Posted in Culture, Jugular, Life, Personal, Practice, Relationships, Spirituality, Structure, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged 7 Deadly Sins, 7 Holy Virtues, writing about the 7 Deadly Sins on April 21, 2008 | 14 Comments »
Of the 7 Deadly Sins, I find Lust and Wrath to be the most harmful to humanity. That may say more about me, than it does humanity. Lust to excess leads to unseemly, crass actions. I am stunned by news programs where a bait is placed on the Internet and some guy shows up at [...]
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Posted in Body, Death, Essay, Family, Gratitude, Jugular, Love, Personal, Photography, Practice, Relationships, Writing, tagged Bob Chrisman, death of a mother, hands, honoring death, red Ravine Guests, writing through pain on March 27, 2008 | 28 Comments »
By Bob Chrisman
I took a photograph of my mother’s hands before the visitors arrived at the funeral home. When she was well, she cared for her hands and nails everyday, but that stopped in the nursing home when she lost the strength in her hands and arms. Her nails grew long and dirty. That bothered [...]
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Posted in Culture, Jugular, Life, Love, Nature, Personal, Politics, Practice, Topic Writing, Wake Up, Writing Practices, tagged making politics a spiritual Practice, March snowstorms, order & chaos, the Zen of flat tire repair, Turkey medicine, unity for the good of the whole, writing about mess, writing as a practice on March 18, 2008 | 7 Comments »
The world is a messy place. My home? It is messy in spots, little corners, under the living room table, around the computer desk. It finds order when we clean. And returns to chaos again. I usually recognize an order to the chaos. I manage to find what I need. I’m staring out the window [...]
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I take a risk when I write, period. Risk that I might say something I can never take back. Risk I might say something that someone will recognize, like the time I wrote about going to the Taj Mahal with R. How we met in the lobby of our hotel before sunrise, and how I [...]
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Posted in Art, Art of Rebellion, Doodling, Jugular, Writers, Writing, Writing Topics, tagged Alma Lopez, controversy in art, Go for the jugular, Madonna in a Bikini, Natalie Goldberg, taking a risk through writing on February 19, 2008 | 31 Comments »
For anyone who lived in New Mexico in 2001, you will remember the “Madonna in a Bikini” controversy. Artist Alma Lopez depicted the Virgen de Guadalupe as a real woman wearing a bikini of flowers.
Many Catholics were offended, and even the Catholic Church protested, claiming that Lopez had turned the Holy Mother into “a tart.” [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Culture, Essay, Jugular, Personal, Photography, Place, Politics, Structure, Vision, tagged A Presidential Primer, Barack Obama, get out and vote, Hillary Clinton, Minnesota Caucus, MPR Select A Candidate, politics in America, Super Tuesday States, the politics of primaries, the structure of U.S. politics on February 1, 2008 | 61 Comments »
New Mexico To Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
I’m not a very political person. I don’t follow politics, and haven’t since my more radical days in the 1970’s. But this year has been different. I’ve been energized and inspired by the candidates on both sides of the fence. [...]
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Posted in Art of Rebellion, Culture, Dreams, Gratitude, I Don't Remember, Jugular, Personal, Politics, Practice, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged discrimination, finding your voice, Martin Luther King, memories, self-discrimination, the 1960's on January 25, 2008 | 15 Comments »
I don’t remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., not like Jim remembers. Jim was in 4th grade when Martin Luther King was assassinated. He says he remembers Walter Cronkite cackling over a black-and-white TV tube. I can picture the television, set in a blond wood console with long spindly legs. I can picture Jim’s dad [...]
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Posted in Body, Bones, Culture, Jugular, Life, Personal, Politics, Practice, Relationships, Topic Writing, Wake Up, Work, Writing Practices, tagged emotions, emotions in the workplace, hormones, politics and emotions, the gender gap, the politics of body on January 10, 2008 | 45 Comments »
There is a lost feeling that comes over me this time of year. In the gap between New Year’s and whatever happens next in my life. That’s not specific enough. Lost is a feeling. And a place.
Specifics. Next gains in employment. Which aspects of moneymaking do I add to the writing agenda? How do I [...]
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Posted in Jugular, Life, Politics, Writing, Writing Topics, tagged 2008 presidential elections, Democratic candidates, Democratic traditions, fighting about politics, political buttons, Politics, primaries, writing about politics on January 7, 2008 | 99 Comments »
Viva Kennedy, detail of old political button given to me by my father, photo © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Something happens to me every four years, right about now. I start to care about the presidential elections.
I start to get passionate and close in on who I want to win my party’s nomination. I [...]
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Posted in Body, Culture, Family, Jugular, Life, Relationships, Wake Up, tagged adolescence, adolescent girls, lookism, Mary Pipher, middle school, puberty, Reviving Ophelia, sex in advertising, sexism, teen girls, tweens on October 23, 2007 | 73 Comments »
Last week I read the book Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher, Ph.D., and this week Jim is reading it. For anyone who hasn’t heard of this book, you’ll nonetheless recognize the phenomenon it describes — the adolescent girl’s loss of self.
Just think of a typical 10- or 11-year-old girl. Gangly, unconcerned with how she looks, willing to [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Body, Bones, Culture, Death, Dreams, Film / TV / Video, Holding My Breath, Jugular, Life, Love, Photography, Random, Relationships, tagged film, Jodie Foster, movies, Simplex, Terrence Howard, The Brave One, vintage on September 29, 2007 | 32 Comments »
Yesterday, 35mm Movie Projector detail, inside the recently refurbished Parkway Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
After dinner at the Tea House last night, Liz and I went to see The Brave One. I’ve always been a big Jodie Foster fan. She’s got charisma, isn’t afraid to tackle psychologically [...]
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Posted in Art, Doodling, Jugular, Laughing, Politics, Practice, tagged Alberto Gonzales, Chicano, fish out of water, self-identity, the practice of doodling, writing doodle on September 27, 2007 | 17 Comments »
Alberto Gonzalofishe, former Attorney General (appointed by George W. Bush) depicted as a fish on a plaque, doodle © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
-Inspired by PRACTICE: Fish Out Of Water - 15mins
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Posted in Bones, Culture, Family, Jugular, Personal, Politics, Practice, Recall, Topic Writing, Work, Writing Practices, tagged Alberto Gonzales, assimilation, Chicano on September 26, 2007 | 21 Comments »
Alberto Gonzales, I see his round face, some vato I might see at El Camino Restaurant on Fourth Street, eating huevos rancheros. There he might be happy, light, maybe even Democrat, but up on stage, the television reporters talking over each other to ask him questions, poor señor Gonzales was like the proverbial deer. I [...]
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Posted in Bones, Dreams, Family, Jugular, Love, Personal, Practice, Relationships, Topic Writing, Wake Up, Work, Writing Practices, tagged disappointment, dissatisfaction, letting go, motherhood, parenting on September 13, 2007 | 23 Comments »
I want to let go of this feeling of concern over Dee. I want to be light with her, not expect that she talk more, smile more, stand up taller, walk straighter.
I want to let go of the legacy I carry from my own parents, Dad’s constant “Dumb!” He used to say that any time [...]
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Posted in Body, Bones, Holding My Breath, Jugular, Personal, Practice, Recall, Recovery, Structure, Topic Writing, Work, Writing, Writing Practices, tagged dharma, Elizabeth Statmore, motivation, Recovery, red Ravine Guests, the power of intention, the practice of writing, the process of writing on August 13, 2007 | 22 Comments »
by Elizabeth Statmore
Writing this book is the loneliest journey I have ever been on.
Nothing even compares — not divorce, not mental illness, not
abandonment, not the murder of my best friend from high school. Not
therapy. Not meditation.
The other day I told Natalie how hard I am finding this last stretch.
She agreed sympathetically and compared it to [...]
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Posted in Authors, Bones, Books, Death, Essay, Holding My Breath, Jugular, Life, Personal, Place, Reading, Wake Up, Writers, tagged bridges, English teachers, funerals, how literature enriches life, Minneapolis bridge collapse, Mr. Schminda's Book List, Our Town, red Ravine Guests, Teri Blair, The Bridge Of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder on August 8, 2007 | 45 Comments »
by Teri Blair
Years ago, I was given a reading list by my 11th grade English teacher. I was in the college prep class, and the list of 100 or so books were ones he wanted us to read before we graduated from high school. It wasn’t just his idea. He told us a committee of [...]
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Posted in Art, Art of Rebellion, Culture, Dreams, Essay, Fotoblog, Jugular, Life, On the Road, Personal, Photography, Place, Spirituality, Travel, Vision, Wake Up, tagged Art, Casa Azul, Culture, Frida Kahlo, Frida Kahlo Centennial Celebration, Laura Stokes, Mexico, Mexico City, painting, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Photography, pilgrimage, red Ravine Guests, social justice on July 30, 2007 | 14 Comments »
By Laura Stokes
Casa Azul, the home where Frida Kahlo was born, lived, and died; July 2007, photo © 2007 by Laura Stokes, all rights reserved.
Acting on dream and impulse, we found ourselves in Mexico City last weekend at the Frida Kahlo Centennial Celebration at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. I had read [...]
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Posted in Art, Authors, Bones, Books, Dreams, Holding My Breath, Jugular, Memoir, Personal, Photography, Practice, Quotes, Structure, Vision, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, tagged Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird, Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, truth, Writers, Writing on June 29, 2007 | 14 Comments »
-Just Sitting, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos New Mexico, February 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
I’ve been in a daze since I got back from the trip. Tired, unfocused, full. Obsessed with flashes of detail, and snippets of conversation. I’m getting closer to laying down my stories.
I want to write memoir. And [...]
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Posted in Art, Authors, Body, Books, Culture, Jugular, Life, Personal, Poetry, Politics, Secrets, Sex, Structure, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, tagged Dan Wakefield, Galway Kinnell, John Williams, Poetry, Sex, Stoner, Strong Is Your Hold, Writers, Writing on June 26, 2007 | 32 Comments »
Curve, 1993, woodcut, from private art collection of student work, artist unknown, photo alteration © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
While perusing the health and vigor of our categories last night, I had a realization: writers rarely write about sex. Our Sex category has a measly 5 posts, which leads me to wonder, why bother [...]
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Posted in Bones, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Dreams, Essay, Family, Jugular, Life, Memoir, On the Road, Personal, Place, Politics, Relationships, Structure, Work, Writers, Writing, tagged agents, Agents & Editors Conference, Austin, Carolyn Flynn, conferences, editors, red Ravine Guests, Texas, Writers, Writing on June 21, 2007 | 33 Comments »
By Carolyn Flynn
I keep telling my father to go away. But here he is in Austin, Texas, on the sign at the construction site one block from my hotel. FLYNN it says in all caps, Flynn Construction, and it’s red, white and blue like the logo for my father’s home building company. Just like it, [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Body, Dreams, Holding My Breath, Jugular, Life, Maps, Memoir, Nature, Personal, Photography, Place, Politics, Practice, Relationships, Topic Writing, Travel, Wake Up, Work, Writing, Writing Practices, tagged Boquillas Canyon, Death Valley, desert, Gila River, memories of water, Mimbres River, mimbresman, New Mexico, Pouder River, Puget Sound, red Ravine Guests, writing about water on June 15, 2007 | 12 Comments »
By mimbresman
Kayak Beach, photo © 2007 by mimbresman. All rights reserved.
Winter 1977/78 – Mimbres River, NM:
I wanted to explore the Cook’s Range with my Jeep CJ-5. I get to the lower Mimbres River which was flooding due to warm rain melting snow in the mountains. On the far bank of the river was a sign [...]
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Posted in Body, Bones, Culture, Family, Film / TV / Video, Growing Older, Holding My Breath, I Don't Remember, Jugular, Life, Memoir, On the Road, Personal, Place, Politics, Random, Secrets, Structure, Things That Fly, Wake Up, tagged ancestors, Bert the Turtle, bomb shelters, Conelrad, Duck & Cover, history, Politics, video on June 2, 2007 | 31 Comments »
-Duck & Cover, posted on YouTube by maesterjay, May 16th, 2006
In a quest for memoir details and memories, I spent the afternoon driving through Southern childhood neighborhoods with my mother and step-father. When we had finished walking through tall blooming magnolias in Georgia’s historic Magnolia Cemetery, we drove by my grandfather’s ranch home from the [...]
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Posted in Bones, Culture, Dreams, Family, Gratitude, Jugular, Life, Life In Letters, Love, Personal, Politics, Practice, Spirituality, Structure, Vision, Wake Up, Work, Writing, tagged Cindy Sheehan, Family, Iraq, letters, peace, Peace Walk, Politics, red Ravine Guests, spirit, Thich Nhat Hanh, war on May 31, 2007 | 60 Comments »
From Beth Howard
May 30, 2007
Dear Cindy,
Yesterday, I read in your on-line diary that you are leaving Crawford, Texas and going home to California. You wrote, “This is my resignation letter as the ‘face’ of the American anti-war movement.” There is so much energy in politics and government that is not peaceful. Much of our [...]
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Posted in Art, Authors, Body, Bones, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Dreams, Essay, Film / TV / Video, Jugular, Life, Love, Memoir, Money, Personal, Practice, Secrets, Spirituality, Topic Writing, Vision, Work, Writers, Writing, tagged Betty Crocker, detective stories, Emma Peel, Help Wanted, jobs, Lincoln, Miss America, red Ravine Guests, Sharon J. Anderson, writing about jobs on May 21, 2007 | 48 Comments »
By Sharon J. Anderson
Fantasy Jobs (in chronological order)
Miss America
Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”
Maria in “The Sound of Music”
Nancy Drew
Sherlock Holmes
Archeologist
Barbara Bain in “Mission: Impossible”
Stephanie Powers in “The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.”
Diana Rigg in “The Avengers”
Margaret Mitchell and/or Scarlett O’Hara
A keyboard player for Carole King, Judy Collins or Joni Mitchell
Ayn Rand
A gang member in “A Clockwork [...]
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Posted in Body, Culture, Film / TV / Video, Holding My Breath, Jugular, Random, Wake Up, tagged controversy about smoking, CSI Miami, No Smoking signs, quit smoking ideas, smoking bans on May 20, 2007 | 7 Comments »
-No Smoking Clock from QuitSmoking.com
At an art opening last night, I overheard a conversation by a woman who used to do research for a stop smoking campaign in Minnesota. County by county, people are electing to vote for legislature that bans smoking in public places.
This is no surprise. It’s going on all over the country, [...]
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Posted in Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Dreams, Growing Older, Jugular, Life, Love, Memoir, Politics, Quotes, Random, Reading, Relationships, Structure, Vision, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, tagged A Dialogue: James Balwin and Nikki Giovanni (1973), Authors, Books, James Baldwin, Love, Nikki Giovanni, truth, Writers, Writing on May 14, 2007 | 3 Comments »
I was going through an old writing notebook I filled in Taos last year, when I ran across some notes I had jotted down on Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin. It’s good to re-read writing practice notebooks. Sometimes there are helpful quotes, raw images, inspirational lines to be plucked from the pages of wild mind.
We read [...]
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Posted in Authors, Bones, Books, Culture, Family, Home, Jugular, Life, Memoir, Place, Practice, Writing Topics, tagged A Place To Stand, big place, Jimmy Santiago Baca, little place, the practice of writing, writing about place on May 9, 2007 | 5 Comments »
At the beginning of the year we read Jimmy Santiago Baca’s memoir, A Place To Stand. It’s the story of his growing up, his parent’s break-up while he was still young, living temporarily with his beloved grandpa, then an orphanage, eventually the D-home, and finally, years in a maximum-security prison. It’s also the story of his becoming a [...]
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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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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, 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 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 Death, Family, Jugular, Life, Personal, Practice, Random, Recall, Work, Writers on April 17, 2007 | 12 Comments »
All the way to the building this morning a voice in my head keeps step with my feet. I am not equipped, it says.
I am not equipped.
I am not equipped.
It is referring to my inability to deal with the Virginia Tech shootings. Nothing inside me to rationalize that act. Nothing inside to not let it [...]
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Posted in Culture, Essay, Jugular, Life, Love, Personal, Relationships, Secrets, Sex, Travel, Writing, tagged affairs, benefits of being a mistress, great sex, Laurie Lesser, married men, red Ravine Guests, single women, Til Death Do Us Part on April 16, 2007 | 11 Comments »
By Laurie Lesser
He turned to me as we approached the driveway of the cozy bed and breakfast just outside of Torrey, Utah, and said, “Oh, by the way, your name is Patty.”
“Huh?”
“When I was making the reservations the guy asked for my wife’s name, so I naturally said Patty.”
“Naturally.”
I had to remember to be Patty [...]
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Posted in Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Death, Family, Gratitude, Jugular, Life, Love, Obituaries & Epitaphs, Personal, Poetry, Reading, Relationships, Spirituality, Structure, Writers, Writing, tagged Authors, Death, Donald Hall, Galway Kinnell, How Could She Not, Jane Kenyon, Kurt Vonnegut, Life, Poetry, Reading, Strong Is Your Hold, Writers, Writing on April 13, 2007 | 10 Comments »
In the maelstrom of energy flooding paper, press, and print about the sudden death of Kurt Vonnegut, I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on about his life. At 3 a.m. last night, I was running around the Internet linking to articles, gobbling up details of Vonnegut’s death, birth, slow literary beginnings, and [...]
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Posted in Animals & Critters, Authors, Culture, Food, Holidays, Jugular, Money, Photography, Seasons, Spirituality, Writing on April 8, 2007 | 11 Comments »
-Kit Kat Bunny Ears, YUM!, photo by Sky Wire
Happy Day. I don’t want to do a long post on the meaning of Easter. But it would be a shame to let a controversial Holiday pass without at least commenting on the day.
Growing up, I was one of those stiff little girls headed to church wearing [...]
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