A Note in the Great Symphony

LJ Idol: Do What You Can With What You Have Where You Are

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07:00pm 09/05/2022

I have been very angry lately. Why have I been angry? Three reasons: 1) I am female, 2) I live in the United States, and 3) it's May 2022.

But I can't be angry right now. Anger is a useless emotion. Oh, I know there are people who say that anger spurs you on to do what you need to do, but you see there's nothing I can do. The only action I can take that has any meaningful result is to vote in the primary, but it'll only be on the Democratic ballot because I absolutely refuse to touch the Republican one. Even then, I'm not sure how much difference it can make. I live in the district that inflicted Mark Meadows and Madison Cawthorne on you good people. That should explain everything.

Side note: I've been wanting to put up a yard sign denouncing Cawthorne, but I can't keep up with the Scandal of the Week anymore. It would have to be an electronic billboard at this point, and my skills are limited to markers on posterboard.

So what can I do? Well, I can channel this energy. Not in marches and protests and the suchlike. I tried that back in 2003 and fat lot of good it did then. No, I need to do something meaningful, something that makes a difference.

So I cleaned my apartment.

I grew up in a cluttered house. My parents both worked and weren't that interested in cleaning. Neither were my sisters and I. There were always piles of things on things, a layer of dust in the corners, and pet fur all over. Sure we swept and did the dishes and that sort of thing, but it was never what you would call tidy.

When my sisters and I moved out on our own, we all separately came to a realization: that clutter takes a toll on your mental health. We had to learn to be neat. We started picking up things and declaring a place for them and keeping them there. We followed the teachings of FlyLady and UFYH and the such. And eventually we had clean houses. Not "ready for the cover of Better Homes and Gardens" clean, but neat. There are no piles of things on things. Well, there are, but they are small piles and easily contained.

This past Saturday I spent the morning scrubbing. I kind of had to because Samantha Cat decided to have GI issues in non-litterbox locations. After I finished yelling, I scrubbed the spots on the carpet. Then I washed the bedding. Not because of her, I just change the sheets on Saturday. Then I scrubbed the bathroom. Then I straightened up the kitchen and scraped the ice out of the freezer. I vacuumed. I even dusted, that's how intense it got.

And you know what? I felt better. Not just because I was tired and worked off that angry/anxious energy, but because my place was clean. For five minutes until the cats shed all over everything again.

I may not be able to change the world, but I do have the power to change my environs for the better.

Eclectic Reviewer April Wrap-Up

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09:20am 07/05/2022

Spring has sprung and so have my allergies! Let's close all the windows and hide until the trees have finished pollinating.

Last Act in Palmyra, Lindsay Davis
Falco and Helena go to Syria and join a troupe of traveling actors. Murder ensues.

The First Four Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Farming in the Dakota Territory was hard but strangely compelling.

The Island of the Mighty, Evangeline Walton
The origin of my appreciation for ugly 1970s covers.

The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
The best book Hawthorne wrote.

Time to Depart, Lindsay Davis
Falco descends into the seedy underworld of Roman crime syndicates to help his friend Petro.

Postcolonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz
It was okay.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, T.S. Eliot
The best book Eliot wrote.

Fanshawe, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Dear God this was horrible.

Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, Laura Ingalls Wilder
The actual real story of Laura Ingalls and her voyages across the American prairie.

The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne
The seedy underbelly of the utopian movement of the mid 1800s.

A Dying Light in Corduba, Lindsay Davis
Falco and Helena go to Spain to investigate an oil cartel. Helena has a baby.

*~*~*~*~*~*
And now the shorts! I've been slacking on these.

I Want to Be a Secretary
Because that's the only professional career option open to girls in the early 1940s.
Good Grooming for Girls
How to be pretty in the 1940s. Featuring the infamous (in my family) Cold Cream Picture.

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LJ Idol: Pursuit

08:34am 24/04/2022

Feeling stressed? Anxious? Overwhelmed? Just plain don't feel good?

Put on a PURR-SUIT!

Doesn't it feel nice when a cat curls up in your lap and purrs? Of course it does! But what if you don't have a cat? What if your cat is not speaking to you? What if you need a purr right in the middle of Kitty Crazy Time ^TM? That's when you put on the PURR-SUIT. Put it on just like a bathrobe, tie the Activation Strap around your waist and the whole thing purrs! Not just on your lap, but all over!

What makes the PURR-SUIT so special? It's our patented Vox Teknologi ^TM woven into the cloth itself! When activated, the entire robe vibrates at the same frequency as a purring cat!

Looks like a bathrobe, purrs like a cat. The PURR-SUIT cures what ails ya!
Statement not verified by the FDA

Get the PURR-SUIT and purr your cares away! Available at fine department stores in Narnia, Oz, Prydain, and Landover!

Eclectic Reviewer March Wrap-Up

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06:52pm 11/04/2022

Oh, wow, it's almost halfway through April and I haven't gotten this posted yet. Guess I should get around to it then.

The American Gun Mystery, Ellery Queen
Ellery goes to the rodeo and witnesses two identical murders.

By the Shores of Silver Lake, Laura Ingalls Wilder
This book destroyed me when I was nine. If you know, you know.

The Marvelous Land of Oz, L. Frank Baum
Another charming Oz story turned into a horrifying movie. Link in the review.

The Iron Hand of Mars, Lindsay Davis
Falco goes to Germany and meets a witch.

The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder
I wouldn't want to live through that winter, but I love reading about it.

Anne of Windy Poplars, L.M. Montgomery
Filling in the three-year gap between Gilbert's proposal and Anne's marriage.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson
This was a disturbing read but worthwhile.

I, Claudius, Robert Graves
Ah, ancient Roman gossip. The best kind of gossip.

Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Tony Kushner
Definitely not a play for a small theater company.

Little Town on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura grows up and develops a social life.

The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
I gave it one more chance. It's okay, but the prologue is absolutely dire.

The Soul Tree, Laura Hope-Gill & John Fletcher, Jr
The poetry was okay, but the photos were beyond fantastic.

Poseidon's Gold, Lindsay Davis
Falco has to clean up the last mess his brother left behind after he died.

These Happy Golden Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura starts teaching, Almanzo starts courting, and they end up happily ever after.

The Sword-Edged Blonde, Alex Bledsoe
A hard-boiled fantasy detective novel. I think I'm in love.

*~*~*~*~*~
Let's Share with Others: Little Jimmy starts a lemonade business and learns about exploiting his workers.
More Dates for Kay: The way to get more dates is to stalk all the boys in school until you get a reputation.
Social Acceptability: In which teenage girls are evil.

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LJ Idol: Kuchisabishii

05:54am 09/04/2022

Trapped in a rock. He trapped her in a rock! She was a creature of air and movement and he put her in the most solid object in the world.

She was furious. She tried to swirl but couldn't. Too constrained.

A bloody rock. She was surrounded by static, crystalline structures. They never shifted to her will. They just sat there, smug and stationary in their regular forms.

But the surface of a rock is not smooth. There are dips and crevices, microscopic cracks, places where water can seep in, freeze, and expand. These actions will expand the microscopic cracks into larger ones. After a few centuries she realized this and began to focus her energy on helping the water do its job.

It paid off. Slowly and far too eventually for her taste, but it did pay off. The rock cracked in half. Air rushed in where solidity was before. She flew out in a whirlwind of glee.

I FEED!

~~~~~~~~

Inspiration: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-japanese-stone-said-to-contain-demon-cracks-open-180979729/

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LJ Idol: Morgenmuffel

03:40pm 06/03/2022

The end of winter is a sad time for me. I love the cold, the frost in the morning, the promise of a snowy day. But the Earth turns, the seasons change, and winter warms into spring. I always see the first really warm day of the year as a personal insult, especially when the winter was as short as this year's was. We had a 70-degree day at Christmas, couldn't we have waited until April for the next one?

No, we couldn't. It's been in the 70s for the last week. Granted, I live in North Carolina so I don't trust that this weather will last. Fool's Spring is a real thing here. It's the time of year people start invoking the specter of The Blizzard of '93. There's a reason conventional wisdom states that you don't plant your tomatoes until Mother's Day up here in the southern Appalachians. The threat of a killing frost hovers over us all until at least mid-May.

Needless to say, I've been in a rotten mood for the last week and a half. Part of this is due to work stress (program "upgrades"), part of it is hormones, but most of it is this darn warm snap. Stupid spring weather, I want to keep wearing my sweaters! But you can't fight Mother Nature. So I put on my short-sleeved shirt and went outside. During my after-work walks at Duck Pond Park, I noticed the big pink-flowered tree by the pond was starting to bloom. I snapped a picture of the blossoms. Not just to enjoy the beauty of the flowers, but because I wanted to know what the heck kind of tree it was. I have an app on my phone that tells me what that plant is and it told me that was a Saucer Magnolia. Now I know.

There are other flowers popping up as well. Tiny spring flowers I've seen my whole life and never knew what they were. I've identified Birdseye Speedwell, Hairy Bittercress, Lesser Celandine (not just an alchemy ingredient in The Witcher anymore!), and Chickweed. There are pussy willows near the broken boardwalk on the greenway. Daffodils galore are popping up all over the yard. The Lenten Rose is blooming right on schedule. Irises and tulips are pushing up leaves. And it looks like the peony survived the winter (such as it was) and we might be getting some big fluffy flowers this summer.

My housemate Irish Storyteller is a gardener to the core. He's spent the last week raking all the dead leaves out of the hillside garden so the phlox and lilies can breathe. There are piles of leaves all along the raised beds and by the front garden. He inspired me to take care of my own little herb garden this morning. I took the rake to it and cleared out all the dead leaves, pulled up the weeds that popped up, turned up the earth a bit, and checked to see what survived. The thyme, the sage, the johnny-jump-ups, and, surprisingly, one of the verbenas. Didn't expect that one to make it.

That got me in the mood for more, so I turned my attention to the melon patch next to my garden. I ripped up all the weeds along the front edge along with the straggly broccoli that almost made it. I got as many of the dead leaves out as I could. I went down to the front garden and raked it out and moved the leaves into a pile. Then I remembered the weather forecast. It's supposed to rain the rest of the week. There are piles of dead leaves and sticks all over the yard from the winter storms.

Time to light up the burn barrel! It's a disused oil drum that a welder friend of Seasonal (Irish Storyteller's wife) had decorated with a Green Man. I filled it up with dead leaves and sticks from the closest stick pile and lit it up. The rest of the morning I spent burning all the leaves and sticks from the closest piles so we can fill it up with the ones from the other parts of the yard.

After spending the morning covered in dirt and smoke, I'm ready for spring. I uncovered lots of tiny shoots and the first crocus of the year. The yard is slowly looking like something. And in a couple of months I can fill in the empty spots in my herb garden. I think I might also know how to keep the [multiple profanities deleted] chipmunk from eating my dill again.

Dirt is seasonal coffee. Get a little bit of that in (or rather on) you early on and you're set for the rest of the day.

music: Underground 80s

Eclectic Reviewer February Wrap-Up

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08:15pm 28/02/2022

I think we've all had quite enough of February, no? Here is a list of books I reviewed this month.

The Sun and Her Flowers, Rupi Kaur
This is not poetry. She has potential, though.

How to Betray Your Country, James Wolff
Lo, we have a successor to John Le Carré!

The Egyptian Cross Mystery, Ellery Queen
In which the cover of the 1969 edition my mom owned lied a lot.

Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder
My favorite Little House book.

The Greek Coffin Mystery, Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen's first mystery in which he's a complete prat until circumstances teach him humility in the most humiliating way.

Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Little House book I've read the least amount of times

The Wood Wife, Terri Windling
Shapeshifters, mystery, and medieval music in the Ol' West

Tender Is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Still my favorite Fitzgerald

Anathem, Neal Stephenson
As I said in the review, this book is 900 pages long and it feels like it.

The Autumn of the Middle Ages, Johan Huizinga
A survey of a very specific place at a very specific time that explains the difference between the medieval mind and the Renaissance mind.

Venus in Copper, Lindsay Davis
Falco goes into private practice and discovers the downside of Roman real estate.

On the Banks of Plum Creek, Laura Ingalls Wilder
In which the descriptions suddenly get very, very good

Eugene Onegin, Alexander Pushkin\
This review wasn't so fraught when I scheduled it two weeks ago.

*~*~*~*~*~
And now a few shorts!
Law and Social Control: I want everyone to appreciate the fact that I refrained from quoting Semisonic in this. The struggle, it was real.
Capitalism: Featuring a meeting of the Future Boring People of America and their magical record player that shows video.
What Is Business?: WHY IS THE TOASTER ON THE TABLE?
Other People's Property: Featuring the world's most destructive stinkbomb.

music: Underground 80s

LJ Idol: What Really Matters

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10:11am 20/02/2022

"Old Man Torvald? I have your thread."

"Thank you, little Ellie. You can put it here on the table."

Elana put the bits of brightly colored thread next to a pile of chopped-up feathers and a small cup of beads. She climbed up on a rickety chair to better watch Torvald sort through a box of hooks. "What are you doing?"

"Making flies for fishing." He spread out the hooks he selected in a row.

"I thought you were supposed to use worms."

"That's how you fish on the mainland," Torvald explained. "We don't have worms up here on the Isles. Too cold. Ground's too hard."

"Oh." Elana thought about that for a minute. "I guess that's why nothing grows up here. What's that?" Torvald had opened up another box and began putting together a strange contraption.

"Magnifying glass so I can see what I'm doing." He set up a board with a stick in the middle and began screwing on a large circle of glass attached to another stick to the end. "This is delicate work."

"Can I watch?"

"As long as you don't jiggle the table," Torvald replied.

Elana sat very still on the chair, her violet eyes wide with attention as Torvald carefully tied bits of feather on a hook with the thread. He threaded a needle and attached the beads to give the fly eyes. When he finished, he let Elana hold it.

"How does this catch fish?" Elana asked, petting it gently.

"They think it's a bug on the water," Torvald explained. "If you want, I can show you. I'm going out to my fishing spot tomorrow if you want to come."

"If Mama will let me," Elana said doubtfully.

"She'll let you," said Torvald. "Tell her I'll give her part of the catch if you come with me."

The next morning Torvald rowed Elana out to his fishing spot. It was a tiny island covered in ice an hour north of their home isle. He set up a couple of stools on the shore with a small heater between them. Elana sat on her stool watching Torvald tie flies onto two fishing rods. He cast one of them and handed the rod to Elana. She held it tightly in both hands.

"Now what?"

Torvald cast the other rod and settled down on his stool. "Now we wait."

Five minutes passed. Ten minutes passed. Thirty minutes passed. Elana was getting bored. "Are we ever going to catch a fish?"

"Patience," Torvald murmured. "Sometimes they're shy. But they're here. We're right outside their home. Eventually they'll see our bait and go for it. They always do."

Elana counted all the icebergs she could see floating in the northern sea (fifteen). Still no fish.

She tried to count all the different types of pebbles on the shore (too many). Still no fish.

She looked for shapes in the clouds above. Still no fish.

She looked at the sun. Only an hour had gone by.

She sighed. "Are you sure there are fish out here?"

"Patience," Torvald said.

Elana made a moue. Fishing in the ice isles was boring.

Then she felt the rod move. Or did she? No, it did. Something tugged at it. Then the tip began to bend down. "I caught something!" she squealed. She began to reel in her line, but the fish on the end was too strong. Torvald had to help her turn the reel to bring it in. Then his rod began to bend.

Two large grayling lay on the beach. Torvald unhooked them and handed them to Elana to put in the bucket while he rebaited and recast the lines. This time they immediately hooked a fish each. For the next half hour they caught more and more fish until the bucket was overflowing.

"That's enough for today," Torvald said. "We've got enough fish to last both of us a good while."

"That was fun!" Elana said. "It was boring at first, though."

"That's why you need patience," Torvald replied. "That's the most important part of fishing. The fish aren't going to just come and jump into your bucket. You have to be willing to wait. Fish can't be forced. If you try, they'll only run away and you've lost your fishing spot. Life is like that, too. Sometimes you can't do anything but wait. If you try to force things to happen before their time, you'll only make things worse. But if you have patience and wait for the right time, you'll be amazed at what happens."

Elana thought about that as they loaded the boat. "Mama says you have to act or everyone will walk all over you."

"But you have to act at the right time," Torvald said.

"When is the right time?" Elana asked.

"Depends," Torvald said, pushing away from the shore.

"Depends on what?"

"On when the fish decide to go for your bait."

lj idol 3 strikes, sagas of thornland, tuvendis

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LJ Idol: Black Rainbow

07:41pm 06/02/2022

The outer layer is bluish-gray. Cadet blue, Crayola called it. It's the usual place we reside. A soft place. Not too bright, no sharp edges. Indistinguishable from normality because it is normal for us. Joy can reach us here though. A quiet kind of joy, but still.

Next is a darker shade of blue. Like before, but the joy that gets through is quieter, shrew-sized rather than rat-sized. Otherwise, same.

Then a purple-gray. There is no Crayola for this unless you make it yourself. We come here often. It's a dull place where duty reigns supreme. We do what we have to do because we have to do it. Otherwise we're a failure. Joy is something we look at through the window. Our heart is heavier, the clouds are closer. They, too, are soft.

From here there is no color, only gray. The gray of clouds on a sunless day. Sadness is the only emotion that comes through. All our faults take center stage. They're playing the role of the elephant in the room. We pretend they aren't there because everyone else is pretending they're not. But we know we're only faking it to get through the day.

Dark dark gray next. This isn't a place we come to often. Maybe once or twice. It's terrifying here. Only screams and tears and sharpness. Let's not stay too long.

Beyond that is black. Darkness, unrelenting flat black. No colors. No shading. Nothing beyond. It's a lifeless place. Sometimes we like to look at it but...it's too final.

It's the gradation between the colors that's most fascinating. Moving back and forth through them. Backing out completely just to go back in when the brightness is too bright. Going all the way into black is just too much. Once you go that far what else is there? Maybe there's something behind the black but we all get there eventually. Until then, we continue to shimmer even if it's only in shades of gray.

Besides, gray can be beautiful. It has gradations, shades, personalities. And it's a comfortable place to be. Especially since we've been here so long.

Eclectic Reviewer January Wrap Up

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		07:25pm 06/02/2022
	Oh, all right, I'll do it. therealljidol
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06:56pm 02/02/2022

Oh yeah, I turned a page on my calendar. Might as well post some linky stuff!

The Dutch Shoe Mystery, Ellery Queen
I'm giving my Ellery Queens one last re-read before I clear them off my shelf for another series. This one features death at a hospital. Death by....MURDER!

In Calabria, Peter S. Beagle
A short, sweet novella about Italians and unicorns.

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
This was much more interesting than I thought it would be. Why was every other man in Tudor England named Thomas, though?

Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey
WOW I forgot how anti-Mormon this was.

Selected Letters & Journals, Lord Byron
AKA the better version of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." (Tried to read that, got bored and gave up.)

Transmetropolitan 4: The New Scum, Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson
More late 90s goodness

Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, John G. Neihardt
I hold this book in highest respect

Shadows in Bronze, Lindsay Davis
In which several loose ends are tied up and Falco visits Pompeii.

Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder
This is the series taking the place of my Ellery Queens. It's time I had a Little House set of my own.

~*~*~*~
After a brief hiatus, the Saturday shorts have returned as well!
Bookkeeping and You: The real last short in the Dick York collection. I forgot about this one. Featuring a detailed look at how those giant cash registers used to work.

music: WWOZ

2021 Books Complete Round Up

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11:04am 01/01/2022

Another year of pandemic means I got a lot of reading done. A lot.

music: Black Coffee

Eclectic Reviewer December Wrap-Up

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02:50pm 31/12/2021

It's time for the final wrap-up of the year. Just like last year, I finished a bunch of books I haven't had time to review yet, so the last few don't have links yet. Once I get the reviews posted (and written and drafted) (in reverse order, of course) I'll update these.

A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver
<3<3<3<3<3

The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
In which I build a shrine to Ms. Bujold for being wonderful and writing exactly the kinds of books I like.

Orlando, Virginia Woolf
Why is everyone immortal? I get the sex changes, but immortality?

The Witches: Salem, 1692, Stacy Schiff
A dense read, but very informative.

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
I enjoyed this more than I thought I would.

The Golden Bough, James George Frazier
Another dense read, but very interesting. Bit Victorian, though.

Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold
In which the Bujold Shrine grows taller.

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche
I should have read this a couple of years ago when it would have been more (personally) timely.

Doomsday Book, Connie Willis
I would like a history department time machine, please.

The Hallowed Hunt, Lois McMaster Bujold
Werewolves and wereleopards and werehorses, oh my!

Macbeth, William Shakespeare
My absolute favorite Shakespeare play.

The Wisdom of Crowds, Joe Abercrombie
The men in this book, without exception, are all idiots. The women have a modicum of sense except for Rikke who's the only one who consistently knows her head from a hole in the ground.

Silver Pigs, Lindsay Davis
A murder mystery set in Imperial Rome. Be still my history/mystery loving heart!

Don Juan, Lord Byron
Byron had an excellent sense of humor and it's one of history's great tragedies that he didn't live long enough to finish this poem.

Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
If my end-of-year procrastination had been less strong, this would have won the Best Book Set in NC award in the blog awards ceremony. As it is, it'll have to wait until next year.

Selected Poems, John Crowe Ransom
I did not expect to like this as much as I did.

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
The perfect detective novel that became the perfect movie.

The Devil in the White City: Magic, Murder, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, Erik Larson
The fair-planning bits dragged a bit, but the murder parts were fantastic.

The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
The original spy novel that doesn't share much in common with the Hitchcock film. Book's better.

*~*~*~*
I only posted one Saturday Short this month because I hit the end of my draft backlog and never got around to filling it back up. December's just a bad time to do things for me.

Snap Out of It!
We go back to the office of Mr. Edmunds, the hip young principal who studied psychology, to learn more reasons why teenagers are idiots.

*~*~*~*
And because it is the end of the year, I leave you with the 2021 Worst and Best Awards. The biggest surprise is that I only threw one book this year. Why? There were at least two or three more that deserved it.

music: David Bowie - Cat People (Putting Out Fire)

Eclectic Reviewer November Wrap-Up

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07:41pm 29/11/2021

And the slow crawl back to normal begins. Family holidays are a thing again. As are family colds. Tell me how I managed to catch a cold from the one person who wasn't even there because I'd love to know how that happened.

Dead Space, Kali Wallace
A good sci-fi mystery thriller but the profanity left much to be desired.

Death Ex Machina, Gary Corby
Socrates discovers physics and Nico discovers beer.

Augustus, John Williams
The cover was horrible. The book was excellent.

The Singer from Memphis, Gary Corby
Nico fights a crocodile and visits a pyramid or two.

A Princess of Landover, Terry Brooks
Half-fairy princesses are just like regular teenage girls except that they're more likely to encounter portals to Hell. Or maybe not. Adolescence is rough.

A Haunted House and Other Stories, Virginia Woolf
I prefer Woolf's longer fiction, but there were some good stories here.

Emily's Quest, L.M. Montgomery
Emily's career takes off while her love life does not.

Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Death on Delos, Gary Corby
Nico and Diotima are going to be parents! Oh, and someone's been embezzling from the Delian League funds, but that's not important right now. Baby's coming!

Flush, Virginia Woolf
The story of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Cocker spaniel.

Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020, Salman Rushdie
I heart Rushdie very much and I'm so glad he beat the 'rona. Not happy he got it, but very glad he survived. His voice is not something we can afford to lose right now.

The Crimson Fairy Book, Andrew Lang
In which I learn about tanukis and become insanely jealous of Japan. Picture at the link.

A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
Woolf and I are just going to have to agree to disagree about Jane Eyre.

The Maid's Version, Daniel Woodrell
In which the mystery is solved halfway through but there are still surprises at the end.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Vol. 1, Arthur Conan Doyle
What does it say about me that Victorian novels and stories are my comfort reads? I'm a big huge giant nerd? Thought so.

*~*~*~*~*~*
And now for the shorts!
Care of the Hair and Nails: There is a fairy godmother of Good Grooming and she's always watching you. No matter where you are, she can see you and she disapproves.

Seduction of the Innocent: In which a young woman's curiosity about pills leads her to becoming the World's Frumpiest Streetwalker.

Live and Learn: A ridiculous safety short to make up for the total downer of the previous short.

Act Your Age (Emotional Maturity): Jim's foray into misbehavior leads him straight to the office of Mr. Edmunds, the hip young principal who studied psychology.