6/24

I bought the “Leaves of Grass” for $5.95. Thanks to you “Signet” I would not have to worry about how to contact my WSJ billionaire yet – I need a sugar daddy if I am to buy books and pay my bills. And yes , it is :[…] “For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,/ In the stillness of the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined towards me”[…]
***********


More about books:

I finally have a Facebook profile. Now I am trying to figure out what books should I include to my IRead list and what should be kept silent. And yeah, it is important, my image is at stake: this European, educated, smart woman etc. etc. My dilemma now: should I admit to reading the Comtesse de Segur (and to that extent a wide selection from “Bibliothèque rose illustrée”) or not? I already confessed to Jules Vernes so how much damage could be done?

****************

I read it in a blog:

I read it in PQ to be more specific.
The post implies that making easier for employers to get work visas for foreign nationals will definitely help the burgh’s demography, since more graduates from Pitt and CMU will stay in the region.
I agree that solving the visas issue will definitely help. However, that is only one of the reasons for which foreign nationals do not like to stay in Pittsburgh. The other issue: the city itself offers only limited opportunities for decent housing and good public schools. So a lot of foreigners will have to live in the suburbs and the people in the suburbs have some issues with diversity. Either:
They do not like you because you are different.
If they do like you it is usually because you are European and white, but then they tend to assume there are no differences. (Well there are and they are hard to explain).

How do we address this issue? No ideas here. I became quite unpopular explaining people why: I do not consider myself "American" , I do not feel Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day, German beer is still better etc. etc.

***************


More about foreign nationals in PA

This is a story from middle PA that took about two weeks to reach the national media, only after the FBI got involved. And I am afraid Shenandoah got its renown now : some young kids beat up an immigrant to death.
More here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/31/shenadoah.beating/

*************
Returning to books:

I read it on 2x3x7.
Mr Wood on fiction:

“Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practise on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life[…]” This in the context of Flaubert’s art of details, of light tones. (“les varier a l'infini, c'est tout un art” said another.)
There is a charm in the quotidian, all these simple things - a charm that is worth the attention of the storyteller. Yes, my pencil holds an world in his simplicity -all lines and curves and letters that will form a story yet untold. And who knows what wonders might come from the unpretentious lettuce?