Sunday, December 6, 2015
CASTING CALL
Taking inspiration from Baron's activities and questions for the last meeting, I thought of an idea for our next meeting. Since the author of our current book, John Grisham, has had several of his books made into movies (i.e. The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Firm, A Time to Kill, etc.), I thought we could come up with a few ideas for who we would cast as the main characters in Gray Mountain. I thought it would be interesting to see how everyone else pictured the characters. As with all suggestions, the Novel Spirits can take it or leave it. Either way, I look forward to seeing you guys next weekend!
VOGON POETRY - PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!!
Zaphod vs. Arthur - by Baron
Who is better? Which traits are we?
Seat of your pants or exciting as tea?
One steal ships, another takes sips
one adds an arm, another stays on his farm
Polar opposites, yes they are,
but they do happen to share just one link
because both Zaphon & Arthur
never seem to think.
Unnamed poems - by Deuce, Diesel, and Archimedes
Poem 1
Upon a planet, green and blue,
the rodents scurry about
thinking up test to do on human,
and about cheeses.
Gouda is good but feta is betta.
A new planet earth was made,
but something was off.
Towels!!! They were missing.
Still the question remains
hidden within the recesses
Could it be?
That we may never know the question,
but the answer is 42!
Poem 2 (composed using only text messages we sent while composing Poem 1)
What is our poem about?
Why is bad poetry so hard?
(So should I rhyme or no?)
This is bad poetry!
Sorry! Got distracted!
Muhahaha gag
Haha I love puns
I know!
What do you think a few more lines??
I concur
Whew!! That was worth the wait!!
Whose turn?
Ode to HHGG by Indy
I read this book: oh my oh my
Poor planet earth: I cried & cried
Did I find it funny? I truly tried.
I'm not a poet: you can't deny.
So this poem is over
A collective sigh!
Who is better? Which traits are we?
Seat of your pants or exciting as tea?
One steal ships, another takes sips
one adds an arm, another stays on his farm
Polar opposites, yes they are,
but they do happen to share just one link
because both Zaphon & Arthur
never seem to think.
Unnamed poems - by Deuce, Diesel, and Archimedes
Poem 1
Upon a planet, green and blue,
the rodents scurry about
thinking up test to do on human,
and about cheeses.
Gouda is good but feta is betta.
A new planet earth was made,
but something was off.
Towels!!! They were missing.
Still the question remains
hidden within the recesses
Could it be?
That we may never know the question,
but the answer is 42!
Poem 2 (composed using only text messages we sent while composing Poem 1)
What is our poem about?
Why is bad poetry so hard?
(So should I rhyme or no?)
This is bad poetry!
Sorry! Got distracted!
Muhahaha gag
Haha I love puns
I know!
What do you think a few more lines??
I concur
Whew!! That was worth the wait!!
Whose turn?
Ode to HHGG by Indy
I read this book: oh my oh my
Poor planet earth: I cried & cried
Did I find it funny? I truly tried.
I'm not a poet: you can't deny.
So this poem is over
A collective sigh!
Saturday, December 5, 2015
NOVEMBER 15th MEETING NOTES
Howdy Novel Spirits, this will be the slightly tardy post for the business portion of our November meeting at Indy's Lodge. That place really does feel like a lodge. It's great there.
So let's see, what kind of business did we discuss..... well everyone is caught up on dues. And our club fund is starting to swell up quite nicely. If you don't see me next meeting, and our super secret squirrel book safe mysteriously goes missing, no need to worry your pretty little heads about either of us. I'm sure I won't be sipping rum punches, and putting it all on black at a casino in the Cayman Islands with the money safely laundered away in a high-yield, tax-sheltered, anonymous account at the Cayman branch of Gringotts Bank.
I was chastised for not having a drawing ready to submit to the group but I promised to have a rough draft ready to show at the December meeting next weekend. I am at least 67% sure that will happen.
And we welcomed Gilligan to his first meeting. We were happy to have him join us and he was able to last the entire meeting without running for his life from our constant ridicule, as appears to be our custom. Our very first message to him was chastisement for not ever reading this blog. And several followed thereafter. That's how we roll around here home boy. Diesel, please pass the word that we all provide and receive that treatment so it wasn't just him. It's not him, its us, so to speak.
We voted on an idea to select a Christmas themed book (which is not on our current list) in order to discuss at our December meeting. But after a British Parliament style debate, the motion was defeated by the slightest of margins. Maybe next year but for now, we will stay the course on our current list of books to read. And we don't have that many to go either!! We've been going strong for a long time now Novel Spirits! Well done, much respect.
We also agreed to do a "dirty Christmas" or "Secret Santa" type of gift exchange at the December meeting. I'm not too clear on the rules of the game other than we'll each get a book-themed gift, no more than $10 price tag and we'll do some sort of exchange I think. I've already selected my Thomas Kinkade art book for Deuce :)
I informed the group that I changed the theme/background of the blog. "And there was much rejoicing....... yeaaaaaa" That Monty Python quote was in honor of Douglas Adams :) Don't worry everyone, even though the look of the blog has changed, it will still have all the great substance it always has. But seriously, if yall don't like it I can change it back.
Indy has updated her "Off the Grid" again so be sure to check that out if you haven't already.
Next book was selected and it was Deuce's first one, GRAY MOUNTAIN by John Grisham. So now I think we have all had at least one book selected! That is cool! Next meeting is at Cat and JB's mountain retreat on December 13th at 2:00pm. I hope Gilligan will join us and hasn't cursed all our names and fled the country.
And for a special treat, another post will follow soon with all of our Vogon poetry which we prepared for the meeting at Indy's Lodge.
Sorry for the late post and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again next weekend for the GRAY MOUNTAIN book discussion. I'm currently about 100 pages from the end. I need to talk about this!!!!!
So let's see, what kind of business did we discuss..... well everyone is caught up on dues. And our club fund is starting to swell up quite nicely. If you don't see me next meeting, and our super secret squirrel book safe mysteriously goes missing, no need to worry your pretty little heads about either of us. I'm sure I won't be sipping rum punches, and putting it all on black at a casino in the Cayman Islands with the money safely laundered away in a high-yield, tax-sheltered, anonymous account at the Cayman branch of Gringotts Bank.
I was chastised for not having a drawing ready to submit to the group but I promised to have a rough draft ready to show at the December meeting next weekend. I am at least 67% sure that will happen.
And we welcomed Gilligan to his first meeting. We were happy to have him join us and he was able to last the entire meeting without running for his life from our constant ridicule, as appears to be our custom. Our very first message to him was chastisement for not ever reading this blog. And several followed thereafter. That's how we roll around here home boy. Diesel, please pass the word that we all provide and receive that treatment so it wasn't just him. It's not him, its us, so to speak.
We voted on an idea to select a Christmas themed book (which is not on our current list) in order to discuss at our December meeting. But after a British Parliament style debate, the motion was defeated by the slightest of margins. Maybe next year but for now, we will stay the course on our current list of books to read. And we don't have that many to go either!! We've been going strong for a long time now Novel Spirits! Well done, much respect.
We also agreed to do a "dirty Christmas" or "Secret Santa" type of gift exchange at the December meeting. I'm not too clear on the rules of the game other than we'll each get a book-themed gift, no more than $10 price tag and we'll do some sort of exchange I think. I've already selected my Thomas Kinkade art book for Deuce :)
I informed the group that I changed the theme/background of the blog. "And there was much rejoicing....... yeaaaaaa" That Monty Python quote was in honor of Douglas Adams :) Don't worry everyone, even though the look of the blog has changed, it will still have all the great substance it always has. But seriously, if yall don't like it I can change it back.
Indy has updated her "Off the Grid" again so be sure to check that out if you haven't already.
Next book was selected and it was Deuce's first one, GRAY MOUNTAIN by John Grisham. So now I think we have all had at least one book selected! That is cool! Next meeting is at Cat and JB's mountain retreat on December 13th at 2:00pm. I hope Gilligan will join us and hasn't cursed all our names and fled the country.
And for a special treat, another post will follow soon with all of our Vogon poetry which we prepared for the meeting at Indy's Lodge.
Sorry for the late post and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again next weekend for the GRAY MOUNTAIN book discussion. I'm currently about 100 pages from the end. I need to talk about this!!!!!
Thursday, December 3, 2015
HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY BOOK DISCUSSION
Whew! It's taken me some time to recover from those delicious (but not for the fainthearted) Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters! Just kidding (except about the deliciousness). It's been CRAZY around here - mainly work stuff, but I won't bore you with that nonsense. Suffice it to say, I'm looking forward to our next meeting and a glass (or two) of wine!
Baron, being the nonconformist that he is, kicked off the meeting by getting a feel for how we all liked the book before launching into the book discussion. So, it became apparent early on that there was a bit of a generational divide, with one group, let's call them the Froody Towel Bearers (Baron, Diesel, Gilligan, and me) who liked the book and found it witty/hilarious/laugh-out-loud funny and another group, we'll call them the Pontiferous Vogons (Deuce, Indy, Cat and JB) who very politely looked for nice things to say but clearly weren't Adams' number one fans. One of the common criticisms of the book was the struggle with made up words and the difficulty visualizing some of the things described by Adams (i.e. a man with two heads and three arms). Most (I think) agreed that it was a fun read. Interestingly, Adams was a writer for Monty Python, which makes perfect sense, given the quirky humour (see what I did there) of both.
Then, to shake things up a bit, we shared some Vogon poetry, which will be posted in full in a separate post. I think we really gave the Vogons a run for their money! We talked about which characters we would be in the book. I must have already started on the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster because my notes don't reflect who said which character, but I noted that some popular choices were the mice/philosophers, Slartibartfast, Eddie the computer, and the sighing doors. No one wanted to be Marvin, for obvious reasons.
One of the pre-meeting questions posed by Baron was what we think is essential in the way that Ford Prefect thought a towel was essential for a hitchhiker. Diesel pointed out that after she read this book in high school she started carrying a towel, and has found it extremely useful. Gilligan needs his toothbrush; Deuce needs shampoo; Baron needs a comb; JB & Cat both need cell phones; Indy stuck with the towel; and Diesel needs a knife.
Then, we roundly abused the DMV, banks, customs, airports, and the VA when discussing the Vogon mentality before shifting gears to discuss what book we'd like to write. Baron wishes he would've recorded some of the hilarious things Chief and Boss said in their younger days to create a book of funny kids quotes. Gilligan wants to be the next Webster and write a dictionary. Staying true to our source material, JB wants to write a travel guide (but maybe not about the galaxy). Cat, somewhat predictably given her alias, would write about cats. Diesel had the idea of writing a book in the style of a journal written in the style of lab reports. Indy would like to write about plants.
We concluded by reflecting on some of the great quotes from the book. I think we all agreed that the book had some great lines! For example:
While this book may not have been everyone's cup of tea (I'm just making jabs at the Brits left and right), we certainly had a great meeting. Props to Baron for his creative questions/activities, which added to the fun. I'm looking forward to another great meeting in a couple of weeks, Novel Spirits! Stay warm!
Baron, being the nonconformist that he is, kicked off the meeting by getting a feel for how we all liked the book before launching into the book discussion. So, it became apparent early on that there was a bit of a generational divide, with one group, let's call them the Froody Towel Bearers (Baron, Diesel, Gilligan, and me) who liked the book and found it witty/hilarious/laugh-out-loud funny and another group, we'll call them the Pontiferous Vogons (Deuce, Indy, Cat and JB) who very politely looked for nice things to say but clearly weren't Adams' number one fans. One of the common criticisms of the book was the struggle with made up words and the difficulty visualizing some of the things described by Adams (i.e. a man with two heads and three arms). Most (I think) agreed that it was a fun read. Interestingly, Adams was a writer for Monty Python, which makes perfect sense, given the quirky humour (see what I did there) of both.
Then, to shake things up a bit, we shared some Vogon poetry, which will be posted in full in a separate post. I think we really gave the Vogons a run for their money! We talked about which characters we would be in the book. I must have already started on the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster because my notes don't reflect who said which character, but I noted that some popular choices were the mice/philosophers, Slartibartfast, Eddie the computer, and the sighing doors. No one wanted to be Marvin, for obvious reasons.
One of the pre-meeting questions posed by Baron was what we think is essential in the way that Ford Prefect thought a towel was essential for a hitchhiker. Diesel pointed out that after she read this book in high school she started carrying a towel, and has found it extremely useful. Gilligan needs his toothbrush; Deuce needs shampoo; Baron needs a comb; JB & Cat both need cell phones; Indy stuck with the towel; and Diesel needs a knife.
Then, we roundly abused the DMV, banks, customs, airports, and the VA when discussing the Vogon mentality before shifting gears to discuss what book we'd like to write. Baron wishes he would've recorded some of the hilarious things Chief and Boss said in their younger days to create a book of funny kids quotes. Gilligan wants to be the next Webster and write a dictionary. Staying true to our source material, JB wants to write a travel guide (but maybe not about the galaxy). Cat, somewhat predictably given her alias, would write about cats. Diesel had the idea of writing a book in the style of a journal written in the style of lab reports. Indy would like to write about plants.
We concluded by reflecting on some of the great quotes from the book. I think we all agreed that the book had some great lines! For example:
Saturday, November 28, 2015
WENT TO KEY WEST WITH CORCORAN!
Just finished JB's recommended reading of "The Mango Opera" by Tom Corcoran. Enjoyed the story and found his description of Key West interesting. He did not always paint a pretty picture of the area but made it sound very real and unique. I think I need to add a trip there to my bucket list - especially to Hemingway's residence!
Saturday, November 21, 2015
MOONBOW
A moonbow (also known as a lunar rainbow or white rainbow), is a rainbow produced by light reflected off the surface of the moon (as opposed to direct sunlight) refracting off of moisture laden clouds in the atmosphere.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
SUNDAY'S MEETING
Looking forward to seeing everyone this Sunday at the lodge (hey - if Baron can have a castle I can have a lodge)! Meeting time is 2:00pm - the food is taken care of so just bring your lovely selves. I have the high ball glasses ready for the Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters! See you soon!
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