Comments for Bad Idea Land

Comment on Two very cool things. by Hapax Tag-omena – Semantic UMW

Hapax Tag-omena – Semantic UMW — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:47:10 +0000

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Comment on Meaning, responsibility, ??? by Recent URLs tagged Modernism - Urlrecorder

Recent URLs tagged Modernism - Urlrecorder — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 07:16:32 +0000

[...] Recent public urls tagged “modernism” → Attack of the Summer Miltonauts » Meaning, responsibility, ??? [...]

Comment on Two very cool things. by madelinekelly

madelinekelly — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:52:45 +0000

You’re right–I love the tiny house! I will probably never live in one (what can I say; I like space) but I love how she’s taking responsibility for her own existence. Hooray!

Comment on The Bluest Eye. by marykathryn

marykathryn — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:14:42 +0000

I haven’t read Paradise yet but that is next on my list! My thoughts about The Bluest Eye are on my blog so I won’t blabber on and on here-it is a very powerful and disturbing novel and has many twists and turns in it.

I’m with you. I just finished The Sound and The Fury and have put reading on hold for a few days. Giving the brain a rest. I think I’ll go to a museum tomorrow and just let my eyes do the feasting without the strain :o)

Oh, and that ending of The Bluest Eye! Whoa.

Comment on Back in MD. by rachel

rachel — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:38:37 +0000

Hah! I could never just give away my dearest books… possibly because I am a compulsive re-reader and possibly because the specific editions tend to have sentimental value for me for some reason. (My copy of Straight Man, for instance, is really my mother’s… it just lives with me now.) But I know what you mean about giving books away. I lend books out even knowing that the individuals to whom I’m handing them will never return them. Books are that sort of experience that is even better when you spread it around, especially to the people who matter.

Comment on More on books. by rachel

rachel — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:34:59 +0000

Madeline, I have read Feed–it was back in eighth or ninth grade that I first read it. First reading, I loved it; next reading, I began to find holes and to pick it apart. This was just after I’d read a glut of slightly dystopian science fiction and I was finding cliche everywhere. I liked it well enough but now I’m mostly remembering the flaws. Still, so much and such detail has stuck with me that it has to have been pretty worthwhile. If I can find it in my stacks of boxes, I’ll give it another read.

On Calvin and Hobbes–I’m so glad I was young when I first read it. I can enjoy it in a completely different way now, but tinted with the remembrance of my early readings. I was so attached to C&H I actually, literally cried when I found out it was ending. Of course, I was about seven…

Let me know what you think of Viriconium! My memory of it is a little fuzzy, I hope I haven’t led you down a bad road. Or an unenjoyable one, anyway.

Comment on Back in MD. by madelinekelly

madelinekelly — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:02:16 +0000

It’s always a shock to come home and find things much changed. Imagine my surprise freshman year when I came home for spring break and found out my parents were selling the home both my mother and I had been raised in… Considering it’s no more than a hole in the ground at this point, I’d say we moved out and moved on pretty thoroughly.

With regard to books, my mom insists–to my infinite consternation–that all MY childhood books are in fact HERS. There will be no nostalgic perusals of old books in new apartments. The books stay here, at my parents’ house, until I earn them back by bearing offspring. We’ll see… I may try stealing them away, a bit at a time.

Lately I’ve taken another tactic with treasured books, quite different from boxing them up or even shelving them. When a book is really important to me–truly, transcendentally important–I give it away. This is not for middling books, and especially not for bad ones. Only the really important books. And I never lend them. I release them back into the wild.

Those were three very disjointed paragraphs, but consider them three takes on change, memories, treasures, books, etc.

Comment on More on books. by madelinekelly

madelinekelly — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:51:23 +0000

Amen to precipitously growing book piles–and to having the time to make a dent in them. Not that I’ll ever get through everything I want to read… especially with you ‘helping’ me. I think I’ll start with ‘Viriconium’ and go from there.

Also, not that you need more literature recommendations, but have you read M.T. Anderson’s ‘Feed’? It’s a sci-fi / dystopian novel. I read it in a theory class this year, but it’s definitely younger than the typical college text. It was a quick read, and it actually touched me emotionally (which is not a common ocurrence). You might enjoy it.

Oh, and Calvin and Hobbes, YES.

Comment on More on books. by gardnercampbell

gardnercampbell — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:15:21 +0000

More evidence (if we needed such a thing) that you are an extraordinarily attentive reader. I remember the day in the Milton seminar that you simply looked at me in response to some point I was making and said, quietly, “excremental whiteness,” underscoring the point perfectly and inspiring me no end. Such a gift you have! Keep feeding us, Rachel. Keep being that great reader. We bookish folk (wee bookish folk?) must stick together.

Comment on Back in MD. by rachel

rachel — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:31:32 +0000

I guess while in principle I agree, there is some stuff I KNOW is in those boxes that I’m not looking forward to going through. I seem to recall a near-complete (at the time) run of Palahniuk’s works, an author who does nothing for me these days. I’m sure there are other things I no longer care for, but it’s true, I loved them once, and a lot of the stuff in the oldest boxes probably helped me more than I know. For instance I have a lot of my old beaten-up Terry Pratchett books in those boxes, and I still love him. And there’s no shortage of sci-fi there, either.

And for all the timidity I feel about those packed-up books, there is some excitement too: I don’t really remember a lot of what went into the boxes, and I’m sure there are things in there I love undiminished and will be overjoyed to re-read once I finally get to unpack.

There’s a post coming up on some of the books I remembered only when I went through my shelves on getting home, and there’s no shortage of sci-fi there, either, so look for that coming up! And Emma, I hope you enjoy the Russo… it’s a book I keep coming back to and finding more in. Plus, who doesn’t love a cover with a duck on it?