Voices from the Grave #4: Ted Hughes Reading ‘The Thought-Fox’

Posted on January 30, 2012 by maedez

‘The Thought-Fox’ from ‘Hawk in the Rain’ (1957).

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:

A Year in Books/Day 30: The Medieval World Europe 1100-1350

Posted on January 30, 2012 by maedez

Title: The Medieval World Europe 1100-1350
Author: Friedrich Heer
Year Published: 1961/This Edition: 1998 (WELCOME RAIN)
Year Purchased: 2000/2001
Source: Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company
Image via Wikipedia
About: A modern, scholarly classic that remains enjoyably readable whilst sparing no attention to detail.
Motivation: I felt a need to brush up on my Medieval European history. No, really.
Times Read: 1
Random Excerpt/Page: “Our contemporary European societies, both Western and Eastern, in many ways continue to live on their medieval inheritance. History is the present, and the present is history. When we look more closely into the crises and catastrophes, the hopes and fears of our own day, whether we know it or not we are concerned with developments whose origins can be traced back directly or indirectly to their source in the high Middle Ages.”
Happiness Scale: 9

Posted on January 30, 2012 by maedez

Title: The Gashlycrumb Tinies or, After the Outing
Author: Edward Gorey
Year Published: 1963/This Edition: 1991 (Harcourt Brace & Company)
Year Purchased: 1999/2000
Source: Gift from a friend
About: The delightfully macabre master’s most famous, and oddly eloquent, Edwardian-esque alphabet.
Motivation: I’m a squealing, hand-clapping Gorey fangirl.
Times Read: Countless
Random Excerpt: “H is for Hector done in by a thug.”
Happiness Scale: Off the charts

Posted on January 30, 2012 by maedez

Image via Wikipedia

Title: Cinderella’s Big Score Women of the punk and Indie Underground
Author: Maria Raha
Year Published: 2005 (Seal Press)
Year Purchased: 2010
Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
About: ‘Cinderella’s Big Score’ is a potent combination of music history and witty, trenchant beatdown on the punk patriarchy, served up with an awesome array of black and white photographs.
Motivation: Come closer. Come closer still. You may not know it-after all, we’re fairly new acquaintances and I usually look so mild-mannered-but I’m a punk chick, old school. I’m also a feminist. This book is a dream come true.
Times Read: 2
Random Excerpt/Page 44: Exene Cervenka exudes pure power. This sense of assuredness emanates from a stark emotional purity and her ability to fully, bravely expose herself without posturing. She hits hight notes without compromise and her voice conveys a raw severity and nakedness, once prompting John Doe to extol: “She had poems that were obviously songs, plus she was cut from classic lead singer cloth. She was such a bad ass! I pretended to be, but Exene was the real thing. She had the ax to grind, the sadness of her mother’s death, and the unusual wiring that made it possible for her to throw a drink in somebody’s face and still be right. She totally delivered as a lead singer.”
Happiness Scale: 10++