Ode to the Card Catalog.

‘ve recently become connected with Our.City.Lights. both on Twitter and on Etsy. So, of course, I took full advantage of procrastination-from-grading and had way too much fun poring through her blog (which is awesome, by the way — please go forth and visit HERE). And that’s when I found the freakin’ holy grail of literary/library/typewritten/handwritten/nerdy awesomeness that is known as: THE CATALOG CARD GENERATOR.

Oh yeah, that’s right.

I plan to use it rather excessively. Consider yourselves warned.

For example…

#1: Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song” (featured in my last pog), the abbreviated catalog card version:

#2: Excerpts from one of my own works in progress, called “Four Rings”:

#3: In honor of the upcoming Oprah-SarahPalin interview, which I cannot freakin’ wait to see, strictly because of the new quotes that will be immortalized:

Timeline of an Unfortunate Week

Sunday

I woke up with my eyelids crusted shut. Once crusties were painfully removed, they revealed a very pink eye and swollen eyelids. I pretty much resembled a cyclops.

Monday

I was diagnosed with pink eye by the same man who once criticized my verbiage when I declared that “I suffer from clinical depression.” He felt that I was giving too much power to the illness. I felt that he had an unfortunately crooked toupée and Urkel pants, but at least I had the common decency to keep it to myself.

I began dropping prescribed liquid into my eye socket, which I soon discovered to be somewhat counterintuitive. The eye drops surely helped clear up whatever havoc was being wreaked, but the liquid proved sticky. And my eyelashes were pretty well set on their sticky quota. Thus began the semi-permanent Cyclopsdom for the next several days.

Tuesday

I haven’t acknowledged this on my blog yet because it’s just been completely horrific and perpetually saddening. But my brother-in-law’s 11-year-old niece (whom I affectionately refer to as my “niece-in-law”) was in a near-drowning accident two weeks ago. She remains in critical condition in the Pediatric ICU of a local hospital. It’s been quite touch-and-go. There have definitely been some semi-miraculous improvements but, overall, she has quite a long path to tread before she can be considered “out of the woods.” She lost a lot of oxygen to the brain and there continues to be swelling. She is unconscious and remains on a ventilator. Some of her organs have begun functioning well (her kidneys, for example, are working well and she is able to relieve herself, which is a good sign that she can at least digest in some manner). Unfortunately, she seems to take two paces forward, but then about 10 leaps backward. It’s unbearably frustrating and heartbreaking.

On Tuesday she suffered a severe seizure (ventricular tachycardia – where the heart experiences severe arrhythmia) and the doctors had to bring in a crash cart to revive her, which they did. Very rough day for everyone, especially her parents who were there (and who remain with her constantly, 24/7) and witnessed the entire episode.

Due to my pink eye quarantine, I was (and remain) unable to visit the hospital.

Wednesday

Despite all that had been going on, I somehow managed to complete a draft of my new Dissertation Prospectus. Have I mentioned that I’ve decided to shift my original topic? Yeah. It’s a good move, I promise. In any case, the Prospectus completion marks the one shining star of the week, the one sparkly positive in a week from hell.

Throughout the day, however, my throat began closing up and, as a result, angering me.

I was still a quarantined cyclops, mind you.

Thursday

I woke up with the typical eyelid crustation, but newly accompanied by aches throughout my entire body, specifically focused on my upper body. And particularly honing in on that large chunk of matter between my ears.

At approximately 4pm, I donned a snow hat, gloves, and Smart Wool socks before slithering underneath a fleece blanket. It was 80°F in my apartment.

Friday

For the first time all week, I woke up without my eyelids crusted shut. So that was an improvement. The swelling and pinkness was about 85% gone. Another improvement. My aches from the previous day seemed to have mostly hightailed it as well. And I no longer needed my snow suit.

Unfortunately, I could barely swallow. Correction: I could swallow. But every time I did swallow, it felt curiously as though shards of glass were being lodged in my throat and forced downward in Psycho-like fashion. Which I suppose would be OK if I were some type of sideshow act in the circus. But I’m not. Though, I bet a glass-swallowing cyclops could make a killing.

I felt quite certain I had strep throat. Strep and I were pretty frequent playmates throughout junior high and high school, and you just don’t forget someone like Strep. So I swung by my university’s health center to get a throat culture. Unfortunately, it was game day, and baseball fans kindly selected the spots right in front of a STUDENT HEALTH CENTER for their parking needs. So I did a few drive-bys (in vain), and then I went back home, none the wiser.

Later that night, I was sitting on my bed reading through blogs on my laptop (common occurrence), and I had a full glass of orange soda sitting on the floor next to my bed. Poor location choice in retrospect, considering that three extremely important, extremely valuable piles of books/articles also sat on the floor next to my bed.

One kick of the foot later, and all books and articles were splashed with a vibrant shade of orange. Now, I can deal with the pink eye, the Cyclopsdom, and I can even deal with swallowing shards of glass. But when the life of my most precious literary children are threatened??? Hyperventilation, shock-and-awe, and general denial ensued.

The most tragic of all: my two Pléïade editions of Alfred de Vigny’s works were among the orange soda victims. PLÉÏADE EDITIONS!!!!! Granted, I got one of them (the less important one for my studies) used. But Vol 1 cost me roughly 55 €. That’s roughly $80, FYI. For one book. One book containing all the works I will reference in my dissertation. And works that I cherish. That are now tie-dyed orange.

Among the other Orange Soda Victims (OSV): the latest edition of the MLA Handbook, 3 library books on translation theory, my most recent copies of The Bell Jar, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Jim Morrison’s The Lords and the New Creatures, my Oxford French-English Dictionary, and a handful of rare articles and texts found online or via Inter-Library Loan that I had printed out and collected in a binder. Which was laying open.

So that was fun.

Saturday

Another day, another glass shard in the throat. My university’s health center is closed on weekends because apparently university people don’t get sick on Saturdays and Sundays. I guess I never got that immunization. So I ended up at a local ER, waiting 500 times longer than necessary for a stupid throat culture. A bajillion years later, I received the diagnosis of “Pharyngitis: presumed strep,” accompanied by a prescription for penicillin and the following happy parting gift from the doctor: “If your aches and ear pressure continue, I’d suggest you return to your health center on Monday to make sure you don’t have mono.”

Later I found out that my dear niece-in-law had another severe seizure. And it is likely that they will need to amputate a foot and portions of her fingers due to blood clotting.

Because I now have strep and am a veritable contagion, I remain unable to visit the hospital. Or anyone/anywhere, really.

Only I would get pink eye and strep in the same week. While also ruining hundreds of dollars in research material. Ending up unable to visit my dear little niece-in-law in the hospital.

New Week

This next week can only be better, right? After all, tonight marks the Season 3 premiere of Mad Men on AMC! So, in celebration of the return of the best show on television (according to me) and the glory it promises to bring to my life this week, I give you the following links:

1. MadMenYourself.com

Were I teleported back to 1960, I might look a little something like this:

MadMen yourself by clicking on the link above!

2. When Cocktails Were Office Supplies: Mad Men’s “Alcohol Department”

Great New York Times article, “Sixties Accuracy in Every Sip,” by Robert Simonson.

3. 15 Feminist Moments From Mad Men

I have to admit that a couple of these “feminist moments” are questionably “feminist,” but it’s still a collection of great clips from past seasons involving all of the Mad (wo)Men.

4. Is Mad Men a Feminist Show?

For an article purported to focus on feminist politics within the show, Matlack pays a suspicious amount of attention to Don Draper and his beguiling ways.

5. A Return to That Drop-Dead Year 1960

New York Times article by Ruth LaFerla, which focuses on Mad Men’s close attention to 1960’s fashion detail.

Image source: http://lulubliss.typepad.com/

6. Banana Republic launches Mad Men-inspired campaign

No, seriously. This Washington Times article confirms it, along with the expression, “That’s very MadMenish,” as a complimentary assessment of one’s stylish outfit.

The axe for the frozen sea inside us…

think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.”

—Franz Kafka, in a letter to Oskar Pollak (27 January 1904)

This quote wrecks me. Because it precisely articulates EXACTLY how I feel.

This quote is included as the epigraph of Jeffrey Berman’s Surviving Literary Suicide, which is a frequent resource for my course on the figure of the tortured poet.

(*Initial “I” found HERE)

I’ve got Shakespeare wrapped around my… hand.

he other day, I was very graciously introduced to the lovely recycled book handbags of Spoonful of Chocolate Hope. Haven’t you always wanted Jane Eyre or Anne of Green Gables hanging on your arm? Yeah, me too.

And as if the literary awesomeness of these bags weren’t enough, Ms. Spoonful’s mission proves even more admirable: all profits are going to her father, who is currently struggling to keep the house that he built with his own two hands when he immigrated to America.

On her Etsy site, Ms. Spoonful assures us that no books were harmed in the making of these lovely little handbags:

I take gently used books and only use the covers. I then take the sleeve and wrap it back on to the fully in-tact book and donate it to a Refugee Center here in Arizona called the IRC. 
However, if you would like for me to make a new matching cover for the book, please let me know it would be an additional $15. You can view an example of the book cover here:
http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=17233784

Some of my favorites, all of which are available in her Etsy store:

I am in love with the toile lining of this one...

Much ado about... something awesome

Your keys and dollar bills would love it here.

Jane Eyre is green with envy. I would be too.

Did I mention that Ms. Spoonful takes custom orders?? Yep. I’ve already been in touch with her about a Frenchified handbag…

Go forth and visit, please: SPOONFUL OF CHOCOLATE HOPE!

Thanks to LittleBrownPen for introducing me. In fact, you should probably go visit her as well, please.

(*Initial “T” found HERE)

Books read > Blogs read

And furthermore: what’s the deal with Kindle? A book is not a book unless I can flag pages, take notes in it, and use it as an obvious signal that people should leave me alone in public spaces. I don’t want wireless reading. I want tattered-pages-that-occasionally-wear-and-tear reading. 

*Image found via A Bugged Life; created by Analog Soul

Is that a book on your finger, or are you just happy to see me?

ews of Nicholas Hughes’ suicide made me sad. Certain treatments of his passing made me mad. So, understandably, I wanted something to make me…glad?

I’m having monosyllabic rhyming issues at the moment.

Anyway, thankfully, I found this:

Yes, that’s right: it’s a ring with tiny little books attached! And you can even write on the tiny little pages of the tiny little books!

This book ring almost compensates for a suicide. Almost.

In any case, you can find it (and other interesting creations) on Ana Cardim’s website.

 

(*Inital “N” found HERE)

Holy crizzap! Someone tagged me!

o one’s ever tagged me before! This is so freakin’ exciting! I probably feel more important than I should, but hey… for a girl who generally sloshes around in vats of low-salt low self-esteem, I’ll take what I can get! (I don’t know what I mean by “low-salt self-esteem” either, so please don’t ask)

OK, so the graphic novel-loving Un-Mom tagged me on the so-called “Bookworm Meme,” and I am nothing if not a highly dutiful tag player. So I’ll play.

But first I just have to say that I really don’t care for all this “meme” nonsense. Not the “memes” themselves — those are often highly educational and entertaining. OK OK, the real reason I enjoy “memes” is because I always love an excuse to take a pause from my grading (see my “Overheard” pog below). But anyway, my gripe with “meme”-ing concerns the very title of “meme.” See, in French, “même” means “same” or “even,” depending on the context. And, granted, a non-French “meme” DOES represent a like-minded (same) thread of information that is being passed on, so it DOES relate to the French, but… I don’t know. I just instinctively think of the French expression “quand même” (“even so/ all the same/ anyway”) rather than “fill this out and pass it on.” It’s confusing, OK? OK. I’ll shut up and fill out the d@mn (quand)meme:

BOOKWORM MEME!

RULES:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next two to five sentences.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book or the intellectual one. Pick the closest.
6. Tag five people to do the same.

OK, closest book (not in French) = The Madwoman in the Attic, by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar. It’s awesome, just in case you wondered. But, umm, to be honest, it’s seriously (and literally) been collecting dust for almost a year now. True story. So it’s probably good that I’m picking it up and shaking off the dust bunnies and stuff. Anyway, you ready for this jelly shiz? Page 56 actually includes a ton of quoted material, which I kind of don’t think should count. So if I go to Gilbert & Gubar’s own writing, the fifth sentence actually ends up occurring on page 57. How come I always get the pain-in-the-A texts?!? Anyway, here’s the sentences five through eight, which also include some quotes from an Anne Sexton poem, in case you care:

After all, dancing the death dance, ‘all those girls / who wore the red shoes’ dismantle their own bodies, like anorexics renouncing the guilty weight of their female flesh. But if their arms, ears, and heads fall off, perhaps their wombs, too, will ’shrivel’ to ‘the size of a pea’?

In this connection, a passage from Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle acts almost as a gloss on the conflict between creativity and ‘femininity’ which Sexton’s violent imagery embodies (or dis-embodies). Significantly, the protagonist of Atwood’s novel is a writer of the sort of fiction that has recently been called ‘female gothic,’ and even more significantly she too projects her anxieties of authorship into the fairy-tale metaphor of the red shoes.

Fun times!

OK, so now I have to tag five people. Hmm… Let me think… Whose books do I oddly care to discover? 

OK, I’ve decided.

CONSIDER YOURSELVES TAGGED:

1. Melanie at Secret Notebooks/Wild Pages,
2. The New Kid on the Hallway,
3. Katrina at Pugly Feet,
4. Anna at abdpbt.com,
and
5. StyleyGeek at Fumbling Towards Geekdom

I know that all five of you have WAY more important things to do than look up the fifth sentence on the 56th page of your nearest book, but… then again, don’t you want a break from those “important things”? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

ps) why the 56th page?
pss) why the fifth sentence and not, say, the sixth? WHO ARE THESE “MEME” PEOPLE ANYWAY?!? AHHHHHH!

Sometimes I’m not a *total* loser.

nna e-mailed me this morning to inform me that I was voted the winner of her Sucky Sweepstakes contest! I won the $100 American Express Gift-Card!!!!! 

Needless to say, my gratitude stretches for miles, and I could bounce with joy…if I weren’t kind of, you know, NOT a bouncer. Anyway… this makes me very excited because I can now afford to buy my sister a baby shower gift, among other things. Yay!! Thanks to any and all of you who may have voted for me. Oh, and thanks to that Japanese chick for wacking her virtual husband. 

PS) Canine update: Lucy, my canine niece, is now healed and officially cone-less… and VERY happy about it.

PSS) I think I’m going to add a little entry in my right column where I display the book(s) I’m currently reading. I become so affected by the texts — whether they’re being read for the course I teach or otherwise — so… I don’t know… rather than rambling on about the books (though I can’t promise I still won’t do that on occasion), I figured I might as well just list those bad-boys on my page so you know what I’m dealing with… But do any of you even really care? Will you be tempted to leak the titles to Sarah Palin and her cronies, thereby endangering the books’ future presence in Alaskan libraries? Just curious.

Saturday Acronym, Palin-inspired

News headlines in acronym format, inspired by Governor Palin’s VP Debate performance:

 

upport group to be formed for six-pack efficianados NOT named Joe. Say it ain’t so!

 

 

 

laska to adopt pitbull as state bird.

 

 

 

rig Palin absent from campaign photo ops since this afternoon. DSS alerted.

 

 

 

ltra Last Red Blood-Drawn-From-A-Pitbull Long-Wearing Lipstick now available from N.Y.C. Cosmetics.

 

 

eading un-banned Dostoyevski or Nabokov now counts as foreign policy experience.

 

 

 

rop the “g” on “-ing” words, earn a tax break.

 

 

nswer all questions with either “special needs,” “maverick,” “special needs,” “yer darn right,” “special needs,” “God’s will,” “special needs,” “ole boys’ network,” “special needs,” or “nuke-yuh-lerr,” earn a new huntin’ rifle. 

 

 

 

ell at pregnant rape victims to choose life, earn a wink.

Debatin’ (drink) with Sarah Palin (drink)!

f I were a drinkin’ girl and didn’t have a cr@pload of gradin’ to do tonight, I’d enforce a drinkin’ game for the VP Debate that involves takin’ a drink every time Sarah Palin disses the “g” on words endin’ in the “-ing” suffix.

Example: “Ya know, Joe, I’m beginnin’ (drink) to think you’re right about me missin’ (drink) some brain cells and havin’ (drink) a few screws loose, ’cause I can’t even tell ya one single book or magazine I’ve read since bein’ (drink) so blessed and privileged to’ve been elected mayor of the great town ‘a Wasilla, Alaska.”

Gun-totin' (drink) Palin (drink)!

If you wanna (drink) get REALLY crazy, you could take a drink every time she says “ya” or shortens any word into a slacked-off version of its correct usage. An’ (drink) if ya (drink) wanna (drink) go ahead ‘n (drink) try that game, the above quote would be lookin’ (drink) somethin’ (drink) like this:

Example: ”Ya (drink) know, Joe, I’m beginnin’ (drink) to think you’re right about me missin’ (drink) some brain cells and havin’ (drink) a few screws loose, ’cause (drink) I can’t even tell ya (drink) one single book or magazine I’ve read since bein’ (drink) so blessed and privileged to’ve (drink) been elected mayor of the great town ‘a (drink) Wasilla, Alaska.”

Ya (drink) know what? I’m actually beginnin’ (drink) to have doubts that her last name is really “Palin.” For all we know, it’s really PALING, and she’s just bein’ (drink) lazy.