Stephen's blog

South Florida Renaissance Festival, 1st weekend

2012-02-11T17:51:00.000-08:00

Today was the first day of the first weekend of the 20th anniversary season of the South Florida Renaissance Festival. The weather obviously had been drizzly and rainy earlier in the morning, but when I looked outside about 8:00 this morning it hadn't been raining for a while and although it was still grey & cloudy it didn't look like it was going to rain, so because I'm working tomorrow I needed to go today if I wanted to go at all, I took the chance and left right after doing my daily 45 minute/2 mile walk for exercise. (No rain the rest of the day, and the sun actually broke through the clouds about 3ish, so I took my sweatshirt off until I needed to put it on again around 4:30-4:45.)

I actually wound up with a parking spot that was probably the easiest to find afterwards I've ever had at any event.

The faire fare for adults is $20 each day, but the season ticket--which allows you to go as many times as you want--is $50. Since I plan on going at least one day each weekend the faire is on, even taking Mom along when she's here, I went for the season pass.

Let me make one thing clear at the start--I primarily go for the music. Although I do enjoy things like acrobatics such as Jayna Lee
(she's also rather cute and has a great sense of humor), juggling and comedy such as Moonie, Broon, and Moonie & Broon together, and comedy shows like the Washing Well Wenches and the Mud Show, and musical comedy like Iris & Rose, I'm really there for the music. On weekends when I'll go both days, I'll focus on music the first day, and then try to take in a couple of the other shows the next day.

This season looks like it's going to be great for the music. There are a couple of acts I've seen before in the past, like Celtic Mayhem, and the Harper & the Minstrel, whom I like quite a bit. A couple of the local Irish dancing schools are making appearances, as are some gypsy belly dancers, and I'll try to catch them a couple of times as well. One of the traveling carillons of Cast in Bronze is there again this year, and I really like that as well. In a couple of weeks the feature guest band will be Fushu Daiko, S Florida's resident taiko band, of whom I'm a big fan.

What I'm really excited about is that I haven't actually seen three of the bands there throughout the show, and this weekend's guest/featured band, live at all but only on the Ren faire podcasts I listen to, and I've liked what I've heard of the music from each of those acts.

This is Celtic weekend, a bit early to my way of thinking (oh well--the faire ends the weekend before St Patrick's day, and that's Battle weekend).

This weekend's guest band is Albannach, who play Scottish tribal drumming with a bagpiper. I caught all four of their shows, and they were fantastic, although since they didn't introduce any of their songs you could sometimes wonder if you'd heard that one before.

I also caught some of an act from two of the other bands I've never seen before. I saw the Iron Hill Vagabonds, two brothers who perform Irish music, and liked them quite a bit. I also saw Wolgemut, who play Renaissance and earlier music from Germany, Flanders, and France. They're probably one of the more serious musical acts there this year, and they're also very good, but I have to admit that one of the best parts of hearing their music on the Ren faire podcasts is listening to the hosts try and pronounce the names of their songs.

There were a lot of very lovely women wandering around the faire, many of them in costume which made them even lovelier--I have to admit I love a gorgeous woman in a pirate costume. Belly dancers are also a popular outfit, and many of the women wearing those could actually dance as well.

Here's the kind of mashup that takes place which makes me really love the faire. Each time when Albannach were playing--the ones with the Scottish tribal drumming and the bagpiper--there were belly dancers in the audience, and they were often over on the side dancing. At one time, not only did we have the belly dancers off to one side of the area, but on the other side we had a gypsy lass, an adorable little girl in a lady bug costume, and a red-haired fairy dressed in red dancing together, with the gypsy's guy just kind of stepping along by himself. And when I saw Wolgemut, which consists of two drummers, a guy playing the dudelsack (German bagpipe), and another guy playing a double-reed instrument that kind of sounds like the chanter on bagpipes, there was a bellydancer in the audience--the guys were able to convince her to dance while they played for her. And here's the thing--because the music that Albannach and Wolgemut play are so heavy on rhythm, their music and the belly dancers actually worked very well together.

At the end of the day, I did something I've never before--I hung around for the Pub Sing. This is when most of the musicians from the different acts get together, and take turns leading and soloing, and play lots of music to sing along with. It was fantastic, in some ways the best part of the day. I have to admit that during the last song, "The parting glass", I did get a bit teary eyed, remembering people I once knew and loved and lost or just don't see anymore, and people like my family I don't see much of anymore either.

It was a wonderful day. It'll make getting through tomorrow and the rest of the work week, which really isn't all that difficult anyway, all the easier. Since I work tomorrow, I'm off three days next weekend. That means that if the weather's good I can run errands Friday and go back to the faire both Saturday and Sunday.

Walking

2011-12-30T17:17:00.000-08:00

Day 365. I used the abs exerciser early this morning, and since it’s a lovely day I left early enough to do the RiverWalk before work this morning. Today’s soundtrack, the latest episode of the Celt in a Twist podcast, their 2011 top 12 (1 for each month, of course).

I have now gone for a walk, outdoors or inside on a treadmill, for at least half an hour (usually 45 minutes) every day for a whole year now.

Towards the end of 2000, I was seeing a bit of chatter on FaceBook about something called the 100 Days Challenge—get at least half an hour of exercise every day for 100 days in a row. I hadn’t been doing too well at getting some exercise for as little as two or three days weekly but a year ago I thought I’d see if I could make myself do some walking every day for 100 days, which at the time seemed like a hell of a long time, but I did it, and continued to do so.

Walking regularly became a lot easier once Mom helped me move to somewhere that is large enough to have a treadmill of my own right at home (thanks, Mom!). Although the place where I lived previously until I moved this Spring was conveniently located for walking, in the sense that there are fairly major N-S roads .25 miles on either side of my duplex and a major E-W road a half mile and a mile away, there are large sections where there are no sidewalks at all. That meant I usually had to go over to the gym and use the treadmill there, or stop at the park with the nice 2-mile path I regularly drove past, or do the RiverWalk downtown, but I still managed to get a walk in every day once I started.

Having my own treadmill at home really has helped. I really enjoy going for walks outside, either in my new neighborhood, along the RiverWalk, or down in the park near where I used to live but I have to admit that some mornings I just can’t get motivated to shave and shower and leave early enough to drive somewhere else to walk and still make it to work on time. For instance, I left home before 8 this morning to be able to do the RiverWalk. I can start using the abs exerciser at 8, be on the treadmill by 8:15, use it for 45 minutes, shave and take a shower, and still have time to make it into work by 10. Then there are the days where I just haven’t been able to get myself motivated to just use the treadmill in the morning, but even then I’ve still used the treadmill later that day, in the afternoon or later. (This doesn’t count the weekend days when I use the abs exerciser in the morning, and plan on doing my walking in the afternoon. I’m talking about days like the one where I pretty much had a sinus headache all day until after dinner, which is when I used the treadmill, days like that.) Or the days where the South Florida weather isn’t conducive to walking outside (high heat/humidity, heavy rain, lightning, etc.).

I don’t know if I feel better since I started walking/exercising regularly, but then again I wouldn’t have said I felt bad when I wasn’t exercising at all. I don’t think it’s affected my allergic sensitivity to dust, which is my major noticeable health problem (other than there being more of me than there should be, of course), but Mom thinks the walking/exercise has to have improved my resistance. Although I have lost quite of weight over the last year and a half, most of it was before I started walking and I still have quite a bit more to lose. I do know that I probably wouldn’t have been as able to do as much walking around as I did in Glasgow and Edinburgh when I was there this summer if I hadn’t been doing my daily walking.

My goals for the next 35 days/year? Keep up the walking, outside whenever possible, maybe do a full 60 minutes on weekends/days I don’t work/Tuesdays & Wednesdays when I work 12-8 PM (unless accident or injury prevents me prevents me for walking or even limping on the treadmill and if that happens, I’ll just start again from day 1 and see how far I get that time—I’m not going to allow not feeling well to keep me from dragging myself on to the treadmill for at least the minimum half an hour). Use the abs exerciser every day I’m home, eventually moving on to the longer, more involved intermediate work out. Eat at home more often and do a good job with portion control, and concentrate on having lower-calorie snacks like fruits and low fat yogurt.

Happy New Year’s, everyone!

Stephen

It's all in the name

2010-01-31T17:06:00.001-08:00

Although when I was young my family called me (my Mom still does) and I answered to Steve ever since I turned 21 I've introduced myself as Stephen. For the last 32 years, then, the only people who call me Steve instead of Stephen have been Mom, some family and family friends who have known me since before I turned 21, and a certain number of people who are clueless and never seem to notice that I never introduce myself as Steve and always answer the phone or identify myself as Stephen. I've worked with some people for about 8 years now who are in that clueless category.

This never really was too much of a problem at work, because I was able to wear a nametag that said Stephen and not Steve. A while back, however, my employer decided that we needed to wear our official employee ID as a nametag--and my employer takes your official name from your Social Security card. Since I got my card when I was 15 or 16, it of course says Steve.

So this past Friday I finally went in to my local (not in the sense of nearby but only in the sense of being the nearest of the few that are in this part of the county where I live) SS office. I waited there for about an hour and a half for business that took less than 5 minutes. When I get my new card in the mail, it will have my name as Stephen, as does my birth certificate, passport, and driver's license. I can then go in to the payroll office at work and have them make the change, and then get a new employee ID that says Stephen.

The funny thing about the whole process? The guy at the Social Security office said I've always been in their database as Stephen; back when I got my card, the local office had the option of typing your nickname on the pre-numbered card they issued you.

I will answer to any full version of my name. Stephen (pronounced Steefen or Steeven) is the usual Engilsh, Irish or American version of the name. If you're feeling Greek, you may call be by the original version of the name, Stephanos which is Greek for crown. If you're feeling Slavic or Balkan I'll answer to Stefan. If you're feeling French, I'll answer to Etienne, or to Esteban if you're feeling Spanish or Latin American. But please, don't call me Steve (although I'll probably answer you anyway).

SMC

Bon

2009-08-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

This evening was the annual Bon celebration at the Morikami Museum & Japanese Gardens, which are about 45 minutes North of where I live, up in Delray Beach in Palm Beach County.

Bon at Morikami

For those of you who don't know, Bon is the traditional Japanese summer celebration to honor and remember the ancestors and those who have gone before us. Even if you don't personally believe that the dead somehow actually come back to visit us--which is the traditional basis for Bon in Japan--or even if you've been lucky so far not to have lost any friends, classmates, family, coworkers or even just casual acquaintances to death, I think it's a nice idea to somehow remember and celebrate those who have been lost from your life, even if they're just people you've lost track of over time. They don't have to be family or friends, either--just someone who made even the slightest positive impact or memories in your life who is no longer in your life for whatever reason. (Besides the family members my family have lost, I remembered some classmates from high school and college who haven't been part of my life for decades but whom I still remember with great fondness.)

I have to admit, though, my primary reason for going to Bon is that the Fusho Daiko taiko group was performing. I love Fusho Daiko, although I hadn't heard them for a while (the last time was over a year ago, I think). I haven't heard that many taiko groups since I moved here to S Florida 8 years ago, but before that I heard several at events in Portland and Seattle (each of which had at least one taiko group) and several times throughout the years at the NW Folklife Festival in Seattle over Memorial Day weekends. Fusho Daiko is one of the best I've ever seen/heard.

The routines FD perform are excellent for several reasons. They are just some very good pieces of music (I know that a lot of people will say that taiko is boring musically because it's all drums and percussion; each drum, however, is capable of being played to produce several different tones of different pitches and timbres; tones in different pitches and timbres combined in different arrangements make melodies). ("It has a great beat and you can dance to it.") They also use a whole bunch of different physical arrangements of drums of different sizes including the really big ones (I was once told that the largest drums were once used to actually delineate the size of villages--you were still in the bounds of the village if you could still hear the big drum). And all of the performances and performers are quite dramatic, with huge arm movements--they really put their whole bodies into their playing.

FD also used several different lineups, including their basic students, their advanced students, and the advanced performers. I like that, too.

I will also admit that all the performers are in very good physical shape, and that most of the guys seem to be handsome and good looking--if you're into handsome, good looking guys. Me, I thought all the ladies in all the FD lineups this evening were all very attractive--every one of them. And those ladies can DRUM as well and hard as the guys, including on the biggest of the drums, and still look attractive and sexy, too.

Next Friday is "Sushi & stroll" at the Morikami, with performances by S Florida's other taiko group, "Ronin Taiko", which includes some members of FD as well. I'll be there.....

Portland Highland Games

2009-07-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the 57th annual Scottish Highland Games here in beautiful, sunny Portland, Oregon.

My own connections with the Games don't go quite that far back. My family moved here in 1972, when I was a sophomore in high school. I can't say I went to every PHG until I moved to S Florida in 2001, but I think I went to about 75% of them over the years.

I usually go alone, but until my Dad became very ill he went with me a couple of times. Yesterday I wore his Irish-style walking cap, which Mom gave me after his death.

I've been to highland games here in Portland, of course, but also the ones in S Florida, Central Oregon, and the Seattle area and Portland's is always the best. Part of the reason is the physical setup. At the other three games I've been to, they all take place in a flat field, with the bagpipe competitions being only one of the events going on, and taking place in a corner of the field. Here in Portland the games take place out at Mt Hood Community College, with the bagpipe band competitions going on down on the 50 yard line on the track at the base of the grandstands--and the stands are always packed for them, so several hundred people are there. And after the competitions they have the advanced level caber toss, and then the massed bands (after they can get them all out of the two beer tents).

Of course it helps that at the Games, the seats in the grandstand are shaded from noon on....

There was lots of other stuff going on--fiddling competitions, vendors of all kinds, the Highland athletic events, a specialist in Scottish genealogy, etc. There were also other entertainers, whom I was not able to hear, since I don't have a clone with a group mind or the ability to bilocate.

The entertainers this year were:
Beltaine;
Rebecca Lomnicky and David Brewer , a Scottish fiddle & bagpipes duo; and,
and Cathy Speer, a local singer/songwriter.

Highland games here in Oregon and Washington benefit from having I-5, the major West Coast N-S route, running through the Western parts of the states. Portland is 3 hours South of Seattle, and 6 hours South of Vancouver, BC, so we always get bands from the whole area and sometimes from further afield. Two of the bands had placed in the top 10 at the world competitions in the last couple of years.

This year's bands in the competitions were as follows:

In Grade 4 were the:
NW Junior Pipe Band from the Seattle area;
Portland Metro Youth PB (who challenged up a grade as well);
Portland Police Highland Guard PB;
White Spot PB, from up near Vancouver BC.

Grade 3 had:
Bushmills Irish Pipers PB, up from San Francisco;
Greighlan Crossing PB, also from the Vancouver BC area;
Portland Metro PB, which also challenged up to Grade 2;
and the Keith Highlanders PB, down from the Seattle area.

In Grade 2 were:
New Westminster Police PB, from the Vancouver BC area, who under their previous name (Maple Ridge) are long-time favorites here in Portland; and,
the Chilliwack & District PB, also from BC.

Our only Grade 1 pipe band was another long-time favorite here in Portland, the Triumph Street band also down from the Vancouver BC area. This band is huge. I've been to other games where the massed bands were smaller than Triumph Street alone.....

All the bands yesterday were excellent, and I heard some great music. I really wish I knew which pieces each band played because some of them had some jazzy elements, and several of them really rocked.

Speaking of the massed bands, yesterday's was very impressive. It took up the entire width of the football field, and was about 30 yards long.

All in all, a great show.

Weird 4th of Julies

2009-07-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

I've had some weird and a bit odd July 4th experiences.

One year I had to drive from the Tacoma WA area down I-5 to Portland that evening because I was working a summer job and had to be at work on the 5th. I-5 along that whole stretch passes through or near a lot of municipalities as well as going right past McChord air force base & Ft Lewis just south of Olympia. During the entire almost 3 hour trip I saw every municipal fire works display and every single backyard display of illegal fireworks along the entire route. (In OR & WA anything which explodes is illegal, but vendors on the Indian reservations can sell them anyway.)

One year a friend invited me to go with him to his small beach house near Rockaway on the OR coast. We went to see the municipal display from a bluff above the beach where they were being set off. Due to an odd air inversion, all of the smoke collected in a layer below the bluff and none of the fireworks actually made it above the smoke. (It was kind of pretty anyway.) And of course lots of people in the parking lot had their own illegal fireworks.

One July 4th my then-girfriend had tickets to the professional soccer game being played in Portland's stadium. After the game, there was a very excellent fireworks display which was set off from the football field of the high school across the street. What was weird or odd about this? Well, the stadium did an EXCELLENT job of collecting and amplifying the explosions which took place right above it--it was amazingly loud.

I've also had some very nice Independence Days, too.

When I was growing up in Highland Park IL, which is North of Chicago along Lake Michigan, we always went down to the beach where you could see all the municipal displays from all the cities up and down the lake shore.

Independence Day fireworks in the Bend OR area are shot off from the top of Pilot Butte, which is the highest not actual mountain point in the area and so could be seen from all around. This made it really easy to drive to a vantage place and tune the car radio in to the station broadcasting the musical accompaniment.

During the summer between my two years of Library School at the U of Washington up in Seattle, I went down to the W Seattle shore along Elliot Bay to watch the fireworks being shot off from the top of the Space Needle.

And several times I volunteered at the Waterfront Blues festival in Portland OR, which always takes place around the 4th, and they always had nice fireworks displays.

Happy Independence Day, everyone!

Listening vs reading

2009-05-22T15:55:00.000-07:00

OK, I admit it--although I've been the librarian in charge of the audiobook collection at the library where I work for over 8 years, I don't listen to them at all.

There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is primarily the time involved--I am a fast reader, and read much faster than normal human speech. Consequently it usually takes me a lot less time to read a book than it would take to listen to the audio equivalent. And I'm not above speed-reading or skimming when I get to any boring parts--over-long descriptions, or when the narrative has switched to the interior thoughts of a character I don't particularly like, or in some romances the mushy parts, that sort of thing. There is no equivalent of speed-reading or skimming available for audiobooks--even though most CDs are split into tracks every three minutes, if you jump to the start of the next track you don't hear what's in between.

Even though I don't listen to audiobooks--someone reading a book out loud--I do listen to, and am very fond of audio theater, full-cast productions with music and sound effects. The ones of which I am most fond are those produced by the folks over at ZBS.

They are a reseller of audio productions done by other folks, but they also offer several other series created and produced entirely in house. The two biggest series are the ones involving Jack Flanders and the science fiction series featuring Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe (I just ordered the latest installment in that series today). Both the Jack Flanders and Ruby series incorporate wonderful music and sneak in very interesting elements of magic, mystery, mysticism, philosophy, and social commentary.

I've been listening to these productions for decades. My first exposure to them came late one night over 30 years ago when I tuned in to the college radio station at the University of Puget Sound, where I was a student, into the middle of one of the episodes of "The 4th tower of Inverness" and was hooked. I had to call the station and find out what they were playing, and I think I made sure I tuned in and listened to the succeeding episodes. Many years later, after I had moved back to Portland, I was driving around one day and had tuned into the PBS station at a time I didn't usually do so and had no idea what they played that time of day anyway and caught an episode of "Moon over Morocco"--and had to pull over and listen to the rest of the episode.

Over the years I've collected each episode of both the Jack Flanders and Ruby series, and have listened to the entire cycle of each yearly.

I love them--they are wonderfully done, and manage to be a bit weird but very interesting, often thought provoking, and highly absorbing and entertaining. I love listening to them on head/earphones. (I admit it--although I've been listening to stereo almost all of my life, when I'm listening to really well done stereo on ear/headphones I often feel like looking around me to see where the noise is coming from.)

There are a few negative things I could say about the ZBS productions--side-effects of their interesting, entertaining, and absorbing qualities, if you will. When you're listening to them, especially if you're using ear/headphones, do not try to read or indeed do anything involving using language creatively like writing. You will not want to be interrupted while listening, so if you have family living with you tell them not to bother you until you tell them the episode is finished. If you try listening to them in a car with other people you'll find yourself asking everyone else to please shut up.

Listening while working out works very well. You might find yourself doing so for longer than usual, though, because you'll want to listen through to the end of an episode. I copy my CDs as CDs to my iPod through iTunes, and not just as the individual tracks. The CD-equivalent I was listening to today while using the treadmill has 2 episodes, each about 25 minutes long. I hadn't been on the treadmill for a while, and today I wasn't sure I'd make it to a half-hour; when I got to the end of the first episode at 25 minutes, I thought "Hmmmm....maybe I'll just keep walking until I get to the end of the CD"--and did, another 25 or so minutes later.

I highly recommend either of the two series.

ZBS

SMC

Flying Karamazov Brothers

2009-05-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

In a world with disorder and chaos all around us, where crime and disasters and drug addiction and violence--ethnic, random, or domestic--and things way out of our personal control can all have devastating consequences on families and lives, you have to find your own order, meaning, beauty and happiness where and when you can find it.

That's one of the reasons I derive such fun and pleasure from updating all my various lists of books I've read, and new authors and books I find out about, as well as keeping my playlists of the Celtic music podcasts I listen to updated--almost as much as I get from reading or listening to the music themselves.

That's also why every now and then I need to watch the only FKB video my library system owns (and it's also the only copy)--the "FKB video scrapbook, 1973-2001".

For those of you who don't know these guys, they have been juggling together--in one lineup or another--since 1973 and are still in business. They have gone from performing at Ren Faires to being able to sell out performances in theaters in Seattle and other metropolitan areas, and on Broadway and on London's West End. Their longevity alone is a source of order and continuity in a way few other performing groups can provide.

These guys have always been amazing. They combine grace and skill and split-second timing and group coordination with technical innovation and an inspired silliness much like Monty Python at their very best. And from the beginning they have always combined the juggling with a very strong musicality, are excellent musicians themselves, and often include musical performances in their acts.

I have been fortunate enough to see them perform a few times. Back in the 80s they sometimes showed up at outdoor festivals in Portland and Seattle such as Seattle's Folklife Festival, which is going on this weekend. And back when I was in Library School in Seattle, before moving here to my current job in S Florida, I caught their theater show "L'Universe" (pronounced loony verse).

"L'Universe" was incredible and was a brilliant example of how these guys combine technical wizardry with their juggling wizardry. They had designed the show with the assistance of MIT's Media Lab. This allowed them do things like a routine where they were juggling in front of a projected video of themselves juggling, which they interacted with. For the most amazing routine, the entire stage had been digitally scanned, and they were wearing sensors all over their bodies so the computers knew exactly which part of their body was where, and they actually juggled a computer-generated image which had been programmed to mimic a physical, 3-dimensional body interacting with them and the set. You could see it bouncing off the floor, walls, and peformers.

I haven't seen these guys live since then, but as I said they are still around and still performing. They have a Web-presence of their own, and there are also several videos of them on YouTube. Check them out.....

The Flying Karamazov Brothers

SMC

Arnold Johnson: The witching voice

2009-05-08T18:08:00.000-07:00

I rarely don't finish books I start--mainly because I don't even add a book to my to-be-read list, let alone actually start reading it, unless I'm pretty sure it's one I'll enjoy. Long ago, though, I gave myself permission to stop reading a book if I didn't like it after a reasonable trial--say half a dozen chapters or 75 to 100 pages. Arnold Johnson's "The witching voice", a new novel about Robert Burns, is one that I just could not get into, and I did make a good faith effort.

Why do I think I couldn't get into it? It's rather slow and tedious, and not a lot happens--except for at least three sexual encounters--in the 100 or so pages I read. Not only that, the use of Scottish dialect makes it necessary to frequently refer to the glossary at the end of the book, which for me does not make fluid or particulay enjoyable reading.

Oh well--I have plenty of other books I want to read.....

SMC

New books, new authors

2009-05-08T09:54:00.001-07:00

The hard drive conversion kit I needed to get my old IDE drive to work with my new computer showed up Wednesday, and it proved pretty easy to install (once I figured out how to even get it out of the old computer), but unfortunately everything I had been working on the day before the old computer went down was gone. Fortunately that was only a few files, and although the comprehensive file containing all the details for new authors I wanted to add to my lists was one of them, all the individual e-mails I'd sent myself about those authors were saved.

I read the online reviews from "Publishers Weekly", "Kirkus", ALA's "Booklist", and "Library Journal" online at work between helping patrons at our public service desk. That works out great--since the reviews themselves are only a couple of paragraphs long I can usually read a couple between patrons, no matter how busy it gets. If I have time I look the authors up on Stop, You're Killing Me or Fantastic Fiction to see if they've written anything else, and then I send myself an e-mail at home with the info. I then go through the individual e-mails, check and see what books from each author the Broward County Library system actually owns, make a list for each author, which I usually combine into a large list, and then add the new books to my html lists. So, as I said, although the single comprehensive list was gone I still had the individual e-mails.

One thing those of us who do genre fiction reader's advisory at BCL, or are just fans of genre fiction ourselves, know is that BCL's collection is often not very complete, with often very gaping holes in series.

Although most of the authors I decided were interesting enough to add to my lists were indeed new authors, with only a book or two in the last couple of years, a couple of them have been writing for much longer without my having heard of them before. I've been reading the reviews pretty much weekly since 9/2001 so it always makes me think "How could I have missed this author?" when I find one like that.

I added about 45 new authors to my lists. A list, with anything I thought specifically interesting about them, follows.

Gordon/G K Aalborg--although his 1st book seems to have come out in 1981, there was nothing more until 2005
Cecelia Ahern--this contemporary romance author is the daughter of former Irish PM Bertie Ahern
Lou Allin
Linda Castillo--she's written 23 romantic suspense titles since 2000, which I find unbelievable
K C Constantine--although this mysterious author wrote for over 20 years, up until a couple of years ago, and BCL has most of the titles, I somehow missed this one
Claudia Dain
S J Day
Denise Dietz
John Drake
Leanna Ellis
Bill Evans
Duncan Falconer
Jane Feather
Charles Coleman/C C Finlay
Tom Gabbay
Sally Goldenbaum
Beth Groundwater
Kathryn Miller Haines
John Hart
James Huston
Jane Jackson
Nicole Jordan
Sophie Jordan
Jeanne Kalogridis
Raymond Khoury
Julie Kramer
Lora Leigh--she's written over 30 fantasy/romance titles since 2003, which I find hard to believe
Diane Wei Liang
Robert Littell--this author has written 15 spy thrillers since 1970, I missed him as well before
Jon Loomis
Jonathan Maberry
Robert Macomber
Monica McCarty
Natasha Mostert
Christi Phillips
Yrsa Sigurdardottir
Donna Lea Simpson--she's written 18 books since 1999 but I don't seem to have heard of her either
Gloria Dale Skinner
Joanna Campbell Slan
Anne Easter Smith
Tom Rob Smith
Michael Stanley
Jane Tesh
Shirley Wells

I also added a few of the above to the list of authors I really want to read.

I've got to say, when I find a new interesting author I want to add to my lists, I always like it when they've only written 2 or 3 at the most. Otherwise it's kind of like coming across Danielle Steel, Jayne Ann Krentz, or Nora Roberts/J D Robb for the first time and thinking "Do I really even want to get started on this author?" I decided a long time ago that even if I don't want to get started on reading an author like that, whom I've never heard of before, I probably should at least find out about them.

SMC

Technidal difficulties

2009-05-03T17:52:00.000-07:00

I came home from work this past Tuesday to discover that my old PC was displaying one of the blue screens of death, this one saying that it could not find the hard drive. Try what I may, nothing I could think of to do would work--but I'm more of a semi-educated user than a true techie.

I was faced with two choices. I could spend the money to buy a new hard-drive for my old computer, then re-install all of my old programs, or I could just buy a newer, faster computer with more RAM, a bigger hard drive, a newer, faster CD/DVD player/burner.

There was also the question of retrieving all my non-program files, including html, word processing, and database files. I had three backups. All of my photos are copied over onto CDs; my then-current comupter had a 2nd hard drive which I salvaged from the computer before that one, and I copied all the rest of my personal files over to that drive; and I also copy everything except my photos over to a USB flash drive.

I decided it would be more cost-effective to just buy a new computer, see if I could get the D drive from the old computer transferred over to the new one, hope that all my old programs (some pre-dating Windows XP) would work on my new machine, and if necessary copy all my photos back from the CDs and the rest of my files over from the USB flash drive.

It turned out that my old D drive is so old that my new PC's motherboard doesn't even recognize it; I had to order a kit to convert the drive over to a USB-readable external drive. I hope that I remembered to copy whatever I was working on Monday after work over to the old D drive, because although I remembered to copy everything over to the flash drive on Sunday I don't seem to have done so Monday night.

Most of my old programs seem to work fine on my new PC under Windows Vista. The most costly exception was WordPerfect, which I've been using since version 4.0, and still think is the best word processor on the market. At first it seemed to work OK, but as soon as I tried to save the file I'd opened and then worked on, I couldn't do so. The second-most expensive program I had to pay to replace was an FTP program, and that was about $20.

I of course had to install iTunes on this new computer, and go through my list of podcasts I subscribe to and download all the relevant episodes I wanted. This was more time-consuming than anything else, but only in the sense that I just went and did something else while iTunes was doing the downloading (I was at the Greek fair for a couple of hours yesterday, for instance.)

For some reason the new version of Internet Explorer failed to import my bookmarks from the html file I'd saved them to as backup, so I had to just go thtough that file bookmark by bookmark, create the new folders and subfolders in Explorer, and save each and every one all over again. It was a bit tedious, but I just listened to some of my podcasts while doing so. This gave me the opportunity to get rid of any bookmarks that were no longer in service, or replace them with the new, correct URLs.

The conversion kit for my old drive should arrive in the next couple of days. I hope I remembered to copy what I was working on Monday night over to it; if not, I only lost a day's worth of work. I'd been going through the separate files I'd sent myself about books by individual authors I wanted to add to my lists, and combined them into one comprehesive list. I don't have that one combined list yet--I hope it's on the D drive--but I do have all the single, separate source files.

SMC

Heritage

2009-05-02T17:02:00.001-07:00

I just got back from spending a couple of hours at the annual fair at the St George Greek Orthodox Church just down the road from my house. Dinner was OK--I had the shish kebab/souvlaki, which was tasty but a bit dry (tomorrow I'll have the gyros, I think--the meat smelled wonderful!)--the pastries I'm saving for later look wonderful, and the music, and the dancing from the teen/young adult group were excellent. (OK, the youngest kids and the slightly older kids were cute.)

The guys in that group have to be some of the smartest in the congregation--all the young ladies in the group are lovely. And they're all--guys and girls--very good dancers.

Being part of a community event at a church made me think a lot about my own religious and cultural heritage.

Even though my Mom's own mother was French, and my Dad's grandparents were Irish on both sides, my siblings and I were raised fully assimilated Catholic Americans. We never heard anything about Irish or French heritage or culture. It wasn't until I was in my teens that I started learning anything about either heritage on my own; shortly after that my parents and most of my siblings decided they were also interested, and have remained at least mildly interested since then. This is also when I discovered I was also interested in other cultures and heritages and music based on those folk/ethnic traditions as well. And I decided I didn't have to understand the lyrics of a song to like it as a piece of music--this applied to rock and pop music in English as well, by the way. I'm not sure when the last time I really understood a song by Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell was, for instance.

(Maybe it has something to do with my full name--Stephen, from the Greek Stephanos, crown; Michael, Hebrew, meaning "who is like God?"; Robert, Germanic in origin, meaning "bright fame"; and Conroy, which is often thought to have entered Ireland with the Normans and to be derived from "con roi" or "with the king". Side note--when it was time for me to choose a saint's name for confirmation, my parents wanted me to choose Robert, which meant that my own full name, Stephen Michael Robert, would be a variation of my Dad's full name, Robert Stephen Michael, which I've always thought was pretty cool.)

(Another side note about names. I have introduced myself as Stephen since I turned 21, which was a long time ago now. People who call me Steve either are friends of my parents, or someone who never paid attention to what my nametag at work says or to how I answer the phone. Although I do not usually answer to Steve and always introduce myself as Stephen, I will answer to Stephanos if you're feeling Greek, Stefan if you're feeling Slavic or Eastern European, Esteban if you're feeling Spanish, or Etienne if you're feeling French.)

We were raised in the Roman Catholic church, and until we moved from the Chicago area, we were all comfortable in the parish to which we belonged, and my parents were both active in the church there. I did learn while quite young, though, that I seemed to have a lot more in common with a lot of the reformers and "heretics" than I did with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. I never quite agreed with "this is true because the Pope/bishops/nuns/clergy/Confraternity of Christian Doctrine says so". (As if Roman Catholics are the only true Christians.)

I was also interested in Judaism, since a lot of the kids I knew in school were Jewish (both Reform and Orthodox, I think) and there was a synagogue down the road from our house. I often went to community events at that synagogue and was occasionally invited by my Jewish friends to things at their synagogues as well.

When we got to Portland OR, though, we found that the culture in the Roman Catholic church there was a lot more conservative, and my family as a whole stopped going. I had several friends from school who went to the nearby Presbyterian church and I went to choir practice with them one day after school senior year, and wound up joining them for the rest of the school year. When I got to the University of Puget Sound up in Tacoma WA most of the people I met who went to church went to the main United Methodist church downtown, so I did as well, and went regularly for almost three years. (I still sang with the choir at First Presbyterian for a couple of Christmases, though, and it's still my favorite place of all for the late Christmas Eve service.)

My undergraduate major was in Comparative Religion, which increased my intellectual tendency towards skepticism. I came to the conclusion that although I am open to religious experience of the holy and sacred, I don't really believe in and am skeptical of organized religions--and for me, that also includes most organizations, professional sports teams, governments, and political parties. I am also not much of a joiner of organizations, either. (I also decided in college that although I still have a lot in common with reformers and "heretics", and would probably have liked Martin Luther, and really liked John Wesley, I don't think I'd have liked John Knox.)

All the same, I can see the comfort offered by belonging to some organization of which you feel a part, whether it's hobby- or interest-based, a political or social action group, or a faith-based group. I can understand how my youngest brother could agree with my sister-in-law that their kids not only would be raised in the Roman Catholic church but would go to parochial school, through high school, and that they themselves would participate as parents.

Time to go make some coffee to go with my Greek pastries.....

SMC

So many books, too little time

2009-04-25T07:08:00.000-07:00

It's a good thing I'm a bit of a nerd and enjoy keeping lists, because I finally finished updating the lists for the 330 authors I already knew about who had books published or reviewed from January 1 through March 31st of this year. Now I get to move on to creating lists for authors I'd never heard of before who had books published/reviewed in that same period and whom I found interesting enough to look up and add to my lists.

All of these new books, both those by authors I was already familiar with and those by authors new to me, bring up a good point, expressed in the title of this post--so many books, too little time. As I said, I added new books by 330 authors to my lists--at least 1 book for each of those authors. In the best year for which I have the records readily available, I was able to read 276 books that year. So even without counting the books by authors new to me, I added at least 50 more books to my lists than I've been able to read in my best year. And that was for this past quarter alone.

An appropriate response might be to say "I'm done. I'll never be able to read all the books by all the authors I already know about, so I'm not going to add any new books by anybody at all ever", or even to jettison from my lists authors I haven't read yet but already know about.

That's not my response, though. I admit I do concentrate on reading either books which are part of series from several hundred authors I've decided I'm most interested in, or singletons (single books, most often by new authors who haven't written anything else yet) but I really enjoy reading reviews of new books and if the reviews are interesting enough, checking to see if the author is listed on either of my two most usual sources and then adding them to my lists (again if I find the author sufficiently interesting).

Part of the reason is professional. Although I work for the section of the Main Library that handles the newest best sellers, among other things, I seem to be the only heavy reader and the only person interested in learning about the new books and their authors.

It's kind of like a game--I score a few imaginary points in an imaginary game when I already know something about a book a library patron asks about. I have two librarian friends who are more interested in romance, fantasy, horror, and science fiction than I am, and sometimes I am able to tell them about a new book or author they haven't heard of yet, and I score a few more imaginary points for that. (I don't deduct any when they already know about the book/author, though--hey, they're only imaginary points in an imaginary game.) And sometimes I can pass on a new book by a Florida author to my friend Tara in the Florida Center for the Book she hasn't heard of yet, or let her know when the review of a new book she'd be interested in finally shows up on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

I also look at it like I'm storing up points in some sort of literary karmic treasury of merit.

When we teach the Reader's Advisory fiction genres class to other librarians, Arlene and I make a point of saying the hope is that the class will be the start of a process for the participants, where they can develop ongoing relationships with their patrons and start learning who likes to read what kinds of books and who might be interested in which new book they read a review of or hear about. Unfortunately for me, here at Main I've not been able to develop that kind of relationship with any patrons so it's usually my mother or my librarian friends Arlene and Mimi and Tara I have that relationship with.

My two usual sources for looking books up, other than Amazon and Barnes & Noble for the reviews?

Stop! You're killing me is one of the best sites for information about mysteries, suspense, and thrillers.

Fantastic Fiction also covers horror, romance, fantasy, and science fiction.

This is my totals page for what I read.

SMC

Simon R Green's Nightside series

2009-04-20T19:13:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I finished the first 3 of Simon R Green's Nightside detective series ("Something from the Nightside"; Agents of light & darkness"; and, "Nightingale's lament"--all 3 were in an anthology the Library has, so I just read one after another), which made it one of my favorite fantasy detective series.

I'd read "Something from the Nightside" before, but enjoyed reading it again as much as I did reading the other two for the first time.

What makes it a great series? Well, I really enjoy the blending of fantasy (or science fiction) and detective elements. The characters are great. The good guys are on the side of good, which is a good thing because they can be very deadly and dangerous. The villians are downright villianous and often Evil as well.

Other fantasy/detective series I like?

Simon R Green's Eddie Drood/Secret histories (the 2nd is due out sometime soon) kind of combine elements of James Bond with fantasy, which makes them pretty funny.

Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden chronicles, of course (I even liked the TV series).

Glen Cook's Garrett files (I love these because they're sort of a fantasy twist on Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories, except the reason that the brains of the outfit needs someone to do his leg work for him is that his body's been dead for centuries).

Jon Courtenay Grimwood's El Iskandryia series is set in an alternative Ottoman Empire where magic works.

I also like M R Sellars's Rowan Gant Wiccan mystery series.

I'm also extremely fond of Liz Williams' Inspector Chen series.

SMC

Gifts, talents & skills

2009-04-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about gifts, talents, and skills lately--and which ones I have and don't have.

I've never been particularly athletically inclined, although I did OK in PE. I had to get my first pair of glasses in 5th grade, and my vision continued to get worse. (Now, although corrected my vision is about 20/30, I'm legally blind without glasses or contacts.) Then in 5th grade PE I did permanent damage to my knees, which made them a lot less flexible. And in my freshman year of college I was hit with a virus which did mild but permanent damage to my inner ear, which screwed up my sense of balance. (I tried learning to ski several times on spring breaks with my family. I tended to fall down a lot, and decided I'd probably get hurt before I learned to compensate for knees which didn't make very good shock absorbers and a not very good sense of balance.)

I've now watched almost all of the Cirque du Soleil DVDs my library system has. I was reminded of something I learned a long time ago. When I watch the C du S videos, I have the same reaction I did when I went to the occasional dance program--I can enjoy the choreography and the skill, talent and coordination in a good performance but I know there are whole levels of meaning and emotional content that I am missing.

I learned in middle school that I don't have the manual dexterity to be very good at drawing or painting or wood shop.

Although I was an OK musician through high school, when I got to college I learned that OK wouldn't cut it and I'd have to practice A LOT if I wanted to be good there.

Although I love reading, I've never wanted to be a writer. I've never been interested in writing fiction. I wrote what I still think are pretty good poems while in college, but they all had to do with personal relationships--and for a very long time I haven't had a lot of personal relationships which are that close. And although I was very good all the way through college at writing research papers, and discovered that I still was when I went back to Library School in my mid-40s, I never wanted to write non-fiction full time. The part I really enjoyed was looking up stuff that interested me.

So what are my skills/talents?

I love to read, and read a lot. In the years that I've been keeping track, the most I read in one year was 276, with an average of 23 books a month. I love finding out about new books by authors I already know about and authors whom are new to me.

I love to listen to a wide variety of music, especially classical and folk/ethnic/traditionally based music from around the world, and enjoy finding out about the musicians I hear.

I still love looking stuff up when I start wondering about something.

And as crutches for my memory, I love making lists I can refer to. Hence the various lists on my Web page mentioned earlier here in my blog.

SMC

Updates

2009-04-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

There was the usual weekly new episode of Celt in a Twist today, and a new one of Foot Stompin', so I've updated my Celtic podcasts playlists pages.

SMC

Location, location, location

2009-04-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

Here's what can happen when you have an inquiring mind, and a fondness for making lists, like I do.

My sister-in-law, Renee, is finishing up her PhD in Philosophy at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she and my brother Michael live. My Mom lives in Portland, OR, where I'm from although I now live in S Florida. My brother Tim, his wife and kids live in San Jose, CA.

Renee was offered what seems like a very good job teaching philosophy at a college in the Chicago area. (This bothers my Mom quite a bit, since they'll be moving so far away. It's like a good news/bad news joke. On the one hand, they're really lucky she got such a nice job, let alone any teaching job. On the other hand, it's in the Chicago area, so Mom will see them a lot less than she'd like.)

So one day I started wondering where exactly Chicago is in relation to Hollywood FL, Portland OR, Seattle WA, and San Jose CA. I found a couple of lists on Infoplease that gives that information, but it lists the cities in alphabetical order.

US & Canadian cities

So I listed those cities in order from North to South. Then I started wondering where those cities are, North to South, in terms of other cities, both in the US & Canada and elsewhere. Infoplease has another list, also in alphabetical order.

Outside the US & Canada

Then I wondered what were the most Northerly and Southerly cities in the world I could find information about.

The result?

My list of latitudes & longitudes

SMC

Reading vs watching stuff and updating lists

2009-04-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

I also keep track of what I read each month (see above). I noticed at the end of March that I hadn't read a lot of books that month. There were a couple of reasons.

One is that I update the calendar/list of events I mentioned earlier quarterly, and try to do so by the end of the week that has the first Sunday of the first month in that quarter in it. That took a lot of time out of my reading in the last part of March.

I also spent a lot of time in March watching things on video or online. I had to replace my old LCD monitor a couple of months ago, and the cheapest I could find is a widescreen high-definition flatscreen. I then discovered that Netflix has a huge amount of movies and TV shows you can watch online, as well as by the usual DVD subscription. I watched some of my favorite travel, historical, and nature TV series last month.

What I watched in March

I'm still not reading quite as much so far this month as I'd like to. That's because I've been spending a lot of time updating my lists of books by authors I'm interested in. I don't usually keep track of how many authors completely new to my lists I add each month--maybe I'll start--but I do know that from January 1st of this year to the end of April, I read or saw reviews of books by about 330 authors already on my lists, and I'm gradually working through adding those books to the appropriate lists.

It's a good thing I enjoy that kind of thing, but I think I'll take a break and go read for a while.

Back again, part 2

2009-04-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

I also keep track of several of my other hobbies online. It's not that I expect anyone else in the world to care what I'm up to, it's more that I often need to refer to my lists when I'm not at home, so it's easier if I convert my online lists to html and put them on my Web page. You'll see what I mean.

I love reading, which is probably what I spend more time on than any of my other hobbies. The activity I probably spend the 2nd greatest amount of time on is learning about authors and books which are new to me. And sometimes I need to find out where I left off in a series or need to look at another list to decide what books I want to get from the library next. The result?

Books
This includes a list of almost 2,180 authors I'm interested in. If I haven't actually read any of their books yet, I've read reviews of at least one of them. It also includes a lists of books reviewed in "Publishers Weekly", ALA's "Booklist", "Library Journal" and "Kirkus". I also keep track of what I've read--it may be years before I get back to a series I've enjoyed parts of.

Back in the 1980s there were a couple of years when I couldn't find a full-time job. One of my strategies for coping back then, which I still maintain, was to try and keep a long view of things. Back then I disovered "Chase's calendar of annual events", which I've used as the basis for keeping a calendar/list of birthdays and other historical/cultural events I find interesting (and celebrations I'd love to attend if I had the time and money for travel).
My calendar

Back again

2009-04-17T19:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything in a very long time. I just really couldn't see the point.

I started this blog as part of an exercise for an online class/seminar sort of thing about Web 2.0 stuff the library system I work for (Broward County Library, here in S Florida) was having. After the class, I just felt like continuing the blog was like writing a journal or diary--which I've never been interested in. I mean, I already know what I've been up to and how I feel about it, and am under no illusions that anyone else would be interested in that. After all, except for my Mom whom I talk with at least once a week, I'm lucky if I talk with my siblings once every few months--and usually I have to call them.

It's not that I'm antisocial--more like asocial. I personally don't have much use for social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter--even though I now have accounts on all three. I recently took part in a meeting of some BCL Reference/Computer Services librarians where a couple of the presenters very enthusiastically told us why we should at least know about, if not use, social networking sites, so I'm looking into them again.

I have been involved in an odd type of social networking on my own for quite a long time, though, in my own odd sort of way.

I got an iPod Nano for Christmas back in 2007, and immediately began looking for music podcasts to listen to, especially those with Irish/Celtic music. And because I can't afford to buy a whole lot of CDs but can sometimes find them through the library system where I work (not often enough), and am a bit of a nerd and keeper of lists, I started keeping a composite list of songs played on the podcasts I listen to, and since it was fairly easy with the software I have to convert the playlists to html or PDF, I posted it on my Web page. For a while there, if you did a search on Google for "celtic podcast playlists" my site came up first, which really freaked me out. I haven't looked lately.

Celtic podcasts playlists

I also listen to Marc Gunn's Renaissance Festival podcast, and wanted to keep track of what I hear for the same reason.

Playlists for Marc Gunn's Renaissance Festival podcast

And when the producers of one of my favorite Celtic podcasts, "Celt in a Twist" up in Vancouver BC, came out with an excellent world music podcast, I started a playlist for that as well.

Playlists for WorldBeat Canada

Here's the list of all the podcasts I listen to:

My podcasts