Confession Tuesday - Electronic edition

Sometimes it's not easy pulling together a confession a week. Not because I don't have anything to confess but because the things I have to confess these days are not the stuff tabloids are made of.  So if you care to, come along with me to the confessional.

Dear Reader-

I confess that after about a month, I love my Blackberry Tour. It was hard moving from a palm platform because I liked the platform. I also liked having a touch screen and I confess that up until about 10 days ago I would still try touching my screen which makes me feel a little goofy but I think I'm finally over that.

I like that it loads the Internet with greater speed than my previous phone. I like the assortment of applications available to me. Sprint Navigation is awesome! 

I confess there are some aspects of electronic things today that I am becoming more ambivalent about. I have been able to weed out a lot of my email with my phone before I ever get home to my laptop and I like that. But last Sunday I had a work related email that came in and I wanted to respond to it and at the same time I didn't. As a result I decided I'm not sure that I like getting my office email available to me 24/7.

I confess that in our family, I'm the text messaging weakling.  Each of my family member probably way out text me.  Two I know for a fact because I see their message counts on the bill. I don't even come close.

There have been multiple days that I have come home an not turned on my laptop during the past two months. That would have been unheard of not long ago.  I think three days in a row is my longest abstinence.

I confess that my blogging posts are down.  I also confess that I am less enamored by Facebook these days. It is mostly the privacy thing. I think their policy changes have been disingenuous and this really irks me. But there are other things as well. Still, I do appreciate the contact if even limited from many other artists and poets. So I'm not quite ready to pull the plug yet.

I think it is the Capricorn in me that likes electronic trinkets and phone applications. But I am somewhat restrained compared to some people I know.  As for my Blackberry, I can justify it by the functionality of its many features. The calender, camera, task lists besides phone itself are just a few of those things that provide value to me.

As we become more electronically conditioned as a society, I'm trying to pick and choose for what it's worth.

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It seems the train has pulled out... where are we going?

For several weeks now I have been thinking about the future of the printed word as we know it.  As the weeks have gone by I have collected in my mind a spider web of sorts of related thoughts that have attached themselves or become caught-up in in my flow of thought. Some of these thoughts have been fueled by things I've heard on NPR or read elsewhere but they all seem to collide with the issue of where the electronic age we are in is taking publication of creative material.

It stared with feeling that perhaps this latest wave of ebook apparatus has perhaps been gaining traction.  I've watched with interest the pricing of electronic books themselves seem to hover for the most part at the $10 mark. Given materials for electronic books are (paper, ink binding) are non-existent, this leaves a larger profit margin to work with up front. So a traditional publisher who has the electronic rights has nearly no production costs.  You put together the artwork and set up the file and zing!  Oh, right, it still has to be marketed. They won't be seen on traditional bookshelves in stores unless they have a companion print edition.  They will need to be marketed  (thought pause) electronically! It seems that there really is little expenditure needed in this process, so my question is, "will this be a better deal financially for the writers or the publishers/distributors?"

The ultimate cost that these books settle into like anything else will adjust themselves based upon the market demand.If ebooks become the norm of future publishing this really could change the scope of the economics associated with earning a living as a writer. It could vastly improve it, but I tend to think that will not be universal. Certainly those who've made a name for themselves could adequately market their product without a distributor and many others will have to accept what margins publishers offer or battle for attention amid what is clearly going to be an abundance material as anyone will be able to publish.

Yet where this is leading economically, epubishing that is, is not the only aspect of this that is on my mind. A recent NPR piece called to question what impact the Internet and utilizing  electronic devices is having on our reading abilities. The Shallows': This is your brain Online offers some interesting questions about our  reading habits and comprehension. Are we so accustomed to the Internet with pop ups and scrolling, throw in e-mail and searches; that we are dumbing up our reading skills and comprehension. Because we can say something in 140 words or less doesn't mean it is the best way to communicate ideas.

I have a lot of questions and concerns about the future of print in our society. Answers I'm lacking.



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Counting

What's going on
in his miniature mind
another day of rehab
by 10 pm he is as worn
as any of us

His eyes will acknowledge me
but they'd rather close
in fact were part way there
but grew bigger on my account

His front right leg is jittery
a nervousness pent up
in legs that have done little
since a brute attack

We hear estimates
two weeks - a month
he sighs and I do as well
it seems long
longer if counting
in dog years


Michael A. Wells © 2010 - All Rights Reserved

Saturday Morning - through a dog's ear

This morning I made a Diet Coke run to Quick Trip and then drove own down the way to a little lake area close by and shot a couple pictures just because the spirit moved me to do so. ( the phote left is one)

Back home, as I do his blog post, Klaus is near by - his recovery is coming along though slowly. We put on a CD of classical music (through a Dog's Ear) which he seems to be enjoying and and is kinda of funny because no one else in the household  (people wise) likes the music except me.  I'm not certain what that says about them or me but we'll leave it at that.

Some work to do now-  but I do have writing on my radar for today as well.



                                                       

Gone

I saw this AP photo on Suzanne Frischkorn's blog and was struck by the simplicity of the message about what has become quite likely the greatest ecological disaster in our history. 

Sadly there is nothing simple about stopping the gulf spill. It continues to spew oil into the gulf creating a growing ecological dead zone.  If the spill were stopped today (which won't happen) the damage to the coastal areas are already beyond the imaginable.  No one knows when this will end and this is precisely because we have no fail safe remedy. The oil industry is unable to manage their own disaster.  Government agencies charged with regulating the industry for decades have been beholden to the industry. This should come as no surprise.  And all this time, there are people in this country who have argued in favor of more aggressive offshore drilling. Not only stated their case for it, but held rallies carrying signs and chanting, "drill baby drill."  What do these people have to say now? Perhaps they can put into words their justification in such a way that people along the coast that make their living off the region can understand. This is not going to be like a bad growing season to a farmer. This is not a year of drought. This is destruction. This is uncharted waters and indeterminable death to an ecosystem. Sometimes man sees himself separate from the ecosystem and thinks he is without repercussions. I'm not sure which is the greater ill, short sightedness or greed. They both seem to be are Achilles heel.

Confession Tuesday - Miracle Edition

It’s Tuesday though it really doesn’t feel like it to me so before it turns Wednesday already, let go the Confessional.


Dear reader…

I confess that for the first time in I don’t know, like almost forever I did not watch the Indy 500 this weekend. I love the Indy 500. I don’t care for NASCAR racing but I love the open wheel Indy cars. So how did this happen? I was pretty much overcome by an incident this weekend. I didn’t intentionally not watch it, it just completely fell off my radar till after it was over.

What was a horrific injury to one of our dogs that left him injured and unable to move his legs left a cloud over the entire household. He spent the weekend and right up till this morning in an animal hospital. The fear and I would add assumption was that he suffered a spinal cord injury. Diagnostics and treatment of such would be enormously costly and with guarded prognosis. This morning he came off the intense steroid treatment and pain killer IV and was transferred to a neurologist.

I confess that this weekend I pretty much lived on prayers that somehow there was a bit of hope for Klaus.

Around 10:30 this morning the news came that the neurologist felt he did not have a spinal cord injury but that he would make a recovery. Even two ribs that the animal hospital believed were broken did not appear to him to be broken. He has sent Klaus home to us with instructions for him to be allowed to move as much as he wants and if after two weeks he is not up and walking – he will talk with us about physical therapy.

I confess that I do believe in miracles.

Journal Bits

 

I’d like to say that this has been a relaxing and enjoyable three day weekend, but it hasn't.  I will spare the details but it has been very depressing and difficult to function for very long with succumbing to the sadness.

I am however going to do a few journal bits form the past, since I’ve neglected to do this for a while.

• MAY 26 – If my mind were a box, what would the corners be like? What would be in the corners? I think my mind might be a bit like my desk at work. I see the corners as a place things might gravitate to. Important things that are looking for a place to be found
• MAY 28 – How do you go about claiming a gut level feeling or experience that is clumsy in translation?  
• MAY 30 - “… it has been hard to write-“
• MAY 30 - frailty of trust's small black eyes / cut to the heart of the matter
• MAY 30 – J. D. McClatchy  from The Poets Notebook Pg 155   “On the overemphasis of clarity in writing: A. J. Liebling  said the only way to make clear pea soup is to leave out the peas.”

 

Technorati Tags: journal bits

Live from the Ocean Floor: New Oil Leak Widget Features 'Spillcam' | The Rundown News Blog | PBS NewsHour | PBS

Live from the Ocean Floor: New Oil Leak Widget Features 'Spillcam' The Rundown News Blog PBS NewsHour PBS:



Click Here to visualize the size of the PB oil spill in the context of your hometown

Unconscious Mutterings Week 383

You say, I think…

• Fresh air :: NPR
• Bodyguard :: Brute
• Wedding :: Planner
• Remind :: Elephant
• Wicked :: Step mother
• Crawling :: Ants
• Gasoline :: Alley
• Anyone :: Home
• Dancing :: Dirty
• Wall :: Facebook

 

Get your own list here

 

Technorati Tags: Unconscious Mutterings

A Flowering Tribute To Emily Dickinson : NPR

 

The poet Emily Dickinson lived a reclusive life at her family's home in Amherst, Mass., but while she rarely went out into society, she did spend a lot of time outdoors. Dickinson loved nature and was an avid gardener, and now an exhibition at the New York Botanical Garden called Emily Dickinson's Garden: The Poetry of Flowers is putting on display a side of the poet that is little known.

Gardening was a huge part of Dickinson's life and her art. "I was always attached to mud," she once wrote, and a sophisticated understanding of plants and flowers is reflected in her poetry. According to Gregory Long, the president and CEO of the New York Botanical Garden, Dickinson used to tuck little poems into bouquets of flowers that she gave to her neighbors.

{for full NPR story click below}

A Flowering Tribute To Emily Dickinson : NPR

 

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Emily Dickinson Video Game | WBUR

 

Who would have thought it? 

 

Emily Dickinson Video Game | WBUR

 

Technorati Tags: Emily Dickinson game

Confession Tuesday

It looks really nice outside and given the amount of rain we’ve had recently that’s a good sign. I should head off to the confessional with lots of uplifting tings on my mind but I fear this is not so. Given my mood today, you might want to tiptoe softly to join me in the confessional.

Dear reader, yes it’s Tuesday again and so what! That’s kind of how I’m feeling today. I’m waiting to hear from my doctor’s office, and waiting, and waiting, and if you can’t tell I’m really not a very patient confessor today.
 I called my doctor’s office on Friday and left a message about some blood work needed following a test that they scheduled. They knew full well that I would have to go off a medication that is rather important and that I would need a drug screen before I could start it up again. I needed to be off the medication for 48 hours after the test and then resume after a new blood screen cleared me to start again. I’m still waiting for the ok some 130+ hours later.
 I confess that I also have a colossal headache right now. I’m tired and grumpy as well. Did I mention I’m not in a very good mood?

For some reason I’ve been pretty emotional this week. I confess that I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic about a few things this past week. Nostalgic for music, especially the 1960’s and 1980’s tunes. Don’t ask me why those two decades and not the seventies too.


I confess this nostalgia carries over to other things as well. Like when the kids were younger. For that matter, when we all were younger as well.
I talked to my wife earlier and she said they her office was having lunch from Spin Pizza (including Gelato) and I confess to being hungry and jealous at the same time.
 Lastly, I confess that my lunch hour is about over so I am through with my confession.
 Till next week~

From my journaling today...

"I cannot expect to grow as a  writer
 staying in areas of comfort.

One does not explore in comfort,
one soaks in it like a leasurly bath."

Waffle Time

Some of you may have noticed the delicious looking waffle on the right sidebar and I've been meaning to comment on it for weeks now. Not sure how long I'll leave it up, things are getting a wee-bit busy on the blog, but it's a button for the sight The Chocolate Chip Waffle.  This is a blog written by the very multi-talented writer Terresa Wellborn.

What I most like about her blog is the photo images and the word images her writing paints. Her poetry is refreshing, earthy, and uplifting. It's no wonder is has over 800 followers between networked blogs and google follow. With those numbers, there is a good chance you've already discovered her blog, but if not, what are you waiting for? 

Now if I just had some waffles....

Unconscious Mutterings - week 382

You say... I think:

• 1.Cream :: corn
• 2.Be with you :: I wanna be
• 3.Pancakes ::  I hop
• 4.Believe ::  make
• 5.45 :: less than 6
• 6.Eat :: out
• 7.Background :: check
• 8.Pane :: window
• 9.Aim :: messaging
• 10.Collapse :: dead tired

Get your own list here

Penvy?

I have so not blogged much in the past couple of weeks and I'm going to catch up today, so look out!

For starters, I want to thank Suzanne Frischkorn for adding a new and amusing word to my vocabulary. Suzanne linked today to a blog post at Tough Love From Tayari and Tayari linked Urban Dictionary and the word is penvy.  Definition number one is my favorite...   the wave of nausea that hits you when you read about forthcoming books by people you went to college or even once slept with that came out to great acclaim while you haven’t written anything in….ever. Coined in a contest at The Old Hag and picked up with days by the online writing community.



While perusing the trades for new releases to stock her bookstore, Janine was overcome with penvy at the sight of her ex-boyfriend's picture next to what would probably be his second bestseller.
 

~0~

 

I noticed that Beth Ann Fennelly (extraordinary poet) will be one of several  instructors at the Sixth Annual Clarksville Writers’ Conference ...  July 28 – 31, 2010  Her presentation is titled “4 Ways Writers Can Use Sound to Make Meaning."  That sounds so fascinating.  I wish I knew someone going and taking notes, or better still, going myself.
 

~0~

 

 

Poetry for A Sunday Morning

 

A Few Thought Not on Poetry

At the left is a photograph of just a small portion of what the recent oil spill in the Gulf region is like.  It's evidence of a much larger - might I venture catastrophic accident from an off shore drilling site. 

I'll make my case for catastrophic on this basis.  We know factually that the Exxon Valdez oil spill in spring of 1989 was small potatoes compared to the current Gulf spill. Some 20 years later The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council continues to monitor the impact and reports that some areas remain as toxic to wildlife as they did just after the spill.  By size comparison, Exxon's spill was surpassed in size by the BP Gulf spill by the end of it's first week and it remains an active spill in spite of all efforts to control it and begin the cleanup. 

I've heard criticism in the past week or so that the government response is not unlike that of the government's response to Katrina.  I'm not sure I believe that is a fair comparison because we knew how to lift people from house tops. We know how to distribute food and water. To mobilize and move people. You see, no one seems knowledgeable about how to stop this spill for certain.

One might expect that if government is going to authorize and regulate off-shore drilling, they would first have a clear idea what to do in such cases. That also implies that the industry itself knows and convinces the government that there are methods to deal effectively with accidents such as this. We know now that even BP is using the trial and error method of abating the spill. I will assume that other industry giants are no more knowledgeable or they would be sharing their knowledge, after all the outcome of this spill cleanup will impact the future drill prospects for them. There should be no industry secrets here.

Yes, I believe the government is ill repaired for regulating the oil industry, but it is also clear they require regulation. Such a problem is however not simply a problem of the Obama Administration, but clearly a systemic problem that spans many administrations and places far to much reliance on the oil companies to "do the right thing."

The damage to the economic, ecological, and health of the Gulf Coast states is immeasurable. Not for the short term but for decades maybe centuries. No plan for dealing with such accidents is no different from licensing nuclear power plants with no thought given to how you decommission one or what you do in the case of an accident.

It was not that long ago people seemed to think it was somehow Unamerican to not be a part of the "Drill Baby Drill" crowd.  How is it that being stewards of our environment is unpatriotic?

Confession Tuesday on Wednesday

I confess I’m late! Hurry with me, I must get to the confessional.


Yes reader, I’m a day late with my confession, but I will argue with good reason.


My daughter has been in town and we did some things together yesterday which kept me away from the computer until late last night. So I confess that I did miss the mark on Tuesday but ask for special dispensation as I was doing a fatherly thing.


I have to confess that before we saw my daughter off this morning I was a bit teary eyed, though I kept myself together in here presence. I have the capacity to get like that at times. When my grandmother was alive, and lived out of the area, I would get misty eyed every time we left her place to return home. I could keep it together till we got on the road and then it would just hit me. ~0~


While Meghan was here, we went to see the exhibit Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race that is currently in Kansas City at our National Archives. The exhibit is a part of the United State Holocaust Memorial Museum and Meghan visited the Museum some years ago in Washington D.C. and has always raved about what a magnificent exhibit they have. Hence when I learned this was here through sometime in June we made plans to see it during her stay.


The exhibit was not quite what I expected but it was time well spent. I of course was aware of the concept of the “master race” that was a part of Hitler’s purge of Jews but I must confess I was not really aware of the extent to which this view was prevalent within parts of German society prior to Hitler assuming control. Equally of surprise to me was that there were societies even in this country that were subscribing to the ideology of eugenics or “good birth" (eradicating those deemed undesirable so as not to allow them to be part of the gene pool).


I was amazed at how much traction this ideology had gained in the public and how much widespread support it had within scientific communities. When I see how easy it is for individuals who collectively espouse such shallow views as say the “birthers” today to embrace and propagate their views and I compare that to the wide level of acceptance eugenics enjoyed by intellectuals and scientists, I confess that it sends shivers up my spine. Such blind faith in an ideology with no consideration of the ethics involved is scary.


I did not mean for my Tuesday Confession on Wednesday to be such a downer, but as the saying goes, it is what it is.


Thanks for listening.

Tonight I was thinking...

Dreams are connected circuits—

 a marriage of fantasy and authenticity;

 of fright and quietude.

Auld Lang Syne

On a lesser day
I’d be working with the masses
and you would not be privy
to what I am saying—
but a lesser day this is not.
Today I hopped a ride
over town and joined you
and others and was touched
by your laughter and smile.
The cloudy sky had broke wide
open by the time we parted.
As I dove into the east
I left behind the topaz ball
slowly descending
like the Times Square ball
on New Year’s eve and I thought
how I celebrate you each time
we are together—
and how departing is like
saying goodbye to the passing year.