May 25, 2020 at 4:57 pm (Books, Explorers, Memoirs, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: COVID Reading, inspiration, memories, Mendocino, Mondays, nonfiction, The Philippines, Venice, writing process
Self has many thoughts about the sea because … well, she comes from one of the 7,100 islands of the Philippines.
When she visited Venice, some years back, she encountered the Maritime Museum (off San Marco Plaza), and first encountered the Venetian expression “married to the sea.”
In the writings about the sea, the sea is referred to as feminine. Also, mercurial.
Perhaps this is why she chose to write her novel. It’s about the sea, of course. And she’s been reading about seafarers ever since.
Two years ago, she was teaching in Mendocino. One of her favorite hangouts was Gallery Bookshop, corner of Albion and Kasten in Mendocino Village (the most fabulous bookstore, with its own resident cat). She found a book written by a retired US Admiral.
She just started reading it (thank you, Corona Virus). Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans
The Introductory Chapter is called The Sea Is One:
It is worth remembering that each of us is, essentially, largely made of water. When a human baby is born, it is composed of roughly 70 percent water. It has always fascinated me that roughly the same proportion of the globe is covered by water — just over 70 percent. Both our planet and our bodies are dominated by the liquid world, and anyone who has sailed extensively at sea will understand instinctively the primordial tug of the oceans upon each of us when we look upon the sea.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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May 10, 2020 at 7:16 pm (Recommended, Sundays, The Economist)
Tags: causes, inspiration, Mother's Day, news
A multitude of drops
Private citizens are valiantly trying to compensate for federal failures
Before the pandemic, John-Paul Kaminski was a retired cross-country coach and middle-school technology teacher in Dobbs Ferry, a village about 15 miles (24 km) up the Hudson River from Manhattan, who liked to tinker with his 3D printer at home. He used it to make key chains, jewellery boxes, maze games and the occasional carved pumpkin. These days, he and other tech teachers he knows from university use their printers — 60 in all — to make head- and chinstraps that hold plastic face-shields in place. A college student nearby uses a laser cutter to stamp out the shields himself. Using materials bought out-of-pocket and through donations, they have given away more than 3,000 face shields to hospitals and nursing homes in four counties.
Across America, makers of all ages and skill levels have thrown themselves into helping to alleviate the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE). Some, like Mr. Kaminski, are making masks, shields and gowns. Others are collaborating on designs, and making those designs public. Still others are trying to figure out how to get PPE to those who need it most as quickly as possible. These charitable tinkerers provide ground for both a deeply American kind of hope — strangers doing as much as they can, for the good of their neighbours — and despair, at the colossal federal failure that inspired them.
Happy Mother’s Day, and STAY SAFE dear blog readers!
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April 24, 2020 at 9:40 pm (Artists and Writers, Conversations, Filipino Writers, plans, Recommended, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Asian American Writers, Events, fiction, historical fiction, inspiration, teaching, writing process
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April 22, 2020 at 4:55 pm (fpj-photo-challenge, Links, postaday)
Tags: Garden, humor, inspiration, Redwood City, spring
The Tuesday Photo Challenge is ANIMALS!
Self doesn’t have a pet, her beloved beagles died long ago and she forgot to re-fill the bird feeder, so all the animals for this post are gardening “ornaments” — mostly whimsical little things she picked up in garage sales.
What a fun prompt!
Stay tuned.
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April 14, 2020 at 5:19 am (Artists and Writers)
Tags: China, Chinese writers, Garden, inspiration, memories, Mondays, nature writing, poetry, Stanford
On Returning to My Garden and Field
— translated by Wu-chi Liu
(1)
When I was young, I did not fit into the common mold,
By instinct I love mountains and hills.
(2)
I plant beans at the foot of the southern hill;
The grass is thick and bean sprouts are sparse.
At dawn, I rise and go out to weed the field;
Shouldering the hoe, I walk home with the moon.
Side yard: Self placed the Chinese character for longevity beside the gate.
Self studied Chinese poetry under Prof. James J. Y. Liu at Stanford University, who became her advisor.
T’ao Chi’en (365-427)
Popularly known as Tao Yuan-ming, he was born the son of an official’s family near what is modern-day Kiangsi. During his youth, the family fortunes declined, and after several frustrating attempts to find an appointment, he gave up all worldly ambitions and retired to his home and gardens while he was still in his early forties.
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April 13, 2020 at 4:24 pm (Recommended, The Economist)
Tags: collaborations, inspiration, medicine, Mondays
from The Economist, 4 April 2020:
The seven Formula-1 teams in Britain have high-tech engineering centres stuffed with the latest production equipment. And they employ hundreds of staff with the talent to use this gear to design, test and manufacture parts rapidly, in the days between races. With the season suspended, they have been collaborating on ways to help produce ventilators, which are needed urgently to treat patients suffering from covid-19. This week, one team, Mercedes-AMG, obtained approval for a device which it can quickly manufacture by the thousands.
The first 100 devices have now been delivered to University College Hospital and other London hospitals for clinical trials.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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April 5, 2020 at 5:45 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino poetry, Filipino Writers, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Sundays)
Tags: inspiration, poetry, prose poetry, wisdom
The Nothing That Speaks:
The poems come thick and fast today. I cannot cope. Poem after poem, half-words — and without words still.
I hardly cope.
Gemino H. Abad is a poet, literary critic, historian and professor emeritus of literature and creative writing at the University of the Philippines. In 2009, he received Italy’s premiere literary award, the Rome Prize.
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April 4, 2020 at 2:43 pm (Artists and Writers, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf, plans, Recommended, Sayings)
Tags: COVID Reading, inspiration, poetry, Saturday
We ate well and
cheaply and drank
well and cheaply
and slept well and
warm together and
loved each other
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February 4, 2020 at 4:30 pm (Artists and Writers, Explorers, Filipino Writers, Philippine History, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: AWP, fiction, historical fiction, inspiration, novel, The Philippines, writing conferences, writing process
From her novel Blue Water, Distant Shores, which she is re-naming Camarote de Marinero: Voyages
(Also, self is considering not going to AWP, for it would be such a distraction. No kidding. All she would end up doing is hole up in her hotel room, writing. Which she can very well do at home. But ooops, she’ll be charged a penalty. Aargh)
Trigger Warning: Run-On Sentence
To Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth I
From Martin de Rasa, Viceroy of New Spain
June the 8th, 1579
A Relation of the Circumstances of the Loss of the Nuestra Señora de la Concepcion
80 pounds of gold, 26 pounds of silver, 13 chests of silver coins, and jewels (pearls, jades, rubies, and other precious stones) for which the residents of Manila demand restitution. For that cargo was intended for the Audiencia, and other vital instruments of government in these Islands. And now the soldiers must go unpaid, and are close to mutiny.
But, truly, Viceroy of New Spain, why should Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth I care if Spanish soldiers are close to mutiny? lol
Self has just introduced SIR FRANCIS DRAKE into her narrative.
Stay tuned.
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January 12, 2020 at 9:12 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Lists, Memoirs, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Sundays, Women Writers)
Tags: book lists, favorites, historical fiction, inspiration, Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, novel, reading lists
Anne Glenconner, Lady in Waiting, My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown (memoir)
Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey (novel)
Cora Seaborne, The Essex Serpent (novel)
Staff Picks, Kepler’s Books
Nora Gerraoui, The Other Americans (novel)
Rita Sunday, Once Upon a River (novel)
All of self’s favorite heroines were in books written by women. Coincidence?
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