Redeem Thyself

Ok, due to Bryan's consternation at my last posting (actually claimed it was one of the weirdest ever), I promise not to mention any female anatomy and definitely no C-list comediennes who are dissolving their marriages.

I guess all I have to say is goodbye, September, you fickle mistress. May October prove to be easier on the nerves and may we all be saying "Wang who?" next week and not, "Drat that nasty Wang!"

Nothing a set of nips can't cure

Bryan and I went to the Sox game last night and instead of focusing on the depressing result of the match up, I will focus on a more exciting element present at the game: boobs. Our seats were in the bleachers, section 39, row 25. Sitting two rows in front of us, to our left in seat #1, was a well-endowed blond who chose to match her tight jeans with a tiny, white tank top. Don't know if you went outside last night, but the temperature hovered around 50 degrees; in row 23, this made the weather a "tit nipply" (yes, even the blind man sitting on top of the Dunkin Donut sign could see the beam). Bryan and I, and pretty much every pair of eyes in the rows behind us, watched enthralled as the woman stood, sat, stretched, left the row repeatedly going the "long way", nips pointed back, ran down the stairs and back up, bombs jiggling and raisins lighting her way every glorious one of the 25 stone steps. She arrived at the game with one average-looking man, and left with another non-descript gent prompting much post-game discussion about her, um, profession (who knew so many people still used the term whore in casual conversation?)

So, nipple girl, this post is for you. Instead of dwelling on the depressing, angering, and despairing feelings brought on by the loss of our hometown boys and the triumph of those employed by the evil empire, your stand-at-attention mammaries (plus a few Fenway brews) captured our concentration and our imagination, possibly preventing two more bodies from being pulled from the Charles. If only we knew where you were watching the dreaded weekend series...

I'm sure there are other important things to discuss: a lying, thieving Republican majority leader, the continuing struggle of people to recover from the walls of water dumped upon them, Kathy Griffin's divorce, and whether diet Dr. Pepper really does taste more like regular, but tonight is our "big night" at work: the annual Open House and Curriculum Fair, and I have to go make the library look pretty for the expected throngs.

Songs!

Bryan and I had a low-key weekend in which we took in not one, but two movies, a rare thing made possible by Bryan's agreeing to accompany me on an escape from the reality of mortgages and wedding details for a bit (into the world of The Corpse Bride and the 40 Year Old Virgin, both delightful in their own way). I did manage to badly sand the walls in the upstairs kitchen in preparation for the wainscotting, look for djs on craigslist, and clean almost every floor in our apartment.

Bryan, accountant by vocation, statistician by avocation, compiled the QHS Song List v1.0 for the reading pleasure of our blog audience. As mentioned in an earlier blog, seven of us contributed 25 songs each, then voted from the combined pool of 174 songs for the top 75 songs. Bryan statsified our selections into a top 50 list, followed by an unranked 50-100 list. The result is quite interesting, and while it wouldn't be my personal top 50 list, it does cut across many genres, decades and styles to illustrate the power of music: many of the same songs inspired 7 very different people (most of the top 50 received votes from 4-7 people), and yet, with 174 to choose from, only 11 songs were left out in the cold with zero votes, so almost every song grabbed someone.

I found this list so much more difficult to rank than movies or albums because what does make one song better than another, and on whose criteria should we base that value? The enjoyment of a song is a personal expression, and as Bryan writes in his intro to the list, liking a song today does not mean that you will like that same song in 10 years [though I do admit, I had to stop myself from nominating some pretty bad 80s songs that still speak to me, some might say in tongues]. Enjoy the list; only 2 and a half months til the QHS Albums List gets updated.

More than I can hold

As part of the country braces for the impact of another hurricane, and the people of Louisiana remain displaced as more water invades their homes (or what's left of them), I have the surreal feeling of living an untouched life. I look at internet ads for The Corpse Bride, which opens this weekend, and think, "wow, movies are opening this weekend, and yet there are thousands and thousands who cannot imagine going to a movie. And the biggest tragedy of my week has been the fact that the Sox have been knocked out of first in the AL East - but how much does this matter? The world has become so interconnected, and we now have access to so many more threads between ourselves and people all over the world. Yet we live in bubbles of selfish reality: 'what matters to me is what affects me most.' I'm not really offering a solution, just ruminating on the vastness of the human condition and the small part we all play in our own lives.


On a different note, one of the most important things to me is knowledge, and I celebrate the finding of knowledge, both the kind found through reading books and the kind experienced by putting a book down and walking outside my front door.

Excerpt from "Ode to the Book"
by Pablo Neruda

I love adventurous
books,
books of forest or snow,
depth or sky
but hate
the spider book
in which thought
has laid poisonous wires
to trap the juvenile
and circling fly.
Book, let me go.
I won't go clothed
in volumes,
I don't come out
of collected works,
my poems
have not eaten poems--
they devour
exciting happenings,
feed on rough weather,
and dig their food
out of earth and men.
I'm on my way
with dust in my shoes
free of mythology:
send books back to their shelves,
I'm going down into the streets.
I learned about life
from life itself,
love I learned in a single kiss
and could teach no one anything
except that I have lived
with something in common among men,
when fighting with them,
when saying all their say in my song.

translated by Nathaniel Tarn

Gee!

From The Shadow of the Wind:
"Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its page, its spirit grows and strengthens."

Critics have not been that kind to this book, and I had heard that the ending was weak, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book, ending and all. I am impressed enough that I will buy a copy of the book for my own collection, and while you might think that this is no big deal because I love books and probably own a lot, that's not true; I am very discriminating because there is only a finite amount of shelf space, and because I only want to add the books that leave an imprint.

Bryan's bachelor party was last weekend, so the QHS gang gathered together in good ol' framin(g)ham. Bryan wanted to have a homerun derby with the boys and worried that March or early April carried too high a chance of cold and snow. I was allowed to hang around on Friday night, which brought conversations about music, reminiscences about past glories, and a late-night basketball game. Saturday, I made myself scarce and spent the day with the ladies.

For the record:
Bryan won the homerun derby
Bryan's team won the baseball game that followed with the help of his 3-run dinger
Bryan ate meat and drank beer

Jill got to watch girls try on expensive rings
Jill watched Manny Ramirez hit a game-winning dinger
Jill ate tasty fried pizza and drank beer

All in all, a successful weekend, and one more thing off the list of "to do's" for our wedding (much to Bryan's consternation since he would be thrilled to play baseball and hang out with all of his favorite buds every week).

Happy Anniversary JJ and Karen - still going strong and stting fires. Happy Birthday to Rachel - still only 5 though sometimes I swear there's a 15-year-old lurking behind those blue eyes.

Damn you, spammers!

I've had to add word verification to my comments section cause those pesky spammers are finding new and annoying ways to infiltrate my world. Now when you want to comment, you have to type the letters in a little box so that the system knows you're a real person and not a message from a computer geek/jerk trying to sell something. Brilliant. Thanks to all you asswipes with too much time on your hands (yet not enough to go get a job to make your money) who have to send electronic junk to clutter up our already full lives.

Don't know if people are following the Supreme Court hearings, but could Roberts be any more evasive? "“Because cases are going to come up … I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on that one way or another,” was his answer to his stance on the legal rights of the unborn. I understand that he wants to be nominated, but he has been pretty cadgey about answering any controversial questions, and while, this will undoubtedly secure him a spot on the highest court in our country, I can't decide if I need to worry about his appointment. If only he were 72 years old, then we would be assured of death before too much damage could be done. Wishing for the death of a not-even-appointed justice, pretty sad. Vancouver is looking better and better...

Last one before moving on to the usual banalities

Kate sent me this article and I meant to post it last week, but I got distracted:

From the Washington Post, September 8, 2005:

Challenges to Library Books on the Rise

By HILLEL ITALIE

NEW YORK -- Attempts to have library books removed from shelves increased by more than 20 percent in 2004 over the previous year, according to a new survey by the American Library Association.

Three books with gay themes, including Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," were among the works most criticized.

"It all stems from a fearfulness of well-meaning people," says Michael Gorman, president of the library association. "We believe in parental responsibility, and that you should take care of what your children are reading. But it's not your responsibility to tell a whole class of kids what they should read."

The number of books challenged last year jumped to 547, compared to 458 in 2003, with the library association estimating four to five unreported cases for each one documented. According to the ALA, a challenge is "a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness."

National organizations such as the American Family Association have been involved with library challenges, but far more complaints come from individual parents and patrons, according to the ALA.

The ALA study was to be released Friday in anticipation of the 25th annual Banned Books Week, which runs Sept. 24 to Oct. 1 and is co-sponsored by the ALA, the American Booksellers Association and others. Gorman acknowledged that few books are actually banned, adding that Banned Books Week is a "catchy name."

Robert Cormier's classic "The Chocolate War" topped the 2004 list of challenged books, cited for sexual content, violence and language. It was followed by Walter Myers' "Fallen Angels," a young adult novel set in Harlem and Vietnam and criticized for racism, language and violence.

No. 3, Michael Bellesiles' "Arming America," has been widely disputed, even by its original publisher. First released in 2000, the book challenges the idea that the United States has always been a gun-oriented culture and was awarded the Bancroft Prize for history. But questions about Bellesiles' scholarship led publisher Alfred A. Knopf to drop the book and Bancroft officials to withdraw the prize.

"If you're a freedom-to-read person, pulling a book like that one is not that different from any book that might have fake scholarship," Gorman says. "No matter how wrong a book might be, people should have access to it. It's a slippery slope once you start removing books like that."

Also high on the ALA list were Angelou's memoir and two other books with gay content, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky, and "King & King," by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland...."It's a perpetual problem, and it attacks fundamental American liberties _ the attempt to impose one's own positions on society as a whole," Gorman says.

This is a perfect example of the hoisting of one's personal view upon others.

And I actually received a comment to my last post in which the commentee asked if I was a sinner. Crock of shit. My point is, if I "sin", let me believe what I wish about what will happen to my so-called eternal soul; don't push your belief of heaven, hell, reincarnation, etc. onto me. The Bible is a book. Of stories. Use them how you will, but don't judge me for looking at them as a piece of literature and nothing more.

ANYWAY, I really am done. I don't want to turn into THAT person and I don't want my blog to be a forum for religious crack pots wanting to "educate" me about my wayward, heathen views.

So, we now return you to our regularly scheduled programming: Bryan and I had an action-packed weekend.
*Caught as much of the Satins-Sox series as we could stomach (which meant mostly watching the highlights on NESN)
*Went to a bizarre cookware demonstration for which we received a 3-day, 2-night certificate for an all-inclusive stay at an Allegro resort (mostly found in Mexico and the Dominican Republic)
*Attended the first annual Pond St block party
*Witnessed a beautiful wedding vow renewal ceremony
*Saw our first "Utilikilt" which is exactly what it sounds like, a kilt with loops all over the top of it in which to put useful things. Like chains
*Checked out Colleen's new apartment
*Ate dinner, probably for the last time in a while, with Bryan's cousin Jeff who heads to NYC this weekend for a new job challenge

I'm reading a fantastic book that I heartily recommend, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It is the story of a boy and a mysterious book and an even more mysterious and elusive author. The boy introduces himself: "I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day." I have been hooked ever since. It is reminiscent of Borges and Eco though most of the literary reviews say that it fell short of this lofty position. I am finding it well-written and suspenseful, and during the day, I find myself wishing that I were reading the book to find out what happens next instead of cataloging books and answering emails (sigh).

Ponies done been good to me, listmania, and a response

Labor Day Weekend: along with the group from QHS, drank lots of tasty Yuengling, talked of baseball stats and the merits of this song and that, bet on the ponies, and played baseball.
At the track: I actually managed to hit 4 exactas in a row, about which Bryan was quite impressed. Before you get too excited, the first three of those were exactas involving the 2 favorites so the pay out was nice but just enough to continue my wild betting of $5-8 per race. The fourth was a random choice that inolved the #10 horse, who was running at 29-1 odds. He came in second. The 4-1 horse came in first. I put a dollar on this possibility. I won over a hundred bucks on that accidental insight. So, I ended up leaving the track with a fuller pocket than when I got there and only spent 3/4 of it on beer over the next 2 nights. Ah, the ponies. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Songs: The seven stout-hearted list-addicts came together, CDs in hand, laying out our vulnerable top 25 for all to judge and rank. We hashed out why this Beatle song rather than that (or in my case, no song at all), should a song be over 10 minutes long when 5 minutes would do, and made the realization that the swinginest twins from the Foothills Council actually have heard a song, or two, from black artists. One day, they may even realize that women sing too!

So, here is my list, in no particular order:

Pretty Good Year, Tori Amos
Rambling On My Mind, Robert Johnson
Me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin
Hallelujah, Jeff Buckley
Eulogy, Tool
Here It Is, Leonard Cohen
Breathe Me, Sia
The Sounds of Science, The Beastie Boys
Fear, Sarah McLachlan
Perfect Circle, REM
Blue Sky, Patty Griffin
Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Izzy
Downtown Train, Tom Waits
Lean On Me, Terry Callier/Beth Orton
Thunder Road, Bruce Springsteen
Kid Fears, Indigo Girls w/Michael Stipe
Simply Beautiful, Al Green
Buildings & Bridges, Ani Difranco
Space Dog, Tori Amos
Romeo & Juliet, Dire Straits
Joga, Bjork
Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone, Lighthouse Family
The Gambler, Kenny Rogers
No Ordinary Love, Sade
Just Like U Said it Would B, Sinead O'Connor

This is my contribution. We are going to rank 75 out of the 174 possibilities (1 song repeated, A Day in the Life by The Beatles) and send them to the Statsifyer who will work his magic to tell us what the best 50 songs are according to we seven. What a great hobby we have!

Playing Baseball: Played an almost 8-inning game on Sunday. Muscles I didn't even know I had have all banded together to scream at me for this terrible transgression. I look forward to the day when I can once again walk with ease.


Here is the rest of the baseball story.
Top of the 8th: Bryan's on the mound.
Mark Low steps up to the plate and rockets an 80 mph line drive directly into Bryan's eye.
Bryan drops to the ground faster than a 20 lb bag of cement dropped off a 5 story building.
Black eye ensues.
Luckily it was only a tennis ball or I'd be wiping his drool off his chin for the rest of our lives.

On the getting together of good friends: With so much chaos and tragedy in the world, particularly during this time of suffering for so many in New Orleans, it is amazing and necessary to laugh. Laugh we did.

Happy Birthday to Sue J. in California, to Shannon, wherever you are, and to Kate, I hope people sufficiently celebrated the full wonderfulness of you. And RIP to Bob Denver, aka Gilligan; it's weird when a person who played such a silly, vibrant character dies. What will the skipper do now?

WARNING - moral babbling ahead:
In my previous post, I commented on the state of religious hypocrisy (wow, that's a redundant phrase) in this country and I received a comment that asked for some further discussion and thought on this. The question posed to me: When my faith informs my actions, should I not say the reasons for my actions?" My first reaction is Why? If you are helping the poor because you believe that your god will look favorably on your kindness, or because you were taught in Sunday school that this is the "right" way to act toward your fellow human, why do you need to announce the reason behind your action(s)? Does it matter to those who have been assisted that you believe that your god is happy with you? Does it make your actions any better? Or worse? Does it really help those aided any more to know that you are a little holier because you've acted in accordance with the tenets of your religious beliefs? Again, believe what you will, and if this makes you reach out to more people under the guise of moral rectitude, fine. I love that you are helping people, but I don't care why. If we didn't have religion to throw up in front of us, would we still help, and could we do so without feeling self-righteous and more secure in the knowledge that your future halo just got a little brighter?

A bigger issue to me is that those spouting religious dogma as they do their "acts of kindness" are so often blind to the need(s) of those they are "helping". If you believe that prayer in schools is the best thing for those children who have no money, because if they pray and show great zeal for "god", then they can go to heaven where they will be fully rewarded, is this the best help you can give, particularly because you believe it to be so important? Does this take into consideration the needs of those children with not enough food in their bellies and no hope of climbing out of the poverty into which they have been born? My point is that people of great religious fervor put on blinders and only see the right and wrong of the world in one shade, or I guess two: black and white. I saw a bumper sticker the other day, 'If you're christian, you can't believe in abortion' - really? Why not? I can be a good person who helps other and lives life with respect and sincere love for others, but I might not be able to mentally or financially handle a child. And who is that person driving that car to tell me that I'm wrong because they, or their god, don't agree. I now feel like I'm rambling and that I could write about this forever, because it is an issue that must be discussed and one point leads to another and to another, and right now, I'm just arguing with a huge "Christian" right that feels the need to push its beliefs into my house. And the safety lock is only so strong on my front door.