This month I read George Eliot's Silas Marner with my book club. I haven't read a lot of Eliot's stuff before, and I was excited to read this book.

This is the story of a weaver who is turned out of his country town because of a false accusation. This weaver, Silas Marner, settles elsewhere and becomes not only an extreme recluse, but also a miser. The story begins to turn when Marner's stash of gold coins is stolen. This is a really fun (and relatively short) book. There are also other subplots and interesting surprises that Eliot includes in her story. I especially liked how the viewer is convinced that Godfrey Cass and Nancy Lammeter are helplessly in love (all described from the perspective of Cass), and then in a following chapter from Nancy's perspective, the viewer learns that things are slightly different.

It was interesting to see how themes in this book parallel part of Eliot's life. George Eliot (the pen name for Mary Ann Evans) had been living with G. H. Lewes for around seven years when this book was written. Eliot experienced a lot of public attention around the time Silas Marner was published in 1861 - it was discovered that "George Eliot" was a woman involved in a relationship with Lewes in June of 1859.¹ Eliot was forced into social exile during this period, and it is interesting to see how this theme of exile and social rejection plays a part in this novel.

I can see how a lot of Jane Austen fans would like this book, especially since parts revolve around issues of social status, wealth, and marriage.

Has anyone else read this book? What did you think? Any other George Eliot books that you would recommend? I've read some parts of Middlemarch, but I never really got into it. Should I give it another try?

1 Rosemary Ashton, "Introduction" in Silas Marner by George Eliot, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), vii.

Did you ever watch episodes of The Twilight Zone when you were younger? As a kid, I always thought the show was a little strange, but it always aired before or after Little House on the Prairie, so I ended up watching snippets of episodes.

I keep thinking of The Twilight Zone episode "The Midnight Sun" today, especially the scene where paint is melting off of their canvases because it is SO HOT. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened here today. It is so hot, I can barely do anything besides stare at the wall. You can get the gist of what happens in the episode by watching this clip (it is a combination of several scenes):



The actual episode is infinitely more melodramatic and awesome. You can watch the whole thing in three segments on YouTube (click on the links for segments one, two, and three). The scene on clip three is my favorite.

I finally have decided to look at my thesis again. It's been over a year and a half since I submitted everything for binding and online publication, and I've been terrified to open my copy and find some egregious typo in the first paragraph. So far, I haven't found anything. Phew.

I'm condensing my argument and formatting it for submission to a Brazilian art history journal. I'm so excited about this, I can hardly think about much else. (I know, I'm a hopeless nerd.) Hopefully I'll get everything ready for submission in the upcoming weeks. The problem is, I can't seem to whittle down my argument of 100+ pages. Why does everything seem absolutely critical to my main argument?

Sigh. I need someone to come over here with a red marker and just start crossing the superfluous stuff out. I'm too emotionally attached to my text, even after a year and a half.

My little sister L has her own classification system for babies. If she is trying to determine a baby's age (i.e. determine if the baby has potential to be her playmate), she asks if the baby is a "holding baby," "crawling baby," "walking baby," or "talking baby." Her classification pretty much stops after "talking baby" (I think because she's deduced that "talking babies" can interact enough to play with her), but she does like to observe whether the baby is or is not wearing a diaper. It seems like in her mind (and rightly so), babies stop being babies after the diaper comes off.

I would like report that as of tonight, it appears that Sam has crossed the threshold into the realm of the "walking baby." J and I were helping him practice walking, and it seemed like something just clicked in Sam's mind. He started to walk the length of large rooms, veer away from our open arms, and walk to places on his own volition - things that he has never done before. He toddled all around the main floor of our house for about 30 minutes, with several falls and a few crawls thrown in the mix.

From now on, it looks like our dude is going to be an upright being.

From what I can tell, Fred Meyer has better prices than any other grocery store in the area. We shop there pretty faithfully, and I am starting to recognize most of the cashiers in the store. There is one particular cashier who likes to strike up a conversation with each customer that goes through his checkout stand. When Sam and I went through this chatty cashier's line today, he remarked (while pointing at Sam), "You always are in here with him." Then he mumbled something that I couldn't understand and smiled.

So I just smiled back and nodded.

It was only a split-second later, after nodding, that I realized what the cashier said. He asked, "Are you with him during the day because your mom and dad aren't at home?"

In other words, he thought Sam was my little brother.

It's probably good that I didn't understand his question right away. If I had answered that Sam was my own baby, I think the rest of the transaction would have been really awkward for both of us. And I felt awkward enough by that point.

Wow. I still can't decide if I should be flattered or slightly horrified by that whole incident.

Maybe you haven't noticed, but I am lacking (slacking?) in substantial writing on this blog. I've been putting up a lot of pictures lately but not felt like writing here (although I've had lots to say on my art history blog). Maybe it's the laziness that comes with summer. I don't know. Anyhow, I thought I'd write down a couple snippets of half-baked thoughts. Hopefully the combination of a few snippets will end up being a substantial post.

I finished reading John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress last month. I'm glad that I read it, especially since this book has been so influential for other works of literature, film, etc. (Case in point: just yesterday I opened a George Eliot novel that alluded to Bunyan's city of Destruction.)

However, I have to admit: some of the conversations between Christian and Hope are really dry and boring. I felt like I got only a few more insights from reading the original book than from the children's version of the story that I read as a girl. My recommendation to others: read the children's version first, and then decide if you want to brave Bunyan's tedious conversations and rather awkward poetry verses in the original story.

I'm still reading The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed. It's a pretty dense book (literally and figuratively), so it's taking me a while to get through it. I found out the other week that this book was picked as the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History. Boy, do I feel current and with-it. That never happens with me in regards to books. I'm always reading something that was published 100+ years ago, or else I think I'm reading a "recent" novel, only to find out that that it was published in the '90s.

Anyhow, this book is really interesting - it revolves around Thomas Jefferson's long-term relationship with Sally Hemings (his slave). I'll have more things to write about this book when it's finished, but I'll just write one thing that has struck me: I never realized that even though some Founding Fathers were abolitionists, they were still racists. Gordon-Reed brings up the example of the Adams family members, who opposed slavery yet were characteristically racist in their 18th century mentality (p. 195-97). For some reason, I guess I assumed that racism and abolition were mutually exclusive, but it makes sense that they aren't.

Another random thought: I couldn't sleep the other night because I was thinking about the Dewey Decimal System. (The strangest thoughts keep me awake at night.) I know that books are placed on the shelf from left to right, in order of the increasing decimal number. I wonder if the left to right order was established because English is read from left to right. But what if the Dewey Decimal System was used in another country where one reads from right to left? Or from top to bottom? Would books be shelved in those directions? Part of me doubts that is/would be the case, but I had a fun time thinking about Chinese libraries with their books shelved from top to bottom. (And then what would those bookcases even look like?)

And my final thought is on male harpists. I realized last night that men don't play the harp. (Does anyone here know a male harpist personally?) Anyhow, I researched male harpists this morning and found out that Harpo Marx got his nickname because he played the harp. He was self-taught and was an amazing jazz harpist. You can see a clip of him playing here:



Pretty fun, huh?

We have had a nearly constant stream of visitors lately. It has been really fun to see many friends and family members. Thanks for coming to see us, everyone! We've had a blast. Here's a couple of fun pictures/videos from the last couple of weeks:



Sam is starting to walk around more. He still likes to hold onto things for support, but he's getting more confident at letting go. We were able to film a little bit of some walking practice.


This is a rather dark clip, but I wanted to show that Sam is a pro at going down stairs. He likes to zoom down on his tummy - as fast as he can go!

I admit it: I totally play favorites when it comes to gardening, especially with flowers. Each year, I always have flowers that I water more than others, tend more than others, look at more than others, etc. I always make sure that my favorite flowers get plenty of Miracle-Gro, and afterward I'll give other flowers the dregs from my watering can.

This year, my favorite flowers are the potted zinnias on my deck.

Um...actually, now that I think about it, zinnias are my favorite flower every gardening season. Huh.

I wonder what would happen if I only planted zinnias - then how could I unabashedly display partiality? I like playing favorites. Do you play favorites when it comes to gardening (or something else)? Do you like to play favorites?