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December 31, 2006

Happy New Year

Almost. The town was bustling with shoppers late this afternoon as the sun suddenly dipped below the horizon. We have such a beautiful tree in the center of Princeton, bedecked with more colorful lights than I'd care to count in a day: a proud permanent tree, greeting the town shoppers long after the holidays are over. In the summer, children and dogs run merrily around, cool in its long shadow. You could come, sit on a nearby bench, and read Maddalena.

Wouldn't it be nice if fir trees weren't grown to such a short, glamorous life, ending in a tall pile of recycling trash. All the wonderful, big trees, like the one that sparkles in the Rockefeller Center in New York? I'd like that.

We've had holidays when I decorated our palm tree in the middle of our living room, soon to be 35 years old, instead of a traditional Christmas tree. And you know what? All the wishes I made by that tree came true.

May all your wishes come true in the lucky year 2007!

Posted by Eva Siroka at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2006

Blogosphere?

Who has time to read or write books these days?

The December 2006 issue of PMA writes: "Publishers are sending book-preview videos to bloggers and distributing them to targeted consumer lists via email."

Well, I've done my bit. Time will tell if that was worth it. Now I'll spent a few minutes here and then I'm going back to reading. I just finished Perfume, in the original German. It's really interesting to compare translations with originals. The translated text of the last book I came across, Under the Volcano apparently had some major flaws.

Win some and lose some. We multi-media and multi-task.

How about hoovering the house?

In the meantime -- if you want to listen to my Maddalena multi-media previewer, it is even illustrated with my own art. You'll find out why you're so lucky in escaping the Inquisition.

Seriously. You'll find out a wonderful story about a corrupt, but human cardinal who wanted to be a pope, but wasn't rich enough to buy his votes.

Am I striding with the times? Good blogger? Good puppy?

This is a farce, but I'm having fun.

Dear easel and brushes: here I come.
You're so kind. You don't talk back.
And I don't have to blog about you.
Isn't that a good deal?

Posted by Eva Siroka at 03:57 PM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2006

Are Your Arms Getting Longer?

I used to love to read the New York Times in bed.

No longer. I still enjoy reading the paper, but preferably in a space where I can stretch my arms far, far apart to look at the homongously-sized ads arrogantly displacing a whole page, if not the center-fold. Pretty soon, there will be a scroll-like attachment, antique style, to experience the unfolding epic story of a new fashion design or a new book that its publishing industry needs to promote "big times" in order to survive.

Many families could manage for a year on the expense for one such ad.

An uncomfortable thought.

That's it for today. My arms are still cramped from reading the morning paper, even though I no longer look at the ads.

Waste of time. And you too could be doing something interesting as well, like reading Maddalena. Alessandro Farnese's corrupt world threatened by Turkish onslaughts resembles our own.

Posted by Eva Siroka at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)