Mies van der Rohe

    Thanks to an Architecture Appreciation class in college, I know who Mies van der Rohe is, and "get" this cartoon. 

Dusting Day

    Today was dusting (and vacuuming) day.  I don't know what you do to psych yourself up for this chore, but I blast streaming music via Hoopla while I do it.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Baba-jan taught us to find al-Qutb, the star that never moves, at the end of the handle of the water ladle.  He told us that al-Qutb means “hub,” like the hub of a wheel, and the other stars move around it.  He knelt by my side and told me to make a fist, and then point the second knuckle at the star.

    “As long as you know the stars, you will never be lost,” he said.  The Koran says that Allah gave us the stars to be our guides.  “Everything depends on the stars.  From them you can tell time and distance and you can find your way home.”

    (from Under the Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Fisher Staples)

     7*/10.  The full review is here.

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Book Plots

    This gives a whole new meaning to "Book Plots".

No Problemo

Art Appreciation Tuesday

    So that's how they got away with it.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    Bradley Warren said, “You’re late.  We’ve had to wait.”  Mr. Personality.

    “Why don’t we cancel this meeting and schedule another to begin in ten minutes?  Then I can be early.”

    Bradley Warren said, “I’m not paying you for jokes.”

    “I threw those in for free.”

    (from Stalking The Angel  by Robert Crais)

    8½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Sunday Pun Day

Chocolate Hobnobs

    I have partaken of chocolate hobnobs.  I can scratch that off my bucket list.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “Adonalsium.”

    Dalinar frowned more deeply.  “What?”

    Wit scratched his face.  “Have you ever heard the term, Dalinar?”

    “Ado … what?”

    “Nothing,” Wit said.  He seemed preoccupied., unlike his usual self.  “Nonsense.  Balderdash.  Piggldygrak.  Isn’t it odd that gibberish words are often the sounds of other words, cut up and dismembered, then stitched into something like them – yet wholly unlike them at the same time?”

    Dalinar frowned.

    “I wonder if you could do that to a man.  Pull him apart, emotion by emotion, bit by bit, bloody chunk by bloody chunk.  Then combine them back together again into something else, like a Dysian Aimian.  If you do put a man together like that, Dalinar, be sure to name him Gibberish, after me.  Or perhaps Gibletfish.”

    (from The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson)

  9*/10.  The complete review is here.

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(Anti)-Social Media Manager

    I'm gonna have to get me one of these.

Happy Vernal Equinox!!

   Today we celebrate the Vernal Equinox.  Winter hands off to Summer and Druids everywhere rejoice!

Arguing with the World

    My money's on the Earth winning this debate.

Book Reviews

    John Updike's rules for literary criticism (as in "book reviews") :

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give enough direct quotation—at least one extended passage—of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy précis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's œuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

Swann's Way

    Well, crap.  It appears I'm going to have to read Proust's "Swann's Way" to understand this cartoon.

The Happy Song

    One more time.  All together now...

Om

    Your Friday dose of Zen.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “You’ve got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor.  Why should it?  The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government.  The poor man really has a stake in the country.  The rich man hasn’t; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht.  The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.  Aristocrats were always anarchists.”

    (from The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton)

  5½*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Wednesday Pun Day

    I think the Internet has ruined me.

Daylight Savings Time

    This is why we don't do Daylight Savings Time here in Arizona.  

Figures of Speech

    It is claimed there are 27 figures of speech in this picture, and I've seen at least one list with that many on it.  Things like "cat got your tongue", and so forth.  Have fun finding all 27.

    When you give up, the "all 27" list is in the comments for this post.

4 Words, 14 Letters

    Man, that was my first guess, too.

College basketball

    The NCAA Tournament is imminent.   We nerds are unimpressed. 

Book Excerpt for the Day

    “Greetings, travelers!” exclaimed the male half of the pair, as they approached.  “Tell me, have you thought about-“

    “No,” said Rex.

    The two stopped in front of us and the young man laughed politely.  “You didn’t let me finish,” he said.  “Have you thought-“

    “No,” said Rex again.  “I haven’t.  Whatever it is, the meaning of life, where I’ll go after death, whether robots have souls, I can pretty much guarantee you I haven’t thought about it.”

    The pair laughed nervously.

    “He’s not lying,” I said.  “Rex doesn’t have an introspective bone in his body.  He’s all surface.”

    (from Aye, Robot, by Robert Kroese)

     7½*/10.  The full review is here.

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Dunk Yer Junk

    How to clean up America's litter problem in one easy step.

Wednesday Punnery

    Last Sunday's Pearls Before Swine was a marvelous triple-pun.

Science Tuesday

    I am a degreed chemist whose career has focused on Quality Control.  Theory and Practice, as defined above, is an integral part of QC. 

Supermarket Checkout Counters

    I've never read The Great Gatsby, but Catcher in the Rye is well worth reading.

Sleep Study

    I did a sleep study a couple years ago.  Except for the human observers behind the window, this is pretty much how it goes.

Book Excerpt for the Day

    She closed her eyes … just for a blink, but then didn’t open them – it felt so good.  It was okay, though, since it couldn’t be possible for her to sleep on her toes.  She hoped she was right, anyway.  She could feel her body swaying, but now it felt dangerous.  Whenever closing her eyes felt this good, sleep was never far behind.  So were the night terrors.

    (from Liandra and the Dream Reader by Belart Wright)

    7*/10.  The complete review is here.

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Word for the Day - Optimizating

    "Work smarter, not better."