Ten Favorite Characters from Television

Posted by on Aug 4, 2009 in dish | 0 comments Gil Grissom, CSI. He’s brilliant but has issues dealing with people. Endlessly surprising.Sheriff Andy Taylor, The Andy Griffith Show. Just the kind of smart Southern gentleman we could use more of.The “It’s…” Man (Michael Palin), Monty Python’s Flying Circus. He’s a favorite not for himself, but for what comes right after we see him.Julia Sugarbaker,...
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The Gobi Desert

Posted by on Jul 30, 2009 in dish | 1 comment About 150 pages into her last novel, The Buccaneers, Edith Wharton wrote in her diary,What is writing a novel like?1. The beginning: A ride through a spring wood2. The middle: the Gobi desert3. The end: A night with a loverI am now in the Gobi desert.Honey, I’m camped there with you, and I think the camel ran off.One plus to meeting tête-a-tête with Dream Agent at RWA National is the...
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Ten Favorite Sounds

Posted by on Jul 28, 2009 in dish | 0 comments The wind in tall North Carolina pinesRain on a tin roofDixieland jazzBagpipes. Seriously. Best if you’re actually in the Scottish Highlands.”I’m home.”Night sounds: tree frogs, cicadas, owlsAaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Vince Guaraldi’s “Linus and Lucy”That groany-snuffly sound your dog makes when you scratch him just so under the earMy...
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Reading Lists: Another 100 Greatest?

Posted by on Jul 27, 2009 in dish | 0 comments Not to be outdone by their rivals at Time (see my post on their list here), the good folks at Newsweek have compiled what they call their “meta-list” of the Top 100 Books, using rankings from lists as diverse as the New York Public Library System, the Modern Library, and Oprah to determine their choices. This list was interesting because it included nonfiction, poetry, and drama in...
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Carolina in My Mind

Posted by on Jul 25, 2009 in dish | 1 comment Ahh….mountain air. There’s something refreshing about escaping the ridiculous humidity in Florida and enjoying cooler days and nights in the Blue Ridge. Driving up from Atlanta, you can totally understand the scriptural reference “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help” (if I may go all King James for a moment). The Appalachians don’t...
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