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Entries Tagged as 'Writing'

“I Can’t Market My Art!”
Oh, Yes You Can

March 9th, 2010 · 10 Comments

In a recent blog post, loyal friend of RAMH Froog dredged up a name I hadn’t seen or heard for years: “cartoonist” Hugh MacLeod.*
I no longer have any idea where I first encountered MacLeod and his interesting work. At the time, though, he was struggling to forge some sort of business from his creative output while [...]

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Tags: Art & Photography · Cartoons & Animation · In the News · Looking Backward · The Business · The Online World · Writing

Uncomfortable Numbers

March 5th, 2010 · 4 Comments

From whiskey river:
A Word on Statistics
Out of every hundred people,
those who always know better:
fifty-two.
Unsure of every step:
almost all the rest.
Ready to help,
if it doesn’t take long:
forty-nine.
Always good,
because they cannot be otherwise:
four — well, maybe five.
Able to admire without envy:
eighteen.
Led to error
by youth (which passes):
sixty, plus or minus.
Those not to be messed with:
four-and-forty.
Living in constant fear
of [...]

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Tags: Art & Photography · Computers · Humor · Music · Phones (Cellular and Otherwise) · Poetry · Ruminations · Science & Medicine · The Internet · whiskey river Fridays

What’s in a Song: Fever (1)

March 4th, 2010 · 9 Comments

[This is another in an occasional series on popular songs with appeal across the generations. This post will be broken into two parts; Part 2 will appear in a few days is here.]
As a kid, I once read a “funny” comic-book episode in which aliens landed in mid-20th-century America and reported back to their home [...]

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Tags: Celebrities · Comics · Language · Movies · Music · What's in a Song

Awards Season

March 1st, 2010 · 8 Comments

Golden Globes: ha!
Tonys, Academy Awards: don’t make me laugh!
The People’s Choice: huh? wasn’t that a 1950s sitcom featuring Jackie Cooper and a talking Basset hound named Cleo?

Hint: yes.

You can have all of them. Roz Morris, of the imperatively named Nail Your Novel blog, has offered Running After My Hat not one but two awards. I [...]

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Tags: In the News · Running After My Hat · The Online World · Writing

Head Waters

February 26th, 2010 · 8 Comments

From whiskey river:
Have you been to the source of a river? It’s a very mystic place. You get dizzy when you stay for a while. An especially big river has several sources, and the real source, the farthest point which turns to the major stream, is moist and misty, with some kind of ancient smell, [...]

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Tags: Art & Photography · History · Music · Nature & Pets · Poetry · Ruminations · whiskey river Fridays

Question? Authority!

February 24th, 2010 · 10 Comments

Via agent Janet Reid, whose taste in videos (even when she’s not sure what to call the thing video’d) is impeccable:

The poem, and I guess the performance, is by the poet (Taylor Mali) himself, although the video was put together by “student Robert Bruce.” As Mali’s site says:
I have no idea who he is (and [...]

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Tags: Humor · Language · Poetry · Style and Craft · The Online World

Margaret Atwood, in a Nutshell

February 23rd, 2010 · 12 Comments

Last night, The Missus and I attended a combined reading-talk-Q&A session with Margaret Atwood. (For the curious, if you’re ever in this neck of the woods in (mostly) February, do check out this arts festival.)
The bandwagon of people who believe that those of diminutive physical stature tend to compensate with outsized personalities and ambitions is [...]

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Tags: Celebrities · Hearing · Style and Craft · The Missus · Writing

“What did you do on Sunday, John?”
“Twiddled my thumbs. You?”

February 21st, 2010 · 5 Comments

Chauncey Totman, the children’s-book author whose name I would least like to share, has done it again in his latest, Margarita, The Bearded Fox. The question for us to ponder, of course, remains (as always with Totman): What is it, exactly?
[Caution: spoiler alert! Do not read the rest of this review if you'd prefer being [...]

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Tags: Book Reviews · Humor · The Online World

When Staying Put Just Won’t Do

February 19th, 2010 · 6 Comments

[Photo above, "Standing Still," is by Beth Dickman. Click to see the larger original.]
From whiskey river (italicized portion):
Moment
In the Romanesque church round stones
that ground down so many prayers and generations
kept humble silence and shadows slept in the apse
like bats in winter furs.
We went out. The pale sun shone,
tinny music tinkled softly
from a car, two jays
studied [...]

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Tags: Art & Photography · Music · Poetry · Reading · Ruminations · Writing · whiskey river Fridays

Paying Attention to the Magical

February 13th, 2010 · 10 Comments

“Ambivalence” doesn’t even come close to capturing my schizoid views about magic (or magical) realism.
The term has been around since the early part of the twentieth century, and for most of its life has been associated especially with the work of certain Latin American authors. Here’s part of the definition from A Glossary of Literary [...]

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Tags: Paying Attention · Reading · Ruminations · Seems to Fit · Style and Craft · The Missus · Writing