Well, following it's moral and creative bankruptcy, Blockbuster has now gone there financially as well. I find this amusing on several levels. Once upon a time, I worked in a Blockbuster on Long Island. It was about a decade ago, back when the inventory was still 95% VHS tape! It wasn't such a horrible place to work, the staff was nice, but this was back when they still had ridiculously high late fees and customers never wasted an opportunity to yell at the cashiers about it, as if we were the ones stuffing our pockets with the extra charges. "This is why there's a class action law suit against you!" people would yell at us. "There's no lawsuit against me." I would say in my head. I don't know why they thought we were personally robbing them. People can get really angry over late fees... but they don't gotta take it out on me.

The bankruptcy filing also invokes some schadenfreude, since Blockbuster made it its business to try and kill every mom-and-pop video store in existence, so they'd have no competition. The fact that they are now being killed off by Netflix seems very appropriate to me. Circle of life and all that. Or maybe I'm thinking of evolution. Survival of the fittest? Darwinism? Or just plain capitalism? Whatever it is, it feels like Blockbuster kharmically earned it.

There's still a Blockbuster that's open across the street from my apartment building. No one is ever inside buying or renting things. In fact, whenever I pass by the store, if there are ever a couple people around me, inevitably their conversation turns toward the store, as they wonder aloud how the place remains open. It's like people HAVE to talk about this useless store. Renting actual movies from an actual store seems so arcane now. No one understands how it's still there. The place has to be bleeding money and its days have gotta be numbered.

If this particular Blockbuster does disappear I'll be sad, because I don't like closed storefronts on my block. If it does go, maybe I'll finally get the pool hall that I've wanted for so long here. A pool hall wouldn't face much of a challenge by online competition so it could certainly stay around here for awhile! Think about it, building owner. That would make me so happy!

It's taken me a couple days to sit down and write this, but the recent upswing in gay teens suicides as a result of bullying has been so disturbing to me. While they all sadden me, the one that particularly makes me want to throw up is the suicide of Tyler Clementi, 18, the Rutgers student who was unknowingly videotaped by his roommate while having a same sex encounter that was live-streamed on the internet. This horrible act of violation and intended humiliation just disgusts me completely. I feel so angry that what they did put this young man into such a state of emotional distress that he felt his only escape was taking his own life. I cannot fathom the roommates reasoning. Gay sex is laughable? Is that the accepted notion here? That's what makes it okay to invade his privacy and expose him to ridicule? It's so incredibly hateful. It's insane.

I was teased a lot throughout junior high and high school under the assumption I was gay. I don't know that I'd say I was "bullied," because I was never physically assaulted or had my property vandalized. But there was a lot of name-calling and a lot of sneers and laughter on a regular basis in Junior High, and I lived in a constant state of fear that it would escalate to physical attacks. Throughout this time, I kept looking inward to try and figure out what was wrong with me that this particular group of guys would pick on me so much. Was I gay? If I was, did I somehow deserve what they were dishing out as a result of it? I felt like I must have been doing something to provoke this behavior and negative attitude from them. More than anything during this time, I just wanted them to leave me alone. I would pray every night just to get through the next day with nothing happening to me. I didn't want to tell my family about it. I felt too ashamed to admit my situation. I would never have considered taking my own life, because the emotional devastation that would bring to my family was just too obvious to me. But being emotionally terrorized is a horrible and isolating experience that seems endless. And now kids have to deal with facing that kind of torment on practically a world-wide level, with the way horrible things can be said and done to them over the internet? I don't know how a vulnerable kid who is trying to find himself or herself deals with the threat that kind of taunting and embarrassment. No wonder it seems too much for them to take.

Bullying is a problem for all kids who are considered outsiders and it's a common problem and I'm sure almost all of us have done it at some point in our adolescence. You find someone who has something different about them and you pick on it, so that other people don't pick on you. When it comes to queer youth, however, our society has so many institutionalized discriminatory policies against gay men and women. It's everything from gay men not being allowed to donate blood, to gay men and women not being allowed to serve openly in the military, to gay marriage not being recognized nationwide to gay adults not being able to adopt nationwide. Congress has even battled for years to exclude attacks against gay people as hate crimes. It reinforces the idea in these kids' heads that it's okay to treat gay people as if they are worth less than straight people and that their mistreatment is somehow justified. It is not. And if you are gay or straight or anything in between we should all actively work to reverse these discriminatory policies and let our children know that social inequality is not what our country should be about. Ellen gave a very moving speech to this effect on her show this past week.



While we work to achieve that goal, there's a great web movement on youtube called "It gets better" where gay adults are posting stories about their lives for young gay men and women who might not have anyone to talk to about what they are feeling. So many of the videos are really inspiring. It's important that anyone who is a victim of bullying for any reason realize that ending one's life is not the answer. There is so much to live for and to experience and to give up before you ever really get started is a horrible waste. Discovering who you are is a beautiful thing and you can find a community and a family that is going to love you for you and you will be able to thrive. It's worth going through the hard times and the truly bad moments to experience that. Since his death, Clementi has been described by those who knew him as a terrific musician, an excellent violinist, and a very promising, hardworking young person. It really would have gotten better for him. I wish he had known that.

Forget our dreary earth-bound concerns! Where is Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and crew when you need them? Take a look at this article from  the Lebanese newspaper Ya Libnan.

New Earth-like planet outside solar system found

For the first time, astronomers have detected a rocky planet in another solar system that has the most basic and essential conditions needed to support extraterrestrial life.

The presence of Earth-like exoplanets in what is called the “habitable zone” has been predicted for some time, but actually identifying and measuring one was referred to Wednesday as the beginning of a new era in the search for life beyond Earth.

“This is our first Goldilocks planet – just the right size and the right distance from its sun,” said astronomer and “planet-hunter” Paul Butler with the Carnegie Institution of Washington. “A threshold has been crossed.”

The planet, called Gliese 581G, is quite close at 20 light years from Earth’s solar system. It is considered to be in the habitable zone because of its distance from its sun and its size.

Here's an artist's rendition of Gliese 581G, with its viably life-giving sun shining away over there in the corner of the frame.


Sky.com quotes University of California Astronomy and astrophysics professor Steven Vogt as saying, "Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say that the chances for life on this planet are 100%. I have almost no doubt about it."

Vogt and fellow Gliese 581G discoverer, astronomer and “planet-hunter” Paul Butler with the Carnegie Institution of Washington,  published their discovery of the planet in The Astrophysical Journal. 

Gliese 581G is smack in the center of what's known rather whimsically as the Goldilocks Zone, described in HowStuffWorks as "an area of space in which a planet is just the right distance from its home star so that its surface is neither too hot nor too cold."

"We had planets on both sides of the habitable zone - one too hot and one too cold - and now we have one in the middle that's just right," Professor Vogt said. Just like, in Goldilocks' opinion, Baby Bear's porridge, bed, and chair.

I watched the internet go wild this morning over the discovery of Gliese 581G. Articles popped up willy-nilly, every few seconds. I don't think this flurry was driven as much by scientific curiosity as by the yearnings of the human heart. There's a space explorer hidden somewhere in most of us.

Do you think whoever inhabits Gliese 581G has done a better job of planet management than we have? Do you think they've learned how to be consistently nice to each other, to tell each other the truth? Have they figured out how to govern themselves fairly, a way to lead without succumbing to greed or marketing fear?


Is anyone besides me just itching to jump into a space ship, shift into warp speed, and find out?

Martha note:  I'm half-way through my second round of classes with JMU's Lifelong Learning Institute. This round's group is about as much fun as groups get. Plus, they write well.

Last night, Betsy Eggleston cracked us up with the following vignette. As I figured you could maybe use a good laugh, I got Betsy's permission to post it today on the WMRA blog.

If you like to root around in exhaustive coverage of national and Virginia politics, there's no richer grazing ground than washingtonpost.com. And yesterday afternoon, while cruising the site, I came across three separate blog items that started me thinking about what it means to be a conservative Republican in 2010.

Blog item #1)  According to a new Gallup Poll, 73% of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans also identify themselves as  "conservative" or "very conservative."

Does that mean, I wondered, that all those "conservative" and "very conservative" people see themselves as pretty much in agreement about where this country needs to go and how to get there?

Blog item #2)  Virginia's attorney general Ken Cuccinelli has been invited to Alabama and Iowa next week to campaign for those states' Republican candidates for attorney general.

If Virginia has a politician who approaches rock star status (with fans as opposed to soberly simpatico supporters), it has to be our attorney general. Has any other Virginia attorney general ever generated so many in-state headlines or so much out-of-state name recognition?

As Rosalind Helderman puts it in her blog about Virginia politics,

The outspoken Virginia conservative, who is suing the Obama administration over the federal health-care law and EPA greenhouse gas regulations, has been in increasing demand nationally from Republican candidates and organizations.

Love him or hate him, Mr. Cuccinelli's certainly a very visible and vocal conservative Republican. But, surely, just because he attracts a lot of press doesn't mean that the 73% of Republicans who describe themselves as "conservative" and "very conservative" are in line with Ken Cuccinelli's way of thinking. Or does it?

Virginia's attorney general's national political clout pales beside that of the flamboyantly conservative Sarah Palin. I, personally, am not sure exactly what she's for, but I am sure that, whatever it is, she's for it adamantly every chance she gets.


Which leads me to blog item #3)  Ms. Palin's name always comes up when people speculate about who might be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. However, a new Politico poll hints that the "Sarah for President" chatter is more about her celebrity than her political substance. Take a look at this question from the politico poll. . . .

As you may already know, Sarah Palin has been the Governor of Alaska and was the Republican nominee for Vice President in 2008. She resigned from her position as Governor in 2009 and currently runs a political action committee and works as a news commentator for Fox News.

Based on what you know, would you say that Sarah Palin's efforts since resigning as Governor in 2009 have made you more likely or less likely to support her if she runs for President?

More likely/strongly 17%
More likely/somewhat 14%
UNSURE 5%
NO DIFFERENCE 7%
Less likely/somewhat 13%
Less likely/strongly 45%

Greg Sargent interpreted this data yesterday on his blog Plum Line (also at washingtonpost.com.)

There's no quibbling with Palin's soaring popularity among Republicans or her rising influence in GOP primaries. But it seems a sizable majority, 58 percent, see Palin's decision to quit as governor of Alaska after a half term and her strategy of elevating her media profile on Fox and via an endless stream of attacks on Obama on Twitter and Facebook as a reason not to back her for president.

This seems to support the idea that her current strategy is working brilliantly to enhance her brand, but only in her current role of celebrity/quasi-candidate. It's rendering her completely toxic for the broader electorate as an actual presidential candidate.

"Her brand?" Is that how Ms. Palin, herself, views conservationism?

I do not, however, believe for one second that the 73% of Republicans who view themselves as "conservative" and "very conservative" see conservatism as a "brand."  And I, for one, am very interested in understanding how they do understand conservatism. Not their ideology's talking points or knee-jerk oppositions, but what conservatism is, what practical ideas it supports, how these will make the country work better.

So I'd love to hear from conservative Republicans who march to a quieter, more thoughtful, less self-promotional drummer than Mr. Cuccinelli and Ms Palin. What does it mean to be a  "conservative" or "very conservative" Republican?

Can anyone help me out?

(Amusingly enough, only one of the shows listed above is one of my favorites. The others? Not so much!)

The Rules: This is a riff on the movie list that was floating around FB last week. Movies are impactful, sure, but as musical theater nerds know, what's more artistically formative than MUSICALS? Don't take too long to think about it. 15 Musicals you've seen (on stage, not on screen) or performed, that will always stick with you. List the first 15 you recall in no more than fifteen minutes. It might actually take the full fifteen minutes. Respond in kind with your own list. Or paste into your FB notes and tag 15 friends and spread the love.

1. Into The Woods
2. Jesus Christ Superstar
3. Fiddler on the Roof
4. West Side Story
5. Rent
6. Les Miserables
7. Runaways
8. Pippin
9. In the Heights
10. [title of show]
11. Hair
12. Sweeney Todd
13. The Wiz
14. Unlock'd
15. Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

This week in Prof's Place, the Chamberlain Student Center is bringing a very talented man by the name of Jason Carney, to perform some of his mesmerizing poetry for us all.He has been a mainstay on the national performance poetry scene for 10 years! He has appeared on several episodes of Russell Simmons "Def Poets" and has been honored as a legend of slam poets in 2006 and 2007. His life was

Since writing is inherently solitary, should we all try to get together sometime?

Here's why I'm asking this right now. . .

Frankly, those of us who work at the station were overwhelmed by the number of entries into the Scott Simon-judged short, short story contest.

As the contest organizer and manuscript handler, I happily spent this last weekend reading through the scores of submissions. I say "happily," because they were universally readable and well-written. It reinforced a belief I've long held from editing the Civic Soapbox: Writers in WMRA Land are legion.

This led to an idea. Before I broach it, however, I need to give you a little background.

Personal confession: I love to lunch. And dine, as well.

Why? Well, there's food involved; but, more importantly, I have my best and most interesting conversations over shared meals. There's something about breaking bread with other people that turns chit-chat into real conversation.

 I've had the pleasure of lunching with a lot of  you who write -- both for pleasure and for paychecks. And I've  never talked with a WMRA writer without wishing I could introduce her, or him, to the other writers in the WMRA Community.

So, here's my idea! I want to convene a WMRA writers' meal -- at a time and place most convenient to most of you. If we can't find a central place to convene, perhaps we could hold more than one.

But, first I need to know whether or not you, if you write--fiction, or non-fiction, for the Civic Soapbox or for Scott Simon, for a living or for your own amusement--would you enjoy getting together somewhere (probably after work for an early dinner) with me and other writers to eat and talk.

You can let me know if this interests you by posting a comment on this blog or on Facebook. Also, please send this blog around to anyone you think might be interested who might not see it otherwise.

I'm convinced we'd have a high old time. And, a great deal to say to each other.

Your thoughts?

When it comes to ladies' fashion at Renee's, accessories are queen. And this season, the scarves, hats and gloves definitely are “it!”

There is one rule when it comes to dressing to impress - accessorize! There are lots of ways to complete a look, regardless of what kind of style you're shooting for, but nothing wraps a cute new outfit together like a couple of accessories.

Accessories are a crucial part of fashion because they represent an eye for detail and a knowledge of what goes and what doesn't. Most people can match their shoes to their shirt, but the ability to make your scarf, bag, belt, and bracelet all come together into a single package makes all the difference. Let's take a quick look at some easy accessorizing tips.

Since accessories are by their very nature details, don't be afraid to make them stand out - setting a belt at a slight angle or wearing a strikingly colored scarf or bracelet will give you a little edge. Bending the laws of fashion in one's favor is sure to catch an eye or two, provided the transgressions are in reasonably good taste.

If you want to accessorize, try to keep your personal style in mind. People will form opinions about your overall sense of style based on the details they see on you. Earrings, shoes, and hand bags, for example, say so much more to most people than your jeans ever will.







Fashion is defined in large part by the little things. Keeping that in mind will help you stand out, especially in situations where a dress code is enforced. You can spice up your business attire, for example, by throwing in patterned stockings or a feisty bracelet or hair tie. Pick the accessories you feel represent you, and leave the rest to the designers. It's always impressive to see someone that can pull off an everyday outfit with some extra style.

Getting your outfit right is essential in this day and age when first impressions really count. Make a positive difference in your life by keeping up to date with the latest accessory trends. Come see us at Renee's to spice up your wardrobe with colorful scarves, warm hats, sparkly jewelry and stylish shoes today!

(KEEP YOUR SHIRT ON! Katy Perry and her questionable amounts of cleavage have been banned from the public airwaves, while dozens of furry Monsters continue to roam the streets topless. A double standard? I think so!)

Sesame Street has been releasing clips from its new shows the past couple weeks. As you might have heard, some people saw the clip of Katy Perry doing a riff on Hot n' Cold and freaked out on Children's Television Workshop about it. Apparently, Katy Perry wasn't wearing a turtleneck and the resulting shots of her cleavage were going to send 3 year olds and Elmo into some kind of psycho-sexual trauma. "Inappropriate!" random parents cried. Who would take the time to "protest" this being aired on Sesame Street. Who cares? Having seen the clip, I cannot for the life of me understand what the problem is. Sure it's kind of skimpy and maybe kinda ugly and the pale color at times maybe blends with her skin a little, but let's hope these kids never come across perfume commercial or an underwear commercial or an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. They will not be ready. Plus by pulling the clip from air, but still putting it on youtube, I'm sure more people will wind up seeing it than they would have if it was actually on the show. Here's the clip that I find actually rather cute.



Other quality recent sesame clips include this one which is based on True Blood called True Mud. Muppet Bill and Muppet Sookie are appropriately Grouchy and Clueless but the real delight for me here is the send up of True Blood's trippy opening credit sequence.



And then another fun clip is a song performed by Will.I.Am which shows that the Muppets can dance with some impressive shoulder pop and lock action. So fun.




And because I cannot resist. The classic know as Born to Add, which I'm sure I've posted on this blog before. Maybe more than once.

 Martha note: It's Civic Soapbox Friday on the blog . . .

Cygnus X-1 is a black hole, discovered the year before I was born in 1964. Anything that goes into a black hole stays there, never to be seen again. Kind of like my daughter's closet, or our garage, or my paycheck, which totally seems to evaporate the minute it hits my checking account.

I love astronomy and began college with the intention of obtaining a physics major. Until I took a physics course and realized that I was way out of my league. I resorted to a degree in politics instead, which is a black hole of a completely different nature.


Last night my son was talking about Wyclef Jean's run for the Haitian presidency. "The thing in his favor" parroted my son "is that he isn't a politician!" "Really?” I asked, “what's so bad about being a politician?" When he couldn’t tell me, it got me thinking about what, exactly, politics really is (are?) One of Webster’s many definitions calls it "the total complex of relations between people living in a society."

So, really, on one level, we are all politicians in our own lives. Everyone has an agenda, and the ability to make decisions and affect the outcome of any situation. The ability to say “yes” or “no” gives each of us some power. My son has a political stake, for example, in family decisions. He is a one man special interest group and lobbies hard to get what he wants.

I worked in organized politics in DC, which was both exciting and exhausting. After ten years I retreated to a small corner of my home town to regroup and start a family. I have recently rediscovered the joys of political involvement at a very small, local level. In technically applying Webster’s definition, everything I do, from joining my PTA to writing a letter to my editor about a new bypass, is political.

I explained my perspective to my son. He doesn’t have to march on Washington, though I encouraged him to do so, and he doesn’t ever have to run for president of a Caribbean nation. What’s important is that he gets and stays engaged in the issues that affect his life. I want him to learn how to successfully navigate his own social solar system.

I wish more people would recognize their inner politicians and get involved in creating solutions to the problems that surround us all. Let's escape the gravitational pull of our own apathy and use our power to discuss challenges and create change. You don't have to be a rock start or an astrophysicist. You just have to have a little passion about something.

                      --Diane Farineau is a writer living in Charlottesville.

Martha note: Who doesn't need a vicarious porch break? Sarah O'Connor teaches in the Writing and Rhetoric and Technical Communication at JMU. The following is one of a series of  her nature-related essays.

AP Photo/Julia Malakie

Soaking in the warm September sun on my deck, trying to read the newspaper, my attention keeps getting hijacked by the crowd scene around the butterfly bush. Over 100 species of Buddleias (butterfly bushes) exist, with names like Black Night, White Profusion, Sungold, and Purple Ice Delight. Some grow as tall as 15 feet and some, like the Himalayan Butterfly Bush, only reach four feet. They can be found in almost every climate, hardy to minus 20 degrees. Their colors range from dark purple to pink to pure white, and the flower spikes grow from 3 to 10 inches long. Each February I cut our butterfly bush back to about a foot of woody growth, sure I have killed it, and each summer it springs up in an effusion of conical purple and yellow blossoms. One website theorizes that gardeners plant butterfly bushes to bring life to vacant spaces. I did not plant our bush, but it is certainly the happening place in our garden.

©2006 Publications International, Ltd.

What other plant except the Venus flytrap so completely fulfills its name? The butterfly is a giant mother of a bush. Butterflies, moths, hummingbirds, and bees cannot resist it. Today the small Cabbage White butterflies are like the ballerinas in Swan Lake in their white chiffon costumes. One settles for a moment on a blossom, probing for nectar, then floats up in the air, meeting another one and engaging in a pas de deux. A third flits in from the side, then all three spin around each other and fly off in opposite directions. They play, not in a hurry to go anywhere, concerned less with gathering sweetness and more with celebrating flight and sunlight and the gift of abundant blossoms. Now I notice a tiny black butterfly like the shadow of the whites, so dark he is almost invisible, settling on a purple flower. When he spreads his wings, he shows off two white eyes on the bottoms. I have read that butterflies spread or fold their wings for many purposes: for camouflage, for warning, to attract females, and to warm or cool themselves.


Today the big fellows, the black and orange monarchs and the black swallowtails, are nowhere to be seen, but usually one or two of these grand canvases reign over the bush in crowd stopping orange and black, or in black iridescence studded with white and blue jewels. Perhaps they have already started their winter vacations. With a life span of nine months, the Monarch is one of the longest lived butterflies. Every year when the weather turns cool, this butterfly, weighing no more than .3 grams, travels up to 3000 miles as it migrates south to places such as Mexico. Generations return each spring to the same locations, so maybe the monarch I see is the newest member of the Woodcrest Circle family. Somewhere in its DNA is inscribed this address, handed down from great grandparent to grandparent to parent and so on. Maybe the cities on our maps are the flowering bushes on theirs.

I go back to my newspaper, but the rise and fall of the whites, like breaths in and out, pulls me away again, and now I notice other movement on the bush. While the gossamer whites play, the black and yellow bumblebees are hard at work. If the butterflies are air, the bumblebees are earth. Their short, strong bodies bend the stems of the flowers, and they move purposefully through the clusters of tiny blossoms gathering nectar, ignoring their frivolous neighbors. Unlike the extensive colonies of honey bees, bumblebees form small colonies of about 50 and do not make honey. They can only store a couple of days’ worth of pollen at a time. Bumblebees’ bodies are covered with soft hair, called pile. The pile insulates a bee from the cold but also acquires an electrostatic charge from flight that attracts pollen once the bee lands on a flower. As a bee moves from one blossom to another, the pollen collected on its pile passes to other flowers. Bees do the critical work of pollinating 80 % of flowering plants.

I gather my papers. Shadows are spreading and the temperature is dropping. Bumblebees would rightfully charge that I have wasted the afternoon, and I would agree. Since each day now will see fewer colors and less activity in the garden, since soon warm patches of sun will be memories, like the butterflies, I have chosen to wantonly celebrate the now.

Remember how I was asking about French Bistros the other day? Well, I found one. And not just did I find one, but I really liked this one. This was a meal that caused me to be in a good mood all day because I love knowing that yes, there are still hidden gems to be found around town. For me, the only downside is the restaurant is in downtown Carmel, which means a little hike for me, but I’ll manage.

La Mie Emile is mainly a lunch spot, but they also serve dinner (with a more limited menu) three nights a week. As a lunch spot though, this place was doing a booming business (apparently a lot of people have discovered this gem before I did) and when we left, I think every table was full, including the ones outside. They have quite an extensive dessert and specifically, pie list. In fact, the entire backside of the menu is desserts.

First of all, they had buckwheat crepes! I have loved buckwheat crepes ever since I lived in California, and worked in Oakland, we had a little crepe place run by a charming Frenchman from Brittany (open only for a couple of years sadly until he returned to France) who made wonderful savory buckwheat crepes that I have been trying to duplicate at home for the last 10 years or so. The crepe here was as close as I have come. I ordered the Galette avec Jambon et Fromage which is ham, Gruyere cheese, and an over easy egg, all wrapped in the buckwheat crepe. Because I wanted to see how close it would be to the one I always used to order, and because I just like to be difficult, I substituted mushrooms for the ham (which they did without even a blink of an eye).

The crepe was delicious. The crepe itself was light and was filled with just the right amount of cheese and mushrooms, and the one, perfectly cooked, and nicely seasoned egg. I do not like crepes that are overstuffed to the point of being more like an omelet wrapped in a crust of crepe. This is light, tasty and just the right amount of food for a nice light, healthy lunch. I am quite sure the version with ham is good as well, but if they will continue to make it for me, I will likely continue to order my version. They served it with fruit on the side.

Hubby had the Croque Madame which is a French version of a hot ham and cheese sandwich (well if it is just ham and cheese, it is a Croque Monsieur; the egg on top makes it a “madame”). It is slices of French bread, with ham in between, Gruyere cheese melted on top, and another beautifully cooked over easy egg on top. This was very tasty as well, and was more filling than mine because of the two hearty slices of bread. Hubby quite enjoyed it as well.

I had to try a sweet crepe as well, just because I was so excited about my first course. I just wanted something simple so I ordered the crepe with chocolate ganache. There were three of them in my dessert order neatly folded and served with the chocolate sauce inside and out. It was good—not overly sweet, but the sauce tasted like it was made with decent quality chocolate. It probably needed a scoop of ice cream or some whipped cream maybe to finish it, but I was the one who chose what I had. They had several dessert crepe combos with varying ingredients which I am sure are very good.

I am just thrilled to find a place with buckwheat crepes being done so well—and I have heard from family members that the quiche here is delicious as well. I really look forward to my next visit, which hopefully, will be in the very near future.


La Mie Emilie
15 West Main Street
Carmel, IN 46032
317/816-1200
http://www.lamieemilie.com/

Okay, gang, I'm starting today's blog with a really lame, lame, lame attempt at what I would not presume to call wit . . .

Here's the deal as I, your intrepid blogger, see it: WMRA on-air folks will be cozying up to their microphones in a matter of weeks and nattering away (cheerfully, compellingly, windily) about both

• how much we all need WMRA as part of our community's conversation; and 
• how dependent WMRA is on your support.

Speaking as one of the natterers, I will be hard put to come up with anything I haven't said before. Several hundred times, most likely. I try during every fundraiser to mix things up, but let's face it, I'm working with the same brain and creative juices I've always had.

Now let me pull out my professional crystal ball, give it a good dusting, put on my oracle outfit and do a little gazing.

Hmmmmm, what do I see?

Or more importantly, what do I hear?

Wonder of wonders! I hear myself, and Bob, and Terry, and Matt, and Tom G. and Tom D. speaking words we've never used before, because they are your words!

How fresh! How compelling! What fun we are all having!

But you know, we won't have that wonderful supply of new, fresh words if you don't supply them. Yes, I am asking you to post your reasons for supporting WMRA, so we can use your words instead ours to get the phone a-ringing during the Fall Fundraiser.

I've already asked once on Facebook, and got only one (excellent) response -- thank-you, thank-you Lisa Gaudet Carter! So now, please, it's your turn.


You may post your reasons for supporting WMRA either here or on the "Why I support WMRA" Facebook discussion page I've started.

Lucille Clifton died this past February at the age of 73. She lived a hard, challenging life that turned her into a remarkable poet. Her deceptively simple free verse delves into what it means to be a woman, a part of a family, a person of color, have a questioning mind and spirit. And, over and over again, what it's like to grieve.

Ms. Clifton won many awards, among them the 2000 National Book Award for Poetry.

"My Mama Moved Among the Days" 

My Mama moved among the days
like a dreamwalker in a field;
seemed like what she touched was here
seemed like what touched her couldn't hold,
she got us almost through the high grass
then seemed like she turned around and ran
right back in
right back on in

Tonight at 7:00 in Wilson Hall Auditorium, JMU's Furious Flower Poetry Center presents, 73 Poems for 73 Years: Celebrating the Life of Lucille Clifton in honor of this remarkable poetic voice.

I don't often use this blog to promote specific events, but I'm using it this time, because poetry so often gets a yawning bum rap as booooooring. And Lucille Clifton's poetry is so completely not that. Nor are the poets and people gathering to read it: Joanne Gabbin, Nikki Giovanni, Rita Dove among them.

Lucille Clifton

"Oh antic God!"

by Lucille Clifton

oh antic God

return to me

my mother in her thirties   

leaned across the front porch   

the huge pillow of her breasts   

pressing against the rail

summoning me in for bed.

I am almost the dead woman’s age times two.

I can barely recall her song

the scent of her hands

though her wild hair scratches my dreams   

at night.   return to me, oh Lord of then   

and now, my mother’s calling,

her young voice humming my name.

About tonight, as one of my old bosses, Lucinda Lally, used to say, "Ya'll come!" Let an evening of poetry rekindle your own slumbering intensity, your own connection to life outside the office or the carpool or all those endless meetings. Come on! Let 73 Poems for 73 Years: Celebrating the Life of Lucille Clifton wake up your soul!

(Many thanks to Kristi Lee for the information about Lucille Clifton's life)

I blogged about doing an NPR story on first novels a couple of weeks ago, giving listener Arnie Kahn credit for nudging me into finding the time to do some on-air reporting again.

Well, the story finally got done, completed around the edges of my days now mostly spent editing, blogging and Facebooking, and it aired yesterday on Weekend Edition Sunday. "Two First Novels, 10 Years in the Making " took a look at former C'ville resident Jessica Francis Kane's first novel, The Report, and Susanna Daniel's first novel, Stiltsville.

Okay, gang, here's some inside scoop on reporting for NPR. Sometimes you get to take a break from saving the world through radio and just have fun. And I had fun with my first novel story.

Colin Harrison

Colin Harrison has long been one of my favorite noire thriller writers. He's published seven novels, all wildly successful critically and sales-wise. His latest book, Risk, began as one of those nifty serialized mystery/thrillers in The New York Times Magazine. He's also an editor with Simon & Schuster, so he was the perfect person to talk about both writing a first novel and editing them.

Writers are my rock stars -- I'm unabashedly delighted when I get to talk with one I enjoy reading. So I was flat-out psyched to talk with Colin Harrison. He could have been an old grump, of course, but no!  Mr. Harrison was a blast of an interview -- funny, generous, and just plain nice.

In the course of our conversation, he gabbled merrily on about his own first completed-but-never-published  novel. He described this opus as "terrible," and rightfully consigned to a life of "moldering away in our basement" in Brooklyn.

I immediately had an idea.

Most writers, in my experience, would rather walk naked down Broadway then let loose their "bad" work.
"I don't suppose there's a chance in hell, you'd let NPR have a page to put up on the website as part of the  build-out for the story?" I asked. (A build-out is web-only material attached to an on-air story.)

There was a long pause. And then a chuckle. "Sure," he said. "Why not."

So my part of the web build-out for the First Novel story tells of my conversation with Colin Harrison about his dreadful first novel. And, if you missed it on the NPR website yesterday, I thought you might get some fun out of reading it today.

The excerpt from Colin Harrison's really bad first completed novel is at the end.

Lessons In Novel Writing (Learned The Hard Way) 

by Martha Woodroof

Colin Harrison, author of seven uncommonly successful novels, has actually written eight. He describes his first, The Prince of the Power of the Air, as "a baggy, sloppy, erratic animal." And he views its universal rejection by everyone as a "fantastic stroke of luck."

"First of all," he says, "my style was very immature. I was still learning the most rudimentary techniques required of novelists. How do you get people in and out of a room? What's a chapter? What's a paragraph? How do you construct dialogue?  What's too much dialogue?"

Harrison has a great laugh, especially for a writer of dark, New York-centric thrillers that stay in your psyche like real experience. And he laughs a lot while talking about The Prince.

"I was trying to work out too many of my own personal questions on paper," he says, "and what happened is that I wrote a novel that was relevant to me and almost no one else."

While writing his first unpublishable novel — you can read an excerpt from it here — Harrison says he had to grapple mightily with the novel's form. That grappling, he says, is ongoing, as it is for any novelist trying to write something new. "I think each novelist, each time out, has to learn how to write a novel all over again. It's a literary form that requires struggle to comprehend and control."

Harrison began writing seriously in his teens. As for that first novel? "It was for me, as it is for every young novelist, an intensely personal, passionate, anxiety-stricken undertaking," he recalls. "It seemed like the impossible thing that I had to try to do. And you know, I was young and foolish and energetic enough to actually do it."

Harrison, who's also an editor for Simon and Schuster, says the first novels he publishes are written by people who know what they're doing. "That sounds obvious, but there is a lot of what I'll call 'accomplished mediocrity' out there," he explains. "Writers working hard, but writing what at the end of the day are not utterly fabulous novels. And my job as an editor is not to find middling novels."

So what makes for first-novel fabulous?  Manuscripts, Harrison says, that "have a kind of quick first step right into the story, and that are themselves all the way. They don't change rhetoric. They don't change direction. There's a clarity to them.  There's an authority to them." He wants to publish books that are "a great reading experience. I'm looking to be entertained. Thrilled. Made aghast. Horrified. Titillated. All that stuff."

Piece of cake, right?

---

Excerpt: 'The Prince of the Power of the Air'

By Colin Harrison

All is still, and the house is very cold. Then she remembers she is not due to work today. "Go home and have Christmas with your papa," Mrs. Lee has said. "A place like this ain't the place for you to be day like Christ-mas." She couldn't have convinced Mrs. Lee otherwise.  She shivers on her way down the stairs. In the kitchen she flicks on the radio.

"Icyroadsthismerrymorning and...cominguponWXLC..." Her father has not eaten breakfast. The back door is open.  The door has been open all night; a thin drift of snow has blown across the kitchen floor.  Jennifer pulls on a coat, her face tight and lips pinched.  Outside, the bright cold hits her face, waking her completely.  So cold, even for December, she thinks.  The bushes and trees are crusted with ice and dusted with snow.  The world has suddenly frozen solid and airless and dead.  Yet the sky is clear, a gold rising sun.  She sees the tractor is not in front of the barn, where it was when she had gone to sleep. Huge skid marks crisscross the shallow snow in a crazy spaghetti tangle; her father has been out during the night. Chunks of frozen mud lay aside the tracks.  Spinning his wheels in the mud, she thinks. Why did she not hear it? The snow muffled the sound, perhaps.  Was she so deeply, so trustfully asleep? The huge barn door is bolted shut, bolted with a sense of finality about it that makes her stand still.  Only the wind makes any sound, scraping along loose boards, up rusty tin rainspouts and across the ragged shingle roof of the barn.

From The Prince of the Power of the Air by Colin Harrison. Excerpted by permission of Colin Harrison.