Books, Music and Studies of the Year 2007

This is a list. I am tracking my year of reading, listening, and studying.

Under Books I’m listing books that I’ve basically read straight through or perhaps read “mostly.” Does that last part sound like I’m cheating. Yes, perhaps under one definition of cheating. That would be the third grade, sitting on a stool in Ms. Bowers room and under her steel-eyed glare, saying, “Yes, Mzbowrz, I did read about Guatamalan exports, but I forget,” when really you did not read about Guatamala at all, but sat on your bed the night before with the social studies book on your lap while you traced the pattern of the pine knots of your bedroom paneling with your finger-definition of cheating. See note below for my current definition.*

Also, reading for me is usually done in audio form. I listen to books and agree with author Orson Scott Card who says that listening to books aloud is the best way to read because you can read with your eyes shut and just allow the mind pictures to form.

Under Music I'm listing the music that is important to me. Thus it is heavy on the classical. I will also list other things that I find that strike me as fine. I am also working on a "Requiem Mix" list, just because.

Books

The Last Gentleman—Walker Percy—End of 2006
As I Lay Dying—William Faulkner—End of 2006
Bel Canto—Ann Patchett
The Plague—Albert Camus
The Moviegoer—Walker Percy
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits—Laila Lalami
The Libretto for Tosca
Truth:Four Stories I Am Finally Old Enough to Tell—Ellen Douglas
A Street in Marrakech—Elizabeth Fernea
Secrets of Videoblogging—Michael Verdi and Ryanne Hodson
The Sand Child—Tahar Ben Jelloun (My post on this)
The Abolition of Man—C.S. Lewis (My post on this.)
The Book of Isaiah
The Gospel of John
The Trouble with Poetry—Billy Collins
Lancelot—Walker Percy
Enders Shadow—Orson Scott Card
The Turn of the Screw—Henry James
King Lear—William Shakespeare
Taming of the Shrew—Shakespeare
Cymbeline—Shakespeare
New Southerners—Discussions with and Readings by Emerging Southern Writers from the National Humanities Center
Eugene Onegin and other poems by Alexander Pushkin Translated by Charles Johnson (a.k.a. Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin)
Saving Grace by Lee Smith
The African-American Audio Experience—This set included readings from Langston Hughes, Mikki Giovanni, Lorraine Hansberry, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, and Gwendolyn Brooks. Included was a full dramatized reading of Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun.
Year of the Elephant—A Moroccan Woman's Journey Toward Independence—Leila Abouzeid
The Stranger—Albert Camus
Black Boy—Richard Wright
American Hunger—Richard Wright
Much Ado About Nothing—Shakespeare in the Square
Teacher Man—Frank McCourt
At Canaan's Edge—Taylor Branch
The Penultimate Peril—Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler
The Bad Beginning—Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler
Remembering Jim Crow—Stephen Smith, Kate Ellis, and Sasha Aslanian
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination—Toni Morrison
Lemony Snicket—The Unauthorized Biography—Daniel Handler (Which reminded me very much of the graphic work of an unknown Mississippian whose work, Sandusky Review, vol.1, I had on order, but whose distributer, sold out of and is dragging his feet about publishing a second run, believe that or not.)
The Grim Grotto—Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler
More Super Sudoku—(OK so I'm an addict. But I can finally do these things!)
The End—Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler
The Kite Runner—by Khaled Hosseini
Sense and Sensibility—by Jane Austen
The Space Between Us—by Thrity Umrigar
Hamlet—by William Shakespeare
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books—by Azar Nafisi
Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self Help Book—by Walker Percy
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith—by Anne Lamott
The Inheritance of Loss—by Kiran Desai
Lolita—by Vladimir Nabokov
Tears of the Giraffe—by Alexander McCall Smith
The Thanatos Syndrome—by Walker Percy

Music
The things listed here are either CDs or live performances or TV/video/DVD performances

La Boheme—Knoxville Opera Company—Live
Tosca—Leontyne Price—CD
I Puritani—Metropolitan Opera/Public TV Broadcast—Anna Netrebko
The First Emperor—Metropolitan Opera/High Definition Cinema Broadcast—Placido Domingo
German Requiem—Johannes Brahms
War Requiem—Benjamin Britten
Appalachian Journey—Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Mark O'Connor
Requiem—Penderecki
Rutter: Requiem—John Rutter
Mozart Requiem
Faure’s Requiem
Mozart’s 25, 40—Mozart Meets Mariner
Nickel Creek—This Side
Bruce Springsteen—Nebraska
Classical Mix from Diane
Portrait of Kiri Te Kanawa
The Chairman Dances—John Adams with the San Francisco Symphony
Eugene Onegin—Tchaikovsky—PBS Broadcast from Metropolitan Opera—Renee Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Liszt Piano Recital—Leif Ove Andsnes—EMI Classics
Il Trittico—Giacomo Puccini—Metropolitan Opera/High Definition Cinema Broadcast
Akhnaten by Philip Glass
the CIVIL warS—a tree is best measured when it is down—ACT V—The Rome Section—by Philip Glass and Robert Wilson
Albert Herring—by Benjamin Britten
The Turn of the Screw—by Benjamin Britten performed by the University of Tennessee Opera Workshop
Requiem—by Roman Maciejeski
Romeo and Juliette—by Gounod—Metropolitan Opera Goes to the Movies with Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna

Requiem Mix

Introitus or Intro—Brahms, Mozart
Introit and Kyrie—Faure
Dies Irae—Britten, Brahms
Pie Jesu—Rutter

Website Experiences

YouTube I Puritani by Bellini—Anna Netrebko sings The Mad Scene
YouTube Nixon in China by John Adams—Mandy Kelly sings I Am the Wife of Mao Zedong

*cheating—reading something or studying something because you "have to" and not because you love it.

There and Back Again: Dynamic Linking from Word to Excel

Field codes: Link field - Word - Microsoft Office Online

Dear Absolutely Everyone,

This information is for you! Have you even wanted to construct a Word document with a link to information in an Excel document that would dynamically update every time you updated the Excel document. "Yes," you say, "of course." Well, the answer to this is "Paste Special."

I never realized that Paste Special created a field.

Copy the cell or range from Excel. 'Paste special' into Word. If you choose the link option from the dialog box, it will automatically update whenever you update and save the Excel file. "This," you are saying, "is good stuff." I knew you'd like it.

Of course, a lot of you already knew this, but you are just saying, "Why didn't she ask."

The code for the pasted field is viewable, by the way, if (in Word) you go to Tools/Options/View tab and check Field codes.

When you do, you'll see code like this.
{LINK Excel.Sheet.8 "C:\\Documents and Settings\\bubba\\My Documents\\test.xls" "Sheet1!R1C3" \a \t}

Let's not discuss all this code, but if you are working with something like this, you may want an example to look at.

Betsy

How to Saddle a Horse Plus How to Be Desaddled

WARNING: Scroll down only if you aren't medical-x-ray intolerant. (Warning as per request of Conversely!)

Dear Nebuchadnezzar,

I don't know whether to love you,



or hate you!


OK! I still love you.

Betsy

P.S. My first YouTube post. I am so techno-pleased.

Techno-Socialist Manifesto

Dear W.

Good news! He is available, and just in time for you to set up the most powerful and important position in the federal government. The Secretary of Technology, Bill Gates, will define the parameters himself. You will not find it needful to explain the position to Bill. He will be able to do that himself. You will not have to apologize for his actions, for we Americans, long ago, learned not to mess with this master of our world.

Besides, Bill has been Secretary of Technology for a long time now, he might as well have the title. Now, I’m not saying that there won’t have to be changes, and Bill will have to get on board, but I think he can be convinced. I believe he has already moved into that stage of life called “generativity.” You will only be feeding the monster for him.

Here is the plan. All hardware and operating system software becomes nationalized. In addition, certain use-critical software should be nationalized too, word processing, image manipulation, email, might as well include blogging. Then Bill oversees this.

We need to get MIT onboard and have them get those $100.00 laptops finished. Here’s the plan. Every boy and girl in the country gets one of these every couple of years. No questions asked. Laptops have to be a given. They are the new #2 pencil.

When I first learned to use a computer, this 20-something girl, Karyn, explained the internet to me as a superhighway for information. That is when I got this idea. Transportation systems are not private. Highways can’t be built hodge-podge by local companies and neighborhood volunteers. They are critical to national life. The feds and states take over. Well, what is more important to our national life today than the information superhighway. Nothing, my friend.

It is time for you to pay attention to an issue that will draw more flak than the war in Iraq. This is it. It is also something that could raise your status in the pantheon of presidents. You want to be remembered for something. You don’t want to be thrown in the waste can of presidents with Calvin Coolidge and (who was that guy?) Benjamin Harrison. This could put you on the presidential map. They might even bring in more granite for a new face in South Dakota. You would join the ranks of the lofty--George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and George W. There could be a new holiday, The Bush/Gates Technology day.

Think about it. You don’t have much more time to pull this off!

Sincerely,

Betsy

P.S. Yes, I am available to act as Undersecretary for Download Management

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Veneering

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Veneering,

We haven't met, but Our Mutual Friend, Dickens, told me:

"Mr and Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new, they were as newly married as was lawfully compatible with their having a bran-new baby, and if they had set up a great-grandfather, he would have come home in matting from the Pantechnicon, without a scratch upon him, French polished to the crown of his head.

"For, in the Veneering establishment, from the hall-chairs with the new coat of arms, to the grand pianoforte with the new action, and upstairs again to the new fire-escape, all things were in a state of high varnish and polish. And what was observable in the furniture, was observable in the Veneerings—the surface smelt a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky." I, on the other hand, smell a little too much of mold, I fear, and am a trifle dried out.

I'm not sure why this description of you gathered up my attention so, though partly it is Charles' way with words--"a French polished great-grandfather", indeed. But partly it is because I struggle with this world we live in that seems to be too new and too renewed. I can't absorb all the revisions. I was just getting used "World 6.0" when "World 7.0" was released. And then before I got that installed in my brain, there was a patch and it was time for "World 7.1" I am trying to live with my mind open to change, but the newness of things all the time leaves me with the sense that life isn't authenticate, just a laminate.

Regards to all of our mutual acquaintances.

Betsy DeGeorge