give me a daisy

~ ~ ~ ~ read ~ write ~ look ~ listen ~ create

01 Nov 2012
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word surge: can’t stop tapping those keys

English: Emma Thompson at the César awards cer...

English: Emma Thompson at the César awards ceremony. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Writer’s block has some upsides, believe it or not. When you have it, you’re compelled to finish all those nagging household chores, return all your phone calls, and maybe even tackle some exotic project that has been on your to-do list for the past five years. You will also find yourself on the receiving end of a great deal of empathy from other writers and from the entire industry of workshops, websites, books, and writing gurus devoted to making you productive once again. You can even watch movies about not writing, such as Stranger than Fiction, in which Queen Latifah’s character shows up to assist Emma Thompson’s character in overcoming her writer’s block so she can kill off Will Ferrell’s character. You don’t need to look quite so happy about finding a way to kill Will, Emma.

But what happens when you have the opposite of writer’s block? When you can’t tear yourself away from your computer or legal pads and your household falls apart around you? You know you need to ration your writing time, but you’re at least secretly pleased to have this dilemma to deal with. Of course, you can’t tell anyone about it. It’s like finally being able to fit into that pair of skinny jeans. No matter how much you’ve sweated to get to that point; no one wants to hear it. It just annoys everyone.

There isn’t really any support out there to speak of. If you search the internet, you’ll find the compulsion to write characterized as an impulse-control disorder called hypergraphia, which is on a par with other disorders like pyromania. Exactly how is being on fire, metaphorically, the equivalent of setting fires?

I found this list of “famous hypergraphics” in a Psychology Today article:

  • Danielle Steel
  • Edgar Allan Poe
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • Sylvia Plath
  • Joyce Carol Oates
  • Stephen King
  • Isaac Asimov

I want what they’re having (well…what most of them are having).

The drive to write is also referred to, quite dramatically, as the midnight disease, which makes it sound sort of disgusting and perverted. But why view the situation in so sinister a light? If the goal of a writer is to write, shouldn’t this surge of words be cause for celebration? As long as your pets, plants, kids, and other family members are still alive, you don’t really have a problem. Right?

This is Louise Erdrich‘s Advice to Myself:

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
Don’t even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.

~ ~ ~

This seems like especially good advice for everyone who’s participating in NaNoWriMo 2012–which is, by the way, a great antidote for writer’s block. Best of luck to all those who are participating this year. I hope to be back in the fold next go around.

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30 Oct 2012

battleships and volcanos

A friend and I recently drove up through Jemez Springs to Valles Caldera. This is a pretty easy day trip from Albuquerque, but I had never been to Valles Caldera and I calculate it’s been seven or eight years since I’ve been to Jemez Springs. I really do need to get out more.

battleship

I have fond memories of visiting the park around Battleship Rock (aptly named as you can see from the photos below) 10 years ago with a group of friends around dusk. The moon over the Rock was a wondrous sight. But seeing the Rock in daylight was no less grand.

We strolled around for a while, and I took a few more photos. Below is the Jemez River and a tangle of autumn leaves and blue sky.

volcano

Then we headed up to Valles Caldera, which is an 89,000-acre National Preserve. A caldera is a volcanic crater formed by the collapse of the central part of a volcano. This area was a privately owned ranch until the year 2000 and has only been a National Preserve for 12 years!

Fun fact: Some scenes from the new movie, The Lone Ranger, starring Johnny Depp, were filmed here. In fact at least two dozen different movies and TV series have been filmed at this location.

Although I checked my camera’s battery before I left home, it gave out before I was able to photograph the caldera itself, thus giving me a really good reason to return to this amazing and unusual place. We went on a 45-minute van tour that stopped at the edge of a forest of Ponderosa Pines, and so my last few shots were of–you guessed it–trees.

I do like trees. My greatest disappointment is that I wasn’t able to take any pictures on the drive back. The sunlight striking the fields of golden leaves was truly breathtaking. But now I know where to go next October to get my fix of autumn leaves.

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27 Oct 2012
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putting some pieces together

These are a few of the quilted wall hangings created by my friend Sylvia. She bases many of them on designs from Dover books she’s collected over the years, adding whatever embellishments come to mind in the moment–beads, sequins, ribbon, shells, etc. I really admire her color and design choices.

The two of us collaborated on the design of a piece to hang over the bookcases in my living room. After we chose the fabric, she then did an amazing job of putting everything together. But I’ll let her tell that story–with pictures–in another post.

collage in progress

I don’t quilt, but I really enjoy arranging pieces in unusual or unexpected juxtapositions, which is kind of the definition of collage. I haven’t worked on one in several years, but I never stopped collecting material. A few weeks ago, I started this one, which is still in progress:

collage detail

Collage is a great way to create visual art if you’re like me and don’t consider yourself to be especially artistic. All you need are a stack of magazines, a pair of scissors, a glue stick, a piece of cardboard or poster board, and your imagination.

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25 Oct 2012
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the rhythm of evolution

The Bead Game

A short stop-motion animation film by Ishu Patel, 1977. The fantastic music is by Jnan Prakash Ghosh.

The film was nominated for an Oscar in 1978 and won six other awards.

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23 Oct 2012

music of poetry

Poet Dorothea Lasky said:

The music of poetry is a delight for the mind.

And when it’s read out loud—or set to music and sung—it’s also a great delight to the ear.

i carry your heart with me

Poem by e.e. cummings/performed by Michael Hedges (with David Crosby and Graham Nash singing harmony) from the album Taproot. Cummings is my favorite poet and Hedges is a wonderful musician.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

adventures of Isabel

Poem by Ogden Nash/performed by Natalie Merchant from the album Leave Your Sleep. I love the energy, the arrangement, the words, Merchant’s voice…everything! It’s my favorite tune on the album.

Isabel met an enormous bear

Isabel, Isabel, she didn’t care
bear was hungry, bear was ravenous
bear’s big mouth was cruel and cavernous
bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you
How do, Isabel, now I’ll eat you
Isabel, Isabel, she didn’t worry
Isabel didn’t scream or scurry
Washed her hands straightened her hair up
Then Isabel ate the bear up

Once in a night black as pitch
Isabel met a wicked old witch
witch’s face was cross and wrinkled
witch’s gums with teeth were sprinkled
Ho, ho, Isabel! old witch crowed
I’ll turn you into an ugly toad
Isabel, Isabel, didn’t worry
Isabel didn’t scream or scurry
showed no rage, showed no rancor
turned the witch into milk and drank her
Oh yeah,

Isabel!!!

Isabel met a hideous giant
Isabel so self reliant
giant was hairy, giant horrid
One eye in the middle of his forehead
morning, Isabel, giant said
I’ll grind your bones and make my bread
Isabel, Isabel, she didn’t worry
Isabel didn’t scream or scurry
nibbled on his zwieback that she fed off
When it was gone, she cut the giant’s head off

Isabel!!!

Isabel met a troublesome doctor
punched and poked till he really shocked her
doctor’s talk was of coughs and chills
doctor’s satchel bulged with pills
doctor said wow Isabel
Swallow this, it will make you well
Isabel, Isabel, didn’t worry
Isabel didn’t scream or scurry

Took those pills from the pill concocter
Then Isabel cured the doctor, yeah, oh yeah

ozymandias

And now for something completely different.

Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley/performed by JJ Burnel (bass guitarist for the English group, the Stranglers) on the “b” side of his single, “Freddie Laker.” (Lyrics included in the video.) I confess to having once stolen a book from the public library–and it was the collected works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. I memorized this poem. I was in high school, but still, what was I thinking? What I’m thinking now is that this is actually pretty cool.

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20 Oct 2012

a day in someone else’s life

If you ever get an urge to peek into what’s going on today in Amsterdam, Ann Arbor, or Auckland; Denver, Dubai, or Dublin; Lisbon, Lodz, or London; Oahu, Oeiras, or Oslo; Riga, Rome, or Rotterdam; Taipei, Tehran, or Toronto; Venice, Vilnius, or Vrsovice—or more than 300 other locations around the world, you can satisfy it quite easily.

More than 400 people regularly post photos from wherever they live on City Daily Photo blogs. I originally found this amazing gateway into all parts of the world via the City Daily Photo portal, but the portal has been down for several months. From what I recently read on the CDP Facebook page, it should be coming back up soon, which is great news. It’s always fun to while away an hour (or more) by stepping virtually into a few other worlds.

In the meantime, there’s another blog, CDPB Theme Day, where you can see thumbnail photos from the bloggers who post pictures on the current month’s theme. Another way to locate CDP blogs is from the lists some bloggers post on their own sites. This list from a Seattle CDP blogger was last updated a bit over a year ago, but is still a happy hunting ground for photo blogs.

I’ve followed more than a dozen different CDP blogs over the past few years, some for a few months and others over the long haul. My current favorites, with sample photos, are:

Santa Fe Daily Photo

Namaste

Oeiras (Portugal) and environs Daily Photo

Viewpoint

Adelaide (Australia) & Beyond

Tulips

Tulips

Salt Spring Photos (Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada)

Waiting for the Sun

Getting these bird’s-eye views into other people’s days, worlds, and worldviews reminds me how much more there is to notice and appreciate and consider than whatever may be right in front of me at the moment.

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18 Oct 2012

redemption songs

The story begins with Mark Johnson—a Grammy Award-winning music producer and engineer—hurrying through a crowded New York City subway. All of a sudden, he hears two monks making music, playing and singing in a language he doesn’t understand. He walks toward them and becomes part of the ad hoc audience, 200 or so people who have stopped moving toward their individual destinations in order to cluster together and listen to the music. If it hasn’t occurred to him before, it hits him now that music is a way to bring people together.

Back home in Santa Monica, Johnson is walking along a street when he hears the voice of Roger Ridley, a street musician who performs regularly on the 3rd Street Promenade. Johnson retraces his steps to ask Ridley if he can record him—and then take the song around the world to overdub the tracks of other musicians. That is the birth of “Stand By Me,” as produced by Playing For Change.

After 10 years, there’s a documentary, Playing For Change: Peace Through Music; then a CD, Playing For Change: Songs Around the World; and still later another CD, PFC2. The Playing For Change Band is formed with musicians from the U.S., the Netherlands, Zimbabwe, the Congo, Italy, and South Africa. As Johnson & company take all of these songs around the world, PFC stops along the way to develop eight music schools (in South Africa, Ghana, Nepal, Rwanda, and Mali), and then creates Playing For Change Day, an annual event to unite people through music and raise money to develop more music schools and programs.

Roger Ridley dies in November 2005. But the story hasn’t come close to ending.

~ ~ ~

You just never know the magnitude or the nature of the spark that could ignite—that could even change the world—through the simple act of creating something that’s meaningful in this moment only to you.

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16 Oct 2012

create something today

It seems like a good day for creating, doesn’t it ? So go ahead:

  • Scribble a poem.
  • String some beads together.
  • Knit and purl a few rows of that sweater.
  • Borrow a coloring book from a kid and pick out a page to color. If you don’t have crayons, you can use some of mine.
  • Take a photograph of something outside your front door that looks like autumn.
  • Make up your own song—and sing it, of course.
  • Draw a picture on a postcard and mail it to yourself.
  • Tie dye your kitchen curtains.
  • Choose a color scheme for redecorating your bathroom.
  • Cut out some pieces of fabric for your quilt.
  • Turn a bunch of flowers into a bouquet.
  • Build a shelf and paint it.
  • Cut out some magazine pictures and make a collage.
  • Try a new recipe or experiment with an old one.
  • Make someone happy.
  • Make someone else giggle.
  • Create your own list of things to create.
  • Improvise. Riff. Make something up.

ta da!

After you complete your creation, you can assume this pose. (You don’t have to, but you’re entitled.)

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13 Oct 2012

it’s still Newk’s time

I didn’t have much exposure to either jazz or classical music until I graduated from high school into the wider world (one town over from mine). Among the group of friends I made in college, it was almost a requirement to own certain jazz LPs, among them Quiet Nights by Miles Davis, Song for my Father by Horace Silver, and My Favorite Things by John Coltrane. They provided the backdrop for the many serious discussions we held in each other’s apartments  ’round midnight and well into the early morning.

When I got together with my partner, R.C., who was 14 years older than me and had for a time been a professional jazz musician (keyboards), we merged our music collections. His was much more extensive and diverse than mine, but those three albums were some of the few we both owned copies of.

Classical music made more of an impression on me than the jazz did, and somehow I didn’t let 30 years of living with a jazz musician impact my lack of appreciation for the music. That was his thing, not mine. When he died seven and a half years ago, I picked out a few CDs from his collection, let his son take all that he wanted, and donated the rest to the public library. I did play Kind of Blue by Miles over and over for months, but then I put it away.

Sonny Rollins

I developed my current love of modern jazz pretty much on my own several years ago by borrowing CDs from the library to listen to. After deciding who and what I liked, I built up my own modest jazz collection. I still don’t appreciate Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, or (don’t strike me dead, Lord, I did purchase one of his CDs) Thelonious Monk. I dug deeper into Coltrane, added to the Miles collection, and welcomed back Oscar Peterson, the Modern Jazz Quartet, and Gerry Mulligan. I also “discovered,” among others, Art Blakey, Lester Young, Teddy Wilson, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie, and wonder-of-wonders, tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Better late than never.

saxophone colossus

Sonny Rollins is one of the minority of his peers, it seems, who not only hasn’t succumbed to drug and/or alcohol addiction or otherwise died too young, but who is also still creating, composing, and performing. At 82, he just this month performed a 90-minute set at Davies Symphony Hall for the 30th annual San Francisco Jazz Festival. A few years ago, he headlined the New Mexico Jazz Festival, and I was severely disappointed that I wasn’t able to attend. (Wherever he is, I’m sure R.C. was shaking his head over that.)

One of my favorite albums of his is Don’t Stop the Carnival, recorded live at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco in April 1978. I was actually living there, but in complete oblivion, at the time, so I missed that, too.

Two of his best-known albums are Saxophone Colossus and The Bridge. I happen to like Sonny Side Up with Sonny Stitt and Dizzy Gillespie quite a lot, too.

His signature song is “St. Thomas,” from Saxophone Colossus:

And here’s “The Bridge,” from The Bridge:

One more: the title tune from Tenor Madness, with John Coltrane:

Everyone should have a little Sonny Rollins around for times that are already good (to make them even better) and times that are not so good (to smooth out the bumps or at least make you want to get up and move). Go, Sonny! Long may you run.

~ ~ ~

Note: Newk’s Time is the title of an album released in 1958. Rollins got the nickname because he resembled–and was once mistaken for–a major league baseball player named Donald Newcombe, whose nickname was Newk.

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11 Oct 2012

identified flying objects


Now’s the time of year in Albuquerque when for nine glorious days—weather permitting—the blue October sky is peppered with colorful hot air balloons. And not just ordinary hot air balloons, but all kinds of special shapes—animals, birds, bees, cartoon characters, Darth Vader, even an ark! It’s the 41st annual Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, this year called “Blaze a Trail.”

Last year I watched one balloon drift over my apartment complex so low I was sure it was going to land in one of the parking lots. And I live a distance from Balloon Fiesta Park, where it had lifted off.

Joey and Lilly Bee, a love story

The other night I happened to catch part of a show about the Balloon Fiesta on a local PBS channel. The operators of two balloons, Joey and Lilly Bee (“The Little Bees”), explained how they manage to get both balloons to lift off at the same time, holding hands. Once airborne, Joey and Lilly turn toward each other and kiss before letting go of each other’s hands. These two are a familiar annual sight around here and beloved by enough people that they even have their own Facebook page.

balloons in flight

Here’s a video of one of the mass ascensions this year. So far our weather’s been good—sunny and cool in the morning, but not too windy. Let’s hope everything continues going up without a hitch this year.

There are not many places where can you wander around for days at a time under a sky filled with drifting dots of color. Even if you’re feeling down, you just have to look up. That’s one of the reasons why I love this place.

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