You say mathematics is not magic?
What kind of wizard are you?
Ok, I doubt Kay who manages Gideon's Trumpet is a wizard (or technically a wizardess since she's ... a she) but when I was there Monday and was looking at the T-shirts there, she brought me to the back room to see some that had been discontinued, too bad for them. And I remarked that this must be where the magic happens, and Kay replied "or the math". In many ways they are the same thing! And as I was headed to work, that exchange between Jon-Tom the transposed from our world and future spellsinger -- that's a magician who makes magic by singing to his own musical accompaniment -- and Clothahump the greatest wizard of his world that I've read again and again in Alan Dean Foster's novel Spellsinger (ISBN 0446903523) came to mind.
Welcome To The Monkey House.
That's the collection of Kurt Vonnegut's short stories from the 1950s and 1960s I picked up Saturday in Main Street Books' used books section that I haven't read in at least a quarter-century. ISBN 9780385333504 And I read the copy I'd bought when I was visiting Philadelphia during my freshman year at Stetson University so much that I still remember the lion's share of details from the collection. Some of the stories I didn't recognize, but I don't remember some of the twenty-five stories in this edition in the edition I'd read either. I should finish it today, and I know I shouldn't constantly be cycling books in and out of the library when I've got so many books already at home that I haven't read ... this is Martha's line, anyway, and I see where she's coming from with it.
But I need something to do when I'm not doing something else.
Charles M. Schulz. Perhaps the last author -- Peanuts lasted close to fifty years and is cited by some at the longest story told by a single human being, so I think he qualifies -- to be able to include a character who isn't meant to be a commentary on any aspect of culture; Franklin who debuted in 1968 just happens to be black. Of course, we probably remember Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and Lucy better, and in Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz edited by Chip Kidd and introduced by Jean Schulz (ISBN 0375714634) we're treated to an excerpt of fifty years of strips, promotional materials, and toys. Hundreds of pages of an excerpt, but with Peanuts I always find something new. Sarah and Jeffrey asked me the other night why I liked Peanuts so much. It's visual comfort food, more so than
any strip before or since has been.
Of course I didn't say that THEN, but I digress. Tonight after Jeffrey gets home from a class field trip to an agricultural exhibition -- to which he's wearing his BRIGHT RED San Francisco 49ers hoodie his aunt Mary got him for the first time today -- and Sarah gets off her standardized testing and they get picked up by Martha from after school, they'll settle in for chicken drumsticks with barbecue sauce I'll have had simmering in a crockpot for ten hours. I'll understand if they eat before I get home from work, as Martha has choir practice tonight and the kids will have just gotten back from it. Whether they'll have read for the day for their Reading At Home (a good idea to do, but it's harder to squeeze in than you might think some days) I can only anticipate.
And I anticipate great things for us!
David
Ok, I doubt Kay who manages Gideon's Trumpet is a wizard (or technically a wizardess since she's ... a she) but when I was there Monday and was looking at the T-shirts there, she brought me to the back room to see some that had been discontinued, too bad for them. And I remarked that this must be where the magic happens, and Kay replied "or the math". In many ways they are the same thing! And as I was headed to work, that exchange between Jon-Tom the transposed from our world and future spellsinger -- that's a magician who makes magic by singing to his own musical accompaniment -- and Clothahump the greatest wizard of his world that I've read again and again in Alan Dean Foster's novel Spellsinger (ISBN 0446903523) came to mind.
Welcome To The Monkey House.
That's the collection of Kurt Vonnegut's short stories from the 1950s and 1960s I picked up Saturday in Main Street Books' used books section that I haven't read in at least a quarter-century. ISBN 9780385333504 And I read the copy I'd bought when I was visiting Philadelphia during my freshman year at Stetson University so much that I still remember the lion's share of details from the collection. Some of the stories I didn't recognize, but I don't remember some of the twenty-five stories in this edition in the edition I'd read either. I should finish it today, and I know I shouldn't constantly be cycling books in and out of the library when I've got so many books already at home that I haven't read ... this is Martha's line, anyway, and I see where she's coming from with it.
But I need something to do when I'm not doing something else.
Charles M. Schulz. Perhaps the last author -- Peanuts lasted close to fifty years and is cited by some at the longest story told by a single human being, so I think he qualifies -- to be able to include a character who isn't meant to be a commentary on any aspect of culture; Franklin who debuted in 1968 just happens to be black. Of course, we probably remember Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and Lucy better, and in Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz edited by Chip Kidd and introduced by Jean Schulz (ISBN 0375714634) we're treated to an excerpt of fifty years of strips, promotional materials, and toys. Hundreds of pages of an excerpt, but with Peanuts I always find something new. Sarah and Jeffrey asked me the other night why I liked Peanuts so much. It's visual comfort food, more so than
any strip before or since has been.
Of course I didn't say that THEN, but I digress. Tonight after Jeffrey gets home from a class field trip to an agricultural exhibition -- to which he's wearing his BRIGHT RED San Francisco 49ers hoodie his aunt Mary got him for the first time today -- and Sarah gets off her standardized testing and they get picked up by Martha from after school, they'll settle in for chicken drumsticks with barbecue sauce I'll have had simmering in a crockpot for ten hours. I'll understand if they eat before I get home from work, as Martha has choir practice tonight and the kids will have just gotten back from it. Whether they'll have read for the day for their Reading At Home (a good idea to do, but it's harder to squeeze in than you might think some days) I can only anticipate.
And I anticipate great things for us!
David
Comments
Post a Comment