After I signed up for Iceland Writers Retreat, it occurred to me that I should probably be familiar with the writing of the featured authors who will be leading the workshops. That probably should have occurred to me before I committed, but if stories needn’t be linear, why should life be? At first I wasn’t going to blog about them, because if it’s awkward critiquing your friend’s book on the internet, how much worse would it be to criticize a future teacher? But I can’t read critically unless I know I’m going to have to type those thoughts later, so here goes. Read More
ByGD
Book Report: The Truth About Luck
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New World Order – Family Dinner
Don’t know who did this but it’s awesome.
Found here: http://www.jungleredwriters.com/2011/11/it-aint-norman-rockwell.html
A few years ago, I read a couple of books about the importance of family dinner. This is a tad ironic, because I can barely scramble eggs, which is one of many facts that handicapped me as a stay-at-home mom. Nevertheless, I read The Cleaner Plate Club and The Family Dinner and dutifully took notes. The Cleaner Plate Club was a down-to-earth read that recognized parents’ limitations while pointing out statistical correlations between children’s health, academic success, and family meal times. The Family Dinner, with its poetry samples and conversations starters, was more high concept (Laurie David doesn’t cook her own meals either). It emphasized the importance of breaking bread together in building cohesion as a family unit. I lapped it up.
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Rigoletto at Seattle Opera
La Bohéme has a special place in my heart, but Rigoletto is a better opera. Which explains why, at the end of the holidays when all I wanted was a regularly scheduled week, 2014 started out so packed with culture and art that one might call it glamorous. The week started with high concept cocktails and a loft show and culminated in opening night of Seattle Opera’s Rigoletto. Read More
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You Me & Apollo Play in a Living Room
It takes a lot to drag me out on a Tuesday night. I really didn’t want to leave the house this time, either. But You Me & Apollo was up from Fort Collins for a Seattle Living Room Show. Plus, I’d already paid for the tickets.
Reluctantly, we left the girls with the babysitter and headed to Capitol Hill, where we happened upon Canon, which provided a much needed attitude adjustment. Read More
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Canon Fodder
I won’t pretend I’ve never poured Southern Comfort into a McDonald’s milkshake. But Jameson and Glenlivet feature more prominently in my stories of college-era drinking than sickening concoctions. In those days, we would buy a bottle of the best whisky we could afford, and more bottles of something cheaper that we referred to as “cannon fodder” and saved for drinking after a strong buzz had dulled our palates.
Over time, we came to understand that there was a canon of cocktails, with nuanced variations and underground classics that paralleled the music world. Cannon fodder was replaced by classic cocktails and proper barware. Read More