Sunday, July 25, 2010

Cover Story 0001/2

Currently I am surrounded by (about) the books I concider to be my favourite thousand.
All in perfect order.
There are 
- two shelves with German authors
- one shelf with English authors
- one (a bit bigger than the English shelf) with Irish authors
- one with North American authors
- one with Italian, French, Spanish and Latin American authors
- one with Scandinavian, Russian and other European authors
- one with African and Asian authors
- one with anthologies
- one with philosophy, politics and other non-fiction
- one full of science and dictionaries

... and all in alphabetic order. :)

Did the third line read ' All in perfect order'?

They are not. Not anymore. And it's all Stan's fault.

Had he not removed a book from its tower and thus had not caused it stoppling unstoppably against its neighbour and causing a domino-effect he might not have felt prompted to carry out a modest plan that had just taken seed; certainly there would not have such a chaos been caused in my book shelves.

Do I feel upset? Yes!!
And no.
Actually, somehow I do feel what might have been a tiny mishap for an Irish language-connoisseur, could turn out to become a  giant leap for Omnium.

You know such situations? Reading a book, suddenly you (want to) say: 'Oh, Darling, listen.' ...

Now is not every reader (considered) Omnium's darling (per se), but ... yes: For quite a while I thought of introducing my readers to at least some books I do find recommendable.

My problem(s) so far: 
- (proverbial) laziness ... those who prefer to call it arrogance are forgiven
- lack of time ... to look up all those words to let my reviews sound not only excellent, but let my readers jump up and hurry to the next bookshop around the corner and order the book

To cut it short: Thanks to Stan I do see an opportunity to introduce you to at least some books I like, without the need to tell you why. For sure: (if you want) you'll find out yourself.

So here's what I decided to call Cover Story 0001.



The World According To Garp*:
A Time to Dance
Under the Milkwood.
* See my next problem? Due to my laziness (see above) when reading a book I'd prefer to read it in German which offers the opportunity to sometimes sentence the translator to at least two seconds of severest  swearboarding ... but ...

on the other side, this dilemma provides possibilities ...

Alas ...
In such a Night
Getting Through
The Dark

The peace of the night.

9 comments:

  1. "swearboarding"

    what a great new word, I am stealing that one for future use
    :)

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  2. Stan has a lot to answer for Sean! If I could get into the spare bedroon I would be able to do some great maships.. Hiho, perhaps another time!

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  3. This is a brillint idea. Stan and you have done it superbly. Just wish I had a decent camera to follow you. I can hardly wait for your next Cover Stories.

    Ready to swearboard for not being able to enlarge the Night photo. Peace, indeed!

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  4. I don't dare mess with my books, they are all over the place as it is.

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  5. Sean, I'm sorry to have had a hand in this chaos, but: bravo! Not only have you made poems out of book titles, but you've also (figuratively) painted a tantalising picture of your bookshelves, and given us recommendations without having to trouble over reviews.

    Your photo of the moon is very atmospheric — assuming it is the moon and not a nearby light bulb. And I notice you've called this first set "Cover Story 0001", which suggests that you might be planning thousands...

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  6. Spread the word, JD! :)

    Glad you like it.
    That new it's not, though. As far as I can remember it made its first step into public(ity) about three years ago.
    If I did not misunderstand him, my closest friend Tetrapilotomos is planning to to start writing A short Etymology of Swearboarding as soon as he's ended the proofreading the 1669 pages of his latest opus Pre-Assyrian Philately in a Nutshell.

    Jams,
    that's what in the first hours I thought, too. However, coming to dive deeper into the phenomenon I am not sure anymore it were fair to blaim Stan. In the light of his recent omnipresence I am pretty sure that - somehow! - Ludwig Boltzmann is having his fingers in the pie.

    Get well and thus on your legs soon. Looking forward to see your mashups.

    CherryPie,
    Only s/he who has chaos in his bookshelves will be able to give birth to a dancing star.

    Oh ... that wasn't quite what Nietzsche wrote, hm? :)

    Claude,
    Thank you. It's great fun that Stan pushed me into. And there will almost certainly be some more of it; and hopefully they will not only make sense for me.

    Oh, Tetrapilotomos should have known. The neologism will be turned against the neoterist.

    Stan,
    you (It's all Stan's fault) in this context was, of course, just another word for praising Stan. Thus, thanks again.
    It's great fun by creating chaos in the bookshelves to form new order(s).
    One of quite a few problems I have yet not found a proper way to solve is that German titles often are completely different from the original's title. Sometimes they are even better, sometimes ... hm.
    Thus, translating them into English might confuse readers.
    Anyway, these were first attempts; hence, it should not be too difficult too improve.

    "Cover-Story0001" does indeed leave possibilities, hm? Daily one post for the next 27 years ...

    And yes - ha ha -, it is indeed not Forest Bulb, but the moon.

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  7. Stan,
    and here is the missing first word that somehow vanished: blaming (you) ...

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  8. 1669 pages of his latest opus Pre-Assyrian Philately in a Nutshell.
    =
    that made me laugh too :)

    imagineering at its best

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  9. JD,
    it's lovely to get such a feedback; (sometimes) to see black on white that I was able to make a reader laugh. Very encouraging. Thank you!

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