Tuesday, January 14, 2014

library

Abrahams, The Fan (BB)
Adair, The Physics of Baseball (BB)
Adler, Baseball Wit (BB)
Ahuja, Fields of Dreams (BB)
Allen, Baseball's 100 (BB)
Angell, Last Innings (BB)
Angell, Season Ticket (BB)
Angell, Five Season (BB)
Angell, The Summer Game (BB)
Angell, Once More Around The Park (BB)
Angell, Game Time (BB)
Asimov (ed), Sherlock Holmes Through Time And Space (mystery)
Asinof, Eight Men Out (BB)
Barry, Bottom of the 33rd (BB)
Beckham, Runner Mack (BB)
Bell/Elliott, Hardball (BB Jays)
Berra, The Yogi Book (BB)
Bisher, Strange But True Baseball Stories (BB Vintage)
Bjarkman, The Toronto Blue Jays (BB Jays)
Bjorkman (ed), Baseball & The Game of Life (BB)
Blessing, Cobb (BB)
Blessing, Oldtimers Game (BB)
Bly, Iron John
Block, The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (BB)
Boswell, The Heart of the Order (BB)
Bosewell, How Life Imitates The World Series (BB)
Boswell, Why Time Begins on Opening Day (BB)
Bouton, Ball Four (BB)
Bouton, Strike Zone (BB)
Bowen, Fielder's Choice (BB)
Bowering (ed), Taking The Field (BB)
Boyd & Harris, The Great American Baseball Card...Book (BB)
Brinkman & Euchner, The Umpire's Handbook (BB)
Brock, If I Never Get Back (BB)
Broomer, Paul Molitor: Good Timing (BB Jays)
Brown Keylin Lundy, Sports of the Time (BB oversize)
Browne, Girls of Summer (BB)
Brunt, Second To None (BB Jays)
Brunt, Diamond Dreams (BB Jays)
Campanella, It's Good To Be Alive (BB)
Carkeet, The Greatest Slump of All Time (BB)
Cataneo, Peanuts and Crackerjack (BB)
Chabon, Telegraph Avenue
Chadwick, The Illustrated History of Baseball (BB oversize)
Cheek/Berger, Road To Glory (BB Jays)
Cooper, The Southpaw's Secret (BB Vintage)
Coyle, Hardball (BB)
Craft, Rookies of the Year (BB oversize)
Cronin, A Short History of the Long Ball (BB)
Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity
Davidi, The Big 50 (BB Jays)
Dawidoff (ed), Baseball: A Literary Anthology (BB)
Deford (ed), Best American Sports Writing 1993 (BB)
DeLillo, Underworld (BB)
Derleth, The Casebook of Solar Pons (mystery)
Dickey, The History of American League Baseball (BB)
Dickson, Baseball's Greatest Quotations (BB)
DiMaggio, Lucky To Be A Yankee (BB Vintage)
DiMaggio, Dom, Real Grass, Real Heroes (BB)
Donohue, Spitballs & Holy Water (BB)
Douglas, GOOD NIGHT, MR. HOLMES (mystery)
Doyle, THE FINAL ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (mystery)
Doyle, His Last Bow (mystery)
Dravecky, Comeback (BB)
Einstein, Willie's Time (BB)
Einstein, The Baseball Reader (BB)
Einstein, The New Baseball Reader (BB)
Einstein (ed), The Fireside Book of Baseball: Fourth Edition (BB)
Engel, Mr. Doyle & Dr. Bell (mystery)
Evers, Tigers Burnin (BB)
Everson, Suicide Squeeze (BB)
Faber, Baseball Ratings (BB oversize)
Falkner, Nine Sides of the Diamond (BB)
Falkner, The Short Season (BB)
Fowler, The Sweetheart Season (BB)
Friendlich, Relief Pitcher (BB Vintage)
Garagiola, Baseball Is A Funny Game (BB Vintage)
Gardner, The Return of Moriarty (mystery)
Geist, Little League Confidential (BB)
Godfrey, Baseball Crazy (BB Jays)
Goldberg, This Is Next Year (BB)
Goldstein, Superstars and Screwballs (BB)
Goodwin, Wait Till Next Year (BB)
Gordon, Prairie Hardball (BB)
Gordon, Dead Pull Hitter (BB)
Gordon, Safe At Home (BB)
Gordon, Striking Out (BB)
Gordon, Foul Balls (BB Jays)
Gordon (ed), Diamonds Are Forever (BB oversize)
Greenberg, The Celebrant (BB)
Gregorich, She's On First (BB)
Greenberg (ed), On The Diamond: A Treasurey of Baeball Stories (BB)
Greene (ed), THE AMERICAN RIVALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (mystery)
Gregory, Diz (BB)
Grey, The Young Pitcher (BB Vintage)
Gropman, Say It Ain't So, Joe! (BB)
Grossman, A Baseball Addict's Diary (BB Jays)
Gruber/Boland, Kelly (BB Jays)
Gutman, Baseball Super Teams (BB)
Halberstam, October 1964 (BB)
Halberstam, Summer Of '49 (BB)
Halford, My Utmost
Hall, Fathers Playing Catch With Sons (BB)
Harris, Bang The drum Slowly (BB)
Harris, A Ticket For A Seamstitch (BB)
Harris, The Southpaw (BB Vintage)
Harris, Diamond: Baseball Writings of Mark Harris (BB)
Harvey, They Called Me God (BB)
Harwell, Diamond Gems (BB)
Haughey, The Case of the Frozen Scream (mystery)
Haupt, Me and Dimaggio (BB)
Hays, The Dixie Association (BB)
Heiman etc, When The Cheering Stops (BB)
Henderson, Off Base (BB)
Hernandez, Pure Baseball (BB)
Hershiser, Out of the Blue (BB)
Herzog, You're Missin' a Great Game (BB)
Hodel & Wright, Enter The Lion (mystery)
Holtzman (ed), Fielder's Choice (BB)
Honig, Last Man Out (BB)
Honig, The Plot To Kill Jackie RobinsonHonig, Last Man Out (BB)
Irving, Gone to Glory (BB)
James, The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (BB oversize)
James, The Baseball Book 1990 (BB oversize)
James, The Baseball Book 1991 (BB oversize)
James, The Baseball Book 1993 (BB oversize)
Jones, The Elements Of Hitting (BB)
Jordan, The Suitors of Spring (BB)
Jordan, A False Spring (BB)
Kahn, A Season In The Sun (BB)
Kahn, Good Enough To Dream (BB)
Kahn, The Boys of Summer (BB)
Kahn, The Seventh Game (BB)
Kaufman etc, Moe Berg: Athlete, Scholar, Spy (BB)
Kerrane & Grossinger, Baseball Diamonds (BB)
King, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (BB)
Kingwell, Fail Better (BB)
Kinsella, Shoeless Joe (BB)
Kinsella, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy (BB)
Kinsella, The Thrill of the Grass (BB)
Kinsella, The Dixon Cornbelt League (BB)
Kinsella, The Further Adventures of Slugger McBatt (BB)
Kinsella, If Wishes Were Horses (BB)
Kinsella, Box Socials (BB)
Kinsella, Diamonds Forever (BB)
Kinsella Bisher Perkins, A Series For The World (BB Jays)
Klinkowitz, Short Season (BB)
Kruger, Bullpen (BB)
LaBlanc, Hot Dogs, Heroes & Hooligans (BB oversize)
Lamb, Stolen Season (BB)
Lardner, You KNow Me Al (BB Vintage)
Lau, The Winning Hitter (BB)
Lewis, Moneyball (BB)
Luciano, The Fall of the Roman Umpire (BB)
Lyle, The Bronx Zoo (BB)
Malamud, The Natural (BB)
Mays, Say Hey (BB)
McConnell & Vincent, The Home Run Encyclopedia (BB oversize)
McCormick, Fielder's Choice (BB Vintage)
Meany, Baseball's Greatest Players (BB Vintage)
Meyer, The Canary Trainer (mystery)
Meyer, the Seven-Per-Cent Solution (mystery)
Mote, Everything Baseball (BB oversize)
Nash & Zullo, The Baseball Hall of Shame (BB)
Nash & Zullo, The Baseball Hall of Shame 3 (BB)
Nathan, Baseball Quotations (BB)
Neft Johnson Cohen Deutsch, The Sports Encyclopedia: Baseball (BB oversize)
Nighbert, Strike Zone (BB)
Okrent, Nine Innings (BB)
Orodenker, The Writers' Game (BB)
Owen, Teen-Age Baseball Stories (BB Vintage)
*
Parker, The Godwulf Manuscript (73) 2
Parker, God Save The Child (74)
Parker, Mortal Stakes (75)
Parker, Promised Land (76)
Parker, The Judas Goat (78)
Parker, Looking For Rachel Wallace (80)
Parker, Early Autumn (81a)
Parker, A SAVAGE PLACE (81) get original paperback
Parker, Ceremony (82) missing: get original paperback
Parker, The Widening Gyre (83)
Parker, Valediction (84)
Parker, A Catskill Eagle (85)
Parker, Taming A Sea-horse (86)
Parker, Pale Kings And Princes (87)
Parker, Crimson Joy (88)
Parker, Playmates (89)
Parker, Stardust (90)
Parker, Pastime (91)
Parker, Double Deuce (92)
Parker, Paper Doll (93)
Parker, Walking Shadow (94)
Parker, THIN AIR (95)
Parker, Chance (96)
Parker, Small Vices (97)
Parker, Sudden Mischief (98)
Parker, Hush Money (99)
Parker, Hugger Mugger (00)
Parker, POTSHOT (01)
Parker, WIDOW'S WALK (02)
Parker, BACK STORY (03)
Parker, Bad Business (04)
Parker, Cold Service (05a)
Parker, School Days (05b)
Parker, Hundred-Dollar Baby (06)
Parker, Now And Then (07)
Parker, Rough Weather (08)
parker, chasing the bear: a young spenser novel [get]
Parker, The Professional (09)
Parker, PAINTED LADIES (10)
Parker, SIXKILL (11)
Parker/Atkins, Lullaby (12) 7/?/18
Parker/Brann, SILENT NIGHT (13)
Parker/Atkins, WONDERLAND (13)
Parker/Atkins, Cheap Shot (14) 7/7/18
Parker/Atkins, KICKBACK (2015)
Parker/Atkins, SLOW BURN (2016)
Parker/Atkins, LITTLE WHITE LIES (2017)
parker/atkins, old black magic (2018) [get]
*
Parker, Wilderness (79, non-Spenser)
Parker, Love And Glory (non-Spenser, 83)
Parker/Chandler, POODLE SPRINGS (Marlowe, 89)
Parker, PERCHANCE TO DREAM (Marlowe, 91)
Parker, All Our Yesterdays (non-Spenser, 94)
Parker, Double Play (Jackie Robinson, 94) BB
Parker, Perish Twice (Sunny Randall, 00)
Parker, Appaloosa (western, 05)
Parker, Blue Screen (Sunny Randall, 06)
Parker, Brimstone (western, 09)
Parker, Killing The Blues (Jess Stone, 11)
Penzler (ed.), In Pursuit Of Spenser
*
Peary (ed), Cult Baseball Players
Platt, The Screwball King Murder (BB)
Plimpton, Out Of My League (BB)
Plimpton, The Curious Case of Sidd Finch (BB)
Quarrington, Home Game (BB)
Rampersad, Jackie Robinson (BB)
Rice, The Tumult and the Shouting (BB Vintage)
Richardson, The Bobby Richardson Story (BB)
Reichler, Baseball's Great Moments (BB)
Rizzuto (Peyer/Seely), The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto (BB)
Robinson, Iron Horse (BB0
Rose & Kahn, Pete Rose: My Story (BB)
Roth, The Great American Novel (BB)
Runyon (Reisler), Guys, Dolls, and Curveballs (BB)
Sayles, Pride of the Bimbos (BB)
Schacht (ed), Mudville Diaries (BB)
Scholz, Batter Up (BB)
Seaver, Beanball (BB)
Seidel, Streak: Joe DiMaggio and the Summer of '41 (BB)
Senzel, Baseball and the Cold War (BB)
Sifakis, Three Men On Third (BB)
Shaara, For Love of the Game (BB)
Shannon (ed), The Best of Spitball (BB)
Sherman, Strike Him Out! (BB Vintage)
Shlain, Oddballs (BB)
Simone, Going, Going, Gone! (BB oversize)
Smith, Voices of the Game (BB)
Smith, Baseball in the Afternoon (BB)
Smith, Baseball in America (BB oversize)
Soox, Murder at Wrigley Field (BB)
The Sporting News (ed), Dynasty (BB oversize)
The Sporting News (ed), Take Me Out To The Ball Park (BB oversize)
Sports Illustrated (ed), Baseball: Four decades of SI's finest writing (BB)
Stieb/Boland, Tomorrow I'll Be Perfect (BB Jays)
Stump, Cobb: A Biography (BB)
Sugar, Baseball's 50 Greatest Games (BB oversize)
Thorn, Baseball Our Game (BB)
Thorn (ed), The Armchair Book of Baseball (BB)
Thorn & Palmer (ed), Total Baseball (BB oversize)
Toronto Blue Jays, 1990 (BB Jays)
Tunis, World Series (BB)
Tunis, Rookie of the Year (BB)
Tunis, Highpockets (BB)
Turner, Heroes, Bums and Ordinary Men (BB Jays)
Valenti, Clout! (BB oversize)
Van Rjndt & Blednick, Fungo Blues (BB Jays)
Vancil & Hirdt, All Century Team (BB oversize)
Veeck, Veeck As In Wreck (BB)
Wallace, the Year The Yankees Lost the Pennant (BB)
Ward & Burns, Baseball: An Illustrated History (BB oversize)
Whiting, You Gotta Have Wa (BB)
Will, Men At Work (BB)
Will, Bunts (BB)
Williams, No More Mr. Nice Guy (BB)
Williams, My Turn At Bat (BB)
Winegardner, Prophet of the Sandlots (BB)
Wood, Dodger Dogs To Fenway Franks (BB)
Z, Baseball Cards of the Fifites (BB oversize)
Z, Baseball Cards of the Sixties (BB oversize)
Z, The Baseball Encyclopedia: Tenth Edition (BB oversize)
Z, Baseball Legends (BB)
Z, 20th Century Baseball Chronicle (BB oversize)

Sunday, December 22, 2013

madeleine l'engle | o sapientia



It was from Joseph first I learned
Of love.  Like me he was dismayed.
How easily he could have turned
Me from his house; but, unafraid,
He put me not away from him
(O God‑sent angel, pray for him).
Thus through his love was Love obeyed.

The Child's first cry came like a bell:
God's Word aloud, God's Word in deed.
The angel spoke: so it befell,
And Joseph with me in my need.
O Child whose father came from heaven,
To you another gift was given,
Your earthly father chosen well.

With Joseph I was always warmed
And cherished.  Even in the stable
I knew that I would not be harmed.
And, though above the angels swarmed,
Man's love it was that made me able
To bear God's Love, wild, formidable,
To bear God's Will, through me performed. 

mike mason | three fools



The three wise men (as everyone knows but tends to forget) did not visit Jesus in the manger as a baby.  They found him much later, living in a shanty on the outskirts of Bethlehem, when he was two years old.  This is important.

They knew they were looking for a child, and this was a matter of some awkwardness for them.  They often wondered: What behaviour would be appropriate in the presence of a child-king?  They pictured themselves kneeling, presenting their gifts, and then perhaps sitting stiffly on the edge of wooden chairs and nibbling biscuits.  Their conversation would be mainly with the parents, of course, while the child looked on serenely, wonderingly.  With careful humility they would avoid his large, omniscient eyes.

This is not how it turned out.  These men were bachelors, remember.  Monkish types.  Contemplatives used to sitting on their duffs and reaching after the ineffable with their noggans.  What could they possibly know about the terrible twos?

How surprised they were to find their little king blazing around the house in a torn toga, chattering up a storm, and leaping onto their laps to tweak their beards!  Even more surprising, they found they did not react to these improprieties with horror.  Instead they felt all the stiffness draining out of them, lifetimes of reverent caution (i.e. distrust) dissolving like sugar lumps in tea.  They were charmed, delighted, won. Truly and deeply.  In no time they found themselves regressing, relaxing back into the childhoods they had never had.  They got down on their knees, all right, but it wasn't to worship - it was to give the kid camel rides, and then to roll over like great fat bears while the boy who had made the universe used their bellies for trampolines.  Yes, they fell down before their king, yet not in some formal act of prostration, but bowled over like ninepins by the thunder of a child's chortle.

Even the stars - which to these men objects of utmost seriousness – were like so many marbles to the Boy King.  Had they not given themselves to following one of them, believing this to be the great high purpose of their lives?  And where had the star gotten them?  Rolling around in their sumptuous robes on the dirt floor of a hovel, that's where.  Squealing like pigs, hooting till their sides fairly split, squirting out buckets of snotty tears.  Ripping open their fine silks and brocades so that the holy little hoodlum could blow trumpet kisses into their bare tums. 

Did the magi know beyond doubt that they had found their king?  O yes, they knew!  They knew it when the little guy sat astride their backs, smacked them on the rumps and cried, "Giddy up, Frankincense!  Mush, Myrrh!  Heigh ho, Gold - away!"

"Jesus, hon," his mother kept saying, "Don't embarrass the nice men."

But he was born to embarrass nice men, to embarrass them with riches.  All day long the great sages lay in the dirt collapsed in ecstasy, slain by the spirit of an urchin.  All night they lay there too, babbling in tongues, humming snatches of psalms and Mother Goose, burbling musically like babes.  That night the greatest astrologers of the ancient world literally saw stars - saw them for the first time, as they are, rolling round heaven to a toddler's tune.

These men who had come to pray, ended in play.  They came to give gifts, but ended by leaving what they had always longed to get rid of: starched collars, phony crowns, jaded adult wisdom.  The wise men were turned into wise guys.  Jokers.  They became fools - fools for Christ.

photos | luigi ghirri









photos by luigi ghirri

Thursday, December 05, 2013

found poem | define mysteries


Movements of the lower lip in dance
A work consisting of a hundred love lyrics
One born out of an egg
Literally, offering of sprouts
First solid meal given to a child
Happenings before death
Non-stealing
Literally, the tree under which horses stand
Appropriate time for the administration of drugs
The ocher garments of a recluse
An auspicious drawing
A dark, moonless night heralding the first day of the moon in its cycle of fourteen days
Literally, the wrestler's pillar
The food that is to be consumed by licking
Emotional feeling of separation from one's spouse
Indicators of the probability of rain
A body which has attained the strength of a diamond
Upwardly channelized semen
Subordinate airs governing the human body
Artistically laid out parks
A time in the day considered not suitable for starting any new work


by Ron Reed


from Harper's Magazine, December 2013
"Readings"
From explanatory subtitles in the U.S. edition of
The Encyclopedia of Hinduism
photo by King Douglas

Monday, November 25, 2013

this country in the morning


This Country In The Morning debuted in 1971. Its signature host, Peter Gzowski, left the program at the end of June, 1974, when I graduated from high school.

In September 1982, Gzowski returned to CBC Radio to host Morningside, which ended in May 1997.

Friday, November 22, 2013

it was fifty years ago today


The Beatles second album, With The Beatles, is released in the UK, 89 days before their American debut on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964.  Mark Lewisohn: "With astonishing British advance orders of 300,000, it swiftly passed the half-million and, in 1965, the one million sales marks. It even earned a brief placing in the singles chart, which in the early 1960s was calculated on sales of any record, irrespective of diameter."


"Friday, 22 November 1963, began as usual in the Lewis household, Warnie later recalled: after they had breakfast, they turned to the routine answering of letters, and tried to solve the crossword puzzle. Warnie noted that Lewis seemed tired after lunch, and suggested that he go to bed. At 4:00, Warnie brought him a cup of tea, and found him 'drowsy but comfortable.' At 5:30 [GMT], Warnie heard a 'crash' from Lewis's bedroom. He ran in to find Lewis collapsed, unconscious, at the foot of the bed. A few moments later, Lewis died. His death certificate would give the multiple causes of his death as renal failure, prostate obstruction and cardiac degeneration." Alistair McGrath


"President Kennedy was killed today by an assassin's bullet as he rode in a motorcade in Dallas. The assassination occurred shortly after noon (12:30 CST, 5:30 GMT). Cheering crowds lining the streets had been stunned when shots rang out and the 46-year-old president crumpled in the seat of the open limousine, a massive, gaping wound in his head." Chronicle of the 20th Century

fiddle oak




self-portraits by a 14-year-old photographer
who goes by the name "fiddle oak"

Sunday, November 17, 2013

holy city | brian whelan


"Here and there in this picture gold sparkles, as it does in many of his pieces. But these are not fragments of gold leaf, they are foil chocolate wrappers, knowingly applied as if on an icon. This is one of Whelan’s signature techniques, a conscious reference to his vision of the presence of God in the most mundane locations. His are visionary paintings, effortlessly combining the temporal and the spiritual – heaven and earth in one reality."

Meryl Doney, Artway Visual Meditation, November 17, 2013


"What intrigues me most about Brian’s Holy Cities are the many doors and windows that seem to beckon me to enter. This is a city which welcomes the stranger and seems to thrive on transparency. There is a genius behind the fact that the many houses of worship are created from the wrappers of various sweets from around the world. Not only does this give the paintings luminosity unlike anything I have ever seen, but it invites the pilgrim to understand that the structures themselves are merely a shell, a recollection of the true sweetness which was found inside."

Jeff Frohner, "A Pilgrimage Of Sight"

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Monday, November 11, 2013