Make a story of a picture

My friends from California brought Dixit game along with them. We played it last night.
The game is about describing your card in such a way that atleast one person guesses the card right from a selection each adds to as their intrepretation of your explanation.
I found myself stuck at the literal desciption. A person sculpting birds and butterflies out of clouds was 'Michelangelo with hurt knees'. A leafless, grey tree with a bouquet reminded me of the weeping willow story. A braid with a ring around it reminded me of highwayman poem with Bess's long hair.
A friend played his turns with very generic phrases which summed the pictures aptly.
From now on, I should give such phrases to everyday dreams.

Mary Kay

When I looked at 'mary kay makeoover contest' in Parents magazine, I was reminded of the behind of a car that I saw yesterday with Mary Kay on it.

Warning sign

In 'hard target' movie, Jean Claude Van Damme bites off the rattle of the rattlesnake saying, " I will leave a little surprise for my friends'.
When rattlesnakes shake their tail, its a sign to retreat.

Tests

Venipuncture - Blood is sterile.
Varicella Zoster

Guthrie cards
Urine culture - urine is sterile.
Panel 083824 - looks for bodies response to HIV.
TSH and free T4

Promise is a cloud, Fulfillment is rain

The blue in the AC is a washable filter

Parks

On our way to a park that I knew as a stop for coffee sips and word drips , I took an early turn and went through a bigger park with baseball fields. Boys in green and girls in red uniforms for a practice on sunday morning.
A big broad tree with leaves of a eucalyptus but the mental image of a skinny trunk not letting the tree in front of me be named. Broad trunk Eucalyptus.
Killdeer. gum. Xeriscaped garden across with a pathway that I want to take next time.

We stopped at a fountain in a pond too. Mallards with their heads looking purple when they come into sight and green when away. On the left side of the pond some birds are sunning themselve slike cormorants. We wait for them to move. Swallow kites by on the pond.

Beauty

Legible handwriting
Steepless mountain
Shallow lake
seasoning
tea when hot

nature

Day before yesterday a hawk was circling low above the corner of a building. Its wing spread was all white underneath.

A teenager on a small bike with another standing behind her. A reminder of circus cyclists.

A ground bush raised like a cave.

I was surprised to find a sparrow sitting on a hummingbird feeder trying to decode the entry to food treasure.

Two big brown dogs with trim belly like a lions.

Walk around the park

A small lizard dead on the path. The ones that scurry. Now frozen. My husband recalled a saying that lizards are after you, even dead with the poison in them.
New shoots of eucalyptus.

The garbage truck turns around at the dead end with such speed that along with th wind, plastic bags swirl up in the air and land at neighbor's tree in the front yard.

Roly poly

This weekend during birdwatching at Gilbert Water Ranch, a kid picked up an insect in his hand. The black bug curled up.

Catty neighbourhood

A light colored cat with dark stripes sat along the patio wall compressed into itself like a sphinx. Outside is a bush hiding a shy black cat with a art green apple lying next to it like a toy that has just been dumped.

Bad at rinsing

Today while trashing old milk gallon into the recycle, I noticed traces of flourescent green through the plastic of the bottle. The liquid seemed alien with its accusing color. Wonder what bacteria was at work.

Migration celebration

A Swainson's hawk on a wooden perch. the top of the pole wound in rope. Just like the craft that simulates the caterpillar stage of a Monarch butterfly. It involves thin metal rods encased in furry colors as that of the caterpillar all rolled around a pencil.
Its surprising to find that this hawk eats grashoppers.
Poppy,Penstemon and deser blue bell seeds(porous)
Salome wilderness

Deposession

Recently I came across the following lines
People who divest themselves of their closest possessions are people who are ready to die.
in an article.
There are times where I can give away some things without feeling anything. Then some where I manipulated so I could keep mine and once where I was mean and destroyed what belonged to others. Once I defended my homework.
A book in the library that I have been thinking about 100 things challenge. Pre book blog
Contrast this with a writing exercise that asks to write about 10 things in the restroom.

Expeditus

Yesterday on the back of a long notebook, I saw a picture. A female statue with a cross in the right and a palm leaf in the left.

bug

In the hike today, I saw Black Beetle red head twice.

Healthmobile

Bird dog

I came across this word in Naming the world.
Looking at this morph, just yesterday I found the fox in the firefox logo.

Fake mouth

If fish had tails that could be dropped at wish, they could avoid baits.

Les Murray

Claire Weekes
Taller when prone

Volunteer vacations

staying in a lighthouse, restoring castles

Art

I am reading The Art of abstract painting. In that book, in the section 'from absttaction to reality', the author says that if we choose reality as the source of inspiration for abstract or abstracted work, there are two differnt ways of starting.
1. Starting from visual information.
2. Starting from mental information.

Land

In Your life as story, Rainer asks to create columns for personal history and political and cultural events of contemporary history. Reading the article, I recall that my grandfather lost part of his land to the government for an exchange of job to his son.

Donations

Give a little
Soul of a citizen

Fruit spirit

This morning, my shampoo with passion flower sunrise smelt of mango. May be the Pineapple spirit was passing by. Not only did I fantasise mango but the mango lassi too.

Self portrait

My sketch never looks like me
They all look alike

Feline

A cat scared like an owl.

In the Ratville, Greyhound was the mice with most friends as he had a blind cat as his charioteer.

Fishy smile

A river ran over me - Lin Sutherland. When she says," the list of my sins is excruciatingly extensive:" at the end of a page, I missed the colon. And the next page is a big list. Eight or more embarassing situations this essay could save you from. Into this humor are mixed in the terms, tools and practices in fly fishing.

June 22,2010

In the end

Usually the best of the books is in the front but I found these in the end.

Two must read poems:
Apple - Susan Stewart
I stopped writing poetry - Bernard Welt.

July 31, 2010

Correcting observation

Today I drew a golf cart and goose without looking. My memory of the wheels of a golf cart in relation to the chassis is all wrong. I had the chassis elevated above the tires which is not the case. The steering wheel reaches out like a funnel. the goose it need a longer neck and tapering thighs?
I have noticed that a sketch of a ballet dancer in motion with her right knee in the front and her left knee with her leg pointing up and her hands high in air is liberating each time I see it.
Ballet sketches with their anatomical incongruencies bring a sense of lightness to the viewer. Case in point, the ballet still for a Rudolf Friml Waltz in youtube. a dancer in short round skirt with her right toe on the floor and her left leg right above her head.

Color books

Blue book for AA
Red book for pianists

Taphonomy

The first time I came acorss transubstantiation was when I read Elizabeth Dodd's In the Minds eye.
Interestingly enough Patricia Hampl credits her knowledge of the word to catholicism. I was curious to know if Dodd came to the word in the same way. Cant answer for sure. But she is a converted catholic.

Dodds poetry introduced me to another word, the title of this entry.

Rubbing alcohol

The only alcohol in reach for AA
How intoxicating is rubbing alcohol?

Story cloth

I came across story cloth in Encyclopaedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife

Story cloths that depict war experiences
That depict Ramayana
That are passed down from grandmothers to their grandchildren.

My grandmother gave me a handkerchief sewed with small flowers and leaves.

Dog breeds

when I came across Springer Spaniel in The Florists daughter, I was curious to know if they were related to Cocker Spaniel

Some packing space

On wednesdays we wore white canvas shoes with green soles

Olivine

Olivine is soothing to look at.

I love books with maps

When I started reading the book, at the line 'The Grand Bazaar itself begins on the other side of the Egyptian bazaar,..' .. I had to stop reading. I couldnt resume without fixing this place on map. Had I flipped through the next few pages, I would see this nice blown up map of the bazaar showing details of the kind of merchandise sold in the streets.

Descriptions of travelling merchants using the bazaar for safekeeping sent me imagining to the extent of seal done in lacquer.

Imagine a real procession.

Some pictures are like that of a minaret lying on a table, view of a local bazaar through a hatch grilled window(so much easier to draw) will make you want to know more about them.

Jul 25,2010.

Advantages of Google books

1. You can use them as inspiration for your own writing
2. You can make up stories for kids using it as a starting board.

Fact and fiction

Sometimes when I come across fiction and have read of a similar situation as a fact, I just think that let the fiction writers imagine, then they will show you the best and the worst possible of the world.

In 2009, we have heard of the sole survivor of a plane crash. I was reminded of this reading of Hatchet.

Reading a fictional story The Age of Analysis, I was reminded of Growing up Jung.

Apprehensions of a new sibling in Julius, the Baby of the world are not very different from that in "the wing Rocker and the Baby" in Discovery

How long is the spelling of your city?

Yesterday I was looking at a map and found a place called Truth or Consequences. Its long name kind of got me interested in it. Theres a story there. If you lie, you die?
Does anyone remember the town that changed its name to Google for a while.
But there are places with even longer names.

Sorry for the interruption

I find it funny imagining the 'desrt rose' song being played when a radio has technical issues.

Good example of a bad lecture

Not only is the content obvious but trying to state 'what not to do' to take up literature as vocation has been written in a very unreadable way.
The lecture has just been a way to vent out his frustration at having tor ead innumerable manuscripts. This lecture would have been an effective medium of communication had the lecturer just listed ten bullets of 'to do' or 'not to do' if thats what is convenient for him to write on like:
1. Have a style and one that is appropriate to the subject.
2. Stick to simplicity

Jun 4, 2006

Yesterday I read Andrew Lang's story from the Olive Fairy book.

Disappointed

When I read 'The Artist of the Floating World'.. I was so taken by his style .. that I next read 'The remains of the day'.. and felt so rewarded for trying out new authors. 'Never Let me go' is definitely a disappointment with so highly built expectations. But with his style of taking events along without much dialogues makes him an artist of another world..

Nov 11, 2005

Must read for art lovers

This is an excellent book. I am thoroughly enjoying it.
This book compares great painters 'Henri Matisse' and 'Pablo Picasso' works and the influence of each other and their works on the others art.
Henri Matisse with his keeping the painting simple and lively and Picasso with his cubism, drawing from imagination are 'artists of different worlds'. They have different painting styles and they paint at exactly opposite times.
The book goes through the works of each in the order one was done as a reacton to the other, sometimes one trying to beat the other at their own style.

CITES:
Baudelaire's essay- 'The Painter of Modern Life'.
Apollinaire's essay on Picasso's work.(also his 'La Poete assasine')
Picasso's play - 'Desire caught by the tail'.
Matisse - 'Notes of a Painter'.

May 23, 2006

Biological diversity

The authors job description is funny.
If teachers want students to ask questions, then this should be your workbook. Something or the other is sure to catch one's fancy and out will come the questions like 'If you were a creator, where would you place the second jaw?' 'Following owl monkeys do nocturnal men take more care of their babies?'

Nov 24, 2009

Sportswriting

If theres a book in the Best Am series that I might not be related by 6 or more degrees, that would have to be the sports one. But looks like it might not be so, after having read 2 very influential essays - Bill Plaschke's Fowled Away, Elizabeth Gilbert's Lucky Jim.

Jun6, 2010

Ask and you shall receive

atleast information.

One morning, I was wondering why not give a person insurance worth what he/she paid for, once they are not covered for any reason. Listening about Yeshaswini, I learn thats not possible.

I was wondering on Friday if philosophy, opinion falls under fiction or non-ficton.

Philosophical Novel

Word talk

Yesterday, while on a walk, I saw a car with 'WHATEVER' as its nameplate. In The way we talk now book, the chapter An Interjection for the age starts with a bit on the W word and moves on to identify the slang of each decade. He ends with a good word for wahtever that it opens the way to newer possibilities.

In Yadda yadda doo chapter, explaining how and why we catch and use phrases from TV and movies, he wrote about It seemed like a good idea at that time being picked from a 1931 movie The Last Flight. I was reminded of a book I read with the phrase as its title.