Egads, You're Right

Sabrina, you're right. And because I love you, I'm going to give you some excuses for why I've been absent from le blog. (In order that I think of them, not in order of importance.)

1. School. Specifically, The School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University (Indianapolis). I'm two semesters in and just started volunteering at a PreK-8 parochial school on our city's north side that had to cut their media specialist for budgetary reasons; I'm cataloging books, developing a collection development plan (which I'm a little surprised they didn't have already), and then will commence the task of weeding (which hasn't been done in about 20 years).

2. Podcasts. Not mine, mind you. Rather, I am listening obsessively to a podcast called The Enthusiasticast, in which they enthusiastically recommend (roughly) one book each week. These two Canuks have saucy mouths, strong opinions, and magic recommendations (not necessarily in that order). Seriously. It is a rare occasion that I don't add their recommendations to my "To Be Read" list. I came in late to the party, so I've been listening a lot to get through the backlog and get up to date. Books that I've added to my list based on their recommendation(s):

• The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter
• The City & The City by China Mieville
• The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
• His Majesty's Dragon (Temeraire #1) by Naomi Novik
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (although, in my defense, I usually read the Pulitzer winners, but was choosing to let this one languish until [the loud one, John?] talked about all of the wicked comic references and pushed me over the edge)
• All-Star Superman (Volume 1 and Volume 2) by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
• Daemon and Freedom(TM) by Daniel Suarez
• Flawless by Scott Andrew Selby and Greg Campbell
• SuperFreakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (and a bunch of other behavioral economics books)
• Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

That's quite a list, no? That's what I like--the recommendations are broad and fun to listen to. (Not wholly unlike the Books on the Nightstand podcast that put me onto The Enthusiasticast.) I'm not interested in taking their recommendation to read WAR by Sebastian Junger, but I put Restrepo (the documentary complement) on the top of my Netflix queue--a coveted spot.

[Note: Those links are to the books on GoodReads... not to their podcast-ed recommendations. You'll have to go to the linked mainpage for the Podcast and do the legwork to track down each individual title. Or just take my word for it, and add them to your list too.]

3. Church. For some time (over a year) I've been working with our Middle School and High School students at First Baptist--teaching on Sunday mornings and serving as the girls' small group leader/mentor on Wednesday nights--and loving it. This summer we took a sweet trip to Creation Fest (in Pennsylvania) and had a rock-your-face-off awesome time. Since then I've been trying to step up and keep the kids "high on life." This means doing an extra weekly small group with just the girls to talk about "stuff" and I'm planning an "Impact Retreat" out to Philadelphia for next month. The investment is SO worth it.

4. Football. My nephew is in the throws of High School Football--he's an outside line backer--so every Friday night (Varsity) and Saturday morning (JV) is blocked out for watching him play. I can't say that it's time wasted. I love high school football. A lot. Perhaps too much? Impossible.

So that's me. What have you been up to?

Hit and Miss

I'm sorry I've been so hit and miss about updating the blog recently... and it's only going to get worse because tomorrow I head out for my week of volunteer service at Royal Family Kids Camp.

In the mean time, satiate yourselves by reading my review of Love is a Mix Tape which is a memoir of the (tragic) love story of the couple above--then go out and hunt until you find a copy of the book and read it yourselves.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia

Who would have ever thought that Marcia Brady (that picture-perfect representation of future teen models and Davey Jones fans the whole world over) would have traded sex for drugs.

Maureen McCormick released her tell-all book, and it's been setting off some interesting revelations about the life and times of a 70's television icon. Although, the people over at this blog think the book came out about 30 years too late, and the people at Best Week Ever think the book should have been titled Okay, Here’s The Deal: I Was A Child Star, and It Totally Screwed Up My Life, And Now I’m Going To Try And Make One Last Buck Off It, Okay?

How about you... do you think the world needs another "Brady Bunch" expose?

Re-Post: Out, About and Dancing

A portion of this post was originally put on the now defunct "What Was I Thinking?" blog on July 18, 2008. Reposted here for your enjoyment.

I'm going to wrap up this week of blogging with a re-cap of yesterday's "activities" and highlights of the week to come... everybody strapped in for this whirl-wind blog?

Yesterday, I went and viewed the special exhibit at the IMA, "On the Road," with a special presentation by exhibit curator (from Indiana University) David Canary--his lecture was quite interesting and humerous, detailing his travels with "The Scroll." There was a short film that was put together by some University of Iowa students about Jack Kerouac's scroll that was then shown. One interview during the film was from a gentleman who said the motto of the beatnik generation was, "Be Here Now," and with the rise of the iPod and cell phone, our current motto is more like, "Be Somewhere Else Now." My, how times have changed. After the lecture and film, I went up to the third floor (contemporary art) and viewed the exhibit.



This photo shows a sample of the Robert Frank photographs that surround the Kerouac scroll in the gallery. Back story: Robert Frank (fellow beatnik and friend of Jack Kerouac) took a two-year, cross-country trip (New York, down the eastern sea board, through the southwest, up California, across the north, down through Chicago, and ending in Indianapolis) that was funded by the Guggenheim and he chronicled his trip with photographs. Frank wasn't making a "scrapbook" of his travels, rather a living history of what the country looked like at the time. His photos are presented in the book Robert Frank: The Americans.



This photo shows some people viewing the Jack Kerouac scroll (the 84' that is visible at the IMA installation). It was kind of amazing standing that close to the original scroll, viewing the editing notes that Kerouac made in his own hand that are still visible, wondering what was going through his head when he was re-reading the manuscript. The story goes (as told by David Canary) that Kerouac used the scroll (not really Teletype) because he typed roughly 100 words per minute, and wanted to be able to get his thoughts out in a stream of consciousness, rather than having to stop and feed individual sheets of paper into the typewriter. He eventually re-typed the manuscript into a format the was suitable for presenting to publishers, but this was the first draft of the now ground-breaking book.



This is another of Frank's photographs that struck me as interesting. It's hard to see in the photo, but this is a picture of a display of cemetary wreaths in a department store with a sign that says, "Remember Your Loved Ones, 69 cents." I was kind of thinking about what value we place on our families now... hmm.

I saw some other really interesting installations in the Contemporary Art Gallery that I didn't take photos of. Here are links to the IMA site with photos of their art: Do-Ho Suh, Floor (Untitled); Kara Walker, They Waz Nice White Folks While They Lasted (Sez One Gal to Another); Scott Stack, Apartment (I couldn't find a link to this on IMA, this is from another gallery). If you're interested in contemporary art (because so many people are), I'd suggest checking out the PBS series Art:21 (a series reviewing art in the 21st Century).

This is a photograph of a dress in the Simply Halston exhibit (2nd Floor, Textiles Gallery). The Simply Halston isn't quite as interesting as the Dior exhibit that was there last year, but Dior was hard to match. Interesting, none the less.

Anyway... after the exhibit at IMA...

Re-Post: On the Road at IMA

This post was originally put on the now defunct "What Was I Thinking?" blog on July 9, 2008. Reposted here for your enjoyment.

So, there's this awesome exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA, to the in-crowd) that I wanted to share with you all. I read an article in NUVO (see the article here) about how the original Teletype scroll that Jack Kerouac used to type his single-spaced manuscript sans punctuation of On the Road had been purchased by Jim Irsay (former narco-addict owner of the Indianapolis Colts) and was making the rounds of museums. The scroll is now on display at IMA, being showcased as a form of art.

The exhibit sounds interesting, and I'm planning to catch it next Thursday with a screening of the documentary, On the Road Now: Artists and Writers Respond to Kerouac in the 21st Century. Although I do love to visit the free IMA (I caught their Christian Dior exhibit this past spring), this isn't the sort of thing I do that often. However, seeing as how I'm always complaining about the fact that Indianapolis is the armpit of the U.S. without a good cultural scene, I have to be more proactive about making the most of the offerings that are provided.

I encourage you to check out the article because there are some cool photos of the work that went on at the IMA to install the exhibit. Anybody else have suggestions for other interesting cultural attractions in the Indianapolis area?