Description:
My first LOL Cat.. Drunk on Goblin Fruit.. Emily Dickinson Poetry Online.. When Ideas Fail, Post a Cat Pic!..
Contents:
My first LOL Cat
I really, really don't know why I get such a kick out of LOL cats. I don't even own a cat. I'm allergic--severely allergic.
There's just something so expressive about a cat when it's up to something that thrusts upon me the urge to anthropomorphize what it's doing. (Heh. Plus, I get to use a big word to describe what comes over me.)
So here's my first attempt at making an LOL cat. I had to go over to my sister's house to "borrow" her kittens for the effort and take copious amounts of benadryl afterwards.
Maybe I should use the time I'm burning fiddling with Gimp2 to make LOL cats to write instead. Nah.
Drunk on Goblin Fruit
I made my visit to Strange Horizons a bit late this week, but as always found a superb short story and a new poem. This week's poem by J. C. Runolfson is not to be missed, especially for writers. Runolfson's author bio led me to a link I had to share: Goblin Fruit .
The site states they publish "poetry that treats mythic, surreal, fantasy and folkloric themes, or approaches other themes in a fantastical way," and they deliver.
This is a site that begs to be devoured. I spent at least an hour there drinking in the amazing poetry in the current and back issues. As the hapless Laura says in Rossetti's Goblin Market, "I ate and ate my fill/ Yet my mouth waters still"(166-165). I'll be going back again and again, but unlike poor Laura my thirst for the Goblin Fruit won't be denied (at least as long as their website remains).
By the way, if you would like to read the original text, from which I assume the website gained its name, the poem Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti can be found here: Goblin Market .
Emily Dickinson Poetry Online
So much of the world's greatest literature is only a Google search away, especially if the work is old enough to have fallen into the public domain.
I love Emily Dickinson's poetry. It is often ambiguous and sometimes even confusing, but I like that. Her poetry sparked fun debates in English class. Is she speaking metaphorically or literally or both? What is she talking about really? I suppose only the poet herself could have told us.
You can find a list of her complete works by clicking here:
Bartleby.com
I chose this poem because I like what she has to say about the lure of conformity and how the non-conformists among us may be the bravest of all.
Part One: Life
XI
MUCH madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails. 5
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.
When Ideas Fail, Post a Cat Pic!
This just cracks me up every time I look at it.
More from "What's the Message?"
The positive response I received from the first post about women's periodicals from the eighteenth century, along with a request for more from the essay, prompts today's post.
From the Essay:
Now, we didn’t simply make up a few attention-grabbing headlines and stick them on a copy of an engraving. These headlines are inspired by actual stories from some of the
eighteenth-century conduct books.
This mock-up feature headlines drawn from actual Female Spectator issues. (This one is in color, which would have been difficult to do in the eighteenth century, to say the least, but just play along here.)
From the Female Spectator Volume Three we find a long sermon against gossip. It begins: “Nothing more plainly shews a weak and degenerate Mind, than taking a Delight in whispering about every idle Story we are told, to the Prejudice of our Neighbors” (2).
Volume One of The Female Spectator ran a lengthy essay on the vital importance of young women choosing the right husband. It says “to be well convinced of the Sincerity of the Man they are about to marry is a Maxim, with great Justice, always recommended to a young lady” (13). The story goes on to describe a young woman who made a foolish, hasty choice of marriage partner with, of course disastrous consequences. Martesia, the young woman, ends up married to a man of dubious character, they drift apart and even begin to sleep in separate beds. Martesia has an affair and becomes pregnant. She attempts to conceal the pregnancy and delivers a still-born baby in secret. But the whispering began and she, in the end, had to flee England. With a sum of support from her husband, she went into “voluntary Banishment from Friends and Country, and roaming round the World in fruitless Search of that Tranquility she could not have failed enjoying at home in the Bosom of a Comfort equally beloved as loving” (Female Spectator 23).
Taking a cue from an actual essay in the Female Spectator Volume Two, we find the writer saying from the beginning “there is no one Thing more generally talked of, and so little understood, as the sin of ingratitude. All complain of it in others, but none acknowledge it in themselves” (2). The essay runs for several pages and gives many examples of how to avoid this particular sin.
Our last and perhaps most interesting headline come from Volume three of The Female Spectator. In it the writer tells a story of a woman named “Constantia” who though the seeming epitome of virtue finds that her husband is cheating on her. How does she defeat her rival and regain her husband’s affections? Easy! She retains “the most tender affection for her husband, but while the guilty pair imagined her easy and resign’d to her fate, she was continually laying Schemes to change it” (Female Spectator 33). Her scheme we find is to pretend to be sick and take to her bed. Also, luckily, it seems “heaven was pleased that she should prove with Child, which, together with her continued Sweetness of Behaviour, turn’d his Heart” (Female Spectator 41). So the remedy it appears is to be nice to your cheating husband, continue sleeping with him, pretend to be near death and eventually he’ll come around.
Women’s magazines are still blatantly telling women how to act, how to talk, how to get or keep a man and how to dress, though the most numerous items have to do with men, sex and relationships. In the November 2005 issue of Cosmopolitan we find these articles; “Boost His Body Confidence,” “Get the Affection You Desire”, “A Dinner He’ll Die For”, “How to Turn Him On Without Touching” and introduces a new sex position, naturally to keep a man interested.
Though they take a friendly tone, these women’s magazines, just like the examples we’ve seen from the eighteenth-century, still play on a woman’s insecurities and self doubts. They still seek to teach women (though admittedly the some of the lessons have changed). We didn’t find any eighteenth-century articles about how to be great in bed.
However, today’s magazines hold up near-impossible-to-achieve standards of beauty as the womanly ideal. The main focus is still about attracting, holding on to and pleasing men. These magazines tell a woman “you can’t possibly get along in the world without our advice. Listen to us. We are the modern sages. Behave as we tell you. Look like this girl. We’ll tell you how to behave in any situation. Style your hair like so and wear these clothes. It’s the only way you’ll ever be happy.”
Today’s magazines, just like the periodicals from the eighteenth century, still assume a woman needs instruction from self-styled experts in all areas of her life. That’s the message and, judging by the continuing popularity of women’s periodicals, its one women are still buying.
Works Cited:
Cosmopolitan 239.5. Dec. 2005
Female Spectator 1. The Spectator Project. CETH. 10 Nov. 2005.
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Female Spectator 2. The Spectator Project . CETH. 10 Nov. 2005.
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Female Spectator 3. The Spectator Project CETH. 10 Nov. 2005.
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The New Lady's Magazine
This was a Power Point slide that was part of a group presentation for one of my college English classes. We compared the ladies' magazines of the Eighteenth Century with modern day women's mags.
The slide is a satiric representation of what the cover of an Eighteenth Century magazine might look like if the teasers for the publication were written in the breathless, urgent style of today's women's magazines.
From the Essay: Peter Miller notes that the women’s periodicals of the eighteenth-century show “not the slightest interest … in the important social and political issues of the day” (283). Their concerns were mostly of fashion, comportment and how to attract the right kind of man and how to keep him interested. Does any of this sound familiar? Miller sums it up for us. He says “The similarity of these early ladies’ magazines to women’s periodicals today is striking” (283).
I have to chuckle every time I think about this picture, especially when I'm standing in front of the magazine racks at the local bookstore or supermarket. Who says we've come a long way, baby?
***And because I'm still an obessive-compulsive English Major at heart, here's the work cited:
Miller, Peter John. “Eighteenth-Century Periodicals for Women.” History of Education Quarterly 11.3 (1971): 279-286. JSTOR 3 Nov. 2005. .
Pictures and 1000 Words
When the story idea font is seemingly running dry, I often go web-surfing for inspiring artwork. Then I try to see if I can come up with one thousand words about the picture, putting the old proverb to the test. Sometimes it works!
I found this lovely lady and her baby at photobucket.com. Now I may or may not write a story about a mermaid. Despite the title, mermaids are not really the focus of this blog.
All that aside, I love the magical and powerful, but also dream-like feeling of this piece. And those are the kinds of feelings that put me in the mood to write.
Flash Fiction Online
I really love flash fiction. It's fun and fast to read. It's also incredibly difficult to write.
Flash Fiction Online publishes four terrific short, shorts every month, including "classic" flash stories. This month's edition features H.P. Lovecraft.
Check it out when you have fifteen minutes to spare.
Aberrant Dreams Poetry Find
If a writer wants to publish in any sort of publication, the best thing to do first is to read the publication to find out what the editors like.
I was doing just such research at the webzine Aberrant Dreams when I stumbled across a poem I really liked--one of those that makes me say, "Oh, I wish I'd written that."
Since it also loosely fits the theme of this blog, I thought I provide a link to it just in case anyone else likes mermaid poetry.
Mermaid
How Easy to Forget
I thought I was posting something yesterday that I had not put up before. I was wrong. When one goes months between blog posts, it's easy to forget what has already been posted.
I had another poem that appeared in the same issue of Spectra back in 2002 and here it is:
Elusive Muses
They come in ghostly shapes,
These storied people, dancing seductively at the edges of dreams—
Mysterious Lorelei who giggle and whisper amongst themselves tales
Of audacious abandon, of kings and paupers, lovers and fiends,
too soft to hear.
Their phantom auras, diaphanous,
yet full of throaty promise, float just beyond the edge of knowing, yielding little.
My trailing hand wafts through and pulls back a failing scent
Of refuted memory, miserable triumphs and carousing criminality
too secret to tell.
Their mocking laughter echoes
between the clumsy scratches of pen to paper. Locks of braided
bells clink and jingle as they shake their heads, shimmering with scorn
as truth is twisted by self-deception, denial or lies
too wanton to believe.
Imperious, they wait. Disgusted,
They leave. Drifting away, fluttering words as they go, scattering
seedlings of imagination, which wither and expire
even as they are scooped up and nurtured by desire
too foolish to check.
File Search
I was looking through my old writing files today, looking for---I don't know what, inspiration maybe. While in the throes of writer's delay, (I'm not blocked--everything is just progressing so slowly.)it's nice to look back and say, "Okay, here's something I wrote that I liked and so did someone else."
This poem appeared in the annual literature anthology published by my university. I think it dates back to 2002, but I'd have to dig out the book to be sure.
Inflatable Man
I charged him.
With a point and a click,
He was mine
And soon delivered
In a plain brown wrapper.
I let him out,
Helped him stretch his legs.
His arms reached out and his
Head slowly lifted from his shoulder
He became fully formed—a man.
We danced that night,
My inflatable man and I.
His was the scent was of suppleness and
I knew he would never complain about
The funky jazz I like.
As I scooted across the floor
In worn, faded slippers,
His cold skin
Rubbed against mine
With pleasant, plastic farts.
Propped in the corner
Of the sofa
He waited for me,
So patiently,
In the evenings.
His frozen smile
Warmed me.
I shared Krispy Cremes
With him and used my pinkie
To wipe the frosting
From his mouth.
.
We were so happy.
I basked and flourished
Within the warmth of
His silent approval.
But then, oh, but then…
When he began to go flat,
I knew it was because
He was unreliable, selfish
And inconsiderate.
Certainly it was not because
I had been pricking
Him with pinholes
Every day.
The Grammar Doctor Is In....
and it ain't me. Seriously, all writers should have command of the language they are using, but let's face it, English is a tricky language. I'd wager nearly everyone runs into a problem or has a question every now and again.
Personally, I have claimed the title of Queen of the Misplaced Comma. I sprinkle commas liberally throughout my writing, sometimes whether the sentence needs them or not. This isn't deliberate. Oftentimes, I put them in where it seems there is a natural break in the sentence and this is often wrong.
Also the words its and it's drive me nuts. Whenever it comes time to use one or the other I have to stop and think, "Okay, 'its' is the possesive, right? No, wait. One would say 'That is John's dog.' so why isn't it "it's?" Because "it's" is the contraction for "it is." Right? Aaaaaaargh!!" And on it goes.
Thankfully, there are numerous resources on which a writer can rely. I found a handy little website this morning called Dr.Grammar.org . This site is a quick-reference tool that answers basic grammar questions in a fun, memorable way. Of course, this one little page can't cover everything. The works cited list alone tells the story.
English is tricky. Use with care.
A Little Help From a Friend
There are always those times when a writer gets stuck with a particular piece. I have two humor articles that have been sitting on my hard-drive unfinished for a long time. I pulled them up again and started reading. Hmmm, they had potential, but I couldn't think of anything to add.
Luckily, I have a friend who also writes humor. She's terrifically funny and she thinks I'm funny too. Naturally, I turned to her to see what she thought of my unfinished pieces.
Now, there are some writers who cringe at the thought of showing anyone a piece of work that's unfinished or in a very rough stage, but sometimes it's crucial to get feedback from someone just to make sure an old piece is worth revisiting and reworking. Not just any someone will do either. It should be someone who is familar with the writer's work, knows something about the writing process and can offer advice on what needs to be done. Someone who is just a cheerleader isn't often helpful, but neither is someone who is too judgemental. I believe a writer has to find that special person (maybe persons) who strikes the right balance between blind enthusiasm and brutal honesty.
My friend and I met up on IM and I pasted what I had into the chat window. She enjoyed the first piece and said so. I trust her when she tells me "Yes, this is good. Keep going."
I showed her the second piece and that is when our conversation really took off. It was a subject with which she could identify. (It seems we both have "brown" thumbs and can't get house plants to grow.) Before long we were trying to top each other with funny, outrageous comments--trying to get the other to laugh. It worked wonders for a piece I thought was going nowhere because I thought I'd run out of funny things to say. I copied the whole conversation and soon I'll go back, pick and choose what I think are my best lines and get going with my article again.
Better yet, my friend, who hasn't written much in the last few years, says she's been inspired to give writing a whirl again. Hurray!
Writing can sometimes be a lonely, frustrating experience. Having writing friends to turn to, who have "been there," can relieve some of the frustration---it sure helps with the lonely feelings too.
Jane Austen on Masterpiece Theater
Masterpiece Theater on PBS is offering up movie adaptations of Jane Austen's novels once a week for over three months! As a Jane Austen freak, this pleases me immensely--my husband and children not so much.
I watched Persuasion last Sunday. It was a version I'd not seen before. While I enjoyed the version with Ciaran Hines much more,the Sunday night broadcast offered a decent adaptation. Of course, squeezing a novel into a ninety-minute movie means that the story is put on fast forward, and the characters are drawn in extremely broad strokes, rendering even the main characters (and certainly the minor ones) as one-dimensional. When the movie strayed away from the book, the distance it wandered was considerable. At one point I found myself jumping up from couch and shouting, "There is NO KISSING in Jane Austen!"
Still, it is always a pleasant experience to visit most any version of Austen's world. If the Masterpiece Theater series encourages anyone to pick up Austen's novels again or for the first time, that's great. Just remember, the book is always better!
Here's a link to the PBS site which has a printable PDF file for the entire Masterpiece Theater schedule:
Masterpiece Theater
Here's hoping that I can keep up with blogging. I've decided to take inspiration from my beloved Jane: "...for not being overburdened with subject (having nothing at all to say), I shall have no check on my genius from beginning to end." --letter to Cassandra, Feb. 1807.
Revenge of the Toys
Now that the holidays(in all their gift-giving glory) are over, I thought it appropriate to post this article I wrote years ago when my son was little. It was published on a parenting humor website and is probably still there. I was going to dedicate this post to someone by name, but there is no need. You know who you are.
Revenge of the Toys
They scream. They wail. They make noises specifically designed to drive parents up the wall. Are they children? No. Well, not always. It’s their toys.
During the season of giving, more often than not, these toys come to us from people who themselves endure, or once endured, a house full of noisy toys they didn’t buy for their children. Share the joy. That’s what Christmas is all about isn’t it?
It’s gift-giving revenge and it’s an ugly cycle. The motto is: “Do unto others, especially if they’ve done unto you or even if they didn’t do unto you, they deserve it anyway because of what I went through.”
How else to explain my mother showing up at my house with a gigantic toy fire truck, complete with realistic siren, flashing lights and built in megaphone?
“He’ll love it! You had one almost exactly like it when you were little!” Mom exclaimed.
“Mom, he’s only four weeks old.”
“Just wait until you hear what I bring him next week!” She cackled with glee and flew out the door.
The procession of noisy gifts has been nearly endless since my son was born. It’s not just at Christmas either. Birthdays, Easter, Tuesdays-- you never know when a gift-avenging friend or relative will show up at the door.
Just recently, even my darling sister-in-law proved not to be above giving in the spirit of revenge.
“This is for Nicholas!” she said, as she pulled a miniature electric guitar out of a shopping bag. “Rick has one just like it and Nicholas played with it the entire time he stayed with us last Thursday!” She smiled lovingly at Nicholas while she showed him how to work the volume button. “I looked all over town until I found just the right one for you…er…him.”
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