The Garret

LJ! I did not mean to abandon you for weeks on end while I gallivanted in foreign parts! Honest. It's just that gallivanting around New York and then Washington, DC was so much easier without having a computer along for the ride.

But I'm back now.

( fondue. and books. and fondue. and books. but mostly fondue, and ALA Annual )

So now I'm back and slowly getting acclimated to being an employed member of society. cadragongirl has left to celebrate the Fourth with her excellent family, and I'm in something of a jdrama/kdrama slump lately, so I think I'll just sit around and watch Veronica Mars Season 3.

Also, for the record, it turns out you can't live on instant chocolate pudding, actually.

mousapelli got me a Stuffy Puppy V-Gift! THANK YOU MOUSI! ♥♥♥♥

Drizzly rainy day. Going to bake bread in a bit, I think, and try to compose a poem about why I can’t stand Dr. Seuss.

Let's do this post old-school, where a bunch of stuff happens and I do a diary-style entry!

( well we went down the road, got soaked in moonlight )

Apparently April is Poetry Month? So I guess I’d better keep posting poems, then. Here, have a dark rainy day poem I’m thinking of putting in my anthology project:

Like wolf--and black bull or goblin hound,
Or come in guise of spirit
With wings and long wet waving hair
And at the fire its locks will dry,
Which will be a certain sign
That one beneath the roof must die
Before the year’s decline
Forget not now what I have said,
Sit there till we return.
The hearth is hot—watch well the bread
Lest haply it may burn.

(by Charlotte Brontë, found in Victorian Women Poets, ed. Angela Leighton & Margaret Reynolds. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1995. p. 161)

I’d better go get started on that bread, then. And keep a close eye on it.

Officially I'm on spring break. In reality, I'm desperately trying to get everything read, and to restart whatever poetry organ I may have. (I think it's the little purple one nestled right on top of my liver.)

And not to think about the future, because it makes me sick to my stomach.

Monday I went to class in costume. Was I Veronica Mars, you ask? Why, what gave it away? Was it the green blazer? The misanthropic attitude? The eyeliner?

Thursday I ran around trying to find a brand of whole wheat flour NOT made by King Arthur Flour, because that stuff simply refuses to rise. I failed, and thus my bread was unrisen. But reasonably tasty. The cornbread and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies turned out okay too. So... yay for epic baking?

In The Minionship news, I have decided to memorize more poetry. This will give some value to the hours spent at the copier or distributing things, value aside from the perfecting of movement and repetition. Do you have a favorite poem or poems in any language that I should know and memorize?

Poetry is said to keep you sane.

We shall see.

Safely in CA and counting down the days to Japan. I expect to spend most of them wandering around the house, Donald Keene translations in hand, absentmindedly wrapping things and trying not to kill myself with the stairs.

( airplanes, Gilbert & Sullivan, and keeping the fire department entertained )

Pre-semester booklist just came in. Heigh-ho Prius, away! To the library!

I had a crazy weekend in that it was the Simmons Summer Institute, with the theme of "Crimes and Misdemeanors." The class's syllabus was based on works by the speakers, so it was pretty exciting to hear them speak and meet some of them. What a weekend. I am still reeling from how much I love MT Anderson. I thought I loved him before, but damn.

( This section has been cut for fangirling )

And now I'm searching frantically for books featuring a thief narrator/protagonist so I can write my paper. I've got Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief and sequels, Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy, Hilari Bell's first two Knight and Rogue books, and Celia Rees's Sovay. Any others you can think of? Children's books would be best for my paper, although I'd be interested to hear of any others you might recommend.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The library won’t let me renew Ovid’s Metamorphoses any more. *grumble* I’ve only renewed it a paltry six times since February; what’s wrong with them?

My cheap Venice, CA flip-flops died today. In the office. So I had to flop around like an ungainly Cinderella, until I fixed them with giant rubber bands. Woe, now I have no tacky bronze-strapped bamboo-soled flip-flops to wear with my purple shirts. All mourn.

Wednesday, July 23, 3008
I had to fill in an Intern Profile form today, having done the obligatory week-long procrastination thing. Mostly I spent the morning trying to make my photo look semi-normal, then stared blankly at the actual form for half an hour. What does one do with questions like “Tell us about yourself. Be creative!” and “Tell us about your experience this summer- what did you do, like, dislike?” and “What’s your favorite children’s book?” I eventually listed The Grey King and wrote something insipid for the other stuff.

I was sorely tempted to put the first two lines of Ovid's Ars Amatoria in the “Anything else?” section, because they could be loosely interpreted to be about books. Or a particular book to inspire a love of reading.

Siquis in hoc artem populo non novit amandi,
Hoc legat et lecto carmine doctus amet.

If there be any among this company who knows not the art of loving,
Let him read this book, and once it has been read, let him love as an expert.*

I took it out, though, on grounds of unnecessary pretentiousness.

Ooh, thunderstorm. *distracted*

I also pioneered dummy book construction this afternoon. This entailed cutting lots of paper, using double-stick tape, and bossing the part-time intern around. NB: dummy book making is much easier if the page images are all the same size. They really did turn out beautifully. These are probably the best-constructed, sturdiest, sleekest dummy books ever produced. The spreads even lined up across the center fold and lay beautifully flat. *proud*

It’s nice to do a good job once in a while.

( Crooked Still and Boston )

*I know, I know. Tweaking my translation to fit an agenda = Bad Scholarship.

...but it's so much fun!

WHO, you may ask, has an ARC of The Kevin Crossley-Holland New And Improved Book Otherwise Known As Gatty’s Tale? OH YEAH. (The forthcoming US edition is called Crossing to Paradise, but for some reason I can't get the link to work. Sorry. But it is pretty! It is the prettiest ARC I have ever seen! And the cover model has Gatty's river eyes! (Read it and this will all make sense, I swear.))

Also, O Certain Incipient Authors, I know my Certain Acclaimed Author books! You cannot steal her genre-specific vocabulary without my finding out and calling shenanigans!

Thank God they have me to know these things.

Ahem. I mean, long day at the minionship.

( My weekend, cut for style )

Dear Reader,

I am being spied upon by two pint-sized maniacs who are thoroughly overexcited by every move I make (or fail to make). Yesterday I managed to send one of them into convulsive fits merely by shifting the position of my knee. I have no concern for my own safety, as I am about five times their combined size, but I do fear for their mental stability.

Yrs in veritatate,

A Lady of Quality

Signed this twelfth day of March in the year 2008 of the Common Era. In gaudio gaudiamus.

Also, what is it with Ovid and cows? Jeez.

( Dinosaurs! Books! No Latin whatsoever! )

Television in general, and Hannah Montana specifically, are God’s gift to babysitters. That is what is in my heart right now.

Life goes on. The denizen children are still a bit shy with me but we are getting along all right. One of their appalling friends keeps asking me “When are you leaving?” every time she sees me, which is a bit disconcerting. I have the urge to say something vile to her but am restraining myself, as she is young and it is not her fault that she has no manners. I should warn people to look out once she gets older though.

( The New York Chronicles: Hic Incipit Vita Nova Saevaque )

I have also discovered the Bookstore Cafe in Soho. LOVE.

Btw, the movie meme is still happening in the previous entry. Now with extra quotes! Because I'd hate for some of these to go unguessed...

Stolen from snowqueenofhoth. Because everybody loves a movie meme, right? And because I feel like taking a break from explaining why this manuscript should be about infant castration as a form of birth control, instead of what it’s actually about...

eta: I, in my infinite wisdom, have decided to add extra quotes for the movies unguessed as of 3/4/08. These may be slightly more clueful.

( Movie Quote Meme )