scarlettina: (Radio Scarlettina)
Links and notes about stuff I've been thinking about:

Last night, The New York Times reported that housing may no longer be a key to one's personal financial future. (The Seattle Times reports that home sales have plunged to their lowest in 15 years.) My condo has never been under water, but the prospect seems to be that it won't increase in value over the long haul in our new economy. I've been involved in a discussion about housing values lately. Maybe that little house I've always wanted won't be within reach after all. (If the housing market isn't favorable to sales, it won't make a difference how low prices are; if I can't sell my condo, I can't afford a new place.) I can't tell you how sad this makes me because, honestly, nice as it may be, I don't want to live in a condo forever.

On this morning's Future Tense, the NPR look at technology (among other things), a story ran about EA's latest release of "Medal of Honor." The story discussed the question of why some people think such realistic depictions of war are inappropriate for video games. The EA representative discussing the issue asked why video games aren't appropriate media for addressing themes relevant to current events, and referred to games featuring dragons, "elfs," and orcs as being the products of "juvenile imagination." I'm sure this was a knock at World of Warcraft and its ilk. One cannot expect companies not to dis their competitors, but I am always discontent with knocks at fantasy fiction.

On a lighter note, NPR is running a series about weirdly specific museums. They've run one about the National Mustard Museum and, this morning, a story about the National Museum of Dentistry. Fun fact for a Tuesday: George Washington's dentures weren't made of wood; they were made of hippopotamus ivory!
scarlettina: (Radio Scarlettina)
Twice a year, the local NPR affiliate runs a pledge drive--if you listen to the station, then this isn't news. It also shouldn't be news that I always volunteer for at least one shift to answer phones and take pledges. It's always fun, not hard work, food is provided, and so is a gift of some sort: a book, a water bottle, a key chain, something.

I have volunteered for a shift on Saturday, March 28, from 10:15 AM to 2:00 PM. If anyone would like to join me, I think it could be fun to have a group of friends all together there. You can find the volunteer form here. Join me?

In other news...

Tue, Jun. 24th, 2008 10:35 pm
scarlettina: (Radio Scarlettina)
Ancient dating
[livejournal.com profile] dianora2 posted it first, but I saw it today on the news and knew I wanted to mention it here: scholars think they have determined the date when King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War. Now that's some mighty fine sleuthin'. This is one of the reasons I love living when we're living; we figure out cool stuff like this.

This American Lie
In less awesome, sort of headscratching news, a New Republic writer decided to fact-check humorist David Sedaris' book Naked and discovered--shock!, dismay!--that his creative nonfiction isn't always 100% completely, totally true! Even though it says so, right there in the book! (Sedaris, for those of you who don't know, is a humorist and essayist who often appears on the wonderful Chicago Public Radio show, "This American Life," hence the title of this section of tonight's entry.) I gotta say that my first reaction upon hearing about this story (via coverage on KUOW-FM) was to think, "Ah, yes, another sign of the dumbing down of America." And after hours and hours of thinking about it, I still feel that way. This writer picks apart all of Sedaris' books seeking the truth and trying to draw the line between fiction and nonfiction.

Except, last time I looked, essays of this sort aren't written to cast a clear eye on the hard, cold facts. They're not intended to be reportage. Essays like this are based in truth, embellished and embroidered for dramatic or comic effect, to shed light on less tangible but more essential truths. And they're called creative nonfiction because while they have a certain narrative structure, they're written to present an argument, even a subtle one, with insight and often--especially in Sedaris' case--humor.

Spare me the literalists. This sort of thing makes me crazy ... and in today's climate, sadly, doesn't surprise me in the least.

ETA: [livejournal.com profile] webcowgirl pointed me to this New York Times article about what she calls the "foo fraw." Good stuff.

I know this feeling
The Web site I work on recently ran an article about online addiction. Wanted to share the article 'cuz it's so good and, well, it rang a little too familiar....
scarlettina: (Radio Scarlettina)
Several years ago, LA Theater Works (LATW) did a production of the H.G. Welles "War of the Worlds" broadcast that was very, very good, performed by actors from several generations of Star Trek. Tonight, KUOW, my local NPR affiliate, ran the play again along with a bunch of really cool science programming. My point, however, is that LATW will have the War of the Worlds broadcast on their web site for the next week, and it's well worth listening to; it's an excellent production.

(Oh, okay, fine: If you do a Google search on "War of the Worlds" and "Star Trek cast" you'll be able to find at least two torrents where you can download it to keep it for your very own...but you didn't hear it from me.)

Tomorrow, after I get some sleep, I'll write about tonight's expedition with [livejournal.com profile] shellyinseattle. Bed for me....

Brief check-in...

Fri, Oct. 27th, 2006 01:20 pm
scarlettina: (GWTW: Tomorrow is another day)
Haven't been around much; trying to get my life in order. This means that I'm woefully behind on my flist reading. If I've missed anything important, do let me know.

The news of the morning is that I finished my essay for submission to NPR's This, I Believe and will be submitting it before I leave for work: 500 words on how the brevity of my father's life and the fact that he died at the office has given me perspective on my own situation and what it all means. It's called "Working to Live."

Changes are coming, and my concentration has been focused on those. I'll get back to regular posting at some point, but it may not be for a little while. Stay safe and keep it light.
scarlettina: (Radio Scarlettina)
Tonight, in the car on the way home a chorus board meeting (yes! I took time away from work for myself!), I listened to NPR, where they were running a marathon of their "This I Believe" segments. "This I Believe" is a series of essays written by listeners, from the famous to the unknown, about core personal beliefs. They're not intended to be preachy religious statements but, rather, essays about the things that drive us, that are themes in our lives. Tonight, for example, I heard Penn Jillette's essay "I believe there is no God." I loved Temple Grandin's eloquent essay, "Seeing in Beautiful, Precise Pictures,", and Cecile Gilmer's essay "The People Who Love You When No One Else Will" made me cry.

I've been hearing these segments ever since NPR started running them again months ago, enjoying them, and wondering what I might write about if I tried to write one. Tonight, I made my first attempt at a piece I thought I'd call, "The Importance of Work/Life Balance." It seemed relevant, given what's been going on lately. But the deeper I got into it, I found it was about a lot of other things, too: about believing in the work I do, and about the importance of friends when one has little family, as well as how important it is to remember that one should work to live, not live to work. And what I realized about 200 words in was that I hadn't drilled down deep enough yet to write the essay that I want to write. Sure, yes, work/life balance is important, but there are more important things to me. Things I could write about a lot more eloquently. I just haven't figured out what they are yet. I have some more thinking to do, and more writing, because the writing seems to be leading me where I need to go.

This whole exercise also made me wonder what my friends would write about. Thoughts anyone? How I'd love to hear some of you on the radio.

New Frost poem!

Sun, Oct. 1st, 2006 08:59 am
scarlettina: (Writing)
As I was driving to work today, I heard a story on NPR that a new poem by Robert Frost has been discovered, called "War Thoughts at Home". The article at the link to NPR above includes an excerpt from the poem, full of bird and weather imagery that's quite striking. This kind of rich economy of language just knocks me flat: two sentences that create a whole world.

Apparently the poem was found inside a book that was donated to the University of Virginia as part of a collection. The Virginia Quarterly Review holds the exclusive publication rights to the whole poem, so unless someone lifts the poem from the magazine and posts it on the Internet, the VQR is the only place the poem will be available in whole for quite some time yet.

Can I just say: this is so cool. And I may yet shell out money for a subscription just so i can read the whole poem.

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