Memnison Journal

Susan and Mere are doing a rummage sale today (Friday) at at our house: 577 Hitchcock, in Lisle, IL. (Roughly IL 53 and 55th/Maple Avenue.) I will either be inside hiding from the heat or outside in my wheelchair; Susan and Meredith are running the table, and selling more of the boxes of books I [...]

My daughter Meredith is a competitive roller skater, and her skating club is doing a big rummage sale Saturday and Sunday at the Lombard Roller Rink in Lombard from 9-3.  I will not be there; Susan and Meredith are running the table, and I had an operation earlier this week and in no shape to [...]

Partially for Da, partly for the historians in the audience.  Feel free to whale away on it or suggest other things; I was having real problems with a non-scholarly-to-the-point-0f-boredom book on the German Diaspora, especially to America in the 1800s.   I also skipped a lot of works on regions within Germany.   Yes, I believe that [...]

This year we decided to buy a big household present for everyone rather than a lot of stuff (of course, Mere still makes out, but…) so the big add was a combination of an HD TV for the living room, and a  HD TiVo and a Blu-Ray player to go with it. This is changing [...]

“Hey Oscar Wilde, it’s Clobberin’ Time” is a odd art site that states its purpose as ‘an extension of a personal art collection of various artists interpreting their favourite literary figure / author / character’.   Worth a look for the oddity of it all.

I thoroughly recommend Robert Crumb’s new book The Book of Genesis Illustrated; exceptionally well done, and done straight, word for word.   One note: while reasonably tastefully done, there’s no way to render the begats and things like Lot and his daughters without pictures that would make your maiden aunt Edna go *gleep, that’s a bare [...]

As noted elsewhere, Mere is downsizing her Stuff; the toughest part was getting her to semi-methodically go through her books.  As House Librarian, I was the one sitting down with her; she got rid of quite a few books, about 2/3ds picture books.  In some cases (very few) I hung onto some stuff *I* wanted [...]

The family has taken up a new and very nice practice; having family reading times – not scheduled as such, but so everyone has something good to read and is in the living room together reading.  It works pretty well, I think, and is an improvement over endless oh-I-can’t-watch-that debates about TV stuff. Tastes run [...]

Online search references for the Quran and the Bible;  the Quran part has both the Arabic and three English translations, and the Bible one has a BUNCH of different translations, most NOT English (which has around 20 different versions). Note that the authoritative version of the Quran is the Arabic one, of course.  And this [...]

The other day, the dad of a friend of Meredith’s brought up alternate history fiction, and obviously was interested in it; I was somewhat surprised because I had never really talked to the guy and had no real idea as to why he brought that and wargaming up with me! (Two subject dear to my [...]

Saw it with the family today; Mere and Kay have been whomped with allergies, and I think they’re turning into sinus infections.  The kids hate taking stuff for the allergies and hate the nasal sprays, but they hate worse being sick. In any event, I wasn’t all that thrilled with the film, mostly because so [...]

I don’t take my Kindle everywhere, but it has gotten a lot of use, especially when i know I’m going to have to sit and wait somewhere.    (Like at the hospital.)    Susan and Meredith have used it a little, as has my niece Kay and my mother-in-law, and it looks like we’re getting another Kindle [...]

Time Magazine:  mashup of Iranian Politics and Lord of the Rings. Channel Two is putting on a Lord of the Rings marathon as part of the government’s efforts to restore peace. Lots of people, adults and kids, are watching in the room with me. On the screen, Gandalf the Grey returns to the Fellowship as [...]

I’m really amazed at the rapid speed I’m making through the VHS tapes.  Part of that is that there’s a lot of the BBC stuff that is now available; I was absolutely shocked to find that the Tim Curry ‘Life of Shakespeare’ was available on DVD (I sweat blood finding the VHS). (Yes, I’m very [...]

ABE Books sent me a note with this list of 20 fiction and non-fiction books dealing with horribly messed up childhoods.    Interesting set; I’ve read several of them, but I’m avoiding depressing or sad stuff recently.   Worth a look for my readers in the audience…