Reading ruminations and recycling

Ruminating on some quotes

Fresh Scars ~ by Donna Mumma, 2021, fiction (Florida), 305 pages, 8/10

• "I must finish this," she said the words aloud, because she was an auditory learner, and things stuck better with her if she heard them" (p. 57).

I stopped reading to ponder this because I am a visual learner.  I took copious notes in my college classes because I needed to SEE the words on the page to remember what the professor was saying.  It's a good thing I could write rapidly!

• "Ivy in her cheerleading uniform. ... Asia in her band uniform playing her flute" (p. 104).

This is a good description of the differences in these sisters.  I was the sister in the band, making music.

• "How did you end up in Tennessee?"  "I wanted to live in the mountains" (p. 107). 

I lived in the mountains — actually, I lived ON a mountain near Chattanooga.

Recycling

Here's some plastic that can be recycled by taking it back to the store, at least here in the St. Louis area:

• grocery and retail bags
• clean produce and bread bags
• wrap from toilet paper
• wrap from cases of water
• wrap from paper towels
• newspaper sleeves
• clean zip-top food storage bags
• bubble-wrap ~ deflated
• air packing pillows ~ deflated
• dry cleaning bags

Reading

Word game

I haven't figured out all of these yet, so let's do it together.  Do what you can on your own before continuing, because I'm going to list possible answers at the bottom of this post.

To Barbara on her birthday

I miss you, Barbara, and the fun times we had together.  I still think of things I want to tell you, ask you, share with you.  I'm so glad we met.

A song that's on my mind

Listen to the song "Bind Us Together with Love" on YouTube by clicking here.

Reading ruminations

The Lost Stetl by Max Gross (2020), historical fiction about Poland, is taking me longer than I expected because I have to look up the many, many Yiddish words in it.  I wanted to read Jürgen Moltmann's 1979 Experiences of God next, but I can't find wherever I put it down.  (Yes, I'm getting old.)  So instead, I may read his brand-new 2021 book Resurrected to Eternal Life: On Dying and Rising, which was published today and was automatically downloaded onto my Kindle today — publication day!  Click on the titles to read about these books.

Don't peek at my answers before trying to solve the puzzle at the top

1 = Sandbox, 2 = Man overboard, 3 = I understand, 4 = Reading between the lines, 5 = Long underwear, 6 = Crossroads, 7 = Downtown, 8 = Tricycle (three wheels/cycles?), 9 = Split-level, 10 = Three degrees below zero, 11 = Neon lights, 12 = Circles under the eyes, 13 = Highchair, 14 = Paradise (pair of dice?), 15 = Touchdown, 16 = Five feet underground, 17 = Mind over matter, 18 = He's beside himself, 19 = Backwards glance, 20 = Life after death, 21 = G.I. overseas (?), 22 = Space program (?), 23 = See-through blouse, 24 = Just between you and me.

Latest books ~ reading ruminations

My most recent acquisitions all look serious:  three are nonfiction, and the fourth is a YA novel with lots to think about.

The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality ~ by Walter Benn Michaels, 2006

When I brought these first three books home from the library this afternoon, I flipped open this book and had read four or five pages, including flipping to the back to read a couple of end notes (yes, this is a two-bookmark book), before I caught myself.  "Wait!  I don't have time to read this today!"  I reluctantly put it down and glanced at the other library books.  This from the inside cover is what compelled me to select this one:

"Walter Benn Michaels argues that our enthusiastic celebration of 'difference' masks and even contributes to our neglect of America's vast and growing economic divide.  Affirmative action in schools has not made them more open, it's just guaranteed that the rich kids come in the appropriate colors.  Diversity training in the workplace has not raised anybody's salary (except maybe the diversity trainers'), but it has guaranteed that when your job is outsourced, your culture will be treated with respect."

This I Believe II: More Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women ~ edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman, 2008

I have requested a copy of This I Believe, which I have obviously not yet read.  But seeing this at the library, I got it to read while waiting for the first collection of essays.  These books are based on the NPR series of the same name.  From the three or four essays I've already read this afternoon (yes, I had to force myself to put down two out of two books that quickly pulled me in), I can see that I'll really enjoy these short pieces by such varied people.

According to the dustjacket, the YA novel Feed by M. T. Anderson (2002) is about

"Titus, whose ability to read, write, and even think for himself has been almost completely obliterated by his 'feed,' a transmitter implanted directly into his brain.  Feeds are a crucial part of life for Titus and his friends.  After all, how else would they know where to party on the moon, how to get bargains at Weatherbee & Crotch, or how to accessorize the mysterious lesions everyone's been getting?  But then Titus meets Violet, a girl who cares about what's happening to he world and challenges everything Titus and his friends hold dear.  A girl who decides to fight the feed."

The Brief Wadsworth Handbook, 2009 MLA Update Edition / Edition 6  ~ by Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell, 2010

And, it says -- or rather, &.  I'm curious about the symbolism and why an ampersand was chosen to grace the cover.  This, of course, is for the courses I'm teaching in developmental writing this semester at Chattanooga State.  Here's a look at the sections:

Writing Essays
Critical Thinking and Argumentation
Writing in the Disciplines
Doing Research
Documenting Sources: MLA Style
Documenting Sources: APA and Other Styles
Creating Documents in a Digital Age
Strategies for Success in College and Beyond
Revising Common Sentence Errors
Writing Grammatical Sentences
Improving Sentence Style
Understanding Punctuation
Understanding Spelling and Mechanics
Resources for Bilingual and ESL Writers

I am most fascinated by the stuff on the digital age.  It's a whole new world at the college now, with students doing assignments on computers, even in the classroom.  Both classrooms I use have a computer at each seat, and I am able to monitor what's on each computer from the one I use.  Everything was done with pen and paper when I last taught there in 2006, a mere four years ago.  Now I won't have to lug slippery piles of papers to the car, mark them up with red ink, and lug them back to school to be returned to the students.  Once I master the technology, grading should be easier (I hope).

On an orange sheet among multi-colored handouts given to adjuncts last month, we were told:  "Instructors should familiarize themselves with up-to-date MLA formatting and ... ensure students' papers meet these guidelines."  Knowing my thin MLA booklet from 1970 (how could it be 40 years?) was extremely out of date, I asked for a copy of the latest MLA booklet -- and was given this 607-page handbook.  I'll probably use the others sections more than the MLA bit; this is, after all, a remedial writing course and our relatively short research paper won't require the same documentation as a doctoral dissertation.
__________

Have you read any of these?  What are you reading these days?

Reading ruminations ~ it's Monday

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme from Sheila of Book Journey.  It's all about sharing what we're reading.  Sheila offers a weekly prize, so go to her blog (after you read this post, of course) and join the fun.

Sheila's the reason I'm reading this first book.  When she wrote about Seven Year Switch by Claire Cook (2010), I knew I wanted to read it and put it on hold at my library.  Yes, the book looked interesting, but what really got me was Sheila's imitation of the book's cover:

Who could resist?  Maybe we should vote for "best cover" here! I kinda like Sheila's version because she is holding a copy of the book and put hearts around it.  She is not, however, at the beach -- and a major theme of the book is traveling with girlfriends to exotic places.  If you missed it, read yesterday's short teaser about one of the characters in the book.

Two more books found their way to my house this week:

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay (2007) is from my friend Donna, who handed me the book this week, saying I'll like it.  (We exchange books regularly.)  I know nothing about it beyond what's in the publisher's synopsis and what's in this video.

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove by Susan Gregg Gilmore was published this week (2010).  I told you already that I attended a book signing by the author.  Donna has already finished reading this one and says it's good.  I reviewed Gilmore's first novel last year:  Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen.

Have you read any of these books?
What are you reading these days?

(Thank you for reading to the end of this post. Now you have my permission to go to Sheila's blog.)

Reading ruminations ~ a saltmarsh mosquito

Barbara Brown Taylor was writing about reverence in this quote from An Altar in the World, p. 22:

Properly attended to, even a saltmarsh mosquito is capable of evoking reverence.  See those white and black striped stockings on legs thinner than a needle?  Where in those legs is there room for knees?   And yet see how they bend, as the bug lowers herself to your flesh.  Soon you and she will be blood kin.  Your itch is the price of her life.   Swat her if you must, but not without telling her she is beautiful first.

I was walking the treadmill (for my life) when I read this and was absolutely shocked that my eyes teared up.  I am so allergic to bug bites that I can feel the difference between a gnat, a mosquito, a flea.  So I have killed many in my lifetime.  Never once did I say, "You are beautiful," though I have said, forlornly, "Why didn't you stay outside?"  (Click to enlarge picture, so you can see her beautiful legs.)

Reading ruminations ~ what I've been reading

What I've been reading:

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously ~ by Julie Powell, 2005.

I've managed to get more than two-thirds of the way through the book (because my best friends liked it), but I'm slogging all the way. First, I don't know French and don't understand what she's about to cook. Second, I'm not all that fond of French food and can't get excited about what's she's making. Third, why would anybody keep struggling to make every recipe in Julia Child's 40-year-old cookbook when it causes her to curse her way through a year of her life? Dunno. After reading 216 pages, I have made only three notes. The first one shows the author's quirky style:

"But I did none of these things. Instead, I got married. I didn't mean to, exactly. It just kind of happened" (p. 18).

"If I wanted to learn to cook, I'd just cook my way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (p. 20).

Her husband Eric: "You could start a blog. ... Julie. You do know what a blog is, don't you?" Of course I didn't know what a blog was. It was August of 2002. Nobody knew about blogs, except for a few guys like Eric..."

I'll come back and let you know, if I ever finish this sucker. Rating: "nah," which means I can't recommend it, even though it's now a movie.

How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science ~ by Michael Shermer, 2000.

All I've read so far is the preface about "The God Question," but here's what the book is about:

"My primary focus in addressing readers is not whether they believe or disbelieve, but how and why they have made their particular belief choice. Within the larger domain of how we believe, I am mainly interested in three things: (1) Why people believe in god; (2) the relationship of science and religion, reason and faith; and (3) how the search for the sacred came into being and how it can thrive in an age of science" (page xv).

The Power of Myth ~ by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, 1988.

I've already used this book for a Teaser Tuesday quote (click on the title to see that post). It isn't taking me a long time to read this book because it's hard to read, or anything like that; three friends and I are studying the book during August and September, taking one of the eight chapters each week. So I'm savoring the book over a longer period of time. I could share one quote a day here and probably not run out of interesting things to talk about for a year. Maybe more. Here's another one:

Campbell: "The dream is an inexhaustible source of spiritual information about yourself. ..."

Moyers: "What do we learn from our dreams?"

Campbell: "You learn about yourself."

Moyers: "How do we pay attention to our dreams?"

Campbell: "All you have to do is remember your dream in the first place, and write it down. Then take one little fraction of the dream, one or two images or ideas, and associate with them. Write down what comes to your mind, and again what comes to your mind, and again. You'll find that the dream is based on a body of experiences that have some kind of significance in your life and that you didn't know were influencing you. Soon the next dream will come along, and your interpretation will go further" (p. 40).

Have any of you paid close attention to your dreams or tried to understand them over a period of time? Coming up tomorrow in my discussion group: Chapter IV: Sacrifice and Bliss.

The Seat of the Soul ~ by Gary Zukav, 1989.

I've set this aside too often to read more immediate books, but it's due back at the library day after tomorrow and I need to finish it -- now. Here are a few interesting quotes:

"Our species has become arrogant. We behave as though the Earth were ours to do with as we please. We pollute its land, oceans and atmosphere to satisfy our needs without thinking of the needs of the other life forms that live upon the Earth, or of the needs of the Earth" (p. 50).

"Hatred of evil does not diminish evil, it increases it. ... Hatred of evil affects the one who hates. It makes him or her a hateful person..." (p. 71)

"You create your reality with your intentions" (p. 110).

"No two people have the same reality. ... By choosing to feel kindness instead of coldness, you change the frequency of your cdonsciousness, and this changes your experiences" (p. 111).