Decision 2010: TOMS

Ok, faithful readers, I need some advice. I really want to buy a new pair of TOMS shoes because a.) they are super-comfortable and b.) I like the smug satisfaction that comes with TOMS'(s) brand of philanthropy. Given that these both cost the same, and keeping in mind that I live in Florida, where "summery" styles stay in style far into January, which of the following should I buy?

Plum Cord Classics

These are made of corduroy!

OR

Morocco Vegan Classics

These are not made of animal!

Please cast your vote in the comments section. Now that Primaries are over, this may be the most important thing you vote on until November. And even then, my choice of footwear probably trumps at least a couple of Senatorial elections.

Oh and while you're at, feel free to weigh in on whether TOMS when possessive should get another s, and if so, should it be capitalized?

Book Recommendations

Because I am a rather literary person, I've just added a section to the blog for book recommendations, complete with links to Amazon. But since only the title of each book is listed, I wanted to say a few words about each to round out my recommendations.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand - This is one of those books that makes you feel sort of accomplished after you read it because you've read a large piece of highly acclaimed literature, but more than that, this book is very entertaining. Rand's Atlas Shrugged may be considered to be her greater work, but it tends to drag in places. The Fountainhead has all the same philosophy with a story that never quits and a main character you could fall in love with.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon - This is the story of two young men in the 1930s who create a superhero and change the course of their own lives. The main characters are modeled after the creators of Superman and inhabit a fictionalized New York City that sometimes seems truer than life. The book follows them throughout their life, weaving in love, war, and a healthy supply of comic books.

To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust - Fashioned as a prequel to John Milton's Paradise Lost, To Reign in Hell imagines life in Heaven before the big rebellion by Satan and his ilk. How does it change our perception of the Fallen Angels if Satan and God were once best friends? It's an interesting idea which makes for a story whose mythology is occasionally hard to follow but is essentially fascinating.

The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald - A classic of the Roaring Twenties, The Beautiful and the Damned is full of rich, privileged people who are, for some reason, full of ennui. Who hasn't been there?

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier - Thriller, romance, ghost story. Rebecca is all these and more. The novel is told from the viewpoint of the second Mrs. de Winter, who is herself never named, haunted as she is by the memory of the beautiful, graceful, perfect Rebecca. The book spawned a great Alfred Hitchcock movie and has long been considered one of those classic novels that continues to thrill seventy years after its publication.

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman - I have a bit of a thing for superheroes. This is a new take on the classic hero story because half it is told from the viewpoint of a super-villain. The other half is told by the newest member of a team of heroes working against said villain. Both are outsiders in their own right and both demand the reader's sympathy, making it impossible to choose a side in this battle of "good" versus "evil."

The Coffee Trader by David Liss - This is the first in a series of historical fictions by David Liss that combine the business and politics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with the excitement and thrill of a mystery novel. Liss's other books in this same vein include A Conspiracy of Paper and A Spectacle of Corruption. While The Coffee Trader follows the exploits of fictional Miguel Lienzo in Holland, these latter novels focus on his grandson Benjamin Weaver in England. I think I actually prefer the Weaver books, but The Coffee Trader is still really good and a nice introduction to the family. If you like mysteries but also like to learn something while you're reading, look no further than Liss.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - I never saw the movie they made of this book; I'm told I made a good decision. Based on the trailer I saw, I thought this book was a straight-up murder thriller. That's only half right. The beginning of The Lovely Bones is very dark, but as the story goes on, it becomes less about the death of a 14-year-old girl and more about the lives of those she leaves behind. Told in the voice of the murdered Susie Salmon, The Lovely Bones is at times horrifying and heart-wrenching but also incredibly moving. In the end, it's not about solving a crime so much as learning to live in the aftermath.

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine - If you never read this book as a child, you have missed out, but it's not too late! Even if you did read it as a child, you're still missing out if you haven't read it as an adult. Don't let that horribly campy movie version starring Anne Hathaway put you off; Ella Enchanted is a delightfully deep and thoughtful fairy-tale about youth, love, free will, and learning to be your own person, even when others try to make you into someone else. Even now, the climax of this "children's book" has the power to make me cry.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind - Have you ever thought about how smell affects the way you relate to people? Unless the smell is particularly strong (either good or bad), you probably haven't. In this novel (yet another thriller), Suskind suggests that smell is actually the most powerful of the senses, influencing us in ways we don't even realize. Smell is so powerful, Suskind says, that it could even lead to... murder!

Okay, that's it for now. If you're looking for a new book to read, I recommend you start with one of these. You won't be disappointed.

B&G's Soup Stop

One of my favorite Florida hideaways is B&G's Soup Stop in Sarasota. Nestled in the corner of an obscure strip mall on Webber Street, B&G's features at least nine fresh soups daily, and though it may be a bit difficult to find, I have never found a better place for soup. 

To give an example of the kind of selection you can expect, here are the nine soups B&G's is offering today (according to their website): 
     - Creamy Chicken Noodle
     - French Onion
     - Ham and Bean
     - Sausage Cabbage and Potato 
     - Chicken and Lemongrass
     - Tomato Basil
     - Cream of 5 Onion
     - Chili
     - Gazpacho 

On other occasions, I have also been privileged to sample their Corn Chowder and Vichyssoise. The possibilities are endless! 

If I had to pick a favorite, it would be a tie between Tomato Basil and Cream of 5 Onion. The owner of B&G's, Brent Williams, once told me that if they had a "signature" soup, it would be the Cream of 5 Onion. It has all the rich oniony flavor of French Onion, but with a smooth, creamy consistency. Add a few French-fried onions to the top for texture, and you've got a soup that I've never seen anywhere else. As for the Tomato Basil, I've had good Tomato Basil soup elsewhere, but this ranks among the best. It's classic comfort food. 

I could probably eat soup for every meal, and if I lived in Sarasota, every meal would probably take place at B&G's. But if you're craving more solid food, they also feature a wide array of pre-cooked meals that you can take home and heat up AND a really nice Chipotle Mac N' Cheese. 

I wish I had pictures, but I don't because I ate it all, so if you're in Florida anytime soon, you should go there and see for yourself. 

Arguments for Love

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned Julie Slonecki's new website. For those that don't know her, Julie is a rising senior at Washington and Lee University who writes and performs music. In the past couple weeks, she has released her new self-produced album, Arguments for Love. I've already bought my copy, and I love it! (Not least of all because I'm singing on one of the tracks.) Julie describes her music as alternative country folk indie rock pop, so take from that what you will. The bottom line is that it's really catchy, easy-to-listen-to music, and you should check it out. She's a struggling musician who needs your support. You can get a hard copy from Create Space. If you want to hear some of the tracks before you buy, they are on her website. AND if you prefer electronic copies of music, the whole album is available on iTunes! The one downside of the iTunes route is you don't get the sweet album artwork, but that's on you.

An attempt to increase readership

So I've been researching lately how one makes a blog "successful." To you early readers, thank you. I love all 19 of you dearly. I do, however, want to grow that readership, and I'm told that the way to do it is to make sure it's searchable for strangers. To make it searchable, you have to submit it to search engines, so that's what I'm trying to do. Degreeadvantage.com can do that for me, I guess, so I'm leaving it in their hands. Wish me luck.

SES performed by online degree promotion team.

(It would also help if you guys linked me on other sites, like Facebook, etc. Just fyi.)

Heterotopia

In the spirit of supporting my friends, I'd like to promote another of my professor's work. Lesley Wheeler, who just finished her term as chair of the W&L English Department, has just released her second book of poems, Heterotopia.

Here's what it says about the book on the Barrow Street Press website:

For philosopher Michel Foucault, "heterotopia" designates a real or imagined space of escape, transformation, or revelation. In Lesley Wheeler's prizewinning second collection, the heterotopia is Liverpool, England, during the middle of the twentieth century—a time and place defined by the Blitz and the privations that followed. Her imaginary Liverpool, however, has a complicated relationship to the real city and to her own life in the United States: it makes visible what was gained and lost in the transition from poverty to prosperity, from oral culture to print overload.

During a time when so many collections of verse seem tonally and formally monochromatic, it's especially refreshing to encounter a writer who works with such considerable facility in several different modes—deeply felt personal lyrics, challenging sonnet sequences, and documentary-historical poems of intelligence and depth. What's more, these various concerns and approaches not only complement one another, but seem inextricably linked. Heterotopia is a collection of unusual distinction.
—David Wojahn, contest judge

With acute formal awareness, Lesley Wheeler makes urgent and undeniably present the "sedimentary language" of an inherited past.... This work fuses lyrical invention with the "blitzed, hungry, smoke-thin world" of memory—the poems richly drawn intermixtures of narrative and place.
—Claudia Emerson

Lesley Wheeler is the author of Heathen, Voicing American Poetry,and other books; she co-edited the anthology Letters to the World with Moira Richards and Rosemary Starace. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including Poetry, Slate, and Prairie Schooner. She is Professor of English at Washington and Lee University and lives in Lexington, Virginia.

Having had a poetry class with Professor Wheeler, I can tell you she knows her stuff. I'm buying my copy. Are you?

Note: Amazon currently lists the book as Out-of-Stock, but it is not. 

If you have problems, though, you can also get it at http://www.barrowstreet.org/.

Jousting in Linlithgow

Most times, the best parts of travel aren't visiting the famous sites everyone knows or taking tours of the big cities. The real adventure is in discovering something local and cheap, like the jousting at Linlithgow* Castle. Before my traveling companions and I left Larbert on the morning of July 11, we packed a picnic lunch of turkey sandwiches, salt and vinegar crisps, Coke Zero, and a chocolate bar.

 Here we are enjoying said picnic.

When we arrived in Linlithgow, we made our way to the Castle, where our Historic Scotland cards got us in for free.** Before settling down at the jousting pitch, we peeked inside the Parish Church of St. Michael right next to the Castle.

Here is one of the beautiful windows in St. Michael's.

After a brief exploration of the church, we walked over to the Castle's backyard (so to speak). The picturesque field next to a Linlithgow Loch was filled with people, most of whom actually appeared to be locals who had brought their children to the event.***

A view of the jousting... rink?

The jousting was very entertaining, if a little inauthentic.**** After the violence finished, with our team having prevailed, we left the Castle and walked over the Four Marys, a moderately-famous pub in Linlithgow, named for Mary Queen of Scots and a few of her ladies-in-waiting. The pub was nice enough. I had a major disappointment when they told me they were out of sticky toffee pudding, but they did have a lovely chocolate fudge cake. So I guess it worked out.

Oh, also at the Castle, I saw a guy wearing toe-shoes. They were only the second pair I had ever seen, the first belonging to my friend Phil. A good day in Linlithgow.

Toe shoes!

*Pronounced "lin-LITH-go". 
**Definitely invest in one of these if you plan to visit lots of historic sites; it will save you tons.
***Children love violence. 
****I'm pretty sure they were using the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack for background music.