Morning Weekend Thoughts

This is a path in the grounds of Down House. Darwin regularly walked along this path for exercise of body and mind. He called it his "Thinking Path". Ted Grant took the photograph and released it into the public domain.

Morning Weekend Thoughts



I am at the library sitting here at one of the computers. I am fifty minutes into my alotted hour. While I was looking around on the internet, I got a blocked site. I must have been looking at something quite spicy. I am really not sure why I was blocked. I wasn't even aware they had filtering software on my local libraries computers.


I visited a number of social networking sites. Entrecard is very slow today. I should not be obsessive about these things. Apparently, they partnered with a company called http://www.sezwho.com/ , a company that has comment management software for blogs. I am not sure if it is working right now. It did not work out too well. Now Entrecard is quite slow.

Sezwho was not properly prepared for a large volume of blogs to manage. For Sezwho to index a single blog for comments takes about two to three hours. Imagine if they suddenly have thousands of blogs to index.

I also returned my book, The Other Wind today. I dropped it in the book slot. Not very exciting.

Today seems like it is just starting and it is almost noon. I had my morning coffee already, so I am awake.

Sometimes you want to do nothing. I certainly am in one of those moods. I feel pretty relaxed. Right now, I am the only one sitting at the computers in the library. It is quiet and peaceful. I will be walking down the hill soon to go back home. I still haven't looked around for things to read.

I didn't find anything to read at the library this morning. There is a heat advisory outside until after six o'clock so it is a bit hot outside.


I did however, have a chance to read Iron Man by Peter David. It was a nice lite read with all the trappings of what should go into a superhero novel. I haven't seen the movie so I don't know if it is an exact match. Still it was fun to read this afternoon. It took me about two hours to read. It is the kind of book which you can read in a single afternoon.

I also watched part of another Ray Harryhausen film, 20 Million Miles to Earth. It was about a creature from Venus that grows into a giant creature from Venus which terrorizes the Sicilian countryside. At least, the monster had the good taste to go after a coliseum. The movie was light entertainment. It was basically a giant bipedal lizard.

Unfortunately, I could not watch all of it because the DVD was scratched. It is hard to know if the DVD works sometimes. People who return the DVDs often don't tell us that they are damaged. We have a machine downstairs at the library which is supposed to fix most scratches on DVDs. I will bring the movie in to get it fixed.

I am preparing to watch these slightly cheesy films for the grand finale of Harryhausen films, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad tomorrow. There are supposed to be several animatronic fight sequences between Sinbad and various monsters.

If you are wondering if I did anything constructive today, I did go shopping for groceries this afternoon. I know it has very little to do with books.

The Other Wind-- Ursula Le Guin-- Thoughts

The Other Wind -- Ursula Le Guin-- Thoughts

I wrote this while I was sitting on the train into work.

The Other Wind by Ursula Le Guin is part of the Earthsea series of novels. Earthsea is a fantasy world filled with magic, dragons, and wizards. Even though it is fantasy, it is often focused on the everyday thoughts of the people who live in the world.

Alder, the main character, is having dreams of his dead wife who he loved passionately. His wife seems to be reaching across the wall between the worlds of the living and the dead. She seems to want to be with him. Alder is a mender, a kind of magician that fixes broken things.

In his worries, Alder travels to see the king with a letter from Ged, a once great magician asking for help. Alder's experience is enough to get the king to seek help.

There is a sense that the writing flows both intuitively and rationally. The writing is focused on the everyday feelings and experiences of the characters. These are not separated from normal living. Alder keeps a kitten to help keep the bad dreams away. Even the description of the fantastic mixes the grand with the mundane. For example, when Irian, the dragon takes woman form she is a barefoot lady with a black dress, and deeply piercing amber eyes which are hard to look at.

As the novel progresses, Alder travels with the king, a princess of the Karg, the lady Tehanu, and several magicians to the wood at the center of the world. There we learn the differences between dragons and men. Dragons chose freedom and magic, and men chose order and the ability to make things.

Earlier in the novel, Tehanu stops the advance of the dragons into the lands of men by offering to travel to the center of the world. The dragons want their land back and are destroying the houses, fields, and livestock of men. They are not killing people, just turning them into refugees.

In the Imminent Grove at the center of the world on the isle of Roke, both dragon and human must make the world right again. I won't reveal the ending. It is about the place of magic and the living and the dead.

Ursula Le Guin is a wonderful writer. Her works of science fiction and fantasy are very interesting. She has won five hugo awards and five nebula awards for her writing. The Earthsea series is fantasy. I would also recommend two of her science fiction novels, The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness.

If you want to read a style of fantasy focused on peoples needs and wants, not fantastic exploits, it is well worth reading her books. I enjoyed reading The Other Wind.

Returning From Vacation

Picture from the Library in the Nautilus (20,000 Leagues Under The Sea) by Jules Verne.

Returning From Vacation

Hello, today, I am back at work. Did a lot of catching up. I read Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly for this month. I sorted through my mail and did light office duties. A lot of it was just catching up with law material. I have a lot of looseleafs to file for the law collection. Quite a bit of the new graphic novels have been processed and added. People are already checking them out. Most of the Marvel and DC material has already been checked out. People do not take out as much alternative material.

I went through and made sure that the Job Information Center was in order. We received over a dozen GED (General Equivalency Degree for high school) test preparation books for people we just added today. Already four of them have been taken out by this afternoon. In addition, there were a variety of test preparation books that came in that were added. Things like the Series 7 Stockbroker Exam preparation book and the Commercial Drivers License (CDL) Exam book.

I returned the books and videos I took out for my vacation. A few books were waiting for me to pick up, Acacia by David Anthony Durham and The Public Domain How To Find & Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More, 4th Edition by Attorney Stephen Fishman. The Public Domain is printed by Nolo Press which is excellent for laymans guide to the law. It looks quite interesting. There is a seal on the front from Choice magazine which says Outstanding Academic Title. I am going to read this after I finish reading The Other Wind.

I read a bit of The Other Wind on the subway in to work.

I also picked up two films, Fire and Ice produced by Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta, and Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers. Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers has been colorized and includes special effects by Ray Harryhausen.

I am also going to show an old classic baseball film next month, The Jackie Robinson Story starring Jackie Robinson.

Today has been a bit confusing. They did some rearranging of the furniture while I was away on vacation and I am just getting used to it. Also, some of the collection has been rearranged as well. I have to figure out exactly what has been happening. We also now have a bunch of volunteers from the youth bureau. I feel a bit confused.

Thoughts For Today, Haiku

The Coloseum of Rome. Entertainment for the masses.

Haiku

Empire

Egypt built the pyramids

Rome was not in built in a day

Monuments to things past

Sometimes I get small inspirations while I am reading on various places.

Thoughts For Today

I have been doing some updating on my blog. I went through and made sure every single post on this blog had keywords attached to it. I think this is important to make it easier for yahoo and google to find my blog. I have been getting more traffic from keyword searches lately.

I also spent a little bit of time on the Society of Midnight Wanderers blog to get a better feel for it .

I haven't read that much of The Other Wind yet, I'll probably do some more reading later tonight.

Morning Thoughts

Morning Thoughts

I have been having a very nice vacation. I managed to stop myself from doing anything thought related, I didn't see the doctor or the mechanic because although I think I might need to, I really need to rest more than anything to be back to work on Monday. This week has been relaxing.

Anyways, I read In Odd We Trust by Dean Koontz and Queenie Chan. I just wasn't that fascinated by the graphic novel. There was nothing which really stood out about the story. The drawing was quite frankly plain. The story was entertaining but it had very little depth. I think this was Dean Koontz's first graphic novel. Maybe he will do better with his Frankenstein story. In Odd We Trust had a kind of fluffy feeling to it. I'll think of it as a nice first attempt. It was alright. Something which many people may not realize is that Dean Koontz started out as a science fiction writer.

I walked up to my library this afternoon. I am sitting at one of the library computers right now. I have a copy of The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin. Although, it was written in 2001, it is something which I haven't read yet. It is a novel in the Earthsea series.

I am going to be logging off soon. I have to pay a fine for a video I returned late.