies. Or you might pick a more specific story, one particular favorite.
I can never pick just one … and I’m going to get rambly again, so bear with me. J
First, let me say, I love stories. Any stories, in any medium; be they books, movies, TV shows, songs, poetry … I love stories.

My Dad died suddenly two years ago. He was 83, but in good health. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t get more of his stories. For Patrick, my father is only ever going to be photographs. He’ll never hear him speak, or sing, or play the violin (Dad was a pretty good musician.) Stories about my father for Patrick (Dad’s namesake) will have to come from me, and I just hope I’m a good enough storyteller.

Every year, around Anzac Day (April 25) these two verses from the war poem, For the Fallen start haunting me:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
Dad was in World War 2; somewhere in the South Pacific. He almost never talked about it and I had always hoped that one day I’d be in a position to talk to him about it, but of course, it never happened. So there’s one lost story. Sometimes, what you don’t know weighs more heavily than what you do.

I love poetry and the imagery contained. It’s so economical, and yet it conveys so much. I don’t read a lot of it, having just said that, but once I find something I really like; I tend to read it a little obsessively. “I’m Nobody” by Emily Dickinson is one of my favourites, but I know next to nothing about Dickinson herself. Likewise, the imagery conveyed in these lines by Robert Frost:

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
It just speaks of loneliness, and weariness to me.

Then, there’s The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, by T S Eliot:
My favourite line from that poem is the refrain, of sorts:
“In the room the women come and go,
Talking of Michelangelo”
Like J Alfred Prufrock is just … there; on the fringes, looking on. He’s a tentative, shy, diffident type I think _ at least, that’s how I read the poem. J

So. Um. H’m. I love poetry. I do have a half-assed English degree (in other words, I barely scraped through in my last year with a passing mark) and picked up some of it from there. But it’s the way poets arrange their words to tell their stories that really perks up the ears of my soul and gets them listening.

So I’m fascinated with song lyrics as well, sort of. It’s really just another form of poetry isn’t it? I’d say my musical taste doesn’t run much past the mill really, but so what? If I hear a song that has lyrics I can really mull over, or chew on, then that’s all I need to know.
Like A Stone, by Audioslave is like that:


I know next to nothing about the band, but I love that song – especially the chorus and the image it evokes of a kind of desperate, patient, waiting.

And Fall At Your Feet, by Crowded House. There’s something aching and delicate and wanting about that song; all at once.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82JZh3VyE2M

Um. Right. That’s enough, I think.

Great question!

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Booking Through Thursday

It's that time of the week again ....
Books and films both tell stories, but what we want from a book can be different from what we want from a movie. Is this true for you? If so, what’s the difference between a book and a movie?

I want the same thing from both books and movies: a good story, well told, that doesn't treat me like an idiot. I want to be transported, to escape, to be inspired. Whether I'm holding a book in my hand, or sitting in the dark with the smell of popcorn, that's what I want. :)

Edited to add (because I may have misinterpreted the question); as for adaptations, I don't think about it most of the time. If I've read the book first, I compare the movie, but I try not to think "but they left that bit out!" and if I see the movie first, then read the book, I find the differences interesting. But I don't deliberately avoid adaptations. I love both mediums, so either way, I'm happy. :)

Monday, May 19, 2008

Is there something missing from your life?


Do you feel the urge to sit down for the month of June, and bang out 50,000 words? Have you done the nano? - http://www.nanowrimo.org/ Do you miss the insanity?
Are you just itching for another writing challenge? Do you wish to tear your hair out over the insanity with other writers?

Then do I have something for you!
http://www.kiwiwriters.org/ is hosting a challenge for the merry month of June.
Details are here:
http://kiwiwriters.org/my/challenge/site/
Log in, set a spell. Hug your Kiwis. Write a novel.
You know you want to ...

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Weekly Geeks 4



This week’s theme: Choose a political or social issue that matters to you. Find several books addressing that issue; they don’t have to books you’ve read, just books you might like to read. Using images (of the book covers or whatever you feel illustrates your topic) present these books in your blog.

Okay, this one is a hard one for me. I’m a worrier. I worry about everything. I worry about biofuels, and running out of oil, and the price of rice, and the price of petrol, and climate change, and child abuse and animal abuse, and money and my job and … but that’s straying from the point of this week’s theme.

I looked at the list of social issues, and there’s certainly plenty on there to be worried about. Mostly I worry about what kind of world Patrick will be growing up in, and how we can best guide him in that world. I want him to be socially aware, and responsible and not to turn into a boy racer. For some reason, that’s my biggest fear; we have so many young men here who lose their lives, or badly injure themselves on the road.

Which ties back into oil supplies, and biofuels. I get that biofuels are important. But aren’t we cutting off our noses by destroying tracts of rainforest to grow them? And by growing them instead of food crops? What’s the point of being able to get wherever we want to go – if we can’t breathe, or we start running out of staples, like rice?

Okay. I’m supposed to find books to illustrate my point – if I have one!
I got a bit rambly there; let's start with a couple of parenting books:
There's quite a few on raising boys; this one from my part of the world has good reviews here. It's by Celia Lashlie:












There's the whole worrying thing, and I'm sure there are many, many, many books out there about that. I like this title, from Amazon:














This looked interesting, on the biofuels issue:












And I read this book many years ago, but I think it still has a lot of relevance today; by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwadine. I remember it as being funny, and wistful. I must see if our library still has it ...

Saturday, May 17, 2008

What's one more challenge?

No, really. Oh, well _ I'm going to do it anyway, and it's only 3 books. I've been dithering for a while (as usual) and decided to just go for it (as usual).
It's the Southern Reading Challenge, hosted here: http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/2008/05/southern-reading-challenge-yall.html
My three books are:
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (which I accidentally started today)

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen, and The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice. Which I have read before, many years ago, but it's my favourite of all her novels. Her later ones ... eh. But I love the first three books of the Vampire series, and that one most of all.
If anyone sees any spare time running around, or what might be left of my mind ... let me know, kay? Thanks. :)

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Booking Through Thursday and other stuff


First and foremost, my baby boy, Patrick turned 1 today.
This time last year, what had been a boringly boring pregnancy took a sudden turn. I was nine days overdue, and had been admitted to hospital to be induced. I assumed things would carry on the way they always had over the past nine months and nine days, but it wasn't to be.
I was being monitored, as was Patrick's heartbeat. And that's where things went south. His heartbeat started dropping, and it wouldn't steady. The specialist came in, took one look at the readings, looked at me, and said "I'm not happy." So I was whisked off to surgery for an emergency caesaerian (I still can't spell that word!)
So, sitting here tonight with my now-1-year-old tucked up in bed, I'm still profoundly grateful to that doctor. And wow, what a year it's been! Mostly fun, and exciting and good things; and being a Mum ... I can't even put that into words.
I DO know Patrick stops my heart. That's the only way I can describe it.

Right. On to BTT:
Following up last week’s question about reading writing/grammar guides, this week, we’re expanding the question….
Scenario: You’ve just bought some complicated gadget home . . . do you read the accompanying documentation? Or not?
Do you ever read manuals?
How-to books?
Self-help guides?
Anything at all?
Um - no, I don't. Not unless I need to do something like change the timer on the DVD player. I'm terrible. I have a husband who is very handy with gadgets and manuals and things, so I usually just let him go for it.
I'm not big on how-to books either. I do read the odd self-help book, but that's about it, really.
Very exciting stuff, I'm sure!


Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Read; reading

Time for an update to the "what I've read this year list:"

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Antony and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough
The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett
The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz
Beowulf by Caitlin Kiernan
The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Storm Front: Book 1 of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist Wife by Irene Spencer
Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
Nefertiti by Michelle Moran
Blood is the New Black
Star Trek: Resistance
Star Trek: Q & A
CSI: Sin City
Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
Belladonna by Anne Bishop
This Charming Man by Marian Keyes
Duma Key by Stephen King
Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker
A Sandwich Short of a Picnic by Felicity Price
Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Mort by Terry Pratchett
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Heir to the Shadows by Anne Bishop
Queen of the Darkness by Anne Bishop
Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

Not a bad list.
As for what I'm reading now ... No Country For Old Men, which I may not get finished as it's due back at the library, and 1984. I have four nights off (woo hoo!) so I'll probably pick up something else as well; maybe The Monsters of Templeton. :)