What in the world?

Change 1:  I've been playing around with a new look for my digs. What do you think? I haven't completely settled on things. I'm not terribly happy with the background picture (although it's beautiful), but I'd like to have the lotus blossom at the top with a bit of a color change. I may, in the end, put one of my own pictures in the background, but for now I'm going with one provided by blogger.

Change 2:  I've always liked the commenting system on LiveJournal and wished that Blogger's was more like it, so I've decided to try a different comment system that is more similar to LJ's, if I can get it working. Let's all cross our fingers. I wanted to try Intense Debate, but it's closed to blogger for a while so I'm going to use Disqus. When I uploaded it all my former comments are gone. ACK! We'll see if I can get them back. I emailed Disqus. I had understood that wouldn't happen. Hopefully this won't be a disaster.

UPDATE: I just checked, and it appears that Blogger still has the comments. They just don't show up here for some reason. Whew!

Please comment, and we'll see if it's worth it. Since I'm a bit up in arms, I'll give you something fairly easy to ID.

So what do you think this is? Hint: Southerners have an advantage.

Monday=Book Review Time--A link and a play

Good luck to all the NaNo-ers out there. I'm in the middle of edits, so I'm doing a NaNoCleMo. You got it--cleaning for 2700 minutes this month. You can keep tabs on my progress in the right column.

On to the review:

The next book request I had was for Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. Since I already talked about that, I'll just provide the link (If you have any questions, just ask.) and gush about a play that my husband and I went to this weekend.

The play was The Foreigner by Larry Shue.

The Premise: It's a farce about a young Englishman who, in an attempt to escape his life and troubles for a few days, visits a friend in rural Georgia. The friend puts him up at a lodge (He's military, and guests aren't allowed on base.) and, hoping that everyone will leave him alone, tells the owner that he doesn't speak any English. Hilarity ensues not to mention intrigue.

I was wary when we went. I'd heard great things about this show, but the last one we'd gone to that was touted as being incredibly funny was painful. To my great delight, this one was fantastic. The writing was so well done--clever with unexpected twists. The actors did an amazing job. I couldn't recommend it more. Laughter abounded. Whew! If it comes to your town, check it out. If you're in Winston, it's here through Nov. 7th. Go see it. You won't be disappointed.

When I was looking for a picture, I found out that Larry Shue died in a plane crash the year after this play debuted. Sad. Before he died though it won 2 Obie Awards and 2 Outer Critics Circle Awards.

Friday's Photolife--changing up an icon

Wednesday's answer and winner: We only had one person get it right this week. Congrats, Crimey! The answer was the Empire State Building.

On to the Photolife:

Here are a few more views. I love getting different views of famous things. Lighting and angle are great ways of changing up something that is very familiar.

Put the sun behind you and it's all lit up. Include the name so people will know what it is. (For less familiar things this is nice for you as well. I've been known to take pictures of street signs and exhibit names just so that I will know where I was and what I've taken when I go back a couple years later. Now a lot of cameras have GPS and will log that info but it is still nice to have the name in some pictures.)

Put the sun in the picture and get a sunburst and a rainbow, AND with this angle from a little farther away it's much easier to identify. How would you have fared on Wednesday if I'd used this picture?

Wait for a change in ambient light, and include surrounding buildings. It's especially nice when you get a reflective surface like the building on the right to continue the sky or some other element of the photo. With this angle, I bet most of you would have known what the building was.

Application to writing? When describing a scene, think about how familiar you want things to be or how you can change up something that everyone knows. e.g. image 1: the glowing window strips ascending into the blue..., image 2: the sunburst painted a rainbow..., image 3: the window washers hung in the evening's reflection with the Empire State Building looking on...

What in the world?

Hint: A different angle would make it more obvious.

Monday=Book Review Time--sans Richard Armitage

Up for today: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (Today's review requested by Mary Kay. If you see anything you'd like reviewed in the Books Read in 2010 list, just let me know. I have 4 in the queue right now.)

Why I bought it? I had seen the BBC version with Richard Armitage and Daniela Denby-Ashe and adored it. If you haven't seen it yet, put it on your netflix queue. You'll thank me later. I got the Norton Critical Edition with all the footnotes and commentaries through Amazon.

Synopsis: Margaret Hale is uprooted from the idyllic life she has lived in the south of England and moves to the fictional town of Milton in the north when her minister father leaves the Church of England. The abrupt descent into relative poverty is very difficult for her as is the change of lifestyle from the agrarian south to the industrial north. She sympathizes with the workers in the cotton mills and their plight. When she meets the owner of one of the mills, Mr. Thornton, they clash over class issues. (This is different than the movie. It is much more subtle.) He falls for her, but she feels he's completely inappropriate for her. There are a lot of political and social issues along the way, but, ultimately, this is a story about love.

What I thought? I loved it. Some of the things that I didn't like in the movie were different in the book. Very nice. I love the Mr. Thornton in the book more than the one in the movie (even though I think Richard Armitage plays him brilliantly). It has a slow start and a quick finish, but despite those drawbacks, I still love it. Gaskell tells a wonderful story full of flawed, yummy characters. Even Charles Dickens liked Gaskell's work. (They were contemporaries.) Since I read it the first time (this was a reread), I've read all of Gaskell's finished novels, and all were enjoyable--some more than others.

My Rating: ***** out of 5

Cleanness Score: 3 out of 10, This is more for themes than anything else. I thought about giving it a 2, but there is some violence and a suicide (off scene) and several natural deaths. It's a book intended for an adult audience, but I wouldn't have a problem with my teens reading it.

Friday's Photolife--Outings

Wednesday's answer and winner: Y'all are so smart. This week Alyssa was the first to get the answer right. It is, indeed, an apple press to make cider. Or in other words a cider press. In today's photolife I've included a view of the whole thing so you can see the process.

On to the Photolife:

Documenting outings is often in the details. Here are a few pictures from a family get together apple picking in Virginia. (There are tons more pictures, but this just gives you an idea.) Autumn is my favorite season. The crisp air. The vibrant colors. The falling leaves.

Apples.

Cider.

Look at the color of that cider--caramel, golden brown with a tinge of red. We strained it then boiled it--and partook. Taste bud heaven.

When we take pictures of outings, it's good to include as many aspects as we can. The cider dripping off the press into the pan, my nephew-in-law climbing a ladder into the trees to knock the apples down,

roasting marshmallows (my daughter and two of my nieces),

another daughter who was obsessed with the tractor we used to haul the apples from the orchard to the fire pit and cider press,

my take-home-cider waiting under my chair for the ride home along with a bag of apples, my daughter's poncho (that I knitted), and my backpack.

The memories are in the details.

Application to writing? One of the things I've been thinking a lot about lately is how putting specific details into writing makes it more vivid and sucks the reader in more and more. The aroma of the cider boiling, the crispy charcoal taste of the burnt marshmallows, the red-orange glow of the apples in the sunset, the sputtering chugs of the tractor, the buzzing whine of the go-cart, the nip in the air of evening setting in, the dirt under my fingernails.

What in the world?

Guess away--three views of the same contraption...

Hint: My fall crush.