De la musique avant toute chose
First Aid Kit, My Silver Lining
Art, ritual, adornment (or what’s in my bag)
Art, adornment and ritual are what distinguished modern humans from their predecessors. Somehow our species developed a taste for seemingly useless, wasteful habits. Why would they waste time painting caves, give away resources by burying the dead with their earthly possessions, and paint their skins or wear amulets and beads that were hard to come by and costly to produce? Somehow our race arrived to the conclusion, very early, that there is more than the eye can see, that the world is a place of magic and wonder and we are not only flesh and bone.Style inspiration: Janis Joplin
De la musique avant toute chose
INDILA, Derniere Danse
Why don’t we know of any famous women composers?
Did you ever hear that question? You must have. I'm sure you did. Or if you didn't hear this exact one, you must have encountered a variation of it: Why are there no famous women writers in history? Why are there no famous women painters? And so on, you get the idea.Simplify your reading
Buzz, buzz, buzz simplify, minimize, reduce. Buzzz!You know, this is what everyone is talking about these days. It seems that we live lives that are generally overwhelmed by information and stuff, and we need to escape that if we want to lead a fulfilling existence.
So when it comes to books, how do you do it? I am not talking about how you shelve or get rid of physical books. I have solved that dilemma for myself: I don't buy paper books anymore: only digital. It suits me and I'm very happy with it.The office-supply obsessed section of the brain:
Planners
A while ago it got into my mind that my days would suddenly become a beacon of productivity and happily accomplished tasks if only I would find a way to keep a list of all my varied activities so I have a clear image of what I need to do in a particular day, week, etc. I do prefer digital technology to paper mostly because it is less wasteful and because I'm in front of the computer most of the time anyway, so I wouldn't need to have another thing to keep track of.
Feminism and the freedom to wear oversexualized clothing
Some will say that this is a battle that is over and that we won: feminists can wear as high a pair of heels and as red a lipstick as they want and still not be excluded from the club, the membership to which is awarded to them at birth. (Yes, men feminists have more to prove before they are allowed entrance. Tough luck!) But I don't know if this perceived freedom is a real one or one projected to us in our slumber pods.I have been reading (and watching a lot of TV)
My love for reading fiction is slowly recovering after almost a decade of suffering from an unknown yet terrible, life-threatening disease. I'm relieved. It's been so strange to be a writer of fiction who doesn't actually enjoy reading fiction much at all. I know, right? Well, I've been an unsuccessful writer of fiction (understandably!), so it's fine.
I am convinced that many of us go through this: at some point all fiction seems pointless, the product of someone feverish imagination, not worthy of our time since it doesn't seem to enrich us in any way, either intellectually, spiritually, or emotionally. Especially after a lifelong complete, almost religious devotion to reading, it's a bad place to be in. The evolution of my book covers
I thought I'd do something fun today and show you the evolution of my cover art and book titles throughout time. I have talked many times on this blog (a good blogger would now go back through the archives to actually link to said posts, but I, well, you know) about how I enjoy taking breaks from writing to work on cover design.Things happening, things stagnating
So, with what should I bore you, nice people, today? I am a bottomless fountain of nothing-interesting-to-say every time I log into my blog's admin page to write something for my hoards of one or two readers. I bet you're on the edge of your seats right now. Let's see how it turns out.