Karmic Wisdom

I’ve wanted to meet Margaret Atwood for a long time. I first read her in high school; the essay I wrote to get into my PhD program was on her; my dissertation was about her work; my Atwood reading group has been meeting weekly for six years or so. As the former President of the [...]

Okay–it’s been awhile since I’ve written. First, I had to get the blog to stay up–let us all thank my faithful friend and reader, Ken, who donated his time and money to enable me to do so. Then, it was finals, and then I headed off to Canada for ten days.
Today I wanted to share [...]

In celebration of Margaret Atwood’s birthday, I’d like to share two poems that feature her name:
Americans Who Read Poetry
We spot each other easily it seems
Something about us wants to be
Bohemian
Which is confirmed when we learn the names of the other’s pet
Atwood
and
Burns
This alone
Will make us sleep together
We don’t need conventional dating
A little talk
Some world music
And [...]

I actually finished this book a few weeks ago, but life has been even more busy than normal lately.
I didn’t want to let too much time go past, however, without mentioning it. (Bookgroup members: we will read this when Courtney returns, fear not).
The Year of the Flood does what no previous Atwood book has done [...]

Apparently, the cats look forward to me opening the door.  They’ve all learned to jump the back fence, although not all of them have learned to jump back in (which would be great, since the cat door opens to the back).  Methinks the cats like to trap themselves out front so I have to play [...]

The Matthew Shepard Act has passed. I’m of two minds about it. On the one hand, I want protection for those people who are attacked because of hate. On the other, it’s weird to persecute people because of the thoughts they had when hurting someone.
Of course, if we could count on people [...]

I recently read Payback by Margaret Atwood.  It’s been hailed as another example of her amazing abilities of prediction.  Atwood is known for her keen observation of social trends.  Her predictive talent is so famed that she recently donated a prophecy for charity (the woman who bought it posted a blog about it–there was mention [...]

Ack.  Have been down South with the family in anticipation of a low-attendance conference presentation (8:30 p.m. in New Orleans–really, who do they think is going to be there?)
Am exhausted from a lack of sleep and family-induced stress and illness.  Ken can now walk around again, but we’re both having to take a lot of [...]

Well, classes start on Monday and I’m finally ready for them, but I didn’t have a day off this week (and I won’t this weekend, either). Oh, well.
I’m almost over my frakking disappointment about the end of BSG. Almost. Maybe I just need to decide that I shouldn’t worry about it. The writer made it [...]

The matchflick column is here:  http://www.matchflick.com/column/1882
I reported a little while ago on Atwood not attending a conference in Dubai because the conference censored an author whose book had a gay muslim character.  Atwood (and the rest of us) have since learned that the conference says they didn’t censor the book or author, but that they [...]