10/31/23
10/30/23
NOT IN OUR NAME - CEASE FIRE DEMANDED - JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE - GRAND CENTRAL STATION
The largest peaceful protest New York has seen in over two decades.
10/28/23
10/26/23
10/23/23
THIS PARODY SONG WRITER - MUSICIAN DOES EX-PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP HIS DUE : WEIRD AL YANKOVIC WATCH OUT! LOL!
PATRICK FITZGERALD
THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO GEORGIA ( Original song was by Charlie Daniel's Band)
10/20/23
10/15/23
LOUIS ADAMIC : EXCERPT FROM LAUGHING IN THE JUNGLE (1932)
page 52)
pages 53 -54)
...Most of the people come here to be sun-kissed and made well, and so healing is one of the big industries in town. Besides thousands of more or less regular doctors, there are in Los Angeles no end of chiropractors, osteopaths, "drugless physicians," faith healers, health lecturers, and manufacturers and salesmen of all sorts pf heath "Stabilizers" and "normalizers," psychoanalysts, hynotists, mesmerists, the flow-of-life mystics, astro-therapists, miracle men and women - in short, quacks and charlatans of all descriptions.
Writing Los Angeles
A Literary Anthology
Edited by David L. Ulin
Library of America publisher
Copyright 2002
10/6/23
CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT A CELL PHONE?
Everything I imagined before land lines became obsolete and public phone booths were destroyed.
DAILY MAIL : COULD YOU LIVE WITHOUT YOUR PHONE? Celebrities
This article from Daily Mail on line (Daily Mail UK) about celebrities who go without is of interest.
However, celebrities usually have other people who can and do handle their necessary communications.
The distraction of cell phones, the pile of work that e-mails can be, that we have more privacy and time for life - and actual encounters with people - when we aren't on the Internet, and the addiction to news and information or constant back and forth - all mentioned, all encountered.
***
10/3/23
THE FATHER OF FLOW? GOOGLE FEATURED MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI
I clicked on the artistry on the Google start page a couple mornings ago, a pastel image of a man with a lot of flowing energy depicted and came upon Mihaly Czikszentmihaly a Hungarian-American who died a couple years ago, a psychologist who studied flow. I'd never heard of the man before honestly, but since I talk about writing in flow and staying in flow, I thought it might be interesting to learn more about his work.
***
I experience flow as a sort of deep concentration and focus and it used to be that I could stay in it for hours. The enemy of flow, as I experience it, is interruption. Your own cell phone going off for instance. Other people's. My local library is not so quiet. Libraries used to be refuge but are now mostly distraction. Finding a bolt-hole is necessary.
Some people have learned how to tune out all the distractions around them - loud music - conversations - and focus intently on their computer, maybe with earphone or earbuds and some low volume relaxing music. I have some " relaxing music" YouTube videos that I choose to listen to while writing.
Silence and quiet, hearing only the sound one makes from physical activity and that of nature around us, is rare but desirable. In our experience now, we are so used to 'aloneness' with sound, in particular music, movies, films - information (some would say programming) coming in - or bombarding us - that fear can be experienced in silence and quiet. However, I suggest we go without this bombardment from sound when we are writing, also, because we need the thoughts, insights, and intuitions, coming in to us that may be obscured when our brains are also engaged in processing the audio incoming.
***
What does Mihaly Czikszentmihaly think?
CLAREMONT COLLEGE GRADUATE PROGRAM : PEOPLE : MILALY CZIKSZENTMIHALY
U CHICAGO : MIHALY CZIKSZENTMIHALY FATHER OF FLOW
9/30/23
UNREQUITED ANGER
Unrequited (of a feeling, especially love) not returned or rewarded)
Mutual discontent:
Walking down the street. I see Malcolm (of course that's not his real name) sitting on a plastic chair. Some other men are here and there on the pavement in plastic chairs, one a few feet away.
Hi Malcolm, I say. "Have you recovered from that sweet kiss I gave you off my fingertips last week?" (I had kissed my own fingers and applied my fingers to his temple.)
He looks at me. He doesn't remember.
"I have something to say to you," I say. (I don't know why I didn't have the bravery back in the day.)
He looks up at me. Malcolm has thin gray hair that he periodically doses with black dye. He's Italian and Mexican in heritage. He's younger than me. He looks up through his-bifocals and I see the same glimmer and flash that was there years ago.
"I want you to know that back in the day you had me for a moment. I don't know why I didn't use my writing skills and write you a damn long letter." With my hands I ran over an invisible document, a long scroll."
His eyes flash and he smiles.
"It was because you were so sincere with me. But you lied about the two wedding bands you wear." (I had asked him about the rings. Asked him if he wore them to ward off women. Still in love with your ex? I asked. He said he just liked to wear them When I found out - for sure - that he had been married twice.)
I noticed that the man sitting closest to him was earnestly trying to not listen in but that got him.
"But I hate your friends." I said.
"I hate them too," Malcolm said. "T.J.? He shook his head." (T.J. (not his real name) was a tough Native American man who it was rumored had five children with various women he did not support. Had worked as a bouncer. Had been in jail with Malcolm when they were younger. For what I don't know. Rumors had it T.J. had a baby with an underage girl.)
"That one guy... he told me his problems...that woman...her mother threatened him and told him to get out, her brother held a gun to his head..."
"They got married," Malcolm said. "And got their little place."
"Well one day he looked at me and said,"You're nothing but some woman in a hat."
"He did?"
"And I said, "Most Certainly Not," and that surprised him.
"And someone else told me that you ran a brothel," I continued. "But then someone else said you don't charge."
Malcolm laughed. "They did?!"
Yes, I nodded.
"Look, I'm just an entertainer," he said. "That's my job, to keep people up."
"Yea, but there's a point there where it's a tease - a mean tease. Like that time you sang me the song."
"What song did I sing to you?"
"Well, T.J. went past me one day and said "That Malcolm sure has the biggest crush on you." And then a couple weeks later you stood up and said "I'm now going to address the rumors that have been going around here about me. Then you looked at me and said "I'm going to sing you a song and when I asked you what you were going to sing to me you said "Under My Skin" but when the time came you sang "Hooked On A Feeling."
"Hooked On A Feeling, I know that song," Malcolm said.
"It has that horrible oooga booga."
"Yea, everybody hates that part."
Malcolm was still smiling but also looked like he swallowed a goldfish.
"And then you ran."
"Where did I run to?"
"Before I could talk to you, you ran, all the way down the street, and I saw you run into this place."
"There was another karaoke"
"No, you ran, as if you were embarrassed." (After his feat, Malcolm really never talked with me again. I would see him sitting in a plastic chair on the sidewalk and stay on the other side of the street. Yet for a moment there was no doubt about it, Malcolm had a crush on me and for a moment there was no doubt I had a crush on him too.)
"Maybe if things had been different I would have gotten married and had a lot of babies," he said.
9/27/23
AN ARTIST WHO REDESIGNS HISTORICAL ROMANCE BOOK COVERS TO FIT THE STORY and THE TIME PERIOD : BERNADETTE BANNER
I don't read romance novels but this genre is the best seller to women. (Murder - fiction and nonfiction - sells best overall.) The writer of a historical novel does their best to describe their characters authentically but then the cover is turned over to an artist who may not read the book or understand the fashion, hairstyles, and cosmetics of the era. BERNADETTE BANNER does and with a much better understanding of what the writer wrote, attempts to redesign the covers. Watched her videos and was just fascinated.
Because I have a rule that I do not embed videos that have commercials, I'll provide the links instead.
REDESIGNING HISTORICAL ROMANCE BOOK COVERS TO BE ACTUALLY HISTORICAL PARR 2
9/24/23
CAROL BASKIN : LEARN THE TRUTH OF HOW TIGERS ARE TREATED and WHY HAVING THEM AS PETS IS LEADING TO EXTINCTION : SIGN THE PETITION to PASS THE BIG CAT SAFETY ACT
Carol Baskin, has spent much of her life rescuing Big Cats. Having a cute tiger cup as a pet ends with them being unable to live as wild animals. Love Surviving the Survivor Podcast, one of the very few I listen to.
The Netflix show Tiger King has raised new awareness of the cruelty, killing and exploitation of the captive big cat industry -- now is the time to finally pass legislation to free these majestic animals from suffering.
Confined to backyards, breeding compounds or decrepit roadside attractions, big cats are ripped from their mothers just days after birth and suffer severe malnutrition because their owners fail to properly feed them.
Many of the cats are brutally declawed, leading to lifelong disability. Confined to tiny concrete enclosures or kept on chains, the animals suffer from circulation problems, cracked footpads, and other painful conditions -- as well as severe psychological trauma.
Keeping big cats in captivity is also extremely dangerous for humans, who are at grave risk of being mauled or killed.
Congress has introduced The Big Cat Public Safety Act, a bill that could finally end ownership of big cats by unaccredited animal exhibitors and those who simply want to keep the cats as pets.
Of the estimated 5,000 to 7,000 big cats in the United States, fewer than 400 live in accredited zoos (which already fail to provide adequate living conditions). The rest are owned privately by people who may have no clue how to care for the animals.
One of the reasons so many people own big cats is because there is no federal law against it. This new bill could save countless animals from lives of abuse and neglect.
Sign this petition to urge Congress to pass the Big Cat Public Safety Act, and save both cats and humans from misery and pain.
9/20/23
THE WARMTH OF THE SUN : THE BEACHBOYS - BRIAN WILSON
9/17/23
GLORIA STEINEM and the 50th ANNIVERSARY OF MS. MAGAZINE : FEMINISM IS STILL A FIGHT FOR EQUALITY