I was at a barbecue the other day when I heard the bartender spin around to a group and ask, "Did someone just say Thoreau?!"

I was sitting outside where I don't think any of them could see me, and I smiled pretty big and thought to myself, "Now there's a guy I could really like." 

Better yet, I don't think anyone had even mentioned the good ol' Henry.

.

"Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. 

Not courting talk - real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious."

-Kerouac, On the Road

What have you learned lately?

Yesterday I learned what a "glulam" is.  And how to format a "gutter" in Microsoft Word.  I'd like to learn something new every day - truly learn.  Small or big.  Grow. Change.  Advance.  Improve my skill.  Specialize.

Because one day, I'd like to be a specialist at something I love.  Know all about it, everything.  Be a resource. 

If it's been a while since you've learned something new... A few interesting lectures are coming up in Seattle.  Because my dad will probably panic about my posting these, I will hereby give the disclaimer to any and all potential stalkers that I do not necessarily have any plans to attend any of these.  That said, they look cool and I really wanted to share them.  So should any of these topics tickle your fancy, please go and enjoy a free lecture. 


Historic Seattle event on Dard Hunter

Image courtesy of Pomegranate Communications [enlarge]Lawrence Kreisman of Historic Seattle will give a free lecture about his new book entitled “Dard Hunter: The Graphic Works” at 7 p.m. April 18 at Seattle Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave.

Hunter was a designer, craftsman, printer, typographer and paper maker who explored new ideas and adapted avant-garde German and Austrian Secession concepts into graphic design.
A book signing will follow the lecture, with some proceeds benefitting Historic Seattle.

----

The History of Seattle Architecture
1880-2000s: Two Lectures by Professor Jeffrey Karl Ochsner
Co-sponsored by The Seattle Public Library
The two lectures will provide an overview of 130 years of Seattle's architectural history, beginning about 1880 (when the city's population was only 3500 people) and extending to the present day. The lectures will address broad architectural and urban developments, a range of building types and stylistic directions, and the major architects who shaped the architecture of the city and region. Each lecture will run about 90 minutes allowing time at the end for questions.
Jeffrey Karl Ochsner FAIA has taught at the University of Washington for over 22 years. He is the author, co-author or editor of three books and numerous articles addressing Seattle's architectural and urban history.

Professor Ochsner's books will be available for sale from Elliott Bay Book Company and he will stay after his lecture to autograph them.

Upcoming Event Dates

Saturday, April 14, 1-3pm Part I, 1880s-1930s

Saturday, April 21, 1-3pm Part II, 1940s-2000s

Location: Microsoft Auditorium, Seattle Central Library, 4th & Madison Entrance

Cost: FREE. No registration required.

Tip: These lectures are very popular. Please plan to arrive early to ensure

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold. 

— Zelda Fitzgerald

. 

I wonder how many people I have looked at all my life and never seen. 

— John Steinbeck, East Of Eden

. 

Email from my sister, Kristin.  Thought I'd share this with the rest of you HG nerds today.  How many of these facts did you know, and pick up on as you were reading through? 

"As I went to my favorite website ever (dictionary.com) I was interested by this. They gave us this sweet little nugget of wisdom on our reaping day. :)"



Katniss

related to the Latin word sagittate, meaning shaped like an arrowhead.

Primrose

a type of flower named after the Latin number one.

Gale

a very strong wind.

Madge

a female given name, from a Greek word meaning pearl.

Cinna

an advisor to Caesar who conspired to kill him in Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar.

Seneca

Roman philosopher and writer of tragedies who advised Emperor Nero and was forced to commit suicide.

Plutarch

Greek biographer, who valued morality and character in leaders.

Flavius

a Roman male name, probably originally meaning "yellow-haired."

Coriolanus

legendary Roman military hero and tragic Shakespearean general who defected from the army.

Claudius

former Roman emperor; also Hamlet's deceitful uncle.

Rue

a strong-scented perennial herb with grey-green bitter-tasting leaves; an irritant similar to poison ivy.

Because I've spent time whining a bit about all the spreadsheets - or if not whining outright, hinting at it.  I'd like to take a moment so sit right there (I'll tell ya how I became the prince of a place called Weav-EHR)..  Sorry.  I just wanted to say, today I worked on spreadsheets, I hounded people to get me their missing details and descriptions and I got everything ready for invoicing... and I still liked my job.  A, I'm finally starting to understand and be able to keep straight 2012 Monthly Billing from Billing 2012 (which we do monthly).  I swear all the spreadsheets have basically the same name - and they all have to do with billing.  It doesn't lend itself well to this creative girl's tendencies.  Neither does the fact that every time I email a question to my boss, he insists on leaning over to me to answer it.  It kind of defeats the purpose I have - I need written answers.  I need to SEE words.  It's just how I am.  I don't learn nearly as well when I just hear.  :(

But, to the positive... I enjoyed today.  I was busy.  Really busy.  I'm finally at the place that I can start running with things and just figuring out what I can be working on.  I did invoicing and compiled a list of designers for a client, I emailed with engineers we may use, confirmed proposal deadlines, began ordering new business cards, created a new system for backing up the server, made a new spreadsheet for it, labeled and reorganized the tapes, coordinated with our IT guy to fix the plotter. And most excitingly, I was able to answer my bosses questions and actually be helpful without first giving him a very long blank stare as I try to wrap my mind around which spreadsheet he is asking me about!  (gah!!)  And best yet, he finally brought up getting me even more involved with the part of my job I'm most excited about - more proposals.  He asked me, "Katrina, how do you feel about contracts?"  "What do you mean?"  "Oh, I just thought you might be excited about them because they are connected with law."  "Well, I'm excited about them because they are connected to full sentences."  :)   ..."and Jarrod wants to start getting you more connected with the proposals, not just the big ones you've been doing but all of them.  I do too."  He then used words like "boilerplate"  which nearly made my heart race!  Yes, I can work on that!  We have a proposal due for another historic building next Thursday, another two weeks after that, invoicing for this month is well underway, there are all sorts of reorganization projects I'm starting to get ideas how to tackle, and new opportunities opening up for actual writing! PRAISE THE LORD.  

And on top of all of that, there's this small glistening hope in the horizon that appears from time to time - talk of what our next office space might be like when (if!) we finally move.  :)

It probably helped quite a lot too that today I packed a lunch, went and sat in our design library, and wrote through my break.  :)  I need to be creating!   And I need to write something worth publishing!!  I refuse to be the girl who never did what she dreamt about - never was what she said she was all about.  If nothing else, I refuse to make the people who believe in me regret it, and the people who overlook or dismiss me count themselves right.

Since I am currently working my way through Gulliver's Travels, it seems fitting to share this famous Irish author's bio today.  (Had you caught on to the theme yet?  If not, I just gave it away - Happy Irish month!  I figure what better time than this to learn a bit more about the great men and women who have truly lived with Irish blood flowing through their veins.)

Jonathan Swift was born on November 30, 1667 in Dublin, Ireland. He attended, Kilkenny School, and Trinity College, received an M.A. from Oxford, and became the Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral. He was very politically involved, writing for both the Whigs and the Tories. "Gulliver's Travels," his best known work, was published in 1726 without Swift's name.

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1923

PC: wikipedia

William Butler Yeats


William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was born in Dublin. His father was a lawyer and a well-known portrait painter. Yeats was educated in London and in Dublin, but he spent his summers in the west of Ireland in the family's summer house at Connaught. The young Yeats was very much part of the fin de siècle in London; at the same time he was active in societies that attempted an Irish literary revival. His first volume of verse appeared in 1887, but in his earlier period his dramatic production outweighed his poetry both in bulk and in import. Together with Lady Gregory he founded the Irish Theatre, which was to become the Abbey Theatre, and served as its chief playwright until the movement was joined by John Synge. His plays usually treat Irish legends; they also reflect his fascination with mysticism and spiritualism. The Countess Cathleen (1892), The Land of Heart's Desire (1894), Cathleen ni Houlihan (1902), The King's Threshold (1904), and Deirdre (1907) are among the best known.

After 1910, Yeats's dramatic art took a sharp turn toward a highly poetical, static, and esoteric style. His later plays were written for small audiences; they experiment with masks, dance, and music, and were profoundly influenced by the Japanese Noh plays. Although a convinced patriot, Yeats deplored the hatred and the bigotry of the Nationalist movement, and his poetry is full of moving protests against it. He was appointed to the Irish Senate in 1922. Yeats is one of the few writers whose greatest works were written after the award of the Nobel Prize. Whereas he received the Prize chiefly for his dramatic works, his significance today rests on his lyric achievement. His poetry, especially the volumes The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), The Tower (1928), The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), and Last Poems and Plays (1940), made him one of the outstanding and most influential twentieth-century poets writing in English. His recurrent themes are the contrast of art and life, masks, cyclical theories of life (the symbol of the winding stairs), and the ideal of beauty and ceremony contrasting with the hubbub of modern life.

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.


William Butler Yeats died on January 28, 1939.

Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1923

Source: NobelPrize.org

All in a children's book.

I just had a very weird experience.  Yes, it's slow at work and I'm on Pinterest.  And I saw this quote (to the right), and smiled and thought, "Now, that's when Sparks could write!"   And just as I went to click on it, something caught my eye.  My name.  Huh? 

Yep. 

Just one of those weird moments where you feel some stranger has somehow intruded on a private moment.  Or you feel caught - someone just called you out.  And then, you just feel weirded out, because some girl, with your name, just posted something you would probably have posted - or at least secretly have wanted to.  Oh The Notebook... I might need to re-read that book someday.  Or perhaps I should try catching up on Spark's last few novels.  There's one on my shelf right now... I've just become so disappointed in him lately.  Once he himself wrote the screenplay for The Song, casting Cyrus and completely removing the deep content and real father-daughter relationship that was developed in the book.... I just lost respect. Nicholas, we've been friends for so long - why'd you have to go and do that? You used to make me cry, used to impress me with  your courage to kill main characters... now, you cast teen heart throbs and write cheap versions of your stories for those who can't handle a two-day read.   Go back to your roots man, you used to have something!! I don't want to see Zac Effron, Miley Cyrus or what's his pretty-faced name in one more of your films! 

Sorry, apparently I needed to get that off my chest. 

Back of the Bus Book Club.

I sat in the very back of the bus this morning because I was more or less a honorary bag lady, with my purse (full), my soccer bag, and a bag with a gift in it.  When a guy asked if he could sit next to me, and I noticed Kerouac, we struck up a conversation.  What followed was a discussion of Kerouac, Carlos, Plath, and the Beat Generation in general, travel, and then Hemingway and his generation, Steinbeck, etc.  Yes, another woman joined in and we enjoyed a 45 minute book discussion.  A great one actually.  And it made me think how fantastic it would be to have a book club that met each month in the back of a moving bus.  We could pick a different route each month.  And when we arrived at our destination, get a drink, dinner, etc and then all ride back together. 

I mean, it's not the BART, but I think the Beats would still be proud. 

If I start a book club, prepare your $3.00.  ;)

Parked at POE. :)

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist (1828 - 1910)

[I'm going to have to find this!!]

MARY SHELLEY

Between the time Mary Shelley published anonymous edition of her iconic Frankenstein in London in 1818 and the publication of the second edition in France in 1823, where her name appears for the first time, she penned Maurice, or The Fisher’s Cot — a children’s story Shelley wrote in 1820 for a daughter of friends. Shelley tried to have the story published by her father, William Godwin, but he refused, burying the text for nearly two centuries. In 1997, scholars discovered a manuscript copy was in Italy, considered one of modernity’s great feats of literary forensics.

The story, written in the straightforward Romantic language of poet William Wordsworth, whose work Shelley was reading at the time she composed Maurice, is about a boy searching for a home and his encounters with a traveller who turns out to be his long-lost father. With its melancholy tone and autobiographical undercurrents, the rediscovered text revealed a new glimpse of Shelley’s character and offered a precious missing link in the evolution of her literary style.

source.

I love her and that’s the beginning of everything…

F. Scott Fitzgerald

(via musingsinfemininity)

(Source: nantucketyouth)

I've been sitting here reading A Study in Scarlet... for hours.  I haven't been able to put it down until just now, when I felt I had to, to breath and vent a little emotion.  Sherlock Holmes, who knew how incredibly heart breaking some of his tales are!  If you haven't read it, I give it a high recommendation to you (anyone and everyone).  This story and format are both so different from The Hound of the Baskervilles.  It's broken up into parts and it's brilliant!

The Brothers Karamazov
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
(I finally finished this weekend!)

Dostoevsky proves himself a master of character complexity and development. Strange how the book just, ends. As it appears more character driven than plot driven it would seem to make more sense if the last to scenes of the book were switched, allowing the somewhat surprising behavior in the prison hospital to end the novel with some sort of progression or surprise. However, Dostoevsky's intention to write a sequel/series might have been just what prompted him to end the novel with seemingly minor characters. Who knows what part he intended the school boys to play, or what the death of the young boy may have prompted in the coming book. When considering this, the ending leads to a great deal of mystery and thoughts, which we'll never be able to answer.

Long book, and many times I wished I could just quit it, but in the end, I'd recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn from the masters and willing to take a painful, but rewarding ride. The language is beautiful. The characters, compelling and confusing and altogether far too real!

An exclamation point is like laughing at your own
joke.

F. Scott Fitzgerald!