Wednesday, March 08, 2006

9 things that keep me from being fully swallowed by rage

  1. My ever-expanding music collection. Recently, I’ve grooved to
    1. Seu Jorge Carolina
    2. Joni Mitchell “Blue”
    3. “Is it rolling, Bob?” A reggae tribute to Bob Dylan
    4. Juan Formell y Los Van Van “En el malecon de la Habana”
    5. Tom Petty “Greatest Hits”
    6. Steve Earle “Transcendental Blues”
    7. Paolo Conte “Aguaplano”
    8. Sean Ardoin & Zydecool “Pullin’”
    9. Jeff Buckly “Grace”
    10. Bossacucanova “Uma Batida Diffente”
    11. Dale Watson “The Truckin’ Sessions”
    12. “West Side Story” original Broadway recording
  2. Reading, currently
    1. Philip Roth “American Pastoral”
    2. The New Yorker Magazine
    3. Saveur Magazine
    4. Journalism class texts
  3. Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology Newsletter, with excerpts that inspire, from his book “Pronia”, and a weekly horoscope. This week’s:

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): At its best, a study of astrology illuminates your choices and leaves the choosing up to you. It helps you understand that your fate is never set in stone, but is always susceptible to the command of your free will. In that spirit, I've got a quiz for you to take. Here are four pairs of equally possible outcomes. Meditate on each pair, and decide which you'd prefer to induce in the coming week: (1) simmering happiness versus crazed longing; (2) love packed with chewy riddles versus infatuation that only temporarily frees you; (3) practical enthusiasm versus dizzying highs; (4) slow, epic bursts of subtle progress versus out-of-this-world fantasies.

  1. KFAI, mainly the world music shows from 1:00 – 3:00 every day
  2. City Pages weekly column “Savage Love” where you learn that your sexual idiosyncracies are not that kinky
  3. Various web logs, including
    1. Diablo Cody - Her blog "Pussy Ranch" (and her book "Candy Girl") reminds me that it's okay to just be a girl having fun
    2. Bfylist – a friend’s web log of fun and thought-provoking lists (inspiring me to create this list)
    3. Butenoughaboutme – husband of friend’s web log (see 6b) that feels kind of like a satisfying one-way phone call catching me up on daily life in New York City
    4. The Best Page in the Universe - irreverent, misogynistic (maybe fully misanthropic) and hilarious! Once the target of a cease and desist campaign by a group of mothers
  4. Mandelbrot Sets: TRIPPY! Math is so cool!
  5. The World Wide Web, maybe the final frontier of democracy (also may be a party to it’s final ruin)
  6. Amazon.com – I know, not exactly a Blue company, but I try to give my business mainly to the independent sellers who have contracts with Amazon

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

... My focus right now is my story ... words tumbling upon the pages of a novel, never quite sure where they will lead ... trying to keep an eye on the world, knowing reality seeps in. I'm in the midst of the climax now (Please don't take that wrong) wondering where the bathtubs filled with bootlegged whiskey came from. It was bad enough they ate the jumping beans, and indigestion hatched the larvae and sent moths spewing from their mouths. Boss Chekey got what he deserved, shattering into a million pieces like a broken glass. But there are others that still pursue, Catavexia most likely will capture Harmon tonight. Bren and his friends will try to rescue his brother, but will squirt guns be enough to save him?

I stopped reading fiction some time ago ... first because there are only so many hours in a day, but now, it is more because I don't want to unconsciously lift another writers ideas. (It is said that there are only 17 different plots, and everything else is a variation...)

I don't listen to music as much as I would like. When I'm reading the news I am too easily distracted, and in the car and the kitchen I tend to listen to Public Radio, being the news junkie that I am. I did discover Steve Earl by listening to Democracy Now:-)

I write music into my books! This one, there are a half million shadows that came to the Woodlands of Quince because they saw the lantern that beckons the lost. Three very impish shadows stole all of the spoons they could find and they have been tied together and suspended from the trees to tinkle in the breeze. Wire has been stretched between branches, sounding like a harp and jugs are also dangling so when the shadows pass over the opening there is a whistling sound. The three impish shadows, have names that represent their very own sound as they rush about helping the keeper of the lost, Ooooh, Weeee, and Whoop Whoop.