| swetergrl's profileThe Festering BlurbBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
The Festering BlurbBursting open with pungent prose! |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Instant Bookshop
|
November 04 Cabal -- The PMS BreedPMS: Perpetually Mucking about in a Strop
Cabal St. Laurents, Bengal breed, is, sadly, one of the most boring breeds. What? There's another? Yeah, okay. Del-Rey. But anyhoo, this is the story of Cabal in brief (no slouch there, btw.).
pp. 4-5: snarling, murderous p.8: hissing p.16 irritated p.24 growling (and not in a good way) p.25 displeased p.42 snarling p.46 threatening p. 47 angry p. 55 wants to snarl p.64 fury p.67 angry and horny p. 70 frustrated, mad, horny p.92 conflicted p. 95 pissy, snapping at Jonas p. 100 possessive and growling p. 109 mocking p. 117 horny and not happy about it p. 122 suspicious, demanding At this point, I'm tired of this book; I'm tired of Cabal's shitty attitude. Not once has he been relaxed or happy or enjoying his mate. There hasn't been any ROMANCE at all. It's all been duress, duress, duress. GAH! p. 141 bossy, predatory, still being an asshole with Cassa p. 150 latent violence p. 156 tormented. He doesn't even act like he likes Cassa. All he does is make her mad and defensive. This is so 1970s Harlequin Presents. p. 161 using mating heat to control her p. 167 fear of losing his mate; tense p. 173 AT LAST, A CHUCKLE! but it's for Jonas, not his woman. He even made a joke about caffeine. Wow, Cabal's emotions run the entire gamut from A to B! p. 180-183 angry. Quelle shoque! Quelle surprise! By the 190s, he's finally calming the f*ck down and having actual conversations with Cassa. He even cracks another joke. Cassa's even thrown by it. p. 200 HALLE-FREAKIN'-LUJAH!! They are finally relaxing with each other and having fun -- albeit breed/mating heat style fun. But at least it's fun and not strop-sex. (that's my expression, btw. I made it up.) But look at the page number!!! Jeez! p. 205 affectionate and post-coitus lassitude. Now it sounds like a romance. p. 222 all business, but at least he's not angry or "tormented" Whew...I'm a little bit beyond that, but it's been slow going. The first 200 pages were frustrating and even dead boring. The plot has picked up momentum now that all the pieces of the mystery are starting to come together. The plot isn't even that interesting until you get into the 200s. The sex scenes (I'm not about to call them "love" scenes.) were spiritless. After p. 200, Cabal and Cassa start acting more like feisty lovers instead of enemies, which is kind of nice. There's not much more left once you reach the 200s. But, I have high hopes for the last couple of the chapters of the story. I'd like to see an end to this saga soon. Or at least, see it morph into something else.
October 30 THE FIVER: Better than it sounds, smarter than it looks
guardian.co.uk's tea-time take on the world of football
Just like Harold Bloom turns authors' names into adjectives, THE FIVER turns an alarming variety of bodily noises into verbs -- some I didn't even know were possible by humans. These snippets have been harvested from 2009 columns of THE FIVER. I think their humor writing is absolutely top writing!
"[We] confirm they have made the offer to Manchester United for the acquisition of the rights of the player [Him]," ole-ole-ole-ed a piece of paper delivered from the Bernabéu by a winged fez-wearing monkey earlier today. "At [His] request - who has again expressed [His] desire to leave - and after discussion with [His] representatives, United have agreed to give [Them] permission to talk to [Him]," harrumphed a magnanimous Manchester United club statement this morning. "Consultations with Utrecht, the town and the club, have proved fruitless and I want no risk," sniffed Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen. "We're an attractive proposition to other companies," honked an SFA spokesman. "If you're at the club you always wanted to be at, then that goes beyond any money," Beckham wiffled from the fly-speckled porch of his luxury aluminium trailer. "He'll be the last person we sign," puces Ferguson. [Author's note: How the F*&$ do you make a color a verb???] **This counts towards my "Blog Countdown to South Africa 2010!"
MIDDLE GROUND: The Magazine of Middle Level Education (NMSA)
This journal is magazine-style. It’s well-designed and easy to read – but not without its inconveniences. The artwork is strategically placed for good effect and doesn’t overpower the text. Even the pages with full color are wisely designed so that the text stands out. Good examples of well-balanced page design are pages 20-21 in the August 2009 issue and pages 10-13 in the August 2008 issue. The covers feature a single child, usually in a classroom setting. I appreciate the nod to tolerance and equanimity wherein children on the cover represent various cultures. Articles have section headings, which I really like. I’m not a fan of using sans serif type for vast amounts of text, but the size of the text makes it fairly easy to read. Content is kept pretty tight. Not a wasted word nor a superfluous phrase. This leads me to why I enjoy reading this journal – the articles are informative, concise, descriptive, and they have useful side elements like lists, charts, pictures – cleverly integrated into the page design. They also have one of the cleanest tables of contents that I’ve ever seen. Again – sans serif type, but small and bold, which works just fine. There’s a lot to describe, but I’d rather show you.
Nice! Not every issue is as good as August 2009. February 2008 had an article titled “Transitions: Smoothing the Way for Students and Parents”. The overall layout was good. Pale artwork on a white background. Standard sans serif font, useful section headings. But the text was too pale – more dark gray than black. In fact, the whole issue was like that. It got frustrating fast. Plus, it was crazy with ads, and in some places, it was difficult to tell the article from the ad copy. On top of all that, the paper is excellent quality, so excellent, so slick, so glossy…too glossy, too slick, don’t read it under direct light or you’ll get cataracts – if you can hold on to it to begin with. Some of my fav articles:
I almost never read the editor’s note. The same with the executive director’s note. Just a personal choice. I haven’t analyzed why I flip through those pages with nary a glance. Although, now that I think about it, that type of audience-specific/location-specific writing might be a useful writing lesson. You get your money’s worth out of this journal. One of its strengths is that is covers practices and techniques for all subjects. Philosophically, its content is strongly cross-curricular. Also, not only does it cover pedagogy, but offers helpful articles on professionalism, first-year survival and teacher retention, and not just administrative practices, but leadership by administration, teachers AND students. The ads aren’t too overwhelming, but they are loud and frequent.
September 13 FULL MOON SPENDING SPREE
Late August 2009 I'm cheating a little bit because I put the blog stuff in my BooksRead column. But it's logical, don't you think? I've read them before and I thought it might seem a bit poncey to do an extra column BOOKS READ AND BLOGGED. Sounds a bit overkill-ish, if you ask me. Whatever is in my purse (SW4M) takes me a long time to finish. I carried my pocket Loeb for a year -- like a baby that refused to be born. I probably need to stop carrying books that make me laugh out loud. I'm already enough of an oddball for reading in public as it is. 80 million people around the world do it, yet I'M THE WEIRDO! I feel like the socialist peasant in Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Maybe if some watery tart handed me a sword, I could slash my way though the unwashed masses. "The peasants are revolting!" But I digress... Satyricon, as I found out in the plump introduction, is a play on words about four levels deep. That's my kinda word! Something you can really sink your teeth into. What it was doing in my parent's closet I'll never know, but it's mine now. There's a movie out called YEAR ONE. From the commercials, I get the impression it's a re-telling of Satyricon, but with way worse dialogue. Or maybe it's the same dialogue, but it sounds more interesting in vulgar Latin. Foreign languages are fun like that. For example, in this Spanish-language soap opera Sortilegio, the hero often refers to his wife as "mi mujer". If you translate that directly, it means "my woman". Kinda sexy, that. However, the proper translation is "my woman-wife". Sounds like a Waylon Jennings song. Or... it sounds like he traded some goats for her. Outlaw I have read about a dozen times since 1993. It's a last-gasp of the old-school where a woman's first sexual experience is a rape. I never understood why what was such a popular theme, especially since women were writing the books. Then they fell in love with the men who assaulted them??? WTF!! It's the 1990s, not the 1790s. Anyway, I didn't keep it because of the love scenes, I kept it because I liked all the characters and Lowell's special touch with Old and New West/ranching themes. Think about it -- ranch life is hard and dreary and unglamorous. And if the author can STILL make you like it, that's amazing. And if you're tempted to scoff at that, go right ahead. Loser. This book was part 2 of a 4-part series. The McKenzie-Blackthorn series by Elizabeth Lowell. (There will never be a story for Utah. EL has moved way on!) Click here for the post on this series or click on the Books in Exile category. The only thing missing from my BooksBought list is a humor book -- unless you count Articles of Faith. That's a soccer book which just happens to be funny. I'm saving that for my soccer book series. Picked up some professional books. They're very stimulating, intellectually. I have my favorites and tend to get books whose pedagogy and practices run along the same lines. That being the case, it's important not to get stuck in a groove. I've done more blogging these last two weeks than I did in all of June. I do a lot of writing for escapism, and this is where a lot of it ends up. Lucky you!
August 15 NCTE's LANGUAGE ARTS: The Journal of the Elementary Section of the Natl. Council of Teachers of English
Even though the title says "Elementary", this journal easily applies all the way up to middle school.
Here's a random selection of issues. Articles from LANGUAGE ARTS are available for viewing at the www.ncte.org , but you have to be a member to access the full article.
Some buzz words do tend to pop up more than others. "Literacy" is a popular guest at the buzz word tea party. "Inquiry" is a favorite guest as well. The Multis crash the party now and then: multimodal, multilingual, multicultural, multimedia. There's even poetry written by teachers! Sweet! (A word I'd like to see more often is "innovation".) Most of the articles follow a pattern of rhetoric that could use a bit of tightening up. Some of the writing is a bit long-winded, but the page design makes up for it. The page is a 3-column format with page numbers about 2 inches down the margin for easy reference. There's charts, drop quotes, italicized bits, bold-faced section titles, works cited and works referenced, as well as photos and indexes. I don't care for the advertising, but I guess they have to pay the bills. Ads are mostly for books and professional development opportunities. One of the best reasons to get this journal is that it has book reviews of children's/YA books and professional development books. So if you don't have time to read every single children's book that comes out, this journal covers, easily, a half dozen books at a time. You could read HORNBOOK, which is a magnificent publication in its scope, but with LANGUAGE ARTS, you get a lot of book reviews PLUS research, pedagogy, political issues, cultural issues... in a nutshell -- the inquiry and the insight. For members, the online issue has nice extras like blogs, book bargains, online seminars (These are fantastic! Try one!) The beginning of the magazine details future issues AND gives you the lowdown on how to submit articles. NCTE/LA is not just for reading other people's work, it's for you who aspire to get your work published!
OCTOBER 20, 2009
ONCE AND FUTURE CLASSICS: Reading between The Lines
|
My money's good here!
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This is a good journal for exploring research in language and literacy. Every month has a theme that is developed through research, lesson cycles, book reviews, samples of student work, and professional development opportunities. It's $25.00 per year plus the price of the membership.
Send a private message
Tell a friend
Add to My MSN
Add to your network
Sign up for alerts|
|
