Before you go out for Halloween...

Since I was a kid my idea of Halloween celebrations would not be complete, or could not fully get started, until the record player came out and "Monster Mash" was being played.  (No, I'm not that old; and yes, it was a record player!)

Happy Halloween!

Snow on the trees this morning, and I love it when my tea has a quote to go with it.

Words in the Week: Quote from an interview with writer Doris Lessing

Here is a quote on writing that I enjoyed finding this week.  The quote is one Doris Lessing said during an interview that was originally published in The Paris Review.

"... I think a writer’s job is to provoke questions. I like to think that if someone’s read a book of mine, they’ve had—I don’t know what—the literary equivalent of a shower. Something that would start them thinking in a slightly different way perhaps. That’s what I think writers are for. This is what our function is. We spend all our time thinking about how things work, why things happen, which means that we are more sensitive to what’s going on."

~Doris Lessing, The Art of Fiction No. 102, The Paris Review

Words in the Week: Oct. 9, 2013

The following quote is from Mark Edmondson's essay The Ideal English Major:

"Language, a great poem in and of itself, is all around us. We live in the lap of enormous wonder, but how rarely do most of us look up and smile in gratitude and pleasure?" ~Mark Edmundson

An evening with Chris Thile, Bach...and my husband...

Recently my husband and I went to see Chris Thile when he performed at the University of Wyoming.

Wow!

In a way I could say three roads converged on that evening. Follow my line of thinking here for a moment.. In college I listened to Chris Thile (although the bluegrass side), I listened to Bach (even the crazy organ music which my sister will attest to), and I met my husband and fell in love. So there we were at the University of Wyoming, married, watching and listening as Chris Thile performed Bach. What was even more astounding than my ironic association of the evening, was the performance by Chris Thile.

I love music from the Baroque period, I love the mandolin, I love my husband, but listening and watching Chris Thile play Bach on the mandolin is something you must do yourself... Enjoy!

Chris Thile: Bach: 'Sonata No. 1 in G minor - II. Fuge Allegro,'

Because Halloween is so much fun....

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/modern/jb_modern_hallowen_1_e.html

An old-fashioned witch flies past modern witches traveling in a speedier fashion

CREDIT: Berryman, Clifford Kennedy, artist. “Halloween -- ancient and modern,” ca. 1909-1910. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Reproduction Number LC-USZ62-130251