"Is Your House Really Neat?"

“Is your house really neat?”  This is one of the first questions that Muffy and I receive whenever we are giving a presentation.  They think that our homes are pristine and clutter free because we are Professional Organizers.  We usually laugh and tell them that we have teenagers, so the answer is “No.”  And while we can blame some of the clutter on the teens, the truth is that our homes are not perfect.  We too look at photos in the ads of closet companies, and wonder “Who really has only six blouses in a closet the size of a small bedroom?”, and “Who owns a pantry that looks like that?!”  Not us!!!

The truth is…we are human.  Our lives get in the way of keeping our homes perfectly clutter free—-because we have prioritized what is important and where we will spend our time.  The times when our homes become the messiest are when we are working a lot of hours or have a lot of school and volunteer functions going on during a particular week, or for some other unpredictable reason have trouble scheduling the time for everything.  Does that sound familiar?

We can say, however, that we do have ‘homes’ for all of our belongings, and can find things when we need them without a lot of searching.  Is this always the case?  No, but it is 98% of the time.  But for those moments when we cannot find something—it is totally aggravating, and frustrating, and stressful, and embarrassing, and time consuming……  But I think this is a good thing because we truly understand what our customers are experiencing 80%, 90% or even 100% of the time.  We know how they feel, and we are able to make a difference in their lives so that they will not have to endure the frustration of never being able to find something when they need it.

I am building up to something here, so check in for more posts,

JoEllen

[Via http://organizing4u.wordpress.com]

A Review of Patti Smith's memoir "Just Kids".

It is a bit uncomfortable for me to call anyone an “icon” because there is always a bit of slavish idolatry in the term that no human being deserves, or should expect. I’ll use it here, in an exceptional sense, due to my certainty that Patti Smith would not expect it.

 Patti Smith is an iconic figure, as well as a sadly anachronistic one, because it is quite simply impossible for a young artist to have the sort of career journey as a musician that she did. The powers that be in the industry have lost their patience and artistic perseverance, as well as the sensibility and sensitivity to recognize artists that have a sort of preeminent artistic destiny, which she certainly had. When I mark the important connective events of my own career as an artist, foremost among these will be the honor of having been included on a recording project (Bill Laswell’s Hashisheen spoken word project) with Patti.

 Just Kids is much more of a memoir that a biography, in that it is mainly a remembrance of the artistic and personal relationship between Patti and Robert Mapplethorpe. Smith and Mapplethorpe were bound together in a sort of artistic halyard knot, supporting and strengthening each other on their journey, one side tightening when the other was too loose, challenging, cajoling, loving and supporting each other through difficult as well as joyous times. The fascinating thing about their bond is that Mapplethorpe had a desperate, aching, almost toxic yearning for fame, while Smith saw herself in her formative years( as an artist), as following in the footsteps of her idols; Baudelaire, Rimbaud, etc,  the journey being as fulfilling as whatever final destination at which she might arrive. The bond came in the fact that no matter how different their process was concerning their career path, each one of them was completely uncompromising in the execution of their vision, and held each other to a high level of aesthetic accountability. Mapplethorpe did desperately want to be famous, and powerful, and rich, but he was not going to create shit art to do it.

 Smith is remarkably candid concerning her work and motivations in Just Kids. She was on a path to be a poet, and music happened to be incidental to this. A love of music, a love of performing, as well as opportunity created a perfect storm of career-path-choice. Smith is extremely gracious and indicates a good deal of self awareness and suppression of ego in her recognition that the rich, interactive artistic community centered in and around the Chelsea Hotel in the early 70’s created an environment in which she could hone her art in the company of genius.  To be more to the point, in the company of benevolent genius. Amongst the artists she befriended and learned from were William S. Burroughs, Jim Carroll, and Sam Sheppard, with whom she had a love affair which turned into a friendship that has lasted until this day.

 Back to my aforementioned assertion that Smith’s path would be difficult to duplicate today. Smith was able to benefit from an artistic community (and I’m talking about the cool kids folks) that would grant access because an artist was good, creative, vibrant and groundbreaking. This type of camaraderie has all but vanished in the context of a music industry that has set up an environment in which artists often take adversarial, dogs in the pit sort of attitude towards each other. An environment in which every one constantly has their hand out, and the measure of the value collaboration is its potential for economic reward. If Patti Smith were a new artist today, and sold the amount of records she did on her first two releases, Clive Davis or his equivalent would be forced to drop her from the roster. Thank god she became of artistic age in the 70’s and not in the millennium.

 Smith draws a picture of Mapplethorpe as a sort of elfin man-boy, caught up in a Gordian knot of Catholic Guilt and sexual identity confusion, all the while swelling with love for beauty and humanity. She describes their relationship as possessing a mutual honor and fidelity that in the end rendered unimportant his acceptance of his homosexuality as any barrier to their loving each other. The love morphed from a passionate artistic affair forged in an erotic fire to a passionate friendship kept alive in the more significant blaze of the light of each other’s souls. They never lost contact throughout their lives, remaining close until Mapplethorpe’s death in March of 1989.

 The book is peppered with photos of Smith and Mapplethorpe together, as well as pictures of Smith alone that remain the most spiritually revealing shots that anyone has ever taken of her, including the famous cover for Horses. Just kids is an emotionally honest, transparent snapshot of a love affair, enduring friendship, and an artistic climate the likes of which may never be seen again in the context of popular music. A must read for anyone that loves art and life.

[Via http://percy3.wordpress.com]

Blog Posts

Last night I dreamt that I had thousands of people following my blog. It was kind of cool. The only problem was that the one person that I didn’t want reading my blog was. When I woke up, the plot felt familiar. Then I remembered why. I had just finished The Cubicle Next Door about a civilian employee of the Air Force who blogs anonymously about the flyboy who shares her office.  Her blog becomes a hit and she’s forced to hear her officemate quote her words about him back to her. Entertaining read.

What would I write about if I were to blog anonymously? My life isn’t that juicy at the moment. The only man I’m seeing consistently is Tony Horton, the P90X guru who has changed my life…and I’ve only been seeing him 30 days. That’s right. Today is our one month anniversary. The big decision is if I’m going to stick with him for the next two months or drop him and his workouts. See? Boring.

So if you were going to blog anonymously, what would you blog about?

[Via http://caitlinmuir.wordpress.com]

First Review: "The Stand"

I know what you’re probably thinking.  Why on earth is this guy reviewing a book that has been out for over 30 years?  Well – this is my blog and I loved this book. So there!

OK – all kidding aside – I would be remiss if I didn’t open my reviews of SK’s work with anything else.  This is one of my favorite books of all time – maybe THE favorite.  I am a notoriously slow reader, but I could not put this book down. It occupied my imagination to no end. It is basically a story of Good vs. Evil. Not a difficult concept to grasp, but the way the story is spun, it will keep you riveted.

A “superflu” plague wipes out most of the world’s population. Those who are left fall into two factions. The good become the followers of a righteous old lady named Mother Abigail and they settle in Boulder, CO. The bad become the followers of Randall Flagg, who is either a minion of the devil or the head demon himself.  The evil one and his followers take over Las Vegas.  OK – maybe that seems cheesy or even goofy, but it works.

There are a lot of creepy parts in this book, with one of my favorites being when Larry Underwood is in the Lincoln Tunnel in New York. The other creepy part was when the settlers in Boulder go into the church and find the bodies of people that had sought solace during the plague and ended up dying there. But the best part of this book is the part where Stu, Larry, Ralph and Glenn head out of Boulder to make the stand against Flagg.  The parallels to “The Lord of the Rings” cannot be denied.  A fellowship of good folks that goes on a quest to destroy ultimate evil – priceless.  Only things missing were the elf, dwarf and hobbits – but I digress….

The original novel, released in 1978, was a scaled down (or watered down) version. The publishers originally felt it was too long, so they made SK do some major editing. Oh well, at least SK got his way in the end! Good thing too – I never have read the abridged version and frankly I doubt I’d want to now.

Bottom line – if there is anyone that is just now wanting to read Stephen King’s work, grabbing a copy of “The Stand” is a great starting point.

[Via http://kingmacabre.wordpress.com]

You're Funny. Book Reviews Just Aren't.

Look at all those responses on what books people find funny!
You are funny people, people.

If you are all relatively funny, why is there no such thing as a funny book review? Are professional book reviewers decidedly unfunny? Or do their editors say to them: “Whoa Jim, your kind of off the reservation with this humor. Could you tone it down chief?”

These are weighty questions.

I’m sorry, I thought books was a form of entertainment. We take what we read seriously, but not ourselves too seriously. Right?

The reviews I read are generally (1) terribly long (2) void of the coveted punchline and generally (3) safe and dry.

Well, I’ll take safe and dry in a thunderstorm.
But in a book review, well, it kind of sucks.

Okay, I suppose it all depends on what you are looking for in your book review.
Here’s what I am looking for in my book review: 1. Finding new stuff I don’t yet know about and 2. A quick take on whether it’s worth reading.

But Mr. and Mrs. Book Reviewer, you don’t do that. No, you do not.
You speak in euphemisms and cloudy language littered with buzzwords. The Guardian even made fun of you today, inviting people to play Book Review Bingo. Do you understand this? It means you talk a lot of crazy book reviewer nonsense.

I think Tina Brown is on to something with The Daily Beast–with her straight shooting tagline: “Read This, Skip That.”  Yep, Tina girlfriend, I am with you on that. (Although your choices in books stink, surprisingly. Weird.)

On Sunday, when I open the New York Times Book Review, I fantasize about reading something like this: “It is obvious that the author has incredible talent. Unfortunately, she apparently locked it away in the closet when she was writing this book.” Or maybe: “This book made me so crazy with appreciation I stopped an old couple at Costco and insisted they buy it.” It’s sad. Mostly because I need to work on my fantasies.

Listen. Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert (example: him recently interviewing Rebecca Skloot of Henrietta Lacks) are not going to win any literary criticism awards. But it’s books meets fun. And sometimes I kind of cringe when the author really keeps trying to talk about the book and doesn’t realize that Colbert is royally teasing. But at least it’s entertaining. That’s a place I like to be.

Every BookSnob I know personally names friends and families as their first source for books. Because your sister will say: “Blech. Stunk.” or your friend will start talking really fast and pounding the table as her coffee spills and says, “No, no, you have to read it. Really, it was awesome.”

But the reviewers, they leave me safe, dry, and, obviously, slightly bothered.
Maybe I am just hanging out with the wrong people, people.

What reviews do you read (by individual or publication) or do you mostly rely on friends and families recommendations?

[Via http://katykeim.wordpress.com]

Short Reviews of Random Books: No One Would Listen

No One Would Listen

Harry Markopolos’ story of his pursuit of Bernie Madoff is a tightly written and sparse thriller. Markopolos comes across as a ‘quant‘, he’s obsessed with numbers, sure of his own skills, and uafraid of trashing the SEC on every page. He is also not a writer, showing an obsession with jargon and catchphrases to describe the ineptitude of the SEC. The book plays up his level of fear, he does not present any evidence that Madoff was even aware he existed until after the fraud was revealed. The cases of traders being assaulted over lesser amounts of money he refers to give some weight to his fear and caution.

This book is worth a read if you want to know more about Markopolos, Madoff and financial fraud. If you show some patience for Markopolos slightly odd writing style, you get a whirlwind introduction to the Madoff investigation, a quirky view of high finance, and a worthy drubbing for the SEC.

Found it: Featured on the Daily Show
Time to read: One day

[Via http://brettlwilliams.wordpress.com]

The Puzzling World of Winston Breen by Eric Berlin

Penrose waved his waffling answer away. “I know so. Winston Breen, I know you well by now. Walter Fredericks could have hidden an old fountain pen,” said Penrose, picking up an old fountain pen. “But if the puzzle intrigued you–and I’ve yet to find one that didn’t–you’d be there solving it” (p 84).

The deceased Walter Fredericks did not hid a pen, though. He has hidden a valuable ring, leaving a set of clues with each of his four children in the hope they will make amends and solve the puzzle together. The siblings never resolve their quarrels and now, all have passed on except Ms. Lewis, the town Librarian.

Winston enjoys puzzles, to put it mildly. When he accidentally happens upon one set of clues to Frederick’s hidden ring, he becomes involved in the search for the ring, now hidden for more than 25 years.

What a fun book! With intermittent puzzles that readers can solve (the answers are in the back of the book) or skip without detraction. An excellent pick for boys.

[Via http://nicolepoliti.wordpress.com]