Fri 8 Nov 2019
Posted by PJ under beginnings, endings, quote of the day
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Random quote of the day:
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.â€
—attributed to Lao Tzu
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Thu 7 Nov 2019
Posted by PJ under photography, quote of the day, secrets
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Random quote of the day:
“A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.â€
—Diane Arbus, “Five Photographs by Diane Arbus,†ArtForum, May 1971
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Wed 6 Nov 2019
Posted by PJ under quote of the day, stories
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Random quote of the day:
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.â€
—Anne Lamott, Twitter, April 23, 2012
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Tue 5 Nov 2019
Posted by PJ under quote of the day, truth
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Random quote of the day:
“A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.â€
—Thomas Mann, Essay on Freud
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Mon 4 Nov 2019
Posted by PJ under eyes, quote of the day, truth
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Random quote of the day:
“No one looks you straight in the eye when they’re telling the truth.â€
—Sara Gran, Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Sun 3 Nov 2019
Posted by PJ under history, myth, quote of the day, truth
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Random quote of the day:
“History is present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.â€
—E. L. Doctorow, The Paris Review, Issue 101, Winter 1986
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Thu 31 Oct 2019
Posted by PJ under aging, quote of the day, sex
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Random quote of the day:
“I was so tired of seeing these stupid, cheerful books about ageing. One of them even has this whole thing in it about how you are going to have the greatest sex of your life in your sixties and seventies. Which is just garbage. I thought about it and realized that there was one circumstance that you could have the best sex of your life in your sixties and seventies. That would be if you had never had sex until you were 60 or 70.â€
—Nora Ephron, quoted in Christopher Goodwin, “Get real—ageing’s not all Helen Mirren,†Times Online, 4 March 2007
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Wed 30 Oct 2019
Posted by PJ under animism, beneath a hollow moon, carmina, fire, global warming, letting go, musings, novels, OWW, poetry, time, writing
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In 1901, two English ladies—Miss Moberly and Miss Jourdain—experienced a timeslip while visiting Versailles, going back for an interlude to the time of Marie Antoinette. They detailed this story in a book called An Adventure. You can read about it here: http://xenophon.org.uk/adventure.html
If you click on the link, then click on “The Music of An Adventure” you can hear a transcription one of the ladies, Ms. Jourdain, a talented musician, made of a strain of music she heard while “there.” Not surprisingly, they received much ridicule from the male establishment of the time, but they clung to their accounts for the rest of their lives. There are inconsistencies in their stories, but other things they reported would have taken a great deal of research on their part to get right. So the account remains controversial even today.
Still, it’s a cranking great yarn. And I say, all cranking great yarns should be true, even if they aren’t.
*
The Getty Fire was still quite a ways from me but it got perilously close to the LA Basin. The LA Basin isn’t more important than the other areas that have burned but it’s densely packed. If the fires get into the Basin I don’t know how they’ll stop them. It’s something to worry about every time fire gets close to the really crowded areas. Fire departments are stretched so thin right now. They heroically got on top of the Getty fire this time, but we’re still burning, homes are still being lost.
California is a trend leader in many ways. But I would rather not be on the front lines of the devastation caused by global warming. Californians are sharing that with our brethren in hurricane, tornado, and typhoon country. But make no mistake: global warming is coming for us all.
*
I changed my alarm sound from the annoying ding ding ding ding ding ding a-ding to the sound of a hooting owl echoing in a forest. It’s eerie and wondrous when it drops into the silence of my room.
*
Someone was talking about animism the other day and it made me think of Ayahuasca, the visionary drug processed by the Quechua people of the Amazon. It’s an arduous process to bring forth the drug, involving many steps, and not at all intuitive. When a Westerner asked the shaman how his people learned to process it he said, “The spirit of the plant told us.”
*
Trust the road
no matter where it
takes you, how many
forks and crossroads.
Wherever it leads,
in any direction,
is the path you must follow.
*
Looks like the giant Tick fire was started by a guy who was living in junkyard like conditions and decided to cook his lunch outside on the barbecue. In Santana wind conditions. Florida had nothing to do with it.
*
I finished the old compilation novel (Beneath a Hollow Moon) and put it in a trunk where it will get moldy or will come back out again and I can make it new. I’ve started another novel, one I’d written a couple of chapters on a long time ago. In fact, chapter one was the last Editor’s Choice I received from the Online Writing Workshop for SFF (OWW) before I left it. Carmina. It’s been doing a siren call to me for the last couple of months, and so far the writing’s been going well. Except for those two previously written chapters it’s completely new writing and that feels really good. Also, a completely different universe from the previous novel, and that also feels good. And the best part? I know the end but have no idea how I’ll get there! I’m stumbling around, but I feel like I’ve finally come home again.
I’ll forever be grateful for the things I learned from OWW, the community I was a part of, and the encouragement I received there. Invaluable.
*
It’s a process of letting go:
of youth,
resentments,
of those we love,
of seasons of
grief and joy.
Let them go, let them fly.
Let them find new homes,
or sink away into the earth,
away from my fading heart,
my lightening soul.
Away, now!
*
Wed 30 Oct 2019
Posted by PJ under art, being human, quote of the day, writers, writing
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Random quote of the day:
“The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life….This is the artist’s way of scribbling ‘Kilroy was here’ on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.â€
—William Faulkner, The Paris Review, Issue 12, Spring 1956
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Tue 29 Oct 2019
Posted by PJ under books, quote of the day, thinking
No Comments
Random quote of the day:
“The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.â€
—attributed to Christopher Morley
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
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