Sock It To Me

I had to come home from the Disneyland trip with socks.

The first store I went into where I was going to spend serious cash (or not so serious cash since I'm buying cat socks) had these. Sold. I didn't look at socks after this. Cheshire chat has always been one of my favorite literary characters. "Here's looking at you, kid"? Or how about this?

(I need to listen to this soundtrack. It's delicious.)

When I got home from Anaheim and went to add the Cheshire socks to the drawer, I took a moment to look through all my socks. I have had some for decades. They wear like cast iron. So as long as there isn't a hole in a toe or the heel isn't threadbare, I will keep them. But there were some I just could wear any more. They hadn't quite reached the point of no return, but were close. I wound up adding 4 pair to the give away bag. This is good because Carole and Larry gave me a couple pair for my birthday.

Cardinals are generally thought of as a Christmas bird, but I'll wear these all year 'round. I wear my holiday themed socks any time of the year. Why keep them hidden?

Oh boy! Penguins!

I should do another run through the drawer. I have some socks that, when I pull them out of the drawer, I toss back in. They aren't favorites anymore. I could replace them with ones I'd look forward to wearing.

Beverage:  Irish Breakfast tea

Deb

Reading is Fundamental. A Lot of Books are Not.

One shelf of the two bookshelves in my home office. Lewis Carroll. Shakespeare.

Miscellaneous. The trips of April and May provided me with time to read. I took the cross-stitch along but, when the car died, I didn't feel like putting the effort into counting stitches. Getting lost in a good book was highly preferable. That book was consumed in 14 hours. I picked up a second one in anticipation of the May trip. It's a collection of essays and doesn't promote straight reading. Read 3 or 4 at a time. Set the book aside. Read another 2 to 3 at another time.

The television shows about hoarding got me thinking about my books, as did the current read. It's a book entitled "Readings" and it's by Pulitizer Prize winner, Michael Dirda. For some reason, the photo I have of the book cover is corrupted so you'll need to go to the link to see it. The author is a book critic and a voracious reader. I've found some of his essays on books and reading to be obtuse, but most of them are spot on, exceptionally humorous and full of dropped names, including authors, critics and, most importantly, books.

He defines bibliophiliac. I consider myself one, but I've got nothing on him. I have two stacks in the bedroom, two stacks in the cats' room, three bookshelves upstairs, two bookshelves and numerous boxes in the basement. He describes boxes upon boxes of books, of sneaking off to second hand bookstores, of then having to sneak the purchases made at said stores past a long-suffering wife. I read, deliciously, the essay wherein she culled their boys' bedrooms of books and how he was horrified at what she was going to get rid of, even when "getting rid of" meant taking to a second hand bookstore where they would be sold to new homes. I watched with no small horror as people in hazmat suits shoveled stuff from the homes of hoarders. This is no less a hoarding situation, only it involves books, and, I would wager, we wouldn't blink an eye at the dozens of boxes in a basement or attic.  They are only books.

He talks about trying to get as many different editions of one book as he possibly can. I just read an essay on erotic literature and he mentioned his collection of Lolita books, how each cover from each reissue of the book reflects the sensibilities of the times and what the publisher felt needed to be emphasized. He has 7 different copies of the book, each with a different cover. After reading that, I went into my office and there was the shelf pictured above.

I know what he's talking about. I wanted a copy of everything Lewis Carroll ever wrote because I did my senior thesis on "Nonsense Words in Lewis Carroll's Through the Lookingglass and What Alice Found There". I love Shakespeare so collecting books about him was sort of to be expected. Along life's journey, I've found other things that pique my interest and that I must have. Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series is my current object. I have, I think, all of Agatha Christie's mysteries.

Writings have been burned since the Chinese figured out how to develop an alphabet and assemble that into words on paper. This allowed ideas, which could be against the grand view of the current rulers, to be widely disseminated. Martin Luther started a whole new religion by writing some ideas on parchment and nailing them to a church door. Control ideas and you can control people. Ban books and the ideas contained therein never see the light of day. They don't assault your carefully ordered frame of existence. Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 was written during the McCarthy era when ideas which didn't conform to a scared government were deemed "un-American".

I think, at some deep metaphysical level, those of us who love books have the idea that we could lose them and it's up to us to save them for future generations. It becomes important to keep these, to pass them along, to be subversives because who knows when Douglas Adams will be banned. We can't let that happen because we are aware of what a vast amount of knowledge was lost when the library of Alexandria in Egypt was burned. It's not called the Dark Ages because there was no electricity.

If we are real biblioholics, we wander the bookstores, both new and used, for the quintessential find for whatever genre we enjoy. Some people collect first editions. Some collect graphic (essentially comic book, for those who don't know the term) novelizations of their favorite stories. Some collect specific authors. Some collect specific topics. But we all collect to have, to keep, to preserve. And that's where I'm wrestling with another side of myself.

Divestiture. I mentioned, a few posts back, that I'm going to pare my cookbooks down to a manageable few. AWK! What was I thinking!? That is going to mean getting rid of some. I have them stacked on top of the bookshelf and I'll never use those ones up there because they aren't on the shelf and I never see them. I barely use the ones I have because there's the storage unit in front of the bookshelf but once that's gone, it's time to purge. I tell myself that. I tell myself it will be "easy" to review what I have and just get rid of the ones that don't interest me anymore. Get. Rid. Of. Books. I have books stuffed sideways on other shelves too. I've long wanted them to be upright. And those two stacks in my bedroom? I want to read those books and get rid of those stacks. I want all my Terry Pratchett books to be in one location. They are currently scattered between three different shelf units. All of this means some have to go.

That is the hard part. Books are friends. I'm introverted and I've found a lot of solace in books. Reading Rainbow's hook was that books can take you anywhere. I've been reading since kindergarten. I would give my eye teeth to get a full set of the primers I learned to read from. The Red Book, The Blue Book. I remember the thickness of The White Book, which was really a pale lemon color, that we got in second grade. I remember reading ahead and being annoyed with the reading group to which I was assigned. Some of the farm kids considered reading to be a mere annoyance. Why read when you could get your information from TV? "Did you see Mr. Ed last night? That was so funny!"

Surrounding myself with books is in my blood. I could never not have a home library. I have long wished for the funds to add to my house. I'd add a second story which would include a library where all my books could be filed, just like a public library; non-fiction here, fiction here, cooking there, science fiction there, cat books here in the middle. That would be nirvana.

The Chicago Tribune's Book Fair is June 8 & 9 this year. It's already calling to me. "Come. Come. You came last year and left with a few things. Come again. There will be more to see." I probably will go. I'll develop a list of books I'm looking for, books to add to the stack in the bedroom.

So, I'm wrestling with this. I don't NEED more books. I will always have books on my birthday and Christmas lists but I don't NEED to possess them long term. When was the last time I opened The French Connection, an adequately good thriller? I could get rid of it. I tell myself that, repeatedly. Let's see, over the summer, how many books actually make it into a give away box.

Beverage:  Darjeeling tea

Deb

Another Literary Birthday Observed

Today would be Lewis Carroll's 179th birthday. My friend Patt, pointed this out to me earlier in the week. She doesn't care for "Alice in Wonderland", while I did my senior thesis on nonsense language in "Alice Through the Lookingglass and What She Found There", which is the full title of Carroll's 2nd work, "Through the Lookingglass".

It is in "Through the Lookingglass" that one of my favorite poems is found. It is in Chapter 6. Alice is talking to Humpty Dumpty and she asks about the meaning of the poem.

You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,' said Alice. 'Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called "Jabberwocky"?'
'Let's hear it,' said Humpty Dumpty. 'I can explain all the poems that were ever invented--and a good many that haven't been invented just yet.'
This sounded very hopeful, so Alice repeated the first verse:

            'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
              Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
            All mimsy were the borogoves,
              And the mome raths outgrabe.

'That's enough to begin with,' Humpty Dumpty interrupted: 'there are plenty of hard words there. "BRILLIG" means four o'clock in the afternoon--the time when you begin BROILING things for dinner.'
'That'll do very well,' said Alice: 'and "SLITHY"?'
'Well, "SLITHY" means "lithe and slimy." "Lithe" is the same as "active." You see it's like a portmanteau--there are two meanings packed up into one word.'
'I see it now,' Alice remarked thoughtfully: 'and what are "TOVES"?'
'Well, "TOVES" are something like badgers--they're something like lizards--and they're something like corkscrews.'
'They must be very curious looking creatures.'
'They are that,' said Humpty Dumpty: 'also they make their nests under sun-dials--also they live on cheese.'
'And what's the "GYRE" and to "GIMBLE"?'
'To "GYRE" is to go round and round like a gyroscope. To "GIMBLE" is to make holes like a gimlet.'
'And "THE WABE" is the grass-plot round a sun-dial, I suppose?' said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.
'Of course it is. It's called "WABE," you know, because it goes a long way before it, and a long way behind it--'
'And a long way beyond it on each side,' Alice added.
'Exactly so. Well, then, "MIMSY" is "flimsy and miserable" (there's another portmanteau for you). And a "BOROGOVE" is a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round-- something like a live mop.'
'And then "MOME RATHS"?' said Alice. 'I'm afraid I'm giving you a great deal of trouble.'
'Well, a "RATH" is a sort of green pig: but "MOME" I'm not certain about. I think it's short for "from home"--meaning that they'd lost their way, you know.'
'And what does "OUTGRABE" mean?'
'Well, "OUTGRABING" is something between bellowing and whistling, with a kind of sneeze in the middle: however, you'll hear it done, maybe--down in the wood yonder--and when you've once heard it you'll be QUITE content. Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?'

I was quite taken by the poem and committed it to memory. In college, one of my English professors declared that memorizing poetry increased your word power as well as brain power. Part of the final in her class was to memorize 12 lines of anything by one of the authors we read in class. I shall never forget it. 12 lines from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

All in a hot and copper sky 
The bloody sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand
No bigger than the moon.

Day after day. Day after day. 
We stuck, nor breath nor motion.
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water everywhere
And all the boards did shrink
Water, water everywhere
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot, oh Christ
That ever this should be.
And slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon a slimy sea. 

Yes, that is from memory. I can recite Jabberwocky, too, but I won't. I do agree with that English teacher even if I find myself standing more often in the center of a room wondering why I came in here. Memorization is good for you. I don't think kids are challenged enough in school to do that. Oh yes, we have to memorize facts and dates and formulas and all sorts of things, but memorizing poetry expands your mind.

This is a great book, if you are looking to challenge yourself to memorizing poetry. It's in my "to be read" pile. I bought it when it came out. I've memorized a lot of things since then, some might be in this book. I admit to not opening it in years, but the collected poems were, from what I remember, great examples of poetry.

You also couldn't go wrong with memorizing lines from some of Shakespeare's soliloquies. I memorized Antony's oratory over Caesar's body. "Friends! Romans! Countrymen! Lend me your ears! I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil men do oft lives after them while the good lies interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar." That's all I remember from that. And I did know most of Hamlet's "To be or not to be. That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of trouble and, by opposing, end them.", but I've forgotten parts of that, too. These soliloquies are probably still with me. I'd just need prompting to remember them in totality.

Lewis Carroll wanted to be a mathematician but there was no money to be made in that profession. So, he became a minister. In his poetry, you can see the results of mathematical study. It is, once you get past the odd words, easy to memorize "Jabberwocky", just as it's easy to memorize the rhyming couplets of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner". (You should read the whole poem if you haven't. It's quite the tale of redemption.)

I leave you with one of the funniest versions of "Jabberwocky" I've ever seen.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

Wordy Words

My friend, Kevin, read yesterday's blog post about temptation.

"So, what are you going to do for 'u', 'ubiquitous'?" he asked. As I had the "u" post all planned, I laughed, but it did get me thinking.

Words. Love 'em. They are 'ubiquitous' and human language depends upon word comprehension. It's been argued that our pets understand simply language simply because of repetition; "No!", "Sit!", their name, as examples.

You wouldn't be reading this blog if my communication was in hieroglyphics. Someone might take the time to decipher the code but the bulk of people would not.

Words. I believe I have mentioned how I had to write a thesis for my degree in English. It had to be a minimum of 15 pages and cite at least 7 sources. At the time we took the class which helped you create your topic, write your paper and then learn to defend it, in my Victorian English literature class, we were reading Lewis Carroll, Alice: Through the Lookingglass and What She Found There.

Lewis Carroll was a master of words. I like Through the Lookingglass better than Alice in Wonderland simply because of the use of language. I wrote my senior paper on "Nonsense Language in Through the Lookingglass". My argument was that seeming "nonsensical" language, was actually highly logical in structure and this sprang from Carroll having a background in math.

As with a quote on language and invective earlier this month, a few lines from Through the Lookingglass have stayed with me.

"When I use a word,"Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone. "It means just what I choose it to mean - neither more or less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean no many different things." 

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master, that's all." 

Being able to master words is a good tool to have. We use words, carefully chosen, to comfort, incite, rally, inflame. In college, I knew a couple people whose grandparents had come from Germany right after World War II. They said their parents never listened to Hitler on the radio. They always read his speech the next day. Reading took the passion, the pregnant pauses, the vocal inflection right out and they could see exactly what he was using language to do. In this age of instant text, part of me yearns for the days when you actually paused before sending things into the ether. Words, so capable of solace, are also so capable of wounding.

As I come to the end of this theme, which has been lots of fun, I'm looking ahead to doing another theme, maybe not right away, maybe at the beginning of February. One thing that has challenged me is using the word of the day in a sentence. I used to save these and, when I wrote letters to friends, would challenge myself to use them, correctly, in sentences. I discovered my favorite word, obnubilate, this way. Here are the weekend words. I could challenge myself to, for a month, use the word of the day in a blog post. Jessie has asked me to consider a photo a day. Both are interesting, both worthy of exploration.

After all, isn't a picture equated with some kind of amount of verbiage?

Beverage:  Scottish Blend tea

Deb

Payment on a bet.

Back in September, Iowa beat Penn State soundly. My son-in-law is a Penn State fan. He was warned that, in marrying my daughter, he was getting a mother-in-law who bets on the outcome of football AND basketball games. I never bet money. I bet food. When I was in Connecticut to visit, he paid up.

The mug you see has the face of the Cheshire cat from "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. When the mug was new, the cat was blue. You added a hot beverage to the mug and the cat disappeared, leaving only the smile. I have another mug just like this. I use it to hold the tea strainer for leaf tea. I'm thrilled. I now have one mug to drink out of and one mug that holds the loose tea I'm using to make tea.

What David didn't know is that the Cheshire cat holds a special significance for me. In order to get my BA in English, I had to write a senior paper. It had to be a minimum of 20 pages and cite at least 5 sources. Our last semester of college included "Senior Seminar", a class which looked at how to write a research paper as well as examined modes of literary criticism. I wrote my senior thesis on language in Lewis Carroll's "Alice Through the Lookingglass and What She Found There", which is the story's correct title.

Back then, we had to provide 5 copies in the library for English department staff and other English majors to read. You had to "defend" your paper from questions from the department staff. They did not shoot you what would be termed "low-ball" questions. They looked for flaws in your thesis. You had to say why you chose that topic and why you chose your sources. It was a nerve-wracking experience. Underclassmen were encouraged to read the papers and prepare questions so that's why you needed more than one copy in the library.

Usually, you took one copy to the copy department and paid to have your paper copied. I used carbon paper and typed all the copies I put in the library to be read. I remember a lot of late nights at the kitchen table pounding away on a manual typewriter. Somewhere in the basement is the finished product. I kind of miss that, the construction of a thesis, the research, the study, the crafting of the finished product.

Thank you David, for making good on the bet and for accidentally reminding me of a rather fun time in my life. Every time I drink from the mug, it will bring back warm memories.

Beverage: Lapsang Souchong tea

Deb

Word of the day

At first glance, it would seem this word is a classic example of doublespeak. You all know doublespeak. It's inescapable. We don't lie, we use "categorical inaccuracies". Someone isn't fired, they enter "voluntary severance" or are "downsized". My favorite is "pre-owned".

When I ripped off Monday's word and came upon the above as Tuesday's word of the day, I was rather taken aback. I count on my Word-a-Day calendar to expand my language. Indeed, it has given me my favorite word, "obnubilate". I felt this word was tasteless and encouraged the obfuscation of statement rather than clarity.

But then I got to thinking. "Bromance", "Chillax" and "Wardrobe Malfunction" have been added to the Merriam Webster dictionary this year. (1. A close relationship between two men; 2. A word used to ask someone to calm down and relax; 3. The exposing of an intimate part of the body due to the failure of an article of clothing. You're welcome.) The English language is hugely flexible, embracing words of all types. That's what makes it so ubiquitous and the choice for communication. Our language's pliability makes it ideally suited for new words or the mashing together of old words to become a new one.

While I will continually advocate for clear and concise speech, "disremember" has a place in the lexicon. I doubt it's going to be hugely popular until some comedian or politician uses it. It sounds like a willful act. Perhaps it's all in the context as so much communication is. "I disremembered my pants" sounds more plausible than "I disremember what happened on the night of July 18th".

I am reminded of a quote from Alice in Wonderland.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means what I choose it to mean - nor more nor less."

Beverage: China Black tea

Deb

Whoooooo Are You?

'Tis a line from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". The caterpillar asks it of Alice and she bursts into tears trying to figure out the answer given the world in which she finds herself. I decided I best answer the question myself so, when you stumble upon this little blog, you can figure out if you really want to continue reading. There's a "gadget" I can add where I can profile myself, but it's the stuff you only give out to get coupons or to census takers. It doesn't really answer the "Who are you?" question.
Middle-aged and totally gray, is a good start. I have cats. I drink tea, duh. I also drink Dr. Pepper and hot cocoa and Scottish beers.
I own a house and have a wonderful daughter whom I am very proud of.
I have a B.A. in English (as she is spoke, and extra credit if you know from what I lifted that) with a minor in Art. I wanted a minor in Art History, but my college lacked 3 courses to offer that.
My favorite color is royal blue and my favorite flower is the lilac. I grew up on a farm in Northeast Iowa and, around Memorial Day, the lilacs below my bedroom window would bloom. I would fall asleep in the window to that wonderfully heady smell.
I have lived in Chicagoland since 1981, which is the longest I have lived anywhere. But, I have come to realize that "going home" will always mean going back to Iowa.
I am a chocoholic and I love classic jazz. My favorite song is "April in Paris" as sung by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong on the Blue Note release, "Ella and Louis Together". (Last cut, too, by the way.)
I currently read Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" books. I have a long way to go. He's written something like 30+ and I've read, maybe 8 or 9 of them. "Thud" is the current book.
My father's family was from Scotland, Dysart, to be exact. We are "Thomson" over there but the "p" was added in the 1830's. We don't know why. I belong to the Clan Thompson Society and run the clan tent at the Illinois St. Andrew Society's Highland Games in June. My mother's family was Czech and German and we are less certain from where they emmigrated.
I tend to have a warped sense of humor, a fact you will see upon these pages, the more I add to them.
There's more to who I am, but this is a start. My cup of tea is empty which is a signal that perhaps I should be going to bed. I've had a cold for a week and it doesn't get better if I stay up late.

Deb