March 2012 | Kate's Point of View

Month: March 2012 Page 1 of 2

Mute

On March 27, 2012

I’ve been struck nearly speechless since yesterday. Bronchitis with an asthma mixer. My husband keeps saying, “stop whispering” but I’m not.

Tomorrow I’m going to try and get in to the doctor. My husband has to call because no one will be able to hear me on the phone.

Until then, I’m relying on the lame amount of sign language I remember from grade school and typing messages into my phone or iPad. And trying to balance the fine line between breathing and coughing.

It’s a funny thing trying to stay quiet. We are such noisy creatures. We spend so little time in silent reflection. Without my voice, I’ve spent plenty of time reflecting and forgetting the sound of my voice.

The Ballroom at the Taft Theater & The Features

By Kate

On March 25, 2012

In reviews, rock

Last night Wonder Boy and I went to the inaugural night of The Ballroom at the Taft Theater, ostensibly to watch J Roddy Walston and the Business. While we were parking, we saw Frank the Tank and Easy Breezy walking to the show. They were going for the same reason we were. The Features. And they were fabulous! So, a review in two parts.

The Ballroom at The Taft Theater
I’ve seen plenty of shows at The Taft Theater and I’ve always loved the romance of the building… the intimacy of the venue despite how many people it holds. With the recent closing of the Southgate House, The Taft is smart to be opening a smaller venue. There’s a need in this city for venues where smaller acts can play. Enter The Ballroom.

While the main theater at The Taft is grand, The Ballroom is a lot more VFW hall. The room is in the basement and looks cavernous. Fortunately, the acoustics are pretty great. And because it’s in The Taft, visitors get to enjoy nice bathrooms, which is a feature that few other concert halls in town can compete with.

I’ll be seeing another show at The Ballroom next month and am looking forward to it.

The Features
To begin, it’s worth pointing out that it would hard for me to acknowledge a bad Features show. But, if it was bad I would just tell people it was good. Because it was fabulous, I’ll let anyone and everyone know.

I was happy for The Features when they got included in the most recent Twilight soundtrack, but concerned about future shows. Last night there were lots of teens and the show. Fears realized. But in what I view as a funny F you, the song from the soundtrack was never played. Instead, they played and sang their butts off.

I’ve been seeing The Features play a little more than a show a year for about eight years now. When I saw them open for the Kings of Leon years ago, I knew I’d found my new favorite band. Last night I got to watch other people discover them. “This guy is awesome!” I heard one man say. When the show ended the couple next to Wonder Boy and I just kept exclaiming, “That was unbelievable!” Yes it was.

St. Patrick’s Day in Athens, Ohio

By Kate

On March 21, 2012

In family / friends, travel

Last weekend we went to one of my very favorite places, Athens, Ohio, to celebrate the impending nuptials of my sister and her friend. Not to each other. They just both happen to be getting married in the same time frame so we decided to have one big party rather than several smaller ones. Some highlights of the weekend, excluding the obvious ones like eating at my favorite restaurant and experiencing the same happiness I always feel as I coast down the exit ramp into Athens, include:

Laughing as my one sister put a fake tattoo on the chest of my other sister’s future mother-in-law
Having tears run down my face as one of my brother’s friend’s tried to discretely scoot a miniature, plastic penis off the table before the waiter noticed, only to have it land right in front of the waiter
Dancing at the Pub with fishbowls full of green beer sloshing in our hands
Creating a tunnel with our hands and making random people dance their way into and out of the bathroom
Cheering my mom and brother on while they drank Irish Car Bombs to celebrate my mom’s birthday only minutes into the actual day
Having a pubescent group of boys lie to us about their age and basically stalk us in the hopes of getting to dance with a girl
My brother winning a bet with his future brother-in-law by getting his mom (the brother-in-law’s) to do a shot of Hot Nuts at Tony’s
Watching my sister and my other sister’s future sister-in-law do some crazy dance while standing on top of bar stools

I have several pictures of my sister that could embarrass her. Instead, I’ll just post one of myself. The lighting is pretty terrible, but I’m having a good time!

Review of Running the Rift … and a Little More

By Kate

On March 20, 2012

In books, reviews

I just finished this amazing book, Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron, that discusses the Rwandan genocide. And it’s horrifying and horrifyingly recent. After reading about something so intense, I think a natural reaction is, “Never again.” But that’s bullsh!t because it’s happened since then and it’s happening right now.

But without being informed about the past, you can’t fully understand the present. How we handle situations now can be informed by how the genocide was handled in Rwanda, the genocide in Cambodia, the genocide in Germany, and on and on.

The Kony 2012 video has been getting circulated a lot and there’s already a very noisy online conversation occuring about the value of that video. Will the video make a difference? Maybe, maybe not. Will people go beyond the video and learn more about Kony and Uganda? Maybe, maybe not. But if people watch that 30 minute video (and when I last checked, more than 80,000,000 people have), that’s 30 minutes more education than they had before.

I hope that the video does have an imact on Uganda because if it does, it lays out one way for people to make a difference. And if the video doesn’t have an impact, it still helps inform us for future situations. Eventually, maybe we’ll learn and “Never again” will be a true sentiment.

Running the Rift was a wonderful book that I can’t recommend enough. You can ead my full review of the book over at BookGeeks.

Book Review: Sarmada

By Kate

On March 19, 2012

In books, reviews

I’ve been writing reviews for BookGeeks for more than a year now. I choose whatever books I want to review, as long as they’ve been published in the last year or two. The folks at BookGeeks will give out books for free to be reviewed, but only to people in England, where the site is based. The shipping costs to get a book to America aren’t really worth it.

The Reviews Manager for BookGeeks has gently prodded me towards eBooks on several occasions because those would be easy to pass my way. I’ve sort of avoided the opportunity because I just love a nice, paper book. But she’s nicely persistent so I finally caved. I did point out to her that most of the eBooks available for review weren’t really my style (fantasy and serious sci-fi). I explained my taste as fiction novels that take place in another country, preferably in Africa or Asia. It’s an honest description but could you get any more specific?

Then someone from HopeRoad Publishing contacted me, after getting my contact information from the Reviews Manager. They specialize in “e-books from writers, particularly those of Caribbean, Asian and African origins.” What are the chances?

And so, I’ve officially reviewed my first eBook.

Sarmada by Fadi Azzan is a Syrian novel, originally written in Arabic. I struggled a bit with the language difference because it’s not written in the direct, American style I’m used to. But once I got over that, the book was really interesting. Strange at parts, but definitely interesting.

Fadi Azzan’s debut novel, Sarmada, focuses on the lives of three extraordinary women in the Syrian town of Sarmada. This story winds its way through myths, superstitions, illicit love, erotica and dissent. Originally written in Arabic and translated by Adam Talib, Sarmada is currently in the running for the International Prize for Arab Fiction.

Author Azzan focuses on the lives of Azza / Hela Mansour, Farida and Buthayna. All three women stand out in their town for their brave dissent of tradition and laws.

You can read my whole review of Sarmada, by Fadi Azzan and Adam Talib, on BookGeeks.