Recently in music and poesy Category

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vacation reading

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Did you know that Harry Turtledove wrote juveniles? I just recently discovered them and have made my way through three so far this vacation.
In High Places
Curious Notions
Gunpowder Empire
Very easy reads, minimal objectionable content, I would recommend them. But then, I am very fond of the game of 'what-if'. My only (minor) objection is the way Christianity is treated, but then that is an objection one could have to almost any work of fiction, science or otherwise.

The other book in progress right now is Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, And the Splendor of Truth by Richard John Neuhaus, which I was partly through and brought along to finish. John picked it up and we have been reading it alternately, with each of us trying to garner the attention of the other to listen to sections as we discover them. Very much an excellent book. It is in part a convert story, but even more it is a broad ranging set of reflections on the church today in the USA and the world.

On deck (and also partly read through) is Ordinary Work, Extraordinary Grace: My Spiritual Journey in Opus Dei by Scott Hahn. I just can't seem to keep up with Dr. Hahn's output. And of course, John is reading the Liturgy of the Hours, and will read parts of it our loud for my edification. I have the Universalis on my Palm, and so we will occasionally compare translations.

Anyhow, time to get on the road for the day.

wonderful hymn for the day!

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Holy God We praise thy name
I just spent a few minutes copying some of my music to the laptop. Right now I'm listening to Leonard Cohen singing "By the Waters Dark" from the compilation of songs inspired by The Passion of the Christ
Music can be so powerful a tool, for good or for evil.

I resemble these remarks

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with a song in my heart.
Parental discretion is advised.

Gotta love "They Might Be Giants".
Istanbul
Blue Canary
and so on

the mutilation of hymns

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blast from the past

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Karen Hall needed a song for her TV pilot. She picked "I wanna be sedated" by the Ramones. Here are her Also Rans. I hate to admit just how many of them I could sing from memory.......

I wish to announce

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that I have purchased a wonderful bit of original art from Owen Swain (Luminous Miseries). You can see a copy of my purchase here. I am very pleased that I have this beautiful poem/image and I wish to recommend to all of you, that if you are looking for a unique gift for yourself or for a friend, check out Owen's gallery.

seasonal thoughts

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Bed in Summer
Robert Louis Stevenson
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

for my scots friends and family

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Hail, Mary. Earna Mhoire

Link via Flos Carmeli

my kid's wish list

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Book Review: The Preservationist

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As promised.

There is a genre of fiction that I have read with mixed reactions for several years. I am not sure what to call it - it is a kind of fictionalization of stories from the Bible - sometimes these accounts stick pretty closely to the facts as given in the Good Book, sometimes they can get pretty off the wall. Examples that come to my mind are books by Madeleine L'Engle - The Genesis Trilogy and Many Waters - Many books by Orson Scott Card grouped under the title "Women of Genesis" (Fictional biographies of Sarah, Rachel and Leah, and Rebeckah) - and the recent best seller The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.

In The Preservationist David Maine has attempted to fill in the blanks in the account from Genesis. (Chapters 6,7,8,9). He uses verses from the traditional Catholic English translation (the Douai-Rheims) as chapter headings. In attempting to fill in the details, Mr. Maine gives names to the wives of the sons of Noe (Noah) - but not to the wife of Noe. Mr. Maine has the task of gathering the beasts into the ark be given to the women. He creates characters who are 3 dimensional and believable, and he sets a scene that is graphic and gritty and very real.

I had a little trouble getting into the story when I first tried to read it. I am not sure why, but I nearly gave up several times after the first few pages. On reflection, I think that the sex scenes (which I personally found to be mostly gratuitous - you might disagree) kept me from wanting to turn the page. I also found some of the linguistic conventions the author employed to be a little contrived and more than a little distracting. A prime example of this is his use of the term 'rutting' for sexual intercourse. My literal mind sees rutting as an animal activity, and my understanding of theology places human sexual activity at a slightly higher level - at least when enjoyed at the level where God wants us to be.

None the less, when I was finally able to overlook the items that annoyed me, I found the book a reasonable read. Overall, I'd give it a B+. I enjoyed the characterization of the women immensely, despite what seemed to me to be a bit of God-bashing from a couple of Noe's daughters-in-law. And I truly loved a bit at the end, where Noe discovers the love he really has for his wife of all those years.

Saturday morning news

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Headed down to Tewkesbury MA to hear Patrick Madrid speak - and then next week a more local parish is having Scott Hahn come in.

I've had a set of lyrics haunting me lately - just two lines.
"A different kind of poverty now upsets me so" (it could also be "upsets my soul" - hard to hear exactly). Last night I finally tracked down where the phrase came from. The song is "Four and Twenty", the artist is Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and the song was from my teen years. Now to try to understand why it has been haunting me - or why that song has been joined by another in my brain - a Gordon Lightfoot gem. The excerpt in my brain, "His father's pride was his means to provide, and he's serving 5 years for that reason". I'm pretty sure that the Lightfoot is on the Seven Island album, but what is the name? And why, now ,do these rattle in my brain?

music meme

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Want to do something totally useless? Then try the blog meme I found at Oblique House. Go here and click on the year you graduated from high school to find a list of the top 100 songs of that year.
Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline your favorite. Do nothing to the ones you don't remember or don't care about. Commentary is optional, as is good taste.

(when I was young and stupid, I was young and stupid. Besides which, most of my favorite songs never even made the top 100)


Top 100 Hits of 1972 / Top 100 Songs of 1972

1. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, Roberta Flack
2. Alone Again (Naturally), Gilbert O'Sullivan
3. American Pie, Don McLean
4. Without You, Nilsson
5. Candy Man, Sammy Davis Jr.
6. I Gotcha, Joe Tex
7. Lean On Me, Bill Withers
8. Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me, Mac Davis
9. Brand New Key, Melanie
10. Daddy Dont You Walk So Fast, Wayne Newton
11. Let's Stay Together, Al Green
12. Brandy (You're A Fine Girl), Looking Glass
13. Oh Girl, Chi-Lites
14. Nice To Be With You, Gallery
15. My Ding-A-Ling, Chuck Berry
16. If Loving You Is Wrong I Don't Want To Be Right, Luther Ingram
17. Heart Of Gold, Neil Young
18. Betcha By Golly, Wow, Stylistics
19. I'll Take You There, Staple Singers
20. Ben, Michael Jackson

go. vote. comment

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I won't blog again until I get 10 comments on this post.....

How often does the average person get a chance to weigh in on a Catholic book before it is published?

Found surfing the blogs

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The Gospel according to Trolls
Quotes Rudyard Kipling in reply to those who blame Katrina on their favorite demons.

some of what I did on my summer vacation

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My grandmother was a First Grade teacher until they forcibly retired her. She taught at All Saint's Episcopal Day School starting in the 1950s and ending but a few years ago. She is an inveterate reader and is at least partially responsible for my addiction. I lived with her for a year (second grade) and went to All Saint's, where I learned the Angelus from the Anglican nuns who taught religion. Anyhow. I digress. Gram is a book nut, and that hasn't changed despite her age (91 in June). My dad sent her out from California to Kentucky to visit my sister for a few weeks while her house in being remodeled. Gram quickly read her way through Cat's library, so Cat asked me to bring a few books for Gram. Well, I am always glad to try to find new homes for my orphaned books, so I packed up a shopping bag full of paperback novels (mysteries mostly - Gram loves Dick Frances and other mystery writers - and she is the one who got me hooked on science fiction). My dear eldest daughter had asked us to bring her some groceries (specialty items) and I also packed along a couple of loaves of zucchini bread. I figured that coming back I could probably put an empty suitcase inside of the bigger one and have one less bag to drag through the airport.
What I had not counted on is that my daughter (the one in Memphis) has a second job - working in a used book store.

I think I brought home more books than I took with me.

When we went to visit her at the bookstore, some lovely person had just dropped off a couple of boxes of Catholic books. There were several that the bookstore did not think they could sell, and so they were offered to us as freebies. Then there were several more that were the usual reasonably priced used....and now there is another pile to be read, sorted, and shelved........

My daughter's day job is as a radio producer. In her last place of employment, she acquired multiple books from agents (aka book-pimps) hoping that she would consider booking the authors on the radio show. So for the last few years, Christmas has also been books galore.

There was a meme going around the blogosphere a while back - how many books does one own? TS posted

Finally!
Someone with more books than Steven Riddle, who guestimates 20,000. Scott Hahn has about 50,000. Sorry Steven.

Update: From the email bag: "My hubby says that to the intellectual the size of one's personal library is akin to the size of one's personal anatomy for Nascar aficionados."

I just realized that I have no clue how many books live in my house and garage. There seems to be a physical mandate that any book that leaves must be replaced by 2 others. Tribbles, anyone?

go read - now

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poetry from one who posts way too rarely these days.
a sunday thought

(and, of course, it isn't in the missalette!)
Come, ye thankful people, come,
raise the song of harvest home;
all is safely gathered in,
ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide
for our wants to be supplied;
come to God's own temple, come,
raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God's own field,
fruit as praise to God we yield;
wheat and tares together sown
are to joy or sorrow grown.
First the blade and then the ear,
then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we
wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come,
and shall take the harvest home;
from the field shall in that day
all offenses purge away,
give his angels charge at last
in the fire the tares to cast;
but the fruitful ears to store
in the garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come,
to thy final harvest home;
gather thou thy people in,
free from sorrow, free from sin,
there, forever purified,
in thy presence to abide;
come, with all thine angels come,
raise the glorious harvest home.

something different

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Thanks to Don for the link

You scored as Verbal/Linguistic. You have highly developed auditory skills, enjoy reading and writing and telling stories, and are good at getting your point across. You learn best by saying and hearing words. People like you include poets, authors, speakers, attorneys, politicians, lecturers and teachers.

Verbal/Linguistic

96%

Musical/Rhythmic

93%

Intrapersonal

79%

Interpersonal

71%

Logical/Mathematical

46%

Bodily/Kinesthetic

32%

Visual/Spatial

29%

The Rogers Indicator of Multiple Intelligences
created with QuizFarm.com

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This page is a archive of recent entries in the music and poesy category.

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