October 1, 2019 at 3:12 am (Artists and Writers, Plays, Recommended)
Tags: Cal Shakes, favorites, Mondays, performances, praise, Shakespeare, tragic characters
Never, ever miss a Cal Shakes Grove Talk. Self has been to a few of these, all delivered by Philippa Kelly, and each is enthralling. Kelly is a superb speaker. She ties in history, puts the play in context, and makes the playgoing experience so rich!
Self learned yesterday that Macbeth was written in 1606.
1606
She was reminded that a boy played Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s time. Imagine lines like “Milk my breast” from the lips of a boy! Plus the high voice! Self thought about this while observing Liz Sklar’s performance as Lady Macbeth — that is a powerful role that demands an actor equally powerful. A boy just doesn’t cut it.
This evening, self is reading Kelly’s essay in the program brochure. The essay’s title is Can We Forgive Ourselves?
- Actions can be imagined; but “if it (is) done when ’tis done,” an action has consequences — and if we are thinking and feeling beings, consequences can’t be ignored.
After listening to Kelly, self saw the play as a true horror story. Macbeth and his wife see ghosts everywhere. At the start of the play, they are young and beautiful. By its end they’ve both been driven round the bend. And it is TRAGIC.
Self realizes she has never, ever seen young Macbeth or Lady Macbeth. Until yesterday. It’s not Romeo and Juliet, but Liz Sklar’s Lady Macbeth is LIT!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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September 23, 2019 at 5:35 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Filipino Writers, Links, Places, short story collections, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: London, memories, Mondays, The Lost Language
Fun Challenge this week from Nadia Merrill’s Photo-a-Week:
A stack of one of self’s short story collections: The Lost Language
Published by Anvil Press of the Philippines, TEN YEARS AGO!!!!
A stack of books at the London Review Bookshop, May 2019
London Review Bookshop: May 2019
On one side of London’s Russell Square is the newly renovated Kimpton-Fitzroy. Love the stacks of ornate, ironwork balconies:
The Kimpton-Fitzroy off Russell Square, Bloomsbury, London
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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September 16, 2019 at 1:32 am (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Family, Links, Memoirs, Recommended, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Asian American Writers, essay, fiction, flash fiction, Just published, Literary Magazines, memoirs, Mondays
From the Introduction by Grace Loh Prasad:
A hand or patch over one eye. A rainbow flag. A kneeling athlete. An eggplant emoji. A thumb pointing down.
What do these have in common? They are all symbols, representing something more than what is literally pictured. A symbol is a kind of sign — at its simplest, a unit of meaning. Whether they’re labels for places or ideas, indicators of prestige or health, or warnings of what’s ahead, signs operate at a level deeper than language. A sign is like a boat, but instead of water it navigates through meaning, through a shared set of references within a community.
Read the rest of the introduction, here.
Stay tuned.
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September 9, 2019 at 12:31 am (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Explorers, Memoirs, Recommended)
Tags: advice, Mondays, nonfiction, reading lists, wisdom
- The secret to walking to the South Pole is to put one foot in front of the other, and to do this enough times.
— Erling Kagge, Silence in the Age of Noise
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September 8, 2019 at 10:22 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Food and Drink, Links, Traveling)
Tags: fast food, Manila, Mondays, Philippines, Redwood City, restaurants
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge # 62: SILHOUETTES
Silhouettes “are a marvelous technique to add to your photographic repertoire because they can add drama, mystery, emotion, and atmosphere to your photos.”
Can they ever. Self’s favorite types of shots are silhouettes.
A Little Past Midnight, Jollibee Drive-Thru, Manila
Reading Nook, Self’s House in Redwood City, California. The lamp is one of her favorites: She bought it several years ago from Harvest, a furniture store in Menlo Park.
Menchit Ongpin, wearing jewelry of her own design, at a dinner with former college classmates, Fely J’s, Greenbelt 5, Makati. Self asked Menchit to turn her head so she could capture her in silhouette.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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August 27, 2019 at 12:44 am (Artists and Writers, Family, Links, Surprises)
Tags: art, memories, Mondays, nostalgia, Redwood City
The prompt — Framing the Shot — is Lens-Artists Photo Challenge # 60: “Explore different ways of framing images.”
Viveka has some great framing shots on her blog, my guilty pleasures.
Self’s home in Redwood City was built in 1939. It’s a very wee house, only 1250 square feet, but she loves the arched spaces (between the living and dining room). Arches are a kind of frame, aren’t they? But here the frame is off-center.
The painting above the bookshelf is one she brought from the Philippines: a collage by the late, great Filipino artist Santi Bose. It’s called The White Room. There’s a kind of “frame within the frame” thing going on.
Redwood City, Sunday, 25 August 2019
The next two pictures are recent finds from son’s closet. The building blocks date from when he was a toddler. The pieces were all neatly arranged in the original wooden box:
And here’s another find from son’s closet! Clay on cardboard:
Cryptic Grade School Art Arrangement
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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August 26, 2019 at 11:44 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Links, Lists, Recommended, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Mondays
This is ONE FIERCE ANTHOLOGY SERIES.
The List of Contributors to the 3rd volume in the series has just been announced.
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August 12, 2019 at 5:05 pm (Explorers)
Tags: advice, Mondays, natural history, wisdom
Robert Falcon Scott to his wife, last instructions (found on his body eight months later):
Make the boy interested in natural history, if you can; it is better than games; they encourage it at some schools. I know you will keep him in the open air.
Above all, he must guard and you must guard him against indolence. Make him a strenuous man. I had to force myself into being strenuous, as you know — had always an inclination to be idle.
Robert Falcon Scott “and two companions made it to within 11 miles of safety — a depot of supplies known as One Tom Camp some 150 miles from their base camp. They had walked more than 1,600 miles, to the Pole and almost back.”
— Sir Peter Scott, The Antarctic Challenge, National Geographic, April 1987
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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July 23, 2019 at 3:52 am (Recommended, Surprises, Weather)
Tags: Mondays, summer
Self is soooo glad this little thingamajig from Manila still works. She found it in a desk drawer (she’s doing massive excavations of every single closet in her house). She has no air-conditioning so it is really handy. Amazing! All she needs to do is lift that thing right against her face. Heaven!
Cool!
She also JUST noticed that the thingamajig is shaped like a penguin. Must sell like hotcakes in Manila. Or other hot places.
Stay tuned.
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July 22, 2019 at 5:43 pm (Artists and Writers, Calls, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: call for submissions, Calyx Press, causes, deadlines, history, Literary Magazines, memorials, Mondays
from Brenna Crotty, Senior Editor, Calyx:
Next year, in 2020, the United States will celebrate the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, and CALYX Press will turn forty-four years old. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing that Calyx has existed for nearly half the number of years that women have had the right to vote in this country, but “astonishing” seems like the right word for it either way.
In anticipation of the centennial, and in celebration of the labor and persistence that went into women’s suffrage, CALYX is open for a special extended submission period now through July 31, 2019. We are accepting poetry, fiction, and nonfiction on women’s participation in the political process, the myriad means through which women engage with and experience socio-political movements, and the ways full citizenship and access have been denied to different communities. Equal rights forwomen have had a long and fraught road, and our celebration of that first monumental victory in 1920 is tempered by the awareness that there is still so much progress to be made.
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