Posted in 25 Things, Art, Authors, Body, Bones, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Death, Dreams, Family, Gratitude, Growing Older, Home, Jugular, Life, Love, Memoir, Personal, Place, Politics, Practice, Random, Reading, Relationships, Secrets, Structure, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, tagged Beat Generation, Belief & Technique for Modern Prose, Blue Star Mothers, Books, Iraq, Jack Kerouac, Maya Ying Lin, On the Road, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, war on April 29, 2007 | 9 Comments »
I was listening to NPR early Saturday morning on the way to a meeting. The journalist was interviewing a soldier from Wisconsin who had been shipped to Iraq for another tour of duty. In his cache, the soldier had illegally stashed a stack of books, including a copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. He [...]
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When I was little I had a horse
It was a stuffed horse
I pretended I could ride it but I never learned
In my dreams I am riding the horse bareback
I feel like a boy again but I am still a man
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Poor Dee. I go into her room, shake her just so, just so I can wake her up. She has a horse show today, and it’s early. Early for a Sunday morning. I don’t want to wake up Em, or Jim. We all went to bed late last night. I wiggle Dee about, she’s probably [...]
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Posted in Authors, Culture, Great Places To Write, Photography, Place, Practice, Silence, Spirituality, Structure, Taos, Wake Up, Work, Writing on April 28, 2007 | No Comments »
–Drip, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, photo by QuoinMonkey, all rights reserved
-Detail photo from the Wake Up series
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The artwork is less like a noun and more like a verb…
-Martin Facey, speaking of Richard Diebenkorn’s work
-All images photos of works by Richard Diebenkorn, 1950-1952
(from the San Jose Museum of Art website)
On June 2 the University of New Mexico Harwood Museum of Art in Taos will open “Diebenkorn in New Mexico,” an exhibit [...]
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Posted in Animals & Critters, Culture, Family, Gratitude, Great Places To Write, Money, Photography, Place, Practice, Random, Relationships, Silence, Skies, Structure, Taos, Things That Fly, Travel, Vision, Wake Up, Work, Writing on April 28, 2007 | 4 Comments »
-Wake Up, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, photo by QuoinMonkey, from the Wake Up series, all rights reserved
When I went to Taos last year to write, I rediscovered photography as a practice. I attended 4 silent writing retreats with the same group of writers over a year period. When you make [...]
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Posted in Art, Culture, Great Places To Write, On the Road, Photography, Place, Practice, Random, Silence, Taos, Travel, Writers, Writing, tagged cafes, Caffe Tazza, Great Places To Write, New Mexico, Taos, The Good Stuff on April 28, 2007 | 1 Comment »
-The Good Stuff’s In Here, Caffe, Tazza, Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, photo by QuoinMonkey, all rights reserved
From my Great Places to Write series. The light is right, the cast of characters stimulating, the air is full of French roast, artists, poets, and musicians. You can sit inside or out. And they don’t care if you [...]
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Posted in Art, Culture, Dreams, Food, Growing Older, Laughing, Money, Photography, Spirituality, Structure, Topic Writing, Vision on April 27, 2007 | 3 Comments »
With all this talk about candy, I started waxing nostalgic for gum wrapper chains. That’s when I stumbled on Gary Duschl’s Guinness World Record Gum Wrapper Chain. You’ve got to check it out.
As of April 11, 2007, the chain has 1,201,601 gum wrappers and is 51,276 feet long. Whoa! That makes the 30 foot chain around my [...]
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by Categories (that only make sense to me)
1. Atomic Fire Balls
2. Jaw Breakers
3. Life Savers (I got a book of these one Christmas that I savored til June)
4. Red Hots
5. Smarties
6. Sweetarts
7. Candy Corn
8. Bazooka Bubble Gum
9. Beemans gum
10. Black Jack gum
11. Teaberry Gum (my fave, gum wrapper chains, hours of time well spent?)
12. Blow Pop
13. Bubble [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Family, Food, Growing Older, Holidays, Laughing, Life, Memoir, Money, Personal, Relationships, Secrets, Topic Writing, tagged barter is better, barter system & money, candy cravings, Lifesavers, smelling like Peeps, vintage candy, writing about candy on April 27, 2007 | 16 Comments »
-image by SCEhardt, released to public domain
When I was a kid, I collected things. This is no surprise to anyone who knows me. Stashing is cumbersome in adulthood. But as a kid, it was a goldmine.
I tended to be the slow, silent type who savored and squirreled things away. I cached items like carefully folded [...]
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A post over at Fluent made me realize there are at least two sides to every thing. The post mentioned a persistent bout of acne (among other ailments), which got me thinking about my own constant struggle with oily skin. Which then got me thinking about my parents who at the age of 80 and 83 both still [...]
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Posted in Art, Nature, Photography, Place, Seasons, Silence, Structure, Topic Writing, Travel, Vision, Writing, tagged Architecture, Bear Run, Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mill Run, Pennsylvania, Photography on April 26, 2007 | No Comments »
-Mist at Bear Run, Fallingwater (1935), Frank Lloyd Wright, Mill Run, Pennsylvania, July 2005, photo by Skywire, all rights reserved
-from Topic post, WRITING TOPIC - GREENING
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Posted in Animals & Critters, Art, Authors, Books, Culture, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Money, Place, Random, Structure, Writers on April 26, 2007 | 11 Comments »
A friend of mine sent an email today letting me know our PBS station is airing a documentary tonight on writer Rudolfo Anaya. It’s called From Curandera to Chupacabra: The Stories of Rudolfo Anaya. You can watch the documentary via the link; it’s only 26 minutes long.
My favorite Anaya book is Bless Me, Ultima. His latest book, Curse of [...]
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Posted in Culture, Family, Life, Money, Personal, Place, Practice, blogroll, tagged assimilation, brown pride, chicana identity, chicanismo, Chicano, chicano pride, self-identity on April 26, 2007 | 13 Comments »
I saw a home-made sticker on the back windshield of a car today. It said, Chicano Por Vida. Chicano For Life.
Well, yah, I thought, unless you use skin bleach or dye your hair blond and use blue contact lenses, you pretty much stay the way you were born for your entire life, que no?
Pues, no. Not always. There [...]
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Posted in Growing Older, Nature, Photography, Place, Seasons, Silence, Structure, Things That Fly, Topic Writing, Writing, tagged gargantuan green, giant oak, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Nature, Photography, Theo Wirth Park on April 26, 2007 | 6 Comments »
-Giant Oak, Theo Wirth Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 2005, photo by Skywire, all rights reserved
-from Topic post, WRITING TOPIC - GREENING
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Posted in Food, Laughing, Photography, Writers, Writing, Writing Topics, tagged Candyfreak, memories of candy, Steve Almond, the practice of writing, writing about candy on April 25, 2007 | 20 Comments »
This week’s topic is in honor of Steve Almond’s most wonderful book, Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America.
What sweets did you eat as a child? Watermelon sticks? Bubble Yum?
Were you a hot tamale in your twenties? Or perhaps a big hunk.
Do you sometimes feel like a nut?
Write about sugar, sugar. It can [...]
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Green frijoles don’t cause gas
Toads and frogs are cousins to insects
Everything I know about green I learned from a diaper
The NM state question–do you know what it is?
If you like it both ways, it’s called Christmas
If U.S. paper money were pink or orange like in other countries, we might not be so greedy
Green’s not a good [...]
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Posted in Books, Family, Gratitude, Growing Older, Haiku, Life, Love, Personal, Practice, Relationships, Secrets, Topic Writing, blogroll on April 25, 2007 | 7 Comments »
My nephew Adam turned 18 this week. A couple years ago I took him and his sister with me to Santa Clara, CA for a week-long conference. I also took along Dee and Em. We stayed at what was then a Westin Hotel across from Great America amusement park. Adam and Beak took the girls to rides during the day while I [...]
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I remember taking a workshop in Taos with Rob Wilder. He took us in groups into the log cabin at Mabel Dodge Luhan House and had us write down everything we could think of related to certain adjectives. He stood at the front of the room like an army sergeant monitoring our progress. “Don’t stop,” he [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Animals & Critters, Culture, Haiku, Home, Money, Nature, Personal, Photography, Place, Relationships, Seasons, Structure, Topic Writing, Vehicles, Writing, tagged carbon footprints, Earth Day, frogs, recycling, ways to live green on April 24, 2007 | 2 Comments »
-Guardian Green Frog of Indria, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 7th, 2006, photo by Skywire, all rights reserved
Green is as green does. I wouldn’t be nearly as green without Liz pushing me along. Now that I live in a house rather than an apartment, I see things in a new light - it’s luscious green. I didn’t [...]
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Posted in Art, Body, Bones, Books, Culture, Doodling, Jugular, Laughing, Life, Love, Money, Personal, Secrets, Sex, Spirituality, Topic Writing on April 23, 2007 | 3 Comments »
Inspired by this topic.
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Posted in Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Dreams, Film / TV / Video, On the Road, Personal, Place, Practice, Relationships, Secrets, Structure, Travel, Writers, Writing, Writing Practices, tagged Clutter Family, Harper Lee, Holcomb, In Cold Blood, Kansas, red Ravine Guests, small towns, Teri Blair, The Midwest, the practice of writing, Travel, Truman Capote on April 23, 2007 | 19 Comments »
By Teri Blair
I thought this directive, this encouragement, this heed applied only when things were going badly. You know, just keep going even though the chips are down on all fronts - when you have nothing to write in your notebook but garbage, when you just keep getting rejection letters from publishers, when you feel [...]
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Posted in Family, Gratitude, Home, Life, Personal, Practice, Recall, Silence, Work, Writing Practices, blogroll on April 22, 2007 | 14 Comments »
A spare moment, one not accounted for or otherwise claimed. A moment to carve out warmth on the sofa, from sitting here long enough that the heat transfers from me to the cushion, envelops me just so. Just so much that I know when I stand to pick up the pizza crust box and read [...]
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Posted in Art, Bones, Culture, Dreams, Family, Gratitude, Great Places To Write, Photography, Place, Practice, Silence, Spirituality, Structure, Taos, Travel, Vision, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, tagged community, Mabel Dodge, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, New Mexico, Practice, Silence, Taos, Writers, Writing on April 22, 2007 | 6 Comments »
-Mabel’s Lights, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, photo by QuoinMonkey, from the Wake Up series, all rights reserved
For all the writers who are meeting soon to write, read, listen, and keep the connections going. Here’s to community.
Sunday, April 22nd, 2007
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Posted in Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Death, Dreams, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Haiku, Life, Nature, Poetry, Politics, Quotes, Reading, Structure, Vision, Writers, Writing, tagged Haiku, James Baldwin, Native Son, Practice, Richard Wright, Writers, Writing on April 21, 2007 | 3 Comments »
A few nights ago, I stayed up past midnight writing a piece. PBS was on in the background. I wasn’t paying much attention until pre-film credits started to roll and I glanced up to see opening scenes of Native Son.
Not the 1951 version where Richard Wright played Bigger Thomas. It was the 1986 version with [...]
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Posted in Authors, Books, Culture, Jugular, Place, Politics, Random, Spirituality, Structure, Writers, Writing, tagged Fighting Sioux, Louise Erdrich, UND, Writers, Writing on April 20, 2007 | 7 Comments »
Local breaking news on Minnesota Public Radio is that Louise Erdrich, one of the most well-known writers living in the Twin Cities, rejected an honorary degree from the University of North Dakota because of the school’s continued use of the “Fighting Sioux” sports team name and logo.
It’s a strong statement from a writer, and one [...]
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Posted in Culture, Film / TV / Video, Growing Older, Home, Laughing, Photography, Place, Secrets, Topic Writing, Writing, tagged boots, Mary Tyler Moore, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Nicollet Mall, sculpture on April 20, 2007 | 4 Comments »
-Mary Tyler Moore’s Boots, Nicollet Mall & 7th Street, Minneapolis, photo by QuoinMonkey, March 2007, all rights reserved
NOTE TO MARY: When I watched your show every week in the 70’s, I never dreamed I’d someday be living in Minneapolis.
Oh, by the way, I did make it after all!
-from Topic post, These Boots Are Made for [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Authors, Body, Books, Culture, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Home, Laughing, Life, Memoir, Personal, Photography, Place, Politics, Relationships, Secrets, Topic Writing, Writers, Writing, tagged Dyersville, Field Of Dreams, Iowa, Mary Tyler Moore, Shoeless Joe Jackson, shoes, W.P. Kinsella on April 20, 2007 | 1 Comment »
When the topic of shoes posted last week, all I could think about was Shoeless Joe Jackson. Remember his appearance in Field of Dreams? I can picture him walking out of a sparkling corn field in Dyersville, Iowa, scuffling over to the bleachers, tossing a baseball, hand to pocket, hand to pocket, talking to Kevin [...]
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Posted in Gratitude, Life, Love, Money, Personal, Politics, Things That Fly, Work, Writers, Writing on April 19, 2007 | 8 Comments »
My tiny blue Dell Inspiron 300m laptop finally expired. Bless its heart. It was a lemon. I’ve had it almost three years and in that time Dell replaced the motherboard once, the memory card twice, the keyboard once, and the LCD display twice. The right hinge that connects the screen to the rest of the computer recently [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Authors, Books, Fiction, Politics, Random, Reading, Writers, Writing, tagged Authors, Books, John Cheever, Pulitzer Prize, Writing on April 19, 2007 | 5 Comments »
I saw a post early this week by Janice Harayda at One Minute Book Reviews that reminded me it is Pulitzer week.
I like her philosophy of book reviewing. In her post, Famous Pulitzer Losers – 10 Great Novels That Didn’t Win the Fiction Prize and Which Books Beat Them, Janice compares books that didn’t make the cut, [...]
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Posted in Body, Books, Culture, Gratitude, Home, Laughing, Life, Love, Personal, Practice, Structure, Work, Writers, Writing, Writing Practices, tagged Gratitude, happiness, Love, writing practice on April 19, 2007 | 9 Comments »
It is another day. I choose to practice. I am not yet awake. My body feels worn out this week. Tired. Can’t get enough sleep. In the evenings, I get home from work, meetings, whatever I have going on, and plop down on the couch. The sun gleefully beams in the windows. It’s my first [...]
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Posted in Art, Body, Bones, Culture, Doodling, Jugular, Money, Secrets, Sex, Spirituality, Topic Writing on April 18, 2007 | 4 Comments »
Second in a series. Inspired by this topic.
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Posted in Authors, Books, Culture, Death, Dreams, Family, Gratitude, Life, Love, Poetry, Politics, Relationships, Spirituality, Vision, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, tagged community, convocation, hope, keynote speech, Martin Luther King, Nikki Giovanni, poetry as healer, University of Michigan, V-Tech, We are Virginia Tech convocation poem on April 18, 2007 | 7 Comments »
As a writer, there is much I could say about Virginia Tech. I’ve been at a loss for words. When I watched poet Nikki Giovanni close the Virginia Tech Convocation commemorating the deaths of those killed on April 16th, I knew it had all been said – I could choose hope.
Nikki Giovanni has been a [...]
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First in a series. Inspired by this topic.
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Posted in Culture, Nature, Vehicles, Vision, Wake Up, Writing Topics, tagged Earth Day, hybrids, recycling, Think Green, ways to live green, writing topic on April 18, 2007 | 1 Comment »
April showers, winter melting. Earth Day pops up this weekend. There is green the color and there is green the movement.
Think about green. Take a walk, look at blooming trees and daffodil stalks. Look around your house and see how green you live. Do you have good recycling habits? Do you eat green eggs and [...]
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