Having trouble keeping up with the thread ... Stacia, and OnceUponATime, I hope you ladies feel better soon. I wish I could have y'all over for coffee and tacos and putting your feet up. At last done with my collected poetry of Matthew Arnold. My girls have been on fire for poetry lately, which has made me reach for some things I haven't read in years. We read and took apart some Ferlinghetti the other day; and we all read a little Whitman together, with the girls writing their own pieces afterwards in Whitmanesque manner. We've dipped into Milton and Housman lately (bits of Paradise Lost led to the inevitable quotation from "Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff"--we tend to go sideways a lot.) Wee Girl, who used to tell me she hated poetry, has exempted Stevenson, and Belloc's cynical silliness, from that judgment, as well as "songs," which made room for me to slip a classic songbook into her reading pile. Hey, the Nobel committee thinks it counts. I think I will dedicate the next few years to poetry and clothing. A little Housman that came to mind Wednesday morning, as unaccustomed drizzle dripped through Central Texas: Then I saw the morning sky: Heigho, the tale was all a lie; The world, it was the old world yet, I was I, my things were wet, And nothing now remained to do But begin the game anew. Halfway through Dostoevsky's Devils; probably not able to finish by the weekend though.

No one should waste any sympathy on me; all the excitement is over now. It went like this: Me: So doc, what about this thing growing on my scalp? Think insurance will cover taking it off for aesthetics? Doctor: Good Lord! I'm making you an appointment with the best dermatologist I know. She's got a three-month wait list but she'll see you tomorrow. Me: Aaaaaaaaaaa! ------------------- Me: This is nothing doc, right? Dermatologist: Oh my! We'll schedule your surgery immediately and get that to the lab pronto. Me: Aaaaaaaaaaa! -------------------- Me: Don't worry, mommy just has a few stitches here. It doesn't hurt at all, and... Wee Girl: Aaaaaaaaaaa! [puts head under pillow] Me: [Wears hats & scarves for rest of week] -------------------- Me: Hello? Lab: Hi yes it's all benign bye. -------------------- So I guess I was just growing an extra head or something, like a Norse troll, or Zaphod Beeblebrox. As a friend remarked, "It's good to have a talent." But I admit my anxiety level made reading a little difficult.

I like the NYRB.

Hesitantly posting. I got very little reading done last week, which went something like Surgery, Halloween, Church, Church, Stitches out, Multiple false starts throughout while I try to decide what to read next. Also--poking my head above the parapet a moment--poetry analysis is one of our Big Homeschool Things that we do. And I really like Arthurian literature, with all its repetition and archaism. It's like liturgy. And I think I might read Morte D'Arthur soon. Can I still be in the book group? By the way, finally settled on Dostoevsky's Devils. It's very funny. Edits: Jane, well done and hoping for some well-deserved book time for you. Penguin, welcome!

If I'd had to analyze Longfellow and Kilmer I'd never read another poem again. What is there even to analyze?

Almost done with Matthew Arnold. I had the fun experience of introducing someone (father of friend of Middle Girl) to Arnold; he was looking over the book and I pointed him to Dover Beach, which he liked immensely, as I'd hoped he would. Half Price had the volume I was missing from Johannes Quasten's magisterial Patrology, so I put aside my initial week's reading choice in favor of some first- and second-century authors, with Quasten as a guide. These are tricky to figure as "books," as they range in length from excerpts of a few lines to hundreds of pages. So I'm just calling a Loeb volume's worth one book, and my book this week was 67. The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, trans/ed Kirsopp Lake. Loeb goes pretty fast with the Greek, as I have barely a dozen words of it (despite the quote in my signature), so my conscience lets me ignore the left-hand pages. Working on volume 2 this week, and of course vol. 1 of Quasten's Patrology. And as ever, Arnold.

Sadie, tried to pm you but it wouldn't go through. Hugs and support from this corner.

I mentioned our town's pride and joy on a previous simlar thread: local urologist, specializing in vasectomies, Dr. Dick Chopp. Also our mayor for many years was Will Wynn. He never had a slogan on his campaign signs: just his name did the job.

How about Die Leiden des jungen Werthers? :D

What did you think of Werther? I read it for the first time last year, or maybe earlier this year, who can remember.

This week I finished Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, apparently a terribly famous writer of whom I'd never heard (though I have seen the Kurosawa movie). The movie is actually based on the second story in the book, "In a Bamboo Grove," and I was surprised to learn from the notes that the story--which I had always thought portrayed a Japanese worldview very distant from Western culture, was itself strongly influenced by a ghost story by Ambrose Bierce (one unfortunately not included in the Bierce spooky stories collection I just read). "The Hell Screen," the story I found most effective, was apparently made into a ballet, unimaginably. The last three stories are in a strange pseudo-autobiographical style that was apparently de rigeur in Akutagawa's day, and were a little hard for me to get through, but interesting nonetheless. Still reading Matthew Arnold's collected poetry, which is enough victoriana to keep me away from Dickens and Trollope and Newman for a while. And for my fiction this week, maybe some Dostoevsky.

Nyssa, I love Auden! When I was a schoolgirl I studied (and was made to memorize!) his "Musée des Beaux Arts," and I thought I'd never read anything so sad and beautiful in my life. So I have a special affection for that one. "Night Mail" and "Stop All the Clocks" are rightly famous poems. And "Academic Graffiti" is light but fun. And then, all his other poems. :)

This evening I read Matthew Arnold's "The Scholar-Gipsy," which may be the most famous poem in English I'd never read. (Unless you count "Hiawatha.") I've read it through several times now and am still not quite sure what's going on in it. I wonder if trying to read Arnold's collected poetry straight through was wise.

Jane, great photos! They fill me with envy. Stacia, I was delighted to find a little something in the mail today. :) I'm actually expecting a code violation citation in the mail any day (don't ask...), so it was a pleasant surprise!

Feeling like I ought to develop some taste for the Lost Generation, I read Steinbeck's Cannery Row. The uplifting sentiment of Community and the light humor were entertaining and a welcome change from the only Steinbeck I'd previously read (the two usual high school warhorses). But I was glad he kept it short, as I was pretty much at my limit of the Whorehouse Madam with a Heart of Gold, and the Drunken Layabouts with Hearts of Gold, and the Chinese Immigrant Storekeeper with a Heart of Gold, and the displaced Cultured Stand-In For the Author with a Heart of Gold. Anyway. I thought I'd finish out October with one more spooky read, having done Ambrose Bierce's gothic ghost stories and Dracula, so I borrowed Great Girl's copy of Lovecraft's The Dream-Quest of Something Something. (Dh read all the Lovecraft oeuvre in high school and I thought maybe I should read something of his.) So I read the first paragraph-- --and I thought to myself, Violet, you have already read Bulwer-Lytton. And I put it away. So instead I'm reading Ryunosuke Akutagawa's Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories, and getting in some non-Western literature for a change.

I mix them with scrambled eggs, cheese, leftover black beans, and some jalapenos or salsa for a quick meal of migas.

Translations of the Thousand and One Nights have always varied widely. "Galland is for the nursery, Lane is for the library, Payne for the study and Burton for the sewers." --Henry Reeve, The Edinburgh Review, 1886.

The Congress Avenue bats are still around, feasting on mosquitos and getting ready to head to Mexico, but they're leaving the bridge after sundown right now. You can still see then in the city glare, though. If we ever get a cold front, they'll head south and come back around March. Speaking of mosquitoes, bring plenty of spray. You can get eaten alive amazingly fast outdoors right now.

Austin area: For historical sites, our best places are the state capitol and the Texas State Cemetery (my avatar is buried there...). Our outdoors and scenic spots are too numerous to list. Congress Ave. bats are still there. Zilker Park, with its great playscape and the tiny train "Zilker Zephyr," is nice for a 1yo. Zilker also has the botanical Gardens and the Nature Science Center. The best scenic view in my opinion is a well-timed walk around the Town Lake Trail loop with a jogging stroller. See the bats fly, and the sun set. (Our sunsets are the "violet crown" many local things are named for.) Jourdan-Bachman Pioneer Farms. For biking, running, hiking, or rock climbing, you want the Barton Creek Greenbelt. Peter Pan Mini-Golf and the Texas Memorial Museum (basement full of dinosaurs!) are kid classics but not very interesting to a toddler. The Thinkery is our kid-friendly science museum. San Antonio has a nifty science museum also. Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Plenty of outdoors live music, much of it family friendly. Eat your meals at a food truck! What time of year are you thinking of?

I finished Ronald Pearsall's The Worm in the Bud: The World of Victorian Sexuality. A slow double-chunkster, as its 650 pages include copious notes. Also extra trouble to read, as I had to keep hiding the cover from people as I read it. Then I had to have a re-read of Stoker's Dracula, which, if Pearsall was interested in sexuality in Victorian literature (he isn't), would get its own chapter. Particularly the Lucy Westenra sections. Besides being described as "voluptuous" every time she appears, the scene where her fiance drives the stake through her virginal heart, blood spurting, while a bunch of other men look on, is straight out of Victorian pornography. I've started Steinbeck's Cannery Row, which I'm trying but not quite managing to visualize without a really nice aquarium at the end of the street; and one of dh's Loeb classics, The Apostolic Fathers, which is only half as long when you don't read the Greek on the left-hand pages. (Edited for catastrophic grammar failure)

Too bad! I thought maybe Book a Week had an "in" at Oxford Univ Press. I was going to start angling for a discount.

Power Glide?

Wait--you chose the cover art for the Oxford edition of Turn of the Screw? That's incredibly awesome.

If you go for Sophia, besides the uber-popularity, I promise you she's going to get called Sophie, and she'll just have to learn to grit her teeth and smile. Trust me. (And it wasn't even in the top 100 back in 1995....) I like Sylvia. It's charming and classic, with resonances of Dante and Virgil. And it's multicultural. Silva vocat!

Yes, we do. :) YMMV.