Sunday’s Snapshot – Dreaming of Summer
Here in New England, it’s been quite a winter. This month, it seems as if it snows pretty much constantly. In reality, it may be that every two to three days we’ll have a snowfall of anywhere from three to ten inches. There really isn’t a deep accumulation, but it’s dreary as the sky keeps a steady drizzle of slush falling on us. For those in the plowing business, it’s a bumper crop season.
Anyway, to ward off the winter chill and blues, I’m sharing a gallery of photos that I took in late July 2012 in Newport, Rhode Island. For all of you under the same clouds a I am this winter, bask in a dream of warm days to come!
Saturday’s Song – Fare Thee Well (Dink’s Song) by Oscar Isaac
The Coen brothers (Joel and Ethan) have directed a new film – Inside Llewyn Davis. I haven’t yet seen it but hope to soon. It’s getting mixed reviews. Movie critics seem to love it, the general population seems to be split between loving it and totally not loving it.
I’ve been listening to the soundtrack for a week now, kind of like 24/7. Even when it’s not actually playing, I’m hearing it in my head.
One song in particular, Fare Thee Well (Dink’s Song) performed by Oscar Isaac, who plays the character Llewyn Davis in the movie, has grown on me and is resonating through me all the time – in my head, in my heart, in my whatever it is that connects us to our ancestral roots. Something about this song stirs something in me. It seems to be following me into my dreams even.
Anyway, I’ve picked it for this week’s Saturday’s Song. Hope you enjoy it.
If you like folk music, maybe take a few minutes to listen to this next ballad from the soundtrack as well. It’s The Death of Queen Jane, also performed by Oscar Isaac. It’s a traditional and heartbreaking English ballad (read more here).
A fun thing about this soundtrack is that it’s available in vinyl (as well as CD and iTunes download), as it would have been in the time the movie storyline is placed – 1960. Just like I remember, you can listen to Side A, then Side B. Awesome. Now rummage around in the attic and see if you can find an old turntable and a good needle, or buy them online!
Words of Love on Valentine’s Day
Words of Love on Valentine’s Day
♥ tolerance
♥ acceptance
♥ forgiveness
♥ inclusion
♥ respect
♥ smile ♥ hug ♥ cherish ♥ embrace ♥ listen ♥
Editing – Quick Tip – Rearranging
When editing, I find that one of the most useful tools is to cut and paste paragraphs into a new order. Often, a good opening to a story can be made much better by rearranging the initial paragraphs.
And rearranging sentences can improve a paragraph, and rearranging chapters can improve the entire novel.
As you edit your own work, this can be hard to see. So, maybe sit down with your manuscript and focus only and deliberately on moving paragraphs within a chapter, and then focus on sentences within paragraphs and then, finally, consider rearranging the order of your chapters.
You may make few changes, but the exercise is well worth the time and effort.
As alway, whenever you make a change, reread the preceding and following sections to be sure that the change you’ve made has not impacted the surrounding structure.
Editing My Writing
I think the most difficult thing for me as a writer is to edit my own fiction.
When I’m writing fiction, I cruise along, being both entertained and moved by the things I write that resonate with me. And I remind myself that if I like what I write, maybe someone else will, too. And with luck, maybe lots of people will like what I write.
But when I sit to edit, I can’t see the forest for the trees. I can’t tell if a paragraph conveys comprehensible thought, let alone what it is specifically that I’m hoping to express. I think my writing and the scenes are too familiar to me, so the newness and first impact is lost, as if my first tracks have been obscured by my loop style of writing – meaning that I reread what I’ve written the prior day or week (or however far back I have to go) to pick up the inspirational thread to help tease from my mind the continuation of the story.
So, by the time I’ve finished a book and I begin to edit it as a whole piece, it feels like I’m trudging through a dense jungle even though my writing and structure is simple. Instead of being “in the moment” of what I’m reading/editing, all around me is the story in images and impressions that are a constant distraction.
This happens to be on my mind because as soon as I finish this post, I have hours of editing ahead of me….!
Incidentally, it used to be that I could only edit hardcopy. But lately, I’ve become more accustomed to editing on my computer. Still, I think I catch more in hardcopy, so I make sure that my final review is done on paper with pencil!
I’d welcome tips on best practices for editing your own work. I suppose the obvious advice is that I should hire someone to edit my fiction! I may yet!
Sunday’s Snapshot
This image was not enhanced in any way after I shot it. As with all photos, lighting was key to the look of this photograph. I’m timid to admit, I have no idea what my camera settings were that gave me this result. I took this photo a few years ago, and I think it was dusk and the camera was set on automatic and decided it was best to use the flash. Fortunately, the light only illuminated the plant. As it was at the edge of a pond, there was nothing more behind the plant for the light to catch. In the lower right, the dim reflective glow could be reflection of the flash on the shore of a small island in the pond, some 30 feet beyond.
Saturday’s Song – Bruno Mars and Red Hot Chili Peppers At The Super Bowl – My Review
Don’t quote me on this, but I read that this year’s Super Bowl (or as some have been calling it, “the Bruno Mars concert that featured Red Hot Chili Peppers and a football game”) was the most watched television event in all of history. Yikes, if it’s true.
I have to say, Bruno’s slam bang start on the drum set was performance magic. He grabbed the full attention of the audience right out of the gate. Then he went into what Bruno does very well – a slick, quick, high energy, amazing tease with enough of his dancing moves to leave every viewer wanting more. His version of James Brown’s “a little bit softer/louder now…” and the split is beyond cool.
I’ve gotten used to his sparkling jacket and super thin tie. I love the look. On Bruno. The side-view silhouette of him and his bandmates in sync with their dancing was brilliant.
As for the Red Hot Chili Peppers! Ahhh! I have been listening to them for ten years at least. I love their sound. I think I was introduced to them through my children. They’ve become one of my favorite bands. But, I’d never seen them! So, when they jumped onto the stage from I don’t know where, and bare-chested, well, I thought we had a wardrobe malfunction making super bowl history…again. Bruno put me at ease as he let them have the stage while joining in with them. It was awesome.
(A day or two later, I saw a clip of a pre-game press conference where Mars was asked about the half-time show. He said it was his idea to include the Chili Peppers, as they have been a long-time favorite band of his. Nice.)
I loved the cut to our soldiers sending messages to loved ones at home before Bruno did his solo song, Just The Way You Are.
I could not have been happier with the half time show this year. I’d be glad if Bruno Mars were back again next year!
In case you missed this year’s half-time or you’d like to see it again, it’s above. Click play.
Oh, right, and nice win Seahawks!
Repost – from Interesting Literature – Five Fascinating Facts about Charles Dickens
I’ve recently started to follow Interesting Literature a blog here on WordPress.
They post Five Fascinating Facts about authors. Today’s facts are about Charles Dickens.
It’s fun to read! Enjoy!
Annie Leibovitz At Work
In mid-December my brother hosted a folk concert at his house. I posted about it here at sublimedays.
Part of the fun of that night was that my brother had prepared name tags for his guests. Not one of our real names were on the tags. The tags held the names of people in the music industry during the past fifty years.
He asked me ahead of time would I be “Annie Leibovitz” and please take photos of the evening. I was too embarrassed to say to him the thought that immediately came to my mind, “Who is Annie Leibovitz?” What gives me the courage to share this hiccup in my knowledge in this public forum escapes me. But there it is.
I wore the Annie Leibovitz name tag all evening and at some point I admitted to my brother that I didn’t know who Annie was. He looked stunned and said, “You don’t know who Annie Leibovitz is?” as if I’d drawn a blank on Santa Claus.
Anyway, to help me out, he’s shared with me a book from his shelves, Annie Leibovitz At Work (Random House 2008). I’m reading it now and am fascinated by it.
And, come to find out – oh, yes, I know Annie, by her photos. Many of them are iconically familiar. I just didn’t know that it was she who’d supplied us with these incredible images through the past many decades.
The book is set up chronologically. In simple, direct sentences, Leibovitz writes of her creative journey woven through her career, starting at Rolling Stone magazine when it was in its infancy in San Francisco in the early ’70s. Though she’d studied art and took a couple of classes/workshops in photography, her development was really a baptism by fire, as I suppose it is for many photographers – no matter how much training you have. Her photography is displayed throughout the book.
In the book, Leibovitz talks of the technology of photography in her era (and changes in that technology over time), personal doubts and successes, personalities of her photo subjects, her creative development and her view of the historical times in which she photographed. The places and people she photographed include the rock and roll music industry, Hollywood, U. S. politics and countries in conflict. And the Queen of England. And authors and poets. Dancers. And her own family members. On and on, including some ad campaign work.
This book has impacted more than my thoughts on my own photography. It’s impacted my dreams. Not the images of my dreams as you (and I) might think. No.
I am dreaming concepts. No matter the visual or the “story”of the dream, the foundation is shifting concepts. I am dreaming about the relation of things to one another. I am dreaming of fault lines and shifting plates. Not literally. Conceptually. Things that would seem completely dissimilar are finding likeness in each other. I love it.
This isn’t the first time I’ve dreamed in this fashion. It fascinates me when it happens. And I’m certain it’s happening because of the thought process I’m in when I read this book.
Leibovitz was always thinking in a creative way for the portraits she shot. (If you click on that link now, you’ll never finish this post! Please try to wait till you’ve reached the end of the post and then come back and click on it! If you can’t wait, thanks for reading this far!) To read her reasoning behind the set up of a shot is an exercise in achieving clarity of an obscure obvious thing. What I mean is, if you just see her work, you might not get why the subject is photographed in the way she set it up. If you read her creative process for a shot, it makes total sense. Almost as if there would be no other way to photograph that person at that time.
Leibovitz writes objectively of herself as a person/photographer in what have now become unforgettable historical moments that she captured in images.
Reading Annie Leibovitz’s book about her work has inspired me – less so for my photography – more so for my writing. I’ve written before about how visual art fires up something in my brain that enhances my writing process.
I’ve kept my name tag from my brother’s house concert, to remind me to keep expanding the boundaries of my creative work.
Repost – a poem, Diary of a Wanderer, by K. A. Brace
This poem by K. A. Brace made me smile. It’s a melody of words that paint a collage of imaginings and concepts that are not the slightest bit farfetched. If you click on either the image or the title, you’ll be taken to the original post by K. A. Brace at his blog site, The Mirror Obscura. I can’t wait to spend more time on his site and listen to more of his poetry, which he has recorded. Look for this on his posts: 
Click the play button and you will hear him read the poem.
Diary of a Wanderer
by K. A. Brace
Since starting I’ve kept a diary. At day’s end before I rest
Beneath a solid roof or blanket of stars above I note
Where I’ve been, what I’ve seen, what was said along my way.
In the morning I write again though turning to the book’s back
And write about my journey, as if traveling in the future
Always working backwards where I left off the day before.
You may wonder what I write about things I haven’t done.
Just as I describe all the things I pass so I also describe
All those things I imagine I might encounter as I wander
Towards myself as if the two of us were as real as one.
For fact last night I wrote that yesterday I passed
Through a cloud that had descended along the road.
Inside I found images of the world turned upside down
Painted on the sides of fish that swam in schools of thought
–A philosophy not unlike a palindrome but meaning
One thing read forward and the opposite going back
And all the treeness of the trees in a forest had been given
To flights of children who had run away from homes
Where fairy tales were no longer held as true to life.
This morning I imagined then wrote about coming to a hill
Where all the rain that fell was set on fire by the laughter
Of purple birds whose wing spans were so great
They had to fly miles apart so as not to touch each other.
The people in that countryside collected the flames in pots
And brought them home to cook their meals made
From giant marigolds that grew in profusion in their valley.
I have seen mountains walk uphill and imagined men as tall
As the deepest oceans; heard rivers speak in foreign tongues
And made believe there are women so beautiful and poised
That they could make great deserts turn into lush, green gardens.
One day, where I’ve been will meet on a page
With everything I’ve imagined I have done.
There, I’ll make my place then, so the middle
Of my journey, home at last, will not be its end.
sublime days 