Richard Harris's Blog, page 10

Book Clubs

“Book clubs are totally dope – like English class if you were allowed to read only books that you actually like and snack and sip while discussing them.”

― Sam Maggs, The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Handbook for Girl Geeks

…and by “sip” I assume Sam means kegstands with beer and wine straight from the bottle, and by “snack” she means stuffing your face with greasy food straight from the back of a pub.

Last night my book club met at a cool place in downtown T. (“dot” now dropped) called C’est What? We had a pleasurable time. We ate. We drank. We talked about Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach. According to one of my fellow bookies who shall remain nameless but has a history of bibliophile illness, “Manhattan Beach is a book about a beach. The beach is called Manhattan Beach. In between going to the beach and Anna’s home, people go diving and die. The end.”

Excellent summary.

Anyway, aside from plugging my own book club (did that come out right?), I thought I would use this opportunity to highlight the awesomenesss of book clubs. On top of meeting new people (hopefully), being in a book club means you have an excuse every month to rip it up while discussing pretentious subjects like art, literature, the art of literature, and literary art. Oh, and artistic literature, too.

I started this book club, Curling Was Full, in August 2009 and I’m proud to say we’re still going strong. Members have come and gone (there are only an Original Three left), but we always seem to have more requests for membership than we can handle. No surprise, then, that when Random House (before it was Penguin Random House) had a book club contest called Books Are Beautiful, we won!

Actually, we finished in second place (we all received a copy of Jowita Bydlowska‘s Drunk Mom) to We Don’t Bake Muffins, but I’m still convinced the contest was rigged. Something about screeching the judges and kissing a cod, I’m told.

Long of the short, though, if you’re not in a book club, start one. If you are in one, lament the fact that you’re not in Curling Was Full because, well, we’re full.

Quote of the Day

“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

― Joseph Campbell

Seeing as how today definitely had a follow-your-bliss theme, I thought I’d bring it around to the man himself, Joseph Campbell, one of the great minds and writers of his day. I think The Hero with a Thousand Faces and Myths to Live By were possibly two of the most influential works of literature in the entire 20th century. If you haven’t read anything by Sir Joe, I highly recommend you start with either of these books. But if you’re especially partial to the Star Wars franchise and the Matrix series and want to learn where George Lucas and the Wachowskis drew their inspiration from, definitely start with The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Grammarly Put to the Test

I love grammarist.com. When you’ve got a tough question about grammar, they’re likely to have the answer. Not long ago, they posted a piece about Grammarly, which gives new meaning to going back to (grammar) school. What is Grammarly, you ask?

Grammarly is an English language writing-enhancement platform developed by Grammarly, Inc., and launched in 2009. Grammarly’s proofreading and plagiarism-detection resources check more than 250 grammar rules.

You can download the software onto your computer or download the app. That’s all fine and good, but I was curious (without wanting to sacrifice the time myself), Does Grammarly actually work? Well, wouldn’t you know it: Grammarist did the legwork for us all!

You can click here to read “Grammarly Review 2017 – Does it do all it claims to do?” and go through the minutiae of the grammar samples (Yay! Sign me up, says the reader), or you can simply take their word for it in their final analysis.

And what was the final analysis for Grammarly from Grammarist?

“In the tests that were quantifiable, Grammarly was asked to check for forty-three mistakes, and it managed to find thirty-one of them. That’s 72 percent. But the numbers only tell part of the story.”

(Don’t?) Follow Your Bliss?

 

It’s an age-old question: to follow your bliss or not? Surely the only thing standing in between us and ultimate HAPPINESS! is finding the courage required to chase down the dream, to live the life we’ve always imagined ourselves living, and to be content knowing that we are parrt of the 0.0000001 percent of society who pulled the real-life Hollywood ending out of a hat.

Then I had this arrive in my inbox from a reader minutes before reciving the post I’ve linked to below:

“The hype ‘follow your bliss’ seems to have permeated everything in our life. The advice, ‘pursue your passion,’ is enticing, as it is what most of us want to hear, because it is simply in line with our ego’s sentiments. But I think it is irresponsible to dispense advice like this. It easily exhausts our energy and consumes us in the end and, above all, it is likely to lead us to a stage where we feel we are not good enough when our goal/dream/passion is not realized. As a result, we get depressed. However, we need to accept the truth/reality that not all desires/dreams of human beings can be and should be fulfilled.”

I had a conversation recently with a friend. Let’s her call Narnia. Narnia Love. Anyway, Narnia moved to Mexico a bunch of years ago and now she was thinking of  leaving. In a roundabout way she asked me, When is the right time to pull the chute on your dream and leave your adopted home?

Abbr. ver. of the lead-up to this: She had three degrees, spoke three languages, and worked for one of the Seven Sisters law firms as a high-powered attorney. She made bank and it showed. Her clothes oozed style, mucho dinero, and tags that may have come directly from the Champs-Élysées. A few years into her pole position in the rat race, she got sick – real sick – went on extended leave, got down, fell apart, lost her man, etc. And so on. It was raining. Then, suddenly, it was pouring. Something about Murphy and his dumbass “Law.”

However, she’s a fighter that one. Narnia got her second wind during the 7th inning stretch and realized she might be down, but she was far from out. So she did the smart thing. She quit the six-figure job, cashed in her billions of won worth of North Korean gold mine stocks, bought a jeep, purchased a house in Mexico, and drove down to start her new life…as a vegan chef. In a country of carnivores. In a region that gets rocked by hurricanes every year. In a city that is now the drug cartels’ beach of choice to shoot people in the streets.

Now, five years on, she’s selling the house, packing her bags, and moving back to the Great White North. Why?

I’m going to let a friend of hers, Alexa Torontow, answer that question through her blog post titled “Why I Sold My Yoga Studio, Left Paradise and Moved Home.”

In case you don’t have the time to read through Ms. Torontow’s poignant, heartfelt, and eye-opening piece, here are four life lessons she shares.

1. We’ll never know what fits until we try it on.
2. Having a passion be your full-time gig isn’t always the right choice.
3. Being your own boss is not all it’s cracked up to be.
4. Our time, energy and amount of cares we can give is limited.

However, what sums up this post of Ms. Torontow’s best, I think, is the following:

“Our time is limited. Our energy is limited. Our attention is very limited. I think getting crystal clear on our values and what we care about and what we are willing to spend our precious time and energy on in this life is one of the most important keys to living a soul-satisfying life. Forget talks about blindly following our bliss. I think a better focus is asking ourselves questions such as what are you willing to sacrifice your time for? What do you care about so deeply that it gets you out of bed and makes you want to do something about it? What do you want to learn more about and get involved with? We can’t do it all, so where do we want to make an impact? What kind of legacy do we want to live and leave behind?”

For me, I followed my bliss 10 long years ago when I upped and left a comfortable life, a burgeoning career, financial security – the whole kit and caboodle. I bought a round-the-world plane ticket and spent two years fulfilling my wildest travel dreams, from the beaches of Vietnam and Fiji to the vineyards of California and Australia to the museums of Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, and New York. I went on jeep safaris, walking safaris, and saw the Big Five up close and personal. Man alive! I even shelled out the big bucks to hang out with the silverbacks of Central Africa in the last place on this planet they call home.

The trip bankrupted me. Unfiguratively speaking. (I had to make up a new word because I’m tired of hearing how “literally literal” we’ve become.) But not for one day do I regret it, and I think that Ms. Torontow will, once she’s had time to readjust to “civilian life” again, not regret her choice to follow her bliss. At the time she made that life-altering decision, it was the right one. More than that, it was the only one to be made. Fate and destiny and the stars aligning, and all.

Sometimes you’ve got to hold on to that kite string and let it take you where the wind blows. You know, for good or for bad, in sickness and in health. I think that the sole hashtag which can sum up experiences like that is #noregrets. Live hard, play hard. Love fiercely, treat others with dignity. And along the way, don’t forget to think about what we call No. 1. Just as surely as “there” is no better than “here,” there are no mistakes in life. There are only lessons. And, of course, memories.

I’ll close out this post with some final sentiments, the same way Alexa Torontow did in her own piece.

So, here’s to quitting a job and moving to paradise.

Here’s to leaving paradise and returning home.

Here’s to taking chances and leaning into uncertainty.

Here’s to honouring our values, knowing when to say yes and when it’s time to say no.

Here’s to this fascinating, unexpected and wild ride. And to all the people we get to experience it with.

“Writer in the Dark”

How had I not heard of Lorde before today? Well, I suppose I can thank Anonymous for pointing me in the right direction and sharing this video. Now I know that New Zealand has more than kiwis, rugby, and a freaking bird (the kea) that will fly into your car (that’s rented) when you’re not looking (and smash the crap out of it). Nope, NZ has so much more than beef Wellington, the Church of Christ and Atkinson’s Enigma – it’s got Lorde.

For those like me not in the know and still listening to Men Without Hats for good times:

E lla Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor (born 7 November 1996), known professionally as Lorde (/ˈlɔːrd/), is a New Zealand singer-songwriter and record producer. Born in Takapuna and raised in Devonport, Auckland, she became interested in performing as a child. In her early teens, she signed with Universal Music Group and was later paired with songwriter and record producer Joel Little. At the age of sixteen, she released her first extended play, The Love Club EP (2012), reaching number two on the national record charts in both New Zealand and Australia.

All I know is that “Writer in the Dark” is a haunting song, and Lorde has some serious musical abilities.

Stigma: The Mental Health App

There really is an app for everything! One of the newer ones in town is Stigma, what Christopher Capps over @dailypocketnews described as “the new app from Stigma Inc: the mental health journal that you can carry with you everywhere you go.”

It’s totally anonymous and essentially comes down to this:

“Users select a mood describing how they are feeling (from a list of moods), then they write a 200-character journal entry describing ‘why, what, who, where’ was causing them to feel that way.”

My thanks to mymessedupmind.blog, who posted on the app and wrote a very candid review of it.

A Great Job (from Home) for Writers

 

Looking for extra work in which you don’t need a whole lot of skillz to pay the billz? Then check out GoTranscript: Audio & Video Transcription Services (that link is to reviews of the company) and get transcribing.

Nonstop Scribble has a fun blog and an even funner post titled “Know More About Working at GoTranscript and 3 Easy Steps to Apply.” What better way to make some more $$$ than by working from the comfort of your own home (and computer)!

A Thank-You Note

It struck me this morning that I don’t thank my readers enough for the time they invest not only in reading my (sometimes) syrupy fluff and (usually) well-intentioned musings, but also for writing to me, commenting on/liking/sharing posts, and sending me material/links/stories/videos, etc.

One case in point is the time @manjushriNL took to like my quote from yesterday’s QOTD. Ordinarily this would not be a “hot issue” (핫이슈), but because it was from the Dalai Lama, I feared I might incur the wrath of the Chinese government and have my site blocked by the Beijing Bullies. Such was not the case (yet), so I’m grateful that said Twitter user made the effort to carry out such a “virulent” act over such an innocuous post.

It’s funny, but in my very first post, waaaaaaay back in 2013, I wrote something to the effect of ‘I probably won’t be posting here very often, but…’ Okay, so I got that one horribly wrong.

Anyway, as Maya Kachroo-Levine over at thoughtcatalog.com noted in an article titled “50 Things That Will Never Go Out Of Style (And Why They’re Timeless),” thank-you notes are always à la mode. Like Scrabble, mystery novels, fireplaces, traveling, barbecues, fountain pens, tea, and, of course – OF COURSE! – Tiffany & Co.

With that in mind, I’m going to try and dedicate today’s posts to some of the people who’ve reached out to me and share with the rest of you some really great material, kind of like what I did last week with A Literary Blog of Bookies, by Bookies, for Bookies.

Quote of the Day

“Fear, anxiety, and stress weaken the immune system. Some scientists have described anger as eating our immune functions. On the other hand, a relaxed state of compassion and kindness brings us inner peace and supports and augments the function of the immune system.”

The Dalai Lama on What Matters Most: Conversations on Anger, Compassion, and Action, Noriyuki Ueda (in conversation with His Holiness the Dalai Lama)

From my years spent living in Korea and traveling around Asia, I can now look back and say that one of the most striking differences between the West and the East is how we approach health/wellness and sickness.

This Quote of the Day embodies a simple truth. If you want to remain healthy, listen to simple yet sage thoughts like the above. Be proactive in the maintenance of your physical and mental health, and be reactive and benefit from the wonders of modern medicine when you are sick or weak.

Here are some other simple truisms I learned along the way: Eat until your 80 percent full; don’t eat alone; concentrate on the meal; acupuncture is real; singing can make your body stronger; meditation improves cognitive processes.

With respect to the book itself, here’s a brief intro from the publisher:

A few years ago, prominent cultural anthropologist Noriyuki Ueda sat down with the Dalai Lama for a lively two-day conversation. This little book is the result. In it are some surprising truths and commonsense wisdom.

Click here to visit the Dalai Lama’s official website. And, yes, His Holiness is also on Twitter (@DalaiLama) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/DalaiLama/).

A Little Fluff Never Hurt Nobody

Let’s be clear here. A little literary fluff, in moderation, is a good thing. Like drinking a case of beer (without anyone else’s oral assistance) while watching Hockey Night in Canada. Or reciting poetry to sharpen your addled brain. Or indulging in poutine after said night of debauchery and preparing for the poetics part the following morning (a person needs energy!).

That’s all chicken noodle fluff for the soul.

Whatever the hell it is that made it onto this post as the Pic of the Day is not a good thing, in moderation or even once in your life. REPEAT: If you see the above product while shopping, call in a Code Blue, throw yourself in a tent, and rub those rosary beads you carry with you for good luck. Oh, and pray the jar doesn’t consume you.

Last week, I finished this month’s book club novel, Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach, an impressively researched story about a young lady coming of age in New York City in the late 1930s and early 1940s,  freeing me up for a bit in between Curling Was Full choices. (Spoiler alert: Everyone dies at the end of Manhattan Beach when the Manhattan Project goes south and wipes out all the main characters, who’d taken refuge on a beach. Kind of a lame ending.)

Obviously I reached for the marshmallow fluff next, and just finished my latest Jack Reacher book (#20 in the series), Lee Child’s Make Me. I am now as content as a pig in…umm…a blanket?

Anyway, one of the reasons Mr. Child has my eternal love is that he doesn’t pretend to be anyone he’s not (or should I say JR doesn’t?). He has you hanging from page one, kicks some ass along the way in Nowhere, USA, then brings everything all together with a little bow on top. Nice.

But Lee Child’s real “piece of resistance” is the way he throws in facts, figures and stats. Unlike the Dan Brown Paradox, Mr. Child is not pretending to solve a centuries-old clue (except how some guys are always jacked up on testosterone maybe) when he discusses heavy subjects like suicide, the Gettysburg Address, and the dark web, all three of which he addresses in Make Me. More than that, he somehow makes it relevant to chasing bad guys around places like Mother’s Rest, Nebraska.

This got me to thinking, though. Trusting Goodreads as I do, I was curious what readers around the world considered the biggest pile of fluffy fluffiness. Well, I – and by extension you – now have the answer. Here’s the full list, but the Top 10 Most Popular Fluff Books goes like this, with Stephenie Meyer wearing the Empress’s New Clothes, Sophie Kinsella donning the queen’s crown, and Stephanie Perkins taking home the raciest title award.

1. Confessions of a Shopaholic, Sophie Kinsella

2. Twilight, Stephenie Meyer

3. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding

4. The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger

5. New Moon, Stephenie Meyer

6. Can You Keep a Secret?, Sophie Kinsella

7. One for the Money, Janet Evanovich

8. Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer

9. Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer

10. Anna and the French Kiss, Stephanie Perkins