I tried to like this, I really did. I thought maybe it would be an alternative history that looked at something besides conflict and victory. Nope.

Then there are the invalid assumptions, like that early humans who revered the female were too stupid to know that sex leads to babies. My personal opinion, living on a farm, is that GOATS know (on some level) that sex leads to babies.

Then there are the purposely skewed viewpoints. Goddesses who are sacrificed are evidence of how females were subjugated, but Osiris and even Jesus for that matter, are not mentioned and certainly not used as examples of how males are subjugated.

So all in all, it is junk. And I only made it to page 95. I really tried but it just kept getting worse.

This book is always worth re-reading. Wish I could give a copy of it to everyone I know. Really.

I am pretty sure this book did not originally have the subtitle (I’ll check). But it is more like a meloncholy area. We are not unhappy in our depression. We are only unhappy with and in the exploitation of us.

I think this book captures this fairly well. As I remember, so does The Doll Maker. Maybe I will re-read them both. I’d like to find The United States of Appalachia to read too.

And I’d like all the yankee do-gooders to go save someone else. Better yet, go home (if you only had one).

a totally fun romp! Character driven, intricate relationships, great touches, wonderful acting. I loved it and the critics just don’t know how to have any fun at all.

re-reading this. Again. What a lovely book.

The most lyrical and evocative writing! I finished and yet keep going back and re-reading passages just for their power and insight, and how they sometimes describe exactly what I feel.

I have not seen the movie, or read Mrs. Dalloway but definitely want to do both now.

Will Campbell is usually called a renegade Southern Baptist. I think I’d just call him Contrary.

He’s a Southern white man who was active early and often in the whole desegregation thing.

And then he did the unthinkable and really looked at the KKK and gosh darned if he didn’t go out and love them too.

He got hate mail from all sides for those choices. And more.

He’s a preacher without a church who marries people yet never says “by the power vested in me” because he refuses to be vested by the state.

One of his friends remarked that gosh darned but everyone Will knows is in trouble.

I got to meet Will Campbell somewhere around twenty years ago. He was invited to come as an honored speaker at my liberal but Southern Baptist supported college, and since I was friends with the chaplain, I got invited to eat dinner with Will (and 20 other people). After his lecture, we went out drinking with a smaller group. I don’t actually remember that much about that, except that I always remembered him and liked him, and really thought he had his sh*t together.

I read his book after I met him. I liked his way with a story. I was suitably impressed by everyone he knew and all he had done and his love for his brother. But I didn’t really remember all that much about the details of it all.

So when I ran into a copy of his book, Brother to a Dragonfly, in a used bookstore (that I just happened to be in because a tool store was beside of it), the book mis-shelved in the New Age section right beside of Jean Dixon and James Von Praugh, well, I knew it had come for me. There are, after all, no coincidences.

Will Campbell is a renegade Baptist. But far more, Will Campbell does what Will Campbell thinks is right, damn the torpedoes. And from this reading of his book, this is what I got out of it. He doesn’t really worry about making someone feel comfortable, and in fact, as often as not, makes folks uncomfortable, not by condemning them but simply by doing what he thinks is right. If he worries about it, about making others uncomfortable or about what others think of him or anything like that, I don’t see it.

Now that’s a role model to emulate.

had to have a little Bruce fix. Now making a mix CD of what I consider to be essential Bruce so I can listen without having to skip. Or hit repeat. I wonder if Bruce would sue me for that like he does kids playing his songs in bars. There are so many reasons to like him, and so many reasons not to.

Hey Bruce! Lighten up buddy.

It is Miyazaki, what can you say? Wonderful, fantastic, moving. I love how intuitive it is and I look forward to my kids watching it 2000 times over the next few weeks so I can pick up on the little things I missed on the first few viewings. I love how Sophie’s looks are plastic, changing, depending on what is going on. That is certainly how life feels to me.

And I love the idea of true love.

This has to be the weirdest set of stories ever. Ever. I kept reading, wondering if I was missing some obvious symbolism or deeper meaning. In the end, I don’t think I missed it, it just wasn’t there.

That is not to say it was a bad collection. Not at all. It was a bit of a chore to read because they were so weird, like science fiction inhabiting another universe that you have to become familiar with only with a short story, there’s not much time to figure it out much less become familiar with it. And some of the stories, I actually became attached to.

I liked it well enough that I plan to send it to my artistic best friend for her to read. I disliked it enough that I will send the copy of the book away without my name and phone number in it—I just as soon not have it on my shelves.