When I first came to New York State, as a college student, I did not drive, had no driver's license, and so, as a perennial passenger, was free to ponder the place names along the Thruway and in this wide-open terrain, so much more expansive that the scrunched-up hills and narrow valleys of Massachusetts. Now, as then, I think of my home state as vertical and my adopted state as horizontal.
One feature of the upstate landscape that has always spoken to me are the towns whose names have been plucked from a scholar's library: Cicero, Cato, Ovid, Brutus, Aurelius, Marcellus, Camillus, Manlius, Ilion, Attica, Syracuse, Rome, Ithaca... Popular history has it that at the time of the municipalities' respective founding, the town fathers called upon the most highly respected citizens, the schoolmaster and the minister, both of whom would have had a classical education, to choose an appropriate name.
Once the towns began to grow, however, and byways meandered off the main thoroughfare and cart tracks on the outskirts became well-worn dirt roads, they were more or less named by general acclamation, according to where they went or what landmark distinguished them. That's why so much of Route 20 is Main Street in successive towns. That's why there are a Seminary Avenue and a Chapel Street in Auburn, home of the late Auburn Theological Seminary. That is also why so many settlements have a School Street or an Academy Street, Market Street, Bank Street, Bridge Street, Mill Road, River Road, Gully Road, Tannery Road, Church Street, Park Place. And in the Finger Lakes, what can be more basic than East and West Lake roads?
Also, as a matter of practicality (plus a touch of ego), farm roads became know by the name of the owner of the biggest spread. Hence, the horse doctor and the seed-and-plant salesman could readily find their customer on Bussendorfer Road.
But not all towns are so prosaic. There's a Polebridge Road in Livingston County, a Chairfactory Road and an Indian Church Road just minutes from where I'm sitting, a Vinegar Hill Road in Skaneateles and a Molasses Hill Road in Genesee County, both of which at one time probably ended at a barnyard bottling plant. My personal favorite in---I think---the Town of Bethany is Old Telephone Road, which I envision lined with outdated dial handsets, wall-crank models, and pink Princess styles.
Such whimsy would not have been possible when I was growing up in a New England mill town that was essentially the creature of the Holyoke Water Power Company. No schoolmasters were involved in the naming of its streets closest to the mills and the tenements that housed the workforce on The Flats, Commercial Street, Canal Street, and Main Street, which was later eclipsed by High Street as those with higher aspirations started crawling up the hillsides.
From High up, the north-south streets were named for trees: Maple, Walnut, Chestnut, Beech, Sycamore, Pine, Locust, Elm, Cherry, Magnolia. The east-west streets were called alternately for Massachusetts counties---Hampden, Hampshire, Suffolk, Essex, Franklin---and Massachusetts governors---Dwight, Sargent, Cabot, Lyman, Ely, Chapin, Jackson, Mackenzie.
For the truly ambitious, the residential neighborhood of choice was the aptly named Highlands, where the more desirable houses were on streets named for Ivy League and Seven Sisters colleges---Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Amherst, Radcliffe, Wellesley, Vassar Circle.
In my village, which was mapped and laid out by the Holland Land Company 200 or so years ago, originality of street names is the province of latter-day developers. In the central, older areas, as in my hometown, most of the streets are named for trees: Maple, Willow, Pine, Walnut, Grove, Elm, Sycamore, Linden, Beech. I live on Oakwood, which intersects at the eastern end with Elmwood, which also intersects with Chestnut Ridge. In the next ring out, houses built after World War II, are streets named Warren and Martin and Mary Ann, for the developer's kids. Then, at village edge, we come to Brooklea Drive, Carriage Drive, and the Tannery Brook townhouses, where the access roads are called Tunbridge Walke and Tolland Bore. Not even the residents know what the names mean.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
Hitting the Books
All it took for sixty years to disappear and yellowed memories to come drifting back was a perfect storm of the senses.
On a warm, early fall afternoon, the scent of which should be stoppered in an amber vial labeled "Autumn, Northeastern United States," I sat on the front porch with a late lunch of apple slices and peanut butter, reading a novel set in Imperial Rome. If I had been drinking a glass of milk, which I rarely do these days, the spell would have been even more potent. Dry leaves rustled and were scuffled down the sidewalk by parochial school kids heading home, and even though I myself wore jeans and a tee shirt, my body vividly remembered a short-sleeved cotton blouse and penny loafers and a plaid wool skirt that was really too warm for the day.
As I read, I consulted a map of the ancient city, pleased that the translation of S.P.Q.R., Senatus Populusque Romanus---"For the Senate and the Roman People"---came so easily to mind.
What came along with it was the sensation of weight: a big black three-ring binder divided into sections on which were balanced a large blue American History book almost the same size, a thick green Latin II grammar and a slimmer blue French text, a gray book of plane geometry theorems and proofs, and a small dark blue edition of "The Return of the Native." My homework.
This Alice, instead of falling down a rabbit-hole, slid down the decades to a large square building of pale yellow brick that dominated a city block. "Hail, Holyoke High School! Alma mater, first forever..."
Memorize the first declension, singular and plural, of the nouns aqua and agricola. What are the four principal parts of a Latin verb? Name the cases of the second declension. Translate: Gallia est omnia divisa in partes tres... A gerundive is an adjective; a gerund is a noun.
When did Nieuw Amsterdam become New York? Who was John Peter Zenger, and why was he important in colonial history? What was Shay's Rebellion?
When was Providence Plantation founded, and by whom? How did George Washington win the Battle of Trenton? "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."
Ouvrez vos cahiers pour une petite dictee...Conjugate the present tense of the verb avoir: J'ai, tu as, il/elle a, nous avons, vous avez, ils/elles ont. For tomorrow, translate the second and third chapters of "Le Voyage du Monsieur Perichon."
What is the difference between an element's atomic weight and atomic number? In ascending order, list the hierarchy of the eight major taxonomic ranks of biological classification: species/genus/family/order/class/phylum/kingdom/
domain. "Everything that lives, changes." Sum, esse, fui, futurus. Je suis, tu es, il/elle est, nous sommes, vous etes, ils/elles sont. Name the seven noble gases.
The square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Let x equal the number of black socks in the drawer...The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. "Carthage must be destroyed!"
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, /The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea. /The plowman homeward plods his weary way, /And leaves the world to darkness and to me. "Eustacia Vye was a wicked, scheming woman who richly deserved her fate. True or false? Give examples." Write a sentence illustrating the proper punctuation of a declarative statement: "You cad!" screeched the duchess. "Get your hand off my knee!"
High on a peak in Darien, Mrs. Porter and her daughter washed their feet in soda water...
With malice toward none and charity toward all, would youse stop throwing garbage in the upstairs hall? (signed) The Janitor.
Iacta alea est or Le jeu son faites ---that's what I always say!
On a warm, early fall afternoon, the scent of which should be stoppered in an amber vial labeled "Autumn, Northeastern United States," I sat on the front porch with a late lunch of apple slices and peanut butter, reading a novel set in Imperial Rome. If I had been drinking a glass of milk, which I rarely do these days, the spell would have been even more potent. Dry leaves rustled and were scuffled down the sidewalk by parochial school kids heading home, and even though I myself wore jeans and a tee shirt, my body vividly remembered a short-sleeved cotton blouse and penny loafers and a plaid wool skirt that was really too warm for the day.
As I read, I consulted a map of the ancient city, pleased that the translation of S.P.Q.R., Senatus Populusque Romanus---"For the Senate and the Roman People"---came so easily to mind.
What came along with it was the sensation of weight: a big black three-ring binder divided into sections on which were balanced a large blue American History book almost the same size, a thick green Latin II grammar and a slimmer blue French text, a gray book of plane geometry theorems and proofs, and a small dark blue edition of "The Return of the Native." My homework.
This Alice, instead of falling down a rabbit-hole, slid down the decades to a large square building of pale yellow brick that dominated a city block. "Hail, Holyoke High School! Alma mater, first forever..."
Memorize the first declension, singular and plural, of the nouns aqua and agricola. What are the four principal parts of a Latin verb? Name the cases of the second declension. Translate: Gallia est omnia divisa in partes tres... A gerundive is an adjective; a gerund is a noun.
When did Nieuw Amsterdam become New York? Who was John Peter Zenger, and why was he important in colonial history? What was Shay's Rebellion?
When was Providence Plantation founded, and by whom? How did George Washington win the Battle of Trenton? "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."
Ouvrez vos cahiers pour une petite dictee...Conjugate the present tense of the verb avoir: J'ai, tu as, il/elle a, nous avons, vous avez, ils/elles ont. For tomorrow, translate the second and third chapters of "Le Voyage du Monsieur Perichon."
What is the difference between an element's atomic weight and atomic number? In ascending order, list the hierarchy of the eight major taxonomic ranks of biological classification: species/genus/family/order/class/phylum/kingdom/
domain. "Everything that lives, changes." Sum, esse, fui, futurus. Je suis, tu es, il/elle est, nous sommes, vous etes, ils/elles sont. Name the seven noble gases.
The square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. Let x equal the number of black socks in the drawer...The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. "Carthage must be destroyed!"
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, /The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea. /The plowman homeward plods his weary way, /And leaves the world to darkness and to me. "Eustacia Vye was a wicked, scheming woman who richly deserved her fate. True or false? Give examples." Write a sentence illustrating the proper punctuation of a declarative statement: "You cad!" screeched the duchess. "Get your hand off my knee!"
High on a peak in Darien, Mrs. Porter and her daughter washed their feet in soda water...
With malice toward none and charity toward all, would youse stop throwing garbage in the upstairs hall? (signed) The Janitor.
Iacta alea est or Le jeu son faites ---that's what I always say!
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Puttering for Dummies
Putter: (1) to move or act aimlessly or idly; (2) to work at random: tinker.
Tinker: to work in the manner of a tinker, esp. to repair, adjust or work with something in an unskilled or experimental manner: fiddle.
Fiddle: to spend time in aimless or fruitless activity.
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
When I retired a few years ago, I had no clear idea of how I would spend my days. I knew that being free of the job, not to mention the commute, would open up great swathes of time. I made vague plans to take classes, spend more time volunteering, go for a daily walk, but even after penciling in weekly yoga, doctors' appointments, dental check-ups, hair appointments, and lunch dates, my first post-retirement monthly calendar was a virtual Siberia of blank white squares.
Seven years later, I have added town library board meetings, coffee morning concerts at the philharmonic, twice-weekly water aerobics in the summer, mornings in the month of June dedicated to sorting and set-up for the Friends of the Library book sale, and cashiering at a rummage sale for the benefit of a school and care center for AIDS orphans in Kenya to my agenda, but there's still an awful lot of white space in my desk diary. At the same time, I have become one of those fortunate people who smugly wonder how they ever found the time to work because they are so busily occupied in retirement.
In my case, this claim has nothing to do with everyday tasks like cleaning and laundry. As a mother of two who had worked outside the home since my younger daughter was in kindergarten, housekeeping was something I did in slapdash fashion on weekends between grocery shopping and other errands. Sheets and towels got changed, bathrooms got cleaned, laundry got done, and the carpeting got a lick-and-a-promise with the vacuum cleaner, but I rarely did more than was required, as my (also working) mother used to say, to keep the Board of Health from the door. If I was lucky, I could eke out a few hours for myself, and I usually spent them reading.
I've seen no reason to change in retirement. Lord knows, the cat doesn't care about my housekeeping skills, so long as his food dish is filled, his litter box is clean, and there's a soft, warm place for him to sleep in every room in the house. As for me, before I left the workforce, I never once stood at the bus stop on a cold winter's morning wishing I could be at home wiping the bathroom blinds slat by slat and scrubbing grout with a toothbrush.
Cooking for one---when I actually cook---takes no time at all. I have a large repertoire of dishes that can be thrown in the oven or slow cooker and left to their own devices. I am an indifferent crafter, having tried and failed to excel at decoupage, jewelry making, stenciling, and Japanese brush painting. The less said about my attempts at watercolor painting, the better.
I can knit one, purl one, and sew a straight seam on a machine, but how many scarves and throw pillows does one person need? I tend to get bored with knitting anyway; if memory serves, I started the unfinished scarf in my knitting basket three years ago.
While it is true that a gardener's work is never done, in our neck of the woods my work gloves and pruning shears don't get much use from November to March or April.
Rain or shine, of course, I have hours to read, and there are sacrosanct times of the day when it's just me and my book, but even the most assiduous bookworm has to get off the couch sometime. There's a little too much New England Yankee in me to contemplate an entire day without doing something at least nominally useful.
I might today be one of those elders I see hanging out at the mall or looking for a Scrabble partner at the senior center. I might have become a Wal*Mart greeter just to get myself out of the house. Instead, I hired a carpenter to build open shelves in the dining room. He was competent at basic construction but not so hot with finish work, so I bought myself a miter box and saw, and some quarter-round molding, and did it myself. Thus was a putterer born. Thus did white spaces on the calendar become expansive opportunities to practice my new calling.
From the first project through all the subsequent ones, I have learned this immutable truth: Work is work, something you do because you have to, when you have to, whether you like it or not. Puttering, fiddling, tinkering, what you will, is sort of like work but infinitely more satisfying because it's totally voluntary. For instance:
* Polishing silver flatware is work; polishing my silver jewelry is puttering.
* Organizing my tax files is work; organizing my recipe files is puttering.
* Rearranging the linen closet is work; rearranging the bookshelves is puttering of the highest order because it requires browsing.
* Trying to replace a kitchen undercounter light cover is work; trying to fix a $4.99 pair of earrings from Target is tinkering. (Both tasks took approximately 40 minutes, and only the latter was successful.)
* Creating order and cleanliness in the cellar is not just work, it's drudgery; creating order and cleanliness in my studio/workroom is a hoot---all those spools of thread and bottles of paint arranged by color!
* Painting a room is work, no matter how pleased I am with the end result; painting the funky little table I found at Goodwill to go into the room is puttering.
Which opens up a whole new can of latex. Stopping at likely-looking garage sales, poking in thrift shops, roving the aisles of home improvement centers and discount fabric outlets, not to mention checking out the dollar store and the crafts store, is fiddling around at its finest. I can find something new to fix and the materials to fix it, and if I am scrupulous in my preparations, I can spend a few full, happy days getting ready to begin to start the actual doing.
But that's just me. How you tinker, putter, fiddle, or fool around is a matter of individual taste. This is where the lexicographers and I part company: When I putter, I am neither aimless nor idle, and am in no way random. When I fiddle, my activiity is not customarily fruitless, and when I tinker, my work is neither as unskilled nor as experimental as it once was.
As the quotation from Shakespeare does not exactly go, "Be not afraid to putter: some are born to putter, some achieve puttering, and some have puttering thrust upon them. Me, I was born to the purple thumb of the badly swung hammer, but I'm missing my thumbnail more often than I used to.
Tinker: to work in the manner of a tinker, esp. to repair, adjust or work with something in an unskilled or experimental manner: fiddle.
Fiddle: to spend time in aimless or fruitless activity.
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
When I retired a few years ago, I had no clear idea of how I would spend my days. I knew that being free of the job, not to mention the commute, would open up great swathes of time. I made vague plans to take classes, spend more time volunteering, go for a daily walk, but even after penciling in weekly yoga, doctors' appointments, dental check-ups, hair appointments, and lunch dates, my first post-retirement monthly calendar was a virtual Siberia of blank white squares.
Seven years later, I have added town library board meetings, coffee morning concerts at the philharmonic, twice-weekly water aerobics in the summer, mornings in the month of June dedicated to sorting and set-up for the Friends of the Library book sale, and cashiering at a rummage sale for the benefit of a school and care center for AIDS orphans in Kenya to my agenda, but there's still an awful lot of white space in my desk diary. At the same time, I have become one of those fortunate people who smugly wonder how they ever found the time to work because they are so busily occupied in retirement.
In my case, this claim has nothing to do with everyday tasks like cleaning and laundry. As a mother of two who had worked outside the home since my younger daughter was in kindergarten, housekeeping was something I did in slapdash fashion on weekends between grocery shopping and other errands. Sheets and towels got changed, bathrooms got cleaned, laundry got done, and the carpeting got a lick-and-a-promise with the vacuum cleaner, but I rarely did more than was required, as my (also working) mother used to say, to keep the Board of Health from the door. If I was lucky, I could eke out a few hours for myself, and I usually spent them reading.
I've seen no reason to change in retirement. Lord knows, the cat doesn't care about my housekeeping skills, so long as his food dish is filled, his litter box is clean, and there's a soft, warm place for him to sleep in every room in the house. As for me, before I left the workforce, I never once stood at the bus stop on a cold winter's morning wishing I could be at home wiping the bathroom blinds slat by slat and scrubbing grout with a toothbrush.
Cooking for one---when I actually cook---takes no time at all. I have a large repertoire of dishes that can be thrown in the oven or slow cooker and left to their own devices. I am an indifferent crafter, having tried and failed to excel at decoupage, jewelry making, stenciling, and Japanese brush painting. The less said about my attempts at watercolor painting, the better.
I can knit one, purl one, and sew a straight seam on a machine, but how many scarves and throw pillows does one person need? I tend to get bored with knitting anyway; if memory serves, I started the unfinished scarf in my knitting basket three years ago.
While it is true that a gardener's work is never done, in our neck of the woods my work gloves and pruning shears don't get much use from November to March or April.
Rain or shine, of course, I have hours to read, and there are sacrosanct times of the day when it's just me and my book, but even the most assiduous bookworm has to get off the couch sometime. There's a little too much New England Yankee in me to contemplate an entire day without doing something at least nominally useful.
I might today be one of those elders I see hanging out at the mall or looking for a Scrabble partner at the senior center. I might have become a Wal*Mart greeter just to get myself out of the house. Instead, I hired a carpenter to build open shelves in the dining room. He was competent at basic construction but not so hot with finish work, so I bought myself a miter box and saw, and some quarter-round molding, and did it myself. Thus was a putterer born. Thus did white spaces on the calendar become expansive opportunities to practice my new calling.
From the first project through all the subsequent ones, I have learned this immutable truth: Work is work, something you do because you have to, when you have to, whether you like it or not. Puttering, fiddling, tinkering, what you will, is sort of like work but infinitely more satisfying because it's totally voluntary. For instance:
* Polishing silver flatware is work; polishing my silver jewelry is puttering.
* Organizing my tax files is work; organizing my recipe files is puttering.
* Rearranging the linen closet is work; rearranging the bookshelves is puttering of the highest order because it requires browsing.
* Trying to replace a kitchen undercounter light cover is work; trying to fix a $4.99 pair of earrings from Target is tinkering. (Both tasks took approximately 40 minutes, and only the latter was successful.)
* Creating order and cleanliness in the cellar is not just work, it's drudgery; creating order and cleanliness in my studio/workroom is a hoot---all those spools of thread and bottles of paint arranged by color!
* Painting a room is work, no matter how pleased I am with the end result; painting the funky little table I found at Goodwill to go into the room is puttering.
Which opens up a whole new can of latex. Stopping at likely-looking garage sales, poking in thrift shops, roving the aisles of home improvement centers and discount fabric outlets, not to mention checking out the dollar store and the crafts store, is fiddling around at its finest. I can find something new to fix and the materials to fix it, and if I am scrupulous in my preparations, I can spend a few full, happy days getting ready to begin to start the actual doing.
But that's just me. How you tinker, putter, fiddle, or fool around is a matter of individual taste. This is where the lexicographers and I part company: When I putter, I am neither aimless nor idle, and am in no way random. When I fiddle, my activiity is not customarily fruitless, and when I tinker, my work is neither as unskilled nor as experimental as it once was.
As the quotation from Shakespeare does not exactly go, "Be not afraid to putter: some are born to putter, some achieve puttering, and some have puttering thrust upon them. Me, I was born to the purple thumb of the badly swung hammer, but I'm missing my thumbnail more often than I used to.
Friday, May 20, 2011
I Can't Watch! It's Just Too Painful!
While at lunch with Kathy and Keith today, the talk turned to what movies we'd seen lately and whether they'd been worth our time. I tend to give credence to their recommendations because Keith is an accomplished actor and Kathy is a sprite with a delicious sense of whimsy. (They're married to each other, which works out nicely.)
Kathy suggested that if I hadn't seen it, I'd be pleasantly surprised by "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?", a film I've always ignored because the notion of the gorgeous George Clooney as a hillbilly is ludicrous on its face. But I trust the source of the kudos, so I am inclined to give it a go, especially since the local library has a copy and it will cost me nothing to borrow.
Some of those freebies, however, can stay shelved until Vince Vaughn wins an Oscar, for all I care. There is pulp fiction and there is pulp film, and I have no use for either medium.
In case of any confusion, what follows is my personal Bucket List of movies that should have been dropped in the bucket moments after going to DVD:
Any film featuring Lindsay Lohan, Aston Kutcher, Adam Sandler, Nicolas Cage, Matthew McConaughey, Seth Rogen, or any of the three twits in "The Darjeeling Express." (Oh, wait. Didn't Seth Rogen portray two of them?)
Any film starring Meg Ryan, Jack Nicholson, Reese Witherspoon, Molly Ringwald, Billy Bob Thornton, and/or Ben Stiller. Speaking of which, it's time to give Robert DeNiro his Lifetime Achievement Award and get him off the podium if he commits one more episode of the Fockers. Ditto Dustin Hoffman.
Any self-described romantic comedy that is neither romantic nor comedic and that headlines one of those interchangeable blondes. I can't tell Kate Hudson from Amanda Seyfried, and it doesn't matter a whit.
Movie versions of long-running TV series, including, but not limited to, "Hannah Montana," "High School Musical," "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch," "Fame," "South Park," and "The Simpsons." If Marge, Homer, and family can make it to the big screen, can "Glee" and "The Office" be far behind? (I don't count the Muppet movies in this prohibition; I still love them.)
Any of the high-testosterone flicks our library was obliged (before RFID tagging)to keep behind the circ desk because they tended to go walk-about with 13- to 15-year-old patrons. High-speed car chases, megaton explosions, bloody gun battles, and extreme potty mouth do not a stimulating, cerebral drama make.
National Lampoon's Anything.
Tyler Perry's Anything.
"Scary Movie 1, 2, OR 3."
"Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz."
Remakes of classic films---"The Women," "The Philadelphia Story," "The Out-of- Towners," "Cheaper by the Dozen." I did indeed appreciate the HBO miniseries, "Mildred Pierce," but the Joan Crawford original on TCM can still reel me in.
Despite the rigid criteria, I am left with more options for home entertainment than one might imagine, not counting animated features, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and all those television series now available on DVD. (The library's CSI collection alone could keep me housebound for months, as could all those episodes of "House" and three seasons of "The Tudors.")
Know what? I'd still rather read a book.
Kathy suggested that if I hadn't seen it, I'd be pleasantly surprised by "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?", a film I've always ignored because the notion of the gorgeous George Clooney as a hillbilly is ludicrous on its face. But I trust the source of the kudos, so I am inclined to give it a go, especially since the local library has a copy and it will cost me nothing to borrow.
Some of those freebies, however, can stay shelved until Vince Vaughn wins an Oscar, for all I care. There is pulp fiction and there is pulp film, and I have no use for either medium.
In case of any confusion, what follows is my personal Bucket List of movies that should have been dropped in the bucket moments after going to DVD:
Any film featuring Lindsay Lohan, Aston Kutcher, Adam Sandler, Nicolas Cage, Matthew McConaughey, Seth Rogen, or any of the three twits in "The Darjeeling Express." (Oh, wait. Didn't Seth Rogen portray two of them?)
Any film starring Meg Ryan, Jack Nicholson, Reese Witherspoon, Molly Ringwald, Billy Bob Thornton, and/or Ben Stiller. Speaking of which, it's time to give Robert DeNiro his Lifetime Achievement Award and get him off the podium if he commits one more episode of the Fockers. Ditto Dustin Hoffman.
Any self-described romantic comedy that is neither romantic nor comedic and that headlines one of those interchangeable blondes. I can't tell Kate Hudson from Amanda Seyfried, and it doesn't matter a whit.
Movie versions of long-running TV series, including, but not limited to, "Hannah Montana," "High School Musical," "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch," "Fame," "South Park," and "The Simpsons." If Marge, Homer, and family can make it to the big screen, can "Glee" and "The Office" be far behind? (I don't count the Muppet movies in this prohibition; I still love them.)
Any of the high-testosterone flicks our library was obliged (before RFID tagging)to keep behind the circ desk because they tended to go walk-about with 13- to 15-year-old patrons. High-speed car chases, megaton explosions, bloody gun battles, and extreme potty mouth do not a stimulating, cerebral drama make.
National Lampoon's Anything.
Tyler Perry's Anything.
"Scary Movie 1, 2, OR 3."
"Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz."
Remakes of classic films---"The Women," "The Philadelphia Story," "The Out-of- Towners," "Cheaper by the Dozen." I did indeed appreciate the HBO miniseries, "Mildred Pierce," but the Joan Crawford original on TCM can still reel me in.
Despite the rigid criteria, I am left with more options for home entertainment than one might imagine, not counting animated features, the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, and all those television series now available on DVD. (The library's CSI collection alone could keep me housebound for months, as could all those episodes of "House" and three seasons of "The Tudors.")
Know what? I'd still rather read a book.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Absolutely Positively Non-Required Reading
For more decades than I care to count or even to estimate, I have carried around a fat little notebook listing authors and titles I plan to read as a handy reference for off-chance visits to secondhand bookstores and unfamiliar library branches. I know I am not alone in this; most avid readers, like avid birders, keep a lifetime list and are always on the prowl for a specimen they have yet to find. During our Friends of the Library push to tag and digitally encode the collection of our very familiar local branch, though, I began to keep a very different kind of list---authors and titles I have no intention of reading, ever.
Since I believe that life is too short to finish a book that hasn't engaged me by the end of Chapter 3, it's logical to conclude that it will be shorter still unless I cut to the chase in pursuit of my A-List reads. Whilst compiling this list of Don't-Bothers and Please-Spare-Mes, I fantasized about borrowing a leaf from Stacy London and opining What Not to Read, but as both a former library staffer and continuing devotee of the American Library Association's Freedom to Read campaign, I can't be that doctrinaire. All I can do is set forth my personal criteria and let the Nora Roberts paper-backs fall where they may---into the recycle bin, preferably.
So, do not expect to find on my bookshelves nor on my bedside table the following:
Donna Andrews, Susan Wittig Albert, Hannah Alexander, David Baldacci, William Bernhardt, Steve Berry, M.C. Beaton, Maeve Binchy, Rhys Bowen, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Dale Brown, Dan Brown AND Sandra Brown; Meg Cabot, Stella Cameron, Robyn Carr, Diane Chamberlain, Sandra Chastain, Jennifer Chiaverini, Lee Child, Mary Jane Clark, Jane K. Cleland, Blaize Clements, Robin Cook, Stephanie Coonts, Patricia Cornwell, Catherine Coulter, Michael Crichton, Jennifer Cruise.
Also, Janet Dailey, Barbara Delinsky, Nelson DeMille, Jude Devereaux, Janet Evanovich---I wearied of Stephanie Plum long before "Jersey Shores" made her look like Garden State intelligentsia---Richard Paul Evans, Linda Fairstein, Diana Gabaldon, Lisa Gardner, Dorothy Garlock, Julie Garwood, Judith Gould, Heather Graham, Andrew Greeley, Tim Green, Linda Greenlaw, W.E.B. Griffin, James W. Hall, Jack Higgins, Tami Hoag, Kay Hooper, Linda Howard, Greg Iles, Iris Johansen, Karen Kingsbury, John Lescroart, Elizabeth Lowell.
And, Sharyn McCrumb, Judith McNaught, Margaret Maron, Judith Michael, Fern Michaels (!), Linda Lael Miller, Tamar Myers, Tami O'Dell, Robert B. Parker, Ridley Pearson, Carly Phillips, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Jodi Picoult, David Poyer, Douglas Preston (with or without Lincoln Childs), Amanda Quick (who is Jayne Anne Krentz), Kathy Reichs, Anne Rice, Luanne Rice (!!), Emilie Richards, Karen Robards, John Sandford, Lisa Scottoline, Anne Rivers Siddons, Nicholas Sparks, LaVyrle Spencer, Peter Straub, Robert K. Tanenbaum, Penny Vincenzi, Robert James Waller, Jennifer Weiner, Stephen White, Phyllis Whitney, Susan Wiggs, Stuart Woods (!!!).
Ah, but those are by no means all. I will read no book:
By any author whose works constitute their own mini section of Adult Fiction: James Patterson, Harlan Coben, Clive Cussler, Danielle Steel, Dean Koontz, John Grisham, Jayne Anne Krentz, Debbie Macomber, Nora Roberts AND her mystery-writing avatar, J.D. Robb, Tess Gerritsen. Truly, every time Patterson does one of those commercials saying that unless I buy his new book, he may have to kill off Alex Cross, my eager response is, "You promise?"
By any author (see above) so prolific that there are three or more of their titles on the 7-day shelves at any given time.
By anyone described above the title as "New York Times Best-Selling Author." The NYT best-seller lists measure is sales; they have nothing to do with quality. If they did, would "The Shack" have stayed at No. 1 all those weeks? Or "Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend?" Or anything by Sarah Palin? Titles recommended by People, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, Oprah, or the Today Show don't cut much ice with me either.
By any author earning kudos in the jacket blurbs from any of the authors named above.
Described as "chick-lit." Candace Bushnell, Sophie Kinsella, and Meg Cabot have a lot to answer for.
By the Family Businesses: Faye Kellermann and Jonathan Kellermann and all their heirs and assigns; James Lee Burke and Alafair Burke; Joan and Jackie Collins; Mary Higgins and Carol Higgins Clark. I am willing to cut Stephen and Tabitha King and their son Joe Hill a little slack; only Stephen is all that prolific, and I do like his short fiction. I'm also inclined to grant a waiver to Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, a married couple who write separate but equally good private-eye series.
By celebrity authors whose apparent sole contribution to their co-authored works is their celebrity: Richard Belzer, Al Roker, Erin Brockovich.
Described as "Christian fiction," whether simpering romances or the apocalyptic gore of Tim LaHaye. Oh, and can we please leave the Amish alone?
Bearing a punnishly cute title, such as "Hell Hath No Curry" or "As the World Churns" (Tamar Myers) or whose amateur sleuth protagonists are cunningly named, like Diane Mott Davidson's Goldy Behr, owner of Goldilocks Catering. Indeed, inclusion of recipes, quilt designs, and knitting patterns has turned the once-respectable whodunnit into a division of Woman's Day.
In which the "detective" is an animal, particularly a cat. I love cats, I love detective novels, I am even fond of detectives who are fond of cats, such as John Harvey's Charlie Resnick, who shares digs with Dizzy, Miles, and Satch; and Mark Billingham's Tom Thorne, whose cat is Elvis. I am, however, decidedly unfond of the distressingly anthropomorphic tales of Lillian Jackson Braun, Rita Mae Brown, Shirley Rousseau Murphy, and Carole Nelson Douglas. Face it, cats are too smart to get mixed up in a murder investigation.
Produced with or without assistance by film, music, or sports stars. If I can resist reading tabloid headlines about "Brangelina" in the checkout line, whyever would I read a 300-page book? No matter how glowing their star power, I have zero interest in their past lives, loves, diets, health problems and/or addictions, household hints, decorating advice, or parenting tips. This goes double for the air-brushed memoirs of political candidates.
Featuring vampires, zombies, werewolves (though I grant Sirius Black a waiver), ghosts, ghouls, and/or Godzilla. I am even less enthralled with pastiches linking Jane Austen to vampires and sea monsters.
Compared to "The DaVinci Code."
Featuring cartoon characters. I don't care that publishers call them graphic novels and put them between hard covers---they're comic books.
Penned by and prominently featuring on the cover such snake-oil sales staff as Sylvia Browne, Dr. Phil, Deepak Chopra, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, various televangelists, each and every one of the Food Network chefs, Suze Orman, and Martha Stewart. I can live happily without Mitch Albom, too, even though his photo doesn't appear on the fronts of "Tuesdays With Morrie" and "Five People You Meet in Heaven."
Since I believe that life is too short to finish a book that hasn't engaged me by the end of Chapter 3, it's logical to conclude that it will be shorter still unless I cut to the chase in pursuit of my A-List reads. Whilst compiling this list of Don't-Bothers and Please-Spare-Mes, I fantasized about borrowing a leaf from Stacy London and opining What Not to Read, but as both a former library staffer and continuing devotee of the American Library Association's Freedom to Read campaign, I can't be that doctrinaire. All I can do is set forth my personal criteria and let the Nora Roberts paper-backs fall where they may---into the recycle bin, preferably.
So, do not expect to find on my bookshelves nor on my bedside table the following:
Donna Andrews, Susan Wittig Albert, Hannah Alexander, David Baldacci, William Bernhardt, Steve Berry, M.C. Beaton, Maeve Binchy, Rhys Bowen, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Dale Brown, Dan Brown AND Sandra Brown; Meg Cabot, Stella Cameron, Robyn Carr, Diane Chamberlain, Sandra Chastain, Jennifer Chiaverini, Lee Child, Mary Jane Clark, Jane K. Cleland, Blaize Clements, Robin Cook, Stephanie Coonts, Patricia Cornwell, Catherine Coulter, Michael Crichton, Jennifer Cruise.
Also, Janet Dailey, Barbara Delinsky, Nelson DeMille, Jude Devereaux, Janet Evanovich---I wearied of Stephanie Plum long before "Jersey Shores" made her look like Garden State intelligentsia---Richard Paul Evans, Linda Fairstein, Diana Gabaldon, Lisa Gardner, Dorothy Garlock, Julie Garwood, Judith Gould, Heather Graham, Andrew Greeley, Tim Green, Linda Greenlaw, W.E.B. Griffin, James W. Hall, Jack Higgins, Tami Hoag, Kay Hooper, Linda Howard, Greg Iles, Iris Johansen, Karen Kingsbury, John Lescroart, Elizabeth Lowell.
And, Sharyn McCrumb, Judith McNaught, Margaret Maron, Judith Michael, Fern Michaels (!), Linda Lael Miller, Tamar Myers, Tami O'Dell, Robert B. Parker, Ridley Pearson, Carly Phillips, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Jodi Picoult, David Poyer, Douglas Preston (with or without Lincoln Childs), Amanda Quick (who is Jayne Anne Krentz), Kathy Reichs, Anne Rice, Luanne Rice (!!), Emilie Richards, Karen Robards, John Sandford, Lisa Scottoline, Anne Rivers Siddons, Nicholas Sparks, LaVyrle Spencer, Peter Straub, Robert K. Tanenbaum, Penny Vincenzi, Robert James Waller, Jennifer Weiner, Stephen White, Phyllis Whitney, Susan Wiggs, Stuart Woods (!!!).
Ah, but those are by no means all. I will read no book:
Now that I've got all that off my chest, my shelves, and my to-read list, guess I'll go read something I really want to...where's my copy of "Treasure Island?"
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Booked for Perdition
The English settlers of my home turf---until the advent of clambakes on the beach, St. Patrick's Day, and the Boston Red Sox---weren't much fun. Given to uttering such grim admonishments as "Virtue is ye own reward" and "Idle hands are ye Devil's tools," they held an even dimmer view of folk who labored or enjoyed themselves on the Sabbath.
Last Sunday, those Bay State sourpusses must have been spinning in their cold, narrow graves because I did both.
Sufficiently obedient to my Puritanical heritage to feel that I must somehow "earn" my collapse on the couch with a book---not the Good One, but a good one---I decided to run barefoot through my bookshelves, weeding my collection for donations for the library book sale. This is no quick-and-easy undertaking: I have caches of books in every room in the house, save the dining room (yet) and the two baths (an oversight). There are books on shelves, in baskets, in crates, on tabletops, stacked on the floor, and I went through them all.
As always, it was a time of rediscoveries and resignations. Why do I own four different editions of "The Canterbury Tales" and two of "The Wind in the Willows?" How did I wind up with two copies of David McCullough's "1776" and have read neither? Do I really want to read this debut novel by a former funeral director which jacket blurbs describe as being in a class with "Six Feet Under?" (No.)
As the fashion gurus advise of clothing not worn for two or three seasons, this was the opportune time to divest myself of all those unread shiny new novels by shiny new novelists that looked appealing when they first came out but aren't really my style.
Some I will hang onto, read or not, because every literate home should have a decent copy of "Madame Bovary" and you never know when you will need a good translation of the "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." Some, like the elderly hardcovers of Edith Hamilton's "The Greek Way" and F. Scott Fitzgerald's letters to his daughter, will have a home in perpetuity on my shelves because they were rescues from previous years' book sales. If it hadn't been for me, their pages would have been torn from their covers and recycled, and the covers thrown in the trash. I just can't consign them to that fate again; it would be like taking the dog you adopted because you felt sorry for him back to the shelter. Besides, I just might read those books some day.
Naturally, to choose which books go and which stay, I had to read a little of each, so my weeding took the best---and I do mean "best"--- part of the afternoon. All of my Kurt Vonnegut will stay, Sarah Waters will go. I guess I can let Murray Kempton's collections of columns go---but not Molly Ivins' or Mike Royko's. Glad I didn't go for that deluxe edition of the collected Wallace Stevens; I already own one. You will have to pry these "Amphigorey" compilations and the All-American Ads series out of my cold, dead fingers.
I am still undecided about the Sir John Fielding series of mysteries by Bruce Alexander and the Marjorie Eccles and Caroline Graham books I accumulated after I had read one novel by each author and decided in my obssessive-compulsive way that I had to have them all. Maybe I'll give them a year's reprieve, as I did with Reginald Hill and Ian Rankin last year. Which worked out: I have actually been dipping into their books this winter.
At the end of the afternoon, my Sabbath-breaking netted the book sale five liquor-store boxes (Nyah-nyah-nyah, Cotton Mather!) packed with some pretty good stuff, and I had had a perfectly marvelous time.
Last Sunday, those Bay State sourpusses must have been spinning in their cold, narrow graves because I did both.
Sufficiently obedient to my Puritanical heritage to feel that I must somehow "earn" my collapse on the couch with a book---not the Good One, but a good one---I decided to run barefoot through my bookshelves, weeding my collection for donations for the library book sale. This is no quick-and-easy undertaking: I have caches of books in every room in the house, save the dining room (yet) and the two baths (an oversight). There are books on shelves, in baskets, in crates, on tabletops, stacked on the floor, and I went through them all.
As always, it was a time of rediscoveries and resignations. Why do I own four different editions of "The Canterbury Tales" and two of "The Wind in the Willows?" How did I wind up with two copies of David McCullough's "1776" and have read neither? Do I really want to read this debut novel by a former funeral director which jacket blurbs describe as being in a class with "Six Feet Under?" (No.)
As the fashion gurus advise of clothing not worn for two or three seasons, this was the opportune time to divest myself of all those unread shiny new novels by shiny new novelists that looked appealing when they first came out but aren't really my style.
Some I will hang onto, read or not, because every literate home should have a decent copy of "Madame Bovary" and you never know when you will need a good translation of the "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." Some, like the elderly hardcovers of Edith Hamilton's "The Greek Way" and F. Scott Fitzgerald's letters to his daughter, will have a home in perpetuity on my shelves because they were rescues from previous years' book sales. If it hadn't been for me, their pages would have been torn from their covers and recycled, and the covers thrown in the trash. I just can't consign them to that fate again; it would be like taking the dog you adopted because you felt sorry for him back to the shelter. Besides, I just might read those books some day.
Naturally, to choose which books go and which stay, I had to read a little of each, so my weeding took the best---and I do mean "best"--- part of the afternoon. All of my Kurt Vonnegut will stay, Sarah Waters will go. I guess I can let Murray Kempton's collections of columns go---but not Molly Ivins' or Mike Royko's. Glad I didn't go for that deluxe edition of the collected Wallace Stevens; I already own one. You will have to pry these "Amphigorey" compilations and the All-American Ads series out of my cold, dead fingers.
I am still undecided about the Sir John Fielding series of mysteries by Bruce Alexander and the Marjorie Eccles and Caroline Graham books I accumulated after I had read one novel by each author and decided in my obssessive-compulsive way that I had to have them all. Maybe I'll give them a year's reprieve, as I did with Reginald Hill and Ian Rankin last year. Which worked out: I have actually been dipping into their books this winter.
At the end of the afternoon, my Sabbath-breaking netted the book sale five liquor-store boxes (Nyah-nyah-nyah, Cotton Mather!) packed with some pretty good stuff, and I had had a perfectly marvelous time.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Hey, Hey, DMA---How Many Trees Did You Kill Today?
You will pardon me, I'm sure, while I blow on my fingers and toes to get the circulation going. I am just back from a quick jog to the curb with most of the day's mail, and a pair of flip-flops was the nearest available footwear.
Normally on Tuesdays I wait for the mail lady's delivery before I put out my recycle bins for Wednesday pick-up, but it was late today and chockablock with glossy catalogs, charity appeals, and amazing limited-time-only offers in which I have absolutely no interest. I couldn't wait until next week to get them out of the house, hence the trash run.
The pleas for donations are my own darn fault; give money to save the whales, the children, or the blue-footed booby just once, and the effusive letter of thanks from their champions will come complete with postage-paid envelope and pledge form for an even more generous contribution. A week without letters from the World Wildlife Fund, the ASPCA, and Doctors Without Borders would make me doubt my own existence.
Second to these begging letters in number (but not by much) are the siren songs of merchants hoping to find geezer gold with their products and services for folks of---shall we say---a certain age. All the life insurance policies, guided tours of Alaska, elastic waist pants, and Velcro-fastened sneakers you could hope for, courtesy of AARP's brazen sale of its membership lists. Our local Lions Club puts out a phone directory specifically for East Aurora and environs, which is admittedly handy when I'm writing Christmas cards, but it also serves as a primo mailing list for area businesses, such as the hearing-aid dealer who today sent me an handwritten invitation for a "free" hearing test.
The bulk---and I do mean "bulk"---of my junk mailings, though, are the catalogs that account for at least 90 percent of the paper I discard, well over 500 pounds a year by my extremely conservative estimate.
Some I actually keep, read, and order from: L.L. Bean, Land's End, a few booksellers, garden suppliers, Aerosoles, The Company Store, Dick Blick Studio, and---when they deign to send me one---the annual IKEA catalog.
A few I will keep overnight and at least glance at, if the clothes/home furnishings/paper products look like something I might actually wear/use and the prices aren't too outrageous.
By far the greatest number, however, the ones that make me ponder replacing the mail box with a recycle bin. These are the work of: (a) sellers from whom I have not now nor have ever ordered; (b) merchants from whom I made a single purchase so long ago I don't remember what it was. An example of the former is Wisteria, a supplier of upscale tschotkes, whose taste is not my own. I think they got my address from Better Homes & Gardens, to which I have not subscribed for five years or so.
Examples of the latter include Title 9, a supplier of women's sports gear, from whom I ordered a gift certificate for my younger daughter at least eight years ago, and Chinaberry, purveyor of twee children's books and toys, who provided a costly Christmas gift for my preschool granddaughter. (I don't recall what the gift was, just that it WAS costly.) Since she will officially become a teenager a month hence, you have to admire their dogged pursuit of my custom. I expect that should I live long enough to become a great-grandmother, I'll still be on their mailing list.
Yes, I am aware that there are purported remedies for the receipt of unwanted catalogs: the above-mentioned Direct Marketing Association, with whom I have had absolutely no luck; www.catalogchoice.org, and others that might get me out from under the avalanche of paper.
I am not, however, optimistic, just resigned to a life of carting four-color junk to the curb.
As my sister remarks of the magazines that plague her to renew at even lower rates just months after a new term starts, her subscriptions will likely outlast her and the post office will be delivering Good Housekeeping and Woman's Day to her plot in St. Mary's Cemetery forever.
As for me, I may be getting a perpetual flame.
Normally on Tuesdays I wait for the mail lady's delivery before I put out my recycle bins for Wednesday pick-up, but it was late today and chockablock with glossy catalogs, charity appeals, and amazing limited-time-only offers in which I have absolutely no interest. I couldn't wait until next week to get them out of the house, hence the trash run.
The pleas for donations are my own darn fault; give money to save the whales, the children, or the blue-footed booby just once, and the effusive letter of thanks from their champions will come complete with postage-paid envelope and pledge form for an even more generous contribution. A week without letters from the World Wildlife Fund, the ASPCA, and Doctors Without Borders would make me doubt my own existence.
Second to these begging letters in number (but not by much) are the siren songs of merchants hoping to find geezer gold with their products and services for folks of---shall we say---a certain age. All the life insurance policies, guided tours of Alaska, elastic waist pants, and Velcro-fastened sneakers you could hope for, courtesy of AARP's brazen sale of its membership lists. Our local Lions Club puts out a phone directory specifically for East Aurora and environs, which is admittedly handy when I'm writing Christmas cards, but it also serves as a primo mailing list for area businesses, such as the hearing-aid dealer who today sent me an handwritten invitation for a "free" hearing test.
The bulk---and I do mean "bulk"---of my junk mailings, though, are the catalogs that account for at least 90 percent of the paper I discard, well over 500 pounds a year by my extremely conservative estimate.
Some I actually keep, read, and order from: L.L. Bean, Land's End, a few booksellers, garden suppliers, Aerosoles, The Company Store, Dick Blick Studio, and---when they deign to send me one---the annual IKEA catalog.
A few I will keep overnight and at least glance at, if the clothes/home furnishings/paper products look like something I might actually wear/use and the prices aren't too outrageous.
By far the greatest number, however, the ones that make me ponder replacing the mail box with a recycle bin. These are the work of: (a) sellers from whom I have not now nor have ever ordered; (b) merchants from whom I made a single purchase so long ago I don't remember what it was. An example of the former is Wisteria, a supplier of upscale tschotkes, whose taste is not my own. I think they got my address from Better Homes & Gardens, to which I have not subscribed for five years or so.
Examples of the latter include Title 9, a supplier of women's sports gear, from whom I ordered a gift certificate for my younger daughter at least eight years ago, and Chinaberry, purveyor of twee children's books and toys, who provided a costly Christmas gift for my preschool granddaughter. (I don't recall what the gift was, just that it WAS costly.) Since she will officially become a teenager a month hence, you have to admire their dogged pursuit of my custom. I expect that should I live long enough to become a great-grandmother, I'll still be on their mailing list.
Yes, I am aware that there are purported remedies for the receipt of unwanted catalogs: the above-mentioned Direct Marketing Association, with whom I have had absolutely no luck; www.catalogchoice.org, and others that might get me out from under the avalanche of paper.
I am not, however, optimistic, just resigned to a life of carting four-color junk to the curb.
As my sister remarks of the magazines that plague her to renew at even lower rates just months after a new term starts, her subscriptions will likely outlast her and the post office will be delivering Good Housekeeping and Woman's Day to her plot in St. Mary's Cemetery forever.
As for me, I may be getting a perpetual flame.
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