Six Word Memoir

My Six Word Memoir

Focused on family, infotainment, knowledge, understanding.

I was tagged by Dorlana to write a six word memoir:

http://dorlana.blogspot.com/2008/03/six-word-memoir-game-of-tag.html

Here are the rules of the meme:

Here are the rules if I tagged you.

1. Write your own six word memoir.

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.

3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post.

4. Tag five more blogs with links.

5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!"

I tagged:
I'll Never Forget the Day I Read A Book, http://residentreader.blogspot.com/

Stellascript http://stellascript.blogspot.com/

The Musings of Madness http://themusingsofmadness.blogspot.com/

Herb Urban (a bit of humor) http://www.herburban.com/

The Thin Red Line http://libdrone.info/

I find it odd that when you do a meme, you have to just jump in and put a post into another persons blog in an unrelated place. Maybe there should be a box on blogs which says "Memes Go Here."

Have You Read Locker Shock?

LOCKER SHOCK

By Pamela Ripling
ISBN: 978-1-59080-581-7

Read Chapter One

What would you do if you found something deadly in your school locker and you suspected a friend of stashing it there?

Benjamin Mitchell thinks life really sucks when he nearly fails his history test. What's more, he's trying to get on the Midland Racers hockey team as a replacement goal tender. His buddies, Zach and Frasier are as different as night and day, and Ben feels like salt-water taffy, stretched thinner and thinner as the boys battle for his attention. And as if things couldn't get any worse, Valerie has suddenly started acting like a girl. The pressure is on.

Ben has bigger problems and it looks like somebody is out to set him up. Can he find out before it's too late?

What people are saying about Locker Shock

"...a valuable story. The characterization is superb of today's teenagers." – Sharpwriter.com

"Ben's first encounter with the darker side of life is satisfying and educational without a lot of heavy moralizing, and his uncertainty as he wrestles with the issues of loyalty versus morality is solid and authentic." – Blue Iris Journal

Meet the Author:

Pam Ripling didn't know what she was getting into when she decided she wanted to be published. A bookkeeper by trade and a mother, wife, and daughter most of the rest of the time, Pam dove headlong into electronic publishing when it became apparent that this, at last, was her ticket to stardom and notoriety. With a few romance novels already under her proverbial belt, LOCKER SHOCK! is her first venture into the Young Adult genre. Fueled by her two teenaged sons' experiences in junior high, Pam has created several stories portraying life as a young teen in today's uniquely challenging times. She hopes LOCKER SHOCK! is the first of many.

You can visit Pamela at
www.beaconstreetbooks.com

Morning Poem, Thoughts for the Day

Sky, Sand, Sea

Can you count the number of stars in the sky?

Can you count the number of sand grains on the beach?

Can you count the drops of water in the sea?

You are on the shore,

Standing next to infinity.

Good morning, I had a moment where a little poem came to me on the train. Sometimes this happens. Here it is.

My book came in today, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. It will be the next thing I read after Clear Blogging.

I noticed a new book which was out in the United Kingdom, Reaper's Gale: Tales of the Malazan Book 7 by Steven Erickson. It was released in the United Kingdom in May of 2007, now in March 2008 it should be here in the United States soon. There is usually a lag of six months to a year between books getting published between the United States and the United Kingdom. I am hoping this will change. I think it might be a little shorter between the United States and Canada. I am not sure about how long it takes for Australian titles to switch between the United States and Australia.

It has been a quiet day so far which is nice. I went around and took note of the various problems with the reference computers which need to be fixed. Mostly it is minor things like sticky keyboards, loose mouse chords, and little programming bugs.

Thoughts for Today

Hello,
Good afternoon to you all. I am a bit lethargic today. I have been so for the last few days. I took a look through a variety of websites. There were a few interesting articles which I saw while looking around the web.

The first is an article by Cory Doctorow, Put Not Your Faith in Ebooks. I found it quite entertaining. He correctly says that we should not put too much faith in ebooks being any more than a niche. Even regular books are increasingly becoming a niche products with many Americans not reading as much. http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2008/03/cory-doctorow-put-not-your-faith-in.html

I also was reading Library Journal online. They have an article about downgrading librarians pay. I think many things which are being said in the article are correct. However, I think the profession needs to take a good hard look at how it is being managed lately. There are a lot of problems. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6538702.html

I could not imagine being in their position. It would be quite hard.

I also took a bit of time to look at places to find books. I put Elizabeth Moon's new book on hold Victory Conditions. It is the fifth book in the series.

I have a bunch of new items to pick up. I will write about them later in the day.

Acacia Book One The War With the Mein by David Durham, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan, Blogging For Dummies, 2nd Edition by Susannah Gardner and Shane Birley, and Clear Blogging by Bob Walsh have come in for me to read. I am not sure which book I will start on.

There are not a whole lot of books available about blogging at the library. Blogging For Dummies seems to be the book which most libraries have. Some people hate the title of the For Dummies series and refuse to read the series. They don't like being called dummies or even better Complete Idiots, another series. Most people don't seem to mind the title, however.

I tried reading Blogging for Dummies on the train. I found it to be a little dry. It had all the things which you needed to know to start blogging, but it was not very entertaining. It was essentially a beginning technical manual for blogging. After a bit of time, I put it back in my bag. I am going to return it tomorrow. In contrast, after reading the first chapter of Clear Blogging, I found it very entertaining. It even had an interesting interview in the first chapter. I will continue reading it on my train ride in from work.

I did, however, learn a new term, evergreening. This is taking old articles that are generic like about your neighbors car, or your dog spot, or the history of pet rocks and putting them in your blog if you can't think of anything new to write. I promise that I won't do this. I am not particularly good at being generic; I don't have a dog spot, I don't like pet rocks or chia pets, and I try to write something new every day.

I imagine many of the big news agencies have filing cabinets full of these old articles kept in an abandoned missile silo in Kansas left over from the cold war. Whenever they need filler they call up a guy named Bob and he sends them an appropriately heartwarming article for the day.

Dale Chihuly Steinway Imperial Piano

On Sunday artist Jay Rolfe attended the Philadelphia Flower Show as the guest of his mother-in-law's life partner along with a group of family. Imagine his surprise to find artist Dale Chihuly's Steinway Imperial piano prominently displayed inside the entrance to the show. Chihuly is most known for his glass art - think the Bellagio - including many beautiful chandeliers. You can see other works on his website, www.chihuly.com/. The photo of the day is artist Jay Rolfe standing in front of Dale Chihuly's Steinway Imperial piano on Sunday March 2, 2008. Jay Rolfe is holding 2 dozen roses he bought for his wife.

This is the latest step of artist Jay Rolfe on his Journey From Starving Artist To 21st Century Picasso. You may view some of Jay Rolfe's signature style, his innovative 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas paintings, on his website at http://www.3dssc.com/. Artist Jay Rolfe uses his melancholic artistic temperament to passionately explore contemporary issues such as the nature of existence, disorientation, alienation, loneliness, unrequited love, complex relationships, conflict, unrest, war, greed, unfulfilled dreams, yearning, and boredom.

Chicken With Plums-- Marjane Satrapi -- Review

Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi is a quite interesting graphic novel. The setting is Iran in 1958. This is very different from most graphic novels I have read. It is quite serious. The comic book is an allegorical tale about the death of Nasser Ali Khan, a famous tar player from Iran. The story is quite dark. People are drawn in a stark black and white with lines under the eyes showing grief or sadness most of the time. Quite a few people are smoking.

The story begins with Nahid, Nasser's wife breaking the tar, a musical instrument given to him by his teacher. This pushes Nasser into a suicidal depression. He can find no tar as good as the one his master gives him. After the tar is broken, his slow death is told in eight chapters, each a reflection on his life.

The title Chicken With Plums is Nasser's favorite dish which his wife tries to cheer him up with. It only drives him into deeper despair. He then reflects on his brother who was a communist, his children, his wife, and his lost love. During his reflections there are two allegories he experiences the first is the allegory of the elephant in the darkened room, the second is the angel of death in India. He also has some very strange dreams. He dreams that he is sleeping with the actress Sophia Loren.

I liked this story. However, it is a very dark story and a bit depressing. I would not recommend this book for teenagers. It is about artistic despair, ennui, and the hardness of life. Marjane Satrapi also wrote Persepolis a graphic novel about life in contemporary Iran. I like her writing and drawing. I am waiting for the film of Persepolis to come out on dvd.

Origins

This is the latest step of artist Jay Rolfe on his Journey From Starving Artist To 21st Century Picasso. You may view some of Jay Rolfe's signature style, his innovative 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas paintings, on his website at http://www.3dssc.com/. Artist Jay Rolfe uses his melancholic artistic temperament to passionately explore contemporary issues such as the nature of existence, disorientation, alienation, loneliness, unrequited love, complex relationships, conflict, unrest, war, greed, unfulfilled dreams, yearning, and boredom.

Last Friday, Leap Day, February 29, artist Jay Rolfe attended the opening reception for "n The Beginning, Exploring Origins In Contemporary Art," part of the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Humanities Forum (which also sponsored the Kiki Smith lecture I attended). The contemporary work of about 33 artists was displayed, all addressing in some way origins of something - life, the universe, personal history, etc. Most of the works were small by my standards. The links to origins of many of the works was hard to discern, but it was an interesting exhibit.