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Beginnings

Beginnings

Wishing all Shelfarians a sense of Deep Time and Deep Peace in the 2012 New Year!

"...has nothing to do with the human,but has to do with the ancient,the aboriginal,the beginning of all things....realms remote from the mortal or the human, realms which force us to gaze into immense vistas of space and time,where the beginnings and... more »
  • member since August 25, 2009

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Beginnings’s last login was 13 hours ago. show recent activity »

Public Notes

  • tapbirds

    tapbirds says

    Hi Beginnings: wow, this is a little embarrassing. I cannot remember much about the actual medical plot of Arrowsmith after all the years since I read the novel. I actually had to go back and reread my review to see what I wrote. Funny, what stuck with me more was that the protagonist didn't like rural small towns and that he struggled with alcoholism. I don't think that was the heart of the novel. I should probably reread this work in its entirety, it seems deal with important medical ethics questions. Thanks for sharing the link. For some reason I cannot copy the link using my phone. I'll try again later on my computer. I hope all is well with you.

    posted 2 days ago. ( send a note )
  • wendy w

    wendy w says

    Thank you very much! It was nice that you thought of me and my reluctant reader! I hope all is well with you and your daughter.

    posted 2 weeks ago. ( send a note )
  • mmolino54

    mmolino54 says

    I don't really initiate these type of encounters so much as find myself in the middle of them ; )

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • mmolino54

    mmolino54 says

    Thanks for posting about the book and for the well wishes. I hope 2012 treats you and your family well! In the end, I guess it's really about each person finding a way to preserve their dignity (whether that's through fighting, resigning, whatever). It must not be an easy role to be there and be supportive while also making sure you protect/care for yourself and your family.

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • Riddley

    Riddley says

    Hi Beginnings, Interesting - there are many, many people with Aspergers (and even more particularly Tourettes) who have been involved with music.

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • Hal

    Hal says

    Please let me know what you think about Luria. Did you read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat? Great book!

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • Hal

    Hal says

    In his early works, Sacks refers to Luria a lot.

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • Hal

    Hal says

    "Deep Time" I like it!

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • Hal

    Hal says

    Statistics are often misused and misunderstood in many fields. I just realized that you were one of the 99%. Is that a characture of you?

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • Hal

    Hal says

    There are some statistics books that actually make sense. It is all about how you approach it. When it is explained correctly it connects to the real world. Have you read Sack's book Musicophilia
    Tales of Music and the Brain
    by Oliver Sacks ?

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • Hal

    Hal says

    Good to hear from you again. I will read your review. I have a Ph.D. In sociology not biology. I love Sacks' work.

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • mmolino54

    mmolino54 says

    Absolutely no need to apologize, Beginnings! I actually love super-long posts and I consider your open-ness and candor endearing. I'm not a good son--I avoid calling my folks since I know they'll ask for something whenever I call (it's always handyman work I don't know how to do--my much younger [22] brother lives with them, but they don't trust him to do the work or they just don't communicate with him; they end up talking me into installing shower doors or new windows). I definitely speak out loud to myself, but I think the only thing I have is superior self-absorption ; ) I think music therapy would work well for my dad, I just don't think he cares enough to follow through with it. He drove himself to the store and church a couple times after the stroke--I had trouble getting him to understand it wasn't just the family who thought he shouldn't drive, it was actually against the law unless he took a test. Once he took the test and saw how bad he failed, he resigned himself to not driving without much fuss or attitude. The stroke impacted his impulse control, so he now laughs at every joke you tell and is always the first to have a plate of food. Don't they call us the "sandwich generation" when we're trying to take care of both our parents and our own children... ? It ain't easy, but it sounds like I've got it easier--my stepmother does most of the caretaking.

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • tapbirds

    tapbirds says

    Beginnings: Happy New Year and best wishes for 2012!

    posted 1 month ago. ( send a note )
  • tapbirds

    tapbirds says

    Excellent Oliver Sacks quote Beginnings. Best wishes and happy New Years to you!

    posted 2 months ago. ( send a note )
  • wendy w

    wendy w says

    You're very kind.

    posted 2 months ago. ( send a note )
  • wendy w

    wendy w says

    I honestly did not notice too many "I"s. Even re-reading your post I don't think there are too many sentences that begin with I. It's the nature of communication by posting-we are going to write a lot of I sentences. I bet if you counted my I sentences and your I sentences they are at least even, or I have even more than you!

    Sounds like you had a rough childhood for awhile. That often creates a love of reading. Two of my granddaughters had a rough go of it, still do in a lot of ways, and the 6 yr old is dying to be able to read. I can see already that she will lose herself in books and I will buy her any and every book her little heart desires.

    posted 2 months ago. ( send a note )
  • wendy w

    wendy w says

    Without knowing your age I guessed you to be too young for Dark Shadows. I remember being dropped off at the nursery on the air force base by my mother when she had errands to run and the staff there would have Dark Shadows on sometimes. I was very young and remember thinking that the show was very scary and that surely the parents didn't know that their children were allowed to be in the room when that show was on.

    Interview with the Vampire, Vampire Lestat, The Witching Hour and Lasher were the only Anne Rice books I liked, but I really liked them.

    I love Flannery O'Conner and Eudora Welty. I think in one of my past lives I was a poor Southern person because I am really drawn to stories set in the antebellum South. I can't read Faulkner though. I read The Sound and the Fury and it was agony! Right over my head. I had no idea what I was reading. I have no right brain activity. I am sure that a cat scan would show a health left hemisphere and a shriveled little prune hanging where the right hemisphere is supposed to be so stream of consciousness writing completely alludes me.

    I just got back from the book store. yippee. I got 4 $1 books, 1 $2 book, The Tiger's Wife, and I ordered The Beauty and the Sorrow about WWI. Not bad for $31.

    I have a little notebook I made myself with all the long-, short-listed and winning Booker authors in alphabetical order. I actually took the time to write them all down in alphabetical order so it would be easier to browse the book shelves of used bookstores and thrift stores, but it was well worth the time. I have made so many good finds because I know the names to look for now.

    Do you ever use the What Should I Read Next site here? It's kind of cool. It shows you the favorite books of your 'friends.'

    w.

    posted 2 months ago. ( send a note )
  • wendy w

    wendy w says

    Hello Beginnings,

    I understand what you mean. I think I had a similar experience Christmas day. My sweet, kind and very intelligent brother-in-law and sister-in-law asked me if I had read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Harry Potter, Twilight and I didn't want to offend them so I wasn't sure how to answer them without sounding like the book snob that I usually laugh about being! With most people I don't care because most people don't read at all, but my in-laws do read and I don't see them often enough to be lighthearted about my snobbery without making seem as if I think they are less intelligent than me for reading those books, which is absolutely NOT what I think.
    I am able to read wherever I am, I have to because I am the mother/grandmother of a big family and I have 2 jobs. If I couldn't read a few paragraphs while standing in a line, or during my breaks, or standing around waiting for dinner to be served (I cater on weekends) I would never finish a book. Some writers require quiet with no distractions i.e., Saramago. I love Saramago, he is one of my very favorites, but I can't read him with any noise going on around me or if there is a lot going on in my life at the time.

    Your story of your NYC grandmother sounds so fun! I love NYC so having a grandmother live there and to sit in a park and people watch with her would be priceless.

    I hope you and your daughter had a nice Christmas. I did. I got my hoped for $50 gift card to our local independent book store. I like that it's a local business and he has some new releases. I'm going to get The Tiger's Wife and some of the other Booker winners. I'll ask him to order them if he doen't have them. I have a backlog of books right now! I have to wrap up The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford, which I recommend. It's a short book, but very good. If one wants to be well read this is a must read. This novel was "formally innovative" so Ford is an important 20 century writer. There are no likeable characters, but it's an engaging study in human behavior. I was half way through Great Expectations when I stopped to read How Fiction Works so I want to see what happens to Pip, Estella, Joe, and Biddy. How Fiction Works made me interested in The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis so I am a few chapters into that, but then I started the Ford book because it was loaned to me. I was given a lovely hard copy of Magic Mountain, but I already had a better translation of MM so now I want to read MM. And now i have $50 to spend on new books! I need a few months off just to get caught up on reading!
    What are you reading right now?
    W.

    posted 2 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Ulrich

    Ulrich says

    Yes, I'm an English speaking French-Canadian with a German name from my heritage.

    posted 2 months ago. ( send a note )
  • wendy w

    wendy w says

    I am a book snob because I hold certain books in disdain. Not the readers, just the books. I think that makes me a snob. It's the only area of my life where I am an elitist. You can tell from my little pic here that I am not a good dresser, and don't put much thought into my hair. I am certainly not a gourmand. I will only drink dark beer, but my budget forces me to drink cheap coffee. Books, however, I am very picky about. There are too many excellent books to waste time on poorly written ones.
    I don't know you, but I wouldn't have pegged you as a person overly concerned with the opinions of others. Never hide the book you are reading! Especially if it's a book worth reading. Why would you want to hide your intelligence or your intellectual curiosity?
    Believe me, I know that few people read!

    Wendy

    posted 2 months ago. ( send a note )

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