SUMMER SUN - SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER ?

 

ALL THINGS MUST PASS : GEORGE HARRISON

LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL : OCEAN IN VIEW

Reading around the erosion of the beaches around Malibu, in particular Broad Beach, which was one of my favorites,  I found Powell's descriptions almost romantic.

Powell is the man who the UCLA library is named after, for he was the head librarian there for many years.  He and his wife lived in Westwood and then moved out to the Malibu.

Page 401)

Indians are buried everywhere from Mugu Lagoon to Malibu Creek. Every bulldozing operation brings their bones and artifacts to light, as one did just across Broad Beach Road from us - a dozen huddled skeletons, four or five hundred years old, talking no notice of their noisy resurrection.  Our germanium garden, falling to Encinal Creek, is sure to be a burial ground, the gofers tell us.  Mary Austin writes of the residue of personality that always haunts a place once inhabited by man.  Jeffers' poetry is full of these hauntings.  But I cannot say that I have encountered sprits here on the Malibu.  Perhaps the diesels drive them away.  I have no fear of them however.  The Chumash were a gentle people, living on shell fish, roots, and acorn meal.  We who are carnivorous may leave a different residue.  Sometimes I wonder who will follow us here, and what they will make of our artifacts - books on discs ... and less tangible, though perhaps more lasting, our love for this marine mountainscape this world called the Malibu.

From the book Writing Los Angeles

I'm sorry I failed to write down the year he wrote this and the ... is a couple missing words.

SUPER MOON

 

THE BEST - THIS VIDEO ABOUT BALENCIAGA TOE HIGH HEELS HAD ME LOL - A NATURAL COMMEDIAN

TRIVIAL or SUPERFICIAL or LIGHTHEARTED THE LIST OF THE MOMENT

AM I WHO I KNOW? (or DON'T?)

Top Model I Think is Most Heart-Stopping Beautiful : Gigi Hadid

Actor With Talent Who Is Also My Heartthrob : Jack Huston

Actor I'll See Any Film She Makes : Jennifer Lawrence

Actor I'll Always Miss - I Like (Most Of) What He Did : Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Poet Who Always Gets To Me : Dylan Thomas

I'm Curious About: Jack White (Musician/ His mom is Polish!)

Enough Already : Brad and Angelina (Give him the damn divorce!)

I'd Be Totally Embarrassed If She Were My Mother : Madonna

So Bad - So Good : James Corden

I Might Just Be Done With : Listening to Coast to Coast AM (and KFI)

Historical Person I'd Like To Interview : Thomas Jefferson

If I Could Travel Back In Time : Seeing my Immigrant Grandmother Young and Just Off The Boat.

I'd Like To Meet But Won't In This Life :  My Great Grandparents

My Favorite Person Is : My dog.

AM I WHAT I INDULGE?

Oldie Films I Just Had to Watch Again : The Talented Mr. Ripley, Almost Famous, Chaplin,

Oldie Film I Want To Watch Again Sometime : Basquiat

Not So Oldie Series I Want To Watch Again Sometime : Boardwalk

Newish Series That I Was So Impressed With : The Romanoffs

I Just Watched and Loved It : Halston

Oldie Favorite Album I Blissfully Recently Listened to from Beginning to End : George Harrison All Things Must Pass (Remastered)

Oldie Band I Didn't Grown Up With That I'm Listening To Now : The Byrds

Oldie Songs I've Been Listening To A Lot : Led Zeppelin The Rain Song,  Ersel Hickey, You Threw A Dart, Babyshambles, You Talk, Lou Reed Rock and Roll, Allman Brothers, Midnight Rider  (I first heard all these songs as Oldies.)

Book I Recently Read Cover To Cover : American Sutra - A Story Of Faith and Freedom In the Second World War by Duncan Ryuken Williams 

Book I Keep Meaning To Reread : Blonde by Joyce Carol Oats

Person I Get and Nobody I Know Understands : Andy Warhol

AM I WHAT I EAT?

Favorite Cheese Of The Moment : Havarti

Tortilla to Beat All : Trader Joes Whole Wheat Wraps Olive Oil

Condiment / On Pizza : Olives - Black Olives

Chocolate : Dark

Canned Soup I Miss That I Don't Think They Make Anymore : Campbell's Scotch Broth

Meal I Miss That I Can't Recreate: Pressure Cooker Stuffed Cabbage

I'm No Longer Into Like I Once Was : Herbal Teas

I'm Drinking : Vitamin C Fizzies

AM I WHAT I BUY?

Scent : Pacifica Tuscan Blood Orange

Shower Gel : Hemp Sweet Orange by Clean and Beauty (defunct business)

Summer Top : Calvin Klein Performance

Casual Shoes : Skechers

.

AM I WHAT I MISS?

Going out to a big screen movie theatre with a group of friends to see a film.

A long deep honest in-person conversation.

Sleeping nine hours straight no problem.

LATEST FASCINATION(S)? 

Watching HERD Elephant Videos of the Jubalani Herd in South Africa. HERD ORG SOUTH AFRICA (A good cause.)

Antarctica

I SHOULD : 

Take Yoga Again. Go Swimming.

I WISH:

It Would Rain

I HAVE:

Covid-19 Vaccination

C 2021  Christine Trzyna

Ask yourself the same questions.

Don't let me influence you. 

SUMMER : EXPERIENCE TWENTY-THREE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

When and where was your best summer ever?

C 2018-2021  Christine Trzyna 

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love.  It's karma.

PLANT BASED DIETS THAT KILL? WRITING PARTNERS THAT KILL? ARE YOU A VEGETARIAN or PERHAPS A REVENGETARIAN?

When I was in college working on my Creative Writing, an instructor decided to make writing partners of sorts out of us by first quizzing us on our diets and twinning us with others who ate like we did. A notoriously vegetarian school, "Woke" a good twenty years before the state of California as is, thick with suffocating political correctness as a form of religion, a place where an on site eaterie actually served meat but you could get stared down for openly eating a tuna sandwich, I got stuck with the other meat eater. 

I tried to be cooperative but the person I was stuck with was a jealous and competitive woman (i.e. she played real dirty beginning with threatening me that she was a witch) who wanted to be at the top of the hill and decided she'd say whatever she could to push me down it. When I think back on reasons why I hated the school (there were some reasons I loved it too) this woman and the whole bullshit situation with her including instructors coddling her and accepting her bribes (i.e. her delivery of home made casseroles on their doorsteps) is at the top of the list.

In short, the fact that we both ate meat did not mean we had anything in common, even if we both had meat eaters eye teeth or traditionally human intestinal tracks designed by Our Maker to digest meat. In actuality we were never close to writing "partners". She was only able to make smart ass remarks towards me and my work. And, by the way, I began to see that I was quite possibly unsuitable ethnically to be applauded by my instructors. After years of being passed by in many situations in life due to my ethnicity, such as being the butt of Polish jokes in another classroom, now I was too "White" and considered advantaged to be there, even though I was not one of the many Trust Fund Babies I was surrounded with and going broke. The bitch couldn't stop her whole "I am Mexican and a Single Mother and therefore I Deserve So Much More Than You," mantra, seeking every advantage such as living in the funky, sought after "married student" housing (Where was the husband?) and submitting work written years earlier as new in workshops which was unfair to everyone else there. I was older than her so I tried to be more mature and not respond.

I never bought into the school cafeteria plans preferring to cook for myself and budget. There were so many grocers in the area who carried "health food," begun in the 1960's when hippies settled, that it was easy to purchase vegetarian or vegan alternatives and afford to. So for about 6 weeks, maybe 8, I ate nothing but vegetarian food - lots of Tofu with sauces. This was not the time to do a lot of cooking and these packaged vegetarian meals were easy. I was so busy, possibly I never thought much about food or felt hungry.

One day a friend of mine, younger, a gentleman from Mexico*, who never played that card, and who drank a wicked twelve cups of coffee a day habit, looked at me and said something like, "Your hair!  Your nails!  You're not getting enough proteins." It was uncharacteristically open of him to say such a thing. I immediately confessed that I had been eating vegetarian. I immediately went back to eating some meat.

If I could do it over, I'd probably also be ingesting a suitcase full of the finest vitamins and herbs, and maybe make more of an effort eating in a food combining way. (One vegetarian from Germany there was only eating white pasta with tomato spaghetti sauce and tapioca pudding and no one thought this PHD candidate had an eating disorder.) I would also use the school pool. I was overall fit. A good weight. Lots of walking. But...

Lately, I'm beginning to think that the whole VEGAN MOVEMENT is actually a government conspiracy because there IS NOT ENOUGH FOOD FOR THE PLANET, including the United States, especially if you want to eat a traditional balanced meal. I know about the dubious food pyramids that have us eating way more grains than we should. I also know that millions of American have less than $2000 in assets because that's a requirement if you want to get Government Food Aid (ie.EBT, CalFresh, etc.) Of course the line ups for free food - miles long - preceded the line ups for free vaccines and there were just as many SUV's.

The other day I went into a Vons market and was shocked at the price of meat which, as an example, featured as a deal a pound of ground turkey for $6.99. The last time I bought  a pound of ground turkey I paid about $2.99. I'm aware that food that travels well, such as garlic cloves, are being imported and sold at dollar stores such as 99 Cents Only, meaning that we are importing garlic when heck, Gilroy, California is the Garlic Capital. I'm not sure where else these stores are getting vegetables and salad greens but I'm sure that Mexico is one of those places.

Water shortages are another aspect of the Food issue. If your water bill doesn't do it, your awareness that there is a water shortage will make you consider Depression Era Sink Baths instead of daily showers. It's said that the reason meat is now so expensive is that feeding animals is more expensive because growing food is more expensive because water is so expensive due to water shortages.

WHAT IF YOU ARE BEING MANIPULATED INTO GOING AGAINST YOUR HUMAN BODY with this PLANT BASED DIET trend?  Over the last couple weeks I've tried two newish products catering to the plant based diet folks, fake meat. Maybe fresh out of the package it was eatable but I wasn't fooled that it was meat and it soon started to slime. It was also expensive and processed to turn some form of plant-based sludge into what looked like wieners or slabs of lunch meat, thick and reddish between slabs of brown bread.  I went shopping, with memories of one of my long gone friends saying "Try this, it's the best,"  and putting a Hebrew National hot dog on a white plate with a side of Kraut. I bought both. When I think back on food during my college days, I think humus piled on a bagel.

C 2021 Christine Trzyna

SMELL : EXPERIENCE TWENTY-TWO : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

Spend an hour writing down everything you smell.

Then write a short story in which you use smell and do your best to use adjectives or other creative means to describe smell so your reader can smell the smells too.

Perhaps everyone has their own particular sense of smell. 

C 2018-2021  Christine Trzyna 

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love.  It's karma.

SOUNDTRACK : EXPERIENCE TWENTY-ONE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

The last thing to do when we die, I hear (pun intended), is our hearing.  Many of us have remembrances of music," earworms" or have a "soundtrack" for our lives.

Name a song - or two - or a hundred - or as many as you want.

What life experience is attached to that song, tune, or performance?

Did you hear it live, in concert, on the radio, as new music or as an "Oldie?"

How do you feel when you hear that song again?

C 2018-2021  Christine Trzyna 
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love.  It's karma.

WITNESSING: EXPERIENCE TWENTY : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

When you were a child, what was your exposure to fake violence (Film? Playing on the school yard? Video games?) and real violence (Neighborhood. Play turned mean?)? What role did you play within violence?

How did exposure to violence form or change you?

C 2018-2021  Christine Trzyna 
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love.  It's karma.

PRAYER : EXPERIENCE NINETEEN : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP

What is your experience with prayer?

Have you been granted what you needed?  Have you received the answers you sought?

Do you pray for other people?  What do you pray for?

Or perhaps you have never prayed or given up on prayer?

C 2018-2021  Christine Trzyna 
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love.  It's karma.

WHY CHURCH IV

Here are questions to ask (yourself, other members, the minister or priest) before joining a church.

1) How many people belong to this congregation? Is there a sense of community? 

2) Is there a particular political viewpoint or world view associated with this congregation? Is the minister or other people in authority telling you how to vote? Or are you comfortable because generally you're surrounded by like minded people?

3) Will I be expected to or told to bring in new members? Does the organization or the leadership do their job to attract new members? 

Are they actively attempting to covert people or do they take a more passive approach?

4) Am I expected to tithe or support the church? Is it voluntary or is someone expecting to see my tax returns? (Most people do donate or volunteer to churches they are members of.)

5) Do people like and respect each other and get along or is there infighting, power plays, or other people issues that make it less spiritual?

6) If you need to talk, ask advice or need help, does someone call you back or meet with you quickly? At all?

7) If you left another church or religion, especially your family or heritage religion, how do people at this one think or talk about people of that other church/ religion?

8) Do they call themselves ecumenical or Interfaith? Are they really?

9) If you take time off or leave, will friendships you made end or continue? Will you be cut off or shunned or simply not be remembered?

10) Overall, are you experiencing a better life because you belong to this church?

11) Do you look forward to attending or do you do so out of Obligation?

C 2021 Christine Trzyna