May 26, 2019 at 3:13 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Recommended, Sayings, Sundays, Traveling)
Tags: English writers, environment, nonfiction, Prague, reading lists
Beginning a new book deserves some kind of pause, a marker.
The new book would have been Diane Setterfield’s Once Upon a River if she had managed to snag a copy in Prague (Self has always got to be reading something; she feels bereft if she lets a day go by without having a book she can say she is “currently reading”).
Instead, she’s reading Tim Dee’s Landfill: Notes on Gull Watching and Trash Picking in the Anthropocene. So far, she’s only on p. 1 but she keeps getting distracted (last afternoon tea with Irene! A walk to the Spanish Synagogue for a concert).
She also likes the drawings that start each new chapter. The bookmark she’s using is a quote she copied from a restaurant in Fowey (Dear Fowey: What a special thing it is that she was able to attend this year’s Festival of Art and Literature!). It’s by, of all people, Ernest Hemingway, who she hasn’t read in AGES. But it is written like a prose poem. Don’t dear blog readers agree?
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 14, 2019 at 4:16 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Filipino Writers, Sayings, Sundays, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: happiness, inspiration, seasons, travel
Self travels the world.
And does her best to be happy.
That is all.
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March 28, 2019 at 6:05 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Family, Filipino Writers, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Sayings)
Tags: Carlos Bulosan, favorites, memories, novel, The Philippines, wisdom
One of our foremost Filipino writers was a migrant worker who died at 40 of tuberculosis, in a Seattle boarding house.
His name was Carlos Bulosan, and The Laughter of My Father was one of Dear Departed Dad’s favorite books (Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino found this copy for me, previously used naturally!)
Reading it now, self can understand why. She’s reading the Bantam edition, published August 1946.
p. 2:
Laughter was our only wealth. Father was a laughing man. He would go into the living room and stand in front of the tall mirror, stretching his mouth into grotesque shapes with his fingers and making faces at himself; then he would rush into the kitchen, roaring with laughter.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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October 28, 2018 at 5:48 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Recommended, Sayings, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, discoveries, Northern Ireland, poetry, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Self really likes that the cottage is full of poetry books. Every time she comes, she discovers someone new.
She found a book called Landscape of Self (Belfast: Lapwing Publications, 2015) by Aine MacAodha.
Here’s the first half of a poem called
To My Children When I’m Gone
Some mountains are higher than others
Winter can cause frost bite.
Without a bit of darkness
We may not appreciate the light afterwards.
Remember the good in the world
The take your breath smiles
The smile from a stranger in a strange place
The beauty in a daisy chain
The elegance in a buttercup
The wonder of a webbing spider
The warmth of a heart
When another’s fiery arrow hits it
Love and goodness costs nothing
Hatred causes illness
Treat the nature around you with respect
Treat your spirit with kindness others too
Manners are easily carried.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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July 20, 2018 at 6:09 pm (Artists and Writers, Flowers, Links, Sayings, Surprises, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: essay, Fridays, inspiration, Rosario Ferré, wisdom, writing process
I write because I am poorly adjusted to reality; because the deep disillusionment within me has given rise to a need to re-create life, to replace it with a more compassionate, tolerable reality. I carry within me a utopian person, a utopian world.
— from the essay The Writer’s Kitchen, Feminist Studies 12, no. 2 (Summer 1986), translated from the Spanish by Diana L. Velez
A minute ago, self decided to google Ferré and learned she had passed away, 18 February 2016. She was 77.
Noooooooo!
The View Across the Street From the Gallery Bookshop, Main Street, Mendocino, 21 April 2018
Stay tuned, dear blog writers. Stay tuned.
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June 4, 2018 at 1:04 am (Artists and Writers, Sayings, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: essay, inspiration, Rosario Ferré, translation, writing process
Translated by Diana L. Velez
Feminist Studies 12, no. 2 (Summer 1986)
Throughout time, women narrators have written for many reasons: Emily Bronte wrote to confirm the revolutionary nature of passion; Virginia Woolf wrote to exorcise her terror of madness and death; Joan Didion writes to discover what and how she thinks; Clarice Lispector discovered in her writing a reason to love and be loved. In my case, writing is simultaneously a constructive and a destructive urge, a possibility for growth and change. I write to build myself word by word, to banish my terror of silence; I write as a speaking, human mask. With respect to words, I have much for which to be grateful. Words have allowed me to forge for myself a unique identity, one which owes its existence only to my own efforts. For this reason, I place more trust in the words I use than perhaps I ever did in my natural mother. When all else fails, when life becomes an absurd theater, I know the words are there, ready to return my confidence to me.
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May 21, 2018 at 2:20 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Conversations, Filipino Writers, Memoirs, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Sayings)
Tags: Asian American Writers, Mondays, short story
At the entrance was a very large security guard chatting with another man who referred to him as Dinnerplate. Having recently been employed as a security guard, I felt a connection with my uniformed brethren. “Excuse me . . . uh . . . Dinnerplate,” I said. “Can you tell me where I can give my updated contact information?” He gave me a stern look. “My name is Officer Fortune,” he said, “William A. Fortune, and you will address me as such!” I looked at the tattoo on his neck. It read Dinnerplate in cursive, although he may have been better served had it read Thinnerplate. “OK,” I replied, heading to the customer service windows where I was told — in so many words — to sit down, shut up, and wait my turn like a good boy . . .
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April 27, 2018 at 4:20 pm (Books, Personal Bookshelf, postaday, Recommended, Sayings)
Tags: English writers, fantasy, Fridays, His Dark Materials, novel, Philip Pullman, postaday, postaweek, reading lists, wisdom, Wordpress
Books come in and out of self’s life all the time. Sometimes, if she’s lucky, they come when she’s most ready.
She’s currently reading The Amber Spyglass, Book III of His Dark Materials. Why has she waited this long to enter this world? She began with the most recent Philip Pullman novel, La Belle Sauvage, which she finished reading a little over two weeks ago. Then she moved on to The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife.
So far, self’s favorite passage in The Amber Spyglass is the one about choice:
23 April 2018
23 April 2018
23 April 2018
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March 20, 2018 at 5:10 am (Books, Explorers, Filipino Writers, Places, postaday, Recommended, Sayings)
Tags: Asian American Writers, causes, Events, Filipino writers, happiness, inspiration, Linda Nietes, Mondays, postaday, postaweek, praise, Readings, Wordpress
Linda Nietes greeting a customer at the bookshop she owns, Philippine Expressions (Inside a 1920s building, 479 W. Sixth St., San Pedro, CA). Linda is 81 years old. She has been running bookstores all her life.
Last Saturday, 17 March, International Woman’s Day, Linda Nietes invited six Filipina authors to Philippine Expressions Bookshop in San Pedro to read from their work. The authors were: poets Angela Narciso Torres and Irene Suico Soriano, and prose writers Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, Tessie Jayme, and self. The reading was held in the beautiful lobby of a 1920s-era building on 479 W. Sixth Street:
Here’s son with Linda before the reading:
Beautiful Event. Self was honored to be a part of it.
Here’s Linda, in her own words, about why she does what she does:
- It is a ministry, an advocacy, a labor of love, and the results cannot be counted in dollars and cents. It is fulfilling only to the person who accepts the responsibility of creating a greater awareness and a higher consciousness among members of our community. I have found the field, planted an orchard. Saplings are growing and some have already grown and are blooming and even fruiting. Lucky will be the generation that will just pick the fruits of my labor, but I do not mind that because I understand what the role of a trailblazer is! You blaze the trail so that people will find their way. I was inspired by a quote: “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 19, 2018 at 3:13 am (Artists and Writers, Sayings, Sundays)
Tags: art, discoveries, Fort Bragg, inspiration, Mendocino, wisdom
“Redwood Mary” by Mary Rose Kaczorowski, Fort Bragg, CA
Self bought this card from one of her favorite bookshops: Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino.
The art is by Fort Bragg artist Mary Rose Kaczorowski.
The sentiment speaks to the current political climate, so self wanted to share.
Remember, #NeverAgainIsNow and #MarchForOurLives #March24
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