Bookcase Review
Invitational, Accessible Bookcases
April 13, 2012
Bookcases
should invite the reader to read.
They should make books accessible,
opening up the world of books.
Music Association: The Monotones
- Book of Love
Reading Chair
April 12, 2012
Never underestimate the importance of a good reading chair.
Many people say they "aren't
readers" or "don't
have time to read" or they "get too fidgety."
Right.
What they are saying is that they don't have good reading chairs. They
are the sorts of people that mistake those library step stools
for
chairs. They can't get comfortable. Or once they are comfortable, they
can't reach their books.
Music Association: Bon
Jovi - Seat Next To You
Automated Book Selection
April 11, 2012
I have a system for selecting what book I will read next.
It's kind of a book jukebox.
My bookcase uses a gravity-fed system that takes the next book -- maybe
next in line, maybe next heaviest, I'm not certain of its criteria --
and drops the book onto my strategically-positioned chair.
Luckily, I am a speed-reader because sometimes the books are delivered
fast and furious.
So far, the system works well without using any electricity, although
it may be solar, I'm not sure.
Maybe the sunlight warms the back corner of the bookcase, causing that
part of the bookcase to expand, and nearby books to warm up and expand
in relation to the other "cool" books, and drop into my hot hands.
Maybe.
All
I know is that after last year's accident, I no longer keep unabridged
anythings on the top shelf.
Lesson learned.
Music Association: UB40 - Drop
On By
Book a Passage
April 10, 2012
I
have my reservations. But I'll board the ship anyway.
The Titanic was not unsinkable, or referred to as unsinkable,
until after it sunk.
The Titanic was not
trying to break any speed records; its boilers were not all lit.
The Titanic band did not
play Nearer My God To
Thee as its final song; the band was playing popular music.
The Titanic did not have
enough lifeboats, but when are there enough? Let's say a ship tips over
onto its side (Costa Concordia). There goes half the
lifeboats, right?
Bruce
Ismay, the chairman of the White Star Line and a Titanic passenger, was
not the villain the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst made him out
to be. He helped load and lower several lifeboats, before climbing in
one himself.
Music Association: Dido - White
Flag
"I will go down with this ship.
And I won't put my
hands up and surrender.
There will be no white
flag above my door.
I'm in love and always
will be."
Book Review?
More than a Book Review
April 9, 2012
In the course of blogging events,
I
sometimes find it necessary to review a book or two. Not
ordinary
books, no, I review only exceptional books, books with a quality so
rich and thick that they shout out, "Read me! Read me, again and
again! Read me twice at once, what the H-E-double bookends!"
Those sorts of books -- books that I either out-and-out review or will
otherwise refer to with the highest of praises.
In some cases, it seems I am reviewing an entire book shelf.
Call me bold.
Call me daring. Call me a cab. And yet none can deny, this is my first
bookshelf review.
What you see here is an impressive bookshelf -- a bookshelf where the
books are impressed into the wood of the shelf.
This is the bookshelf
for people who are finished with bookends. They
are the purveyors of the domino theory of bookshelves, where the
slightest slope, the barest breeze, causes books to slant, then topple,
bringing the books and any feeble bookends to the floor.
Skilled book balancers? These book owners are not. Nor are they fans of
gravity in general. They sleep on futons in single-level homes in
valleys -- that's how much they don't like gravity. And this bookshelf
is the only way they will pick books up off the floor.
This is not the bookshelf for book owners with an entire card catalog
of books.
This is not the bookshelf for people who sort their books by subject or
author or height or weight or color or impressiveness.
This is the bookshelf for the book owner who has the seven books that
will not move, will not budge, no matter what happens.
This bookshelf is available from Ikea, as a block of wood with one of
those little Allen wrench tools that you use to chip away all the wood
that is in the way of your book(s).
Yes, I said, "book(s)" which means someone could buy this hunk-o-wood,
carve it out, and put it up with just one impressed book.
If you see that, ask to borrow that book.
Music
Association: Simon and Garfunkel - Bookends
Easter Costumes
April 5, 2012
Dress up as a moai (here's how
to make
the moai head)
Dress
up as a chocolate Easter bunny (keep costume in 'fridge when not
wearing it)
Dress
up as an Easter egg
Music Association: 1776 Musical
- Egg
"We're waiting for the chirp,
chirp, chirp
of an eaglet being born
We're waiting for the
chirp, chirp, chirp
on this humid Monday
morning in this... Congressional incubator"
I know, I know
-- wrong holiday
Timbuktu
April 3, 2012
Just about everything I know about Timbuktu I learned from climbing
sand dunes and from watching Michael Palin's Sahara. But it's
not enough to know whether the military takeover is good or bad.
Music Association: Dido - Sand
In My Shoes
How to Win the Lottery
April 2, 2012
Seeing ads and billboards for the lottery, makes me think of gambling
overall. How to win at any form of gambling is as easy (or as
difficult) as stacking the odds in your favor.
The absolute best odds in a casino are at the lunch buffet. The second
best odds are found at blackjack, but the odds vary depending on not
just how well the player plays, but also the casino rules. The absolute
best odds a casino might allow for blackjack is 26%, but don't count on
it.
I was reading an article in The Atlantic
about the guy that walked away from three Atlantic City casinos with
$15 million, nearly a year ago. He won by setting ground rules with one
casino and getting two more to agree. He won before stepping into the
casino, by negotiating the odds to be about 50% and then playing
efficient blackjack. [source:
The
Atlantic]
How to win the lottery is easier. Don't play. Karma is easier and less
random.
My karma just ran over your dogma.
Not that karma is easy or random, but I believe in karma more than I
believe in luck. If there's such a thing as luck, I am a very lucky
individual. If karma exists, I have already won the karma lottery.
How do you win the karma lottery? Be good, always, and life will seem
magical and never a gamble.
Music Association: Pilot (or
Selena Gomez) - Magic
Facepalm Sunday
April 1, 2012
Or maybe the
sunlight is too bright for them.
Music Association: The Animals -
House of the Rising Sun
