tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16541224569339569502024-03-13T00:49:03.939-05:00WarrenBluhm.com<strong>Fragments of thought and explosions of creativity<br> from the author of <em>Myke Phoenix, The Imaginary Bomb</em> and <em>Refuse to Be Afraid</em></strong>
Warren Bluhmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12303728692605389911noreply@blogger.comBlogger354125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-85607464470521539452015-08-17T16:01:00.000-05:002015-08-17T16:01:02.507-05:00The changing of the blog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Well, isn’t this something. <br /><br />Welcome to the new WarrenBluhm.com. After nearly 10 years in Blogger, I have moved over to the WordPress platform.</span><br />
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<a href="https://wpbluhm.wordpress.com/2015/08/17/the-changing-of-the-blog/"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Read the rest of this post here.</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And thanks for visiting all these years! </span>Warren Bluhmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12303728692605389911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-83690343010852240642015-08-13T07:24:00.000-05:002015-08-13T07:27:22.736-05:00God in the land of the living<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“I am still confident in this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Psalms 27: 13-14 NIV) <br /><br />Because he is omnipresent, it should not be a long wait. You just need to focus a little and he is there. <br /><br />You’ll find him in the land of the living. He’s not someone you don’t meet until you die. <br /><br />I am still confident in this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living: <br /><br />In a dog sniffing the ground for something to eat, then curling up in the grass near my feet. <br /><br />In the white butterfly that jumps up and flies across the yard. <br /><br />In the chattering of insects and birds 360 degrees around me. <br /><br />In the flowers that spring here and there and everywhere from the ground, planted or not. <br /><br />Even in the sounds from the highway of people on a journey, on their way to a safe arrival or return. <br /><br />In the branches that sway in the wind. No one can see the wind; we can only see its effect. <br /><br />God is not someone you don’t meet until you die. <br /><br />When I had that thought, I remembered a song I had somehow forgotten for some time, by Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull … God’s not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JZXj20MjNek" width="420"></iframe>Warren Bluhmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12303728692605389911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-81664891031071059632015-08-12T05:52:00.000-05:002015-08-12T05:56:51.271-05:00The longest summer ever<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Red and I are slowly finishing a project that we’ve wanted to do since we built our house three years ago: insulate the garage. We did the back wall last fall. The other day we committed to doing the biggest side wall. <br /><br />First we pulled everything out of the garage, and then we set to work, Red cutting the pieces of insulation and I stapling, and it was all done in less than a half-day. Truth to tell the actual work was done in an hour or so – most of the time was taken up in moving the clutter out of the way and then putting it back. <br /><br />There was still plenty of time in the day to do several other little projects – although I did have one contradictory thought: Is it really three whole years since we moved into this house? The time has flown by. <br /><br />And yet it hasn’t – a day is a long time, weeks and months and years are longer. Remember how long ago it was cold? That was “only” four or five months ago. But look how much has happened since. <br /><br />Time flies only in retrospect. Yes, it seems hard to believe that what happened five years ago was so long ago, but then think of what you’ve been through since. It’s enough to fill up 1,826 days. It’s a full life. <br /><br />It’s one of those “Is the glass half full or half empty” things. Life presents us with so many choices that we will never see and do quite everything we hope to see and do.And yet the average life is packed full of things seen and done. <br /><br />Sometimes it’s worth reflecting on what life was like before time “flew by” – how much you had not experienced yet, all of the marvelous inventions that people have invented, all of the new building or all of the land reclaimed and preserved. <br /><br />That’s when you realize the hours and days passed at the same pace they always have. <br /><br />I drive the highway to work and see the lush green cornfields and the clean clear pavement, and I try to imagine driving slowly through the same scene packed with snow blowing so hard I can’t see out the windshield very well. I have a flash of a long-ago time when I tried to imagine lush green cornfields and 65 mph. <br /><br />It seems like a long, long time ago. Perhaps the four seasons are there to remind us that time passes, but that it takes a long time. <br /><br />All things considered there IS time for everything. The day is just as long as it has ever been. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Door County Advocate, Aug. 12, 2015</span> </span>Warren Bluhmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12303728692605389911noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-26550335617027512102015-08-06T04:00:00.000-05:002015-08-06T04:00:01.320-05:00A pilgrim arrives in the kingdom of Else<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />Once upon a time, there was a magic land called Else, which was ruled by a queen named Elsa. Some said Queen Elsa was wise and good; others thought she was cruel and heartless; still others said she was cruel because she was good.<br /><br />It was a land where no one wants for anything – a land where no one wants for anything – where dreams come true … or do they?<br /><br />When pilgrims arrive in Else, some discover they are still waiting and the dream was inside them, not in another place. For some, simply being somewhere Else is enough. For others, another journey looms.<br /><br />“But I came to the kingdom of Else because I want another life – a better life!” cried the pilgrim who has just arrived.<br /><br />“Yes, you did. Yes, I see,” said Queen Elsa. “Well, you have found <i>another </i>life. It’s up to you to make it a <i>better </i>one.”<br /><br />“Up to me?” gasped the pilgrim.<br /><br />“Why, yes,” the queen said kindly. “All we do is give you somewhere Else. ‘Better’ has always been up to you.”<br /><br />“I traveled all this way only to find I could have stayed in my home and made the changes there? That’s not fair!”<br /><br />“Meh,” said the queen, turning away. “It is not fair or unfair. It simply is. But now you know, and knowing, you can do what you must.”</span><br />Warren Bluhmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12303728692605389911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-82300123406566661252015-08-05T05:34:00.002-05:002015-08-05T05:35:35.430-05:00What to do first<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />“You want to what?” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“Fly, Father. I want to fly.” <br /><br />The wind across the water made a roar. The older man looked anxiously at the younger. <br /><br />“Look at you, Bill. Look at you in that chair you’ve been sitting in all these years.” <br /><br />“Doesn’t matter. I’m going to fly.” <br /><br />“Just like that. How? Why?” <br /><br />Bill’s hair fluttered, just a little, sitting next to the window and all. <br /><br />“I’m not sure. That’s not the point. I’m tired of sitting. I want to stand. I want to fly.” <br /><br />“Now you’re getting somewhere, son. First you have to stand, and then walk, perhaps run – probably run. You’ll need speed to achieve liftoff and fly.” <br /><br />“Now see, there’s where you’re wrong, Pop,” Bill said with a gentle smile. “First, first – first I need to dream.”</span>Warren Bluhmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12303728692605389911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-3897229601429547822015-08-03T06:19:00.003-05:002015-08-03T06:22:48.152-05:004 thoughts that generate better habits<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A habit must be a habit, or else it is just a thing.<br />
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A habit has to be ingrained to the point where you just sit down and do it, and maybe you don't even remember whether you did it today but when you checked, sure enough, it got done.<br />
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You can't be coming back two or three days later to find out you skipped it. Nope, you have to do it and do it every day until it's second nature.<br />
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"Practice makes perfect" is a cliche because it's true.Warren Bluhmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12303728692605389911noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-25028819001999352962015-07-29T04:00:00.000-05:002015-08-02T05:40:57.850-05:00There's good news tonight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Yes, somewhere someone is dying. Someone is killing people. A fire has destroyed. A great wind has orphaned children. Someone is hungry, even starving. Their stories must be told. <br /><br />But over there, someone is comforting a stranger. Someone is building. Someone is creating new beauty. A habitat is protected. A windmill is drawing clean, healing water for a community. A meal is being cooked to share. A disease is being cured, even prevented. <br /><br />It has always been my experience that the impulse to to help a neighbor in need crosses social and political lines. The arguments, the differences, are about how to solve the need. If only the passions of the election season could be harnessed into solving and caring and helping instead of tearing and denigrating and hating. <br /><br />The person who cries “look out” or pulls a child out of the way of the oncoming truck does so because there is a need. It is not a Republican need or a Democratic need. Need is need, and we all recognize it. We disagree only on solutions. <br /><br />Tragic that a man who makes his living reporting the news should be weary of news that frightens and alarms and disparages. The analytics show that people are drawn to bad news like moths to a flame. Why is there so much bad news in the news? We tell you these things because time and time again, you read or listen or watch these things with rapt attention and in great numbers. <br /><br />Still … <br /><br />“There’s good news tonight …” Who was the popular radio announcer who always led his newscast with that phrase? I want to be him when I grow up. (Google tells me his name was Gabriel Heater.) <br /><br />When we fail to report something troubling, the outcry is sharper and more accusatory than when we fail to report something good. Yet I can’t help but believe that we provide a great public service when we encourage, not discourage; when we comfort, not terrify; when we shine a spotlight on reasons to hope, not reasons to despair or be appalled. <br /><br />What’s the good news? Where’s the good news? It’s all around us. Perhaps that’s why the bad news gets so much of the attention: because it’s rare. Odds are overwhelming you won’t be the victim of something awful today or anytime soon. <br /><br />The bad, the horrible is worth noting, because it presents problems in need of solutions. But darn it all, there’s good news tonight, and we ought to be encouraged as well.</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-16651582484618747872015-07-28T04:00:00.000-05:002015-07-28T04:00:00.428-05:00The dream of the rhinoceros<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Oh. A rhinoceros!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Just before waking Sunday morning, I was looking up a long dark staircase with random people sitting listlessly on a stair here or there. The dream was progressing in usual fashion when at the top of the stairs appeared a rhinoceros.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It pawed and looked down at the people. We were filled with alarm. Should we sit still and hope we weren't noticed or, as some contemplated, should we creep up and slam the door? What if that enraged the rhinoceros and it broke through the door and down the steps, trampling all in its path?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">While we were contemplating, the rhino lifted its head, turned proudly and charged away, out of sight.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I awoke in the predawn and did some contemplating of my own. I've never dreamed of a rhinoceros before. I looked at the clock. 4:31. The alarm was set; I had thought of getting up at 5:00 on this Sunday morning and butt-kicking my writing career. I could settle back in for a half-hour's sleep or jump up and get to it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The nap tempted me for a moment, but then I realized I wouldn't be dreaming of rhinos unless <a href="http://www.wallyconger.com/rhinotactics.html">it was time to do some hard-charging</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I got up, made coffee, and sat down to write. I finished this little essay at 4:56. </span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-33589779985570740452015-07-27T06:41:00.000-05:002015-08-02T05:42:13.433-05:00On re-reading ‘The Rocket Man’ by Ray Bradbury <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />So sad – so beautiful – with a final line that kills. <br /><br />Sometimes I read a story at random from the short-story collection <i>R is for Rocket</i>, my first exposure to Ray Bradbury, and think, no wonder I was enchanted for life. <br /><br />No wonder Bernie Taupin and Elton John wrote a song about it – a beautiful, haunting song. So much wonder – no wonder. No wonder why we fell under the spell of the words. <br /><br />Bradbury is a master weaver, a master magician, who knew instinctively (No! who knew after practicing his craft diligently for years) how to use his words to paint fabulous pictures in our minds. <br /><br />“Come with me here,” he cries, “and I’ll tell you about a young boy on the cusp of adulthood and his lonely mom and his dad who comes home for a few days every three months and then disappears into the sky …”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">P.S. Inside the parentheses is the most important point of this post for those who mean to be creative. </span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-67367819937400652172015-07-24T04:00:00.000-05:002015-08-02T05:43:28.897-05:00Sunset electronica: Manifesto<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />“You see it now, don’t you?” he said, his eyes burning with the light from the glowing screen, the screen that was not as bright as a moment before and would never be this bright again. “When all the screens are shut off and all the networks are disintegrated, there will be no words in the ether and all of these words will be scattered to the winds. And all that remains will be the words committed to parchment and paper with ink and carbon. Yes, fire can burn the words if you burn long enough, but not as quickly and efficiently as turning off the power. That is why we have kept the printing presses running, why we keep scratching in our journals, every strike of the pen a revolution, every turn of the press a declaration of war against you who would silence the poetry and prose of the ages. <br /><br />“You can’t shut every mind away from every other mind, not as long as we have words to share across time and space. The heiroglyphics mean something. The cursive represent an era. Those who can unlock the keys of written language are time machines. This pen I hold is a life giver. When the battery is dead, the words to cure the illness will still be on the page. Why the battery has died will not matter, because the words will fight on. Oh, the tyrant may triumph for a few days or years, but the words will be found, the books will sit and wait for the tyrant to die – here, in this quiet and peaceful library. <br /><br />“Yes, the words will wait, and one day a child will find them and learn to read them and discover that we are all alike, all unique, the lot of us, and our uniqueness is our strength – all alike in desiring to be someone, all unique in a way that no other of us can quite be. The words in the books show us, and the books with their fragile, fluttering pages will outlive the electrons.” <br /><br />And as he held the book high, he cried, “Hello, Dickens – you look as young as the day is long. Hey, Bradbury, my father, look! I found Charles D in your hair and spilling out of your ears. Did you know when Oliver walked the streets that he was sending Spender to Mars? Have you you seen my Wildflower Man? He walked the fields with Ebeneezer.”</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-68426905691055434742015-07-23T06:51:00.000-05:002015-08-02T05:47:48.114-05:00Run through the weariness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">All jumbled in a pile are all the thoughts of morning and left over from the night, and I pick up the pen and open the spigot and let them flow. Here is the memory of a dream about loveless lovemaking in a strange place – how weird dreams can be. Here are the tasks assigned to later in the day and a vague pledge to start those tasks a little earlier today, so they can be finished while the sun shines. <br /><br />Here in my reading is the dandelion wine-making scene that so enchanted me and raised my spirits so many years ago, still magic, still pulling a thrill from a heart that is less tired than it pretends. <br /><br />The fingers rebel – “We can’t keep going like this, we are old and creaky!” – or is it simply the rebellion of muscles long unused, called back to their rightful duty and purpose? <br /><br />Run through the weariness, say the runners, and you will find the second wind on the other side. And sure enough the ache is forgotten when the rush of words is released in the end.</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-65846786308010243592015-07-22T04:00:00.000-05:002015-08-02T05:51:26.205-05:00Who is to say when you might need to know?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />“Do you know the capital of Portugal?” she asks. <br /><br />No, and what’s the point? I have no need to know the capital of Portugal. <br /><br />“Ah, need is such a big word,” she says. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In the end, you need food and water and a modicum of shelter. <br /><br />“Need for what? For what purpose?” she asks. “Need to stay alive? Need to accomplish your life’s meaning? Need to be happy? You say you have no need to know the capital of Portugal. But who is to say when you might need to know? Why not simply assimilate the knowledge and be content? Not all learning needs to be immediately practical.” <br /><br />Ha, ha, there’s that word again, <i>needs</i>. Fine, I’ll look it up. <br /><br />“With its central location, Lisbon became the capital of the new Portuguese territory in 1255.” <br /><br />“New” territory? The territory was ancient as the Earth itself. No, this was not new territory, merely newly marked with arbitrary lines with which someone asserted, “This is my jurisdiction, mine, me – the king of the world. Well, yes, for now only the king of Portugal, but tomorrow – on the morrow – tomorrow …”</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-5005500726541435422015-07-21T04:00:00.000-05:002015-08-02T05:45:18.839-05:00The boy who was and the boy he wished to be<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />A boy passed this way, looking and listening and testing the limits of the body he was given, and he found the limits worth stretching. He stooped and examined the soil and the leaves and the teeming life, he ran into the field and looked up and up and up at the sky, and he yelled to hear his voice echo back from the trees at the edge of the field and bounce back from the house not far away. It was all good. <br /><br />Tucked away with a comic book was another boy, a gawky thing who didn’t keep trying until his arms could pull himself up on the rope, who couldn’t quite get the hang of hitting the little ball with the stick, and so he fiddled with numbers and words instead. <br /><br />The strong and swift boy envied his friend’s ability to work numbers and craft images with words. The gawky one said, “Yes, but to know the joy of the ball clearing a fence – to catch a touchdown pass, just once …”</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-12986674117752575112015-07-20T04:00:00.000-05:002015-08-02T05:48:53.533-05:00The futility and the value of the to-do list<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Each day the list: What must be done every day, what must be done today, what could be done today, what should be done someday. Each day the list. <br /><br />But then the day unfolds. And something else is done, and there’s somewhere else to go, things and places and actions that were not on the list but still needed to be done. <br /><br />The list is a map, or a plan, or a guide, but life is not a list as much as an unexplored river with twists and turns and surprises and diversions. <br /><br />Still, we make lists. We need lists to keep us on track or on mission or on point, but the list is “a” list and not comprehensive – no one can make a list that accounts for all of the variables as atoms bounce against each other colliding with purpose and purposelessness and joy and sorrow and beauty and horror and surprise and the expected.</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-85705048907514767772015-07-10T04:00:00.000-05:002015-08-02T05:55:06.224-05:00Mission statement<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One could hardly find a better mission statement than this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">To explore strange new worlds.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">To seek out new life and new civilizations.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">To boldly go where no one has gone before.</span></i></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">P.S. We're still not sure how she got inside the fenced-in raspberry patch.</span><br />
<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-36220857305961908022015-07-09T07:21:00.004-05:002015-08-02T05:57:05.256-05:00Behind the scenes: Our cast of characters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Willow is The Best Dog There Is™ - a sweet, loving animal who understands what makes us happy. She loves to snuggle and stays close when we need her to stay close.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And then there's This One, Dejah, the maniac who runs around the yard and eats things she shouldn't and seems at any moment to dash off somewhere dangerous.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The rebel. The untamed. Her own dog. We love her, too.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">- - -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Dejah is the inspiration for the character of Goombah, the narrator of my Myke Phoenix story <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Puppy-Cried-Murder-Myke-Phoenix-ebook/dp/B00L17ZE5C"><i>The Puppy Cried 'Murder.'</i></a> After calling this dog a goombah, what I thought was an imaginary word meaning "crazy dog," it occurred to me that I should see if it's a real word. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It turns out to mean "close friend or associate, especially a member of a criminal gang," more precisely an Italian-American criminal gang of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Godfather-Mario-Puzo-ebook/dp/B0022Q8CSC"><i>Godfather </i></a>sort. I guess that also works; she certainly has a lawless streak.</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-43926901751262346212015-07-08T07:21:00.000-05:002015-07-08T07:30:30.695-05:00Take up the tools of creation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">He sat in his chair, trying to be creative, but the duties of his day job kept pressing against his consciousness. A memo left unfinished - a report left unread - It was difficult to concentrate on creating new worlds when the real world kept calling.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The doubt birds kept calling: "You can't - you shouldn't - no time for that - no talent - no discipline - you can't - you can't you can't you can't."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"No," he said, not sure he believed himself. "I can."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"You can't," chattered the doubt birds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"I'm going to," he insisted.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"You'll regret it," said the doubt birds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"Try and stop me," said he.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">They swarmed. He screamed. All was quiet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And the words appeared, one by one, slowly at first and then all in a rush, over the blank pages.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"It's crap," said the doubt birds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"Of course it is," he said, "but it will get better - and I invented the doubt birds this morning, didn't I?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">- - -</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sit down to create. Put the tools of creation in your hands. Move your hands. Something will be created. If you're just starting, it may not be much. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But it will be something, and something is better than nothing. A feeble effort is better than no effort.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Do it again tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the many days after that. With practice the creations will be better, and at some point, as you keep it up, they will become so good you can say, "This is the creation I imagined - this is what I dreamed of."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"It's crap," the doubt birds will surely say. But it's not wasting away inside you anymore.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sit down to create. Take up the tools of creation. Move your hands. See what happens? It's a creation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"I made this!" you cry in astonishment. Yes, you did. Yes, you can. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Is it good enough? Well, Theodore Sturgeon famously once said 90 percent of everything is crap (well, he said "crud," but he meant something more colorful than "crap") - but the corollary of that is that 10 percent is pretty good. You can't create that 10 percent by worrying about the 90 percent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And maybe you can fix some of that 90 percent through repair and revision - at least 10 percent of it ...</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-87078885211570450262015-07-03T09:10:00.002-05:002015-07-03T09:10:28.884-05:00Happy Independence Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="heading">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for light and
transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to
right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and
to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the
patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity
which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The
history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment
of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be
submitted to a candid world.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.<br />
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should
be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend
to them.<br />
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and
formidable to tyrants only. <br />
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records,
for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his
measures. <br />
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.<br />
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause
others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise;
the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of
invasion from without, and convulsions within.<br />
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that
purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing
to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the
conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.<br />
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.<br />
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.<br />
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.<br />
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.<br />
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.<br />
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to
our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to
their Acts of pretended Legislation:<br />
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:<br />
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:<br />
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:<br />
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: <br />
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:<br />
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences<br />
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring
Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging
its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument
for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:<br />
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:<br />
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.<br />
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.<br />
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. <br />
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to
compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.<br />
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas
to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their
friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. <br />
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured
to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian
Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction
of all ages, sexes and conditions.</span><br />
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in
the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only
by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We
have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of
the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured
them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations,
which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We
must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our
Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in
War, in Peace Friends.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America,
in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by
Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and
declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free
and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to
the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and
the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and
that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War,
conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all
other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for
the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection
of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our
Fortunes and our sacred Honor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><hr noshade="noshade" size="1" />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="heading">Column 1</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>Georgia:</b><br />
Button Gwinnett<br />
Lyman Hall<br />
George Walton</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="heading">Column 2</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>North Carolina:</b><br />
William Hooper<br />
Joseph Hewes<br />
John Penn</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>South Carolina:</b><br />
Edward Rutledge<br />
Thomas Heyward, Jr.<br />
Thomas Lynch, Jr.<br />
Arthur Middleton</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="heading">Column 3</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>Massachusetts:</b><br />
John Hancock</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>Maryland:</b><br />
Samuel Chase<br />
William Paca<br />
Thomas Stone<br />
Charles Carroll of Carrollton</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>Virginia:</b><br />
George Wythe<br />
Richard Henry Lee<br />
Thomas Jefferson<br />
Benjamin Harrison<br />
Thomas Nelson, Jr.<br />
Francis Lightfoot Lee<br />
Carter Braxton</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="heading">Column 4</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>Pennsylvania:</b><br /> Robert Morris<br />
Benjamin Rush<br />
Benjamin Franklin<br />
John Morton<br />
George Clymer<br />
James Smith<br />
George Taylor<br />
James Wilson<br />
George Ross</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>Delaware:</b><br />
Caesar Rodney<br />
George Read<br />
Thomas McKean</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="heading">Column 5</span></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>New York:</b><br />
William Floyd<br />
Philip Livingston<br />
Francis Lewis<br />
Lewis Morris</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>New Jersey:</b><br />
Richard Stockton<br />
John Witherspoon<br />
Francis Hopkinson<br />
John Hart<br />
Abraham Clark</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span class="heading">Column 6</span><br />
<b>New Hampshire:</b><br />
Josiah Bartlett<br />
William Whipple<br />
<b>Massachusetts:</b><br />
Samuel Adams<br />
John Adams<br />
Robert Treat Paine<br />
Elbridge Gerry<br />
<b>Rhode Island:</b><br />
Stephen Hopkins<br />
William Ellery<br />
<b>Connecticut:</b><br />
Roger Sherman<br />
Samuel Huntington<br />
William Williams<br />
Oliver Wolcott<br />
<b>New Hampshire:</b><br />
Matthew Thornton</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-86470924406613936212015-07-02T04:00:00.000-05:002015-07-02T04:00:00.504-05:00Triumph over the squirrels or succumb to the cacophony<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2cE8mjKxBdM/VZAcc6OOImI/AAAAAAAAAGw/uQvFOsqFW6o/s1600/IMG_3598.JPG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2cE8mjKxBdM/VZAcc6OOImI/AAAAAAAAAGw/uQvFOsqFW6o/s320/IMG_3598.JPG.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">The images flashed at him, too many images, too many words, all at once, too many sounds, too many too many too many, his mind screamed, and the scream was another sound to go with the too many others.</span>
<br />
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">“Stop!” and he suddenly realized he had said it out loud.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">“Stop what?” she asked.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">“There’s too much coming at me at once,” he said, reaching for his cellphone. “I guess I just can’t process it all.”</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">“You can start by setting that cellphone down, don’t you think?” she said.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">He laughed and set it down. “You got that right.”</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">“I always do,” she smiled.</span></div>
<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-68644572988325968972015-07-01T04:00:00.001-05:002015-07-01T04:00:00.866-05:00Turn the page. Start anew. Here's another month. Clear the slate.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fyEsQaCN560/VZEmwRT4spI/AAAAAAAAAHI/WOr7uMvju0E/s1600/Shasta%2BDaisies%2BEnd%2Bof%2BJune.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fyEsQaCN560/VZEmwRT4spI/AAAAAAAAAHI/WOr7uMvju0E/s320/Shasta%2BDaisies%2BEnd%2Bof%2BJune.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">Turn the page. Start anew. Here’s another month. Clear the slate.</span>
<br />
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">Be not bedeviled by what came before. Make a new path. This time, knowing what you know now, no false steps, no wrong turns, no driving for miles in the wrong direction – this time, just straight and true to the destination.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">And then, having secured what you needed, you can continue the quest. Reaching this goal will be a triumph, but a person needs new goals. “I will be happy when I have this.” Yes, for a moment. And then you will realize you need a new quest.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">For the joy is not wholly in completing the quest – it is in the questing itself. It is in the having a quest. We are a questing species. We are questers.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">Each quest is another step in The Great Quest, the reason for being. When all of the quests are added up, others will make a final accounting. We will be measured by how many we helped, and how much better the world is that we passed this way.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">But it’s not a competition. We do all that we are able and will not be measured against other men and women but rather against what we could have been. “To whom much is given, much is expected.”</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">But the time of accounting is not today. And so for now, turn the page and do your best.</span></div>
<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-85173858278715021262015-06-30T04:00:00.000-05:002015-06-30T04:00:01.710-05:00If multitasking is impossible, and it is, how do you get everything done?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LUnjP770Ka0/VZAY6nxKYsI/AAAAAAAAAGk/gF81cp_yLXU/s1600/distraction%2Bmanagement.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LUnjP770Ka0/VZAY6nxKYsI/AAAAAAAAAGk/gF81cp_yLXU/s320/distraction%2Bmanagement.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">Is it time management or distraction management?</span>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">All of the organization in the world flies out the window in the fact of constant distraction. Like the dog sidetracked by squirrels, the constant beep and bells and whistles of the electronics bombard us with Other Things To Do.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">Multitask? No. Better to do one task at a time and get it out of the way, then move to the next task, than to try to “do two things at once,” which is impossible in practice.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">How, then, to stay on task when the day and everyone around you conspires to pull you off track and call your attention to another task? Is there truly a way to prevent distractions, or is the solution merely to find a way to ignore everything except the task at hand, to harness enough willpower to stay on task?</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">There’s a multimillion-dollar do-it-yourself book waiting for the writer who solves this challenge: </span><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;">Fight the Squirrels: How to Harness the Willpower to Stay On Task</span><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">Possible approaches – Remove the clutter. Turn off the alerts. Sit. Sift. Listen. Convince others to sit, sift and listen. Somehow hear the messages you need to hear in priority order, one at a time. </span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">Concentrate. Stay focused while the world about you is in chaos. That’s the main task. Don’t try to multitask; there’s not such thing anyway.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 23.05px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">Triumph over the squirrels or succumb to the cacophony.</span></div>
<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-49670928911706671432015-06-29T04:00:00.000-05:002015-06-29T04:00:01.205-05:00W.B. as couch potato: Marvel's Daredevil<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A6vwH8xCGZw/VZATdqoJ7OI/AAAAAAAAAGU/LY6wHmBr1Rg/s1600/dejah%2Band%2Bdd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A6vwH8xCGZw/VZATdqoJ7OI/AAAAAAAAAGU/LY6wHmBr1Rg/s320/dejah%2Band%2Bdd.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">Over the closing credits of the television program </span><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;">Marvel’s Daredevil</span><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;"> is a “thank you” to Brian Michael Bendis, Gene Colan, Klaus Janson, Alex Maleez, David Mazzucchelli, Roger McKenzie, Frank Miller, John Romita Jr., John Romita Sr., and Joe Orlando.</span><br />
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">And appropriately so: The series oozes with the imagery those creators pressed into the classic comic book stories that pushed the envelope of what comic books stories could be.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">I needed to pause after watching three episodes of the 13-episode first season (available since April via Netflix) because of the over-the-top violence of these TV stories, which were faithful to the original. When I moved on, I had to watch alone because my dear companion does not have the tolerance to watch such scenes of simulated butchery and inhumanity, no matter how compelling the overriding story is.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">After watching that third episode, “Rabbit in a Snowstorm,” I wrote:</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">A story that begins with a man’s head being crushed with a bowling ball concludes with the murderer killing himself by jamming his eye into a sharp spike. The fist fights are graphic and prolonged and quiet save for the grunts, shouts and screams of pain and the sound of bones cracking and snapping. This is entertainment?</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">The mystery and intrigue are extremely well done, but the violence is over-the-top graphic. Perhaps this is good – too often comic book violence is sanitized to the point where it looks like inconsequential fun – but one has to ask whether the well-told story is worth enduring the extreme realism of the violence.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">When what passes for entertainment crushes the soul, is it entertainment anymore or some variation of pornography? I need to decide whether the story is worth enduring the ugly parts.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">This is certainly not the kind of story I want to create – I need to consider whether it’s the kind of story I want to finish watching.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">The awful violence of </span><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;">The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo</span><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;"> (*the Swedish version) served the story of that outstanding film. To this point the awful violence of </span><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic;">Daredevil</span><span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;"> seems gratuitous to me.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">On the other hand, the show’s creators dare to be out on the edge – they know this won’t appeal to everyone but choose to tell this story this way.</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; -qt-paragraph-type: empty; font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">And so I soldiered on through episodes 4-13, slowly because I had to find times both when my beloved wasn’t around and when I was in the mood for watching a violent TV program. In the end, I’m glad I stuck around to watch.</span></div>
<div style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">The cast must be applauded. Charlie Cox makes Matt Murdock/DD the role of a lifetime, conveying incredible emotion with his eyes hidden almost all of the time. Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page and Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson bring to life characters who are astonishingly faithful to those we followed on four-color pages all those years ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">(Wally Conger says this may be the most faithful interpretation of a comic book series onto the screen ever. I don’t disagree.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">When I first saw the words “And Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk,” I knew the show had the potential for magic. Few actors portray disturbing characters with the depth and humanity that D’Onofrio brings to the screen, and my highest expectations were met. D’Onofrio’s Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) is true to the vision that those 10 comic book creators crafted through the years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">Although his name is on the opening credits from the start, D’Onofrio does not actually appear until that third episode, in a stroke of creative genius. And even then he only appears in the final sequence, a scene that only hints at what is ahead. My desire to watch Fisk unfold may be the reason I decided to proceed to the fourth episode and beyond.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Verdana'; font-size: 10pt;">Daredevil – especially as reinterpreted starting with the Frank Miller issues and most especially starting around issue #170, when Miller reinvented the Spider-Man villain as Daredevil’s nemesis – inhabits the darkest corners of the Marvel Comics universe, and so this is a dark, dark show. No one gets through this fight unaltered or unhurt. It’s often painful to watch, but ultimately it is a spectacular triumph, one of the best seasons of television I’ve ever seen.</span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-48725025668862736272015-06-26T04:00:00.000-05:002015-06-26T04:00:00.631-05:001,000-mile journey via a phrase<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IHn88P7AQOs/VYiOzvcUHBI/AAAAAAAAAFg/BGLF3QSOAgY/s1600/IMG_3536.JPG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IHn88P7AQOs/VYiOzvcUHBI/AAAAAAAAAFg/BGLF3QSOAgY/s320/IMG_3536.JPG.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"... bees which were, no more, no less, said Father, the world humming under its breath." </span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">- Ray Bradbury, <a href="http://wbluhm.blogspot.com/2015/06/wbs-book-report-dandelion-wine.html"><i>Dandelion Wine</i></a></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In the first town where I lived, there was this field, and in the field were flowers and grasses and breezes that rustled rabbits and bees and little boys who ran and sang and whistled. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The field was tucked between this street and that street and this church and that apartment building, and the path through the field was the shortcut to downtown.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">For a minute or two each time, the field was an oasis from the concrete.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There is the power of words: When I read that phrase in Bradbury's book, I became an 8-year-old boy strolling down that path through a field that no longer exists, and I heard the bees hum among the flowers.</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-64725882020710874712015-06-25T04:00:00.000-05:002015-06-25T04:00:00.870-05:00Sunset electronica, entry 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oDDFeFhdsfU/VYiH8JDBSqI/AAAAAAAAAFI/jZiFHUAXztI/s1600/IMG_3822.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oDDFeFhdsfU/VYiH8JDBSqI/AAAAAAAAAFI/jZiFHUAXztI/s320/IMG_3822.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He stepped away from the glowing screen, picked up his pen and his journal, and sat down to write.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The whirr of the computer taunted him - "Here I am, I have the world here waiting for you, come over and sit down with me" - and the device next to his chair joined the chorus - "Here I am, everything you need in the palm of your hand."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But that morning, he heard the rest of it: the woman he loved playing with the dogs in the other room, the songbirds calling their music, the passing traffic from the road above.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was on that day that somehow he sensed the computer's whirring would be silenced one day. He foresaw the cataclysm that ended with rationing of electronics, and he knew that in the end he would have to depend not on electricity but on the power of his fingers' ability to scratch thoughts and concepts across a piece of paper.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Preserve the code, preserve the
written language," a warning sounded in his mind. "The words will have
no meaning to those who cannot read. The storage is useless to those
with no key to the storeroom."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Armed with that knowledge, he understood that all you need in order to read the book is the book. The book is the ultimate device.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He feared the fire that could consume paper and snatch centuries of words away, but he feared more the silence of the machines - devices meant to pull the world together reduced to useless bits of plastic and silicon that no longer held what they were designed to hold.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He picked up the obsolete device and found nothing. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The seemingly magical device that once glowed and cooed and gave him books and sounds and games and pictures was silent now, replaced by the songbirds and the sunrise and the rustling of leaves in trees. There was no charge, and the words and pictures were trapped inside the device.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Good thing someone preserved the words on paper and parchment. H</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">e pulled a book off his shelf and found a voice from 500 years ago. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Have faith. </span>Here they are, the words," the book whispered to him. "Here is your wisdom. Here is your past, delivered by a time machine of bound paper."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The man still could not bear to set aside his device, but he slipped it into his pocket, opened the book, and began to read.</span><br />
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<br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1654122456933956950.post-44853196061168501272015-06-24T04:00:00.000-05:002015-06-24T04:00:00.983-05:00The persistent pursuit of The Stuff<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NeYda7dsGyI/VYh9m9J8a9I/AAAAAAAAAEw/Wyc7RweOXas/s1600/IMG_3884.JPG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NeYda7dsGyI/VYh9m9J8a9I/AAAAAAAAAEw/Wyc7RweOXas/s320/IMG_3884.JPG.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"A place for everything, and everything in its place."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Have you had this feeling? You want to accomplish something, but your mind and even your
physical work space is such a jumble that you can't even figure out what
it is you want to accomplish. Many mornings I'm there. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Tumbled piles of books and phonograph records and toys and even a rock or two - where is their place? Surely not in this mess.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">On the other hand, there is that little plaque in the corner: "Creative Clutter is better than tidy idleness." Yes, but why does my work area look so much like idle clutter? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Still, I keep at it, spilling words onto a page at the appointed hour every morning, and at some point I find that among the nuggets in my careless pile of stuff is the stuff of dreams, the stuff of magic, the stuff of capital letters:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The Stuff, not just the stuff. The Stuff.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">When you find The Stuff within you, or resting on a branch, or soaring with the pelicans overhead - ah, The Stuff and its magic spell will lift you - there, where The Stuff is waiting to be discovered, there is when it becomes Creative Clutter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Keep creating - just digging and building from the stuff that's inside you. It may take a while to happen, but if you keep at it, eventually The Stuff will begin to happen. Don't quit now; keep creating.</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0