Quote of the Day: Jdmpapgaf

 Jdmpapgaf


[posted 6.23.11]

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SURPRISE!

Today, as I stumbled through my blog, adding a new html code discovery [note to self - add html to all other blogs...], I was unpleasantly surprised to find this lonely, loner post. I know this is my blog, and considering the minimal posts posted throughout its lifetime, I shouldn't have been totally surprised, but - believe me or not; ruin my rep or not -  I truly did just (7.4.11) FIND -  this little treasure.

Which, upon this moment of way too comfortable confusion...

I think:

• did a guest blogger invade my site and post this gibberish?
• did Blogger run the fate of facebook and was momentarily invaded by 9th grade typing flunkees?
• wtf?
• who wrote this? not me, surely?
  

and then (now)... taking some responsibility:

• i obviously must have astrally channeled a new genre, perhaps, flarf II, and/or The Reduced Haiku.
• did i begin a blog moments before a neurological blackout?
• did i have a neurological blackout on 6.23.11 at 11:10am?

and then-then (now-now)... seeing things in a more lucid light:

• ahhhh, the same person who's been sneaking into my apartment while I'm sleeping or at doc appointments, or on my mad dating schedule (wink, wink), and hiding my debit card, prescription glasses and sunglasses, clean underwear, fresh-made coffee, lighter, my big pink glass full with water, the melanie who did go to the gym to restart aqua therapy, my cat... you get the (scary) picture.

I'm so glad I figured this one out - now-now-now.

In web-centric world of 1,001 blogs, zines still making a scene - Winnipeg Free Press

Even more interesting than the Canadian article, named and linked in the title above and the link at the bottom of this page), are the quotes within from one my publishers (feel free to make online comments about my story from the last issue, or share with all you love and hate because making Melanie a popular poet is (or isn't) on your To-Do List).

Hal Niedzviecki, prolific author of all things, including the nonfiction book, Hello: I'm Special, as well as Editor and Publisher of the Canadian zine, Broken Pencil.

In web-centric world of 1,001 blogs, zines still making a scene - Winnipeg Free Press

REVIEW: Recovering the Self: A Journal of Hope and Healing (Vol.1, No. 1, Sept 2009)

Editor: Ernest Dempsey
Publisher: Loving Healing Press
Publication Website: www.recoveringself.com
Also available at Amazon.com**






REVIEW
by me

Recovering the Self: A Journal of Hope and Healing is a new quarterly magazine-sized journal that concerns itself with wide-ranging issues within the realm of health and all of its incarnations, including personal growth, relationships and family, trauma recovery, living with disabilities, addictions of all sorts, veterans’ issues, and bereavement.

In its first ambitious volume, published September 2009, the variety of its contents, depending on the “health” of your mood could exemplify the let’s-fit-as-much-in-as-possible-first-timer-syndrome or an all-inclusiveness that might be appreciated by those on the outside of many of the issue’s themes, or the perfect reading remedy for any health-related ADD or ADHD.

In editor Ernest Dempsey’s introduction to the collection, he speaks to an uninformed, inexperienced reader, rather than a reader that has lived, shared, or stood by watching and feeling the all encompassing hope and healing theme.

Big mistake.

Even a pre-teen could tell you that “pain invades our lives in different guises—illness, trauma, bereavement, accident, crime, and all forms of physical and emotional injury. Littered with hackneyed phrases, such as “the precious gift of life”, “tender as a rose” (gag), “painful experiences” (duh), “recovery is…[fill in blank with obvious and overly simplistic words]”, “the shackles of stress”, and on, and on, and on – so much so, that I almost got sick just from reading it. It’s the sort of crap you expect from self-ordained, self-help gurus that end up in the bargain books pile faster than you can get through the drive-thru at McDonalds.


Unfortunately, what could be a profound and far-reaching magazine that could appeal to poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and/or self-help reader, lacks insight – even from its Ph.D. authors. In the contents section, “Inspiration”, Dr. Barbara Sinor, a therapist and (self-???)* published author of four books, chooses to rely on the easy and obvious in her nonfiction essay that redeems itself by its sincerity and empathy. “You can learn to re-create your own reality,” she writes “by discovering…patterns…which [sic] were accepted I childhood.”

The most informative, interesting, and well-written piece in the entire journal is “Sex, Gender, and Personality Disorders” by Sam Vaknin, who has authored 10 or such books on the subject. And of course this is the most interesting, because who doesn’t like hearing about really screwed up people when you’re looking for self-healing? Instant ego-boost!

Unfortunately, Vaknin makes many assertions that although interesting, such as “Men…mature earlier, die earlier, are more susceptible to infections...cancer…dislexi[a]…and…suicide,” they lack any researchable reference, so we have to assume these are just the opinions of the author. And to be honest, I don’t know many people, especially women and even most men, who would agree that men mature earlier than women. But the big wow of the article for me was the enlightening fact that “the brain structures of homosexual sheep are different to those of straight sheep.” Don’t you love a good brain structure?

It’s hard not to be hackneyed when talking about healing and hope, and that’s the challenge that every writer on this subject needs to overcome to reach its reader – unless they’re looking to speak to cliché-lovers-united, a group that may or may not exist, but with a tiny publication like this, probably wouldn’t find its way into their petal-soft hands in due time.

I applaud Dempsey’s vision, as well as, Love Healing Press, Inc., Recovering the Self’s publisher, and I offer them hope that their work will travel the journey of self-help and recovery, because people interested in healing – from whatever malaise – could find great use of this periodical/journal/mish-mash of everything and anything, even movie reviews.

I just wish it weren’t so, well, to protract the oh-so-familiar spirit of this well-meaning premier volume, run of the mill.



*On further research, I found that the majority of Dr. Spinora's books were "published" by vanity-type publishing houses that include Modern History Press Books AND Loving Healing Press, which seem to be the same entity.

** In my endless link search, I found that this publications received 8 glowing reviews on Amazon.com. Makes ya think. Either I'm a total dumbass, snob missing the beauty between the lines, or they have a lot of friends or a well-placed advertising budget.

OH JOY: Deal on Designer Journals - 2 Days Only

OH JOY

"In the era of texts and Tweets, sometimes we stray from our dear old friends, paper and pen. But not Joy Deangdeelert Cho. After working in graphic design and advertising, Joy transitioned into textiles at Cynthia Rowley and then home accessory design for the Swell line at Target. Clearly, she’s got good taste. In 2005, the Oh Joy! Studio was born, producing notebooks and stationary for the everywoman. We’ve been perfecting our penmanship ever since." - from Billion Dollar Babes


MY PERSONAL FAVE...&...THE DEAL COMES TO A CLOSE TOMORROW!

OH JOY - Metallic Woodcut Duet in Silver/Copper

$20 ($27 Retail)

Need I say more?.... Perhaps.

JUST 1(ish..w, or 3ish?) THING(s):

First, this is a VERY exclusive offer - only available to invitees or current members of Billion Dollar Babes (don't let the name confuse you...men can be babes too.) And, since if you're reading this, I love you already, I am extending a personal invite to you. No charge, I swear.

Second, if you're not picking up these precious potentials to hold the first draft of your next Oprah's pick novel, a gift to yourself to decorate your bookshelf or coffee table, or a present for your beloved of any kind, there's always me!

Third, if I am your giftee of the week, just email me (with proof of purchase), and I'll give you my mailing address, or something close to it.


PLUS!!!! GET THE DESIGNER SPOTLIGHT: Joy Deangdeelert Cho
In addition to deals, deals, deals, Billion Dollar Babes, gives you an exclusive Designer Spotlight, providing all of you "I Need to Know Everything Before I Buy or Use Peeps" the specs you'll need: covering Oh Joy's beautiful visionary, Ms. Cho, on her thoughts from inspiration to the intersection between design and fashion, and how she makes visual decisions for her personal blog.


PS. BOOBS
After you've finished your journalistic journey, check into my other blog, Neuro Detour, and take a minute (or less) to enter your answer in the new $1 to play, neuroutrageous Q&A game, Let's Play! Scatterneuries!! This week's category: RSD (CRPS) & BOOBS.

Is Empathy Necessary?

According to the very candid historian and author Inga Clendinnen, the "novelist's gift of empathetic imagination" is misleading.

In her 70-page essay, The History Question: Who Owns the Past? (published in Quarterly Essay, Issue 23, 2006) she writes, "the 'insights' of empathy are untestable...Historical novelists spend time getting the material setting right, but then, misled by their confidence in their novelist's gift of empathetic imagination, they sometimes project back into that carefully constructed material setting contemporary assumptions and current obsessions."

The question is, misleading to whom?

Is it misleading to the author herself? to the reader? to the critic? to the egotistically-infringed academic? to the babysitter, the cat in the alley, the doorman, the barrista, the v.p. of marketing, et al?

And, who cares?

As I am reading a work of fiction, regardless of its origins, do or should I care if I’m being mislead? Only if what I’m reading is shallow and predictable, but then if it were, would I be mislead?

Should the author care if she’s been mislead by her subject? Only if it results in bad writing, I presume.

Should the barrista care if he’s been mislead? Ask the barrista. If he works at Starbucks, at least he has health insurance. Who can't empathize with that BASIC HUMAN RIGHT? (Note shifting pronoun throughout for sake of equality.)

Being mislead is a personal choice, if not a preference. And those that don’t want to be mislead, should not be reading the newspaper, let alone a novel, or a memoir for that matter.

Novel - a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes*

But empathy is such a beautiful and relevant quality. We (as in myself and people I know...I dare not assume a universal we in this format) can not relate without it. Empathy is what allows us to move past judgment to compassion. And compassion is what drives us (ditto). While not all people are capable of empathy, whether due to mental or genetic disorders, it's what keeps my humanity busting out of its bones, and dare I presume, yours as well.

Last night, I fortuitously watched The Hoax, a much lauded factual movie about a washed-up author (played by Richard Gere) who receives a million dollar contract to write the autobiography of the reclusive Texan billionaire, Howard Hughes. Only everything, including the verified letter of agreement from Hughes, is a hoax.

A great premise for a movie, right? Historically based no less, right?

But the characters. Oh, the characters. I could not, for the empathetic life of me, empathize with them. They were just too unlikable for me to become engaged, to care. And in their inability to evoke empathy from me, their experiences and actions became pigeonholed as…predictable.

So, is the “novelist’s empathetic imagination” misleading?

Probably, to a certain extent, if you’re a lawyer or the editor of HIPAA policies and procedures (which I have been the latter not the former), but one of the reasons for reading Philip Roth's fiction, Anne Waldman's poetry, Inga Clendinnen's accounts of history, People Magazine, or the Sunday funnies** is to exit one reality, that world of presumed innocence/guilt/right/wrong and enter into a new one. What really should be said, is that the writer's imagination is leading.

The empathetic imagination is what leads us into the realm of the text - believable or unbelievable as it may inherently be.


*novel. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/novel (accessed: February 16, 2008).

**According to Wikipedia, the Reading Eagle boasts the "Biggest Comics Section in the Land".

Develop a Few Mantras

I just finished reading Searching for the Secret River and The Secret River, both by Kate Grenville. Both of which are devouringly captivating and difficult if not impossible to get in the US. You'll have more luck getting your hands on the latter, a work of historic fiction, than the former, a memoir of the writing of the novel--unless you have a trip planned to the land of Oz anytime soon.

So, if you're not as lucky as me, AND you don't know the right gypsies who have migrated from England to the US to Australia and back to England who happened to pick up a copy of said text along the way, OR if you're just the kind of person who only reads summaries and cliffs notes, OR if you're in a hurry and need a helping hand or a hint of inspiration, OR if you just want to know what I'm thinking (which for the sake of imposed-modesty as not to distance you from my moment of sarcastic pomposity, "but you probably don't want to know what I'M thinking" [NOTE: she said with a soft sigh and curl of her lower lip, her eyes folding into the circles beneath them])...

I've included the greatest lessons, at least for me, that I've gleaned from reading Ms. Grenville's story of her story.


1. Experience your characters.
“I could experience the past-as if it were happening here and now.” (p. 47)

2. Allow your research to live (by experiencing as human/sensorial).

3. Visualize.
“…what did they wear?...Did the sitters make a pet of the new baby, carrying him on their hips, arguing about swhose turn it was to push in the pram? Did they have prams?...were they the other kind of big sisters,the secretive hair-pulling and ear-pinching kind?” (p.34)

4. Take your time.

5. Be humble. And learn from your process.
“This process was teaching me to be more humble. So far I’d found nothing that was absolutely certain.” (p. 38)

6. Let the story tell its story.

7. Sometimes, but not always follow logic.
“The logical place was to start at the beginning. “ (p. 31)

8. Question your source.
“Was there so much history in Britain that it could be treated casually?” (p. 50/51)

9. Acknowledge your differences (from your story/characters).
“It [aboriginal culture] was so foreign. It took a long time to realise that that was an appropriate feeling. I was an outsider. This wasn’t knowledge you could expect to go to a beak and learn. The thing was to recognise that I didn’t know.” (p. 129)

10. See your experiences as your characters would.
“A few steps into the bush and I’d panicked…not a moral shortcoming, but an interesting thing to know. Wiseman didn’t have the track…He had a whole continent…around him, and those birds that made the place sound so very empty.” (p. 137)

11. Develop a few mantras.


Read Kate Grenville's Whispering Voices of Advice