It turns out that Bruges is beyond beautiful. It really is magical, and in an almost overwhelming way. Beyond the clutter of chocolate shops (heaven!), horse-drawn carriages and town squares, meandering wherever your eyes and feet take you, you’re still plunging beauty and enchanting vistas every step of your way. Canals, swans, medieval gables, exquisite [...]
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I walked in Central Park again today, enjoying those last moments… Took this photo in a pond. So beautiful, impossible and total. The real conspiring to be illusionary and fabulous, mysterious and vital. Filed under: beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Two random door signs threw me off today. First, at the gym. The sign read “Attention Spinners” (blabla). I read it as “Attention Snipers,” which of course tempted me to read on. And then the second door, a delight: [...]
I went for a long walk in Central Park this weekend. I’ll miss its colors and vibrance and kapow! of life and verdant green in the middle of my city this winter. How beautiful it is! And yes, my post is about nothing more than that–a loving aching last hug to now. Filed under: Central [...]
October has been a not ill-used month. I set myself two challenges, one mental and the other physical. And I arduously died a million writerly agonies over three chapters that needed minor remodeling. I’m finally done with chapters three, four and five, and am onto six and seven–six being mostly grafted on the page now. [...]
I enjoy writing while the world’s asleep all around me. And since I’ve always been a morning person, that tends to be when I write. The early mornings. My internal clock’s gotten very happy about this, and I suppose it’s now trying to please me by waking me as early as my mind can handle [...]
I’m typing away in the living room, when lo, I hear a noise. I jump to my feet. I reach for a weapon. Aha! My TEACUP. My Teacup of Doom! And I run through the house, my teacup aloft, whipping open the doors, pressing against walls. The assailants must have fled at the first sight [...]
Yes, I could sense the entire state’s state of mind. Mostly from the frantic fireworks they were setting off like it was someone’s birthday. No, no, Jersey–Independence Day is on the fourth, not the first. But who’s complaining. I got a lovely show across the river. Two for the price of one. One war, mind [...]
I’m just not going to say what it is. Filed under: photos, random info, Republic of Georgia
It’s been a while, which I regret. I’ve been very busily working on my two novels-in-progress. In recent months I’ve been focusing almost exclusively on my first book. I’m working on the second draft and discovering for myself the difference between writing and re-writing. The book is so different right now. It feels great. :) [...]
Wow, I’ve always told folks they should buckle up in cabs, and voila! history provides me with a lovely tale for the wary. It turns out that the first automobile fatality in the United States was caused (no surprise) by a New York City cab: The public’s perception of this newfangled conveyance took a deep [...]
In 1888, a woman took her two children and without even notifying her husband set out with them on the first long-distance drive of the first automobile in the world. Her name was Bertha Benz, and she was the 39 year old wife of Karl Benz–and yes, Benz of Mercedes-Benz fame today. Bertha zoomed along [...]
I visited the Cloisters with my aunt today; it’s her first time. We walk into this one gallery where there’s usually the most exquisite display. I’m not sure who they are and am feeling a bit sodding lazy, so here’s a picture instead of a description: [...]
My poor students are in the throes of midterm exams. I try not to tell them how wonderful it is when they’re done–that you can keep on learning without any threats hanging over you. You can learn solely because you want to. Which brings me to my current announcement. It has come to my attention [...]
Filed under: Central Park, Georgia, Peace Corps, Republic of Georgia, travel
Filed under: Caucasus, Georgia, Peace Corps, photos, Republic of Georgia, Tbilisi, travel
Filed under: Caucasus, Georgia, Peace Corps, photos, Republic of Georgia, Tbilisi, travel
What made the event different was that for once it was in English. Praise be. However, it turned out the goal of the interview was to reveal “Common Misperceptions in the Public about Astronomy.” Nice. ”And was I the first person you thought of when asked to find misperceiving sorts,” I asked. I was assured [...]
The path to finding one’s characters is not as clear-cut as I once thought. It turns out characters not only change utterly during the writing of a tale, but also (thank the heavens) once you’ve discovered them, they still grow and deepen. Like real people, the knowing them reveals the inside of them. Some characters [...]
So a man enters my office today. I am taken by intuition, and I interrupt him. “Do you have kids?” “Yes.” “Boys?” “Yes?” He’s beginning to look a bit worried now. “A woman, too. Wife, partner?” “Yes.” “There may have been an incident.” I raise my hand. “Not a bad one. Um.” “Oh no, did [...]
I imagine my title says it all. You read it and you know. You just know. I have bought plants. Euripides is my corn plant. She is graceful, tall and confident. More like a tree than a plant. I confide in her my thoughts about my characters and plot. She has yet to give her [...]
I’m online, and as per my wont, I’m reading history. Why use modern technology for anything else? And I come across something I think will be interesting. It’s called A Brief History of France. Which is quite perfect, really, because I don’t intend to spend much time learning more about France. Not before supper. So [...]
I’m planning MAJOR cuts. MAJOR downsizing. I speak of my manuscript, of course. Notice the behemoth’s at over 500 pages today? Gonna bring that monster count down, friends, Romans and neighbors! Lend me your delete buttons! Well, never mind the delete–I’ll do that carefully from this end. I’ve been tightening and whatnots, but there’s lots [...]
Real or unreal? Am I the only person who had never heard of it before? Doesn’t it sound like a magical land straight out of C.S. Lewis or something? So I was in my usual unfettered way traipsing along the most random paths on the internet yesterday, and I came across some photos that blew. [...]
A lady stopped by at my office the other day, her young child in tow. He was complaining, because he wanted (for unknown reasons) to go to the fifth floor, and she was saying they didn’t have time and had to go home. I looked up. To save the day, you know, for that is [...]
This is a writing morning (thank God), but I wanted to share an inspiring quote by Thor Heyerdahl. For those who might not know, he was an explorer with a focus on ethnography and experimental archeology–trying to trace how things might have been done. To prove a point of his, he created a primitive raft [...]
Friends, I have two confessions. The first will come as a great surprise to you. I beg you to sit, unless you are crossing a busy street. It is this: I have an eccentricity. Yes. Truth be told, and I really feel it should be, and at times like this if not at other times–mine [...]
Nothing bores me more in life than filling out long forms about myself–nothing but golf, of course. So it should come as no surprise that I have approximately zero desire (give or take a head-in-wall-thumping) to do the same for my characters. Now, I recognize that filling out forms for each character (as advised by [...]
Two of my favorite memories from Peace Corps come from kids who don’t barely reach my elbow. And having just found their photos again, I had to share. It was after the war and we were canvassing the schools, asking administrators if they’d like to take part in a donation drive for the refugee children, [...]
I do not have sea legs, and never got any while on the cruise. So why are people asking me if I’ve regained my land legs? Further, what useful creature HAS viable sea legs in the first place? And don’t tell me the crab. Unless you can back it up. I’m back from a wonderful [...]
It started with Henry, or rather, with his absence. I would call for him. Not rudely, mind you. Just a little call, from the couch. But–nothing. Nary a peep in return. No Henry dashing to service. No calm and collected footsteps, no tray of culinary delights. Nothing. Now, I know for a fact–my source being one P.J. Wodehouse–that [...]
So I just finished, for the first time ever, reading a book in Russian. Garri Potter i Uznik Azkabana. Five hundred and seven pages. Oh. My. Gawd. It took me a week, what in English would take two days. (Excuse me in advance if this blog is littered with idiomatically clumsy sentences—reading this much Russian [...]
It turns out that I can be 453 pages into a first draft and writing can still be a great unknown, with waves and undercurrents and marvelous creatures still making themselves known. Does a practiced writer control all this better? Does Margaret Atwood, sitting at her computer to write, know now what to expect, and [...]
The Russian invasion of Georgia taught me what my local friends had always admonished—plans are illusions. So when an American friend and I were still in Georgia a few months on and on a whim decided to visit Turkey that weekend, I didn’t stress about the unplanned nature of the thing. Just grabbed a small [...]
I recently moved one of my key settings to a specific place in New York. The result was more positive than I’d expected. The characters were working better, the plot was knitting itself together well. Only a few more mere details needed smoothing out. I decided to make a quick site visit to refresh my [...]
I have reached that point where I accept that I have somehow taken the exit ramp from the highway of hip, from the tracks of technological savviness. Nowadays if I can’t do something, I no longer assume that it can’t be done. I assume someone born after the Berlin Wall fell will be able to [...]
The truth now: have you ever been kicked out of a place? I have twice suffered the ignominy of being escorted from a place, if one does not count evacuating Georgia. (Which I do not, as I find an invading Russian army to be suitable reason for anyone to be escorted from a place.) Both times, [...]
Now, I have no problem in general with flies. How could one. But this fly is being ridiculous. For he is flying in an erratic circle in the middle of my living room, with no evident purpose whatsoever. Don’t get me wrong. I could understand a fly zipping about in hopes of returning to nature, [...]
Every morning, bleary or bright, I gaze down on my beloved streets of New York and assess the people below me. How huddled are they against the weather, how languidly do they swing their arms—in other words, what shall I wear today.
But they, unaware of my strategic use of their existence, unaware even of my [...]
It was a beautiful night, swelling with stars and cricket songs, and I was on the front porch with a glass of red wine. B and I listened to the sounds of the party inside; the raucous music, the jumbled laughter.
That’s what I heard, anyway. He heard the lyrics of the song. When he broke [...]
I love Russian. I love the sound of it and the feel of it. It’s a language more beautiful than tiramisu is delicious, and that is saying a lot.
My love for Russian, like many passionate affairs, is one-sided. Spoken by me, that language to melt your sins …stumbles.
Exhibit A: Visiting Moscow that first time, I [...]
So this is how my dear friend J began our conversation the other day.
“Okay, now my mom told me not to tell you, but–”
Egad! That is a scary start. I sat ramrod stiff and waiting for the scoop. A little part of me wanted to squeak, “well, if she didn’t want you to…maybe you shouldn’t?” [...]
Eons have passed—literal eons—since I last blogged. It’s obvious what’s going on.
I have been transmogrified into a mongrel and have been living on the streets of New York since my apartment building doesn’t allow pets.
I hope I failed to deceive you: truth is never black and white, and that sentence clearly was black on white. [...]
I had a Russian teacher once who didn’t much like me. In her defense, I did not attend class with particular regularity. In my defense, this was because she had committed two terrible indiscretions, the second being worse than the first: she had a class favorite, and it wasn’t me.
Instead of witnessing such wrong-headedness, I [...]
There’s no two ways about it. Writing is an insane activity. Both when it’s working—and one walks along city streets in earnest, deep conversation with oneself, periodically stopping still to jot down notes—and when it’s not working (which involves more air-punching, sulking, frustration, etc, and yet one keeps getting up in the morning for it).
The [...]
My new thing is stonemasons. I read a great book a while back by a master stonemason (Thomas Maude), and ever since then, I can’t get enough. From stonemasonry to architecture to sculpture, I’m swimming in delicious books, hooked onto the glimpses of that other world, that other our world, lurking beneath the surfaces of [...]
LACONIC
Read its etymology recently? Originally it refered to people from Lakonia, an area around Sparta, whose inhabitants were famously terse. Better than terse.
The story goes that when Philip of Macedon threatened them, “If I enter Lakonia, I will raze Sparta to the ground,” the Spartans retorted simply: “If.”
I need to work on my laconic delivery. [...]
I’ve been thinking about gimmicks recently. Such an ugly word, “gimmick.” It sounds sticky, gummy and like a cheap con. Well, to me it does.
So what brings this on? The book I read on Saturday. I read it till past midnight because I wanted to know not so much what would happen next, but how [...]
Is it true–can it be true?–that above the Berlin Royal Library, a sign reads:
Nutrimentum Spiritus?
(ie Food for the Soul)
If so.. what delight
Filed under: Uncategorized
So I have reached the conclusion: sometimes it’s okay to cut a book up. But basically only if you’re Su Blackwell. When she does it, fiction comes to life in a most magical, delicate way. (And the image she brings to life is made of the very pages describing it in the book. So cool!)
Not [...]
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