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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The wonder of the cosmos




Reading this book I wonder how are stars measured
Twinkle Twinkle little star
How I wonder what you weigh


The author compares the stars in the sky to fish. I once dreamt that the constellations actually looked like the form we imagine them.
Waiting for new objects in the sky seems much like waiting for fish with a rod.

Monday, November 26, 2012

The Ignored pipeline

Life as a cadaver




This book is like 'The natural history of senses' by Diane Ackerman in its reach of all things core topic.

Author Mary Roach 's new book:



Blooming thinking of flowers




In How to learn to love Poetry, Natasha Tretheway says that children look at broccoli as trees. Wow.

After  Hurricane SandyHurricane poem was tweeted. Its not until you reach this poem, that you get to a solid poem. But wait what was that about counting leaves in Foolishness? No its not crazy but beautiful. Poet Mary Oliver is busy praising nature. 
Percy seems familiar.

In 'The Mockingbird', she calls him 'the thief of other sounds'.
In 'The way of the world, a wondrous fish 'In its silver scales / it seemed dressed for a wedding'.
On Traveling to beautiful places, the poet says we are all on this only ship. In Stiff, Mary Roach likens a cadaver to being on a cruise lying on the back and brain blank.

Cook in the dshwasher




picnic indoors.
Eat using only hands. How else would you eat? my husband explains it mans without using cutlery.
How to cook something in the dishwasher. So instead of scaring the child with soapy water for bad words, you just riddle their wrapped food with holes?
Walk on the same path for 30 days and notice the changes. 

Friday, November 23, 2012

Good review

A good review of a book is to me the one that brings out the role of the book in the bigger picture of literature. Yes the whats and hows of the book would be expected but thats a catalogue and a reading can decide on that easily. Multiple reviews that contradict on the content leave us where we start. 

Reading many books

at once is like playing Musical chairs. You read further into each book to decide which one gets eliminated. If a book has promise, it is kept aside to be savoured. This game can go as long as the library allows or does not interrupt with holds from other such players who think your book might jazz up their game.

The Joys of Reading many Books

Potential literature

To think of the less travelled path




Jeremy seal

An article
Another article
Beycesultan Mound with ducts for heating 1000 years before we know of it.

The writing about the travel along the meander in an inflatable canoe along with the stories from the maps of the past is like Rephotography.
One thing that kept rearing up in the book is the pristinity of a foreigner as a stranger with a possibility of medicinal knowledge, different ways of grooming and the xenophobe's horror. In the current global world, people can ease into a culture by reading up on it before hand.
Strangers in the villages he stops for the night treat him with green almonds.





Randomized field trial





Can government run an experiment by providing stimulus to a smaller section of people to see how far it stimulates the economy?
Instead of only traditional market research, moving on to trials.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Running lines




It befits that an editors book should start with crossed out lines of Shelley in coming up Orphan hours.
This book is dedicated to Michael Collier with whom the author Stanley Plumly has co-edited a book.

The crack up in The Crows at 3 AM.  In those Orphan hours, like Michael Coliier's poem about birdsong, this poem has birds and other poets on birds.
The poets does away with spaces and runs lines in effect bringing to mind, different meanings of a word. after sunrise, the 'rose' recalls the flower, its colour and the verb rose of the sun and its concomitant colours in The Jay.
The sogs for the birds continue:
Still missing the jays
Vesper sparrow
Against starlings

On Dartmoor. A nature poem.
In 'Arbitrarily' the poet tries to match the pending gray of death.
Perspective. So many things must have been said about it. But the poet compares the perspective required in drawing to the one offered in life by memory, thus bridging two worlds.
Blind. A list of acquaintness with the blind, real and literary.
Ground birds in open country. The poet travels to many occurences of bird watching. We chase the birds or we are chased by them in memory.
Amidon Vhristmas Tree Farm cardinal. That bird death causing glass.
In 'I Love you' and Sitting alone in the middle of the night, Plumly acknowledges the power and presence of death.
caravaggios conversion
Some more poems
A review
An interview

Bikini like a parachute





The poem Necrophoresis of bees is a nature study of bees at work. While the queen enjoys reproducing, she too is obligated to work. Michael Collier's fascination with bees extends to other poems like 'The Bees of Deir Kifa'. 
Odd number of swans. The poet draws an inference out of the mated truth about swans. This insistence of previous knowledge to be traced into the scene in the present is seen in In certain situations I'm very much against birdsong. It feels like the scientists decry at anthropomorphization of animals but specific to the vocal department.
 Labyrinth is set in such a everyday place where not much happens, children play. But there is a silent interchange between the Child - the father of the man and the man at display.
My mother of inventionGrandmother with mink stole, Cyclops all in the tradition of capturing the loved ones as you remember them. Even when Memory of my mother was 'too young to recall'.
The concrete of Bint Jbeil
Attend to the sounds in The singer.
Six lines for Louise Bogan
Bikini

Sunday, November 4, 2012

An Odyssey in a slot canyon





A colleague had old me about this incident  a couple of years ago, when I imagined it that he was stuck at the mouth of a cave.
Recently a friend suggested that we should watch 

While watching Everest 82 and thence about survival - rescue stories, this movie came up and since then non stop I looked online about the movie. 

It doesnt have to be fun to be fun - Mark Twight
Warren Macdonald, still hiking after a boulder crushed his legs leading to amputation.
Tarahumara walk 50 miles with a mouthful of water


I Shouldnt Be Alive - Rescue stories.

Mothering twins




Author's site - babble

Olive loaf
Vanishing twin
A Prayer for Owen Meany




The author shares how clueless she was about having twins. she even jokes that she wants to know the children first and then give birth to them. She thinks parenting as a sea with a need to find her 'parenting legs'.
While feeding, rocking a single baby is quite a task for a mother. Twins is not only double diaper duty but there is the problem of making sure of bonding with both children equally.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Sugar here




I read Wild by Cheryl Strayed and was interested when this book came out. I read around a little and concluded that I didnt like the questions being asked. With the book in my hands, I see that the answers are not short. Long enough to essay. When should you proclaim love? When 'You think you love her' in Like an iron bell. Love is such a complex thing, as Johnny notes with all its 'promises and commitments'. Can love be divested of its citation from past?
The answers come with a title to. My favourite title so far Seeing someone in a new more fractured light
In Go! Go! Go!, the question itself makes it all clear of all those times when we hear of bands break up and feel bad, why they need to for their personal growth. In What Happened to Sophie Wilder, the characters set off a story on things they see, so they dont have to live that life if they can imagine it. In the same way, reading these questions we go down the lives of others without being them.

Bargaining with faith?




On Twitter, this book has been so talked about. I wanted to know what the deal was. Given, the prose is ground inside the book itself not referring to things outside. The book has chapters from the narrator Charles point of view and some by an omniscient. Charles character is passive like the narrator in Wuthering Heights. The search is for Sophie and the incidents are about her relationships. the narrator's relationship with her is another layer over her life. Disappointed in love but defined by Sophie.I wonder how the book have worked from Sophie's point of view.
I thought I will give the book 50 pages before finding no hook. I had the mystery of its fame. I liked to read about the intensity of the characters. It is in a way scary to find Sophie given to a faith in a non-negotiable way.
The issues in this movie reminded me of Minsara Kanavu movie.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Parishioner in MBA class




Bob Massie
Factor VIII
Life in Paris. I cannot imagine living in a 400yr old apartment. A microwave from 30 yr old apartment seems like a compromise.
Yesterday I read about how France built discrimation in its citiesA reversal of situation.
The author relates how various incidents in his life have prepared him for the future. By running the first school paper, he saw how change can be brought only if both the authorities and the subjects are willing to call out the mistakes. Encountering people facing difficult nations, he learnt that crime doesnt need a political label.
Last grave at Dimbaza
Vladimir Bukovsky
When the author finds that Yale in 1974 wasnt built with access to all in mind, I looked up the Yale Disability services. Having worked at Disability services as a student, I didnt know that the facilities werent available all the time until Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
The book has a powerful voice when the author narrates his experiences as a parishioner. He builds the scene with his dilemmas of making people see the problem with how the church money is being handled by divesting the moral connection and its obligations having laid the responsibility of its welfare in a ruthless third party hand. Sound familar?
It was excitng to read the coverage of South Africa relations and Mandela release. It made me imagine how my country leaders would have felt fighting for freedom.



Crazy about books





Persistent reader

Avid book readers are people who are at some level dissatisfied with reality

By checking out books that hadnt been read in years, the author gave them shelf life.

With my hands on



I didnt want to go crazy reading another one on books