Category: books

fresh from the oven

To cheer you up on this holiday season evening, allow me to offer you a platter of freshly baked cookies. Actually, I don’t have any cookies, but I can offer you this Themed Things list of cookie-related goodness.

Some Cookies for You

  • That’s the way the cookie crumbles: an expression suggesting the resigned acceptance that an undesired event or outcome can’t be changed.
  • “Faraway Cookies:” Sandra Boynton’s touching love song about a yearning for cookies. (Off Philadelphia Chickens):

    Oh, Chocolate Chip Cookies
    so high on the shelf
    hiding inside of the jar
    I’m not tall enough
    to reach you myself.
    So near, and yet so very far

  • Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? A song usually sung with young kids. Usually without any actual cookies or theft thereof.
  • Cookie Monster: a blue Muppet from Sesame Street who likes to eat cookies. And other things. Also known for his battle cry of “cookies!!!!” (He also sings, which you can hear on YouTube.)

    • cookie_monster.jpg gingerbread_man.jpg

  • The Gingerbread Man¹:
    An folktale about a human-shaped cookie who comes to life and runs off, taunting those who chase him:

    Run, run, as fast as you can!
    You can’t catch me!
    I’m the Gingerbread Man!

  • Cookies for Santa: A tradition of leaving a glass of milk and a plate of cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve.
  • A quiz to let you know what kind of cookie you are, stolen out of Raincoaster’s cookie jar. It would seem that I am a fortune cookie.
  • I like to imagine improbable fortune cookie fortunes, but in case I can’t think up any of my own, there are fortune cookie generators available. This one is also one I lifted from the Raincoaster cookie jar. (She’s going to have to find a safer place to hide her cookies.³) This is the fortune I got:
    My Fortune Cookie told me:
    You will pay for your sins. If you have already paid, please disregard this message.
    Get a cookie from Miss Fortune
  • In Amy Tan’s book The Joy Luck Club, one of the characters works in a fortune cookie factory and tries to nudge a suitor to propose by carefully planting fortunes in his cookies.
  • Girl Scout Cookies. Traditionally sold by Girl Scouts. (In fact, during my brief tenure as a Girl Scout at the tender age of 10, the only Girl Scout activity available to me was selling Girl Scout cookies.) I am also reminded of this scene from The Addams Family movie (1991):

    Girl Scout: Is this made from real lemons?
    Wednesday: Yes.
    Girl Scout: I only like all-natural foods and beverages, organically grown, with no preservatives. Are you sure they’re real lemons?
    Pugsley: Yes.
    Girl Scout: I’ll tell you what. I’ll buy a cup if you buy a box of my delicious Girl Scout cookies. Do we have a deal?
    Wednesday: Are they made from real Girl Scouts?

    • chocolate_chip_cookie.pngchocolate_chip_cookie.pngchocolate_chip_cookie.png

    ¹ If you want to see some very attractive gingerbread men, Mad just posted some photos that make me want to get baking. Or at least make me want to visit someone who does some baking.²

    ² As further proof that this is the season for cookies, BipolarLawyerCook has posted not once, but twice on cookie-related topics. Cookies!!!

    ³ Except maybe for these cookies made from jellyfish. I think they’re pretty much safe wherever.

    gobble, gobble, gobble

    turkey_6.pngToday is Thanksgiving, a holiday here in the US traditionally (or at least moderately traditionally) celebrated by a day of feasting with family and by expressing thanks. It’s also a day when most Americans eat turkey, a large bird that is native to North America.¹ This has lead to many people calling Thanksgiving “Turkey Day.” So what better Themed Things list to bring you for this Turkey Day than a list of turkeys. (However, these are turkeys you won’t likely see at the dinner table.²)

    Ten Turkey Things for Turkey Day

    1. Turkey in the Straw: an American folk song, often fiddled. (Listen to it, if you like.)
    2. hand turkey: a picture made by tracing one’s hand to make the approximate shape of a turkey. The thumb represents the head and neck, and the fingers the tail feathers. Usually, the drawing is adorned with a beak, an eye, wings and a wattle.
    3. a turkey: a movie that got bad reviews, or that otherwise was poorly received.
    4. a turkey: a bowling term meaning 3 consecutive strikes.
    5. talk turkey. An expression meaning “to speak frankly.” Has some debatable origins.
    6. jive turkey: one who acts as if they know what they are talking about, but really doesn’t.
    7. Wild Turkey. A brand of bourbon. My grandmother liked bourbon. Not sure if she had a preferred brand.
    8. cold turkey. The act of quitting abrubtly, without tapering off. As in “quit drinking cold turkey.” (Which may also involve quitting drinking Wild Turkey.)
    9. Turkey: a nation. (I wonder how often people not native to the US expect that there will be some sort of Turkish cultural event on Turkey day?)
    10. Twas the Night before Thanksgiving, by Dav Pilkey. A somewhat controversial picturebook about some kids who “liberate” some turkeys from a farm and have them over for dinner (but don’t have them for dinner). (I found the full text online listed as an “anonymously” written animal rights poem, but I think Pilkey was the orginal author.)

    —-

    ¹ Some Americans will instead eat a tofurkey, such as a Tofurky, a tofu-based turkey substitute.

    ² Well, except maybe the bourbon, in some households.

    throwing together a themed list (even though it’s not Thursday)

    125_125_banner_a.jpgI came across¹, a site that I think is pretty fun. It’s got a bit of a running vocabulary quiz. At the same time, the site is set up such that for each word you get right, 10 grains of rice get donated through the United Nations. (The rice is paid for by advertisers.)

    It’s kinda cool to see the running totals they have posted, too. The site only started on October 7th of this year. Yesterday, 198,342,51 grains of rice were donated, whereas 6,645,520 were donated 1 month ago.

    Anyhow, that’s getting to be a decent amount of rice. And it’s inspired me to throw together a bit of a list of rice things. Even though it’s not Thursday. It’s a short list, anyhow.

    A Few Grains of Rice

    1. One Grain Of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale A picture book by Demi.

      It’s the story of Rani, a clever girl who outsmarts a very selfish raja and saves her village. When offered a reward for a good deed, she asks only for one grain of rice, doubled each day for 30 days. Remember your math? That’s lots of rice: enough to feed a village for a good long time–and to teach a greedy raja a lesson.

    2. On a Bed of Rice: An Asian American Erotic Feast, edited by Geraldine Kudaka. An erotic anthology. I like the name, what with the mixed meanings of food and sex. And if there are two things I like (aside from pants), they’re food and sex. (I also just found myself thinking that a somewhat similar phrase would make for an interesting book title, too. “On a Bed of Noodles.” Perhaps it could be an erotic humor anthology.)
    3. “Rice, rice baby,” by Weird Al. I think you can guess which song it parodies.
    4. 米国 beikoku, a Japanese term for the US, which means “rice country”

    ——

    Aside from the bit about donating rice, I find it fun to test my word knowledge and learn new words. So far, my favorite new word that I’ve learned is, without doubt, omphaloskepsis. It means navel-gazing. And then I thought to myself, “now that would be a fine blog name.” Indeed, it is.

    Other words I have encountered which make me happy include the following:

      eructate=belch
      anserine=gooselike
      bumbershoot = umbrella
      edentulous=toothless
      demulcent = soothing

    Anyone want to go play for a bit and bring me back some tasty word morsels?

    —–

    ¹ I came across links to this site at least 3 times, though I can only track down one, which wasn’t even the first place I saw it. Anyone else reading this post about it?

    slow and steady

    Slow and steady about sums up a lot of the work I do. Well, slow at least. Slow like a turtle.

    Here’s a list of turtles for this week’s Themed Things Thursday. We’ve got turtles and tortoises, and possibly even some terrapins (though I haven’t identified any as such).

    A Stack of Turtle Things

    • Yertle the Turtle, Dr. Seuss. As Lisa Simpson says, “this is quite possibly the best book ever written on the subject of turtle stacking.”
    • What Newt Could do for Turtle, Jonathan London.
      A picturebook of friendship between 2 friends, a newt and a turtle, who live in the swamp.

      • yertle.jpg       what_newt_could_do.jpg

    • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Comic book characters, of the mutant turtle persuasion. And presumably adolescent. And possibly also Ninjas. Have branched out to TV, movies, and of course, merchandising.

      • bert2.png

    • Bert the Turtle, from the “Duck and Cover” film on preparing for a nuclear attack. (You can watch it on YouTube, and learn how even covering yourself with a newspaper can help protect you from a nuclear blast.)
      Bert has a catchy song:

      there was a turtle by the name of Bert
      and Bert the turtle was very alert
      when danger threatened him he never got hurt
      he knew just what to do
      he’d duck…and cover
      duck…and cover…

      • the_tortoise_and_the_hare_-_project_gutenberg_etext_19994.jpg

    • The Tortoise and the Hare: A fable attributed to Aesop. A fast hare has a race with a tortoise, but loses since he figures he has time for a nap. The tortoise wins since he kept moving. “Slow and steady wins the race.”
    • The Great A’Tuin: The Giant Star turtle in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. The world (which is disc-shaped) is supported by 4 elephants standing on the back of this giant turtle. This is most likely based on…
    • Chukwa, from Hindu mythology. A giant turtle who supports the earth, sometimes also with an elephant on its back. (The turtle may also be standing on more turtles, such that there are turtles all the way down.)
    • chocolate turtle: Not really a turtle at all. Or at least not the reptilian kind. A confection of nuts (usually pecans) covered in caramel and chocolate, typically forming a dome shape that resembles a turtle.
    • turtle trap: When I was little, maybe 4 or 5 years old, I thought that people had called this one Sausalito shopping center a turtle trap. I’m not sure at what point it became clear to me that people had called it a “tourist trap.” Not being clear on the concept of tourists, I assume I’d interpreted the word I’d heard as “tortoise,” then remembered it as “turtle.” To this day, I still think of that place as the Turtle Trap. Especially since I can’t remember its “real” name.
    • “Turtles are quiet.” A page from Leslie Patricelli‘s most excellent book Quiet LOUD. The book is full of quiet things, and loud things. But somehow this is the one we remember when trying to encourage Phoebe to be quiet: “Quiet like a turtle.”
    • “I like turtles” I just saw this in a post on riddlebiddle, but it has apparently been making the rounds for months. And kicked off a lot of video responses. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, have a look at this video on YouTube (It’s only about 17 seconds long.)

    turtle.jpg
    A turtle at our local zoo. Or a tortoise at our local zoo, if you want to be particular. Or if you want to be British about it.

    book, book, book, book

    I am once again behind in my memery. YTSL tagged me for this book meme a couple of weeks ago, and it looked like fun. (Admittedly, two weeks behind is practically early for me these days.) You may see a wee bit of overlap with my earlier list of 18 favorite books, which was based on another meme YTSL tagged me for. (That one was supposed to be about a single favorite book. I had trouble following directions.) This time, the instructions mostly involve giving lists of four.

    Four childhood books

    • Small Pig, Arnold Lobel. Possibly the first book I read by myself. About a pig. A small pig, even. Who likes mud.
    • The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis. This book really captured my imagination. I think I was always hoping to stuble across some otherworldly portal in my grandmother’s house.
    • The Gammage Cup, Carol Kendall. A quirky fantasy book about individuality and evil mushrooms.
    • The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster. A quirky fantasy book with lots of wordplay. Right up my alley.

    Four authors I will read again and again

    • Sarah Caudwell
    • M. M. Kaye
    • Rumer Godden
    • Jane Austen

      • It’s hard to list just four here. I also considered Gregory Maguire and Connie Willis, though for each of them, there’s really only one book I tend to read over and over. (Wicked and Bellwether, in case you wondered.) Actually, I tend to reread kids’ books even more. The Chronicles of Narnia and the Dark is Rising series (Susan Cooper) get picked up often.

    Four authors I will never read again

    • The Horse Whisperer dude. I can’t even be bothered to look up his name. That book irritated me beyond measure.
    • Amy Ephron. When I ran a book group, we once haplessly picked a little book called A Cup of Tea. The best thing about it was that it was short.

      • Other than that, I can’t really think of authors I hate. I don’t generally like to generalize from a single book (with the above exceptions). There have been a number of books I haven’t liked, and either I don’t remember the author’s name, or there have been other books that I’ve liked, or others that I still might be willing to give a chance.

    The first four books on my to-be-read list

    • The Pirates!: An Adventure with Scientists & An Adventure with Ahab, Gideon Defoe. This the most recent book given to me as a gift.
    • Ulysses, by James Joyce. This damn book has been at the top of my to-be-read list for over a decade. It seems a shame to ever remove it…
    • Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. I have been commanded to read it once I listed it among my unread books.
    • The Ph0nology of T0ne and Int0nation (by Carl0s Gussenh0ven). This is actually the book I’m reading, as part of one of my degree requirements. (You may have n0ticed the zer0s here. I don’t like the idea of the author googling his name and finding…me procrastinating. That doesn’t seem quite right.)

      • Another book I’d like to read soon is actually a reread: The Golden Compass. I want to reread before I see the movie.

    The four books I would take to a desert island

    • Thus was Adonis Murdered
    • Shadow of the Moon
    • The Complete Works of Shakespeare. I figure it would keep me busy. (Funny, I saw that this was also listed among the desert island picks of the person who tagged YTSL.)
    • I can’t decide.Bellwether or maybe Wicked or the Poisonwood Bible. Or maybe something new to me.

    The last part of the assignment is to write the last lines of one of my favourite books. I can’t really do this just now, since I have work to do. If I could, I’d look up the last lines of Thus was Adonis Murdered. However, I gave away my copy of that, and have yet to replace it. And I shouldn’t go digging around in other books, since I have work to do. I do remember, though, that the last line of Shadow of the Moon was “And it was Alex.”

    There it is. Damn, that ended up longer than I expected. Sorry about that. As for tagging, I think I have to pass, since tagging always seems to take me a lot of time. I agonize over who to choose. Please feel free to tag yourself if you are so inclined, and I’d be happy to link you up here.

    make like a tree

    I’m quite fond of trees. You might even say that I identify with them. To celebrate their arborial grandness, and to follow up on the squirreliness of last week’s list, I bring you a Themed Thing list of Trees.

  • The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss. This beloved book features Truffula trees, and is a parable (?) about the impact of excessive deforestation, industrialization and consumerism. The Lorax is a little creature who voices the warnings. “I speak for the trees.”
  • The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein. A book about a boy, who takes serious advantage of a generous tree. The tree gives, and the boy/man takes and takes. And takes. Till all that’s left of the tree is a stump. And this is supposed to be a moving tale of generosity. An environmentalist friend of mine from college once said of it, “I think it’s misguided.”

    • the_lorax.jpgthe_giving_tree.jpg

  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a coming of age novel by Betty Smith.
  • The Tree of Man, a novel by Australian Author (and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature), Patrick White.
  • tree-hugger: A term used to refer to environmentalists, especially those who look to protect forests. Sometimes used pejoratively, but embraced by others.
  • Arbor Day A holiday for planting and caring for trees. And maybe for hugging them. In the US, it’s celebrated in April. (The next one is April 25th, 2008. Only 168 shopping days left.)
  • Christmas Tree A possibly Pagan-derived holiday tradition of decorating a tree with ornaments and lights and such. Usually a pine tree.

    • lost_pants_tree.jpg

  • syntactic trees (tree structures) Diagrams representing hierarchical structure are often described as trees. People studying syntax spend a fair amount of time drawing tree diagrams of sentences.
  • family tree The tree is used as a metaphor to describe relationships within a family, especially when drawing a diagram of relatedness.
  • Trees are prominent in mythologies and foklore from many cultures, including many variations on a mystic Tree of Life.

    • family_tree.jpg yggdrasil.jpg dryad11.jpg
    A German woodcut of a family tree, the Yggdrasil, and The Dryad by Evelyn De Morgan

  • Dryads, tree nymphs (or wood nymphs) from Greek mythology. They are among the magical creatures to be found in the Chronicals of Narnia. See also “The Dryad”, a story be Hans Christian Anderson
  • In Greek Mythology, Daphne is turned into a laurel tree while trying to escape the clutches of an amourous Apollo.
  • The Ents, from the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien. Big tree people.
  • “Shaking the Tree”, an album by Peter Gabriel. Also a song with Youssou N’dour. [YouTube]
  • “barking up the wrong tree” An idiom alluding to a dog chasing a cat up a tree, but mistaking the location of said cat. It means “acting based on some mistaken impression”
  • “can’t see the forest for the trees”An expression to describe when someone is too caught up in the details to understand the larger context.
  • Then there’s the playground chant:

    X & Y sitting in a tree
    K-I-S-S-I-N-G

    • The Call of the Pants

    pants.pngBecause the world needs more things with pants, and because I promised to write more posts with pants, I bring you pants. Following the success of the great moments of pants cinema, and in the tradition of the legendary Star Wars pants list, I bring to you a list of literary pants classics.

    Great Works of Classic Pants Literature.

  • All the King’s Pants, Robert Penn Warren
    A story of politics, pants, and politicians’ pants.
  • A Farewell to Pants, Ernest Hemingway
    Even pants don’t last forever.
  • The Return of the Pants, Thomas Hardy
    Laundry lost, laundry found.
  • The Pants and the Fury, William Faulkner
    A tale told by an idiot. Signifying pants.
  • A Tale of Two Pants, Charles Dickens
    They were worn, they were washed. It’s a short tale.
  • Around the World in Eighty Pants, Jules Verne
    About a man who did not know how to travel light.
  • Peter Pants, J. M. Barrie
    A whimsical, magical pants tale
  • The Canterbury Pants, Geoffrey Chaucer
    Tales of pilgrimages and pants.
  • The Pants of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
    Justice. Vengence. Pants.
  • Little Pants, Louisa May Alcott
    The heartwarming saga of sisters and pants.
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Pants, L. Frank Baum
    A young girl and her companions embark on a quest for pants.
  • The Strange Pants of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
    Two men share a pair of pants. It’s not pretty.
  • The Man in the Iron Pants, Alexandre Dumas
    That just can’t be comfortable.
  • Journey to the Center of the Pants, Jules Verne
    Discover the mysteries that lie deep within the pants.
  • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Pants, by Mark Twain
    This story may not be suitable for children under age 13.

    • squirreling away

    squirrel_nutkin.jpgInspired by yesterday’s squirreliness, this week’s Themed Things Thursday is brought to you by squirrels.¹

    A Stash of Squirrely Things

  • The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin. A book by Beatrix Potter.

    This is a Tale about a tail–a tail that belonged to a little red
    squirrel, and his name was Nutkin.

  • Squirrel Nut Zippers a band. Takes its name from a candy.
  • For Squirrels. A band. Has a song entitled “Mighty K.C.”²
  • “Secret Squirrel,” a song by Marcy Playground

    Tune in next week and see
    Secret squirrel save you and me

  • The Flying Squirrel from The Tick (The animated series.) A superhero whose battlecry is “I like squirrels!”

    • rocky.jpg

  • Rocket J. Squirrel, aka Rocky, of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The clever one of the “moose and squirrel” pair.
  • Bubbles, the Powerpuff Girl, can talk to squirrels [clip on YouTube]
  • “Squirrel Boy” (2006-??) A Cartoon Network cartoon about a boy and his pesky squirrel friend.
  • Azqueeral. In a 2002 Daily Show episode, a man who has invented a birdfeeding hat describes a harrowing attack by a squirrel. Or by an azqueeral, as the subtitles show. It sounded a bit like “shquiddle” to us.
  • “I kicked Thumper’s ass” A t-shirt worn by a tough squirrel in Gary Larson’s book There’s a Hair in My Dirt
  • Squirrels have also been featured in American Hovel Magazine, the magazine dedicated to lowering acceptable neatness standards in the American home. See our featured interview, and the front cover of the April 2007 edition, below.

    • —–
    ¹ With apologies to KC.

    ² KC, I kid you not. Here’s YouTube proof, even.)

    ³ This footnote doesn’t match up with anything, but I felt I should toss out there that this marks my first official NaBloPoMo post. 1 down, 29 to go!

    chocolate-coated list

    600px-chocolate1.jpg

    Halloween is just around the corner, and this means a bunch of things. Costumes. Parties. Spooky decorations. Getting the crap scared out of you at fun “family” activities. But for a lot of people it’s all about the candy. And while there are loads of types of yummy sugar-coma-inducing candies out there filling up those plastic pumpkins, chocolate is the treat most trick-or-treaters prize the most. So I give you a ThThTh list that’s chock-full of chocolate. Enjoy!

  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl
    A children’s novel. Also the 2005 movie starring ever-versatile Johnny Depp, as well as Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), starring Gene Wilder, both based on the Roald Dahl novel. The factory has a chocolate river.
  • Chocolat (2000)
    Again with Johnny Depp, and this time with Juliette Binoche. About a woman who opens a chocolate shop in a French village. Based on the novel Chocolat by Joanne Harris.
  • “Chocolate,” by Snow Patrol (video on YouTube)
  • Hot Chocolate, a 70’s band best known for the song “You Sexy Thing” (YouTube video)
  • Como agua para chocolate/Like Water for Chocolate. The book by Laura Esquivel, and the 1992 movie based on the same. Also an expression:
    brigadeiro.jpg

    The phrase “like water for chocolate” comes from the Spanish “como agua para chocolate”. This phrase is a common expression in Spanish speaking countries and was the inspiration for Laura Esquivel’s novel title (the name has a double-meaning).
    In some Latin American countries, such as Mexico, hot chocolate is made not with milk, but with water instead. Water is boiled and chunks of milk chocolate are dropped in to melt. The saying “like water for chocolate,” alludes to this fact and also to the common use of the expression as a metaphor for describing a state of passion or sexual arousal. In some parts of Latin America, the saying is also equivalent to being ‘boiling mad’ in anger.

  • The Chocolate Touch, by Patrick Skene Catling. A kids’ book based on the tale of King Midas, whose touch would turn things to gold. In this case, a boy’s touch turns things into chocolate.
  • “Band Candy” This Buffy episode is one of my favorites. All students at the high school must sell chocolate bars in support of the school band, but eating the chocolate makes adults behave like teenagers.
  • I Love Lucy Episode 39 – “Job Switching” (aka the “Candy Factory” episode). Lucy and Ethel get a job in a chocolate factory, and can’t keep up with the conveyor belt, leading to much laughtrack laughter. (YouTube video)
  • My momma always said, “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” A quote from “Forrest Gump“. (Also from the novel by Winston Groom.)
  • “Happiness is” by the Violent Femmes

    I don’t know what one means by happy
    I’m happy spasmodically
    If I eat a chocolate turtle I’m happy
    When the box is empty I’m unhappy
    When I get another box
    I’m happy again

    • chocolate_bar-1.jpg