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Aqua Vitae
[A modified version of the image above appears as the cover of Pascale Petit's 2008 collection, The Treekeeper's Tale. It also pretty much perfectly accompanies Petit's poem appearing below, as the first whiskey river entry in today's post.] From whiskey river: What She Wanted What she wanted was to return to the original rainforest hear [...]
The “Critical Mass” Progress Meter
Just kidding. I don’t really have such a meter — except in my head. The progress being metered, as you may guess if you’ve visited here before, is progress towards completion of a book — especially a novel. You can find real such tools scattered around the Writing Web, enabling you to depict your progress [...]
Going; Gone.
From whiskey river: There will come soft rains There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum-trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not [...]
The Criminal Mind (NJ/1970s Edition)
When I lived in New Jersey, which requires annual vehicle inspections (unlike Florida, no doubt among others), I once went without getting a car inspected for almost a year. (This was in my idiot youth days, also known as my 20s, a fact which barely excuses the following story.) The NJ State Police were notoriously [...]
Happy Birthday, Mr. Poe
Today would’ve been your 200th birthday. Hard to imagine, eh, especially for someone with such a predilection for death at a young age? For those who, like me, have something of a perhaps unhealthy attraction (and is there any other kind?) to EAP’s works, I heartily recommend two sources: Daniel Hoffman’s Poe Poe Poe Poe [...]
Creation and Completion
From whiskey river: Making Poetry “You have to inhabit poetry if you want to make it.” And what’s “to inhabit?” To be in the habit of, to wear words, sitting in the plainest light, in the silk of morning, in the shoe of night; a feeling bare and frondish in surprising air; familiar . . [...]
“Defy the Languid Moment”
There are lots of traditions of “how to grow old” in less than pleasant ways: There’s the cantankerous strong-willed (and occasionally frolicsome) oldster. In my mind, the template for this tradition was Twin Peaks Mayor Dwayne Milford, as shown in this scene (“I don’t wanna talk. I wanna shoot!”): (See what followed this scene by [...]
Navel-Gazing
Need to do a fairly simple post today — too much going on for a real thought-y one: Complete virus/spyware/adware scan of The Stepdaughter’s PC, which I have to keep swiveling around to monitor (I stab at thee, Internet Explorer!); Urgent post-holiday cleanup needed, primarily attributable to: New Year’s Eve dinner and, er, aftermath a [...]
Celebrity Horse Moments (Bogus Edition)
Author Sara Lewis Holmes tells us, at her Read Write Believe blog, of a worthy New-Year’s-resolution of a cause: Flying Horse Farms is a magical, transforming and fun camp for children with serious illnesses and their families. It’s an Ohio based 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization and working to become a member of Hole in the Wall [...]
Senses, Seeing Yourself, and the Voices of Angels
From whiskey river: Remember That to have the eyes of an artist, That can be enough, The ear of a poet, That can be enough. The soul of a human just pointed in the direction of the divine, that can be more than enough. I tell you this to remind myself. Every gesture is an [...]
