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Archive for the ‘reseña’ Category

a different Chicago: Alaa Al Aswany, Chicago. A novel

Posted in reseña, tagged on August 9, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Evocative of the immigrant-to-America writing of Jhumpa Lahiri, Alaa Al Aswany’s Chicago is a montage of personal stories that takes as its protagonists Egyptian university students in a Chicago department of histology. The writing, at least in the English translation provided, is inelegant and the character development is without nuance. Yet Chicago draws this reader in by the sheer force of personal drama as glimpsed in the lives of men and women for whom emigration—rather in search of a degree or a new life—fails to erase the hold of the old country on one’s soul and fortune. It seems an adaptation of the proverb is apt: you can take the Egyptian out of Egypt but you can’t take Egypt out of the Egyptian. If we are well-rooted, the observation is just as true—mutantis mutandi—of the book’s readers. (more…)

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words without understanding: Job 36-38

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on July 7, 2008| Leave a Comment »

In a manner of speaking, Job gets his wish in the end. In another way, he does not.

As the book’s pain-wracked central figure has plead, YHWH breaks silence and speaks. Yet he does not provide Job with the simple justification he has so volubly desired:

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

In just such an unpromising mode does the books’ famous ‘YHWH speech’ begin. Job seems doomed to face down divine omniscience as his most daunting adversary. It seems YHWH will answer Job’s complaint with words, only to crush him with the weight of them. (more…)

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fresh air: The Complete Guide to Windows and Doors (Black & Decker)

Posted in paterfamilias, reseña, tagged , on June 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »

This review comes from a certified non-handy guy with minimal practical skills. I was fortunate enough a year ago to discover a fine window guy. As a result, we have excellent Pella window replacements in our 1930 Indiana home.

I bought this book to help me with next steps: specifically, what do do about our crumbling main entrance way and our on-again, off-again internal doors. It all has charm, you understand. The problem is it only works half the time. (more…)

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sweetness follows: R.E.M, Automatic for the People

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on June 9, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Can it be 16 years since this brooding, sinister, insightful CD, opening memorably as it did with the softly sung lyrics to `Drive’?:

Smashed!
Cracked!
Bushwacked!
Tie another one to the rack.
Baby ….

Hey!
Kids!
Rock and roll!
Nobody tells you where to go!

What if I ride?
What if you walk?
What if you rock around the clock?
Tick … Tock … Tick … Tock …

(more…)

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feeling blue: Donald W. Stokes, The Bluebird Book. The Complete Guide to Attracting Bluebirds (A Stokes Backyard Nature Book)

Posted in fauna, reseña, tagged , on June 7, 2008| Leave a Comment »

The Stokes bird books major in the sheer delight of discovering the bird in question. The 1991 Stokes Bluebird Book carries this tradition forward without missing a step.

The book’s three sections explore ‘The Birds’, ‘Attracting Bluebirds’, and ‘Bluebird Behavior’. The first section introduces this captivating bird by way of poetry and observations made about it, mostly when the species was more plentiful than it is today. The Stokes then present the ‘Eastern’, ‘Mountain’, and ‘Western Bluebird’ varieties. (more…)

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mucha alma: Gloria Estefan, Alma Caribeña

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on May 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes an artist with formidable cross-genre credits returns to her roots, as much for her own soul’s sake as to mine a promising market. The results are often mixed, for spanning multiple blocks of fans is more than just a technical feat. As often enough, the broadening loosens the soil that surrounds the roots. To be widely admired is, often inevitably, to be far from home. (more…)

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Mr. Physicist, meet Mr. Novelist … : Alan Lightman, Einstein’s Dreams

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged on May 18, 2008| 1 Comment »

Rarely does a Cal Tech-trained physicist become an accomplished contributor to literary magazines like the incomparable Atlantic Monthly. Even rarer still, this one tosses off a thin little collection of whimsical reflections on the world’s most famous theoretical physicist in early last-century Bern and it becomes a best seller.

As it should. (more…)

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what kind of flame? Steven Curtis Chapman, Declaration

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on May 13, 2008| Leave a Comment »

An album of the caliber of Steven Curtis Chapman’s Declaration worms its way deeper into an appreciative listener’s soul with every new pass-through. Its appeal is multi-layered. Each new encounter with this kind of music reveals a new facet, a previously unheard sound, the pleasure of an allusive turn of phrase that had gone undetected.

Chapman winks and nods a fair bit in this CD, a hobby that doesn’t distract him from exploring life-and-death themes via some very fine music. The album’s opening track–the jaunty, witty, `Live Out Loud’ starts the winking in earnest, but you get the idea he’s just getting down to business and having a bit of meaningful fun while he arranges his desk. (more…)

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fixed object to portable companion: Garmin Portable Friction Dashboard Mount for Nüvi Series and StreetPilot I Series, C530, C550 and C580 GPS Navigators

Posted in reseña, two hippos make an island, tagged , on April 19, 2008| Leave a Comment »

After discovering this product, one wonders why we ever stuck those adhesive mounts to our windshields to announce to passing thieves, ‘Stop here! Easy hit!’.

(more…)

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a hope worth strengthening: Ian McCallum, Ecological Intelligence. Rediscovering ourselves in nature

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , on April 16, 2008| 5 Comments »

Ian McCallum worries about the human species. He worries broadly, deeply, poetically, mystically, entertainingly, passionately, and challengingly. We are deeply diseased, McCallum believes, and we are inflicting our plague on the earth we inherit as the evolutionarily privileged human animal. In Ecological Intelligence, McCallum tells us that healing—as opposed to quick-fix mending–will occur only as we remember where we have come from and then learn to look ahead with a new rationality, a new language, and a chastened connectedness to the environment we inherit. Indeed, the ten chapters of his beguiling book are divided into sections entitled ‘Remembering where we have come from’ and ‘Looking ahead’. (more…)

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