First time

you heard a phrase
When you hear it again
you recall that first time
you heard the phrase

Perspective

Yesterday, one of the apartment building looked as a bigger, whole pattern. Like the white with red roof buildings of Europe. Since then its a beautiful walk toward that side.

Ekphrasis

Rattle ekphrasis
"You don't just have to open the door; you have to rebuild the door" - Justin Dart

The door was never there
like you were never there
until the woods grew
and sustained life
that flew
that gnawed
that sawed
and built a door
to the woods
that vanished life
of the last feather
jaw
man.

Socrates insisted that we define our terms before using them - Michael R Burch

The rhymes and rhythms are my wet paint - John Whitworth


1. Define a term.

2. "Where the house is cold.." - The Examiners, John Whitworth. Reminded me of Tagore's poem Where the mind is without fear. What is your imaginary 'Where'?

3. Was Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle after Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?

Translate

All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids

Still Life Paintings

Joris Hoefnagel

The collection of life in these paintings in inspiring.

Botanical paintings

Measure for Measure

At Last the Women are moving

Effort at speech
Dusk July
Vermeer at the Frick
For Once, Then, something - those solitary moments
The reemergence of the noose
Lucid waking

Thanks to Measure for Measure, I found my favourite meter to be Sapphics, Alcaics, Hendecasyllabics, Lesser Ionics which I have never heard of before. I mostly enjoy free verse. I tried learning how to write formal poetry using "The ode Less travelled: Unlocking the Poet within" by Stephen Fry. As a creative writing exercise, it was great but now I realise that liking formal poetry is about knowing the meter style that appeals to your inner formalist.

List Articles

One advantage of coming up with list articles is that you can expand each of the point in the list into another article with its own list.
1. Look at Jeff Haden do the same with regret and time in Huge risks everyone needs take atleast once and 10 painless ways to free up big chunks of time.

How to title an article

1. Rhyme
Assault on salt

Theft of Memory

poetry prompt:

1. " If we couldn't free it, we'd have to cut the line and attach another lure and begin all over" - Jonathan Kozol.

In the lake of literature, are many lures that instead of catching the poems caught 'piece of wood'.

In 'The Theft of Memory: Losing My father. One Day at a Time', author Jonathan Kozol slices the 'journey' of his father's illness which led him to lose his capabilities, join a nursing home, continuously ask his son to take him home. The son takes him home after reassessment of financial condition. Throughout the book, the author walks us through how he went through the decision making process, giving us an insight into what options were available to him, what things did he think of, how did the other caregivers, doctors, his lawyer, mother help him take decisions by bringing up points that he didnt think about. Fitting tribute to a neurologist, this book delves a lot into the author's thought scape.
The blurb says that this book 'is not primarily about a doctor's public life' but it is also about how the doctor's doctor failed him and how in general geriatrics is not treated as well as pediatrics, because it does not have 'future productivity'.
The author went through his father's clinical cases through his notebooks and accounts how he solved many cases. consistent Dementia. I thought it was funny that a spouse should get competitive of her caregiver's attention when she has to share it. The writing is successful at creating an image of his ailing father, genius father.

The Ignorant Maestro

How Great Leaders Inspire Unpredictable Brilliance.
The wisdom of the ignorant schoolmaster

"An ignorant can teach another ignorant what he does not know himself" - Joesph Jacotot.

Jacques Ranciere

How unconferences unleash innovative ideas
 "The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides." - Artur Schnabel

On disadvantages of beaming, the author says that "Of stopping on the way for a short espresso, watching people go by, not thinking - at least not being aware of thinking - for a few moments? Give it up? and when on vacation, would you be happy to find your boss beaming up to you for just a short question?" (consistency of technology in a sci-fi)

In one meeting, the author asked the attendees to sing and dance and look at the participants. after a while, the audience didnt want to stop.

"Creativity in all forms of life, from arts to business to domestic situations, depends on our ability to recognize and explore gaps" - Itay Talgam.

Ensign Bickford recognized that they are in lifestyle business to embrace variety of innovations

anti-music

Sterling Silver Mom and Child Diamond Necklace

Sterling Silver Mom and Child Diamond Necklace has to be held in your hand to admire it. The necklace is 18" which makes it the perfect length to accentuate the pendant hanging to it. The pendant is a an asymmetrical heart, with the right auricle (now being called atrium) a little bigger than the left and the bottom on the left slightly curves. This skeleton has a natural flow which is covered with near colorless to faint yellow diamonds set in prong setting. To my untrained eye, the diamonds look colorless. But we will let the gemologist figure all that out. In the sunlight, the diamonds sparkle like they are supposed to. And in this safe haven of heart is an endearing mom holding child tiny sculpture set right above the bottom corner. Like Diamonds are forever and Diamonds are a girls best friend, this pendant is going to charm any mom not with just the two prongs of the reminder of her love for her child and the glitter of the diamonds but with all the diamonds set in the pendant.
A very good gift for Mothers Day.

The Seven Good years

Up in the air
Interview with Israeli author Etgar keret
Bulgakov
Converso
Goy
The Wire and Jimmy McNulty
requiem for a dream

I have never heard of Etgar Keret before. Its always refreshing to read books from other nations. 'The Seven Good Years' is a collection of flash stories with personal meandering about flight experience (where I began questioning if that fits in the memoir genre, where we want the writing to be about an experience more as a feeling than as a thought). Its a very quick read in the genre of 'I was told there'd be cake' by Sloane Crosley and work by Jane Borden. But there's another side to it, fostered by the author's uprooted past. He is a biblio nomad, who is doing book tours all around the world.
Every page of the book has some unexpected element in it. Right with the beginning interview by Miranda July (We think Alone project where some selected authors are to share an email on a selected topic), where his mom's independent childhood translated to non-over bearing upbringing, you never know whats going to happen next.
When by an error, he is double booked on a plane seat and ask to get off the plane by the flight crew. His reply is ".. If there arent enough seats on the plane, you can get off yourself. I'll serve the food to the passengers."
People either love or hate babies but the author for the purpose of the writing, sees his baby as 'a midget with a cable hanging from his belly button..' and as Chucky from Child's play.
Fictional Book signings for fiction.
War and peace. The local conditions are at unease to imagine peace and feel 'just like in the old days' if war starts.
Some stories have a pattern like the four fingered hand waving at Euro Disney which starts with a man losing his finger trying to reach for his watch that has fallen in a machine. The stories tie back to the beginning.
While looking up the author's works, I found that there is another side to his writing of thought experiments - "Kneller's Happy Campers" novel which inspired Wristcutter's story. In it, every dies by suicide. "Crazy Glue" where everything is glued.
Its hearty to know that finally he gets a house built in Poland, his real homeland.

Clay water brick

"Lawyers are trained to see barriers and help people avoid risk, while entrepreneurs  are trained to see possibilities and take smart risks" - Jessica Jackley


'Clay Water Brick: Finding inspiration from Entrepreneurs who do the most with the least' alternates with stories of microlending changing the lives of people, and the lessons author Jessica Jackley, founder of Kiva learns from those entrepreneurs. Those entrepreneurs who have almost nothing to their name but the drive to make brick out of clay and water, to help disabled by iterative design and so on.. shattering the idea of who is or who can be an entrepreneur.
The author understood that she had to 'use the right language .. also to tell stories to move people from a place of ignorance to a place of understanding. ' This is what the book does too, narrating stories to readers and make them see how the microfinancing changes the lives of people with small steps.
The stories make her 'redefine success not as destination but as away of operating and committing to a process of creation ..' From Li the tailor's wisdom of mending clothes from the inside and ripping the seams off and starting afresh for complex fixes, the author learns the lesson that 'understanding the fabric of your organization' is important for its success.
THe readers are also made aware of the legal impediments in crowdfunding. There have been articles if Kiva really has the person to person interaction between the lender and the entrepreneurs who take the loans. Where that debate may settle, the author shows that if you use your passion and stick to your mission, then a huge change is possible for anyone.

Do the Kind thing

bars that are under weight and we have to give those bars away for free as samples