Merry Christmas to Everyone!I am trying to draw some more, but it's still not pretty.
The red sploch on the bottom left is supposed to be a poinsetta. The green splat on the right is supposed to be a palm leaf, alluding to plants in Jesus' home country.
Look at the first S in the word "Christmas". I didn't do it on purpose, but it looks like a beginning of network of veins.
I messed up at the top center and tried to fix it. At least the design is interesting.
This was an experiment in doing this that I am not too great at doing. Drawing is not one of my gifts, unfortunately, but I love to take colors and see what happens.
The above is an example of altered books. The book that I got is an old one that was ready to be tossed. I put gesso (diluted with water to make it transparent) to strenghten the brittle pages, painted it yellow with watercolors, so that the original writing is seen.
I also bought some new painting sets called Colour Shapers, size 0, soft tips. That's how I painted the mishaped plants and letters and cross.
I am going to try something else next year. I got on the website and saw other examples on how to use these neat painting sets.
Plus, they were cleaned very easily.
Well, as I predicted, there was a great deal of interest in my handmade journals and Japanese book.The rules of the prize selection are:- Select a number.
- When your number is called, decide whether you want an unwrapped present or steal someone's opened present.
- If the present is stolen, the person who lost the gift can select another one, but not the one that got taken.
My present got stolen TWICE.I feel badly, so after Christmas, I will make journals for the two people who lost it in the frenzy.
I have been a member of the New Orleans Haiku Society for about 2 1/2 years and I own NO haiku books (except Katrina-Ku - Storm Poems).
Shame on me.
So, I decided to correct this situation and get this book.
It's a back to the basics book, an English translation of several classical haikuist such as Issa, Buson, Basho and other guys.
I bought this book at the Faulkner House Bookstore, a very cute little indie bookstore, just behind the St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter section of the city.
There have been recent ads in the local news media to support small businesses in New Orleans.
Even though my contribution is not so great (money-wise), I hope that this bookstore does survive.
(By the way, I have tried to read Faulkner's works and gave up. Our secret--Don't tell anyone!)
Brothers by Da Chen
Two brothers, one legitimate and one not, are born in 1960s Maoist China, but in different parts of the country. Their lives intersect somehow (despite the small chances of meeting in such a largely populated country).
And somehow, both fall in love with the same women.
If you can suspend belief and accept these facts, then the rest of the novel makes sense and is well written.
Shento, one of the brothers, was born in the air. I have never read such an amazing account of a birth, but it could have happened at one time or another. The mom threw herself off a mountain, Shento “outraced her swollen legs and slipped out her womb ..” The fall continues but Shento is still “attached to her by the rope of life, the entangled umbilical cord.”
Even though I probably know what might happen next (since he is narrating his part of the novel), I furiously read this chapter to find out how he separates from his mother.
Many things happen in Shento’s young life, but most importantly he is raised in a loving home and then later meets Sumi, the love of his life.
Later, he is separated from her and trains to become an combination of a Navy Seal and Secret Service agent, in order to protect the country’s leader.
Meanwhile, the other brother, Tan, has a comfortable life, until certain circumstances change, and his family is forbidden to be in Peking. He goes to a school far from the capital, meets Sumi, both study a lot, and are accepted to a prestigious university.
Before he returns to Peking, his grandfather tells him, “Look, Grandson. This is perfection, in terms of feng shui. The ocean promises endless abundance of good fortune. The hill behind backs us with the solidness of the earth. This is feng shui for an emperor. Our ancestral book prophesied that in the sixth generation, there would be two emperors born of the Long clan. You are the sixth generation.” Little did Grandfather know that the other “emperor” was already in Peking and that the two “emperors” would be meeting soon.
Tan represents the present day China, with mixing East with West, and the businessman’s mentality. Shento represents Maoist beliefs. Sumi represents the wish for more democracy through her struggles and writing.
There are episodes in the novel that have a Tiananmen Square overtone. This novel also relates the beginning of the transition in Chinese society, in which other ideas, besides Communist ones, are beginning to be expressed.
There are more beautiful passages in this novel. I hope to read works by Da Chen in the future.
Chekhov’s Wild Ride , an ArtsSpot Productions.
In the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, Arts Spot Productions presented an International Festival of Alternative Theatre.
I attended only one, Chekov’s Wild Ride.
In this play, one actor plays many characters, who represent a couple of historical events and acting schools of thought . First of all, the characters from Chekov’s Wild Ride speak about what they represent in the original play.
Next, it went off in the direction of the Russian Revolution of 1918, and how theatre in Russia was changed. Then, they spoke about influence of Stanislavsky’s influence on acting. Next is was the break from Stanislavsky’s in the form of Method Acting. Then, they move to the 1950s by reanacting Senator Joseph McCarthy’s search for Communist actors and playwrights.
Each actor goes back and forth between all these different worlds. They change costumes only once and moved the sets a bit. They change their accents, so I had an idea of what era they were in.
However, if I had not read the program, and not already known something about the Russian Revolution, Method Acting, and Stanislavsky, I would have been totally lost.
I wonder how many of the audience members had the background to understand all these situations.This play was very ambitious and required a lot from the audience members. I hope that everyone could appreciate all the subtlety and information that this play had to impart.
Book Group Selections for 2007.
All meetings are on the third Wednesday of the month, except in February (due to Mardi Gras) and November (due to Thanksgiving).
2008 Book recommendation lists will be made in the November meeting.
The first three books for 2007 have been selected. I still need to consult DeVille’s Bookstore to determine when some books will be available in paperback and how easy it will be to obtain books that were published 10 years ago. Once this determination has been made, the dates with the book will be announced.
As always, a 10% discount for book club members will be available at DeVille’s.
We will meet at PJ’s on Maple Street. In the March meeting, we will decide whether to meet at another location for the next quarter.
The following books will be discussed in the first quarter of 2007:
January 17 – The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
February 28 – The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (this work was the 2006 Booker Prize winner)
March 21 The Black City by George Sand
These other books have also been selected. The dates of discussion will be announced later.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Conjurer’s Bird by Martin Davies
The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam
The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre by Dominic Smith
Pinocchio in Venice by Robert Coover
Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
The dates for the rest of 2008 meetings are:April 18, May 16, June 20, July 18, August 15, September 19, October 17, and November 14.
That Summer in Paris by Abha Dawesar
This is a review copy that I received from Nan A Talese – Doubleday Company of New York, NY.
I was very grateful to receive this autographed copy of this novel by Dawesar. Life was still boring in New Orleans, and reading was a lifeline for me.
The novel is about writing, and the lives of novelists. Prem Rustum is 75 years old and a Nobel Prize winner for literature. He is getting more and more reflective about his life, and some decisions he has made in the past. He felt that every time that he wrote a novel, his fiction had threatened to “balloon and swallow him whole. Writing was not just therapy, self expression, creation for the heck of it,…it was a perpetual trap set up by Prem, to trap himself. Each book held a little piece of him that he had to cut off and preserve in the work of art. And while Prem had hoped fervently that the pieces of his soul were regenerative, there was no proof yet of their having grown back.”
Another main character in the novel is Maya, a student who has won a fellowship in Paris so she could write in peace. She was more familiar with Pascal Boutin’s “..clever, insightful, fluid..” works but she also liked Prem’s “..words form prophets or gods. They felt as if they were made with lava that flowed straight out of his heart onto the pages, and then when you read them, they liquefied and entered from your pupils into your soul.”
Dawesar gives a modern twist to the novel on how Maya and Prem meet; this is the first time that I have read something like this in a serious novel. Prem is learning how to use the internet and is shown a personals column. Maya writes a singles-ad, looking for someone who can be her Prem, in terms of feelings that she gathers from his works. When Prem answers, she doesn’t think it’s him at first, but when she meets him, she is convinced.
I enjoyed reading how different writers approached their craft. Maya felt insecure next to Prem and Boutin, but I guess she didn’t realize that she was still young and finding her voice. Prem and Boutin still had a lot to offer in their writing, but they both realized that time was catching up with them.
Even though I love to read about writing, I really didn’t care about any of the characters. All of them are self-centered. Sometimes they don’t realize how their actions can hurt other people. I can’t believe how the people who were hurt are so forgiving; I would be fuming and be angry for a very long time and ignore the person if I ever saw them again.
The editors should have caught this omission and made Dawesar write a bit about it; the elder writers referred to themselves as the three Ps (Prem Rustum, Pascal Boutin, and Pedro). Even though Pedro is dead, and both authors miss him, there is no real explanation as to why Pedro was so important to both of them and what he wrote. It seemed like a reference to the Three Tenors (Pavarotti, Domingo, and Carreras), but I was left in the dark about this one.
Buddha Da by Anne Donovan
This is a coming-of-age and change-of-life novel. Each chapter is told from the perspective of three different characters: the husband, Jimmy, the wife, Liz, and the daughter, Anne Marie. Each chapter is progressive; the same event is not reviewed by different characters.
It’s a challenging novel to read, because it is written in Scots, not English. This language can be read if you know English, but it will take more work. The story is easy to follow; the language will take awhile to get accustomed to.
If you need some practice, I recommend reading this haiku site by John McDonald, so you can start picking up the Scots language before attempting this novel.
Could it had be written in English? Yes, probably, but it took courage not to do so. The language adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the story.
Jimmy is studying mediation in a local Buddhist center. The Rinpoche advises Jimmy “… The meditation process is on of clearing. We need to clear the junk from the rooms that we don’t use, to pull it out, look at it. And, it can get very messy for while. But, if we don’t do it, we don’t ever get clear. I think you are just starting, Jimmy.”
And so he is. He wants to get deeper in the meditation process and become a Buddhist. However, Liz doesn’t like all the changes in their life. Anne Marie really loves her dad, but all this is confusing to her. Plus, as a teenager starting to break from the parental bonds, Jimmy’s transformation sometimes embarrasses her.
Jimmy tries to explain to Liz why he needs to spend so much time at the Center:…”So ah sat there, haudin that feelin, geelin a rack startin tae brek open, working its way up the centre a mae fae ma belly tae me heid…then all of a sudden it broke, ah felt ma eyes stingin. Ah wanted tae roar, make a noise, scream, but ah couldnae-how could ah?…”
Anne Marie tries to understand what is going on with her father but can’t at the moment. She makes a new friend, Misha, because her old ones are boring her. She starts singing and listening to music that the lamas make. She loves school a lot, especially geography class; “Just knowing thae’s all these other countries in the world..the feeling that’s it’s all bigger than us, somehow, really gets tae me.”
Liz suffers not only from Jimmy’s changes but from a few other things in her life. She later realizes that “When ah grew up ah stopped living fae moment tae moment, always too busy getting elsewhere. Ah wish ah could see ma life spread oot in front of me, as if ah was up in the sky; like an astronaut looking at a river….”
More changes happen to this family, and some hard decisions are made.
It’s not all seriousness, of course. There are some funny episodes. Jimmy comes home with three Rinpoches, who are searching for the next reincarnation of the Lama, who is Scottish. Anne Marie goes also, so she can convince the mother of this special child that the child is in no danger. They all get lost on the road, looking for the child. They finally reach the home but the trip has been for naught; the child is female; The lama’s intuition was off by a lot!
In the Company of the Courtesan by Susan Dunant.
This novel is set in 16th century Rome and Venice. Fiammetta, a courtesan, has to flee Rome, because it has been sacked by Spaniards. Her main protector, a cardinal, has been captured.
Fiammetta and her business partner, Bucino, return to her hometown of Venice. Bucino is a dwarf and narrates the tale. He hates leaving Rome, because he is so familiar with the city, but he realizes that once their association with the cardinal becomes known, they will be killed.
Bucino hates Venice at first. He doesn’t like the smells; he can’t swim and is terrified of being surrounded by water. The streets are such a labyrinth for him; ..”the alleys are as bent as used nails and the canals as gnarled as the veins in an old woman’s hand.”
However, as he becomes more familiar with the city, and Fiammetta can start working again, their dreadful trip to Venice and the months of poverty when they first arrived starts to become a distant memory.
This novel is a fun read. I learned a lot about life in ancient Venice, and how relationships helped one to survive in that society. If you have ever been there, you can also tell me whether Bucino’s observations are still applicable today.
There has been a firestorm over the blogworld about the criticism of blogs that do book reviews.
Some print journalists are upset that they are being usurped.
This entry summarizes the controversy.
However, the print journalists need to read Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel.
This book provides a short history of blogging and how corporate executives are using blogs to receive instant feedback on products. Some executives now spend many hours each day reading and commenting on blogs.
The book also features some regular bloggers like Ernie The Attorney.
I didn't finish the book, because I don't have a business that I need to promote.
But, KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. It's good to keep up on trends.
The print journalists who believe that they can only provide book reviews need to wake up.
When I was a child, I wanted to be a print journalist. However, I was noticing that television was becoming the dominant media for news broadcasting, and I didn't want to be a host (or presenter). And, I noticed this trend, even before cable TV (CNN, Fox News, etc) were even developed and the Internet was still in its early stages.
However, through my blog, I am realizing my dream of writing short articles through this blog.
Even though I don't get paid for writing, I don't have to worry about deadlines. Plus, I don't have to deal with editors and can write whatever I feel like writing.
Haughty book reviewers, it's time to smell the coffee, people
The Shooting Gallery and Other Stories is a collection of short stories set mostly in Tokyo.The majority of the women in the stories have children with no husbands or are caring for someone else child.They are dealing with a dead, absent, or controlling father of the children.The women are not very happy, and the children either act out or are scared.It's an interesting view of modern life in Japan, but you have to be in the right mood to read this book.
I just entered this cool contest: write a short story with only SIX words!
I was able to wipe a cool one up, because I write haiku!
Check out the great prizes.
Merry Christmas to Everyone!
