Kurt Brindley's Blog, page 125
November 16, 2014
A little NEWSLETTER LOVE is in your inbox…
If you’re a Subscriber, that is.
My oh my, I have been meaning to get this little ol’ Newsletter thing launched for I have no idea how long it’s been now.
But it’s been a long time, that I’m sure.
And now, finally, I finally done went and done did it.
Or is it did done it?
Anyway, the inaugural edition is now resting and waiting just for you in the comfort of your own cozy inbox.
What you’ll find in this first of the first is…
A little introduction to what I hope to accomplish with the newsletters.
A profile of and a poem from Jaffa Kintigh, the very first subscriber to the newsletter.
An overview (well, just pictures for most) of the main features of this website:
- Poem Man
- Literary Zen
- The Happily Disgruntled Writer
- #notestoself
- And a little bit more, just a bit, than an overview of the IABS&R
- And Relating to Humans, where we have links to the two Women’s Issues submissions that were profiled on the Blog.
- And, to close the newsletter, we profile a selection from the Poetry feature. A beautiful, powerful poem by Gravis Kartweeler entitled Oenomaus.
Yeah, quite a little bit packed in that little bit more than a bit of a newsletter.
And I couldn’t be happier.
If you aren’t a subscriber, you can read the newsletter here.
And if you feel so inclined, you can subscribe here.
I hope to be sending one of these out weekly. And each week, I hope to profile someone special.
It just may be you.
Filed under: Writing Tagged: authors, features, Indie Authors, newsletters, poetry, writing
The Persistent and the Damned
The winter-soaked autumn leaves, drying fast from the inescapable light of the klieg light sun, began an unwillful tumbling across the cornfield, fallow and dank, at the impatient prodding of an impertinent spring breeze.
Everything has its time, sighed the aged, wind worn, naked oak.
Everything, sooner, later, regardless of desire, must go.
But many of the leaves would not go, at least not yet. They would, in their need to continue to be, in their yearning to remain, find things to grasp at, to cling to, to wrap themselves wholeheartedly around: the dry and brittle stubs of stalks, standing stiff in their own persistent grasp at relevance, were the leaves’s only, last, hope.
In each other, their final purpose.
In each other, their temporal salvation.
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Filed under: Flash Fiction Tagged: autumn, damnation, death, determination, fiction, flash fiction, hope, life, microfiction, nature, persistence, salvation, short stories, writing
Blazed
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Filed under: Photography Tagged: art, blazes, design, fire, fireplace, flames, flowers, graphic art, graphic design, nature, photography, pictures, touched
So yeah, about that book of yours, Author…
I’m not sure, but I think I may have mentioned before that I am kind of a slow reader.
I mean, if there were a speed reading contest and if I were the last contestant and our team’s winning was dependent upon, you know, me reading fast…
Well, I think you can guess how that contest would end.
Yeah, me as the losing team’s team loser because my reading is just…that…slow…
Don’t ask me because I don’t understand it.
But apparently, I’m finding, it’s not always that slow…
Because, apparently, I’m finding, it seems that with the right word arrangement, my reading speed increases significantly.
Because I’m finding, it seems, that apparently with my Current Read, you know, HANDS OF EVIL by Indie Author Melissa Barker-Simpson, you know, the inaugural selection of the Indie Author Book Selection & Review (or IABS&R (pronounced EYEABZER (Yeah, I know…but don’t blame me because I pleaded and pleaded for someone, anyone, to come up with a better name for it…but did anyone, someone? Nope. So now here we are, stuck with the IABS&R from now until who knows when this ride will end… But you know what? It could be worse. Yeah, that’s right…it could be that NaNoWriMo bullshiitake. I can’t even write that without cracking up. Or, it could be even worse than that…oh my god I can’t stop laughing now…it could be the NaNoBloMoFoSho horrible honk of a handle. Egads!)), for short), it seems, I’m finding, that apparently she has somehow managed to arrange the words in her book in such a way that I find myself zipping right through that thriller of a thriller. I’m talking shooting down ten Red Bulls and chasing those ten with ten 5-hour Energy Shots fast like reading. I mean, I’m reading so fast it makes this guy look like a star of one of those insanely slow Slo-Mo videos.
Yeah, it’s pretty darn good book, if you know what I mean.
Which got me to thinking…heck, if we’re gonna do another IABS&R we better get crackin’ because I’m gonna be done with HANDS OF EVIL faster than you can say I hate Christmas commercials airing before Thanksgiving.
Dang, you said that pretty fast.
See what I mean? We better hurry up and get our ho ho ho hustle on then, right?
So yeah, about that book of yours, Author…
Can I read it?
If so, then please meet me over at the IABS&R Volume 2 Call for Submissions page.
Filed under: Books Tagged: authors, book reviews, books, contests, fiction, IABS&R Volume 2, Indie Author Book Selection & Review, Indie Authors, NaNoBloMo, NANOWRIMO, novels, submissions, writing
November 15, 2014
Just do it, yo!
UPDATE: Look, I get it and I’m sorry. I understand that there are forms of depression so severe that asking someone who suffers from such to do what I’m saying needs to be done in this insensitive post would be like asking a quadriplegic to hop out of her wheelchair and go for an invigorating walk (Geez, even that sounds insensitive…sigh). My sincerest apologies to those I have offended by implying that just by doing what we know needs to be done, like eating healthier and exercising, will make our lives less depressing. While it may benefit most of us, it will do little for those truly suffering. And I’m sorry if I’ve caused addition suffering. Especially since I’ve known the mental health challenges so well…both manically and a depressively. Spending a year on high doses of the steroid prednisone was quite the long strange trip. While I rarely wrote when deeply depressed, I did write like, well, a maniac when I was manic. Though I’ve taken down most of those posts I wrote when on that trip, I left a couple up and added them to the “mental health” category if you’re interested. Again. I’m sorry. I should have known better.
A couple of days ago I had an interesting discussion with my new friend pixie over at her cool site Pixie Dust Beach.
She’s got a lot going on there – you should really go check it out.
And our discussion was in response to her thought-provoking review of Chris Guillebeau’s self-help book The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life
. . .
And I kind of been mulling over this discussion ever since…
You know, I’ve never been much of a self-help kind of guy, but there have been key points in my life where I have benefited from the motivation gained from the so-called Self-Help Expert. Tony Robbins helped me quit smoking oh so long ago…what, almost 25 years ago now…sheesh. I will be forever grateful to him for helping me be rid of that nasty habit. And recently I have completely changed my outlook on life all because of my new Personal Pope, that Greatest of Gurus, Dr. Wayne, The Wonderful, Dyer.
I love him.
Truly.
#iamthatiam
So I, by no means, am not down on the Self Help massive exploitation market of pain and misery…at all.
If it makes you happier and healthier, whatever the crutch may be, I’m all for it.
But, really, the answers to the complexities and challenges we face in this one big quest of a question mark we call Life are actually quite simple and fundamental.
We, all of us over a certain age, anyway, for the most part, already know what it is we need to be doing to make our lives less hard and less painful and less depressing…
Right?
Admit it…deep down you know what it is you need to be doing to improve your life…
But, unfortunately, it’s not just the knowing that gets it done, is it?
Nope.
It’s the application, the doing…
And it’s this dang doing of what we know to be true that is so frikkin’ hard.
So hard…
But still.
The doing has got to be done…
Right?
So, come on then…
All of us.
All together…
All together and gung ho and supportive like…
All Nike mass exploitative marketing like…
Let’s all just do it.
Let’s all just do what we dang well know needs to be done.
Every dang one of us.
Yeah…
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Filed under: Life Tagged: Anthony Robbins, book reviews, books, depression, Dr. Wayne Dyer, life, manic, marketing, mental health, motivation, photography, psychosis, self-help
夏は終わらない
The lovely and loving Megi over at HappyNest In America once again captures the moment perfectly, both in word and photographic imagery…
An inadequate but beautiful translation nonetheless:
Summer Does Not End
Summer in the tepid air
stagnation is surrounded by
dense and the forest that does not end,
as the light of the midnight of the month of De-sa the
midsummer that reflected on the surface of the water,
voice of
big brother and friends and cousins to make Hayashi Kimi had kicked the
diving board while raising the
spray in response to, your appearance of that day revives
The vivid.
with lingering Kimi bounced’s laughter -.
Originally posted on :
鬱蒼とした林に囲まれた
沈滞する生ぬるい空気の中で、
水面に映り出された
真夏の夜半の月の光のように、
君を囃し立てる
兄貴や友達やいとこたちの声に応えて
水しぶきを上げながら
飛び込み台を蹴っていた、あの日の君の姿が
鮮やかに蘇る。
君のはずんだ笑い声の余韻とともに － 。
＊ ＊ ＊
にほんブログ村 アメリカ情報でも、更新記事をお届けしています。
Filed under: Photography, Poetry Tagged: HappyNest in America, Japan, Japanese language, Megi, nature, photography, poetry, snow, summer, writing 
MY VIEW – A Women’s Issues Feature
When DotedOn submitted her essay My View to the Relating to Humans Women’s Issues feature, I could immediately feel its power and its truth, and the life lived as written, raw and exposed.
When submitted, DotedOn initially addressed it to me. I wrote to her soon after and asked if I could take out the address as I felt it may be distracting from the essay’s message. She wrote me back and, kindly, as she always is, said it was fine for me to make the edits and, since English is not her first language, she asked that I make any other edits that I felt may be necessary. I was pleased when she wrote this because there were, in fact, some grammar adjustments that I had wanted to make.
And, with haste, I made the adjustments.
However, after I read her essay with my edits, I found that something had happened. It seemed its power had somehow been diminished. I immediately restored the essay back to its original version, which, in turn, restored its power.
I spent the rest of the day reflecting on what had happened. The edits I made were almost insignificant, really; however, the impact of the edits was wholly significant. The impact was devastating to the overall feel and effect of the essay.
Perhaps, then, our words draw their strength not so much from our language and its form, but from our voice and our uniquely individual inflections and tones as only we can speak them…
My View
by DotedOn
I’m a single mom. I have five kids. I escaped an abusive relationship because I got to the point where nothing could be worse than staying one more second in that house. I exchanged comfort for unknown. I feel guilt every single day of my life. I know I took the right decision. I still don’t understand why my kids don’t see it and keep asking me why I don’t go back to daddy. They were there, they should know why.
Some people admire me… I still don’t get why. What’s to admire? That I left 5 kids without a dad? That I tolerate abuse for so long? That I’m alone and lost in another country miles away from every person dear to me?
I get questions like: How can you manage alone with 5 kids? I rub my eyes. I have everything. My question is: How could a widow 80 years ago manage 11 kids and no washing machine or fridge or disposable diapers or Nintendo’s to keep the kids quiet for a while.
Who should I please? Why I get judged? Why if I chose to be happy I feel this guilt all the time?
Filed under: Human Relations Tagged: abuse, children, divorce, grammar, guilt, human relations, language, marriage, parenting, relationships, women, women's issues, writing
November 14, 2014
English is for Everyone
or
In Defense of Hoarders
The past week or so, I have been pretending to be a computer repairman (I guess in this gender-sensitive age it’s okay for me to say repairman instead of something vanilla (is it okay for me to say vanilla? does it matter that I’m white?) like repair person or repair representative, since I am, in fact, despite all the chemo’s and other drugs’s long-lasting emasculating attempts, a man). It’s funny how, no matter how useless they become, old computers, along with old video games, and old phones, and old power packs, and old chargers, and don’t even get me started on unidentifiable old CDs, kind of just hang around in a corner of the basement as if it were a technological sarcophagus — lifeless computers stacked forlornly, purposeless cables and chords twisted madly into an untwistable balled bunch… Yeah.
Anyway, the past week or so I have been Dr. Frankengeek: attempting to restore ancient operating systems, rooting around in old files, deleting an old this, saving an old that.
So, so much stuff tucked away within those old computers. Who really knows how much stuff is really on them? Of course we never should throw them away until the day a gadget is made that possesses unlimited memory and a magical ability to instantaneously copy old files onto it without any user prompting, whatsoever. And not just any old file, no, certainly not those intransigent .dll files or any other annoying and undeletable ones like them, only important old files. And not to worry, this gadget will know what’s what, believe me. Oh, and of course the gadget will be cordless and will have an infinite battery life.
Coming soon to an Amazon store near you…
Until I can get my hands one of those suckers, I promise all my old computers will stay unneatly stacked in my basement and conveniently out of your landfill.
Most of the past week or so has certainly been less than fun. It’s a good thing I’m jobless and have a lot of time on my hands because most of the past week or so has been nothing more than an intimate study of the Ctrl, Alt, Del keys.
If this is what the world is coming to, then I say, go ahead and let the geeks inherit it.
Geek salvation…boring.
However, every once in a while I did dig my way into a stash of old photos, or old school papers, or some other ancient gem that reminded me of how cool it has been to live with my wife and kids these past twenty-five years or so.
Take, for instance, the picture found at the beginning of this rambling post. I found it in a folder of old English lessons.
Back in the last century, I used to live in Japan, and for a time when I lived in Japan, I used to teach English on the side to some very wonderful Japanese folks. To find and attract those wonderful Japanese folks, I used to advertise my lessons as “English is for Everyone.” Quaint, ain’t it?
Those of you who know my family, know how talented my children are. My daughter is an especially talented artist. She always has been, as is evident by the drawing she made when she was, oh, I don’t know…ten? twelve?…and which is found at the top of this rambling post, and which became the logo for those old lessons. I believe we even made iron-ons out of that logo and pressed them on to tee-shirts. At any rate, we truly made a good time out of it, that’s for sure.
Within that old stash, I also found many of my old English lessons, and old worksheets, and old handouts. They all bring back fond and funny and fortunate memories. I miss all my — I hesitate to call them students because it seemed as if I ended up learning more from them than they did from me, so I’ll simply say, I miss all my friends from that period of my life.
What follows is a copy of one of the old handouts I put together to, well, handout to my friends during those old English lessons. It is a list of heteronyms (thank god for google (is that redundant?)) that exemplifies just how crazy and fun the English language is.
Come to think of it, this might be a stretch, but, English is kind of like my old computers… It’s a communication system and storage system and retrieval system, all coded and operated by a language that rarely deletes anything but continually accumulates and assumes bits and bytes of other languages into its own as it constantly and forever evolves and adapts its system to the demands of the times.
Yeah, I said it was a bit of a stretch, but still…
No wonder the English language is so difficult to learn
We polish the Polish furniture.
He could be in the lead if he would just get the lead out.
A farm can produce produce.
The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
The present is a good time to present the present.
At the Army base, a bass fish was painted on the head of a bass drum.
The dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his fat sow to sow the seeds.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of Novocaine injections, my jaw became number.
I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my pants.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JULY 2012
Filed under: Culture, Language Tagged: business, computers, culture, English, family, grammar, humor, Japan, language, living, teaching, technology, writing
November 13, 2014
Is it just me…
Or do you also think soundcloud is the best frikkin’ music app out there?
It looks sleek and fresh (if I may use the vernacular…no? I shouldn’t do that? …sigh), loads fast and light, and doesn’t make my computer or phone get all grouchy like youtube, and even pandora sometimes with all its painful adverts, does.
I mostly hang out at the Minimal Techno stream. It’s just the right vibe for all my writing and blogging and all other general creative wizardry, if you know what I mean…
This DJ (or whatever these music mixer dudes* are called), who goes by The Bearded Man (TBM), is my current crush…
*non-gender specific
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Filed under: Music Tagged: blogging, general creative wizardry, Minimal Techno, music, music apps, music reviews, reviews, soundcloud, The Bearded Man, writing
