Yes, my name is Lawrence, and I hope Lawrence doesn’t mind me playing around with his name. And yes, I’ve enjoyed a little Yoga off and on over the years, but can’t seem to make it part of my regiment, so my arms aren’t always serviced.
I like to play with words, and I suppose letters and even ideas. Ever since a kid, Yoga Berri is without a doubt the funniest athlete that I’ve heard, mostly in books though.
Funny thing is that he was a catcher too, and his real name is Lawrence, so we have at least a couple of things in common. I wonder if he did any of the below, or would agree with that? I hope he wouldn’t think it’s too much. I tried really hard, but couldn’t figure out how to add less:
1. As a kid I once caught two no-hitters in the same game.
2. If I find myself speeding to get somewhere 10 minutes earlier, I slow down and just decide to stay 10 minutes longer.
3. If you don’t know where you’re going, check the map.
4. If you can’t love the one you are with, try changing.
5. When the odds are stacked against you, be sure to check the bottom as well as the top.
6. I’ve been a part of three double plays at the same time, twice.
7. My first draft was cool, the second draft was cooler, but then the final one got hot!
8. I like it when I mince my words and they come out right, but my mince meet never does.
9. And finally, I have a hard time hearing with one ear, and can’t see out the other.
Feel free to add your own here…I’ll just grin and Berra it!
When I was a kid, and then still when I was a young man, I always looked forward to the next 007 flick. I don’t know about you, but for me it was all about the gadgets and special effects, and of course the leading ladies. Yeah, I know, there’s plenty of stereotyping that goes on, but then there’s the humor, so hopefully no one took the sexism to heart.
Then it got to the point where for me at least, the introduction and the ending credits became worth the price of admission all by themselves. In this particular case for example, as much as I like the video, I can’t remember a damn thing about the movie, nor do I care to now. And I must have seen it at least three times.
This video, For Your Eyes Only, has always captivated me. There’s the music, the intriguing and mysterious lyrics. . . “no need to read between the lines.”, and then there’s the visual portrayal, and finally, all the technology that goes with it.
It’s pretty amazing to think that this video was done so many years ago. We tend to think of all this layering as being much more recent than 1980. But then the machine that was eventually to become known as ‘the fax machine’ was actually based on technology from the 1920’s.
It’s funny how the ‘warm and fuzzy’ I get when I watch this video is also the same way I feel in writing many parts of novel. It is hard to blog about that, partly because what is really a very simple story seems to be deceptive in a way. I say ‘deceptive’ because as it is coming to completion, I see that it has many different layers, and to talk of one without the other is damn near impossible. It’s kind of like trying to describe the rain coming from one cloud when it’s actually coming from more than you can count. . . but not too many!
But I’ll try to touch on of those layers here. It actually does concern the issue of audio and video technology and what happens when they become somehow entwined in a very sensual experience. Should some experiences be “for yours eyes only”?
So the issue becomes an ethical one, and there are so many these days, so many that I wonder whether humanity will ever be able to catch up with all our modern technology. If you think about it, then in a way the technology controls our sense of right and wrong, or perhaps puts that sense to sleep, for your shut eyes only?
And does technology have karma? It must, at least in the sense that it seems to be an inextricable part of much of the human condition. But then what is karma? And I’m sorry, but I’m not going back to writings from thousands of years ago to try to understand that. I’ve already done that many times over the years. But there are things that happen, and they involve technology, technical applications in the context of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. . . well those events have crushed any personal understanding of that term ‘karma’, at least in the traditional sense.
In my writing, one of my characters finds herself disturbed by the term, so the best she can describe her own feelings on the matter is, “the blending and churning of time and truth.”
Anyways, these are the musings of someone finds inspiration in the strangest places, even a silly little introduction to a James Bond film. I think the next music I post here will be ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’, the live rendition by Sharon Clark.
Have a wonderful weekend.
PS – The last 007 film that I’ve seen was a breakthrough film for Halle Berry, with an exquisite Madonna intro and conclusion. Since then they have completely lost any appeal, but then I haven’t seen the intros.
Lately a little sunshine has come up in discussions with some really bright people.
Over the last number of years I’ve enjoyed times of solitude where I just reflect on life, mostly the non-human varieties. In the last year or so, since immersing myself in social media, every now and then I get involved in online discussions that relate to this issue of the sun. Sometimes this includes discussions with various scientists.
To be sure, I’m an artist at heart, though I’m also well trained in scientific methodology, statistics and so on, but I don’t pretend to be an ‘expert’ in any of it, don’t need to be. Recently a discussion came up from a scientist who has a blog about the role of artists in kind of “feeding” science. The person actually works in this field, some kind of institute that seeks to combine the two endeavors.
On one hand I can appreciate this, but on the other hand, there is an arrogance behind it that is hard to stomach. It’s the arrogance that all life has a scientific basis. This belief seems to be ingrained in so many people at an alarming rate over the last few decades. As a belief it is very much like a religion. Perhaps not so surprising is the negative reaction that such people have when you point this out, and yet it is so very true.
Many artists tend to look at life differently, to observe and come to know certain things without measurements. Scientists seem to think of this as what, romantic? Dreamy? Idealistic? Whatever term is used, the common one would be “inferior”, at least in terms of comparison to the observing through the use of science. At the unavoidable risk of sounding confrontational, I see it as quite the opposite.
So what does this have to do with the sun?
We’ve all been taught that the sun is very far away, but that’s not really true is it? When you think of its light continually blending in with the planet we live on, and how life here couldn’t exist without it, then you can easily appreciate how inseparable we are from the sun…it’s not just ‘out there’, it’s right here.
Think of the stream of light as an indivisible umbilical chord.
As I mentioned in a previous post, time and gravity are inseparable aspects of life on earth. Now when you combine this with the indivisible aspect of the sun, then you can understand that the earth as a mass, with its time and gravity, are indivisibly connected to the sun.
The problem in physics then is the equation ‘energy = mass x the speed of light squared). This equation involves mass (earth), the sun, and time. It’s not really a valid equation once you accept this indivisibility as I’ve described it.
The reason for that can be shown in a simple question, “How you can multiply something when you can’t really divide it?”
I don’t know what all this means, I just know that I need to say it.
The picture at the top is another one of my unfinished works; it began as a photograph of the door know and keyhole of my storage shed. The link below is on the lighter side, and is a great presentation on the creative thinking process. What I really like about it is that it presented by someone like myself in terms of starting out as someone trained in science.
I wish this cursor would stop blinking at me, but I guess that’s why they call it a ‘cursor’.
It seems almost every blogger that I follow also does other writing. With a minor case of bloggers’ block, I’m finding this to be quite different than writer’s block. Funny thing is though, I’ve never had writers’ block. I’m 20,000 words and five chapters into my second novel and it’s coming along better than expected, and I expect a lot!
So far I’ve found four main characters that sneaked into my book.
Each character seems to have their own rule book, though none of them see themselves as rebels, just quietly rebellious.
They’re a curious bunch, all very decent on the surface, except for one dude who’s gotten what he deserves. Pardon me…that’s dudes not one of the four, and yet so far he’s been the sneakiest by far! The two main female characters are smart, one very funny and one very troubled, tough and at the same with a huge but confused heart…a survivor of both her looks and charm, as well as the curiosity that led her down an adventurous path that she very much wants to leave behind.
Then there’s two main male characters. One’s your average guy, until you get to know him. A tradesman, a loner, a playful dreamer who thinks he wants to find the right woman and ‘settle down’ but at 37 he is actually very much settled, comfortable, busy in his passions. In other words, like most men in his position he really doesn’t know what he wants, and the question remains as to whether he ever figure this out, or perhaps someone will do it for him?
The other man is more of a gentleman, a quirky eccentric who doesn’t mind helping others as long as he has a say in direction, and ‘helping others’ seems to have no end in terms of the strangely pleasant adventures he brings his followers into; most of them don’t even realize what they’re involved in, and none seem to mind…at least so far!
Now after dragging you into this funnel of intrigue, I suppose it’s only fair to punish you with an excerpt:
As always, Melanie begins with her window shopping, a full 90 minutes of it, followed by a quick 30 minute grocery tour, which is basically a routine more than an adventure. She likes the uniqueness of the bazaar or at least the attempt of it. Local and regional crafts people are everywhere, this being the start of the tourist season. Small artist and artisan-run co-ops occupy what seems like two out of five shops. Most of the others are franchise operations but at least the offerings are more exotic, different than the mega-malls. And then there are the service businesses: hair salons, acupuncture and massage, all kinds of mini restaurants, and then her favorite: the music shop.
It’s more than a place to buy musical instruments of all sorts classical. It’s also more than a place to buy sheet music that must be exhaustive in availability. It’s even more than a registry for antique instruments or a place to sign up for lessons of the French Horn. It’s also a place where every Sunday for 30 minutes of every hour, a local musician or small group performs in a small sitting area within the shop, with room for maybe 20 or so patrons. The charge is voluntary and all proceeds go to the musicians, and the ones that really don’t need the money leave theirs for the ones that really do.
She knew of this kind of sharing through her acquaintance with one such musician, Joe Spence, a violinist who only recently came into some unexpected financial success with an online video that quickly became popular. She met this young man totally by accident about three months ago, literally bumping into him as she came out of the grocery store, in a hurry to meet up with Donna. Though it was her fault, he apologized and offered to repay her in some way for the trouble he had caused. His kindness caught her by surprise, or perhaps it was his gentle nature, which seemed odd when she looked at him and saw the face of a proud, defiant Sioux warrior.
She would have no part of any kind gesture, so after helping her getting her bags repacked he offered to play for her someday. This is how she learned of the music shop, as he handed her a card and told her he plays there every Sunday morning. When he told that he’s a violinist, his eyes shone brightly and he grinned at her obvious surprise to the announcement. Perhaps it was all of this, and maybe his passion as well, that lured her every week to hear him play, and then to visit for awhile. Other than that, shopping was just groceries.
Walking down the aisle, a poster on a community billboard catches her attention. It’s a beautiful picture of horses and an advertisement for some sort of jumping competition. It reminds her of Joe’s explanation, his reaction to her surprise, as he had told her, “I can you’re surprised…an Indian playing the violin! I was surprised too…never thought of it until I learned something special about violins.” Without giving her a chance to ask, he continued, “It’s all about the horses for me, and for my people. They were our friends, not our possessions. This is still the way. We don’t own them any more than we own the wind. So it’s the bow. Do you know the string of the bow is actually the hair of the horse? This fascinated me and soon I fell in love with the wind of the violin…the music.” He then looked her in the eyes, and seeing the warmth he knew she understood and with a lightning grin he concluded, “It’s all horseplay!” and they laughed.
And just so you know, I’m just teasing here…neither Joe nor Melanie are one of the four main characters mentioned above…gotcha!
I suppose this might have been inevitable once I began writing more. “This” being the urge to add a post about how that’s progressing, my writing.
I’ve come across so many writers’ blogs recently, so many fine ones, and I don’t mind saying it is a richer experience than my networking places. Perhaps the dialogue isn’t so instant, though It’s all so much more personal isn’t it?
I’ve gotten to know only a handful of people through networking, and I’m very thankful for that, but for me it seems this is in spite of the venue and not because of it. With each of these people it is only through one-on-one and private communication where I really feel like I’m getting to know any one.
By comparison, it’s be like thinking of something like Google + as a busy night club, lots of entertainment, pizzazz (yeah, I know…pizzazz, but what the heck, I am 55), and a lot of fine people trying to impress and get to know some of the ‘each others’. And then you hit it off with some one in particular, and you begin a private correspondence, and it’s like going from a busy and crowded night club to a quiet, more intimate coffee shop. And you get to know one another about as well as one can over long distance telecommunication devices.
Blogging though, is often like skipping the bar scene and heading right to the coffee shop, and it often feels like one that is in a sort of magical book shop, full of surprises.
So I guess I’m old fashioned that way. You don’t have to think too hard to realize that in the real world a person is only physically and mentally capable of developing a handful of relationships that are meaningful at all…what’s the joke at political dinners, “I’d like to thank 500 of my closest friends for joining me tonight.”? Hmmm.
So it doesn’t matter if this place has 1 billion members and that one only 125 million…insane numbers really, especially when it comes down to you and me. Save it for the folks with the big advertising budgets. McDonald’s may have served billions, but how many do you want?
Oh, yeah, a post about my writing…well it’s coming along quite nicely, thank you, a pleasant mystery, twists and turns, a little humor, an almost excruciating amount of teasing of the reader…and soon I might even share a paragraph of two, but which ones?
I’m tired of this endless debate, so many smart people who don’t seem to get it in terms of the simplest truth. The universe is boundless, infinite, end of story.
One thing we all know about walls is that there is always something on the other side. Those who claim that the universe is finite must then claim that the universe has some kind of invisible wall, like a shell of sorts. If so then how thick is the wall, and what’s on the other side?
So either the wall goes on forever or it doesn’t and there is something on the other side…either way it keeps on going…it is infinite, immeasurable.
I’m so tired of any claim else-wise. When you come to understand this boundless aspect, then with a little thinking you can actually appreciate that in its totality there is a kind a unity. I say this because an infinite universe can neither expand nor contract.
Many people of science get very upset when you can explain this universal truth to them with simple reason, and a little imagination. To these people it seems reputation and the sale of textbooks seem much more important than truth.
Thankfully there are still those who have a passion for truth, and for them it is more important than tradition, more important than egos and more important than reputation, past or present. And thankfully there is no money to made from this simple truth, which speaks volumes when you think about it.
Your comments are welcome, as is freely sharing a little truth…just please don’t ask me what it means! 🙂
Such a poetic note, handwritten, and a rather pleasant surprise, as it was found upon opening the book, on a blank page of paper no less…one with many shades of beige.
I picked up this book at what is now my favorite used book store. It’s full of pleasant surprises and mysteries, some of which are too private for posting. What’s pleasant about this handwritten note above is not only the words but the beautiful calligraphy, almost a work of art in itself as it looks so genuine. And as this wonderful gypsy that sold it to me pointed out, “I wonder who she was?” which were my thoughts exactly, as in, “What was her story?“
As it turns out, the book is a hard cover first edition. It is a book of short stories by an author who’s work I’ve only read once before, about 30 years ago now. It’s called “Little Birds: Erotica by Anais Nin” which was published shortly after her death.
I’ve mentioned a little about erotica in my last few posts, including a discomfort in getting caught up in its current popularity. So I received another surprise in this book, and this occurs before the stories begin, in the preface. I’m including a quote from that preface, as she expresses how I feel about the whole issue of writing of the erotic better than I can…really quite remarkable!
Before adding this quote I should mention that Anais Nin had a soft spot for these writers, ones she knew at the time, who wrote a lot of erotica. She talks sympathetically about how these people were poor and hungry and wrote in this style simply for the money. She then goes on to say:
It is one thing to include eroticism in a novel or a story and quite another to focus one’s whole attention on it. The first is like life itself. It is, I might say, natural, sincere, as in the sensual pages of Zola or of Lawrence. But focusing wholly on the sexual life is not natural. It becomes something like the life of the prostitute, an abnormal activity that ends up turning the prostitute away from the sexual. Writers perhaps know this. That is why they have written only one confession or a few short stories, on the side, to satisfy their honesty about life, as Mark Twain did.
But what happens to a group of writers who need money so badly that they devote themselves entirely to the erotic? How does this affect their lives, their feelings toward the world, their writing? What effect has it on their sexual life?
As I’m typing this quote I keep thinking of it in the context of not so much the writing of the day, but of mass media in general, the eroticism of it all, whether it’s magazines, the internet, music videos or television. The words of Anais Nin become somewhat prophetic in the sense that our culture has somehow lost its way in this assault on our senses…how much candy is too much?
And with that I look forward to finding another book of hers, titled, “The Novel of The Future”.
PS – I didn’t realize it before, but her writing is the epitome of “The Elements of Style”…a wonderful companion!
When I was a kid, over 40 years ago now, I think I was in grade 7 at the time, Friday night was kind of special. How this became special I cannot remember, nor can I remember how I ever came to be involved in this activity. It seems what was special about this activity was the score, and the coinciding peer pressure. Getting one down the center was the ultimate goal and doing so frequently was some kind of achievement.
I’m not talking about bowling here; that was reserved for Saturday mornings. This was a school-related activity, or at least it happened underground, beneath this one-story elementary school, the one where I spent grade 5. The oddity of this didn’t even hit home until just this very day. You see I was always told that this underground facility was built during the wartime for training purposes. It was a shooting range. There were perhaps 10 or so alleys, the targets seemed much further away than the pins at the bowling alley, and the circles on the paper seemed so very small…and I had great eyesight.
My friends and I thought this was pretty cool. None of us owned the 22-caliber rifles; they stayed with the bunker and we just bought our weekly supply of bullets. There was no time pressure or anything, just the pressure to score highly on a weekly total of 100, kind of like a percentage. So at the end of evening the boys and I would compare our sheets and I was never much better than average, so it wasn’t so much fun. On the other hand, no one beat me at bowling, which was so much more fun.
It seems this was a winter activity and only lasted a few months. When it was over one or two of my friends were awarded pellet guns by their parents. It was springtime by then. In no time at all there must have been about half a dozen of us with these guns. Mine was one of the cheapest as my parents probably had less money than all of the others, so I was kind of envious of some of the others’ units. This too was a competition. Pellets were pretty cheap and the river was very close.
The implication of that was that there was no problem exploring our favorite paths along the river, surrounded by plenty of ample bush and trees, only now we had arms. We usually wondered in pairs, perhaps three if there was an odd number. For practice we would shoot at tin cans and so the competition continued, though it didn’t stay at cans for long. You see there were birds to shoot, and the prowess became the hit rate on sparrows and robins, shot for no other reason.
Thankfully I was not very good at this activity, and regretfully I never thought much of what I was doing. I don’t remember this hobby lasting more than one summer. Neither do I remember when everyone else stopped. However, I do remember as clearly as this evening’s supper how I came to cease and desist. It happened on a very fine day and I was standing on the river bank right next to a big bend in the river. For whatever reason I was all alone. I had my pellet in my gun in case a bird should come along.
Sure enough while looking around this bend I spotted one flying, more like gliding along the path of the water. It wasn’t a sparrow or a robin though. It was a bird like none that I’d seen before, more like a great blue heron. By the time I noticed the beauty of this magnificent bird I already had my gun raised to shoot. And then it happened. I saw this bird for what it was, but more than that it spoke to me in that wonderful silence, as if to say to me in a very gentle voice, “Why do you want to hurt me?” And as I sensed this my arms fell to the side. The question remained unanswered and I’ve never shot a gun of any kind since.
I’ve seldom had such a moment of clarity, and such a calm and peaceful one at that.
So fast forward 30-some years and you will find me in a very confused state. It is in the fall and like so many people, I am immersed in a battle without even knowing it. The tragedy of 9/11 is still very fresh and there is this talk of taking action, a part of the battle of the hearts and minds. My children are with me at this time, they are around 10 and 11 years old and I am driving them to school one day. I don’t know how it came up, but there must have been a question that arose on this issue of war. I hadn’t been able to make any sense of the news, couldn’t understand any of the arguments, but I did mutter something about the need to protect freedom.
Well the discussion pretty much ended in one of those other moments of clarity. It happened very spontaneously in the form of a question that kind of answers itself. So in response to my comment on freedom, one of my children said something that will stick with me as long as I can think. She said, “But daddy how they be free? They carry guns.”
Today when I see the birds there is freedom I see and a togetherness that is so truly inspiring and of course I am a dreamer and I wonder if we will ever be that together. It seems all I can do is hope.
PS – The picture at the top is yet another unpublished work of mine, still in progress, but almost finished.
Lately when I go to bed I start writing…fiction writing. Lately when I get up I realize that I’m now writing about something entirely different.
For example, this morning I woke up thinking about nudist colonies of all things. I’ve never been to one, and after this dream I’m sure I never will. Perhaps it’s a little of that Groucho Marx mentality that I’ve had most of my life, “Why would I belong to a club that would have me as a member?”
The dream, if you can call it that, is perhaps only an hour old and already it is hard to remember, especially how I got onto the topic in the first place. So here’s a snippet by recollection, but be warned, my dreams have a tendency to be ‘politically incorrect’.
I think what woke me was a kind of self-censorship as it seems I was already in ‘write-mode’. Should I really say that I feel bad if I don’t find all women adorable in their nudity? There is no need to get into graphical details or numbers of any sort. As for the men, it gets even worse in that department. It reminds me of a study I once read about that found women tend to rate themselves as being much heavier than others would, while men tend to see themselves as being much slimmer than others see them.
As for me, I’m certainly not half the man I used to be…more like one and a half!
I’m not so crazy about looking at myself naked at the best of times, so why would I want to subject others to my stature of exceeded limitations? So there are two basic things that I would worry about. One is that I’m too big, and the other is that I wouldn’t fit in!
Now I’m sure there are the purists out there who will claim it’s all about looking at the inner person and not the body, that you’re there for the intellectual experience. On that level I’d probably kick in with some smart-ass comment about some great thinkers who talk about the ‘mind, body and soul’ and then ask why we should ignore the middle part.
Then there is the whole issue of the narcissism of the whole scenario, perhaps even this dream itself? I just read a blog last night that touched on social networking as being a form of narcissism. There does seem to be something self-indulgent about this strange need to express one’s freedom…for me freedom has become a somewhat funny word, at the very least a very curious one!
It’s almost like making a statement like, “I’m naked, I can talk about anything now, and I’ll just shut off my sexual urges at my command”. (And on top of that, I’ll do my damnedest to hide any revulsion!). And that’s a lot of, ‘my my my’ isn’t it?
So there’s the crux of it, no nudist colony for me, though someday maybe I’ll visit a nude beach, who knows? With my luck I’d probably wind up in lawn chair sitting next to Stephen Hawkings with no visible tan lines…and nothing to say! 🙂
PS – The picture at the top is another of mine, though an unpublished one called “Grand Beach”.
PPS – When I find someone adorable, clothes don’t much matter, definitely much less than she thinks!
Bound and impatient. With these three words I could launch 1,000 stories. I’m sure to do many, and with just nap three or four or five plots begin their journey. In fact, as far as fiction goes, I’m already thinking that I’ll give it a whirl, start everything I write with these three words and see where my story takes me. This way it will be just like doing art! So once more I have to thank someone I know in a way but have never met, a kindred spirit I suppose. She has this knack for showing me and picture and zoom, with the exchange of a few words I’m off and writing.
She let me see one of her works of art, though not the picture above, which is one my unpublished works. The picture she let me see depicts what most would consider mild bondage , which can be so hot when the element of patience comes into play, even hotter when theelement includes impatience. There was no surprise as the conversation inevitably lead to the mention of Fifty Shades of Grey, a book that I’ve never read nor do I intend to read it, and yet I’ve conversed with 4 or 5 people about my writing and each time this book comes up.
Pardon the pun, but I’ve only heard about that book in snippets. I won’t read it only because I don’t want it to influence my own writing.
While I have no intention of engrossing myself in erotica, I certainly don’t mind my hot chocolate getting a little steamy, in a playful way. And there is the rub of it, the invisible window between play and something else…danger? With luck and the wind, perhaps I’ll mix a little of the gypsy magic with the adventure of an adult Harry Potter character, of sorts? One way or another, let there be some humor, dammit!
In the spirit of the gypsy Harry Potter then, “bound and impatient” becomes a story of an old leather book and the impatience of curiosity…the search for the knowledge of, “Well, you know…”
So these stories will twist and turn and I will tease and taunt you as best I can. Certainly some laughter, perhaps a few tears, and some secret “oh my”s along the way. Eventually they will take the form of an ebook or a dozen. All this on top of my art, which if you’ve seen my site, you should be warned…I’ve only just begun. And I have no intention of ever being done; who would ever want that?
After all, being done is certain to lead to impatience. Then there is this issue of writer’s block, the kind where one has too much going on in one’s mind and is bound by the constraint of a single keyboard, when about five going at once would be preferred! So the block isn’t a block at all but more of a timeless ocean, which is a nice way of putting it given my new acronym of the day…SWIM…see what I mean? 🙂
lawrence grodecki 