Today gave me an awful lot,
When it blew my sanity away.
The morning after, all’s forgot.
Tomorrow’s always a new day.
Tag: Writing
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Always the Sun
Hay harvest at Eragny by Camille Pissarro -
The Significance of Unread Books
To come upon Word of The Day, Tsundoku, as I was checking messages on Facebook during my lunchtime at a regular Starbucks shop gave me a fillip to thinking of my unread books I have piled up, untouched, since my new job became my primary reality. A Japanese word for a pile of unread books, Tsundoku has become something of new word that describes a tertiary group of books attempted but disinterested, or tried but forgotten. Which is what my tsundoku are comprised of. My books pending my reading speak to me: “Have you deserted us?” Nary a One Bit, My Dear Textual Friends.In fact, looking at a stack of unread or partially read books imparts me a sense of subtle satisfaction and small wonder: these books of mine indicate that there’s still unknown knowledge of the world I need to know and that my literary vanity is worth the indulgence. They are part of my personal library built upon flotsam and jetsam of sundry interests, which are similar to the Mathom-House in the Shire, inhibited by Hobbits. The Mathom House is basically a museum of paraphernalia, a sort of odds-and-ends things but not to be discarded for what they are worth. The House is ever-expanding as a Hobbit fills it with this and that to his heat’s content. Likewise, my library is ever-expanding as it is filled up with new ideas and fresh inspirations drawn from the world of writers with unique voices but who always manage to express the universality.
Tsundoku, the Mathom-House… they are terra incognita in the mind of any adventurer of knowledge. The importance of unread books reminds us that reading is a never-ending activity but an ongoing process of becoming who we want to be because we become what we read. Reading is not a competition but a creation of a reality of the reader by passing over to the minds of the author and the characters. All books , finished and unfinished, are possible to help you get there too because they are unknown unknowns. Therefore, a sight of Tsundoku is not a sign of a failed literary or academic ambition but a display of a wondrous mind whose intellectual/academic/artistic odyssey is still on.
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She learns from Snoopy and his friends
As I read a daily Snoopy comic strip on my Kindle Fire, I believe the power of pop art that shapes the patterns of our culture and the modes of attitude toward the social customs and conventions. This relatively new modern art genre first emerged in the United States and the United Kingdom in the late 1950s as a counter cultural movement to challenge the orthodox forms and formulas of fine art by using imaginary figures or cultural objects from mass demotic culture, such as comic books and advertising. Its wide appealing to all stratum of society devoid of abstruse textual message or abstract imagery only comprehensible to a select few is elegantly manifested in Peanuts, featuring Charlie Brown, his friends, and of course his very famous resident beagle Snoopy.
Peanuts is all about being hopeful in the face of hopelessness in living daily life. The round shapes and soft faces of the characters of Peanuts evoke a sense of warmth, innocence, and artlessness with a feeling of secure comfort. What’s more, the simple themes of this affable comic strip are universally translated into the minds of readers all around the world, so much so that in Japan Snoopy and the Peanut Gang have become celebrities in the stationery firmament since their first debut in 1950. Peanuts shows us the incongruity and pain of everyday human condition in the appearance of innocent-faced children and stoical Snoopy. It reveals certain truths of our daily existential dilemma in which we struggle with the meanings of life against our unknown futures. In this regard, Peanuts is a profound comic strip dealing with very adult concerns – that is to say, life is a series of worries and more worries- in disguise.
Mr. Schultz at work. The creator of Peanuts, Charles M. Schultz (1922-2000), was in many ways a lot like Charlie Brown. Both of them had that placid, affable smiles, soft facial features that make anyone feel guilty of hollering out their names out of earshot, and relaxed and almost self-effacing comportment that spells out “Humility.” In fact, the shy Schultz found the best medium in a comic strip to express his artistic talent and intelligence and thus created his simple but complex alter ego Charlie Brown. However, Schultz did not purport his creation to be a medium of pontificating about political or social agendas. He did not intend to use Peanuts as a visual aide to contextualize far-fetched psychoanalysis in this comic strip. The triumph of Peanuts over the flight of ages and gaps of cultures lies on Schultz’s keen observation of life per se and his effortless delineation thereof in this quiet but smashing timeless comic strip that deserves of universal recognition across the seas and continents. For this reason, Peanuts is an excellent paradigm of pop art whose excellence is simplicity in character, in style, and in form. Leo Tolstoy said, “There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth.” Peanuts fits all of this.
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Jonah’s Days
Andy at the helm of the store during his training of Wendy Andy’s culinary business has been doing very well since its opening three months ago and become one of Must-Go eateries through the digital grapevine of regular village chatters, peripatetic wayfarers, lunchtime workers, leisurely saunterers, and food critics incognita. With the growing popularity of the now famed hot dogs, french fries, and waffles of Andy’s, hiring a helping hand was unavoidable. So Andy posted a job on Solid. Com for a full-time attendant with benefits after a 3-month probation period and $13.00 per hour, which was really an excellent job opportunity for anyone looking for decent employment in this time of static unemployment situation and a growing number of homelessness all around the world.
The lucky winner of the happy opportunity was Rosetta whose honest-to-goodness character and sweet smile moved Andy’s robust stoical temperament at the interview. So Wendy came aboard as a new cute attendant at Andy’s, and she loved every minute of it, serving customers with care and smile, grilling sausages, flipping buns, frying french fries, and performing all other miscellaneous tasks given ad hoc by Andy or his wife Martha, who always religiously brings her homemade buns, sausages, and other condiments to the establishment every day and attends to customers in the morning until 11:00 AM.
Andy chides Rosetta for misunderstanding customers’ orders. But the halcyon days of the initiation to her new employment came to an end last week. Or it seemed so. Although Rosetta was intelligent, always eager to learn new things with her whole heart, she needed a certain period of time long enough to be proficient in her new trade. But Andy’s spartan way of inculcating a new set of know-hows and modus operendi of the attendant position in his new seemingly fumbling employee did not go hand in hand with Rosetta’s trait and temperament. Maybe he expected from Wendy a novelty effect, which is to say that every new role and responsibility needs to initially improve when such new doctrine is first instituted. Maybe that’s an universal tendency of every employer anticipating from his or her new employee, which is understandable. But then maybe it’s Andy’s short-sighted insight for Rosetta who would need enough time to be soaked into new knowledge until it became her secondary register and octave.
“Man can be destroyed bit cannot be conquered,” is one of her favorite axioms. Rosetta’s shyness and her introvert personality might appear a bit farouche at handling multi-tasks or adroit at communicating with vendors providing products to Andy’s due to her tendency to stay indoor, which makes her guarded against dealing with the outside the world in all aspects of everyday life. Nonetheless, Wendy’s willingness to work to the fullest extent possible, honesty, and kind nature should also be highly esteemed because finding a good person is harder than hiring a smart worker. Surely, employers run businesses, not charity organizations that provision their employees with bread unconditionally for free. But then they deal with people not with cyborgs they can discharge anytime at will. Therefore, it is best to advise employers to learn that there are more things in heaven and on earth that are dreamed of in their business stratagems and callous modus vivendi.
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what she likes on a whim of a rainy day monday
London Fog Women’s 36″ Snap Front Down Coat with Multi Pattern Quilt and Hood Being painfully sensitive to the cold, I wanted a coat that should be: (1) long enough to cover my thighs but not below the knees; (2) warm enough to guard me against the frigid temperature; and (3) fashionable enough to wear it with style. Out of my considerable time of research into such dream coat came this wonderful coat that satisfied all of the above requirements, dovetailing Sophia Lauren’s idea of beautiful and practical clothing: “A woman’s dress should be a like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.” I love it, onlookers love it as well. Guess I made a good purchase this time 🙂
PS: Consumerism never appeals to me; what’s more, I don’t get paid by Amazon by writing this product review. But since I write what I like much out of sheer egotism, hence this bullet review of my new lovely coat that has become my winter armor.
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‘Legally Haunted Houses’ by Dylan Clearfield – review
Legally Haunted Houses by Dylan ClearfieldMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
For a person like me who likes to read genuine supernatural stories free from dramatic accounts of witnesses, psychic, paranormal investigators, and/or parapsychologists, this is a perfect read consisting of historical cases in France, England, Canada, and the States that were rendered haunted by the court of law.
For example, the case of Stambovsky v. Ackley in the appellate division of New York Supreme Court has become a bedrock case law of caveat emptor, which is literally translated as “Let the buyer beware,” meaning that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made. The appellate court ruled that since the buyer should not/could be able to ascertain a condition in which haunting occurred upon reasonable investigation in due diligence on the buyer’s part, the plaintiff Stambovsky was awarded the rescission of the contract of sale of the house.
All of the stories contained in this collection of the cases are recorded in historical as well as legal documents, which weigh heavily against sensational TV programs and hyped-up accounts of psychics and the like in its genuineness. And it’s a light read readers can finish at one setting. Mind you, truth can be scarier than fiction.
