Back to the Basics

I'm sure you've all been enjoying all these posts about college visits, shopping trips, teachers and winter drum line scores but, I think it's about time I got back to the basics. I created this blog to have a place to rave about books I love, not about my personal life. I keep a private journal for a reason; there's really no need to discuss my difficulties with the ACT and trips to O'Charley's on Wrinkled Thought. The problem is, I really love posting, but I haven't had much time to read lately so there's not much to say about books and lots to say about what's been keeping me away from my beloved reading material. A little diary entree here and there isn't a bad thing, but it's been a little overdone lately. Expect a book review tomorrow.

Church Garage Sales are Amazing!

I went to church last night to help set up for our annual spring garage sale and was shocked to find boxes and boxes full of books. I put off putting stickers on all the kids toys for a few minutes to do some browsing and I found fifteen books I wanted to take home. It ended up being only $9.00 for the whole bunch. (Paperbacks were $0.50 and hard covers were $1.00). Most of the books weren't in the best condition; they were old and smelly, but the words are still there. I really wish I would have had my camera last night because there was junk EVERYWHERE. When I walked inside, I thought, "Where did my church go?"

Here's what I bought...

• The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy
• Anthem by Ayn Rand
• The Chosen by Chaim Potok
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand
• The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman
• A Separate Peace by John Knowles
• One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
• Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
• Seraph on the Suwanee by Zora Neale Hurston
• The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arther Conan Doyal
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
• Pandora by Anne Rice
• The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
• In her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner

I also bought these adorable little bird mugs for 10 cents each. (Our family is really into birds).

In other news, PHS Winter Drum Line is officially the 7th best drum line in the world! We went to Dayton last weekend for World Finals Competition. There were a lot of great groups there and it was really cool finally getting to compete with everybody. We also had about an hour long pillow fight on the bus ride home. (See my Myspace blog for details). That was fun too.

I got my ACT scores back from a couple weeks ago and my score went down two points from the first time I took it. How does that work?

I am also aware of the lack of reviews there's been lately. 100 Years of Solitude is a very long book. I was supposed to have it done Friday, but my teacher's changed the assignment so finishing the book is optional now. I do plan on finishing it, but I need a break. As much as I love the book, it gets too confusing to read in little spurts, which is all I've had time to do lately. I need to just sit down one day and read till there's no more pages. Until then, hello Interview with a Vampire!

A Very Long Day

Today was the longest day ever. I spent a total of 13 and a half hours at school, on a Saturday! It was the big ACT day at Page. I've taken it once before, but I thought it was a lot harder this time around. After finishing the test a bunch of winter drumline people (and two extras) went to O'Charley's to celebrate the survival of yet another life altering standardized test. I ate the Shrimp Bayou Pasta, which was delicious, minus the tomatoes, which I forgot to ask to leave off (I hate tomatoes). After we ate, we wandered back to school for our winter drum line practice, where I was till 10:30p. My dad surprised me with some publix sushi when I finally got home. It was great.

On a side note, if there are any Imogen Heap fans out there, she's been posting these really great blog entrees about her adventures in Hawaii on her Myspace. They're complete with pictures and updates on songs she's working on. Here's the link.

The first picture is my buddy Robin and I at O'Charley's. That's Brandon in the background.

College Visit I: APSU

Yesterday, I went on a college visit to Austin Peay State University in Clarksville TN. Mom and I started off by eating in the cafeteria, where we passed an Asian guy break dancing. It was amazing. After eating we wandered towards the music/mass communications building. Upon entering I hear the band practicing Shepherd's Hey by Percy Grainger, one of my favorite pieces ever. Later on I heard them playing some other songs we're working on at PHS, which was odd. A little too coincidental. We peeked into the concert hall and there was this older guy on stage moving props around. I told him I was here for a tour and trying to kill time while I waited for it to begin. He asked me if I wanted to be a music major and what I played. I told him I might be majoring in clarinet performance. He goes on to tell me that there was a clarinet choir concert there tonight at 7:30. Can you get anymore perfect than that? I've always wanted to see a clarinet choir perform, but how cool is it that I get to experience it at (possibly) my future school. Mom and I trekked back across campus to to the starting point of our tour, which ended up being predictable, inevitably informative, and completely worthwhile. Afterwords, we wandered around campus a little bit more and then we went to Wendy's for dinner before returning back to the concert hall for the clarinet choir concert. It was great. I loved it. The rest of APSU was very nice too. It was a good day.

APSU Symphony Orchestra

(I stole both pictures from the APSU website )

Five Ways to Kill a Man

I've never really liked poetry all that much, but lately a teacher of mine has been giving me some and I think like it now that I've been exposed to the good stuff. Five Ways to Kill a Man is my favorite of those few poems I've read. I don't want to put the whole thing up, but here are the first couple lines. You can go click on the link at the bottom if you want to read the whole thing. It's amazing.

Five Ways to Kill a Man
by Edwin Brock
"There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.
You can make him carry a plank of wood
to the top of a hill and nail him to it.
To do this properly you require a crowd of people
wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
man to hammer the nails home..."

Five Ways to Kill a Man

-

The guy in the picture is Edwin Brock, if you didn't figure that one out on your own.

Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End Trailer

These films are Disney's best. I love them and can't wait for At World's End to come out. The DVD's lots of fun because of all that behind the scene stuff. I never realized this until watching the writer's commentary on Black Pearl, but you can analyze movies just like you can analyze books. Shocking isn't it?

Author Blogs and Websites

In no particular order...
(1 ) Stephanie Meyer author of Twilight and New Moon- There's lots of fun stuff on this page. Stephanie Meyer truly made this site for the fans of her books. It's got the standard news, faq, and a biography, but it also has excerpts from upcoming projects, playlists to match the books she's already written and pictures of her and fans from her book tour. (2) Jo Rowling author of the Harry Potter Series- This website is a blast. It's visually the most creative blog I've seen. The site is an imitation of her desk, which is apparently cluttered with gum wrappers. Everything on the webpage comes straight from JKR herself, which I love. It's very personal. Not only that, but there are lots of fun hidden games. Put certain clues together from all over her site and you get rewarded with first drafts and even doodles of characters by Jo. (3) Augusten Burroughs author of Running with Scissors, Dry, Magical Thinking, Sellivision, and Possible Side Effects- Augusten Burroughs webpage mimics his books. It's hilarious. My favorite part is the blog, which, unfortunately, he only updates every couple months. (4) Meg Cabot author of the Princess Diaries Series, The Mediator Series, Avalon High, and lots more- I don't go here very often, mainly because I don't read much Meg Cabot these days, but I though I'd include it because it's a really great site. Her online diary is updated very frequently and includes pictures of Meg, which is always fun. Most of the words on the site are written by Meg- so it's a great place if your craving a laugh.

I may do a continuous series of these "Author Blogs and Websites." It's inevitable I find more authors with great sites.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Part III: Falling In Love)

Here's a few favorite quotes from A Portrait of the artist as a Young Man. There are so many more I didn't include, but I couldn't put them all on here because a) it would take forever to type, b) I don't really want to ruin the book for anybody, but I do want some quotes available if you think you'd be into it and c) I'm probably crossing some legal lines here. I hope the copyright police don't come after me.

• "But you could not have a green rose. But perhaps somewhere in the world you could."
• "He thought that he was sick in his heart if you could be sick in that place."
• "The scalding water burst forth from his eyes and, burning with shame and agony and fear, he drew back his shaking arm in terror and burst out into a whine of pain. His body shook with a palsy of fright and in shame and rage he felt the scalding cry come from his throat and the scalding tears falling out of his eyes and down his flaming cheeks."
• "But when he had sung his song and withdrawn into a snug corner of the room he began to taste the joy of his loneliness."
• "He saw clearly too his own futile isolation. He had not gone one step nearer the lives he had sought to approach nor bridged the restless shame and rancour that divided him from mother and brother and sister. He felt that he was hardly of the one blood with them but stood to them rather in the mystical kinship of fosterage, fosterchild and foster brother."
• "By day and by night he moved among distorted images of the outer world."
• "... and the cry that he had strangled for so long in his throat issued from his lips. It broke from him like a wail of despair from a hell of sufferers and died in a wail of furious entreaty, a cry for an iniquitous abandonment, a cry which was but the echo of an obscene scrawl which he read on the oozing wall of a urinal."
• "The words of doom cried by the angel shattered in an instant his presumptuous peace. The wind of the last day blew through his mind; his sins, the jeweleyed harlots of his imagination, fled before the hurricane, squeaking like mice in their terror and huddled under a main of hair."
• "His flesh shrank together as if it felt the approach of the ravenous tongues of flames, dried up as it felt about it the swirl of stifling air. He had died. Yes. He was judged. A wave of his brain began to glow. Another. His brain was simmering and bubbling within the cracking tenement of the skull. Flames burst forth from his skull like a corolla, shrieking little voices: Hell!"
• "One soul was lost; a tiny soul: his. It flickered once and went out, forgotten, lost. The end: black cold void waste."
• "His blood began to murmur in his veins, murmuring like a sinful city summoned from its sleep to hear its doom. Little flakes of fire fell and powdery ashes fell softly, alighting on the houses of men. They stirred, waking from sleep, troubled by the heated air."
• "His sins trickled from his lips, one by one, trickled in shameful drops from his soul festering and oozing like a sore, a squalid stream of vice. The last sins oozed forth, sluggish, filthy. There was no more to tell. He bowed his head, overcome."

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Part II: On second thought... I still love it!)

I'm not exactly sure how to do a review on a classic. Clearly it's a good book if it's being read over 100 years after it's first publication. It's also difficult to pinpoint the plot of the book. When somebody asked me what it was about, I replied, "I don't really know how to explain it," yet here I am trying to write a review. Here goes nothing...

Set in Ireland, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man follows Stephen Dedalus spiritual journey from childhood to adulthood. Stephen, attends an Irish Catholic boarding school, where he struggles with his faith. There is also, parallel to Antigone, the question of is it right for a person to love his god or love his country running in and out of the novel. James Joyce based the character and plot upon his own personality and experiences, which I found very interesting. The emotions and fears displayed through A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man were very authentic; I felt like I was in Stephen Dedalus's head. The plot was really good, but it was the words I fell in love with. My favorite part of the book was the way Joyce wrote. His sentences were the most beautiful thing I've ever read. He knew so many words! Seriously. I spent a more time flipping through the dictionary reading this book then all the other books I've read combined. Normally looking up words is a pain, but I actually enjoyed it with this book because every single word was used perfectly. I almost feel like he made them up. It was amazing. I was very impressed. What can else can I say? I think everyone should read A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Although, I hope it doesn't take you as long to finish as it took me. Even though it's my new favorite book ever, it took a lot of time. It's a hard book.

In case you were curious, here are a handful of those crazy words I learned while reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:

1. "A figure that had seemed to him by day demure an dinnocent came towards him by night through the winding darkness of sleep, her face transfigured by a lecherous cunning, her eyes bright with brutish joy." Lecherous- excessive indulgence in sexual activity.


2. "He cared little that he was in mortal sin, that his life had grown to be a tissue of subterfuge and falsehood." Subterfuge- deceptive device.


3. "...have room to a softer languor, the image of Mercedes traversed the background of his memory." Languor- A dreamy, indolent mood or quality.


4. "The chaos in which his ardour extinguished itself was a cold indifferent knowledge of himself." Ardour- great warmth or intensity, emotion, passion, desire, strong enthusiasm or devotion.


5. "It was strange too that he found an arid pleasure in following up to the end the rigid lines of the doctrines or the curch an dpenetrating into obscure silences only to hear and feel the more deeply his own condemnation." Arid- lacking interest or spirit.

See more reviews or buy A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man at Amazon.com

The photo is the Statue of James Joyce on North Earl Street, Dublin. I stole it from Wikipedia.org.