Cat Convos: Introductions

Hiyu: Why do we have to introduce ourselves? Everyone already knows us.

Me: We have some new readers and long-term readers would also like to know a little bit about you.

Loki: I’ll go first. I want to get it over with.

Me: Okay, tell us your favorite things and one thing you really want to accomplish this year.

Loki: I like curling up in blankets and taking naps and I like stretching out in sunbeams and rainbow-beams and taking naps. I also like to hide in boxes.

Me: You really like sleeping, that’s quite true. What’s your goal for the year?

Loki: Doorknobs. I want to open doors on my own.

Me: Yes, I see you trying all the time.

Back Camera

Me: Thank you Loki

Kuri: I like to try everything my humans do. And napping. I like napping too.

Me: What’s your favorite things humans do?

Kuri: I like the way you scream when I jump in the bubbles baths and I like arts and crafts, especially with pipe cleaners.

Me: What’s your goal for the year?

Kuri: I want to read all your books and write a screenplay.

Me: A screenplay?

Kuri: Yeah, ever since I read Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, I’ve wanted to write just like you do.

Me: I don’t write screenplays.

Kuri: Maybe you should step out of your box and try.

Hiyu: My turn.

Hiyu: I like following people around just to see what they’re doing. I also like getting to the highest spots anywhere. I love running and jumping high.

Me: That’s quite true.

Hiyu: My goal is to keep the house safe. I do rounds every hour just to make sure.

Me: You do a great job.

Hiyu: I know.

Me: Favorite Books?

Kuri: Save the Cat and poetry books and game guides.

Loki: How to interpret dream books and hopefully someday I’ll find one about doorknobs. I’m still looking for my favorite.

Hiyu: High fantasy. I like books like Eve Forward’s Villains By Necessity. I like thrillers too and adventure stories.

Me: You guys are pretty cool cats.

Hiyu, Kuri and Loki: We know.

~lisa

 

Cat Convos: The Floor is Lava

Hiyu: What are you doing?

Me: Sorting my books

Hiyu: You’re making huge piles of them. Hey, guys, look at the gigantic stacks of books in here.

Loki: Why? Why are you changing things?

Me: Because I’m a bibliophile. Every now and then, I’ve bought so many books that they need to be sorted and integrated on the shelves.

Kuri (in awe): Those towers of books are so tall.

Hiyu: The floor is lava!

Hiyu gracefully jumps to the top of a large stack of books.

Me: Oh, no! Stop! Don’t!

Kuri: Here I go.

Crash! Thud! Boom!

Kuri: I didn’t do that.

Loki: I’m on the cat tree.

Hiyu jumps to an empty shelf. The floor is lava! The floor is lava!

Loki: I’m safe on the cat tree.

Kuri jumps on the shelf with Hiyu.

Kuri: Where’s the stack of my poetry books?

Me: They’re already on the shelf.

Hiyu: I see epic fantasy. Watch me go.

Hiyu successfully makes the leap.

Loki: I’m still safe on the tree.

Kuri: I’ll take that stack of mythology.

Crash! Thud! Boom!

Me: How about we move some chairs and a sheet into the living room and you can play the floor is lava in there.

All three cats jump onto the chair I’m moving.

CHAIR RIDE! CHAIR RIDE! LAVA! LAVA!

Eventually the books will be sorted

~lisa

 

 

Harry Potter Still Rules

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling was released on June 30th 1997.  (Also published in some countries, like the United States, as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone)

“I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who did not know he was a wizard became more and more real to me.”- J.K. Rowling

An inspiration to us all. ~ lisa

Official Site http://www.jkrowling.com/
Timeline http://www.jkrowling.com/en_GB/text
J.K. Rowling biography http://www.jkrowling.com/en_GB/about-jk-rowling/biography

Happy Towel Day

Towel Day is observed every May 25 by fans of Douglas Adams and his famous book series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe. I highly recommend this read to anyone who has yet to come across it.

Amazing, but true, on this day you are supposed to carry a towel throughout the day. The importance of towels can be found in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe in Chapter 3.

“A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.”

“Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth …you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.” –The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, Chapter 3

“More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value…any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with:” The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe in Chapter 3

To  “know where one’s towel is” means to be in control of one’s own life.

Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was a multi-talented man. Besides writing the best-selling Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe series, Adams wrote several other pieces including, but not limited to, three stories for the Doctor Who television series and a few sketches for Monty Python.

A fun set of factoids about Douglas Adams and his books: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130311/hitchhiker-author-douglas-adams-42-facts

For technophiles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Towels

“The fictional universe of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams is a galaxy-spanning society of interacting extraterrestrial cultures. The technological level in the series is highly advanced, though often unreliable. Many technologies in the series are used to poke fun at modern life.”

Here’s to carrying a towel around with you today.

~lisa

Many thanks to my daughter, Alicia Hall, for the towel origami

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/05/celebrating-author-douglas-adams-its-towel-day/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9289617/Douglas-Adams-celebrated-by-fans-worldwide-on-Towel-Day.html

http://www.douglasadams.eu/en_adams_bio.php

http://douglasadams.com/news/

 

“Elementary,” said he.

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”

The above is one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes quotes.

Sir Author Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859. Today I celebrate his birthday and one of the most famous duos of literature, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

I can’t imagine anyone not being captured by the premise and ideas of the stories of Sherlock Holmes. I suppose there are some, but none I know.

Contrary to popular belief, Conan Doyle never wrote the line “Elementary, my dear Watson.”

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/elementary-my-dear-watson.html

“Excellent!” I cried. “Elementary,” said he.” – Sir Author Conan Doyle. This quote is about as close as it gets to the common conception. First appearance of the popular non-Doyle phrase was in Psmith Journalist in 1915.

Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Besides Sherlock Holmes and non-fiction, Doyle wrote in a wide variety of genres including fantasy, science fiction, poetry, romance, historical novels and plays.

His fantasy, The Lost World was turned into a TV series Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1999-2002) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240278/

A complete and accessible list of all of Sir Author Conan Doyle’s literary works: http://www.online-literature.com/doyle/

Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes characters have appeared in many forms through the years: Besides the books, there are Sherlock Holmes comic books, music (“Sherlock Holmes” by Sparks), radio shows, television shows, video games and movies.

The best site for everything about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his literary works is the official website of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estate http://www.sherlockholmesonline.org/

“Rivers of ink have flowed since 1887, when Sherlock Holmes was first introduced to the world, in an adventure entitled A Study in Scarlet.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estate

“Most of the great detective’s fans know him so well, that they feel they have actually met him. It would therefore be presumptuous to try and define him here, as his many friends and admirers may each have very different views about this legendary personage.”- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Literary Estate

Modern Day Sherlock Holmes exist in blockbuster movies and contemporary television shows.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018ttws

http://www.cbs.com/shows/elementary/

Have I missed any contemporary shows? My daughter’s favorite show is Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch who she says is the best portrayal of the super sleuth she’s ever seen (sorry RDJr).

One of my favorite stories about the author (see complete story at http://www.siracd.com/life/life_ski.shtml) begins with: “It seems odd to think of a time when people didn’t ski in Switzerland. However when Conan Doyle arrived in Switzerland in 1893, with his first wife, Louise, that was the situation.”

Two favorite Sherlock Holmes quotes on Rainbow Hill are:

“You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.” – Sherlock Holmes (I often wish I could say this)

And this quote appeals to the engineering half of the family:

“Come, Watson, come!’ he cried, “The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!” “Data! Data! Data!” he cried impatiently. “I can’t make bricks without clay.”

May is National Mental Health Awareness Month so I will take this aside to mention Sir Author Conan Doyle’s father, Charles Altamont Doyle, who struggled with mental illness which included spending some of his last years at a lunatic asylum.

Hopefully we are more enlightened now in the way the mind works and can show the same compassion to those struggling with mental illness as Conan Doyle did in his biography.

“My father’s life was full of the tragedy of unfulfilled powers and of underdeveloped gifts.  He had his weaknesses, as all of us have ours, but he also had some very remarkable and outstanding virtues.” – Sir Author Conan Doyle http://www.siracd.com/life_father.shtml  http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/may

What are your favorite Sherlock Holmes tropes, characters, quotes and shows?

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.”

Now that is the business to be in!!

~lisa

A cool BBC cult page for Sherlock Holmes fanatics: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/sherlock/

The biography at http://www.sherlockholmesonline.org/ is an excellent read full of quotes from Sir Author Conan Doyle.

Another excellent site devoted to the life and work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: http://www.siracd.com/

There are so many excellent Sherlock Holmes quotes, many lines of which have made it into our everyday vernacular. Try these sites for a start:

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/sherlock-holmes

http://sherlockholmesquotes.com/

 

 

V = Voltaire

Vladimir Script Designer: Andrich Vladimir Publisher: URW++
Vivaldi by Friedrich Peter, 1997

A few years ago, I decided to start reading some of the classic literature I missed in my college courses. It turned out that I had missed a great deal of literature and I am still catching up with all of that reading.

I discovered a book well-known to others by the name of Candide. The book, the prose, spoke to me and I discovered Voltaire.

Voltaire is just one of the many pen names used by Francois-Marie Arouet (November 21, 1694 (or as he claimed Feb. 20, 1694) – May 30, 1778).

Voltaire is best known as a philosopher, historian and writer and a master of satire. He is well-known for his keen wit and as a champion of freedom (speech, religion, and from a variety of dogmatic institutions).

A very prolific man he generated thousands of works including 20,000 letters plus 2,000 books and pamphlets. He did all of this work before the advent of either the typewriter or the computer. I try to remember that whenever I complain about how much work it is to write something.

Arouet, henceforth known in this blog as Voltaire, was the youngest of five children in a noble family in the province of Poitou. Here I could digress into the study of birth order and personality, but I won’t. At least not yet.

Besides his native French, Voltaire learned Latin and Greek and became fluent in Italian, Spanish and English.

Continually pushed by his father into the field of law, Voltaire often lied about his positions so he could pursue a writing life in and around Paris. His writing led to numerous exiles and imprisonments, but he never followed cease and desist orders.

In 1718 he claimed the anagram of the Latin spelling of his name: Voltaire. Though he used at least 178 different pen names during his lifetime, Voltaire is the one that stuck.

Voltaire resonated enough that when the chance arose I named my POV (Point-of-view) character in my urban fantasy after him.

My character, Sparky Voltaire, is a completely different man, but I hope in as many ways complex and willing to take a stand for what he thinks is right.

I have pages of quotes by Voltaire, but I will resist temptation and end with only one:

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.”

~lisa