tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79354236803161603772024-03-05T16:15:30.089-08:00Life's a buffet and most men are starvin' to death.Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.comBlogger117125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-32912126403464969172014-03-09T21:02:00.001-07:002014-03-09T21:02:29.944-07:00The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"I liked looking on at other people in crucial situations. If there was a road accident or a street fight or a baby pickled in a laboratory far for me to look at, I'd stop and look so hard I never forgot it.<br />
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I certainly learned a lot of things I never would have learned otherwise this way, and even when they surprised me or made me sick I never let on, but pretended that's the way I knew things were all the time."<br />
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"For the first time in my life, sitting there in the soundproof heart of the UN building between Constantin who could play tennis as well as simultaneously interpret and the Russian girl who knew so many idioms, I felt dreadfully inadequate. The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it.<br />
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The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end.<br />
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I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date of a tombstone.<br />
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I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.<br />
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From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer name and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.<br />
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I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."<br />
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"The only reason I remembered this play was because it had a mad person in it, and everything I had ever read about mad people stuck in my mind, while everything else flew out."Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-50163159189269969502013-12-19T17:01:00.002-08:002013-12-19T17:02:03.764-08:00The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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She writes about Native American Indian tribes, about which I've discovered a recent fascination given some of my legal work. Mumsie read The Roundhouse and loved it, and let's face it, the woman knows her books, so I added this to the list after I read the back cover.<br />
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"'But when Neve Harp said that she was going back to the beginning of things and wanted to talk about how the town of Pluto came to be and why it was inside the original reservation boundaries, though hardly any Indians lived in Pluto, well, both of the old men's faces became like Mama's - quiet, with an elaborate reserve, and something else that has stuck in my heart ever since. I saw that the loss of their land was lodged inside of them forever. This loss would enter me, too. Over time, I came to know that the sorrow was a thing that each of them covered up according to their character - my old uncle through his passionate discipline, my mother through strict kindness and cleanly order. As for my grandfather, he used the patient art of ridicule."Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-48602219558466028752013-01-29T09:38:00.002-08:002013-01-29T09:38:54.467-08:00Book Review: Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Oprah book club read. Friends, I judged this book by its cover and it spoke to my need for a silly lift between real reads. And it turned out to be just that. No dog-eared pages worth sharing. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.<br />
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But I will say...rhetorical emo third person questions in every chapter are annoying and border offensive. "why did he ever leave her?" "how could he hate her for needing someone to care for her?" Seriously? Daytime television called and they want their inner monologue back. Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-41353243881773366952013-01-13T18:02:00.000-08:002013-01-14T05:36:54.332-08:00"Little Bee" by Chris Cleave<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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40 something gay men can't write novels as little girls. I know you want to and I know it's unfair! This is America for heaven's sake! I know you think you were a quirky little person and it's time to show the world how clever you were, coping with complex circumstances by fixating on a simple happy place as a defense mechanism, etc. etc. I'm sure you were a creative little cat and nobody has appreciated your adolescent genius quite like your adult self. Really -- I believe this. Bravo to old souls and curious, tiny sponges. You're just no longer convincing once you're all grown up and writing for the New York Times Best Seller list. Please stop. Unless fictionalizing a brilliant child that is loosely based on some version of your former self is an easy few million, in which case, I loved this book and we need a few more of these next year! Anyone care for a harrowing tale of overcoming adversity in North Florida?<br />
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"On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, <em>I survived</em>.<br />
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In a few breaths' time I will speak some sad words to you. But you must hear them the same way we have agreed to see scars now. Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this story-teller is <em>alive</em>. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something <em>marvelous</em>, and then she will turn around and smile."<br />
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Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-86916159176272828802012-12-28T20:58:00.000-08:002012-12-28T20:58:47.349-08:00"We Need to Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver<div class="separator" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;">
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Am I the last person to hear of Lionel Shriver? Apparently she falls into a large category of brilliant writers whose existence somehow eluded me until now. I guess I really meant it when I was 10 years old and my mom asked: "what do you really want to do Becca?" And I said, "I want to read all the books in the world." I just wish that Shriver's had fallen earlier on my list. She could've taken the place of, say, Elizabeth Gilbert or Charles Dickens.<br />
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Anywho. Shriver serves as the voice for us all when she succumbs to the pressure of motherhood - a successful, 30 something gal who is worried to introduce a new person into a nuclear universe even more screwed up than her own. The marriage appears fine, but the root of the obstacle is Shriver keeping her booming career while becoming a mummy later in life. Two no-no's that are sure to catapult your kid into becoming a mass murderer, right?<br />
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"So I wasn't only afraid of becoming my mother, but <em>a</em> mother. I was afraid of being the steadfast, stationary anchor who provides a jumping-off place for another young adventurer whose travels I might envy whose future is still unmoored and unmapped. I was afraid of being that archetypal figure in the doorway - frowzy, a little plump - who waves goodbye and blows kisses as a backpack is stashed in the trunk; who dabs her eyes with an apron ruffle in the fumes of departing exhaust; who turns forlornly to twist the latch and wash the too-few dishes by the sink as the silence in the room presses down like a dropped ceiling. More than of leaving, I had developed a horror of being left. How often I had done that to you, stranded you with the baguette crusts of our farewell dinner and swept off to my waiting taxi. I don't believe I ever told you how sorry I was for putting you through all those little deaths of serial desertion, or commended you on constraining expression of your quite justifiable sense of abandonment to the occasional quip.<br />
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Franklin, I was <em>absolutely terrified of having a child</em>. Before I got pregnant, my visions of child rearing - reading stories about cabooses with smiley faces at bedtime, feeding glop into slack mouths - all seemed like pictures of someone else. I dreaded confrontation with what could prove a closed, stony nature, my own selfishness and lack of generosity, the thick, tarry powers of my own resentment. However intrigued by a 'turn of the page,' I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else's story. And I believe that this terror is precisely what must have snagged me, the way a ledge will tempt one to jump off. The very insurmountability of the task, its very unattractiveness, was in the end what attracted me to it."<br />
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Did I mention you may not want to pick up this read if you're on the fence about starting a family? "Kevin" makes you wonder who is at fault when nature wins in the nature vs. nurture battle present within each child. I'll let you know who generally doesn't lose: dear old dad. It turns out that society really doesn't expect much out of dad, but generously attaches blame to mumsie, regardless of the disparity in quantity or quality from each. These forces drive Eva's marriage to disaster, as the book is comprised of only letters to Franklin, recalling a life when they were together before Kevin's "Thursday" that changed their community forever.<br />
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"It's always the mother's fault, ain't it?" she said softly, collecting her coat. "That boy turn out bad cause his mama a drunk, or she a junkie. She let him run wild, she don't teach him right from wrong. She never home when he back from school. Nobody ever say his daddy a drunk, or his daddy not home after school. And nobody ever say they come kids just damned mean. Don't you believe that old guff. Don't you let them saddle you with all that killing...It hard to be a momma. Nobody pass a law say 'fore you get pregnant you gotta be perfect. I'm sure you try the best you could. You here, in this dump, on a nice Saturday afternoon? You still trying. Now you take care of yourself, honey. And you don't be talking any more a that nonsense."Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-60599780010246653792012-11-03T13:10:00.003-07:002012-11-03T13:10:41.699-07:00A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Frances Nolan, Age 15 years and 4 months. April 6, 1917.</div>
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She thought: "If I open this envelope fifty years from now, I will be again as I am now and there will be no being old for me. There's a long, long time yet before fifty years...millions of hours of time. But one hour has gone already since I sat here...only one hour less to live...one hour gone away from all the hours of my life."</div>
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"Dear God," she prayed, "let me be <em>something </em>every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere -- be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be <em>something </em>every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost."</div>
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Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-24331217291829697512012-05-15T18:12:00.001-07:002012-05-15T18:12:41.900-07:00Styron the siren<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
William Styron, you poetic prince. Are you American? Can it be so? Certainly not English. Southern with a love for Paris you say? Virginia boy, you make me want to drink a bottle of Cabernet and reread Nabokov.</div>
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"I remember those first weeks at Yetta's with remarkable clarity. To begin with, there was a magnificent surge of creative energy, the innocent and youthful abandon with which I was able to set down in so short a time the first fifty or sixty pages of the book. I have never written fast or easily and this was no exception, for even then I was compelled to search, however inadequately, for the right word and suffered over the rhythms and subtleties of our gorgeous but unbenevolent, unyielding tongue; nonetheless, I was seized by a strange, dauntless self-confidence and I scribbled away joyously while the characters I had begun to create seemed to a acquire a life of their own and the muggy atmosphere of the Tidewater summer took on both an eye-dazzling and almost tactile reality, as if unspooling before my eyes on film, in uncanny three-dimensional color. How I now cherish the image of myself in this earlier time, hunched over the schoolmarm's desk in that radiant pink room, whispering melodiously (as I still do) the invented phrases and sentences, testing them on my lips like some obsessed verse-monger, and all the while remaining supremely content in the knowledge that the fruit of this happy labor, whatever its deficiencies, would be the most awesome and important of man's imaginative endeavors -- The Novel. The blessed Novel. The sacred Novel. The Almighty Novel. Oh, Stingo, how I envy you in those faraway afternoons of First Novelhood (so long before middle age and the drowsy slack tides of inanition, gloomy boredom with fiction, and the pooping-out of ego and ambition) when immortal longings impelled your every hyphen and semicolon and you had the faith of a child in the beauty you felt you were destined to bring forth."<br />
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~ William Styron, <i>Sophie's Choice</i><br />
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<br />Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-64828026827976645952012-05-13T07:23:00.000-07:002012-05-15T13:26:56.235-07:00Book Review: Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Kingsolver puts evangelism in its place in her 1998 best-seller, which follows a southern Georgia missionary family as they move to the village of Kilanga in the Congo in 1959. The Price family's story is narrated by each of the five girls: Orleanna, the mother, and her four daughters, Rachel, Adah, Leah and Ruth May, and their journey parallels the country's tumultuous emergence into the post-colonial era.<br />
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Following their father on his mission to change Africa, the family found themselves swallowed and forever transformed by the dark continent. Rachel remembers, "from the very first moment I set foot in the Congo, I could see we were not in charge. We got swept up with those people that took us to the church for all their half-naked dancing and goat meat with the hair still on, and I said to myself this little trip is going to be the ruin of the Price family as we know it. And, boy, was it ever."<br />
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While Congo gained independence from Belgium, the little societal order that existed disintegrated, and the same was true for the Price family. Each member adapted to their new existence differently, and what was formerly a life of sixteenth birthday parties and Sunday luncheons became a daily test of survival. Malaria, poisonous snakes, lions and hostile villagers became the norm, and you will judge Orleanna for bringing her family there and not leaving her husband. Her apathy hardens, and tragedy eventually forces her into a life of denial, guilt and regret. "For women like me, it seems, it's not ours to take charge of beginnings and endings. Not the marriage proposal, the summit conquered, the first shot fired, nor the last one either -- the treaty at Appomattox, the knife in the heart. Let men write these stories. I can't. I only know the middle ground where we live our lives. We whistle while Rome burns, or we scrub the floor, depending. Don't dare presume there's shame in the lot of a woman who carries on."<br />
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High recommendation here! The historic backdrop is welcome, following the US attempted assassination of Lumumba, Mobutu's following rise in power, and the Church Committee investigations of it all. You'll never forgive Orleanna or her husband, the tragic disintegration of their family will break your heart, and Africa's heart of darkness will chill you to the bone.Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-55367948946180026382012-04-29T12:30:00.005-07:002012-04-29T12:30:51.783-07:00Poisonwood Bible preview<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Full book review forthcoming, yet indulge me in some dabbles (most of which are from the perspective of a missionary wife and children). I swear there is just something about a southern woman finding empowerment in the strange lands of the Congo...</div>
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I married a man who could never love me, probably. It would have trespassed on his devotion to all mankind. I remained his wife because it was one thing I was able to do each day. My daughters would say: You see, Mother, you had no life of your own.</div>
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They have no idea. One has <i>only </i>a life of one's own.</div>
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I know how people are, with their habits of mind. Most will sail through from cradle to grave with a conscience clean as snow. It's easy to point at other men, conveniently dead, starting with the ones who first scooped up mud from riverbanks to catch the scent of a source. Why, Dr. Livingstone, I presume, wasn't he the rascal! He and all the profiteers who've since walked out on Africa as a husband quits a wife, leaving her with her naked body curled around the emptied-out mine of her womb. I know people. Most have no earthly notion of the price of a snow-white conscience.</div>
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Unable to work either the dishwasher or Methuselah's long memory into a proper ending for his parable, Our Father merely looked at us all and heaved the great sigh of the put-upon male. Oh, such a sigh. It was so deep it could have drawn water from a well, right up from beneath the floor of our nitwit household. He was merely trying, that sigh suggested, to drag us all toward enlightenment through the marrow of our own poor female bones.</div>Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-65462868156615160022012-04-29T12:15:00.001-07:002012-04-29T12:15:25.399-07:00"It wasn't all bad..."April 27, 2012 from The Week news:<br />
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"When Trish Vickers lost her sight, she poured her energies into writing a novel in longhand. But at the end of a 26-page writing session, she was devastated to discover that her pen had been dry and all the pages were blank. In desperation, Vickers, of Lyme Regis in the U.D., turned to her local police force's fingerprinting department for help. To her relief, the officers were able to use special lighting techniques to recover the writing from impressions on the pates. 'It was nice to do something for somebody,' said forensic specialist Kerry Savage, who completed the task during her lunch hours."Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-68772437269981451062012-01-31T19:06:00.000-08:002012-01-31T19:08:40.649-08:002012 discoveryA blog entitled: <a href="http://animalstalkinginallcaps.tumblr.com/">ANIMALS TALKING IN ALL CAPS</a><br />
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(1) Typing in all caps never gets old. Emulating some sort of voice immodulation disorder/lack of volume control over the computer is such a hoot y'all. Particularly when I look up at my screen and I've accidentally drafted three lines of an email to my boss virtually screaming. Gosh what a crack.<br />
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(2) Animals talking is just funny.<br />
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Here's a clip:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVrHNeW3iRRbKnuuxdxjn_xuNXLm9mLXJzgZmYSrOEcWvfpwVsEuW3oJbUBUmzZhJBQN_hr6Lbk5Fv3jkt7jpSQUv2M6xWFZowLJURHtGkFF8RX3Np6FP7R-4rEsXk8qoWeeF7XAFmPQqO/s1600/blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVrHNeW3iRRbKnuuxdxjn_xuNXLm9mLXJzgZmYSrOEcWvfpwVsEuW3oJbUBUmzZhJBQN_hr6Lbk5Fv3jkt7jpSQUv2M6xWFZowLJURHtGkFF8RX3Np6FP7R-4rEsXk8qoWeeF7XAFmPQqO/s320/blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; text-align: center;">I ASKED FOR A VEGETARIAN OPTION, NOT A SMORGASBOARD OF SIDE DISHES! CAN I GET A PROTEIN? SOME FUCKING QUINOA? ANYTHING REMOTELY ROBUST? THANKS FOR DOUBLING UP THE GARNISH BUT I DON’T ACTUALLY EAT ROSEMARY. IT’S 2012! CAN WE PLEASE JUST GET OUR SHIT TOGETHER? GO TO GRAMERCY TAVERN! GO TO PER SE! TAKE SOME NOTES! THIS IS RIDICULOUS! AND WHERE THE HELL IS MY WINE? WHAT PAIRS WELL WITH COMPLETE AND UTTER DISAPPOINTMENT? I’LL HAVE TWO GLASSES OF THAT WHENEVER YOU GET A CHANCE! </span> <br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;">Everyone enjoy their evening while I send these geniuses seasonal pictures of the <a href="http://smalltowngirlinparis.blogspot.com/2010/03/citizens-arrest.html">tiny sheriff</a>.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px;"><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; text-align: center;">xx</span>Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-73058618844865071172012-01-02T13:10:00.000-08:002012-01-02T13:10:42.140-08:002012: More lit please.Gosh y'all it's been so long since I've reviewed a book I barely remember what I read! And to state the sad truth, it hasn't been much the second half of 2011. My work schedule, Junior League schedule, and attending a wedding about every month (including MOH-ing in one! Mazel little sister!) made it a challenge to dive into a good book in the off time, not to mention I spend quite a bit of off time whispering sweet nothings to my mang if you catch my drift. Gosh what a crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful year (Just took it there with some country lyrics. I really <i>do</i> need to amp up the literature in my life.).<br />
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Some very brief highlights and lowlights from my reading adventures since we've last sipped and swirled together:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCADoSd9518xbadSRgeKF1fNKOBTNKtfm7PSZwi7xvsHVMaBg5DWz6kN7xNdqlOdTW7K8EzT1PzI6n3Mub1Q5EWSrOyPaMjBIhsrJxtzS-VVrCnxBv8cxZvUwORHssT9y0AqH93PcNIeXC/s1600/dracula.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCADoSd9518xbadSRgeKF1fNKOBTNKtfm7PSZwi7xvsHVMaBg5DWz6kN7xNdqlOdTW7K8EzT1PzI6n3Mub1Q5EWSrOyPaMjBIhsrJxtzS-VVrCnxBv8cxZvUwORHssT9y0AqH93PcNIeXC/s1600/dracula.jpg" /></a></div>Bram Stoker's Dracula was a true 2011 highlight. My classics ladies (Teri, Jackie, Biscuit and I) have had a small haitus only partially due to the birth of little Sofie Kay- the cutest little honorary book club member you could imagine- but we did manage to fit in this gem. Stoker's narrative story-telling is smooth, though sometimes endless, and he builds suspense, plants fear and tickles curiosity in this gothic, romantic horror story. It's a festive fall read and one of the few page-turners of its time (the UK in the 1800s was a snooze fest folks).<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqMy5-bNJLxqIEmEHHFEld4bXn2vHoEQmf3UlbE9VI91B8bzSopc7VbqpzrVSMl8IO7GBdJDn-mFozRfPLv7ViSC88CDZF-ph0T8AxaO92JYQ53BGjFoxT09csvH2cq18IZiVgKinhqyna/s1600/vanity+fair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqMy5-bNJLxqIEmEHHFEld4bXn2vHoEQmf3UlbE9VI91B8bzSopc7VbqpzrVSMl8IO7GBdJDn-mFozRfPLv7ViSC88CDZF-ph0T8AxaO92JYQ53BGjFoxT09csvH2cq18IZiVgKinhqyna/s1600/vanity+fair.jpg" /></a></div>William Thackeray's Vanity Fair. See snooze-fest comment above. Friends, this book confirms that any author who was paid by the word a la Charles Dickens just is<i> not</i> the man for me. If you had a few inches left in your suitcase to a deserted island for the rest of your life and had to choose between a copy of Vanity Fair and four stale hotdog buns, I'd have to flip for it.<br />
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zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWB3KocoQJ7ajyvseF9LInORsZAMRNdUosE_OUIggaOXWzLRdNB9surpI8peqsbs-C57gykVa4W1HY6S-FZzprqfmVK3MxLtmYrm3Pt4bZ6vY5Bbhke-5Y5Anrvx2w_f8zFf9KqeKYx7Jn/s1600/glass+castle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWB3KocoQJ7ajyvseF9LInORsZAMRNdUosE_OUIggaOXWzLRdNB9surpI8peqsbs-C57gykVa4W1HY6S-FZzprqfmVK3MxLtmYrm3Pt4bZ6vY5Bbhke-5Y5Anrvx2w_f8zFf9KqeKYx7Jn/s1600/glass+castle.jpg" /></a></div><br />
"The Glass Castle" By Jeannette Walls. Best read of 2011. Now usually the New York Times Bestseller List is a cesspool of complete malarkey, but the exceptions can be exceptional. This dysfunctional 2005 memoir is complete nonfiction, yet so sensational it rocks the conscience. Jeannette's parents are so negligent, you can barely forgive them, yet their own lessons on forgiveness are so remarkable and child-like that you wonder how these thoughts could reside in the parents who could provide nothing but a poverty-stricken, unstable and tragic childhood for their kids.<br />
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"Erma can't let go of her misery," Mom said. "It's all she knows." She added that you should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies. "Everyone has something good about them," she said. "You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that."<br />
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"Oh yeah?" I said. "How about Hitler? What was his redeeming quality?"<br />
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"Hitler loved dogs," Mom said without hesitation.<br />
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And those are a few remarks of 2011, along with a taste of my first 2012 read, "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield:<br />
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"People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic." <br />
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So see y'all for more reading in 2012. xxSmall Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-87856941601783123192011-06-19T19:05:00.000-07:002011-06-19T19:06:51.829-07:00Waiting for Superman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXSHXPRG_Uz9ThIAouTc3ByVGzD9kAi6CLbYkwi-ZfDeOu4kbInyeTXATd3KyV9qAPFJjAQlXHdaL9i6Obr0yZlsxq-7oZqVxL5byYCm8k68vKNjpIbrokpmbPon_on3QBCrrRzgWNaqH6/s1600/superman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXSHXPRG_Uz9ThIAouTc3ByVGzD9kAi6CLbYkwi-ZfDeOu4kbInyeTXATd3KyV9qAPFJjAQlXHdaL9i6Obr0yZlsxq-7oZqVxL5byYCm8k68vKNjpIbrokpmbPon_on3QBCrrRzgWNaqH6/s1600/superman.jpg" /></a></div>10-miler in Baltimore, a great weekend in sunny MD with my sweet mang, and I'm back in DC with a few pounds too many of pita chips in my belly (somebody <em>please </em>break into my apartment and hold me up at gunpoint to steal this damn bag!), and watching a documentary about 2 years late.<br />
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Waiting for Superman- a candid look at the shortfalls of our public school system, told through the eyes of hard-up folks who want their kids to have a better life, but don't have the choice of plugging them into a private school.<br />
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Allow me to corroborate a few of Geoffrey Canada's most salient points...<br />
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Tenure was originally designed as a protection for academia at the university level. The intention was to protect speech in an academic setting: not to allow the administration du jour to affect post-secondary research and curriculum with a political or personal agenda. To translate the idea of tenure into a primary and secondary education-level protection is completely erroneous. Please tell me what constitutional speech is threatened in second grade, when we're learning adverbs? Or when high schoolers are learning calculus (those of them who still reach that level these days)? As a matter of fact, I'm pretty comfortable with those teachers being <em>told </em>what to say and being granted only the discretion of <em>how</em> to say it. There will always be provocative issues in the public school system - evolution, banned books, political history - but these things are not protected through tenure, they're issues that are legislated or set by regulation! <br />
I've been party to discussions among new teachers, sharing just how nervous they are that they may not be "asked back" next year. Guess what folks- that's a great thing! When I worked at my old law firm, I was conscious of every work product I handed my boss, because I knew that if I handed him anything less, he could have someone smarter than me sitting in my chair tomorrow morning. Cue in Ayn Rand's personal challenge to live up to your potential please. It's not a back-breaking exercise, and that goes for whether you're arguing cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, or whether you're pushing a broom in the bathroom. It's not about being a superstar, it's about taking some ownership and doing a decent job.<br />
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We need national standards for our 50 states. And we need less bureaucracy, which would naturally accompany thoughtful national standards were they implemented correctly. The problem is there are so few self-starters in the federal and even state governments because they can be, in my opinion, lazy-bum factories. And heaven forbid we expect our Congress to produce meaningful legislation between reelections!<br />
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Now I'm not trying to criticize all teachers. I think they get paid too little and they deserve tons more appreciation and recognition than they get now - good teachers, that is. The system is flawed, and as in any other federal government setting, people who attempt to turn it upside down realize quickly their hands are tied with federal employment protections, unions, tenure, and a litany of other superfluous, destructive forms of job guarantees. That's not how this country became a superpower, but it just may be how this country cripples itself in its own red tape.Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-43330562587415120222011-06-10T13:08:00.000-07:002011-06-10T13:11:49.694-07:00Book Review: Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJFCuE1Joz5WvAGlII5JGfs5hbB22ysWFCSBGtwcCFHcI3UopCRA1V43GJMtoBS63N_n47q5bV4Z1gjFGd6IIf6FHi8KEYUt4JQ5iSXxQuDvGE78jgFU1L8FoBwI-st3cxC7s5_4ENgZy9/s1600/beatrice_and_virgil_320.jpg" t8="true" /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">If you read Life of Pi and loved it like I did, then do yourself a favor and:</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">1. Buy this book;</div><div style="text-align: left;">2. Read nothing about it online- none of the critic reviews and especially none of the plot summaries; </div><div style="text-align: left;">3. Get a box of tissues and keep an open mind; and </div><div style="text-align: left;">4. Enjoy another Yann Martel animal allegory, as painful as this one may be.</div></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">And those are both my review and recommendation bundled into four tidy directions. I don't want to hint at themes or touch upon turning points; I want you to experience them on your own. I had a hint of what was to come and I found myself waiting for it the entire read, which is no way to wander through Martel's carefully crafted mix of reality and fantasy.<br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">"It's so hard to talk about it. It hurt, it was painful -- that's all there is to say about it, really. But to feel it! We recoil from he flame of a single match, and here I was in the middle of a blaze. And still it wasn't over." ~ Yann Martel, <em>Beatrice and Virgil</em> <br />
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</div>Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-59523499139550154152011-06-09T10:29:00.000-07:002011-06-09T17:40:43.741-07:00Book Review: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFpcFtp81usOE1ruRkH2AM5BT2Hjbtu_eWifndWDIod0aPLBvMKMlnBqcu431PHAPCaGQbgL8KNsp0qCMNXYJW9Lujx2eS_Lh6Xfs7C7lF1dW4ShvapOWFKbCw-c_qq1Fh9UMqFAc83HPu/s1600/secret+life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFpcFtp81usOE1ruRkH2AM5BT2Hjbtu_eWifndWDIod0aPLBvMKMlnBqcu431PHAPCaGQbgL8KNsp0qCMNXYJW9Lujx2eS_Lh6Xfs7C7lF1dW4ShvapOWFKbCw-c_qq1Fh9UMqFAc83HPu/s320/secret+life.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>Sue Monk Kidd's 2002 best seller, "The Secret Life of Bees," is a tale of 14 year-old Lily Owens and her search for her late mother's past. After fleeing from her abusive father aside Rosaleen, her family's maid, she serendipitously stumbles upon the home of May, June and August - three black sisters who manufacture honey in South Carolina. Lots of strong female characters, lots of racial tension, and a little bit of southern Civil Rights Act-era American history.<br />
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This book was almost a mixture between The Help (which I swear I've reviewed but can't seem to find my write up right now) and <a href="http://smalltowngirlinparis.blogspot.com/2010/04/book-review-guernsey-literary-and.html">The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society</a>. Thankfully more of the former, as we all know I can't say enough about how much I disliked Guernsey. The Secret Life of Bees was sprinkled with slightly-too-silly moments that rang of the Guernsey characters' giggly traditions and ceremonies- very red hat society and devoid of meaning and creativity. But aside from some silly hats and a few weird chain gang reenactments, Kidd's themes were sincere and her story was a quick, lighthearted summer trip to the land of honey and cotton. <br />
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I'll leave you with Lily's first taste of love as a young girl:<br />
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"The whole time we worked, I marveled at how mixed up people got when it came to love. I myself, for instance. It seemed like I was now thinking of Zach forty minutes out of every hour, Zach, who was an impossibility. That's what I told myself five hundred times: impossibility. I can tell you this much: the word is a great big log thrown on the fires of love."*<br />
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*Now to be honest I'm not sure what "fires of love" are aflame at the ripe age of 14...Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-65102038281160691412011-05-17T17:07:00.000-07:002011-05-17T17:08:16.725-07:00Life's a West Palm BeachGreetings darlings - checking in live from sunny West Palm Beach where I'm relaxing, reading, sipping...err WORKING. Curiously stumbled across this gem on my wanders after a day of Florida's clean energy policy: <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4uSE0NmDGOdjtsaGAS6Z9gjDw_xOC7gJJnAwV8oF9_blGgjGgNPQgn415fJcdALGx7v7Vmkx60eRCaJUKOM2oWlOjDdb8b35ZkqRtm4vcMuBvsM16kS1LlJwBdkFq8w7MD-uMCBnuWXG6/s1600/IMG00022-20110517-1900%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" j8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4uSE0NmDGOdjtsaGAS6Z9gjDw_xOC7gJJnAwV8oF9_blGgjGgNPQgn415fJcdALGx7v7Vmkx60eRCaJUKOM2oWlOjDdb8b35ZkqRtm4vcMuBvsM16kS1LlJwBdkFq8w7MD-uMCBnuWXG6/s320/IMG00022-20110517-1900%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">(Sloane's Ice Cream and Candy Bar in downtown West Palm)</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Savored some delectable oatmeal raisin ice cream. Raisins + ice cream = two of my favorite things. Let's face it -- you could put raisins in damn near anything and I'd eat them. Enjoying the travel time to catch up on my much-neglected personal reading list. Here's a sweet treat for y'all tonight from my current read:</div><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">I lay back and tried to invent a story about why my mother had owned a black Mary picture. I drew a big blank, probably due to my ignorance about Mary, who never got much attention at our church. According to Brother Gerald, hell was nothing but a bonfire for Catholics. We didn't have any in Sylvan -- only Baptists and Methodists -- but we got instructions in case we met them in our travels. We were to offer them the five-part plan of salvation, which they could accept or not. The church gave us a plastic glove with each step written on a different finger. You started with the pinkie and worked over to the thumb. Some ladies carried their salvation gloves in their purse in case they ran into a Catholic unexpectedly.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">The only Mary story we talked about was the wedding story -- the time she persuaded her son, practically against his will, to manufacture wine in the kitchen out of plain water. This had been a shock to me, since our church didn't believe in wine or, for that matter, in women having a lot of say about things. All I could really figure was my mother had been mixed up with the Catholics somehow, and -- I have to say -- this secretly thrilled me. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, <em>The Secret Life of Bees</em></div></blockquote>Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-5856347139140825192011-03-18T18:01:00.000-07:002011-03-18T18:01:55.444-07:00The Spy Who Loved MeOur favorite saucy spy is<em> back</em> y'all. That's right- Valerie Plame has been double-crossed, taken the high road with some decent memoirs (highly recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fair-Game-Agent-Betrayed-Government/dp/B002NPCVK2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300495396&sr=1-1">Fair Game</a> if you're curious about all things CIA), dipped her toe into Hollywood waters when her memoirs became a (pretty mediocre) movie, and now she's just <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/books/valerie-plame-wilson-to-write-series-of-spy-novels.html?_r=1&ref=books">signed a deal with Penguin Group USA to write a series of international suspense novels</a>.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;">Good for Val. Given how she and 'ol Joe Wilson kept squeaking about how they didn't have a pot to piss in after and during the whole ordeal, hopefully this means she's banking beyond her wildest dreams and upgrading to granite countertops in her adobe abode. She may be a little overexposed these days, but Val is a solid citizen and a fearless broad who actually keeps her roots done.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">x</div>Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-3701850739937759412011-03-15T14:48:00.000-07:002011-03-15T16:18:11.039-07:00Thawing outMorning my sweets! Two days in a row of blogging from Miss ADD herself? What’s the special occasion?<br />
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None really. Just slowly emerging from winter hibernation. A <em>very </em>slight bit sad to say goodbye to some of the only things I enjoy about winter: straight hair, patterned tights, my space heater (which I regularly refer to as my boyfriend), and tons o' hot soup; but downright elated to say goodbye to everything else about Baltic daily life in the Mid-Atlantic. You know: bundling up for twenty minutes just to walk out the door, feeling like a crocodile to the touch, constant nail-breakage, gale force winds (Wind is my least favorite element! Good riddance arctic blasts!), my north face knee-length quilted parka that makes me look like a stuffed sausage, lack of regular running due to tundra-like conditions, and being stuck inside because even though there are no winter sports within reasonable range, I’m still bloody trapped in winter itself. <br />
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But our cold days are numbered. Time to blossom, young flowers (cue in interpretive dance from high school drama class), and throw on ballet flats, short skirts (hide your children), some SPF, and spend as little time indoors as possible! <br />
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In the spirit of curiosity, two quality discoveries of late:<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">1. Sylvia Plath. Feeling silly over here given I’m pushing 30 and just embracing Plath, but better late than never. Just watched “Sylvia,” a dark film documenting her life, in which she’s played by Gweneth Paltrow and her husband, Ted Hughes, is played by Daniel Craig. Neither are hard on the eyes and it was a sad but lovely film. Aren't sad ones usually the loveliest? I wholly agree. Inspired me to make two new book purchases: Plath’s “The Bell Jar”, and Hughes’ “Birthday Letters.” There are so many juicy stories about these two, I don’t even know where to start. Sweet Sylvia was a serial suicide addict since the ripe age of 9, and it turns out she gassed herself to death in her own kitchen (which was later mimicked by Hughes’ second wife, with whom he was having an affair while married to Plath). Folks these are the types of people who make me realize how glad I am to have a BO-RING life sans love triangles.<br />
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Check out these minxes: the real Sylvia on the left, and Gweneth playing Sylvia on the right (along real life and on screen mumsie). How cute are these two?</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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2. Stuff You Should Know podcasts. A sister podcast to my normal choice of Stuff You Missed In History Class, SYSK is a refreshing twist on what had become an endless series on ancient, ancient, <em>ancient</em> history (With a new host whom I don’t care for. "For whom I don't care," for the record, but sometimes following preposition rules sounds so pretentious to tell you the truth). Turns out I’m a good American, and I like my history fresh and recent and at a maximum 700 or so years old. My teenie, tiny little brain just can't fit more in. So I temporarily switched camps and listened to a fabulous, random podcast this morning about synesthesia -- it's a disorder when someone's senses accidentally tie together, and your visuals spark the feeling of touch (like how we all feel that tackle when we're watching the Gators, but for real), or sounds tie to colors and you literally see a color projection (sort of like Fantasia, but for real) accompanying every note. Our <a href="http://smalltowngirlinparis.blogspot.com/2010/07/sing-to-me-nabokov.html">dear compatriot Vladimir Nabokov</a> was apparently a "synesthese" -- perhaps symptoms are also being very, <em>very</em> naughty?<br />
Toodles for now. xo</div>Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-83336686510499428392011-03-14T18:25:00.000-07:002011-03-14T18:25:52.769-07:00Book Review: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTG_FFzV_ccI3hnpqV39-96XEl53zYkWMfiAdS0x0WhpTTM83LyfuRwCTIvxEzdtxIHzYa9wvARg-dPvZqeLIwVRq5HQgWKr0CZTkvWt2yUlTpn3Pd96JNENODDhce0xjZgRptQLXnJ72N/s1600/water-for-elephants.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTG_FFzV_ccI3hnpqV39-96XEl53zYkWMfiAdS0x0WhpTTM83LyfuRwCTIvxEzdtxIHzYa9wvARg-dPvZqeLIwVRq5HQgWKr0CZTkvWt2yUlTpn3Pd96JNENODDhce0xjZgRptQLXnJ72N/s320/water-for-elephants.jpg" width="206" /></a>Happy Monday y'all! Back to energy madness (not a great week for nuclear energy, eh?) and coming off a superlative weekend (wink, wink...). Just wrapping up this little number and moving on to the next jewel on my reading list which, did I mention, is bursting at the seams? My tiny apartment is so full of books I could probably be jailed for breaking some city fire ordinance! But I will persevere and share my precious space with the hundreds of chatty little roommates, as they will one day line the walls of my sprawling dream estate's rooms of built-in bookshelves. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One of my more recent addition's was Sara Gruen's "Water for Elephants," a depression-era novel about the life of Jacob Janowski, an ivy league-trained veterinarian who fled to join the circus. The story bounces between Jacob's present-day 93 year-old self, and his younger version working on the Benzini Brothers' Most Spectacular Show on Earth (swap "Benzini Brothers" with "Smith Sisters" and you'd have a great title for some of the drunken aerobics videos my sister and I made a few years ago- neither here nor there). Jacob falls in love with Marlena, the beautiful horse trainer and wife of August, a sort of jekyll and hyde-type who is more evil than he is good. And you quickly realize the story is just that: a story. It goes by quickly and painlessly, even including a decent love triangle, but without real meaning or identifiable themes. Not to mention the title is never really explained (it is elluded to in a nursing home conversation, but is immediately forgotten and turns out to be quite arbitrary).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Overall, a cheap 'n cheerful read for a rainy afternoon, which was a perfect chaser to Tom Wolfe's bantering manifesto.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Have a lovely week enjoying the longer days! Sister and I are bussing up to NYC this weekend so I can run the New York Half Marathon and she can help me carb load at Mario Batali's newest Manhattan hot spot, <a href="http://www.mariobatali.com/restaurants_lupa.cfm">"Lupa."</a> Can't wait for some sister time, running through the city to the cheers of the crowd, and most of all, the pasta. xx</div>Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-84202263969666009062011-03-02T06:20:00.000-08:002011-03-15T20:09:01.105-07:00Book Review: A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-CiPMQid6ygBzm-2ubbLY0JAkCwWxIuaBbiUpkadOyPQYZoA1EvHNoWmUaL4MzWsZPzoyFLnKZU2EqkplGrC9ymh2pz6WbF0-IbII2oNvOa5NuJZtNkzOiljLZgm3Sk7nCEpAE6OTJv_/s1600/tom+wolfe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-CiPMQid6ygBzm-2ubbLY0JAkCwWxIuaBbiUpkadOyPQYZoA1EvHNoWmUaL4MzWsZPzoyFLnKZU2EqkplGrC9ymh2pz6WbF0-IbII2oNvOa5NuJZtNkzOiljLZgm3Sk7nCEpAE6OTJv_/s1600/tom+wolfe.jpg" /></a></div>Friends and lovers- how's things? This has been a whirlwind month of working + work travel for me, and I have let my personal reading list slip by the wayside as I've ingested tons of clean energy lit. Oh renewable portfolio standards and public utility commissions! Hark our clean energy future! (errr...or not. As usual, thanks for nothing Congress.)<br />
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Not only that, but my reading list queue has been hogged by this beast, Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full." At almost 800 pages, the 'ol chap really outdid himself this time. Looking back at a book it took me over a month to read, my only real comment, which is more a complaint, is that it was <em>long</em>. Reading 800 pages of Tolstoy goes down like a glass of champagne; reading 800 pages of Tom is like my morning Jillian Michaels video: watching the minutes pass on my clock but sticking through the pain because I know it's good for me (Love you Jillian darling! Especially if I get my 6-week 6-pack!). The man is just too verbose, the plot is just too predictable, and all of his characters are just too over the top. Now I've never been one to practice moderation, but all of his antagonists are in a <em>constant</em> battle with themselves and you can cut the tension with a knife at any page in the book. That's <em>exhausting</em> y'all! <br />
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So if you're on the market to ingest 800 pages of racial and class tension in Atlanta during the boom 90s: knock yourself out. But if you're interested in a taste of Tom, you'd be well-served to munch on some <a href="http://smalltowngirlinparis.blogspot.com/2010/12/bonfire-was-named-after-bonfire.html">Bonfire</a> and take the next exit back to your bookshelf.<br />
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xxSmall Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-53241147356964225192011-01-24T17:30:00.000-08:002011-01-24T17:33:08.926-08:00If I were a boyOne of my favorite tracks on "I am Sasha Fierce" - partially because it's a catchy tune and partially because Beyonce correctly uses the subjunctive mood ("were" instead of "was"). But seriously ladies- have you ever thought about it? If you were a boy? Beyonce has. And so have I.<br />
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If I were a boy...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix6Cs6X1PepYWca7dVpUeeI1-2jONq6ZdX6GL1fjCB3tbG-X-FRC6n9laOfQH78TcJ5waC_TAdoqrpbe8q2UD5Z_13ERENHH0ffV5hQ0sOzH7WBLGZrue3Etoh2vPX7hrCTfwUPrz7YFJb/s1600/tom+w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix6Cs6X1PepYWca7dVpUeeI1-2jONq6ZdX6GL1fjCB3tbG-X-FRC6n9laOfQH78TcJ5waC_TAdoqrpbe8q2UD5Z_13ERENHH0ffV5hQ0sOzH7WBLGZrue3Etoh2vPX7hrCTfwUPrz7YFJb/s1600/tom+w.jpg" /></a></div>1. I'd dress like Tom Wolfe. That is one dapper, tiny man who may not have the most brilliant prose of his time (sorry Tom), but his books are fun to read, and he's always rocking white after Labor Day.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE5dt-69cJNf6kiy9AybtYa6jXI-Q1N7l6G6w_iDDdoFkNCV16k2HbSI-fKD0K927dI2eGpfGU43Foc6e1_NG6bpbdS1tX7-92C0B419yh-pfNd0dKgu9tmkAqXRvVd8xzbIfhXaH0yxMi/s1600/matt+lau.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" s5="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE5dt-69cJNf6kiy9AybtYa6jXI-Q1N7l6G6w_iDDdoFkNCV16k2HbSI-fKD0K927dI2eGpfGU43Foc6e1_NG6bpbdS1tX7-92C0B419yh-pfNd0dKgu9tmkAqXRvVd8xzbIfhXaH0yxMi/s320/matt+lau.jpg" width="178" /></a></div>4. I'd care what I looked like naked (like Matt Lauer here obviously does- God bless him). I don't mean this in a raunchy way - honest. I just mean that men have it <em>so</em> easy - their metabolism is through the roof and they could skip one beer a day and lose 5 pounds without lifting a finger. Come <em>on</em>. Women obsess over our physical appearance with diet and exercise, yet we still have cellulite, spider veins, and Lord knows what else. So get a gym membership and break a sweat for pete's sake.<br />
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If I were a boy, I'd <em>definitely</em> ask me out for cocktails.<br />
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xoSmall Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-11915332857694045502011-01-17T13:39:00.000-08:002011-01-22T07:40:34.726-08:00Book Review: Chastened by Hephzibah Anderson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheowaVfrfazmOfHxd5HuB2XB9BenR5qaZ_tEwD3zMBd7pMQ1-wlcOsJevqYLm7NBLtunnsApGxBwFmKbIgnHLT1vhQtrWkOdalegwL0OvvvjIbZIfeXLeuIvmfrKNy8CQrekzyo4wb5yuK/s1600/chastened.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheowaVfrfazmOfHxd5HuB2XB9BenR5qaZ_tEwD3zMBd7pMQ1-wlcOsJevqYLm7NBLtunnsApGxBwFmKbIgnHLT1vhQtrWkOdalegwL0OvvvjIbZIfeXLeuIvmfrKNy8CQrekzyo4wb5yuK/s1600/chastened.jpg" /></a></div>An interesting choice for a book review given that my most seasoned blog patron is my mother. I believe we've officially come full circle since she was my sex-ed teacher in the 7th grade (I'm serious. Who would make something like that up?). This book is pretty self-explanatory: Hephzibah takes a year off sex. As if the thought of going without sex for extended periods of time is the ultimate deprivation for our generation (which certainly begs the question, ladies- who <em>are</em> these skilled creatures you've slept with who make it so hard to fathom going without? Pray tell?). <br />
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For a book premised upon the idea of isolating oneself from men to enable self-growth -- this book was entirely about men. It was like being back in middle school, sitting outside on the lawn during lunch, dying to escape into a daydream about horseback riding later that afternoon while my boy-crazy girlfriend du jour obsessed about every single male on campus. Enough already! If I wanted to read another book about women philosophizing about society's gender roles while simultaneously fixating over every man in the room, I'd pick up another Elizabeth Gilbert novel.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Yet for her lack of female focus and stream of consciousness literature review-style prose, Anderson does write very well and has some note-worthy (even if not novel) points, mainly that sex ends the conversation that is so important between two people getting to know each other. And hook-ups are the last place to look for real romance. Ladies: please tell me you knew this...<br />
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xoSmall Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-34830468317632078622011-01-13T13:59:00.000-08:002011-01-13T14:00:25.208-08:00Hey y'all!I was candidly reminded of my delinquence by the lovely Mel in boot camp this morning (who kicked my *ss in our pushup challenge, might I add). I have one book review on deck and a long-overdue update for you lovelies that will be up this weekend.<br />
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Good day.<br />
xxSmall Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-11571394635416387302010-12-29T06:45:00.000-08:002010-12-29T06:45:05.774-08:00Move along sister."Even as I lived it, that first autumn in the adult world felt as vivid as memory: bright and breezy and so warm that I strolled bare-legged into October and a future that at last seemed mine to inscribe, thrilled through and through. If he had felt something of that, we probably would have lasted a little longer, though I don't kid myself that we wouldn't have outgrown each other sooner rather than later. Besides, I'd fallen for another -- my heart now belonged to boundless, inconstant possibility. Had I been seduced by the fickle idea that someone more perfect might be waiting around the corner? I had, but it wasn't only that -- I also believed a more perfect me could be waiting there, too, just beyond the turn in the road." ~Hephzibah Anderson, <em>Chastened</em>Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7935423680316160377.post-8425060688164463582010-12-28T06:51:00.000-08:002010-12-30T07:14:57.123-08:00Book Review: The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston with Mario Spezi<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrG5wBHMkW4xFoQhkZZ3vT7aRRtTQTrt59OJGw4iURUsfgQ5dhSeul3_Sq9VprBiYK4LC-3NFr6z3BKYJ_3Ox9M9MPCRyY82trA4FSsjT7TjuuB3gFz2-njPV8mr9ENatJGVKiEd1F5Hv2/s320/Monster%252520of%252520Florence_jpg.jpg" width="212" /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">"The Monster of Florence" is a 2008 true crime book by American author Douglas Preston and Italian journalist Mario Spezi. When Preston chased a dream of moving his family to Italy, he discovered that the olive grove in front of their 14th century farmhouse had been the scene of the most infamous double-murders in Italian history, committed by a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence (who coincidentally inspired the novel <em>Hannibal</em> by Thomas Harris). Spezi spent much of his career tracking the Monster of Florence, and shortly after the two met, they decided to wipe the dust off the cold case.</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">This is the true story of their search for the real Monster, and their first-hand accounts of just how dysfunctional Italy's judicial system really is. I mean <em>wow</em>. Case in point: while writing the book, both of the authors themselves became targets of the police investigation, their phones tapped, harshly interrogated, forcing Preston to flee back to the US. Spezi ends up thrown into an Italian prison, accused of being the Monster himself. Not only does there appear to be no rule of law in that country, but the masses and their leaders seem completely obsessed by "dietrologia" -- the Italian word for "the science of what is behind." According to Preston, dietrologia is a toxic condition in Italy; Italians refuse to believe simple factual explanations and always search for something hidden behind the facts which they're convinced provides the <em>real </em>explanation. This clearly infected judicial system in the Monster case, as attorneys, judges and police chiefs ignored rational explanations and patterns of the serial killings (at one point the FBI even took the liberty of sending a prototype of the killer which was ignored), and instead obsessed over fabricated satanic cults and implausible religious practices. There were five different men arrested for these crimes, all at different times, all under different wacky theories, half of which were eventually released. That would <em>never </em>happen in the US (thank heavens)!</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">Sound familiar? Briefly mentioned in this book is the similar plight of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_knox">Amanda Knox</a> (a.k.a. "foxy knoxy"), an American student studying abroad in Perugia (ironically the same town where the Monster trials were held) who was convicted of murdering her roommate, despite the fact some African dude had already been found guilty and sentenced to what has ended up being <em>less</em> time in prison than Amanda and her boyfriend. And to top it all off, the Italian government is now suing her for defamation as a result of her testifying she was beat up during her interrogations!</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">Great read, great dabble into non-fiction, and an important lesson: be on your best behavior while vacationing in Italy for the love of everything sacred and holy!</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">xo</div>Small Town Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14450490528977371410noreply@blogger.com1