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The Maytrees, by Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Dillard was just promoted on NPR with a radio interview. It struck me because of her insistence on brevity. Annie Dillard’s new novel was once 1,200 pages, but she shortened it to just 216 by focusing solely on the central love story. In her interview, she emphasized editing descriptive words to a minimum.
Superfluous… not encouraged.
The computer was identified as a tool of disservice. It encourages writers to unnecessarily expand on every thought. The speed of a keyboard facilitates instant “chatter to page” excess. Good writing demands slowing down the brain. Contemplative states produce definitive conclusions. Interesting point of view that I’d like to emulate.
The radio interview revealed her desire to retire from writing and pursue other interests! It is always encouraging to hear someone who has gained attention in their field, express a desire to move towards other modes of expression. Time will tell if a writer of such discipline and status can do such a thing. As an artist, how do you stop the words?
I’m going to begin trolling for widgets that I can add to this blog. Here’s the first from RockYou.com with images from Dervish Toys and the Faery Folk collectible dolls…
Looks like this is just another slide show.
Here’s a widget from Slide:
Ok, so its not the most attractive title, but it’s not my quote… “Ditch Bitch” is the self appointed name given to a woman named Judy who has taken the lead with the unincorporated ditch that runs through the property.
This morning I went to the mosquito infested property to propose my idea of moving the ditch about 20 ft. north in a 100 ft. section to give me some more workable space for the house foundation. I met with Judy X (name eludes me) and Paul Nezlanic (sp?). Paul is an old ranch had fellow who knows the lay of the land and the water rights in the area. I have no water rights, but the ditch runs through the property.
We walked the ditch, discussed its condition, where I would move it and what part would be pipped. After some back and forth, they realized this was NOT the Slough Ditch, but a part of the Banning Lateral. In other words, it was a secondary ditch that is a seasonal overflow route. Well, that made all the difference in the world!
Afterwards, I went out to Rose Ln. to inspect a culvert diameter that Paul encouraged me to use. Their I met an older red pickup truck. It was classic- the woman in the driver’s seat was smoking her fifth cigarette of the day (it was 8:30am) and seemed to have a few broken teeth! Her friend was a guy who looked to be in his sixties, but was probably late 40’s. His bulbous, veiny nose revealed a lifetime of hard drinking.
The upshot of the whole affair- I can move the ditch…
Now I just need to get it in writing, or should I blow that off and just get a handshake? That’s more like how I’d like to handle it.
One of the world’s most distinguished scientists, E.O. Wilson is a professor and honorary curator in entomology at Harvard. In 1975, he published Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, a work that described social behavior, from ants to humans.
Drawing from his deep knowledge of the Earth’s “little creatures” and his sense that their contribution to the planet’s ecology is underappreciated, he produced what may be his most important book, The Diversity of Life. In it he describes how an intricately interconnected natural system is threatened by man’s encroachment, in a crisis he calls the “sixth extinction” (the fifth one wiped out the dinosaurs).
In this video, E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize. He makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, that we should all learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we’re still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; yet we’re still steadily destroying nature. Wilson identifies five grave threats to biodiversity (a term he coined), using the acronym HIPPO, and makes his TED wish: that we will work together on the Encyclopedia of Life, a web-based compendium of data from scientists and amateurs on every aspect of the biosphere.
If done properly, this is gonna be huge!!!
Back from the retreat and I took several pictures- random shots- not meant to be art pieces, but just capture the environment. See below for the real reason I put this up…
Now to the real reason…
As you can see, this is a feed from Splashcast.net. They, in turn, pulled in the images from flickr.com where I uploaded them using their batch upload desktop application. That means there are four applications being utilized for this one post:
1. wordpress blog
2. splashcast.net “channel”
3. flickr.com image repository
4. flickr upload application
Why is this even interesting? The interest lies with the music project that I’m working on which combines professional content sources with community generated content. It’s a web 2.0 mashup!
