Ruby Tuesday

Visit to the Local Library helps, or does it?

Well now that our Local Library is so conveniently located, I am going there every chance I get. Is that good? Well it is excellent to satisfy my hunger to read and collect everything that I can get in my two arms to carry out so... I have a lot of books started and that makes my evenings very very busy!

Because of those great book bloggers out there that are opening my eyes to new authors, poets, new books of already well known authors and etc. I only have to input from home directly online to the Anchorage Library website for my "plat du jour" and here I am with many "dishes" waiting for me on the "holding" shelf at the Chugiak/ Eagle River Branch with my name inserted ready to be eaten, no reheating necessary. So convenient! I was first very annoyed by our branch being closed on Sundays and Mondays, I am now happy about it: For two days I don't have the option for a quick visit to see what is new.

Anyway my last "loot" included Carl Sandburg's selected poems. That was a real treasure. Did not know him before and I love his poetry. Here is a short one to give you "l'eau a la bouche":

I Sang

I sang to you and the moon

But only the moon remembers.

I sang

O reckless free-hearted

free throated rhythms,

Even the moon remembers them

And is kind to me.

I also got Ana Castillo's "Watercolor Women Opaque Men". I fell in love with the cover by artist Rufino Tamayo. I had seen it at the Phoenix Art Museum once. It is a memoir in verse and gives me a little view of what it is to be a Mexican picking seasonal fare in the USA. How it was to grow up from imigrants without money to speak of but how love substained them. I am just at the beginning and it really is easy to pick up and leave because of the short sections devoted to one subject at a time.
Another memoir but this time this woman is an famous editor (unknown to me until few days ago) Diana Athill: "Somewhere towards the end". Love the title and love the way she confines the very personal moments in her life in such a casual, honest way. I am enjoying that one too very much. Margaret from Bookplease introduced me to her.

Then "The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters was practically lifting its arms at me to be taken... It was short listed for The Booker Man Prize this year. That is going to be scary!!!

I am finishing "Nocturnes" by Kazuo Ishiguro. Short stories. Not my favorite not because of the author but because of the characters and the difficulties I had to look at the human behaviors in his stories. You wish never to know any of those people. They are so pathetic. No back bones and are as fickle as fickle can be even when they have talent they lack the self esteem and assurance that they need to succeed. Nevertheless I am reading it with interest and I am learning as I do. Can't help feeling pity and I don't like that feeling at all. I did a lot of head shaking. Maybe that is why I have had vertigo for two days now...ahahha.

I have started "Company of Liars" by Karen Maitland and I am time traveling to the dark Middle Ages it seems where a group of people are connecting, the Black Death is spreading in England. Different century same mistrust and same problems so far but also same hope of better days ahead. I do enjoy the rhythm of the language between those people. It is said to be a different version of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. I have never read that so cannot comment on it but I am planning on doing so in the future to see the difference. Should be interesting.

Then I am still working on The Children's Book. In between all this I have read some comic novels and parts of the new Muriel Barbery's "Gourmet Rhapsody" that one is in the car. In a nut shell it is the story of "the" gourmet critique in Paris that is about to die and cannot remember one flavor, so recollects his life in order to remember what is missing. So far that what it looks like. Each short chapter gives a memoir of this man mixed with other people's memoirs of him.

I am instantly in need of food after reading some pages of that book.

I will have to bring my camera with me next time I go to the library so I can post some pictures of this inviting little place. They do have the best little wooden chairs that I fit in perfectly. I am very short as you all know. I like that, about the chair that is. Well I don't mind being short either except when I don't have a chair that fits me. I do like my comfort.

Happy Reading

Moody Monday: Playful

Playful Pauly, Perfect Pair

for a Moody Monday

Ruby Tuesday and the Morning after the Full Moon

Those are my pictures for Ruby Red Tuesday. Don't forget to go visit the other participants by using the link.

Yesterday was Full Moon. We have had temperatures around the low 20's so the air was crisp and clean. A bit challenging for me to capture any kind of image in the outdoors... but, this morning, I finally did.

So this is: "The Morning After the Full Moon"

Stay warm everyone. Find a few good book, keep the kettle on for the tea, stay close to the fresh baked breads (Thanks Jennifer!) and cookies (Thanks Paul!) and wait until Spring to come out of hibernation.

Fiber on Wednesdays

Well I decided to post something about "Fibers" every Wednesdays or so. I got the idea yesterday as the front page of our "Beloved" Anchorage Daily News was showing a beautiful picture of Musk Ox and then same day in the Sport Section of the same "beloved" newspaper was another picture of Musk Ox... You might say as I did.... the Sport section... yes it was. I still haven't figured out why but I do like Musk Ox and so it doesn't really matter, or does it?
Maybe to introduce the new season of the Aces (our local hockey team)!!! I will have to think about it a bit harder...Anyway it gave me the idea to talk about this "prehistoric" looking animal that abounds in Alaska (according to ADN's article their rise in population since 1980 from 104 to 2,688 in 2007 (way to go big guys!!! I guess that can be considered a sort of Sport). Considering that this animal is legally hunted every year with special lottery tickets (that too might explain the sport section article...) the Fish and Game Department knows what it's doing. The meat is delicious. The taste is very much like beef but more tender. No gamy taste whatsoever. But the fur is what is important for the native of the region as they card and spin their wool into feather light yarn that can rival the best cashmere. That is the reason why I suppose the price of this is worth the price of gold. There is a name for it that I have not mastered yet the pronunciation "Qiviut". It used to be found only in natural colors of grey, brown and beige but you can now find really every colors possible due to the resurgence of the art of felting, knitting and crocheting. The best part is that it is Hypoallergenic. I have yet to use this fiber in my projects. I would be interested to keep those big dreadlocks whole and make some kind of fantastic piece. So to be continued for that idea. Thanks to Anchorage Daily News to get me started on my own little project.

Ruby Tuesday

http://workofthepoet.blogspot.com/2008/05/ruby-tuesday.html

It's in my vein