My cousin and I stood in line to meet President Jimmy Carter. It was Monday afternoon, July 27th, at Powell's Bookstore in Portland Oregon. I was told I couldn't see the President unless I had a book for him to sign. I bought his book, A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety, so that I could see him.
As the line slowly wound around outside and then inside the building, I texted my son the math problem: If a man signs 1500 books in two hours, how much time does each book get? Answer: 4.8 seconds. I'm not sure I got my full 4.8 seconds with President Carter, but I did snap a very blurry photo of my cousin with him. Well, he's in the background at a table busily signing books. Sill, it was a thrill!
I've always been a fan of Jimmy Carter, but reading his autobiography was interesting. Fun to hear about his childhood experiences and about his career as a nuclear engineer. But interesting to read his account of what he accomplished and tried to accomplish while in office, and have so many of those issues come up in recent news, such as comprehensive health care and renewed relationships with Cuba. I was sad to hear of his cancer diagnosis announced just last week, especially after reading about his family history of pancreatic cancer in his book.
He certainly has lead a full life.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Friday, August 7, 2015
Slaughterhouse - Five
A classic I had never read, I borrowed Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse - Five from an English teacher at my daughter's high school. Summer reading.
Not what I expected.
This easy read was all over the place, time and otherwise. It was less a war story than a human-trying-to-deal-with-living-and-dying story. I liked it.
Page 23: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
Page 34: The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty.
Page 164: One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.
Page 169: He did not think of himself as a writer for the simple reason that the world had never allowed him to think of himself in this way.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
The Magicians
Not sure where I found this series by Lev Grossman. I read most of this on a road trip through Idaho. At first I thought I was reading a Harry Potter knockoff, but The Magicians quickly became its own unique ride. For a fantasy story of the world of magic, I found it very human. Very real-life and current.
Page 94: Standing there at the entrance to the passageway, looking around for stray vergers who might charge him with trespassing -- or worse, offer him spiritual guidance -- cars whooshing by in the street behind him, he had never felt so absolutely sure that he was delusional, that Brooklyn was the only reality there was, and that everything which had happened to him last year was just a fanboy hallucination, proof that the boredom of the real world had finally driven him totally and irreversibly out of his mind.
Page 147: "You know what I liked about being a goose?" Josh said. "Being able to crap wherever I wanted."
Page 210: No one would come right out and say it, but the worldwide magical ecology was suffering from a serious imbalance: too many magicians, not enough monsters.
Page 216: "... If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so. ..." (Fogg)
Page 220: I got my heart's desire, he thought, and there my troubles began.
Page 228: Night after night Quentin would return home toward dawn, alone, deposited in front of his building by a solemn solitary cab like a hearse painted yellow, the street awash with blue light -- the delicate ultrasound radiance of the embryonic day.
Page 331: He'd started his little speech speaking normally and he had ended it shouting. In a way fighting like this was just like using magic. You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse.
Page 94: Standing there at the entrance to the passageway, looking around for stray vergers who might charge him with trespassing -- or worse, offer him spiritual guidance -- cars whooshing by in the street behind him, he had never felt so absolutely sure that he was delusional, that Brooklyn was the only reality there was, and that everything which had happened to him last year was just a fanboy hallucination, proof that the boredom of the real world had finally driven him totally and irreversibly out of his mind.
Page 147: "You know what I liked about being a goose?" Josh said. "Being able to crap wherever I wanted."
Page 210: No one would come right out and say it, but the worldwide magical ecology was suffering from a serious imbalance: too many magicians, not enough monsters.
Page 216: "... If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so. ..." (Fogg)
Page 220: I got my heart's desire, he thought, and there my troubles began.
Page 228: Night after night Quentin would return home toward dawn, alone, deposited in front of his building by a solemn solitary cab like a hearse painted yellow, the street awash with blue light -- the delicate ultrasound radiance of the embryonic day.
Page 331: He'd started his little speech speaking normally and he had ended it shouting. In a way fighting like this was just like using magic. You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse.
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