Some sweet railings for the Lemuria Pub Crawl…

A few pictures of the Krewe of Kids Who Can’t Read That Good and Want to learn to do other things good too… 
Float Building… (In a secret location off Mill St.)

Pat sent me this link for a website dedicated to adopting rescue dogs.The image above includes pictures of (from right to left) Chelsi, the litter, “Eight is Enough,” and the puppy, Whisper. Below is a picture of Lydia, a baby Catahoula Leopard Dog mixed Labrador Retriever. To find out more about Lydia and the many beautiful dogs waiting to be adopted from the Jackson Friends of Animals and other organizations associated with PetFinder check out this link for PetFinder.Com.

While I’m not a particular fan of mysteries I found Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris, the author of Chocolat, to be great escapist fare. In this highly entertaining work, Ms. Harris manages to switch genres with great ease and even greater success.

Set in an old line English prep school called St. Oswald’s Grammar School, the entire story is told through the voices of two characters. The first, an anonymous narrator, who is obviously a sociopath, has returned to St. Oswald’s as a teacher determined to wreak havoc on the institution for what he perceives as past betrayals. His identity is revealed only at the end of the book. The other protagonist is a classics professor named Professor Straitley, a delightful curmudgeon with a wry sense of humor and a grudge against modernity in general and computers, e-mails and the like in particular. Professor Straitley is an unlikely hero, but as an intensely loyal and dedicated teacher who loves the school he presents the major obstacle to the villain’s ultimate goal–the destruction of St. Oswald’s.

Their contest of wits is played out using the framework of a chess game as its motif with each chapter alternating between the viewpoint of the villain, signified by the imprint of a black pawn at the beginning of his chapter and that of the professor, designated by the imprint of the white knight at the beginning of his.
In the early chapters, the professor is an unwitting player, only aware that there are nefarious events taking place at his beloved St. Oswald’s. But as the game progresses he is the only one who recognizes the danger and is able to maneuver to stop the mayhem. (Someone pointed out after I had read the book that only the knight can move both ways on a chess board.)

Although I don’t know much about chess, one doesn’t need to in order to thoroughly enjoy the book. Despite the implausibilities in the story—and there are a number–the intricate plotting, smart pacing and the many twists and turns keep the reader turning the pages until the last deliciously clever twist–a twist I realized had been hinted at from the beginning—hidden in plain sight as it were. -Billie

Danger on Peaks: Poems

Gary Snyder

Shoemaker-Howard (2004)

In a copy of The Best Buddhist Writing, I read a few poems from Danger on Peaks. Their quality motivated me to read the entire collection of poems, Gary Snyder’s first collection in twenty years.

Danger on Peaks begins with the Atomic Dawn of 1945 and as Nagasaki Snyder ascends Mt. St. Helens for the first time.  In poetic grace, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens is linked in time with the Atomic Dawn.

Bleak as this may sound, this collection is beautiful and picturesque.

I could hear, from Glacier Ghosts:

“you can never hear enough

sound of wind in pines”

I could taste, from Winter Almond:

“eat black bread with smoked oysters”