Reckon’s Neighborhood

• Guys, I'm going to watch As The World Turns during my lunch break. Why? Because my UNCLE is on it. Best. Ever. #
• I want to read: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Noth... by M.T. Anderson - bit.ly/uC8Jv #
• 18242, w/ radical reorganization. It's coalescing, unlike last attempt. Phillip Glass pandora station is perfect for writing. #nanowrimo #
• Paul is singing Lion King songs to prove that he's going to delete his facebook account. #

loudtwitter.com set all this up for me.

Soldier's goodbye & Bobbie the cat, ca. 1939-ca. 1945 / by Sam Hood
from the State Library of New South Wales collection on flickr

It is really time to ditch the canned food! Visit the healthy librarian to find out why.

My friend Mickey at Nicholas Landon Jewelery in Texas is having a Thanks-Give- Away
Her work is really lovely!

Another friend, Mark Brennen shared this link to a really interesting 1941 film produced by the National Film Board of Canada about the famous painter A.Y. Jackson following him on his painting journeys into the bush.

Still trying to raise $1000 for a digital mammogram machine and getting ready for those 6 hours of fitness classes on January 30th for Bust a Move! If you could help me please I'd be very grateful. It says Canadian $ but will convert US to Cdn.

Delicious Butternut Squash and Pear soup. I use an immersion blender and you don't have to add the cream at all or you can use evaporated skim milk for creamy no fat flavour.

Also, don't forget to enter my bloggy 1st Anniversary draw:)

Have a fun weekend:)

In today's Twitter post round-up:

• Wow, decided to watch JCVD on a whim last night since it was playing on TV, and boy was I SURPRISED; this movie was EXCELLENT!
• Listening to 80s U2; why can't this band shine again, like they did back then? Money? Fame? Ego? Age? Cosmic sabotage? We may never know...
• [Self-Publishing] "I explain it's like printing a diploma on a printer" -- @PaulJessup (absolutely love this quote, plz RT)
• RT @NataniaBarron: #ff Now follow @drachin8, she's lovely and weird; she writes lovely dark dreams, filled of springs, cogs, and gears.

Brought to you by the letter "L"

One of the famous Easter Island
statues, or moai, will be exhibited in
April 2010 at the Tuileries Gardens in
Paris, thanks to an initiative called
“Moai to the World.” The idea arose
from an agreement between the
Easter Island authorities and the
Fondazione Mare Nostrum, an Italian
organization dedicated to promoting
knowledge of the world’s islands.

Rapa-nui-exposition-fondation-edf

Marjorie Lawrence - Australian opera soprano

I have just spent the evening watching an old movie about the Australian opera singer Marjorie Lawrence. Marjorie was born on a farm in 1907 and somehow managed to go from distant Australia to France to study and then onto New York to rise in the operatic ranks. Being an Australian girl she was very physical and she was the first soprano to perform the immolation scene in Götterdämmerung by riding her horse into the flames as Wagner had intended. Good old Marjorie also performed the Dance of the seven veils in Richard Strauss's Salome^[1] "more convincingly" than most other sopranos!

Not long after she married she contracted polio and was left confined to a wheelchair.  She managed to resume her career and sang for some time afterwards. She even travelled overseas to entertain the troops after WWII and I think even during the Vietnam War. Marjorie died in 1979.

The movie starred Eleanor Parker as Marjorie. Dear Eleanor I believe was nominated for an Academy Award. I can only think that it was either in the category of "most overacting actress" or "worst lip synching by an actress in a muscial". Hey Brittany Spears wasn't born yet! [In case you missed it in other parts of the world, little Brit is in Australia and audiences are walking out because she is lip synching her way through the concerts and badly at that!]

Anyway, the movie was the usual Hollywood bad retelling of a great story. Marjorie was disappointed with the result saying that it did not represent her life at all. Bad movie, as it may have been, the subject, Marjorie Lawrence, really interests me. I want to know more about her now.

I went online and was able to track down a 2nd edition copy of her autobiography "Interrupted Melody" which is what the movie was called also.  The blurb says it is a little damaged, but heck it was published in 1949! It claims to have been signed by the author also, so I am a little chuffed. I don't usually buy second hand books as I love the feel and smell of new books, and I worry about introducing book worm into my own library, but in this case there was no choice, To get a copy reproduced through a library would be more expensive.

So, I hope all goes well, and hopefully the book will arrive in a week or so. I hope Marjorie told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth....more than what can be said for the movie!

Approaching Petra

• 21:04 An amicus brief for the validity of religious-law arguments in potential Eighth Amendment cas... bit.ly/17zVZf #

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"You're getting better!"

Currently only available in California and Georgia.  Wait, Georgia, wtf!?

The Pantienon – iPhone App To Imagine A Girl w/o Underware
Title says it all.  (link SFW)