Witch One Do I Choose?

So many witch books so little time! Most of these books are series books and like all YA series, can be found in the YA paperback section at all CCPL branches. YA paperbacks are not linked to the catalog so you can't look online and see what is there. You have to go directly to the shelves and uncover the magic yourself!

You Are So Cursed by Naomi Nash - You don't need real magic if you can use your mad sleight-of-hand skills to fool all the kids that bug you at school.

Sweep by Cate Tiernan- What meeting the hot new guy at school led you to suspect that everything you thought you knew about yourself and your family was totally not as it seems?

Witch Child by Celia Rees - Historical fiction set in 17th century England and America from the author of Pirates!

Circle of Three by Isobel Bird

Daughters of the Moon by Lynne Ewing

Rhymes With Witches - Lauren Myracle

Monkey Business: The Last Remaining Ancestor of Salazar Slytherin

Hippity, hoppity, Spoleto is on it's way! For the first time since 1989, when I saw the awesome Laurie Anderson, I am actually going to one of the big events; Monkey's Journey to the West. This brings full circle a serendipitous series of personal literary/artistic/spiritual events that began with, what else, Harry Potter.

It all started when I was re-reading the Harry Potter series last spring in anticipation of the release of Book 7, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I noticed two odd references (in Book 2 and in Book 6) to the Slytherin family members looking "monkeyish" and "simian". This really intrigued me and I started investigating for monkey myths and discovered the story of the Monkey King, Sun Wu Kong, who tried to conquer death.

Further investigations of the Monkey King led to the story of the 16th century Chinese novel, Monkey: Journey to the West. This book, written by Wu Ch'eng-En combines the story of the mythical Monkey King with the story of the real Buddhist monk, Xuan Zang (also known as Tripitaka). Xuan Zang is famous for making a secret, forbidden fifteen-year journey to India and back in the 7th century in search of more Buddhist sutras to answer his spiritual questions. He is also famous for his travel diary, which provided China with valuable real information about the world beyond its borders.

Xuan Zang hailed from from Chang An in Shaanxi province, which is home to the famous Qin dynasty army of terracotta warriors and the start of the Silk Road. The Wild Goose Pagoda, which still stands in what is now the modern city of Xian, is home to Xuan Zang's library; the Buddhist texts he brought back from his quest.

Xuan Zang passed through an area that has fascinated me since I read Dr. Elizabeth Wayland Barber's Mummies of Urumchi and became intrigued by the Beauty of Loulan and the other mysterious, European Silk Road travelers, who were buried by the salty wayside in what has become one of the fiercest desert regions in the world, the Taklamakan.

One of my personal literary goals is to read the entire four volume epic, Monkey: Journey to the West. I have done some research and selected the Anthony C. Yu version as my translation of choice. It is a complete and faithful translation according to the reviews.

But there is more...

My random ramblings prompted, Ms. K8 to recommend the wonderful YA graphic novel, American Born Chinese by Gene Yang, which also draws upon the Sun Wu Kong story.

As part of Tech Trek, I got back into messing about with MySpace and made friends with The Gorillaz and discovered a related MySpace page for the production of Journey to the West that members of their group were involved in creating in the UK. I wished so much too see it....

To the present...

I noticed the eye-catching, beautiful cover of Where, a new free entertainment info magazine, that Ms. Vickie had requistioned for our branch, and discovered that the Monkey is coming to Charleston. So now we are full circle and I get to see the monkey at last.... but.... I still want to see where he lives, so....the journey continues!

www.flickr.com More photos or video tagged with biggoosepagoda on Flickr

Big Goose Pagoda in Xian: Now That's a Book House!

Some More Choice Monkey King Resources

Monkey King Lesson Plan

Power Point Slide with Links

Picture from the opera, Journey to the West, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/image_galleries/280607_monkey_gallery.shtml?10. Accessed on 4/30/08.

Should Wikipedia Be Labeled "Warning: Use of This Product May Be Damaging To Your Crediblity"?

A couple of disturbing things came to my attention in the last week regarding the alarming trend/misperception that Wikipedia is a reliable source of credible factual information. Wikipedia does contain facts, but those facts are tainted with opinion, hearsay, and just plain jokiness in some entries.

The first thing that I learned was that an acquaintance's doctor's office had given him/her a printout of medical information from Wikipedia to use as a guide. (Sacre' bleu!) Even if the doctor wrote the Wikipedia him or herself, unless that doctor reverifies the info in the article every time it is printed and issued to the patient, the possibility exists that the Wikipedia entry might have been tampered with and contain useless or even hazardous information at the time it was printed.

I discovered the second thing the day before yesterday when I was googling and I went to an About.com entry and discovered that the About.com post was using Wikipedia for its information source. Somebody better warn the teachers.

Apparently About.com relies on "guides", experts in a field, to gather information from the web on their area of expertise and post it on About.com for random internet users to access. About.com is now owned by the New York Times. You think they would know better; journalistic integrity and all that.

The latest thing I came across is the news that Google is creating somthing called knols (apparently a "knol" is a unit of knowledge comparable to the "util of satisfaction" from the utility theory of economist, Thorstein Veblen , the guy who invented the term "conspicuous consumption") Google wants to use the knols concept to move into the Wikipedia -About.com field of intenet user-generated information; experts contribute their knols or something like that. I just hope it is not just another pile of Wikipedia-style truthiness.

All this just goes to show that alot of people simply believe anything that comes off the internet if it is packaged nicely. I plan to keep on pushing the electronic databases and googling with the +edu to try to get better info for my patrons.

Here are my multi-disciplinary "explanations" for what is wrong with using Wikipedia for a reference source.

In mathematic terms -

Wikipedia =Facts + Nonfacts

Facts + Nonfacts = Nonfacts

Therefore Wikipedia = Nonfacts

In literary allegorical terms -

Using a quote from Shakespeare's Macbeth to make an allegorical reference to the above mathematic explanation of what is wrong with Wikipedia:

"No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas in incarnadine, making the green one red."

Symbolic Meaning: The blood on the hand of Macbeth symbolizes the taint of nonfact, which makes the green sea of fact one big red nonfact. (I'll let you figure out where the commas can go in that statement.) (English Major Joke Alert)

In historical/social science terms -

The fierce tribe of nonfacts with their superior weapons of confusion are always able to overcome and conquer the delicate, social order of the tribe of facts. Nonfacts efficiently subjugate and absorb the fact tribe members so that the nonfact tribe becomes even stronger. Even though the former fact tribe members sometimes appear unchanged, close examination reveals that facts act as nonfacts as long as they merged.

In philosophical terms -

Unless you are an expert, you can not know with certainty that the info in a Wikipedia entry is factual.

If you are expert enough to know the info you find on Wikipedia is factual, then you don't need to use Wikipedia to get info on the area of your expertise.

Therefore people who use Wikipedia are not expert enough to know they are getting bad info.

In conclusion people who want to get facts about a subject that they are not experts about should use a credible source (like an encyclopedia or electronic database) rather than Wikipedia.

Philosophy is not my strong point so my logic may be flawed. Perhaps I should consult Wikipedia...

Macbeth is contemplating washing his hands in the photo from the Creation Theatre Company's 2006 production of MacBeth in Headington Hill Park, in Oxford, UK. Available at

http://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/images/theatre/macbeth-creation-blood.jpg . Accessed 4/22/08.

Tea Greenish: Upping My Game

I worked at Charleston County Recycling's Earthday Festival this past weekend. It was an awesome event; bigger and better and greener than last year. Personally, I have been trying to get greener, too, by trying to generate less non-biodegradable waste, especially plastic (even #1 and #2) and styrofoam as I go about my day-to-day life.

On the homefront, this means going back to using powdered detergent and dishwashing powder (these come in cardboard containers), avoiding purchasing and ordering foods that are served in styrofoam containers or completely avoiding restaurants that use styrofoam containers as well as generally eating out less. I have started looking for juices sold in glass bottles (Earthfare's 64 oz apple juice bottle is the bomb!) and refill them with homemade tea instead of buying soft drinks. I like the Pom teas because they come in a reusable glass. I am now using Pom glasses to carry water instead of plastic bottles. My husband has graciously acquiesed to my wishes to pass on plastic and is now getting groceries in paper bags (which actually hold more!).

I was interested to see the Slow Food folks at the Earth Day Fest. I want to get more into the Slow Foods thing myself; making time to prepare good food from fresh ingredients (I use a lot of canned vegies and beans at present). Slowing down my cooking to a snail's pace is looking like a prime candidate for the top of my green resolutions for next year. I am sure I will get no complaints from my family on that one!


Here's my recipe for ice tea made with bulk loose tea. I get mine at Earthfare, which has opened a "tea room" with all kinds of cool bulk teas (many are Fair Trade) as well as all kinds of boxed teas. (Earthfare graciously donated some bags for the St. Andrews' Green Skillz Prize Drawing, by the way.)

*I use a 64 oz (8 cup) Pyrex microwave-able mixing bowl with a handle and spout for this. (see picture above)
*I spoon in 6 heaping measuring teaspoons of loose tea (I use black tea like Assam, Darjeeling or Earl Grey) into the bowl. (Green or herbal tea my require a different quantity or brewing method).
*I fill the bowl with 6 cups of water and swirl the tea around washing the tea that is stuck on the sides of the bowl down into the water. I have found that it works better to put the tea in first but it will still work the other way around no problem, I just have to stir the tea a little more to disperse it.
*I nuke the Pyrex bowl of tea and water for 10 minutes on high (I have a wimpy microwave so a more powerful microwave may need less time).
*I let the tea sit in the microwave and steep for at least an hour or two (sometimes much longer if I forget about it!)
*I slowly strain the cooled tea into my 64 oz bottle using a funnel with a cup sized tea strainer (this is a stainless one, mine is plastic) sitting in it.
*I top off the bottle with water and put it in the fridge to cool.
*The used tea leaves go into the compost pile.

If I wanted to make it sweet, I would probably add sugar at the point when I added the tea leaves at the beginning because the sugar should dissolve into the tea when the mix is heated in the microwave. Some of my co-workers make sun tea which is even more Earth-friendly. I will have to experiment with that... maybe next year!

(picture of Taian Teahouse, one of the oldest in Japan - click to go to webpage)

Here is a link to a Japanese-American tea classic, The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura from Project Gutenberg.

South Carolina Tea Links

Tea in South Carolina from South Carolina Magazine

Tea in South Carolina from SCIWay

Andre Michaux Biography (planted the first tea in America in the Charleston area)

Middleton Place (site of first tea planting in America)

Pinehurst Tea Plantation (Tea Farm) in Summerville, SC

Charleston Tea Gardens (now owned by Bigelow, this tea farm produces American Classic Tea)

Book Connection: Ish by Peter Reynolds

Nice, upbeat kids book about being in transition. Very wabi-sabi.

Connecting to Literature: The "Aha" of Passover

Books have been a major influence on my thinking and some have changed my life. I was taught in library school that connecting to books and literature was the highest goal of reading. The use of books in counseling to foster mental wellness is called "bibliotherapy" and reading books and listening to stories have led to radical social change (think Gutenberg and Voltaire).

Today's topic was Passover at my church. I missed most of the service because I was teaching a Sunday school class. However, the bit that I did get to hear was about the connection between the Passover story in the Bible, which ends in the liberation and exodus of the Israelites, and the hopeful possibility it contains, that one day, all enslaved people will win release. The spiritual that we sang, Wade in the Water, reminded me of something that I think about as I go about Charleston looking at all of the beautiful old "pyramids" built by African hands; how the literary connection they made between those Biblical stories and their own situation of slavery became an impetus to push for freedom. Moses and the Egyptians was more than just a tale, it was an inspiration and a plan.

Books, and the stories and ideas they contain, are powerful things. Stories speak to us in the language of the unconscious. New ideas are like a strong wind to push us forward, sometimes to unexpected places. Literacy and freedom go hand-in-hand.