Category Archives: books

books, Fantasy, The Future, Uncategorized

Back to the Future

July 31, 2019 verily sherrilee 26 Comments

A weird coincidence resulted in three dystopian future books hitting my reading list in the last month. First there was Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel that was a Blevins Book Club selection. Then there was The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch then Ready Player One by Ernest Kline.

Normally I like the dystopian future genre but by the time I got to the end of Ready Player One, I was ready to renounce any other titles that come my way. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m feeling like a dystopian future is already on our doorsteps or if it was just too many of these books in a row. Whatever the reason, I’m looking forward to a Jane Austen title I just picked up from the library!

Do you have a favorite genre? Do you ever get tired of it?

100 Words, Art, books, home, Stories, Uncategorized

The Order of Things

July 26, 2019 verily sherrilee 19 Comments

Last week when I was in Madison, my friend and I spent a couple of hours yakking in her bedroom. At one point she had to take a phone call so I was left to let my mind wander. That was when I noticed that all her books are sorted first by fiction/non-fiction and then alphabetically by author and THEN alphabetically by title.

Except for putting titles by the same author together (mostly), my books are not categorized at all. My fiction and non-fiction are wantonly cavorting together and nothing is alphabetized at all. I feel so inadequate.

Do you have your books organized? Tell me how?

100 Words, books, Family, Kids, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

There Must Be a Rainbow

July 19, 2019 verily sherrilee 77 Comments

On Tuesday afternoon I stopped at the library and it started to rain a bit right then. As I was leaving, I was behind a young mom and her daughter, who was maybe 7 or 8. As they reached the end of the covered portico, the mom said “It’s sprinkling a little. There must be a rainbow somewhere.”

Most people would say “run quick to the car” or “let’s get home before it really starts”, perfectly acceptable. But I was struck by this mother’s wonderful way of looking at life. It there is rain, there must be a rainbow.

What adage would you like to live by?

Art, books, gardening, Nature, Uncategorized

Pohjala’s Daughter

June 14, 2019 reneeinnd 27 Comments

About 15 years ago, we planted two rhododendrons named Pohjola’s Daughter. They were Finnish cultivars said to be cold hardy. They were sort of root bound, and I remember thinking that I could have done a better job freeing the roots when I planted them. Well, I was right, since they didn’t get appreciably bigger or bloom until this May, despite my constant fertilizing and fussing. The flowers were so pretty. It was a long wait, though, and I thought they were aptly named when I researched the story of Pohjola’s Daughter, and how she kept suitors away by giving them impossible tasks to complete before she would marry them. The story comes from the Finnish epic The Kalevala. Sibelius used the story for a tone poem. According to Wikipedia:

The tone poem depicts the “steadfast, old,” white-bearded Väinämöinen who spots the beautiful “daughter of the North (Pohjola)”, seated on a rainbow, weaving a cloth of gold while he is riding a sleigh through the dusky landscape. Väinämöinen asks her to join him, but she replies that she will only leave with a man who can perform a number of challenging tasks, such as tying an egg into invisible knots and, most notably, building a boat from fragments of her distaff. Väinämöinen attempts to fulfill these tasks through his own expertise in magic; in many of the tasks he succeeds but he is eventually thwarted by evil spirits when attempting to build the boat and injures himself with an axe. He gives up, abandons the tasks and continues on his journey alone.

I find our translation of The Kalevala pretty tedious to read, and I think I need to find a new one, since the stories are so interesting. I also find it interesting when life imitates art the way our rhododendrons did.

What is your favorite epic poem or story to read? When have you seen life imitate art?

Art, books, Fantasy, Uncategorized, Words

Literary Bust

June 13, 2019 verily sherrilee 37 Comments

As I was reading this morning (Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith [aka JK Rowlings]), the narrator casually mentions watching a show about art and the camera pans the room, to include a bust of Beethoven. There is a smidge of discussion about how the protagonist looks a bit like Beethoven and then the story moves on.

But as the story continued, I was distracted by the thought of the Beethoven bust. Hadn’t a bust of Beethoven just been a book I finished last week? And wasn’t there a bust of Beethoven in a book I read a couple of months ago. Time to backtrack in my reading history.

There was indeed a bust of Beethoven in Transcription by Kate Atkinson. It was included in a description of a room and then later was used by a Nazi sympathizer to try to escape from the MI5 agents who had uncovered her treachery.

The previous literary bust turned out to be Baudelaire, not Beethoven, in The Alice Network by Kate Quinn. In that book, the Nazi (yeah, I know you ‘ve all heard me say I’m sick of WWII books, but apparently not that sick) uses a bust of Baudelaire to break the fingers of the young spy. Gruesome.

I have no idea what this means to the larger world, that busts of Beethoven and Baudelaire have shown up repeatedly in my reading the last few months, but it’s fascinating to me.

Pick a bust for your living room… any composer, artist, writer or super hero. Living or dead. Who is it?

books, Travel, Uncategorized

The Last Bookstore

June 3, 2019 reneeinnd 46 Comments

Daughter found a wonderful bookstore when we were in LA. It is downtown, and is called The Last Bookstore. It boasts 250,000 volumes in 22,000 sq. ft. of space, including new, used, rare and antique books, vinyl LP’s, and graphic novels. It is in an old bank. The mystery novels are shelved in the vault. It claims to be the biggest bookstore in California.

There are overstuffed chairs all over, and a small stage area for poetry readings and lectures. People came in with bags of books to sell, and left with bags of books to read. It was a wonderful place. I especially liked the used book sculptures.

What kind of bookstore would you like to own?

Art, Baboon Achievers, books, Family, Food, Games, gardening, Gatherings, History, Music, Nature, The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

Decade on the Trail – Pictorial

May 29, 2019 verily sherrilee 49 Comments

Today’s post is Part Two from Barbara in Rivertown

Today we have a pictorial history to go with Tuesday’s written one. Thanks to all baboons who sent me photos – I’ve used only those that have two or more baboons in them.

I think this is the earliest one in my collection – taken with Dale Connelly at the MPR booth at the State Fair (in 2009? 2010?) Not all in it became baboons, but I do see Sherrilee, Beth-Anne, and Linda in the middle row, and Jim and thigh (that guy in the hat) in the back.

The above is a smaller group in the Seed Art room, maybe 2011

Below was taken at our first meeting, at a picnic table in Wabun Park, by Minnehaha Falls in S. Mpls. BiR, Jacque, and Anna in the background. Also present were Sherrilee, Linda, and Steve.

I don’t know whose idea it was to start going to museums – the first one I attended was, I think, the Russian Art Museum in S. Mpls – Anna, tim, Joanne, BiR, VS

Then there was the Swedish Museum circa 2012… extra points if you can remember what the exhibit was. VS, tim, Linda, Lisa, BiR, PJ

There have been gardening adventures – at PJ’s yard. The group shows Bill, Robin, Lisa, Krista, PJ in back; ljb (Edith), BiR, Linda, VS

…. and in PJ’s kitchen, where Lisa modeled her prom dress

At Steve’s – well, at Steve’s we took down a tree limb in the back yard of his darling bungalow.

Chain Saw Gan – madislandgirl and S&H(son & heir), Lisa, tim, YA (VS’ young adult), Bill, Robin, BiR, Linda, Michael, and Ben!

We had Steve’s surprise birthday party, also at Wabun Park – tim managed to get him there after some ball game, I think. VS, Steve, tim

There have been several trips to Rock Bend Folk Festival. Here’s City Mouse, with the Morning Show’s producer Mike Pengra on the drums.

It’s a dirty job but somebody’s gotta do it… And admission is still FREE!

Linda, BiR, Krista, and I think Holly, at Rock Bend – not sure which year…?

There have been a number of events that didn’t get photographed: PJ organized a Guthrie outing for, was it? H.M.S. Pinafore? There have been game nights at tim’s, a painting party at Steve’s before he moved, Pi Day at Sherrilee’s.