A Little Ray of Sunshine

I've been reading up a storm, and mostly away from home ... so blogging has been difficult. Someone recommended A Little Ray of Sunshine by Lani Diane Rich, which they called a smart, funny chick-litty type of book. I haven't checked it out yet. Chick Lit usually lets me down, but I've been told this one won't.


I've been reading a huge mix of things and am enjoying re-reading The Wind in the Willows which is marvelous.



Reading labels. This one was interesting, but American Absinthe? Really?


Interesting article on cruelty. It reminds me of a short story I read where this kind nurse (who imagines she has monumental healing and mystical powers) often feels depleted after being so wonderful, and to regain some energy (or her edge) does little cruel things to people that she usually fawns over. It gave her a little kick, like a sip of champagne to cause a little pain. I wish I could find the short story anthology it was in. It was a weird story, and twisted.

Stuff and Nonsense

A Jamaican deli near my home has added this chair. I'm tempted to sit and read there.

My Current Reading

I'll be hiking a lot more this spring and summer since I joined a couple of outdoorsy groups. This is part of my reading material. I doubt if a bear would actually eat me--a bear would probably just eat my arm and maybe part of my face. Still, I wouldn't care for that.

Diagrams and Charts

I drew this diagram to help me understand why I don't read much in these three areas anymore. The central red area (area #1.) represents an author G.K. Chesterton, new to me, but his writing got me thinking... In the past I wouldn't have included mystery in my diagram, and I would have had a simple venn diagram of sci fi and fantasy. Not all fantasy includes sci fi though.


G.K. Chesterton’s the Man Who Was Thursday( a Nightmare) is a wild mystery story filled with strange yet entertaining twists. The story begins in the Saffron Park neighborhood of London. The hero of the story, Gabriel Syme rebells against the status quo and refuses to be zany. He speaks out as a normal person. Being a regular guy, the crazy world he lives in seems even more surreal. As I read the book, the thought popped into my head -- Vonnegut must have liked Chesterton -- then my mind wandered to Douglas Adams, Tolkien ... so I began assembling a list of other authors that might appeal to Chesterton fans. I had put Orwell down, but later did a little online research and discovered that while Orwell read everything that Chesterton wrote, he had declared that G.K. was the worst sort of anti-semite. (Orwell defended his friend P.G. Wodehouse when Wodehouse was accused of playing footsie with Nazis.)

More research showed other people creating what looked like sky maps of authors. One author in the center of the reading universe with others hanging in the blue space around him.

My primitive chart was going OK until I decided 1. to add Poppy Z. Brite (which lead somehow to adding Kafka ) and 2. I didn't know enough mystery authors to make the chart work. I started this chart awhile back and now I can't figure out how it works. Should have made notes.


My charts lead me to other subcategories. I'm reading a good Forensic Mystery by Kathy Reichs now. The chart could grow and grow... subcategories abound. I researched Vonnegut, who seemed to say no other author had influenced him, but great socialist leaders did. That didn't sound right to me, since Kurt was a great reader of fiction as a child and young adult, so... how can you not be influenced by the creativity in stories you devour? Maybe he was misquoted.

I was in line once at a post office near Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in NYC, reading a paperback-- The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. I heard people whispering behind me somewhere. It was a long inefficient line, so typical. I thought I heard a writer's name being whispered, and some book titles. I finally turned a little to see what the strange muttering and whispering was about. Directly behind me, looking really exhausted, was Kurt Vonnegut, holding a large box. Too dumbfounded to speak to him, I just smiled-- there was eye contact, but I couldn't think of anything to say. My thought might have been Me Friend, Me not talk about you as if you not here. I looked beyond him to the jerks whispering about him in line. Maybe I should have offered to let him go ahead of me, but I didn't think of that. I turned back and stayed facing forward as people in front of me turned and gawked at him. Who is He? someone asked in a loud whisper.
Now I was sorry I had turned and looked at him. He was in this long line with people and no one said "Hi Kurt" or anything, they just mumbled stuff, and explained who he was to others standing in line. It felt awful to me, and I'm sure it had some kind of depressing affect on him. The line was stalled, we had maybe a dozen people ahead of us and a half dozen behind us. The slowest postal worker ever was doing something in slow motion behind the counter. Outside it was a brilliant breezy spring day, lots of daffodils in planters, budding trees along the avenues. Inside it was overheated and airless. We stood and waited.

The New Animal

When I was a kid we had the How and Why books. Flimsy and inexpensive, they were pretty much replaced by the Eyewitness series.

What are Words For?

" Poppycock! Balderdash I say! Bugduggery I say! I think a good swear word, creatively placed shows mastery of the English language." ~ Craig Ferguson


I have to agree.

Once when I was visiting Donegal, I was telling a male cousin about this tourist from Manchester who'd been in town and trying for days to get me to visit his hotel room. I had said no & had been very rude, but every day he'd pop up wherever I was and try to chat me up. Finally the guy told me he'd had a vasectomy. I told him if he didn't leave me alone I'd pick up a chair and bash his F-ing skull open with it. He scurried off and never bothered me again. Apparently he was offended.

But my cousin was horrified by the fact that this man had tried to lure me with the vasectomy remark. Indeed, it was a new low in trying to pick up a woman, but... had I whipped out my F word too soon, I would have never gotten to hear the word vasectomy while on holiday, or the word my cousin uttered in while in shock.

Cousin: He said THAT? What a Bletherumskite!!!!

Me: What???

Cousin: Nothing, em, I meant to say he was... indecent!

Me: No-- what did you just say... leather-um-what???

Cousin: Nothing, nothing it's a terrible word, just slipped out, sorry, sorry...

It took me awhile to figure out he'd said Bletherumskite which was considered a truly filthy word in his home growing up. It's a word with several meanings, one being the lowest scummiest type of lying scoundrel there is. Much Worse than bastard, which everyone in town used with carefree abandon -- like when they were looking for something. "Well, I'm off to work --where's my bastard coat?" or "My bastard keys have gone missing again!" I once heard an old woman who'd been menaced and then stung by a wasp say: "I've no quarrel with bees, they're furry and they contribute -- but wasps are bastards!"





"The whole concept of the swear word is strange to me. You create words that are naughty to say and then you don't let yourself say them. It's pointless, it's like, alright, there's a collection of letters, put them together and that's the word that we must never say... What the hell is that? It's completely stupid and pointless." ~ Craig Ferguson


Imagine certain novels with no swear words. Wambaugh's latest is loaded with them --it would be unrealistic if he had tough cops and rough gang members swaggering through the pages being careful not to use a bad word.

Thrift Store Books

I like looking through the books, always surprised at the things I find. Want to take many books home with me, but limit myself to spending a dollar or less. Sadly, if I'm on foot I will pass up a huge volume of something I want, only to go back and find it gone. (Now I know to just buy it if I really want it, and leave it at a friend's office directly across the street from the store.) In the case of the old hymnal above, a photo was enough--but if I found a hymnal in really bad shape in the trash, I might take it for collage purposes. recycle, right?


I have not read any of the books pictured above.

Another blogger sent me a news item that revealed that many British peeps pretend to have read certain smartypants books to impress others; 1984 by George Orwell topped the list I think.

I'm embarrassed to reveal that I've read Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell three times in the past twenty years. I'm never embarrassed to reveal that although I gave it a half-hearted try years ago, I could not get into reading 1984. I don't feel bad.

If a bunch of smartypantsers were discussing 1984 at a cocktail party, (the British ones all pretending they read it...) I could just enjoy listening in, and if asked anything, I could mention some of his other works and/or simply say I haven't read Nineteen Eighty Four ... (maybe adding a yet as if I was planning to, or maybe ask why I should read it --but so far I've never been to a party where it was brought up.)

In the thrift store, I did find a good book by Ignazio Silone (who has been compared to Orwell, so that's something, right?) and find it highly readable so far--(more on Silone once I've finished the book )-- Bread and Wine.




A quick film of my visit to the thrift store, with the easy listening station they play supplying the soundtrack.