Things That Are Better . . .

. . . than sitting on a screened-in porch with friends having a beer on a warm but not hot day when you don't have anywhere in particular to be or anything in particular to do,

A LIST:

1.

2009 Reading #37: Planet of Exile

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
31. Dôra, Doralina by Rachel de Queiroz.
32. The Mercenaries by Donald E. Westlake.
33. A Faint Cold Fear by Karin Slaughter.
34. Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart (Part One of the Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox).
35. Saint Paul: The First 150 Years by Virginia Brainard Kunz.
36. The Story of the Stone by Barry Hughart (Part Two of the Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox).

37. Planet of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin. It turns out that other than The Left Hand of Darkness, all my reading of the Hainish Cycle has been from the short stories. I'm pretty sure Planet is short enough to be a novella, but it's packed full of goodness, and as far as I can tell it hasn't lost a step since it was published in 1966. I particularly admire the way Le Guin grounds the reader in an alien setting with an economy of description, and comes back to that setting throughout. That and, of course, her trademark pragmatic humanism. Good stuff.

May Day

Plumage
Originally uploaded by Snurri

Yesterday was my first-ever (not THE first-ever, just mine) Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre May Day Parade over in the Powderhorn neighborhood of Minneapolis. I rode my bike over (pant, pant) and hung out with Haddayr and Jan and their boys to watch the festivities. They tell me this year was not as great as previous years, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and I took so many pictures that I ran out of disk space halfway through. Not all of them turned out, but you can see the ones that did over here.