Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

secrets September 5, 2011

Filed under: Pondering,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:23 am
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In the entire history of our marriage, it was the only secret I kept from her, and eventually it became impossible to fix.  With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.

Water for Elephants.  Sara Gruen.  p. 415

This is a valid point, don’t you think?  Whether or not the thing you conceal is important in later years, it can become a “Why didn’t you tell me?” sort of thing.  Mind you, I also know that shrug that says, “Well that’s no big deal!” and just accepts the fact that some people are nervous about sharing news that they think will be taken badly.  Some people get all worried about things like that, and others shake it off.  In the past.  Water under the bridge.  Who cares now about such things?

What do you think?  When is keeping the secret bigger than the secret itself?

 

watering elephants August 31, 2011

Filed under: book reviews,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:41 pm
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I just finished reading Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants which is my book club’s September read.  It’s hard to say what I loved most about this book.  Sara Gruen is a masterful storyteller, and she does a brilliant job of flashing between the present in a nursing home and the 3.5 months in depression era Benzini Brothers Circus.  Her narrator is protagonist “90 or 93” year old Jacob.  It is a testament to Gruen’s skill that he rings entirely true.  She has thoroughly captured the frustration of strong mind being caught inside a feeble body as Jacob remembers the joys and horrors of  life on a circus train.

I remember loving circus books as a kid, and plainly that hasn’t changed.  When I reached the last 50 pages, I couldn’t see how on earth it’d be possible to wrap all the conflicts in so little time, but she does.  I loved the ending as well.  I didn’t see it coming and it made me happy.

Great book.  Highly recommended.

 

help your choices August 19, 2011

Filed under: Pondering,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:01 am
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In the book, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett,  Skeeter is confronted by her maid, Constantine who tells her,

“Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision…. You gone have to ask yourself, Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?”  (Kathryn Stockett, p. 73)

Skeeter is floored by this revelation.  She says,

“All my life I’d been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a a girl.  But with Constantine’s thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.” (Ibid. p. 74)

This is a powerful message, isn’t it?  You choose the values, morals and beliefs that guide your life.  Your parents may teach you theirs, but in the end, you have the right, perhaps really the obligation, to choose your own.

 

bilingual brains August 18, 2011

Filed under: Commentary,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 3:46 pm
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In these years of educational cut backs  to programs like music and languages, here’s a fascinating article about the value of learning foreign languages.  Knowing more languages improves understanding in your own language.  How cool is that?

I know that when I started learning Italian, I started to make all sorts of connections between Spanish, French and English words that added nuance to all of them.  For example, in Italian fog is nebbia.  Suddenly the word for a foggy idea, a nebulous idea, got an added layer of meaning.

In Italian left is sinistra.  The evil side.  The sinister side.  The good sit at the right hand, but evil is waiting on the left.  Bwah ha ha!!! (you could already hear that evil laughter, right?)

So not only does your brain forge new neural connections when you learn a new language, which is good in itself, but it is also improving your skills in your first language.  Win win!  I love happy endings.

Check out the article here:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bilingual-brains

 

love what you do, do what you love August 16, 2011

Filed under: Pondering,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:24 pm
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One of my favorite movies is the 1995 version of Sabrina, with Harrison Ford and Julia Ormand.  The obsessive adoration and the surprise of overlooking a greater love plays right into my romantic sensibilities.  I love the close relationship between Sabrina and her father, the chauffeur.  When she has returned, transformed, from Paris and is sorting out her new world, she observes,

I love so many things about you, Dad. But you know what I love best of all? You became a chauffeur because you wanted to have time to read. All my life, I’ve pictured you… sitting in the front seat of a long succession of cars… waiting for the Larrabees and reading.  (Sabrina, 1995)

This quote is interesting for a few reasons.

First, of course, it points to the concept that the desire to read, to know, to experience can be so overwhelming that it fills a life.  I spend much of my summers reading, and at the moment I’ve been reading so much that my eyes are aching and puffy.  I love that idea of having a job that leaves lots of time to explore new worlds.

Second, is the idea of choosing a job that allows you do what you love.  Sabrina’s father, Thomas Fairchild, loves to read.  He could have found a job as an editor, perhaps,  but then he wouldn’t get to choose what he reads.  Instead, he found a job that involves  so much waiting, that there was always ample opportunity to be reading.

As an added plus, he was able to hear so much stock information from the back seat, he was able to earn a fortune while he lived above the garage and read between the commutes.  The message is, if you choose to do what you love, and pay attention to other opportunities, you can make a perfect life for yourself.

I’m glad to have a job that I love.

It’s not worth the cash to do something you dislike just for the money.

Quality of life is important.  Do what you love.

 

recommended reading August 7, 2011

Filed under: Literature,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:17 am
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I just came across this excellent website that reviews YA fiction. If you’re looking for something good to read, check it out:

http://www.yareads.com/

 

one life? August 5, 2011

Filed under: Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:39 am
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I received this tweet from @Libarbarian Peter Bailey:

“Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book”.

How true is that? This is the best way to explain why we love to read, isn’t it?

If someone isn’t a reader, he is never going to be able to see other perspectives, choices and possibilities as well as someone who’s had the opportunity to live through them in a character’s life.

We have lifetimes to explore, and between the pages of a book, we can experience them all.  It gives us a wider range of tools to draw on as we sort out our own complicated lives.  Reading is practice for reality.

 

Harry Potter vs. Twilight July 31, 2011

Filed under: Commentary,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 3:22 am
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This quote is making the rounds of Facebook statuses these days:

‎”Harry Potter is about doing what’s right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.”- Stephen King

With all due respect, Mr. King.  I disagree.  That is a weak, simplistic statement simply designed to create controversy.  It is also completely erroneous.

Twilight is about the power of love, just like Harry Potter is.

In Harry Potter, you see this power in Snape’s obsessive love for Lily.  That love was a fundamental component that weaves through the entire series.  In Twilight, the mutual obsession of Edward and Bella drives the plot.  In both series, the obsession leads to protection.  Edward fights to protect Bella.  Snape’s obsession with Lily protects Harry, though secretively.

The  theme of love as protection is another theme the two series have in common.  Lily’s sacrificial love for Harry provides the blood protection that allows him to survive amid constant threat.   The same concept applied when he sacrificed himself for those fighting at Hogwarts.  Edward fights to protect Bella.  Jacob fights to protect Bella.  Both would have willingly died for her.  Because of love, Bella trains to be able to protect everyone.  Because of love she endures pain to develop her gift and fight to protect the Cullens and the Quileute wolves.

Harry Potter is about doing what’s right in the face of adversity, sure.  Being willing to sacrifice yourself for the good of the world is a pretty amazing thing.  However, Twilight shares this theme.  In  New Moon, Edward chooses to sacrifice his happiness for what he considers a better life for Bella.   His choice nearly destroys them both, because their love is too powerful to allow them to be separate.   Adversity takes many forms.

Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend?  No way.  It’s about how having the right life mate fills your world with pain and joy in equal measure.  It’s about how the challenges of a relationship (like wanting to eat your true love, for example) need to be worked on, but that those challenges can be overcome.  It’s about how overcoming those challenges is worthwhile.  It’s about how learning to be together can make life more complete.

Harry Potter knew that, too.  When he got through with the task of destroying Voldemort, he married Ginny.  He knew love was important to have in his life.  That was the whole point of defeating Voldemort, after all.

Peace and love.  They both take effort.  Twilight and Harry Potter are different, but they come to the same conclusions.

.

PS. They are the same conclusions that Grace discovers in Grace Awakening

 

Smashing! July 24, 2011

Filed under: Commentary,Reading,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 3:20 pm
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According to the July 21, 2011 site update from Smashwords.com, they uploaded 6,500 titles in the last 30 days.  Wow.  I had heard that Amazon was getting 1000 titles a week, but if Smashwords alone uploaded 1625 titles a week in the last month, there must be closer to 2000 titles being uploaded every week.

Wow.

Say it again,

Wow.

That’s a lot of authors taking advantage of the opportunities offered by e-books.

If you have an e-book reader, you already know some of those opportunities for you as a reader: the convenience of carrying an entire library in one slim volume, the ease of acquiring your books, the huge numbers of books available to you, etc.  You may also have discovered the pitfalls, in particular the large amount of poorly written books to weed through.  The preview is the most valuable defense against this.  I dismiss a lot of books a couple pages into the preview.

For an author, there are different considerations.  If they are already published, it provides a way for them to release out of print titles.  If they are not published, it allows them to skip the long, painful process of waiting for a publisher to take interest in the book, and go straight to the readers.

There’s a problem with this though, because sometimes it isn’t a good idea to go straight to the readers!  Too often authors are in love with their words and their ideas and they don’t recognize that they need to edit for flow,  form and grammar.  There can be a little bit of conceit here or a bit of naivete.

The story has to follow the rules.  It has to make sense.  It has to be written properly.  It has to have good grammar and punctuation.  If it doesn’t, the readers are not going to come.  If you upload a novel before it’s ready, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot, and earning a reputation as a poor writer.

The easy road can be a dangerous one.  The harder road provides enough road blocks for the project to be perfected along the journey.

Of course, we’ve all come across books by reputable publishers that made us shake our heads and wonder how it came to be published.  With the e-book scene growing like crazy, hopefully we’ll soon see many talented authors that don’t have paper editions, developing a well-earned following.   Those authors aren’t getting there on their own, though.  They must have a team of readers and editors helping them to fine-tune their work.

Success is a team effort.  In e-book publishing, the author is the one in control of the team, so it’s important that it’s a good one!

If you’re considering e-publishing, there is a lot to know.  Read and learn.  Ensure that you’re putting out the best possible product.  Know your audience and your genre.  Be sure that your work has been read and reviewed by your audience. Your reputation is important, you need to keep it shiny.

 

love light June 6, 2011

Filed under: book reviews,Commentary,Literature — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:19 am
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She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.

She taught me to revel. She taught me to wonder. She taught me to laugh. My sense of humor had always measured up to everyone else’s; but timid, introverted me, I showed it sparingly: I was a smiler. In her presence I threw back my head and laughed out loud for the first time in my life.

She saw things. I had not known there was so much to see.

She was forever tugging my arm and saying, “Look!”

(Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl p. 107)

This is the best part of love, isn’t it?  Spinelli is able to articulate so beautifully a special part of the best relationships.  When the world opens up because of the love you share.  When we are able to embrace things that are new to us, particularly if they challenge us, we become better.  We are never able to see things quite the same way when we’ve looked through someone else’s eyes.

The older we grow, if we keep exposing ourselves to experiences that introduce us to new views, we can become large enough to see ourselves as a tiny pinprick on a planet.  We realise our perspective is not the only one, and that there is joy in other places than where we usually find it.  There is pain in new places as well.  Be open to both, and the world expands.