Back in a few days!

I am working on a freelance project and have a deadline to met. I'll be back in a day or so. I have ideas about the interplay between plot and character development.

Vision of Ourselves

We make choices at every moment. Some conscious, some unconscious. Some informed and others less so. Art is the choice of a conscious aesthetic. It can be a painting that captures a particular moment and place. Music that evokes a feeling or makes our hips move. It can be the black wool sweater that we choose instead of the blue one or the heavy handled coffee cup instead of the porcelain tea cup. Our lives are the masterpieces we create. Why would we not want beauty and grace? Imagine a world without the glorious architecture of a cathedral, devoid of Swan Lake, or missing Mozart. Take away the works of Van Gogh, Rothko, Shakespeare, Charlie Chaplain, or any of a thousand other artists, writers, actors, and musicians. Could you live with no music? No poetry? No stories? How can we divorce ourselves from the creative? From art? The false notion of a "cultural elite" versus everyone else creates a manufactured disparity.

This article in Salon titled "No Sympathy for the Creative Classes" saddened me greatly.

In addition to the Murphy Brown Wars that brought the idea of a cultural elite and began the push to widen the disparity between the right and the left in the US, this notion that everything has to fit a business model is all pervasive. And perverse. Why does a government have to be run as a business? Why is this the underlying assumption? While this notion is directing fiscal choices, it is evident from the following:
1. the mounting national debt,
2. the growing divide between the "haves" and "have nots,"
3. the shrinking middle class,
4. lack of opportunity for younger people coupled with the crippling cost of education,
5. and the lack of fulfillment on the promise that if we give allowances, subsidies, and tax credits to "business" it will benefit everyone,

that running the country as a business is NOT working the way things are defined. Where are our ethics? Regulation is a good thing. Regulation protects people and makes business operate fairly. It won't kill business as is always trotted out as a false belief system. The working poor are vilified for their lack of wealth and it is often declared that they too could succeed if they work hard. Such a hard edged myth. Perhaps, conservatives are afraid of creativity and working hard and this is why they don't want a level playing field with regulations that would require creative solutions. Why as a people should we continue to hand the corporate giants and their almost godlike CEO's the power to rape the world of resources and concentrate wealth into the hands of a few? Why should our people only be measured by their wealth, what they consume, or the manhours they work? Why should we make the assumption that an orchestra is producing a "product" and if the product isn't wildly supported it should be asset stripped?

The religion of now is economics. Ayn Rand was the prophet and the Chicago School of Economics has reduced everyone. When will we retrieve our humanity? Government is by the people and for the people. Government should take care of people. How will we define ourselves?

Artists, writers, dancers, musicians, actors-- all the people engaged in the creative fields, work. We work hard. We are passionate about what we do. We lift the minds of others above the anthill drama of the day to day. We make it possible for others to have choices, to experience, to feel, and to dream. We broaden the scope of and enrich individual lives.

What choice as a society should we make? To support the creative endeavors and choose to reinforce that which opens minds and hearts and takes us beyond merely being workers?

Or... should we limit the vision of how we see ourselves.

The Ode Less Traveled

Next week I will post more six sentence stories!

Today I would like to recommend a fabulous book about poetry titled The Ode Less Traveled by Stephen Fry. Stephen Fry writes in the book:

"I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry.... I believe poetry is a primal impulse within all of us. I believe we are all capable of it and furthermore that a small often ignored corner of us positively yearns to try it."

In The Ode Less Traveled, Fry offers exercises so that the reader can learn about, explore, and write poetry. It is both a kind of workbook that he expects you to deface as well as a textbook to learn about poetry. He wrote the book and kind of operates on the assumption that most people don't like poetry because it is mysterious and intimidating. He leads the reader through lessons that help them to not just write poetry but to read poetry with a new perspective.

I highly recommend this book. I write poetry to improve my fiction. I want my words to pull multiple duties and have muscle. Writing poetry helps, I believe, to strengthen prose. I am going to work my way through The Ode Less Traveled in the next few months. I will post about the book and what I discover as I work my through it.

The first lesson in the book is about iambic pentameter. The heroic line. It is about listening to the lines, savoring them, and finding where the stresses are that give the words rhythm.

Go forth and listen aptly for the beats in language!

Sunday Writing Discussions: Scavengers, Collectors, and Recyclers

I do not think that I am unique as an aspiring writer and artist. I collect ideas, images, information, snippets of other people's private conversations, and so much more. Writing in some ways is like creating a collage of experiences and ideas. When I was creating more art, I used to photo-copy images or cut images out of magazines and books. Stashing them away in organized files to make collages, I collected the images because they were striking in some way. I saved them until I had a piece of art in mind, then I would retrieve that glossy found visual element and integrate into a whole design. I do this with writing as well.

Sometimes if I am walking in the aisle in the grocery store, I'll find a lost list of items that someone came to the store to buy. This list can be a magnificent artifact and sometimes makes me speculate about why they were buying that particular set of items. It is an authentic artifact that could be used in a story. Other times I might walk by a couple as they discuss their personal lives, I shamelessly listen to their conversation and mentally record the dialog and cadences to write them down later if they ring with possibility.

I read constantly to create an ever-present wash of ideas through my brain. On twitter I follow Aljazeera, the BBC, Reuters, and half a dozen other news agencies. I skim the headlines, connect to links, and read those that stand out. My bedroom is filled with books. Piles and piles of books. Poetry. Evolutionary biology. Mathematics. Fantasy. Science Fiction. Classic literature. Paleobiology. Anthropology. Psychology. Genetics. Computer Science. These all compete and contribute to the swirl of ideas that moves through my consciousness.

I think it is important for writers and artists to live fully, to be passionate about ideas, and to engage with as much as possible.

Just as I used to file scavenged images for artwork, I have both dead tree files and electronic files that I collect images and ideas for stories. A couple years ago, a friend suggested that I organize all this material under certain headings. I now organize this collection of potential sparks for stories under the following headings: characters, plot, conflict, setting, and general ideas. Some of this is printed out and filed because periodicals and online information is not static and simply bookmarking a page may not ensure that it will be there later. Some of this is saved as screen shots depending on the breadth of the information and practicality.

I also save all my aborted story starts that flopped.

Ideas can be recycled. Also sometimes it just takes the right twist on an idea to make it viable in a story. Sometimes an idea has merit but not enough depth to carry a story. Then another compatible idea coms along and kismet happens. A story rushes out. Often times one idea on its own is not enough to carry a story.

Whenever I am feeling a dry spell, I pull out these ideas and begin to go over them. This is my idea bank that I save up in to avoid writer's block. There is always something to write about because I am making the effort to keep ideas circulating around, over, and through me. Sometimes time and a different perspective is all it takes to refresh an idea that did not quite have enough life the first time around. In my opinion there is nothing entirely new. Writers may put a new spin on an existing idea, but we are collectors, scavengers, and recyclers. You never know where you might snag a bit of reality that can be shaped into something fantastical.

A Writer has to Eat: Channa Masala

I have been attempting to eat a primarily plant based diet after reading books like The Engine 2 Diet by Rip Esselstyn and The China Study by T. Colin Campbell. The documentary Forks Over Knives also makes a good case for a plant based diet. Because of this quest to eat lower on the food chain I have been exploring many different cuisines. My explorations have taken me lately into Indian cuisine. Great cookbooks to look at if you are interested in Indian cooking are Madhur Jaffrey's Eastern Vegetarian Cooking and India Cookbook by Pushpesh Pant. Many of the spices can be found at Asian grocery stores or online at sites like Penzeys.com Eating a plant based diet can be fun. I have been trying to explore a new recipe, spice, fruit, or vegetable for the last several weeks. I have been monitoring my nutrition by using Calorie Count.com which offers a way to log food consumed and then gives a nutritional analysis. I am hoping to see positive changes in bloodwork when I go for routine testing in a few weeks.

Channa Masala is a type of chick pea sauce that can be served over rice. It can range from mildly spicy to very hot depending on your taste. It also features some very nice sour and citrusy undertones. As I have said before, I am kind of a wimp when in comes to spicy food so this version is on the mild side.

Channa Masala

Ingredients

5 cups canned or cooked chick peas
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium onions, diced
1 mango, diced
2 tablespoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons garam masala (Penzey's Punjabi garam masala is very good!)
2 tablespoons fresh minced ginger
juice from 1/2 lemon
juice from 1/2 lime
1 small can of mild green chili peppers
1 14.5 ounce can stewed tomatoes
2 cups water
salt to taste

Directions
1. If you are not using canned chick peas, soak your dried chick peas overnight. Rinse them and pick out any that don't look good or any stones that you might find. Place the chick peas in a pot with sufficient water, bring to a boil, and cook for approximately 20-30 minutes until the chick peas are soft. Drain and rinse.

2. Place the olive oil, diced onions, diced mango, spices, and the citrus juice in a deep frying pan. Saute until the onions are translucent and the aroma is making you salivate.

3. Place the canned tomatoes in the onion and mango mixture. Stir to mix and heat through.

4. Place the chick peas, onion-mango-tomato mixture, and 2 cups of water into a crock pot. Turn on high and let the channa masala cook for about 4 hours. You could mix in the chick peas with the onion-mango-tomato mixture in the deep frying pan, heat it through, and serve it as is, but putting it in the crock pot lets the flavors meld together.

5. Serve over brown rice and enjoy!

Poems About Gardens

I was thinking this evening about my gardens in Michigan. It has been a few years since I was able to tend them. I am sure they are filled with weeds and overgrown. Gardens themselves are like poems of the earth to me. This caused me to search for poems about gardens. Here are a few in honor of gardens:

Digging Potatoes, Sebago, Maine
by Amy E. King

Summer squash and snap-beans gushed
all August, tomatoes in a steady splutter

through September. But by October's
last straggling days, almost everything

in the garden was stripped, picked,
decayed. A few dawdlers:

some forgotten carrots, ornate
with worm-trail tracery, parsley parched

a patchy faded beige. The dead leaves
of potato plants, defeated and panting,

their shriveled dingy tongues
crumbling into the mud.

You have to guess where.
The leaves migrate to trick you. Pretend
you're sure, thrust the trowel straight in,
hear the steel strike stone, hear the song
of their collision—this land is littered
with granite. Your blade emerges
with a mob of them, tawny freckled knobs,
an earthworm curling over one like a tentacle.
I always want to clean them with my tongue,
to taste in this dark mud, in its sparkled scatter
of mica and stone chips, its soft genealogy
of birch bark and fiddleheads, something

that means place, that says here,
with all its crags and sticky pines,

its silent stubborn brambles. This
is my wine tasting. It's there,

in the potatoes: a sharp slice with a different blade
imparts a little milky blood, and I can almost

smell it. Ferns furling. Barns rotting.
Even after baking, I can almost taste the grit.

Garden of Bees
by Matthew Rohrer

The narcissus grows past

the towers. Eight gypsy

sisters spread their wings

in the garden. Their gold teeth

are unnerving. Every single

baby is asleep. They want

a little money and I give

them less. I'm charming and

handsome. They take my pen.

I buy the poem from the garden

of bees for one euro. A touch

on the arm. A mystery word.

The sky has two faces.

For reasons unaccountable

my hand trembles.

In Roman times if they were

horrified of bees they kept it secret

Herb Garden
by Timothy Steele

"And these, small, unobserved . . . " —Janet Lewis

The lizard, an exemplar of the small,
Spreads fine, adhesive digits to perform
Vertical push-ups on a sunny wall;
Bees grapple spikes of lavender, or swarm
The dill's gold umbels and low clumps of thyme.
Bored with its trellis, a resourceful rose
Has found a nearby cedar tree to climb
And to festoon with floral furbelows.

Though the great, heat-stunned sunflower looks half-dead
The way it, shepherd's crook-like, hangs its head,
The herbs maintain their modest self-command:
Their fragrances and colors warmly mix
While, quarrying between the pathway’s bricks,
Ants build minute volcanoes out of sand.

Artist: Edward Hopper

Reluctant to speak about himself or his art, Edward Hopper summed up his work by stating, “The whole answer is there on the canvas.” Awkward and introverted, Hopper was raised in a female dominated, strict Baptist household. He began his art career via correspondence school and later completed six years of study at the New York Institute of Art and Design. He was shocked when he was expected to sketch live nudes in his life drawing classes. While Impressionism and Cubism were the emerging art movements of his day, when Hopper took three trips to Paris he went to the opera and the theatre. He has been quoted as saying about those trips that he “didn’t remember having heard of Picasso at all.” He was impressed by Rembrandt, in particular "Night Watch", which he said was “the most wonderful thing of his I have seen; it’s past belief in its reality.” Later Hopper expressed that he felt that there really were no European artists who influenced him.

Because his conservative parents insisted that if he was going to study art it needed to have some commercial applicability so that he would be able to support himself, Hopper became an illustrator. Much like N.C. Wyeth, Hopper came to despise doing illustrations over time. His career did not launch quickly. He had great spells of time where he had difficulty finding inspiration or painting. Another illustrator who knew him, Walter Tittle, described Hopper’s depression as that he was “suffering…from long periods of unconquerable inertia, sitting for days at a time before his easel in helpless unhappiness, unable to raise a hand to break the spell.” Hopper sold his first painting in 1913 when he was 31. He hoped that more sales would soon follow, but it took time for more of his work to be sold.

In 1923, Hopper met his soon to be wife, Josephine Nivison. She was also artist, but after meeting him and marrying him a year later she subordinated her career for his. She modled for him and worked to get his paintings into various shows and galleries. She was able to get his work exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum who bought one of his paintings for their permanent collection. After this his paintings began to sell and he fared much better through out the Depression than many other artists.

Many of Hopper's paintings depict solitary figures. The paintings' compositions often hinge on very precise use of perspective and the use of value. Early in his life he painted with a dark palette, then when the lighter palette favored by the Impressionists was in fashion he switched. He returned once more to the darker hues that he was more comfortable with later. Hopper who was introverted and preferred not to discuss his art gave his most definitive declaration of his philosophy as an artist in a handwritten note, titled "Statement", that was submitted in 1953 to the journal, Reality. It read:
"Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world. No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination. One of the weaknesses of much abstract painting is the attempt to substitute the inventions of the human intellect for a private imaginative conception.

The inner life of a human being is a vast and varied realm and does not concern itself alone with stimulating arrangements of color, form and design.

The term life used in art is something not to be held in contempt, for it implies all of existence and the province of art is to react to it and not to shun it.
Painting will have to deal more fully and less obliquely with life and nature's phenomena before it can again become great."

Hopper's dark, realistic paintings are often very stark, almost lonely. Despite various art trends that came and went, once his work achieved its mature style it remained very consistent. The last of his life, he and his wife lived in their apartment and very much kept to themselves. Hopper died in his studio near Washington Square in New York City on May 15, 1967. His wife died 10 months later. She bequeathed their joint collection of over three thousand works to the Whitney Museum of American Art. While Hopper may not have personally reached out to many people, his work was very influential.

Six Sentence Story Monday: Michael Koester

I received a six sentence story from Michael Koester yesterday from most recently Nottingham, NH. Here it is for your enjoyment:

"I confess: I'm not from around here, or as the locals of local ancestry would say of me, "he's from away". I'm okay with that, and I wear it proudly. Because being "from away" carries with it an advantageous perspective, a capability to contrast characteristics (and characters!) of different places, cultures, and experiences known only to one who has lived in more than one. But to get along with, and earn the trust of the locals of local ancestry, I must moderate my expressions of that advantage. For to hint that there might be a better way will surely meet with fierce resistance, and firmly closed doors, and ultimately keep me from assimilating into this place. The true charm of a place can be it's most frustrating quality."

Here is a story of my own:

Will sat in the deep booth, the din of the bar made it impossible to make out what anyone was saying. He rubbed his Converse together, played with the small pink plastic straw in his rum and coke (he hadn't been too sure what to order, the list of beers was intimidating), and glanced at various women at the bar. A blonde with big white teeth was laughing and her hair bounced around her shoulders. A brunette with dark kohl eyeliner glanced his way and their eyes met as Will's heart slammed into his chest. His hands began to sweat as she walked towards; he imagined their wedding day. She said, "You look like you are from around here. I am looking for a friend of mine. She said that I should meet her at Luigi's Pizza. Do you know how I would get there?"

(I might be cheating on the last sentence!)

Keep writing! Tomorrow night I may post a belated "Sunday Writing Discussion."

Stories of our Mothers

One of the books that I am currently reading is The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes. In the book Sykes talks about being a geneticist who analyzes the remains of ancient people. Frequently if a mummy or remains are found there is not enough genetic material left to be able to do any kind of genetic analysis. The strands of DNA are simply too ravaged by time, water, and varying temperatures. When Sykes first began to look at the DNA of ancient peoples he was fortunate enough to be given a sample from Utzi the Iceman. Utzi is one of my favorite mummies (and yes I have favorite mummies but that is another series of posts!). Utzi was found frozen in the Alps by a pair of hikers who at first thought he was an unfortunate modern individual who had met his death. The stone ax gave Utzi away as an ancient traveler. Utzi's story is quite remarkable in itself because he was determined to have been murdered and died up in the glacial ice of the Alps-- but again that is another story for another post. When Sykes was given the tissue sample taken from Utzi his form of amplifying the DNA was a new technique. Further Utzi's tissue samples were somewhat decayed. In trying to recreate Utzi's DNA sample it could be easy to confuse a modern DNA sample, say from a fleck of skin, with the ancient sample and create a genetic map of the researcher. Great care was taken to create a procedure to ensure that the genetic map created was that of Utzi and not Sykes or his assistant. After Utzi's DNA was mapped, it was discovered that a volunteer who had given Sykes a tissue to be analyzed was related to Utzi. He was an ancestor of hers based on her mitochondrial DNA. Suddenly for this volunteer Utzi took on new significance. The past moved forward and had more life.

Today is Mother's Day in the United States. Using some bio-mathematical analysis applied to genetic mapping and sampling, "seven daughters of Eve" have been identified. Anyone who has ancestry that originated in Europe is purportedly related to one of these ancient women. I like the Sykes book because for each of these women there is a historical fiction chapter where their lives are written about. It makes the past more real even if it is conjecture.

I think we live our lives through stories and we create the myths of ourselves. We create a mythos of our family. The mythos includes things like how Great Grandma would cheat at canasta and turn her hearing aid off when anyone complained, how Great Grandpa helped build the Golden Gate Bridge, or how Grandma taught herself to drive a stick shift in the driveway with all four of her young children in the car. The mythos can also include things like discovering when the Danish ancestors came to Chicago and set up a boarding house, when the German ancestors came to Mount Pleasant, or when Great Grandpa's Grandma dropped her son off at a farm in Battle Creek saying she would send for him but she never did and he married the farmer's daughter. For some families it means tracing the ancestral tree back to Copenhagen or Alsace-Lorraine and finding church registries.

Knowing our stories or finding our ancestors is a way to know ourselves, even if we are right there looking back from the reflection in the mirror. It is a way to create identity. I would like to do a cheek swab and have it sent off for genetic analysis so that I could know which of the seven daughters is my ancestor. Am I related to Ursula, Xenia, Helena, Velda, Tara, Katrine, or Jasmine? Is this entirely significant to my life right now? Not really. No more so than the stories my grandmother told me as a child sitting upon her lap. Except it helps to create a sense of self that extends back in time. Mothers have been giving birth for thousands of years. This may seem an obvious fact. But think about it. Each of us is among the thousands of great, great, great, great, great,..., great grandchildren of some woman who walked through a primeval forest, slept in a shelter made of mammoth tusks and skins, or migrated across the glaciers of an ice age. If a majority of us are related, how can we treat one another badly if we conceive of ourselves as a large family? What would matriarch Ursula who only survived because of cooperation amongst her small band of hunter-gatherers think? If we take this idea into our sense of identity, how can we act in way other than for the common good that elevates us all?

Remember your maternal ancestors today. Learn their stories.

Happy Mother's Day!

A Writer Has to Eat: Butternut Squash Soup

This butternut squash soup is very easy to prepare and tasty! It takes minimal ingredients and if the squash is pre-baked only requires a few minutes to make.

Ingredients

2 large butternut squash, halved, and baked in the oven in an inch of water for about an hour until tender
1 15 ounce can of white kidney beans
1 13.5 ounce can lite coconut milk
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
salt and white pepper to taste

Directions

1. Scoop out the tender flesh of the butternut squash and place in a food processor or blender. Discard the rind.

2. Place the white kidney beans, coconut milk, cinnamon, and cardamom into the food processor or blender.

3. Blend all ingredients until smooth.

4. Place the blended soup into a sauce pan and reheat to serving temperature. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Dangerous Women: Grandy Nanny

While there is little clear physical evidence about Grandy Nanny and she is only mentioned four times in historical texts, Grandy Nanny is a Jamaican cultural hero who lived in the eighteenth century. She is revered in Jamaica for her role in Jamaican independence. Her image adorns the $500 bill. Much of what is known about Grandy Nanny has come down through oral tradition passed along by her descendants and she is as much a myth as a historical figure.

Grandy Nanny began her life as a royal member of the Ashanti tribe. She was trained in the religion of Obeah to be a priestess and medicine woman. Kidnapped in western Africa in an intertribal conflict, she and her brothers were sold into slavery. Once they were in Jamaica, they quickly escaped and went into the hills. Grandy Nanny created a community of free men, women, and children in what would become Nanny Town. Her brothers created other settlements and her brother Captain Cudjoe was the leader of the Leeward Maroons and founded Cudjoe Town.

As the leader of the Windward Maroons, Grandy Nanny was only one leader of several groups of escaped slaves who formed independent tribal groups around the Caribbean and ran their communities in a similar way to tribal villages in Africa. Many of the the members of the Maroons were from the Akan region of Western Africa, but slaves from other areas also joined their ranks. The former slaves also inter-married with the indigenous Arawaks. Archeological evidence of some of these various communities suggests that the different Maroon groups traded with Spanish and later British plantations or settlements, exchanging produce and livestock for cloth, weapons, and other items. In addition the Maroons obtained necessities by leading raids against the plantations and settlements to free more slaves and to drive the British out of Jamaica.

Around 1720, Nanny and her husband settled in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Between 1728 and 1734, the Maroon communities were frequently attacked by the British who saw the settlements of escaped slaves as lost wealth and property. Grandy Nanny chose her location for its strategic importance. It overlooked the Stony River from atop a 900 foot ridge, making a surprise attack by the British practically impossible. The Windward Maroons also organized look-outs to watch for an attack and used a horn called an abeng to call their warriors to battle if the British turned up.

Several times Grandy Nanny personally lead attacks on the British. The British were flabbergasted that an old sorcerer woman had organized and was leading the attacks. It was rumored that Grandy Nanny's spiritual powers assisted her in resisting the British. They began a manhunt specifically for Grandy Nanny to stop the rebellion. She retreated into the highest mountains of Jamaica and continued her strategy of guerilla warfare against the Redcoats who she called "red ants." Over the course of 30 years, Grandy Nanny freed more than 800 slaves in her raids on plantations.

In March 1733, there is a written citation in the Journal for the Assembly of Jamaica that notes Grandy Nanny's death. It reads:

"for 'resolution, bravery and fidelity' awarded to 'loyal slaves . . . under the command of Captain Sambo', namely William Cuffee, who was rewarded for having fought the Maroons in the First Maroon War and who is called 'a very good party Negro, having killed Nanny, the rebels old obeah woman.'"

Most likely Cuffee was a type of hired soldier known as a "Black Shot" and he was motivated by a reward to fight against the Maroons. The use of these "Black Shots" was a common practice by plantation owners to discourage slaves from escaping. Grandy Nanny is buried at "Bump Grave" in Moore Town which is another settlement that was established by the Windward Maroons.

In 1739 the British governor in Jamaica signed a peace treaty with the Windward and Leeward Maroons. A land grant promising 2500 acres in two locations was issued. The Maroons were to remain in their five main towns, namely Accompong, Trelawny Town, Mountain Top, Scots Hall, and Nanny Town. It was negotiated that they would live under their own chief, with a British supervisor. In exchange, the Maroons agreed not to liberate or hide new runaway slaves. Further, they would help to help catch the runaways and be paid for any runaway slaves that were caught. In addition, the fierce Maroons would be paid to fight for the British in the case of an attack from the French or Spanish.

Grandy Nanny was a very dangerous woman.

Inspiring Science

Massive solar flares, a Mayan calendar that goes to at least 3500, active sand dunes on Mars, Vesta is a proto-planet, a material scientist has found new atomic structures in metallic glass, and this...
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/05/11/giant-pulsing-sea-blob-identified/

So much to marvel at and be inspired by!

A Tribute to Maurice Sendak

Today a brilliant man who understood that childhood is not all sunshine and rainbows passed from the world. Maurice Sendak knew children and the realm of childhood, respected the serious nature of the developmental stage of childhood, and created works that reverberated with meaning because they showed the deep places and truth of childhood. He knew that sometimes Maxes do wear their wolf suits and make mischief of one kind or another. He knew that sometimes they want to run wild and be amongst the wild things and escape from the constraints that adults place on them.

I remember working in a childcare setting and we were asked to place a paper cutout of "underwear" on Mickey from In the Night Kitchen. Mickey is a young boy who has a surreal dream about baking a cake with a trio of bakers who resemble Oliver Hardy. In the book, the batter is in him and he is in the batter until he comes out of the batter, creates a dough airplane, and retrieves milk to finish the cake. The book won the Caldecott Award in 1971 despite the controversy over the depiction of a nude Mickey. Critics of the book have objected to Mickey's nudity which includes not only his buttocks, but also his penis and testicles. Sexual innuendo has been interpreted from the plot points in the book,-- the nudity, free-flowing milky fluids, and giant milk bottle. The inclusion of Mickey's nudity has been frequently raised as morally problematic. In the Night Kitchen is one of the most banned or challenged books in the United States. I thought when we were asked to cover Mickey that it was ridiculous. I still do. Have you ever watched a three year old gleefully run naked through the house? Gleeful because they know that they are naked and they don't care and they are savoring the freedom of that moment.

Tonight I will listen to the incomparable Carole King's voice as she sings the main character from Really Rosie-- a story about a precocious girl who organizes all the children in her neighborhood into a performance troupe to act out the musical of the demise of her brother. Rosie dreams of stardom. Not sugar and spice and everything nice.

I hope when I dream this evening I will see fanged, horned, and striped monsters and I will cry out "Let the Wild Rumpus begin!" Mr. Sendak you will be missed.

Poetry: Adrienne Rich's "Wait" and "Tonight No Poetry Will Serve"

Adrienne Rich was a feminist and a poet who was born in Baltimore in 1929. She died on March 27,2012. W.S. Merwin described Rich as follows: "All her life she has been in love with the hope of telling utter truth, and her command of language from the first has been startlingly powerful." Her poetic career began with two collections that were praised for their fairy tale-like quality. In 1974 she was awarded the National Book Award for Diving into the Wreck. It was in 1973 in the midst of the feminist and civil rights movements, the Vietnam War, and her own personal distress that Rich wrote Diving into the Wreck. The collection was exploratory and contained angry poems. The fairy tale princess aspects had vanished. Rich accepted the award on behalf of all women and shared it with her fellow nominees, Alice Walker and Audre Lorde.

Rich over the course of her life received the Bollingen Prize, the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the National Book Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. She was also a former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Outspoken and thoughtful in her politics in 1997, she refused the National Medal of Arts. She has been quoted as saying to explain her refusal, "I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration." She further offered, "[Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage." The same year, Rich was awarded the Academy's Wallace Stevens Award for outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry. She was a powerhouse wordsmith with heroic convictions.

Wait
BY ADRIENNE RICH

In paradise every
the desert wind is rising
third thought
in hell there are no thoughts
is of earth
sand screams against your government
issued tent hell’s noise
in your nostrils crawl
into your ear-shell
wrap yourself in no-thought
wait no place for the little lyric
wedding-ring glint the reason why
on earth
they never told you


Tonight No Poetry Will Serve
by Adrienne Rich

Saw you walking barefoot
taking a long look
at the new moon's eyelid

later spread
sleep-fallen, naked in your dark hair
asleep but not oblivious
of the unslept unsleeping
elsewhere

Tonight I think
no poetry
will serve

Syntax of rendition:

verb pilots the plane
adverb modifies action

verb force-feeds noun
submerges the subject
noun is choking
verb disgraced goes on doing

now diagram the sentence

Musical Interlude for this Evening!

I have been ill all day so tonight's post is just for fun! I have been listening to the following bands today:

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
Here is a YouTube link to "Home": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRA5S59KjwY&feature=related

The Shins
Here is a YouTube link to "Simple Song": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8BOD5FvDX0

The Decemberists
Here is a YouTube link to "Don't Carry It All": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpCHhbQreEM

Enjoy!

Sunday Writing Discussions #16: Action Steps to be a Better Writer

To write is a verb. It is something that a writer does. There are no magic manuscript fairies that live in the walls, come out when the writer dreams, and ooze their blue-black blood onto the page. No computer daemons that compose while the computer is powered down.

I have been spending a great deal of time and energy thinking about plot and structure and ways to approach the way that I write to improve my writing. To think is also a verb and for me analyzing and thinking about a piece before I write it is a necessary step in the creation of a work. But inevitably my roundus tuckus needs to be settled into my chair and I need to feel the ever so slight pressure of the keys of my mac under my fingertips.

Knowing myself and the way that I approach writing this is useful for me.

Today, I was thinking about additional active steps that I could take to improve my writing and what advice I would pass on to other people who want to write. Since you have drunk the sweet wine, enjoy the addictive thrill of writing, and have stopped by my blog for a bit of a pick-me-up, I will share what advice I have for you that I am doing myself:

1. Do it. Write. Find ways to sneak writing in at every opportunity. Write prose poems for facebook posts. Write small six sentence stories and send them as email gifts to friends and family. Write before breakfast. Write after dinner. Write on your hand. Be chic and write in a moleskin. Write on paper napkins. Write on bathroom walls. Write.

2. Read. Read poetry, fiction, blogs, non-fiction. Take every opportunity to let words flow into your mind. It is like being a literature dragon accumulating gold. Immerse yourself in the rich cultural collective of words. Know the pride of Achilles, the tragedy of Juliet, the beauty of Tinturn Abbey, the rape of the lock, why vampires shimmer in the sunlight (even if you feel this is the most debasing thing the trope has ever suffered), the conviction of Howard Roark, who kissed Ryabovich, why Katniss volunteers, and what expecto patronum means. Find sites like www.paperbackswap.com and www.bookmooch.com to supply you with material. Visit that most wondrous hall of wonders-- the library and declare the librarians your book goddesses.

3. Think about what you read. Study it. Take apart a passage that worked exceptionally well and theorize why it worked. Write down phrases that struck you with their beauty and eloquence. Savor the words. What makes Hemingway, Hemingway? How does Graham Greene pack so much into his novels? How is it that Angela Carter's dense prose comes off without being purple? Why is it that the best of classic science fiction had such enthusiasm that it is still worth reading even if dated?

4. Learn about diverse things. Engage with knowledge. Explore the world. Try new activities. If you have never been to Blantyre or Alexandria, how can you know the response to a tall, white American as he walks through the crowds of the market? What really is nano-technology? How did people in the middle ages make clothing? What is the history of the development of guns? What does a person feel the first time they... watch an elephant walk down the road? gaze at one of Monet's waterlilies? ride in a hot air balloon? swim in an ocean? Our world is so vast. So many things to see, do, and learn about. Let your curiosity set you free and enrich your life.

5. Improve your writing. Get feedback. Critique the writing of other people because it will make your writing better. If you don't know the rules of grammar-- learn. If you have no idea of how to transition from one scene to the next-- ask people, keep experimenting, and improve your abilities. Sites like www.critters.org can help you find other writers to critique your work and manuscripts for you to critique. Use the spellcheck and grammar check on your computer. Get familiar with books like The Well-Tempered Sentence and The Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon. Invest in The Elements of Style or a couple style books.

5. Make friends with other writers. They are not your competition. They are your comrades with pens. They can give you feedback, engage with you in exploring ideas about writing, help you network, and be there for you when you receive disheartening rejections. Find community because no one can do something as grand as become an author on their own-- even if it is true that writing is a solo act.

6. Believe in yourself. This is actually quite a hard thing. All of us have a voice. Sometimes because of life events we get silenced. Sometimes our hearts are broken or responsibilities weigh so heavily that we lose our buoyancy or we get told by well-meaning people that we cannot write, believe in yourself and your talent. Don't let circumstances or others silence you. Dr. Carter G. Woodson once said, “If you can control a man’s thinking, you don’t have to worry about his actions. If you can determine what a man thinks you do not have worry about what he will do. If you can make a man believe that he is inferior, you don’t have to compel him to seek an inferior status, he will do so without being told and if you can make a man believe that he is justly an outcast, you don’t have to order him to the back door, he will go to the back door on his own and if there is no back door, the very nature of the man will demand that you build one.”

7. Recognize the value of your work. Don't give your work away for free to others to make money off of it, demand its value. If publishing a poem or a story in a semi-pro magazine and seeing your work in print is enough payment for you, great! But you decide what is sufficient payment and expect some value to come from your work. Writing is work and should be paid as work. While every writer has to advance in their career and may start at a lowly spot, continuing to improve and persevering will pay off. It is possible to make a career of writing, many people do it. Expect that your work will be given its value.

8. Write for an audience. Not everything everyone writes will be universally received. However, write keeping in mind that the intent of the writing is for other people to read it. The goal really is to produce a piece of writing that entertains, challenges people's conceptions, informs, etc.

9. Get creative and take risks. Break new ground. It keeps the endeavor fresh. Enthusiasm is something that reads through. If you are passionate about what you are writing, this will come through and will help to captivate readers.

10. Get businesslike. I am going to admit that I am not good at this. I enjoy the creative side of writing. I am stimulated by analyzing how good writing works and new ways to approach fiction. I am not so good at thinking pragmatically about my writing. So as I write this, I am setting this as a goal for myself. Create a spreadsheet or some other system, send works out for possible publication, and keep track. Save receipts that cover the cost of doing freelance work. Get systematic about sending out inquiries. Accept writing work that is paid even if it is not preferable. Learning to write and follow someone else's style guide is part of the business of writing. Get creative about finding new markets. Try new ways to market publish. Think "monetize". Getting paid for a piece is a grand reward. Seeing your income increase as your writing works its way out into the world reinforces the value of the endeavor in your mind's eye and everything flows in an upward cycle from there.

When I started writing this post, I didn't know how many things would be on the list. I could add other items like try new forms or forget any delusions about being "A Writer," but I think this list is pretty good. If you are reading this and you can think of other items to add, please put them in the comments. I am always working on improving my writing and perhaps you will help me.

Poetry: Jean Valentine's Ghost Elephants and To the Black Madonna of Chartres

Jean Valentine is a poet from New York whose poems often contain imagination and unexpected elements. Here are two of her poems:

Ghost Elephants
by Jean Valentine

In the elephant field
tall green ghost elephants
with your cargo of summer leaves

at night I heard you breathing at the window

Don't you ever think I'm not crying
since you're away from me
Don't ever think I went free

At first the goodbye had a lilt to it—
maybe just a couple of months—
but it was a beheading.

Ghost elephant,
reach down,
cross me over—


To the Black Madonna of Chartres
by Jean Valentine

Friend or no friend,
darkness or light,
vowels or consonants,
water or dry land,

anything more from you now
is just gravy
—just send me down forgiveness, send me down
bearing myself a black cupful of light.

Weight Hacker

I stumbled across this site today. It is about weight loss. Weight loss for geeks who like computers and research and information.

Check out Weight Hacker at: http://www.weighthacker.com/

The site features quite a number of descriptions of research studies that could make weight loss easier! The creator of weight hacker is Craig Engler who lost 65 pounds and has written a book with the information on his blog.

Kalachakra

I am feeling very defeated tonight. Very low. I am sending out a wish for a positive breakthrough. My hope is that my positive thoughts are just one small ping that sends out ripples and others benefit as well. To this end I am posting an image of a sand mandala of the Kalachakra. The Dalai Lama was quoted as saying about the Kalachakra initiation ceremony: "It is a way of planting a seed, and the seed will have karmic effect. One doesn't need to be present at the Kalachakra ceremony in order to receive its benefits." While my posting is not an initiation or empowerment ceremony, I think sending some good energy into the world is, well, good.