Milk and Cookies, Part 4

The Giver has seared the top-ten bestseller bookshelves, sold over 10 million copies, and made into a movie that's presently in the cinema.…twenty years after its publication.

You'd almost think it was dug out of grandpa's yard sale.

But then again, Time! The corrector when our judgments err, as Lord Byron mournfully puts it: a reminder that we are pretty darn dense when it comes to knowing what's good for us. Poor old Poe probably had a fit when people finally started getting into his poetry…when he was already dead.

Great dystopians, as you’ve probably noticed, are the 'jeggings' of the modern book world. Maybe it's the growing fear of advancing technology gaining its autocratic control, harvesting your secret thoughts and emotions, storing them in a big scary system...oops, no, that's Twitter.

But let’s get back to Lois Lowry’s buzzing sensation, which, I must add, was also awarded the 1994 Newbery Medal: "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" (Which is, pretty much, the Lamborghini of cars as far as awards go).

What is this book about: Jonas lives in a seemingly 'utopian' community, where everything from family, to food, to spouse, to career, is carefully pre-selected. When he turns 12, he is given the job of 'Memory Receiver'. 

What I think about this book: Simplicity’s got a loud voice. The writing makes for an exceptionally easy read that simultaneously leaves you to grapple with unexpected profundity: growing up, fear and courage, human values, and free will. How perfect is perfection? Are we safe in ignorance? And, most intriguing, what can you change once you have the power of knowledge?

Who should read this book: The blind, the seekers, the young and the old

Bang Bang!

Dear Blogsters

(Kind of like hipsters, just for blogs. Because you're all so wonderful and hip for reading me, and my sometimes inappropriate, often abstract, punkish lit.)By the way, this isn't some boring, mushy denouement. Although it has been almost six months of posting, 14 posts, 209 Facebook members (not to mention the unaccounted web-stalkers...you know who you are)... I'm not saying goodbye...yet. Duh-Duhm.
But (there's always one) I have to confess that the excuse for my sad lack of posting hasn't been because of the dangerous pleasure of winning the World Cup trophy (Don't hurt me, Argentinians) or the abundance of cold beer and beach in the heat (Ok...maybe a little), or, God help me, my addiction to teen trilogies.
The fact is, there's a book. And we've been spending more and more time hanging out with each other. Getting to know one another. I think we might just be more than friends...So. Now you know. 
It's something I've been thinking about for over a year now and I am finally putting it to cold, hard paper. BUT (number 2) I promise to keep posting. Faithfully. Whenever IT lets me. (You see, IT'S very possessive. It's already glaring at me from the computer) 
So please don't be angry if I suddenly space out when you're talking, or growl at you from my coffee cup. Having to fly out of fantasy world to sometimes land in reality, to take care of normal things like washing one's laundry or communicating with homo sapiens, can make one such a grump. 
Thank you all for your friending and moral support. I'm hoping that in the end of the tinkering and tampering, I'll come out looking kind of like Caractacus Pott steering the brand new, magical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang out of the workshop.And hey, talking about great movies, here are some books-turned-films that I applaud and simply love. What are yours?

--On the page: Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë ( 1847)

  On Film: Jane Eyre, 2011, Director Cary Fukunaga, Starring Mia Wasikowska and 

Michael Fassbender

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” 

---

                         --On the page: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky (1999)

On Film: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, 2012, Director Stephen Chbosky, Starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson and Ezra Miller

“We accept the love we think we deserve.” 

---

--On the page: The Hobbit, J.R.R Tolkien (1937)

On Film: The Hobbit Trilogy, 2012-2014, Director Peter Jackson, Starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, and Richard Armitage

“May the hair on your toes never fall out!” 

..................Till next time!

A Pint of Purpose

Someone told me the other day that sometimes purpose is like a pint of beer.
Allow me to expound: It charges your moment. You feel revived. Epic. Ebullient. Enormous (Make that three pints). Like Buzz Lightyear would say, This isn't flying, this is falling with style!
A lot has been composed in the name of beer. For example:

I work until beer o'clock.

-Steven King

Who cares how time advances? I am drinking ale today.

- Edgar Allan Poe

He was a wise man who invented beer.

 -Plato

But what about tomorrow, when the high runs dry and you're back to the plain old you?
Drink more (Come on, I know that's what some of you are thinking)!
Metaphorically, I have to agree.
Nonetheless, don't let your thirst for purpose end in the bottom of your glass. And all you're left with is an instagram of a good time that's already the past and a dusty piano you promise to play someday.
You know the quip: How time flies!
It does. Another one of its pastimes is screeching at you every time you look in the mirror (See Nazgûl, or Hell-Hawk, for an apt imagery).
Refill your cup with some of these bottle rockers this summer, fresh or vintage. Whether your purpose is blossoming or still just a sprout,  remember:  "All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea (Napoleon Hill)." 
Winning the Nobel Prize, discovering the cure to baldness, or digging a tunnel to China...whatever the hell it is, take care of your idea. You're tone deaf without one. And what's a life without having a song to live by?

For Tears: 
If I Stay--Gayle Forman
Drama: A teenage cellist faces a life changing car crash.

For Passion:
The Handmaid's Tale--Margaret Atwood
Dystopia: Fertile women are sentenced to breed for the rich.

For Magic:
The House of the Spirits--Isabele Allende
Historical Fiction: The wealthy Trueba family's saga of love, spirituality and revolution in Latin America. 

For Philosophy:
Crime and Punishment-Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Crime Fiction: An all-time classic that makes everyone reflect deeply on their humanity.

The Immortals, Part 3

"If I am no longer disturbed myself, I will deal less with disturbed people, but I don't regret having concerned myself with them because I think most of us are disturbed."

There's some Biblo-reasoning coming from one of America's greatest playwrights. His plays speak from the gurgling pipelines of misfortune, our eternal battle of emotions (Or, for a more literal image, please turn to the mythical river Styx, where tormented souls whirl round and round like they’re stuck in a giant toilet flush without ever going anywhere.).

Although early critics demeaned his works as being depressing, The Glass Managerie opened on Broadway in 1945 to instant success, shortly followed by his Pulitzer Prize winning A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, among others.

Because we’re suckers for broken things; we maim and are maimed, we mourn and all will meet the inevitable ‘Christmas-Yet-to-Come’ Scrooge hides under the covers for.

Thomas Lanier ‘Tennessee’ Williams III (1911 – 1983) wrote from the muddle of a dysfunctional upbringing in Columbus, Mississippi.

His father, a businessman, was abusive while his mother, a ‘Southern belle’ was the basis for many of his play’s female characters: hard-nosed and hysterical. His sister, Rose, was institutionalized for schizophrenia and Tennessee himself underwent psychological meltdowns, diphtheria, and drug abuse.

The sunny side up is that we don’t all have to dig up the crazy gene that often seems to be the side effect of geniuses.

Flecks of Tennessee’s voice is heard, as Blanche DuBois famously quotes in A Streetcar Named Desire: “Show me a person who hasn't known any sorrow and I’ll show you a superficial.”

After everything, it is Tennessee’s own handfuls of pain that spill into his works--the old cry of humankind--that rifts through crowded streets and sings along with loneliness like the ‘blue piano’. It is what magnetized audiences back then and, decades later, continues to speak our secrets for us.

Here’s We Have Not Long to Love, a poem from when Tennessee wasn't too busy tearing up the (stage) floor.

We have not long to love.

Light does not stay.

The tender things are those

we fold away.

Coarse fabrics are the ones

for common wear.

In silence I have watched you

comb your hair.

Intimate the silence,

dim and warm.

I could but did not, reach

to touch your arm.

I could, but do not, break

that which is still.

(Almost the faintest whisper

would be shrill.)

So moments pass as though

they wished to stay.

We have not long to love.

A night. A day....

Milk and Cookies, Part 3

Airports seem magical until you find yourself stuck in one for over a decent amount of time. And by decent, well, let's face it: alone we can only really stand (max)10 hours of ourselves until we start drawing faces on soccer balls and affectionately naming them. 
If you're a little more organized, you'll have an hourly plan. 
Eat. Movie. Book. Stare at people. Eat some more. Stare more at people. Bathroom break. Stare at your teeth in bathroom mirror. 
Repeat as desired.
Then there's also the dull pain in your rear from sitting too long in one place, so you switch chairs. And really want to stretch but you're the only one standing and everyone else is at the Staring Phase in their airport routine so you immediately feel like a pantomime stage clown and sit back down.
But after a few months away from the airport we'll forget all about the experience and get all kiddy again. You know, do dives off the bunk bed until we sprain our ankle and then do it again once the sprain-pain conveniently fades from our memory. 
Luckily, though, it's not that bad. Because when you become bored of your airport routine, Tom Hanks, again, is a wealth of resources (Think The Terminal). 
Anyway, I'm here to talk about books. Which is, by the way, one of the most essential ingredients to airport survival. Currently I'm reading Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys, another YA genre novel.
Only, this one isn't about Orwellian futures and apocalyptic plagues..

What is this book about: It is a (mildly) suspenseful drama centering on seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine (or Josephine, as she likes to call herself) who moves to the potpourri scene of 1950's New Orleans. While struggling to get into a prestigious college and rub out the reality that her mother belongs to a seedy brothel, a murder takes place that knocks the 'French Quarter' off-kilter. 

What I think about this book: Eloquent description voice and animated use of setting. Although slightly sententious at times, Josie is a poignant emblem for female empowerment and teenage 'moxie'. 
I've never been to New Orleans but Ruta seems to portray it as a world all of its own: the 'big city' motif that thumps with electricity, Bohemian artists, and a mélange of restless souls. 

Who should read this book: Oprah-readers, high-schoolers, The-Best-Little-Whore-House-in-Texas-fans, and bewildered parents

3 Tips for Writers (...and anyone else who just wants to be entertained), Part 2

“Who cares about pretty? I'm going for noticeable.”--Tris Prior, Divergent

Pop culture is an increasingly hot topic. So much so, it's the new religion and politics taboo talk at parties. Books-turned-blockbusters like Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, Divergent, etc, started to aggravate people so much to the point they couldn't help but create cults like Team Edward/Team Jacob and wizarding cloaks and What Faction Are You buzz quizzes. I know, kids these days, right (We huff maturely as we guiltily Google photos of Edward)?

The disturbing thing is that these blockbusters have morphed into the 21st century replica of Lady Godiva riding naked through the streets--We may try not to look, but common, everyone is going to look.

Such staggering fame either amazes you, befuddles you, or infuriates you ("Anyone can write that shit!!" We spout, between sobs and someone petting us understandingly).

Either way, once your sales hit the 500 mil shelf and the film profits quadruple and you're floating on a cloud of net worth somewhere in the upper millionths hemisphere, your hand weary from signing autographs and your love handles oozing from too much Amedei Porcelana chocolate, I will personally congratulate you with a golden fucking Willy Wonka ticket.

Anyway, upon continual observation over the years, and an ongoing project that I'd be eager for other cloud kingdom making writers to participate in, here are just a few of the ideas behind successful teen bestsellers which are, back to the subject of trends, surprisingly less fluctuating than markets like fashion and music (Boys will be boys, after all. And "girls just want to have fun"..oh, the sageness of Cyndi)...

• If you have a teen, or ever were one, remember it

"Actually I'm highly logical which allows me to look
 past extraneous detail and perceive
clearly that which others overlook."--Harmione Granger

Yes, even the pimples and the hornyness and the recklessness and the bad financial decisions (..these ARE teens we're talking about...). Think of the high school dance, your first kiss, your first job, getting detention or being busted for getting drunk off of your dad's secret liquor stash. Whatever you were going through as a teen, chances are you weren't alone. Well, maybe you were a loner, but uniformitarily, you spoke the same language. Harry wanted to run away from home, Katniss lost her father, Bella was in love (slight understatement), and Tris wanted to prove herself in a big, scary world. 

• Decisions and conflict

“Here's some advice. Stay alive.” --Haymitch

This may seem obvious, but in reading beta books, this seems something woefully neglected. 

The conflict needs to be radical. The decision life changing. Harry takes on Voldemort, Katniss volunteers in her sister's place for the Games, Bella falls in love with a vampire, and Tris chooses Dauntless.

Each of these decisions kick-start the conflict that fuels the story. They're the ticking time bombs, the bungee cord, the pump of adrenaline; why we turn the page. What faction will she pick? Will Katniss win? Will Bella ever grow up (only kidding)? 

Maybe when we were young the only extent of our dramatic decision making was what to wear for the boy we liked, but the nerve endings are the same. The emotions are relatable, because we have all felt terrified of the unknown, of standing out or speaking up, the want to keep and protect the someone we love.

• Language

  

  --Gus and Hazel, The Fault in our Stars

Writing simply isn't just lack of a literary foundation, it's a conniving method by these writers we so mutually love and hate. Unless you regularly dug into encyclopedias for breakfast, teens, and adults alike, enjoy easy reading. They already have school and all the boringest books ever written on their syllabus (Why do they do that, anyway?) to plow through. Generally we like having a handy read where we don't stumble over thesaurical lingo and yawn inducing descriptions of the sunset, no matter our age (Fun fact: 55% of YA readership are adults over 18, 28% of that being 30-44 years old, and 78% overall aren't buying it for their kids). 

Do be descriptively creative. But focus on dialogue. Witty, sassy, whimsical dialogue, with moments of intensity, permeates every bestselling YA you'll ever read. Conversations keep it animated and builds character in the fastest possible way. We're on the train to Hogwarts here, and every page matters. Keep us squirming in our seats but please, bring the damn candy trolley while we get there.

Milk and Cookies, Part 2

The Bone Season is Samantha Shannon's debut novel.
You probably haven't heard of her. Yet. I didn't, until I picked up my monthly Forbes magazine and saw a feature article written about her.
"Rumored as the next J.K. Rowling"--a pretentious idea, considering J.K. Rowling is still very much alive, is nevertheless a headline you'll look at twice.
Samantha Shannon wrote her first novel when she was 15. By the time she was ready to send it in to agents, a terrifyingly similar novel hit the Young Adult bestseller shelves. And by comparison, hers just wasn't publishable material. She was rejected. And rejected. And rejected again. Until, billowed by defeat, she locked herself in her room and drowned in rejection slips (Figuratively speaking).
If you don't know the feeling of having your book rejected, imagine, instead, professing your love to a crush you've had for years. All that damn daisy petal plucking and scribbling sonnets that sweat with torrential longing. All those nights tossing and turning and downing glass after glass of water, because nothing can quench the thirst. 
And her only response is....indifference.
Bitch.
Anyway. This story only matters if you didn't end up a homeless hobo who wanders about telling everyone you bump into 'About that girl'. 
Samantha went on to study English in Oxford (Which turns out to be a sumptuously Gothic setting in the book) where she simultaneously wrote and planned The Bone Season. During an internship she presented her manuscript and ended up with a six figure deal with Bloomsbury Publishing.

What is this book about: A paranormal dystopian set in the year 2059. Nineteen year old Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underground network of 'Scion' London as a Dreamwalker. Her job is to gather information by breaking into people's minds. In a realm of spirits, auras, and warring dimensional creatures, your gift is your crime.
After committing murder on a subway, Paige is arrested and sent to a mysterious voyant prison.
Her captors, the Rephaim, are a powerful otherworldly race who were supposedly wiped off the map hundreds of years ago. Now they seek out people like Paige to fight for them, against a force threatening to destroy humanity.

What I think about this book: Samantha has been praised for her ambition and "teeming imagination". She writes from a plush descriptive voice, vastly imaginative, carefully sewing together a meticulous plot.

Paige is clever, Irishly defiant, and has a fortress for a mind. The romance element of master/captive is bolder than you will find in the typical YA book.

The layers and levels of 'spiritrinomics' along with the writing style is fairly complex for the casual teen, or even adult, reader. You'll have to refer to a map and a page of unusually named hierarchies. It does, however, have huge potential for a cult following. And the fact that this is only the first book in a to-be seven part series does sound promising. 

Who should read this book: The curious, escapist-fiction fans, and the dreamers.

Watch here for the book trailer

Blowin' in the Wind

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore
There is a society where none intrudes,

By the deep sea and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but nature more. 

--Lord Byron

The weekends aren't just great times for beering out, sleeping-in with cucumbers on your eyes, TV-series-binge-watching, deep cleaning, or cruising your convertible down the shoreline honking at girls (Don't tell me that was you). At the close of the week's chapter, this time, spare a moment for the salve of nature. 

Remember what it was like to be a kid, when magnifying ants made you feel like a scientist, collecting seashells made you want to be a mermaid, and star gazing made you dream about being an astronaut?

That little child is still in there, somewhere.

As human beings we crave a tryst with nature. That special silence, not broken but sweetened by singing birds, the breeze through the corn husks, and the rumble of waves against the rocks. 

Maybe you're one of those people who crinkle their nose at the thought of mud, insects, and cheerful animals. But this prescription isn't just for the mountaineers and tree peers. Think of it like vegetable juice. Just because you don't like it, it doesn't mean it isn't good for you (Think Popeye).

Explore a hiking trail, a sea cave, a castle ruin, or even just a patch of grass. Turn off your phone. Switch off your mind. Shut up and listen. 

Now no need to get all yoga on us. Unless that's what you're into. It's merely isolating yourself from the clutter of daily life and relearning the art of simple clear headed thinking. (How do you think Socrates got so damn wise?)

And while you're at it, you just might have a eureka! moment. Check out these nature swooners...

Immersing oneself..

"Adopt the pace of nature:  her secret is patience." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, Author, Poet. 

"Great things are done when men and mountains meet.  This is not done by jostling in the street." --William Blake, Poet, Painter

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." --Albert Einstein, Physicist 

"To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug." --Helen Keller, deafblind author, activist, lecturer  

"For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." --Isaiah 55:12 

"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds." --Edward Abbey, Author, essayist, environmentalist

2 Tips for Writers (..and anyone else who just wants to be entertained..)

“When I get a little money, I buy books. If any is left, I buy food and clothes.” -- Erasmus

Starving doesn't seem to be such a popular trend nowadays as it used to be: Franz Kafka quit his job to write, resulting in fatal tuberculosis and starvation. Beethoven went without food for days holed up with his music sheets. Edgar Allen Poe's career was smudged with alcoholism and depression.

The book addiction, you'll be happy to know, doesn't have to be a siphon for pain and death. (The poverty, though, can't be helped. And will, sadly, be fatal. Unless you're really as good as you think. If not, you probably shouldn't quit your job or sell your business. )

So if you're serious about following Alice down the literary rabbit hole, here are some snippets of advice that will help everyone (yes, everyone...I've asked them all) to live a happily creative life, and if you do die, it'll be "with your boots on", as the wild 'ol Westerns say...

1. "READ. And read a lot."--John Green

I can't tell you how many aspiring writer's I've met that tell me they write poetry, or they're working on a novel, but they just don't like reading, or can't "find the time". News flash. You're in the wrong industry. Unless you man-up and start.reading. I can't emphasize how important this is to being a writer, or being a human being, de facto (Unless you're an alien, or a cat. In which case, kudos for being able to read this at all). To further prove my point, check out these bumper sticker worthy slogans:

“We read to know that we are not alone.” -- C.S. Lewis

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”  -- Ernest Hemingway

(And one of my personal favorites) "There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves." -- Will Rogers

You don't have to do a brain transplant or climb Mt. Everest to cultivate the Reading Habit. I challenge you to disagree, but here it is: At least 1 hour (to put it lightly) in your day is wasted on things like...posing in the mirror, gazing out the window, browsing Facebook, staring into a void, catching up on celebrity gossip...Which, admittedly, I have found myself swallowed up in its tentacles more than once. However, once you start reading, I promise you, your life will change.

So...the tip? Take a book with you wherever you go. On the subway. In the car. At the gym. In your bed. Make it your constant companion. Your friend, your mentor, your lover.

2. WRITE. “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” 

-- Stephen King

Writing is a pain in the ass. It doesn't just take motivation to put pen to paper. It takes courage. It takes guts. Fifteen years since I realized I wanted to write, I also realized that fear is still my shadow. What will people think? What if they hate it? What about all those rejection slips? 
This is the part where you shut up. Shut.up.and.write.
Because that pen isn't going to move itself. Those keys aren't going to work magic (If they do, lemme know, because that would be cool.). 
It's all up there. Your mind, your imagination, is where the magic happens. The longer you're curled up whining in a corner, the more we're convinced that you're just a lazy bum. 

The tip? 15 minutes a day. In your closet. In the bathroom. On the roof. Wherever the hell you can find. Force yourself to get there, and write. 15 minutes. I challenge you.

"It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly."

-- C. J. Cherryh

Maybe you'll be Van Gogh or Henry Thoreau, whose works are only celebrated 

posthumously.

Or maybe not. Either way, right now, forget about 'everyone else', forget about that 

shadow of fear, and climb over those mental constipations. Write. Just write.

“To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.”

-- Allen Ginsberg, Writer's Digest

The Immortals, Part 2

In writers, alcoholics equal genius. 
Well, sometimes...
Now, if that was our motto, we'd all be homeless and fighting over park benches.
I like to think that, for some of us, that creative genius germ will infect us inevitably; chomping into our bodies, bursting into our brains...in whatever state it happens to find us. Cancer included.

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) was a cult poet.

He lurked in the underground, sleeping in cheap hotels, drinking and gambling with society's rats. His poems were offensive to most critics and terrifying to the tidy beau monde of the 20th century; Shockingly bald and sexually explicit. The free verse style he used ran true to the way he lived his life--unbridled and erratic.
Yet not unlike the rapidly changing times the war drove in, Charles' honesty was becoming hard to ignore. His words sprung from the grimy slump of urban life, the absurdities of humanity, and the irony of death.
He died of leukemia in 1994, leaving behind a collection of works that helped shape free speech in modern literature. See Run with the Haunted (1993) and Flowers, Fist and Bestial Wall (1959).

Just when I thought poetry was about beautiful things like daffodils and sunsets, I caught a glimpse of Charles' ghost cackling at me in a dark corner, hiccuping between slugs of whiskey. 
Twenty years later and his poetry is still making people clear their throats uncomfortably.
So just for us gentler souls, sing away, little Bluebird (The Last Night of the Earth, 1992)...
Bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the ****s and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

"Lá ‘le Pádraig!"

In other words...Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

No matter where you are, today is a tribute day to the Irish and it demands to be celebrated. 
Some take to the street parades, some dye their mustaches green, some embark on the infamous 'pub crawl' (Like anyone needs a new excuse for that..), and somewhere, someone is boiling potatoes...
Thanks to their hearty, lyrical heritage festooning our social moss, without them we would've never had (just to name a few)...The Beatles, Mel Gibson, Dracula, The Cranberries, modern chemistry, Gulliver's Travels, the tattoo machine, and chocolate milk.
So don't forget to 'ward off a little evil' this week with the sacred, three leafed Shamrock and whenever you catch a rainbow, remember there's a pot of gold a leprechaun hid at the end of it :)

.."Wishing you a rainbow

For sunlight after showers—

Miles and miles of Irish smiles

For golden happy hours—

Shamrocks at your doorway

For luck and laughter too,

And a host of friends that never ends

Each day your whole life through!"..

The Immortals, Part 1

Winding into a new week where the weather is finally in a good mood and here I am to bug you all with the (breath intake) next post. 
So without further ado, enter Immortals. No, I am not going to talk about those invincible superheroes with rippling muscles or that Greek mythological mania going on in the movies nowadays. Henry Cavill is not going to make an appearance, so, please, ladies, put your panties back on!

Immortality is what it means to, well, not die. Unending life. Eternity. Being immortal is hanging around after all the buzz rubs off. Sticking through that 'ol test of time. From the Great Gatsby to the Mona Lisa, from Hotel California to the Eiffel tower, to those blessed strangers in a basement somewhere who brewed the first batch of beer...they're still here. In book shop shelves and in chilled, overflowing mugs and in a chorus being sung somewhere by a flight of musicians, joined in, at a beach tavern.
Every day we find ourselves strolling across the trail the immortals left, and are leaving behind. Admiring the scenery and enjoying the music. 
But while that's going on, what about the rest of us? Are we reserving time to do something significant of our own...something immorti-fiable (New word. Sadly, I immortify words.)?
Are we gonna let all the 'somebody else's' have all the fun, popping out legacys while we stand by like cows watching the train? Well, that grass 'aint getting any yummier, and this belly 'aint getting any leaner.
So I'm gonna shut up now and move over for a real immortal. Someone, in my opinion, who jumped on that friggin train. 

Christopher J Paolini

You may have read Eragon--think riding flying dragons and episodes of Beowulfesque fighting--the writer's first book of the four part Inheritence Cycle fantasy series. Christopher was home schooled, and upon graduating high school at 15 years old immediately plunged into writing his first manuscript. Two years later, he published Eragon, with his parent's small self-publishing house, Paolini International LLC.  Chris toured 135 schools and libraries, garbed in a complete Medieval costume, to sell and promote his book.
At 19, Paolini became a New York Times bestselling author, with a net worth of 5 million. The series has sold over 33 million copies in 53 countries. Chris continues being an inspiration to fantasy lovers worldwide and a colonnade to J.R.R Tolkien's memory.

Choo-choo, Chris.