An Odyssey in a slot canyon

A colleague had old me about this incident  a couple of years ago, when I imagined it that he was stuck at the mouth of a cave.

Recently a friend suggested that we should watch 

While watching Everest 82 and thence about survival - rescue stories, this movie came up and since then non stop I looked online about the movie. 

It doesnt have to be fun to be fun - Mark Twight
Warren Macdonald, still hiking after a boulder crushed his legs leading to amputation.
Tarahumara walk 50 miles with a mouthful of water


I Shouldnt Be Alive - Rescue stories.

Mothering twins

Author's site - babble

Olive loaf
Vanishing twin
A Prayer for Owen Meany

The author shares how clueless she was about having twins. she even jokes that she wants to know the children first and then give birth to them. She thinks parenting as a sea with a need to find her 'parenting legs'.
While feeding, rocking a single baby is quite a task for a mother. Twins is not only double diaper duty but there is the problem of making sure of bonding with both children equally.

Vulture restaurants
Tinder Mushroom

Exploding whale
Whale fall
zombie worms
Sphinx moths Vs hummingbird

Sugar here

I read Wild by Cheryl Strayed and was interested when this book came out. I read around a little and concluded that I didnt like the questions being asked. With the book in my hands, I see that the answers are not short. Long enough to essay. When should you proclaim love? When 'You think you love her' in Like an iron bell. Love is such a complex thing, as Johnny notes with all its 'promises and commitments'. Can love be divested of its citation from past?
The answers come with a title to. My favourite title so far Seeing someone in a new more fractured light. 

In Go! Go! Go!, the question itself makes it all clear of all those times when we hear of bands break up and feel bad, why they need to for their personal growth. In What Happened to Sophie Wilder, the characters set off a story on things they see, so they dont have to live that life if they can imagine it. In the same way, reading these questions we go down the lives of others without being them.

With There was no code, the author shares an anecdote and the universal ineptitude we feel in condoling others.
The truth isnt in the confession but in the lesson learned. Every truth contains a lie
What happened in the story and what is the story about. You dont get points for living.
Prestige also means conjurer;'s tricks (movie)

Bargaining with faith?

On Twitter, this book has been so talked about. I wanted to know what the deal was. Given, the prose is ground inside the book itself not referring to things outside. The book has chapters from the narrator Charles point of view and some by an omniscient. Charles character is passive like the narrator in Wuthering Heights. The search is for Sophie and the incidents are about her relationships. the narrator's relationship with her is another layer over her life. Disappointed in love but defined by Sophie.I wonder how the book have worked from Sophie's point of view.

I thought I will give the book 50 pages before finding no hook. I had the mystery of its fame. I liked to read about the intensity of the characters. It is in a way scary to find Sophie given to a faith in a non-negotiable way.

The issues in this movie reminded me of Minsara Kanavu movie.

NYT review
Another review

Ted talks on writing
A list

Parishioner in MBA class

Bob Massie
Factor VIII
Life in Paris. I cannot imagine living in a 400yr old apartment. A microwave from 30 yr old apartment seems like a compromise.

Yesterday I read about how France built discrimation in its cities. A reversal of situation.
The author relates how various incidents in his life have prepared him for the future. By running the first school paper, he saw how change can be brought only if both the authorities and the subjects are willing to call out the mistakes. Encountering people facing difficult nations, he learnt that crime doesnt need a political label.
Last grave at Dimbaza
Vladimir Bukovsky
When the author finds that Yale in 1974 wasnt built with access to all in mind, I looked up the Yale Disability services. Having worked at Disability services as a student, I didnt know that the facilities werent available all the time until Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
The book has a powerful voice when the author narrates his experiences as a parishioner. He builds the scene with his dilemmas of making people see the problem with how the church money is being handled by divesting the moral connection and its obligations having laid the responsibility of its welfare in a ruthless third party hand. Sound familar?
It was excitng to read the coverage of South Africa relations and Mandela release. It made me imagine how my country leaders would have felt fighting for freedom.

Crazy about books

Persistent reader

Avid book readers are people who are at some level dissatisfied with reality

By checking out books that hadnt been read in years, the author gave them shelf life.

With my hands on

I didnt want to go crazy reading another one on books

Travel collection

If there is one genre that does not make one guilty of reading it, its being in another place without all the expense.

Slowing down but not all the way to smell roses 

Blair Braverman perfume hunting in Namibia.

Taxi Gourmet asks a cabbie in a country to drive her to their favourite eatery.
Kirsten Koza
Take your big trip
Abbie kozolchyk
Laura Fraser

The health of poetry

A while ago, I tried to write towards “The Power of Poetry in the Modern World,” South Atlantic Review (SAMLA). For some reason I took the way of modern poetry. I hoped Norton's anthology would get me going. Then I thought the Coursera Modern poetry will lead me to something. A new look at it makes me think of writing(prose/poetry) and its role in the old and modern world.
Indiana review was looking for work for Dana Gioia issue. I came across his Can poetry matter? which points to two other essays Is Verse a dying technique? and  Who killed poetry?

Hothouse tomatoes

WD-40

One-legged squats. Wow never heard of that. Anna Quindlen who thinks is not the exercise type of person, sets out to tell herself a different story and do a headstand. By the time she learnt how to, she found extra change and a pair of earrings. On the other end in Farmers insurance ad, a cat and what not is found on the roof.

In Bartholomew and the Oobleck, 'Having never made Oobleck before, the magicians do not know what Oobleck does or even what Oobleck looks like.'

Such was the case when I made 'Spiced honey Biscuits' from A feast of Ice and Fire. havng never made biscuits, I did not know how it should look when done. The cookies in the picture make me wonder if I should have added more honey. I overbaked them when I found them gooey. It was fun mixing the cold butter into the flour. I didnt believe that it needs 1 tbsp baking powder. 

The Sneetches story reminded me of Dunya Mikhail's poem.

The tail of a mouse

Cast Iron Mouse Decorative Door Stop | Door Wedge | Unique, Antique Design (Rustic Blue)

Li Young Lee writes that 'The real subject (of poetry) is silence. Looking him up I found The Childrens Hour. HWL says there is such a thing as The Childrens hour and refers to Bishop of Bingen and Mouse Tower. The Bishop is claimed to have said 'Hear the mice squeak' referring to the cries of the hungry he locked in the barn and set fire to'.
In Baby mouse series mentioned in

Baby mouse asks her brother 'want to play squeak?'

The world will have its full harvest of poems - Jane Hirshfield.

Oryoki - Zen and Jane
Zen is not about belief. It’s more about what happens when belief is unfastened - Jane Hirshfield

Doubt and seeking - Rachel Corrie, Layla Al Attar.

Jean Valentine and silence. She quotes Emily Dickinson's The difference between despair
While Li young lee with his attachment to silence quotes EDs they worship an eclipse.
Burning bush

A writing as well as thought exercise - Filling in the gaps in myths.
If you have thought a flower could have more metaphors, try this an up-ended skirt.

In Alicia Ostriker's essay 'god the Mother' the last lines are a saying in Talmud: "It is not incumbent on you to finish the task. neither are you free to give it up". I am reminded of quote on karma from bhagavad gita.

With poetry, I feel I am in love. With prose, I feel I am in a marriage - Dunya Mikhail
So I discover poetry is am amoeba

When I wrote the blessing, I began, as any memoirist must, to move from anecdote to an unfolding narrative in time. - Gregory Orr in 'The Given' essay.

Open your mouth. ha ha ha
Food and packaging

All things metaphor

Have you seen Fountain Hills, fountain? A friend's dad compared the canvas of the foam caused by the fountain, wind to a boat. Its the sail that triggered this comparision. Do you look at our impulse to run and compare what we see with what we already know.
Treasure trove of metaphor articles
Recently I meant to read an article about metaphor and poetry. Have to find that.
In December an essay on Modern poetry is due.

Walking the amazon

Writing

Roll a boulder up a hill everyday
First of all, being creative is not summoning stuff ex nihilo. It's work, plain and simple -- adding something to some other thing or transforming something.

Repetition

In both  Sea rose and Sea poppies, HD uses drift, flung and  sea repeat.
In lines and Between walls, William Carlos Williams repeats broken pieces of green glass.

In an interview Kay Rya talks about repetition.

In Rose Pogonias, Frost talks of the colored flowers as 'wings of color' and HD calls her sea poppy a 'flame on leaf'.

In ModPo course the Sea rose and Sea poppies were seen as templates of modern imagist poetry. But as Tim Kendall says it could be just about their favourite flowrs.

The book makes me think that this is the first I am reading on Frost, which it is not.

Polysyndeton

Reading

The secret lives of Bookmarks. Yes, where are they hiding? I know one is stuck in the office cubicle between the barrier and table. Difficult to retrieve. When you are a reader, bookmarks are a gift you are sure to get. Their whereabouts after that? A GPS on it could help.
Reading and eating

Wars and Armours

A modern uncle made his
nephew dress as terrorist
Admiral Yi dressed his
nephew in his own armour
to see through to victory

How long does it take to forget a word?

Atmost 15 years of disuse.

I forgot the mole from chemistry class. The first mole we learn is of the identification marks to be filled in the application forms for any school. Then you meet the word in the chemistry class. Then in the culinary world. Then in the 24 TV show.

What is magic?

Magic carpet
Abracadabra
Something that performs something unobviously.

Staying poet in the busy world

A super poem
that goes against
the grain

part of which
eludes the
reader its meant
for

The four states of matter

The reflection of a metal trellis and citrus leaves
from the lights of tennis courts onto the path
like a metallic shiny paper, starburst.

parents skate baby in stroller
man walks guitar upside down

Broken glass
Empty parking

Zangbeto*



Title and * from A world of curiosities

Blood on the wheel - A poem that stops you in your tracks

A dissolvable poem

A dissolvable poem
like an absorbable
s
  t
    i
      t
       c
        h
that joins the tear
and breaks down
after the mission
is accomplished

that mixes in the water and froths up
b
        u
   b
               b
                       l
e
         s


that poolslikeoil

that soften downs
the colour of the sand

that buzzes like a
mosquito

Can this poem self destruct?

Full circle poetry

Bolivia has the most Bowler hats - A World of Curiosities, John Oldale

While bakers have their Morning glory muffins
Australians have their Morning Glory clouds
Emily D infers Autumn from Millinery of the clouds
We are a sad people without hats
We are sadder without clouds

What should the American Writers Museum include?

What should the American Writers Museum include?

How the writer got started.
first rejection letter
first publication
The books they liked to read
favorite places to write
Their ardent readers
Their unfinished titles

poetry comics

Bianca stone. Joe Brainard has a hand in poetry comics too.

Writing your own journal while reading another

Life experiences in third person distance the reader from the author. But it also facilitates the imagination of the reader to direct inward and think of his/her own experiences. Pedantic way of listing all the addresses he's ever stayed at makes the reader recall their addresses and incidents there of. Somehow you get the sense of cherishment of the nostalgic self, while if I were in the author's place, I would send away chunks of me that dont fit in little boats. Which brings us to the question of the person we want to be in selection and/or entirety.

ModPo class essay

I taste a liquor never brewed

‘A liquor never brewed’ refers to the instantaneous, nectar made by flowers which is not fermented or boiled. It is present naturally. This liquor is better than what is available by the Rhine.

‘Inebriate of Air’ – drawn to the fragrance of the flowers

‘Debauchee of Dew’ -  addicted to dew formed on the flowers overnight

Endless summer days – length of the day, and continuous ritual

When landlords – The caretakers, mothers?

When butterflies renounce drams – does this refer to the time the butterflies stop drinking – night.

Foxglove’s door – wiki says that there is a myth that fairies live in foxgloves. So when Dickinson next talks of till ‘Seraphs swing their snowy hats’, is this vision a result of hallucination caused by foxgloves. Could it also refer to the passage of time from summer to snow.

To see the little tippler lean against the sun – drink until morning.

The poem has the traditional bee: flower :: man: woman metaphor going on but while listening to Al about sonnet’s main use of proclaiming love and dead metaphor of love, even though it is against the grain of modernism to employ the silly bee, flower symbols, I believe the ‘alcohol’ refers to love. Love is potent in that once you taste it, you are addicted to it like the victims of ‘La Belle dame sans Merci’. No body or no time is going to restrain the narrator’s being in love which she expects to exalt her. She will continue to love day in and day out.

Like in the ‘I dwell in the house of Possibility’, the metaphor of lover seeking love/nectar in the form of bees, butterflies is repetitive if they are to mean the same. The narrator must be referring to some difference in the nature of bees and butterflies.

poetry today

There's always a debate about what can be subject matter of poetry. When its simple things like Humidifier, beauty emerges. In India, mom opens the nasal passages of baby with Vicks VapoRub and warm touch.

Why the clouds make you stop and look? Its the biggest painting one can see.

There is only one way to read this book. Slow and steady.

The author is a child from the 70s.

"She(mom) told us that our gifts helped us to understand our purpose."

The narrator of each poem is different.
places where God hasnt been.

Stories evolving from stories

In bones contest, pop and fly happened to be words to be used in the writing. In this book, I came across 'pop fly'. A baseball fan could make sense of it. A day or two ago, I watched kids play baseball at a local park. There were atleast 4 games going on in different fields.

When Nicholas found a folded letter addressed to his dad, he opened the letter and read it. Sailing, making a movie didn't fit with a dad who went to Africa as a doctor to help people. There must be another man with the same name as his father.
That's the logical conclusion he reaches. Later he comes upon the movie his father made. The Seaweed strangler. Was that for real?
Once he finds a friend in the town where his summer is to be spent in a house without a TV, the lake, its secrets send them in questions spirals. As they search and find things, there's more ground to be covered.
Like the crime investigation shows, theres replay of incidents from 2 decades ago. Something happened many summers ago, here where his father spent his summer with Uncle Nick. His father has been pointed as the miscreant. Nicholas has to clear his father's name.
All this while learning how to bike, sailing and finishing up what his dad left incomplete - a boat and a movie.
The end is a well thought litany of surprises for Nicholas's father. the second half gets very creative with the main crew acting their own version of the mini legend.
The twin sisters and their Broadway antics, British accents add much wanted comic relief to the suspense of finding out what happened so long ago.
The book seemed slightly long if targeted at preteens. The sailing jargon pulls the reader into the world of sailing.

A teenage life

The narrator calls a lady as stick insect. Today at Safeway I found a stick insect in their bug collection. The book reminded me a lot about 'The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime'. Especially the train.
Winalot.

Adrian seemed to complain a lot.

The dentures on the cover are that of an elderly person that Adrian takes care of. The book is certainly funny. For all the things that happen, he has an active life. He might not concede so.
Sometimes he shows his ignorance (confusing philanthrophy with philately) and innocence (making sense of what adults talk to each other)
I wonder what frog writer means?

Author: Joy Harjo

Her caricature on her website is reminiscent of Oscar Wilde's Salome.

In Why we read memoirs by musicians, the writer says its for the the devil that shows up at the beginning and sticks around.

The author's mother did Jitterbug with her as a child.

A little girl played with bees as characters in her stories until a neighbour stopped her by saying "You'll be stung!"

"I believe that if you do not answer the noise and urgency of your gifts, they will turn on you. Or drag you down with their immense sadness at being abandoned." - Joy Harjo

A poetry course

I am taking Modern poetry course offered by Coursera.
In Emily Dickinson's poem I dwell in possibility, when my head prompted the answer to 'a house fairer than prose' it was like a love connection with poetry. Another poet started his poem with I dwell ...
In her Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant poem, I actually wrote down the poem and tried to analyse the poem as the instructor did, word by word. I then got the part about parents explaining about the lightning with facts. I wouldnt have if I didnt know that in US parents use the 1001, 1002.. count to arm the child with science and dispel their fear.
9 contemporary poets read themselves through modernism.

When I told my friend, I am taking this course and reading ED. He asked me if it has symbolism. I didnt know the answer. Much less about anti-symbolism writing. That Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose is against symbolism. Contrastingly, for criticJohn Leonard, a symbol means itself and must be understood for itself.

Parataxis, makes me realise my poetry aesthetic.

Modern sleuth for ancient history

Author: Deron R Hicks

In the beginning come Monks and cathedrals and then kids pushing ipod buds into their ears. If you are relieved with this transition, you will also like the dapper way in which a tween saves her family business. That is not the only feather in her cap. She's almost certain to delve further into the deep mystery of the family treasure.
The book being a mystery about Shakespeare, even the character's name 'Colophon' is from a term in the publishing industry. Colophon is a brave girl with a desire to help her father save the family business. She suspects foul play. Her adventure as well as mystery solving spans continents. She ropes in her brother too to keep an eye on her father to save him from mischief from the `villains' in the family. Family is the cornerstone idea in the book. Sustaining the family business over centuries as a matter of pride rather than obligation.
Following the trail of clues in the family portrait with Internet search for finding clues, the characters search for clues in centuries old past.
The author explains terms like nave, transept, chancel.With interesting inclusions like that of tellurion, children will be pushed to use a dictionary, encyclopedia or a web search to be with the times.

Older than a what

One morning, Billy Collins found himself older than Cheerios.
The cheerios that I don't like for their texture, while in any other experience, I would appreciate texture.
The cheerios which will serve well as finger food for my daughter but that will leave the remains of the day grainy.
What would hate to be older than and love to be older than?

When things don't work its not all broken

It is a writer's heaven to have access to sites other than Google. But to reach that fine conclusion, you have to go through the hump of frustration. I am reading Portable MFA Creative Writing. In the 'Personal essay' section, there are references to many essays, alas I cannot get to them. Wit the constraining of Google, at least I will go ahead with the book for which I am $1.50 overdue. Usually my library is good at fore-warnings, but I wonder why it didn't tell me this time that it is due on Sept 2?

Science behind the beauty

In elementary school we had a question about the difference between a Creeper and a Climber. It wasnt apparent then but now just from the words, I feel it must be the directions they take. I am about to learn the science behind the Tendril.

The form of a tendril
an organic spring, twirlie
curls
DNA helix and the scientists
also call it coils
always seen fully formed
How long does it take?

Unwinding the cucumber tendril mystery

As kids we are awed by beauty. After growing up, finding the science behind is the beauty of it.

Exercise : Pick words in the dictionary to find all things beautiful and find their history and science and see if there is a poem in it.

A soft boiled egg can hold finger prints on it.