Commonplaces

Courage

2012-01-08T21:21:00.008-05:00

You can't have brave without scared.

-Linda Urban, Hound Dog True, 92.

❧

This is a beautiful book that perfectly captures what it's like to be 10 going on 11 and afraid of so many things - recess and lunch (the "lawless times"), teenager-looking 12-year-old girls, not belonging. Highly recommended for your inner shy kid.

The Fullness of our Manger

2011-12-24T11:26:00.007-05:00

He is the fullness of our manger because 'the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.' So that man might eat the Bread of angels, the Creator of the angels became man...

...But, what eye has not seen, what ear has not heard, and what has not entered into the heart of man He promised to show to those who love Him. Until this favor is granted to us, until He shows us what will completely satisfy us, until we drink to satiety of that fountain of life, while we wander about, apart from Him but strong in faith, while we hunger and thirst for justice, longing with an unspeakable desire for the beautiful vision of God, let us celebrate with fervent devotion His birthday in the form of a servant. Since we cannot, as yet, understand that He was begotten by the Father before the day-star, let us celebrate His birth of the Virgin in the nocturnal hours. Since we do not comprehend how His name existed before the light of the sun, let us recognize His tabernacle placed in the sun. Since we do not, as yet, gaze upon the Son inseparably united with His Father, let us remember Him as the 'bridegroom coming out of his bride-chamber.' Since we are not yet ready for the banquet of our Father, let us grow familiar with the manger of our Lord Jesus Christ.

-Augustine, "Sermon on the Nativity"

❧

Ah, how had I missed the symbolism of the manger - filled, not with the bread of beasts, but with the Bread of angels, the Bread of life! Merry Christmas, and may your manger be full!

Thou Hast Enlarged Me...

2011-11-19T23:06:00.003-05:00

Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.

-Psalm 4:1, KJV

Philadelphia Highs

2011-11-14T22:06:00.008-05:00

1. Arriving (despite my navigational shortcomings)!
2. Slot car racing fanatics at the local hobby store
3. Introducing Mikr to major chain restaurants (P. F. Chang's, Chipotle)
4. Watching Say Yes to the Dress
5. Creepily monolithic architecture in Harrisburg
6. Used book shopping at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore and Harvest Book Company
7. Banjo-playing accompaniment to used book shopping
8. Beautiful stone architecture in Philadelphia environs
9. Church with Mikr's landlord / college roommate and family
10. Bill Mallonee concert...
10a. BYOB
10b. Presbyterian bonding
10c. Meeting Bill!!!
11. Making it home (despite my check engine light and alarming car misbehavior)!

Other People's Heads

2011-11-06T18:28:00.002-05:00

Other people's heads are too wretched a place for true happiness to have its seat.

- Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

The Wrong Things

2011-11-06T18:24:00.002-05:00

If we cannot stop envying, it seems especially poignant that we should be constrained to spend so much of our lives envying the wrong things.

- Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

Howling and Stubborn Characters

2011-11-06T18:14:00.005-05:00

Babies cannot, by definition, repay their caretakers with worldly rewards. In so far as they are loved and looked after, it is therefore for who they are, identity understood in its barest, most stripped-down state. They are loved for, or in spite of, their uncontrolled, howling and stubborn characters.

- Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

Hedera

2011-10-29T22:00:00.012-04:00

Behold the hedera: ❧

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, "[the hedera] appears in 8th-century manuscripts, separating text from commentary, and after a period out of fashion it made an unexpected return in early printed books. Then it faded from view."

Just the punctuation mark I've been searching for—bring back the hedera!

Regrets

2011-10-29T21:41:00.020-04:00

-Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

❧

Click on this comic for a sharper, easier-to-read image.

Two Love Stories

2011-10-10T20:19:00.002-04:00

Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories. The first--the story of our quest for sexual love--is well known and well charted, its vagaries form the staple of music and literature, it is socially acceptable and celebrated. The second--the story of our quest for love from the world--is a more secret and shameful tale. If mentioned, it tends to be in caustic, mocking terms, as something of interest chiefly to envious or deficient souls, or else the drive for status is interpreted in an economic sense alone. And yet this second love story is no less intense than the first, it is no less complicated, important or universal, and its setbacks are no less painful. There is heartbreak here too.

-Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety

How to Read

2011-09-03T08:46:00.003-04:00

The critic said that once a year he read Kim; and he read Kim, it was plain, at whim: not to teach, not to criticize, just for love—he read it, as Kipling wrote it, just because he liked to, wanted to, couldn't help himself. To him it wasn't a means to a lecture of article, it was an end; he read it not for anything he could get out of it, but for itself. And isn't this what the work of art demands of us?...So I say to you, for a closing sentence, Read at whim! read at whim!

-Randall Jarrell, quoted by Alan Jacobs in The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction

Packing for the Cape!

2011-09-01T21:38:00.006-04:00

Kidlit
The Middle Moffat, Eleanor Estes
The Defense of Thaddeus A. Ledbetter, John Gosselink
Reckless, Cornelia Funke
Penny From Heaven, Jennifer L. Holm
Unexpected Magic, Diana Wynne Jones
Hattie Big Sky, Kirby Larson
The Savage, David Almond, illus. Dave McKean
A Single Shard, Linda Sue Park
The Sherwood Ring, Elizabeth Marie Pope
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, Gardy D. Schmidt

Adultlit
Cover Her Face, P. D. James
Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
Joy in the Morning, Betty Smith

The Cataract of the Cliff of Heaven...

2011-08-28T08:31:00.002-04:00

The cataract of the cliff of heaven fell blinding off the brink
As if it would wash the stars away as suds go down a sink,
The seven heavens came roaring down for the throats of hell to drink,
And Noah he cocked his eye and said, “It looks like rain, I think,
The water has drowned the Matterhorn as deep as a Mendip mine,
But I don’t care where the water goes if it doesn’t get into the wine.”

-G. K. Chesterton, "Water and Wine" (full poem posted here)

Hurrican Preparedness

2011-08-28T08:17:00.007-04:00

1) Apartment thoroughly cleaned from top to bottom, including window washing and a (surprise) complimentary carpet shampoo. Not sure about the logic of this cleaning frenzy, but I think it has something to do with battening the hatches.
2) Laundry laundered.
3) Bathtub / fridge / freezer filled with water.
4) Electronic gizmos fully charged and unplugged, in case of power surges.
5) Flashlights loaded and operational.
6) Stack of books and DVDs acquired from the library.
7) Chex mix made.
8) Slowly recovering from injuries incurred while washing windows. (See #1, and bear in mind that my windows are pretty tall, and washing them involves standing on a chair...that I may have fallen off of. Ouch.)

Bananas

2011-08-21T15:41:00.001-04:00

In the whole story of the world, bananas have never once been a special treat.

-Gary Schmidt, Okay for Now

Broken Things

2011-08-21T15:31:00.005-04:00

There aren't too many things around that are whole, you know. You look hard at most anything, and it's probably beat up somewhere or other. Beat up, or dinged up, or missing a piece, or tattoed. Or maybe something starts out whole and then it turns into junk, like Joe Pepitone's cap getting rained on in a gutter somewhere. Probably you can't even tell it's a cap anymore. Probably you wouldn't even want to pick it up if you saw it. But it didn't start that way. It started as Joe Pepitone's cap, and when he was out in the field, the sun was beating down on it from above the stands of Yankee Stadium and he could smell the grass and the dirt and the infield beneath its brim.

When you find something that's whole, you do what you can to keep it that way.

And when you find something that isn't, then maybe it's not a bad idea to try to make it whole again. Maybe.

-Gary Schmidt, Okay for Now

90 Second Newberry Presents: A Wrinkle in Time

2011-08-14T16:05:00.004-04:00

"A Wrinkle In Time" In 90 Seconds from James Kennedy on Vimeo.

Heartless

2011-08-12T20:37:00.001-04:00

All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.) Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless. Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless at all.

-Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, 4.

Unruly Things

2011-08-11T21:11:00.001-04:00

Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. That is why we much close them up in thick, solid books so they cannot get out and cause trouble.

-Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, 36.

Faithfulness

2011-08-10T22:07:00.002-04:00

I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent.

-Dr. Seuss, Horton Hatches the Egg

The Virtues of Pyjamas

2011-08-09T22:05:00.004-04:00

It was Oswald who asked Father to let us have pyjamas instead of nightgowns; they are so convenient for dressing up when you wish to act clowns, or West Indian planters, or any loose-clothed characters.

-E. Nesbit, Oswald Bastable and Others, 46

Except Me

2011-08-08T18:00:00.001-04:00

We all think a great deal too much of ourselves. We all believe--every man, woman, and child of us--in our very insidest inside heart, that no one else in the world is at all like us, and that things happen to us that happen to no one else. Now, this is a great mistake, because however different we may be in the colour of our hair and eyes, the inside part, the part that we feel and suffer with, is pretty much alike in all of us. But no one seems to know this except me.

-E. Nesbit, Oswald Bastable and Others, 123.

The Real Business of Life

2011-08-08T17:54:00.005-04:00

Adventures are the real business of life. The rest is only in-betweenness--what Albert's uncle calls padding. He is an author.

-E. Nesbit, Oswald Bastable and Others, 35.

***

Hmmm...not sure I agree with you, Oswald. I think the padding is kind of under-rated.

The Quality of Mercy

2011-08-07T20:57:00.008-04:00

I handed the test in five minutes before the end of the day. Mrs. Baker took it calmly, then reached into her bottom drawer for an enormous red pen with a wide felt tip. "Stand here and we'll see you've done," she said, which is sort of like a dentist handing you a mirror and saying, "Sit here and watch while I drill a hole in your tooth." The first four were wrong, and she slashed through my answers with a broad swathe of bright red ink. It looked like the test was bleeding to death.

"Not such a good beginning," she said.

"The quality of mercy is not strained," I said.

-Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars, 60.

Kidlit for Grown-Ups, Part 2

2011-07-27T21:21:00.004-04:00

Men of Iron, Howard Pyle
Historic Fantasy / Jr High & Highschool /Pub 1919
Recommended by Janice

Linnea in Monet's Garden, Cristina Bjork & Lena Anderson (illus)
Picture Book / Elementary / Pub 1987
Recommended by Janice

A Ring of Endless Light, Madeleine L'Engle
Realistic Fantasy / Jr High & Highschool / Pub 1980
Recommended by Leta

When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead
Realistic SciFi / Jr High & Highschool / Pub 2009
Recommended by Lissy

Emily of New Moon, L. M. Montgomery
Historic Fiction / Jr High & Highschool / Pub 1923
Recommended by Liz

Stories Jesus Told, Nick Butterworth and Mick Inkpen (illus)
Picture Book / Preschool & Elementary / Pub 2005
Recommended by Sherry

Max's New Suit, Rosemary Wells
Picture Book / Preschool & Elementary / Pub 1979
Recommended by Sherry

Waiting for Normal, Leslie Connor
Realistic Fiction / Jr High & Highschool / Pub 2008
Recommended by Beth

Proof

2011-07-26T22:13:00.003-04:00

Proving the existence of God is fairly easy. Any idiot can take a stab at that. As one might say in Chicagoese: What, you think all of this made itself up? Yeah. Sure.

-Carlos Eire, Learning to Die in Miami, 302.

Irenaeus, the World to Come, and Bowling

2011-07-09T22:17:00.002-04:00

Irenaeus of Lyons, a second-century Christian bishop, once said that in the world to come, the fruits and vegetables will all beg to be picked and eaten, and actually try to outshout one another, all crying in unison, "Pick me, eat me, eat me." The first time I ever read that passage in Irenaeus, years later, I thought of the sound made by bowling pins when they're struck by a fast-rolling ball.

"Knock us down, hit us as hard as possible. Kill us, reduce us to splinters."

And could there be any sight sweeter than those pins scattering in all directions?

-Carlos Eire, Learning to Die in Miami, 86.

Fictional People

2011-07-07T18:15:00.003-04:00

If you see someone unable to boil a kettle, open a sash window or understand he has an appalling haircut, it probably means he's fictional.

-Jasper Fforde, One of Our Thursdays is Missing

Vocation

2011-07-07T07:16:00.002-04:00

As an Odd-Fish, it is not my job to be right, said Sir Oort. "It is my job to be wrong in new and exciting ways."

-James Kennedy, The Order of Odd-Fish, 175.

Kidlit for Grown-Ups

2011-07-06T21:21:00.004-04:00

This summer I'm hosting a children's lit club for grown-ups. Here's the list of book recommendations from our first meeting:

My Father's Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannett
Elementary / Fantasy / Published 1948
Recommended by Emily

Reckless, Cornelia Funke
Jr High & Highschool / Fantasy / Published 2010
Recommended by Emily

Pictures of Hollis Woods, Patricia Reilly Giff
Late Elementary & Jr High / Realistic Fiction / Published 2003
Recommended by Elissa

Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
Late Elementary & Jr High / Realistic Fantasy / Published 1975
Recommended by Leta

Otto of the Silver Hand, Howard Pyle
Jr High & Highschool / Historic Fantasy / Published 1888
Recommended by Kathryn

Operation Bonnet, Kimberly Stuart
Highschool & Young Adult / Comedy of Errors / Published 2011
Recommended by Kathryn

The Jesus Storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd-Jones and Jago
Preschool & Elementary / Picture Book / Published 2007
Recommended by Sherry

Phoenix Rising, Karen Hesse
Jr High & Highschool / Realistic Fiction / Published 1994
Recommended by Liz

Ice, Arthur Geisert
Preschool & Elementary / Picture Book (no text) / Published 2011
Recommended by Beth

Cosmic, Frank Cottrell Boyce
Jr High & Highschool / Realistic Fantasy / Published 2008
Recommended by Beth

The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope
Jr High & Highschool / Historic Fantasy / Published 1971
Recommended by Lydia (email entry!)

Evening

2011-05-11T21:57:00.000-04:00

Here dies another day,
During which I have had eyes, ears, hands
And the great world round me;
And tomorrow begins another.
Why am I allowed two?

-G.K. Chesterton, quoted by Douglas Wilson in "Thanks for the Thanks", May/June 2011 issue of Books and Culture

Easter Day

2011-04-24T07:48:00.002-04:00

Beauty now for ashes wear,
Perfumes for the garb of woe.
Chaplets for disheveled hair,
Dances for sad footsteps slow;
Open wide your hearts that they
Let in joy this Easter Day.

-Gerard Manly Hopkins, excerpt from "Easter"

Cheese

2011-04-02T22:21:00.003-04:00

Some cultures are defined by their relationship to cheese.

-Benny & Joon

A Sick Day for Amos McGee

2011-03-28T19:57:00.004-04:00

-Such a beautiful book, by Philip & Erin Stead. Hat tip: Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Connect-the-Dots

2011-03-16T20:22:00.007-04:00

-By the amazing Arthur Geisert

Arthur Geisert Venn Diagram

2011-03-16T20:00:00.005-04:00

-By Travis Jonker

Snow

2011-02-23T22:25:00.003-05:00

You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there--the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.

-Frederick Buechner, The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairytale, 83.

Brotherly Love

2011-02-13T23:00:00.002-05:00

"Wheeler, do you know why we've been friends?"

"I've thought so," Wheeler says. He has thought so because of that company of friends to which they both belong, which has been so largely the pleasure and meaning of both their lives. "But why?"

"Because we ain't been brothers."

"What are you talking about?" Wheeler says.

But he is afraid he knows, and his discomfort is apparent to them all...

"If we'd been brothers, you wouldn't have put up with me. Or anyhow you partly wouldn't have, because a lot of my doings haven't been your kind of doings. As it was, they could be tolerable or even funny to you because they wasn't done close enough to you to matter. You could laugh...

"Wheeler, if we're going to get this will made out, not to mention all else we've got to do while there's breath in us, I think you've got to forgive me as if I was a brother to you." He laughs, asserting for the last time the seniority now indisputably his, and casting it aside. "And I reckon I've got to forgive you for taking so long to do it."

-Wendell Berry, That Distant Land, 362-363.

The Line of Succession

2011-01-28T20:02:00.005-05:00

"I mean you're a man indebted to a dead man. So am I. So was he. That's the story of it. Back of you is Jack Beechum. Back of him was Ben Feltner. Back of him was, I think, his own daddy. And back of him was somebody else, and on back that way, who knows how far? And I'm back of you because Jack Beechum is, and because he's back of me, along with some others. It's no use to want to make it on your own, because you can't..."

Elton laughs. "The line of succession I'm in says you've got to make it on your own. I'm in the line of succession of root, hog, or die."

"That may have been the line of succession you were in, but it's not the one you're in now. The one you're in now is different."

"Well, how did I get in it?" Elton says almost in a sigh, as if longing to be out of it.

"The way you got in it, I guess, was by being chosen. The way you stay in it is by choice."

-Wendell Berry, That Distant Land, 284.

The Lord is Thy Keeper

2011-01-25T18:12:00.003-05:00

The Christian life is not a quiet escape to a garden where we can walk and talk uninterruptedly with our Lord; not a fantasy trip to a heavenly city where we can compare our blue ribbons and gold medals with others who have made it to the winner's circle. The Christian life is going to God. In going to God Christians travel the same ground that everyone else walks on, breathe the same air, drink the same water, shop the same stores, read the same newspapers, are citizens under the same governments, pay the same prices for groceries and gasoline, fear the same dangers, are subject to the same pressures, get the same distresses, are buried in the same ground.

The difference is that each step we walk, each breath we breathe, we know we are preserved by God, we know we are accompanied by God, we know we are ruled by God; and therefore no matter what doubts we endure or what accidents we experience, the Lord will preserve us from evil, he will keep our life.

-Eugene Peterson on Psalm 121, quoted by James Calvin Schaap, "The Professor's Death Song," Books and Culture, Jan/Feb 2011, 37.

Alternative Energy Source

2010-12-31T11:29:00.004-05:00

"Splendid! I just had an idea for a cheap form of power: by bringing pasta and antipasta together, we could be looking at the utter annihilation of ravioli and the liberation of vast quantities of energy. I safely predict that an average-size cannelloni would be able to power Swindon for over a year. Mind you, I could be wrong."

-Jasper Fforde, Thursday Next: First Among Sequels, 18.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T20:47:00.003-05:00

As a rule, I try not to repeat quotes. But in honor of Christmas, here's a favorite passage on the incarnation. Merry Christmas to all!

***

Rome was a flea market of borrowed gods and conquered peoples, a bargain basement on two floors, earth and heaven, a mass of filth convoluted in a triple knot as in an intestinal obstruction. Dacians, Heruleans, Scythians, Sarmatians, Hyperboreans, heavy wheels without spokes, eyes sunk in fat, sodomy, double chins, illiterate emperors, fish fed on the flesh of learned slaves...all crammed into the passages of the Coliseum, and all wretched.

And then, into this tasteless heap of gold and marble, He came, light and clothed in an aura, emphatically human, deliberately provincial, Galilean, and at that moment gods and nations ceased to be and man came into being—man the carpenter, man the plowman, man the shepherd, with his flock of sheep at sunset, man who does not sound in the least proud, man thankfully celebrated in all the cradle songs of mothers and in all the picture galleries the world over.

-Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

Tongue Twister

2010-12-13T17:59:00.006-05:00

IRRELEVANT BENEVOLENT ELEPHANT

-Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots, 144.

***

I think this would be a perfect band and/or blog-name...

Kafka

2010-12-08T18:42:00.002-05:00

"But this is preposterous!" shouted Hopkins as he was dragged away.

"No," replied the Magistrate, "this is Kafka."

-Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book, 198.

Welcome to Jurisfiction

2010-12-08T18:37:00.004-05:00

"Please," said a voice close by, "draw me a sheep!"

I looked down to see a young boy of no more than ten. He had curly golden locks and stared at me with an intensity that was, to say the least, unnerving.

"Please," he repeated, "draw me a sheep."

"You had better do as he asks," said a familiar voice close by. "Once he starts on you he'll never let it go."

It was Miss Havisham. I dutifully drew the best sheep I could and handed the result to the boy, who walked away, very satisfied with the result.

"Welcome to Jurisfiction," said Miss Havisham...

-Jasper Fforde, Lost in a Good Book, 285.

In a Philadelphia...

2010-12-07T18:06:00.004-05:00

AL: Because in a Philadelphia, no matter what you ask for, you can't get it. You ask for something, they're not gonna have it. You want to do something, it ain't gonna get done. You want to go somewhere, you can't get there from here.

MARK: Good God. So this is very serious.

AL: Just remember, Marcus. This is a condition named for the town that invented the cheese steak. Something that nobody in his right mind would willingly ask for.

MARK: And I thought I was just having a very bad day....

AL: Sure. Millions of people have spent entire lifetimes inside a Philadelphia and never even knew it. Look at the city of Philadelphia itself. Hopelessly trapped forever inside a Philadelphia. And do they know it?

MARK: Well what can I do? Should I just kill myself now and get it over with?

AL: You try to kill yourself in a Philadelphia, you're only gonna get hurt, babe.

MARK: So what do I do?

AL: Best thing to do is wait it out. Someday the great cosmic train will whisk you outta the City of Brotherly Love and off to someplace happier.

-David Ives, Hat tip Terry Teachout

Readers

2010-12-03T16:52:00.004-05:00

No one becomes a reader except in answer to some baffling inner necessity, of the kind that leads people to turn cartwheels outside the 7-Eleven, jump headlong through a plate-glass window, join the circus, or buy a low-end foreign car when the nearest auto-repair shop is fifty miles away. With these dramatic examples fresh in your mind, you'll probably require only a small amount of additional convincing that my little theory--based on years of painful experience--is true. Reading requires a loner's temperament, a high tolerance for silence, and an unhealthy preference for the company of people who are imaginary or dead.

-David Samuels, From Rereadings, ed. Anne Fadiman, 3.

Eschaton

2010-12-02T18:52:00.007-05:00

It's gonna be the future soon: I won't always be this way.
When the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away.

-Jonathan Coulton, "The Future Soon"

Recent (Good) Reads

2010-10-30T09:56:00.003-04:00

Seventy-Seven Clocks, Christopher Fowler (British mystery)
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Maryrose Wood (kid lit)
Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl, N. D. Wilson (theological musings)
Ten Second Staircase, Christopher Fowler (British mystery)
Keeper, Kathi Appelt (kid lit)
The Chestnut King, N. D. Wilson (fantasy)

Fall Highs

2010-10-29T22:28:00.013-04:00

1. Trying out some of the hikes in AMC's Best Day Hikes in Connecticut
2. Finding my way home again, despite washed out bridges & unblazed trails
3. A used book sale across the street from my apartment
4. Frequent library visits
5. Scads of books, wedged in my bookshelves and piled on my dresser
6. Watching episodes of Avonlea on scratchy library dvd's
7. Jog/walking
8. Kids' Club
9. Pirate vs Ninja raking and volleyball
10. Leadership Core back at my apartment
11. Fabulous fall weather
12. Breathtaking sunsets and sunrises
13. Windows that open
14. Listening to Bill Mallonee bootlegs
15. Not studying

The Scandal of Particularity

2010-10-21T22:23:00.001-04:00

The scandal of particularity is a still broader notion, for it includes the understanding that God is at work is certain very specific times and places and ways to accomplish His will. The Christian faith is not a religion of spiritual truths, of moral or inner principles by which one ought to (or even may) live. It is the claim, radical in the ancient world and still more radical today, that God has reached into human history to do those things necessary to restore the relationship between Himself and us that our first ancestors shattered, and which still divide us from Him. This scandal of particularity is at the heart of the claims of the Bible to historicity, and make it fundamentally different from every other religion on earth.

-David Adams (quoted here).

Yeast

2010-10-13T22:41:00.002-04:00

In the Passover, in the old way, the house was to be purified, every yeast germ removed. Long codes of purification were handed out to characters then, characters in those early chapters. Shellfish tainted you. Polyester tainted you. Foreskins tainted you. Human holiness was fragile in those days.

Things have changed...

Leave the yeast. Be the yeast. Do not fear the shadowy places. You will never be the first one there. Another went ahead and down until He came out the other side.

-N. D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl, 155.

Oreo

2010-10-11T20:22:00.000-04:00

In this way Penelope's happy and sad feelings got all mixed up together, until they were not unlike one of those delicious cookies they have nowadays, the ones with a flat circle of sugary cream sandwiched between two chocolate-flavored wafers. In her heart she felt a soft, hidden core of sweet melancholy nestled inside crisp outer layers of joy...

-Maryrose Wood, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, 175.

Pearly Gates

2010-10-10T21:54:00.006-04:00

I do not doubt that whatever gates there may be, they will be pearly. But I know how pearls are made. Do you? In Heaven, the gates will be made of oyster spit.

Exercise: Envision those oysters.

-N. D. Wilson, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, 155.

Great Showdowns: Dread Pirate Roberts vs Vizzini

2010-09-27T21:37:00.000-04:00

-Scott C (more showdowns here)

Great Showdowns: Lady vs Birds

2010-09-24T08:33:00.001-04:00

-Scott C (more showdowns here)

Great Showdowns: Frodo vs Gollum

2010-09-23T21:34:00.001-04:00

-Scott C (more showdowns here)

Wet Laundry

2010-09-16T22:07:00.001-04:00

A pudgy young man with slicked sandy hair appeared before them. Shaking his hand was like removing wet laundry from a washing machine.

-Christopher Fowler, Seventy-Seven Clocks, 67.

Camp Songs

2010-09-14T22:23:00.002-04:00

***

This Fall I've committed to lead music for a once-a-week after-school kids' program at church (think VBS spread out over the school-year), and I've been all over the internet looking for new songs. These guys aren't terribly scriptural - okay, they aren't even slightly scriptural - but I am just delighted by their videos, and only wish there was something similar for goofy church music. (Totally a legit genre.) Speaking of which - do YOU have any favorite goofy church / camp songs? Leave a comment!

Word of the Day

2010-09-13T22:31:00.005-04:00

Our house is in a hooroar, with the back kitchen all ripped to pieces for a face-lifting job, and we can't even find our way to the refrigerator without a compass. But I guess the dust will settle eventually.

-E. B. White, Letters of E. B. White, 446.

***

I must find some opportunities to work the word hooroar into my conversation. Perhaps when I have failed to read yet another critical work memo, I could casually remark that my email inbox is in a hooroar? Pretty sure I've also come across some hooroarific databases...

Nothing Special

2010-09-12T22:06:00.009-04:00

You can map the lay of the land
Darling, you can describe the sad terrain
Let us survey all the borders
Sugar, don't it all still look the same?
And when you find there's nothing special
About that great big ole hole in your heart
Cause everybody's got one
Yeah with precious little time to talk about it

Nothing like the leaves round your front door
The stages and the pages
Yeah, you've been in love before
And the things you feel inside your bones
Those that won't leave you
Those that won't leave you
Those that won't leave you alone

-Bill Mallonee, "Nothing Like a Train"

News Flash!

2010-09-09T19:56:00.002-04:00

According to the WSJ, Salman Rushdie will soon publish a sequel to Haroun and the Sea of Stories! (HATSOS being a really excellent adult-kid book, in the splendidly winsome tradition of The Phantom Tollbooth.) Read an excerpt from the new book here.

Fairer than Florence

2010-09-08T19:01:00.005-04:00

If men loved Pimlico, as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some readers will say that this is a mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.

-G. K. Chesterton, quoted by Joey Pensak in a recent newsletter

Oh, How I'd Like to Be Queen, Pa

2010-09-07T18:53:00.004-04:00

Oh, how I'd like to be queen, Pa,
And ride in my kerridge to Kew,
Wearing a gold crinoline, Pa,
And sucking an orange or two.

Oh, how I'd like to be queen, Pa,
Watching my troops at review,
Sucking a ripe tangerine, Pa,
And sporting a sparkler or two--

With slippers of crimson shagreen, Pa,
And all of my underclose new!

-Joan Aiken, Dido and Pa, 20-21.

Many Sounds But No Noises

2010-09-06T11:11:00.003-04:00

It was a beautiful September evening, windless, very peaceful. The park and the old, cream-painted houses facing it basked in the golden light of sunset. There were many sounds but no noises. The cries of playing children and the whir of London's traffic seemed quieter than usual, as if softened by the evening's gentleness. Birds were singing their last song of the day, and farther along the Circle, at the house where a great composer lived, someone was playing the piano.

-Dodie Smith, The Hundred and One Dalmatians, 8.

Dear Diary

2010-09-04T20:47:00.006-04:00

When I was young and full of beans, I used to keep a diary, only I called it a "journal" to make it sound more impressive. I wrote in it so steadily and over so many years that it is eight inches thick and contains probably the world's finest collection of callow and insipid remarks.

-E. B. White, Letters of E. B. White, 445.

Love and Science

2010-08-27T22:52:00.011-04:00

There's one last thing
I'll tell you if I can
It is not love
That makes a non-stick frying pan
But a top secret trademark conglomerated most likely carcinogenic polyurethane compound spread in a microthin layer over a negatively charged alloy of aluminum, iron, lead, titanium, magnesium, iron, wine, beryllium, geranium, mesopotamian, and some other elements too
And since you're gone
I wish I'd stuck to you

-Josh Ritter, "Science Song" (listen here)

Rejection Letter

2010-08-25T20:29:00.002-04:00

We have read your manuscript with boundless delight, and if we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of a lower standard. And, as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition and beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity.

-Rejection letter, quoted in Brian Doyle's marvelous essay, "No"

Link o' the Day

2010-08-21T08:45:00.016-04:00

I just discovered a bunch of free (!) recordings of Bill Mallonee performing live. Flowers is my new favorite - I quoted some of the lyrics in my previous post.

I'm also intrigued to learn that Bill's name is pronounced MALonee, like Melanie with an "Al". I've been saying MaLONee, like Baloney, for years...

Flowers

2010-08-20T20:44:00.004-04:00

Flowers growing out of your desert
Flowers out of parched ground
Flowers coming right up through the cracks
Of the pavement in this old town
Flowering's not a science
It's more like a fine art
Flowers coming right up through the cracks
Of our beat-down,
Burdened,
Broken,
Bruised,
Bloody,
Bastardized,
Besotted,
Bespotted,
Bamboozled,
Little hearts

-Bill Mallonee

Reading the Fridge

2010-08-19T21:08:00.003-04:00

Think about it a moment -- if there's a place in every house that's devoted to stories of every shape and sort and size, that has oceans of prose and photographs, gobs of poetry and paintings, posters and prints, essays and articles, quotes and notes, yards of cards, voices from all over the universe, stories from every corner of the compass, and those stories are read and pondered by all ages and stages of readers every day, well, isn't a refrigerator a kind of large humming book, then? With all sorts of treasures inside? And how many books have such extraordinary added value as being excellent caves for ale and ice cream? And how many books can ever be said to have also housed shoes, spectacles, and a former sparrow, as a certain refrigerator of my acquaintance has?

-Brian Doyle, "Brian Doyle Reads a Refrigerator" (Read the entire short essay here)

Psalms

2010-08-17T18:51:00.005-04:00

So this summer I've been studying the book of Psalms with a bunch of college-type girls. At the beginning of the summer, we each shared a favorite Psalm, and we've been working through them week by week. Here's our list:

Psalm 1 - Beth
Psalm 27 - Emily
Psalm 32 - Lydia
Psalm 34 - Leta
Psalm 37 - Bella
Psalm 51 - Sarah
Psalm 131 - Ali
Psalm 136* - Courtney
Psalm 139 - Lissy

*See Bella's post on this one!

End-o-Summer Highs

2010-08-14T22:25:00.009-04:00

1. Looking for shooting stars after Friday Night Bible Study
2. Toy Story 3 (finally!)
3. New laptop
4. Psalms
5. Piles of unread books, purchased earlier in the summer
6. Dainty diving contest @ the Swim Thing
7. Looking forward to Backyard & Hudson Valley Shakespeare

Tonight You Belong To Me

2010-08-12T22:34:00.005-04:00

-Josh Ritter & Erin McKeown

***

So sweet.

Time...is Marching On

2010-07-27T21:31:00.004-04:00

Our ancestors could believe that their achievements had a chance of bearing up against the flow of events. We know time to be a hurricane. Our buildings, our sense of style, our ideas, all of these will soon enough be anachronisms, and the machines in which we now take inordinate pride will seem no less bathetic than Yorick's skull.

-Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, 320.

Bean Counters

2010-07-27T21:28:00.004-04:00

History may dwell on stories of heroism and drama, but there are ultimately few of us out on the high seas, and many of us in the harbour, counting the ropes and untangling the anchor chains.

-Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, 241.

Idle Thoughts

2010-07-27T21:25:00.003-04:00

I concluded that there were few troubling situations in contemporary life from which one could not distract oneself by wondering where the electricity had arrived from.

-Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, 209.

Rose Standish Does the Laundry

2010-07-11T21:37:00.004-04:00

"Ho Rose!" quoth the stout Miles Standish,
As he stood on the Mayflower's deck,
And gazed on the sandy coast-line
That loomed as a misty speck.

"On the edge of the distant offing;
See! yonder we have in view
Bartholomew Gosnold's 'headlands.'
'Twas in sixteen hundred and two

"That the Concord of Dartmouth anchored
Just there where the beach is broad
And the merry old captain named it
(Half swamped by the fish)--Cape Cod.

"And so as his mighty 'headlands'
Are scarcely a league away,
What say you to landing, sweetheart,
And having a washing-day?"

"Dear heart"--and the sweet Rose Standish
Looked up with a tear in her eye;
She was back in the flag-stoned kitchen
Where she watched, in the days gone by;

Her mother among her maidens
(She should watch them no more, alas!),
And saw as they stretched the linen
To bleach on the Suffolk grass.

In a moment her brow was cloudless,
As she leaned on the vessel's rail,
And thought of the sea-stained garments,
Of coif and farthingale;

And doublets of fine Welsh flannel,
The tuckers and homespun gowns,
And piles of the hose knitted
From wool of the Devon downs.

So the matrons aboard the Mayflower
Made ready with eager hand
To drop from the decks their baskets
As soon as the prow touched land.

And there did the Pilgrim Mothers,
"On a Monday," the record says,
Ordain for their new-found England
The first of her washing-days.

And there did the Pilgrim Fathers,
With matchlock and axe well slung,
Keep guard o'er the smoking kettles
That propt on the crotches hung.

For the trail of the startle savage
Was over the marshy grass,
And the glint of his eyes kept peering
Through cedar and sassafras.

And the children were mad with pleasure
As they gathered the twigs in sheaves
And piled on the fire the branches
And heaped up the autumn leaves.

"Do the thing that is next," saith the proverb,
And a nobler shall yet succeed:
'Tis the motive exalts the action;
'Tis the doing, and not the deed;

For the earliest act of the heroes
Whose fame has a world-wide sway
Was to fashion a crane for a kettle
And order a washing day!

-Margaret Preston, "The First Proclamation"

***

It was my great honor to read this poem at our 4th of July festivities. My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of laundry!"

A Life Well Lived

2010-06-30T23:21:00.003-04:00

The great question for the old and dying, I think, is not if they have loved and been loved enough, but if they have been grateful enough for love received and given, however much. No one who has gratitude is the onliest one. Let us pray to be grateful to the last.

-Wendell Berry, Andy Catlett, 120.

Sunset

2010-06-29T21:11:00.001-04:00

You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.

-Psalm 65:8b

Stuff I Brought Back From the Cape

2010-06-20T17:49:00.002-04:00

A bucket of beach rocks
Sand (in my car, clothes, backpack, etc)
Just a hint of sunburn
Made-in-Kenya earrings
Lemonheads
Used books:
Letter from New York, Helene Hanff
Emil and the Detectives, Erich Kastner
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Jean Lee Latham
On the Art of Reading, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
The Wonderful O, James Thurber
The Eye of the Story, Eudora Welty
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Kate Douglas Wiggin
Comedies, Oscar Wilde
Hot Water, P.G. Wodehouse

All is Well

2010-06-20T17:15:00.004-04:00

The Shunammite woman's grief was perfectly warranted; but there was also nothing ridiculous about her "All is well" when Elisha put her living son in her arms. In thanksgiving, we force ourselves to cling to the moment of resurrection before it reaches us.

-Leta Sundet, "Fierce Gratitude," Thought Meadow, Issue 5.

***

Lately, the phrase "it is what it is" has crept into my vocabulary, a handy non sequitur when things don't go quite the way I'd like. But it's a phrase that kind of bugs me, I think because it's a verbal shrug of the shoulders - life is rough, don't sweat it, just move on. Que sera sera, whatever will be will be. But if I believe in a sovereign God, that doesn't really jive with an it-is-what-it-is attitude. Whatever is, is because God intended it to be. I can rejoice, or get angry, but an emotionless "hey, whatever" doesn't really make a lot of sense. So, maybe I'll try out the Shunammite's "all is well" instead. When a meeting at work goes poorly because I was inadequately prepared, when we hit a major roadblock in our Fairmont trip prep, when Ben & Jerry's doesn't have any of my favorite ice cream flavors (brownie batter, oatmeal cookie chunk, cinnamon bun - in case you were wondering)...all is well. I have a sovereign God, and I can rejoice in his good plans, even when I am exasperated beyond measure.

Thanks, Leta. :)

Packing List

2010-06-09T17:55:00.006-04:00

The night before my father sailed he borrowed his father's knapsack and he and the cat packed everything very carefully. He took chewing gum, two dozen pink lollipops, a package of rubber bands, black rubber boots, a compass, a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, six magnifying glasses, a very sharp jackknife, a comb and a hairbrush, seven hair ribbons in different colors, an empty grain bag with a label saying "Cranberry," some clean clothes, and enough food to last my father while he was on the ship. He couldn't live on mice, so he took twenty-five peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and six apples, because that's all the apples he could find in the pantry.

-Ruth Stiles Gannett, My Father's Dragon, 20.

***

Note to self: Must remember to pack two dozen pink lollipops for my impending trip to the Cape. Also a very sharp jackknife and seven hair ribbons in different colors.

In Memoriam

2010-06-08T22:07:00.004-04:00

The fear of forgetting anything precious can trigger in us the wish to raise a structure, like a paperweight to hold down our memories. We might even follow the example of the Countess of Mount Edgcumbe, who in the late eighteenth century had a thirty-foot-high Neoclassical obelisk erected on a hill on the outskirts of Plymouth, in memory of an unusually sensitive pig called Cupid, whom she did not hesitate to call a true friend.

-Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness, 123-124.

Stuff I'm Taking to the Cape

2010-06-07T22:00:00.003-04:00

Bubble Thing + Bubble Juice Ingredients
Episodes of In Plain Sight to share with the peripatetic Jessie Gac
An Ideal Husband (the movie...)
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton + scads of other library books (any suggestions?)
Sunglasses
Sneakers
Hats
???

Tidiness

2010-06-03T20:49:00.001-04:00

Rum idea this is, that tidiness is a timid, quiet sort of thing; why tidiness is a toil for giants. You can't tidy anything without untidying yourself; just look at my trousers.

-G. K. Chesterton, Manalive, 42.

Bubbles!

2010-06-02T21:10:00.008-04:00

Bubble Juice - New & Improved Recipe

2010-06-02T20:07:00.005-04:00

Measure into a clean bucket and stir together:

16 cups warm water
1 cup Joy or Dawn dish soap (if you're abroad, use Fairy or Palmolive Aloe)
2 tablespoons baking powder (not baking soda)

Tip: It's STILL best to let your bubble solution sit overnight.

-David Stein & the Editors of Klutz

Bubble Juice - Original Recipe

2010-06-02T20:02:00.003-04:00

Measure into a clean bucket and stir together:

12 cups water
1 cup Ultra Dawn
1/4 cup glycerine

Tip: It's best to let your bubble solution sit overnight.

-David Stein & the Editors of Klutz

A Few Good Books (Lately Discovered)

2010-03-16T21:54:00.004-04:00

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Gossamer, Lois Lowry
The Magician's Elephant, Katie DiCamillo
The Underneath, Kathi Appelt

Stars

2010-03-09T21:47:00.002-05:00

...He would show her the star that was sometimes visible through his window. He would say to her, "Have you, in truth, ever seen something so heartbreakingly lovely? What are we to make of a world where stars shine bright in the midst of so much darkness and gloom?"

-Katie Dicamillo, The Magician's Elephant, 147.

But They Who Wait

2010-03-08T19:50:00.001-05:00

Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.

-Isaiah 40:30-31

Kuyper on Calvinism

2010-02-23T20:10:00.009-05:00

Thus it is shown that Calvinism has a sharply defined starting point of its own...for our relation to the world: the recognition that in the whole world the curse is restrained by grace, that the life of the world is to be honored in its independence, and that we must, in every domain, discover the treasures and develop the potencies hidden by God in nature and in human life.

-Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism

***

I've been doing some haphazard on-line research on vocation recently. I'm especially interested in what the reformers (Luther & Calvin) had to say about this topic, and so one of the sources I've been dipping into is Kuyper's Lectures on Calvinism.

In the quote above, Kuyper is talking about our relation to the world. He puts a strong emphasis on common grace - we engage with the world, knowing that God is active in it, although his activity may be concealed. And so we are treasure seekers - working to discover and develop the good work that God has begun.

Three applications to my own vocation: (1) I am an actuary (a pricer of insurance). I observe patterns in data, and interpret and present those patterns to other people in a way that helps them make business decisions. What does Kuyper's quote have to do with pricing insurance? Well. Why does data behave predictably? Why do my statistical tools work? Because I live in an ordered universe. Even though the effects of the Fall are widespread - after all, there wasn't much of a demand for insurance in Eden - the world still operates in a predictable, orderly way. That is common grace. And I am literally a pattern seeker (a treasure seeker) in my day to day work.

(2) I am also a youth group leader. And this is a different type of treasure seeking. I work with youth from 7th grade to 12th grade, which means I get to see them grow up A LOT. And it is amazing to watch. Amazing to look at a 7th grader, and think THIS person will be one of my best friends in six years.

(3) Thirdly, and just a whim - not quite vocation or even avocation - I am also a collector of beach stones. I usually visit beaches that have more rocks than shells, and I am fascinated by the shapes, patterns, sizes, the feel of a stone in my hand. I always bring home a few, and my favorite rocks are pretty liberally scattered around my apartment. I love discovering an unusual stone, knowing that other people may have passed by without noting it, and that in a few hours or minutes it might be buried in a sandbar or washed back out to sea. Treasure seeking again, and a nice metaphor for what I am up to when I sift through data or plan a youth retreat.

Common Grace

2010-02-11T21:41:00.002-05:00

When Francie bought a pound of coffee or an ounce of pepper she watched while a polished silver block with the weight mark was placed in one scale and the fragrant purchase was conveyed gently by means of a silverlike scoop into the other. Francie, watching, held her breath while the scoop dropped in a few more grains or gently eased some out. It was a beautiful peaceful second when both golden plates were stilled and stood there in perfect balance. It was as if nothing wrong could happen in a world where things balanced so stilly.

-Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, 137.

Calvin on Vocation

2010-02-08T21:59:00.000-05:00

Every individual's line of life, therefore, is, as it were, a post assigned him by the Lord, that he may not wander about in uncertainty all his days.

-John Calvin

Review: Inkspell by Cornelia Funke

2010-02-03T21:56:00.003-05:00

Really, really long. Grade: B

The Last Days of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle

2010-02-03T21:30:00.001-05:00

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle fan fiction by Laurel Snyder!

Review: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

2010-01-19T20:02:00.001-05:00

I really liked this book. A lot. I do find it very reminiscent of The Westing Game and From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frakweiler. Partly because it’s a puzzle, and all of the pieces don’t fall into place until the end. Partly because the characters are complex, but not overwhelming - just real. Partly because it’s set in the late 70’s in a very non-cheesy way (latchkey kids and game shows, but no bell-bottoms or disco). An added bonus - the story is sprinkled with references to A Wrinkle in Time. Grade: A

Review: Love Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

2010-01-19T20:01:00.001-05:00

Meh. The story is very predictably PC: an unconventional teenager makes friends with a bunch of quirky outcasts (an angry pre-teen, an agoraphobic woman, a goofy little girl, a crazy guy, a kid that steals stuff), knitting them into a community that finds its culmination in a winter solstice ceremony/celebration - and at the same time she tries to figure out if she still loves the boy that dumped her (in Stargirl) because she was too unconventional. Really? This book has its moments, but there’s way, WAY too much meditation. Grade: C+

Review: Eliza's Daughter by Joan Aiken

2010-01-19T20:00:00.000-05:00

This was a terrible book. The dust jacket suggests that Aiken wrote this book out of "love and admiration" for Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility - but she doesn't seem to have particularly liked any of Austen's characters. Edward Ferrars is a legalistic, penny-pinching, and narrow-minded parson. Elinor is a dreary housewife, making the best of a lukewarm marriage. Marianne is domineering and jealous. Colonel Brandon is spoken well of (mostly) but never appears in person and eventually dies in the Napoleonic wars. I'm not sure what the point of all this is, other than a cynical rejection of a happy-ever-after ending. But not only does Aiken not seem to take any pleasure in Austen's characters, she doesn't seem to like any of her own characters. Austen's characters are often flawed, and sometimes very shallow and silly, but she has the grace to be amused and even delighted by them. Aiken doesn't seem to give a hoot for any character other than Eliza - the supporting cast are killed off one at a time by strokes and drownings and wasting sicknesses, but the book trots along and they're barely missed. And Eliza herself is hardly the sort of person I'd like to spend much time with (certainly not 316 pages!). It does seem odd that Aiken's writing should be so uneven - so winsome in her children's novels, and so heavy-handed and bitter here. But this book was written fairly late in her career, so maybe that's an explanation. Or maybe Dido Twite is just more fun to write about. Grade: D