April 4, 2019 at 1:50 am (Books, Explorers, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended)
Tags: dreams, nonfiction
From The Sea Is One, an Introduction to Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans by Admiral James Stavridis (Penguin Press, 2017):
The approaches to land are always difficult in my dreams, and the ship often finds herself running out of deep water and becomes rapidly in danger of foundering on a beach or up a river or upon a reef. I always wake up before the ship finally impales herself ashore, and I always wish I had stayed farther out to sea.
April 3, 2019 at 5:02 pm (Books, Explorers, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended)
Tags: discoveries, history, Mendocino, nonfiction
Found this book in Gallery Bookshop, Mendocino, last year.
Love any book on Sea Power. Because oceans are life. And self loves reading about them.
The World’s Oceans: Shipping Lanes and Choke Points, from Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans, by Admiral James Stavridis (Ret.)
Stay tuned.
March 18, 2019 at 4:06 am (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Explorers, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Recommended, Sundays)
Tags: Asian American Writers, discoveries, essays, history, nonfiction, Salon.com, San Francisco
Love Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco. Reading the essays in it painstakingly slowly.
Gary Kamiya was one of the founders of Salon.com (still going strong!). An ex-fellow Fellow from Stanford, Jim Paul, used to write for them. As did Chitra Divakaruni. As did Laura Miller. As did Heather Havrilesky.
Self is on Essay # 5, The Harbor at the End of the World:
A 1508 map by Johannes Ruysch depicts South America as the New World, with Asia in the place where North America actually is.
Private beach access for this homeowner along the Mendocino coast
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
March 5, 2019 at 5:43 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Explorers, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: discoveries, novel, praise, reading lists, science fiction
Self loves Becky Chambers’ world-building. She first picked up on Chambers’s absolutely on-point world-building skills in the Sawyer sections (This novel uses one of those mutliple point-of-view structures, which normally self finds extremely annoying, but here actually likes). As a result, Sawyer quickly became one of self’s favorite characters.
In a recent chapter, he met the crew of a salvage ship. His observations about the crew, especially one with a “flip-eye”, and the way he’s asked to “break code” is completely beguiling. She almost quoted it in a blog post yesterday, but had to complete her week’s assignment for a memoir class she’s taking from UCLA Extension (a comp; after all these years of teaching, she’s entitled to at least a dozen of these!), so decided to forego the pleasure.
This morning, she happily begins to read a new Sawyer section (p. 175). Once again, the inventiveness of Chambers comes through!
A few pages earlier, Sawyer met Eyas, self’s second-favorite character.
Sent message
Encryption: 0
Translation: 0
From: Sawyer (path: 7466-314-23)
To: Eyas (path: 6635-448-80)
Hi Eyas,
I hope you don’t mind my sending you a note. I found your scrib path in the ship’s directory (you’re the only one with your name!). Anyway, I wanted to thank you again for your advice the other day. I’d just signed up for sanitation work when I met somebody outside the job office looking to hire workers for a salvage project. It’s just a gig right now, but it might be more. Plus, the crew’s been the only group of people other than yourself to offer to show me the ropes. They seem like fun folks. So I’m on board with them now, but don’t worry! My name’s still in the sanitation lottery. I took what you said seriously, and I’ll help out when I’m needed. Thanks for steering me in the right direction.
Sawyer
Oh, Sawyer. He’s good at reading code, but doesn’t bother encrypting his message to Eyas? What a neophyte! The message has self thinking: Danger! Danger! He is entirely too trusting of his new crewmates.
And now that Sawyer’s sent the message, he sits on his bed thinking: I should have bought new clothes.
lol
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
January 28, 2019 at 8:44 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Explorers, Lists, Memoirs, Places, plans, Recommended, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: book lists, decisions, Mondays, nonfiction, reading lists, travel books
Excited to be adding these wonderful books to self’s 2019 Reading List. Self loves travel books. It’s been a year since she devoted a reading year to them:
Alan Booth
Alexandra David Neel
Alison Wearing
Ann Jones
Anthony Doerr
Best Women’s Travel Writing series
Bill Bryson
Blair Braverman
Bruce Chatwin
Dervla Murphy
Ellen Meloy
Gabrielle Hamilton
Gretchen Legler
Isabella L. Bird
Isabelle Eberhardt
Jamaica Kincaid
Jan Morris
Julia Child
Katrina Kittle
Kira Salak
Mary Henrietta Kingsley
Melanie Bowden Simon
Peter Mayle
Rebecca Solnit
Robyn Davidson
Stanley Stewart
Suzanne Roberts
January 28, 2019 at 1:05 am (Explorers, Lists, Movies, Philippine History, Sundays)
Tags: history, memories, news, politics, San Francisco Chronicle, South-East Asia, The Philippines, Vietnam War
Loving the cover story:
In 1969:
Nixon became President, the Beatles released Abbey Road, Sly and the Family Stone released Want To Take You Higher, The Who released Tommy.
Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid premiered. TV’s Star Trek got cancelled.
Woodstock happened, Chappaquiddick happened, the moon landing happened, Berkeley’s People Park happened, Charles Manson happened, The Gap opened its 1st store, the Vietnam draft lottery was televised, William Calley was convicted of six counts of murder for My Lai.
Self was in summer camp in England. That’s where she heard about the moon landing.
Ferdinand Marcos won re-election as President of the Philippines.
Wonder what groundbreaking books were published that year? No mention in the Chronicle. There must have been some.
Where was Gloria Steinem?
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
January 27, 2019 at 9:05 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Explorers, Filipino Writers, Links, Places, Recommended, Sundays, Surprises, Writing)
Tags: inspiration, Mendocino, teaching
A deep examination of process.
A workshop that is as much about reflection as it is about writing.
A workshop about doing it over. And over. Until you get it right.
ONE STORY, SIX WAYS: Feb. 8 – 10, 2019
Instructor: Marianne Villanueva
42500 Little Lake Street
Mendocino, CA
January 5, 2019 at 4:48 am (Artists and Writers, Explorers, Filipino Writers, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: fantasy, Fridays, horror, novellas, work-in-progress
Would you believe self wrote this?
Reading it over, now, it all sounds like gobbledygook.
She started this particular story in Annaghmakerrig, Ireland (All her best science fiction were written at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig). That was really bold, since she’s never been to either of the Poles, North or South.
In addition, she’s the furthest thing from a scientist you can imagine. Put numbers and other hard data in front of her, and her mind will cease to function. She’ll go into shock.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
December 27, 2018 at 5:13 am (Explorers, Links)
Tags: news
While Trump and Melania were off in Iraq doing God-knows-what, an American named Colin O’Brady became the first man to cross Antarctica un-aided.
In 54 days of enduring bone-chilling temperatures, he made a journey of 932 miles (1,500 kilometers), while pulling a sled. He told the Associated Press: “Can you see it in my face? I’ve suffered . . . ”
He and Englishman Louis Rudd were racing each other for the record.
In 2016, English adventurer Henry Worsley died while trying to make the first such attempt.
Here’s a link to an article about his trek on the National Geographic website.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
November 28, 2018 at 9:19 am (destinations, Explorers, Links, Places, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: Cambridge, Cee Neuner, England, London
It seems apt, the theme of this week’s Fun Foto Challenge from Cee Neuner: COLD.
Self is in northern England. In Durham. It took self three hours by train from London, via Peterborough.
Her train pulled into Durham just after dark. She saw a large cathedral. She realized this must be her stop.
Since she hasn’t begun exploration of Durham yet (it’s a very bleak morning), the pictures she’s posting are from her previous stop, Cambridge.
Cambridge felt arctic.
This was Bridge Street when self left St. John’s Chapel after the Advent Choral Service:
Bridge Street, Cambridge: Sunday, 25 November 2018
And note the bundled up tour guide. Self was on a Cambridge Highlights Walking Tour. We stopped in front of the most fabulous clock.
Corpus Clock, Cambridge: Friday, 23 November 2018
And, finally, Blackfriars Station in London. The previous night, self stayed in a hotel on Fleet Street so she could attend the Journalists’ Service at St. Bride’s.
Blackfriars Train Station, London: Thanksgiving, 22 November 2018
Thanks as usual to Cee Neuner for the fabulous prompt.
Stay tuned.
 | anthropologist on Three-Of-a-Kind II |
 | nancy merrill on Three-Of-a-Kind II |
| anthropologist on SIGNS: Cee’s Fun Foto… |
 | Cee Neuner on SIGNS: Cee’s Fun Foto… |
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