Memoirous

There is not much I have. In fact most of the time I feel pretty powerless. I'm in the arts. Let's leave it at that. Thus, I have no real health or dental insurance. But I am smart--or so I thought. I had been actively looking for Groupon or other such deals for basic teeth cleaning. I've seen them pop up over time and waited until one came along on Living Social. For $69 I was promised a basic teeth cleaning, x-rays, and exam. Wow! The deal was on! I made an appt earlier this week at the Art of Modern Dentistry on Southport and went in this morning REALLY looking forward to coming out with that clean teeth feeling--you know where your tongue can find the cracks between your teeth, where if you inhale suddenly you can hear the air whistle in between. What I ended up with was humiliation. After spending at least an hour x-raying my teeth I was presented with a bill for $492. Ha! Really, I laughed. They said because of some hygienic law they couldn't do the basic ...

I've been watching a very interesting DVD these past couple of nights (am I the only old person who watches movies over the course of 2 - 3 viewings?) called HOWL. It is like a docu drama with animated clips about Alan Ginsberg's process. You know, I kinda think he was a genius. A very complicated person that put EVERYTHING out there. Much of his work, in fact maybe all of it, has autobiographical/memoirish elements. I really love Ginsberg's honesty and transparency. Watching the movie (so far) there's a lot of discussion about memories--those that one consciously acknowledges and unconscious memories, and how one can bring those to the surface. He SAYS in the movie--as much of the dialogue is taken from actual records/interviews/etc--that he gets into a zone whereby the inside comes outside. Wow. Now that is some legitimately good stuff. But HOW does a writer do that? Some use drugs, alcohol, etc to provoke or suppress memories, while other writers (such as...

We’re in the middle of a heat wave. What can be worse than a heat wave? A dome of heat and humidity hovering over a concrete city. That’s why at this time of year we all dream about going away. We all have fantasies based upon experiences we had as kids of what a true summer is: *Lolling about on a hammock *All day reading on the cot set up on the screened-in porch *A glass of lemonade, condensation sweating down the sides in rivulets *Running through a sprinkler—an act so sublime that it has been lost forever I’m afraid to the Water Park *In a canoe out in the middle of a lake, the cool breezes wafting over you *how about a peach, a bucket of blueberries, shucking corn, cranking ice cream *doing nothing, nothing at all In 1941 E. B. White (he of Charlotte’s Web fame) wrote a small personal essay about returning with his young son to a camp on a lake up in Maine that he had visited during the summer months as a child. The lake had never been what you would call a wild lake. There...

In this blog entry I’m going to reference a writing acquaintance of mine here in Chicago, Molly Backes who works at Story Studio , which if you haven’t checked out any of their classes, then click here . Molly recently wrote at her blog about writing : How to be a Writer. This blog was picked up by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor for The Atlantic and reposted everywhere. Here is a snip: A few weeks ago, a woman asked me for advice about her teenage daughter. “She wants to be a writer,” the mother said. “What should we be doing?” To be honest, I was kind of stumped. (In part, I think it was the way she asked it – “What should WE be doing?” I didn’t really know what to do with that “we.”) (Also, it was quite early in the day, and I hadn’t yet had sufficient coffee to be giving anyone advice.) I suggested a few upcoming creative writing classes, but the mother wasn’t satisfied. There must be more – what else could they do? “Well,” I said, “you know. Writers read a lot… ...

I know, I know, I've been quite lax, but I promise you a better, bigger blog tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow. Anyway, blame it on summer, blame it on a body in motion tends to stay in motion--and a body in blogging tends to stay blogging. With breaks in between, it's hard to get going again. But I've been READING blogs--and here's one from Jane Yolen, ACCLAIMED author and poet: A Writer's journal about spinning plates and her advise on keeping our stuff out there in the big world. Here's a snip: I always tell writing students of mine that they should try and have seven things (at least) working for them at all times . . . . ....if you only have one thing out there, it could (literally) take years before you hear anything at all. Publishing is a slow death by inches unless you are self-publishing. So true, so true. Anyway at the moment I have 5 short stories circulating, 2 novel ms with my agent, maintaining this blog, working on oral histories wit...

Hi! just back from www.cornerstonefestival.com where I attended a seminar on blogging led by Andrew Jones who writes for a variety of blogs. Here is a couple of things gleaned from the three sessions I sat in on: 1. short posts vs long ones considering that many people now read from hand-held devices, posts ahould be on the shorter side, or if you have a lengthy topic break it into 2 or 3 posts 2. titles and I'm still working on this ARE IMPORTANT, that's why I titled this one Tall Skinny Kiwi because that tag alone will direct traffic to my blog. I really am looking for ways to drive traffic here. I've joined Jacketflap to see if my blog will come up and looking into TUMBLR to see if my stuff can also be included in a larger blogging community 3. tags, for the above reason, linkable, so maybe I should randomly tag something PORNO and see how many hits I get 4. also images, and giving them captions, so if I took a picture at the festival and posted it here, I shou...