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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

At long last... a library list

Our library days have been touch and go for the last while, with too many things taking precedent.  We've been managing to get back into them again.  Eldest in particular has been going more often, as it's where Raider King's bus stop is, and he's as much a bibliophile as she is. :-D 

So here's a look at some of the stuff we've got right now (though Eldest did return a bunch of stuff today while picking up her holds).

Film & Video Budgets:  Eldest got this one, as she and Raider King are planning to make a video.

Semantic Antics - How and Why Words Change Meaning: One of Eldest's choices, and quite interestings food for discussion.  Did you know, for example, that the word "meat" used to mean all foods, not just animal flesh? 

Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis: one of many dvd's Eldest has been taking out and watching with Raider King.

Argumentaion - The Study of Effective Reasoning: This is one of those course lectures on cd.  Another she just returned was Creating Humans - Ethical Questions Where Reproduction and Science Collide.  This is what Eldest listens to while playing WoW in the mornings.

Damp Squid - The English Language Laid Bare
Seeing Salvation: images of Christ in Art
The Arts of China

The above three are also Eldest's choices, though I don't know that she's have much chance to look at them yet.  Some more recent additions to her pile are:

Leonardo's Lost Robots
Maybe I'm Dreaming (cd)
Ocean Eyes (cd)
Castle in the Sky (dvd)
Princess Mononoke (dvd)
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (dvd)
Paprika (dvd)
Them (dvd)
Fallen Angels (cd)
Robinson Crusoe on Mars (dvd)
The History of the English Language (cd set of lectures, part 1)


Youngest has finally started to take more stuff out again, mostly with dvds.  Here are her current selections.

books:
The Annotated Brothers Grimm :  She's taken this one out a few times now.
The Saga of the Volsungs - The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer
Sundays With Vlad - from Pennsylvania to Transylvania, One Man's Quest to Live in the World of the Undead (we've actually taken that one out several times)

dvds:
The Professionals
Nothing to Lose
Midsomer Murders - set twelve
Get Carter
Agatha Christie, Miss Marple, Series 4 Volumes 1 (Pocket Full of Rye) and 2 (Murder is Easy)

As for myself, I got tired of going through the craft section and only seeing books I've taken out several times already.  Instead, I went searching and put a bunch of stuff on hold.  This is what's come in so far.

Sexy Little Knits - Chic Designs to Knit and Crochet:  I'm afraid we got this more for amusement then anything else.  Like the fuzzy underpants with caterpillar thingies on the butt.

Party Crochet - 24 Hot Designs to get you in the Party Mood:  This one I've actually taken out before, but quite a long time ago.  I wanted to revisit it.  There isn't much I'd actually make in there, but I do like almost all of the designs.

Lost Crafts - Rediscovering Traditional Skills.  I'm actually kind of disappointed with this one.  I'm always on the look out for new crafts to learn, and picking up older, traditional crafts greatly interests me.  The title is a bit of a misnomer. I'd never thought of "farming" as a craft before, nor did I expect things like stone walls.  It's interesting, but you're not going to actually learn how to do many of the crafts and skills from it.  Not enough information, I found.

Glorious Crocheted Sweaters.  This one was a pleasant surprise!  While I'm not to keen on some of the patterns and colours, it's got more to do with my personal preference for solids and textures over multi-colours in funky shapes and patterns. 

The Simple Art of Japanese Temari - 45 Traditional and Contemporary Designs.  There aren't a lot of temari books in the library system, so I was glad to find this slender book.  I'm thinking I need to start doing temari again.  It's quite fun.

The French Chef 2.  I actually found this one by accident.  I've recently read Julie Child's My Life in France and really enjoyed it.  Of course, I've heard plenty about her show, but had never actually seen it before.  What a hoot!  It would never make it on the air today, and that's a shame.  We could use more geese trussed with knitting needles, suckling pigs closed up with 2 inch finishing nails, giant hunks of swordfish below a mallet, cleaver and hacksaw wielding Julie Child, and demonstrations on how to flay a duck and using the skin to make a pate.  Gosh, what fun to watch!  I think I'm going to renew it, as I've yet to watch the 3rd disc.  Then I want to find out how many other sets are in the series and put them on hold.

Scared Sacred - Unwrap the Darkness, Reveal the Light.  This one piqued my interest when the description talked about how people turn sites of mass tragedy into sacred spaces.  It was filmed over 5 years, in the middle of which 9/11 happened.  Considering recent controversies about the "Ground Zero Mosque" and people mocking those who oppose it for considering the space sacred, I thought it worth checking out.  I watched about half of it before I had to stop it to do something else, and I've got no desire to go back to it.  The topic is interesting, but the narration of the guy who did it was driving me nuts.  The video wasn't about the any of these sacred places and the horrors that happened there.  It was all about him and his personal, self-indulgent journey.  I didn't want to hear how these places make *him* feel or what *he* thinks about them. What little he covered about these places and the people affected by them still managed to be more about him then about them.  Totally self-aborbed and annoying. 

Well, I think I've got most of what we have right now listed.  I'm pretty sure I've missed a few things, though.

Oh, well.  Tomorrow is library day.  It's probably all going to change, anyhow.

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