Friday, I conjured up a plan involving entering an apartment and removing thousands of dollars worth of merchandise. That plan involved a ransom note. Which I took it upon myself to turn into a ransom poem (with a clever title, I might add). I wish I had had the time to turn it into couplets because I'm really not a fan of the rhyme scheme I used.
Ransom Poem
Take a look around
And soon I'm sure you'll find
Your books cannont be found.
Please be warned: don't call the cops;
Your books are safe and sound,
Sitting in boxes once kept by the mops.
Don't you worry,
And don't you fret,
This was not done in a hurry.
Your books are being cared for
Just off the cul-de-sac
At (I'm not posting the address).
To see them once more,
You'll have to drive
To a house with a (color) door.
If you don't know who we are by now,
You don't deserve to know,
And we'll be trading you in for a pet cow.
____________________________
The story behind this is that, after I had constructed the library and realized it was missing such a large part of it, I had told SH that someday she would come home and all of her books would be gone. Well, when she told me on Friday that she wouldn't be back from out of town until Sunday afternoon before work, the light bulb went off. So I gathered a couple of accompliases and we became felon booknappers.
Which I hope explains why I skipped Day 11 of the challenge....
2009-03-09
2009-03-06
Reading Journal
Yaaaay!! I finally finished Twelve Ordinary Men and started The Bluest Eye. I forgot that I read it in college, so it's also a reread. And I was surprised to find I finished it (there are my markings on the last page), since I think I read it winter term freshman year, for one of Jim's classes. And I thought the only assignments I finished reading for him were the ones I got paid to do.
That's right, kids, I got paid to not only read, but I got paid to do my homework! I was doing workstudy for him (copying handouts, that sort of thing) and he wanted to make a handout for our Chekov assignments. See, classic Russian authors like to give their characters a name and then 5 or 6 pet names that may or may not be closely related to their given name. Jim asked me to make a handout with the alternate names for each of the stories.
But that's all tangental.
Final thoughts on Twelve Ordinary Men:
The third quarter of the book was the driest. The chapter on Judas Iscariot was interesting at first, but it got repetitive. I don't think this was MacArthur's intention, but his words really only invoked my pity for Judas I. Yeah, what the guy did was tragic, but necessary. I found myself paralleling him to Eve. But what I really think got my heart to bleed for J.I. was all the bashing he got from MacArthur. Just because the guy's a historical figure, doesn't mean you can judge his heart any more than you can judge your neighbor's.
That's right, kids, I got paid to not only read, but I got paid to do my homework! I was doing workstudy for him (copying handouts, that sort of thing) and he wanted to make a handout for our Chekov assignments. See, classic Russian authors like to give their characters a name and then 5 or 6 pet names that may or may not be closely related to their given name. Jim asked me to make a handout with the alternate names for each of the stories.
But that's all tangental.
Final thoughts on Twelve Ordinary Men:
The third quarter of the book was the driest. The chapter on Judas Iscariot was interesting at first, but it got repetitive. I don't think this was MacArthur's intention, but his words really only invoked my pity for Judas I. Yeah, what the guy did was tragic, but necessary. I found myself paralleling him to Eve. But what I really think got my heart to bleed for J.I. was all the bashing he got from MacArthur. Just because the guy's a historical figure, doesn't mean you can judge his heart any more than you can judge your neighbor's.
On page 215, MacArthur quotes Charles H. Spurgeon trying to reconcile free will/agency with foreordination. And I've come to this conclusion: God knows us so well, He knows what we will choose. Our choices can please or disappoint God, but they will never surprise Him.
p. 230
"Would that Judas were the only hypocrite who ever betrayed the Lord, but that is not so."
It always makes me sad when people who (seem to) have a close relationship with the Godhead (or any member thereof) sever ties. Nearly paralyzing.
From the first few pages of the Bluest Eye...
Toni Morrison has the most captivating descriptions of settings.
p. 6 (Just before the "Autumn" section.)
"But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how."
p. 23
"I learned much later to worship her, just as I learned to delight in cleanliness, knowing, even as I learned, that the change was adjustment without improvement."
I like that idea: change being adjustment without improvement.
Writing Journal (Day Nine)
In the same way that a Law & Order episode can be "ripped straight from the headlines" in the promo and they still show the "any resemblance to any real persons, events, etc. are unintentional" (or however their legal jargon phrases it), this poem has been influenced by events, emotions and experiences actually in my life, but any resemblance to any one in particular is purely coincidental. Believe me as you will.
That being said, I won't reveal what, precisely, from my past influenced the writing of this poem. Partly because they're very personal. But also because I'm not entirely sure. Some stanzas were from something that happened to me, some were from something that happened to someone I knew, some are purely fictional.
This one has been the hardest for me to title thus far.
__________________________________________
Freight Train
The trouble that you've been in
Is more than I can share.
I know that you've cried through your dark
For someone there to care.
With their own ears full of steam,
They simply could not hear you.
Not until it was far too late,
Did someone know they knew.
It was a lonely train whistle
Coming round the bend.
At merely seventeen years old,
You were ready for it to end.
But someone else had switched the tracks
And you were losing steam.
That lovely face appeared to you
In the middle of a dream.
She didn't try to stop you;
No way she ever could.
Instead she simply let you coast
While living as she should.
Sooner or later,
The time would come, she knew,
When you would finally see the light
And find yourself renewed.
That being said, I won't reveal what, precisely, from my past influenced the writing of this poem. Partly because they're very personal. But also because I'm not entirely sure. Some stanzas were from something that happened to me, some were from something that happened to someone I knew, some are purely fictional.
This one has been the hardest for me to title thus far.
__________________________________________
Freight Train
The trouble that you've been in
Is more than I can share.
I know that you've cried through your dark
For someone there to care.
With their own ears full of steam,
They simply could not hear you.
Not until it was far too late,
Did someone know they knew.
It was a lonely train whistle
Coming round the bend.
At merely seventeen years old,
You were ready for it to end.
But someone else had switched the tracks
And you were losing steam.
That lovely face appeared to you
In the middle of a dream.
She didn't try to stop you;
No way she ever could.
Instead she simply let you coast
While living as she should.
Sooner or later,
The time would come, she knew,
When you would finally see the light
And find yourself renewed.
2009-03-05
Reading Journal: The List
This could be dangerous, but...it's a reading list. My bajillionth one. I actually have a spreadsheet so I can sort it by title, author and category (see list below). There's also a place for me to document the last time I read it. However, said spreadsheet is on Lucy, who is currently in a coma. And since I can't find a spreadsheet program on this computer, the blog gets stuck hosting the list. I try following a memorable pattern; otherwise, I'll get caught reading the same kinds of things for too long. I've done pretty well with this one:
I try to read only one at a time, since I seem to read them faster that way. But every once in a while I sign myself up for something that gets dry or tedious. (10 months for Canterbury Tales, I think.) And by the time it's made me bored with reading in general, I feel I've invested too much time to just abandon it, so I start something else. Another reading rule I have comes at the suggestion of a Reader's Digest article: if it doesn't hold interest after 50 pages, ditch it. (Once you're 50, cut a page for every year. So once you're 60, only read 40 pages.)
Since I have it in mind to read everything filling up my bookcases (excepting textbooks and other general reference) as well as all of the books listed in "The Book of Great Books" by W. John Campbell, I'll save the huff and puff of typing those titles out. And since they pretty much work together filling up the next few rotations of the Old, Random, and True, I guess that just leaves me to go for the New, huh?
New"Freedom Writers"
"Draglines" by Pat Hicks
"Reading History at Lunch" by Chase Hart
"The Greatest Virtue" by Pat Robertson
Next CycleOld: "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
New: "Draglines"
Random: "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card
True: "Six Hours One Friday" by Max Lucado
My goal is to be on the last leg of this cycle by Easter, which is approximately 32 days from now.
Guess I'd better stop blogging and start reading, huh?
- Something old (classic, something from the canon)
- Something new (less than 3 years)
- Something borrowed, reccomended or random
- Something true (not fiction)
I try to read only one at a time, since I seem to read them faster that way. But every once in a while I sign myself up for something that gets dry or tedious. (10 months for Canterbury Tales, I think.) And by the time it's made me bored with reading in general, I feel I've invested too much time to just abandon it, so I start something else. Another reading rule I have comes at the suggestion of a Reader's Digest article: if it doesn't hold interest after 50 pages, ditch it. (Once you're 50, cut a page for every year. So once you're 60, only read 40 pages.)
Since I have it in mind to read everything filling up my bookcases (excepting textbooks and other general reference) as well as all of the books listed in "The Book of Great Books" by W. John Campbell, I'll save the huff and puff of typing those titles out. And since they pretty much work together filling up the next few rotations of the Old, Random, and True, I guess that just leaves me to go for the New, huh?
New"Freedom Writers"
"Draglines" by Pat Hicks
"Reading History at Lunch" by Chase Hart
"The Greatest Virtue" by Pat Robertson
Next CycleOld: "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
New: "Draglines"
Random: "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card
True: "Six Hours One Friday" by Max Lucado
My goal is to be on the last leg of this cycle by Easter, which is approximately 32 days from now.
Guess I'd better stop blogging and start reading, huh?
2009-03-04
Writing Journal (Day Eight)
Well, I got to that poem about the escalator I talked about the other day.
The analogy my friend gave was this: "Life is like going up a down escalator; if you're not running up, you're riding down." And, who knows? Maybe those words are more poetic than today's poem.
Up the Down
I’m so very weary,
For this illusion is killing me.
There is no wear that this place shows.
Nor is there place where these stairs go.
I’m just climbing up and climbing up
As these gridiron lines
Slide beneath me.
It seems like these steps
Should be moving faster,
Picking up the pace.
But they don’t.
They just continue on,
And on and on and on and on.
Never slowing,
Never stopping,
Never will I reach the top.
Never will I allow myself to reach the bottom.
The analogy my friend gave was this: "Life is like going up a down escalator; if you're not running up, you're riding down." And, who knows? Maybe those words are more poetic than today's poem.
Up the Down
I’m so very weary,
For this illusion is killing me.
There is no wear that this place shows.
Nor is there place where these stairs go.
I’m just climbing up and climbing up
As these gridiron lines
Slide beneath me.
It seems like these steps
Should be moving faster,
Picking up the pace.
But they don’t.
They just continue on,
And on and on and on and on.
Never slowing,
Never stopping,
Never will I reach the top.
Never will I allow myself to reach the bottom.
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