QueryLily "...I would never have thought of asking How you'd got that peculiar name..."

quite a lot

I've quite a lot of work to get finished this weekend. Tomorrow, I may take a celebratory break and go see "Return of the King" with some friends. Meanwhile it's mostly work, work, work.

I'm near finished with M. John Harrison's "Light", which is currently only available from fine bookshops in the UK. It's a fine book. Harrison's prose has a crisp beauty and the narrative flows along at a brisk pace, yet unhurriedly. Highly recommended.

What's next on the old reading list? Ahhhh....the 1818 text of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", which if back covers are to be believed, "... is a black comedy...harder and wittier than the 1831 version with which we are more familiar."

[24 January 2004] link?

dreams of uma

It was likely due to reading too much of a good thing, Rick Veitch's collection of his dreamwork comic, "Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends", that I had several very vivid and engaging dreams towards the end of last week. Of course, since I didn't write them down, most of them are forgotten. But, I do remember one dream quite clearly.

I was with my grandson and we were watching a Cinerama movie at the combo Barnes and Noble bookstore and movie emporium. After the movie, we wandered over to the bookstore in back of the theatre where I purchased the new Uma Thurman autobiography. It had a very striking photograph of Uma on the cover. As I read through her book, I noted that she had a quotation from a Tibetan Buddhist teacher prefacing each chapter. When I awoke, the first thought I had was, of course! Robert Thurman is her father.

[12 January 2004] link?

light

My packet of books arrived from England at the end of last week. I'm settling down, that is when not working or sleeping, to reading M. John Harrison's new book, "Light". I'm almost fifty pages into it and it is delicious. It's amazing that a book that's won a major award lacks a U.S. publication date. Someone's asleep, but then someone often is. Anyway, M. John Harrison writes a good read and has a nice site, Empty Space, which has an up-to-date forum.

A lot of work to do today. Finish a report. Get ready for Monday. I've been chipping away, listening to a bunch of EmmyLou Harris songs as I go along.

[11 January 2004] link?

happy new year to us

Happy New Year To Us.

Mountains, rivers, oceans, air, steppes, highlands, lowlands, deserts, swamps, icescapes. Ferrets, snails, apes, dogs, cats, cows, snakes, fish, whales, elephants, humans, grasses, trees, fungi, bacteria, snowflakes, etc.

Here we all are again, more or less, on our little spinning rock. Striving, forlorn, warring, loving, ailing, wailing, sleeping, birthing, waking, dying, swimming, observant, flying, clueless, slithering, kind, cruel, sitting, braying, standing still, going nowhere, headed somewhere, or just walking dully along.

Happy New Year To Us All.

[1 January 2004] link?