Author Archives: admin

Shrinking Violet’s April Book: Bold Spirit by Linda Lawrence Hunt

Posted on April 21, 2010 by admin| Leave a comment

The Shrinking Violet’s Book Group has chosen:

Bold Spirit

by local author Linda Lawrence Hunt

In 1896, a Norwegian immigrant and mother of eight children named Helga Estby was behind on taxes and the mortgage when she learned that a mysterious sponsor would pay $10,000 to a woman who walked across America.

Hoping to win the wager and save her family’s farm, Helga and her teenaged daughter Clara, armed with little more than a compass, red-pepper spray, a revolver, and Clara’s curling iron, set out on foot from Eastern Washington. Their route would pass through 14 states, but they were not allowed to carry more than five dollars each. As they visited Indian reservations, Western boomtowns, remote ranches and local civic leaders, they confronted snowstorms, hunger, thieves and mountain lions with equal aplomb.

Their treacherous and inspirational journey to New York challenged contemporary notions of femininity and captured the public imagination. But their trip had such devastating consequences that the Estby women’s achievement was blanketed in silence until, nearly a century later, Linda Lawrence Hunt encountered their extraordinary story.

You can find the book in the Local Interest section at Auntie’s Bookstore.  Make sure you let them know it’s for the book club so you can get a discount.

Our book group meetings usually take place on the third Sunday of every month.  However, this meeting will be on the fourth Sunday, April 25th, at the Linda Lawrence Hunt’s retreat house on the north side of Spokane!

Join us on:

Sunday April 25th
1-3 pm
Linda Lawrence Hunt’s Meeting Place (Address TBA)

Click Here to RSVP on Facebook

If you cannot make this meeting and would like to join us for our May meeting, we will be reading:

Prisoner of Tehran

by Marina Nemat
May 16th
Location: TBA

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or would like to recommend future books for us to read:

Becky – beckyhuss [at] gmail [dot] com
Hilary – hilwhitt [at] hotmail [dot] com
Monique – moneeeq [at] gmail [dot] com

If you would like to start a discussion or have any comments about this book, please post a comment on this post.

Posted in Book Group

Reading, Writing and Sharing

Posted on May 1, 2009 by admin| Leave a comment

I wanted to share with you all my secret fantasy. I was thinking about where I work (Community-Minded Enterprises), the Shrinking Violets, and my grad school program (at EWU), and how my life is compartmentalized with some overlaps. CME is working on Sustainable September, a month of events moving our community closer to sustainable living and working. Grad students love public readings. Then everything meshed together for a minute, and I had this idea—why not have a public reading in September that will showcase creative writing done by community members, sharing thoughts about sustainability!

I discussed the idea with the writers who showed up to the workshop last week, and they thought it was a great idea. So I’m trying to put it all together now. I would like to share with you the poem and the essay we discussed in the last meeting and the prompts that we used, in case any Violets couldn’t make it to workshop, wanted to write, and would like to work on something that I could help revise at a future meeting. Then maybe I could encourage you to read it out loud to your friends, because I know that

  1. the piece will be awesome, and
  2. everyone will be supportive

Fleshing Out Abstractions

Poetry/Fiction Prompt:
Based on T.R. Hummer’s “Apocatastasis Foretold in the Shape of a Canvas of Smoke” (This is an embedded book, so I recommend typing “Apocatastasis” in the search pages function.)

Take an abstract noun and work on concrete, sensory images that help to define it. For all of the prompts, I recommended nouns such as sustainability, community, and green.

Take a complex, rich (in meanings) abstract noun and couple it to a closely observed narrative so that the meaning of the abstract noun is revealed or illustrated or suggested by the details of the narrative.

Nonfiction Prompt:

Here is a link to Michael Pollan’s “Why Mow? The Case Against Lawns”

You are probably an expert on something that everyone else thinks that they know. You know something more about the topic, though. Write a redefinition essay that will explain

  1. the general understanding of the thing, and
  2. what you think it is really all about.

Happy writing!

Posted in Writing Group

Book Group Selection – Middlesex

Posted on March 17, 2009 by admin| Leave a comment

Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel Middlesex (2002) focuses on the chronicle of forty-one-year-old, hermaphroditic Calliope Stephanides, which presents her multigenerational Greek-American family and her struggle to establish a clear sense of self. After opening with the story of her grandparents, Desdemona and Lefty, and their subsequent union, Cal traces the damaged gene that this brother and sister passed down through the generations to Cal, which causes her gender irregularity.

Book Cover

Cal weaves together the story of her grandparents and their descendents with her own, comparing the problems they faced in their efforts to reconcile their Greek heritage with their adopted U.S. culture to Cal’s attempts to find balance between her female and male halves. She sets her epic story, which moves from 1922 to 2001, against a historical backdrop of change, from the Turkish invasion of Greece, through Prohibition, the Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. As her family gradually adapts to their new world, Cal is also able to find a way to accept the duality of her own experience. Eugenides’s ability to find the humor as well as the tragedy in their stories creates a compelling work that celebrates difference as well as community.

Now that the votes are in and we’ve picked this book, it’s time to get it into your hot little hands and start reading! Remember that if you go to Aunties and pre-order the book you can get a 15% discount.

The next meeting is this Sunday 22nd at the Little Garden Cafe on 2901 W Northwest Blvd at 1pm. This is a great little place and we have the entire back room!  If you plan on coming try and read at least the first half of the book, but don’t worry if you can’t finish it all in time. See you Sunday!

Posted in Book Group

Tagged

Best of 2008

Posted on January 18, 2009 by admin| 1 Comment

DISCLAIMER: While looking over this list I realized that my life at the moment consists of eating, drinking and playing music and listening in Spokane. One of my goals for 2009 is to be able to compile a list at the end of 2009 that has the Spokane’s Best park, outdoor swimming pool, (I haven’t owned a bathing suit since 7th grade, I didn’t even pass the swim test that year at summer camp, so that might be interesting!) hiking, shopping, best place to find husbands, (trust me, I know! I found one here!) best, best, best other things in Spokane.

But since it’s the beginning of 2009 and all I do is eat, drink, sleep, sometimes work and play and listen to music, this is all I’ve got for you.

———————

Best Appetizer or Best thing to eat when you had a bad day and/or a hangover or both.

Zola (22 West Main) – I could count this plate as best meal of 2008 but in the real world a plate of fries doesn’t really count as a meal…Sometimes this world is so cruel. Zola’s Bleu Cheese Fries make me happy though…steak fries smothered in tasty bleu cheesey sauce with plenty of roasted garlic and chives on top. Plus, last time I checked this dish is only $4.95…!?!?! Almost every other tasty treat on Zola’s menu is under $10….It’s a great place to go if you need to be a cheap date. But I would suggest eating/drinking there early in the night. Later on, unfortunately, it kind of turns into douche bag central…

Best Dinner

Wild Sage (916 West Second Avenue) – I started with my favorite appetizer “Breaking Bread”. If you have not been to Wild Sage yet YOU MUST GO NOW. Breaking bread is a platter full of yummy tapanades, hummus, cheese (goat cheese if you are lucky!) and then I had the Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken, mmm! Also, the peeps at Wild Sage are the sweetest and always make me feel like a princess. Also, they have really great mailing list specials and stuff. The menu can be a bit pricey (but then again the food is worth it) and if you sign up for the mailing list you can get great deals like the one this month which is ‘buy one entree and get the other for free’. I mean seriously, Wild Sage…buy one get one free. I LOVE YOU!

Best Bloody Caesar

Cavallino (1 North Post) – In early 2008, Aja (my old roomie) and I hopped on our bikes and went on a search for the very BEST bloody Caesar in all of downtown Spokane. Unfortunately, not all bars carry Bloody Caesar mix. But the nice bartender at the Blue Spark told us that we HAD to go to Cavallino… When we got to Cavallino (a bar in Hotel Lusso and a place that we NEVER would have imagined stopping in… mostly because we only ever go to Baby Bar for $1 PBRs and $1 Grilled Cheese on Wednesdays) we were delighted to suck down two or was it three (?!) of their most excellent bloody Caesars. Just the right amount of Vodka, spicy-ness, greens (I LOVE THE GREENS!) and Clamato juice…

Best Nachos….it’s a tie.

Neato Burrito (827 West 1st)-Formerly Slick Rock Burrito and attached to the Baby Bar…As a Nacho aficionado I can safely say that Neato Burrito’s Nachos were the best I ate in all of 2008. They are best if you ask to have cilantro mixed in with the cheese before it goes into the oven. I prefer Tim’s Salsa, regular sour cream, a bit of corn salsa and lots of guacamole. Plus Ms. Patty and Tim are the bees knees. Most likely the coolest/kindest people you’ll ever meet.

Rock City Grill (808 West Main)-I think Rock City Grill is a strange place. I really have never been to thrilled with their menu. Or with the weird water designs on the ground. But by God, they have some of the best Nachos. After explaining my passion for Nachos to someone this year they directed me and my husband to Rock City Grill. The nachos here are unlike any other I have seen. Each chip is deep fried (hehehe), drenched in Asiago sauce, Italian sausage, pepperchinis, black olives, chives and Parmesan cheese. They are rich and crunchy and yummy and decadent….

Best Live Show in Spokane

Musee Mecanique-Both times they played at the Caterina Winery (905 N Washington) melted my mind. They are quite possibly the best live band I have ever seen. Flawless. Indie pop, with hundreds of keyboards and lots of harmonies. YOU MUST MAKE A POINT OF SEEING THEM WHEN THEY COME BACK. Just like me, they are touring musicians who aren’t signed to a major label and don’t have a tour bus. The only way they get to come back and blow your mind is if you make a point of coming to the show. Just like half of Spokane makes a point of seeing Mamma Mia at the Convention Center. But seriously, Musee Mecanique (and many of the bands that Patrick Kendrick/Platform Booking brings to Caterina Winery) is a ma-zillion times better than Mamma Mia and…a lot cheaper.

That turned into a bit of a rant. Moving on…

Best Local Record

I came out with a record it’s called We’re Still Here Missing You….and it’s for sale at Empyrean and online at www.cdbaby.com/cd/kayleecole, however, I can’t say that it’s the best because that’s weird and also maybe not true depending on who you ask. I think that James Pants new record Welcome is quite amazing.  If you haven’t checked out James Pants before, you must. He is taking over the world. In a good way. Also, Spokane natives/new Seattle-ites  The Globes, formerly For Years Blue came out with an amazing EP this year. I overslept and missed their Spokane CD release show… Shame!

But seriously.

OTHER DISCLAIMER: Obviously, these are the best things to me. They are just my opinions. I’d like to think that they are true. But really it’s up to you to decide. Go to these great places, support local businesses and local music and arts and then lets talk about it. Or email about it. Or have a Spo-Picnic about it when the Spring comes and melts all the snow away.

Posted in Reviews