a bookwrangler...

My perceptive abilities have failed me this time...

2007-08-17T09:13:00.001-07:00

I was more than a little surprised to find that I am more perceptive than I realised...

Last night... ?

2007-05-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

Childrens' books are brilliant aren't they?

Dear all; I have a ... project

2007-03-27T19:16:00.000-07:00

I have a wee project, and I could do with (as they say) a little help from my friends.

I am attempting to collate, curate and create a fascinating collection of the things that people (and by people I mean you lovely, lovely helpful future contributors) find interesting.

Whether you are intrigued by the internal politics of your office, enthralled by the relative merits of futons vs. tatami mats or just plain curious about the fact that hammerhead sharks get sunburn, I would like, nay, love to have your input.

I need quotations in any kind of digital audio format, clearly spoken, although mistakes are perfectly admissible, and an image to attach said quotation to. The image doesn't have to be you, but that would be nice, and I'm not going to attach any names to the images or quotes, promise.
The quote should be you talking about the thing that currently interests you most, scripted is fine, non-scripted is fine, kiswahili, icelandic and french are all fine (although please provide some form of translation) in fact anything at all is fine just so long as I can understand it.

Please, pretty please, may I suggest that should you be nice enough to comply with my weird request, quotes/images are emailed to winesandspirits@tesco.net or xander@qi.com, regular updates to this rather bizarre project will be forthcoming, but first I need some help with the raw materials.

Questions will be answered by me in the traditional manner, with a haka... and a follow up ~~apologetic~~explanatory email.

Disclaimer: I am not, repeat, not going to make a penny out of this... thank you... It's a project. Like show and tell as a kid, only with people, and interesting quotes... and the interweb.

Show and tell 2.0 perhaps?

...and now, the weather...

2007-03-27T08:45:00.001-07:00

As a birthday present goes, BST is bloody brilliant. I love the evening light; as if the day is gently fading-to-black, gin in hand, legs sprawled among the furniture, it's panama hat at a rakish tilt over its brow, languorously allowing the light to drain away in unnoticed sips...

Anyone for sundowners?

B: Sideways , Rex Pickett; Nightwatch, T Pratchett

dither-y suspicious...

2007-03-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

Bloomin' suspicious letter from a bank-that-I-no-longer-hold-an-account-with this morning, makes me wonder if I'm now on some kind of bank-revenge-hit-list somewhere in the bowels of the world of personal finance.

I've been grappling with CP Snow's Two Cultures recently; what he's saying is great, despite the outdated examples, although the language is just a bit too stuffy and rambling. I'm sure that in person it would have been far more bearable.

Since finishing with school/university, its been rare for my opinions about education to put me in the throes of a good rant, but with this little book urging me to question why I think what I think, (and if what I thunk needs changing... given some thought on the matter?) and to be proud of my decision to do the IB, to have subjected myself to a multitude of disciplines and, most importantly, to have challenged myself with the new and the frightening.

What I did at Uni, nay, from 16 up, really could do with some looking at... why I'm here and now is a definite, concrete result of the there and then. Desperate not to let a narrow curriculum limit my possible directions, I may have led myself down a garden-path which is, in truth, merely abetting my natural inclination to dithering.

If so, is the very fact that I have tendency to allow life to happen to me, a result, cause, effect, symptom of (or perhaps merely a correlation with) the above?

Any suggestions for a ball-grabbing, sock-pulling, bootstrap-lifting inspiration thingamabob that'll help get my goose going?

In other news:

When you have a really good, 'wracked with sobs' kind of prolonged blubbering outburst, its impact is extremely exhausting. Two days ago and I still ache. In future I need to book time off real lifebefore I decide to have a minor breakdown.

B:Two Cultures C.P.Snow

It's all in the...

2007-03-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

...Timing?

2 buses down, one more to complete the metaphor.

Assuming regular spacing of current events , it's late.

...Mix?

Liking the random and revealing nature of the past week's contretemps

Hating that I have to wait 'til Monday for the swanky new computer

Mulling the facts...

Remaining on a minor caffeine comedown

...Score?

Big-bastard-bank-company-of-nefarious-intent: 0
Bookwrangler: 1

Damn, as they say, the man.

...Execution?

Perhaps, just perhaps;

victoryinbattlesagainstcoporategreed+illcommunicated
impendingnegativejobtonojobratio+earlyeveninglight
thisearly x e (for enhanced electronic abilities)

= a better outlook

B:Neither Here Nor There B. Bryson

Still...

2007-02-25T08:45:00.000-08:00

Still:

- Livid, though it seems to be settling into a low level world-weary derision

- Amazed by the awkward and honest way that youngsters use their bodies, it in turns embarrasses , confounds, and astounds me

- Trying to become more human again after 33 days straight at work and then the apocolypsis of lightly imparted (work-gripe related) death knells

- Calming; like aloe on a raw wound, my last two days have cooled me, but only time will really begin to make it less sore

- Really happy that my brothers seem to be negotiating themselves through their difficult days with far more aplomb, better dress sense and greater grace than ever I did

- Nostalgic for the ease of August, and the pleasant sensations of sloth and evenings full of possibility that an early dusk brings

- Looking.

B: Freakonomics, Dubner and Levitt; Dirk Gently... Douglas Adams; If Minds Had Toes Lucy Eyre

Grrrr...

2007-02-21T05:31:00.000-08:00

Gnnnnnnnnnnnnggggg...

I am absolutely livid...

It remains to be seen if this is lasting, but whence not even brown leather brogues and the blues cheer me ... ominous indeed.

I shall explain in due course.

B: Anger Robert A. F. Thurman

Stripey shoes

2007-02-20T13:01:00.000-08:00

I have an unbridled and inexplicable love of these shoes. Made, bizarrely, by fender... The guitar people.

debts and bets... I have decided

2007-02-16T07:37:00.000-08:00

should I win my impending argument with my bank, I shall be taking myself (with my spoils) across the pond for a brief sojourn 'pon the wilds of the American East coast

I bet;

- that i don't get back as much from the bank as i'm owed (well, yeah)
- that I find that all the people I know who live out there have shifted/are shifting cities exactly the week I arrive
- that I forget to take something vital with me
- that whatever happens I will come back with at least two dozen books

I am, it seems, forever a pessimist and not a gambler...

* And in the weather today: I'm back in upper case, for a while at least.

(first) bookstack of the year

2007-02-13T08:48:00.001-08:00

these are (most of - at least all the ones present in the store) the books I finished in January… aided and abetted by a five day holiday at the start…

B: Look We Have Coming To Dover - Daljit Nagra; What's Left - Nick Cohen; Measuring The World - Daniel Kehlmann

capital punishment

2007-02-01T10:33:00.000-08:00

today i feel diminished

and

i’m not quite sure about how this writing-stuff-down-malarky feels yet.

reading the bio-scribbles of others often makes me happy, i’m absorbed in their life, filling in versions of their truths with my imagination. frequently i will become so hooked on a stumbled upon author, that i read through their archive to the present, but i cant begin to imagine how that would be for people reading through me.

i’m never certain that i’m able to be honest on the page. i’m too aware of the explicit desire to be read that it expresses, it seems somehow so presumptive and i’m very wary of that.

so for today, i shall write myself in a lower case. it shadows my mood, reflects my uncertainties and better than that, includes my judgements before it gets read. which is really the crux of it all; judging what i’ve done before i’ve done it and claiming it as a result of fear of others judging me.

punishment through typeface choices; at least that’s context.

i am, i think, just a little more frightened of me than i knew before.

how silly.

B:Speed Of Light - Javier Cercas; Fixed Ideas - Joan Didion

bookwrangler writes... and counts

2007-01-31T05:36:00.000-08:00

I am surrounded by books.

Two thousand three hundred and seventy nine books to be precise.
The 'Auditors', who I like to imagine as Pratchett-esque figures with long, black hoods and an unbending logic, have asked us to count them.

Again.

'Lifeless lumps of paper' they may be but, 'minds on the shelves' tells it more honestly and more honourably.

Why count them? Why should I reckon the ideas and lives surrounding me, as if I am responsible for only their cataloguing and not, in fact, also their carer? I am bound to these books, and to the boundaries of this room, but the books allow me an endless sense of thoughtful wanderlust. I am cocooned in one of the calmer rooms in Borges' library of Babel, one that I can almost understand.

How anyone can ignore the broader implications of these books is beyond me, but something I find more compelling is how those involved with the creation of the printed page could fail to be excited by a room full of them. We had almost 100 employees of a certain publishing company in the building for a meet and greet last night, and not one poked their head through the door, stepped inside or even commented on the fact that there was a room full of books adjacent to where they drank.
Is it unfair to assume that those who are responsible for creating something should be excited by its resulting creation in any form? Do artists not generally enjoy the art of others? Would a fashion designer stroll past a catwalk and not glance at the competing creations on display?
I would expect those in any industry to judge others work against that which they know; informed judgement is reasonable and expected, and the internal comparative critic certainly resides happily inside me. But to make no comparison, to garner no context, to entirely miss the chance to appraise those things that compete with us for a living? To remain unconscious to ones material contemporaries is as incomprehensible to me as an athlete being totally unaware of those they're racing with.

So with the spirit of a thought-safari, I race with the books, they are companions as much as competitors and like the athletes in the first pan-America marathon we keep each other company, soothe each others blisters and ask each other questions, as well as beginning to ask questions of ourselves.

Whilst writing the nice Bodleian library man has just brought me seventeen new books.

Two thousand three hundred and ni…

B:They Shoot Horses Don't They - Horace McCoy

Fantastic scooby

2007-01-11T12:29:00.000-08:00

This makes me smile inside...