From the journal of Angus McLeod, M.D.: I was sorry for women. Through history, most had been able to survive only by submitting to men’s sexual desires. Some women rented their bodies: the prostitutes. Some leased themselves: the mistresses. Some sold themselves into what for many was slavery: the wives, who relinquished all rights to their bodies, labor, and property. Their owners’ names were slapped on them. Marriage, the choice most men respected, was preferred… read more →
Six of my poems and a short-short story (“Her Honor”) appear in The Guilded Pen, the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild 2013 anthology. Here is one of the poems: TO A PUSSYCAT NAMED NYMPHULA With my compliments You slink ‘cross the carpet, your sleek fur you flounce. You spring in my lap and you land with a bounce. I rub your soft tummy, my kitty I jounce. Your paws grip my fingers, my palms… read more →
Of my ten writing teachers, Mark Alan Clements has most improved my writing. He sees things others don’t and makes valuable suggestions at his 2-5 pm Wednesday class at Writers Ink.
THE BOOK THIEF (2013) award-winning American-German drama film. The title role, Liesel, is carried by lovely Sophie Nélisse. In Nazi Germany, Liesel is taught to read by her adoptive father. She and blonde Franz become friends and members of Hitler Youth. During a book-burning, she takes a book and is caught by and befriended by the mayor’s wife. Thereafter Liesel “steals” (borrows) books from the mayor’s home and shares them with Max, a Jewish refugee… read more →
I never saw lovelier time-lapse photography of flowers blooming. Like Degas’ The Star, a ballerina seen from above, flowers around the globe gracefully spread open their petals. Stamens and ferns stretch like lithe dancers. Original piano music by Ludovico Einaudi.
A fine craftsman in wood who devised a unique and elegant splitting technique. See his website, SethRolland.com, to see his beautiful custom furniture designs.
Leonard Schlain’s The Alphabet Versus the Goddess; the Conflict between Word and Image. Shlain had an extraordinary mind, skilled at both analysis and synthesis. Whichever of the three Near Eastern desert religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, you think you know well, Shlain has detected trends, relationships, and patterns that you probably had not realized previously.
Nature: What Plants Talk About, on Netflix. Many intriguing similarities have been found between animal and plant behavior. Reared in rural northern New Mexico, I experienced in childhood that trees are beings with personalities. I have sensed plants’ suffering from thirst, or overwatering, as if they were wailing. City-reared individuals may may regard plants as virtually inanimate.