Back for Real

Diana channels Kristin Nelson:
What’s playing on the iPod? The Bitch is Back, by Elton John.

Sorry, couldn’t resist. 😉

So just when I think I should get rid of that Google Alerts thing, I get a glimmer of gold in my panning sieve — this one in the form of a review from the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in San Jose:

This is the book for you if you believe in conspiracy theories. Eli University’s secret Rose and Grave Society has unexpectedly tapped girls for the first time in its 150-year history. Amy Haskel, editor of the campus literary magazine, fully expects to be tapped into Quill and Ink, the literary society. So she’s shocked and amazed when she realizes that the most powerful, notorious and ultra-exclusive Rose and Grave Society has tapped her! Vivid cloak and dagger initiations, quirky characters and situations, and college-life romance provide a provocative look into the heart of the Ivy League. Fast-paced and funny, Secret Society Girl is an entertaining quick read for teens and adults. The second book in the series — Under the Rose: An Ivy League Novel — is to be published in June 2007. — Cheryl Woods.

Isn’t that nice? Thanks! And SJL.org has a handy dandy feature, for anyone who needs something new to obsess over, that shows you how many copies are in the library system, checked out, on hold, or 🙁 missing. I’ve only been to San Jose once, and my main memory of the trip was the rocking children’s museum, but when I return, I shall have to check out their libraries.

Went to a movie tonight with Sailor Boy and Sailor Parents. We saw Children of Men, which is very very violent, and which Sailor Boy and I disagreed mightily over. He says that the idea of global infertility is a MacGuffin, and the plot is the same as Willow. I say decidedly not, as the plot of Willow made no sense, even to the ten year old I was when I saw it, and the identity of a MacGuffin qua MacGuffin is extraneous to any storyline, whereas global infertility is intrinsic to the storyline of Children of Men (a premise), and the miraculous pregnancy (which is not a spoiler because it’s in all the ads) that forms the driving force of the plot is the natural story question that arises from this premise.

We did this over beers.

Then we went to a bookstore. Some authors tell me they get depressed when they go into bookstores because there are so gosh darn many books and they begin to think that there’s no way they can compete with that many books. I also get depressed going into bookstores, but it’s the same depression I feel when I go into pet stores. I want to take them all home and provide loving homes in which they will all be petted and nurtured and read and loved and have their covers tended and cherished, rather than stripped.

Seriously, though, I had the best time in the bookstore tonight. I’ll tell you all about it on Monday, when I reveal the cool idea it gave me.