Poetry: Emily Dickinson's "I started early, took my dog"

I have been researching Kate Atkinson to write a biography about her. One of her books is titled "Started Early, Took My Dog" after the Emily Dickinson poem. The poem is an interesting poem from a poet who experimented with the existing definitions of poetry and explored what a poet's work really was. Emily Dickinson challenged conventions in many ways and played with expression in order to free it from conventional restraints.

I started Early – Took my Dog

BY EMILY DICKINSON

I started Early – Took my Dog –
And visited the Sea –
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands –
Presuming Me to be a Mouse –
Aground – opon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe –
And past my Apron – and my Belt
And past my Boddice – too –

And made as He would eat me up –
As wholly as a Dew
Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve –
And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –
I felt His Silver Heel
Opon my Ancle – Then My Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town –
No One He seemed to know –
And bowing – with a Mighty look –
At me – The Sea withdrew –

Cat Stevens' If You Want to Sing Out

The first time that I heard this song it was playing in the movie theater as part of the movie "Harold and Maude." I have very fond memories of trooping down to the local theater for the late night showing of this movie after partying with friends from the co-ops. This afternoon I have been hearing "If You Want to Sing Out" playing in my mind as I was researching a biography about Kate Atkinson who is an excellent British author. I may have to share more about her later because there are many things that I have read about her and her views on writing and fiction that I resonate to. I will post the Emily Dickinson poem "I started early, took my dog" later.

But first...

To exorcise the melodic music mind worm...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha3Rm4MSX-g

If You Want to Sing Out

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
'Cause there's a million things to be
You know that there are

And if you want to live high, live high
And if you want to live low, live low
'Cause there's a million ways to go
You know that there are

[Chorus:]
You can do what you want
The opportunity's on
And if you can find a new way
You can do it today
You can make it all true
And you can make it undo
you see ah ah ah
its easy ah ah ah
You only need to know

Well if you want to say yes, say yes
And if you want to say no, say no
'Cause there's a million ways to go
You know that there are

And if you want to be me, be me
And if you want to be you, be you
'Cause there's a million things to do
You know that there are

[Chorus]

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
'Cause there's a million things to be
You know that there are
You know that there are
You know that there are
You know that there are
You know that there are

"Weird"

I have been working on a series of biographies for the last couple weeks and researching various people including a celebrity chef, an author, a teenager who bravely sailed around the world, an internet entrepreneur, a CEO of a big US company, and a pretty boy actor. Of these people I would say that four out of six of them went through some significant hardship, were publicly criticized, and had a path that was a divergence from what would be considered the norm. In other words they were "weird". Maybe they had a learning disability, failed an oral exam and had agoraphobia, were lost and took a chance on a life path, or were the geeky kid in the neighborhood. It could be anything that makes them different from the cookie cutter image of normality that rides like an archetype within modern minds.

I get assignments to do these types of biographies every few months and at this point have researched and written about quite a number of successful and celebrated people. And this idea that they were "weird" or diverged from a "normal" life at some point is quite often a feature of their lives. And their lives continue to be divergent because of their success. They stand out. I don't like the term weird. It has negative connotations and is nothing more than an opinion. To accept the designation of weird is like allowing a thought knife to jab into one's psyche. It serves no purpose but to wound. Better to acknowledge as magnificent the differences and see them for what wonderful and positive qualities that they are. It is a choice what one chooses to accept into themselves.

We have this constant push and pull within the human race of striving to be accepted and validated and conversely to be individuated and unique. We want to be ourselves and yet we want to be pulled into the fold of being designated as normal. Everyone wants to be popular and have their peers respect and admire them. Success can do that. But I would argue after researching so many successful people that those people who are outside of the narrow circle considered "normal" are the ones who truly shine. They are also the folks who are our problem solvers, our innovators, our explorers, and the ones who create the future. They are brave in ways that those who have the comfort of normality do not ever have to be. All the divergent points that are represented by humanity are necessary and valuable to the whole of our species. Don't think of this as a bell curve. Think of it as a bullseye and the scattershot outside of the center is where possibility lies because we never know who outside the center will be the one to bring new thoughts and innovation to the human race or will inspire.

To those who would sneer at another or give that look that so eloquently dismisses a fellow human being, I would smile and remind that without the ones who are courageous enough to be different we would still be carrying clubs and living in caves.

To those magnificent individuals who are unique and honor their uniqueness, I would remind them that the road is hard, they will always be different, and that different can be wonderful.

Dream On and Carry On My Wayward Son

Ok. So I am sick and feel like something that the cat gacked up. It means that I want comfort music which means classic rock and roll from when I was a kid. Be glad that I am not posting Styxx.

Here is Aerosmith's "Dream On": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Qd9VR1gD8&feature=related

Every time I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It goes by, like dusk to dawn
Isn't that the way
Everybody's got their dues in life to pay

Yeah, I know nobody knows
where it comes and where it goes
I know it's everybody's sin
You got to lose to know how to win

Half my life
is in books' written pages
Lived and learned from fools and
from sages
You know it's true
All the things come back to you

Sing with me, sing for the year
Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears
Sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good lord will take you away

Yeah, sing with me, sing for the year
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away

Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream until your dreams come true
Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream until your dream comes through
Dream On Dream On Dream On
Dream On Dream On
Dream On Dream On

Sing with me, sing for the year
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away
Sing with me, sing for the year
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
Sing with me, if it's just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away......

And Kansas' "Carry On My Wayward Son":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB17uWuBrL0

{Refrain
Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher
But I flew too high

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming
I can hear them say

{Refrain

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, well
It surely means that I don't know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune
But I hear the voices say

{Refrain
No!

Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
The center lights around your vanity
But surely heaven waits for you

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry (don't you cry no more)

Patrick Rothfuss says he will help Nathan Fillion buy the rights to Firefly

Seriously. Patrick Rothfuss the author of "The Name of the Wind" has a new book coming out titled "The Wise Man's Fear" that he and his publisher think will sell scads of. He says that he know what to do with the money-- help Nathan Fillion acquire the rights to Firefly. Check it out: http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2011/02/an-open-letter-to-nathan-fillion/

Bad Science and Harmful Beliefs

Today a friend of mine sent me a link to the blog Bad Science that is written by Ben Goldacre for a specific post titled "Matthias Rath-- steal this chapter." Ben Goldacre wrote a book titled "Bad Science: The Doctor WIll Sue You Now" about some of the things that he writes about on his blog such as the pseudo-science of homeopathy and how to evaluate a bad argument. This particular post Goldacre writes about Matthias Rath who is supposedly a former medical researcher from the Linus Pauling Institute. Rath is a very wealthy man and has a large following amongst people interested in alternative healing. He sells vitamins and touts the virtues of a nutritious diet which is all quite good, but he goes so far as to say that vitamin supplements can prevent HIV and cure AIDS. And he has been pedaling his vitamins in South Africa where the AIDS epidemic has been devastating. Please take a look at: http://www.badscience.net/2009/04/matthias-rath-steal-this-chapter/ This chapter in the book could not be published originally when the book was published because Rath was suing Goldacre.

As I read this post I thought about the various beliefs and misconceptions that abound and how they obscure the truth. And hurt people. Things like:

1. Vitamins can cure AIDS and prevent HIV infection. A good diet complete with beetroot, lemon peel, and African potatoes will make a person healthy.

2. Abstinence is the only way to prevent teen pregnancy.

3. AIDS is not real. There is no such thing as HIV. It is a moral judgement because of bad behavior. Or alternately, a curse from God and if one just acts in an upright manner the curse will be removed. Or it is caused by anti-retroviral medications.

4. It is possible to pull oneself up by one's own efforts and anyone who isn't doing so just doesn't want to succeed. Poor people are poor because they are lazy.

5. There is no such thing as global warming and climate change. It is all a matter of a conspiracy for climatologists and scientists to rake in big bucks doing research and getting tax payer dollars in the form of grants.

6. We all create our own reality. Seriously think about this one and take it to its logical conclusions.

I could add more. Can you think of others?

Judge Rules Julian Assange to be Extradited and Hilary Clinton Touts the Virtues of Internet Freedom--Except for Wikileaks

Today District Judge Howard Riddle ruled that extraditing Julian Assange to Sweden to stand trial for rape was not a violation of his human rights.

Two weeks ago during the actual hearing Assange's lawyer Geoffrey Robertson said his client could ultimately be extradited to the US on separate charges relating to Wikileaks - and could face the death penalty in the US. Which would constitute a clear violation of his human rights. In the UK, at first to help the war on terror, extradition laws to extradite terrorists to the United States were made to make it easier to facilitate such a process until news of Abu Graibh and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and the horrors happening in these places became public news. After the Abu Graibh incidents became public knowledge and more was known about the Guantanamo Bay detention camp then a revision of these policies and agreements came through the Council of Europe to ensure there were no human rights violations. A recommendation was made to not extradite suspected "terrorists" to the US. US consul general Vincent Carver has criticized the Council of Europe for this recommendation saying that "it is an organisation with an inferiority complex and, simultaneously, an overambitious agenda."

Assange has asserted in the past that the CIA created the rape allegations after last October 22, 2010 nearly 400,000 secret US army field reports and war logs, detailing torture, summary executions and war crimes, were passed on to the British paper, the Guardian, and several other international media organisations through the full disclosure website WikiLeaks. The logs detail how US authorities did not investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers, whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished. In other words, these actions were routine. The reports and logs also indicate that US troops abused prisoners for years even after the Abu Ghraib scandal and that the CIA kidnapped a German national who they thought was a terrorist, tortured him, released him in Eastern Europe to find his way back home, and then warned German officials not to pursue the CIA agents implicated.

Assange's lawyer was arguing against Assange being extradited to Sweden to prevent Assange from ending up in American hands. I am a little uncertain about this as a logical conclusion but in the UK, the European court of human rights is the final court of appeal for human rights claims and they have made judgments that include the decision to ban deportations to countries which practise torture. The death penalty is also seen as a clear human rights violation. It is still barbarically not forbidden by the United States constitution. Further, as the state documents that Wikileaks came into possession of and made public show-- it doesn't matter if torture and illegal detainment are... well, illegal by US law. Especially if you are considered a terrorist. Then you are not entitled to due process. And US officials have ridiculed the Council of Europe's stance on human rights, stated that they think that their decisions are hampering the war on terrorism, and blamed them for creating anti-US sentiment.

All of this brings up another bit of news circulating from last week that I think has bearing on what might ultimately happen to Julian Assange.

Ms. Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, giving a speech titled "Internet Rights And Wrongs: Choices & Challenges In A Networked World" declared that countries which suppress Internet freedom and impose censorship are doomed to pay the economic and political price for such actions. In the past year, Clinton has criticized the repression of online activists and journalists in Egypt, Tunisia, Azerbaijan, Syria and China, among other countries.

However, she maintains that Wikileaks is absolutely unacceptable and the publishing of the state documents last fall was a criminal act that "began with an act of theft." Never mind the abuses that publishing those documents revealed. She also did not see any issue in regards to such freedom perpetuating ideals such as "freedom of speech" or "freedom of the press." I wonder how Ms. Clinton evaluates the acquisition of the information that lead to the revelation of the Watergate scandal that caused the resignation of President Richard Nixon. In that speech at George Washington University, Ms. Clinton was quoted by Gloria Goodale writing for the Christian Science Monitor as saying, "Without security, liberty is fragile. Without liberty, security is oppressive."

With this last statement I think that Ms. Clinton expressed an important truth.

I am not certain that in a world of torture, grave abuses, and international lawlessness by supposed countries who are working towards maintaining peace that keeping secrets makes for good "security". I think that it erodes any notions of liberty. And yes this leads to oppression.

Julian Assange has a week to appeal his extradition. I don't know if he ends up in Sweden if from there he can be easily extradited to the US. Clearly, Ms. Clinton views him as a criminal at the least. Because the offense involves the publishing of state secret documents he could be labeled a "terrorist".

I wish him the best of luck. I cannot judge the rape accusations. I just don't know. But I think that there is a possibility that he is being persecuted to discredit Wikileaks. I think that Wikileaks, just as any free press, is an important news source to keep the world safer and more free.

The Band: The Weight

The Weight by The Band has been a long standing favorite of mine since I first heard it over twenty years ago. It is the central song on Music From Big Pink and has been covered by almost everyone at some point including The Temptations and Diana Ross and The Supremes and Aretha Franklin. The song was designated #41 on Rolling Stone's List of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Rob Bowman writing for Goldmine magazine quoted Robbie Robertson as saying:
"(Buñuel) did so many films on the impossibility of sainthood. People trying to be good in Viridiana and Nazarin, people trying to do their thing. In ‘The Weight’ it’s the same thing. People like Buñuel would make films that had these religious connotations to them but it wasn’t necessarily a religious meaning. In Buñuel there were these people trying to be good and it’s impossible to be good. In "The Weight" it was this very simple thing. Someone says, "Listen, would you do me this favour? When you get there will you say 'hello' to somebody or will you give somebody this or will you pick up one of these for me? Oh? You’re going to Nazareth, that’s where the Martin guitar factory is. Do me a favour when you’re there." This is what it’s all about. So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it’s like "Holy Shit, what’s this turned into? I’ve only come here to say 'hello' for somebody and I’ve got myself in this incredible predicament." It was very Buñuelish to me at the time."

I have had distinct periods of my life where this kind of folk inspired rock song has felt like theme music.

Here's a You Tube link featuring the song with some footage from Easy Rider: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkmbLoaORU&feature=related


The Weight
by Robbie Robertson

I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead;
I just need some place where I can lay my head.
"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, and "No!", was all he said.

(Chorus:)
Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free;
Take a load off Fanny, And (and) (and) you can put the load right on me.

I picked up my bag, I went lookin' for a place to hide;
When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin' side by side.
I said, "Hey, Carmen, come on, let's go downtown."
She said, "I gotta go, but m'friend can stick around."

(Chorus)

Go down, Miss Moses, there's nothin' you can say
It's just ol' Luke, and Luke's waitin' on the Judgement Day.
"Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?"
He said, "Do me a favor, son, woncha stay an' keep Anna Lee company?"

(Chorus)

Crazy Chester followed me, and he caught me in the fog.
He said, "I will fix your rack, if you'll take Jack, my dog."
I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know I'm a peaceful man."
He said, "That's okay, boy, won't you feed him when you can."

(Chorus)

Catch a cannon ball now, t'take me down the line
My bag is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time.
To get back to Miss Fanny, you know she's the only one.
Who sent me here with her regards for everyone.

Karma

Karma is the belief in cause and effect. If you do good things then good things will come to you. If you treat people well, then you will be treated kindly as well. If you do bad things, bad things will happen to you.

Today I have read a few stories about karma.

The first involved Momar Kaddafi of Libya. He has been a dictator of his country since 1969. Recently in the last week protests have begun in Libya. General Kaddafi had the military fire on the protesters. Not only did the military fire into the crowds with machine guns, it is rumored that bombs were dropped and mortar rounds were used. Kaddafi upped the level of aggression in the conflict to a level where he either has to quell the protesters irrevocably or be quelled. I do not believe there is any negotiating down from the current situation which has become truly terrible and surreal with Kaddafi refusing to step down, giving an hour long speech in which he said that he would rather be a martyr than relinquish power, and in which he called his people rats and denounced the citizens protesting as being on drugs.

Two Libyan fighter pilots refused to bomb the protesters. They sensibly flew to Malta to defect, taking with them the military's jets. I applaud their courageous action of flying away.

Even though the story is not new I just read that China decided in 2007 that Tibetan reincarnated lamas cannot be officially recognized without the sanction of the Chinese government. There are two prominent positions within Tibetan Buddhism where the Buddha, called a tulku, is reincarnated and has quite a bit of political power. One is the Dalai Lama who was recognized in his current incarnation in 1937. The other is the Panchen Lama. The past Panchen Lama died in 1989 and the Dalai Lama held a search within and outside of China to find the eleventh reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. A boy was identified and now he has disappeared as has the prominent abbot who helped to identify him. China has long insisted that it must have the final say over the appointment of the most senior lamas. Tibet experts said that the new regulations may also be aimed at limiting the influence of new lamas. The identification of a reincarnated tulku is a very mystical process, not one of government regulation. I wonder what will arise from this situation. How can you through government regulation identify a soul?

In Wisconsin the governor gave tax cuts to corporations and created a situation in a fragile economy where he could no longer balance his state's budget. He then decided to turn to the middle class and announce that he was reducing public employees' ability to participate in collective bargaining because this is a part of the ideological agenda for the Republican party. This was after concessions had already been given in regards to pensions and health care. Declaring that balancing the budget after this series of actions involves a "shared sacrifice" fools no one. Sharing would mean that the corporations would be asked to contribute a fair share. Not that the middle and lower classes should pick up all the expense so that the super rich can become even wealthier. Shared means shared. And now there are protests in of all places-- Wisconsin. And people must be motivated to turn out because it is cold in Wisconsin.

Tomorrow I will be as kind to others as I can.

"Found" Story Starts and More Writing Prompts

I like to go looking for ideas for stories in a variety of different places. I read a large number of blogs, follow the Huffington Post, read the BBC and Christian Science Monitor news sites, and read a variety of different magazines. Today I stumbled across two “found” story starts that I think might have some promise. Here are the two found story starts:

1. From the preview from an article on New Scientist:

If there is no life on other planets, let's send it there..
.
EARTH'S first interstellar expedition seems to be a disaster. During the long journey most of the passengers die from radiation sickness. When at last the spacecraft arrives, it crash-lands on the surface of a bleak and barren world. The capsule splits open and the alien air finishes off many of the remaining explorers. Over the ensuing days, some of the few survivors succumb to the extreme temperatures, while others die after drinking from pools of acid.

But one stalwart survives. Soon there is even better news: our explorer divides into two clones. Earth life reproduces for the first time under the light of an alien star. Its offspring mutate and begin to adapt to their new home, eventually spreading across the planet and evolving into new forms …

Here is the link to the original article on the New Scientist which is titled “To Boldly Sow: Seeding the Galaxy With Earthly Life” by Stephen Battersby: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927981.800-to-boldly-sow-seeding-the-galaxy-with-earthly-life.html

2. From the BBC Science page:

Monkeys trained to play computer games have helped to show that it is not just humans that feel self-doubt and uncertainty, a study says.

US-based scientists found that macaques will "pass" rather than risk choosing the wrong answer in a brainteaser task.

Awareness of our own thinking was believed to be a uniquely human trait.

The article titled “Monkeys 'Display Self-Doubt' Like Humans” by Victoria Gill can be found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9401000/9401945.stm

3. Lastly, Some More Writing Prompts from Writer's Digest:
You wake up in jail and have no memory of how you got there. As you pace around the cell, you find five items in your pocket from the night before. As you look at each piece, the night slowly comes back to you. Write about your night, why you have these five items and how you ended up in jail.

You've just had one of the most grueling days of your life when you stumble upon a wishing well. While you don't typically believe in such things, you need a pick-me-up. So you toss a penny down the well and make a wish. Lo and behold, it comes true.

The link to Writer's Digest list of writing prompts is: http://www.writersdigest.com/WritingPrompts/?p_nStart=121

Basho's Haikus

I am very tired this evening and homesick for Michigan.

I miss sitting in the pines and watching the grey waters of Lake Michigan swell into white capped waves. In my mind's eye I can see the thunderhead rolling across the lake like a deity, rains scouring the water, winds bending the pale golden beach grass until the tops etch bone white sands.

I remember walking in May from my house to downtown. In May Michigan is lush with new green, flowers bloom, and the air is moist. The grass grows and vines climb. The light filters in diamonds through verdant canopies of broad leaves.

I miss a gentler landscape.

I miss the waves.

Basho's Haiku remind me of my connection to things greater. Here are a few:

In the cicada's cry
No sign can foretell
How soon it must die.

Won't you come and see
loneliness? Just one leaf
from the kiri tree.

The sun's way:
hollyhocks turn toward it
through all the rains of May.

Sparrows in eves
Mice in ceiling -
Celestial music.

Summer in the world;
floating on the waves
of the lake.

Now I see her face,
the old woman, abandoned,
the moon her only companion

“it will be a great day when schools have all the money they need and the pentagon has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”

Yesterday I was driving back from a training in a town about 45 minutes from where I live. I had the radio on and was listening to National Public Radio. The program that I was listening to was focusing on various United States states' budget woes and discussing how a side effect of the Great Recession is that many states are close to bankruptcy. The state governments are making budget cuts. In addition to the conservative governor of Wisconsin trying to break the unions of the public employees of that state by passing legislation to reduce the power of the unions to be able to bargain and slashing public employees' benefits, many states are cutting the funding for public education. Public education is typically the largest expenditure that most states have. The host of the radio program jokingly went on to say that perhaps the schools should run for president and began naming presidential hopefuls for the next election that had already raised a billion dollars.

The school district that I work for had to cut over a million dollars out of its budget last year and is faced with cutting another $300,000 to $400,000. Other districts in this area are faced with another year of having to cut over a million dollars from their budgets.

I was speaking with a friend today and mentioned all of this. He began looking up the cost of the one Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.


That's a picture of one. It is still under development and has yet to be able to work properly. Only 13 test flight status prototypes have been built. The cost for each one is $110 million dollars. Where is the accountability for tax payer dollars? The district that I work for is small and operates on a budget of approximately $13 million. The operating budget last year for the Los Angeles school district which served 694,300 was $7.16 billion. They were forced to cut a billion dollars from their budget. What if instead of working on 13 planes to circle Afghanistan and drop GPS loaded bombs that money had gone to the schools?

I am suddenly reminded of the Vietnam Era slogan “it will be a great day when schools have all the money they need and the pentagon has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”

No Child Left Behind requires that all children are capable of passing standardized tests based on state curriculums. This sounds reasonable until you realize that the only children to be excluded from this requirement are the 2% with extreme and multiple disabilities. Children with high incidence learning disabilities are still required to pass at their grade level. And perhaps that is achievable with enough intervention. But then you have to factor in that the curriculum standards are making it so that children are expected to learn more at younger ages. And now the schools are having their budgets slashed which will require teacher layoffs and increase classroom sizes while potentially limiting the funding for extra adults who can provide extra intervention.

Worldwide the biggest indicator of whether or not a region will remain peaceful, productive, and have a high standard of living is the educational level of its population. Not whether or not the United States can come in and use 13 highly specialized and problematic bombers to bomb the countryside. Clinton failed in creating the New World Order of enforced peace by collective world operations when the peacekeeping mission in Somalia failed after the reporting of casualties proved that the public had no stomach to make the sacrifice of lives necessary and the UN military forces were pulled out. Consider Somalia now. The UN failed in Rwanda when the genocide happened while UN peacekeepers powerlessly watched and US diplomats dickered over the term "genocide". The war in Iraq had nothing to do with the terrorist acts of 9/11 but the United States actions in the region have created a quagmire. An ongoing one. The development of American military weapons and the aerospace industry has brought many technological advancements and in the past helped to stabilize the world with the threat of war. But we live in a different time period where economic power and information have might.

What if instead of buying a M16A2 rifle for $582 which is the standard issue rifle carried by all US soldiers in combat zones we bought an iPad for $500?

The M40A1 is the preferred sniper rifle of the U.S. Marine Corps. What if instead of paying over $2000 for each one of these we bought four computers that we placed in public kiosks and made public distance education available in developing areas? There is a wonderful TED talk by Sugata Mitra that can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk60sYrU2RU He talks about how there are places on the planet where there are no schools and good teachers will not go and how in these places there is unrest and violence. He talks about how education can make a difference. What if we worked for a peaceful world not by exporting violence and military might but changed our agenda to export the means for people to raise themselves up via education? Could we create world peace and less need for a military?

What if the military had to think in terms of accountability and efficiency in the same terms that the schools do? What if the Pentagon had to hold a bake sale to raise money for an F-35?

The Best Types of Villains

I think villains come in a variety of types and the best types of villains are those who do more than tie pretty Pauline to the railroad tracks and then stand back while twirling their waxed mustaches.


There is the type of villain who is inexplicably evil and does horrible things because he/she is an insane monster. These are the serial killer type of villains. Kevin Spacey played a brilliant serial killer in Seven named John Doe that would be a good illustration of this type of villain. Serial killers get a selfish pleasure from stalking, hurting, and finally killing their victims.

There is the type of villain who manipulates the situation and may believe that what they are doing is the right thing all the while that they victimize others. Con-artists, heart breakers, and abusers are of this type of villain. The people who send out phishing schemes and bilk the elderly of their retirement money might illustrate this type of villain. Another example would be the emotionally abusive boyfriend who always manages to selfishly twist the interpretation of events to benefit himself, doesn't have the emotional maturity to be able to handle the pressures of relating to a woman in an adult manner, and inflicts harm upon someone who tries to love him. Businessmen who justify making decisions because they feel an obligation to their stockholders even though they know the decision will harm others would fit into this category. Watch the Yes Men Take Over the World if you do not think that such business men exist.



Some villains are only villains because they are on the wrong side of history. Attila the Hun is one such villain that springs to mind. In reality while Attila the Hun invaded across Asia and into Europe, he was a very skilled leader. I am sure that the Celts would have written a different version of Julius Caesar than what we all believe.



Two truly frightening types of villains are those that are in some ways opposites. The villain who is like a child and is out of control, cannot see the value of the lives of others, and violently reacts is very horrifying to watch. Lil' Ze from the City of God would illustrate this type of villain. The opposite of this type of villain is the sociopathic bad guy who knows full well what he is doing, uses the emotions and motivations of others, and very intentionally spreads his doctrine in such a way as to inflame things and cause others to do violence for his benefit or according to his plan. Adolf Hitler and Jim Jones spring to mind as examples of this type of villain.

A more complex villain is much more interesting. If the character has ambiguities and is someone that is multi-faceted then the reader can sympathize with him or her and this makes the story have much more impact. A villain is not necessary to a good story, only a conflict is necessary. However some of the best characters are the villains and they are the ones driving home the themes. Rutger Hauer's Roy Batty in Blade Runner utterly upstaged Harrison Ford's character and brought home the point that he just wanted to live and be free as any other man.


Heath Ledger's Joker caused organized chaos in the Batman's world, but the chaos showed the motivations of people and the meaning behind accepted thoughts. He did what he did intentionally and made a mockery of anyone who would think to sympathize with him because of the disadvantages of his past.


Villains can be those characters that cause us to look inside ourselves and examine our own shadows. Would we act more virtuous in the same situation? What choices might we make? They help us to define ourselves as human, who is within our culture group versus who is other, and what constitutes the bounds of humane. The darkness of villains illuminates what is most bright about humanity and how evil we can be.

What Makes a Book Meaningful?

Recently I posted a list of the 100 Most Meaningful Books. It can be found at: http://thestarsarenotmadeoffire.blogspot.com/2011/02/100-most-meaningful-books-of-all-time.html
The list was derived from a survey given to several primarily literary authors. While I think the list is an impressive list and anyone who has read all of the titles or chooses to take on the endeavor of reading all of those books would be doing something quite commendable, I would argue that that list is rather elitist. Further, I would say that meaning is something individual and to be determined individually.

I think many more books could be added to that list because of their contribution to cultural movements or political thought. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad is on the list that I posted about earlier this week. Nostromo is incredibly dense reading. I personally would not have put it on that list. I would have chosen Heart of Darkness instead. Conrad was a riverboat captain in the Congo and he based the novella on his experiences. Shortly after it was published another expose that had been clandestinely investigated was published revealing King Leopold's brutal exploitation of the Congo. Heart of Darkness helped to change public perception of the Belgians on the world stage. As I mentioned in my previous post, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin could also be added to that list of most meaningful books if one is looking at contribution to political thought. Uncle Tom's Cabin added to the Abolitionist's movement in the United States.

In my opinion, a book cannot be truly meaningful unless it has been read by someone who has found it meaningful. Further, I don't think this necessarily has anything to do with literary merit because some books come along at just the right time and speak to a person's soul. I have known many people who have listed Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye as their favorite book because something about Holden Caufield's story they could relate to. When I was in high school Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land that described a human brought back to earth from Mars who only wished to understand and help humanity and felt alienated resonated with me. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan for one of my literature classes, I read E.M. Forster's A Passage to India and was transformed by the book. In my late twenties, Margaret Laurence's novel The Diviners spoke to me. In my thirties, John Berendt's non-fiction story Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil made me rethink my connections to my past and to dead relatives, made me rethink my place in my community, and reoriented my perspective on the possibilities of things greater than myself. When life had worn me down to a stub, left me lonely and humourless, I had the good fortune of picking up one of Jim Butcher's Dresden File books. I raced through the entire series. It was like freedom to read just for the fun of it and to follow the adventures of Harry Dresden, Wizard and Private Investigator, who took a regular beating, fought a poo flinging purple Monkey-Tron, and just kept fighting the good fight. The Dresden Files got me through a dark time.

While I think that a list composed from a survey of literary authors can create a great syllabus for an independent study of world literature, I also think that which books are meaningful is really up to individual readers and their reasons for why those books would be on their lists will be as varied as the books themselves.

Borders Bankruptcy, the Demise of Arborland Borders, and the Rise of E-Books

I worked for Borders Bookstore in Ann Arbor for two separate stints. The first time I was employed by Borders I worked in the downtown store in Ann Arbor in the heart of the University of Michigan. When I worked there it was not the original location where the Borders brothers had first opened, but rather a remodeled Jacobson's store that provided a larger space.

I have very fond memories of the original store with its center area and gallery that ran around the outer walls. I can remember sitting on the steps of the store on State Street and reading Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. I would sit there for hours and the staff there knew me and knew to leave me alone because the books themselves would seduce me. I spent far more money than a college student who worked three jobs to get her Bachelors degree in English Language and Literature should ever have spent on books. The original Borders was a magical place for a girl who loved books and came from a rural area where it was forty five minute drive to even get to a mall with a small Walden Books and there was no such thing as ordering books online.

The first time that I worked for Borders before being hired we had to take a test of our knowledge of books. I passed the test and Joe Gable who was the manager at the time hired me to do special orders. Working with special orders I got to see the best of books and ones I would never have looked at on my own. The best I can remember from that time period were books like "Manifold Destiny" which was a cookbook that gave step by step directions, recipes, and mileage for cooking tasty dishes utilizing the heat from a car engine. Another book was a book of poetry called "Gorillas of Grace". Such a lovely book. The first time I worked at Borders was an exciting time in the history of the company. They had gone corporate and the Borders brothers worked within the corporation. The company was expanding and opening stores all across the country. Friends from the downtown store were scattered across the United States as they took store management positions. Joe Gable fought to keep the stores feeling like the original Borders on State Street where patrons could browse for hours undistrubed by pesky booksellers and where booksellers were appreciated for their knowledge of books and their ability to make good recommendations. There was a love of books that permeated the store.

Several years ago I applied for a holiday position at the Arborland Borders store. I think it might have been November 2005. I worked that mad and rather crazy holiday season in the Seattle's Best Coffee cafe within the Borders at Arborland. The lines for people purchasing books ran to the back of the store and it was very busy. But I noticed a few things. The staff at Arborland were very knowledgable about books and did an amazing job recommending books and helping customers to get what they needed, but now there was a kind of script that was to be said at the cash register. In part the recognition of the people coming into Borders were no longer that they were people but rather they were customers to optimize sales from. The Borders Rewards card was continuously "suggested". Perhaps to show the financial district that Borders was still viable? I don't know. In my opinion, the memos coming from the corporate office had a feel about them that did not mesh with the original Borders that I remembered.

I continued to work for the next few years for Borders as a part time employee. This included watching in amazement as the corporate office decided to empty the shelves one November to make the company more liquid. This was right before the holiday season and we were told to place the books on the shelves facing out so that it looked like the shelves were still full. No one was fooled by this. There just wasn't the selection available that customers wanted. Sales were dramatically down that holiday season and the Borders' company stock dipped under a dollar and stayed there.

One semester I was taking three classes and working as a math and writing tutor so I decided to take a leave from Borders. When I came back in June of 2009 I was horrified to learn that the number of booksellers had been cut dramatically, good book people who had been assistant managers had been fired, and there was a new training and sales initiative. The new training I was given was to greet anyone who came in the door or any customer within fifteen feet and to recommend two corporate chosen books that were the books for that two week period. I was told that we had no choice as booksellers about this we had to push those specially chosen titles. This kind of forced handselling I found reprehensible on many levels and I quit because of it. Maybe it made good corporate sense, but it bothered me.

I miss Borders. I miss the people that I worked with. I miss the people who were regulars. The sales of e-books are on the rise, more people own dedicated e-readers, and I don't think the trend towards more electronically published titles and greater sales of such books is going to go by the wayside. Bookstores however are important. The Borders brothers so many decades ago knew what they were doing. Bookstores are community places. Places where booklovers can sit and absorb the written word, feel a new book in their hands, look over the chapters. Bookstores are places where people can feel at home. A local bookstore should foster that sense of community and be part of the neighborhood. The events should be things that bring people together and help them feel some ownership towards the store. A bookstore should never just be a commercial enterprise, that is a sure-fire way to not sell books in an age where they are cheaper online and can be downloaded in seconds.

I will miss the Borders at Arborland that is scheduled to be closed in the bankruptcy and cost cutting plan. What I will miss is not the books but the people that made Borders a great place to come in to work to.

Let's Shoot Cupid! No More Valentine's Day

Another Valentine's Day has come and gone. Thank what ever supernatural, higher powers or incidental childish gods that be. I try to just be nice to other people. Pleasant to people. Send out cards. Say hi. Smile. And avoid the really bad chocolate because I adore chocolate. The good stuff. It is one of my food groups. Right there with coffee. But Valentine's Day chocolate is ugmo. And the little candy hearts aren't any better unless they are a year old and very stale. Somehow that improves the taste.

Also, nobody wins on Valentine's Day. Not really. It is a holiday laden with expectations that nobody needs the pressures of.

This is the holiday that puts the pressure on people who are single. Doesn't matter what the reason is. You could have a million reasons why you are single, choose to be single, and have no intention to do otherwise, but when Valentine's day comes along you are supposed to be paired off like lobotomized rabbits heading off two by two.

And for people in couples, there's pressure also. You could be in a loving relationship that is immensely satisfying but this isn't enough when Valentine's Day comes along. Both partners have to show how much they love one another with gifts, chocolate, flowers, etc. Isn't it more important that everyday there is tenderness and love rather than having only one day of the year where you have to be demonstrative?

And for kids, Valentine's Day is just a way for all sorts of trivial dramas to be acted out by way of giving or not giving Valentine's Day cards. Mostly kids just get too much sugar.

I say shoot Cupid.

Early Morning Walk near Woody Creek on February 13, 2011

The other morning I was driving my car over the bridge near my house and I looked towards the river. The sun hitting the water in the early morning caused steam to rise from the river. It looked beautiful. Mysterious. There are moments where all the chatter in my soul is stilled by just looking around at my surroundings. I am constantly mesmerized by the interplay of water and light. Snow, ice, steam, waves. All one substance depending on temperature. And there is nothing more playful in all of existence than light. It transforms. It is particle and wave. It illuminates, colors, casts shadows.



I went for a walk this morning to see the ice, snow, waves and steam of the river. This is a temporal thing. These pictures are only from this particularly frosty morning at a particular hour. They could not have happened in exactly the same way on another day. That reminder of being in the moment and overcome by the ecstasy of it centers me.

100 Most Meaningful Books of All Time

Tonight on a whim I googled "most meaningful book" and this list of the 100 most meaningful books of all time came up.

According to the Christchurch City Libraries website a "2002 survey of around 100 well-known authors from 54 countries voted for the most meaningful book of all time in a poll organised by editors at the Norwegian Book Clubs in Oslo. Voters included Doris Lessing, Salman Rushdie, Carlos Fuentes and Norman Mailer. Miguel de Cervantes' tale gained 50% more votes than any other book, eclipsing works by Shakespeare, Homer and Tolstoy." The link for the original post can be found at: http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/Literature/Best/2002/100Meaningful/

The books beyond Don Quixote, which was voted most meaningful, are arranged alphabetically by author as opposed to in order of meaning. Here is the list:

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe
Fairy tales and stories by Hans Christian Andersen
Pride and prejudice by Jane Austen
Old Goriot by Honore de Balzac
Trilogy: Molloy, Malone dies, The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett
Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
Collected fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Outsider (The Stranger) by Albert Camus
Poems by Paul Celan
Journey to the end of the night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
Great expectations by Charles Dickens
Jacques the fatalist and his master by Denis Diderot
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Doblin
Crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Invisible man by Ralph Ellison
Medea by Euripides
Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner
The Sound and the fury by William Faulkner
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
A Sentimental education by Gustave Flaubert
Gypsy Ballads by Federico Garcia Lorca
One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the time of cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Dead souls by Nikolai Gogol
The Tin Drum by Günter Grass
The Devil to pay in the backlands by Joao Guimaraes Rosa
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
The Old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Iliad by Homer
The Odyssey by Homer
A Doll's house by Henrik Ibsen
The Book of Job by Anon
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka
The Trial by Franz Kafka
The Castle by Franz Kafka
The Recognition of Sakuntala by Kalidasa
The Sound of the mountain by Yasunari Kawabata
Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
Sons and lovers by D H Lawrence
Independent people by Halldor K Laxness
Complete poems by Giacomo Leopardi
The Golden notebook by Doris Lessing
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
Diary of a madman and other stories by Lu Xun
Mahabharata by Anon
Children of Gebelawi by Naguib Mahfouz
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Essays by Michel de Montaigne
History by Elsa Morante
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
The Man without qualities by Robert Musil
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Njal's saga
1984 by George Orwell
Metamorphoses by Ovid
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
The Complete tales by Edgar Allan Poe
Remembrance of things past by Marcel Proust
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo
The Mathnawi Jalalu'l-Din Rumi
Midnight's children by Salman Rushdie
The Bostan of Saadi (The Orchard) by Sheikh Saadi of Shiraz
A Season of migration to the north by Tayeb Salih
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
King Lear by William Shakespeare
Othello by William Shakespeare
Oedipus the King by Sophocles
The Red and the black by Stendhal
The Life and opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo
Gulliver's travels by Jonathan Swift
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Death of Ivan Ilyich and other stories by Leo Tolstoy
Selected Stories by Anton Chekhov
Thousand and One Nights
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Ramayana Valmiki
The Aeneid by Virgil
Leaves of grass by Walt Whitman
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
To the lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar

I am not certain what to make of this list. After perusing it I do think that if one were to read all of these books the reader would have a very good survey of world literature and would have read a vast range of really amazing books. While I am not so certain about the inclusion of Pippi Longstocking, I do have to say that I have read articles stating that Steig Larson based his Lisbeth Salandar from the millenium trilogy on a grown up version of Pippi Longstocking. I might also add a few books to the list. Books like Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin because it made such a contribution to the Abolitionists' movement in the US and Henry David Thoreau's Walden for adding to the Transcendentalists' movement. Let me think on this list and see if there are others that I might add. To anyone reading this post, can you think of others? The Bible? The Volsung Sagas? Metamorphosis?

Poet Gary Snyder's "No Matter, Never Mind"

Gary Snyder has been amongst my favorite poets for a very long time. I have had the honour of hearing him read his poetry twice. Both times were in Ann Arbor. He is considered one of the Beat poets and his poetry has Buddhist influences. Here is "No Matter, Never Mind."


No Matter, Never Mind

The Father is the Void
The Wife Waves

Their child is Matter.

Matter makes it with his mother
And their child is Life,
a daughter.

The Daughter is the Great Mother
Who, with her father/brother Matter
as her lover,

Gives birth to the Mind.

by Gary Snyder
from his Pulitzer Prize winning collection titled "Turtle Island"

Chocolate Celebration!

First a little music to get us in the mood for a chocolate celebration, here's the You Tube link to Chocolate by Soul Control: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbaRFShF_D0&feature=related I tried to find a You Tube video of the Chenille Sisters singing their song "Chocolate" but had no such luck. However at the end of this post are the lyrics to the song.

I love chocolate, not as much as coffee. Or waves. But then well coffee is coffee and waves are just fascinating. I do have to say though that chocolate seriously ranks up there in the list of my favorite things. And oh the things that can be done with it! Chocolate mousse! Chocolate chip cookies! Chocolate candy! Chocolate and coffee is practically an orgasmic experience-- by this I mean several squirts of dark bitter sweet chocolate sauce mixed with 4 shots of well prepared espresso. Oh baby! And then there is chocolate ganache and chocolate truffles. Dark chocolate and milk chocolate. Oh lately I have been enjoying milk chocolate with almonds and sea salt. And chocolate with cherries and chili peppers. Yum! Life is too short to not have chocolate. It is one of the food groups.

Tonight I went to the Chocolate Classic at the Hotel Jerome in Aspen, Colorado. Here's a replica of the Hotel Jerome made out of chocolate cake.


The Chocolate Classic is a fundraiser for Response which is a non-profit organization that helps the victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Several restaurants sent their pastries chefs to compete for the title of the best chocolate recipe.


Also individuals and children were offered the chance to compete. There was a silent auction to raise money with all proceeds going to Response.



A band played in the lobby.


And the place was filled with people enjoying chocolate!


CHOCOLATE
The Chenille Sisters/Mary Stribling

Chocolate is great. Chocolate is grand.
Melts in your mouth. Melts in your hand.
Chocolate is love. Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm.

Chocolate is hip. Chocolate is now.
Beans from Brazil, milk from the cow.
Chocolate is love. Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm.

Please don't mention
The chemical connection
Chocolate makes in my head.
It's Swiss Miss I'm drinkin'
Eatin' Hershey bars and thinkin'
If I can't be in love, I'll have a truffle instead.

Cocoa is warm. Fudgsicles chill.
Whatever the form, it's always a thrill.
Chocolate is love. Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen,
Chocolate is a big part of our lives
And we would like to share with you now
Our testimonials in hopes that each
And every one of you will accept
Chocolate into your lives.

At night, I dream of hot fudge on ice cream.
Snickers are fine, Milk Duds divine.
Häagen-Dazs Chocolate Chocolate Chip is a trip.
I couldn't survive-a without my Godiva.
I eat a Chunky when I feel funky.
A tollhouse cookie is better than nookie.
N-E-S-T-L-E-S, Nestlés makes the very best.
Chocolate is love. Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm.

[Recorded by The Chenille Sisters on "Mama, I Wanna Make Rhythm," Red House, 1999.]

Words Are Slippery Things

This morning on the BBC website I read a headline that refered to the United States calling the protests in Egypt a 30 year unrest. This has stuck with me all day because it strikes me as a decided slippery use of terms and a recasting of the United States' involvement with Egypt. The United States until about a week ago supported Mubarek and there was no designation of his regime as being an "unrest". He was a soft dictator who offered some degree of relative peace in a volatile region despite that he was becoming more and more autocratic over the last twenty five years.

I ate an energy bar a little while go. They have a certain amount of nutrition but just supply calories. So calories=energy and hence the name. Bit slippery but not too bad.

What about the word "love"? To my mind it means that I admire someone, care deeply for them, have affection towards them, and want good things for them. Their interests are of concern to me. The word to me is a gift to express how I feel for someone and is a pact that I will do what I can for them. I don't ever say it lightly and I am aware that it only means I have those feelings. It does not imply reciprocity. However, I seem to be one of the few people who have a definition of the word. When I have asked people what the word means to them, I have received blank looks. Sometimes they answer by saying, "love is love". Sometimes it means a huge number of things. What do you think the people who will be giving Valentine's cards next week mean by love? They are infatuated? Want sex? Have deep and constant feelings of affection? All of the above? None of the above?

What about the word "villain"? What is a villain? Someone who does bad things? Who defines "bad things"? What kinds of bad things? Does context make a difference? If a person is a dictator are they always a villain? Is a socialist a villain according to the rhetoric bandied around in the United States by members of the Tea Party?

What about the word "special"? Sometimes special means unique. Other times it is an exclusionary insult.

The use of words frames how things are interpreted and the wielding of words does not have to fall only to those who would manipulatively use them. Questioning meaning and the connotation and being clear in regards to meanings can create greater understanding.

Snow Day

Today there was a snow day for Aspen Public Schools. This is a rare event in Aspen! Aspen is known for cold and snow and skiing. Aspenites are the hardy among the hardiest when it comes to snow. I had a classmate explain to me the other night what it feels like to have snow fall on your face while skiing downhill. It sounded remarkably cold and unpleasant.

So for me, today was an utter gift from the universe. Every once in awhile it is just an amazing pleasure to have a day free with nothing to do but whatever one likes.

I remember when I was a child, I grew up in a small town on Lake Michigan. The raw cold coming off the lake was beautiful in its terribleness. The water would lap at the shore and create sculptures of layers of ice. I remember sitting in the house on snow days and they would be like some magical event. The cold outside was like a predator circling the house. The snowflakes would come down in a tumbling fragile beauty. The mounds of snow simplified the landscape. Dark trees, grey houses, white snow. Such a hush on the morning of a snow day. No buses. No cars. The window pane would be painted with frost on the outside, fogged on the inside. I would sit and just observe. Warm. Quiet. No rush to be anywhere. To remember books or homework.

I am thankful for snow days when I can be in the cozy house, tucked under blankets, drinking lapsang souchong, and reading my book.

Writing Prompts

I have been reading writing prompts this evening. Here are a few of the ones that I have come across. I think these are good for getting the creative juices flowing.

1. Write a made-up magic spell, including ingredients, chants, and actions. Now, turn it into a poem.

2. You wake up in a darkened circus tent, wearing a bright blue and yellow clown costume and a fluffy red wig. There is a dwarf standing over you with bucket of water. "You okay?" he asks. Write this scene.

3. Only two weeks into the New Year had passed and Sean had already broken his first resolution: Don't kill anyone. Write this scene.

4. You wake up chained to the wall of a medieval torture room. The torture devices are laid out on a table in front of you. Write this scene.

5. Write a letter to yourself that you will open in six months. Include your current accomplishments and concerns, and remind yourself of one thing from today that you want to make sure "future you" does not forget.

More of these writing prompts can be found at Writer's Digest Writing Prompts at: http://www.writersdigest.com/WritingPrompts/?p_nStart=1

Two Online Book Clubs for Readers of Speculative Ficiton

Do you like to read science fiction and fantasy and want to have opportunity to discuss the great stuff that you are reading? Well let me hook you up!

This morning I was joyous to find two online book clubs for readers of speculative fiction. The first one is reading science fiction by women authors. It can be found at: http://dreamsandspeculation.com/2010/09/02/2011-book-club/

The book for February is:


The second one is reading fantasy novels by female writers and can be found at: http://jawasreadtoo.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/2011-book-club-the-women-of-fantasy/

The book for the fantasy book club is:


Have fun reading!

Story Start: It Was On A Bright, Starry Night

Writer's Digest magazine puts story starts in their magazine that can be used to generate stories and then the stories can be sent in the body of an email to: yourstorycontest@fwmedia.com. The story start for this month is:

"It was on a bright, starry night that the traveling circus rolled into town."

Stories need to be in prior to February 10, 2011. The editors of Writer's Digest then go through all the entries and put the best ones on their forum to be voted on by registered members of the Writer's Digest forums.

So. What might be the significance of the bright, starry night? Or the traveling circus? What character might be inspired to action by these things?

Environmental Artist: Andy Goldsworthy

I was first introduced to the environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy when I took a design class. We watched the documentary directed by Thomas Reidelsheimer titled "Rivers and Tides." Since then I have watched this film many more times. Andy Goldsworthy has been quoted as saying: "I find some of my new works disturbing, just as I find nature as a whole disturbing. The landscape is often perceived as pastoral, pretty, beautiful – something to be enjoyed as a backdrop to your weekend before going back to the nitty-gritty of urban life. But anybody who works the land knows it's not like that. Nature can be harsh – difficult and brutal, as well as beautiful. You couldn't walk five minutes from here without coming across something that is dead or decaying." He is nothing short of a modern day druid in my estimation.

Goldsworthy who from the age of 13 worked as a labourer on farms in his native Britain has stated that the repetitive nature of farm work is similar to constructing sculpture. The sensibilities of working close to nature are seen in Goldsworthy's work. He uses all natural materials which often include brightly-coloured flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow, stone, twigs, and thorns. Further, he often sculpts with only his bare hands and teeth to shape his materials and position them where he wants them to effect the whole. He has been quoted as saying, "I think it's incredibly brave to be working with flowers and leaves and petals. But I have to: I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole." Many of his sculptures are location specific. And they have a temporal element. In "Rivers and Tides" he builds a korm that is made from slate found near the ocean. As he is building the korm, the tide comes in. The rising water changes the aspect and gives the sculpture added poignancy.



Because Goldsworthy's art is often ephemeral and transient, photography plays a critical part. For example, the melting of a sculpture of ice becomes as important as the form at its peak of completion or a wall of sculpted mud that dries unevenly displays beauty in its transitions and all of the transformations are captured in photographs.



According to Goldsworthy, "Each work grows, stays, decays – integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its heights, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expressed in the image. Process and decay are implicit." Goldsworthy's art is not a static form, it highlights the transitory nature of creation. It shows change as a natural and beautiful process.

More information about Andy Goldsworthy can be found at: http://www.rwc.uc.edu/artcomm/web/w2005_2006/maria_Goldsworthy/TEST/index.html

What A Wonderful World

Today, despite still feeling a wee bit under the weather due to the lingering effects of an ear infection and a round of antibiotics, I was overwhelmed by how wondrous the world is. Sometimes when I stop and consider, I realize that life is very much an adventure and there are so many interesting and exciting things. So many things to learn, see, experience. It's a choice to embrace all that is available and to stay open to what our world has to offer. This is a small sample from today:

I read about how if children are talked to more, and through this simple act have their vocabularies enriched, it helps them to achieve better academically.

I went to a lecture where it was discussed how string theory can help to explain tricky problems involving condensed matter physics. The lecture was specifically about viscosity and how viscosity does not vary despite pressure and it appears to have a set minimum.

I picked up yummy bagels off a park bench because the bakery puts them out at the end of the day for anyone who wants to take them for free. This was a big help because this month my paycheck is not stretching as far as it should.

I talked with a friend of mine who lives halfway around the world through the miracle of the internet. A hundred years ago it would have taken weeks of traveling by ship to hear his voice or to send a letter.

I was able to pull up any music that I wanted to listen to this afternoon while I worked in my office. I listened to rock, reggae, Celtic folk, Afrobeat, and classical music.

I found and reread an archeology article about the murders of five children and an older woman that occurred 3000 years ago. The murders are a topic of speculation and the evidence is still being examined. As technology improves new clues are deciphered.

I listened to Noam Chomsky on the radio discuss the ramifications of the protests in Cairo.

I read an article disputing the methodology used in analyzing the DNA of mummies in Egypt and comparing it to the DNA analysis that has been done on other long dead individuals.

I spoke to a co-worker about recreating a traditional Italian dish that I had read about in a fantasy novel set in Renaissance Italy, but I made the recipe vegetarian.

I watched the beginning of the fifth season of Dr. Who and saw the eleventh doctor this evening. I am undecided about what I think about Matt Smith. I very much liked David Tennant's portrayal of the Doctor.

I heard the snow. When it is very cold, it sounds like you are walking on styrofoam because it squeaks under your shoes. A writer that I know on an online writers' forum described it like this and she is absolutely correct.

It's late at the moment. The air is very cold. I need to sleep so that tomorrow I can be ready for another day.

Poetry: Elizabeth Bishop's I Am in Need of Music

I am going to say little about Elizabeth Bishop. Her body of poetry is not as vast as some other poets, but her work is some of the most significant poetry of the last fifty years. Read this one to yourself out loud and feel the rhythms.

I Am in Need of Music
by Elizabeth Bishop

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.