Kill Your Television

So I was in a hotel last weekend, bored out of my mind, watching TV. In general, I like getting my TV via DVD box set, but will admit to getting sucked into cable madness when hotel-bound. After vetoing everything on the Battered Women’s Channel…er…Lifetime, I paused in amazement to see how serious people can be while discussing straightening irons. Can’t say I was wholly unaffected. For a brief moment I was nearly tempted to order the Maxiglide so that I, too, could have sleek, straight, shiny hair. What can I say? It was really, really late. But I moved on and learned how to survive should I find myself caught in the Sahara (rocks hold heat and make great nighttime shelter). Couldn’t tear myself away from watching people climb Mt. Everest (so much better than reality tv), and then woke up to Sleepless in Seattle, which I didn’t really like when it first came out, but somehow worked so long as I didn’t have to get out of bed.

Remind me to never get digital cable, will you? I’d wind up utterly corrupted.

I’m sorry to say we’ve got no Virtual Cocktail Party today. Suffice it to say it’s been a bit crazy around here this week. And that’s without question the biggest understatement I’ve ever made. However, I will give you both a drink recipe and some questions, so we won’t have to be entirely without diversion while heading into the weekend…..

Recipe: It doesn’t get much easier than this so long as you live near a Chick-Fil-A. Take a big glass, fill with ice, Chick-Fil-A lemonade, and a generous pour of Blanton’s Bourbon. Regular store bought lemonades, even those that aspire to greatness, just won’t cut it (trust me, I tried). If you’re not within shooting distance of CFA, you’ll have to make homemade, but I promise it will be worth the effort.

Questions:

1. What will you go to any length to avoid?

2. What book would it shock people to know you’ve never read?

3. What’s the most romantic sentence/paragraph/line/passage you’ve ever read?

4. People Magazine erroneously named Matt Damon the Sexiest Man Alive. Who would you nominate instead?

That’s it for me. YOU have a fabulous weekend!

xo
Tasha

P.S. We’ve got an unbeatable Virtual Cocktail Party coming up after Thanksgiving: Sir Peter Stothard, Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, will be joining us. I know you’ve got questions for him, so send them my way.

P.P.S. Finally got around to uploading a few pictures from the New York trip. Sadly, many didn’t turn out well. But maybe that’s for the best…

7 Responses to “Kill Your Television”

1. ~I’ll go to any length to avoid going into the reptile house at the zoo.

   ~As a former English teacher, people would be surprised I haven’t read Moby Dick.

   ~There’s so much to choose from, but I’ll offer up the following e.e. cummings poem:

   since feeling is first
   who pays any attention
   to the syntax of things
   will never wholly kiss you;
   wholly to be a fool
   while Spring is in the world

   my blood approves,
   and kisses are a better fate
   than wisdom
   lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
   –the best gesture of my brain is less than
   your eyelids’ flutter which says

   we are for each other: then
   laugh, leaning back in my arms
   for life’s not a paragraph

   And death i think is no parenthesis

   Sexiest Man Alive? Dennis Quaid. Or Springsteen.

   by judy larsen on November 16th, 2007 at 9:34 am
   
   

2. Sounds like you got hooked by the discovery channel. That’s my “white noise” selection when I need something going in the background. Survival Man and Everest Beyond the Limit… Good stuff. You’re lucky Cash Cab or Mythbusters wasn’t on.

   And I can’t tell you how much I hate hotel rooms.

   1. What will you go to any length to avoid? Preparing a will. Although, two weeks ago, I finally met with a lawyer and drafted one. I guess it’s an admission that I’m mortal.

   2. What book would it shock people to know you’ve never read? There’s so much I haven’t read. You name the classic and I haven’t read it.

   3. What’s the most romantic sentence/paragraph/line/passage you’ve ever read? PASS

   4. People Magazine erroneously named Matt Damon the Sexiest Man Alive. Who would you nominate instead? Okay, considering my gender, I’ll say I’d vote for Rachel McAdams for sexiest woman. I like that girl next door look. I always envisioned Evangeline Lilly playing my protagonist, Laura Daniels in my novel, so she’d be a runner up. And I can’t forget about Eva Longoria.

   If I had a man-crush on someone I might pick Matthew Fox. Not that I have, and if I did, not that there’d be anything wrong with that.

   by Will Bereswill on November 16th, 2007 at 10:05 am
   
   

3. Oooooh, Judy, GREAT poem!

   I just came across this passage from Nizar Qabbani:

   Why you?
   Why you alone
   of all women
   change the geometry of my life
   the rhythm of my days
   steal, barefoot,
   into the world of my everyday affairs
   and lock the door behind you,
   yet I do not protest?

   Love that phrase the geometry of my life.

   Another good one of his:

   I write
   to save the woman I love
   from the cities of no poetry,
   of no love
   the cities of frustration and gloom
   I write to make her a misty cloud

   I mean, please! Who in her right mind wouldn’t want to be saved from the cities of no poetry????

   I will say, however, that the single most romantic thing I’ve ever read was a bit from Ann Fadiman’s Ex Libris. Don’t have it in front of me so can’t quote.

   Moby Dick’s easy not to have read. For the record, I made it through every single freaking word. Here’s a crazy one, though, I cannot remember reading To Kill A Mockingbird. Now, I can’t truly believe I haven’t read it, but I’ve got no evidence to the contrary….

   Good answers, Will!

   I need hardly say I will go to any lengths to avoid birds.

   by Tasha Alexander on November 16th, 2007 at 10:13 am
   
   

4. 1. What will you go to any length to avoid?

   The list is long and varied, unfortunately. I’m really not a big fan of spinach…

   2. What book would it shock people to know you’ve never read?

   I’ve never read the greats — Spillane, Parker, or Hammett. Or Sherlock Holmes. Or Agatha Christie…

   3. What’s the most romantic sentence/paragraph/line/passage you’ve ever read?

   Is it an indictment of my non-romanticism that I have nothing?

   4. People Magazine erroneously named Matt Damon the Sexiest Man Alive. Who would you nominate instead?

   My boy. And I’d throw in Clive Owen for good measure. Cue heavy breathing…

   by JT Ellison on November 16th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
   
   

5. Wow, all the poems are awesome - but here’s one from Peter McWilliams:

   All I know is that

   I love you

   I want you

   Sometimes I need you

   You are someone

   and being with you

   something I

   long for.

   and I love you.

   That’s all I know.

   2. Like Will, there are many, many classics I’ve never read. There’s so many books in general, that I haven’t had a chance to read - Too Many Books, So Little Time, is one of the eternal truths!

   1. I will go to any lengths to avoid swimming with fish.

   4. Tom Selleck - there are a few others, but my brain is stopped - a luncheon I’m trying to figure out what to cook for is making it fritz out. (wow, I can’t even fix that sentence - gotta run!)

   by Kate Hathway on November 16th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
   
   

6. 1. I will go to any length to avoid going to church with my in-laws.
   2. It would probably shock people to know that I hadn’t read THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE until two weeks ago. I still have yet to read THE LONG GOODBYE.
   3. “I took the kids to the park. Hope you can get some writing done.”
   4. I do not have the proper set of hormones to answer this question.

   And Tasha, you keep readin’ them Ayrab poets and Homeland Security’s going to be paying you a visit.

   Hope next week settles down a bit.

   by JDRhoades on November 16th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
   
   

7. 1. Dirt. In fact, I avoid it so much my house is dirty, go figure!
   2. Hmmm … I really don’t know! There are SO many books I haven’t read!
   3. Probably DH writing, “I love you, sweetie.” I love the way I feel when he calls me sweetie. On the other hand, if a waitress calls me sweetie, my claws come out and I start calling her pumpkin.
   4. Oh, God, Tasha, I have to disagree with you on this one. Just let me close my eyes and listen to Matt Damon in Grinders. I swear to goodness, his voice alone can make me … er, blush. And the fight scenes in The Bourne Legacy were so cool I had an irrepressible grin plastered across my face.

   by spyscribbler on November 17th, 2007 at 10:57 am
   
   

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