John Milton's Quatercentenary (400th Birthday), December 9th

John Milton's Quatercentenary

Where have the years gone? It seems like just yesterday I was assigned a section of Paradise Lost in that Early British Lit survey class that I took in the attempt to try to understand and be able to speak intelligently about any and all literature written ever, or at least any and all that made it into my Norton Anthology. I remember almost nothing about what I read in that class ( we covered Beowulf to Samuel Johnson I mean come on, it was only about 1,000 years of literature covered in 4 months!) But, about Milton, I remember my professor reading a part of Paradise Lost and thinking that someday, when I had the time, I needed to read the whole thing.
I haven't read it Paradise Lost. This April I will have been graduated with my English degree for ten years. Yep. Should have read it by now. Maybe after Christmas and can start that.

Anyway, since it is Milton's birthday, I should be focusing on him. It looks like the majority of Miltonian celebrations are taking place across the pond, and have happened already, so getting to a live celebration might be tricky. However, there is this really cool website with lots of information about Paradise Lost. I've just played with it a little bit, and I plan to come back later.

Of course, Paradise Lost is not Milton's only work. If you like your Restoration poetry set to Baroque music then you should check out Handel's L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, which is based on L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, two of Milton's poems.

If you don't want to do any of that, you could just give a random gift to someone today and say "Happy Milton's Birthday!" If you plan on doing the random gift thing, here are some gifts that I do not recommend for Milton's Birthday, or for the entire gift-giving season.

• The Yodeling Green Pickle (Now, why does this exist?)
• The Houseplant Twitter Kit (Yes! Now for only $99 your plant can Twitter you when it needs to be watered! Or, you could look at it every once in a while.)
• The Pet's Eye View Camera (Do you ever wonder what your dog does all day? Now you can have pictures taken every 15 seconds while you are gone! Personnally, I don't even want 15 second updates from my nearest and dearest friends and family! Sorry, love ya all, but there is a reason why I don't Twitter!)
• Owl Pellets (Now, I am all for educational gifts but... there are just no words for my thoughts. So, here's the blurb from the website:

"See what this owl ate for dinner. Just unwrap the foil from the pellet and
carefully us the probes provided to dissect the pellet and extract the owl's
dinner. Then use the bone guide to identify what the owl ate."

• Heartshaped Mouse (I always recommend against heartshaped anything, but especially against heartshaped things that should be ergonomic. Happy Milton's Birthday! I hope you don't get carpel tunnel! )

Anyway, have a Happy Miltonian Quartercentenary everyone!

International Children's Book Day, April 2nd

It's Hans Christian Anderson's birthday! Which also means that it's International Children's Book Day!

Now, I know that I should talk about how no-one reads the good fairy tales anymore, like "The Fir Tree" and "The Leap-Frog", but instead I just have to share my favorite new children's book: Waking Beauty, by Leah Wilcox.

Just read it. You'll love it. I promise. It comes recommended by both a 33 year-old and an almost 3 year-old.

Feast Day of St. Expeditus, April 19th

Feast Day of St. Expeditus

St. Expeditus (while no longer recognized by the Catholic Church) is the patron saint against procrastination, for urgent causes, prompt solutions, merchants, navigators, computer programmers, and e-commerce. According to legend, St. Expeditus was a Roman soldier who converted to Christianity. On the day when Expeditus made the decision to become a Christian, the Devil took the form of a crow and told St. Expeditus his conversion could wait until the next day. Expeditus stomped on the bird, and shouted "I'll be a Christian today!"

It is possible that Expeditus did not exist. Some historians speculate that the idea of the saint may have stemmed from a misunderstanding that occurred when Parisian nuns received a crate of relics from Rome labeled for "expedited" delivery and mistakenly thought the label referred to the name of a saint.

I feel as if I should have some sort of bond with St. Expeditus because I am a procrastinator, and perhaps when I pray under my breath for things to work out, maybe he is listening and watching over me. If I were Catholic, that is.

I am a very bad procrastinator. I haven't blogged about National Drop Everything And Read Day (April 12th), National Library Worker's Day (April 17th), or National Library Week (April 15th-21st). I meant to blog about D.E.A.R., and then I really meant to blog about D.E.A.R. after reading Neel's post about Library Week (by the way, if you don't already read Neel, you really ought to. He will give you the best information about how to attend movies before they are released on his advance movie screening guide.)

Well, I guess I still haven't really blogged about D.E.A.R. or Library Week, so I guess that St. Expeditus isn't helping me today.

World Book Day, March 1, 2007

World Book Day

It's World Book Day, for the UK anyway, and Spread the Word wants to know which ten books you can't live without. Just ten. It was very hard for me to choose just ten books I could not live without, so I went with the ten books I have read the most, rather than the constantly changing "favorite book" enigma-list.

And, I am adding an additional spin, an idea I got while reading FoxyJ's blog. She was meme tagged, and in her blog, she posted the rules of the meme.

* Find the nearest book to you.
* Name the book and author.
* Turn to page 123.
* Go to the fifth sentence on the page.
* Copy out the next 3 sentences and post to your blog.
* Tag someone else.

I think that this could be an interesting exercise for World Book Day, so here are my ten books that I think that I couldn't live without, with random sentences from page 123, just so you can get a feel for the book.

Persuasion: Jane Austin

"The Crofts must be in Bath! A circumstance to interest her. They were people whom her heart turned to very naturally."

The Blue Castle: L.M. Montgomery

"Six reputable citizens of Deerwood bore Cecilia Gay to her grave in decorous Deerwood cemetery. Among them was Uncle Wellington. The Stirlings all came to the funeral, men and women."

Trixie Belden: The Mystery Off Glen Road, Julie Campbell

"She was sure the dogs had done it. And if they ever even tried to do such a terrible thing again, she knew that the verdict would be a death sentence! Trixie's father came out of the terrace in answer to her call and deftly caught the bundle of papers she tossed to him."

Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre

"'I cannot commission you to fetch help,' he said; 'but you may help me a little yourself, if you will be so kind.' 'Yes, sir.' 'You have not an umbrella that I can use as a stick?'"

The Haunting of Hill House: Shirley Jackson

"'Tell me,' Luke said politely to Theodora, 'since you are a princess, tell me about the political situation in your country.' 'Very unsettled,' Theodora said. 'I ran away because my father, who is of course the king, insists that I marry Black Michael, who is a pretender to the throne.'"

Freak the Mighty: Rodman Philbrick

"All the old pipes and wires are hanging down, and everywhere underfoot is broken glass the color of smoke. 'I used to wonder exactly what Hell looked like,' he says. 'Now I know.'"

The Love Poems of John Donne: John Donne

"Here let me war; in these arms let me lie;
Here let me parley, batter, bleed, and die.
Thine arms imprison me, and mine arms thee,
Thy heard thy ransom is, take mine for me.
Other men war that they their rest may gain;
But we will rest that we may fight again."

Just So Stories: Rudyard Kipling

"Draw it separate. Draw his tail. If he's standing on his head, the tail will come first."

The Chicago Manual of Style: University of Chicago Press

"Unwanted marks can be whited out at the same time. Reproduction proofs produced by photocomposition may be corrected by changing the computer file and printing out another repro page. This procedure, however, is usually reserved for more extensive changes; to save time and perhaps money, minor corrections should probably be made by the cut-and-paste method."

The Portable Dorothy Parker: Dorothy Parker

"He'll rot in hell, before I'll call him up. You don't have to give me strength, God; I have it myself. If he wanted me, he could get me."

Hmmm. Not as interesting as I thought it might be... none of my favorite lines came up. Oh, well! I am not sure what that all says about my reading tastes, but we can still have a happy World Book Day!

Bathtub Party Day, December 5th

Bathtub Party Day

Everybody Party in the Tub! If you are having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit, perhaps you just need to have a party in the tub.

If you are not a bath person, or a party person, or a bath party person, then perhaps reading about a bathtub party will be enough. I recommend King Bidgood's in the Bathtub. It's a very quick read, (it's a children's book) and the illustrations are very well done. The story is told in verse, which always makes me happy, and the pictures are animated enough that prereaders can follow the story if they just pick up the book, which is a feature that I always look for in picture books. Also, the pictures add enough dimension to make the story interesting for adults during the multiple retellings when it becomes the favorite-three-year-old's favorite book.

"Help! Help! cried the page, when the sun came up.
King Bidgood's in the bathtub, and he won't get out!
Oh, who knows what to do?"
"I do!" cried the Knight when the sun came up.
"Get out! It's time to battle!"
"Come in!" cried the King, with a boom, boom, boom.
"Today, we battle in the tub!" (King Bidgood's in the Bathtub, by Audrey Wood and Don Wood)

So, there we are. Time for fun in the tub, literally or literaturally.

International Rabbit Day September 23rd or 24th

International Rabbit Day

There seems to be some confusion about what day is International Rabbit Day. Some sources say it was yesterday, some say it is today.

Either way, everyone should read Edgy Killer Bunny's blog to learn about Banned Book Week. You should also read his post about which books to read.

I, myself, am going to pick up The Chocolate War. It seems like a good choice since it is on both top ten challenged book lists, it quotes one of my favorite poems, and it was published the year that I was born.

But, if you are looking for a non-banned-bookish way to celebrate International Rabbit Day, and are still looking to celebrate Read-A-New-Book-Month, I would recommend reading The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd, or Bunnicula by Deborah and James Howe. Both are very good books for all age groups. Unless animals talking and having human-like thoughts are scary to you... then I wouldn't recommend either book.

Anyway, have a Happy Rabbit-Reading Day!

International Banana Festival, Autumnal Equinox, September 21st

International Banana Festival

Okay, I don't wanna talk about it. Yes, there are no bananas on this website.

Autumnal Equinox

We are two days away from the Autumnal Equinox. Check this site for a countdown to all the upcoming Equinoxes, Solstices & Cross-Quarters. (And pay no attention to the fact that I missed blogging about Lughnasad.)

First, one might ask, what is an equinox? They are the half-way points between the solstices. They occur in the fall and spring. During an equinox the sun rises exactly in the east, travels through the sky for 12 hours, and sets exactly in the west and everywhere on earth experiences close to 12 hours of daylight, and 12 hours of nighttime.

So, what are we supposed to do for an equinox celebration?

• Some believe that during the spring and fall equinoxes one can balance an egg on one end
• As it is a time of balancing-- eggs, light--it is a good day to balance your accounts, renew leases, and for renewing and setting balancing life goals
• Also it is perfectly okay to burn a straw man in effigy-- Apparently, it's cleansing!
  
• Make a dream pillow in preparation of the long nights ahead. Fill the pillow with your favorite combination of herbs lavender, rosemary, catnip, sage, and vanilla beans, to encourage good dreams
• As it is the time of harvest, and the land is giving many gifts to us, remember also to give back to the land, plant a tree, de-litter a park, ride your bike to work instead of driving. Celebrate your own thanksgiving.
  
• Take a walk and listen to the leaves turn color... I promise, if you listen closely, you will hear them!
  
• Cuddle up with someone, its the perfect time of year for it.
  
• Or you can cuddle up with a book, if your someone is not cuddly, or if there is not a someone to cuddle with, because it's Read A New Book Month, and next week is Banned Books Week. I put my complete faith and trust that Edgy will blog about Banned Books Week, or all my hope for banned books will be lost.
  

International Literacy Day, September 8th

International Literacy Day

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) annual supports an International Literacy Day. This year's theme for International Literacy Day is: Literacy Sustains Development. According to UNESCO statistics there are 781 million illiterate adults in the world who cannot read. That may seem like an impossible statistic, that there is very little that we can do to help, but there are so many ways that anyone can help.

Many libraries have adult literacy programs where you can volunteer to be a tutor, and often it requires just a small amount of time each week. The Provo City library sponsors a program called Project Read, which is an excellent program. (And sometimes you can find cool writing tips on their website.) Or, you can simply support reading activities, like those posted here.

The next thing to celebrate, after International Literacy Day of course, is Roald Dahl Day. I do have to be honest and say that Dahl is not my favorite author (I just am really, really creeped out by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and that has tainted everything but Matilda for me.) but I can support any day that celebrates an author.

After Dahl Day, we have Tolkien Week (September 16th-23rd), and the week after that is the American Library Association's Banned Book Week (September 23rd-30th).

See, we all have lots of opportunities to support literacy this month, so let's just do it!

Read a Book Day, September 6th

Read a Book Day

There isn't much time left to read a book today. But you should.