I love autumn!

A picture of a Swedish forest adorned our living room wall many years ago. It was a riot of stately trees in red, orange and yellow. I remember staring at it from time to time when I was growing up. I would imagine Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel traipsing in. Magic! 

Then Mother took me to her friend's sister's garden wedding. Hanging purple orchids served as the I Do backdrop. The bride's family property had a brook that sang along a russet violin as it played O Perfect Love, and the lawn was carpeted with brown, crisp leaves that crackled on our heels (they were landed Filipinos). 

As far as I can figure these two things - the autumn forest and that utterly charming garden wedding influenced my fondness for autumn - a season I have never actually seen but that's so real and alive as it can be in my enchanted heart and mind.

Here are 13 autumn scenes and quotes that I immensely enjoyed putting together!

1

 

 If the world had a front porch

2

"and forget not that the Earth delights to feel your bare feet, and the winds long to play with you hair." - Kahlil Gibran

3

  I Love Autumn

4

Old Paths With a Twist of Time

5

"Autumn, the year's last loveliest smile." - William Cullen Bryant

6

 

 Image by Shabby Blogs

7

Enchanted Nature

8

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the Earth seeking the successive autumns." - George Eliot 

9

 Let's All Eat

10

 "Autum is a second spring where every leaf is a flower." - Albert Camus

11

Country Living Made Beautiful

12

"There is something incredibly nostalgic and significant about the annual cascade of autumn leaves." ~ Joe L. Wheeler

13

Country Living Made Beautiful

Linking to - Thursday Thirteen and Thursday Favorite Things

Random bookish thoughts

Thursday Thirteen. A few things random: books, coffee, PhD, country dreams, life as usual.

1. some idea...

 

 Heathcliff, Mr Darcy, Rochester - The Literary Heroes

2. life can be so alive like this if it's not going to be fair

Lil Bit of Country Bliss

3. I hope the kiddo won't mind my collection

Heathcliff, Mr Darcy, Rochester - The Literary Heroes

4. I attended an investment presentation; this bloom was on my table

Major Homes Property Presentation

5. beautiful weddings are better than marriages that suck

 Romantic, Shabby and Vintage

6. ok, the cycle never ends....

Piled Higher and Deeper

7. 'once upon a midnight dreary... '

Book Riot

8. one day when all this is over, I'm gonna live in the country

All Things Country

9. this made me laugh

 Heathcliff, Mr Darcy, Rochester - The Literary Heroes

10. double negatives - guilty!

Freelance Writing Jobs

11. just two letters and the lovely sentiment is on

The Grammar Police

12. coffee fun

All Things Country

13. I want to get my hands on The Book Thief before the film is released

 

Book Riot

Humanoids in Humanities

Pointed.

 More BTT here.

Which is better (or preferred) … stories with multiple character points of view? Or stories that stick to just one or two at most? And, why?

If the writer has a knack for portraying multiple or just one or two character points of view, I'm game with either. It's fun to practice cognitive complexity now and then.

Write from Karen

Ever wondered how a bunch of foreign instructors in a Southeast Asian university absorb themselves during a meeting?

The scenario: three languages; four age groups, five ranks, philosophies as varied as the total number of wrinkles of everyone in attendance and a common bottomline: pay.

Some suffer burnout, others are eager for showtime one minute and ready to bite the academic dust the next, while the rest look forward to hearing the meeting is adjourned. Those who do not speak the local language have to sit quiet through untranslated speeches. They interact via notes -

1. Crap! Syllabus doesn't match the book. Computer nerdery got messed up or who do we talk to about this?

2. Ah there goes conceptual thinking. Look at the powerpoint.

3. I'm so sick of being professionally stagnant....

4. Business guys are paid $$ more per hour than us humanoids in Humanities ....

5. Oh yes. That's fair.

6. ... watched Sex and the City last night. It was funny but soon I was no longer laughing at the film... seatmates had to read the subtitle first and were laughing about six seconds late

7. But hey, they say we are paid tonight for warming our seats.

8. I bloody well hope so.

9. The Council is the deciding party for our case. Our license has been issued under TCT rules ... nothing is written in stone yet.... We either apply for a tourist visa or leave the country.

10. I'm beginning to fancy that conference in Vietnam... hmn...

11 God I need coffee!

12. with rum?

13. laced with sedative.

This is a repost. More T13 here and Favorite Things here.

Kalimera

In this post: Booking Through * Favorite Things * Thursday 13

"... one of the ways writing has changed: books from a century or two ago spent huge swaths of text describing locations and character traits, but modern writing does all of this in shorthand. You might know a character is short with blond hair and blue eyes, but the author leaves the rest for you to figure out on your own. The writer might tell you the story takes place at a beachside town, but leaves the details to your imagination. Why do you suppose this is? Is it that we have shorter attention spans these days? That, bombarded with video and photos as we are, we don’t NEED every detail of an unknown scene described, because we have a stock of images already in our heads?"

Information overload - one blessing (or curse) of post modern age communication and media. Readers and writers alike deal with it in ways that are ideally best for them.  However, I enjoy excellent descriptions. If it's there I am happy. If it's not then I'm glad I exist in an age where everywhere there is more than enough to help the imagination.

"Sometimes things are more important than we are, more important than our little fights." 

These are 13 Greek words mentioned in Maeve Binchy's Nights of Rain and Stars. Some words may come in handy for someone visiting Greece for either a few days or two weeks, the length of time characters in the book spent in Aghia Anna.  I will find out which of these will I be hearing or using often if I find myself in Greece one of these days.

1. k a l i m e r a  - a greeting which means good day or good morning
2. a v r i o - tomorrow
3. o r e a - wonderful, beautiful
4. e f h a r i s t o - thank you
5. s i g n o m i - sorry
6. s i g a - slow down
7. p a m e - let's go
8. y i a t i - why
9. k r a s s i - wine
10. b o z o u k i - plucked string instrument
11. endaxi- all right
12. O m o n i a - the metro stop
13.  P a n a i y a - the Virgin Mary; online sources have a variant spelling as in Panaiga

Money on the stock market

I never attempt to make money on the stock market.  I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.  ~ Warren Buffet

Ruby Tuesday Too
Mellow Yellows

The sun is aloft

Two bright stars
peeped into the shell.
"What are they dreaming of?
Who can tell?"

Started a green linnet
Out of the croft;
Wake, little ladies,
The sun is aloft!

~ Minnie and Winnie pp. 46-47 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Treasury of Poetry, 2001. (Selected by Alistair Hedley) Albion Press, Oxfordshire.

Mellow Yellows

Madeline Kripke's dictionaries

-an 1888 advertisement for Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

Daniel Krieger's article on Narratively describes his interview with Madeline Kripke, the Dame of Dictionaries who shows him her vast dictionary collection. Here are thirteen of them:

1. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Kripke's parents gave her a copy which started it all

2. The Ladies Dictionary known to be the first dictionary that dealt solely with women's concerns. It's in Gothic script and printed in 1694. Gothic script and 1694? My heart performs a somersault!

3. A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue published in 1785 and written by Captain Francis Grose, it is reportedly one of the first major slang dictionaries in England. Kripke is fond of slang dictionaries.

4. Free Drinks for Ladies with Nuts if you look for humor in a list of words, this absurd sounding dictionary is for you

5. Lexical Evidence from Folk Epigraphy in Western North America: a glossary study in the low element of the English vocabulary have you read or heard somewhere of an investigation of okay and fuck? Columbia professor Allen Walker Read, man behind the said investigation authored this dictionary. The Dame of Dictionaries calls Lexical Evidence... an "extremely dirty book."

6. The Pocket Dictionary of Prison Slanguage published in 1941; written by San Quentin warden Clinton T. Duffy 

7. The Rogue's Lexicon tput together by New York City polic chief George W. Matsell for his colleagues so 'they could understand the cant of the city’s criminals'  

8. Larks of London  by Dick Rambleton; it was published in 1840. It is said that there isn't any other known copies."It's a guide to the underbelly of the city and includes the language of its denizens...."

9. Hep-cats of Jive Talk Dictonary 1945 by Lou Shelly

10. Calepino or Dictionarium printed in 1502, the Latin dictionary is Kripke's oldest book which she calls "a foundation stone in the history of dictionaries."

11.  Police Gazette 'chock-full of slang'

12.  The Benefits of Farting Explained printed in 1722 by Jonathan Swift, it contains 'detailed taxonomy peppered with unrestrained wordplay'

13.  Tijuana Bibles– reportedly illegal in the early to mid 20th century, it is filled with satirical erotic comics

Shared with Inspire Me * Thursday Thirteen * Favorite Things

Quality or quantity

In this post: Booking Through Thursday, Thursday Thirteen, Favorite Things

Which is more important? Quality for you reading? Or quantity?

My sidebar may not show much that would match what this blog claims to be, eg. widgets like "books read" or "currently reading..." Not that I don't have those but I'm just taking my time dissecting books, writing reactions on the margins, and connecting with the stories in mind and heart. I savor quality.

Thursday Thirteen:  song titles that begin with I. Anything you like or reminds you of something?

1. I'll never love this way again by Dionne Warwick
2. I miss you like crazy by Natalie Cole
~ seen these live

3. I've never been to me  by Charlene
4. I don't want you to go by Lani Hall
5. I will always love you by Kenny Roger
6. I just can't stop loving you by Michael Jackson
7. I don't wanna miss a thing by Aerosmith

8. I miss you (Klymaxx) reminds me of high school
9. I need to be in love (Karen Carpenter) love playing this on the piano
10. I'm not in love (10cc) once quoted this as an FB shoutout; a lengthy, animated interaction ensued

11. I can wait forever by Air Supply
12. I can't fight this feeling anymore by Reo Speedwagon
~ easy to sing on karaoke

13. I will survive by Gloria Gaynor
 ~ reminds me of an embarrassing moment: I sang and danced along this song on MTV confident I was doing it in a completely empty restaurant corner. Now I didn't notice a new group of hotel guests piling in or I didn't immediately realize they were humans; Through the glass wall I saw they were tall and huge I could think of only one comparison - gods spilling out the courtyard of Campanile Redditch from Mt Olympus. It was too late when I abruptly stopped mimicking Gloria Gaynor. The French rugby team had just seen someone looking like an idiot.

Tara Road quotes

In this post: Second first time - Booking Through Thursday, Quotes from Tara Road - Thursday Thirteen, Favorite Things

We all know the beauty of reading a really wonderful book for the first time—when everything about the story and the writing and the timing click to make a reader’s perfect storm … but it’s fleeting, because you can never read that book for the first time again.

So … if you could magically reset things so that you had the chance to read a favorite book/series again for the first time … which would you choose? And why?

And then, since tastes change … Do you think it would have the same affect on you, reading it now, as it did when you read it the first time? Would you love it just as much? Would you risk it?

Rowling's Harry Potter series - the mystery of magic, Austen's Pride and Prejudice - the fun of being spectator to a set of social norms of time gone by, and Crichton's Timeline - physically going back hundreds of years as actual subject of scientific research will always thrill me til the last page. And as far as affect goes, I think it will only be better.

Thursday Thirteen: quotes from Tara Road by Maeve Binchy. These quotes are all from the first two chapters only and are generally about people. I picked those that sound familiar. Are there any you relate with or don't, agree or disagree, like or dislike? Feel free to object and share your thoughts.

1. "Men might regard travel as fast. Men preferred to marry safer, calmer women. Women who didn't go gallivanting too much."
-I love travel and I do whenever I can. Is that why I always seem to be single?.... lol

2. "I'd love to be able to look into the future and see where we'll be in two years' time.  Wouldn't it be great if we could take a peep?"
- have you ever been to a fortune teller? did it come true for you?

3. "It's very hard to know what a job was going to be like until you were in it and then it was too late."
- 'been there, got the t-shirt'

4. "Prosperity had come to Ireland in the early eighties and the property market was the first to reflect this."
- it will be nice to find this has some actual similarities (from non-fiction media) with Ireland's economy in the early 80s

5. "Fellows don't like being questioned about feelings."
- when forced, I think they will 'copy & paste' :D

6. "1982 was a terrible year for films stars dying."
- I remember reading a brief biography of Grace Kelly from a magazine in the early 80s

7. "The secret of the universe is timing."
- any idea of its origin?

8. "There's no point in working anywhere unless we know what it's all about. It makes it twice as interesting if you know all that's going on."

9. "All mothers are difficult."
- are they not?! Mine is impossible at times. We have a volatile relationship ;p

10. "Wasn't it wonderful the way people saw their own situations?"

11. "There were plenty of men but no one man."
- I sooo relate

12. "There was great satisfaction in having lovely possessions. If you couldn't have a streamlined figure, flawless make-up, exquisite clothes, then having a perfect room was a substitute."
- no one will be left behind with nothing

13. "And I spend my life saying look at my frizzy hair. It's a very annoying part of being a woman., we're never really satisfied with the way we look."
- did Rapunzel ever had similar annoyance?

Neither a borrower

In this post: Booking Through Thursday, Thursday Thirteen, Favorite Things

...how do you feel about borrowing books from friends? Is this something you like to do? Does it make you feel uncomfortable or rushed while reading? Does it affect how you feel about the book you’re reading, pressured into liking it?

The reason I normally do not borrow books is exactly feeling uncomfortable and rushed while reading. I feel what I like to feel or think about the book though, borrowed or not, but I express it only when asked. If I don't like it I'll find a nice way to say why.

Thursday Thirteen:  books for 9 baht each (usd 29 cents). Dasa Books does it again - set readers / book lovers in a frenzy with their crazy blow-out book sale. Do you have a spree when books go as low-cost as this and the choices are many?

1. Milk glass moon by Adriana Trigiani - I bought it for the cover
2. Violin by Anne Rice - I have never read an Anne Rice before
3. Burning Marguerite by Elizabeth Inness-Brown - the cover makes one feel mysterious

- by Maeve Binchy
4. Tara Road - about home exchange; my current read. A big ramshackle Victorian mansion is prominent in the blurb so right into the check out counter
5. Nights of Rain and Stars - the setting sounds charming to me: Greek tavern above a small village of Aghia Anna
6. Copper Beech - who wouldn't like what People promised?  "as soothing as a cup of tea"

~ I like browsing this kind of books with my morning coffee
7. Climate Change: what's your business strategy? by AJ Hoffman & JG Woody
8. Great escapes short story collection by various authors
9. The care and feeding of ideas by James L Adams
10. Beyond engineering by Michael Hammer

11. Carolina moon by Jill McCorkle - Carolina reminded me of my recent talk with an aunt about a possible visit to the lovely state in the future
12. The bad mother's handbook by Kate Long - Observer says it's "a funny and wise picture of the impatience and indescribable love of family"
13. Tulip touch by Anne Fine - I'm in the mood for alliteration