Deborah (of 32 Poems) invites interested persons to write a poem a day for the next 30 days. The invite was sent out on Sunday (and I didn’t read it until today… so, I’m a bit late), but I think I’m up for the challenge. Anyone else?
Read more details about the challenge here: 30 Poems in 30 Days.
A few months ago I began brewing my coffee through a tea infuser. The glass decanter for a coffee press I used had shattered and I was awaiting shipment of a stainless steel coffee press. So I brewed a cup of coffee with an infuser and was amazed by an excellent cup of my favorite bean beverage.
The stainless steel coffee press arrived and I began using it daily. It took me awhile to get used to the taste (coffee tastes slightly different in a steel press). The convenience of putting the coffee grounds in the press, adding hot water, pressing, and (more often than I’d like to admit) hauling the press to the office.
Then a programmable coffee maker arrived and I was giddy at that thought of waking up each morning to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. After a few days of that I decided to revert back to the slow process of a single cup of infused coffee. The coffee maker added a plastic oily taste that I really didn’t enjoy. The steel coffee press had a slight metallic taste that reminded me of drinking coffee from an enamel metal camp cup (which wasn’t bad, just different). The glass coffee press had the best flavor. But there’s something about the slow, ritualistic ceremony of pouring hot water onto the infuser and watching a light layer of foam appear on the grounds that is very appealing to me.
When I read the following story in the Mountain Xpress, I found a local establishment that caters to me coffee snob tastes. Here’s five comments made in the article:
Here’s a five step approach to successful blogging list I discovered.
- Decide WHAT the Post Should DO for You
- How Can I Be Helpful?
- The Actual Writing
- Review The Last Few Weeks’ Posts
- Repeat
In one corner Billy Collins. In the other corner CA Conrad for a dispute over Emily Dickinson’s sexual preference. This should be a great fisticuff battle… except it’s taking place in the American poetry scene which will be mostly ignored by the general public.
Repeat after me: Branding is product, service and experience.* It’s not a wicked cool logo with drop shadow and PMS color key nor a catchy slogan. It’s simple and complicated and it’s why ad agencies typically don’t get it.
- Ad placement drives profits
- Advertising creatives are spoiled. And entitled. And enabled.
- The integrated agency is a fallacy
- Advertising is a knock-knock joke. Design is a dialogue
Design is dialogue sums it up for me. Know your audience, build community, and provide consistent, satisfactory customer experience.
*Watch this video for an excellent overview of what brand is (via AdPulp).
A good book is like a good conversation with a good friend.
“Reading aloud lets you craft great writing” writes James (of Men with Pens) how goes on to offer a few tips on writing including:
Link: How to Become a Better Writer and Get Readers Loving You
The last couple months I’ve been writing scripts for a proof of concept (POC) audio production. Often I’ll find myself pausing during a reading and re-write portions of copy because it sounds weak or clunky or maybe too upbeat when it should be somber. During a recording session with other voice talent, we may continue revising copy because transitions, though they look good on paper, may not perform well. So, yes, reading your writing out load us beneficial to improving writing skills.
I’m reading an anthology of steampunk essays and fiction titled, well, Steampunk. It’s a sub-genre of science-, speculative-, historical-fiction. What’s intriguing to me is the hard-boiled speculative science with smartly dressed Victorian, British fashion. For those of you serious about Steampunk, would you believe there is a Steampunk Emporium (providing clothing and other accessories) and Clockwork Couture (another purveyor of fine clothing and accessories).
Here’s a few writing tips from the author of Til We Have Faces:
1. Read good books and avoid most magazines.
2. Write with the ear, not the eye. Make every sentence sound good.
3. Write only about things that interest you. If you have no interests, you won’t ever be a writer.
4. Know the meaning of every word you use.
It’s either a clever turn if a phrase, or not. “I grew up in the Bible Belt…” the anonymous contribution to The Sun’s Readers Write section begins and concludes that “…it was better to be an honest sinner than a dishonest churchgoer.”
The phrase that arrested my attention is “honest sinner.” Juxtaposing words in that fashion are delicious.
So, I looked up the etymology of the words to see if the anonymous author is clever or something else.
“Honest” comes from the Latin meaning “honorable.”
“Sinner,” or its root word “sin,” as far as I can find comes from the Latin meaning “guilty,” thus sinner means “guilty one.” Further, “sin” means to “miss the mark,” specifically, “to miss the mark of righteousness.”
So the anonymous author constructs a phrase meaning “honorably guilty” or “honorably missing the mark.” Either conclusion (“honorably guilty” or “dishonorably attending church”) seems disappointing. To open up the phrase a bit more — the author proposes that it is better to honorably miss the mark than to charade dishonorably in church. At this point I realize that the anonymous author reveals a logic similar to that of wet noodles. I’m too disappointed to continue to write about the author’s logical fallacies and philosophical short cuts.
(link: Fireflies in the Garden by Robert Frost)
Some evenings, as the sun sets, I water the garden. A two-gallon water can is used and one can of water per garden box seems to be sufficient. The other night while I watered the garden in the evening, the fireflies appeared to come up from the ground and surround me; almost as if the water droplets transformed upon impact and rose into the gathering darkness as luminous creatures. Within an hour or two I could see their light in the tallest oaks and pines surrounding the cottage. But, alas, like Robert Frost offers “they can’t sustain the part” of the stars above.
Like twilight time, the garden is transitioning. The snap peas began to wither a few days ago. I can’t tell if it is due to the lack of rain or the peas have passed their season of growth. I’ll plant kale and shard to replace the pea plants. So far the most produce comes from the chili pepper plant and the lettuce. The zucchini and squash are disappointing. It appears the leaves have some kind of mold; yielding only four vegetables. It’s too early to tell, but it looks like the tomato plants will yield well this year.
James Longenbach presented a lecture titled “The Excess of Poetry” at the Warren Wilson College MFA program for writers this morning. Here’s a few of the notes I wrote:
There are more notes I wrote, but they are a bit scramble. Longenbach presented poems by Keats, Dickinson and Pound as way to explore the “fine excess” of poetry.
GermanHeit is an excellent resource for those interested in learning to read German (or learn in better) or those desiring to know more about life in contemporary Germany. Recently, GermanHeit published a post about the German author Herta Müller — winner of the Nobel Prize for literature — regarding her novel “Atemschaukel” (link: GermanHeit). I inquired if there is a reliable bilingual or an English edition and GermanHeit replied with a link to an excerpt (link: “Everything I Own I Carry With Me” – an excerpt). A link to zeitgenössische Dichter (link: Die Deutsche Gedichte-Bibliothek) was also provided after I mentioned I enjoyed reading Durs Grunbein’s poetry. In one of his collections, Grunbein portrays a grasshopper as a Stoic philosopher in the poem “In der Provinz 3.” One of the qualities of Grunbein’s poetry I enjoy is the way he unfolds a poem and an image or thought is revealed in an arresting manner that catches the reader slightly off balance.
Coffeehouse Junkie 