"Write now is good."

What it is: Questions without immediate, singular answers

Books find me.

I'm usually doing something else, like walking or writing or running around or researching something. And then there is a book in front of me, in my gaze, while I am in the midst of doing something else intensely.

My gaze will stop at a book among a sea of books: on shelves, in piles, at the top of a stack, in a bookstore window (both brick-and-mortar and virtual). 

When a book stands out to me at these unexpected moments, I will usually pick up the book. If I hesitate and I still feel the book's pull, I will definitely pick it up, if I can (much easier to do with a book on a metal shelf than one on a computer screen).

Often these books are ones that I know, and I'll leaf through them looking for a word or phrase that catches my eye. Sometimes I'll reread a favorite passage or find new meaning in one that I hadn't really understood in that way on the prior pass.

This time, a book new to me stood out. I saw it on a library shelf, and I checked it out. Then its return date arrived, and I had to return it. Then I bought my own copy, and I keep reading it. It is full of questions that have no simple answers. Many of the questions are phrased in ways I never thought of. The pages are rich with collaged snippets of words and images, of colored drawings, paintings, pen-and-ink sketches, all combined on the same page. 

I don't want to say any more about it because I don't want to spoil any of the mystery and surprise in the book, in case it finds you, too, and you feel compelled to pick it up.

However, I think I can feature a few of my favorite questions without giving too much away:

1. What is an idea made of? (p. 4)

2. (What) Where is a story before it becomes words? (p. 44)

3. Why do some images come back again and again? (p. 96)

These questions, and the time I am spending with this book, are triggering so many interesting ideas and thoughts. (I just discovered there is an "adjustable activity book" in the back. This has been very fruitful book serendipity.)

Book: What It Is by Lynda Barry (Drawn and Quarterly; 2008; hardcover; 209 pages)

Playing with the moon

These photographs of jeux lunaires — moon games — caught my eye. They're beautifully executed, playful and inspired.

The above photo "Comme dans un tableau" — like in a picture — is one of many different images located in the online gallery of Laurent Laveder. Based on viewing his work, it looks like he often photographs life on earth during the evening and nighttime.

You can purchase the book Quartier Libre by Laurent Laveder and Sabine Sannier — featuring moon-inspired writing from nineteen authors — here.

Found at [BB-Blog]

"How to be alone" in a hyper-connected world

"How to be alone" by filmmaker Andrea Dorfman and poet/singer/songwriter Tanya Davis is beautiful and perceptive in word, image and tune.

After viewing the video many times, I realized that the benefits of being alone are visually implied in the film by Tanya's being in nature, outside or away from screens which constantly and digitally connect us to others.

One of my favorite lines is "Start simple: things you may have previously avoided based on your 'Avoid Being Alone Principles.'" What's yours?

Seen many places, like here, here and here.

Update, September 2, 2010: The Next Web's article "How Andrea Dorfman learned to be alone and earned herself a million views on YouTube" provides some interesting details about how the video came together and how social media contributed to its wide online viewing.

What did it feel like to go to the moon?

As I follow astronauts like Mike Massimino on Twitter as they tweet from space, it's easy to learn bits of what life is like beyond Earth's atmosphere.

Before Internet access and the development of Web 2.0 and social media, there were few widely available, multimedia records of the astronaut experience. Below is a compelling video clip from the documentary For All Mankind, directed by Al Reinert with a musical score by Brian Eno and originally released in 1989. (Its re-release on DVD is now available.) In a 2009 article, Reinert explained his focus behind the movie:

What I wanted to do was make a film that communicated what it felt like to go to the moon. Really put you in the shoes of the astronauts. That's still the kind of movie that I would want to watch.

The powerHouse Arena has just released Spacesuits: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Collection, featuring below image. (So interesting — I would definitely buy a print of this.)

 

Sometimes (actually, pretty regularly) I marvel at amount of quality information available through Web 2.0. I wonder what's next.

Video clip found on YouTube; "Astronaut Style" found at PUBLIC SCHOOL by BMD Love Blog via Gizmodo

Links:

° "Shot on location—'For All Mankind' filmmaker Al Reinert goes walking on the moon one more time" by Robert Faires, The Austin Chronicle, 13 March 2009

° NASA Astronauts / "NASA_Astronauts" on Twitter

In preparing to write

Photo: "The Writer" by Michael Hirst

Discovered a new-to-me and noteworthy poem today.

"Advice to writers" by Billy Collins

Even if it keeps you up all night,
wash down the walls and scrub the floor
of your study before composing a syllable.

Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way.
Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration.

The more you clean, the more brilliant
your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take
to the open fields to scour the undersides
of rocks or swab in the dark forest
upper branches, nests full of eggs.

When you find your way back home
and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink,
you will behold in the light of dawn
the immaculate altar of your desk,
a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.

From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift
a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,
and cover pages with tiny sentences
like long rows of devoted ants
that followed you in from the woods.

Found at swissmiss, who got it from bobulate, who saw it in a tweet by robinsloan

A city of books, media stacking, and making more room to read

 

Photo: "media stacking" by Will Lion

A few worthwhile finds from my recent Web travels are:

1. Are you a "media stacker"? Read this TimesOnline article "Hello? I'm on the internet - and watching the television" to find out.

2. "The Buzzwords of 2008" is full of overused, wordy gems. On this New York Times' list, you'll find digital cliff, staycation, and Phelpsian, among many others. The article is co-written by Grant Barrett, "a lexicographer specializing in slang and new words, ... co-host of the public radio program 'A Way With Words' and head of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society." Accompanying illustrations by Jessica Hische are witty and original.

3. "This is where we live" is a stop-motion animation of a city made entirely of books. Over 1,000 copies of various books from U.K. publisher 4th Estate were used to make it. From ViaComIT.

4. Make more room to read! Change This and 800CEORead are working together on an innovative benefit for Room to Read. The details:

For $30.00, we are putting together a Mystery Box of three business books. In this box you are guaranteed one title that either won, or made the shortlist for, the best book of 2008 in its category, along with 2 other titles from last year that were submitted for the awards. As a bonus, we will include a copy of this year's In The Books, our annual review of business books. 100% of the purchase will go directly to Room to Read, and we'll cover the shipping on all orders.

Room to Read promotes increased literacy in the developing world by establishing libraries, computer labs and even schools in communities with few educational resources. It is a powerful organization which makes real and lasting positive impact. If you're not familiar with the group, I suggest clicking through and looking at what they do; it is inspiring.

Early morning creative magic

Photo: "sunrise in the city" by tattoodjay

This blog caught my eye: "Daily Routines: How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days."

While reading through these posts, I noticed that most creatives featured get up early (between 5-6AM) most days and start writing or painting soon after waking.

Thank you for voting!

Photo: "Thank you!" by Zanthia

As the world continues to revel in the most hopeful and historic election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, other positive developments are shining through. One I'd like to note, as a follow-up to my Do you know how to vote? post, is this: in this 2008 election, the U.S. has had its highest voter turnout ever in the last 48 years.

More than 148 million voters cast their ballots, which equals to 64.1% of the voting-age electorate.

Take a look at this chart, National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections, which features statistics from 1960. (For presidential election years, the stats are in boldface. Mid-term elections, nationally held to elect Congress members and for state/local governments, are in plain type.) So inspiring! Our voting electorate has been completely re-energized across age, race, and economic groups; almost 26 million more voters turned out in 2008 than they did in 2004.

After finding and being moved by these significant voting stats, I stumbled across the above photo on Flickr and had to feature it. Before I began writing this post, I read an article in The Washington Post titled "U.S. Hailed Again as Country of Dreams", and this photo expresses much of the gratitude many worldwide are feeling based on Obama's win.

So, I must say this again: thank you for voting! It has made all the difference in the world.

Poverty: What would you write to help solve it?

Big problems can be solved when many participate in a solution. Focusing concentrated energy on one central issue is Blog Action Day's goal for October 15th. This year's topic is poverty:

Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion...We ask bloggers to take a single day out of their schedule and focus it on an important issue. By doing so on the same day, the blogging community effectively changes the conversation on the web and focuses audiences around the globe on that issue.

If you choose to participate, you have 8 days to craft your most persuasive post, film a compelling video, or record a captivating podcast, to bring attention to poverty in your way, from your perspective, featuring your insight and innovation.

Would you like to be part of this global community? As I write this, 5,742 blogs — with an estimated readership of 9,038,385 people — have already registered to participate. If you do sign up, leave a comment here and I'll link to your blog on October 15th for Blog Action Day.

Read more about Blog Action Day and register your blog here.

How was your vacation?

Photo: "the perfect vacation" by OneGreatClick

How was your vacation?

Did you relax your body and mind completely?

Are your batteries recharged? Have you again pinpointed your creativity's source on your artist-self map? Ready to write, draw and blog anew?

Did you get a necessary change of scenery? See new places? Smell different, more fragrant air?

You did? All of the above? Wonderful. So did I.

Wait — you didn't? No worries — August's remainder beckons. There's time enough for a last weekend escape — or at least one earnest day trip, swimming in a sea of daydreams.