Maureen’s Comments (group member since Mar 02, 2009)

Maureen’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

Jennie wrote: "Thank you, mo! :D"

anything for you, sugar. :)

Jennie wrote: "Can't find where to vote."

weird! i sent an invitation so you should have received a goodreads letter in your inbox.

but here's a link: http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/60...

hey! i set up the poll with a link to elizabeth's chart (hurray!) and sent out an poll invite. i sent it to the whole group -- well, you'll see since you'll all get the invitation. :)

fyi: i set up the poll to be anonymous so nobody can see how anybody else is voting, and that the vote tally will not be revealed until the final day of the poll. i only set it to five days rather than a week because i know you want to get pulling the trigger on something. if you want me to edit any or all of the above conditions just let me know.

hope that helps.

mo
xo

sorry, i'm swamped here -- glad dan took the reins. i didn't see a notification for the poll though -- i just saw evidence of it on my newsfeed so i thought i'd conveniently add the link here:

http://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/60...

lara: i also added moderator privileges for you so you can set up invites and polls whenever your lovely little heart desires now. :)

maybe somebody could set up a poll?

Jimmy wrote: "It only takes around 2 hours to re-view a movie... books usually take longer."

p.s. jimmy! a lovely goodreads friend of mine ended up reading spacks book recently and found that she wanted to re-read some books after finishing that one. i was tempted to quote from her review but instead i will just sneak in a link here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

micha: i think that's sort of the answer to jimmy's post after yours in my mind: i would argue that even if you are a re-reader, it's less taxing to re-view mentally (at least for me) so even if the movie is shorter, if i love it i just end up seeing it more.

i mean, i've probably watched star wars at least 25 times. i used to watch every episode of the x-files three, if not four times (when it aired, afterward with my x-files friend, x-files drinking game night...)so time watching x number of times watched might exceed time reading x number of times read. and it does also depend on the book. :)

i had a friend who was a big movie buff and then stopped watching movies because it was "a waste of time." i found this attitude annoying because you could ostensibly say that about a lot of things we do to relax, or blow off steam or to help others. lord knows i spent an hour yesterday helping somebody prepare for a job interview and that won't benefit me one little bit. i think ultimately it's a matter of choices, right? so if you liked a movie so much you want to see it again, right away? i say do it. if you're anxious that you're going to miss out on a lot of excellent literature, by all means, forge forth!

post script: the friend eventually starting watching movies again, so obviously realized that there are all kinds of ways to waste time.

(btw, i am tempted to re-read something right now because while i've read some interesting books lately, and some instructive ones, i haven't adored anything at all recently. i'm forcing myself through a collection of ronald firbank novels right now. i wanted so much to like it but i'm finding it really hard. 68 pages in into 200 of "vainglory" and i have no idea if there's ever going to be a story or a protagonist ever, and i'm pretty sure i'm never going to care about one of these stupid people. all the reviews are glowing, so maybe the two following books are better... again, i might learn something, but i'd like to adore something right now... )

Lara wrote: "Nice place Patrick - I'm up for it.

Still think it's worth making a call to the Serenity Mountain Retreat in Sequim though, just in case.
http://www.vrbo.com/368293

Did we say no to this one?
ht..."

just an fyi that serenity mountain retreat was the one i recommended in that post earlier -- i found it on two other vacation rental sites http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rent..., http://www.sequimrentals.com/serenity..., secon link had rates posted which i thought you might be able to get them to stick to (since technically advertised). there are more pictures of the place on the links i provided which makes it look pretty spacious, with lots of couches to flop on, and half hour from the skipper on the 101

another thought i had was that you might want to post on craigslist? or look on craigslist?

anyway, i'm now having fantasies that i will get some kind of bonus cheque from the hellhole so might be able to make it. i won't know until march 8th, though.

oh hey. i forgot about this thread until i started babbling about it elsewhere! yes, kerry, i did that with elegance of the hedgehog. also the hawkline monster. and i did it with mr. peanut because i felt i was close to "getting" it and wanted to try again -- actually, i didn't even finish it. i almost finished it and started again. (i know jimmy will be appalled at my reading time management skills). :P

the outsiders thing makes complete sense, don't you think? :)

you bring up an interesting point: are the re-readers also the re-viewers? i'd imagine that same urgency around time would be a factor and the level of interest in books or cinema. :)

lord knows i'm too poor to imagine i could make it, but you guys are inundating my goodreads feed with planning, so here's an option you might want to explore. I couldn't find the address for this place but i think it's about a half hour away from jonny's:

http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rent...

rates are listed here: http://www.sequimrentals.com/serenity... (pretty sure it's the same location) -- it looks like it could be affordable especially if you tried to mention you saw this rate online. (it doesn't specify season)

this one a tad more expensive but closer to port angeles:

http://www.olympicfoothillslodge.com/

this crazy farm is three minutes away, apparently, just a short mile to walk:

http://www.kinderfarm.com/index.html

otherwise, there's always the option of just getting motel rooms in sequim, or port angeles or whatever the closest town is to deal with overflow, and just make the house a base. i know if i could scare up the finances, i would want to get a chance to spend some time in the skipper's retreat, and break in dorkapalooza II: mountain cabin. i think he's going to need another hat. :)

if a locale near the skipper can't work (maybe the skipper can ask the realtor who set him up with the cabin whether they know of any vacation properties?), those houses in fort worden might be a better idea: they'd certainly be more affordable. (i'm pretty sure brian paid through the nose for the place in roslyn.)

Jimmy wrote: "it IS about re-reading, if I had time. but lacking that, my notes will have to do... but notes are tricky too... they remind you only of what you thought upon first reading instead of letting you r..."

hmmm. then it appears you are very much in agreement with spack's findings and that, were it not for your kinship with bemis you would approach reading in the same way she does. i am still throwing the 'not being open' out the window, for myself. :)

i just remembered that sometimes when i really like a book, i'll re-read it immediately because i want to experience it again.

Jimmy wrote: "I'm awful at recall. I usually forget everything about a book (except the general feeling of it) within a year or two. Actually, that is the reason I joined Goodreads to begin with, I needed a plac..."

interesting, jimmy. so for you, there's a question of reading and memory as well except in your case, it's not about the re-read, but the note-taking. :)

at this point, i'm ready to throw spack's whole notion of not being open on first read out the window.

kerry, your comment makes me think about how in the article, spacks talks about entering into a relationship with books. so your relationship with the outsiders is tantamount to a first boyfriend, perhaps. you hang out again, and you blush with memory. :P

speaking of which, i think re-reading has a lot to do with memory and its idiosyncratic set-up in each of us -- that the kind of memory you have determines whether you are much of a re-reader.

jimmy, you haven't said whether you recall much of books once you have read them, and it sounds like you don't feel an urge to go back, in the same way that kerry and i have expressed. that you say "highly rewarding" makes me wonder whether you agree or disagree with the point about willingness/openness to the work on first reading that makes a re-reading a deeper experience that spack makes. :)

i absolutely understand about lack of time for re-reads. i usually don't do them unless i crave them, or if i need them to re-boot (usually because a) i've read a lot of dull or bad books in a row, or because i'm not able to get into a proper reading groove, and am trying to kick-start or b) i re-read because i want to quote something, and can't remember it properly, and then decide to re-read the whole thing while i'm there. :)

Complete (and quite interesting) essay here: http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011..."

To respond to Jimmy's post:

Scott McLemee, the author of the review on Spack puts it baldly:

"A book remains the same through time, but the context and personality of the reader don’t."

i can't see a cogent argument against that, and it summarizes nicely part of what spack is saying. i do a lot of re-reading of the books i enjoy. and it is true that sometimes there is that joy of noticing things i didn't notice before, or seeing an intertextuality i didn't before because i'd read more books since first reading. quite often it feels rather more like a regular visit with an old and dependable friend, who gets me, and can always provide me with the same experience that i had before. i just re-read the chill by ross macdonald and i don't believe i reacted any differently to it, than i did formerly. it may be i am unconscious of a variation in my reaction, but i don't think so. i re-read it purposely because it was reliable because i was sure that the experience would meet my expectations of it, and i wasn't disappointed.

that said, i've read pride & prejudice so many times i've lost count. if i had to approximate, at least twenty times since i was fourteen years old. every time i read it, i mark the same feelings at the same points: the embarrassment on behalf of elizabeth at the netherfied ball, and then my unabashed joy, complete with squeaking at its end. it feels to me like the exact same experience i had when i was fourteen years old. and yet, it is no longer my favourite jane austen novel. persuasion is, because as i've grown older, i feel the story of ann eliot, an older heroine with a life less idyllic than elizabeth's (despite ann's elevated rank in society -- in fact less idyllic because of it) resonates more with me, and my expectations of the world, and this could possibly be coloured by my perception that austen "the imagined author" as a writer has matured (there are twenty years between the time she begins pride & prejudice and the completion of persuasion in 1816), that now her love stories are coloured by her own experience.

all this to say that i don't know that my experience of the book has changed on these re-reads, but rather my context and perception of my current self, which ties in nicely with the quote you placed above. i don't know if it evokes my past self. as i stated, pride & prejudice remains the same reading experience for me, all the way up to the end. but when i close the cover i don't yearn for elizabeth's life as i did.

i would like to propose that the length of time elapsing between re-reading would also have an impact on my reaction to a book. if i go back to my old friend analogy: if i see that old friend every month, i'd be less likely to notice the passage of time on her face than if i were to meet up with that same person in lengthier increments, my memory more fixed than fluid not renewing that familiarity segmenting my memory of my experience of her, so only specific moments in time stand out. i think the same would holds true for books. when i was re-reading john wyndham novels a couple of years ago, i remembered the extra toe of a character in the chrysalis vividly, but the rest of the book was dim, and on occasions i know i thought, "oh! i remember this now" but i don't feel i got any more or less out of it on the re-read. i just reminded myself of the experience.

so that's a lot of words. i think i do have a point in there somewhere. :)

i'm not sure i buy this idea that: "[w]illingness to yield oneself to the text in a way impossible the first time through is, I think, the crucial element in rereading..." -- i think i'm arguing against that throughout this diatribe. nor do i believe that everyone embarks on a relationship with the "imagined author". i realize my points above suggest *i* do, and i believe i do. but i believe i have an over-sensitivity to voice to begin with. it's why i feel antipathy toward authors like atwood, or franzen who have written books i dislike. but i think other people do better jobs of keeping the authors out of it. :)

also, the previous comments seem quite relevant. and a lot more succinct :P but also looking through them makes me think i didn't respond to this thread before, though i remember reading through it because i couldn't recall a time when re-reading changed my opinion of the book itself but only my taste for it. and now i am also worried i might be accused of kugelmass disassociative disorder. :)

I transcribed this whole story of o. henry's sometime ago, and just stumbled upon it in my old emails because i was trying to confirm the correct spelling of "passel". apparently online dictionaries don't like fun words.

Squaring the Circle

At the hazard of wearying you this tale of vehement emotions must be prefaced by a discourse on geometry.
Nature moves in circles; Art in straight lines. The natural is rounded; the artificial is made up of angles. A man lost in the snow wanders, in spite of himself, in perfect circles; the city man's feet, denaturalized by rectangular streets and floors, carry him ever away from himself.
The round eyes of childhood typify innocence; the narrowed line of the flirt's optic proves the invasion of art. The horizontal mouth is the mark of determined cunning; who has not read Nature's most spontaneous lyric in lips rounded for the candid kiss?
Beauty is Nature in perfection; circularity is its chief attribute. Behold the full moon, the enchanting golf ball, the domes of splendid temples, the huckleberry pie, the wedding ring, the circus ring, the ring for the waiter, and the "round" of drinks.
On the other hand, straight lines show that Nature has been deflected. Imagine Venus's girdle transformed into a "straight front"!
When we begin to move in straight lines and turn sharp corners our natures begin to change. The consequence is that Nature, being more adaptive than Art, tries to conform to its sterner regulations. The result is often a rather curious product -- for instance: A prize chrysanthemum, wood alcohol whiskey, a Republican Missouri, cauliflower au gratin, and a New Yorker.
Nature is lost quickest in a big city. The cause is geometrical, not moral. The straight lines of its streets and architecture, the rectangularity of its laws and social customs, the undeviating pavements, the hard, severe, depressing, uncompromising rules of all its ways -- even of its recreation and sports --coldly exhibit a sneering defiance of the curved line of Nature.
Wherefore, it may be said that the big city has demonstrated the problem of squaring the circle. And it may be added that this mathematical introduction precedes an account of the fate of a Kentucky feud that was imported to the city that has a habit of making its importations conform to its angles.
The feud began in the Cumberland Mountains between the Folwell and the Harkness families. The first victim of the homespun vendetta was a 'possum dog belonging to Bill Harkness. The Harkness family evened up this dire loss by laying out the chief of the Folwell clan. The Folwells were prompt at repartee. They oiled up their squirrel rifles and made it feasible for Bill Harkness to follow his dog to a land where the 'possums come down when treed without the stroke of an ax.
The feud flourished for forty years. Harknesses were shot at the plough, through their lamp-lit cabin windows, coming from camp-meeting, asleep, in duello, sober and otherwise, singly and in family groups, prepared and unprepared. Folwells had the branches of their family tree lopped off in similar ways, as the traditions of their country prescribed and authorized.
By and by the pruning left but a single member of each family. And then Cal Harkness, probably reasoning that further pursuance of the controversy would give a too decided personal flavor to the feud, suddenly disappeared from the relieved Cumberlands, baulking the avenging hand of Sam, the ultimate opposing Folwell.
A year afterward Sam Folwell learned that his hereditary, unsuppressed enemy was living in New York City. Sam turned over the big iron wash-pot in the yard, scraped off some of the soot, which he mixed with lard and shined his boots with the compound. He put on his store clothes of butternut dyed black, a white shirt and collar, and packed a carpet-sack with Spartan lingerie. He took his squirrel rifle from its hooks, but put it back again with a sigh. However ethical and plausible the habit might be in the Cumberlands, perhaps New York would not swallow his pose of hunting squirrels among the skyscrapers along Broadway. An ancient but reliable Colt's revolver that he resurrected from a bureau drawer seemed to proclaim itself the pink of weapons for metropolitan adventure and vengeance. This and a hunting-knife in a leather sheath, Sam packed in the carpet-sack. As he started, Muleback, for the lowland railroad station the last Folwell turned in his saddle and looked grimly at the little cluster of white-pine slabs in the clump of cedars that marked the Folwell burying-ground.
Sam Folwell arrived in New York in the night. Still moving and living in the free circles of nature, he did not perceive the formidable, pitiless, restless, fierce angles of the great city waiting in the dark to close about the rotundity of his heart and brain and mould him to the form of its millions of re-shaped victims. A cabby picked him out of the whirl, as Sam himself had often picked a nut from a bed of wind-tossed autumn leaves, and whisked him away to a hotel commensurate to his boots and carpet-sack.
On the next morning the last of the Folwells made his sortie into the city that sheltered the last Harkness. The Colt was thrust beneath his coat and secured by a narrow leather belt; the hunting-knife hung between his shoulder-blades, with the haft an inch below his coat collar. He knew this much -- that Cal Harkness drove an express wagon somewhere in that town, and that he, Sam Folwell, had come to kill him. And as he stepped upon the sidewalk the red came into his eye and the feud-hate into his heart.
The clamor of the central avenues drew him thitherward. He had half expected to see Cal coming down the street in his shirt-sleeves, with a jug and a whip in his hand, just as he would have seen him in Frankfort or Laurel City. But an hour went by and Cal did not appear. Perhaps he was waiting in ambush, to shoot him from a door or a window. Sam kept a sharp eye on doors and windows for a while.
About noon the city tired of playing with its mouse and suddenly squeezed him with its straight lines.
Sam Folwell stood where two great, rectangular arteries of the city cross. He looked four ways, and saw the world burled from its orbit and reduced by spirit level and tape to an edged and cornered plane. All life moved on tracks, in grooves, according to system, within boundaries, by rote. The root of life was the cube root; the measure of existence was square measure. People streamed by in straight rows; the horrible din and crash stupefied him.
Sam leaned against the sharp corner of a stone building. Those faces passed him by thousands, and none of them were turned toward him. A sudden foolish fear that he had died and was a spirit, and that they could not see him, seized him. And then the city smote him with loneliness.
A fat man dropped out of the stream and stood a few feet distant, waiting for his car. Sam crept to his side and shouted above the tumult into his ear:
"The Rankinses' hogs weighed more'n ourn a whole passel, but the mast in thar neighborhood was a fine chance better than what it was down -- "
The fat man moved away unostentatiously, and bought roasted chestnuts to cover his alarm.
Sam felt the need of a drop of mountain dew. Across the street men passed in and out through swinging doors. Brief glimpses could be had of a glistening bar and its bedeckings. The feudist crossed and essayed to enter. Again had Art eliminated the familiar circle. Sam's hand found no door-knob it slid, in vain, over a rectangular brass plate and polished oak with nothing even so large as a pin's head upon which his fingers might close. Abashed, reddened, heartbroken, he walked away from the bootless door and sat upon a step. A locust club tickled him in the ribs.
"Take a walk for yourself," said the policeman. You've been loafing around here long enough."
At the next corner a shrill whistle sounded in Sam's ear. He wheeled around and saw a black-browed villain scowling at him over peanuts heaped on a steaming machine. He started across the street. An immense engine, running without mules, with the voice of a bull and the smell of a smoky lamp, whizzed past, grazing his knee. A cab-driver bumped him with a hub and explained to him that kind words were invented to be used on other occasions. A motorman clanged his bell wildly and, for once in his life, corroborated a cab-driver. A large lady in a changeable silk waist dug an elbow into his back, and a newsy pensively pelted him with banana rinds, murmuring, "I hates to do it -- but if anybody seen me let it pass!"
Cal Harkness, his day's work over and his express wagon stabled, turned the sharp edge of the building that, by the cheek of architects, is modelled upon a safety razor. Out of the mass of hurrying people his eye picked up, three yards away, the surviving bloody and implacable foe of his kith and kin.
He stopped short and wavered for a moment, being unarmed and sharply surprised. But the keen mountaineer's eye of Sam Folwell had picked him out.
There was a sudden spring, a ripple in the stream of passersby and the sound of Sam's voice crying:
"Howdy, Cal! I'm durned glad to see ye."
And in the angles of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street the Cumberland feudists shook hands.

Shel wrote: "Mo sent me a text last week too - -totally works."

shel, i just sent you a normal text though -- i couldn't send you a viber one because you didn't have the app installed... or did you? anyway, i have unlimited US texts on my phone so i just used that to text you. thing of that is, since nobody in the US has unlimited texts to Canada, I usually don't get any replies... i will add you to viber if you've added it. :)

i'm guessing viber will come in really handy around dorkapaloozas because it won't cost anybody to call each other to coordinate airport pick-ups or outings etc... hurray!

Matt wrote: "dude just came thru our stores in Chicago - our GM escorted him through security as a favor - astonishingly the guy was a total prick, astonishingly"

most astonishingly! thanks for proving that my gut can recognize the heart of an asshole through his writings. :)

i have an android and just sent text messages to dan and kerry. i read the android people sometimes can't hear the iphone people, so i'm going to test it later with one of the other kids and report back. :) mo/xo

Žižek was also crusty when interviewed by the guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyl...

Kerry wrote: "Jodi wrote: "I'd be up for a little Scrabble. Haven't played it yet online, though, so I need to know how, when, where, etc. Is this played the way some people play chess? You make a move, then wh..."

you can also play if you have a non-i smart phone device -- i have a google android phone and it's just fine for word with friends. and you can play via facebook too, with people who have mobile devices. to test it, i just started a game with mary. :) (fyi, i already started a game with jodi so that's why i didn't attempt her for the test -- also she is already my facebook friend whereas mary is not. :)