Saturday, June 20, 2009

Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

There are many people and things I love, but few more so than my children and learning to make more efficient use of available technology.

In the last few months, my children have been amusing themselves by creating videos of themselves being the goofy, silly, funny, and fabulous kids they are. When I come home from work at night there is invariably something new on my computer to make me smile.

In honor of Fathers' Day, I've strung together a few moments of light-hearted youth using iMovie from iLife '09. It's a simple program to master and the results have the kids practicing their autographs for their forthcoming hordes of adoring fans.

It's was a ton of fun to put together, enjoy...

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Cleansing the Palate

Do you have the same trouble I do reading anything after a really great book? It’s not that I can’t read after a fabulous book, but that I can’t read anything I like after a page-turner. My literary tastes are overwhelmed; everything to come after has all the potency of cold, congealed oatmeal.

This pretty much sums up the scenario of my current read, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. I almost feel sorry for her. Everyone else adored this book. They heaped accolades on it. It won the Orange Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, etc., etc., ad infinitum. All this and I still hate it. Well, maybe not HATE it, but I’m seriously not in love with it when by all accounts I should be. I’m tormented by the idea that the book is actually wonderful, but it happened to be in the wrong place in the queue. Bad luck of the draw, so to speak, because the book right before was fantastic.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini was brilliant. Excellent writing married to a great (though grim) story. And it has made an ugly step-sister of Bel Canto. Maybe I should put it down right now and read something I know to be sucky, like anything by Dan Brown. That might get me out of the Thousand Splendid Suns shadow and I can read without prejudice. Maybe I’ll find out that Bel Canto is actually great or maybe I’ll find out that it sucked all along. Reading is a risky business.