What I'm reading...

Still working on my annual review of medical literature re. scleroderma.

Doing some reading about the kidney and its various disorders.


Still catching up on my periodicals:

From Much ado about nothing, The Economist, Vol. 392, No. 8639, July 11th, 2009. A book review of Nothing: A very short introduction by Frank Close, Oxford U. Press, 2009. "Does anything remain when everything is taken away?... Big Bang... Where did all this stuff come from? Science says that it came from quantum fluctuations in the void.... Mr. Close surveys 3,000 years of thinking to arrive at the modern solution... The answer is nothing." I like both physics and metaphysics so I'll probably take a closer look at this book which is due out in the USA next month. Based on the review, the modern solution of nothingness closely approaches the Zen solution. In my reading and practice (which is no longer Zen) I've found those unexplained "quantum fluctuations in the void" to be a less poetic way to phrase the Judeo-Christian solution, "In the beginning, the Spirit of God moved across the face of the deep." The answer is not nothing" but rather The One out whose being {I AM} flows all that has being.


Fiction:

Fforde, Jasper: Thursday Next First among Sequels. New York: Penguin, 2007. Not the first sequel but the fifth book in this delightful series: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, First Among Sequels. {There is also a companion series, The Nursery Crime series which I do not read: The Big Over Easy, The Fourth Bear.} Quote, p.52: "Reading, I had learned, was as creative a process as writing, sometimes more so. When we read of the dying rays of the setting sun or the boom and swish of the incoming tide, we should reserve as much praise for ourselves as for the author. After all, the reader is doing all the work--the writer might have died long ago."

Schweizer, Mark: The Diva Wore Diamonds: a liturgical mystery. Hopkinsville KY: St. James Music Press, 2009. 159 p. illustrator: Jim Hunt. Hip, hip, hooray! The slipcase didn't mean the end of the series. This is the seventh book featuring an Episcopal choir director who is also a small town chief of police and a wanna be writer who channels Raymond Chandler... The usual delightful read and a good laugh when I needed one. The series in order: The Alto Wore Tweed, The Baritone Wore Chiffon, The Tenor Wore Tapshoes, The Soprano wore Falsettos, The Bass Wore Scales, The Mezzo Wore Mink. Visit the link, not only for the liturgical mysteries but also because St. James Music Press is a serious press offering really superb church music and you can listen to practically everything in their catalog. http://www.sjmpbooks.com/ MYSTERY EPISCOPAL CHURCH POLITICS SMALL TOWN ROMANCE 21st Century

Bedside Book, just finished and have not yet selected another:

Andreach, Robert J.: Studies in Structure: Stages in the spiritual life in four modern authors: Gerarad Manley Hopkins, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Hart Crane. London: Burns & Oates, 1964, Fordham University Press. This is an exceedingly odd book; it is less literary criticism and more an analysis of stages in spirituality in the works of these authors referring to Dante, St. Augustine, and St. John of the Cross as sources. I enjoyed this fresh viewpoint and I enjoyed revisiting those writers which I rarely read voluntarily e.g. Joyce and Crane. During my college years, when I was first reading Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I threw the book across the room {A real no-no for a librarian.} in disgust at what I thought was "really screwed up color imagery." Andreach explains that Joyce has consciously "inverted" the stages of spiritual life. At least now I understand why I have never liked Joyce nor Crane nor really most of the Modern writers. Quote from section on Hart Crane, p. 118: "The more he seeks among the particulars of a debased society, the more his spiritual consciousness in diminished."

Chairside Nibbles:

Patten, Robert L.: George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art. Volume1: 1792-1835. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992. Kindle BIOGRAPHY ARTIST ILLUSTRATOR 18th Century 19th Century 20th Century This award winning biography by one of my English literature professors from Rice University is proving a most enjoyable re-read. One of Patten's strong points as a professor was rooting the literature in the history, the sociology, and the culture of the time, He offers rich details in a very readable frame. With my new interest in book illustration it is even more interesting to me now than it was on my first reading some years ago. Since I'm spending much time in my chair of late, this reading may take quite a long while.

SEASONS:

Linn, Dennis; Linn, Sheila Fabricant; Linn, Matthew: Good Goats: healing our image of God. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994. vi, 101 p. I'm finding the Linns to be difficult authors. I agree with most of their conclusions but I find their arguments to be shallow and repetitive. Their attack in this month's reading was on St. Anselm's view of the atonement struck me as a bit insulting to both Anselm and God. I am, as always, enjoying the discussion with the circle of sisters. FEMININITY OF GOD JUDGEMENT DAY HELL DOCTRINE 20th Century

Anselm of Canterbury who in the Preface to the Proslogion wrote, "I have written the little work that follows... in the role of one who strives to raise his mind to the contemplation of God and one who seeks to understand what he believes.
I acknowledge, Lord, and I give thanks that you have created your image in me, so that I may remember you, think of you, love you. But this image is so obliterated and worn away by wickedness, it is so obscured by the smoke of sins, that it cannot do what it was created to do, unless you renew and reform it. I am not attempting, O Lord, to penetrate your loftiness, for I cannot begin to match my understanding with it, but I desire in some measure to understand your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this too I believe, that "unless I believe, I shall not understand." (Isa. 7:9) . " For more information visit these links: http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/141.html

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/anselm-intro.html

Fly me to the moon...

Yesterday the world remembered "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

The date is also an important one in my personal history.

I was home following my sophomore year at Rice. My sister and I attended a summer session at Texas Tech: she, to jump start her college career since she was targeting graduation in three years rather than four; I, to take a history course for my teaching certification and to make up the math class I'd failed to pass. {Matrix algebra. At Rice it was the standard 1st semester 200-level course. At Tech it was a 400-level course taken by math majors and graduate students. A red-headed guy from my section at Rice also repeated the course at Tech. He and I got lots of negative attention for blowing the curve and we each took a 4.0 back for our transcripts. At least in summer school, the Tech course covered the part of the course I had understood; I had a good solid "B" after the first exam at Rice before it all fell apart. The Tech course never got past that point; everything I hadn't gotten the first time around was in Appendix Two which we never looked at in that summer course. The best thing I learned from my semester at Tech was that I really hadn't suddenly turned dumb. It helped me relax and start learning not for grade points but for the sheer joy of learning. But, I digress...}

Shift work at David's summer job in Houston gave him a four day weekend about once a month. So on the momentous day in history he drove clear across Texas to see me. It was his first visit to my family's farm. He was driving up the caprock between Ralls and Floydada and listening to the car radio just as the men first stepped on the moon. I had one eye on the T.V. and one eye on the road, looking for a cloud of dust that might indicate David's arrival. That night, he and I sat up late watching reruns of the moonwalk, holding hands, and talking. {There might have been a kiss or two... "fly me to the moon... in other words... hold my hand..." But, I digress...}

Which is how it came to be David, rather than my brother, asleep on the sofa bed in the living room when my mother walked in about 6:30 a.m., picked up the pair of jeans at the foot of the bed, and threw them on the sleeper,

"Get up, you lazy bones! It's past daylight; time you were in the field."

She jumped about six feet when a bass voice replied,

"Good morning, Mrs. Cummings."

On his second visit, the line from our one bathroom to the septic tank collapsed and David ended up digging about the front yard with my daddy and my brother.

And he married me anyway. Must have been true love.

Everything old is new again! At least the pipes...

Our house is 50+ years old, almost as old as we are. Now and then it requires some major maintenance. Most recently, we had noted excessive rust coming out the water pipes. After some investigation, it was clear that we needed to consider repiping the house. An expensive repair and one that can be disruptive, if not destructive. With a remodelled kitchen and a newly redecorated bath, we didn't wish to tear into the walls. Earlier this month TDT Plumbing used the ACE DuraFlo system to "make everything old, new again." It was an interesting project.

I documented the project on my website:

http://evelynwhitakerlibrary.org/id54.html

More information from TDT Plumbing, Houston, TX

http://tdtplumbing.com/whyaceduraflo.html

The clear pipe demo of the epoxy fill:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftMec3HW5Xw

Note the importance of capitalization in the title of this post:

the pipes are new; the Pipes are just another day older.

A poet and a one-man band...

I spent the last couple of weeks driving across Texas to visit my parents, to take them to see doctors, to meet David so he could bring Mandy, our sheltie, home with him while I made a long drive back "home." Actually, Houston has been "home" for decades but the home of my childhood was on the south plains of the Texas Panhandle. Floyd County. Once there, there were other drives:

• to Plainview to visit with my mother's nephew, James, and his family
• to South Plains, the farming community where I grew up for the Calahan family (my paternal grandmother, Oma's family) reunion, to the church where my great grandmother was a charter member and where I worshipped for my first 18 years
• to "down below the Cap" a long circle drive from Floydada through South Plains to Quitique and Turkey and back via the Flomot cut and Cedar Hill
• to Lockney to see the shell of the high school that burned
• to the cemetery to visit graves of family & friends

The country was green but most of the crops are very, very late. Saw lots of birds and a couple of cotton-tailed rabbits. And a rainbow. Got to see a summer "norther" and smell rain and see lightening. Didn't take many pictures. This one is from the real estate agent's site where the Pigg Ranch is listed for sale. It's the part of the world where we used to cut our "cedars" for Christmas when I was a child.

We had planned to eat supper at the Sportman's Cafe in Quitaque (once owned by the Pigg family) but when we got there it was not like we remembered. New owners. Passing years. So we drove to Turkey past the Midway theater (which I think is a still operational drive-in movie theater) and ate some of the best authentic Mexican food ever at Galvan's restaurant. (Thank you, cousin Dee, for the suggestion.)


When driving alone, I listened to The Best of Simon & Garfunkel who have only improved with the passing years. Great poetry and songs that the voices shared. Hence the title of this post.


But the other band I remembered is Bob Wills and the Light Crust Dough Boys. When my mother was a very small child, they stopped at the place in Leon County late one night for "coffee with Mama & Papa Wieland." Bob woke up the sleeping girl and said, "See, didn't I tell ya' baby Dorthy has the bluest eyes in the world." Many decades later in the late 1950s or 60s, I heard his brothers, Johnnie Lee and Luther J., pick guitar, fiddle and sing at a family gathering on a Sunday afternoon. As nearly as I can remember "Mammy Wills" was sister to the mother of Thomas Wilson who married Ellen, my mother's older sister.

"Deep in the heart of Texas, Bob Wills if still the king."

A link with more info: http://www.turkeytexas.net/

The other part of the trip was the baptism on Father's Day of our little Joy. She wore the dress her mother had worn but her feet were too big for the shoes. So her mother painted her toenails. Such pretty little pink toenails and when any one said "toes" she kicked and kicked.


My mother has always loved to hold a baby's feet.
















Four generations:

Great Granddaddy Kendall,

Grandmother "Tweetie" Zacha,

Daddy Josh,

brother & sister, TNT

What I'm reading...

Information:

I've begun working on the annual review of medical literature re. scleroderma.

Still reading gardening books as I plan new plantings along the back fence. I rather like the trumpet vine that has come back and the hummingbirds and butterflies love it so I think it stays even if it is orange. Yes, it may eventually destroy the fence but the last one lasted more than 20 years vines and all. Since the gas company is putting in a new remote readable electronic meter I may even let part of the jungle return. Right now I'm feeling blue: plumbago, aganpanthus, wax myrtle... But I can't plant in a drought so I'll wait until Fall.

Fiction:

Novik, Naomi: His Majeysty's Dragon. 2006
Novik, Naomi: Throne of Jade. 2006
Novik, Naomi: Black Powder War. 2006
Novik, Naomi: Empire of Ivory. 2007
Novik, Naomi: Victory of Eagles. 2008
The Temeraire Series. New York: Ballantine Books. Kindle. It was a huge mistake to download the free copy of what proved to be the first of series. I got hooked on this story about dragons and the Napoleonic Wars. The writing is superb and the story is compelling. Novik speaks to lots of social conditions and philosophical ideas. I was reminded of David's favorites--the Horatio Hornblower books by C.S. Forester and the Richard Sharp novels by Bernard Cornwell. Kinda fun but really a complete waste of time that I could have spent more productively. FICTION FANTASY BRITISH NAVY DRAGONS 21st Century

Bedside Book:

Andreach, Robert J.: Studies in Structure: Stages in the spiritural life in four modern authors: Gerarad Manley Hopkins, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Hart Crane. London: Burns & Oates, 1964, Fordham University Press. Now I understand why I never liked James Joyce. This is an exceedingly odd book. It is less literary cricticism and more an analysis of stages in spirituality.

Chairside Nibbles:

catching up on newspapers and periodicals


Patten, Robert L.: George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art. Volume1: 1792-1835. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992. Kindle BIOGRAPHY ARTIST ILLUSTRATOR 18th Century 19th Century 20th Century This award winning biography by one of my English literature professors from Rice University is proving a most enjoyable re-read. One of Patten's strong points as a professor was rooting the literature in the history, the sociology, and the culture of the time, He offers rich details in a very readable frame. With my new interest in book illustration it is even more interesting to me now than it was on my first reading some years ago.

SEASONS:

Linn, Dennis; Linn, Sheila Fabricant; Linn, Matthew: Good Goats: helaing our image of God. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1994. vi, 101 p. FEMINITY OF GOD JUDGEMENT DAY HELL DOCTRINE 20th Century