A Conscious Stillness: Two Naturalists on Thoreau's Rivers

Customer Reviews:

Two rivers flow into one.......2005-11-28

The Assabet and Sudbury rivers begin on opposite edges of the town of Westborough, Massachusetts, and eventually wind around to meet in Concord to form the river of the same name. That's the short version of the story. On maps and in real life, their paths and histories are much more intricate. In the late 1970s, naturalists Edwin Way Teale and Ann Zwinger decided to follow the course of each river -- piecemeal, and mostly by canoe -- from its source to the confluence. Their experiences and observations culminate in this natural history and travel narrative.

But this is not just the story of two divergent rivers, one industrial and one agricultural. It's also the tale of two naturalists, both of whom grew up in Indiana. Here Teale was at the end of his career -- indeed, he died before this book was finished -- and had made his home in Connecticut. Zwinger was closer to the beginning of her work and spent her time at a homestead called "Constant Friendship" in Colorado. He was an observer, she was a collector. She cheered for the predators; he, for the prey. Yet their devotion to nature and to Thoreau brought them together to make this journey.

The book begins as both authors survey the eastern Bay State landscape from above, in an airplane that cruises over the rivers at 3,000 feet. From that point on, the chapters follow an unusual pattern: Teale describes their encounters on the Sudbury, then Zwinger does the same for the Assabet. In this see-saw fashion, the chapters advance the trips on both rivers from Westborough to Concord. It's a disconcerting style to get used to, and it takes a bit of adjustment and savvy on the reader's part to switch back and forth between the two voices and the two rivers. Zwinger's outline maps help us keep track in that regard. And so they travel, telling us of the townspeople and histories, birds and bridges, plants and insects, turtles and frogs, and the way the water ripples around the canoe. There are some gems here, and we hear about them in spite of meeting recurrent highway noise, dams, mills, wastewater treatment plants, bobbing shotgun shells, and discarded washing machines and baby carriages along the way. Appropriate observations from Thoreau are interspersed throughout. The text is accompanied by Teale's b&w photos and Zwinger's signature plant sketches. We get a full picture of the landscape as a result.

When the two riverine paths meet at Egg Rock in Concord, it's anti-climactic. The chapters break off, and we're left wanting more. Teale and Zwinger had planned to finish the book with a section on the Concord River, but it was not to be. The younger naturalist assembled a book from the notes that they both took -- certainly a daunting task, given the circumstances. Knowing that, the reader can probably forgive the abruptness of the ending.

25 years have passed since Teale and Zwinger traced these rivers. What changes have taken place since then, one wonders? Are portions still polluted? Purple loosestrife is still being battled in some spots, I know. The Concord Free Public Library has undergone an extensive renovation project, and the basement room where the naturalists did their research is no longer as dismal as they found it. Perhaps one day someone else will find a reason to follow the Assabet and the Sudbury again, and we will learn "the rest of the story."

In spite of its difficulties, this book should be (and often is) on the shelves of most nature libraries, especially those featuring river habitats. It can make for interesting reading.

A Conscious Stillness Two Naturalists on Thoreau's Rivers

Average customer rating:

A Conscious Stillness Two Naturalists on Thoreau's Rivers
Ann and Teale, Edwin Way Zwinger
Manufacturer: Harper & Row
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000R37PEY

Average customer rating:

A CONSCIOUS STILLNESS, Two Naturalists on Thoreau's River
Ann Zwinger & Edwin Way Teale
Manufacturer: Harper & Row, 1982
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N5Z7VO

Book Description

This book gives a comprehensive overview of our present molecular biological knowledge about the Rhizobiaceae, which currently can be called the best studied family of soil bacteria. For many centuries they have attracted the attention of scientists because of their capacity to associate with plants and as a consequence also to specifically modify plant development. Some of these associations are beneficial for the plant, as is the case for the Rhizobiaceae subgroups collectively called rhizobia, which are able to fix nitrogen in a symbiosis with the plant hosts. This symbiosis results in the formation of root or stem nodules, as illustrated on the front cover. In contrast, several Rhizobiaceae subgroups can negatively affect plant development and evoke plant diseases. Examples are Agrobacterium tumefaciens and A. rhizogenes which induce the formation of crown galls or hairy roots on the stems of their host plants, respectively (bottom panels on front cover). In addition to the obvious importance of studies on the Rhizobiaceae for agronomy, this research field has resulted in the discovery of many fundamental scientific principles of general interest which are highlighted in this book.

Book Description

No matter what your budget or whether it's your first trip or fifteenth, Fodor's Gold Guides get you where you want to go. In this completely up-to-date guide our experts who live in Maui and Lanai give you the inside track, showing you all the things to see and do -- from must-see sights to off-the-beaten-path adventures, from shopping to outdoor fun. Fodor's Maui & Lanai shows you hundreds of hotel and restaurant choices in all price ranges -- from budget-friendly B&Bs to luxury hotels, from casual eateries to the hottest new restaurants, complete with thorough reviews showing what makes each place special. The Smart Travel Tips A to Z section helps you take care of the nitty gritty with essential local contacts and great advice -- from how to take your mountain bike with you to what to do in an emergency. Plus, web links and mix-and-match itineraries make planning a snap.

"The king of guidebooks." - Newsweek

Customer Reviews:

Good, but skims the surface.......2002-12-18

This is a good place to start if you're thinking about going to Maui, though if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, I highly recommend Maui Revealed by Andrew Doughty, which goes into a lot more candid reviews about restaurants and lodgings. Read this to get the scope of the island and decide whether you want to go (of course you do!) - read Maui Revealed after you've booked the airfare.

Book Description

Immunologists as well investigators in other disciplines may often use protocols involving the isolation, cultures and characterization of different types of leukocytes. Advanced Methods in Cellular Immunology is a collection of techniques in an easy-to-use format. Each chapter provides readers with related program information, a step-by-step description of the methodology, alternative techniques, pertinent references, and information about commercial sources for materials and regents. In addition to leukocytes, the authors guide readers through the processes of cell culture as well as inflammation and autoimmunity in a variety of animal models. Covering topics such as PCR and Apoptosis, this book will serve a guide to commonly used procedures in cellular immunology while utilizing both human and murine models.

Book Description

Driven by the request for increased productivity, flexibility, and competitiveness, modern civilization increasingly has created high-performance discrete event dynamic systems (DEDSs). These systems exhibit concurrent, sequential, competitive activities among their components. They are often complex and large in scale, and necessarily flexible and thus highly capital-intensive. Examples of systems are manufacturing systems, communication networks, traffic and logistic systems, and military command and control systems. Modeling and performance evaluation play a vital role in the design and operation of such high-performance DEDSs and thus have received widespread attention from researchers over the past two decades. One methodology resulting from this effort is based on timed Petri nets and related graphical and mathematical tools.
The popularity that Petri nets have been gaining in modeling of DEDSs is due to their powerful representational ability of concurrency and synchronization; however these properties of DEDSs cannot be expressed easily in traditional formalisms developed for analysis of `classical' systems with sequential behaviors.
This book introduces the theories and applications of timed Petri nets systematically. Moreover, it also presents many practical applications in addition to theoretical developments, together with the latest research results and industrial applications of timed Petri nets.
Timed Petri Nets: Theory and Application is intended for use by researchers and practitioners in the area of Discrete Event Dynamic Systems.

Application and Theory of Petri Nets 1993: 14th International Conference, Chicago, Illinois, USA, June 21-25, 1993. Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

Average customer rating:

Application and Theory of Petri Nets 1993: 14th International Conference, Chicago, Illinois, USA, June 21-25, 1993. Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

Design & Architecture | Hardware | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Mathematics | Science | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This volume contains the proceedings of the 14th International Conference onApplication and Theory of Petri Nets. The aim of the Petri net conferences is to create a forum for discussing progress in the application and theory of Petri nets. Typically, the conferences have 150-200 participants, one third of whom come from industry, while the rest are from universities and research institutes. The volume includes three invited papers, "Modeling and enactment of workflow systems" (C.A. Ellis, G.J. Nutt), "Interleaving functional and performance structural analysis of net models" (M. Silva), and "FSPNs: fluid stochastic Petri nets" (K.S. Trivedi, V.G. Kulkarni), together with 26 full papers (selected from 102 submissions) and 6 project papers.

Customer Reviews:

brilliant.......2002-06-05

this book is my bible and comfort, its a shame it is so often overlooked

The anticipation, ecstacy and agony of love.......1998-12-17

Simply breathtaking - a unique account in magical prose poetry of all consuming love, which you will return to again and again. Almost too painfully visceral at times, snapshots of sheer beauty leap out of the page as you ride the non-stop vertical drop on the rollercoaster of their relationship - not for the faint or hard hearted.

LOVE cuts deep.......1998-09-21

Scathing, deeply poetic rant of obssessive love forced into obssessive hate. Deep and lasting, based on the author's actual experiences.

An ecstatic and agonizing love story!.......1997-05-19

In this incredible piece of prosaic poetry, Smart tells the story of the greatest love affair of her life. This book literally rips you from the passionate highs of ecstatic love to the agonizing lows of a love that has ended. Born into the high society, this is Smart's account of her great love for the poet George Barker, and told as powerfully as any love story that I have ever read

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

Average customer rating:

Well Really!
A metaphor of tragic love
This is an interesting book
O I don't know...
More Than A Feeling

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
Elizabeth Smart
Manufacturer: Flamingo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Morrissey & Marr: The Severed Alliance

ASIN: 0586090398

Book Description

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, Elizabeth Smart's passionate fictional account of her intense love-affair with the poet George Barker, is widely recognised to be a classic.

Customer Reviews:

Well Really!.......2007-07-30

The title should have given away this would be not my sort of novel/poem/poetic prose/prosaic poetry. Being familiar with the old 'By the Rivers of Babylon', and having grown up in an era where people listened to Boney M, hic. The two words that must be included in this review are pretentious and pomp: what a load of pretentious pomp! Who did this woman think she was? Really! No offense intended, but hello! There is a war going on, millions of Jews, gypsies and soldiers are dying, and she comes out with a collection of twit about how her love is so great that it will save all the world's problems...well. Yes, I believe in love, it is a marvellous thing, those who have not experienced it should try it sometime, but I'd like to contrast this with that 80's song by Mr Mr, containing the lyrics: 'The sun will rise without you...the world won't end without you'. Although it may feel like these things have happened on a personal level, most people keep things in perspective and try to avoid becoming delusional, to avoid thinking they or their love is the answer to starvation in the Sahel, or something. My other complaint about this poetic rant, is that as far as I could see, just about 'nothing' happened, there was no plot, nothing to keep my interest, and it was all incredibly vague. Moreover some of her metaphors just killed me, 'there is a cat crawling in my sex', good for you girl, at least it was good for a laugh in the staffroom, that one...
It has two stars and not one, simple since some of the statements about motherhood and children later on in the book were real gems, the single reason why I was pleased with having read this book, and even more pleased to have come to the end of it.

A metaphor of tragic love.......2007-06-14

I decided to read this book after I read a brief online essay about it written by Yann Martel, author of "The Life of Pi." I was intrigued because he described Smart's book as "a language book, a book where language is the plot, the character and the setting. There is something else, of course, the theme, and the theme here is an old eternal one: love....[It contains] layers of allegorical allusions and metaphorical flights, but at the core of this book is the hard diamond of a passionate love affair." I certainly would have to agree with the allegorical allusions and metaphorical flights. I've never read anything quite like it when it comes to the use of metaphor and poetic prose. In fact there was such an abundance of metaphors it was sometimes distracting to read through it all. I found my mind wandering away from the story, taken away on some psychadelic serendipity caused by metaphoric overdose....

Any reader of this story would benefit from having an understanding of where this story came from, as it would be difficult to extract or ascertain from between the lines of the story as Smart writes it. Martel provided the background in his previously mentioned essay, "...one day Elizabeth Smart read some poems in a bookshop and she fell in love...with the poet, who was George Barker....Smart and George Barker eventually met, in California, and they became lovers and her essential bliss and hell began. Because George Barker was married and would have durable relations with more women than just his wife and Elizabeth Smart. The great number of children he fathered--fifteen in all, including four with Smart--might indicate that he took the consequences of love as seriously as its emotional premise."

So, while I'm not generally a huge fan of heavy-duty poetic prose, I did find this book, its style and the tragedy of Smart's lost love rather fascinating. If you like metaphors, allegories and love, this novella is worth your effort.

This is an interesting book.......2006-01-05

Well, I still don't know what to think about this book. I finished it and had no idea what had just happened. It is very psychadelic, yet sometimes so overdramatic that you feel embarassed for the author. It is definitely worth reading for a taste of the syle; also it is a very short book.

Overall, I am glad I read it, but it is no Vita Nuova.

O I don't know... .......2005-01-05

My friend who leant me this book was really knocked out by it, and I could see why - there is something great in its extremeness. The novel is devoted to the author's very single-minded and solipsistic obsession/love (for the poet George Barker). For that extremeness and for scattered lines that knocked me out too, I'm glad I read it and give it a few stars.

But overall I agree with the reviewers who found the book painful and unintentionally funny because it is so out-of-control purple. (How bout spelling "O" the regular way, with an "h," now and then? :) The terrific bits of writing get lost in the really overdone passages - less so in the beginning, before so much of the bad stuff accumulates (e.g., "I am more vulnerable than the princess for whom 7 mattresses could not conceal one pea.")

The book has a very insular feel. It is dense with literary allusions woven casually into the prose. Based on the ones I recognized, like the fragment from Blake, I questioned the value of hunting up the others - I guess I just don't trust that the book would bring the active reader anywhere really rewarding - instead I got the feeling that Smart wasn't interested in her effect on readers, at least not any but George Barker. Which isn't necessarily the worst thing, it's sort of interesting, but this book could have been way more powerful if it had been more effectively crafted, if it had exploited its impact on the reader. Instead it's like reading the diary of someone pretty young, very gifted, but self-indulgent in the way young diary-writers are - the novel sort of doesn't seem meant for public consumption.

More Than A Feeling.......2004-11-04

This book takes literaryness to a whole new level. It surpasses impressionism, even expressionism at it's best. It is a whirlwind of emotions. Rather than a mere book to be read, think of it as an experience to be savoured, a black-hole of emotion in which to hurl yourself - enjoy the ride!

Before I Even Got to Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

Average customer rating:

Before I Even Got to Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
John Warren
Manufacturer: Scorpion Cavendish Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Travel | Writing | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0905906209

Passion in Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept: the sacred and the profane.: An article from: Mosaic (Winnipeg)

Average customer rating:

Passion in Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept: the sacred and the profane.: An article from: Mosaic (Winnipeg)
Birgitta Frojdendahl
Manufacturer: University of Manitoba, Mosaic
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Mosaic (Winnipeg), published by University of Manitoba, Mosaic on June 1, 2004. The length of the article is 7840 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Passion in Elizabeth Smart's By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept: the sacred and the profane.
Author: Birgitta Frojdendahl
Publication: Mosaic (Winnipeg) (Refereed)
Date: June 1, 2004
Publisher: University of Manitoba, Mosaic
Volume: 37 Issue: 2 Page: 145(16)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Average customer rating:

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
Elizabeth Smart
Manufacturer: PL Editions Poetry London
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000SIABBW

Product Description

1st Edition. Hardback in dustjacket. Elizabeth Smart gained limited recognition in 1945 when 2000 copies of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept were published in London by a small press. Because of the book's subject -- an adulterous affair between a young woman and a married man -- the Smart family used political connections to have the book banned from entering Canada. The novel circulated in London and New York, however, and acquired a cult following that led to a paperback reissue in 1966 and to critical acclaim.

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (Inscribed Copy)

Average customer rating:

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (Inscribed Copy)
Elizabeth; foreword by Brigid Brophy Smart
Manufacturer: Polytantric P
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books