Back Again

A sneak attack by OA's excellent technology guru Dennis Kitsos knocked me off the air yesterday. Dennis is upgrading the school's e-mail package so that teachers can access more of Google's special features. It seems that the account that I use here and the school account are somehow linked and like conjoined twins need to be separated. Still not done, so I'm just pretending school doesn't open in three weeks and only using this account.

Not much to blog about anyway. In light of the flap over the angry picture of Michelle Bachman on Newsweek's cover. I just want to say that the clown pictures I posted earlier in the week are meant to represent generic senators and congressmen of both parties, and the female clown in the orange hat isn't necessarily the Tea Party Queen. Hmm, tea party, Queen. Is it possible that the Tea Party name comes, not from that incident in Boston Harbor, but from Lewis Carroll? I see more parallels there.

For those of you searching for the ultra-rare Giant Swallowtail, I brought out the bright lights and rubber hose and interrogated the informer who claimed to have seen it. He was able to pick the elusive insect out of a line up raising hopes that his find is a real one. Hopefully, the rainy spell hasn't hurt our chances for finding this rare butterfly again.

I love audiobooks as an alternative to NPR and sports radio. I've been on a Clive Cussler action adventure kick recently. His books, produced with a co-writer, are formulaic but have some of the great features of old time serial radio. I took a break from Clive to do  a book called a Discovery of Witches. This morning I checked out customer reviews at Amazon and discovered that this book found its way into our library because it was hyped onto the best seller list due to the current craze for vampires. I thought that the book was going to be historical fiction with supernatural elements, but discovered instead a very, very, very slow romance. I'm halfway through the darned thing and nothing has happened other than mysterious figures lurking in shadows or making vague threats. Reading the reviews I discovered that nothing much happens the rest of the way either since the author is only setting up books 2 and 3. Looks like this will be the first audiobook I send back unfinished. All in all the best fiction audiobook I've listened to in the last year is a little gem by Charle Dickens called A Tale of Two Cities. Wonder if this Dickens fellow wrote anything else?

A real find in the library's DVD collection is a fine production by local resident Antonio Cabral called Fado! Examining the Poetic Music of Portugal. I have many different kinds of world music on my IPod, but was lacking a playlist on Fado which I've heard on the radio, but knew nothing about. Mr. Cabral's excellent DVD is a great introduction to the genre including historic roots, performance notes, and places to hear fado locally. You can't borrow it from the library right now because I have it home again for a few more days. I've also got another DVD home called Fados that includes many of the performers mentioned by Mr. Cabral. Interestingly, the audio collection at the library does not seem to include any Portuguese music, but I believe the Stoughton library does have some in its collection.

Off to teach the Sheep Pasture campers about dinosaurs!