My review of Jude Morrow’s Why does daddy always look so sad? and other notes

With my library closed, I’ve been doing more book reviews. I can obtain books I’m interested in and also read, which is something I enjoy.

Book review about Siena Castellon’s autistic girl survival guide

It was my pleasure reviewing this! https://the-art-of-autism.com/book-review-the-spectrum-girls-survival-guide/

Ineffectual Loraxes Cannot Stop ‘Progress’

I blame Karl Benz, among other inventors… He set up the world for change forever. Not that someone wouldn’t have come along and invented an automobile if he didn’t think it up. A means of getting from A to B quicker than horses; but so much more. The whole world then took steps to revolve […]

My Podcast Episode 37 at Different Brains Spectrumly Speaking

Hello all. I’ve had a productive month of ups and downs, just getting over shingles actually. I’m feeling better. I hope to post actual WRITING here soon, instead of updates. But I wanted to mention the podcast interview that aired today. Link follows this post. I’ve been doing a lot of software work, digital art, […]

In Progress, An Unfinished Church

So I’m doing this: My glasses are taped to the sugar canister in an attempt to stretch them. I’ve been doing steady at-home close work and so I’ve been wearing them more than usual… I ended up with a swollen and very sore scalp, which is painful even to rest on a pillow. My elbows […]

You Never See It Coming

September sneaked up on me. I just had a few mini vacations: Vermont, NY, Massachusetts. And I got to walk on the beach this past summer. Now I understand that this is the last Autumn my Maple will drop leaves. It’s marked for murder. Every day the treecutters are closer and closer. September and February […]

Thankful For Books, Facts and Future Plans

In the Middle East, the steam from boiled roses is used in hair products, in cosmetics, in perfume and even for cooking… I’m delighted to learn rosewater is even used to flavor ice cream! Imagine that. I researched this process for the book Reborn Through Fire (which I wrote in 2006) and I came across rosewater […]

BETWEEN THE GREYS

Somewhere on the planet as I type this; gurgling, burbling geothermic hotspots spurt predictably (like certain presidential candidates) and just like Old Faithful, Pixar presents us with another animated film. Inside Out is about feelings; so I was putting this one off. Eventually I did give it a watch. Turns out it’s literal, it runs […]

Tinsled Rhetoric

Here it comes. Some more neurons from yours truly, firing off like ping pong balls. When I’m not enjoying the promise of Autumn with short walks to visit old paths and stones in walls I had almost forgotten, I have been compiling thoughts like so many layers of onion. Here, I peel them. I share with […]

You can’t go home again, can you?

It’s a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, or wistfulness for a home of the past.

OLIVER SACKS On The Move

All of this creates problems of organization. I get intoxicated, sometimes, by the rush of thoughts and am too impatient to put them in the right order. But one needs a cool head, intervals of sobriety, as much as one needs that creative exuberance.

Mrs. Weed’s Peculiar Life

I watched appalled from our upstairs kitchen window as people from all over our neighborhood pulled their cars up to her vacant house and unashamedly dug up her tulip bulbs, pulled up her daffodils, dug out rose bushes, and yanked up black eyed susans and daisies.

St. Patrick’s Day Pondering

I was getting ready to leave for the funeral parlor and make “arrangements” when I felt compelled to spend my newly widowed status crawling around on my hands and knees in the backyard. My mother in law watched from the living room window, mouthing the words to her daughter: What is she doing out there? You see, I was looking for yet more four-leafed clovers…

Spread It Like Fertilizer

A fresh faced Jack Klugman (of Quincy and Odd Couple fame) played an alcoholic horn player in an old black and white Twilight Zone episode. (Shows like Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock, and Thriller can be found on the ME network). His character couldn’t get a gig at a nightclub […]

We are all a part of the landscape

In 2001, (pre-nine eleven) when George W. Bush took office (after a close race with Gore… remember the hanging chad debacle?), dozens of computers were discovered with missing W keys. This “prank” did not extend to the West Wing, although in other areas of the White House, they were pried clean off the […]

Chap 16 of my Under The Banana Moon Book to turn into a Dance Performance!

Exciting update: Wonderful news. What a lovely Christmas present for me. I’ve just heard that Spoke N Motion Dance, led by Brian Be, is going to do a live performance of Chapter 16 of my book Under The Banana Moon. I can’t wait to see their interpretation of my life and words. I will post […]

Here on Earth 12/18/14, Truth Trumps Fiction

My librarian told me a story recently as I checked out books (two of which I would read all the way through with sustained interest, one that I would happily be engrossed with and the fourth I would end up returning after reading ten pages). One of the books I checked out (the one I […]

The Art of Forgiving

When I was expecting my third child, I wanted to name her Georgiana; George or Georgie for short… but my spouse didn’t care for the name. So she was named Kerry. But since she is transgender, he wants to be called Silis. What’s in a name? Uranus wasn’t always Uranus. The astronomer William Herschel discovered […]

Childhood Reminiscing, What IS “Conventional” Anyway?

me, what a looker! my mother and I, She kept the bathing suit. I still have it, (the red and white striped bikini) —the elastic is shot but I still have it. Matter of fact, I think, 49 yrs. later, my father still has that brown shirt blowing on the line! I’m not kidding. My […]

A BLOG ABOUT ____________ .

The process of blog writing has to start with a thought. Letters, words form, then sentence by sentence by sentence the thoughts become paragraphs. There’s a little loop like a curl; a threadlike line hanging off the last word in my last paragraph inside my head; so carefully […]

Rantings of a logophile

I’m into obscure things. If you’ve read this blog you already know that. This forum, for me, is kind of an information purge of sorts. It’s like a safe place where I can say things like moon pigeons and alphabet juice and electric ketchup. Oddball conundrums keep my brain cells happy. Let me explain the […]

it’s that month again, here’s what I’ve been up to, in part

the infamous puzzle piece? Yeah I know, it’s very cliche Here’s what I’ve been up to: (Keep in mind there are several links on this blog. Don’t forget to come back and read the rest…Or click them when you finish reading…) http://barkingsycamores.wordpress.com/current-issue/ The above link is from a “neurodivergent” sister site on wordpress who […]

Some of Crows’ and Ravens’ Roles in Fairy Tales and myth and Literature

I think of ravens and crows interchangeably. I can’t help it; I just do. Ravens are bigger in size although there are other differences too; like their voices. Supposedly the crow can say ‘uh-huh’, ‘caw’, ‘eh-aw’, ‘kow’, ‘aww’, and sound real nasal, whereas the raven is harsher and says things like ‘kraa’, or it makes […]

Fascinating modern architecture to 1700 manor houses…it’s all good

Recently I’ve been reflecting about architecture. I’m reading a historical book called The Manor: Three centuries at a slave plantation on Long Island by Mac Griswold. This 70 year old woman, Mac, is a cultural landscape historian, a fascinating job. When she was a little girl in the 1950s growing up in New Jersey, […]

LOST ART of Dr. Suess, Books, Mosaics and Pleasure in Broken Pieces

Why mosaics? I like the shiny full color allure of “coffee table” books. The large exotic collection of pictures I never tire of. There are three such books I am finding myself picking up over and over. I’ve owned them for years. I share them with visiting children, I open them for peaceful […]

The Elephant Keeper, a quick overview of a stunning book

I rarely write a book review but The Elephant Keeper screams to be understood, and to be read. If you do read it, you may come away from it stuck in your head but not able to really understand what just happened. Doesn’t that have the makings of a good read? One that makes you […]

A Wabi-Sabi Approach To Life, OR Appreciating Moss Covered Pocketbooks In The Woods

Nothing’s perfect, nothing’s finished, nothing is forever. Feeling quite chan right now. So often conversations falter. We cannot find the word that translates what we want to say. There are languages that have words for these moments. Chan is an example. It’s Mandarin Chinese and it is untranslatable to English. It means having a […]