Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Tag: Books

• Mo-Vember

  Posted at 3:17 pm by kayewer, on November 1, 2025

  There are only 61 days left in the year, now that we’re on the first day of November. These are the crazy times when the day after Halloween begins a frenzy of food, shopping, travel and other insanity until we start a new year. This is the month for more of everything. More food, more frivolity, until somebody’s waistline or energy timer says “no mo.”

  Writers–of which I hope to be counted as one–may have started off the day at midnight holding an unofficial version of the event once called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which as an entity went dark earlier this year. The staff were forced to shut the whole operation down, and it suffered an unexpected death at the hands of a variety of evildoers, including criminals trolling the official website for potential underage victims, causing a scandal. Also, they were done in by a business model system lacking in a complete and helpful path of guidance to help the uninitiated navigate the process while protecting the brand from disaster. If you check out YouTube, you will see a video explaining much of what happened to NaNoWriMo; a cautionary tale and warning to others excited about the prospect of becoming a highly visited presence on the Web. Learn to crawl and everything-proof your surroundings before you walk.

  But back to getting November off to a rousing start. Writers are coming up with creative alternative ways to make the month count for something. Heck, I’m doing that myself right now by writing this post. I may not get to 1600 words, but this is a month I am hoping to make more progress on my quartet of novels, of which I am in the draft phase of book two and have some foundations up for books three and four. I have a critique group which is putting up with reading my drafts, because I am writing dark fiction. My critiquers don’t normally read it. Some specialties fare better when read by folks who share enthusiasm for the genre, but they gamely offer the feedback they can, and I love them for it.

  My other projects for the month of November include shifting the household around and putting things back where they belong. After a year of decluttering and maintenance which was overdue, I have rooms filled with stuff from other rooms. Once I shift it all around, I will have my space back, and some old spaces will have their original purpose back.

  Finally, I plan to pick up my crochet hook this month. I ordered an advent calendar filled with crochet delights for 24 days, and I have supplies of yarn enough to open a shop, but instead I will craft some wonderful things just in time for the holidays and year-end.

  My fridge has some ingredients for tomorrow’s Sunday dinner, and my turkey for Thanksgiving is already occupying a space in the freezer. I’ll just need the mashed potatoes and dessert. Holiday shopping is finished (go ahead and hate me). That gives me some room for taking a deep breath and preparing for whatever comes next. The next word, the next project, or the next trip up flights of steps for restoring order to a home filled with chaotic mismatched items.

  If it isn’t writing month, it’s shifting month. And it’s only 30 days long.

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  Posted in Commentary | 0 Comments | Tagged Books, creative-writing, NaNoWriMo, november, writing

• Appreciation For the Pen

  Posted at 3:04 pm by kayewer, on August 9, 2025

  We humans spend more time with keyboards than with handwriting implements. Our society has forgone what was once considered a measure of one’s character for what requires little effort. Keyboards can be used by anybody who can hunt and peck at the buttons (those little horizontal raised lines at the bottom of the F and J keys even clue in a user as to where “home row” is for those who have taken typing, itself nearly a dead art). If you could peck, you could produce.

  I took semesters of typing in high school on what was then state of the art equipment: the IBM Selectric typewriter, a metal behemoth perfectly designed for the classroom. It was too heavy to move, and the only loose part was the interchangeable type font ball, which was a miracle of evolution. One could type in Arial or Times New Roman with just a click of an inset black lever and a snap to remove one font and install the other. Our hands flew across the keyboard at the speed of sixty words per minute (that was an A with no errors). A few years later, I tested at ninety words per minute. What a joy.

  My handwriting was a neglected part of my education, but when I sat myself down one afternoon and devised my own unique penmanship method, I was happy to write anything out by hand, but it’s an art going out of favor with the dying Boomer generation, of which I have the distinction of being on the latter end of its run. Writing checks is disappearing, card shops are struggling, and newspapers may soon be replaced by digital only editions. Back in my work commuting days, you could enjoy watching fellow riders filling out crosswords and puzzles in pencil. Or ink. With a pen. Today’s online games are “play as long as you can until you lose,” though I still enjoy Sudoku, Connections and Wordle online.

  People are in such a hurry today that they can’t take a few minutes to actually craft something with their hands and some requisite patience. Before our offices shut down, live interviews were still the norm, and I’ll never forget the first time we encountered an applicant who had never developed a handwritten signature for himself. Imagine that: in the olden days the illiterate would at least mark an “X” on a document, but this person never gave his own name a unique look with a pen.

  My maternal great-grandfather, according to my mother’s story, had an elaborate autograph; he would begin his first name, swirl the ink to the end of his last name and back again to fill in the rest. It likely resembled how our founding fathers signed our first national documents. Quill pens are out of style, of course, but those beautiful letters flourished with elaborate dips and trails are an art today’s youth cannot understand or appreciate.

  Why do I bring this up?

  Today in the mail, among the demands for charitable donations and meaningless junk, I received a small envelope with my name and address handwritten on the front. I had received similar ones for events in which I had no interest, but I opened it to find, to my delight, that it was an actual thank you note.

  Now, this friend who sent the note, and I, see each other every week. We have a regular date during which we eat food we shouldn’t and enjoy each other’s company while watching movies or programs and sharing conversation. She took the time to write out a note because I had attended her surprise milestone birthday party a few weeks ago. I brought a gift I knew she would like, and it was a fun afternoon. She could have just thanked me on that day and been done with it, but we’re both late Boomers, so she kept the tradition alive by actually sending a card to thank me.

  She not only thanked me for the gift, but for being her friend. In her handwriting that she developed for herself in her growth as a person.

  That is what is dying when we don’t do things that require handwriting; not just the act itself, but the human qualities that go with it. Saying please and thank you, and making it tangible. In ink. And it cost a stamp.

  Try doing that in Times New Roman.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged Books, greeting cards, handwriting, life, poetry, thank you notes, writing

• In An Instant

  Posted at 3:20 pm by kayewer, on June 7, 2025

  Have you ever had an experience in which you gave an honest answer and it backfired on you? I had that happen this past week. I had to make a change in something which had been running normally for a long time. Once I started the ball rolling on making the change, it turned out that, because I gave honest answers to make the adjustments, I had suddenly gone from having a long-term thing with no problems to having a load of problems which will cost me time and inconvenience.

  Telling the truth shouldn’t suck, and learning the truth about people, and how that truth shapes who we are, shouldn’t either, but it happens more often than not.

  One of my first experiences with this instant 180 effect was watching a movie about a young couple in love; she brought him home to meet the family, which consisted of her mother and monsignor uncle. The evening progressed smoothly and warmly with jovial conversation, until the uncle steered the talk towards church matters to find out more about the religious views of the young man at the dinner table. The fellow, accustomed to being honest, admits politely that he is an atheist who does not believe in God, and the merriment shuts down like a light being turned off. The man leaves in defeat and the young lady left in tears.

  Another famous example is the popular epic film The Ten Commandments, in which Charlton Heston as Moses gives a small speech about what has changed after it is confirmed that his heritage is Hebrew and not Egyptian. He notes that he as a person is no different than before (the same hands as before), and yet who he is suddenly turned his fate much darker.

  One of our most successful modern authors, J.K. Rowling, was (and remains) the biggest worldwide phenomenon, selling books which spun off into movies and theme park attractions and all sorts of promotional joy for millions of followers. Once she gave her opinions on transgender rights, however, her fan base diminished.

  One of the most noted composers, Richard Wagner, wrote beautiful and still well-known compositions such as the Ring cycle and Parsifal. His legacy is less one of outright rejection due to cancel culture, however, and closer to that of what we might strive for in the future: noting the bad and the good in human nature. Wagner was openly not a fan of Jewish people, yet opera patrons can appreciate the fact that he wrote exquisite music. In fact, conductor James Levine thumbed his nose at the composer by commanding his baton, proud to be a Jew, in front of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra through countless Wagner performances. Of course, Levine himself became another infamous cancel culture icon due to a professional scandal, and lost his status at Lincoln Center as a result.

  Since the month of June is one to celebrate pride in who one is, we should strive to be honest about our foibles as well as our successes, and not need to apologize for many of the things for which scores of overly zealous righteous folks reject entire subcultures, minorities or populations. Trying to sort out who to like or dislike should not be relegated to such frivolous things. One might as well divide people into who puts on both socks before both shoes, or who hangs their toilet paper over or under. All of it means essentially nothing in our planetary picture. LGBTQ people pay taxes, go to Starbucks, get tattoos and choose their pizza toppings the same way as everybody else. The most “vanilla” person on the planet may possess one flaw that you might not agree with, and they might find an unpopular flaw in you. Does that truth divide us, or bring us to a better understanding of the subtotals that make up who we are.

  I will need to endure the inconveniences to get back to the way things were. But I don’t regret telling the truth. What has been done is over, and it’s time to move forward. That’s how life is.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged Books, honesty, life, music, opera, pride-month

• Rated Extraneous

  Posted at 1:54 pm by kayewer, on April 13, 2025

  I just read an article about the movie ratings assigned by the motion picture industry, from the perspective of the ratings’ relevancy in today’s entertainment world.

  The original rating system was introduced in 1968 as a way to inform parents of the suitability of a movie’s contents for young children. Before that, Hollywood was under the watchful eye of the “Hays Code,” which was designed as a type of “Ten Commandments” of forbidden depictions in moviemaking. Among them were nudity (adults and children), swearing/cussing, mixed race relationships, white slavery, sexual hygiene and childbirth, racism and drugs. Oh, and the clergy couldn’t be spoken ill of, either.

  The Motion Picture Association or MPA, (which included “of America” until 2019), created the rating system we now know to make it easier to choose movies for families or adults. The challenges which reshaped the system–one of the most noted being the addition of PG-13 after the release of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom due to some borderline violence touching the PG line in the sand–have tweaked the original four classifications. We now have five ratings (G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17) and a variety of descriptive text to include mild, fantasy or extreme violence, language, drugs and alcohol and sexual content as means of parental guidance as to what their children may experience during the movie.

  The article points out that, unfortunately, many young people feel that the ratings system is a plot by adults to deprive them of what they conceptualize as a “better” form of entertainment. Young people will purchase a ticket for a PG-13 film, then sneak into the R-rated movie. I know from firsthand experience–not in a theatre, but watching a film on TV not suitable for me at a particular age–that this practice can be mentally damaging. In a rush to grow up, theatres are accidentally releasing rule-breaking teens sporting mental scratches and dents out into the world with a perspective they may not have been ready for, because there isn’t a system in place to make sure they “got what they paid for.”

  This came to light recently when the Terrifier franchise (known for extreme violence) released another movie this past winter and the packed houses were not always filled with age-appropriate paying customers.

  The best solution may be to keep a certain classification of movies on one side of a multiplex, so that youngsters headed in that direction would be immediately obvious. Another may be to set up a ticket scanner at the door to each auditorium which the attendee must swipe in addition to their original admission in the lobby. The door would then open for them to enter the auditorium.

  The classification system is still relevant. Children still need some protections in place to shield them from things they may not be mature enough to witness. This is a job all grown-ups take on when we come of age. It is a responsibility to the future generations and mankind in general to allow children to grow at the pace set for them by natural order, and introduce new concepts when they are ready to receive them. Our society has become so lax and liberal, that youngsters do not seem to be blocked from anything that may harm them; true crime documentary channels are not for four-year-olds. Forget that it’s cable or steaming, and remember that you control the remote.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged Books, film, mental-health, movies, mpa-ratings, parenting

• The Old Book Story

  Posted at 1:22 pm by kayewer, on February 23, 2025

  (Originally Published May 12, 2019)

  The Argosy Book Store in New York City is an established piece of the city’s history, dating back to 1925. I decided to take the plunge and visit the store for the first time while I was in the city yesterday. I had both Argosy and the Strand (which opened elsewhere in the city two years later) on my city trip bucket list, so with time to kill before my date with a cushy opera seat at Lincoln Center, I weighed my choices. Somebody had been very helpful in getting me the info for the Strand, but since it was some twenty blocks in the opposite direction from my destination, I knew my feet would not take the abuse, and taxis unlikely at that time of day. I walked instead to the Argosy, hoping to enjoy some slow time with some old books.

  The place is designed much like a delightful old shoppe, smelling wonderfully of ancient paper in the muted light. On the shelves were old and more modern bound books of all sorts. Seeing Shakespeare occupying several shelves, I stopped to take a look and wondered about the cost of some future presents for my bookworm friends.

  Meanwhile, a drama was unfolding at a nearby desk, where a worker was contacting a shipper (a major one whose name I will not mention here) to find out why a promised on-time delivery did not happen. A customer had requested a special book for a Saturday occasion, and it never arrived, she learned, because in spite of instructions to the contrary, they waited to get a signature for the delivery. The worker informed the shipper that it was the store reputation which was suffering for their error, and I nodded to myself that this was a merchant who thrived on doing things the right way. She was quite infuriated by the problem, but kept her composure on the phone, another mark of professionalism.

  However, my shopping trip was now less important amid the chaos in the store. Nobody asked if I wanted assistance, and I figured that my timing was just wrong. I left with nothing, but will return.

  Meanwhile, the Strand is having an identity crisis because of a possible designation as a city landmark, which the owners might not want. They claim to have “18 miles of books.” and is an icon of the Washington Square area, while Argosy is just a brisk walk away from Central Park.

  And in Long Island, Amazon is coming, may the book gods help us all.

  There is a big difference between old books in an Indiana Jones-style warehouse, and an actual store one can walk into and breathe in the life between those aged pages. Commerce isn’t what it used to be, but bookstores like the Argosy and the Strand should stand forever.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged argosy-book-store, book-reviews, Books, bookstores, reading, travel

• Farewell 2024

  Posted at 3:25 pm by kayewer, on December 28, 2024

  Another year has gone by. For me, life goes back to what I call normal after that first day in January. Once the forty or so days of holiday madness come to an end (I measure by when Black Friday comes), the world enters a new kind of madness revolving around the weather. Day to day we worry about how cold it will be, will there be rain or snow, or even a polar vortex.

  A few years ago, we had three of those. At my job, we (or rather, I and the administrative team) fed our workers for over two weeks while the powers of nature dogged our every waking hour. Now that we don’t go to the workplace anymore, I don’t need to worry about a shopping run, how many plates and forks we need (or how many excess knives we must deal with), or if the corporate credit card will accept another big bill and whether the old ones were already accounted for. When I shop, I shop for me.

  January is when the bills from late November and December start to roll in, and the tax documents also remind us of where our money came from and went for a whole year. I took the time to amass a collection of receipts from food shopping this year: since we were blessed with the first regional Sprouts market in 2024, I began getting my daily produce and dairy there, and the many slips from that location show just how healthy I managed to eat. I didn’t save any stubs from eating out, which I kept to once weekly on average. Unfortunately I can’t say the healthy eating affected my weight.

  In 2024 I managed to cut back on frivolous spending. I turned down nearly everything, and only indulged in one thing I still enjoy collecting. Instead of stuff, I channeled my spending to experiences, going to an occasional social event or a new production, and those served much better than finding storage space.

  As for the home, I only did one improvement, taking the entrance to the side room back to where it began; with glass-paned doors. Originally my parents took down and discarded a pair of similar doors, opting instead for shuttered levered versions. The hardware gave out after decades of use, and the cooler temperatures in the room caused the air to escape through the slats and cool the bigger spaces down. Despite being part of the home and its heating system, the room is down about ten degrees. After getting new windows throughout the year before, I also opted for the old/new doors (which required custom fitting), and part of the problem was solved by doing so. Now I need to get to the bottom of the cold air, which may be due to no insulation in the roof. Eventually that space will become my office.

  I gave up my original fashion choices when I left the building to work at home in 2020. Now I feel fashionable but comfortable, and still have a handful of brands whose clothing I trust to last and fit. My discovery of Duluth Trading is making winter easier to endure. Their outerwear is great. The other clothes are going into donations or rags. My clothing budget went down to practically nothing.

  The other day, I ended the year by killing my shredder. It was an old one which was relegated to one sheet of thin paper only, one at a time, because it had reached the final moments of its lifespan. The new one was on standby for when the oldie cut its last. In my haste to get junk mail out of the way, I neglected to pay attention to my latest request from the March of Dimes. They glue a dime to your donation slip, hoping you will return its equivalent with your (much higher) donation, and I popped the entire thing into the old codger shredder, forgetting to remove the dime, which then got lost in the works and is probably mangled beyond the ability to recover its value. I’ll let you know if I can retrieve it before the deceased goes out to trash collection.

  My resolutions will go into effect this coming week, and I’m not sure I will meet all of them, but I do know that such a tumultuous prediction of how 2025 may go will spur me to take better care of myself and do all I can to make things better, healthier, happier and balanced. My weekly posts should reflect some of this, and I hope you will join me.

  Here’s to balance in 2025.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged Books, decluttering, family, food, travel

• By Hook

  Posted at 2:26 am by kayewer, on December 16, 2018

  Crochet is not a lost art, but it seems more people like computers than crafting. That’s why I like to break from looking at screens and do a craft project, and I just finished one. It’s going to be a Christmas present. So don’t tell anybody you read this.

  The original pattern, which I’ve worked on for years, specified that it should measure 50 inches by 45 inches when completed, but the pattern makers disclaim any responsibility for their or your own errors when making a project. This means that human error is your own problem to fix, either by adjusting your stitch size or your crochet hook size until you figure it out.

  I was already using a size Q hook, which is one away from OMG size, so I tried moving up to a size S. Bad idea. I wound up with what looked like a fish net. Going down a size to P made the piece even smaller.

  So I’ve gone for quite a while unable to get my work to match the pattern’s specifications, and feeling like a second rate crocheter. My work always came out to about 35 instead of 50 despite my best efforts. My stitches weren’t too tight or loose, and my finished projects (about 15 of them to date) all were lovely. Still, something didn’t measure up. Logic dictated that 60 loops of yarn do not necessarily mean they would measure 50 inches. I came to the conclusion that the pattern had to be mistaken. The gauge, or stitch measurement, was wrong. Had to be. What to do? Use more yarn and more stitches.

  My most recent project took eight skeins instead of the required six, and I ended up doing 20 more stitches to reach the desired width. It worked. I have a completed piece just the right size, and I don’t think the yarn police are going to arrest me.

  I have two more projects to do, and obviously they won’t be Christmas presents, but somebody will have a great birthday gift soon.

  Something tells me to buy stock in a yarn company.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged afghans, Books, crochet

• To E Or Not to E

  Posted at 2:13 am by kayewer, on June 5, 2011

  That is the question.  Whether ’tis nobler in the world of commerce to reduce my reading to a slab of electronic components, or take up piles of paperbacks from the local brick-and-mortar stores and, by collecting, keep them open for business?

  There are so many electronic reading gizmos on the market right now, that I’m reminded of the video VHS/Beta Wars, the Blue Ray and Toshiba’s HD DVD Battle, the skirmish between film and digital cameras, all of which happened in my lifetime and have left mountainous piles of cyber waste in their wake.  Tablets and e-readers will come and go over the next year or so before the dust clears and winners emerge.

  Now that books are being challenged by the e-reader, a thin miniature computer which seizes whole texts from cyberspace and puts them on a screen for viewing anytime you wish, sales are as high as a library bookshelf.  The format is still young; users can actually “turn pages” by pressing a button.  With so many versions out there, only one or two are bound to survive.  Fortunately two are holding the lead right now.

  The Amazon Kindle is the one which has become its own verb  (folks in the publishing industry refer to Kindling new reading products).  The next commonly found one is Barnes and Noble’s Nook, which comes with a color screen.  I haven’t heard anybody talking about Nooking a book, but when I think of Kindling, I think of building a fire (the temperature of which must be 451 degrees to burn a regular book, so I’m told).

  I like having a shelf full of books.  I’ve known many folks who have vast libraries of books, and I can’t imagine life without them.  Electronics can be shut off, but books can be dried off when wet, taped when ripped and picked up without so much as a gasp if they are dropped.  Try doing that with a $300 Kindle.  The worst that can happen with a book is a dirty, wet or kinked page or two, keeping in mind that books have an equal chance of landing pages down or landing fully shut (thereby losing your place for you).

  I’m on the fence about buying a slab to store my books.  If books become targets of cyber crime, nobody would have to hold a match to them; they could just enter some code and my storehouse could disappear in a blip.  However, the convenience of having reading material in half the space and at a fraction of the weight (think of eliminating school backpacks) makes it tempting to cave.  Since I’m in no hurry, I’ll watch and wait, hiding behind my current paperback.

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  Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Tagged Books, e readers, Kindle, Nook

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