Dove Tale Writers

My Day Today

2009-04-18T22:14:00.002-04:00

I am making this page the colour of the sun. The colour of the sun that celebrated this glorious spring day. The colour of the sun that matched the big and little daffodils that were lured out by the warmth the sun brought to the day. And the wind was a soft wind, very quiet. A caressing wind. I didn't need to get up early this morning, I woke up with the light. And Simon and I went for a walk to and in Monarch Woods. Simon loves Monarch woods. He almost still acts like a puppy there, in and out the water, sniffing around, following trails. In the woods I found Chives and wild leek, and brought some home. Altogether we stayed out for almost three hours. We had a snack and Simon conked out with a sigh. I cleaned up the house, and by noon I said bye to Simon and Yona , and jumped on my bike. I stopped of at the UP store and did some colour copying. I stopped off at the dollar store, and bought a frame for the picture I had copied and enlarged. Then I set off on the Iron Horse Trail, up to Waterloo to visit my friend Lois who lives near Allan and Weber. We sat in her sun room and had tea and chocolates, delighting in her two Siamese cats, curled up together on a blanky on the couch. And in her wonderful plant corner with many deep red geraniums, listening to the birds outside singing their hearts out. On the way home I stopped at the city Bakery Cafe and bought some of their delicious bread. Back home I decided to be a good co-op girl and got out boards, a saw and nails and repaired the perimeter fence. The co-op cleaning day is coming up and I am not going to be there, so I started to do my bit. The fence looks acceptable again. I cleaned up the garbage around it. And then went in and conked out with Simon, after we had supper. My supper of course was fresh baked bread with different toppings. Mmm!! By almost eight o'clock pm. My friend Joanne came by and we took our dogs to the field for a bit, just to hang out. We went once around the track. That was it for Simon. When I tried to walk back partly with Joanne to her house, he sat and looked at me like I was a lunatic. So he brought me home.
And home we are. Cat. Dog and me. It's grooming time for Simon, always supervised by Yona, also receiving some strokes and playing with Simon's tail, or hiding under a rug, and then, oh then, we all go nighty, nighty, sharing the bed.

I bet anything that the sunny, yellow background won't transfer in the blog. So readers will have to imagine it.

Nigle just called to chat. He worked all day and into the night, and also tomorrow. At least he works outside, and at least he has work!. Talking with him topped up my day. I'm smiling!

Wild Thing

MY SCRAPBOOK

2009-04-06T19:14:00.003-04:00

Working on my entry of Nico van Schaffelaar in my scrap book, taking a closer look at the numbers of his birth- and death dates, I realized how young he died. He was only 46. And only 12 years older than me. Sjees, he could've still lived, would now be 85. I wonder what happened to him. I guess that's one of the things I have to put in the "I'll never know" compartment. Nico's page is finished in my scrapbook. It looks good. I like the memory. I am now building up to a section on chocolate, spent this day to do some research. Believe it or not, it took me to the liberation of Holland from the German regime, in 1945. What does chocolate have to do with that? I remember the incoming troops bringing us cigarettes and chocolate, throwing it to the cheering and celebrating crowds. I was ten and still remembered the taste. But many younger children had never had chocolate and didn't like the taste. spitting it out. Can you believe that Larry Keller ?

LIFE'S DISAPPOINTMENTS

2009-03-29T21:53:00.002-04:00

Lately I have often been thinking back to the Newspaper place I worked for In Amsterdam. Especially I wondered about a man in the lay-out and arts department who I worked with, and who often would tell me a story or give me advice about certain works of art. I was just sort of an office girl with artistic ambitions. His name was Nico van Schaffelaar.

Without hope I decided to use the new technology and Google his name as an artist and musician in Amsterdam. I was shocked to see his name come up in connection with the Newspaper we worked for and several union magazines that were printed in our building, he being mentioned as the graphic artist of many magazine covers, vacation flyers, and even music magazines, and post cards.

Now that newspaper building doesn't exist anymore. I knew that. Most of Nico's work mentioned is from the sixties. I managed to find a page with some of his art work and a small photo. Oh my God, I did recognize him. I felt excited. then I wondered if there wouldn't be a way to contact him. Then I looked at the little photo and read what it said underneath: "Nico van Schaffelaar, 1923-1969." Oh no, he died!!! I forgot that he was way in his thirties while I was still only 18. What a bummer! I'd need a medium to contact him. Create another ghost story for Marianne. Anyhow, I printed the pages with the tiny photo and the small images of his art work to keep. Maybe, I can enlarge them a bit and use them for another page in my memory scrap book.

FOLLOW UP

2009-03-29T21:39:00.005-04:00

The following is a piece of writing that I had for a while and intended to post here, because it links with the phone part of the previous post. I only thought of it now because I wanted to do another post. Please excuse me if I left spelling errors, I'm too tired to check right now.

THE DAY OF THE FULL MOON
Often that's a day dreaded. I've heard nurses and caretakers sigh about how full moon affects patients and even ordinary people. It seems to bring out weird behaviour.
I know as a fact that full moon affects myself, and people around me. When I was fighting with my partner who had M.S., he being testy and unreasonable, I in tears, it never failed when I went for a walk, and looked up, Full Moon was grinning at me.
Often my daughter used to phone me with what seemed like a total nervous breakdown, sobbing in my ear about irrational circumstances. At some point I would interrupt, “you know it is full moon, don't you?” She'd be quiet for a while, and then would start to laugh, knowing well the phenomena.
It seldom happens to me, but whenever I have a sleepless night, my body all tense and uncomfortable, my eyes wide open throughout the night, it always turns out to be full moon.
Now yesterday was full moon and something weird did happened to me. The day was laid out before me without commitments, without plans. I tried to get creative. No go. My imaginative artery was closed for the day. So I decided to be practical. Time to get my taxes done. I do not do that myself, I pay to have it done. That may seem silly since my tax return is a dead simple one. But I would cost myself more than the price of professional help, simply by making mistakes, not knowing all the loopholes. So, I crept out of my grubby stay at home clothes and made myself presentable. The Liberty Tax office is down town. I would need bus tickets. I only had one and figured I'd need another one for the return trip I also had to go to the bank to pay a bill and avoid a late charge.
My first stop was at the bank. I went in and couldn't believe my eyes. There were no customers waiting, only eagerly waiting tellers to help me. I was in and out in no time. That is weird.
My second stop was at the tobacco/lottery station at the same plaza to buy bus tickets. I walked in and my eyes were in for another surprise. No other customers in a place that always has long line ups. In no time the slip of tickets in my pocket, I was at the bus depot. Weird.
I hadn't checked the bus schedules and expected to probably just have missed the bus, and be in for a at least 15 minute wait. Ha, minutes from my arrival at the stop the bus drove up. I could go in, away from that nasty, icy, blowing wind, and settle in a cozy corner. Maybe not weird, but surely unusual.
From the downtown transportation center I walked the short distance to King Street and the tax place. Customers are taken in at a first come first attended to basis, you put your name on the list and are called up in order. I had truly expected, going by past experiences, to have at least an hour wait But believe it or not, I was called in within ten minutes. My taxes were electronically entered into cyber space. I got to choose between instant rebate or wait. I could wait and save the money for that extra service. It was done. I looked at the clock and discovered that my transfer for the bus hadn't even expired yet. I booted it to the stop, and the bus was waiting for me, instead of me having to wait for the bus. Weird was definitely taking on a different meaning.
Coming home I found a telephone bill in my mailbox. I opened it and checked if I had received my refund. At the beginning of the year I switched from rental phone to my own. Bell was informed about it the same day. On the next bill I was still charged for rental. I went through an endless phone messages system to get it corrected. Took me about an hour. But then I was told to pay the bill as is and
a refund would be on the next one. Well there was no refund on my full moon day bill but again an other rental charge. Grrr., but I kept my cool and dialed Bell.
Here comes weird again Instead of getting a machine, a real live voice answered. And the person that voice belonged to actually knew what she was doing. She listened, took notes, and said, “That's not right.” She had me wait a few minutes, came back on the phone, apologized for the inconvenience, had me cross out the amount to pay on the bill, and enter the amount less three month rental. All taken care of.
I still had to do a bit of shopping. I went to that huge Real Canadian Superstore across the street from me, and picked up my items. It was later in the evening and when I went to the self check outs, they were closed at that side, I'd have to walk all the way back to the other end again. I had forgotten to pick up a bottle of litchy drink, my favourite. I was thirsty. But also tired. I did not want to go back in. I chose the nearest cashier, and had her check me out. By the tiller sat a bottle of litchy drink. “Can I have that?” I asked. Sure enough I could have it, someone had not wanted it and left it behind. What are the chances?
If I had to do with full moon behaviour that day, it certainly was to my advantage. I saved money. Bell refund coming up. Big tax refund on its way. Saved myself a late charge. Saved a bus ticket. Saved time, and it is said that time is money. Didn't get ruffled, maintained my good mood throughout the day, and slept soundly all night, the full moon smiling at me through my bedroom window.

OUTDATED

2009-01-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

Am I a dinosaur?
I must seem in the eye of this world, an outdated creature. I just sort of live my life staying the same. Not in nature. I do evolve. It's when it comes to every day living. Sort of when I discovered after several years loony that there were no one dollar bills available anymore. Pity. One can fold a one dollar bill in a enveloped letter. A coin doesn't work that way. That was in the time that one dollar still meant something to a young child. Today even in a dollar store that amount ain't much use to anyone anymore. Our new 99 cent or more store, only one year in business, closed it doors after Christmas. In spite of the fact that most prices were raised to more, (much more) they went under. And of course 99 cent never was enough anyhow with tax added.
Just as alert as I was with the withdrawal of the paper dollar, I was with my phone. I still had my old Harmony phone, rented it from Ma Bell. Doing that had benefits, years ago. For example, I didn't have to bother about repairs. I could trade the old phone for a new one without cost. Anyhow, I was made aware at some point that repairs to the phone line were not covered anymore. Not like how one time lightening struck my connection and it was repaired and payed for. So I agreed to a monthly payment added to my bill to avoid high cost if ever something like that would happen again.
My old harmony phone hadn't been replaced for a long time. Apparently for many years. Where do years go anyhow? It worked more and more crappy. The pushbuttons wouldn't push in far enough unless whacked. Often not whacked enough, I got wrong connections with weird messages. So today I decided that I needed a new phone. So automatically I went through the old routines. Phoned Bell for replacement. It took me about an hour to work through phone machines, get wrong connections, or get a person (several times)who misunderstood.. I ended up in Nova Scotia. Everyone assumed, even though I started off with mentioning my land line, rented harmony phone, that I was talking about a cell phone. Sigh!
Finally I got a real woman on the line, who was patient and understanding and explained to me that I had the choice of asking for another rental phone, or much better buy my own, and stop paying rent with no benefits. And wow yeah, of course! How come it never before occurred to me to do that? How could I still live under the illusion that renting a phone was more beneficial, cost wise? Even when I already payed monthly into an emergency fund. I wasted a lot of money, poor dinosaur me.
I have a brand new phone now, a simple, black beauty. Just a phone. No extra features. Just right for a slow, backward sort of person like me. My basic phone bill will be less each month.

Wild Thing

Indian Giver?

2009-01-09T12:01:00.003-05:00

There is this man, who eight years ago gave one of his kidneys to his wife to help her live. I don't know what all went on in and around it and between, but the thing is the marriage went on the rocks and the man now sues his wife. He wants either a phenomenal amount of money or...his kidney back.

I burst out laughing when I heard that news item. The 'hot item' came up on the View just a while ago with Whoopie almost in hysterics laughing. The serious part, I guess, is when giving a kidney back is approved in court, where will that lead for certain transplants. Can you ask back for bone marrow? Can you ask back for sperm if the resulting baby is not brought up in the religion of your choice? Ha, ha, the suggestions went wild. Wacky and wild. Man, I haven't laughed like this in a long time...Crazy world.

Another post? Ah, why not?

2008-12-29T12:03:00.002-05:00

Tell Me a Story

The sun shines today. It is December the twenty ninth. Between Christmas and the new year. That brings next year very close. Three days from now next year will be far away. Time measurements have sort of a wackiness about them.

The sun shines today. The day before yesterday it rained. It rained on mountains of snow. For days and days people have been digging out. Snowplows too struggled with the loads. The rain did a faster, more efficient job, Turned roads and walks into rivers. Shrunk the mountains to ground level.

The sun shines today. Most places one can walk now without fear of slipping on ice. Most sidewalks are bare. They dried enough before the weather changed to light freezing.
The sun shines today and it feels like spring. You almost expect little sprouts to appear in the soil. Flower beginnings. But you know better. It is still December. A long way off to April.
The sun shines today, but yesterday, while still raining, the wind blew with a vengeance. The outside was a dance floor for empty garbage cans, and hard to identify litter. The wind arranged its own band, clinging and clattering anything loose around. Even things not so lose were torn away and sent in the air, or crashed to the ground. The wind was having a ball, singing and whistling in tune with the sounds of destruction.

But the sun shines today. The temperature is mild. Here at home my windows and doors are open, letting in lots of fresh air.

How many stories are hidden in the above, trillions? One could follow the path of someone who slipped on ice and broke a limb. One can enter the emergency with this person. Could be an adult. Could be a child. There are nurses, there are doctors, there is a waiting room full of patients with all their own stories, making new ones.

Someone else could have been caught in the flood waters. Didn't make it. Stopped breathing. Devastated family and friends. Ambulance attendants. News reporters. Onlookers. One of them goes home and tells the story. A listener knew the person that drowned. The story calls up unbearable memories causing a nervous breakdown. Councilors or a psychiatrist enter the scene.

Someone, an elderly someone, could live alone, not having anyone to share Christmas with. Sits by the window in a rocker. Watches the strange weather. Thinks back to Christmas' past, live stories in the inner mind. Picks up a pen and writes, recreating memories.

A little girl is out in the yard. The sun shines today. She opens a gate and enters a summer garden, leaving white winter behind. A bunny, walking up straight, meets her, takes her by the hand, and they follow a path surrounded by flowers and butterflies, up to where? Maybe a fairy castle and a prince.

A cat jumps in through an open window. Meets the family dog. Dog barks. Cat runs. Dog runs after it. Wild chase. Cat jumps on the piano. Runs some scales. Throws over some statues, a plant crashes to the floor. Dog barks, cat squeals, footsteps sounding, upset homeowners enter the scene. Who are they, where do they come from, do they support World Wildlife, do they like animals unconditionally, do they hate cats, is it their dog, are they just dog sitting?

The sun shines today. I looked at my empty screen and wrote six paragraphs about time and weather. I imagined about all the hidden stories in those six simple paragraphs. So many to chose from. Endless, endless stories. On this sunshiny day I agree with author Michael Ende who sees life as a Never Ending Story, even though there is an ende to his name.

wild thing

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

2008-10-17T19:50:00.002-04:00

It seemed a good idea. Cars powered by electricity. I kept on wishing the idea was pushed more. No dangerous emissions spewing in the air. Less oil needed. Hopefully less disastrous oil spills. Saving lake, river, and sea creatures. Altogether better for the environment.
That's what I thought. Until I saw a commercial pointing out how much more electricity we will need when our transportation is powered by electricity. How we're definitely going to need more and bigger nuclear plants providing clean power, and how the government is proud to work on the extension of the nuclear power plants, to provide us with clean, safe electricity. Sounds like a golden promise. Until you do a double take, “nuclear power?” Clean? Safe? What about Chernoble, and other accidents? What about all the nuclear wastes being buried in secret far off places, like the Arctic? What about all that cancer causing stuff escaping into the air we breath. Settling on the food we eat. What about it?

Wild Thing

MY UMBRELLY-WELLY-S and ME.

2008-09-12T09:45:00.004-04:00

I used to camp out in my backyard. This year one never knows whether it will rain or not. So I camp out in my living room. Close to the wide open patio doors, so I can quickly close them when the sky breaks open. I still get the fresh air, I still hear the wind in the trees, I still hear my fountains sing their watery songs in harmony, to accompany my dreams.

Towards morning, still pitch dark, I half awoke, and heard water clatter. Oh no, I thought, my fountains have gone out of control. Space creatures have come to take over!!! I scrambled from my cozy sleeping nest, stood and tried to comprehend what was happening. Oh. Without a warning the big guy in the sky had sent what seemed like a 40 day flood. Well, no time to build an ark, but definitely time to walk the dog. My alarm clock going off, told me so. I sleepily dressed in my "sloppy-it-doesnt-matter clothes", stuck my feet in my wellies, grabbed my big, big umbrella, and out in the downpour I went with treats and poopy bags in my pockets, following that dog. So easy to be a dog. A coat that always keeps you at the right temperature, except maybe in an all over disabeling heat wave that retards all living creatures, unless they steal the benfits of that "ruining the environment" invention the air conditioner.

I always enjoy walking under my umbrelly, making a circumference of dry around me, splashing my wellied feet through big puddles, listening to the symphony of raindrops above me and all around. The rain seems to bring out more smells for Simon, and he, without umbrelly, without wellies, wags his tale enthusiasically and takes his time reading doge-mails. What a pair in the dark early hour on deserted streets, just an odd car splashing by.

Wild Thing

Big Brother Watching Me?

2008-09-10T21:37:00.002-04:00

I have a niece who lives in Wales. Recently she got married. She e-mailed me with her newly married name, twice. To send wedding pictures and so.

Didn't I fish a letter out of my mailbox, this morning, addressed to my niece, her name and newly wedded name, but my home address, by a Toronto Company with grocery saving coupons. Stuff I need like a hole in the head.

The only way I can think of they could do that is by reading e-mails.

Like I once took out a store's credit card, just to take advantage of a big discount on what I bought. Then I cancelled the card. But after I got lots of junk mail, and I knew it was because I fell for that credit discount, 'cause they had spelled my name wrong, and all the junk mail came to my misspelled name.

Feels weird to get mail for my niece in Wales on my address.

Wild Thing

Poor Poor Blog

2008-08-09T11:41:00.002-04:00

't's abandoned. It's very sad. Dovetalers don't love it anymore. Is blogging out of style? Ah, it lived a short life. Oh blogger, blogger, it fell by the wayside. It stares out into never-never land. Sometimes it meets the sad eyes of Mental blog. Mental blog is still sort of kept alive by HWSNBN. But it too is suffering from lack of response. The thought exchange machine is dying. Taken over by the incredible fast evolution of the cell phone. The cell phone which can do everything, just from the pocket, wherever you are, phone, pay your bills, text, make photos, exchange pictures, words... Just walk along with that little thingy in your hand held to your ear, and be in contact with all of your world. Very convenient. Is it cheaper? Not likely. Is it more sociable? I doubt it. It probably saves time. That vehicle time we keep on running out of more and more. How does that happen? Time savers make us busier? Oh blogger, blogger, in memoriam the blog. May it rest peacefully in cyberspace.

obsolete wild thing

NO KIDDING

2008-06-30T13:23:00.002-04:00

Wild Thing heard the most brilliant weatherforecast, this morning, on the radio,

"When the clouds roll away, we'll have sun."

2008-06-14T15:05:00.002-04:00

THE DANGER OF POETRY AND OLD MEMORIES
Early Saturday morning. The main tune of the day is rain. All the fans I own are whirling away in strategic places around the place I dwell in and call home. It is warm. It is clammy. Not unpleasant. The air feels rather soft, touching my skimpily clad body with soft gossamer fingers. It makes me feel sensual and dreamy.
After a rain walk with Super Dog, the day stretched ahead of me like a blank page. During the past days I've been drastically cleaning house. I hate cleaning, but even more I hate it when everything starts looking cluttered and dowdy and seems to be covered with a film of dirt. Action required!!! Three boxes of kitchen dishes went rattling in my little red wagon to the Salvation Army thrift store, enough to feed food and drink to an army. I don't even have a particular talent to be a pack rat. How do I end up being one anyhow? You'd figure that my kitchen cupboard are empty now. Wrong! The plus is that I can oversee what I have now.
The point I am making is that after the rain walk I came home to order and space. Dog and me had breakfast. Cat likely was hunting his own, in spite of his personal dish being filled with his top choice kibbles. And then I sat down in my rocking chair with a cup of tea, and thought of a poem. It doesn't matter which one. I envisioned the booklet it was in. I went downstairs to look for it. I'm not even sure I found it. I don't even remember what I was looking for. But my eye fell on a book called “Pocket Man.” Don Bell wrote it. A wild story about a most eccentric man called Roy McDonald. The man who wrote, “Living a London Journal.” Where was that book? And what happened to that funny other little booklet with his hilarious poem “The Answer Questioned?”
So I started rummaging around. Upstairs and downstairs. Soon upstairs I sat surrounded by books, booklets, newsletters, reliving the time of the late seventies and early eighties, a time of friendships, poetry and partying. Each item I held in my hands presenting me with a precious memory.

I Opened “Pocketman” and saw my neat ex libris I used those days to personalize my books.. A little, old wizened dwarf with a walking stick, in a woodsy nature setting, a friend I used to work wit gave me because she thought that typified me. And on the blank leaf beside it Roy, who gave me the book, wrote: “I liked your book of poetry very much. Your poetry is sensitive and honest as you are. I wish you all the best, always. In friendship, Roy. “( I had given him one of my handmade booklets.)

And in “The Answer Questioned he wrote, “This book was published last night. You have One of the first 25 copies. I treasure the copy of your short story, “Hey Diddle Diddle”.
Oh yeah, that was a story I wrote when he and I were in the same creative writing class. Maybe I should find that story and read it again. It was very Jungian. My mind was very occupied with alternative thinking and finding meaning in dreams then.

From among the books on the floor I had pulled out, at random I picked up a volume of Jan Figurski, The Stevensdaughter Poems. I always liked Jan Figurski, I liked his poems from hearing them being read by him, at poetry readings in The London Main Library meetings. Once he accompanied me with guitar, when I was reading my poems at the park. Looking at the book, I realized that I haven't even really read it. It will have to go to the bathroom. (A lot of my reading, I must admit, I do in the bathroom. One of Jan's poems I liked so much, I copied it into my “A Hobbit Travels Book, may the stars shine upon your face”a journal I used for sort of a record of poems I wrote myself, and some of others I particularly liked. Jan and his wife were expecting a baby, and he wrote:

A Sense of Wonder
One early morning me and you
and one as yet unnamed
will hear the sound of drying dew.
Our ears will tingle, softly mingled
with others still untamed.
A sound is but vibration,
As if that was enough!
But how we feel a finer sensation
is made of slipp'rier stuff.

Other poems he wrote are better crafted. I like this one because he tries to catch an emotion that really lies beyond his physical grasp.

My own introductory poem in the Hobbit book reads,

There are spaces
in time where we can live
in leisure and leave
all logic behind.

Where snatched from
our world by whimsical
faeries, it's only
sweet magic
we
find.

And I filled that book with hand written dreams and poems and longings and magic all signifying my state of mind at the time. Sometimes I didn't know if I was awake or dreaming.. I had day visions and night visions. I was in love. Experienced things that weren't One poem in the same book reads,

Air?

You found me unaware
and trailed a passionate kiss
along my lips, so swift,
I gasped at empty air.

Was that your dream or
was it mine or just a trick of time?
One thing I know for sure,
There was no body there.

The man I was in love with,without knowing about my poem, wrote.

When I dreamed you were here
you were.
As a dove my heart took flight
to decent upon your shoulder

Only to find a cloud
drifting away
in the morning mist
never to come again.

Was that about me? I don't think so. I was just struck by the similarity of dream feelings.

While dwelling in that time capsule of the past, I remembered one of the poem posters still hanging on the wall downstairs. I went to look at it. Frank Raymond, an experimental poet, great performer. He signed the poster: “For pretty netty.” Ah, I was still pretty then, although I never really believed it myself. Pity!

And then I though of Bill Bissett, experimental poet, and musician. He performed his poetry with rhythm instruments and song. He played with word spellings like Larry does. (Whoever reads this and doesn't know Larry, forget I said that. This is no place to explain Larry.) He also formed his poems into shapes on the page. (It's too much writing to give an example of such a shape. One looks like a sailboat.) A tiny fragment of his spelling, I can do.

u
say
yes now
th rain in th
treez the rain in
yr eye nd
evry way yu dew it

Bill moved to Vancouver. I wrote him a letter, just to keep in touch. He wrote me back. We corresponded for quite a while. He sent me his publication “Medicine My Mouth On Fire.” On the title page, in simple lines, he drew gulls in flight and waves, around, 'for netty, love bill.'

Some lines extracted from his letters are,”reallee nice to heer from you-that was a luvlee nite.” “Yes, sumtimes dreem images occur in th writing.” “Thrain seems to have stoppd heer, allthbe ok, love bill.

I have a newly pile of reading to stack on my reading bench in the bathroom. Oh boy. Will I really get to read it? Once withdrawn from my time capsule, the one I am still in right now, will life in “Outer Space” reclaim me and keep me busy with nowadays living again?

I started this journey into the past, early this morning. Right now it is almost 3 pm. It's good that I didn't have any “must does.” Forgetting time like this really can be dangerous.
Since the Dovetale blog is in hibernation, and I had on mind to try to revive it once more, (much chance!) I will publish this for dovetalers to read, and very likely also bring it to editing circle. Some people may get to read it twice that way. But I suppose that won't hurt.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO ALL FATHERS.

WILD THING

P.S. I don't feel like reading this over again, excusez moi for left typos.

2008-05-07T16:35:00.002-04:00

MAY SHOWERS BRING... May flowers!!!

I planted butterflies, (the magic ones that light up in different colours from solar energy) and pansies, and geraniums. First there was a lot of tidying up to do, and weeding away what was not wanted. Now that it starts looking like something, spring is singing in my heart.

Wild Thing

2008-04-21T08:18:00.002-04:00

THOSE IN-BETWEEN-ITEMS NEVER SEEM TO MAKE IT OUT OF THE CLOSET. I like spring. I like that slow transition from cold to pleasantly warm. You still may need a sweater or jacket. Your body fills with new energy. And no insects yet. You feel light, unencumbered...

We don't do that this year, do we? From winter boots to flip flops. From winter coat to T-shirts. Oh, I like. I like it better than snow. But I look at clothing items in my closet. Some I would like to wear. But already too warm for them. Maybe next year? Mmmm, maybe not. I have lots of things to wear for in-between. They really never seem to make it out of the closet. Of course they don't wear out either. Maybe that's a bonus.

Was in the thrift shop in New Hamburg, Saturday. Wow, they have such good stuff, such good prices, and such a neat, friendly atmosphere. One could hang out there for hours. I think we did. Bought books of poetry, of old stories, looked at, and bought some of those great looking plants, donated by the community, planted by the thrift shop personal, lovingly, in recycled pots, artistically. Plants always fresh and cared for, to tantalize your green addiction.

And bought clothes. A change in summery things. I wear them today, proudly. Loose, light cotton pants. A great top that reminds you of a beautiful blue sky. Funny I do have quite a selection of shorts. But somehow I do not want them yet. From jeans to shorts doesn't work for me. I need transition. Don't feel like exposing white legs yet.

You may wonder what happened to all those in-between-fashion-items I was talking about that don't wear out. Well, somehow, especially pants, I always have a hard time finding anymore. I want simple. I want light. I want not to feel aware of what I am wearing. And that is hard to come by, unless, I guess you want to pay out-of-this-world prices. I don't. And the old cottonees have become beyond repairing.

This word program is so unpoetic. Doesn't recognize the word 'cottonees', doesn't like the word unpoetic... sigh! Hard to be original in the electronic world of conformity. But a great opportunity to be rebellious.

Well, time to get going. Have breakfast. Listen to bird songs coming in through wide open windows. Let the dog take me for a walk. Maybe have a sprint on my bike. It's waiting for me, aroused from hibernation.

Happy summer, all you blogger writers out there. Don't forget to smell the daffodils.

Wild Thing

Oh, I forgot, have a series of musquito bites on arms and legs. They are out allready!

ITCHY MATTER

2008-04-09T12:53:00.001-04:00

Friend or Enemy?
A spider bit me on my butt while I was sitting on the throne. Suddenly I feel this lump rising, itchy like crazy. Now I am tolerant of spiders. Say 'hi' to them when they crawl by. Let them be. But when I rose from the toilet and saw this green culprit, I had murderous intentions. One swipe would have landed him (her? Naw I like to think it was male interest) in the toilet bowl swirled away with all that liquid. Would serve him right. But, although I am not Buddhist, I still think a life is a life. I couldn't bite him back on his butt, to teach him a lesson. But I didn't see him as a welcome guest in my house anymore either. I would never put a bug out in winter to freeze to death. Winter would have been a bigger dilemma. But hey, the snow bells and the crocuses are celebrating spring. Yesterday I enjoyed lunch and supper outdoors with friends at my picnic table. Under the umbrella for a bit of protection from that glorious sun. (This umbrella defuses light rather than blocking out the sun.) I brought a few plants out from inside, and a small pot with children-of-the-sun daffodils. I entertained some friends with lunch and with supper. What a day it was! But back to the spider. I picked him up, gave him a scolding, brought him outside, and told him to stay out and not come back with a whole spider family. Well, doesn't quite go with spiders that way, does it. Maybe there is a nest full of eggs somewhere in my house. I think I better check the toilet before I sit down, next time.

Wild Thing

A STORY OF SPRING

2008-04-04T13:03:00.003-04:00

From under the piles of snow, even before it was all melted away, appeared those sweet, brave snow bells, in full bloom. Amazingly white, whiter than snow, reaching up to the sky. A patch of little beauties, in a mantle of healthy green, slender leaves. Around them still messy garden residue from last year, brownish, but with signs of green sprouts coming up, promising that crocuses, daffodown dillies, and tulips are not that far behind.
I had been afraid that that particular spring pleasure had been taken away from me. Late last spring, without my consent, while I was away, my flowerbeds had been dug up and over planted with things busy body neighbours thought would be more aesthetic to look at. But, o joy, the bulbs survived. Wild Thing happy now. In the wake of of robins and red winged blackbirds, my snow bells appeared again. I apologized to them for not having greater trust in their survival skills. They outsmarted human intervention.

Tid Bits

2008-03-27T21:15:00.004-04:00

Man, I have been off line for weeks. Nothing changed in the blogger area. Dovetalers and Mental Blog supporters are not exactly suffering from blogger mania, are they?

Tell you about my cat Yona. I discovered him to be my protector watch cat. He sat on the kitchen window sill, looking out. Being not quite there, I heard this deep, and threatening growl. I looked up. It came from Yona. I look out, a stanger was coming up the driveway. Wow, my cat was alerting me to danger!. It was only a postman, but not our regular one. Yeah Yona!!!

Simon who was outside, knocked on the door to come in. I let him in. Thought he'd stay. But he ran into the living room, picked up his rawhide bone, and wished to be let out again, to lay on the snow and chew.

My friend told me about a family in her church. the grandmother had died. They told the children that she had gone to heaven. Later they visited the funeral home, and viewed the body in the coffin. The youngest child, piped up, "Mommy, are we in heaven?"

Star Dust

2008-03-16T11:32:00.003-04:00

Our body is a composition of atoms that were once cooked in the Big Bang and the furnace of our sun. We are literally star dust.

Our sun threw out materials of superheated gases that revolved around our star. Eventually these gases cooled to form a mass. After billions of years rain filled some crevice in a rock. The stagnant pool of chemical soup was then supercharged by lightening. From that rare combination of a spark of charged chemicals life began.

Just the right combination of chemicals held that charge allowing it to begin the first steps in writing the history of life in DNA code. A code that has evolved into three billion characters carrying with the message of a universal will to be.

bobby bacon

Am I Certain?

2008-03-10T13:16:00.001-04:00

Every measurement or observation carries with it uncertainty. If we require unequivocal certainty to make a decision about anything, we simply wouldn’t make any decisions.

Am I certain about that? Smiles, of course not.

Uncertainty is okay though. We can be certain about uncertainty.

In the late twenties and thirties much of the development in physics was lead and influenced by German institutions. It was an uncertain period of time where colleagues are friends one day and then sworn enemy the next day.

"The more precisely the POSITION is determined, the less precisely the MOMENTUM is known" WERNER HEISENBERG (1901 - 1976).

And no one will ever be certain of Heisenberg’s motives or intentions during the war. Perhaps his motivation was merely to survive.

In more recent times Colin Powell, I believe had good intentions. Mr Powell was unique in the sense that there was a high degree of confidence worldwide in his character as a man who spoke the truth compared to any other member of the Bush administration. He was given evidence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Likely a trusting man that couldn’t imagine that evidence was being manufactured for him to present to the UN. He was certain he was presenting credible information.

Perhaps the next US administration could be kinder if they are less certain and self-righteous. A scientist, a theologian, a politician or a reporter would have a greater degree of credibility if they expressed more doubts.

We don’t require certainty to make a decision. In that regards we would look at potential outcomes of decisions in terms of prediction and probabilities. Our concerns about the probabilities should contemplate whether an action would cause more harm than good.

Any planned action that may cause harm to people or to the planet lacks credibility.

MEMORIES OF MOMMY

2008-02-29T15:22:00.001-05:00

There are sometimes these days. Today is such a day for me. I want my “MOMMY!”

She's in the kitchen. She seems to spend a lot of time there. I shuffle up and lean into her, while she's stirring something in a pot on the stove. She looks down. A smile on her face. She lifts my chin , strokes my hair, and asks, “What's the matter, don't you feel so good?” I shake my head. She feels my forehead. Wipes a tear from my cheek. “You must be tired. Maybe something is coming on. Come.”
She draws up a reclining chair from the other room, puts in a blanky, and settles me down. I lean comfortably into the cushions while Mommy starts to boil some water and fuzzes about. While she is cooking up things, she tells me little stories, and sings me songs. Songs are stories too.

She sings about the little cradle softly rocking in a tree. It has flower curtains. Two tiny birds built it together with love and expectations. And look how intricate and delicate. In it are two little eggs. Two baby birds are born. Mommy Jay sings a song in purest ecstacy, a song so very, very sweet . And the tiny cradle gently sways like a ship on the rolling sea.

She sings about a green valley full of little flowers gently swaying in the wind, to the sound of a murmuring waterfall. The water softly sprays every little flower, even the very smallest one.

She sings about a poor, little robin red breast in the snow coming from a forest, so hungry, knocking on a window of a house, and a little girl opens and feeds the little one sugar and bread crumbs It then flies back to the forest, but comes back every day.

Mommy comes to my chair and sits down on the arm. She puts a tray in my lap with a soft boiled egg in an egg cup, the one that is decorated with a yellow chicky, and a bowl with hot cream of wheat porridge with lots of sugar. Mmmmmmmm!!!

While this winter is dragging its feet, sending more frost, more snow, making walking into tricky exercises, me feeling tired, sluggish, stick in the muddish, wishing for sunny days when I can run out in shorts and a t-shirt, bare feet in flip-flops, hop on my bike...

This particular stubborn winter day, waiting for spring... not knowing what to wear, tired of all those winter outfits, not knowing what to eat, tired of winter dishes...tired anyway...

Is it a wonder that I want my “MOMMY?”

I send my writers friends this lamentation. I cannot read or answer comments. See previous posts for reason.

FRIDAY MORNING

2008-02-29T08:21:00.002-05:00

Wild thing is puzzled. What she posts, seemingly gets published, according to the blog message. But it does not get in the comment column. Wild thing cannot find Larry's posting, copied and pasted from his e-mail on spirits. This is going to be another attempt. There she goes into cyber space witout guarantee it will land where it is supposed to go.

This is a leap year. today is February the 29th. Simon is butting my elbow. Thinks it is time to go for a walk. Brrrrr. I am holding off a bit. Yona is romping around in the snow. He goes out through the windows slightly left ajar. Brave cat. I closed the register so not too much heat will escape. It's freezing in my computer room.

Well, see if this will go out to my blogger friends. I be so pleased when it works.

How to Make a Link

2008-02-28T19:03:00.010-05:00

Larry will now demonstrate how to make a link, for example in the comments section. Of course, when we are posting on the blog, it is very simple. You just click on the "Insert Link" icon, and it
does it for you once you have pasted in the URL.

But what if there is no "Insert Link" icon? How do you make that go?

Like this. You must make an HTML code. The words and symbols for the code are so:
Insert Name of Site

Now, what Larry has just done here is demonstrate that you can't use the code (properly) in a demonstration, because the code will try to turn it into a hyperlink.

Larry must break up the code into bits to tell you. He must also use a different symbol at beginning and end so that it doesn't turn into real code. So Larry will replace these symbols: < > with [ ] OK?

ie: [ is the same as < and ] is the same as >

So, the first part of the code is this:
[a href=

Next, insert the URL between quotation marks, followed by ] :
"http://www.mariannepaul.com/"]

After that, you type in the name of the website, or the text that you want as the link:
Here I Am

And you end the link with:
[/a] (The slash always indicates "end")

So now Larry will show you the whole link, with brackets instead of <> :
[a href="http://www.mariannepaul.com/"]Here I Am[/a]

As soon as you put in the correct symbols you get the link:
Here I Am

Larry remembers that M@ showed us how to do this a long time ago. There are simple codes for bold, italics and underline.

Using the bracket version:

bold is [b]type what you want[/b] :
type what you want

italics is [i]type what you want[/i] :
type what you want

underline is [u]type what you want[/u] :
type what you want

Oh, one further hint. If, for example you make a post and put a link into it using the "Insert link" icon, you can then click on the Edit Html button and it will show you the code that makes that link. The a href stuff and everything.

And another piece of trivia. If you right-click on a website, the context menu will have a line that says View Source, or View Page Source. If you click on that you will get to see all the code that makes up that web page. Just what you wanted to know, eh?

That's all the code Larry knows. Go away now.

And practice.

Blogging ruins chili dinner

2008-02-28T14:06:00.004-05:00

There I was, blogging wildly in my head, creating all those witty things I would post in my latest rant - all about why people who go outside their house to work think those who stay in their house to work have much MUCH more time on their hands... that somehow they don't really work... oh, I was rockin' & rollin'... sling-shooting and ping-ponging thoughts... all the while multi-tasking... defrosting hamburger in the micro-wave... nuking away.... Why do people think POETS AND NOVELISTS have all that available time????? And don't people value creative writing as ACTUAL work... rather than hobby???? Smush up defrosted hamburger in bottom of the slow cooker.... find that envelope of chili spice mix amongst all those dirty dishes on my messy counter... Let Farleydog out into the yard to pee.... sprinkle chili mix on smushed meat... open can of diced tomatoes and pour over mix... Why do people think they're gonna write some day in the FUTURE as opposed to RIGHT NOW????? Maybe because it's such hard WORK in the present.... LOLOLOLOL! Plug in slow cooker... fiddle with settings....push low for 8 hours.... clean up counter.... hand wash dishes... find chili mix still in its envelope in a shopping bag???? WHAT DID I PUT IN THE SLOW COOKER????? AND CAN I EAT IT????

~Xena

new post

2008-02-28T10:27:00.002-05:00

This is just wild thing trying out if she can post. She did not receive Larry's post. It's not there. She wondered if her freaky computer is acting up, which it does in many annoying ways. For one, trying to get to the blogs she has to struggle through a jungle of 'insecure' messages, warning after warning about, among others, that her security certificate is either expired, or not installed. Checking that out, she sees that the security certificate is good 'till May 28, 08. ????????????

Anyway, here she goes, see if this will post.

Writing

2008-02-28T08:40:00.002-05:00

What is writing, really?
One time I replied
writing is cursed.
African pygmy children emerge
from huts made of leaves
without knowing a single letter.
One time I replied
pygmy children are cursed.

Those children are cursed by their illiteracy
while I am cursed by my ten thousand books.

Ill-advised, those who think this world
is nirvana.

(Poem by Ko Un from Songs for Tomorrow: A Collection of Poems, 1961-2002 published by Green Integer.)

Larry thinks the poem is a challenge. To what? Perhaps intellectual arrogance. To Buddhists, too.

In the Chan tradition, the phrase "ten thousand things" is often used to refer to...basically everything...the world of phenomena. Ko Un changes this to "ten thousand books". In the context of the poem, then, he gives it a double meaning.

Ill-advised, those who think this world is nirvana. Again, a challenge. The doctrine tells us this world is nirvana, if only we knew it. Un points to the answer, Larry thinks, because he realizes that at one moment he sees the curse of writing, the next he sees the curse of its lack.

Where is nirvana to be found?
The compulsion to choose steals nirvana.

The spirits behind the writers

2008-02-27T15:27:00.013-05:00

It all started with a little email to the Talers of Dove:

Hello Dove Talers! A tip for tipplers:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-tartakovsky27feb27,0,6073273.story?track=ntothtml

From the Los Angeles Times

Here's the article that link goes to:

The spirits behind the writers

Understanding the great scribes' fondness for alcohol.

By Joseph Tartakovsky

February 27, 2008

Horace reports that the 5th century Athenian poet Cratinus, in a light-hearted defense of his famed intemperance, declared, "No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by water drinkers." Cratinus wasn't entirely kidding: Legend says he died of grief upon seeing a full cask of wine break into pieces. And writers of subsequent ages have taken his sentiment to heart. Wherever you find the pen-and-ink set, drink is an emblem of vivacity and wit, at times regarded with semireligious reverence.

Why do scribblers make drinking their second art? For one thing, it primes them for their task. In 1714, a young Alexander Pope, in an affectionate letter to a lady, began, "Most Divine! -- 'Tis some proof of my sincerity towards you that I write when I am prepared by drinking to speak truth." Keats, in an 1819 letter, described how "ethereal" claret "mounts into the brain" and makes one "a Hermes," god of, among other things, eloquence. "A good sherris-sack," said Falstaff (speaking, no doubt, for Shakespeare himself) "... ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery and delectable shapes which, delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit." Well, perhaps.

Drink rarely causes a writer to underestimate his talents. And tippling is a handy excuse: Inspired writing produced under the influence is still inspired. But you wrote a tissue of nonsense? Well, one overindulges.

Hart Crane wrote many of his curious poems while comprehensively lathered. You'd never guess. In the early 1980s, Norman Mailer was asked by director Sergio Leone to write a screenplay. Mailer showed his enthusiasm by locking himself in a hotel room for three weeks with a case of whiskey. Leone, says a biographer, recalled hearing Mailer in his room "singing, cursing and shouting for ice cubes." He did not use the script.

Prudent writers learn to take more out of drink than it takes out of them. Kingsley Amis, in a 1975 interview, prescribed a glass of Scotch as an "artistic icebreaker." John Mortimer told the New York Times that an early morning flute of Champagne "sets my brain racing." A roommate of Tennessee Williams reported that the playwright rose early and set his typewriter clacking, after fortifying himself with a martini, a bottle of red wine and a somewhat incongruous pot of coffee.

Some writers have found even deeper use for alcohol. Tennyson, according to his friend James Knowles' 1893 reminiscence, would "look upon his bottle of port as a sort of counsellor." When the poet received the letter offering him the poet laureateship of Britain, he brooded inconclusively until finally composing two letters -- one accepting and one declining -- placing them on his table and resolving to decide which to send after finishing his bottle of port. He accepted.

The writer's life is solitary, but not the drinking writer's. In his 1975 memoir, "Here at the New Yorker," Brendan Gill portrays the magazine (where he worked for 40 years) as a society of first-class bingers. One colleague believed that vomiting was, like shaving and showering, a natural part of any morning routine. Edmund Wilson drank at lunch until he couldn't stand; A.J. Liebling once fled a burning restaurant but not without securing his bottle of brandy; Wolcott Gibbs lugged buckets of premixed martinis to the beach and stored them in the sand.

But there can be a dark side. Booze was the downfall of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, after it “pickled their brains,” in the words of John Irving. Ditto for William Faulkner, Eugene O'Neill and Dylan Thomas, drinkers with writing problems all. "I'm Catholic, and I can't commit suicide," said Jack Kerouac, "but I plan to drink myself to death." Which he did, checking out from liver cirrhosis at the age of 47.

Is there really a muse in the bottle? Christopher Hitchens, an empirical student of the matter, says the connection is "oblique," but he observes that the "word 'spirit' preserves the initial intuition of the 'inspired' that was detected by the Greeks."

Intoxication, if not the source of literary creation, creates a cerebral aura congenial to it. It recasts the glare of life in a softer hue. It soothes anxiety and other stultifiers of reflection. It warms the mind and thaws thoughts frozen in timidity. The fruit of the vine does not give us insight but aids our discovery of it; it can allow you to eavesdrop on yourself.

The trick is to find the golden mean between exhilarating and dulling the intellect. Cratinus' belief that only bad verses were written without wine seems too appealing to be untrue. But the best verses no doubt arise when, the wine low in the bottle, Dionysus is still steady enough to dance to the tune of Apollo's lyre.

Joseph Tartakovsky is associate editor of the Claremont Review of Books.
Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times (Larry sez: please note © !)

©©©©

Followed further emails:

From Wild Thing:

Mmmmmmmmm, does that mean that I should dip deeper into alcoholic beverages to make it to the poet's hall of fame?

From Xena:
Very funny, Larry! (Believe it or not) for me, wine and writing don't mix - kinda like driving. Too many accidents! But of the literary kind. However, editing circle's another thing.... *smile*.

I have discovered that I can set up my yahoo page to bring me five news articles a day related to poetry (yeah, POETRY NEWS) and another five for writing news. It's been fun and even enlightening to read the articles. Here's one news-related issue that I found fascinating. Copyright nuts have been so squeamish about letting anybody read/have any of their words for free. Online postings posed a problem from this perspective. Lock down sites? Make people pay to access your writing online? The problem is all of that is so restrictive - why would "surfing" readers do that? I heard a blogger speak once (can't remember his name - but a very popular blogger) who said he found when he posted his articles in his blog straight from his newspaper column - no extra pay for him or the newspaper - people tended to search him out in print too. It increased print sales. The same is being proven with online books. People download the writing for free, but then tend to search out book copies, and/or buy the books for friends. In other words, online free downloading increases books sales. Publisher now are putting some books online - the whole thing - for free. Here's the news article link to read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080226/ap_en_ot/books_free_download

Again from Wild Thing:
Well now you say so, alcoholic spirits make me feel tired and a bit dizzy. Never felt inspired to write, like when I am between sleeping and waking, and words and sentences just float in. You think it is a man thing? Do they need the courage, more so than a woman, to let go of their inner self? I knew a good guitarist and lyric writer, who I often invited to parties. He would not perform untill he downed a good amount of beer. Remembering writers/poets get togethers, it was mainly the men who were sauced already right from the start. I am open to be proven wrong about that.

When I get an AHA out of what someone has written, book, poetry, I am so pleased about it. I like learning. I like to see my own feelings confirmed, expressed the way I could not. When I write I always hope that it is worth sharing. That it may help someone else who reads it, in his/her thought processes, and that they in turn pass it on, by sharing in converstion, in writing or vocally. That to me is pay. I agree, Marianne, that opening your work up for free sharing, may help rather than harm you. I always seek out writers that have touched me. I want to read more of their material. those are the books I buy for gifts.

And Larry:
POETRY NEWS? What exactly does that consist of? Of what, exactly, does that consist?

Seriously, Xena if you click on edit in the module on your Yahoo page, it should bring down a box that says "Email Module". Send me the link for those two modules, please. I missed them somehow in all the options for News, Sports, Politics, Useless Diversions...

Re: drinking & writing. Yes, it loosens the tongue, but tends to disorganize the thinking, no?

Re: online novels. I've downloaded gigabytes worth of online literature, plus other stuff, pages & pages, and it collects on my computer because I have difficulty doing sustained reading on the computer. Lots of reading, yes, but working thru a novel? Tough to do.

As for the other part, all my writing is free. So far. I've seen sites where people surround their material with copyright signs, dated, little messages saying, "This is my poem. I wrote it and it belongs to me. It's thin at the beginning, becomes much thicker in the middle, then thins out at the end. That is my poem, and it is mine." On the internet? Good luck! If you post it, someone will copy it, even if they have to type it out by hand.

And Xena:
Hey Wild Thing, you've thrown down the gauntlet to the men writers out there! LOL!

Larry responds:
Larry will respond for the men. Is it an aspect of the artistic temperament? (What is the artistic temperament?) This phenomenon is not just confined to writing, of course. See my blog posts about Amy Winehouse. (And then there was Janis Joplin...) And you can see that it is not confined to men, although those two examples were musicians...

The artist struggles with two great difficulties...first, the battle to express accurately what one wishes to express...the personal struggle for self-fulfillment, let's say. And then second, the wish to share it with others...and have it accepted and appreciated. Failure in either one of these may drive you to drink. And success might as well, because success is the prelude to imagined failure to live up to both one's own and others' expectations in the next project...

Larry has a second thought: (his first second thought in decades)...
This is a discussion that should be going on on the much-neglected Dove Tale Blog! You writers, you!

Xena agrees:
I agree. Larry, do you want to translate it over? Post your email as a blog, and I'll translate Wild Things and my comments to the blog after? And everyone else, come join us!

And one final from Xena:

Go to the part at the top menu where it says personalise this page. Go to content. Then search poetry and writing (separately). Lots of feeds (that's the right word?) come up. Kinda nuts... Anyway, for my yahoo page...

Here's the link for poetry: http://www.topix.com/arts/poetry

Here's the writer one I have: http://news.yahoo.com/i/785

(Larry decides to do the whole thing himself, cuz he likes to be in control...plus, his Gmail gives him automatic easy-to-follow threads...)

©©©©

What's all this for? Well, mainly because there are several interesting possible conversations going on here!

Like:

The question of drinkers who write, with all of the subtexts involved in that, including gender differences, and how useful is it to write while drinking...
The question of online publication, giving it away for free...
Why do writers write anyway? Is it just for the exposure? What constitutes pay?
A "technical" Internet conversation about RSS feeds and Personal Home Pages and how do you get your news.

All of which deserve some attention and consideration.

You may now comment or post your own post.

Thoughts on Editors & Editing

2008-02-23T01:28:00.002-05:00

In an odd way, the exchange between writer and editor encapsulates the process of growing up. The act of writing is godlike, omnipotent, infantile. Your piece is a statement delivered from on high, a pronouncement ex cathedra, as egotistical and unchecked as the wail of a baby. Then it goes out into the world, to an editor, and the reality principle rears its ugly head. You are forced as a writer to come to terms with the gap between your idea and your execution -- and still more deflating, between your idea and what your idea should have been.

From an article by Gary Kamiya entitled "Let Us Now Praise Editors". You can read the rest at Salon.com

Larry Luvs Toys

2008-02-11T20:45:00.001-05:00

Larry luvs toys. Internet toys. Or what are currently being called Web2.0 toys. That means applications that run entirely on the Internet. Storage on the net. Working on the net. Bookmarks on the net. Networking on the net. Uploading. Sharing. Writing.

In fact, Larry's using an Internet toy to write this very post. It's called Windows Live Writer. And here's a screenshot to prove it:

Larry's not sure, but he thinks you can click on the screenshot to make it bigger. There, if that works, you will see an exact duplicate of what he's just written.

So now Larry has demonstrated two toys. Windows Live Writer and another program called Screenshot Studio.

Now, first, Live Writer. This is perhaps not strictly a Web2.0 device, since you have to download some kind of software, which installs easily. Then you can configure it to publish automatically to your blog.

Essentially, Live Writer is a WYSIWYG text editor, or word processor. But it goes somewhat beyond basic word processing. In fact, it has all the tools that the Blogger editing page has, plus a couple others. You can download plug-ins that expand the capabilities of Live Writer, such as "Insert SnagIt Screen Capture," which Larry guesses is a function similar to the Studio Screenshot application. (And here Larry has to say, he hasn't been able to get this plug-in to work, even though the program says it's enabled and he's downloaded it about 3 times and installed it just as many times, but when he tries to use it, a box comes up saying it's not installed. Conclusion: there are still bugs to be worked out.) One thing you can do with Live Writer that you can't on the Blogger page is to insert a table. Not the four-legged kind, but the tabular kind. Like this:

Live	Writer	Four-Legged	Table

You can also insert events, maps, pictures, videos, hyperlinks, and tags (which this blog is not currently using, but could be.)

There are several of these Word-type applications available on the net now, including many of the Google applications like Google Docs, ThinkFree and Zoho. These latter two are in fact much more than mere word processors. They qualify as genuine office applications. And what does that mean? It means you don't necessarily have to spend the $700 that Larry spent on Microsoft Office. These apps are free! Did Larry say free? Yes, free! As in free. And speaking of free, if you want an office suite on your computer that's maybe not quite as powerful or flashy as Microsoft Office, but has the advantage of being free, check out Open Office.Org. Larry uses this all the time rather than Microsoft Office (which he paid $700 for...) This is not to say he doesn't use Office. He does. Just not for everything. Like, for example, creating pdf files, which you can do with Open Office!

These online applications have one big advantage. As long as you remember your login name and password, you can access them from any computer at all that has an Internet connection. All of them allow you to upload documents as well, and to share them. So, for example, you could do a collaborative writing project by establishing a group who all know the password, then edit the document online, save the versions and (in the case of Google, Larry believes) even publish it online. (And for this purpose, though there wouldn't be any money involved in the publishing, there is another site called Scribd, specifically for uploading documents which can be shared to a wide audience.

There is also one big disadvantage to these programs, however. Because they're online, and they're free, there is always the danger that the companies sponsoring these sites will one day go out of business. And then you're SOL, unless you've backed up your files. (Of course, you can always back them up on some other free online site!)

And speaking of backup. How about your bookmarks? Ever lost your bookmarks? Larry has lost his bookmarks. Suzy Homemaker has lost hers too. Larry has since learned how to back these up on his own computer, but he has also invested time (but no money cuz it's free) in an online bookmark service called StartAid. This is a cool bookmarking service, that loads into your browser as well as being accessible on a separate webpage. (Once again, accessible from any computer at all.)

Yes, Larry luvs toys. Actually, the one he loves most is his Firefox browser. If you are still using any browser other than Firefox, you are missing a whole world of functionality. Larry doesn't even know where to begin. So he won't. There are so many people working on add-ons and little improvements, pimping it up as they say, that it makes your head spin. All in the name of productivity, or functionality, or efficiency, or just plain fun and the sheer joy of surfing. Seriously, forget about Internet Explorer. Forget Safari. (Larry uses this too, but it just doesn't compete.) Forget Opera. (Larry just started experimenting with it, but it doesn't look like it quite makes it either...) Get Firefox. Do it now!

Larry luvs his toys. And he's now going to use his Windows Live Writer toy to post this on Dove Tale Writer. (Hope to hell it works...)

New Layout

2008-02-08T02:52:00.000-05:00

Larry has changed the template. Larry was given the power. What good is power left unused?

Change is the only sure thing. So Larry changed the template. The layout has changed. The landscape altered.

Is the change satisfactory? Does it meet with your approval? Only time and the comments section will tell. Many other changes may be changed. The change may even be changed back. No problem.

Larry likes the change. Why? Because the new layout is very clean. It's called Minima Stretch. And it is. Minimalist. But sophisticated. For sophisticated literary types. Dove Talers.

The look of the template is not the only change. The template is in fact the "new" Blogger-style template. Which is already not new, but about 2 years old. Users will notice some differences. Maybe. You still sign in and post the same way. However, when you are signed in to the blog, you will notice new little graphics on the blog. Like the wrench and socket wrench. Click on these and you will find yourself on the editing page. You need not concern yourself with these. Unless you feel like editing something. There will also be a link on the top right of the page that says "Customize". Click on this and you will find a feast of options and things you can add to the blog.

Change it. If you don't like it, change it back. Delete. Repeat. Edit. Alter. Customize. Preview. Experiment.

Or just write a post. That would make the Secret Bloginettes sing joyous hymns to the God of Bloggery.

Larry has finished now. Go forth, ye Bloggeroonies, and multiply.

What Kind of World is This?

2008-01-20T12:22:00.000-05:00

I went to the library, yesterday. One of the best places to spend time. All my life libraries have been important to me. Books entertain me, teach me about other worlds, give me new insights, educate me, bring me delight.

Compared to Holland, where I grew up (did I?) libraries in Canada are superb. Yes, in Holland fees had to be paid to take out books. But even though we were poor, some money for borrowing books could usually be found. Buying books was for birthday presents, St. Nicolas gifts, or other special occasions. That wouldn't have filled my time spending in bed when I was ill and Mom had to go to work, asking the neighbours to keep an eye on me and see to my needs. Sometimes I managed almost three books a day, being deeply into the stories with blood-red cheeks, forgetting time, and discomfort.

Having come to Canada I was pleasantly surprised that books from the library were free to read. What a gift. With hardly any money to get by, most of the time, food for the tummy sparse, books, food for spirit and soul, were in plenty supply. What better way to learn about your new country, learn the language and feel the culture?

Yesterday, having chosen my books, checking out, I picked up a bookmark of an unusual big size. Ha, maybe I wouldn't lose that one so easily! (You wanna bet?) At home I read the bookmark. Discovered that it was a plea for money.

Apparently funding for libraries is not that generous anymore. They struggle. To accommodate all the new technology, all the new information, to expand the way they need to, they have to beg the public to “BE A FRIEND.” Being a friend means donating money from a suggested 50 dollar to 500 dollar or more. There is also a margin for less.

Same as with the theater. Always that cart in the mail for more money.

Same as with World Wildlife of which I am a member. No matter how much I donate, and how many animals I adopt, there is always that letter with a million thank-yous, and the card to please donate more. Oh how I would want to.

Same as with the Red Cross. They sent me a calendar. A thank you for past donations. An expectation that I donate more. I let it go for the time being, not exactly swimming in give-away money. Another letter came, expressing disappointment at me for not having reacted, and having received such a nice calendar. Well!!! I hadn't asked for that calendar. I didn't even need a calendar. They could've offered it for a price. I wrote a cheque for ten dollar, while worried about my shrinking bank account, sent it off and felt real cheap. Had to remind myself that every little bit helps and the money is really needed.

Then there are the phone calls. Nice policemen begging for money to sponsor poor kids to go to the circus. Pleas for children's wish fund...

I never give to causes that come over the phone. I deplore the pressure. No matter how heart breaking the story.

But somehow, one is always made to feel inadequate. Little guilt feelings try to dominate. Saying no to causes legitimately in need, causes tearing on your heart strings, causes you know are for helping the world, and peace, and loving care...

Not always in the way I believe care should be given. Somehow I don't see that a very sick child needs to go to Disneyland to feel cared for or have fun. Maybe for mom not to have to work, a warm, caring home surroundings, a pet to cuddle, a favourite meal, are better food for the little tyke craving love?

Much in the news now is the matter of weapons. People getting killed by gun-happy youths & adults, just like that. Roadside flowers, little altars, grieving crowds, wailing, helplessness...

So people stand up and demand to make it illegal to carry weapons. Good idea, I think. Won't cover the whole problem, but a good, worthwhile beginning of tackling it. Right?

So most Canadian politicians agree. So one stands up and says, “No, that is no good. We should extend jail sentences to discourage people from killing each other.

Pardon me? We should not take away the temptation, but use taxpayers money to lock away the person that was provoked, tempted, or just plain angry?

And what about so many voices speaking up now to protect the environment. How come most people seem to agree that drastic measures need to be put in place. Most countries, politicians, believe that doing sonic explosions in the arctic seas should be stopped to protect the whales that get confused, their own sonic communications being shattered, and they end up being seriously wounded, and dying. How come Bush can decide that, never mind, we should go ahead with the sonic try outs, never mind the whales? Same as how he didn't get most votes, and became president. Same as he bombed Iraq for unverified reasons, against the will of the United Nations, and destroyed cultures, people, environments...??? And all the soldiers going to war, killing, being killed, supposedly to make a better world, but for all eyes to see, the world, and life thereupon, is getting more unbalanced and poorer all the time?

Wild Thing

You know what BUGS me?

2008-01-17T13:56:00.000-05:00

I don't get it. Is there some kind of universal message to that? Am I not supposed to communicate with Larry Keiler? There is no problem with his friend Gary. I can e-mail- talk to him as much as I want. It is the blog talking with Larry that is boycotted.

First I could get his mental blog page, no problem. Then came a time that I could not comment on his blogs. My comments just would not publish. Then after much brainstorming, I discovered that I could talk to him anonymously. So I sneaked through. Then Larry brought my attention to another sneaky device, “nickname”, Ha! Now I could finally publish my comments again as Wild Thing. Brilliant.

For a while that worked. Then, suddenly, every time I turn up that page, the whole program freezes. Cannot scroll down or up. Cannot click that page away. Nothing. Everything just stuck. Only thing left to do is to log off. Then log in again, and I can go to other programs. No problems with the dovetale blog or anything else.

I commented on one post, the third last, I think. I think that came through. Then the problem started. Every so now and then, when I try again, I can scroll down to comments, but when I click it, and the next page comes up, It won't budge. It freezes non-reversibly again. Sigh!!!

No trouble shooting has helped so far. M@ is puzzled, Larry is puzzled, Wild thing is puzzled.

Can there be a bug in just one program? Has a trickster placed him/herself placed between Larry and Wild Thing, laughing wickedly at my frustration?

Wild Thing

Blue Jay (Version 2)

2008-01-10T22:40:00.000-05:00

Blue Jay

(Version 2)

A blue jay has no pigment,

its feathers are filled with air,

and blue is just a figment

of the light refracted there.

If you were lacking colour

and people stared through you,

could life be any duller,

and wouldn’t you be blue?

It now becomes apparent

why jays are territorial.

Since they’re so transparent

they need boundaries arboreal.

Respect the jay’s contention

and see its point of view...

the right of its intention

to be both colourless and blue.

(Larry is too lazy to try and figure out the code that will correct the goofy line spacing.)

BABY DUCK

2007-12-30T11:13:00.000-05:00

Maybe it is wishful thinking. Maybe the child in me never stops hoping for a miracle. Maybe it is magic anyway.

Ducks stay the winter. They didn't always. When winters were still winters that meant it, ducks flew away more South where temperatures seemed friendlier to them.

But winters have become rather wishy-washy. Not fierce enough to frighten the winged ones away. And why would they not stay? That species called humans brings them food a plenty. When
fish , water insects, and plants are scarce, humans provide. Well meant, but not wise.

I live near a creek streaming strong enough to not freeze over. In a white snow landscape, the water looks black. Black and mysterious. Ducks gather there protected by the woodsy grow both sides. Spring must be on their mind. Mating is on their mind. There are exactly as many males as females busily duck talking and swimming around. A peaceful sound. Their feather coats shine. A deep, gleamy shine.

But wait, no duckling could be born yet, could it? What's that cheepy, whistling baby sound. A bird? I search the trees around. No bird in sight. I've heard this sound now each day I pass. I stop to look. Try to find a duck that forgot to grow up. I study their individual faces. See if one sounds different from the others. But although I hear that clear sound repeat itself, I cannot pin point it.

So I dream of other dimensions. Maybe I walk on the dividing line between two. Maybe another world is entering my awareness. It is late spring in that world. It is alive with many birds, and colourful flowers. It is a young world full of babies and life beginning. A little duckling got separated from his mommy. It calls out in a clear voice. I can hear it. It is speed-run-swimming -hardly touching the water- after her.

From my wintry world I entered new life. Did I? Ah, sometimes I don't like mysteries explained. A little later, suddenly, a flock of mourning doves took flight, out of nowhere seemingly. I heard the whistling from their wings.

And I knew, a single one of that sound was my baby duck. Or the sound from a duck that forgot to grow up. Right in this world. No mystery, no miracle, no magic. But wait, that's not right either, is it?

The whistling sound from the wings of a mourning dove, isn't that mysterious and magic in itself? Those pairs of gleaming ducks, preparing for spring and new life, using their duck emotions and wisdom, how can that be common? Me standing here, listening, watching, dreaming, experiencing at different levels... Ah yes, I think, miracles do exist.

LYING POETS

2007-12-23T10:59:00.000-05:00

While I was wading knee deep through the Westheight River...

Sounds good, doesn't it? I think so. But it isn't true. It wasn't even ankle deep. More over, Westheight isn't a river. Just a street. Still, it was raining heavily, and all that snow was melting, melting, melting, and Westheight may as well have been a river while I walked there with my seemingly drowned retriever.

We took a turn, and wended our way to a path along the creek. But Creek we did not find. She had been taken over by Thundering River, eager to get where ever he was going, at a speed of one hundred miles an hour. And the ducks loved it. Without using their wings, they were flying down that river, laughing.

And while I was wading knee deep through the Westheight River, dreams of a white Christmas were gurgling down the drain. Like the “Rain in Spain.” It was two days past winter solstice with the promise of every day a little bit more light. What a sunny thought!!!

I was thinking about all these things while wading knee deep through the Westheight River, wondering where that quiet creek had gone. Wondering about truth and non truth.

Is writing about telling the truth? Is the truth poetic? I like language to sound like music. Writing is like weighing words. Strike a balance. Add a word here, take one away there, arrange them. Make them sound like music Make them sing.

I could have started with, “I walked on Westheight Road with my dog. It was raining hard. We sloshed through lots of water...

That would have been the truth. But what is truth? That what I see outwardly, or what I experience inwardly? What sounds nice, and what sounds blah? Who's the judge?

ALL THAT WHITE STUFF

2007-12-18T09:05:00.000-05:00

S N O W

S N O W

S N O W

S N O W

Soft snow

Never ending snow

Over the hills and far away snow

Whether we like it or not snow

let it snow let it snow let it snow

let's have snow days no work just play days

let's play play play in the snow

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

wild thing

BITTER/SWEET

2007-12-03T11:10:00.000-05:00

This morning, awake, getting dressed, I tried to think of something. I hit a blank. So I mumbled wistfully the first stanza of the following poem. I actually wrote the the words down, looked at them and continued,

Here's the result,

BITTER SWEET MEMORY

there are blanks in my brain
i don't care to be there
there are blanks in my brain
that ought not occur

they spread too
those blanks in my brain
make me forget
what i ought to remember

frustrating like hell
those blanks in my brain
but what can a mortal do
time being the dictator

we're all mortals
in this universe
our vital signs will fade fade
fade slowly away

if we're blessed to live to
a ripe old age that is
now isn't that a
bitter sweet memory

Wild Thing thinking

OH BLOGGER!!!

2007-11-18T13:18:00.000-05:00

OH BLOGGER!!!

Maybe I have to change my mind about November. There have been some pretty marvelous days in this year's, like today. Cold though!. The old winter coat is revisited again. Had that thing for near twenty years. Bought it for 35 dollar at Bargain Harold's, way back then. It's warm, washable, and comfortable. It outlasted several other winter coats.

Did a long Simon walk, this morning. I just came home. Walked along the Conostogo Parkway Trail, all the way to the hydro pole tower and back. Sun, blue skies, pure white clouds, pretty birds flitting by, layers of golden leafs to shuffle your feet through. Many of them still cling to their trees.

I was thinking about Larry's latest blog posts. Wars, fears, unbearably stupid politics, gullibility... and it was so strange thinking about all that horror, walking so peacefully along, feeling happy, on a beautiful day in nature. And it is not just a today thing. Things don't change, don't really get better, when you really think about it. I thought about, and went back, to my very first book of poems, I put together in a dummy book, to a poem written in February 1968, when my English was still pretty iffy.

Passing Shadows

I'm free to roam around the fields,
To greet the golden sun,
To touch a flow'r along my path
To see a fast stream run.
To listen to the whisp'ring winds.
To hear a birdy tweet:
I'm free to fill my heart with joy
To shy a poison weed.

I'm happy on a hearty walk,
I feel like nature's child, I skip, I dance, I twirl, I sing,
And let myself run wild.
I like to think that this is it,
The sun, this land, no more.
But elsewhere in this wond'rous world
They fight an ugly war.

To just believe that life is good,
That somewhere 'long the line,
All people get an even chance,
For deep felt joy like mine...!
But there, I know this is not so,
And on me creeps a guild
That I should go without a care
While others live in filth.

I guess that was the Vietnam War?

Thinking about the situations in the world, and even just in Canada, enjoying my morning walk with Simon, I felt the irony again, I felt guilty for feeling so good. And then I wondered, which I do so often,
why I always seem to be in the good part of the world. Well yes, I experienced the Second world War. And it was scary. But for the rest of my life, in Holland as well as in Canada, war always seems to be elsewhere.

Our democracies are far from perfect. Big Brother is really watching us. The creep! But somehow, here in our part of the world, compared to Iraq and Afghanistan, and so, it is more peaceful.

And I wondered if it maybe has to do with the richer Western countries, money wise, (not wise as in wisdom) where people can live better, eat better, that it is relatively more peaceful. Although there is a lot of road rage and so...

I don't know. Again, the best thing I know what to do about it myself, is what I am doing. Stay out of the system as much as I can, do the best I can, and hope for the best.

It's a perfect day today, to me. I am eating the last piece of my halloween pumpkin done up in the oven, along with some carrots and potato's topped with cheese, Simon lazing about outside, talking to passers by, Yona fast asleep in a secret place, and soon my gang coming over and going for supper to Haysville.

This post is really a reaction to Larry's Mental blog postings. Wild thing cannot communicate with Larry on Larry's blog. Somehow she cannot get comments published on it. An old problem persisting from one computer to another.

Wild Thing

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2007-11-14T20:07:00.000-05:00

"Great Artists do get hicups!!!"

-Brittany Dawn Thomas-

Found this one in my documents where the kids save their stuff too.

Wild Thing

Thing in the Wild

2007-11-07T06:55:00.000-05:00

Ah, poor, lonely WT. I'll stop by and say hello, if no one else will.

And also I'll remind everyone that my book launch is tonight in Guelph. I hope some will be willing to stop by... I'm a little worried that the launch will feel a little like a Wild Thing blog post -- myself, all alone, talking to myself!

Last night's launch in Hamilton was fun; a few people showed up who I didn't expect. I'm hoping the same will happen tonight.

PET PEEVE, or Letter to myself.

2007-11-06T14:00:00.000-05:00

On the first of November I intended to bring as one of my pet peeves: "November". It came in bleak, damp, grey, and cold. November is the month that, if I had a choice, would gleefully take out of the year. But somehow, on the first of November, I didn't make it behind the computer, and my intention fell by the wayside, another stone to help pave the way to hell. Then the weather rather improved, and I felt no grumbling inside me, untill today. I just came back from picking up some groceries from accross the street. Big, wet, plops of snow fell on me, the wind blowing nastily, my feet getting soaked in my suede walking shoes. (No, not blue. My name is not Elvis. Brown they are.) So, yes, it still goes, November is assuredly one of my pet peeves.

Guess what? I am going to attempt to bake a pumpkin pie, Never baked a pie before. But I didn't want to throw out that Halloween beauty. I didn't carve it. I found a recipy on the net for making the filling. I have a recipy for the easiest pie crust known. So, I am going to be brave, and try make the indoors more pleasant than the outdoors. Even Simon and Yona are not interested in being outside. They don't scare easily. Just rain or snow, never keeps them in.

I suspect, given the odds, that blogging has gone out of style. So, I am writing this to myself. It's sorta becoming a habit.

wild thing

OUOTE OF THE DAY or CHOCOLATE VERSUS VANILLA

2007-11-04T11:35:00.000-05:00

At one time, way in the past, it struck me that most poets are El Depresso's. They put their woes on paper, whether it rhymes or not. If you are so inclined to go to poetry reading, it makes sense to bring a hanky along.

I thought about that, this morning, when I leaved through a book wherein I pen poems. I was indulging on a large chocolate bar, milk chocolate and almonds. The book is one, with quotes at the bottom of the page, but mostly room to write your own stuff.

I read the quote: “Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare
hands – and then eat just one of the pieces.”

Judith Viorst wrote that in 1931, 4 years before I was born. She's (was?) an American poet.

All these years later, I have to admit I am lacking that kind of strength. (Do you know that the Super Store has President's Choice, large chocolate bars, 300 gram ones, for $2,99? Plus tax of course.) Oh I am weak!

Anyhow, I read what I wrote on that page. That was in the time that Gary, and even sometimes Leslie, and Van (can't think of the name he had first) came to the poetry get togethers at my place.
We wrote some silly stuff too, experimented a lot. Laughed a lot. (Ate yummy things too). The poem on that before mentioned page expressed my sentiment of mostly El Depresso Poets.

Mostly esteemed poet you
fill your cone with
chocolate woe
much less it seems with
happiness vanilla
when it comes to swirly-swirl
that literarily doesn't thrill ye

How many happy poets do you know???
Wild thing

WANTED: PARTICIPATING DOVETALERS

2007-11-03T21:08:00.000-04:00

I think it is rather neat to have this blogger option. An ongoing conversation with other writers of the group. Some serious subjects. Much kidding around. A good laugh. Make each other think. Do some research to questions. Basically write a little each or every other day besides meeting deadlines, and do what must. It can be as short or long as you wish. It doesn't even have to make sense. When you can't think of a new subject to post, just enter the conversation. But successful blogging rests on more than just one or maybe sometimes two or three fellow writers. When we get next to no reactions, no feedback, it stops being interesting or fun. So..... where is everybody?

Wild Thing

Matt and Marianne's Book Launch

2007-10-26T15:29:00.000-04:00

Hey guys, mark your calendars now and come join us!

~ Marianne

FULL MOON

2007-10-25T23:21:00.000-04:00

It was time to take Simon for his bedtime walk. I put on a sweater and a jacket. It's rather cold outside. At night when I am tired, I feel it more. I step out, with Simon, start to walk, look around, No Simon behind me. I look back and he sits on the stoop with that stubborn look at his face which translates into: “I'm not going.”
“OK”, I mumble, we're not going then, fine, I didn't want to in the first place.”

The fresh air felt nice, though. It wasn't as cold as I had expected. The wind seemed down. I looked up, and WOW!!! The full moon, bold and bright was speeding by. Or so it seemed. Better no traffic cop look up, I thought, this moon is in for a speeding ticket!!! But how can this be?

Then I saw the clouds, long stringy clouds, that seemed not to move, that made the moon look like it moved, but really it was those clouds racing by, in a continuous motion. Never ending clouds. The moon stood still. Why are the clouds racing like that? (They still are, while I am writing this.) There is hardly any wind. What makes those clouds move? I have never ever seen the likes of it before. I phoned Nigel. And he was looking at it too, and was just as puzzled.

But it is a beautiful moon, and an interesting phenomena. I stood looking at it for a long time. Simon watched me watch it, and sighed a deep sigh when I finally came in. He was ready for bed. No howling at the moon for him!

PET PEEVES

2007-10-23T13:54:00.000-04:00

It's October! Only the 23d. Not even Halloween yet. Although you couldn't tell by store decorations. In Malls Halloween is all around you. But, maybe that's close enough, Although it already started last month. That's definitely too early in my humble option. (Can an option be humble? Oh well, sneak that literary fracture in, on account that it sounds good to me. OK, OK, make it opinion then, sjee!!)

I needed some eating stuff for supper. So I enter the mall across the street. THE GREAT CANADIAN SUPER STORE!!! ( Yeah right!!!)

It took a while before I clued in. I almost started humming along with the piped in music. Oh, it was soft, and not throughout the store yet. Just greeting you at the entrance where displays of fire logs, with warm flames showing on the boxes, are stacked in seating fashion and all kinds of huggable ( the computer speller doesn't like that word.) teddy bears, and other woolly stuffies sit around at them, cozily, inviting...

What? What is that music I'm starting to hum to? Oh no!!! CHRISTMAS SONGS!!! Not CHRISTMAS!!! Groan!

I though maybe I should complain. How do you complain? Well, you can obtain a survey sheet, to record how “WE ARE DOING.” Where can you obtain that? The sign by the door tells you in very small print that you go to customer service. CUSTOMER SERVICE? That's where there are always long line ups. 'cause they not only take in complaints, exchange non satisfactory items, make up for boo boos that were made at the cash register, they also rent out equipment people have to sign for, and they also sell lottery tickets. And mostly only one person is there to take care of it, and mostly that is a person who is clued out about procedures and has to call in for help, when you insist...

Oh, forget it. Let them play Christmas music in spring, I'll plug my ears and try to get out as fast as I can. (Quite a feat when you figure how large the store is, how far everything away, how badly things are priced, and how badly the shelves are stacked...)

Can we go back to corner stores ? They may close Sundays. If you really are in need, you may knock on the back door and your friendly neighbour who lives behind the store, doesn't mind to reach you what you ask for. Tomorrow, or the next time you're in the store, you can pay for it. It doesn't break church or Sunday laws that way. And if that doesn't work, you pick up a pitcher or cup, and find another next door neighbour and borrow some sugar or vinegar, or so. Why not? Some essential neighbourhood gossip is exchanged for free.

Wild Thing

ABOUT READING & WRITING

2007-10-22T13:47:00.000-04:00

Wow, where am I?

This is the first time in a very long time that I was so caught up in a book that I could not stop reading, and everything else fell by the wayside. It's like living in an other world, and your own reality world is the stranger. That's the place where you are sleepwalking, being there, but not really. This day is a marvelous day, an Indian Summer day, to sit in the sun, feel the gentle warmth, smell the spicy aroma's of maturing nature, and just be carried away into the other world, but still a compatible world, a world where you feel familiar, but where you learn about, and from, others and therefore more about yourself too.

And I wonder again. Why, often I read books, where the subject matter interests me, where I want to keep on reading, but they really do not hold my attention without forcing myself. I think of other things to do, I make many pauses, I fall asleep, I am bored in a way, but still want to know...

So many rows of books in book stores, in libraries. How few that really, really capture you into that other world, that really is your own at the same time.

Are some books good, but badly written? Like good grammar and so, but without lure? Are there stories that are forced? Like not really coming from the depths of a soul? Sort of like someone playing the piano, faultless but not stirring you in any way? Whereas someone playing the piano with stumbles and maybe even wrong notes, sill stirs you, makes you feel all soft and excited inside and you listen with fascination, understanding love?

I can make room for books that may be well written from the heart, but bring story that lies outside my experience. If you have nothing to tie it too, you cannot make it your own in any way. It maybe for example, outside your cultural experience.

I still think that not everyone who writes poems, is a poet. Not everyone who writes story, is a born storyteller. Not everyone who paints, draws pictures, is a true artist. There is a difference, isn't there?

The book I just finished reading and had me under its spell, is,

The Day My Mother Left, by James Prosek. It's a novel, based on th author's own experiences. He's also an artist and loves the natural world.

Of course that may be an indication why his story telling grabs me so much.

Wild Thing

Mystery

2007-10-19T14:12:00.000-04:00

I inhale deeply. This cool autumn morning smells spicy. Can you smell colour? It is overcast. Sometimes the colours seem more intense then. There is something mysterious about the feel, the smell, and the look of this kind of fall day. Again I inhale deeply. Doing so my Mother is with me. Some things you never forget.

I can see her with her auburn hair, in a cheery, printed dress, smiling. We, the family, are biking along trails, through woods and fields. Warm sunshine. The smell of wild flowers, grass, and woodsy floors. “Breathe in deeply,' mom would say, “expand your lungs. This is the best medicine. The air is healthy.”

My mom loved nature. She would have liked not to live in Amsterdam. She always longed for a home in the country. She always hoped that after the war, maybe that wish could be full filled. My dad was a city man. Amsterdam was fine with him. But I believe, had they lived, when things turned better after the war, that he would have found her such a place, maybe not too, too far from the city.

It stayed a dream. After troubled times, after working hard, after caring for others, they lost their health, would not find their reward on Earth. They are no more. But still they are. They are in me at such times, when I inhale deeply, expand my lungs, and drink in that healthy air. And not only that. In so many things I do, my parents and other people I lost, live on in me. That is the mystery of life.

Wild Thing (The Lone Blogger)

NO QUOTE TODAY

2007-10-15T17:16:00.000-04:00

Hey
O do not know a quote today
Not today
Nay

Should I then write something
To entertain the blogger bunch,
Like what I had for lunch
To munch on? Not!

I write old fashioned style.
With capitals, and comma's,
And periods and all that stuff,
And rhymes, but without reason.

My fountains run, my candles burn.
I'm not burning them
On both sides, though.
I'm not that dumb.

But surely this poem is.
At only 4 o'clock , I'm out of energy,
And used up all my inspiration,
Imagine that.

Day is falling,
Leafs are falling,
Rain is falling,
And I am falling ... short.

No quote today.

Wild & Corny Thing

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2007-10-12T08:03:00.000-04:00

Allow me two for today. To me they are related.

"We are ourselves only part of the whole, and we can conceive and speak only of parts, but not the whole."
Jacob Boehme

"He listened attentively to what I was saying. But there was nothing in his intellectual or emotional equipment to which he could connect my words. He possessed no frame of reference for such concepts."
Chaim Potok

Wild Thing

OUOTE OF THE DAY

2007-10-11T08:01:00.000-04:00

My brand new find. From "The Pocket Muse" by Monica Wood, my birthday present from Leslie:

"You can't write without living fully, and you can't live fully and still find time to write."

She calls that the writer's paradox, and suggests different ways to get past that delemma.

Wild thing

SPOOKY DRYER

2007-10-10T14:51:00.000-04:00

I emptied the washing machine. I put the clothes in the dryer. I went about other daily tasks. The dryer stopped. I started to unload, folding items while I was at it. In the middle of it, with a shock, I remembered I had to vote today. Better do that first, I thought, like a good civil citizen. Looked for my voters card. Sjee, must've put it in a “good” place. That's when I always am in trouble. Can't find things in “good places”, when you are a slob by nature. So I gathered Ids and off I went across the street. I showed my ID. The ladies behind the table seemed not amused. It took them ages to figure out that I really, really was Antoinetta Meyer who came to have her say in the processes of government. I joked about my misplaced voters card. Not one smile, not one word of recognition. Very seriously,almost
with a frown, they pointed me to the right table. Ha, a man. He was friendlier. He smiled. But still I had to sign a document to proof that I really was Antoinetta Meyer. He asked what language my name came from. “Dutch,” I replied, but correcting myself and saying that in fact it really is a French name. He didn't listen to the second part of my speech. “Dutch” was the key word. “Did you come in wooden shoes?” he chuckled. “No, I replied, “but I sure could have used them in this rain.” He nodded seriously in agreement.

Anyhow, I filled in, (or out?) my ballots, slid them into the ballots box and returned home. After puttering around for a while I remembered my only partly emptied dryer. It felt still warm inside. I reached in and... the towels moved. I pulled my hand back. What was going on? Towels don't move. Must be my imagination. I reached in again, and sure enough there was a motion like waves in there. Very carefully I kneeled down and peeked inside. Just dark clothes. I pushed down on them a bit, and,
“prrr,” two eyes opened up, and looked at me. Yona, all rolled up in the warm towels, blinking his cozy cat eyes at me. I stroked him affectionately and left the towels in, and the door of the dryer open.

For those of you who wonder who brought you her quote of the day, it was me, Wild Thing. Forgot to sign it. And sorry about the two titles. I don't know how to correct things still after publication. Larry explained it once to me, but I forgot.

Wild Thing.

OUOTE OF THE DAY

2007-10-10T13:48:00.000-04:00

QUOTE IF THE DAY

Collecting quotes is what I like to do. The quote I found today, in the book I am reading,“TheWhale Rider” by Witi Ihimaera, I like a lot and will share. (Larry does “Song of the Day, in his Mental Blog.) Here's my quote of the day:

“Man might carve his mark on the earth, but unless he's vigilant, Nature will take it all back.”

A bit more eloquent than what I used to say, seeing a flower come through the crack of asphalt or a cement wall,: “Cement doesn't have the last word. Nature is stronger.”

Dove Tale Takes to the Street

2007-10-04T07:34:00.000-04:00

A crowd gathers around our Dove Tale Writers' booth at Word on the Street in Kitchener. One lady scans through the names on the white board underneath the caption "Support Local Writers. Buy Our Books."

One name in particular captures her attention. "I want stories by Netty Meyer," she says like a dehydrated man in the desert thirsting for water.

The lady has already read Netty's stories in our anthology, Many Women Two Men. The copies of our most recent anthology, Stones Turned, have already sold out - a hot WOTS item.

So I give the lady a Dove Tale propaganda handout, and send her to our website to quench her thirst for more Netty. "Check out our Story Archive," I tell her. "And our on-line magazine, Tale Spin."

It continues like that all day - oh, just not demands for Netty, Wild Thing that she is! Some people want more Veronica Ross, and others know Leslie Bamford, and then there was the young man who came back TWICE looking for Matt Bin to find out more about his upcoming book release, "On Guard for Thee." Told that the book isn't yet out, the young man filled out an order form right there and then and paid upfront - he wants that book!

Other hot sellers were the surprise gift bags containing three new books, with at least two of these books by Dove Tale writers. Bob Paul's "Sandcastle Memories" was popular, and one astute reader even noticed that the author of "Tending Memory," Marianne Paul, had the same last name. Are they related?

So it was a good day for the Dove Tale clan. Thanks to John Boulden, Matt Bin, Veronica Ross and ME (Marianne Paul) for manning (and woman-ing) the Dove Tale booth at Word on the Street. We should definitely do it again.

And thanks to Leslie Bamford for being our Dove Tale photographer.
~Marianne

Word on the Street

2007-10-03T23:42:00.000-04:00

Did anyone catch yesterday's Record article about Word on the Street? Our own Marianne (not to mention the Dove Tale Writers!) were mentioned, and quoted at length!

Check the link soon (it'll expire in two weeks) to read the whole article, but here's the relevant portion, with the hope that this falls under fair use provisions...

Besides bringing publishing companies and bookstores together, The Word on the Street also brought in local authors to interact with readers.
Local authors had gathered under the canopy of Dove Tale Writers for the first time at the festival.
"It's a great first time," said Marianne Paul, author of Tending Memory. "People are fascinated with the process of writing. "Our interaction has been really fruitful."

Anyhow, great stuff -- we're really getting out there!

2007-10-03T21:51:00.000-04:00

Wereld Dieren Dag

Word is confused. Doesn't recognize Dutch words in its English program. But the thing is, that I was wondering about a supposedly world wide day for animals. “World Animal Day?” I have never heard it mention, here in Canada. (And I've been here for a while,.LOL!) Still, tomorrow, October 4, is “Wereld Dieren Dag.” I decided to look it up on the web. Since I did not know a name for it here. I typed in the Dutch words. Sure enough I found some info on a Children's Center where they celebrate the above mentioned day. I read it all in Dutch. The funny part is, that it took me a while before I realized that I was actually reading Dutch. I was just taking in the information.

So, is there anyone who knows about a day for animals that's celebrated world wide? With special programs? You are supposed to be extra nice to your pets, farm animals, etc. Like you are supposed to be nice to your mother on Mother's Day, to your father on Father's day, to your secretary on Secretary Day, to your nose on Nose Day... oh no, that hasn't been invented yet.

Wild Thing

TODAY

2007-09-22T23:22:00.000-04:00

What a day. What a perfect autumn day!
In a little while I can pick up the photos. I always do the one hour. By the time I bring in the film, it seems unfathomable to me to have to wait five days. It would be cheaper. To get things cheap can be a challenge. Find things in the dollars store or second hand. Be proud to have only paid so much for something you needed or really wanted. Ha!!!
I'm not sure the dollar store counts. The new store at the Highland Hills Mall is even cheaper. Much cheaper, you know, only 99cts, or more. (The 'more' is in the fine print on the sign.) Everything made in China. Underpaid workers. Also untrustworthy quality. Especially toys and food. But, the lure is irresistible. I walk in quite frequently. But I do weigh pro's and con's. You don't see me spend tens of dollars.
I do make many photos. Snapshots. Splurging on 1 hour development rather than five days I may as well spend an extra dollar ( I mean99cts) on a photo album, and have a place for the photos to go so they don't lie around. Easier to show off too.
It's time to pick up my photos. I will be back and tell you about them.
I am back. Much later than I had anticipated. Before I tell you about the photos I want to say that I have a new fountain. Today is Saturday. Saturdays, instead of going the usual walk, Simon and I go garage sale hunting. You all know by now that Simon is a dog. Simon likes going to garage sales. He trots along and waits patiently for me to look around, lying down in the midst of everything to be admired. People stop to look at him, to praise him for being beautiful and sweet, and well behaved. They ohh, and ahh over him. They talk to him pet him and sometimes kiddingly ask if he's for sale. Oh, Simon loves all the attention. He drinks it in quietly.
So at one of this morning's garage sales, I found a fountain for only four dollar. A stone staircase in a basin with pebbles. The water runs down the stairs. It's not very big. I set it up on the shelves by the windows of the living room. It looks and sounds neat. There are two more fountains in my living room. I like the gurgling of all that water. In the backyard, bordering on the living room there are another two fountains.
I am not going into details about all of them, although they all do have their own special story. But the one, a big, greenish metal , three levels one, with a man and a woman figure standing under an umbrella, being rained on when the fountain goes, that's the one the chickadees who live in the big Manitoba maple tree above it, like. They come to shower in it, bath in it, and drink from it. It took me about a million years to catch them on camera. I tried for weeks with lots of patience. Today I succeeded.
That's why I was extra impatient to get that film developed. Not even only the one chickadee I captured, but (see my previous story) also the rescued little turtles. The photos turned out surprisingly well. But you know, I do not have a zoom-in lens. So the target comes out very small. Last time when I caught the squirrel, outside on the pic nic table, eating out of the jar with peanut butter, I forgot to close, on camera, I went to the photo copy store and had the prints enlarged on the colour copier. That worked well. So I decided that I'd do the same with the chickadee and the little turtles. The store was closed. I wondered where another colour copier could be. I biked on a bit along Highland Road. Saw the photo store near Food Basics. Went in and asked if they had a colour copier. No, they didn't.
Well, they talked me into having professional enlargements done. I was offered a real good prize. They were soooo nice. Gave me some freebies too. So I ended up with six great pictures and some simple paper frames for them, and an extra set of four glass frames, on special, for another time, all just for twenty dollar.
Hey, I spent a lot more than I had intended. But the quantity and quality are super. So today I wasn't only cheap. Today I was also classy. Today was a marvelous and fun day all together. I am happy. Life is good.

Wild thing

2007-09-20T11:15:00.000-04:00

AUTUMN BABIES
“That looks like a turtle, “ I said. Joanne looked down where I pointed. “Yes it does does, she said laughing, and we continued our conversation.
We were walking in the woods off Westheigts Drive, following the gravel path near the duck pond, our dogs running this way and that.
“Another one!” Joane disrupted the conversation, pointing down, “ this really IS a turtle, the other one must've been too then!” We carefully picked up the one and went back for the other.
You had to look well, they were so small. Could've been a combination of a little stone and a leaf. They were caked with gravel. We walked over with them to the pond, and carefully set them on the mud next to water. One started swimming right away. The other one stayed put. We watched for a while. Both our dogs sloshing in the water, the golden retriever, and the black cockepoo. They wanted to be right where we were looking. Like when your dog or cat sits right on the book or newspaper you want to read. We called them away so they wouldn't trample the turtles.
Satisfied that we had done our good 'brownie' deed, we continued walking, keeping an eye on the path.
Sure enough we saw another turtle and another and another... Babies? This time of the year, almost October? Weird.
We picked up one after another, bringing them to water until we saw a hole in the gravel path where they were crawling from. A small, deep hole. The nest. Wow!
“We need to put up a sign,” said Joanne, “people will step on them.” We went up in the woods a bit and found some hefty branch stumps. We arranged them around the nest.. I kept an eye out while Joanne walked over to a near home, and asked for help. The young woman she talked to caught the spirit right away. She constructed a sign, from cardboard and a stick, and came with a marker and a hammer. Joanne wrote on the marker, ” Watch your step, baby turtles on the path,” and we set it up near the barricade.
We thanked the woman and turned around to go home. Joanne had to go to work. No more time to waste. I regretted that I didn't have my camera with me.
Walking back we realized that we should have put up another sign on the beginning of the path. So, at home I made a second sign, and went back on my bike, armed with a camera. I put up the sign, but there were no turtles to be seen anymore. Not on the path, not coming from the hole. Figures! Had we scared them? Was it getting too warm , too late in the morning? Anyhow I took a picture of the nest and the sign. I went up to the water. Only one turtle was still there. Did the others swim away, dug themselves into the mud? I took a picture of the one. It didn't move. Had it died, or was it just stunted?
So many questions.
We guessed that they were snapping turtles. Info on the web tells that September is the month for them to get born. There is a long gestation time. There could be as many as 20 from one nest. When they come out they have to find water. They can live many days without.
Well, we saved, we hope, eight of them. Surely they had little chance not to be stepped on, on the gravel path. And the gravel caking them hampered their moving, and they may have dried up in the sun before they reached water.
Tomorrow morning we go have another look. We know there were more babies down there. We saw them. Will they come out, or have we scared them away and are they tunneling somewhere else now?
Snapping turtles can get as old as 150 or even 175 years. Most of them reach only 50. I've seen a large snapping turtle. They are huge. How long must it take those tiny babies to grow to that size? At least 50 years, I suppose.
Next day: We went back this morning. No turtles. Not on the path, not in the hole, We checked how deep the hole is. Not deep at all, just a small hollow. Not a nest. Did they just hide there? Where did they come from? We are still puzzled.

wild thing

Koestler and the Elephant

2007-09-16T08:17:00.000-04:00

How do you eat an elephant?

For most of us, one small bite at a time.

We have a mass educational system that (rightfully so) attempts to educate youngsters on basic concepts and ideas developed centuries ago ( Newton, Darwin).

Koestler leaps across the centuries.

How do you digest Koestler?

One small bite at a time.

bobby bacon

Doors, Windows and Views

2007-09-15T10:19:00.000-04:00

One can take the view that psychology is all a bunch of crap… and they would be right

Another view is that psychology makes the attempt to create a language and define the thought and feeling process. In turn it attempts to understand intent and motivations…

Both views are valid...

I tend toward the second… Why? Because I find it more interesting than the first...

I could say the exact same thing for religion...

Why my interest in Buddhism… Again, because life for me is more interesting when I view it through that window...

If alive and human we will experience suffering. Buddhism explores the nature of suffering and offers a perspective beyond "oh is me", "why me" and goes beyond blame. For me Buddhism offers me a process to conserve energy.

It too explores what is the nature of thinking, motivation and intent.

What are selfish thoughts and what are selfless thoughts?

If I feel bad often my thinking is selfish. When I feel good often my thinking is selfless.

So my dabbling as a complete and utter amateur in psychology and Buddhism life to me is far more interesting. Larry was talking to me about doors. Psychology and Buddhism are just doors for me and offers me different views about the nature of life.

And if its crap... well its crap that delights me.

Smiles

bobby bacon

Random Thought

2007-09-08T09:09:00.000-04:00

My heart beats... fluids are pumped thru my body, pumping chemicals and proteins to the brain.. Chemical synapses... allow the neurons to form interconnected neural circuits... and thus biological computations that are perception and thought.

Ten thousand thoughts a day...

bobby bacon

Congratulations Marianne!

2007-06-28T20:04:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to Marianne Paul
on the publication of her novel
Tending Memory
June 21, 2007

Write a Book Review, Win Books

2007-03-24T14:00:00.000-04:00

While searching for another reference, I came across this opportunity to win free books from Alibris. All you have to do is write a book review...and then win the random draw. Click here to get to the entry page.

Rapid Reply to WT's Untitled Pome

2007-03-17T17:45:00.000-04:00

this yearly trek
thru arctic freeze
is no adventure
no historic quest
north pole is not
my ultimate goal
no byrd no peary
no franklin northwest passage

dull day grey
is tiresome
the cycle makes me
weep for change
sun is relief
all too brief
in february march
of ontario southwest passage

(Meanwhile, Larry sez, hey, what up wid dis blog? He & WT, WT & He, rappin to deyself! Ain't no otha pieces of DoveTale to avail?)

Arthur Koestler's a Bleedin' Genius!

2007-03-15T20:30:00.000-04:00

By way of preamble, Larry has to say that he sometimes struggles with what to post on Dove Tale Writers, mainly because, after all, he does have Mental Blog to maintain. (As if it's some sort of dependent child huddled in the corner unobtrusively clamoring for attention. If he could claim a tax deduction, or get the child tax credit, wouldn't that be great? Coupla hunnerd bucks a month to feed the blog its bits and bytes...)

Anyway...he tries to keep his Dove Tale posts within the parameters set by the hosts--DoveTalers all--so, something literary or related to writing or the writing life (of which he knows little since he doesn't write but types very well), however tenuous the connection.

Having said that, he can tell you that he debated this one. But his decision was made for him by the appearance in what he's been reading of the phrase "dovetailed into the familiar." How could he not post to Dove Tale with that before his eyes?

He's been reading (again) a book by Arthur Koestler entitled Janus: A Summing Up. It's hard to describe what this book is about without rewriting the book or creating an inordinately long review, which Larry doesn't want to do. Suffice it to say that Koestler sums up and pulls together some of the themes he wrote about in previous books, with the emphasis on one of his main theories. This is the theory of the holon, a word he coined, which means that organisms (social, political, physical) are both complete individual entities and integral parts of larger entities at the same time, and following different sets of rules depending on which aspect is predominant at any given time. Thus the title: Janus. Two-faced. You follow? Larry doesn't either. Read the book...

Larry first encountered Arthur Koestler in his famous novel Darkness at Noon. Wikipedia says:

Koestler's most famous work, the novel Darkness at Noon about the Soviet 1930s purges, ranks with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four as a fictional treatment of Stalinism.

Can't argue with that, eh? Both Larry and HWSRN come by their political obsessions honestly. Steeped in it since their early teens...Abby Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Eldridge Cleaver...(all Yanks, you'll notice...)

Larry's first copy of the book looked just like that photo. Now it looks like this because somewhere he picked up a used hard-cover copy:

Except he can't find it. Perhaps it was confiscated by the Yoni School as seditious material. More likely it's in a box in the barn where they keep the hyper-literate horses and a Shetland pony for short potes. Now Larry will obsess about this because, after all, it could be a first edition! Larry has been known to acquire such things by accident.

As you can see, Larry loves to blog cuz he can be a ramblin' man, and if you dare to edit him he will pout with great vigour.

But back to the task at hand...Some years later, Larry discovered these two books by Koestler: The Act of Creation and The Ghost In the Machine. He swallowed them both in one gulp, as they are part of a trilogy, Janus being the hat trick. These two works are an intellectual tour de force in which Koestler mines the fields of physiology, biology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology and who knows what else. Larry's not sure, but he thinks that Koestler was, in fact, the one who coined the phrase, ghost in the machine, which has become part of the lexicon. In that book, he examined the development of the brain and came to the conclusion that humans are psychotic because the modern brain developed without making proper connections to the ancient brain. We became intellectually powerful enough to destroy the planet without becoming emotionally powerful enough to stop ourselves. A rather pessimistic conclusion, but he also discusses the possibility that this can be overcome, since we are smart enough to invent/discover mind-bending chemicals/drugs which could alleviate this flaw.

In any case, Larry's so impressed with these books that he recommends you go out right now to the bibliothèque or Amazon.com or wherever, get copies and read them. They're eminently readable and actually not too technical.

But now, after Larry's droned on and on and on about ancient history and long-forgotten reading habits, let's get to the main point of this post. First of all, Koestler states something that we probably all know, or should:

Drama thrives on conflict, and so does the novel. The nature of the conflict may be explicitly stated or merely implied; but an element of it must be present, otherwise the characters would be gliding through a frictionless universe.

Larry sez the fruitfulness of Koestler's writing is demonstrated by the fact that this passage inspired his pome, Frictionless Universe.

But now Larry wants to quote a (unfortunately long) passage from Janus:

With due respect to Shakespeare's 'All the world's a stage', one might say that the ordinary mortal's life is played on two alternating stages, situated on two different levels -- let us call them the trivial plane and the tragic plane of existence. Most of the time we bustle about on the trivial plane; but on some special occasions, when confronted with death or engulfed in the oceanic feeling, we seem to fall through a stage-trap or man-hole and are transferred to the tragic or absolute plane. Then all at once our daily routines appear as shallow, trifling vanities. But once safely back on the trivial plane we dismiss the experiences of the other as phantasms of overstrung nerves.

The highest form of human creativity is the endeavour to bridge the gap between the two planes. Both the artist and the scientist are gifted -- or cursed with the faculty of perceiving the trivial events of everyday experience sub specie aeternitatis, in the light of eternity; and conversely to express the absolute in human terms, to reflect it in a concrete image. Our ordinary mortal has neither the intellectual nor the emotional equipment to live for more than brief transition periods on the tragic plane. The Infinite is too inhuman and elusive to cope with unless it is made to blend itself with the tangible world of the finite. The existentialist's Absolute becomes emotionally effective only if it is bisociated with something concrete -- dovetailed into the familiar. This is what both scientist and artist are aiming at, though not always consciously. By bridging the gap between the two planes, the cosmic mystery becomes humanized, drawn into the orbit of man, while his humdrum experiences are transformed, surrounded by a halo of mystery and wonder.

Needless to say, not all novels are 'problem novels', subjecting the reader to a sustained barrage of existential conundrums. But indirectly and implicitly every great work of art has some bearing on man's ultimate problems. Even a humble daisy has a root, and a work of art, however lighthearted or serene, is ultimately nourished through its delicate capillaries by the archetypal sub-strata of experience.

By living on both planes at once, the creative artist or scientist is able to catch an occasional glimpse of eternity looking through the window of time. Whether it is a mediaeval stained-glass window or Newton's formula of universal gravity, is a matter of temperament and taste.
Janus: A Summing Up
by Arthur Koestler, p.146-7

So there.

Larry makes no comment.

He has been dovetailed into the familiar.

Update March 17/07:
Koestler also spends a good many pages demolishing Darwinism, evolution, natural selection. He says random mutation has been proven to be irrelevant and natural selection is a tautology. Larry hasn't gotten to the part where he provides an alternative explanation (except that it's "a mystery" and far more complex than earlier scientists imagined) but it probably has something to do with his holon and hierarchical organism theory.

Larry's not scientifically adept enough to judge this argument, but to him Koestler is pretty compelling. Larry wonders if the Intelligent Design proponents know about this, and hopes they never find out cuz then we'd have a helluva mess on our hands, eh?

Eat Yer Heart Out, Hemingway

2007-03-02T23:45:00.000-05:00

Good News

2007-02-20T14:15:00.000-05:00

Well, I've hit on a book deal. Although the contract isn't finalized yet, I am going to be writing "Life in the Blue Helmet" (working title), a collection of stories about Canadian servicemen and servicewomen who have been on overseas missions since the Cold War, for Bookland Press.

I'm really excited about this project. I have a lot of connections from my army days (and I knew personally a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan last year), and I will be spending my spring
interviewing soldiers who have been on NATO or UN missions. (If anyone knows anyone I could talk to, tips would be welcome...)

Many thanks to Marianne to putting me in contact with Bookland. It wouldn't have happened without you. I'm lucky to know writers who win contests!

2007-02-20T10:13:00.000-05:00

Took wild thing a while to figure out the new way of posting, but here she is.
She woke up this morning with the first lines of the following poem. She wrote them down and, half asleep still, knitted on the rest. No master piece, but it it conveys the sentiment. Maybe it wakes up dovetale bloggers.

winter blues

will winter melt
away now
will water again
run free

will flower fairies
waken
will birds &frogs
sing songs

will trees shake off
their icicles
sap coursing through
their veins

will skates & skis
be stored away
will boats & bicycles
be seen

will nature fold away
white robes
and reappear in
green

Hey, wild thing used fancy lettering. Blog publishing is too prozaic for that.

Welcome to the Googleverse

2007-01-25T22:34:00.000-05:00

Time & technology march on, dear Bloggers & Blogettes. Welcome to the Blogosphere in the vast Googleverse. You have now been Googleized. You will find the atmosphere congenial, if somewhat rarefied. But the overarching goal of the God of Google is to make your bloginations simpler and funner. Funner? Why, yes!

I'd like to assist you in your quest to determine if the Google account and password business are working correctly. But I can't. Why? Cuz.

Cuz my Google account and password are working just fine, and since I'm listed as a co-contributor I don't need to log in. Cuz I already am. Googleated.

Congratulations on having the blog look just the same as it did (except where's the pitcher?) Somehow I couldn't do that with Mental Blog. Anyhow, after the initial strangeness and trying to figure some things out, I'm just as happy with the new format. And I'm sure y'all will inevitably surrender willingly to the soft, all-encompassing embrace of the Googleverse.

Information, Facts & Spinning

2007-01-20T12:43:00.000-05:00

First, spin news stories that will put a cause in a good light; second, play down stories that will harm the cause; and third, neutralize rivals through whatever tactic that works, no matter how untrue.

Karl Rove, the man behind the president spins information for self-serving political survival of a radical right wing agenda. The talking Head for the White House is Tony Snow.

The most recent spinning aimed at moderate voices comes from Press Secretary Tony Snow. Absolutely despicable!

The most recent Snow job from Tony is that basically any discussion that questions the White House's plan in Iraq will aid terrorism.

In other words to discuss democratic ideas for solutions to the Iraq war is UNAMERICAN.

It’s like trying to advert your eyes to an upcoming car crash. There is a morbid fascination.

SPRING IN JANUARY

2007-01-01T13:18:00.000-05:00

We’ve known January thaws. Today, January 1, 2007, that would be a false indication. There was nothing to thaw.

When I woke up, this morning, 6 am., I heard a chorus of birds chattering like you hear in early spring. It was not accompanied by any other sound. No traffic whatsoever.

Early New Year’s Day, most people are still sleeping, dealing with hangovers, or just plainly zonked after the crazy, busy times.

There are those who may not want to wake up for a long time yet. Not a pleasant prospect to, still feeling bloated , start thinking about overdrawn credit cards & recklessly made New Year’s resolutions. Ouch, what a headache!

Having welcomed in the New Year with candle light, a glass of pear nectar, and a wedge of apple pie, quietly, just Simon and me, I was wide awake at six. I enjoyed listening to the still. Got up, bathed, had breakfast and set out with Simon for a long walk. Just following the creek and unto other trails. So quiet everywhere.

At first we met no one. Lots of sparrows and other little birds were flitting about and talking up a storm. A cardinal broke out in song. A blue jay screeched, flew up and settled on a branch of a tree, looking around, as if aware of proud crest and sky blue beauty.

About an hour into the walk, we started to meet the odd other dog with their reluctant owners. Simon befriended a beautiful husky he got to run around with, oh joy! The husky’s person was a woman from Poland.

The husky was her first dog ever. She was happy with her dog. She was however worried about a bold spot on his elbow. She thought she would have to take him to the vet, dreading the bill. Luckily I know how active dogs, when they run a lot, hit their elbows with their hind toes, and so create a rough, bold spot. When I explained that to her, she was so relieved. We had a nice chat until our ways parted.

I half expected snowbells to come up. But without snow they wouldn’t be snowbells. I peeked in the flowerbeds and did see, the green beginnings of irises.

It’s January. It feels like spring. Are we going to be in for a white Easter?

Simon’s feet and belly were black with mud. Not very golden. I cleaned him up. He sleeps now. On my bed.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone,
Wild Thing

WO'S BURL ???

2006-12-25T09:34:00.000-05:00

My computer doesn’t like Burl. My computer hates Burl. My computer thinks Burl is a shady character. What does Burl do? Who knows? Is he (she/it) the leader of a organization of unsavory criminals? Is he a pimp coercing innocent, young women, make them practice the oldest trade? Is he a sex obsessed male, exploiting young children? Does he use the internet to lure them into a life of crime and horror? Does he use foul language? Who IS Burl?

Read the previous post to catch up on Wild Thing’s argument with her computer. She cannot communicate into Larry’s mental blog. Won’t let her publish her words. Won’t give her the page that accomplishes that feat. Just warns her about Burl. Asks her if she wants to know why. And if she agrees, won’t tell her anyway. So who’s Burl??????

puzzled wild thing

Happy Winter Solstice, Happy Xmas!

2006-12-23T08:14:00.000-05:00

To those who have read our past blogs, you won’t be upset with me for using X. Perhaps the Greek alphabet won’t translate here but I will try. Χριστός is Greek for Christ (Christos) – hence the X. So, dear bloggers, I blaspheme not -

It is official now. The days are lengthening. Even though it is dark out there for so many hours of the day, I can feel the change in my body – the slight increase in the increments of light. Hallelujah. There is hope. For pagans and Christians. The season is wonderful that way. The story of the Nativity encapsulates hope in the form of an infant. The celebration of the return of the sun does the same. Light your candles in the dark.

The Dove Tale Writers came together Thursday night to rejoice in words and friendship. It was a night of unexpected firsts. M@ read aloud to us a sampling of his poems. Love sonnets at that – beautifully reflecting the vulnerability that is love. This from the guy who usually brings us mobster prose! And Wild Thing – well, Wild Thing was indeed wild. For the first time in the eight-year history of the DT gatherings, WT joined the wine-drinkers around the coffee table and drank a glass. The only other time she has been known to “chug it back” in our presence was a teensy-weensy sip of champagne to celebrate the publication of Veronica Ross’s book, “To Experience Wonder. Edna Staebler. A Life.” Well, Thursday night, those who know and love Wild Thing experienced wonder, too!

Speaking of Veronica, and the end of the night, she couldn’t find her coat. All that was left in its place was Wild Thing’s black leather jacket. A telephone call later – and we found out that unbeknownst to WT at the time, she had gleefully gone home wearing the wrong coat… How many glasses of wine, WT?

We missed you, Larry and Bobby Bacon, but we figured they wouldn't grant you a day pass to leave your cell, Larry, at the Yoni School for Wayward Poets. And BB, may you feel better soon.

Happy Solstice, Merry Xmas, dear writing friends. May you all write much, publish much, love much in 2007.

~ Xena

What Do You Think

2006-11-30T17:25:00.000-05:00

Hey bloggers, I do have this question I like to put out to see what others beside me think. I got this attachment. I seldom open attachments. Only when I know for sure who's sending it and so know it's save to open them. I opened one from such a source. It's a petition. It's about children in Africa. Young girls that get violated by men with aids who believe that they will heal when they mate with a virgin, the younger the better. It is a very deploring, emotional situation. It is heart breaking. Without further discription, the thing going around, (the source is in Holland), is a list to collect names to petition against cutting down funds that have been created to help bring awarenss to the situation and act bring about change so lives can be saved.

Now it easy to put one's name on a list. But what I am thinking is to what effect? It is just a list of names. First and last name. No other identification. The way I see it, I could put a whole lot of imaginary names on that list to make it grow. What good is that? Which government institution is going to believe that? Even if the city or county was added. What good would that do? I could add my all my relatives names who do not even live anymore or just make up names.

It seems to me a waste of time and energy. A non effective way to deal with emotional issues. Am I missing something?

Webster's Daily

2006-11-25T19:42:00.000-05:00

Hey! In the course of wading thru all my "found" bookmarks, I happened to see a reference to this other Blogspot site. Webster's Daily. Check it out. The poetry of Dictionary.

Gertrude Stein

2006-11-11T10:09:00.000-05:00

Larry has been dipping his toes into the vast mannish ocean of Gertrude again. She's a deep one, she is. Hard to read. No light sandy beach material here. Brown mahogany studies and gas lamps. Famous paintings crowding the walls. Pince-nez or perhaps a monocle. Something to make you concentrate because Gertrude is nothing if not concentrated.

Distilled. What is the process of distilling? You keep running the same ingredients through the pipes, boiling and condensing, purer and purer, until what's left is the essence that intoxicates you.

That's what Gertrude did.

Not always. Her most famous work, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, is a straightforward, fact-filled, gossipy kind of recounting of the early days of the Parisian artistic explosion at the turn of the 20th century. In other words, the kind of life that Alice and Gertrude and her brother Leo were certainly living. Like reading one of those British books about the royal family written by a former valet.

Other works are dense. Dense with repetition. But not exactly repetition. This is why you must concentrate because she repeats but not exactly. There may be a word missing. And when Gertrude removes a word, there must be a reason for it.

Gertrude is famous for writing, "Rose is a rose is a rose" which Larry has no idea what that means, even though his altered ego wrote about it once too. But there is the distilled essence of her endless repetition, and her injunction, repeated repeatedly in The Making of Americans to "begin again." Larry thinks it was also Gertrude who said about that town in California, "There's no there there." Exactly.

No distilled essence to tell you what it is. Which is what Gertrude repeatedly seeks.

You must be careful when reading Gertrude because she explores multiple meanings of words. This is part of her repetition as well. Take, for example, her portrait of Picasso. (After all, Picasso painted her portrait...with much difficulty, it is told. He never could get her face right. He worked for months. For months he worked. He worked and worked but the face would not work. Until he finally blotted out the whole thing and painted the mask as you see it above. And that became Gertrude's face, no other. She grew into that face...as you see it below.)

Larry wants to quote the first two paragraphs of Gertrude's portrait of Picasso because they admirably set up the rhythm of repetition and lay the foundation of a completely accurate depiction of who that old Picasso was and what he was about. They also demonstrate Gertrude's masterful play with multiple meanings:

One whom some were certainly following was one who was completely charming.One whom some were certainly following was one who was charming. One whom some were following was one who was completely charming. One whom some were following was one who was certainly completely charming.

Some were certainly following and were certain that the one they were then following was one working and was one bringing out of himself then something. Some were certainly following and were certain that the one they were then following was one bringing out of himself then something that was coming to be a heavy thing, a solid thing and a complete thing.

Crucial words here: following, working, charming.

Picasso was certainly charming. Women loved that short little fu...oops, did Larry write that out loud? Fact is, he was a little youknow. But women loved him anyway. Even the mannish ones like Gertrude.

Following. He certainly had one. In more than one sense. Picasso always had his followers. His entourage. Hangers-on. He was rarely alone. Even when painting. People came to watch him paint. Sometimes he put on displays for them. But other kinds of following too. He and Braque started a whole genre of painting. Cubism. Gertrude is sometimes called the "first Cubist writer." And Picasso's followers were all the Cubist artists who followed him. Certainly. Certain that there was a solidity to this cubic expression.

Working. Not many artists can match Picasso's output. In painting, sculpture, ceramics, drawing, lithographs. You name it. He probably did it. Worked it. Gertrude emphasizes throughout the short portrait (just over 2 pages, thirteen paragraphs, maybe 1000 words) that Picasso worked. Picasso's work defined him. Without quoting the entire portrait, Larry can tell you that Gertrude ultimately raises the suggestion that Picasso was a workaholic. Without his work he was nothing. Even when he had nothing much to say, he must be working. Completely working, as she says.

But work and working has another meaning: as in "This is not working." And Gertrude exploits that and gradually turns it around so that the final sentence of her portrait is, "He was not ever completely working."

And he wasn't. Many things in his life were messed up, particularly his long-term relationships. Just ask Dora Maar, the Weeping Woman. Just ask Françoise Gilot to whom, when she finally decided to leave him for good, all he could say was "Merde." So, in spite of working, he was not ever completely working. Not only that, as Gertrude implies, much of the time he was actually playing.

Gertrude. She was not playing with words. She was working them. Over and over. Until she got it right. Larry wonders what she would have done with a computer's cut and paste function.

(Which leads inevitably to William Burroughs...)

Hallowe'en

2006-11-02T23:40:00.000-05:00

SAMHAINNorthern Hemisphere: October 31st Southern Hemisphere: April 30th Pronounced "SOW' win" (rhymes with "cow")
Meaning of the Sabbat:"....And to the living is revealed the Mystery: that every ending is but a New Beginning.....""This festival is often called the "Feast of the Dead", as it is the time of year when the veil between the material and spirit worlds is thinnest. The spirits of our ancestors and loved ones who have recently passed to "The Summerlands" are able to return to us for a short while and join in the revelry. In ancient times, cattle were slaughted and the meat butchered and salted for the Dark Times ahead."At Samhain the Stag Lord rides with the Wild Hunt from the hollow hills and the Lady goes to the Dark Realms for the long sleep of Winter. On this night, the Old Year ends and a New Year begins for Pagans".

SAMHAIN RITUALNOTE: Each covener brings into the Circle a piece of paper upon which they have written negative qualities about themselves that they would like to be rid of. (Like smoking, procrastination, being judgemental etc.) Cauldron to burn papers. Candle or fire.2 Black altar candlesMusic for "Dance Macabre"Candy corn in a plastic pumpkin for talking stickSmudge stick and featherRITUALHP & HPS smudge the Coveners before they enter the Circle.HPS Casts the Circle.HP & HPS light Quarters Candles.CHARGE ELEMENTS.CLEANS CIRCLECall the Quarters.HP Invokes Hades, the Lord of the Underworld (NOTE: This is NOT "Satan"!) HPS invokes Hecate, Crone Goddess of the Dark Moon, ruler of the Underworld, Crossroads & magick.HPS: "We are between the Worlds, beyond the bounds of time, where day and night, birth & death, joy and sorrow meet as one.(HP reads the Statement of Intent:)This festival is often called the Feast of the Dead, as it is the time of the year when the veil between the Material and Spirit worlds is the thinnest. The spirits of our ancestors and loved ones who have recently passed to the Summerlands are able to return to us for a short time and join the revelry."In ancient times, cattle were slaughtered, and the meat butchered and salted for the Dark Times ahead."At Samhain, the Stag Lord rides the Wild Hunt from the hollow hills, and the Lady goes into the Dark Realms for the long sleep of Winter. On this night, the Old Year ends and a New Year begins."We are at the crack of time, for this day belongs to neither the Old Year nor to the New. And, as there are no distinctions between the years, so there is no distinction between the worlds. Those we have known and loved in ages past are free to return to us here in this meeting place. "And, to the living is revealed the Mystery: that every Ending is but a New Beginning."We meet in this time out of time, everywhere and nowhere, to greet the Lord of Death, who is the Lord of Life, and the Triple Goddess, who is the Circle of Rebirth.(HPS picks up the pumpkin with the candy in it, and remembers someone or animal friend (either known to you or someone from history that you admire). She takes a pice of candy and says, "I taste the Sweetness of your Memory", and passes the pumpkin (Talking Stick) to the next Covener to her left. Continue around the Circle until all have had a turn).(The "Danse Macabre" or "The Dance of the Dead" is done Widdershins (counter-clockwise). Start walking very slowly, and increase the speed until you are skipping and twirling. Invite the spirits to join you. If you do this outdoors, you can attact ectoplasm if you raise enough energy. Look for it swirling through the sky or landing in the trees. Dance until you are tired, then stop.Someone lights the Cauldron that stands in the North. Start with the HP. Each Covener in turn walks Widdershins, and puts their "negativity paper" into the fire to release it from you.SYMBOLIC GREAT RITE.(CAKES & ALE). (During this time, tell stories and customs of Hallowe'en).
~ End of Rite. ~

Needed: A Last Excuse

2006-11-02T12:53:00.000-05:00

Blogging? Why not? Word doesn’t approve of the word blogging. Treats it with red wiggely lines. Wordless disapproval.

The sunflower in the yard, bent over, seedless head, just received a covering of snow. Snow on the sun. Sounds like a contradiction.

Like my life. My life is rather contradictory lately. Why?

Well, my friend moved out, with most of his stuff, but not all of his stuff. His place, in the country is filling up and speaks new and exciting. My place on the other hand is emptying, but not quite, and in a sort of desolate state. Life changing. Missing the count- on presence of the other.

Nothing bad. Friendship unharmed. Just transformation. Spending time here and there. Having to bring some sort of harmony back into my place. The trick is to create a new atmosphere. Not quite as it was when I lived alone before. I am not that person anymore. Not so that I oust the other. Still need a place accommodating him and young children frequently. It’s a different story. Needs a different setting.

The dilemma required more thinking than doing for a while. Crying made thinking difficult. Emotions attack logical brains. Cripple them severely.

Yesterday some more common sense crept in. Ha, my living room looks great now. Accommodates all needs. Magic.

New problem. The rest of the house is still in shambles. So I find every excuse in the book to be in my living room and relax. Phone someone. Read a bit. Have a hot chocolate. A treat. Linger over it as long as possible. Walk the dog.

I did all that. It is noon by now. Running out of excuses to be brave and deal with other rooms. More change. Not only the move out. Also the season change. Warm to cold. Rain. Wind. Snow, a little. Frost, a little. Not in any specific order. Why would I not feel unsettled unless I am in my living room?

Well, there you go. I wrote a blog and will post it. My last excuse. Wish me luck. Maybe by tonight I did a good amount of unchaosing. Are you surprised that Word doesn’t like that word either? Word has no understanding of poets. Not set up for poetic licenses.

Wild Thing

Where's Larry

2006-10-25T14:22:00.000-04:00

Larry Keiler is known for his reclusive nature because he has not given an interview since 1978, and has not made a public appearance as “Larry” since that time. However there are rumours of his appearance in the form of his alter egoes. One rumour had him playing the bag pipes for ACDC in a surprise appearnce at a small nightclub in Sydney Australia. Another rumour has circulated that he has frequented Octoberfest playing the most unlikely of instruments, the accordian. Some of have claimed they have witnessed him chanting under a bodi tree.

If you take Waldo, J.D. Salinger and Andy Kaufmann and mix them together you would produce Larry. Recently there has been a discussion of Larry sightings by some Dove Tale members. In the interest of our membership I believe further investigations may reveal his where abouts.

If you know of any sightings of Mr. Keiler please post your comments here.

bobby bacon

Whispers and Butterfly Wings

2006-10-22T13:38:00.000-04:00

I write the odd commentary regarding the current events and politics of the day. What we see in the newspapers and television is for presentation. Those presentations have little to do with problem solving. Right now most US news is spun for the November elections for congress and the senate.

I view blogs, which are not read by millions, thousands, hundreds or even ten. Many of these blogs ask questions I have not thought about before. The site of a thousand whispers has a strange beauty. Another strange event is happening and that is the mainstream media is starting to make statements that have been whispered in blogs for the last couple of years.

Recently MSNBC commentary Keith Olbermann suggested that “that President Bush might be as big a threat as the terrorists.”

Wow!

The only difference I see between Olbermann’s comments and the hundreds of blogs I have read is the word “might”. For the main stream media to make a comment above the whispers is a huge step.

Olbermann should be careful though because the recent suspension of Habeas Corpus by the Bush Administration could earn Olbermann an all expense trip to Gitmo excluding any legal or human rights protection.

And if you think whispering is safe because only a couple of people will ever see a personal blog please note.

“Federal agents questioned a 14-year-old high school freshman in Sacramento, Calif., last week after they found threatening comments posted on her Web page on MySpace.com. The agents visited her school, where she was taken out of class and questioned for about 15 minutes. The incident has upset her parents, who said the agents should have included them when they questioned their daughter. Upset by the war in Iraq, Julia Wilson vented her frustrations with President Bush last spring on her Web page. She posted a picture of the president, scrawled "Kill Bush" across the top and drew a dagger stabbing his outstretched hand. She later replaced her page on the social networking site after learning in her eighth grade history class that such threats are a federal offense. It was too late. Federal authorities had found the page and placed Wilson on their checklist. They finally reached her this week in her molecular biology class. Julia Wilson said the agents threatened her by saying she could be sent to juvenile hall for making the threat.”

Frustration is a funny thing, be careful what you post. I am sure Julia knows she was wrong but the experience has motivated her even more as she plans to post a new MySpace.com page, this one devoted to organizing other students to protest the Iraq war.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/53677.html

Everything is connectected in this net age. Keep whispering and watch as thousands butterflys take flight. Just whisper in a responsible manner, eh?

Exiting Iraq

2006-10-09T09:46:00.000-04:00

The American public were governed by deception. Despite that deception, they want a peaceful resolution to Iraq that will limit the risk to American troops and reduce causalities among the Iraqis. Defining, discussing, debating an exit is neither cowardly nor “cut and run”. It is facing up to a reality that the current strategy is a disaster.

The main debate isn’t whether America should exit Iraq rather it is how and when to exit.

The strategy of “how and when” must consider the safety of American troops and the people of Iraq.

How and when involves: (Not in order of importance.)

1. Diplomacy and dialogue with Iraq’s neighbours.
2. Diplomacy and dialogue with the UN.
3. Opening up a dialogue with Insurgents.
4. Actually listening to the military command and the troops in Iraq.
5. All in consultation with Iraqis leadership and its people.
6. And the recognition by the American public that it is going to be harder getting out of Iraq than it was going in.

Voice of America (VOA)

2006-09-30T14:35:00.000-04:00

I was surprised at the quality of radio and TV broadcasts developed by Voice of America. All the news networks I have listened to, push sensationalism, biases, political and corporate agendas rather than report the news.

Typically CBC radio or PBS was my best choice for news. So when I ventured into the Voice of America I was expecting Fox Network like propaganda.

I have been listening to VOA for a few days now and to my delight it presents both sides of each issue in a thoughtful, in-depth and intelligent manner.

VOA goes way beyond the repetitive rhetoric of CNN, Fox and other typical networks. I found my own biases being challenged as I listened two gentlemen talk about the Popes recent comments on Islam. I heard two sides of a story and not two people bashing one another. It was a constructive and thoughtful dialogue about important issues.

http://www.voanews.com/english/webcasts.cfm

Okay Blog...

2006-09-25T19:54:00.000-04:00

Blog… The roots of homepages, web logs and listings can be dated back to 1992.

The first use of the term weblog was presented in a topic named, “Exploiting the World-Wide Web for Electronic Meeting Document Analysis and Management” at a conference in Australia in August 1995.

In 1996 online journal diaries were measured in the hundreds.

In early 1999 Peter Merholz shortens the term “weblog” to blog.

In August 1999, Pyra Labs, today owned by Google, launches the free Blogger service.

Over a very short period of time blogs spread worldwide over the Internet.

In January 2005 Larry Keiler of Lunchbucket, Ontario, Canada begins his first blog. Larry descriped himself as a “Underemployed Pote” he decribed himself as follows

“I am the altered ego of He-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless, currently serving a seven year term at the Yoni School for Wayward Poets. I was charged and convicted of phelonious misspelling and operating without a poetic license. am the altered ego of He-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless, currently serving a seven year term at the Yoni School for Wayward Poets. I was charged and convicted of phelonious misspelling and operating without a poetic license.”

His first blog he wrote:

"First things first
First -- figure out what the hell I'm doing with this thing......"

Have you figured it out yet Larry?

As of 2005 there is 50 million online journal blogs.

http://www.blogherald.com/2005/03/06/a-short-history-of-blogging/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog#2001_.E2.80.93_2004

Larry’s first Blog...Feel free to look back and comment...

http://vajrasattva1.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_vajrasattva1_archive.html

Shakin' (BOB)

Agent 488 – Carl Jung

2006-09-17T10:11:00.000-04:00

Carl Jung was an agent for US intelligence outfit called the OSS (Office of Strategic Services). He formally became an agent in 1943 but his war efforts had begun earlier. His first contact with the OSS was through his patient Mary Bancroft. Mary worked for Allan Dulles who was the OSS chief in Switzerland. Dulles later became the first Director of the CIA.

Dulles sent communiqués to Washington based on Jung’s assessment of Nazi leadership. In return Jung became privy to top-secret Allied intelligence.

Currently I am attempting to write a screenplay surrounding those events. My previous screenplay was based on Sandcastle Memories, which has an association with Jung, as he was interested in sand play. If anyone has information or links that I should research please send them my way.

Shakin’ (Bob)

ALIVE

2006-09-10T08:01:00.000-04:00

i find a feather
smaller than my hand
silvery gray
soft smooth
wonderously thin
light

i don’t know
what kind of bird
lost it
this feather
preened it out or
lost it flying

i think about that bird
somewhere alive

i stand by a tree
an old tree
green
rugged rough
composed of three trunks

halfway near the bottom
the surface split
under the bark the hole
gathered dusty matter
from it sprung
two puffy bold
golden tan mushrooms

the tree is alive

the sun is
sinking under the horizon
over rooftops and trees
the firy sky blushes red and
orange
bathing my surroundings in
rosy light

day is dying transforming into
night
the sun is alive

last night
the moon was full
a low reddish moon
lit up my world
i could see its face almost touch it

i felt the moon inside me
i felt alive

POEM OR NON POEM ?

2006-09-09T00:10:00.000-04:00

I think I am a poet. A poet is supposed to write poems. Poems come to you. When you are not doing anything. Between waking and sleeping. They already sing. They only need some shaping up to modify them to literary rule. Non poets want rules, initially. But then they shrug, "A am not a poet", they say. And forgive you your poetic license.

When poems don't come, where are they? I can't find any, right now. Forcing poems don't work for me. They don't sing. You may as well call them prose. Line breaks or not. Now writing proze is OK. You don't need to be a stick in the mud. Nothing wrong with stories. Although it helps if they too have music in them. They read so much better. Some prose reads/sounds like poetry. Maybe stories was the wrong word to use. Poems are stories too.

Labouring over a poem never works for me. There's got to be spontaneity. The more you work on it, the denser it gets. I prefer poems that dance like butterflies in the sun. Are all my poems like that? Of course not! My butterfly soul has the capacity to sink like a millstone.

Maybe life doesn't work without poetry. Maybe poetry and magic are interchangeable words. Dream words. Is life easier with poetry in it? Is it easy to maintain the magic? Is it easy to explain/maintain dreams? The word maintain doesn't even belong.

There are poems. There are non poems. Poetry lives.

I am outside story. I am outside poem. Today I am a non poem. Waiting for poetry. Waiting for magic. Want to dream.

wild thing feeling tame.

Brain Sculpting: Optimism & Pessimism

2006-09-02T07:20:00.000-04:00

By Whats Shakin'

In his book, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., tells of the potential loss of important neuronal connections:

"The human brain is by no means fully formed at birth . . . Children are born with many more neurons than their mature brains retain; through a process called "pruning" the brain actually loses the neuronal connections that are less used, and forms strong connections in those synaptic circuits that have been utilized the most . . . This process is constant and quick; synaptic connections can form in a matter of hours or days. Experience, particularly in childhood, sculpts the brain."

I started hearing a murmur about brain wiring in the mid 1990’s. There are numerous examples equating the workings of the brain to electricity from the late 1800’s onward. This equation has multiplied with the development of the Internet. But that is for another Blog someday.

What interests me is that use is the determining factor in brain growth. We may sculpt our bodies through exercise so it should not come to any surprise that we may sculpt our minds by applying our attention to various interests. The mind is influenced by the stimuli in the world around it. The so-called wiring responds to stimulus by becoming stronger in particular portions of the brain that are influenced by that stimulus. For example, there are separate areas in the brain for optimistic and pessimistic emotions.

I don’t have any particular bias about either optimism or pessimism. If I have any bias it is for balance. A certain amount of pessimism is healthy unless the result is the loss of hope. Personally I find optimism more pleasing, too much so in the sense of the three monkeys. There is a middle way between seeing no evil and seeing no hope.

Dumb Smile – Survival Mode

2006-08-26T10:56:00.000-04:00

By Whats Shakin'

My dumb smile approach has been kicking in by Thursday and Friday during the workweek. The project I am working on has had the direct involvement of five hundred people consisting of thirty consultants, seventy-five construction workers, two hundred and fifty end users, fifty suppliers, and one hundred neighbours.

Each person has very strong opinions. To manage those opinions, I adopt a level of intensity that drives the project forward. The problem is that the project uses up my energy so that by Wednesday I am running low.

Thus “Dumb Smile” kicks in by Thursday whereby my approach is “ Do no harm.”

I don’t argue, get worked up, or angry. I cut down on all my emotional output and conserve my energy. Hopefully if an important decision needs to be made I can make it on Monday when my thinking mind is fresh.
I feel no shame about adopting a dumb smile. It is a type of courage in a different form. Or so I tell myself.

Leaves and Strings

2006-07-29T10:51:00.000-04:00

We see a leaf in a tree. It is beautiful, simply as a visual representation. If we examine, investigate and measure the leaf there would be some that say we have damaged its simplicity. I disagree. There is nothing wrong with simplicity and there is nothing wrong with measuring and defining. They are just different views of perception.

We can apply a multitude of methods to investigate such as algebra, geometrical, biochemical, its symbiotic relationships and so on. A leaf is a leaf and it is beautiful. A leaf can be much more and still beautiful.

When it comes to string theory I understand about 1% of what I read. A current view of the “string theory” is that the universe exits in eleven dimensions. We perceive the world in three dimensions plus one. An object has height, width and depth (three dimensions). The plus one dimension is time. Time is a coordinate in geometry. If time is a coordinate, then instead of three coordinates to describe a leaf, we have four coordinates to describe any object. So our ability to investigate has four dimensions.

And the other seven dimensions? They can be partially represented mathematically. The math works but our ability to have scientific verification is not there yet. So STRING is a theory. We lack the ability at the moment to prove whether STRING is a true or a false representation. Research with particle accelerators may be able to verify or dismiss STRING in the foreseeable future.

The site http://superstringtheory.com/basics/basic4.html describes string as follows:

“Think of a guitar string that has been tuned by stretching the string under tension across the guitar. Depending on how the string is plucked and how much tension is in the string, different musical notes will be created by the string. These musical notes could be said to be excitation modes of that guitar string under tension.”

If STRING proves to be true then the elementary particles of a leaf can be thought of as musical notes that emit a specific vibration.
A leaf is green, it blows in the wind and it is beautiful. A leaf according to STRING may also be a series of musical notes in this magical universe.

Bobby (Whats Shakin') Bacon

How Wet Can You Get

2006-07-23T16:04:00.000-04:00

Should I go swimming, I wondered. Sunday early afternoon. Where was that program? Couldn’t find it. Such a quiet day. No one around. Nowhere to go to. I looked at my bike. I looked at the dog. Dog looked bored. Ahhhh. He can’t come swimming. Maybe take him to Monarch Woods. Good idea. Maybe on the way, exchange those beer bottles for money. Then they won’t take up space anymore. I didn’t seem too warm for a dog. See how it goes. So out we went. Up to the beer store. Passed the garden center. Maybe stop off there later, see what sales are on. It started to rain a bit. Mmmmmm, did I close my windows? Was sure I didn’t. But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

On a railing, close to the store entrance, I tied the dog. Dry spot. Went into that ice palace. Brrr. beer stores are cold. Had to wait a bit. Heard thunder roll in. Got my exchange money, turned and saw one thick sheet of rain. Ran outside, freed soaked dog ( name is Simon) who looked a bit panicky.

“May as well come in,” said a man in the front hall of the beer store, waiting out the storm with a case of beer. I did. As always Simon became the subject of conversation. Instantly adored by most who see him. The man, a typical beer drinker, told me about someone who breeds golden retrievers and how great they are. No argument there.

I looked at the sky. Pure blue in the direction of my place. The other way, coming from Waterloo, black, threatening clouds without end. “We may as well go, Simey”, I said, and we stepped into the downpour. We ran across the parking lot to the entrance of the “New Canadian Super Store.” Wasn’t going to hide there, was thinking about open windows at home. No ambition to go into the Garden Center either, anymore.

Folks hiding from the rain under the overhang of the super store looked adoringly and with pity at Simon, water streaming off him. “Ahh,” said a man, “You are the only one I feel sorry for.” No matter that I was dripping too. Simon and I jogged on. I ran into the house first to close windows. Luckily the rain had come straight and the damage was minor. My bed wasn’t wet at least, nor the books under the bathroom window. I grabbed two big towels from a shelf and threw them over Simon, rubbing him as close to dry as I could get him.

“Well Simon,” I said, throwing the wet towels in the washer and getting out the hair dryer, “I think we both went for a swim.”

the Demon Trap

2006-06-29T19:06:00.000-04:00

There is a blogger demon in my computer. Three times, I tell you, three times, I have put heart and soul into starting a new post. Thought we had milked all out of Da Vinci we could. And I wrote a piece to the very end. Checking deftly for typos and errors. Finally satisfied, the blogger demon reared its ugly head and ate my blog before I could publish it. Gone. Disappeared. Not to be found in the deepest bowels of the computer. I shook it. I tried to trick it. I swore at it. I pleaded with it. Nothing. Nil. Blank. That demon is tricky like my cat. Cannot be found if it doesn’t want to be found. Many times I cannot find my cat. Even though I am convinced that I know all her hiding places. Even though I search all of them and more. even though I call her, try to lure her with food, the cat is somehow spirited away. And when I least expect it she will suddenly sit in front of me with dreamy eyes, like a little Buddha, innocent, alluring, pointing at her dish and making me feel guilty that it is empty. Nah, that last part isn’t true. But hey there is always fiction in truth and truth in fiction. Right? But you know, the demon never shows himself. Is it a male demon? Of course it is! Why? Never mind. I have decided. The demon is forever evasive. Cannot be seen. Like the face of God. According to Jewish scripture and C.S. Lewis. The demon is the scary, negative side of computer technology. Computers, I always emphasize, have me in total awe on one side, and scare the hell out of me another way. This electronic technology holds heaven and hell in its bowels. Makes me happy often, and makes me swear at it probably more times. Gets out the demon in me. That’s what demons do, right? In dreams, they say, when you face your demons, they fade away. That has worked for me. But my computer is not a dream. And there is a demon in my computer. HELP !!! Maybe I should make it fun and design a “Name The Demon” contest. There is a theory, I think from the fox in “The Little Prince”, that when you name things you tame them. What do you do with a tame demon? Same things as you do with a drunken sailor?

Ha! I did it. I wrote it in the Word program and copied and pasted it. See if it goes through now.

The Da Vinci Code...

2006-06-14T09:34:00.000-04:00

When I travel, I like to put Tuesdays aside to watch a movie. Why not? CSI is still two nights away, and the buzz I get from mowing the lawn on Sunday has worn off, leaving me feeling empty and angry inside. Movies fix that.

Pushing my atheism aside, I decided to stretch my mind and consider a film that put into question all I knew about the last two thousand years of history and religion. Unfortunately, Cars was sold out so I bought a ticket for The DaVinci Code instead.

The film was good. Not great, but good enough that I only thought of McRib eight times. During the normal course of the two or three hours this film ran, I would have thought of McRib as many as thirty-two times. This film held me. In fact, I was only consumed by McRib Compulsive Disorder once during the movie, at which time I left the theatre, drove to McDonalds, and was reminded that McRib has not been on the menu for many years. I drove back to the theatre but I think I was out when they were talking about religion or something, so I felt lost for quite awhile.

By the end of the film, I was filled with such hope and awe that, within forty minutes, I had given some of my money to a stripper named Mary. Or Lexus. She was speaking French, so I’m not sure what she was saying.

Everyone should see this movie.

- Art Lane

Five Years old & Fifty Years old.

2006-06-09T15:12:00.000-04:00

When I was five, I played in sand with dump trucks.

At fifty, I'm playing in sand with dump trucks.

The difference is...

I spend more time playing with dump trucks now than when I was five.

This top shot is the job site a few days ago.

The bottom shot is an artist's rendition of what we hope it may look like.

This is where my is mind is at least 45 hours a week.

When I was five had less time for construction.

Bob

Oh, That Henry Miller!

2006-06-05T20:00:00.000-04:00

When and where does creation cease? And what can a mere writer create that has not already been created? Nothing. The writer rearranges the gray matter in his noodle. He makes a beginning and an end -- the very opposite of creation! -- and in between, where he shuffles around, or more properly is shuffled around, there is born the imitation of reality: a book. Some books have altered the face of the world. Rearrangement, nothing more. The problems of life remain. A face may be lifted, but one's age is indelible. Books have no effect. Authors have no effect. The effect was given in the first Cause. Where wert thou when I created the world? Answer that and you have solved the riddle of creation!

We write, knowing we are licked before we start. Every day we beg for fresh torment. The more we itch and scratch the better we feel. And when our readers also begin to itch and scratch we feel sublime. Let no one die of inanition! The airs must ever swarm with arrows of thought delivered by les hommes de lettres.

From: Nexus, Chapter 16

There's more. He was just gettin' on a roll. Larry sez: Read It! Look at that face. Sculptured, like some Mongol (as he says) in disguise. Look at that lantern jaw. Dick Tracy stands in awe. How could you not read it?

For those of you who don't know, aside from all the sexual folderol, Miller's novels Sexus, Plexus, and Nexus are really about his struggle to be a writer (and his crazy life with Anais Nin, called Mona in the books.)

Three A's

2006-06-03T10:52:00.000-04:00

I have a fascination with such conditions as Autism, Asperger’s and Alzheimer’s.

I have thoughts about autism, which may be completely inaccurate. I once was a swimming instructor and for whatever reason I had a knack for teaching children with special needs. My experience in the water didn’t match up with my research on autism. Perhaps it was the water environment and that stimulus that put my experience and my reading at odds. I suspect the children I had in my classes were all high functional.

I learned from them. They required a calm and a gentle approach and not the general excited activity of an average swim class. I could feel the tension in their bodies when and activity became too much for them. Also the children I taught were verbal. At first their remarks seemed completely out of place to our activity. As I gained experience I realized their remarks were an attempt in establishing an order to the feelings and stimulus of the lesson.

The indoor pool environment is all wrong for a child with autism. I could easily design a pool that would accommodate their needs. Of course that pool will never be built because who would spend the money on a accommodating those needs. Pools are very well lit, have poor acoustics (echo), and busy. If I designed a pool it would use only underwater lamps, I would line the walls, ceiling, and floors with materials that would absorb sound. The only voice I want the child to hear is mine. Of course I never had that environment to work in.

The world seemed too big for the children I taught. If I could make the world appeared to be smaller then there was an opportunity to learn. If I managed that then teaching them to swim was easy.

In hindsight now, I believe these children had Asperger’s Syndrome. I only became aware of Aspergers 15 years ago. I never experienced an absence of emotion from these children rather the children demonstrated stronger emotions than most. The stimuli of the world were overwhelming, reduce the stimuli to these high function children and they are no different than anybody else. The absense of emotion comes when an over stimulated child shuts down. Frrustration was often predominant, which I prefferred to the child that just turns off completely.

What does Alzheimer’s have to do with this? Nothing really. Just another interest of mine. Used to be the only conclusive diagnostics of Alzheimer’s was an autopsy. That is no longer true. We have ways to take pictures of the brain now. There is a build up a protein plaque in the brain that reduces the function of receiving and sending messages along the neural net. There are ways to reduce this plaque, which will slow down the process of Alzheimer’s. It is no cure and we have yet to discover the cause.

Get your comma, er, coma right

2006-05-19T15:51:00.000-04:00

A word of caution to all those scriptwriters out there – and you know who you are! Consider yourself warned! I read the following Associated Press article today in the newspaper:

“Note to screenwriters and filmgoers: People look bad when they are in comas, and they never, repeat never, get up, unplug themselves from their machines and walk out of the hospital.

A new study published in this month’s journal of the American Academy of Neurology reviewed 30 U.S. and foreign movies with characters in prolonged comas and found that only two of those – Dream Life of Angels and Reversal of Fortunes – contained reasonably accurate representations of coma.

The others often portrayed the comatose as tanned and muscular; as if they were simply in a deep sleep. In reality, their muscles would atrophy and they’d probably be incontinent.

Researchers identified scenes from 17 movies portraying a coma, wakening from a coma, recovery from coma, and physician, nurse and family conversations. They then asked 72 viewers to rate the realism.

The portrayals of comas in movies is important, said Dr. Eelcom Wijdicks [does THAT name strike you as fictional??? Just try to say it aloud without laughing], a lead author of the study and neurologist with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., because people are subconsciously influenced by what they see on screen.

“The wrong representation could lead to the wrong expectations,” Wijdicks said. In the study, 39% of participants said the movie scenes would affect a real-life decision [now THERE'S a scary stat].”

~ Xena

Writers exercise too!

2006-05-15T11:17:00.000-04:00

The Federal Government wants to stimulate activity in children by offering parents a tax credit to enroll their kids in physical activity. Of course, they only consider endeavours like chasing a ball around a field, to be activity. What about mental activity? Firing all those neurons to be creative, uses calories too. What about chasing a story? Those of us writing articles and essays have traveled out of our comfy chairs to chase down a great idea. Those of us writing fiction know how surrounding you with your subject matter and setting creates wonderful words. What about song-writing and play-writing? Such writers often combine other artistic processes in addition to the writing. Song-writers play piano or guitar in most instances. Playwrights may be involved in staging or directing as well. Let's create writing programs for kids and convince the Tory's that exercising their brain uses energy too.

Get active, be persuasive, write-on!

Sher, Executive Director
WCAC, 25 Regina St. S.
Waterloo, ON N2J 1R8
519-886 4577

Newz

2006-05-14T09:08:00.000-04:00

Well, the novel is printed and in my hot little hands. And I'm proud to say that I found my first typo, on page 47, the first time I opened the book. Hooray! Now that I've found it, I can be sure that there are no other typos in the book, anywhere.

But the Kitchener launch is set for June 4 at the Walper Hotel. Everyone is invited of course. Punch will be served.

Has everyone heard about the CAA Mini-conference on June 3? I don't know whether I told everyone about it or not, but basically we're taking four of the most successful elements from last year's conference and putting them together in one extravaganza of a day. These elements are:

A panel of editors talking about what they're looking for from writers
One-on-one interviews with editors
A workshop with Kelley Armstrong
Meals and coffee breaks provided

So if anyone's interested, get on over to the branch page and sign up. We figure we're charging about $10 more than Brian Henry does, we're giving people way more of everything, and food is included. What more could a person want?

Anyhow, I'll post details about the launch party when they're available. Till then, I'll be running madly around the room wondering how the heck I'm going to get everything I need to do, done.

On-line Book Publishing

2006-05-08T19:03:00.000-04:00

Larry just read an interesting interview with Eileen Gittens, the Chief Exec of Blurb, an on-line publishing company. Click the link for the Washington Post article. (These articles go off-line after a period of time. If you miss it, send Larry an email. He'll send you a Werd file copy of the interview.)

Life is Short at the Washington Post

2006-05-08T00:14:00.000-04:00

Find a way to give insight into your life in under 100 words. Authors of selected entries will be notified and paid $100. Send text (accompanied by a home phone number) via e-mail (lifeisshort@washpost.com), fax (202-334-5587) or mail (Style, Life Is Short, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071).

And here's a recent example:

I stood in my son's room where he was doing his high school homework. Looking down at his desk, I saw a paper on which he had gotten a B-plus. Though pleased, I asked him, "How come you didn't get an A on this?" He looked up at me and asked, "How come you're not making millions and millions of dollars?" I thought he had a point and let him be.

Tony Gittens, Washington