New Books

Christmas brought an influx of new books, both as gifts and through raiding my mom's bookshelf. I have posted most of them on the reading list sidebar. I am particularly excited about The Great Trek, a religious pilgrimage into the desert where a group of mennonites believed Christ would return. My mom's great grandfather was part of the trek. Obviously the second coming did not occur, and most of the mennonites were sent money by relatives in the US and Canada so they could immigrate.

I also received the fabulous entertaining guide I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris and I'm Just Here for More Food, Alton Brown's book on baking (it's more than a cookbook, it's about the science of baking at a non-scientist level)

I finished Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro and can highly recommend it to all. Leah hasn't let me down yet.

Home Again, Again

I never really know how to use the term home... Fresno (now Auberry) is home because its where my family is, even though I've never actually lived in the new house. Maybe it's because it is almost the same as the old house, and my old room is still a bedroom, that it still feels like home. I will say that the scenery around the new house is much nicer. I understand why they would want to move out of the city (understand, but I wouldn't do it myself)






I enjoyed seeing so many friends and family, and the trip to San Francisco was a good time. Adam, Ed, Heather and I went to the DeYoung, in Golden Gate Park. It has been a while since I've been to the park and the Haight Ashbury District. The new De Young has a great perforated metal facade (possibly Cor-Ten) and the tower is much less obtrusive then I had heard. In fact the whole thing reminded me of a Mayan Temple complex.


The circulation through the museum was unclear, particularly since so many of the rooms opened on to each other. this seems like a good idea, as it allows flexibility for curators and visitors, but it makes it difficult to follow any sequence. On occasion I would find that I had overlooked a room, or that I had inadvertently jumped from one collection into another. Still the museum had some very interesting moments, such as views into the atrium, or out to the sculpture garden. Also the galleries were fairly straight-forward, with well diffused lighting. The art was not overpowered by the architecture, which I feel is important in museum design. I didn't get a chance to visit the cafe, since it was a fairly short visit.

There were a couple notable exhibits, such as the Ruth Asawa collection (above) most of the work was her woven wire sculpture, along with some photos and drawings. Ed took several photos (both openly and later surreptitiously) so I recommend his blog if you are interested. He should be posting them soon. Adam took photos of the small but interesting furniture collection. The furniture was spread out through the museum according to period, which makes sense but also suggests that the furniture is secondary to the paintings. Perhaps that show my bias.


The museum was also hosting "The Quilts of Gee's Bend" a fairly well know collection of quilts from an African American community in Alabama. Some day I want to take up quilting. I'm particularly interested in the adaptations of traditional patterns, which was a theme among many of the quilts on display. Perhaps there will a longer post about quilting in the near future.


But now I'm back in Seattle, my other home. Holiday was good, but it wore me out and I had to have a day alone walking the neighborhood, getting an overdue haircut, that sort of thing. Next post, New Years day reflections and that sort of stuff.

Home again, home again

Yes I made it home, and once again managed to score a free travel voucher by detouring through Portland and arriving 6 hours after my original itinerary. Hell, for a free flight anywhere in the US, you bet I'll volunteer to get bumped. Now the question is where to go? Last years free flight took me to Colorado to visit Jay and Becki, this years has a good chance of landing on the East coast. Philly is high on the list, and when I'm that close why not go to New Jersey? Who in their right mind could pass up a chance to go to Jersey? Of course nothing is set in stone, so let the bribing commence. I invite my far flung friends to compete for my affections. Unfortunately I Horizon Air will not take me to Oslo or Kobe, so Jeff and Liz are out of the running (although still welcome to compete for my affection/ care packages).

Holiday Plans

OK, here are the preliminary plans for the holidays:

I fly in on the Thursday 21st, mid morning.

Saturday - Monday family

Fly back to Seattle Friday (29th)


I still want to go to the DeYoung in San Francisco (Ed said after Christmas works best for him.) Other than that I am open for anything. I'm thinking drinks, movies, horrible TV...

Train Wreck

For anyone lamenting the loss of House of Carters, there is a new train wreck called Bad Girls cmopliments of the Oxygen Network, which has apparently forgotten any sense of mission it may have had. I'm telling you, if you want to see a drunk girl slapping the crap out of her roomates tune in. Lets think about it for a minute, find 6 or 7 women known as 'bad girls' know for there history of violence and issues with other girls, put them in a house with a bunch of booze and no jobs, and watch the magic unfold. Put it this way, they interpret 'hair of the dog that bit you' as a BOTTLE of tequila. As bad as The real World has become, this is soo much worse, which is why we Tivo it.

I'm not sure how to attach YouTube videos, so follow this link.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Keep Disneyland, give me Powells City of Books.

Yesterday I drove down to Portland (in Nihls the Saab- I love cruise control) with 4 boxes of books. They turned down about a box worth, but I still came out of it with $250 in store credit (what can I say, I have good taste in books and they pay a decent rate) for a shopping spree. Usually when I go to Portland I am with friends, and we have several goals for the trip. This time it was just me, and Powells was the sole destination. After parting with my precious books (this is the first time I ever sold any of my books, it always seemed wrong) I headed to the cafe to fuel up on coffee and lunch. All told I spent about 6 hours in the store. Of course that meant another trip to the cafe, and I even had the pleasure of running into Travis and Holly, and darling little Lyla (sp?) who now has about times the hair as Travis. They were kind enough to invite me to stay at their place that night, but I had it in my mind that this would be a day trip, and I have a hard time changing plans.

This is a new discovery about myself, I like to think I'm a pretty laid back flexible person, but when I get an idea in my head for how to spend the day I have a hard time changing it. If I've been looking forward to taking a long walk around the neighborhood and hunkering down at a cafe with a good book, you'll be hard pressed to convince me otherwise.

Of course no trip to the bookstore is complete without a couple items for myself. Most importantly a book called Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, recommended by Leah Jost. Leah has never let me down yet so... I also picked up a book on Shaker architecture and a history of the house.

Next step, sell off some cd's for another shopping trip.

Storm Day

For starters, poor whiny Jay couldn't handle my colors, they were just too real for his sensitive eyes. But I will continue to mix it up.

So we had another storm come through. No snow this time, but crazy wind with gust up to 65mph. I felt the whole house shaking under me, the same way it would in an earthquake. There was also a lot of rain in a short time, so quite a bit of flooding. And I saw green lighting, no foolin. Ted (roommate) said that in the midwest that usually means a tornado is coming. I think its because of all the dirt and stuff in the air. The overall result was debris all over the streets and power outages around the city (although not at my house). When I got to work I found the power out and the office cold, so I packed up the model I'm working on and headed home. The last time I had a power outage day off was during the rolling blackouts in CA.

Book Lust

I was asked for a book suggestion the other day, and I figured why not pontificate to the public about my favorite books. So this evening I sat in front of my recently thinned bookshelves ( 6 boxes are going to Powell’s Books in Portland next weekend, partly to make room for books piled on the floor and partly to help pay for holiday merriment and presents) and came up with a list of my top 10 fiction books. They are presented in alphabetical order by author. Of course there are many others that I feel bad about not including, but one has to draw the line somewhere.

1. Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
2. The More Than Complete Hitchhikers Guide by Douglas Adams
3. The Classic Illustrated Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
4. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner
5. The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse
6. Borderliners by Peter Hoeg
7. Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murikami
8. The Chosen by Chaim Potok
9. In The Beginning by Chaim Potok
10. Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
11. Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams

Also ran/ honorable mention:
1. The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
2. Kafka was the Rage by Anatole Broyard
3. Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
4. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
5. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig

What can I say, it’s hard to limit yourself to a list. Keep in mind these are only books from the fiction wing, and only those on the shelves. Presumably none of the books to be sold would make it on the list. And of course there are a lot of other great books, fun (books like The Cockroaches of Staymore by Donald Harrington or the Frisco Pigeon Mambo by C.D. Payne) or challenging in their own way (like Vineland by Thomas Pynchon), but I must not have read them recently enough to list them today. It should also be noted that these are not necessarily books that I would recommend to others. Some of them remain on my shelves for particular reasons beyond their literary worth.

So what have I missed? Are there any books that I have been a fool to go so long without reading? Any that ought to be removed from the list? Do you people read?

The car came back

Yes, my car was recovered, which means it was found abandoned in a parking lot by a mall out of town (Tukwila for those of you that know the area, across from South Center Mall). Of course the stereo was missng and the door lock is jacked up. they basically took everything they could, except they were too stupid to open the storage divider between the front seats, so they left the case for the stereo face and the Ipod fm transmiter. they did go to the trouble to take the car jack. Why would you want to steal a tiny ass car jack?

So now I have to wait for an insurance guy to come look it over and give me an estimate. Chances are it won't even be worth a settlement by te time I pay my deductable. Oh well..

On the plus side the editing buttons have returned to my posting window, which means I can add photos now.

Stolen Car

Yes, once again I have had my car stolen. Its been several years since the last time, I figured my luck was improving after having set the record at FPU. I was parked at a friends house last night, and when I came out ot drive home there was nothing to drive in.

apparently the return rate is pretty high in Seattle, although I would really prefer not to get it back. It seems like the hassle involved and the damage they end up doing are usually more of a pain. It is a good car and all, but I like to think of car theft as a way of keeping you from becoming too attached, a sign that its time to get something new.

In the meantime I've got the Saab again, thank goodness for friends leaving the country!

I would pst a photo of something, but the photo option is still not working for me.

Posting

I wanted to do a post today that required an image, but I don't see the image link button. Anyone else having that problem?