Eat Pray Love DVD

Eat Pray Love
I bought the DVD and watched the movie, then I read the book, and then I googled the topic.
So much has already been said, positive and negative, but I wanted to log my impressions and some good links on my blog for reference.

The movie is worth a watch, good even, but it felt lacking. Maybe because it's supposed to be this big inspirational movie and it wasn't that for me.

The book is laboriously verbose and I found myself skimming paragraphs to get to the point. I didn't start to like Liz until after reading India. Somehow her acknowledging and accepting her chatty side helped me to be more accepting of it in her writing. The India section in the book is better than the movie because it gives more context and information so it's more meaningful. Richard isn't as obnoxious in the book as he is in the movie. The confrontation between Felipe and Liz near the end of the movie did not happen in the book. So Felipe is better in the book too.

There are a lot of differences in the movie vs book, too numerous to mention all of them. A lot of times things said in the book are given a different speaker, context, setting.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie, where Giovanni talks about fear, did not happen in the book. Probably more of a minor character but I sure liked him for that scene.

"I thank God for fear because for the first time, I'm afraid the person next to me will be the one who wants to leave."
Awh...


Heart of Gold by Neil Young played during that scene.

That's Sofi with him in the photo. In the book Giovanni had a twin, Dario, and Dario was dating Sofie (with an e).

Another favorite in the movie was on the rooftop/tower scene, where Liz visualized a meeting with her ex-husband in a way that allowed her to let go of the guilt, etc. The visualization was different in the movie, but similar effect. It was the plumber not Richard who took Liz to the rooftop place.


Harvest Moon by Neil Young played during that scene.

Liz's ex is never mentioned by name in the book. His name is Stephen in the movie. In real life his name is Michael Cooper.

Italy was my favorite section of the movie. Didn't like India in the movie. Bali's Kutu and Waylan were interesting characters. Waylan was more complex in the book and not so nice. Kutu was funnier in the book.

The DVD has a Theatre version and a Director's Cut. It doesn't tell you that Director's Cut has about 5 minutes of extra scenes. Why not just have a deleted scenes feature and not make us watch the entire l-o-n-g 140-146 minutes movie twice?

I was hard pressed to find Felipe in the cast list at imdb or on the DVD credits. He's way down the list. He's actor, Javier Bardem. Married to Penélope Cruz (July 2010).
About 2 years younger than Julia Roberts in real life. 17 years older than Liz in the book. (J is H sound, HaviAIR BarDEM.)

Flight Attendant by Josh Rouse played during the bar scene with David and Liz.


Better Days by Eddie Vedder played at the end into the credits.


LINKS:

Movie vs Book

Theatrical vs Director's Cut

Letter To David
(Not exact, but close enough.)

Tons of big movie photos

Liz on Creativity
Video and Transcript. (also YouTube)
19 minutes - GOOD.
"Aren't you afraid that you're going to work your whole life at this craft and nothing's ever going to come of it and you're going to die on a scrap heap of broken dreams with your mouth filled with bitter ash of failure?"

barnesandnoble interview
"This is the secret reason I travel so much, and to such distant places. To get away from everyone I know."
"I believe that creativity is a living force that thrums wildly through this world and expresses itself through us."

Liz on EPL
Video - Authors@Google: Elizabeth Gilbert
GOOD
30 minutes
Liz reads chapter 49 of EPL.
Italian made her feel more alive, mixed up the sentences, words too.
Eat, Pray, Love, "Repeat" would be the 4th verb or maybe "Remember" that would be good too.

Making the Movie - Julia Roberts
9 minutes
Julia says, not for everyone, that's what Gilbert did and does --travel.

Letterman and Roberts
David Letterman with Julie Roberts
Funny to watch those two banter back and forth.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Dug a Breakfast at Tiffany's DVD out of the bargain bin. No extra features. Just the movie and a trailer. I'd buy more oldies like that if I could find them. Like old Kathryn Hepburn movies. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is coming on TV, Mon. Dec. 13 9:00 PM on TCM. I'll record it.

This post contains spoilers, if you don't like that kind of thing. I wanted to jot down some of my thoughts about the movie vs book while they are fresh in my mind.

Stars:
Audrey Hepburn (b. 4 May 1929. - d. 20 Jan 1993)
George Peppard (b. 1 Oct 1928 - d. 8 May 1994)
Peppard looked better when he was older.
Patricia Neal (b. 20 Jan 1926 – d. 8 Aug 2010)
Buddy Ebsen (b 2 Apr 1908 – d. 6 Jul 2003)
Henry Mancini (b. 16 Apr 1924 - d. 14 Jun 1994) (Music)

I think the only main character still living is Mickey Rooney and his character was terrible.

I probably watched this movie before, but I don't remember it.
Holly was an interesting character to me. I didn't want that happy ending in the movie. It just didn't fit the story. There were no indications Holly had changed.

I decided to read the novella, by Truman Capote, the guy who wrote In Cold Blood. There are a lot of differences in the movie vs the book and I liked the book better.



Cigarettes looked really good in the movie. I wanted one and I don't smoke. She smoked Picayunes in the book.



Loved the clothes in the movie.
Especially that orange coat.



Favorite scenes:
Best line was at the end when Paul said Holly was already in a cage of her making.
Didn't happen in the novella.
AND
The scene where she said, "I love you, but I'm just not Lulamae anymore." (To Doc.)



That was a little different in the novella too. I liked the way it was done in the movie better. Gave a different impression of her.

Moon River is played too much.



I liked how the novella described the scene of her playing guitar in the window.

“On days when the sun was strong, she would wash her hair, and together with the cat, a red tiger-striped tom, sit out on the fire escape thumbing a guitar while her hair dried. Whenever I heard the music, I would go stand quietly by my window...

...there were moments when she played songs that made you wonder where she learned them, where indeed she came from. Harsh-tender wandering tunes with words that smacked of pineywoods or prairie. One went: Don't wanna sleep, Don't wanna die, Just wanna go a-travelin' through the pastures of the sky; and this one seemed to gratify her the most, for often she continued it long after her hair had dried, after the sun had gone and there were lighted windows in the dusk.”

Lulamae Barnes married Doc Golightly Dec 1938 when she was 14 and he was pushing 50.

“Every day she'd walk a little further...One day she just kept on.”

Doc had been looking for her for 5 years (1943). When the narrator knew her she was two months shy of 19.
In the movie Holly says the marriage was annulled. In the novella, she insists it wasn't legal since she was only 14.
In the book there were two stepsisters and two stepbrothers and they were older than Lulamae (Holly). I think her brother, Fred, was older than her.
In the book it says that her mom and dad both died of TB and all the children were sent off to different mean people. And Holly mentions having other brothers. So there were more siblings than just Lulamae and Fred. What happened to them is an unknown.
Pregnant in the novella, not in movie.
Her relationship with Paul (movie) unnamed narrator (novella) remained platonic in the book.
In the book, Holly said she'd had eleven lovers not counting anything that happened before she was thirteen.
?
The book was like that a lot. Hints about an awful past, that made her who she was. I think that's what made the whole story so intriguing to me.

Loved seeing the library card catalog files. Ha!
In the movie she'd never been to the library before, gasp! Not in the novella, though.

The ring? Cracker Jacks? Nope, didn't happen in the novella.
Paul (movie) unnamed narrator (novella) bought her a St. Christopher medal from Tiffany's in the book.

Interesting read on the book:
critical analysis

Old Friend From Far Away - Book

Just started reading
Old Friend From Far Away
By Natalie Goldberg

Was skipping around in the book and liked this writing entitled Cezanne (no accent) on page 134.
I decided to post it to my blog, giving a taste of what the book is like.
I've always enjoyed Goldberg's writing.
I might have more to say about the book after I've read more.
Links on Cézanne and Pissarro art follow the excerpt. (I didn't notice what Goldberg noticed.)

Cezanne:

"Ten years ago I saw a big Cezanne show in Philadelphia.
The lines to get in were long. The galleries were crowded. You viewed a painting behind six other people. You bent your head this way and that to see portions of the pictures between people’s arms, torsos, and heads.

I liked the paintings but I knew I was missing something.
Printed matter said Cezanne influenced generations of artists, that all subsequent famous painters had looked to him.
Cezanne painted mountains and streams, some portraits.
Other artists before him did that.
What was the big deal?

When I went home to New Mexico I asked my painter friend to explain. She tried. I didn't understand, but I held the question inside.

Then just recently I attended a show of Pissarro and Cezanne, side by side.
The two painters had been friends, often going out to the country together and setting up easels next to each other.

I was jet-lagged and groggy when I entered the museum after again waiting in a long line where I spoke to a man from Las Vegas. He'd brought his eight-year-old mother to Paris and she was too tired. He left her back in the hotel.

The minute I saw Pissarro next to his friend Cezanne
the answer from ten years ago sprang at me,
looming large,
barefaced in the room.

Pissarro's paintings were well-done, but he followed an old idea of perspective. They receded the way we were taught in grammar school that a picture should move away to a distant point to give it depth.

Next to Pissarro,
Cezanne's came right at you.
There was no distance.
If it was a water scene, the water came to the edge of the canvas.
You were in the water.
You were included.

Two paintings of bouquets hung side by side. Pissarro showed the edge of the table and divided us from the bouquet.

Cezanne stuck the flowers right in my face.
I could almost smell them.

Before I’d seen Cezanne only by himself and since so many painters after him followed his way, I could not tell the new thing he had done.
But compared to his contemporary
I could see how he’d stepped right through the old manner of seeing and broken open perspective.

The experience was exhilarating.

The show centered on their friendship. How they both painted the same bridge together; then a bunch of apples in a still-life. What conviviality.

But I wondered what it must have been like for the two of them standing side by side, glancing over at the other's easel.

"Has Cezanne lost his mind? He needs to go back to school and learn to draw." Pissarro was the older.

And Cezanne, whose dedication, suffering, and loneliness are famous, must have felt sure of himself in the way changing reality can free you but also make you insecure. No one else had done this. And no one was going to applaud. Pissarro's work standing next to him must have only intensified the difference.

I notice Cezanne used looser, larger strokes, brought out the intensity of one color, did not soften the blow, was angular, took more chances.
I'd waited ten years to see what I was seeing.
I took a breath. I knew this also applied to writing.

Can you do the same? Bring your experience forward. Don't bog down in long introductions or explanations. Crash through what holds you back.
Also know sometimes you have to wait a long time for understanding.
Let's try this: Tell me what stifles you. Throw in everything that might even be a possibility. Go. Ten minutes.
Now that you've cleared the way, what is it you want to say? Step forward. Speak it upfront with no explanations. Go. Another ten minutes.
What must you be patient about? Make a list to remind yourself."

LINKS:

Taking risks side-by-side: Pissarro and Cezanne were close friends for twenty years...

Museum of Modern Art
Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne and Pissarro 1865–1885
June 26–September 12, 2005
NOTE: Click on art images at right.
Then TWO links.
1) Enter the site >
Then click on Paired Paintings at top to view Cezanne and Pissarro side-by-side


2) "Cézanne and Pissarro: Seeing Through Paint" >
Is a text presentation.

Paul Cezanne: Pity Poor Paul Cezanne
An essay contributed by: John Sheridan
"His sense of composition was highly arbitrary, and was no doubt often done completely from imagination, (one of the first artists to do this) with no consideration given for the then-mandatory use of mathematical perspective, and very little aerial perspective."

Paul Cézanne
(Tons of links here.)

Book at Amazon
Pioneering Modern Painting: Cezanne and Pissarro, 1865-1885
Joachim Pissarro (Great-grandfather is Camille Pissarro. See findarticles.com link above.)

Wiki Cezanne
Wiki Pissarro
Google Images Pissarro
Google Images Cezanne

Flickr User has tons of pics from Metropolitan Museum of Art.
(See a Pissarro there.)

The Fasting Path - Book Review

There used to be a good review of
Buhner's Fasting Path book at spiritualityhealth.com website, but now I can't find it.
I'm posting it here in its entirety because it's evidently no longer at the website and because I thought it was helpful in understanding what the book is about.

Dead Link for anybody that might want to try and dig it up in the Internet Archives.
No reviewer name.
The Fasting Path: The Way to Spiritual, Physical and Emotional Enlightenment
Stephen Harrod Buhner
Avery 09/03 Hardcover $22.95
ISBN 1583331700

Stephen Harrod Buhner is a master herbalist and psychotherapist. He is founder and senior researcher for the Foundation of Gaian Studies, an organization that researches and educates on the sacredness of the Earth, indigenous traditions and ceremonies, sacred plant medicine, and contemplative nature spirituality. His background makes him very qualified to write about the spiritual, physical and emotional dimensions of fasting.

In many indigenous cultures, food deprivation is an essential part of rituals at important transition points in life — adolescence, middle age, old age, and death. During vision quests, individuals spend time in the wilderness alone. As one indigenous person called Igjugarjuk put it: "All true wisdom is only to be learned far from the dwellings of men, out in the great solititudes." Buhner points out that this pattern of retreat to the natural world and engaging in fasting is also part of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, Taoism, and Christianity.

Many individuals are familiar with the use of water fasting to lose a large amount of weight or to deal with long-term chronic conditions, but this approach is also tailor-made for those seeking spiritual renewal. Buhner explains: "During deep fasting, what is called the rational mind is left behind for a time, and a different intelligence, located in the heart, is activated. During such fasts, reliance on two-dimensional sight begins to weaken, there is a thinning of the wall between us and all other things, and the organ of perception uniquely designed to perceive the sacred, the heart, begins to take on more and more importance. As deep fasts progress, as the veil between us and the spiritual world thins, the heart begins to perceive the hidden face of the sacred within everyday things."

One of the major surprises in this book is the author's enthusiastic and sophisticated examination of the major role of the heart, as known in the spiritual traditions, in fasting. Although most of us lose contact with the language of our hearts at ages four through six, this soulful connection can be reclaimed in fasting. As James Hillman has observed: "The heart brings us authentic tidings of invisible things."

Buhner discusses the changes that occur in the body during fasting, possible side effects, and some of the emotional issues that come to the surface such as survival, surrender, and trust. Fasting also forces us to deal with our bodies and the manifold meanings we give to food in our lives. The Fasting Path is a rounded and fascinating overview of this little discussed subject.

Dead Link for anybody that might want to try and dig it up in the Internet Archives.
An Excerpt from The Fasting Path: The Way to Spiritual, Physical, and Emotional Enlightenment by Stephen Harrod Buhner
Stephen Harrod Buhner discusses fasting as a path to spiritual, physical, and emotional enlightenment.
Here is an excerpt on 16 essential steps to every fast.
1. Determine if you are ready for a fast.
2. Decide what kind of fast is most supportive for you to do.
3. Arrange or set aside a special time for your fast.
4. Decide how long you are going to fast.
5. Arrange a supportive environment for the fast.
6. Begin eating a new diet to prepare your body for the fast for two or ten weeks prior to the fast.
7. If you are conducting your own fast, obtain good water and/or good foods to juice and drink during your fast.
8. Set your spiritual goals for the fast.
9. Set your emotional goals for the fast.
10. Set your physical goals for the fast.
11. Arrange sufficient time after the fast for you and your body to reintegrate and be ready for resuming daily life.
12. Keep a journal of your fast.
13. Fast with conscious attention to the process.
14. Break the fast with caring and awareness; especially make sure that you have the right kinds of foods on hand for breaking the fast.
15. After the fast, spend some time with someone who cares about you and whom you care about and tell this person about your experiences.
16. Incorporate the lessons of the fast into daily life.

UPDATE:
I found the book review online, here.
It is by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Herbalist Stephen Harrod Buhner - Books and More

Herbalist Stephen Harrod Buhner
This guy is so interesting!
(He's also a psychotherapist, evidently.)

I wish he lived close by so he could teach me how to harvest my stash of medicinal plants I have on our land. That would be so much fun and what a learning experience it would be! (Remember my Walk In The Field series summer of 2009.)

Buhner's book, The Fasting Path, has been on my to-read list for quite some time.
I hadn't realized that he had written so many books or that he had so much info at his website.
Anyway, he has some good articles and some links to podcast interviews.

A few of note:
The Health Benefits of Water Fasting
and
Depth Diagnosis in the Practice of Sacred Plant Medicine
I was especially impressed with this article because he described so well something that is hard to put into words. It moved me.

LATER NOTE: I applied the article to myself—digging around in my own stuff. I think this would be incredibly draining on self to practice this on others unless you had very good boundaries and/or knew how to take care of yourself in it. END NOTE

"...you must be able to come, eventually, to love whatever you have focused your attention upon. All of nature responds to this primary act of caring, diseased organ systems or ill people not the least. So, loving is critically important but it is often difficult because disease can be so tremendously frightening...

...nothing will give up its secrets without being loved..."

(In reference to a George Washington Carver quote perhaps?)

The only recorded interview I listened to so far was
Herbs and Foods that Heal
at
herbmentor.com
Stephen Buhner Interview
publication date: Feb 16, 2008

Here's my notes containing Stephen's ginger drink recipe he gave in the recording:
(The numbers indicate approximate recording location if you want to find it yourself.)

15:40
fresh ginger root
juice it (because like everyone from the sixties I have a champion juicer ha ha)
juice 2-3 pieces about the size of my thumb
(1/2 to 1 oz ginger juice at 17:55)
then add hot water (10 oz 17:55), squeeze of lime, and honey, cayenne (1/16 tsp 17:55)
for cold/flu
more effective than other tincture combinations
moved me more into kind of a kitchen herbalism dynamic
16:40
especially for people who have gone thru middle age
ginger and cayenne stimulate blood circulation
something about ginger as a antiviral, antibacterial, immune stimulant
it does all those things incredibly well
become my primary herb for considerable number of things

24:15
disease to me is not a bad thing
we're all biodegrading and we're meant to biodegrade
his great grandfather understood that he wasn't here to cure disease, he was here to alleviate suffering.
everyone is going to die sooner or later, his job was to help them, not to defeat death
my family is filled with physicians and other than my great grandfather not a one of them knows anything about facilitating the movement into death. Weren't trained in it.

I downloaded everything I could get for recordings.
I know one recording had the wrong link info and would not load.
The website link is:
here (scroll down)
and the Buhner interview is dated 12/17/06.
Here's the direct link to a downloadable copy (Real Player format)
rm format file
(Their directory is open. Don't know if that is intended or not.)

And last link:
Buhner Books List

NOTE: Pic of Buhner from innertraditions.com

LATER NOTE:
Buhner is on sabbatical till fall 2010.
He is working on a new book due out late summer 2010.
(It's on the topic of writing and can download a sample pdf at the link.)

Telescopes, Astronomy, and Birds, Oh My

Google Excursions.

I returned to the American avocet "pond" site and took a bunch more photos and have some birds to id.

I was looking thru my bird books first.
Birds of the Dakotas,
and
Golden's Birds of North America 1983 Ed.,
(now 2001 Ed.)



Found this little tidbit on page 108 Behaviour of Shorebirds:

9. Dunlin standing on one foot, a typical resting posture of shorebirds.

Googled: one leg resting posture birds.

Found:
Sleep behaviour and sleep postures.
Interesting read.

Followed link to two of his friends.
Found out Matt just started an
astronomy blog.

He uses Stellarium, a free open source planetarium software and links to
deep astronomy.

Deep Astronomy recommends
Dobsonian Orion SkyQuest Classics 8 inch telescope ($330.00)
OR
Meade LightBridge 8 inch telescope ($399.00).

AND also uses this little handy dandy
Edmund Scientific Astroscan 2001 which actually looks most appealing to me.

The Astroscan is still available here for $199.00.
Full review here.



From birds to sleep patterns to astronomy to software to telescopes.
Now where was I? lol
Oh yeah, got some birds to id...

Plant Field Guides

I checked out a bunch of botany books at the library. I can't say that the books are any better information than what I can find online. I liked having something in print to browse thru.

Two books I liked and want to remember for future reference:

The Field Guide to Weeds (Spiral-bound), by Lawrence J. Crockett. Based on an older book entitled Wildly Successful Plants. ("Wildly Successful" - Liked that description of weeds.)

Quote from page 9 of Introduction:

"Thus we may not define a weed exclusively as a plant we do not want where it grows in garden, lawn, or landscaped highway. Both native and introduced weedy species conform to this definition, but introduced species may, in addition, drive out our native wild species, denying them their former habitats and ecological niches."

Some plants of note:
Wild morning glory (Convolvulus arvense)
Wild cucumber (Echinocystis lobata)
Poison ivy, (Rhus radicans)
Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)
Cattail (Typha augustifolia)
Yellow foxtail grass (Setaria viridis)
Canada golden rod (Solidago canadensis)
Milkweed (Asclepsia syriaca)

I thought the photos and illustration of each plant was of good quality for identification purposes.

I did find and browse thru "Botany in a Day" by Thomas J. Elpel (mentioned earlier on my blog). I didn't like how the information was arranged and it wasn't what I was looking for. Too broad and data overload.

The other book that I liked was Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers, by Doug Ladd. (c. 1995 1st Ed.)

NOTE: The c. 2005 2nd edition contains an added section on weeds.

I liked that it arranged the flowers by color. It featured a lot of the plants I found in the field. And even if it didn't have the exact same species, it steered me in the right direction. Good photos for identification purposes. Field guide format.

The Richest Season - BOOK

Here's a good weekend read.

The Richest Season,
By Maryann McFadden

I enjoy starting over stories.
This one was different because it tells the story from both sides. I liked Paul's transformation story more than Joanna's.
The turtles side story wasn't interesting to me at all.
I hesitated about reading the book because of the dying stuff (Grace's story), but it didn't get too heavy/melodramatic.

A debut novel.
The author has a 2nd book coming out Jul 09.

Reading The Wind - BOOK

I read something different, a sci-fi book.

Reading The Wind, by Brenda Cooper

Summary/Review

See also Brenda's blog post series on the ideas explored in the book.

I discovered it the old-fashioned way--at the library.
The title caught my eye.
Good storytelling in that it moved along at a good pace and kept me interested.
The wind readers interested me the most in the story and I wanted more details on that. Or rather, where that idea comes from and if there are other books that explore a similar idea.
When I got to the part where the enemy landed, I couldn't stop reading it until I was finished.
This book is part 2 of 4.
Part 3 and 4 are not published yet.
I'm not feeling like I want to go back and read part 1, but I might read what comes next after part 2.

I've been playing around in Paint Shop Pro lately. Here's something I just created that seemed to go along with this book theme.



Image Creation Notes:
Visual Manipulations (VisMan or VM Natural),
Instant Art, Strange Life Form 2
Applied to a gradient.
Added various blurs.

The Way Life Should Be - BOOK

I'm on a GOOD book roll. Yay!



I'm reading The Way Life Should Be, (c. 2007) by Christina Baker Kline.
Found THREE of her books at the library and since this first one is good, I'm looking forward to the other two.

I love this story because the protagonist, Angela, essentially starts over in a small coastal Maine town where she knows no one and creates a new circle of friends with an interesting hodge podge of characters. Some/most came in from other areas, so there's that question, "how did you end up here?" and them maybe not knowing quite how to answer that.

I ask where in New York she lived.

"Gramercy Park," she says, and I know what that probably means...

"And you're here year-round now?"

"Yes," Long silence. "What about you? Will you be staying year-round?"

Now I'm the reticent one. "Umm, well, I don't know. Basically my life fell apart, and here I am."

"Yeah, that's my story, too," she says, smiling. She seems relieved by my frankness. (pg 162-3)

Then there's the local library lady who gets to know Angela's reading habits a little TOO well, and Angela's thinking: "in New York I might have contemplated taking out a restraining order at this point, but here I just take the book and sign it out." (pg 140)

Very entertaining read.

I love it when I find good reads that keep me up at night, rather than put me to sleep.

The other two:
Sweet Water (c. 1993) - Abandoned it. Didn't like it.
Desire Lines (c. 1999) - Skimmed it to find out what happened to Jennifer.

New novel, Four Way Stop, coming out in Spring of 2009.

Literacy and Longing in L.A. - BOOK

I wasn't going to blog about this book because at first, I didn't like it all that much. The first part was pretty heavy into the protagonist's book obsession and I didn't want to climb in there with her. It did get better, however, and there were a few things I jotted down from the book.

The funniest part of the book is the chapter where Dora "discovers" the romance genre because a friend gives her a box full as a gift with a notes that says: "Dear Dora, Merry Christmas. I know you're going to love these books! Just try one! You'll see. Love Darlene."

Amanda Quick, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Elizabeth Lowell, Judith McNaught, Kathleen Woodiwiss, Jude Deveraux.

"Wow! This shit is good," Dora says. lol

She describes some of the stories: (pg 228-9)

"Angry young man, passionate artist, virginal heroin, unaware of her intense, sensual nature until miraculously awakened by the man of her dreams."

"Julia is beside herself with rage. She's fatally attracted to a gorgeous, infuriating man who turn outs to be her betrothed. A dark period when things may not workout but then the lovers see the light, climb the mountains of despair, and fling themselves into each other's arms...all for love."

"I want more," She says.

I loved it.

A few more passages that I jotted down:

(Pg 71):
"Certain passages keep resonating in my head long after I've closed the book, and I often can't wait to get back to the story, as if it were a secret lover."

Context is her musing on a fantasy book club, but I liked that description of a really GOOD book.

AND

(Pg 73):
"Then there are the readers who just want a good old-fashioned story and make no bones about it. They skip over long descriptive passages, skim through digressions, and zero in on who, what, and where to the nth degree. A subcategory of this is people who read books for sex, violence, or any other particular proclivity, and speed read passages that don't interest them."

Uhm, that would be me. Sort of. I definitely skip/skim and/or abandon a book when I don't like what I'm reading.

My hint/tip: On retrospect, I should have paid more attention to Palmer. He's more important than I had thought.

And, in all that "literacy and longing" did any literary reference stand out?

Dorothy Parker: "Tell him I've been too fucking busy—or vice versa." (pg 149)

NOTE: See first post on Kaufman and Mack books.

A Version of the Truth - BOOK

A Version of the Truth, by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack.



I like this story and writing. The humor makes me laugh out loud.
I'm whipping thru it pretty fast. Almost done. I might reread this one. The use of the F word is pretty prominent, for those who don't like that kind of thing.

Setting: Topanga Canyon somewhere near Los Angeles, CA
Protagonist: "Cassie Shaw, a nature lover who's right at home with the call of birds and the sound of wind in the trees."

CBS Early Show Video
December 28, 2007 Friday

Transcript at book website
Ms. MACK: Well, sometimes the truth just isn't good enough. And then what do you do? I mean, we've all been in that situation. And you can take one road or the other, and that was sort of the dilemma.

Ms. KAUFMAN: Oh, we like writing about sort of quirky misfits.

"you're working on book number three already?"
"Another quirky misfit."
"This one disappears."

I'm definitely going to read their first book, Literacy and Longing in L.A.
"An unusual kind of love story about a woman named Dora (named after Eudora Welty) who goes overboard and uses books to escape all the challenges of her life."

King of Lies, John Hart - Book

I went to the library and loaded up on books to read (fiction and nonfiction). Any of the good ones I'll blog about.

Right now, I'm reading John Hart's first book, The King of Lies.
I'm on Chapter 11 so far and it is also a good read.
Maybe not as good as his second book, Down River.
He is definitely an author that's on my read list now.

I jot down lines from books that I like sometimes.

So far from Hart's King of Lies I have:

"My thoughts were dark with the dust of places the mind should never go."
(End of Chp 4, pg 31)

"I could never go back.
That bridge was smoking ash."
(Chp 9, pg 69)

Down River, by John Hart - BOOK

Down River, by John Hart - BOOK
[BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover) $8.99

Here's a book definitely worth a read.
Good Storytelling.
Interesting Characters.
Surprised me at first, until I caught on to the writing style.
He entraps you in your assumptions.
So I learned to watch for that.
It was interesting how the story starts out with the Adam Chase character as the "problem" or "trouble" in the family and then the story slowly uncovers family secrets and by the end Adam Chase is lookin' pretty darn good compared to the rest of them.

Read first chapter at author's website.
Down River - Chapter 1

I'm going to read the author's other book (debut),
The King of Lies
[BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover) $4.99

And he has another one coming out in May 2009 entitled, The Last Child.

Joseph Campbell Quote

When I was googling for tree quotes I came across one attributed to Joseph Campbell.

God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, "Ah!"
—Joseph Campbell



Hmmm. I wonder if Campbell really said that and if he did, what the reference would be. I couldn't find anything on the Net, so...

I went digging in my Campbell books and found this:

Anyone who has had an experience of mystery knows that there is a dimension of the universe that is not that which is available to his senses. There is a pertinent saying in one of the Upanishads: "When before the beauty of a sunset or a mountain you pause and exclaim, 'Ah,' you are participating in divinity." Such a moment of participation involves a realization of the wonder and sheer beauty of existence. People living in the world of nature experience such moments every day. They live in the recognition of something there that is much greater than the human dimension. Man's tendency, however, is to personify such experiences, to anthropomorphize natural forces.

Our way of thinking in the West sees God as the final source or cause of the energies and wonder of the universe. But in most Oriental thinking, and in primal thinking, also, the gods are rather manifestations and purveyors of an energy that if finally impersonal. They are not its source. The god is the vehicle of its energy.

There's a bit more to the last paragraph, but I think the above gives enough to convey the meaning. And some of the above quote is online, if you google it.

I got it from my Power of Myth paperback on page 258 beginning of chapter 8 Masks of Eternity which is towards the end of the book.

Soo...
Upanishads - Hindu
I didn't dig up that reference.

I guess Campbell said something similar, but I wouldn't say he made that direct reference to a tree, as far as I could dig up anyway.

BTW, when I first started digging into Joseph Campbell stuff I found out that he went to live in a log cabin out in the boonies for 5 years and did nothing but read. I loved him for that! (Ref: A Joseph Campbell Companion, pg 62, by Osbon.)

Sunrise - Aho!

Pulled over to the side of the road and took multiple pics of the sun rising.

I set the camera to spot metering and cranked it down dark so I could get a good exposure of the sun.
It was beautiful with those clouds and changing every second/minute.

"Aho!"

There's a story behind that...

From:
The Way Things Are
Conversations with Huston Smith on the Spiritual Life
By Phil Cousineau
(Page 263 in my hardcover book.)

"The Winnebago medicine man Reuben Snake was my pre-eminent teacher from the Native Americans. I recall one of the things he taught me. He told me, 'Huston, our tepees pointed east, and when we stepped out of them in the morning we would throw up our arms and shout Aho! when we saw the sun. Huston, you should do that, too.' And I do. At my first glimpse of the sun I raise my arms and shout, 'Aho!' I did it this morning, The first time I see the sun it infuses me with this inspiration, just like the sunlight brings vegetation and the beauty and all life."

Book review containing above quote here.

There's also a Cherokee morning song to sing at sunrise.

Cherokee Morning Song Lyrics

We n' de ya ho, We n' de ya ho,
We n' de ya, We n' de ya Ho ho ho ho,
He ya ho, He ya ho, Ya ya ya

Means:
A we n' de Yauh ho (I am of the Great Spirit, it is so!).

The song is at YouTube. I didn't care much for the videos.

Best one currently at YouTube.