Low Corpulent, Stout or Stooping?

A friend, needing to order academic robes, passed this little curio onto me. It's the actual order form she needs to fill out. "Please, please tell me I'm not on my way toward 'low corpulent,'" she wrote. Indeed, one might worry about one's chosen profession when allowable body type options include low corpulent, stout, and stooping and when it is assumed one has one low shoulder: "Low Shoulder: Which? R_____ L______."

Mr. Collins??

After an agonizing three minutes of deciding upon my ideal "Man of Austen"( "Mr. Darcy! Henry Tilney? Willoughby! Colonel Brandon (only if it's actually Alan Rickman)? Frank Churchill? Mr. Knightley... Mr. Darcy!"), I finally decided on Henry Tilney. His interests in fashion, shopping, horseback riding and long walks in the country finally tipped the scales in his favour. Not surprisingly, Mr. Darcy ranks first among people like me who spend part of their Monday nights weighing the merits of various fictional men. But, Mr. Collins in 8th? Gack! Who is voting for Mr. Collins?!?! Maybe it's Lady Catherine de Bourgh? What would Miss Austen say? Vote for Willoughby?

We Tell Stories: Digital Fiction from Penguin

Lately I've been doing a lot of reading about the history of the book, the future of the page and all manner of topics related to those questions. Today I stumbled upon the We Tell Stories site which looks very interesting. Six authors. Six stories. Six Weeks. This week it's Charles Cumming's The 21 Steps, an homage to John Buchan's The 39 Steps. It is, as the site says, "an adrenaline-fuelled adventure written and designed for Google Maps." Penguin has just given me another reason to love them.

What White People Like: or, today I discovered what a predicatable demographic I am

Thanks to PB for pointing out this nifty blog. It starts out being sort of funny and then it turns kind of eerie. Like Barack Obama?: yup; own one of these water bottles?: indeed; am I one these coffee drinking people?: uh huh; own Apple products?: yep; go out for breakfast?: that too; fan of the Bluth family?: guilty as charged; Wrigley Field?: been there; and sigh, there's this too. I'm going to stop now.

Presidential Libraries and you.

This is pretty neat. From the Chronicle and sent to me by MA.
"For millennia, great and not-so-great leaders have celebrated themselves in monuments. . .
Modern U.S. presidents have only their presidential libraries. Now that the George W. Bush era is almost over, the world needs a place to archive the legacy of the 43rd president. That place will be Southern Methodist University, in a building designed by Robert A.M. Stern. The building will probably cost $500-million... We thought that Chronicle readers would have their own ideas about how that building should be designed, and we invited people to send in designs on the backs of envelopes. About 120 people sent in sketches that were good, bad, serious, humorous, abstract, or really angry. Their designs took the form of toilets, bunkers, crosses, and W's, some crudely drawn and some very elegant. A sampling of those designs is displayed on these pages."

More on scurvy; Or why you should eat an orange

I don't know why this is but every Canadian I know has vivid memories of learning about scurvy in elementary school. Usually it was incorporated into units about explorers where we learned two things. One: there were Coureurs de Bois (which, as we all memorized, means "runners of the woods"); two, that explorers got scurvy because they didn't eat oranges.
Many people I know remember quivering in their tiny desk as their teacher described in freakish detail how scurvy made explorers' teeth fall out, their gums bleed and their skin get all icky. Some kids, like me, made a life-long mental note right then and there to eat a lot of oranges. Some kids, like me, have also made a lot of scurvy jokes over the years. Just last week I declared, "I must procure some oranges so as to prevent scurvy. One must be ever vigilant about scurvy, you know." Imagine then my amusement to find an a nifty write-up about scurvy in today's paper. In case you aren't Canadian or missed that particular day of class, here's what you need to know about scurvy.

"Winter can be associated with a decreased vitamin intake because of a drop in the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables available during that season.
Some notes:Scurvy, an ailment caused by a lack of vitamin C, was common onboard 15th-century exploration ships. By 1519-22, when Magellan circumnavigated the globe, 90 per cent of his Portuguese crew did not survive because of scurvy.

Also by the 16th century, fresh food was known to be a preventive and remedy for scurvy.

The great British navigator Captain James Cook (1728-79) was the first naval officer to provide fresh fruit and vegetables, gathered whenever possible on his voyages of discovery. He did not lose a single man to scurvy.

By 1793, the British Navy began the compulsory issue of lemon juice, as fresh citrus fruit had been found to be a successful cure for scurvy.

In his 1987 book Plagues & Poxes: The Rise and Fall of Epidemic Disease, Alfred Jay Bollet wrote that many American colonists developed scurvy because they didn't get enough vitamin C during the winter. This vitamin deficiency causes fatigue, general weakness, anemia, loose teeth, gum disease and bleeding near the surface of the skin. According to Dr. Bollet, scurvy often surfaced in the late winter or early spring, after stored vegetables and fruits were finished and before new crops began producing. "The timing of the usual early symptoms of scurvy is thought to have led to the term 'spring fever,' " he wrote.

Sources: The Globe and Mail who quote The (Quincy, Mass.) Patriot Ledger, Manawatu (N.Z.) Standard, news services"

Facebook Haiku Volume 4

Heidi dumb. Wet hand. Metal door. Winter. Swift. 10:38pm

Heidi would like to add "yeah but it's a wussy cold" to the list that includes "yeah but it's a dry cold." 4:33pm

Heidi is amused that her friend's 8 year old has declared himself to be a Jacobite. 10:48am

Heidi is slowly coming to terms with the fact that the laundry fairies are not coming today and is embarking on Plan B. 6:44pm

Heidi is wondering if Peter's reasons for only going to dim sum occassionally are the same as hers. 6:03pm

Heidi is reading Food and Drink and regretting that she's eating Mac and Cheese. 2:03pm

Heidi is taming the beast that is her unread in-box. 1:44pm

Heidi is not as illustrated. For the most part. Well, maybe she does look a little like an Ugly Doll Ice Bat. 12:48pm

Heidi has really really really nice friends and family. 10:27pm

Heidi is trying to get her stomach off mountain standard time. 8:58pm

Heidi is home. She will retreat from the world like Alice James. Well, Alice James with cable. 12:48am

Heidi is happy to be escaping more -30 weather. 12:41am

February 7

Heidi is wishing she didn't have the Shaft theme running through her head; though it might be the Sesame Street version that features Cookie Monster. 12:49am

February 5
Heidi is thinking about giving up CNN for Lent. 11:06pm

Heidi is wondering how one caters a Super Tuesday soiree but then realizes she and D will just finish off this tin of low-fat Pringles. 11:40am

Heidi estimates that she has spent 47 minutes of her waking hours each day this week putting on and taking off snow clothes. 12:48am

February 3
Heidi is thinking about what Death Cab for Cutie said that Sara said. 11:43am

February 2
Heidi is not, as Dale keeps insisting she is, reading the "Directors Cut" version of Emma; there are not any highspeed barouche chases or fiery coach crashes. 12:51am

February 1
Heidi is grateful for thick Jane Austen novels. 1:35am

January 31
Heidi is sitting on a beach listening to Rickman, Firth and Granderson argue about who is going to get her her next mojito. 12:22am

January 29
Heidi is amused to find herself thinking "oh good.. it's warming up" when seeing tomorrow's high is -35. 10:59pm

Heidi is feeling nostalgic for yesterday's warmth. It's now -37 C but, according to Environment Canada "it feels like -53." 12:05am

January 27
Heidi is uhh happy to be participating the coldest January 27th since 1972. It's -28 but apparently feels like -44o C. 10:51pm

January 26
Heidi is hoping the -27o C forecast for Edmonton is a typo. 10:14pm

Heidi is wondering if Dale will believe you're supposed to buy your wife flowers on the day pitchers and catchers report.
9:42pm

Heidi apparently reminds a coworker of Annie Hall. She also reminds her mum of Elaine from Seinfeld 9:02am

Heidi now understands those dropped call commercials. She wonders if Dale knows he agreed to adopt three pug puppies. 12:16am

January 24
Heidi is kinda sorta wondering how it's all going to get done. 11:35pm

Heidi is not home. But Gracie has taken over Heidi's facebook account and all of her Scrabble games. 10:24pm

Heidi likes this Fountains of Wayne rhyme: I saw you talkin' to Christopher Walken. 5:01pm

Heidi is hoping the Russian Futurists are better company for Dale than the Russian Formalists she's been running with this week. 12:09pm

Heidi is pondering her shoe choices for tomorrow. 8:55pm

Heidi is now getting email from John Kerry. 7:38pm

Heidi is adding "laptop" to her list of things she owns with imprints of Gracie's teeth in the upper right corner. 5:07pm

Heidi is apparently detoxified having just used her detoxifying honey and milk lotion from Shoppers Drug Mart. Who knew 3.99 could do so much? 12:55pm

Heidi is watching snow fall. 9:08am

Heidi is clinging to her empty cup and waiting for the coffee shop to open. 8:15am

January 21
Heidi is having a hard time admitting to her Edmonton peops that she now finds -10 cold. "But it's a damp cold". 8:46pm

Heidi is annoyed to find herself singing songs about Piers Plowman. 4:51pm

Heidi is wishing Jones New York made thermal business attire. 9:11am

January 20
Heidi has decided on small TV & warm room rather than big tv & cold room. She'll save her chit for the big TV for big screen Colin Firth. She also forgives Aki. 7:31pm

Heidi is in the midst of domestic negotiations regarding the big screen TV: Jane Austen vs the Packers. She regrets she's up against a rhetorician. 1:04pm

Heidi is blissfully slothful or slothfully blissful. 11:38am

January 19
Heidi is wondering if she'd feel less guilty about not writing if she thought of it as solidarity with the striking writers rather than an actual slump. 6:37pm

Heidi is having to write her own status updates since the writers are still on strike. 1:00pm

Heidi is smiling at this email from a publisher: "the following new publications are available now. Please collect your necessary copy hurry." 9:22am

January 17
Heidi is feeling less surly now that she has a lemon cannoli. 7:15pm

Heidi is sad to realize she's becoming the kind of person who gets annoyed by headlines like "The deconstruction of Britney Spears". 4:53pm

Heidi is grossed out at the hawk outside her window pulling apart a pigeon. 2:42pm

Heidi staring at a picture of Virginia Woolf and humming a James Brown song to herself. 10:59am

January 16
Heidi has been scared into eating another orange now by Dan T. 11:13pm

Heidi is now operating under Wednesday's schedule: apparently it is not Thursday. 11:09am

January 15
Heidi is eating an orange so as to prevent scurvy. 9:47pm

Heidi is ever hopeful that the laundry fairies will come! 9:40pm

Heidi will not offer chatty banter during sporting events. Heidi will not offer chatty banter during sporting events. Heidi will not offer chatty banter during sporting events 8:50pm

Heidi is turning next week's classes into "surrealistic mime-acrobatic-dance pieces". 8:25am

January 14
Heidi is wishing she had a "surrealistic mime-acrobatic- dance piece" (Jan 7, New Yorker, p 26) to work on instead of prepping for next week's classes. 1:08pm

Heidi is sad how often people say "Oh no" when I say "Hey, I've got something for you" or "Hey! I was thinking...". 11:45am

January 13
Heidi is updating her New Year's Resolutions to include items like "I will cease to offer chatty banter during football games". 10:47pm

Heidi is getting excited about watching PBS's 3-month-long Jane Austen-a-palooza (isn't that what it's called?). 6:31pm

Heidi is back here... 8:25pm

January 10
Heidi is outta here.. 11:39am

January 9
Heidi is trying to figure out what to do for Professor Snape's birthday (Jan 9): take him to the Keg? Get him a gift certificate for Le Chateau or a spa weekend? 11:50pm

Heidi is wondering if salad can be archival. If so, she's found some in her fridge. 6:12pm

Heidi thinks her garbage can lid might be floating in the Detroit river after last night's storm. 11:04am

Heidi is wondering if Dale is googling "Collagen Marshmallows" yet. 8:56am

January 8
Heidi is wondering how to cater New Hampshire Primary Night: Obama Babka? McCain French Fries? Huckabee-rry Pie? Won ClinTon Soup? 5:01pm

Heidi is being taunted by a pigeon. 9:19am

January 7
Heidi is having a conversation about Scott Baio on the phone. 9:19pm

Heidi is absorbent and yellow and porous, is she. 7:52pm

Heidi is hoping Mita will forgive her...1:45pm

Heidi is still smiling about her latest caper of which she is mighty proud. 7:40pm

Heidi wondering why there are so many people wandering around her workplace...12:27pm

Heidi is listening to Badly Drawn Boy and wondering if she's a Badly Drawn Librarian. 9:06am

January 6
Heidi is a few days away from a pink Magnolia cupcake. 8:58pm

Heidi is unabashedly giddy to learn PBS is playing the complete Jane Austen over the next weeks. She also predicts Dale's response will be "oh no...". 3:57pm

Heidi is realizing the New Hampshire primary is kind of like Survivor. She wonders if Jeff Probst will host the next debate.
9:14am

Heidi is trying not to wonder how it is that Kevin Federline became the "good parent." 11:50pm

Heidi is laughing nervously at the OLA Conference tag line: "Because there is Nothing cooler than a convention center full of librarians!". 3:03pm

January 4
Heidi is reluctantly going to admit that she just googled "Barack Action Figure". 6:06pm

Heidi is being summoned out of her office by a cup of Tim's coffee... 1:52pm

Heidi is thinking she should have adopted more challenging New Year's resolutions. 12:19pm

Heidi is enjoying the serenity of an empty campus. 8:32am

January 3
Heidi is excited by the email she just got from Barack: "Heidi-- turn on your television. We just won in Iowa.".11:35pm

Heidi is STILL convinced that Wolf Blitzer is a handpuppet. 9:00pm

Heidi is wondering what the Iowans did today. 7:41pm

Heidi is researching how she might go about providing a half-dozen monkeys with typewriters-- just for the heck of it.5:16pm

Heidi has just learned a new word: prosopography. 3:02pm

Heidi is singing "Barack Me Amadeus". 11:38am

Heidi is wondering why librarians don't get horn sections to accompany them. 11:01am

Heidi is at war with her inner Bridget Jones. 10:32am

January 2
Heidi is singing hey-la hey-la, her boyfriend's back... 11:37am

Heidi is pleased that January is Curtis month in her Tigers calendar. 9:12am

Heidi is generally feeling less like her Secret Mission IceBat now that she's back at work. She feels odd wearing shoes and clothes that match though. 9:05am

January 1
Heidi feeling like her Secret Mission Ice Bat at the thought of going back to work. EEEEEEEEEE. 10:59pm

Heidi has just purged 7 years of files from her filing cabinet. 6:56pm

Heidi is wondering if Gracie has atoned for eating Atonement. Interestingly, like many people I know, Gracie didn't get past the first 50 pages of the Golden Compass either. 10:45am

December 31
Heidi is sad to be running out of Hello Kitty bandaids. 2:28pm

December 30
Heidi wishes Gracie's appetite for contemporary fiction was more readerly. 7:53pm

Heidi is wondering if Gracie's joined a cat book club that requires her to eat the corner off at least one book a week. 5:00pm

December 29
Heidi is amused by what she overheard: "He's tall AND athletic? If you can find yourself a man's who's tall, athletic and not an idiot, well then you've hit the jackpot." 9:19pm

Heidi is feeling nostalgic for Dale's Amy Winehouse songs. 7:57pm

Heidi is wondering how long Dale will continue to sing his daily communiques as Amy Winehouse songs: "they tried to make me make some coffee and I said no, no, no...". 9:09am

December 27
Heidi is no longer under the control of her Svengali-like alarm clock. 12:58pm

December 26
Heidi is making a lizard out of blue felt. 7:11pm

December 25
Heidi is probably not going to broadcast her Christmas message on Youtube but nevertheless she, like the Queen, wishes you a very "heppy" Christmas. 9:42am

December 23
Heidi thinking "Rough winds do shake the darling house on Moy".
4:43pm

Heidi is still reading a baseball novel, drinking coffee from a Red Sox mug but is now watching snow fall. 4:13pm

Heidi is reading a baseball novel, drinking coffee from a Red Sox mug and watching the rain pour down. 8:23am

December 22
Heidi trying to figure out what to buy a Democratic Presential candidate for Christmas. A sweater from the Gap? Pepperidge Farms basket? Oprah's lastest book pick? 11:15am

December 21
Heidi had no idea that buying a Barack Obama bumper sticker would mean Barack would email her every day, She now feels pressured to send him a Xmas card too. 9:17pm

Reading

Although I won't go into detail here, it's been a rough couple of weeks at the Cafe. Two weeks ago, as I was waiting for a cab to take me to my west-ward plane, I remembered a line from A Room With A View, my favourite book and movie. Mr Emerson said, "leave me Thoreau. . . I need him by me now." It wasn't Thoreau I needed by me, it was Jane Austen. And so, as my cab pulled up, I ran to my study and nestled Emma into my carry-on bag. There is a school of thought that says that life is too short to re-read novels and I can understand this point of view. While sitting in the departures lounge, I began to second guess my book choice. I have read Emma at least 9 times before and easily could have used my 8 hours of travel time to explore something new. By the time I'd finished Emma's opening line, I knew I'd made the right decision. I needed a friend with me and Miss Austen proved to be as good a companion as I could have imagined. When I arrived at my destination, there were many moments when D compassionately whispered "It's ok. Read your novel." Despite my decades of theorizing and discussing fiction, it was only then that I really understood the power of fiction and understood what it has offered me these many years.
When I arrived home yesterday, I happened to pick up Alan Bennett's fabulous novella The Uncommon Reader which couldn't have been a more perfect book for me. The premise is lovely: when her corgis stray, the Queen finds herself in a mobile library where she feels obligated to select a book. This chance encounter with a book mobile sparks her obsession with reading which, as one can imagine, has all sorts of consequences for the Royal household and the nation. Bennett (who, you may recall, wrote the play The History Boys) has written a novella where the prose and narrative dance between being light-hearted and poignant. Given my various thoughts about fiction over the past 2 weeks, I was particularly drawn to this passage:

"'I can understand,' he said. 'Your Majesty's need to pass the time.'
'Pass the time?' said the Queen. 'Books are not about passing the time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wishing time to pass, Sir Kevin, one just wishes one had more of it.' (29)."

Finally, there are times when one sees oneself in a novel so vividly that one thinks a novel has been written just for you. I have to admit I laughed at my double take when I read: "The librarian at Windsor had been one of many who had urged on Her Majesty the charms of Jane Austen" (74). Apparently it was a different Windsor and a different librarian. Nevertheless, if this librarian at Windsor were to suggest reading material for any monarch, she would most certainly urge on him or her the charms of Jane Austen.

PS: While Gracie, remarkably, hasn't chewed on this novel, she did find it quite comfortable.

Librarianship according to Spock

The cafe is once again open after a short closure. Thanks to Paul for sending this Star Trek clip along.

Postcards from my recent web travels

How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read This article talk about Pierre Bayard's latest book. 'Because I teach literature at university level,' he says, regretfully, 'there is, in fact, no way to avoid commenting on books that most of the time I haven't even opened.' 'Non-reading' for Bayard, is 'a genuine activity'. It implies an engagement with literature and is different from mere 'absence of reading'. A 'true reader' is simply 'one who cares about being able to reflect on literature'. With so little time and so many books, he argues, it is better to spread the net wide and settle for a general sense of the multitude.

Panic in Detroit: Bob Stanley on Motown's great groove crisis.In the summer of 1967, Motown was at a creative and commercial peak. . . By the time athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith gave Black Power salutes at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, Motown's slogan "The Sound of Young America", seemed laughable. What happened?

From the "didn't I see that on Seinfeld" category, a story of a long overdue book: When the book arrived at the Bedford (Mass.) Public Library in a battered cardboard box last November, the return name and address gave a few of the library staff a chuckle. “I. M. Layte” was the delinquent patron’s name. The address was just as humorous: “45 Rueful Way” in Los Angeles. But the mystery of the hardcover book, Du Barry, about the last of French monarch Louis XV’s mistresses, would deepen when Director Richard Callaghan realized the book was 48 years overdue.

Prisoners of Beckett is the meeting of two worlds that never usually converge. One is comprised of poetry and freedom, the other silence and obscurity. It's a true story, which begins in a high security prison in Sweden, where a young actor, Jan Jonson, decides to stage "Waiting for Godot" with a cast of five prisoners.

According to this story, Renowned Princeton writers join together to teach one class, 'Princeton University Reads'. Most universities offer events with the on-campus writers, but it's pretty cool to get so many of them to come to one class.

'Be generous with your diphthongs' Need to learn a Welsh or American accent in a hurry? Stephen Moss dons a Stetson and modulates his 'Oxford-in-the-50s' tones for a crash course that promises just that.

NPR's Top 10 Unknown Artists of 2007.

NYC January 11-13, 2008: "So... What did you do?"

Well, we...
Saw amazing things such as:
--Allen Toussaint's warm and brilliant performance at the Blue Note
--The evocative and provocative Kara Walker Retrospective at the Whitney
--The seemingly endless sea of superlative art at the Met
--The stunning Pierpont Morgan Library that I've read about in the fascinating biography of Belle da Costa Greene that I'm reading now. In addition to the very interesting architectural setting, we saw an actual copy of the Gutenberg bible and the original ms of Dickens' A Christmas Carol and a page of the Ulysses ms.
--The Seafarer which was very very good.

Ate fantastic meals such as:
--Dinner at Jane: Starter: Salmon and avocado tartare with soy wasabi citronette and wonton crisps; Main H: cod with fennel and white asparagus in a truffle oil and blood orange jus: Main D: Seared Diver Scallops with white corn pozole, apple smoked bacon and roasted poblano. Dessert: Cream puffs with pumpkin gelato, pumpkin seed brittle and caramel sauce.
--Lunch at Le Pain Quotidien: Soup, assorted cheeses and Marscapone, Honey and Fig Tartine
--Dinner at Le Madeleine: H: Grilled Atlantic Salmon with Sautéed Napa Cabbage, Potato Purée, Ginger-Soy-Lime Vinaigrette: D: Grilled Berkshire Pork Chop with Creamy Chorizo-Polenta, Broccoli Rabe, New York State Apple Glaze.
--Lunch at Grand Central Station Oyster Bar: New England style clam chowder and assorted east and west coast oysters

Got:
--To walk and walk and walk
--To spend a great few days with sweet babboo.
--To be regenerated, enlivened and inspired
--Reminded why we need go back very very soon...

More photos are on my flickr site

Tres cool. Cool trays.

On the collaborative photo blog, I posted one photo of my latest purchase. While on some errands, I saw these lovely trays with vintage photographs. We ended up with two.
I particularly like the one of the two women; the woman on the left is scribbling something in a notebook; her delightfully impish grin makes me wonder what she's writing. I also love their shoes.

The other tray is pretty nifty too. Both have the seeds of short stories in them me thinks.

A Year in Twelve Photos: December 2007

A detail from the Royal Ontario Museum

November 2007

Detroit Institute of Art Reopening, Member's Preview Weekend

October 2007

New kitty: Gracie

September 2007

Stairwell, Art Institute of Chicago

August 2007

Dusk at the Tigers Game

July 2007

Tigers Game

June 2007

Lavender blooms in my garden

May 2007

Lily of the Valley from my garden