Posted in Culture, Haiku, Money, On the Road, Photography, Place, Politics, Practice, Travel, Wake Up, tagged New Mexico culture, northern New Mexico, price of gas, the practice of haiku on May 1, 2008 | 14 Comments »
Pray for Gas, religious statues inside the stone pillar for the gas price sign at a gas station in northern NM, photos © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
stop the wind, please stop
war, drought, hunger, judgment
drop the price of gas
nuestra señora
santo niño atocha
break us free from oil
exxon, conoco
profit from the rest of us
prisoners of war
4-plus [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Art, Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Growing Older, Money, Music, Photography, Politics, Reading, Writers, Writing, tagged 1970's Bestsellers, 1970's history, American bestsellers, goddess of poetry, goddess of wisdom, how literature enriches life, Jakob H. F. Fjelde, literature, Minerva, Minneapolis Central Library, the 1970's on April 24, 2008 | 22 Comments »
Minerva, 1889 - 1890, Roman goddess of poetry, music, wisdom, and warriors (Greek, Athena), bronze sculpture by Norwegian American artist, Jakob H. F. Fjelde, downtown Minneapolis Central Library, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
The first black hole was discovered in the same decade that Star Wars was released (and not by Columbo, [...]
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Posted in Money, Personal, Vision, Work, tagged business, compensation, executive recruiting, headhunters, labor mobility, relocation, work life balance on November 8, 2007 | 22 Comments »
Yesterday after work, as I’m shopping for lunch fixings at Smith’s, I get a call on my cell phone from a headhunter. He says, “Hi, my name is Joe So-and-so and I’m an executive recruiter with XYZ in San Francisco.”
I know why he’s calling. I have my profile in one of those professional networking sites, not [...]
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Posted in Animals & Critters, Authors, Body, Family, Life, Love, Money, Personal, Practice, Recovery, Secrets, Topic Writing, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, Writing Practices, tagged Animals & Critters, Ann Patchett, cats, Practice, Truth & Beauty, Writers, Writing, writing practice on October 9, 2007 | 17 Comments »
Sleep, the Temptress and the tempted. She doesn’t come easily for me these days. There were times when sleep was a blessing, refuge of the depressed. Then there are dreams. I don’t always remember them. But lately, they’ve been restless and disturbed. The things in which I’ve put my trust are rocky and double-edged.
Last night, [...]
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Posted in Art, Culture, Doodling, Film / TV / Video, Laughing, Money, Music, Spirituality, tagged Chicano culture, Chicano identity, humor, Merv Griffin, What If So-and-So Were Chicano series on September 14, 2007 | 15 Comments »
Merv García, pen and ink and pencil on graph paper, doodle © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Merv Griffin: OK, my little pajaritos, do we have any requests?
Someone in audience: Y volver, volver, volver…
Someone else in audience: …a mis brazos otra vez…
MG: Coños, babies, come on, I’m not Al Hurricane…let me play you una cancioncita about my [...]
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Posted in Bones, Culture, Death, Dreams, Film / TV / Video, Money, Practice, Seasons, Work, Writing Topics on September 8, 2007 | 27 Comments »
On Thursday, September 6, the City of Santa Fe, NM, hosted the annual “Burning of Zozobra.” Zozobra is a fifty-foot-tall bogeyman, Old Man Gloom in effigy. Each year he is set before an audience of thousands and burned. (Burn, baby, burn!) Most onlookers are ecstatic to see him go; others feel sorry for him in the [...]
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Posted in Art, Authors, Bones, Books, Death, Dreams, Gratitude, Growing Older, Life In Letters, Love, Money, Obituaries & Epitaphs, Personal, Place, Politics, Random, Reading, Relationships, Structure, Vision, Wake Up, Writers, Writing, tagged Charlie Orr, closing Independent bookstores, history of Orr Books, independent bookstores, Natalie Goldberg, Orr Books, support Independent bookstores, Ted Kooser, Twin Cities Independent bookstores on September 7, 2007 | 37 Comments »
Ranked by local Twin Citians as 15th on a list of top independent bookstores in Minneapolis, Orr Books was one of my favorite independents. For almost 40 years, the tiny, quiet store resided in the largely urban Uptown section of Lake Street. The parking was terrible, but the staff was knowledgeable and friendly. And I could [...]
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Southwest Guy: Oyé, ven aquí por tu regalo gratís…
Traveler: ¿Qué cosa gratís?
Southwest Guy: Es un t-shirt *muy* bonita…que te doy después de que you fill out esté application de tarjeta crédito…
Traveler: ¡No quiero un feo t-shirt de Southwest, hombre!
Southwest Guy: Espera, hombre, you can die it black, man, and wear it camping!
-Related to post What [...]
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Michaels was having a sale on custom framing this weekend. Half off the regular price. I took four odd-sized paintings I got in Shanghai a couple of years ago. They’d been rolled up in a paper tube ever since I bought them.
Paul with a goatee let me go behind the frame shop counter and pull my [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Animals & Critters, Art, Culture, Family, Film / TV / Video, Food, Laughing, Money, Personal, Photography, Place, tagged Fair booty, Fair food, food on-a-stick, Food On-A-Stick videos, Minnesota history, Minnesota State Fair, summer on September 1, 2007 | 18 Comments »
Foods On A Stick At The Minnesota State Fair 2006, YouTube Video by TKordonowy.
Whoa! After 8 hours at the Minnesota State Fair, Liz and I made it home at 10:30p.m. last night, not much worse for wear. Unless you count the fact that we could hardly walk and had giant food hangovers!
Here are our MN [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Art, Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Growing Older, I Don't Remember, Memoir, Money, Photography, Politics, Random, Reading, Spirituality, Writers, Writing, tagged 1960's bestsellers, 1960's history, American bestsellers, American history, how literature enriches life, literature, Minneapolis Central Library, the 1960's on August 30, 2007 | 29 Comments »
BookMark, Minneapolis Central Library, downtown Minneapolis, through the rain, August 2007, opened May 2006, architecture by the design team of Cesar Pelli & Associates, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Time for another decade of bestselling books. At the end of the 1960’s, gas was 39¢ a gallon, a 1962 Jaguar XKE would set [...]
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Posted in Art, Body, Culture, Dreams, Film / TV / Video, Gratitude, Growing Older, Memoir, Money, Photography, Practice, Relationships, Spirituality, Vision, Writers, Writing, tagged Charis Wilson, Edward Weston, Eloquent Nude, film, Ian McCluskey, Julie Gliniany, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Riverview Theater on August 22, 2007 | 14 Comments »
Riverview Theater, vintage 1948 sign, designed by Liebenberg and Kaplan, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved
A good friend called me last Sunday completely revved up about a film she had seen at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis. The last showings were scheduled for Sunday at noon and 5:30p.m. and [...]
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Posted in Body, Bones, Culture, Death, Family, Gratitude, Holding My Breath, Home, Life, Money, Personal, Photography, Place, Practice, Writing on August 20, 2007 | 10 Comments »
Memorial, By Night, Gold Medal Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 5th, 2007, shot through the grove of trees at center circle, facing the I-35 Bridge, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
I heard on the 9p.m. news that they found the final and 13th person from the I-35 Bridge collapse. The final person as far [...]
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Posted in Art, Books, Culture, Everyday Art, Money, Photography, Practice, Vehicles, Wake Up, Work, Writing on July 21, 2007 | 8 Comments »
Mercedes Trees, near Lake Calhoun, South Minneapolis, Minnesota, July 20, 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
A few days ago, we did a post on Everyday Art. A lot’s happened since then. I added the tag to my Flickr account and ybonesy set up a Flickr account with her drawings and photographs. She [...]
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Posted in Art, Bones, Culture, Dreams, Life, Money, Personal, Spirituality, Structure, Topic Writing, Vision, Work, Writers, blogroll, tagged balancing work and art, becoming an artist, not being tossed away, the artist's life, the writer's life on July 12, 2007 | 7 Comments »
Today is the 12th of July, one of those days smack in the middle of summer where all I can think about is how much I’d rather be doing anything other than working in an office for a living. I’m supposed to be writing about an object from Frederic Remington’s studio, but the place is [...]
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Posted in Art, Authors, Books, Culture, Family, Haiku, Life, Love, Memoir, Money, Nature, On the Road, Poetry, Politics, Random, Relationships, Structure, Writers, Writing, tagged Chicano authors, Chicano identity, Chicano poetry, Ghost Ranch, L. Luis Lopez, Musings of a Barrio Sack Boy, New Mexico, New Mexico culture, poems about fathers, poems about mental illness on July 10, 2007 | 12 Comments »
I first heard L. Luis López read his poetry a year ago at the Ghost Ranch “Coffee House.” Coffee House is an open-mic event held Thursday nights to highlight the diverse talents of that week’s participants. I remember Luis standing at the front of the large hall where Coffee House is held, clearing his throat before reading. The room got quiet, [...]
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Posted in Authors, Family, Gratitude, Great Places To Write, Holidays, Money, Nature, On the Road, Personal, Photography, Place, Spirituality, blogroll, tagged family vacations, Ghost Ranch, Kitchen Mesa, New Mexico, photos of Ghost Ranch on July 5, 2007 | 20 Comments »
This is the second year in a row (which I suppose is long enough to call a tradition) that my daughters and I are spending a week at Ghost Ranch. I lived 44 years in New Mexico before ever laying eyes on Kitchen Mesa. I don’t know what took me so long to get here, [...]
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It’s a low, slow, pre-holiday. I was feeling uninspired until Liz came home and threw the summer print edition of Rain Taxi on the living room table. I quickly ran my eyes down the list of authors and found a review of Brooke Davis Anderson’s book, MARTÍN RAMÍREZ.
Anderson is curator of “Martín Ramírez,” a retrospective that [...]
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Posted in Authors, Bones, Culture, Doodling, Family, Gratitude, Money, Nature, Poetry, Practice, Random, Reading, Structure, Writers, tagged It Is Born, Nace, Pablo Neruda, Taos Solar Music Festival on July 2, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Jim went to the Taos Solar Music Festival for the weekend; I stayed behind with the girls. I needed to get us ready for a week-long trip of our own. Besides, I enjoy time with them alone. We ate soupy spaghetti for dinner, and they slept with me. I woke up throughout the night, although nothing [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Art, Culture, Money, Photography, Politics, Structure, Writers, Writing, Writing Topics, tagged Art, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Frederic Remington, painters, Theodore Roosevelt, Writers, Writing Topics, Wyoming on July 1, 2007 | 5 Comments »
-Remington’s Studio, Cody, Wyoming, May 2007, photo © 2007 by skywire. All rights reserved.
The photograph is of the 1890’s studio of the artist, sculptor, painter, and writer, Frederic Remington. You can get a sense of how he liked to create while surrounding himself with found objects, paints, artifacts, and sculpture. Though based in New York, his [...]
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Posted in Authors, Bones, Culture, Holding My Breath, Life, Maps, Money, Nature, Personal, Place, Poetry, Practice, Relationships, Seasons, Silence, Spirituality, Structure, Travel, Vision, Wake Up, Work on June 30, 2007 | 3 Comments »
It’s the end of June. ybonesy and I will be traveling over the next two weeks. Different times and separate destinations. Expect slight delays, possible blasts of summer rain, seeds of a sunset poppy, the beat of a gyrfalcon.
Tonight I feel like poetry. Away from home, there is ground in the simple. A blinding light [...]
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Posted in Art, Books, Culture, Death, Doodling, Dreams, Love, Money, Place, Spirituality, Topic Writing on June 23, 2007 | 11 Comments »
-Reflection of La Llorona, ink and watercolor © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
-From Topic post, Water Wings.
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Posted in Authors, Bones, Books, Culture, Death, Food, Gratitude, Life, Love, Money, Nature, Poetry, Politics, Quotes, Random, Silence, Structure, Writers on June 12, 2007 | 8 Comments »
This Wednesday is our dramatic reading of Pablo Neruda poetry. All day I walk around the house reciting the poems, stumbling over words in Spanish. I have to say them over and over, first to learn to enunciate each word, then to hear the rhythm of the words together, finally to understand their meaning.
Our performance [...]
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Posted in Authors, Bones, Culture, Death, Dreams, Money, Nature, Poetry, Structure, Wake Up on June 11, 2007 | 8 Comments »
Solo La Muerte
Hay cementerios solos,
tumbas llenas de huesos sin sonido,
el corazón pasando un túnel
oscuro, oscuro, oscuro,
como un naufragio hacia adentro nos morimos,
como ahogarnos en el corazón,
como irnos cayendo desde la piel al alma.
Hay cadáveres,
hay pies de pegajosa losa fría,
hay la muerte en los huesos,
como un sonido puro,
como un ladrido sin perro,
saliendo de ciertas campanas, de [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Bones, Books, Culture, Doodling, Dreams, Family, Gratitude, Growing Older, Holding My Breath, Home, Laughing, Life, Love, Money, Personal, Place, Practice, Secrets, Topic Writing, Wake Up, blogroll on June 8, 2007 | 16 Comments »
-Holding My Breath, watercolor and ink painting, © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Holding my breath when I drive by a cemetery, else spirits of the dead will invade my lungs. (Present. Given to me by my husband. Something he did as a child. Now it belongs to our family.)
Checking all the locks on doors [...]
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Posted in Animals & Critters, Art, Culture, Dreams, Family, Fiction, Laughing, Money, Random, Spirituality, Vision on June 5, 2007 | 12 Comments »
Check out the mummified Chupacabra by Taxidermy artist Serina Brewer.
-Related to post Because Goat-Sucking Creatures Do Exist.
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Posted in Animals & Critters, Culture, Doodling, Family, Laughing, Life, Money, Personal, Practice, Random, Things That Fly, Word Of The Day on June 4, 2007 | 8 Comments »
-Word of the Day is Flamingo, doodle © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Riding in the car yesterday, me, Em, my best friend. My friend says, “The flamingo festival starts this weekend.”
“FLA-MEN-CO,” Em corrects from the back seat. My friend and I look at each other, burst out laughing.
“Whaaaat? Nanny always says it that way [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Body, Bones, Culture, Death, Family, Gratitude, Growing Older, Home, I Don't Remember, Life, Love, Maps, Memoir, Money, On the Road, Personal, Photography, Place, Politics, Practice, Relationships, Travel, Work, Writers, Writing, tagged ancestors, Augusta, Broad Street, Clarks Hill Dam, daughters, Georgia, history, King George the Third, Magnolia Cemetery, magnolias, mothers, researching memoir, the things I carry on June 4, 2007 | 19 Comments »
-Magnolia, June 3rd, 2007, Augusta, Georgia, all photos © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
The magnolias are blooming in Georgia. And the mimosas, wisteria, Spanish moss. I don’t have to dig all that deep. Everything falls into place the minute I ask. My body is tired; I am holding all this in my brain. The [...]
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Posted in Authors, Culture, Family, Money, Personal, Politics, Practice, Spirituality, Writing, Writing Topics, blogroll on June 1, 2007 | 13 Comments »
-Santisima Virgen Maria con Angeles, photograph of retablo by Ecuadoran santero and folk artist Claudio Jiminez, © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
We did a brainstorm on topics for red Ravine in this post and this one and one of our readers (thanks, mimbresman!) proposed we write about rituals. Rituals, like the way he always touches [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Culture, Dreams, Family, Love, Money, Nature, Politics, Practice, Random, Structure, Topic Writing, Travel, Vision, Wake Up, Work, Writing, Writing Topics on May 30, 2007 | 29 Comments »
Today the holder of a $62.8 million Powerball ticket stepped forward. The ticket was plucked (or at least that’s how I picture it - plucked, from a glass bowl) days ago. It took until today for the winner to come forward. Turns out he’s an auto mechanic from a small town in northern New Mexico. You [...]
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Posted in Bones, Books, Culture, Death, Family, Gratitude, Growing Older, Haiku, Holidays, Life, Love, Money, Music, Personal, Place, Practice, Relationships, blogroll on May 27, 2007 | 5 Comments »
I am sitting on a burgundy leather couch in the Satellite coffee shop. I used to come here and write with a small group of people, we did Bones-style writing, and I remember how much the music bothered me. Today, now, it’s a bluesy piece with an organ played low and a woman’s smoky voice. Lounge [...]
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Posted in Authors, Culture, Dreams, Family, Haiku, Home, Laughing, Life, Money, Personal, Practice, Relationships, Spirituality, blogroll on May 25, 2007 | 13 Comments »
We moved into the new house yesterday. I’ve been unloading all my saints and folk art. I’m not sure where to put everything, so I’m sticking things wherever I find a decent spot for them, just to get them out of the way.
I put one of my carved wood statues from Guatemala in a perfect-sized [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Body, Culture, Dreams, Growing Older, I Don't Remember, Life, Memoir, Money, Personal, Place, Topic Writing, Work, tagged dental tool sharpener, jobs that haunt me, list of jobs I've had, pumping diesel for semi's on May 24, 2007 | 7 Comments »
-micrometer, image public domain
Jobs I’ve had over my entire life, in no particular order? It was hard to remember them all. And it seemed like there were so many more.
Isn’t it strange that we spend most of our lives working jobs in which we wonder what we’re doing there? I’ve always been envious of those [...]
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Posted in Body, Bones, Family, Home, Life, Love, Money, Personal, Place, Practice, Secrets, Topic Writing, Work, Writers, Writing Practices, blogroll on May 23, 2007 | No Comments »
So much to not love, the taking care of kids, for one. Yes, I have kids now. Yes, I love them, I love them so much that I really understand for once those corny words to the Tina Turner song, Love Hurts. But man, it’s hard taking care of kids. I want to be alone, [...]
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Posted in Life, Love, Money, Personal, Practice, Secrets, Topic Writing, Work, Writers, Writing Practices, blogroll on May 23, 2007 | 4 Comments »
I didn’t love babysitting. I dreaded it each time Mrs. H. called or Mrs. B, especially Mrs. B. Her kids were brats. I was a kid myself, I wanted to be a brat. I needed the money.
There were sunflower seeds and watermelon sticks to buy at Circle K on a hot middle-of-the-summer day. And earrings, [...]
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