Miscellaneous

Splatted with a Meme Tomato

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Playing around in Photoshop, then whop!  Splatted with a meme tomato!

These things are kinda juicy, so after you injest your meme tomato get in the fridge, grab a fresh one, and splat!  at your fellow bloggers.

What does this meme tomato contain?  Well, after I stuck it in my salad and ate it it revealed its contents to me.  It appears that the meme tomato Brett Legree threw at me wants me to divulge 8 random facts/habits about myself.  Here are some special meme tomato seeds just for you:

1. I really don’t like tomatos all that much, just the little cherry ones Mike grows in the garden.  Most tomatos I find are tasteless because they have sat on a truck too long.  They do not like this, and would rather be injested right away because they like to spread their seeds around.

2. I did grow up on a magic bus.  Well, actually it was kind of a hippie van my dad painted.  The van was dark green, with a white top and orange bumpers.  I’m sure you can guess what were the painted additions. When I was seven years old I thought this was the most embarrassing thing in the world.  All I wanted was a station wagon like everyone else’s normal 1970’s kind of parents drove around.  Sadly, this was not my fate.  But maybe it was a good thing.

3. I once had a cat named Boob.  He’s dead now.

4. I am an incurable romantic and two of my favorite movies are Don Juan Demarco and Sommersby.

5. I have been listening to “Rock the Casbah” by the Clash nonstop lately, and Mike worries when I put on the headphones, crank it up, and get on Twitter.  He is concerned about my maniacal laughter and the tweets that are emitted from the computer.

6. I once had a dream when I was three years old that I was the last person on Earth and these strange alien beings were throwing fireballs at me while I hid behind a lumber pile in Kmart.  I’m still trying to figure that one out.

7. Ken Kesey has always been a kind of hero of mine.  He was the originator of the “Magic Bus.” Read Tom Wolfe’s Electric Koolaid Acid Test and you’ll know what I mean.  He also wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

8. I bought this doll for my daughter in some little obscure Canadian town.  I think it was called Splat Creek.  Very tomatoesque type of town.  I fell in love with her purple hair and she reminds me of a gypsy.  I threaten to steal her back when Carolyn says she doesn’t want her anymore.  That always does the trick.

Alright, now that you have listened to me babble on about fruit and such (is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?) I get to splat 8 more people:

Between the Miles

Darren Daz Cox

Golden Zen

Audeo

This Laptop for Hire

Maximum Customer Experience

The Growing Life

Sushi Day

And here are the rules, for those of you who follow rules (hey, I didn’t make up the rules!):

Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.

People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.

At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.

Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’ve been tagged, and to read your blog.

Have fun with splatting your tomatos.  Make a pizza or something.

Smoking Weeds

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Isle Royale Lake Richie, copyright Ellen Wilson

house of reeds
where plovers sleep
plastered with crap

Kobayashi Issa

I was going to write something all esoteric and languid about how the reeds were reflected in the lake and the sky simultaneously and was looking up some haiku to accomplish this feat, when this poem by Issa came flying up through the centuries and plopped itself on the page.

Or should I say, pooped itself on the page.

I’m sure Issa is having a good laugh.

Yes, there is a light side to things, and a dark side to things, and that is why we laugh. To get us through it all. What if we never laughed? How depressing would that be? So if you are depressed, please, start laughing right now, and it will kick start the happy chemicals in your brain.

I thought of The Deep Friar and his meditative posters. That is what got me going on all of this. Friar is very funny and I’m sure they will soon promote him to Section Humor Head at the Widget Factory.  Satire is the name of his game.  And isn’t satire a little dark?  But it is oh so tasty and honest.

And I was thinking of Bob Younce, author of The Writing Journey, when I wrote this. Because he wrote an excellent piece on How Life in Unfair. And it is. Even when we want it to be.

But if life didn’t have this dark side, how could we know the light side?

So I quit smoking today. And it is Beltane. Day of renewal. And this is as good as time as ever. I like symbolism, and surely you get it. I will now be renewing my dark lungs.

I told my friend, Amy Derby, over at Write at Home, ’cause she has been through it all, and I’m sure she will be supportive.  It all really started with her, and the synchronicity of quitting smoking couldn’t have been better.  Thanks Amy!

And because I’m a bad liar?  You will know if I smoke again.

My daughter and I broke the cigs over the trash can – symbolically breaking their strength over me. The same gesture I went through with my son 10 years ago.

And If my husband, Mike, is reading this – I know he will be proud.

My friend, Brett Legree, over at 6 Weeks says, “Fail Early, and Fail Often.”

So never quit quitting.

Photocredit: © Ellen Wilson

Why Good Writing Matters – Case Study, “Stuff White People Like”

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There is this blog called Stuff White People Like.  Have you heard of it?  This blog got a $300,000 advance for a book contract.

Of course, this could all be racist, or could all be about social stereotypes, or it could all be satire.  Or, it could be all three.   You decide.  But the point is is it gets our attention.  So why does it get our attention?  Let’s discuss…

The writing draws us in.  It talks about upper middle class whites and values.  No, you won’t find people driving rusty pick-up trucks with fishing licenses hanging our of their back pockets here.  Unless, perhaps, they are carrying $800 Orvis fly fishing rods.

It walks a fine line between what we register in our in unconscious minds and what we usually, politely, don’t articulate.

This person found a way to articulate it.

An Aside…

William Faulkner worked at the post office.  No one listened to what he had to say.  And the mail was always late.  Why?  ‘Cause Willy was always to busy writing, that’s why.  So they fired him.

Faulkner has written some of the best stuff about social stereotypes and undercover urges.  He knew the racist South and why it was the way it was.  Because of this he wrote The Sound and the Fury.  He was later awarded a Noble Prize in Literature.

70 Years later…

Toni Morrison is working her job.  She works at night, during the day, and whenever she has a chance.  She also knows about the racist South and why it is the way it is.  She writes Beloved which wins a Pulitzer Prize and is a kick ass story of slavery and redemption and the by product of its psychological despair.

20 Years later…

(Fill in Your Name Please)  Because you know something we don’t and you need to tell us about it.

What am I getting at?  Write something close to home;write something that hurts. And who will be waiting? We, of course, and the famed Literary Agent.

Christian Lander, author of Stuff White People Like, received a $300,000 advance. Gee I wonder why. That is every writer’s dream.  Need I say you can then quit your job at the post office?

As a short story writer and novelist, I like to hear these things.  It inspires me.

What would you do with $300,000?  Would you quit your day job?  Would you quit blogging?

So that is why good writing matters.  Impress us.  Flamboozle us.

Just keep at it baby.  And we’ll do lunch…

*Psst…Literary Agent – I’ve got a hot ecothriller just waiting to be published.  Wanna read it?*

Photo Credit: © Ellen Wilson