Thursday, February 13, 2014

Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts 1

Bookish (and not so Bookish) Thoughts is a weekly blogging event hosted by Bookishly Boisterous 

1. I have a cold this week - it caught me on Saturday and has been hanging about my neck like an albatross.  Blergh.

2. Ursula Vernon is awesome. Dragonbreath is awesome and Digger is awesome so far (so sue me, I live under a rock). Her artwork is amazing and her sense of humor fills me with glee. Anything that can me me laugh when my head feels like it is full of wet, dirty sweat socks is a very good thing.

3. Ruby, the Galactic Gumshoe is also awesome. ZBS Foundation is a not-for-profit arts organization founded in 1970. They produce a range of radio/audio stories - so not just like a book on tape but a fully realized, acted out radio play. The two most popular series they produce are Ruby, the Galactic Gumshoe and the Jack Flanders adventure stories. These are the kind of think that you need to listen to in order to see if you like them. I originally heard them on college radio and have bought the CDs since.

You can try a sample of Ruby https://www.zbs.org/catalog/audioSamples/RR1D2.mp3  
to see what it sounds like. They are a little mean about where the action cuts off though.

A sample of Jack is here https://www.zbs.org/catalog/audioSamples/FT.mp3 The segment that they chose for Jack is a weird part of the story and not the best choice unfortunately. They are a blend of more traditional adventure stories with some mystic stuff added in, but they usually don't take themselves too seriously and are quite fun romps most of the time.

I just realized that this totally sounds like a commercial - so just to be clear, I have no affiliation with ZBS and just brought this up because a) I like listening to these stories when I am sick and b) very few people seem to have ever heard of them.

4. I put together a post about the words portmanteau and stays yesterday for Wondrous Word Wednesday (I knew both words but thought that they were fun) and while I was searching for images I ran into some images of hatboxes that were interesting ...

See, I always pictured a fancy hatbox like this ...
Floral cardboard circular hatbox Source: Oasis Theater

so as lightweight items, though intellectually I knew they could be made of something sturdier, like leather.

Leather hat box sold on ebay

 But I never realized they were ever made out of metal.

Victorian metal hatbox Source: Oasis Theater

Green painted metal hatbox 30s/40s Source: Oasis Theater

The idea of a heroine hitting someone with her hatbox becomes a whole new concept with these!

5. This is the sum total of the thoughts that I can scrape together right now.  Mostly I am thinking that I would really rather be home in bed with a book or listening to a radio program right now, drinking tea rather than at work trying to pull my thoughts together for class. Sigh.
Maybe I will have more thoughts later.

2 comments:

  1. The hatbox thing is fascinating and hysterical! :) You're right, a heroine hitting someone with her hatbox just became a whole new concept. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think I'd always rather be home with a book....

    Thanks for participating!

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