Lovato, Demi. Here We Go Again. [CD FEMALE VOCALIST LOV]
Poet Mark Doty, in a blurb on the back cover says,This riveting sequence gives voice to a wild raw whirlwind that ruined a city and brought on, in turn, a storm of neglect and murderous indifference. With her radiant powers of empathy, her fiercely acute ear for the musical possibilities of American speech, and her undiluted rage, Patricia Smith makes in Katrina's wake a sorrowful, unflinching, and glorious book.I can't add anything to Doty's statement, other than, you should read this book!
Weather is nothing until it reaches skin,This week the Poetry Friday Round-Up is being hosted by Kate Coombs at Book Aunt.
freezes dust, spits its little swords.
Kept to oceans, feeding only on salted water,
I was a rudderless woman in full tantrum,
throwing my body against worlds I wanted.
I never saw harm in lending that ache.
All I ever wanted to be
was a wet, gorgeous mistake,
a reason to crave shelter.
Farmer Brown thinks it's odd when he hears typing sounds coming from the barn. But his troubles really begin when his cows start leaving him notes. First they demand better working conditions...and then they stage a strike.And then came Thacher Hurd's Moo Cow Kaboom! [JP HUR].
One night, while the pigs and chickens are sound asleep — KABOOM! — Farmer George's Moo Cow disappears! A low-down Space Cowboy has whisked her off to a galaxy far, far away. What's this sweet cow to do now, forced to become the Wild Beast Earthling Moo Cow at the Inter-Galactic Rodeo? Saddle up and get ready to ride Thacher Hurd's zany trip to Planet 246 and back!Followed a few years later by Millie Waits for the Mail by Alexander Steffensmeier [JP STE].
Denys Cazet's Minnie and Moo are Wanted Dead or Alive [E CAZ]. But, they were actually trying to do good!Millie is unlike most other cows. She chews her cud and grazes in the fields with the others, but she doesn’t enjoy that nearly as much as she loves scaring the mail carrier. It’s too bad the mail carrier doesn’t have as much fun each time Millie comes up with a new way to surprise him. Who knew delivering the mail was going to be such a difficult job?
Trying to help Mr. Farmer with his finances, Minnie and Moo go to the bank to ask for money and are mistaken for the Bazooka sisters, dangerous outlaws.
We also have Dayton Duncan's Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip [917.304 DUN], The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey by Ernesto "Che" Guevara [918 GUE], and Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: An All-American Road Trip--with Recipes! [647.9573 FIE] for a variety of road trip experiences.
...For school to start again. Have you run out of entertaining things to do with the kids? Have you thought about cards?
I was browsing the Poetry Foundation website and stumbled across the poetry best sellers lists. The list entitled "Contemporary Best Sellers" was a real eye-opener--of the top ten titles, Mary Oliver's books held 5 spots, including number one, Evidence. This April '09 release is not yet in our collection, but I wrote up an order card, so please check the "new books" shelves in a few weeks. Just to put all this in perspective, Evidence, when I checked Barnes & Noble, was ranked as 6,688. It may be a poetry best seller, but it's by no means a blockbuster! Still, the fact that she owns 7 out of 30 spots on the poetry "Contemporary Best Sellers" list is phenomenal and allows Oliver to make a living through her writing. (I am SO envious!)Freshen, the Flowers, She SaidLove those last two lines! And, you can tell Oliver is writing from experience--unless giving the flowers "a bounce upward at the end" is something you have done before, you'd never think of writing a line like that. And, of course, it is a fabulously effective line!
So I put them in the sink, for the cool porcelain
was tender,
and took out the tattered and cut each stem
on a slant,
trimmed the black and raggy leaves, and set them all--
roses, delphiniums, daisies, iris, lilies,
and more whose names I don't know, in bright new water--
gave them
a bounce upward at the end to let them take
their own choice of position, the wheels, the spurs,
the little sheds of the buds. It took, to do this,
perhaps fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes of music
with nothing playing.
I also have a strong interest in social history, in which fashion plays a large role. I love looking through the section of the library where we have such titles as, Fashions of a Decade [391.009 FAS]. This set covers 8 decades from the 1920s through the 1990s. Other social history fashion books include Fashion in Detail: From the 17th and 18th Centuries by Avril Hart [391 HAR], and Perfect Fit: Clothes, Character, and the Promise of America by Jenna Weissman Joselit [391.0097 JOS].
If you want to eat more vegetables, and who doesn't, but you don't know how to cook them, look to the master chef, Julia Child. Her book, The Way to Cook [641.5 CHI] has more 80 pages on vegetables alone. The color photos in this book are generally small, but are effective in teaching you how to prepare foods (check out p. 284 for the "best way to halve a winter squash.")
It is always a pleasant surprise to randomly pick a book from the shelf and discover a treasure. This happened to me with Vermont Afternoons with Robert Frost by Vrest Orton [811 ORT].The ideas are Robert Frost's. After something, I know not what, had triggered the subconscious mind and made it give up Frost, I managed in my own amateur fashion, to translate what came out into a form that seemed to be, as I remembered it, the way Robert Frost would have wanted the ideas expressed.The little volume (64 pages) is illustrated with old-fashioned, black and white etchings, and, it contains photos of Frost and Orton. The best part, though, is the spare collection of poems. I could hear Frost's voice within the poems--Orton did well by his friend!
The reader, at this point, will probably reach the logical conclusion that the verse in this book is a contrived attempt, even if a poor one at best, to imitate Robert Frost's poetry. He would be wrong.
....
The ideas were told to me by Robert Frost. The form is mine. If the form in which one word follows another seems natural and right but sounds like Frost, I can't help it. The form sprang naturally from the Frost substance.
White Flags in Winter
I
I would never live where I couldn't feel freedom,
I stay here but I live in Vermont:
You don't get off scot-free there with freedom;
They make you take the Freeman's Oath.
II
You've seen the farmwife hanging clothes on the porch:
She never frets how it looks to a passerby.
Freeman don't dwell on their freedom's showing.
She's more concerned if the wind is blowing
To do the drying before the freezing...
If the freezing gets the better of drying
She'll face another chore more trying.
III
Up the road to the Gully last fall
I saw washings out on porch lines.
IV
You will...you will! I call them white flags flying,
Not in surrender but freedom proclaiming.
You should never be surprised...
Vermonters know there are other prides more prized.
The Vermont Energy Act of 2009, passed May 2009.White flags, though, can no longer fly on every patio!
§ 2291a. RENEWABLE ENERGY DEVICES
Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, no municipality, by ordinance, resolution, or other enactment, shall prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the installation of solar collectors, clotheslines, or other energy devices based on renewable resources. This section shall not apply to patio railings in condominiums, cooperatives, or apartments.
The Mount Washington Observatory is a private, non-profit scientific and educational institution organized under the laws of the state of New Hampshire. Its mission is to advance understanding of the natural systems that create the Earth's weather and climate, by maintaining its mountaintop weather station, conducting research and educational programs and interpreting the heritage of the Mount Washington region.
The first regular meteorological observations on Mount Washington were conducted by the U.S. Signal Service, a precursor of the Weather Bureau, from 1870 to 1892. The Mount Washington station was the first of its kind in the world, setting an example followed in many other countries.
The Mount Washington Observatory reoccupied the summit in 1932 through the enthusiasm of a group of individuals who recognized the value of a scientific facility at that demanding location. In April of 1934, observers measured a wind gust of 231 mph, which remains a world record for a surface station. In spite of the hardships imposed by their environment, observers regularly monitored weather under the auspices of the U.S. Weather Bureau, and conducted landmark research in short-wave radio propagation, ice physics and the constitution of clouds. The relationship with the U.S. Weather Service has always been close, but the Observatory is not a part of any government agency.
Shabby Chic's cupcakes were chosen for NH Magazine's [MAG NEW] "Best of NH 2009" issue, and a luscious looking chocolate cupcake adorned the cover of the July issue! Congratulations! It's nice to see local businesses getting recognition! 
Boyle, Tish. The Cake Book. [641.8653 BOY]A humorous tale of Captain Scurvybeard and his band of pirates as they battle Vikings on the high seas, in the courtroom, and in the pastry marketplace, competing to find the coveted recipe for the Cupcakes of Doom, the legendary dessert.
Director John Hughes passed away on Friday at the age of 59. The work of Hughes defined a generation. Internet Movie Database called him the "Bard of Teen Angst."
Over 100 Great Poems to Pronounce Trippingly on the Tongue, from "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Waste Land" to "Casey at the Bat" and "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat"
Read to Your Love, Dramatize for Your Children, Perform at a Party, or Sing in the Shower
Poetry has always been a lifeline for me. When I was a small boy, I began to stutter. From the time I was nearly six until I was about fourteen, I chose silence over speech. I retreated into muteness because my stuttering made speaking too difficult. But because I needed some way to express myself, even to myself, and to track the progress of my mind, I became a "closet" poet. I loved poetry, and began writing it myself.What an awesome story and a testament to the power of poetry!
In one of those fortunate accidents that can change lives, my high school English teacher in Brethren, Michigan, helped me to use poetry to reclaim my ability to speak. When Professor Donald Crouch discovered that I wrote poems, he asked to see some. One seemed to him good enough that he wondered if I might have plagiarized it. To defend myself, I had to read the poem aloud. Since I never spoke at school, this was an ordeal for me, but my honor was at stake. I had no choice but to stand up and read my poem to my teacher and classmates.
To my amazement and theirs, I read it without stumbling.
PROUD SONGSTERS
The thrushes sing as the sun is going
And the finches whistle in ones and pairs,
And as it gets dark loud nightingales
In bushes
Pipe, as they can when April wears,
As if all Time were theirs.
These are brand new birds of twelve-months' growing
Which a year ago, or less than twain
No finches were, nor nightingales,
Nor thrushes,
But only particles of grain,
And earth, and air, and rain.
Franklin Pierce is not a name most people remember. I'll bet if you asked someone who didn't live in NH who Pierce was, 9 out of 10 people would say they didn't know.
Babar the elephant demonstrates and provides step-by-step instructions for basic yoga techniques and positions, then shows how he and Celeste use them to relax and have fun as they travel around the world.
Presents six complete yoga workouts designed for children from three to twelve years of age.
Presents the history of yoga, different styles, yoga benefits, concerns, cautions, misconceptions, equipment, and basic postures, as well as information for those with physical disabilities, and tips on yoga as a part of a lifestyle.
Pictures and simple text portray toddlers in yoga positions.
Di Salle, Rachel. Junk Drawer Jewelry. [J 745.594 DIS]Every time the poor girl mends the broken porcelain vase it becomes something different, providing the means of escaping from her dreary existence of mending junk.It's a perfect little "junk" story that you don't want to miss.
