What greater gift can a writer give a reader than another book?  I don’t know that I’ve ever been so affected by a work of fiction.  You know that feeling when you don’t want to turn the last page of a book you love.   You can imagine my happiness, then, when I turned the last page of Gilead, Robinson’s exquisite book to discover her latest work involves the same characters in the same town, told from a different perspective.

A. O. Scott wrote a fantastic article about Marilynbe Robinson’s latest novel Home for the New York Times which was included on the publication’s list of the top 100 books of the year.  The article discusses both novels’ themes and increases my appetite to read her work.

Get them HERE!

Rex Murphy’s All Politics, No Government is a worthwhile commentary to give perspective on the current grandstanding partisanship on display in Ottawa.

Layton’s Machavellian grab at power seems to have been a long time in the making, longer than he’d like you to think.  Robert Fife has a excellent report available on CTV.ca about early meetings with the Bloc to trap Harper and form a coalition.  In an ironic turn, Layton’s latest would see Stephan Dion as Prime Minister in a coalition with the NDP.

Politics certainly makes strange bedfellows.  Remember the debates when Layton stared a demure Dion in the eyes and slammed him for his leadership credentials?  If you don’t, check out the video below.  Remember a few weeks ago when Canadians clearly reflected their thoughts about Dion’s leadership cred when the Liberals and NDPs saw the Conservatives gain a stronger minority?

If at first you don’t succeed, Jack…

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welcome kenya joy!

can’t wait to meet you.  (congrats chad and nicole and kaeden).
way to go n!

I was sad to learn today that William Gibson, incredible playwright and a major inspiration and influence to me, died this week.

Gibson’s success as a playwright came in this 50s.  He said, Good things come to those who wait … far too long…. and
Writers go bad when the angels desert them…. Dylan Thomas was a marvelous poet and drank himself to death. Somewhere along the way, the angel left him. An angel has left me too, but the writing angel is still with me. And that’s the thing where I feel most alive — at least while I’m doing it. I started out to be a writer and I’m still a writer. Not bad (TheDay.com).

Here are some interesting articles commemorating Gibson’s life and craft:

Associated Press, Telegraph (UK), and a great one from the Washington Post which quotes Gibson, discussing his most well known play The Miracle Worker:

The author of ‘The Miracle Worker’ believed in children, was young, energetic, incorrigibly optimistic, no stranger to the ‘uplifting’ in life; these are not objectionable qualities, and they flowed naturally into the script.

And it was obviously a love-letter…. I like to fall a little in love with my heroines, and the title — from Mark Twain, who said, ‘Helen is a miracle, and Miss Sullivan is the miracle-worker’ — was meant to show where my affections lay. This stubborn girl of 20, who six years earlier could not write her name, and in one month salvaged Helen’s soul, and lived thereafter in its shadow, seemed to me to deserve a star bow.

Here’s a complete list of his dramatic works that appeared on Broadway from the Internet Broadway Database:
Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently not.

Mr. and Mrs. Bush, Condi's Coffee of Choice

Before church on Sundays I flip between the major American networks and watch the different political weekend shows.

I happened to catch a cool behind the scenes look at Air Force One on the weekend.  You can learn a lot about a person by their coffee ad-ons.  Rice’s decaf took me by surprise.

David Youngren and his son Nathaneal are in Tanzania right now. Last summer a group from Red Deer visited the country to help build Save Africa Now’s first of many homes for children orphaned because of AIDS.  The house is named the Gateway House because kids from Gateway Christian school helped raise the money to build the structure.

Here’s an excerpt from David and SAN’s Live blog:

It was really special to take the orphans who will live in the Gateway House to see their new place. It’s now almost done. They should be able to move there in less than two weeks. They were crying, especially Consolata. They were laughing. They were singing songs of celebration. We were all very moved when we saw their tears. We realized how much their world had changed since we first saw them. They lived in such horrible surroundings that it is incomprehensible for us to truly understand…how can anyone live like it?

… to fools!

Have you ever tried to eat soup and read?  
Me too.  

Reading hands-free is one of literature’s greatest challenges.  I discovered the perfect solution today while I chowed.  
 

The possibilities are endless.  If you plan right, you can read multiple volumes and journal notes from the appetizers to dessert as long as you have the table space.

Patent pending.

Matt, Dan, and I are working on a promo DVD right now.  A friend emailed me the link to AdventConspiracy’s video for their campaign to redeem Christmas from the consumer gong-show it’s become in the W. world.

It’s a snazzy little flick, carried by great use of titles and music.  It’s a good reference for us, and an example (in more ways than one) that less is more.