You know you have procrastination issues when you do one of your summing-up-your-year posts when it's nearly seventy outside. Of course, having moved from Minnesota to Seattle, that's sort of cheating now. Anyways, I've fortunately read enough book this year that I need to free up space on the books-I've-read-this-year shelf, providing impetus for ( Read more... )

Just finished reading this. It was muy muy awesome.
( Cut to protect the innocent. )

Let her go back to the ships,
Back among Grecian faces, lest evil come on our own,
Evil and further evil, and a curse cursed on our children,
Moves, yes she moves like a goddess
And has the face of a god
     and the voice of Schoeney's daughters
And doom goes with her in walking,
Let her go back to the ships,
     back among Grecian voices.
from ( Read more... )

I've decided that my goal for National Poetry Month is to read The Cantos by Ezra Pound. I'll let you know if I make it even halfway through, as A: I'm busy and have other things that I'm reading and need to read and B: it took me well over an hour tonight just to make it through the first one.

"Three and one-half centuries of despotism had destroyed the civic virtue that was once the strength of Rome. The ethical degeneration of late Roman society presaged our modern plunge toward secular humanism and moral relativism. Apathy and insolence replaced the patriotism and love of liberty that had motivated the hard men who built that ( Read more... )

Books I read in the year 2009 for pleasure, in chronological order as best I could approximate:
* The Paths of the Dead by Steven Brust +
* The Lord of Castle Black by Steven Brust +
* Sethra Lavode by Steven Brust
* Shaft by Ernest Tidyman
* Molecules of Emotion by Candace B. Pert
* The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
* Jhegaala by Steven ( Read more... )

"A Materialistic consciousness is attempting to preserve itself from Dissolution by restriction & persecution of Experience of the Transcendental. One day perhaps the Earth will be dominated by the illusion of Separate consciousness, the Bureaucrats having triumphed in seizing control of all roads of communication with the Divine, & restricting ( Read more... )

I picked up The Golden Bough, A Princess of Mars, At the Earth's Core, and The Story of Siegfried (collection of retellings from the Eddas by James Baldwin) for a total of $15. Which, I suppose, means I actually saved all of $11 because--hey!--they're Dover books.

Resisted: Pellucidar (figured I'd wait until I read At the Earth's Core in case I ( Read more... )

"On the screen was an inter-program announcement. A large decayed tooth was shown, grimacing with pain. Next to it a sparkling healthy tooth jeered sanctimoniously. The two teeth engaged in Socratic dialogue, the upshot of which was the rout and defeat of the bad tooth."

So I've been reading The 'Priest', They Called Him, a biography of Burroughs by Graham Caveney that (I'm pretty sure) lyght gave me many many moons ago. I came across a slightly different version of the photo below, and I felt obliged to share it with you.


( Read more... )