My Last Chance

...to publish a post in April.

Either time flies or I don't blog very much.

Ha. I think we know which one it is.

Tum de tum de tum. Tra la la la la la.

Muse for Today:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury- the book, not the movie.

It's banned-book buddies with The Giver by Lois Lowry, with which it is quite similar.

Quote for Friday, April 30, 2010:

“Holy Kleenex, Batman! It was right under our noses and we blew it!”

and

“Holy strawberries, Batman, we’re in a jam!”

-Robin [I'm not sure from exactly what]

(http://greatsayings.blogspot.com/2005/03/batman-and-robin-quotes.html

)

Random Quotes for Today

I don't have much to say today, but I don't want to leave you with a post about school, so I will 'skip to the end' and just do quotes and a Muse today. These quotes come from pressing 'Random Page' on the side of the Wikiquote page. You should try it sometime. But you don't have to. I am.

Muse for Today:

Calliope, Muse for EPIC Poetry. Not just any poetry- EPIC.

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

-Shana Alexander, The Feminine Eye (1970), p. 33

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Shana_Alexander)

If a man cannot make his point to keen boys in ten minutes, he ought to be shot!

-Robert Baden-Powell, The Scouter (November 1928)

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Baden-Powell)

Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one.

-Teddy Roosevelt, Letter to Cecil Spring-Rice (1900-03-12)

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Teddy_Roosevelt)

Kramer: Bookman? The library investigator's name is actually Bookman?

Librarian: It's true.

Kramer: That's amazing. That's like an ice cream man named "Cohn."

-from Seinfeld, the episode called The Library

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Seinfeld)

Jamie: Do [the actors of Harry Potter] have guards with them all the time? Or are they just walking around?

Ben: They always have a bodyguard with them.

Andrew: Yeah, like, Dan [Radcliffe] did.

Jamie: Could you have taken them all at one time?

Ben: Most likely.

Jamie: Without the nunchucks and the swords, and the AK-47s?

Ben: Easily.

Andrew: Why didn't you try? That's what I want to know.

Ben: Because I'm a big fan of not going to jail.

-from MuggleCast: Episode #99

(http://www.mugglenet.com/mugglecast/index.php?page=transcripts/99.php)

Pessimistic Quotes

The Wikiquote page for pessimism is so lovely that I'm putting lots of them here!

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true." -James Branch Cabell

"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's the light of the oncoming train." -Robert Lowell

"There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist." -Mark Twain

"Optimists are useless and merely find hope where pessimists will work." -Ben Dory

"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." -George F. Will

Anyone who hates these should not be afraid to let me know. (Heh heh heh...)

Mysterious Ways

One day you will look... back

And you'll see... where

You were held... how

By this love... while

You could stand there

You could move on this moment

Follow this feeling

That's from the U2 song Mysterious Ways. The song reminds me of certain curtains. The curtains are dark silky purple, with black velvet stars and moons all over. The mysterious curtains frame a picture window at night, sweeping the floor elegantly, gathering dust and making people sneeze. There is a group of four people sitting on the window ledge: one, a boy, dozing as he holds an open book in his hand; another, his sister, a skinny girl with dark hair, frowning and sulking with her back to the sea; their older sister, plucking nervously at a silver bracelet she's wearing, staring at the ocean as though it had taken something irreplaceable from her, long ago; and the last, the oldest brother, tall and serious, who is waking up the younger boy while keeping an eye on the shady shape lurking at the door.

The youngest boy, Quinn, wakes up and sees how the moon shines through the curtain, making it glow in the dark. Mother's favorite curtains. Do they really have to leave them behind? Now?

"Quinn, let's go!"

This scene is completely made up, of course, but the curtains, though lengthened, are not. I have them! Oh, gorgeous curtains! Lovely!

Quote for Friday, August 21, 2009:

Resolve to take fate by the throat and shake a living out of her.

-Louisa May Alcott

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Little_Women)

Oh, U2!

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to get more into music. I was very limited in my choice of music, and I knew it. And I think my music choices have certainly gotten broader and better.
Recently, I was reading The Artemis Fowl Files by Eoin Colfer, and Butler's interview said that U2's song I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For could have been written for Artemis. He (Artemis) is my favorite character, so naturally I went to YouTube and looked up 'u2 i still haven't found what i'm looking for'.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
How have I not heard them before? Of course, I've heard of them, but I didn't know anything about them, or their songs. I guess I didn't think they were much.
That is the exact kind of music I think I've always wanted to listen to, but I didn't think that anyone wrote that kind of music. I was amazed. Intelligently, I shall say again: Wow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fBj2wsimvQ&feature=related

Nothing

I have nothing to say today, too much to say, actually, so I will just leave this quote, which I hope sums it up. I think it does.

Quote for July 27, 2009:

It is worms which destroy a tree, it is worry which destroys a man.

-Turkish proverb

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Worry)

Feeling blue, Indigo?

A few days ago, I posted a post about the fact that I am an Anglophile. Obviously, most of my favorite characters are British as well. Like Indigo Casson, from the books by Hilary McKay, about the Casson family. He has a friend, Tom Levin, who says, Feeling blue, Indigo? In my head, he says this in a British accent even though he is not British. He is from New York.
Our current family vacation is not quite decided yet. We could go to Mt. Rushmore, Smoky Mountains, or New York. My brother wants to go to New York, because of many reasons. One is to go to the 600th floor of the Empire State Building. Although my mother tried explaining to him that there is no 600th floor, he replied that mere mortals cannot see it. (For all non-Percy Jackson readers, the 600th floor is the location of Mt. Olympus.)
I want to go anywhere, really, but New York would be really cool. Especially because of Tom Levin! Whenever Rose, a certain character, imagines Tom in New York, she imagines him in front of a large sign that says NEW YORK. I would do the same thing, and hold up a stupid picture of Hello Kitty as Tom that happened to be drawn a while ago, despite several protests that that was insulting. Yeah. Sure.

Quote for July 26, 2009:

The family is always the family but during vacations it is an extended family and that is exhausting.

-Gertrude Stein

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vacation)

My iPod

You may not know this about me, but I am addicted to my iPod. Mostly to podcasts. In The Titan's Curse, by Rick Riordan, Apollo is obsessed with haikus. He says this one on page 155:

Dreams like a podcast

downloading truth in my ears.

They tell me cool stuff.

(I never said it was good.) But I love that haiku. I quote it all the time. My brother, on the other hand, likes the music on my iPod. Harry and The Potters, Billy Joel, Survivor and Elvis are just a few of his requests (except for Harry and the Potters, which was mine).

For a few harrowing days, it was lost! I was traumatized, you better believe it. But now that I have it back, I am going podcast crazy.

I doubt you care. Neither do I! I just wanted to do a quote of the day.

Quote for July 21, 2009:

One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate; but he must die as a man.

-Daniel Webster, from Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, page 173

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Death)

Rosalind Penderwick

There is a lovely series of books by a perfectly fantasic author named Jeanne Birdsall! They feature a family with the last name of Penderwick. (Isn't that a great name?) It's going to be a series of five, I believe, according to her website, which is http://www.jeannebirdsall.com/ if you want to check it out for more information, and I can't wait! Those are some of my favorite books.
My cousins and my brother and I all relate to one of the characters. My brother (we'll call him K) is Batty, my cousin J is Jane, my cousin B is Skye, and I am Rosalind! I envy Rosy her life sometimes, plus she's such a responsible, kind, just almost perfect person that she's just plain cool. (AND, AND, AND......she can bake! What could be better than to be compared to an almost perfect person who can bake on top of everything?)
Although I only have one brother, not three sisters, and Rosalind doesn't have two cousins who live sort of far away, I have Rosalind moments. Like today, it was almost twilight outside, and I was sitting with my book (a biography of Mark Twain, for anyone who cares) and I was looking around at the very summer-y world. A Rosalind moment! Hurrah!
Note: I've decided to do a 'Quote of the Day' thing. This will not be every day, just days when I find an appropriate quote and/or remember to.

Quote for July 20, 2009:

"There's nothing to tell, Daddy, really. I needed some air, so I took a walk, fell into the lily pond, and hit my head on a rock."

-Rosalind Penderwick from The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall, page 204