Romance Cover Contest 2006

What used to be the All About Romance website's annual bookcover contest now has its own website, called Cover Cafe, Home of the Annual Cover Contest. The most fun, of course, is seeing the nominees for worst cover of the year.

Note, alas, that my friend Rexanne Becnel's 2006 Harlequin NEXT release, Leaving L.A., is among the nominees for Worst Cover. I've inserted it with this entry. Rexanne hated the cover, which she found appalling, and so far I haven't heard anyone disagree with her. What was the NEXT editorial board thinking???

Don't judge the book by its cover, however. Rexanne's an excellent writer; her book did not deserve that awful cover.

Kitty Litter Cake???

This cake may taste wonderful, but I don't think I could bring myself to try it--it looks too realistic! But if you'd like to know how to make Kitty Litter Cake, WikiHow will tell you.

The 100 Unsexiest Men in 2007

Okay, here's something to while away [waste?] some time and give you a few chuckles. The Phoenix website lists its choices for The 100 Unsexiest Men in 2007. The only one I disagree with is No. 42, Jeff Foxworthy--I think he's cute, which equates to mildly sexy to me, and I think he's funny (yeah, corny, etc., etc., but still funny). There are others on the list who are physically appealing to me, but whose behavior has put them beyond the pale. (Don't wanna do a guy who's a nut-job or a bigot or a control freak, regardless of how hot he looks.)

As for the choice for No. 1--I totally agree. Hint: Last year he tried to copyright the phrase "you're fired."

Affinity

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; ... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

--John Donne, Meditation XVII, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

Last night I had dinner with two friends whom I hadn't seen in a long time. The reunion was great. We've been through many changes over the last two years--not least the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina--yet on meeting again, it was as if we had never been parted. We picked up on our old rhythms and patterns, and fell into the same easy rapport as we had before. As in the past, the evening simply wasn't long enough for everything we had to say to one another.

After five hours of nonstop talking, we had to part ways. We agreed to get together once a month to keep the buzz going. I hope we'll do it. I've discovered that having friends who are boon companions is more important than nearly everything else. I am a loner--I need and enjoy time alone--yet I've learned I must make time for friends. Even when I feel grouchy, irritable, and mad at the world, I've discovered that if I make the effort to go out and be around people with whom I have rapport, I'll be glad later--I'll return home feeling refreshed, renewed, relaxed, and connected.

Schlachthof Fünf

Kurt Vonnegut, literary icon of those who came of age in the Vietnam era and after, died yesterday. I have several of his novels, tucked away in a box in one of my storage units. I read them decades ago, when I was in college or perhaps only recently out of it. I no longer remember the plots of his books (my poor memory for plot details has worsened with the passing years), except for bits of Slaughterhouse Five, his most famous novel. It portrays the Allied forces' firebombing of Dresden, Germany, during World War II. Over many years I've carried with me the despair and horror that pervaded the story, as the eponymal hero Billie Pilgrim watched Allied bombs drop on the beautiful city--site of Europe's loveliest Gothic cathedrals and home to a huge population. The hero of the book (like Vonnegut himself, who was a POW in Dresden during the actual event) hides from the bombs in Schlachthof Fünf (German for "Slaughterhouse Five").

Like Joseph Heller (Catch 22), Vonnegut wrote about WWII not to praise it or to illustrate the heroism of its participants, but to demonstrate the futility and agony of war. Slaughterhouse Five was both fuel and resource for the anti-war movement in the Sixties.

According to Max Hastings, by February 1945, attacks upon German cities had become largely irrelevant to the outcome of the war and the name of Dresden possessed a resonance for cultured people all over Europe — "the home of so much charm and beauty, a refuge for Trollope’s heroines, a landmark of the Grand Tour." He argues that the bombing of Dresden was the first time Allied populations questioned the military actions used to defeat the Nazis.

--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II

After Hurricane Katrina, when I saw the devastation in New Orleans, it reminded me of pictures I'd seen of the destroyed city of Dresden. It was heartbreaking...yet also left me hope, because I knew that much of Dresden has been restored--even the Frauenkirche, Dresden's most famous edifice, which was completely rebuilt and finished only a few years ago. If Dresden could come back from firebombing, I thought, surely New Orleans can come back from Katrina.

Of course, Dresden lost forever much of its most beautiful architecture, as well as thousands of its residents (estimates of 25,000-35,000). Ironically, Dresden too lies on either side of a river, in a flood plain, and is subject to flooding.

Back to the inspiration for this entry. There will be plenty of obituaries and eulogies describing Mr. Vonnegut, detailing his life, and critiquing his writing, so I shall add only: He is unarguably one of the greatest U.S. writers of the 20th century. Rest in peace, Kurt.