Cyber Monday

A THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY,
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Gorgeous hand - crafted card from
my multi - talented sister - in - law Tina
A week ago, I had one of those life - affirming Monday - morning coincidences. You know. The kind that makes you believe in the whole Universe at once . . . that amazes and surprises and suggests a pattern. I was looking at my pre - Thanksgiving "to do" list and decided that even more importantly than grocery shopping and housecleaning, I should finally look up the poem that had been recommended to me several months ago when I was having lunch with a few friends. I googled what I had scribbled on a post - it and discovered this truly transporting poem:

What To Remember When Waking
~by David Whyte (Dec 30, 2013)

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?

At first, I was feeling bad that it had taken me over three months to finally follow - up on this reading suggestion; but then, when I thought about what a perfect poem it was for a Monday morning, and what a perfect poem for Thanksgiving week, it seemed that the delay was meant to be and the poem had come into my life at exactly the right moment.

I knew I should write a note that instant to thank all my lunch companions -- since I couldn't remember which one had recommended the poem back in August. But first I went to run some errands -- and who should I run into but one of those very friends, in the greeting card aisle at CVS! I told her the whole story about the poem, but she was unfamiliar with the author and said she couldn't take credit for the suggestion but would, of course, love to see it. So, as soon as I got home, I sent an email of thanksgiving, including the poem, to the entire group.

As an added bonus coincidence, another friend wrote a week later (yesterday, to be exact) with the perfect message to conclude this anecdote:

"For some reason I’m only seeing this tonight. This is a lovely poem to choose as my Cyber Monday gift for those special to me this season. No deep discounts; just deep gratitude for all my loved ones."

What a beautiful sentiment! And yet another timely coincidence that her viewing was delayed -- as mine had been -- until the very day that she needed to discover this poem!

I particularly love this line for Thanksgiving:

"You are not a troubled guest on this earth . . .
you were invited . . . "
Whyte writes similarly, in his Letter From the House: Autumn/Winter 2017 - 2018:

We are invited into the great sense of the now to understand that we are a living conversation between what we thought was the past and what we could only imagine as the future. We are creatures made to live in all three tenses at once, to hold past, present and future together . . ."

And how about this line for any morning, such as the Monday before Thanksgiving or the Monday after Thanksgiving, when you wake up with a "to - do" list that is already out of control before you even open your eyes:

" . . . there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live. . . . "
Thankfully, Whyte reminds us that relinquishing all -- or at least some -- of our big plans might allow us to intuit the even bigger and better plan that the world has in store for us on any given day.

" . . . a small opening into the new day . . . "

Previously from Tina

My friend Katie also recommended John O'Donohue's interview, "The Inner Landscape of Beauty." Some favorite passages:

Well, I think it makes a huge difference, when you wake in the morning and come out of your house, whether you believe you are walking into dead geographical location, which is used to get to a destination, or whether you are emerging out into a landscape that is just as much, if not more, alive as you, but in a totally different form, and if you go towards it with an open heart and a real, watchful reverence, that you will be absolutely amazed at what it will reveal to you.

But I do think, though, that it’s not just a matter of the outer presence of the landscape. I mean the dawn goes up, and the twilight comes, even in the most roughest inner-city place. And I think that connecting to the elemental can be a way of coming into rhythm with the universe. And I do think that there is a way in which the outer presence, even through memory or imagination, can be brought inward as a sustaining thing.

. . . the world is always larger and more intense and stranger than our best thought will ever reach. And that’s the mystery of poetry. Poetry tries to draw alongside the mystery as it’s emerging and somehow bring it into presence and into birth.

. . . everyone is involved, whether they like it or not, in the construction of their world. So it’s never as given as it actually looks. You are always shaping it and building it. And I feel that from that perspective, that each of us is an artist.

. . . every night when we sleep, we dream. And a dream is a sophisticated, imaginative text full of figures and drama that we send to ourselves.

. . . there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you.

And the trouble is, though, for so many of us, is that we have to be in trouble before we remember what’s essential.

. . . there is an evacuation of interiority going on in our times . . . there is very little time or attention given to what you could almost call learning the art of inwardness, or a pedagogy of interiority.

[See also "The Wire Brush of Doubt"]

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, December 14

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Water in Every Wine

A HOUSE UNCEREMONIOUS, UNACCUSTOMED

Hey Trump, clean up your trash!
You might notice in this photograph that I have cropped out the flag flying above the White House, so you don't have to put your hand over your heart or anything. Just go ahead and take the knee in mourning for the grievous plight of our federal government.

I guess if I'd been feeling more ennobled that day, I could have been a pro - active citizen and picked up the litter myself. Heaven knows I did it plenty of times in Philadelphia, as my family can well attest. But right there in front of the White House, it seemed symbolic, so I just left it lay.

For me, "taking the knee" is a metaphor, a gesture of lament for the deplorable state of our federal government -- not just for professional athletes in the public eye but for all citizens at any time in the privacy of their hearts. I can hardly think of a gesture more respectful than taking the knee -- as in prayer. And not just when the National Anthem plays, but at anytime when things don't seem to be as they should -- such as seeing a pile of nasty litter in front of the White House, or realizing that our elected officials have sold their souls and are not representing our interests.

Maybe we don't even need the anthem at sports games -- we might call them national events, but they're not. The players are paid professionals who work for privately owned, for - profit clubs. But I digress, my post is not about the NFL. It's about the disgust and sadness that have washed over our country in the Aftermath of last year's Election.

I believe it when my brother Bruce asserts -- much as he did last year -- that "this man has ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE what it means to be president." A president, for example, does not declare: "I'm the only one that matters." As Bruce suggests, "Someone needs to explain our Constitution to the man, explain how divided branches of government work, explain the difference between a president and a despot. Listening to him makes me physically ill. I am ashamed and embarrassed every time I think about him, dishonoring and disgracing the office of the presidency."

I concur.

It has been a year of high blood pressure, attributed by many, including my friend Olynn, to Trump's incivility, cruelty, and inhumanity. It has been a year of daily lies and serious scholars asserting with straight faces that "The right wing’s disregard for facts and reasoning is not a matter of stupidity or lack of education."

Hmmmm. How can this be, unless we are recalibrating what we mean by "stupidity"? Personally, I still consider a "disregard for facts" to be a kind of stupidity. Is that no longer part of the standard definition? Author and psychologist John Ehrenreich insists that he is not condoning "alternative facts," but it sure sounds like he is, leading some of his less astute readers to such inane conclusions as "after all, what is a fact?" or "how do we verify facts?" Verifiable facts may elude the grasp of some, but contrary to popular opinion, they do exist; and to suggest otherwise is just plain embarrassing.

*****************

Some Words to the Wise
for these Troubled Times

1. As Oscar, from "The Office" warns us: "It's a very dangerous time. The coalition for reason is extremely weak."

2. As Samuel Beckett observes in his novel Watt: "Times are hard, water in every wine" (27).

3. As Woody Allen cautions: "Mankind is facing a crossroad -- one road leads to despair and utter hopelessness and the other to total extinction -- I sincerely hope you graduates choose the right road."

4. As the school principal tells Billy Madison: "what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

5. As poet Philip Booth reminds us:

Ganglia
As long as you
know you don't know,
not knowing's not
what hurts,

;it's what

you don't know you
don't know that
finally gets
to you, right
in the old
solar plexis.

First Lesson
Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man's float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

I fear it might be true that listening to the political discourse of the current administration has indeed made us all stupider. Thanks to Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and their deplorable retinue, reason is extremely weak in our country now; there is water in every wine; despair, hopelessness, and -- yes -- even extinction are daily concerns. A punch in the gut, a cramp in the heart -- I hope the poet is correct that the sea will hold us up, that we will survive.

*****************

One of the Best Antidotes So Far

Also from Philip Booth:
“I think survival is at stake for all of us all the time. . . .
Every poem, every work of art, everything that is well done, well
made, well said, generously given, adds to our chances of survival.”

Which is precisely what this blog strives to provide,
in accordance with Goethe's admonishment:

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem,
see a fine picture and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words."

*****************

In this picture,
later that same day,
our Nation's capital looks as pretty as Paris!

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, November 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Dogwood, Spring and Fall

THE DOGWOOD TREE, ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

*******************

The dogwood tree next door to us:
above ~ April 2016, looking south;
below ~ October 2017, looking north.

At Auntie Jan's House
in the South of England ~ October 2016

The following autumnal "Elegy" from Linda Pastan
(thanks Katie Field & Writer's Almanac),
echoes a letter we received recently
from Gerry's 86 - year old Auntie Margaret,
over in Reading, England. Bracing for the first
frost, she writes, nearly sonnet - like:

18 October 2017 ~ "The weather is still quite mild
but I get depressed as the days shorten
and one after another I do the jobs
that need doing to get plants through the winter."

Auntie Margaret, the poet feels your pain!

*******************
Elegy

Our final dogwood leans
over the forest floor

offering berries
to the birds, the squirrels.

It’s a relic
of the days when dogwoods

flourished—creamy lace in April,
spilled milk in May—

their beauty delicate
but commonplace.

When I took for granted
that the world would remain

as it was, and I
would remain with it.

by Linda Pastan, American Poet (b 1932)
from Insomnia [see previous posts]

*******************

Gerry, in the Fall with Auntie Margaret (above) ~ October 2016
and in the Spring with Auntie Jan (below) ~ April 2017

*******************

a page from my scrapbook
45 - year - old dogwood leaf

May 1972 ~ Lindenwood College Campus
St. Charles, Missouri
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, October 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ More "Spring & Fall"
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Look at these beautiful greeting cards
that I just ordered for the holidays!
Dogwood Berries by Sari Sauls

Bright Blue October

A SKY WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

See the black walnuts up there in the blue October sky, pacing themselves -- as Frost suggests the leaves should do -- to fall on my driveway in Indiana: a bushel one day, a peck the next; on another day maybe just a couple dozen, then an infinity nestled in the flowerbeds along the drive. I only pick them up as an offering to the recycling gods on yard - waste day; however, as wise Robert Frost observes in another poem, a crop's a crop!

In this beguiling invocation to October, he reminds us how enchanting October can be and helps us prepare our hearts for the season:

October
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

by Robert Frost (American, 1874 - 1963)

Don't believe what they tell you about
the sun never shining in the British Isles:
October Sky in Crosby, England!

Frost depicts the grape harvest and the autumnal tones of amethyst. And of course there are the many colors that always come to mind at the mention of falling leaves: brown, orange, red, yellow; or, more poetically, russet, bittersweet, scarlet, and goldenrod. Yet even though we are mid - way through October, looking out at my yard today, I see mostly green and blue. The leaves have not yet heard the call to change, and the sky is precisely as described in this lovely poem by Helen Hunt Jackson:

October’s Bright Blue Weather
O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather;

When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And goldenrod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When gentians roll their fingers tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October’s bright blue weather.

O sun and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October’s bright blue weather.

by Helen Hunt Jackson (American, 1830-1885)

Hunt's charming conclusion is shared by Ada,
who struggles with the same favortism in Cold Mountain :

"Ada had tried to love all the year equally . . .
Nevertheless, she could not get over loving autumn best . . . "
Charles Frazier (American novelist, b. 1950)

What else can I say? Neither can I!

Bright Blue and Green October

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, October 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Bamboo Trees in the South of England

Smart Beautiful City

A CITY WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

All photos in this post ~ Astana, Kazakhstan ~ August 2017
Earlier this week, I spent two days at Purdue University's Dawn or Doom Conference, an annual event that takes a close look at both the rewards and risks of emerging technology. The theme for Dawn or Doom '17 was inspired by Professor Michael Bess's insightful, disturbing book about biomedically enhanced humans: Our Grandchildren Redesigned: Life in the Bioengineered Society of the Near Future. Topics ranged from Designing Humans (think Gattaca) to Designing Food (think Monsanto) to Designing Information (think fake news) to Designing the Workforce (think Brave New World) to Designing Cities:

"Whether it was Uruk,* the first ever human city, or Sumerians throwing up ziggurats like they were temporary housing, or the social engineering dreams of the 19th century utopians or the Puritans' visions of a godly “city on a hill,” humans have always seen cities as a way to solve humanity’s hardest problems.

"Of course, reality is a different beast. Cities are notoriously hard places to manage, among other things because of the amount of information required to allow them to run at all, let alone perfectly. But that doesn't mean people don't try to build perfection. And the latest incarnation of these utopian cities are known as “smart cities” their deep and embedded technology." ~ Gerry McCartney

*Uruk, was in Sumer but is regarded as pre-Sumerian.
Ur was up the road about 300 miles.

We then listened to two speakers who explained how these new “smart cities” are going to enable us to build the technological advanced “city on a hill” of the 21st Century: Mike Langellier from Techpoint and Paul Singh from Results Junkies.

Gerry's thought - provoking introduction to "Smart Cities" brought to mind a few connections worth sharing:

1. from Song of Myself, Part 42 ~ Walt Whitman

"A call in the midst of the crowd,
My own voice, orotund sweeping and final. . . .

This is the city and I am one of the citizens,
Whatever interests the rest interests me, politics, wars, markets,
newspapers, schools,
The mayor and councils, banks, tariffs, steamships, factories,
stocks, stores, real estate and personal estate . . .

the fathomless human brain . . . "

[See also Ferry Connections & House With a Past]

2. from the novel Benediction ~ Kent Haruf

"What if we said to our enemies [or at the national level, what if we said to our citizens]: We are the most powerful nation on earth. We can destroy you. We can kill your children. We can make ruins of your cities and villages and when we're finished you won't even know how to look for the places where they used to be. We have the power to take away your water and to scorch your earth, to rob you of the very fundamentals of life. We can change the actual day into actual night. We can do these things to you. And more.

"But what if we say, Listen: Instead of any of these, we are going to give willingly and generously to you. We are going to spend the great American national treasure and the will and the human lives that we would have spent on destruction, and instead we are going to turn them all toward creation. We'll mend your roads and highways, expand your schools, modernize your wells and water supplies, save your ancient artifacts and art and culture, preserve your temples and mosques. In fact, we are going to love you."

3. from the musical Godspell ~ Stephen Schwartz

Beautiful City
sung in the movie adaptation,
featuring Victor Garber, Lynne Thigpen, et. al.

Come sing me sweet rejoicing
Come sing me love
We're not afraid of voicing
All the things
We're dreaming of
Oh, high and low,
And everywhere we go

We can build
A beautiful city
Yes we can
Oh yes we can
We can build
A beautiful city
Call it out
And call it the city of man [and woman]

We don't need alabaster
We don't need chrome
We've got our special plaster
Take my hand
I'll take you home
We see nations rise
In each other's eyes

We can build
A beautiful city
Yes we can
Oh yes we can
We can build
A beautiful city
Call it out
And call it the city of man [and woman]

Come sing me sweet rejoicing
Come sing me love
We're not afraid of voicing
All the things
We're dreaming of
Oh, high and low,
And everywhere we go

We can build
A beautiful city
Yes we can
Oh yes we can
We can build
A beautiful city
Call it out
And call it the city of man [and woman]**

**A simple suggestion, as Schwartz is
not exactly known for inclusive gender.

In closing, I'm charmed by these contrasting thoughts about the men and women who populate the cities. Walt Whitman (1819 - 1892) offers an expansive view, complete with quaintly agrarian metaphor:

"In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less,
And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them."

from Song of Myself, Part 20)
For others, the human density not only of a large smart city but even of a beautiful college town can be overwhelming. A hundred years before Whitman, English poet Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771) wrote:

"Cambridge is a delight of a place now, there is nobody in it.
I do believe you would like it, if you knew what it was without inhabitants.
It is they, I assure you, that get it an ill name and spoil all."

from the Works of Thomas Gray
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, October 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Build Back Better
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

More Dawn or Doom Links

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Read A Book About Reading

A BOOK CLUB WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Painting by Vittorio Matteo Corcos (1859 - 1933)
Book by Stefan Bollmann (b 1958)
Foreward by Karen Joy Fowler (b 1950)
Thanks to my friend Katy B. for giving me this gorgeous and inspiring book. I read the foreword and introductory material months ago, just after Christmas, and since then have had the book on my coffee table, where I pick it up at random quiet moments and study the classic paintings (plus a few photographs) of reading women, beautifully explained by author / editor Stefan Bollmann. I was delighted to note the inclusion by Bollmann of a few prints that have appeared previously on my Book Blog (e.g., Young Woman with Book, by Alexander Deineka; Reading Girl by Franz Eybl; and Young Girl Reading by Jean-Honoré Fragonard). Great minds!

by Alexander Deineka
Speaking of great minds, thanks to my friend Katie F. for suggesting earlier in the summer that I might enjoy reading The Jane Austen Book Club, which I promptly ordered and placed carefully atop my towering "to read" stack.

The connection was right in front of me, but I missed it until, by happy coincidence, Katie F. stopped by to visit, noticed and admired Women Who Read laying out in pride of place on my table, and then exclaimed "Foreword by Karen Joy Fowler -- she also wrote The Jane Austen Book Club! Have you read it yet? No, I hadn't, but I did so right away, then re-read Fowler's opening remarks about dangerous reading women, and typed up the following favorite passages from each:

Women Who Read Are Dangerous

"Centuries upon centuries . . . women have read on -- the unacceptable books as well as the acceptable, Gothic novels in the time of Austen, Harlequin romances, horror novels, space operas, mysteries, police procedurals, chick lit, biographies . . . Now they are joining book clubs . . ." (16, emphasis added).

by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
"One might wonder why artists so often choose a woman reading as the subject of a painting or photograph. . . . the image is an interestingly complicated one. . . . She might, while the book lasts, be a completely different person from the one we are seeing. . . . She might be having trouble concentrating, or she might be spellbound. She might be escaping from boredom into a frothy romantic comedy [by Jane Austen!] . . . she might be experiencing some transformation so profound that she will never be quite the same again. At the very moment we see her, the scales might be falling from her eyes" (13 - 14).

The Jane Austen Book Club

"Austen suggests that Udolpho is a dangerous book, because it makes people think life is an adventure . . . But that's not the kind of book that's really dangerous to people. . . . All the while it's Austen writing the really dangerous books . . . Books that people really do believe, even hundreds of years later. How virtue will be recognized and rewarded. How love will prevail. How life is a romance" (141).

by Franz Eybl
"There was something appealing in thinking of a character with a secret life that her author knew nothing about. Slipping off while the author's back was turned to find love in her own way. Showing up just in time to deliver the next bit of dialogue with an innocent face. If Sylvia were a character in a book, that's the kind she's want to be" (171).

Another timely connection: As I was pulling this post together, my good friend and reading buddy Cate sent me an excellent article:

"Why Books and Reading Are More Important Than Ever"

containing these inspiring words by Will Schwalbe

When it’s a beautiful day, I read in the park.
When it’s raining, I read under the covers.
When I’m on a plane, I read on the plane.
When the plane is stuck on the tarmac,
I have more time to read on the plane.

"I wrote that books remain one of the few defenses we have against narrowness, domination, and mind control. But only if we read them – and then only if we spring into action based on what we’ve learned and discovered. Books can’t do anything by themselves. They need us.

"Today we need to read more than ever. And we need to act now more than ever.

"If you are reading this essay, you aren’t reading a book. At least, not this very second. But you’re probably a book reader or you wouldn’t have found your way here or clicked on the shared link that brought these words to your attention. And there’s the rub. I’m writing a piece about the importance of books for an audience already sold on the concept. And it’s taking you (and me) away from them."

additional titles from Schwalbe:

Books for Living & The End of Your Life Book Club

I had to write straight back to Cate:

"I love this essay and it fits right in with the blog post that I'm working on right now: "Read A Book About Reading." No kidding -- that's the title that I gave it before reading this essay, in which he talks about the very same conundrum of reading an essay about reading! I'll add the link here as soon as I get done! Hey I've got writing to do! As Schwalbe commands us: 'Seriously. Go! I've got books to read. You do, too.' What a great conclusion!"

Dreams, 1896

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS ON MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, September 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ BEAUTIFUL POEM FROM CHARLOTTE ERIKSSON ~
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST ~ THIS MONTH ~ MORE FROM CATE ~
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com