michael

What Do They Know

A long time ago I received advice about writing. “Be Specific” and “The Power of Detail” were two of the chapter titles in Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones. These were two of the many bits of advice given in the book. It seems to be very popular. They just released a deck of cards to go along with the book.

My only problem with those bits of advice were the examples she gave with them. “I am in Costa’s Chocolate Shop in Owatonna, Minnesota.” The what, where? The name and the place are meaningless to most people. This was made worse when she referred to a newsstand/coffee shop in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was living in Albuquergue at the time, the late 1980’s. I could buzz up the road and see the place for myself. I did and it was unlike anything I had imaged. As a result, I put the book on the shelf and did not use it.

Too bad. There is a lot of good bits of advice in there.

On a better side of my experience with the book is that I am conscious of what I put in to whatever I write. Which leads to my questions about Pho.

Results, people from the midwest have no experience with it. People west of the Sierras or the Cascades have heard of it. And perhaps tasted it. There is one respondent, “america eats the world” indicated he knows of Pho from time in Vietnam. He could be anywhere. Having said that, those things, I know what I have heard is a way too small a sample of people to know anything. How do I include Pho in something I write and expect it to be relevant to people?

This is a problem with being specific in writing. Ms. Goldberg talked about learning the names of plants. But the readers, most of whom grew up in cities, what do they know of plants?

I am puzzeling today.

— MichaelRpdx :: h3k

Anniversary Dinner

Hobbs is wearing Jams
45th and Clay
Belliflower
I have a lot of feelings

Medusa was declined. These were our dinner dishes.
OH! A plate of Jolene tots! And a champange of honey.

We ordered too much, two dishes would be fine for us.
But now we have days of food to feast on.

Oh num, num, we have many days of food. Of delight.

MichaelRpdx :: h3k

 

Writing and Being Read

About NaNoWriMo, the only absolute thing about it is 50,000 words. And that is kinda iffy. Their real goal is to get people to write. You know, the way Daniel gets people to write One Typed Page a day. Their way works on getting a lot of people excited and all working on their thing for November. And if you consider what habit creatures we are, we@l after month of 1,667 words a day it is kind of hard to go back to not writing.

What you write can involve a

Novel              Short Stories           Memories
Script              Non-fiction              Poetry 
and the big one: Other

As to what you type or write or whatever could be an

Adventure           Children Fiction       Erotic
Fan-fiction           Historical         Horror/Supernatural
LGBT+                Literary                    Mainstream
Mystery               Religion/Spiritual     Romance
Science Fiction   Thriller/Suspense     Young Adult
Musical

Pick one from group A and as many as you want from group B.

 #      #      #      #

So far the representatives of the Western US are leading in Pho. michael@jamhome.us is the place to let me know if you have heard of it. Vacationing Catarina pointed out the& in addition to Pho they have Bahn Mi and she reminded me of Cafe Sua. Cafe Sau is very strong, intensely bitter, and mixed with condensed milk. It will wake you up.“

Leo
Nice shelfys you have there. Especially with books I have never read.

Tori (Lilly)
There are plenty of someones somewhere who are reading, enjoying, and all that kind of stuff. Ask any teacher here and they will tell you about students seeming to not listen at all. Yet they still seem to absorb the lesson. Yes, there are plenty of people here and just not replying.

Xicano
Type On!

All of the People on Proofreading
HaHaHa Haaa I do not know how or why but we cannot proofread our own stuff. Even if you set it aside for months. You need friends and a professional to catch all of your mistakes. But you know that already.

MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

Eating and Reading

Everyone, if you type or read: This is for you. I am getting some information about people and their eating, in other words, I am curious about them. If you can help, please answer these questions:

Do you know what Pho is? (beyond having heard of it)

Is Pho available in your area?

Have you had Pho?

What kind of area do you live in? (city, smallish town, east, west)

Please answer here in comments, in a One Typed Page, or email me, michael@jamhome.us

I will gather up the answers and include them in my One Typed Page on Monday. You will be able to read the responses on Tuesday. Part of the motivation for asking this is we have a lot of Pho here in Portland. I do not want to assume that other people have Pho available. So, I am asking to find out.

 #      #      #

I am rereading Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. I have forgotten it. I am (am?) sure that I will eventually find parts of the book that I remember. But for now, it is like reading a book, a very fine book, for the first time. I am having the same experience with On A Winters Night A Traveler, Italo Calvino, and the first pages are very vaguely familiar. But for the most part, it is like reading a new book.

Have I forgotten so much? From a stroke? This can be a great time. I know of lots of great books. If I have forgotten them as well as these two, well I have a lot of reading to do. Without any worries about wasting time on shitty or just mediocre stuff.

Then again, I have already read a bunch of mediocre stuff. Thankfully nothing recommend here fell into that category.

— MichaelRpdx :: h3k

Bicycle Advice

A couple of decades ago I heard about this thing. It was a bicycling event with no winners. But people went fast, but not too fast as there were limits in this event, both for the fastest allowed time and the most allowed time. This sounded interesting. It seemed like I could do OK with it. Well maybe. 200 kilometers, or about 120 miles, was nothing to sneeze at. But it seemed doable. It was called randonneuring. Or rando for short.

Could I do this event on a Bike Friday? That was the only bike I had, Being well into the web I did some research. And yes. There was a guy who road rando events on a Bike Friday. Even better he had ridden one of the biggest events, Paris-Breast- Paris successfully, and even better he lived in my part of the country, the Pacific Northwest.

I wrote to him, he wrote back, I asked for advice, he gave it, I did not always succeed at following the advice, but he, being a great guy, did not turn his back on me. He kept answering questions. And we became friends over the years. I am talking, typing, about Kent Peterson.

Now, this is important for you. Because Kent has been a huge proponent of bicycling. He has a wide range of experience. And he will answer questions. Check the comments section for today. IN it he answers an # unmasked question, Hopefully, the guy starting commuting will listen better than I did. He will go further faster than I did.

Yes, I realize I am volunteering Kent here, I am pretty sure he is OK with this. He is that kind of guy.

*      *     *     *

Have you ever tried a shelfy? Not a selfie. A shelfy. That is a stack of books that reflect your current state of mind. See below.

Post one of yours?

–MichelRpdx :: rkmm

What Do You Consume?

“These are people. That’s right. They are people and we throw them away. And you wanna know why? Because they have committed the greatest sin of all in this country. These people have stopped consuming. And so we throw them away.” “They’re broken consumers.”

That comes from Tori – Pacific Northwest (Tori PNW?) and it is part of the series. “The Series” not the book or the movie, the series. It comes from Apple TV(a plus symbol, not available on my typewriter) Apple TV-+ (hand drawn) Just $4.99/month That quote came from https://youtu.be/d0TShy9fT30 (a O or a 0? those can be different depending on the typewriter) Tori used this as a closure to her great discussion of ® “Use it up. Wear it out…” a quotation from 1940’s slogan. She does not think it will be an effective approach for today’s people. (and they are very different on a computer, a cap o in this case)

Tori – I am with you on this issue.

Will we listen to storytellers? Storytellers instead of reading books, watching TV, watching videos? With enough consumption will we have a choice?

This paper comes to you from a company (why| name names?) sending me Get Our Card’ mailings. There are two big problems with these emails. First: I have one, those mailings are a waste. Seconds I have| signed up for paperless delivery of everything. Their marketing department needs to catch up with the rest of the company.

Actually, I do not like to use paper like this one. Plain white paper is good for me. Yes, it is kind of cute(?), or whatever to type on paper bags. It just does Sot do it for me. We do not seem to be doing much for the environment to use paper bags that we should not have used in the first place.

And what the? what then? There is a store here that does not stack or stock paper or plastic bags. They will offer you) a box, if they have one. Or you can buy one of those questionable bags. Or you can bring one of the questionable ones, provided you remembered to bring one inside the store with you.

My, aren’t we a grumpy old man today?
Yes, I started with driving at the speed limit all the time and everywhere.
Now I am going on about reusing stuff, like paper bags, for a One Typed Page.
Get ready to hear me shouting at people on my lawn.

Yeah well this is enough for me today. You do not need to read my stuff here. Arrghh.

I will return with ideas for…

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

Things Found in Unusual Places

Right up there with advice for writing in “write it down when you get an idea. You can thank God later.” Yes, the other advice is to not, no, never read comments. There is nothing to be found there. Unless you are reading the comments here at One Typed Page. Those comments are filled with people who understand what they are commenting on and keep it all civil. Dare I say nice? It certainly seems like it there.

I read One Typed Page as one of the early morning activities. So there is not much in the way of comments then. I need to change that habit. I need to return later in the day and check on what people have added to the conversation.

That was a great idea, going by the One Typed Page later in the day and read them. And this idea is now written down, right here, right now. Hopefully, I will be able to remember it. I cannot blame that, forgetting to read the comments, on not having written it down.

For a pad, a typewriter pad, what you see around my paper today was sold as a shelf liner. For less than a buck, I have these things and they keep it, any of them, from sliding around.

—~ MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

Thoughts

What was I thinking? I am not talking about my silly thing done at work that time. I am not talking about when I was drunk. I am not talking about that time that lead to a long winding political discussion. I am not talking about any time, of which there were so many of them, where I said something or did something that was … ill advised.

No, I am asking about that time this morning or this afternoon when I was just thinking. What was I thinking about?

Sometimes when you think about something that upsets you, well maybe you, or I, remember that thought for a few hours. But mostly I have no real idea of what I was thinking just a few hours later.

They do not seem to be that important. Yet, well, whenever you are thinking something it seems to be pretty important at the time. So important at a moment and totally forgotten before you sleep that night.

I remember a time when I thought. I had done something and my brain shut up. I loved that activity. It got my brain to quiet down. At least for a little while. It still, for the most part, keeps my brain from talking non-stop.

Now it seems like my brain and its talking is quieter. Like background music. Perhaps I know what it is saying. So, so what?

# # # #

This morning I did another piece of NaNoWriMo writing. It was my fifth in a row. This leads me to thinking (??) that I can do it for a month. I just need to work out an outline. This does not, yet, seem like a big deal. Yes, this guy who typed many One Typed Pages with “I have no idea of what I will type today” openings. The whole point is to get the 50,000 words down. There can be plot holes. There can be “what? how did you get from A to B” there. Those problems come from a first draft. Especially a first first draft. Though it would be nice to have some bits of consistency there. Well, I will find out then. Or so I hope,

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

PS – Kind of like this One Typed Page. A first draft.

Gift or Loan

Thank you to W.G. on the subject of contractions. I have never wondered about people in foreign countries thinking of me as a non-native person. Pass along my sentiments about them sounding native is a very sticky slope. Do they want to sound like a US person, an Irish person? a Welshman? a pick your part of the British area? an Australian? They would like to speak without an accent? Which one? They can always say they are from New Mexico and let the person listening figure it out. Provided they even know where New Mexico is.

If you loan someone money, I am talking about a personal loan not a loan with paperwork attached, if you loan someone money you should give it as a gift, and any return of it to be a nice gift in return. Meaning do not expect getting it back. Gifts are something of the same. When you give something to someone you need to give up all attachments to whatever you have given them. In either case, give the item up and wave goodbye to it.

How about letters? Are they a gift? Something you have freely given and have no expectation of a return? Are they like loans, something you have given to someone and you should not expect a return, or if you get one in return Yay! you can feel good about it. Which is a letter like, or more like, a gift or a loan?

I recently got caught in this dilemma. I sent a letter. OK, it was an email but it was a long one with many questions. Then I sent another. Still no response. And again and again. No responses.

Haiya! Wait, are you aware of Uncle Roger and his videos on YouTube? If not, well you have a lot of laughing ahead of you. Especially with people cooking (or not) the simple Chinese dish of fried rice. Especially the professional cooks. Haiya!

So back to my expectations and letters. I got caught in my expectation of receiving a reply. There is, however, a silver lining to this bit. I suggested to my nephew that we trade emails like we were preparing for NaNoWriMo, Writing at least 1,667 words. I did that. And again and again and so far all of my letters to him have contained more than 1,667 words. One of them over 2,000 words. Yes, I have the stamina (?) of writing that much. I can do it. Well, as much as I can prepare for it now. There is no preparation for the mid-month slump. I am working on an outline so I have something to write about. That helps.

NaNoWriMo coming. Any of you doing it? Or perhaps a mini-NaNolWiriMo of 25,000 or just making sure you write something every day.

— MichaelRpdx :: rkmm

PS as you may recall I do not announce my Monthly Challenges. This is a divergence.

Writing for Yourself

A lot, a whole big bunch, of it, of writing, is talking to yourself. Well, saying “talking to yourself” does not carry the meaning I have so hang on while I explain. You have a journal. That is talking to yourself, but decide that there is something special. You would like to give it attention so you start a second journal. This second one is more focused than what your general interest, your journal to hold all about anything. I have a few of these. Here are a few examples.

Remember Robert Rodriguez? Director of “El Mariachi”, “From Dusk to Dawn”, “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For”, the “Spy Kids” trilogy (or four?) all of them great movies. But he also did some YouTube things. 10 Minutes of <fill in the blank>, like how to direct a movie, and of great importance, Cooking. Breakfast burritos, Texas-style BBQed meat, and more. He suggested that you make a menu of what you have made and like a lot. Then serve up to your friends. I do this with a book of Cooked. Food I have cooked and can cook for others. Nothing goes into the book unless I have cooked it. It is growing fat enough for me to organize it, print it out, and bind a book.

No surprise, my Morning Pages, now in Number 25. Look up Julia Cameron for inspiration on it. In a similar vein is my Sketch Journals, all inspired by Lynda Barry. There is a lot more to a sketch journal than drawings. It is an everything journal.

A few days ago I mentioned, well I spent an entire day on, a Commonplace Book. Mine is growing with a table of contents taken from the Bullet Journal work.

Keeping chords and strum patterns and all other things that can be written is a Uke book for all things Ukulele. It is a pretty thin book for now. But all of my books were thin at one point.

When we travel again travel journals will come into play.

You type one page daily, you should consider keeping one of those or a journal that fits your interest. Whatever you write down will be far greater memories than your brain. And, of course, there are these that your write for here. Punch holes in them put them in a three-ring binder. Or soon enough, two or more binders. It is a great way to keep them. You will be happy you did in the future.

— MichaelRpdx :: h3k

PS Where do you get ribbons? I need some new ones. Prefer to have the two-color like I have on this one.