Author: still a dreamer

Work as Love

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treeforestWork is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

Kahlil Gibran “On Work” from The Prophet

After working intensely on one of my major jobs and getting it off to press, then shortly afterwards actually allowing myself a Labor Day weekend respite from the computer to attend to other creative projects – and relaxation – I find I am back. I  have work to do, (for which I am grateful), but am desirous of more time to just muddle about. So I searched out a quote, which might inspire me to get back in the mood of working … work is love made visible.

It’s a start, anyway …

Winged Migration – A Spectacular Visual Treat

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WingedMigration-flamingosThis movie, released in 2003, is one of the most spectacular I have seen. There is almost no narration, there are occasional notes on the bottom of the screen indicating the type of bird and the location and distance it flies during migration, and the most incredible music created just for the film. Not to mention breathtaking landscapes from one end of the world to the other. What is even more extraordinary, is how the birds were filmed – the view is most often from the bird’s perspective. For bird/wild bird lovers or just nature lovers, this is one to see. Available on Netflix.

Be sure to see the Special Features and you’ll be amazed at the 4 year chronicle it took to make this film and how the birds were filmed this way. I smiled in wonder all through the movie and again just watching the trailer. For a sneak peek, check out the trailer.

The Character Who Never Grew

/ still a dreamer

TradingUp-C.BushnellIt was my idea that when you read a novel, you should feel something for the character, identify with her in some way, and as you go through the course of the book, cheer her on through adversity, feeing her pain, and then rejoice in her overcoming challenges. But what if the character just never grows?

What if the character is defined at the get-go as a self-centered, manipulating, feckless social climber who proceeds to orchestrate one scenario after another, using whoever serves her purpose at the moment to get what she wants? What if, despite her repeated falls from societal grace, her redemption is always through luck, the guilt or kindness or another, kinder character, or her own delusions?  I know – why did I read this book?

I purchased Trading Up at the library’s annual sale because it was written by Candace Bushnell, author of Sex and the City. I was hoping for some of the fun and good spirited friendships of the TV series.  I was wrong.  Amazingly, Janey Wilcox, the main character, works her way through this entire novel without managing to elicit any sympathy. And even though, about 3/4 of the way through the book, we learn about why Janey may have developed this penchant for using others and sleeping with any man she thought could further her goals, it didn’t make you care about her one iota more. Even at the very end, her breathlessly described new and bright-with-possibilities future in Hollywood is merely the result of chance coupled with Janey’s own delusional idea that she deserves what she wants — just because.

I kept reading — always the optimist — certain that there was a moment of truth coming – that something would happen in Janey’s life and she would hark back to the more innocent soul she once was and become more feeling, if nothing else. Never happens. So while Trading Up does provide an interesting spotlight on the lives of the very rich and famous in NY and the Hamptons, I’m otherwise left empty in the face of a character who, throughout an entire novel, never evolves. So very odd.

It also gives me a lot of respect for Darren Star who created and executive produced the TV series Sex and the City from Bushnell’s series of essays. He  created friendships that were real and characters who grew over the seasons, and he enticed viewers who, despite learning odd things like the value of Manolo Blahnik shoes, grew along with them. That was the book I’d been hoping to read.

Honored to Receive the Honest Scrap Award

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honestscrapawardI recently found I was chosen for an award by a fellow blogger, The Battered Trunk.

I readily found what I, as a new recipient, needed to do, but was unsure exactly what the award was about. A little online delving, and I found the following definition of the Honest Scrap Award on Buddhist Minister Rev. Danny Fisher’s, site. He says the following:

This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant. This award is about bloggers who post from their heart, who oftentimes put their heart on display as they write from the depths of their soul.

Wow! A special thanks for the award, then, Marstead!

And the instructions for the award are as follows –

THE HONEST SCRAP AWARD:

1. The Honest Scrap award must be shared!
2. First, the recipient must reveal 10 true things about themselves in their blog that no one else knows.
3. Second, the recipient must pass along this prestigious award to 10 more bloggers.
4. Third, those 10 bloggers must be notified they have been given this award.
5. Those 10 bloggers should link back to the blog that awarded them the Honest Scrap award.

OK – first the 10 things –

1. I was pretty much sewing all my own clothes starting at the age of 11.
2. In high school, I was accepted to all the top NYC/Phila Fashion Design Schools until I had that duh! moment and realized that I would be snuffed out like a bug under a stiletto heel. What was I thinking?! And I went back and re-applied to art school. Whew! That was close!
3. I don’t think there’s a creature on the planet that I wouldn’t find fascinating given the proper introduction (or distance, depending on the animal) I’m remembering an all-too-close encounter with a baldface hornet a few years ago.)
4. I miss the ocean.
5. I thought Howdy-Doody was an incredible waste of time and never ‘got’ the Three Stooges.
6. Notwithstanding the health implications, I could happily live on homemade bread and sweets, the best array of cheeses, and really good coffee.
7. I easily embarrass myself doing mental math in front of people (thank you nuns with flash cards starting in first grade.)
8. I always believed in angels.
9. After seeing the movie On the Beach as a child, I really believed the world could end. Like then.
10.I remember the flute passage in Seven Beauties playing in the courtroom while the proceedings went without sound being one of the most lovely pieces ever, but am not sure I could watch the movie again right now to listen to it.

OK – the blogs – let me say first, I have very little time to check out others’ blogs, and barely enough to keep my own freshened up regularly. I am not a big blogger, and honestly don’t know a lot of blogs to even list. However, that said, here are 4 that I visit regularly or periodically that I will say put their heart on display, and yes, two are dog rescues. I may add more later – this is what comes to mind right now.

Diary of A Children’s Book Writer

Writing for Kids While Raising Them

BAD RAP’s Blog

French Bulldog Rescue Network’s Blog

And thank you again Marstead of Battered Trunk for noting me for this award.

Dogsong – Gary Paulsen

/ still a dreamer / 4 Comments

Dogsong-GPaulsen2There are times when I’ve finished a book, that I don’t quite know where to put it. In my head, that is. The book is so different from anything I’ve read, that it seems to be searching for a place to settle in my mental bookshelf, and meanwhile, it seems to hover in space.

Dogsong by Gary Paulsen is one of those books. It might be best defined  as a coming-of-age story where a 14 year old Inuit boy, Russell, restless in his own life, searches to find himself. In so doing he moves in with an elder where he is taught how to hunt, run the dogs and survive. And then he lives it, gradually becoming one with his dogs. This is an oversimplification and doesn’t do justice to the nuances in the story, so let me just say it was a very compelling read.

Perhaps why it hasn’t settled in yet is that it is a vignette of a life so totally different from my own or even what I could imagine an Eskimo tribe’s life in Alaska might be, that there is not a real frame of reference for it in my head. And yet, I could not help but be in the trance with Russell, in the dream, to merge with the spirits of the dogs, as he trekked blindly in the snow for days, never seeing a single soul or a source of food.

I read up on Gary Paulsen the author of Dogsong plus a good bunch of other MG and YA novels he has written. I suspect these have the greatest appeal to boys, but maybe not. Paulsen ran away from home at 14, and his life – he is now around 70 – has been a series of amazing adventures in all kinds of situations and locations. Among his experiences has been living in Alaska where he has run the Iditarod twice. And while I am no fan of the Iditarod because of the suffering of too many of the dogs, Paulsen has truly lived that life in Alaska so as to have written this book from a deeply authentic perspective. I have to truly admire Paulsen for how he has lived his life; he’s humble, adventurous beyond what I could imagine, and just … well … very real.

Reading about him explained a lot about the book in a way; my personal connection with dogs/animals deepened the meaning; my willingness to try “living” in such a different culture helped. Soon Dogsong will find a place and settle in.

Perusing my bookshelves once again led me to one of my many finds at the annual county library sale and to as different a book from Dogsong as I could get – one by Candace Bushnell of  Sex and the City fame. I loved the series, never read the book, but figured how far wrong could I go? We’ll see …