I'm a few pages away from finishing Perelandra, the second book of C. S. Lewis's "Cosmic Trilogy".  I read and loved the first book (Out of the Silent Planet) as a child, and thought I had read the other two; now I'm fairly sure I attempted and abandoned each of the latter after a hundred pages or so.  You see, Silent Planet, while it's filled with ( Read more... )

We're safely home from our visit to the northern-California family for just-after-Christmas festivities.  A mysterious phenomenon occurred during our visit involving large amounts of water coming out of the sky, which was filled with strange grey-white objects the locals called 'clouds".  Pretty spooky!  Fortunately this "rain" stopped south of ( Read more... )

Last night madelineusher, laurellady and I attended a performance of "A Mulholland Christmas Carol" at Theatre of Note in Hollywood.  Apparently this play has become a seasonal tradition, but this year was the first I'd heard about it.  Short review:  It was wonderful!

Any self-respecting Angeleno knows the story of William Mulholland, the brilliant water engineer who ( Read more... )

You can't swing a dead Christ symbol these days without hearing about the Chronicles of Narnia. I know many of my friends were addicted to this series as children, and I can understand the attraction. But for me, Lewis's earlier "cosmic" trilogy -- Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength -- held a far greater attraction. ( Read more... )

I finished Silverberg's Roma Eterna, which I reviewed at just past the halfway point a few days ago. My conclusions from that review stand, only more so. I could go on at greater length, but fortunately I stumbled across this reviewwith which I agree entirely. Still, any dedicated fans of ancient Rome ( Read more... )

I finally bought that old Steve Hillage album (Green) I've been wanting for a couple of years. Yes, I do move slowly at times. :) I needed to order a book for work from Barnes and Noble's online store, and it turned out they had the album in stock. My self-control was at a low ebb, so I bought it despite my current attempt at budget discipline ( Read more... )

I'm reading Roma Eterna by ( Read more... )

I'm currently reading a book called Perchance to Dream, an anthology of horror and fantasy stories on the theme of dreams. I didn't plan to read this; I was late for the bus one morning with nothing to read in my bag, and grabbed the first vaguely promising-looking book off the shelf ( Read more... )

laurellady and I watched National Treasurelast night on cable.  It was a fun little move, reasonably well ( Read more... )

I am currently reading Eating Landscape by Philip Arnolda student of Mesoamerican religion and culture.  In this book he ( Read more... )