Masquerade Theatre presents Urinetown!

Posted on April 20, 2011 by pagesofjulia

What a joy. Ahhh. On Saturday, April 9, I finished my database searching class, with a final paper and presentation. Now, I LOVED this course, found it fascinating, found my instructors’ passion and expertise inspiring, learned a lot, and am so glad I took it. But the semester turned out to be about a week too long for me. Returning from the effortful trip to Ouachita to write a paper (I had barely started it. I confess. am not usually a procrastinator but none of us is perfect) and plan a presentation… just about overwhelmed me. (And, I got sick for the second time in two weeks while trying to write & plan.) Whine whine, sorry, my point is… Saturday I did my presentation and it was less than perfect. I didn’t plan very well, and I ran out of time and didn’t get to make all my points. I think I still did fine but it was below my standards and that’s a shame. But mostly I was just SO glad the semester was over with. (And I’m already contemplating the condensed, advanced class this summer. I am NUTS right?)

SO, this long preamble is trying to say, the Husband and I celebrated the end of the semester that Saturday night by going out to see a Broadway musical, courtesy yet again of my Pops! Thanks Pops! Thanks Husband for being game for more Broadway! If you let a reluctant patron of musical theatre, like the Husband, pick your musical, you end up with something like Urinetown. Lol! The story is of corruption, water shortages, and pee. Water supplies are so low that toilet facilities are fee-based, and the greedy Urine Good Company (UGC) is hiking fees and partying hard on the money of the little people. Assistant toilet attendant Bobby Strong and UGC heiress Hope Cladwell fall in love before realizing each other’s position in the scheme of things, and the balance of power, money, and pee is upset.

This is another cute, funny play a la Curtains, but decidedly superior in production. There were no gaffes, aside from more microphone woes. The cast was very professional and it was a very fun event. Very silly, but very fun. Officer Lockstock is our narrator as well as a character in the play, and he breaks down that fourth wall like crazy (with some assistance from Little Sally) in ways that tickled me pink. I thought it was a great play, fun and well produced, and also rather ambitiously taking on social, political, and environmental issues with relative success; but the ending fell a bit short for me, unfortunately. The Husband doesn’t have any idea what I mean by that so I guess it’s a personal thing.

What a great time. I’m so glad I’m getting all these theatre experiences this year! Never have I spent so many evenings in this way, and I’m loving it. Coming up: CATS, straight from Broadway! And dress rehearsals of Houston Grand Opera‘s productions of The Marriage of Figaro and Ariadne auf Naxos! Am I a lucky girl, or what?

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Teaser Tuesdays: A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear

Posted on April 19, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here’s Maisie! She’s following in Maurice’s footsteps, working in intelligence. And the Beales are in for another life change or two that I’m excited about. Here’s your teaser, from page 178:

Maisie turned over the page, then turned it back again. It had been typed with care; not one error, not one misplaced letter typed over.

Sounds like somebody’s pretty clear about what they’re up to, whatever that might be (I’m not that far along yet).

What are YOU reading?

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an anniversary.

Posted on April 19, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Just a quick note to say that three years ago today, the Man became the Husband, and I am so very thrilled with my good luck. Thanks for three beautiful years – here’s to many, many more.

I love you Husband.

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Most treasured.

Posted on April 18, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I’m acting on a nudge from Sheila today, over at Book Journey. She did a lovely post about her very most treasured (physical) book, and asked her readers what they treasure. I found her story of her father’s death,and the loss of most of his possessions, very touching and very (obviously) sad, and I was relieved to find the good reason why she’s never read her most prized and treasured book: it’s a Vietnamese/English dictionary, thus not the sort of thing you read cover to cover. Got it. At any rate, it got me thinking.

I think it’s probably obvious that I treasure physical books. Most reading-bloggers undoubtedly do! Even those who have embraced e-readers (and I haven’t, yet, but all things are possible and I’m not ragingly anti) feel the value of “real” books. I love books. But my most treasured? I think, like Sheila, my favorite books came from my parents. I don’t have as striking a story to go with mine as she does (and thank goodness, I still have both of my parents) but I do have a small collection of older editions that I am very fond of, and will be very sad when they finally, completely fall apart. Like these:

I think my very most favorite is the battered hardcover copy of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, on the bottom.

Sheila, thanks for asking!

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from today’s issue of Shelf Awareness

Posted on April 15, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Today I just want to pass along two items from today’s Shelf Awareness newsletter. The first is about Houston, and the second is about the bike business! (You can read all of today’s issue, and more, at the Shelf Awareness website).

In the latest segment of its Houston by the Book series, the Houston Press profiled Brazos Bookstore and Jane Moser, who “manages the day-to-day operations, scheduling appearances, and–most importantly–buying the books. While she admits that it indeed is no picnic, it’s a job that clearly brings her a good bit of joy.”

In 2006, when previous owner Karl Kilian was ready to step aside, Moser, who had been a children’s bookstore owner, was one of 25 Houstonians who “came together and formed an LLC and bought the store. I was one of the people who worked on the deal to get it together…. I had been a customer of this store for years, and knew the owners. So when it came up that they were trying to put a deal together, none of the people who bought it wanted to run it. They just wanted to save it.”

Moser added, “Everybody loves the idea of a strong, independent bookstore in town. People like the idea, but now we’re in a changing age, and people are going to have to support the sale of physical books as well, or we’re going to lose these opportunities for meeting the authors, etc. That serendipitous experience of walking in a bookstore and seeing a book you didn’t know you needed, or meeting an author you didn’t know about before, or seeing another book by an author, or seeing a cover that just grabs you–those are things that just aren’t yet possible online.”

Christopher J. Zane will be the opening plenary speaker at the American Booksellers Association’s Day of Education at BookExpo America on Monday, May 23, Bookselling This Week wrote. Zane is a 29-year veteran of the retail bicycle industry who bought his first bike shop at age 16 and has built Zane’s Cycles into one of the largest retail bicycle stores in the nation. “His unique approach to marketing includes strategies that stress continual learning, the lifetime value of a customer, guerrilla marketing, and cost-controlled customer service,” BTW reported.

As the morning plenary speaker, Zane will share insights on the lifetime value of one customer to a store’s bottom line, and discuss unique approaches to customer relationship marketing, understanding the psychology of today’s customer, and acquiring the tools to build lifetime relationships in the B2C and B2B markets.

(The above content belongs to Shelf Awareness.)

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hemingWay of the Day: on robots

Posted on April 15, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Lots of people call this weapon the doodlebug, the robot bomb, the buzz bomb and other names hatched in the brains of the keener Fleet Street types, but so far nobody I have ever known who has fought him has referred to Joe Louis as Toots. So we will continue to refer to this weapon as the pilotless aircraft in this release from your pilotless-aircraft editor, and you can call it any of those quaint or coy names you wish, but only when you are alone.

from London Fights the Robots, printed in Collier’s on August 19, 1944

(please catch the irony in the title of his article! did he get to name it himself?)

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Shoot Him If He Runs by Stuart Woods (audio)

Posted on April 14, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I tried Stuart Woods out because he’s popular with some of my library patrons and I want to be as well-rounded as possible, especially in the mystery genre which is my personal favorite.

Shoot Him If He Runs sees Stone Barrington return to the scene of earlier action on the small Caribbean island of St. Mark’s with ex-girlfriend and CIA spy Holly Barker. There is governmental corruption (no mysteries there); there are vodka gimlets, nude beaches, beautiful people, and other accoutrement of the good life; there is a a very talented former-CIA spy, master of disguise, now thorn-in-the-side of the CIA, who Stone and Holly are trying to find and identify. There is no action, terrible dialog, no intrigue, a tiny touch of gratuitous and pointless sex, undeveloped characters and unexplained lose ends. I don’t know what to say that’s nice about this book. I fell asleep during some of the most important parts, but I don’t think it mattered (the Husband was driving and therefore presumably awake throughout and could name no redeeming features) and is only a statement of my feelings about the action. I guessed what was coming at about halfway through. Then I went to sleep.

I’m sorry, Stuart Woods. I wanted to see what so many of my older male patrons like about you, but I just didn’t.

I’m pretty sure I won’t pick up another Stuart Woods novel again unless I’m in serious book-deprived distress, but that’s a state I’m generally able to avoid.

Edit: I asked Husband to share his perspective for us, and he said “It’s no Reacher. [referring to Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series we both love so much] No suspense.” There you have it, folks: the succinct review. Well put, Husband.

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enjoying the books.

Posted on April 13, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I just want to post a quick note that I’m really enjoying my reading life these days. (This is probably due in part to having just finished the semester and thereby finding some unaccustomed free time.) I have just a few pages left in Hotel du Lac (Anita Brookner) and will finish today, probably to go back to the final pages of By-Line: Ernest Hemingway that I left unfinished. I’m listening to Gone Tomorrow (Lee Child) in the car which is a guilty but delicious pleasure. It’s a good life. That is all. 🙂

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Love You More by Lisa Gardner

Posted on April 13, 2011 by pagesofjulia

My first experience with Lisa Gardner was an overwhelmingly positive one. I’d been attracted by reviews and descriptions of this recent release for weeks, and was excited to find it available to me right before leaving for our road trip to Arkansas at the beginning of the month.

A few key elements:

  • female detective with personal life. Detective D.D. Warren’s former boyfriend is also her former work-partner, and in this book she has to work with him once again. Her current boyfriend is largely off-screen. She’s pregnant and in denial about it.
  • female state trooper has apparently shot her husband who has apparently been beating her. Tessa’s six-year-old daughter is missing. Tessa is well acquainted with processes of criminal investigation, etc., and therefore very able to assist, or thwart, D.D.’s efforts to figure out why the husband is dead, why Tessa shot him (she did shoot him, right?) and most importantly, where’s little Sophie?
  • suspense!! edge-of-my-seat, staying-up-too-late-on-Thursday-and-Friday-nights-before-my-big-race-on-Sunday (thank goodness I finished it before Saturday night), thrilling, adrenaline-junkie suspense.
  • police procedural with all the details, including interdepartmental pissing contest.
  • strong sense of place. I’m not real familiar with Boston but the details felt authentic to me; neighborhoods, social strata, housing trends and home values are discussed. This was very much a real place.

These are some elements that make me very, very happy about genre fiction. This is some of my favorite stuff. As I’ve mentioned repeatedly in this blog, I have a theory that the current trend in fiction (apparently even in my beloved bloody-violent genre) is themes of maternity and family, and it tends to annoy me a bit. These themes were present here: D.D. is panicking over her unwanted pregnancy and the idea of reconciling it with a career in law enforcement; Tessa provides a perfect example of how wrong this combination can go. The two women’s situations are clearly not only entwined but allegorical. This didn’t bother me a bit. D.D. is all business, no mushiness, no sentiment. Tessa loves her daughter very much, but it’s not mushy for her either. They’re both strong women, and I was fine with the maternal angles in this case.

This was a murder mystery that had everything I ask for, including wild plot twists (I was so caught off guard! repeatedly!) and surprises, and a wild build-up of action and violence to the finish. And yea, okay, some of the final crescendo of action and gore was a bit unrealistic but come on, I don’t read this kind of book because it’s realistic in its minutia. It was well within my ability to comfortably suspend disbelief.

All the thumbs are up. I shall be seeking out more Lisa Gardner. Well done!

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Teaser Tuesdays: Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

Posted on April 12, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Ohhh I’m smitten! Thanks so much to Thomas at My Porch for causing me to seek out Anita Brookner. You were so right; she is worth it. My post re: International Anita Brookner day is coming, never fear. For now, I give a teaser, not randomly chosen (although chances are excellent that it would be excellent, even if randomly chosen), but my very favorite lines of the book so far, from page 10:

Milling crowds, children crying, everyone intent on being somewhere else, and here was this mild-looking, slightly bony woman in a long cardigan, distant, inoffensive, quite nice eyes, rather large hands and feet, meek neck, not wanting to go anywhere, but having given my word that I would stay away for a month until everyone decides that I am myself again. For a moment I panicked, for I am myself now, and was then, although this fact was not recognized. Not drowning, but waving.

Not drowning, but waving. I ask you, is that not a poignant and fully evoked image and emotion all in four words? Oh my. I am loving Hotel du Lac.

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