A Thanksgiving meme borrowed from my AWer buddy, Kate. The rules? List ten things you are grateful for, but every even numbered item must be about writing in some way.

1. My Four Fathers (not to be confused with forefathers). Without them, I would not be me. Nor would every work I write have a running rant about fathers. Or a girl who is afraid to love/has abandonment issues/is fiercely independent/needs therapy.
2. iTunes Genius. Seriously. An insta-playlist that creates an insta-mood for whatever scene I’m writing. The rubber on my second set of earbuds has disintegrated from overuse.
3. My Sister. Who else would listen to me whine? Who else would take me on a tour of every TJ Maxx and Marshalls between Redondo Beach and Palm Springs? Who else would tear the lace off my shorts without asking and then tell me to get over it already? Who else would love me and encourage me and threaten me when I need it? My friends, that’s who. But not one of them could make me laugh like my sister does. – Even though she’s older and stole my “baby of the family” thunder, or as I tell her, she “stole my sunshine.” And then I rub in that I have blue eyes and she has brown and she fumes with jealousy. Deal with it, Sis! – Who else has that kind of shared history with me? And who else would have four kids just cuz I love being an Auntie? (at least that’s what I tell her).
4. Querytracker.net. The insanity tamed by tables and charts.
5. My Million Nieces and Nephews. They keep me grounded in things like Spongebob and iCarly, and their dreams inspire me to have ones of my own. Damn right I can sing the entire Spongebob theme song.
6. AW Forums. My fellow writers keep me sane and the Bewares and Background Checks for Agents keep me smart. SNI stands for Shiny New Idea, and hell, no, I’m not paying an agent to read my manuscript! < — See what I learned.
7. My New Asthma Doctor. Funny how we take breathing for granted. Huzzah! My lungs work again! *tackles San Francisco hills* I can so take you now!
8. Dr. Irena Praitis. My grad advisor in my Master’s program. Second week of school in her poetry workshop, shy little me proceeded to announce how much I hated poetry. Two weeks later I wrote my first sonnet. A year later I had a scholarship to the West Chester Poetry Conference and received honors for a Master’s Project that included a sonnet redoublee. Don’t know what a sonnet redoublee is? Look it up, and be very afraid.
9. Starbucks. You bring me together with my friends. You are the starting point for outings with my sister. You are the maker of the bottled Frappacino that my mother buys for our camping outings, while shaking her head at our ridiculous need for you. You are the place I write and procrastinate and write. You are the keeper of the Caramel Brulee latte. I frickin’ HEART you.
10. Beta readers. Where, oh where, would I be without your taunts, LOLs, rusted-bloody-box-cutter criticisms, and encouragement? Probably huddling in a corner rocking. Or sticking my fingers in my ears and squeezing my eyes shut to avoid editing.

Tag! You’re it! Oh, wait! Kate tagged everyone already. Damn you, Kate!

So finally I took the time to watch Akagi after a friend recomended it to me. And seriously this is one of the best shows I have seen. So how can a show about a board game be epic and awesome?  That is what I will tell in this review.

The show starts showing how a guy named Nangou is playing a game of Mahjong against the local yakuza. Nangou is deep debth and suddenly a teenager named Akagi barges in and after waching a couple of games he plays instead of Nangou and at that moment you can say a legend was born. So the story is simply about the ice cold Akagi who is a genius playing Mahjong. There isn’t much more to say about the story. But seriously this show is one of the most epic and suspense things I’ve seen.

Even if the story is pretty simple it’s the interaction between the characters that is awesome. Akagi is one of the most ice cold guys I’ve seen and he is awesome and always cool and collected and one of the coolest character I’ve seen. I guess interaction was wrong word because often you get to hear what the characters are thinking and how they are trying to reading each other and how they will put up their strategy. And this is one of the things that makes it awesome.

Let’s talk a bit about the animation style. I’m not lying when I say that the animation style of Akagi is very very differnet from many animes out there and I was a bit skeptical at first. But after the first episode I didn’t care anymore. And actually the style fitted very vell into the show in my opinion.

The music in Akagi was also really awesome. It isn’t any weird since it’s the same guy that did the death note soundtrack. I really loved it and the music really fitted the show. The opening was really nice and chill. The second ending was better than the first in my opinion.

So what did this anime so awesome? I would say that it was the suspense. Most of the time I wasn’t thinking of will he win but how will he will? And I really loved that kind of suspense. And I think that it got that suspense from the fact that Akagi isn’t winning by just luck and believing in the game and “moral” stuff like this. Akagi wins because of his skills. It’s all that’s to it and I really loved it.

So if you haven’t watched this show yet you should do it. Even if you never played mahjong before you will still appreciate it since they tell about many of the rules when needed to. Akagi get 5/5 riichis from me.

I found myself watching the most recent episode of House. The genius trying to dumb his brain down was an interesting concept. Does intelligence complicate everything?

My household puts a premium in intelligence and achievement. Reading a book or watching a movie wasn’t for entertainment alone. Over a meal, you’ll be discussing the implications, ideas, and message of a particular film or movie. We minced everything into their cores, chewed on them and savored the ideas.

We took pride in our intelligence, insight and innovation. Our egos were slightly inflated. Everything and anything was something that needed to be thought of—analyzed. At some level, we were building our ivory towers. But does genius, does intelligence make us happy? Sometimes the intelligence can get in the way.

I’m lucky I’m not a genius. I’m quite average and I’ve learned to choose which to analyze and which to leave alone. The over analysis in the long run made me paranoid and defensive. It was impeding my understanding of my emotions and relationships.

What’s wrong with being average? Sometimes you just have to know when to relax.

-eM

Mac Aficionados, si vous n’êtes pas familiers avec le terme de «Black Friday», sachez que celui-ci désigne généralement une vague de marée humaine orientée vers un objectif unique: bénéficier d’une journée (spéciale de rabais) sur quelques produits Mac offerts en magasins et sur la boutique en ligne.

Le Black Friday succède généralement à la fête américaine de Thanksgiving aux États-Unis. La compagnie à la pomme californienne en profite alors pour faire bénéficier à ses clients de rabais sur une gamme de produits. En règle généraleon parle d’une réduction de l’ordre de 5 à 10% sur certains produits vedettes (iMac, MacBook, iPhone, iTouch, mais également certains accessoires) et la gratuité des frais de livraison. Mais seule l’Apple Store peut confirmer ces dires.

Une habitude veux que des «petits malins d’Internet» s’amusent à poster des «flyers» (affiches promotionnelles) révélant à l’avance les produits qui seront mis en rabais et les pourcentages de ces rabais. Bien entendu, la firme de Cupertino, dont l’une des pierres angulaires est le «secret professionnel», accepte difficilement d’être associée à de telles rumeurs.

Cette année pourtant, c’est Boy Genius Report qui s’y colle (à ne pas confondre avec OGenius!), en ayant annoncé des rabais de 15% à 30% (!!), ce qui serait du jamais vu dans l’historique des Black Friday de la firme de Cupertino, si cela s’annonce vrai.

Le Black Friday est cependant l’occasion pour bon nombre d’industries gravitant autour de la compagnie Apple, d’y aller avec leurs lots de bonnes affaires.

Mac Aficionados, armez-vous de patience et consultez les annonces Twitter de Mac Aficionados, car de belles occasions y seront (certainement!) dénichées dans les prochains jours et on vous assure que vous ne regretterez  pas de suivre le mouvement!!!

Cette année, le Black Friday est annoncé pour le vendredi 27 novembre. Les possesseurs d’un compte Apple ont d’ailleurs du en être avisés par Mail.

N’hésitez pas à faire preuve d’altruisme et de faire parler du Black Friday par le biais de Mac Aficionados, que ce soit sur Twitter ou par le blog.

Pour ceux qui sont déjà inscrits sur Twitter et qui suivent Macaficionados, une liste spéciale @Mac Aficionados sera mise en place pour les nouveaux messages postés.

Le lien:

Black Friday à l’Apple Store

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I was thinking to myself today, what exactly do I want for Africa?  Though, as a Christian, it is not about what I want, but what God’s Will is as a whole.  If I was to say what I want, I’d probably start going into things like ending poverty, promoting equality, cultivating good and competent leaders, strengthening civil society, enabling citizens especially the underpriviledged to gain access to good healthcare systems, and loads more.  Yes in essence, these are good dreams and aspirations for Africa and Africans, however one thing I’ve always noted and spoken to others about is that my dreams and aspirations are not quite uncommon to maybe millions of other Africans who want the same for Africa and Africans.  There have even been maybe thousands of projects and programs and policies that have been thought of, developed, and implemented, yet Africa still lags behind the tail of the wind as it blows the hopes of Africans away.  Africans still suffer, they still sit by the river sipping the drops of dirty infected water as it streams by their fingertips, without a hint of hesitation, for one must quest one’s thirst to survive another day. 

Yes we all have hopes and dreams for our Africa, though there must be something fundamental missing, that disables the attempts to rebuild our dark continent.  I’m beginning to think that, that fundamental missing piece of the puzzle may be the inability, or rather the ignorance on our part to not only accommodate but make prime God’s Will for Africa and Africans.

What does this mean? None of our sophisticated and technical expert developed policies and programs are going to cut it.  None of our western educated, or eastern educated, or southern educated, or northern educated experts and expatriates are going to heal Africa and Africans.  The reality of the situation is that only God, through God’s Will will save Africa from its peril.  

It’s not as though we Africans or anyone else for that matter have no role to play, as though we should all sit around idle and just watch from an abstract perspective, the healing and development of Africa.  Not at all, in fact that may lead to a catastrophe if that was the case.  We have a role to play, though our role must be in line with our Faith in God’s Will as the supreme roadmap for the healing and development of Africa.  Our policies must not be dependent on the will of the people, for if the people themselves need healing then how can we be assured that what their will is, in anything but a transmitter of the sickness that has deprived Africa of its true potential?  Our programs must not be dependent on aid or budget or expenditures, with Faith, all things are possible through God. 

We must first realize that society stems from the individual, and the individual stems from his innate being, and his innate being isn’t provided to him by himself nor nature, but by God.  When an African is born into Africa by Africans in today’s world, he is more than likely to be born into a society filled with sickness of the heart, mind, body, and soul.  His innate being from the beginning, is devoid of its innocence and robbed of its opportunity to spring forth into that which God has Prepared for him.

When we talk about our vision for Africa, we look to change everything around the African to change the African.  We look to change his home, his school, his government, his hospital, his village, and even the water well.  Even when we look to change the African himself, we look to change everything about the African.  We look to change his sense of leadership, his sense of responsibility, his sense of understanding knowledge, and even his sense of wearing the appropriate clothing, so at least if he looks the part, maybe he will play the part.

We can change a lot of things, but one thing that we can never change is God’s Will.  His Will is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, that which we cannot understand but that which goes on and on and on from our birth to our death, God’s Will is absolute.    God Loves all his children, and judges all of us equally.  Whether some may be darker than others, seem uglier than others, more illiterate than others, seem more ill than others, those differences are not of value to God, for he knows our hearts, he judges our Spirit, our innate being, that which dwells in us from birth to eternal life.  Our innate being is not defined by what happens to the body or the mind, rather it is defined by God’s Will, for our innate being precedes our understanding or our ability to change and be changed.  Our innate being is where our true innocence lay, it is where the goodness of man swims in the sea of paradise and floats across the sky of the Heavens.  Even as the poor African kneels by the river, grasping for a drop of dirty water, his lips burned from the sun, his eyes closed halfway from the beam of light shining through them, his skin shrinkled by his experiences; his innate being, that which he and we do not see or understand, but God Knows is there, experiences but all the opposites.  The African’s innate being retains its innocence, unmarked by the sickness around and in him, jumping inside him with pleasured emotions and glee.  Not caring whether its outside or inside, nor concerned about its existence, for only man worries, God doesn’t, neither does our Spirit, for in it is carried our Faith and our Hope for all that is good, all that is peace, and all that is of God.

So in essence, when we develop our expert-based policies and meticulous program designs to ‘heal’ Africa, we run towards our vision for Africa and Africans, yet we most often or always tend to miss God’s Will, which is embedded in the innate being of each of us.  The essence of it all, is that we fail to understand the problems of Africa and Africans, because we fail to communicate with our own innate being, which can lead us towards doing our own part and contributing our own role towards the wholistic Vision that God has for the world-at-large.  Since we fail to communicate with our own innate being, then we become devoid of the opportunity to understand another’s.  We become trapped in our communication with our minds and our hearts, our intellect and our passion, though we miscommunicate what it is that our innate being communicates with the other’s innate being.  We miss the soul of the equation, for we put all our focus on the formula.

I believe, that to each is his own, for each was designed for a Purpose by God, each was given his own Innate Being by God, for each can carve his own path from communicating with God, and communication with God happens only with the Holy Spirit, our innate being.

When we embark on understanding the Vision for Africa, our main focus must not be to change the environment or to change the individual, our main focus in my opinion as a Christian, should be to inspire the individual to look inwardly to his innate being and search for his purpose according to the Will of God.  Then leave it up to the individual and God to Work it Out.  Our Faith assures us, that through God All things are Possible, for He never forsakes his children, nor will He ever give us what we cannot handle.  Inspire the individual to communicate with God, and there shall be no shrinkle of the skin, or dimming of the eyes, or burning of the lips, or staining of the mind that will keep him from making his mark in this world, with the divine Gifts that has been delivered to him from God.

My Vision for Africa is of no importance compared to God’s Vision for Africa.  I can help no man, more than how God can help him.  Nor can any man understand another before understanding himself.  Nor must any man commit his entire life towards understand another, but be sufficient and content in abiding by the Will of God.

So goes my thoughts on this day.

Martin at Neville brody lecture

Snow Blindness Is Crystal Antz

I’m glad someone in Canada is drinking the pickled crazy juice.  Is there an artist in this country more irreverent, more playful or less caring of what you think than Chad Van Gaalen?  Its refreshing to get some music made for its own sake, which considers the art and artist first, and one’s indie image second.  His muse is indeed peculiar.  Even two-headed … nay, three-headed — and wearing pink suspenders.  For this single-minded artistic independence, this blog will continue to champion him.

Black Mold is Chad’s electronic alter-ego.  A collection of experimental glitches, melodies, science experiments and found sounds.  No lyrics.  Just a man and his gadgets in a basement somewhere in the 403.

19 tracks in all – flying firmly in the face of the current 10-track max on any given release since … well, since apparently nobody listens to albums anymore.  Except us?  We like albums.  And so, thank you to Chad for Toxic Lake.  And for No Dream Nation.  For somehow channeling Anti-Pop Consortium and Chris Clark (Warp’s unsung heroes).

Snow Blindness Is Crystal Antz flows well and you’ll be hard-pressed to discern your favorites until a couple attentive listens through.  There are a lot of great moments but the strength of this album ultimately lies in its ability to create and sustain a mood throughout the entire setlist.

Anyone who knows me very well knows that I am obsessed with Vladimir Nabokov. I read Lolita for the first time my senior year of high school and found his portrait of America grotesque, absurd and absolutely accurate, even fifty years later. I have since been slowly devouring his literary legacy, one book at a time, and taking notes along the way. I turn to his later works for inspiration and his early short stories for reassurance that even geniuses have humble beginnings.

I hold the opinion that it is difficult for a novel to get any better than Lolita, but I think Ada or Ardor might actually surpass it. I read the majority of Ada the summer I was living in DC, with my legs dangling in the sky blue water of my apartment’s strangely shaped pool. I firmly believe that this was the best possible way to absorb Ada. While the sun ate away at my intellect and turned my shoulders the color of apricots, I was able to simply let the novel, with it’s delectable sun-drenched imagery, seep into me.

I like to quote probably the only literary critic I consistently agree with, John Leonard, in discussing Ada:

Nobody else could have written an antideterministic masterpiece, contemptuous of Freud (there is no guilt) and Marx (there are no politics, no economics, not even any history), that is at once a sexual and philosophical romance, a brilliant science-fiction, an awesome parody and a gigantic punundrum that would wake up Finnegan.

I found this video about Nabokov a while ago, and it is definitely one of my favorite arbitrary internet discoveries. The note cards he refers to as “The Texture of Time” will later become Ada or Ardor. (Also, don’t worry, it’s not all in French.)

Comparing Faulkner to “a hypnotized person making love to a chair”? What an amazing cocky bastard.

It’s cold and snowy out there.  And although we had tons of fun on Halloween, and Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I’m not feeling very festive.  In fact, I feel distinctly snuffle-y, and my feet are cold.  I hate scraping the ice off my windshield.  I walk the razor’s edge between my shivering family and an electric bill which exceeds the GDP of many small nations.  Winter has a lot of drawbacks–some of which you may be feeling yourself.

So here’s my idea:  something truly delicious for dinner that won’t interfere with a long bath, a couple of good books, a pot of coffee, and some intentional languishing.   Fast, easy, and so good it’ll make you want to sing.  Plus, it’s as good on tofu as it is on chicken.

Osaka Sauce . . . OF THE GODS!

Okay.  It’s not precisely “of the GODS.”  It’s actually “of the MUSTARDSEED,” a vaguely pan-Asian noodle joint in Spokane, Washington.  But until you’ve tasted it, you can’t scoff.  Because this stuff is good.

You’ll need some poached chicken, cut into small chunks, or some cubed tofu (at room temperature), or some boiled shrimp, or some steamed green beans, or broccoli, or all of those things mixed together, and some hot, steamy rice.

In your blender (or in a tall, narrow vessel that your immersion blender fits in, like a Pyrex measuring cup), throw together:

3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon dry mustard
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons rice wine (or, if you like, 1 tablespoon rice vinegar and 1 tablespoon water)

Blend these unprepossessing ingredients into a smooth, caramel-colored emulsion.  Pour it liberally over your rice and whatever stuff you’ve selected–I recommend a big old bowl and a spoon, frankly, and a return to the couch.

It’s tangy and savory, with a lemony-mustardy-sweet edge.  It keeps for a week, as long as you stir it up well before you use it.  It brightens up the day amazingly.

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P3 is inflamed with pride by the successful deployment of the 2010 Addy site.  Cam and Danno did site concept and design for our team while Noel and Jeff and the Bazilion Pictures crew engineered brilliant sound.  Jeff and Kelsey at Burn provided energetic creative direction.  This is a stellar example of what can happen when a group of talented people each bring their best to the table and shoot for the stars.

The books are printed on demand by Book1one, a Rochester, N.Y.-based print-on-demand service, and will retail for $30 hardcover and $20 softcover. Each page can only contain one tweet. “We wanted something closer to a book of inspirational poetry rather than an encyclopedia,” says Shwirtz.

via Twitter Tweets Converted To Book Form by New Service, TweetBookz.com – Speakeasy – WSJ.

Some artists ––– oh, say, Leonardo Da Vinci —— are known for their discipline and concentration. Consider the number of sketches he made for a horse statue that was never completed. Others, however, have taken the tack that to be an artist or an intellectual, you must somehow be undisciplined, clueless, and/or completely self-absorbed. THOSE are the kind Hollywood likes. After you’ve been awed by Leonardo at the High’s Hand of the Genius exhibition at our 12-hour artfest Go All Night, why not visit with some of his lesser brethren?

Eleanor Ringel Cater’s picks:

Barton Fink

Barton Fink (1991)

Leave it to the brothers Coen to come up with something as hilariously berserk and mind-teasingly perverse as this surreal black comedy about (of all things) writer’s block. A High-minded New York playwright, Barton Fink (John Turturro) is lured to 1941 Hollywood to give “that Barton Fink feeling” to a Wallace Beery wrestling movie. On one level, the film is about Fink’s Day-of-the-Locust encounters with moguls, producers and washed-up self-loathing Southern writers who’ve sold out to the flicks. But then there’s also the Earle, the hotel where Barton is holed up to write his masterpiece. A hotel worthy of The Shining, it’s also home to genial traveling salesman, John Goodman, who’s got stories to tell. LOTS of ‘em. The picture is a brainy goof, fleshed out by the brilliant performances, the rich production design and the Coen’s ever-clever camera. It’s as bleakly funny and tantalizingly obtuse as a Beckett on-act. I’ll give you the life of the mind…..

Naked Lunch (1991)

It will eat you alive if you’re not well-versed in the coded cool of Beat junkie icon, William S. Burroughs, or the insect-infected visions of director David Cronenberg (The Fly). And even if you are, this mercilessly exacting black comedy will leave its teeth marks on you.

Part biography, part literary adaptation, the film is less a literal rendering of the writer’s scandalous 1959 novel than a jazz-riff interpretation. Turning down the role of Robocop 3 (!), Peter Weller is the Burroughs surrogate who travels from 1953 New York to the Interzone — a kind of surreal Tangiers of the mind, populated by sweaty addicts, decadent ex-patriots and typewriters that mutate into giant talking bugs. However, those less than enthralled with Burroughs’ masturbatory self-infatuation may find this daring demanding picture something of a Pyrrhic victory. That is, more worthily done, perhaps, than worth doing.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Too much is never enough for fabled gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson and director Terry Gilliam. You could almost say they are a match made in excess heaven (or hell). This is Hollywood’s second attempt to translate Thompson’s 1971 book about his drug-drenched trip to Vegas, the first being the rather abysmal Where the Buffalo Roam, starring a game Bill Murray.

Here, it’s the ever-unpredictable Johnny Depp who takes on the role of Raoul Duke (Thompson’s alter-ego) and a chunked-up pre-Oscar Benicio Del Toro plays Dr. Gonzo, Duke’s lawyer/companion-in-chaos. The assignment — as if it matters — is a dirt-bike race. Their true quest is to ingest every kind of “uppers, downers, screamers, laughers” they can find. Plus several oceans of booze. However, like most drug experiences, the film has a downside, too. Barely making it out of Vegas alive the first time, they’re dragged back in (like Pacino in Godfather III) for another round of the same thing.

Still, Depp is astonishing, Joe Coker by way of John Belushi and pure pandemonium on the prowl. The movie isn’t exactly a success, but it’s the most glorious kind of failure: Imaginative, uncompromising and true to itself. A tip: if hearing Debbie Reynolds tell a Vegas crowd, “Let’s rock and roll!” doesn’t crack you up, you don’t want any part of this movie. Not even the good parts.

Linda Dubler’s picks:

A Bucket of Blood

A Bucket of Blood (1959)

With its lurid title and down at the heels production values, A Bucket of Blood is a sterling example of legendary B-movie producer/director Roger Corman’s talent for entertaining, inspired schlock. The film’s central character, Walter Paisley (Dick Miller), is a bus boy at a beatnik coffee house who is so inept he makes Maynard G. Krebs look like Jackson Pollock.

Poor, talentless Walter longs for the limelight, so when his landlady’s cat dies accidentally, he covers the stiff feline in plaster, a la George Segal, and presents the critter as a work of art. The hipsters are wowed, and soon the would-be-genius is trolling for additional bodies to receive the Paisley treatment. The lively script was written by Charles Griffith, screenwriter for The Little Shop of Horrors. Corman mentored Scorsese, Coppola, and Jonathan Demme among others, so even if you’re not a B-movie fan, consider taking a look.

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

The grass is always greener – even for those who’ve successfully made it to the other side. Such is the case for Sullivan, a sought-after Hollywood director known for hits like Ants in Your Pants of 1939. Yearning for the gravity and respect that genius endows, this would be Steinbeck declares he’s finished with fluff and ready to undertake his masterpiece, a gritty, relevant opus called Oh Brother Where Art Thou? But before he can write about the common man, it would help to meet a few.

Sullivan and his fetching, hold-the-hooey secretary (Veronica Lake, famous for her peek-a-boo wave) take to the road in a luxuriously appointed Airstream in search of America. Preston Sturges, a treasure of American cinema and the writer/director behind The Palm Beach Story and The Lady Eve, mixes comedy with melodrama in this delicious satire of self-importance and fame.

The Lady Eve (1941) , Ball of Fire (1941) , and Bringing Up Baby (1938)

The movies are full of evil geniuses (Dr. Frankenstein and his many peers), troubled geniuses (viz. any standard issue artist bio pic, from Lust for Life to Basquiat), even idiotic geniuses (e.g. Austin Powers), but my favorite variety are the clueless intellectuals, beloved by the makes of classic screwball comedies. Invariably men, these champions of book learnin’ are short on smarts and easy marks for women who either thing or two about the world, or are so ditzy they defy comprehension.

In The Lady Eve, Henry Fonda is a herpetologist (a snake specialist to be precise) who makes an appetizing victim for slithery card-sharp Barbara Stanwyck. Stanwyck shows up again in Ball of Fire as Sugarpuss O’Shea, a nightclub singer who knows her way around a colloquialism, who ends up hiding out in a house full of lexographers, among them sexy language specialist Prof. Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper). And in what’s probably my favorite American comedy, Katherine Hepburn is as untamed as the titular leopard Baby, driving poor paleontologist Cary Grant around the bend and into her waiting arms. After a lousy day or a lousy week, any one of these gems will help to chase away the blues.

The art of good writing comes from the artist within. All humans have the ability to become great authors, poets, artists and musicians, so why do most folks find it such a difficult task? Why do many people say I could never be a writer or I could never aspire to write poetry? And why do folks who do write get discouraged when their work is rejected?

We are what we think, so if we believe we cannot succeed in our daily actions, then for sure we will never get away from our perception of who we think we are. This self defeating attitude was not of our making. As we were growing up and maturing into adulthood, we were indoctrinated with thousands of negative thoughts. This gave us a belief that we are only a housewife or only a truck driver. This limited vision of our role in life-gives us a limited life. People the world over have great creativity. Once we start to understand who we are and the reasons we exist, we start to cultivate eloquent works of creativity.

Just writing worthy, meaningful, literature will not get the success it deserves unless we possess the resolve to carry on writing in spite of the critics. There will always be those who criticize a writer, no matter how good the composition. Rejection is an everyday experience for most writers. This is a joy we must accept and grow from. Just because someone does not like our essay, does not mean it has no value. It means it was not acceptable to the editor or book reviewer that was reading the essay.
We can do two things when we are constantly being rejected. We can give up and say it was not meant to be. Alternatively, we can say; “How do I become a better writer and have my work accepted by more of the “establishment.” Once a small section of the general public start to take an interest in our writing, the sheep mentality of the “establishment” will no doubt follow. It always has. It always will. Success breeds success.

Until we can find the inner core of creativity and start to write from the soul, we will never become a great writer. We may achieve a modicum of success by writing a few columns for a newspaper or magazine but that could keep us in a vacuum. We can scrape a living, but may not amass a fortune, for we are trying to write and trying will never cut the mustard.

The secret to excellent writing is to enjoy with ecstatic abandonment each letter and syllable we put down on paper. The pure joy of writing makes us a success, nothing else will. Those who tell us we have to struggle and sweat have not grasped true meaning in their lives. We need no approval of any human to be a success. Stop trying to become a success. We are a success already. We were born. We are a success of life. The sperm hit the egg and here we are. Hello world!!
Everything else we do and achieve is just a bonus.

Life is to be enjoyed not endured. Joy brings true meaning to life. Now the next question to ask is what is Joy? What does Joy mean and how do we achieve it? Look within – take time to silence the mind and feel the texture of nothingness. Smell the perfume of celestial splendor. Discover the sound of cosmic waves flowing though our subconscious mind. Palpate infinity. Breath eternity. Conceive the splendor of maturating into the essence of a successful writer. Be the word, become the poem, live the adventure. Everything we do is inscribed in our book of life. We just need to learn how to read the instructions written within every cell and molecule of our being. Each tissue and sinew bleeds muscular power of infinite, majestic might. Fly on the wings of limitless mastery. Escape the shrouded cocoon and become the enchanting butterfly. The dreams of authentic reality are about to manifest a rainbow of magical delights
J-ust
O-bey
Y-ourself — (THE GENIUS)

Ah those holiday memories….  Remember when dad had to give Nana the hymlic and she embedded the turkey leg in the wall?  Remember when your sister announced at the table she was marrying Emmitt, the rodeo clown, and leaving right after dinner?  How about when the police arrested your cousing during pie?  In honor of those great times, P3 wanted to offer what is probably the greatest Thanksgiving moment of all time for you to enjoy, again.

So journey back with us to great WKRP Turkey Drop….. oh the humanity

P3joe

On November 20, 2009, at a Borders bookstore in Columbus, Ohio, Sarah Palin held a book signing event in support of “Going Rogue”. Palin’s supporters wanted her to run for the presidency, but they weren’t exactly sure what she’d do as president. Short on specifics, most of them were uncertain what her policy positions are. They just felt that they liked her. She’s “real”. And that the solution to all of our country’s problems—health care, energy, the deficit, unemployment, and the economy—was to cut taxes and lower spending, and Palin, they said, would solve them by doing just that.

Suggestion Fail

Picture by: Jake Submitted by: yougotfail via Fail Uploader

You will not know what do with yourself after you watch this amazing TED talk:

These days, all are talking critical of Obama.
Forget he is the President of the USA.
He is a professor, visiting a land, home to the oldest civilisation in the world. The ingenuity of the Chinese is phenominal. They rejected the doctrinaire approach of the communist party leaders in Moscow, who concentrated on the working class movement in the coastal cities, which was crushed by Chiang Kaishek; instead, Mao realised that the PEASANTRY IN THE INTERIOR OF CHINA WAS CAPABLE OF BRINGING IN, A NEW SOCIETY THERE. He was a genius.
After the revolution, China became powerful, combining man power and technology. Today, it is the most powerful country in the world. The US IS ONLY A PAPER TIGER, as Mao was fond of saying, too old to run like the Chinese and burdened with the unenviable responsibility of reviving Capitalism, a dead horse!
Obama realised all this. If there is one nation, capable of saving the US, it is China.
We in India must realise this. It is no use feeling let down by history.
Women and children are always exploited by the mafia, in India.
Without the collusion of the police and the government officials, it is impossible for them to conduct their business.
Corruption is endemic in our system. All people concerned with the illegal activities, get regular pay packets, free from income tax. What else do they want?
(Sitting here in my room I can get pass port, visa, license for my gun, illegally brought from blacksmiths in UP, Engineering degree, if I spend enough money. I can get a girl of any age.)
China is progressing and we are stagnating.

The sun is rising in the East!

We are all looking to end our emotional suffering and solve our life’s problems. We long to answer: How can I find love, stop being so anxious, lose weight, make money, have more energy, have a better marriage, be a better parent?

In this post I’m going to give you the answer to your difficulties and tell you how to achieve true fulfillment and happiness.

In order to do that, I will start with a short review of my basic philosophy of the heart.

As those of you who have followed my blog know, I am inspired by the great Chinese Sage of 2300 years ago, Mencius, who said,

“Pity the man who has lost his path and does not follow it, and lost his heart and does not go out and recover it.”

I believe that we have problems in our lives because we have lost our hearts. Since “essence,” — that which makes a thing what it is and no other — is known as “the heart of the matter,” our essential nature is what Mencius means by the term, “heart.” What this means then, is that we experience unnecessary suffering because we are, as theologian Paul Tillich stated it, estranged from our essential nature. This essential nature is what the Greek philosopher Aristotle called our entelechy, which is that which we are meant to be.

What is our essence? What are we meant to be? I believe that we are all meant to think, feel, act, imagine and connect in the best possible way. When those natural attributes are optimally developed we become wise, passionate, strong, creative and loving. This results in inner harmony, loving relationships, a productive social order and peaceful politics. This is an embodiment, and fulfillment, of the laws of human nature and universal nature. This is our evolutionary purpose and what is best both for the species and the universe as a whole.

A central way that we become distanced from that which we are meant to become is as a result of our relationships. When things go right in our earliest and most important relationships, we develop our potentials in the best possible way. As Mencius knew from observing nature, anything properly cultivated will grow. As we all live in a lost hearted world and each one of us is raised by flawed parents, we are all, more or less, and in different ways, emotionally wounded. When we do not receive the proper emotional sunlight, soil and water, we do not grow in the best possible way.

We become distanced from that which we are meant to be due to relationship failures in our upbringing. As a result of this, we are living in some way out of alignment with our own nature. When we are distanced from our nature, we live out of alignment with nature in general. We have, what Mencius would call, a lost heart. This results in our suffering and problems.

Science has now proved this to be true. When we get the proper love in early childhood our brain grows the way it is supposed to. When we do not get love in our early life, our brain does not develop to its full potential.

Though these early interactions leave very deep traces, we continue to grow and develop through life. Mencius said, “The principle of self-cultivation consists in nothing but trying to find the lost heart.” This means that we can live out our entelechy, we can be what we are meant to be, we can realize our optimal potentials, we can end our unnecessary suffering and solve our problems, through working on ourselves.

The Answer to Our Problems is Finding the Lost Heart

The answer is that in order to solve our problems and get what we want in life, we need to find our lost hearts. And the way to do this is to live a life of self-cultivation. What does this mean, and how do we do it?

Throughout history, everyone has wanted an instant cure, a quick fix, a magic pill. Cardinal Richelieu, who lived in the 17th century, was prescribed a mixture of horse dung and white wine to cure his ills. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. He died. The instant cure doesn’t work. Whenever we try to take a shortcut, we never reach our destination. And even though I am a psychotherapist, psychotherapy alone is not enough to give us what we need.

The  wisdom of the ages tells us that to find the answer requires a quest. The method I propose may take more work then you’d like, but, unlike the Cardinal’s cure, it will work. It includes wisdom that has been proven by thousands of years of historical experience, and modern insights proven by cutting edge science.

The essence of finding one’s heart can be distilled into five basic steps.

1.    The Path of Devotion
2.    The Path of Wisdom
3.    The Path of Healing
4.    The Path of Vision
5.    The Path of Action

The Path of Devotion

Finding true fulfillment begins and ends with living a life of devotion to finding our lost heart. The devotion to a life of self-discovery and realization is a personal bhakti marga, which is a Sanskrit word for the path of devotion. This total intellectual, moral, and emotional commitment to daily practice is more important than the particular method itself. As Sri Ramakrishna said, “One can reach god if one follows any of the paths with whole hearted devotion.”

The most important aspect of this path is daily study. In the collected sayings of Confucius, called the Analects, the very first statement is, “Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?” But the purpose of this learning is not an accumulation of facts or information. Its point is the personal development of the individual.

The Path of Wisdom

One way to do this is to study the ancient wisdom texts from every culture, whether it is the Upanishads from India, the Four Books of the Chinese, the poems of Rumi, the Confessions of St. Augustine, or the Old Testament of the Hebrews. Confucius devoted his life to the study of ancient wisdom texts because he believed that the past is an inexhaustible source of content for self-discovery. He believed that in the sincere search of ancient texts one finds true knowledge. The classic texts are the best guide to understanding ourselves. This is the Hindu knowledge path of jnana-marga.

The study of the great wisdom of humankind is one important path to finding the lost heart because these texts are the evidence left behind by the great heroes of self-discovery who have travelled this road before us. These writers went into themselves, and the words they write tell us what they found there. Because we can never truly put what is deepest about being human into words, their utterances require contemplation to grasp. Their meanings are endless. The more we immerse ourselves in them, the more we find. These writings are symbolic in a particular way. I call them yantras, where a yantra is a complex symbol that is used as a revelatory conduit for cosmic truths.

Yantras are not only to be found in the writings of the wise but can come in many forms. They are in all the products of culture. They are in myths, rituals, fairy tales, mandalas, the results of scientific research, and art and literature. This path of devotion through contemplating the yantras of culture is known in German as bildung. Bildung is another essential way to develop our innate potentials. Bildung involves not simply an intellectual exercise but the participation of the complete person in the process of self development that leads to a realization of ultimate character. Whether you read The Frog Prince, Victor Hugo, or David Foster Wallace; listen to the music of Mozart, Ray Davies, or Taylor Swift; watch the movies, Citizen Kane, Groundhog Day or Ratatouille; you will find the answer wherever you look  if you immerse yourself in the work.

These practices give us a means of making a deep exploration of our selves. As inscribed at the temple to Apollo in Delphi, Greece, the answer to life is it “know thyself.” In order to find the lost heart we must embark on a journey of self-knowledge. The journey down the yellow brick road is a journey into the self. We must learn how to go within, as all the great heroes have before us, and discover the “jewel in the lotus.” In our deepest depths, we find what the Indians in the Upanishads would call Atman, the ultimate within the heart. Gestalt therapy is a good way to learn how to do this. This is a phenomenological method, which means that you learn how to go within and listen to the silent voice of the heart, your authentic self.

The Path of Healing

In the fairy tale, Cat Skin, as a result of the childhood emotional wound of incest, the princess hides her dress of diamonds in a walnut shell, covers herself in ash, lives under a staircase and does the work of the scullery maid. She has a lost heart. Because of her childhood wounds, she has hidden the best of herself, and lives a life of shame. The disguise becomes so convincing, she forgets that she is really a princess. This yantric fairy tale shows us in symbolic form the story that we all live. As a result of our childhood wounds, we hide our beauty. The low identity we create becomes so convincing we lose touch with the glorious beings we actually are. The next step in finding our hearts is to heal these wounds of the past so that we can bring our dress out of the walnut shell and reclaim our throne.

As a result of our wounds, we might live our lives believing that we are the problem, that we are broken or bad. We must uncover the true stories of our lives, and discover how we were taught these falsehoods about ourselves, how we learned that we are scullery maid instead of princess. New therapeutic techniques have been developed to help us  process those early stories so we can transcend them. In so doing, we can end the emotional suffering these wounds caused, and learn how to transform our shame into self-love, which is central to getting what we want in life. My favorite method for this is based on a method called EMDR.

Methods like the 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous also teach us the importance of taking responsibility for our own past and present behaviors. Part of the devotion to the recovery of our hearts is to  look closely at the hurts we have caused to ourselves and others and to do all we can to rectify those wounds.

The Path of Action

The next step in finding the heart is to take actions in the present. This corresponds to the path of karma-marga. The most important thing we can do in our lives right now to help us find the heart is to learn how to truly connect with others. If we were wounded by relationships in our lives, learning how to have relationships in the present provides us with a core means of self-realization. We need to learn the methods of authentic connection in order to become all we are meant to be. Harville Hendrix’s IMAGO technique provides one wonderful way of doing this. In this technique we learn how to speak from our hearts, and truly listen to another. We learn how to express our needs in healthy ways and meet the needs of others.

In order to find our hearts we also must care for the heart’s temple, our bodies. Good nutrition, exercise, rest and sex with an intimate partner are some of the primary ways of caring for our bodies. Health counselors trained at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition can provide terrific information on the best way to care for your body in order to optimize energy, mood, health and well-being.

Nature is the best yantra. It provides all the wisdom we need to embody and live from our hearts. Spending time in nature is essential to finding and living out our true nature.

Our own creativity is a central way of finding our hearts. When we go within in a process of self-exploration, we want to express and manifest what we find there. This is the source of creativity. It is the gift we bring back for others to share, to help them on their own paths of finding their hearts. By creating, we find out who we are. As William Faulkner said, “I never know what I think of something until I read what I’ve written on it.” Part of our essential purpose is to express ourselves. The quality of what we create is not our concern. Our job is, as the inventor of modern dance, Martha Graham, said to her student, Agnes De Mille, “to keep the channel open.”

Finally, we must learn to live from our integrity and do the right thing. When what we want to do and what we should do are in harmony, then we have inner peace. This right thing is not something imposed by external doctrine or held in the dogma of religion, though we might be able to learn a great deal about the good and true from such sources.

Ultimately, what we discover is that our source of compassion and empathy, the core of our ability for moral action, is the heart itself. Just like the tongue knows the delicious and the eye the beautiful, the heart is the part of us that has a taste for goodness. When we have access to our hearts, we know the good from the inside. Cultivating the self and finding the heart, are in the end, about developing our source of goodness, which we all share, and is within us. In this way we develop what Mencius called imperturbability. Tillich called this the ‘courage to be,’ the ability to act from our hearts in the face of any external threat or danger. Once we grow this ability, we have what Mencius called ‘flood-like ch’I,’ which is access to the endless stream of universal energy. No fear of rejection or failure can stop us. We can do anything.

The Path of Vision

Next on our path of finding the heart, we must envision that which we want to become. A unique capacity of the human heart is the ability to imagine. As the ancient Greek myth put it, Prometheus created us upright so that we could contemplate the stars. We are aspirational beings. If we can imagine, we can imagine a supreme, an ultimate. As a means of finding the lost heart, the Chinese philosophers spent much of their time visualizing the ultimate person, which they called, jen. The clearer the vision we have of what it is that we want to become, the more likely we are of becoming that thing. The quarterback needs to see the ball being caught in the endzone in order to make the touchdown. In order to develop this image we need to find symbolic heroes who hold the qualities we long to realize. By contemplating and communing with these ideal figures, we free these attributes within ourselves. Napoleon Hill, in his book, Think and Grow Rich has a wonderful exercise where he communes nightly with his board of ideal advisers in order to accomplish his goals.

Finding the Lost Heart

What does life become when we follow these paths and find our hearts? By following the path of finding the lost heart we live in accordance with what the ancients called “the Tao,” or The Way. We are in harmony with our own and cosmic nature. Our problems are symptoms that indicate we are living out of harmony with the Tao. When we find this central harmony, our problems dissolve. We receive the rewards for our efforts. We have great relationships and realize profound intimacy. We discover and live out our heart’s vocation and do work we love. We become prosperous. We feel great, and are healthy in mind, body and spirit. We look great and have our best body. We live a long and energetic life. We are great parents and raise happy children. We find true success, living out our meaning and purpose. We live lives of giving. We give and receive infinitely increasing love. We contribute to the healing of the planet. We find deep spirituality and a live a life of connectedness to the all.

As the fairy tales tell us, the path is long and filled with impossible tasks, but if we take the advice of magical helpers on the way, and follow their instructions, we end up with the kingdom.