I'm trying to remember how it is that I got addicted to reading DAILY MAIL UK. It's been a while now since I started reading it. It might have been about the time I was having withdrawal from the end of Art Bell's second or third incarnation, his long awaited but brief MIDNIGHT IN THE DESERT show. I believe it had to do with trying to read around EDWARD SNOWDEN and JULIAN ASSANGE. These men and those like them are important to the question we need to ask, and that is the role of journalists and journalism in society, in a time of fake news (sorry to say there really is a lot of it) and skepticism. Though sometimes DAILY MAIL UK gets it wrong, more often they get it right and their news breaks across the ocean first, meaning that by the time you get up to listen to KFI and the obnoxiously funny BILL HANDLE well, you will already know what news they are going to be mentioning on the radio as you sit in traffic on the freeway because it sounds to be right out of DAILY MAIL UK! You know that because you checked when you got up to pee at 3 am.
Currently I barely read about Snowden, who I actually feel has had his Andy Warhol Fifteen Minutes of fame over and over again and will live out his life in Russia. He raised his finger in that ayatollah kind of way and I thought, this is not good! I suspect Assange and WikiLeaks is going to be story for a long long time, unless he dies, and I think he might. He's being made an example of. Got to give Snowden credit for years of faithfulness to his pole dancing exhibitionist girlfriend; there's someone for everyone?
I don't feel so bad about the way I have to hit the DAILY MAIL UK site at least twice a day - sometimes more - sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night - yesterday every hour - when I hear that it's the second most read news media site in the world.
I don't know what media site is supposed to be number one. I kind of hope The New York Times. I read the San Jose Mercury News... I read The Guardian... I read Vanity Fair.
I currently make dog poo bags from the LA TIMES though yes, it does have some good coverage. I hear it's printed with soy based ink and I'm just so eco. I have respect for journalist Steve Lopez there, who I feel sure already has his private island estate in heaven being built by the angels.
LINK HERE TO A JOURNALIST I RESPECT STEVE LOPEZ He will not quit writing about our housing and homeless crisis.
So, about DAILY MAIL UK; I know some of you are disappointed in me for this, but I'm not alone in making my way past the Kardashians, who I knew nothing about when I started reading it, and so many other desperate-for-attention women showing off their bodies in swim suits, if you can identify these strained patches of fabric as such, who take pouty selfies of themselves using mirrors to look down their own pants, to some terrific coverage of what we used to call HARD NEWS, such as the hideous Jeffery Epstein Sex Trafficking scandal. And the Miley Cyrus scandal, a trivial bisexual fling of a scandal which, when it comes right down to it, has not an iota of impact compared to what the now dead sex addict Epstein's scandal will.
I really CAN be LITERARY and also be into POP CULTURE.
DAILY MAIL UK also promises daily coverage of VIOLENCE, from gross pimple popper videos to mass shootings, mothers who put babies they just gave birth to in dumpsters and people who put their dogs in freezers, innocent people wrongly convicted and criminals running free, boating and helicopter accidents, riots in front of movie theaters and more seriously in Hong Kong, wackos gone crazy and crazies gone wacko, every form of violence.
I'M OVEREXPOSED TO VIOLENCE.
I don't want to be ill informed or ignorant.
I want to understand.
I feel stress.
I am anxious.
I feel overloaded.
It feels hopeless.
WE NEED HELP.
Can the Republicans find ANYONE to run against TRUMP? Can the Democrats who refused to eat some form of Pig in IOWA or who actually do not have a realistic PLAN for how this Reparations thing will work (I suggest national DNA tests) please step out of the race for the Presidency.
Go Bernie Go!
Sometimes I feel like imploding or exploding.
You might too.
Just don't do it all over my blog.
C 2019 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved. Internet and International Rights Included.
7/17/19
COMEDY LITERATURE AWARD
THE GUARDIAN - JILLY COOPER - WOMEN WRITING COMEDIC LITERATURE AWARD
Reigning queen of the pun JILLY COOPER has been awarded the inaugural COMEDY WOMEN IN PRINT (CWIP) lifetime achievement award "in recognition of her legacy and inspiration to comic women writers everywhere."
..."We wanted to respect JILLY COOPER as a game changer... at a time when visibility of witty women writers was still an issue," said the comedian, writer, and actor HELEN LEDERER, who founded the awards to celebrate the female authors of comic fiction she felt were being overlooked. "Her mix of shrewdly placed social satire and criticism made us all connect and want more of her. She's not only a household name - she's also a witty journalist, author, and influence."
7/13/19
5/25/19
5/19/19
I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR : NICO and VELVET UNDERGROUND
1/30/08
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
How many times must I look in a mirror and see myself as I really am?
Look in the mirror and say aloud "I AM A WRITER!"
5/5/19
5/3/19
5/1/19
A CROATION SINGS ME AN OPERA AT THE BUS STOP : TALKING TO STRANGERS
Although there are distinct cultural difference between Poles, Croatians, Slovaks, Slovenians, and other Slavs - eastern Slavs and western Slavs, here in the United States we all seem to be put into the same niche, and Slavic people seem eager to identify with each other more so than other Europeans - just an OPINION (You know, EVERYONE HAS ONE!)
I was more disarmed than charmed when this old man began to gleefully sing me a song in Croation - LOUD - and was proud of his operatic voice.
I thanked him.
And then, though we had started out talking about what time the bus to take us up a hill was due, and that it was overdue, he got up and walked home.
I was more disarmed than charmed when this old man began to gleefully sing me a song in Croation - LOUD - and was proud of his operatic voice.
I thanked him.
And then, though we had started out talking about what time the bus to take us up a hill was due, and that it was overdue, he got up and walked home.
4/3/19
THEMATIC
For some time there's been a thematic underlying this blog which suspect that only one or two people (other than me) in this world is perceptive of.
The thematic ties into my postings about the art of Andy Warhol (whose studio was called The Factory), my postings about products ("they didn't pay me to say this") and what I perceive as people seeing themselves as defined (and self promoted) by what they buy/own/like. People reducing themselves to lists as well as advertisements and informational blurbs, in particular to prove they have value beyond their basic humanity (which some of them attempt to deny to others), often defined as having money for Brands ("We only eat Gelsons") - class - superiority through acquisition. People (including authors) turning into BRANDS so now you can sue someone for hurting your Brand/ income potential re defamation of BRAND (object) rather than a human being. People promoting and marketing themselves for career, for friendship, for love.... but also for survival. (So if you're an author who also writes poetry, or you want to write fiction and non fiction, or more than one genre you may have to have several names of the pen.) Not wishing to offend anyone with your version of truth - or opinion - we are in an era of self censorship and stifling in order to be liked - or employed.
#
In some stories, a character's fashion purchases stand in as character development since these purchases define their sensibilities.
#
When I post my (current) "likes" does my reader know me? (Maybe, slightly. I recently surprised myself with a "sea change" about something I'd been dedicated to for about 10 months.)
#
Though I've taken down or not re-posted dozens of song/music videos that I was in the mood for or hearing in my head at the time I posted them, my personal music inventory is vast but also telling since I'm Old School and not at all into or informed on the hip hop and rap artists. Does that peg me?
#
I once had a friend who was uniquely beautiful (and privileged) who was always used the term "Boyfriend" to mean "Date" as in "I have a new Boyfriend" after a couple Dates. She wasn't es[especially promiscuous but she wanted people to think so, that they had a chance with her. She attracted so many men who she enjoyed toying with; even the ones she didn't want. I caught on eventually that she also didn't want to loose any of her entourage to other women and these men let her waste their time. Her phone rang constantly (pre cell) with them just checking in, just telling each other what they were doing with their day, in search of Fame. Interviews, auditions, practice sessions, and in the evenings the clubs to nurse a beer while showing support for each other. She was years ahead of most of us when it came to thinking of herself as a Brand and Self Promotion and Marketing which actually hid her true self, an unknowable self perhaps, unknowable as a means of self protection. It took me a while to realize I had been "conned by her charisma" and to get over the shock of realization that I'd made a major life decision based on her bullshitting me.
#
It's NOT "all good."
C 2019 2026 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved
The thematic ties into my postings about the art of Andy Warhol (whose studio was called The Factory), my postings about products ("they didn't pay me to say this") and what I perceive as people seeing themselves as defined (and self promoted) by what they buy/own/like. People reducing themselves to lists as well as advertisements and informational blurbs, in particular to prove they have value beyond their basic humanity (which some of them attempt to deny to others), often defined as having money for Brands ("We only eat Gelsons") - class - superiority through acquisition. People (including authors) turning into BRANDS so now you can sue someone for hurting your Brand/ income potential re defamation of BRAND (object) rather than a human being. People promoting and marketing themselves for career, for friendship, for love.... but also for survival. (So if you're an author who also writes poetry, or you want to write fiction and non fiction, or more than one genre you may have to have several names of the pen.) Not wishing to offend anyone with your version of truth - or opinion - we are in an era of self censorship and stifling in order to be liked - or employed.
#
In some stories, a character's fashion purchases stand in as character development since these purchases define their sensibilities.
#
When I post my (current) "likes" does my reader know me? (Maybe, slightly. I recently surprised myself with a "sea change" about something I'd been dedicated to for about 10 months.)
#
Though I've taken down or not re-posted dozens of song/music videos that I was in the mood for or hearing in my head at the time I posted them, my personal music inventory is vast but also telling since I'm Old School and not at all into or informed on the hip hop and rap artists. Does that peg me?
#
I once had a friend who was uniquely beautiful (and privileged) who was always used the term "Boyfriend" to mean "Date" as in "I have a new Boyfriend" after a couple Dates. She wasn't es[especially promiscuous but she wanted people to think so, that they had a chance with her. She attracted so many men who she enjoyed toying with; even the ones she didn't want. I caught on eventually that she also didn't want to loose any of her entourage to other women and these men let her waste their time. Her phone rang constantly (pre cell) with them just checking in, just telling each other what they were doing with their day, in search of Fame. Interviews, auditions, practice sessions, and in the evenings the clubs to nurse a beer while showing support for each other. She was years ahead of most of us when it came to thinking of herself as a Brand and Self Promotion and Marketing which actually hid her true self, an unknowable self perhaps, unknowable as a means of self protection. It took me a while to realize I had been "conned by her charisma" and to get over the shock of realization that I'd made a major life decision based on her bullshitting me.
#
It's NOT "all good."
C 2019 2026 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved
4/1/19
AUTHOR BIOS ON BOOKS : A PET PEEVE
I used to hate reading author bio on books that basically went like this:
He/She lives in New York and their spouse, two children, and three dogs and a cat.
This person had gone from being a writer to being an AUTHOR. They had accomplished a BOOK.
They had posed for a picture for the book jacket so we could see what they look like. (The reader wants to know but they might regret it.)
Was their personal life the most important thing about them?
Did we need assurances that they were married or that they had children?
And mostly, I hated it when unmarried and childless authors had to mention their pets.
I thought, oh, they want their readers to know they are NORMAL, AVERAGE, or that they LOVE someone or something.
Of course, having Gracie, I understand better now.
C 2019 Christine Trzyna
He/She lives in New York and their spouse, two children, and three dogs and a cat.
This person had gone from being a writer to being an AUTHOR. They had accomplished a BOOK.
They had posed for a picture for the book jacket so we could see what they look like. (The reader wants to know but they might regret it.)
Was their personal life the most important thing about them?
Did we need assurances that they were married or that they had children?
And mostly, I hated it when unmarried and childless authors had to mention their pets.
I thought, oh, they want their readers to know they are NORMAL, AVERAGE, or that they LOVE someone or something.
Of course, having Gracie, I understand better now.
C 2019 Christine Trzyna
3/19/19
WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO BE PROUD ABOUT?
PRIDE isn't exactly the opposite of SHAME though it's assumed to be these days where so many are "proud" of their sexuality or their ethnicity or race - all bragging.
Pride and Shame are not about something that you can't help but BE, not about how you were born, not about the superficial or the surface, how things are assumed.
Pride is about character, integrity, and accomplishments, and an accomplishment is something EARNED not a state of beingness. Born rich? No reason to be proud, though certainly there are many who think that this in itself is something to be judged by.
As I see it, your very humanness ought to entitle you to basic human rights but it's what you've done, not what you were gifted, that earns you pride or shame.
I've been thinking about this for some time, but the recent scandals attached to college admissions in the media have served to illustrate my point. Parents and students scamming their way into colleges they don't deserve to attend is shameful. Students earning their own way in - and financially sometimes through college - pride.
C 2019 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved
Pride and Shame are not about something that you can't help but BE, not about how you were born, not about the superficial or the surface, how things are assumed.
Pride is about character, integrity, and accomplishments, and an accomplishment is something EARNED not a state of beingness. Born rich? No reason to be proud, though certainly there are many who think that this in itself is something to be judged by.
As I see it, your very humanness ought to entitle you to basic human rights but it's what you've done, not what you were gifted, that earns you pride or shame.
I've been thinking about this for some time, but the recent scandals attached to college admissions in the media have served to illustrate my point. Parents and students scamming their way into colleges they don't deserve to attend is shameful. Students earning their own way in - and financially sometimes through college - pride.
C 2019 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved
3/11/19
3/4/19
WHAT IS IT ALL BUT LUMINOUS : NOTES FROM AN UNDERGROUND MAN by ART GARFUNKEL : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW
Picked this one up at the library new book shelf on a whim as I was heading out the door and wish I had the time to deeply read rather than dip in and out.
It's a poetical book, many stanzas between scenarios with George Harrison and the Beatles, with James Taylor, as well as, of course,his long time associate, sometimes partner, Paul Simon. Entwined with music legends as he himself became, born and bar mitzvah'ed Jewish but a Buddhist just the same. And lists ; the books and the songs and the accomplishments but which leads no doubt that his wife and son and grandchild are the epitome of his life. He has had a long time writing habit.
A song is a poem is a song.
I liked this one page 140 of this small hardback.
I was her love pest.
Like aphids in her garden.
Mold on her bloom.
I was fungus underneath her nail.
Crust in her eyelashes.
Trust in the atmosphere.
Dust on the pictures of places we've been.
I'm her old bed linen.
The thrust of the argument.
Honey for the tea in a bear.
There in the X-rays.
I'm the horn in her side
cornucopia.
I am her underwear.
Solder and weld.
Fused in our children.
Behold and beheld.
Even if you don't know who he is, the poetry is worth it.
C 2019 Christine Trzyna Book Review All Rights reserved.
3/2/19
LITTLE FREE LIBRARIES and READING FICTION
I rarely blog about the fiction I read. I read mostly non fiction, especially memoirs and biographies. I read around music personalities of the pre-rap era quite a bit. I almost never read what might be called "chick lit " or romance novels.
My neighborhood has several of those little originally designed and built houses on poles that feature the give and take of free books. LITTLE FREE LIBRARY ORG The book sharing movement seems to defy the downloading of e-books from your library. Some of these little houses and the books in them have suffered rain and are moldering. Others seem to feature the latest hardbacks. As a result of finding them I read in recent months two of author Dan Brown (Da Vince Code fame)'s books, Deception Point (published 2001) and Origin (2017?).
Brown's work features ancient mysteries and the latest technology, art and art history and secret symbols and codes. And his professor-hero seems to never get the girl, leaving you to wonder if he ever will, perhaps in some future fiction? Is Brown setting us up for the professor-hero to finally find love? How he resists... How unattainable the sexy and intelligent women characters are!
Which leads me to recall an opening scene and introduction to character in the old film Raiders of the Lost Arc, in which that professor, acted by Harrison Ford, in a rather dull lecture, notices that one of his students is batting her eyes at him.
He takes a look and is surprised to notice that she has written "I love you" on her eyelids.
Who would guess at the adventures this professor has when he's not in the classroom?
Which brings me to:
My neighborhood has several of those little originally designed and built houses on poles that feature the give and take of free books. LITTLE FREE LIBRARY ORG The book sharing movement seems to defy the downloading of e-books from your library. Some of these little houses and the books in them have suffered rain and are moldering. Others seem to feature the latest hardbacks. As a result of finding them I read in recent months two of author Dan Brown (Da Vince Code fame)'s books, Deception Point (published 2001) and Origin (2017?).
Brown's work features ancient mysteries and the latest technology, art and art history and secret symbols and codes. And his professor-hero seems to never get the girl, leaving you to wonder if he ever will, perhaps in some future fiction? Is Brown setting us up for the professor-hero to finally find love? How he resists... How unattainable the sexy and intelligent women characters are!
Which leads me to recall an opening scene and introduction to character in the old film Raiders of the Lost Arc, in which that professor, acted by Harrison Ford, in a rather dull lecture, notices that one of his students is batting her eyes at him.
He takes a look and is surprised to notice that she has written "I love you" on her eyelids.
Who would guess at the adventures this professor has when he's not in the classroom?
Which brings me to:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)