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Places in Motion - Reading Response 3

Places in Motion: The Fluid Identities of Temples, Images, and Pilgrims by Jacob N. Kinnard. Thoughts on Chapters 6 - 8 The very first thing I thought of when reading about the supplanting of one ‘holy’ site over another was Mexico. When I traveled in Mexico a few years back I went on several tours, including one of Mexico City which highlighted the Templo Mayor (an Aztec temple); part of which rests under the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral. Also, on a tour of Puebla, the Great Pyramid of Cholula has the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios sitting atop it. As I understand it, from tours I’ve taken and books I’ve read, placing a Catholic site on top of a previously pagan/indigenous site was a routine thing in both the Americas and Europe. I believe in European history it was referred to as the Interpretatio Christiana (Christian reinterpretation). I also seem to recall reading somewhere that something was found under St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican which was probably ...

Places in Motion - Reading Response 2

Places in Motion: The Fluid Identities of Temples, Images, and Pilgrims by Jacob N. Kinnard. Thoughts on Chapters 4 & 5 I was most struck this week by what Kinnard refers to as “the “museumizing” of the temple complex” (pg 119), especially via the UNESCO World Heritage Site determination process. The mentality of imaging there is an “original” state to which the otherwise “active and fluid place” of the “living temple” (pg 118) should be returned, and then subsequently frozen in time to be “preserved” like an insect in amber, is mind-boggling to me in relation to an active religious site. Even if it were a genuinely disused archaeological ruin, the idea of ‘returning’ it to some imagined original form could be problematic – but in light of the current usage of this site I cannot comprehend how altering what is there currently could be anything other than destructive to how it is being used. I was particularly provoked by what Kinnard called “the ambiguities of preservation” (...

Places in Motion - Reading Response 1

Places in Motion: The Fluid Identities of Temples, Images, and Pilgrims by Jacob N. Kinnard. Thoughts on Chapters 1-3 The thing which struck me most from these chapters was actually where Kinnard discusses the blurred identities of the Buddha/Vishnu footprints around Bodhgaya and Gaya. I was especially intrigued by the part on page 78 where he mentions asking Bodhgaya pilgrims over the course of years regarding the origin of the footprints. He explained that when asked whether they were the footprints of Vishnu the pilgrims would answer ‘yes’, but they would do the same if asked if they were Buddha’s footprints. Kinnard noted the same person looking at the same image would see “two interwoven or overlapping identities.” As if to say that the footprints were, for those pilgrims, holy (and meaningful) regardless of their origin. And, in fact, they might even be doubly holy if attributable to both figures. Or as Kinnard wrote, “[w]hy limit oneself to one or the other when one can hav...

Popular Books I've Never Read, and Why

Starting with series ... I've never read a single one of the Harry Potter series, and I don't suspect I ever will. I did see one movie once, but I couldn't tell you which one. Game of Thrones - no interest at all. Got about 15-20 mins into an episode once, and couldn't figure out the cause for all the hype. As a TV series, Vikings was way more interesting and engrossing! 50 Shades - ditto the no interest answer. Twilight - I'm old enough to recall when the cool vampire stories were written by Anne Rice (none of which I read either) so when Twilight occurred I remember doing a distinctly old lady eye roll about the return of "that stupid vampire crap." Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice - see above. Just never got the whole vampire thing. Outlande r - but I intend to! I started watching episode one during the fourth season of the show. I was so bored by the first 20-30 mins I paused it, left it for a few days, and almost didn't go back to it. On a w...

Final Book Cover Design and Tentative Release Date!

I did it, I finally settled on a cover design for the first novel in the K at Steals Life series; Kathy Shearer's Second Act. I spent months going back and forth between two, unable to decide. But just like in most areas of life, if something doesn't jump out at you immediately, it's probably not right for you. The moment I saw this one I knew this was it. Now that this is settled, I'm fairly certain I can publish next month. And just because I like the look of the repetition in 8/8/2020, that's the date for which I am now aiming. Hope I can finish the edits/proofing in time! EDIT: REVISED RELEASE DATE NOW 8/18/2020! The Kat Steals Life series is about a woman turning 40 - divorced, no kids, no family besides her cat, and in a dead-end job that sucks the life out of her daily. She's always loved crime/heist/police procedural books and shows, so in the midst of this slight midlife crisis she works up the nerve to see if she can pull off a heist herself. The an...

Book Review - Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon

Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered by Austin Kleon My rating: 5 of 5 stars It's taken me almost a month to write this review. And I feel like I'm still trying to wrap my head around this book - in a good way, not a bad one. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I am attempting to implement and follow the advice within it. But, I keep bumping up against this internal wall I have about sharing things in progress. For reasons that would probably require a psychologist to decipher I have an aversion to showing/discussing anything from a work in progress to my plans for next month (or even tomorrow). I'd rather just do it and then share the result; having hidden all the messy meandering between the beginning and the end. However, I'm sure that the admonitions in Show Your Work are right and true and good, not only because they feel that way, but also because I know I enjoy finding out about the people and the process behind the writers I like. I e...

Witchcraze - a Reading Response

In the 5wk class I'm taking on "Witchcraft and Heresy" we read Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts by Anne Llewellyn Barstow this past week. As an assignment we were given the following prompt on which to base our discussion post: Chapter One is titled, "Why Women?" How would you answer that question after reading the chapter?  Ask the 'cui bono' question...who benefits? How does Barstow explain the structure of the  witch hunt? Chapters three and four look at different geographies. Did place (local context) matter? If so, how? My response is below, though I am going to write a more in-depth / proper book review for goodreads ASAP:      The answer to the question of “why women?” is both simple and too complex for me to explain successfully. The simple answer is that women were on the margins of early modern European culture. Though society had not always been so unapologetically patriarchal and p...

Book Review - Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon My rating: 5 of 5 stars Overall, "Steal Like An Artist" is like having a pep talk at the ready for days when you need it. The general theme of the book is a sometimes gentle, sometimes blunt, reminder that there is nothing new under the sun and that's not a bad thing. We don't live in vacuums, and art (of any variety) isn't ever going to be a virgin birth. We are all products of everything we come across, and so is what we make, and THAT IS OK. And even if you know that intellectually, you can still manage to forget it on occasion. So on days, when you feel like every idea you have is unforgivably derivative - this is a great read! The book also offers valuable practical advice about things like not waiting until you think you're ready (you will never think you're ready) - just make things and see how it goes; keeping some kind of notebook/log of things as diverse as t...

Review: You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero My rating: 4 of 5 stars Listened to the audiobook version. While some of the advice was stuff that could be found in any other self help book, some of it was wholly original and exciting. And the author fully owned that not every word she was communicating could be called earth shattering. But the best reason to read this book as opposed to others is the style of the author. Jen Sincero writes like your best friend telling you the truth. She writes without pulling any punches, in a straightforward vernacular, but with a perceived underlying concern for your well-being and self improvement. It's basically impossible not to listen. View all my reviews

Review: Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway My rating: 4 of 5 stars I was assigned this book in my latest creative writing course. And, overall, it's a good read and a mostly helpful book. I admit some of it is redundant for anyone who has ever taken a previous course, or written anything of their own. But even when the subject being discussed was boring, the book often found a fresher take on it. We jumped around in the book, and didn't read the entire think in our 7.5 week course. I so liked what I read during the class that I went ahead and read the rest. Having done that, though, I can see why we skipped those parts. They didn't add much really. However, the parts we covered in class made up for that, I think, so I'm still giving this 4 stars. View all my reviews

Book Review - Three Tides - Part 5

In this final piece of Pineda’s puzzle she gives us the entire theatrical production, "Like Snow Melting in Water," which came from her previously described emptying and gathering processes. It was sparked by an article she ran across in the New York Times about a dying village in Japan. Apparently, she worked on it for 2 years and originally conceived of it as a novel, but she explained that it decided itself to be a work of the theatre instead. On the surface, someone outside this process might wonder how Pineda, with no particular tangible connection to Japan, could write something set there. But she does it, and she does it beautifully. And having followed her through her process as I have during this sometimes convoluted though always interesting journey, I can see clearly how her explanation makes sense. She says that she learned what it was to be a refugee first from her husband, and perhaps it was her contact with Katrina victims which reminded her of it, and that lif...

Book Review - Three Tides - Part 4

Pineda’s ‘gathering’ chapters are all about the epic destruction of Katrina. I come away from this reading feeling some sense of relief that many people are decent human beings who will help others in times of need, including Pineda herself. Pineda talks a lot about the strong sense of community in New Orleans before the hurricane and that during the hurricane the effected people were repeatedly “helping one another, sharing what they had.”  But the sense of relief at the humanity between individual people, gave way very quickly to disgust at the negligence of the organizations meant to help. Starting with the callous government officials who actually seem to have viewed Katrina as an opportunity to ‘clean up’ the “public housing” of New Orleans in favor of “urban renewal.” Rep. Richard Baker actually said as much, adding, “We couldn’t do it, but God did.” Apparently, they blew up the levees intentionally to sacrifice the poorer parts of town, in order to save the richer areas and ...

Book Review - Three Tides - Part 3

In the remainder of the “Emptying” segment of Three Tides, Chapter 2: Hip, Hip, But Not Hurrah, Chapter 3: Love and War, and Chapter 4: Summing Up; Pineda covers her battle with her HMO to receive treatment for her mystery ailment, the course of a new relationship against the backdrop of the upcoming war in Iraq, and a brief summation of her general feelings about the state of the world. Every time I read Pineda I am always struck by the poetic beauty of her word choices. She can write these amazingly constructed, evocative, insightful, impactful sentences which seem to want to stick with me forever, and I hope they do.   When she describes a glacial melt during an Alaskan cruise she says, “they yield up the air they may have held for hundreds of millennia.” And when she speaks of the return of romance in her life she describes love as, “momentary consolation for the enduring pain of living.” And even in describing people milling about while talking on their cellphones her sen...

Book Review: Selection from House of Stone

In my creative writing class we read a selection from House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid. In Chapter 9 “ Mr. Chaya Appears”, we are treated to a vivid rendering of a time and place that doesn’t exist the same way anymore. Shadid says of it, “in the time of the Levant there was freedom to savor the worlds of others” and that it was “a realm where imagination, artistry, and craftsmanship were not only appreciated but given free reign.” The story told in the selection is a quest to locate antique floor tiles which are routinely being stripped from houses that are being demolished. The author goes through a long process of hunting down and haggling over the original tiles, including some more ‘back alley’ routes. Eventually though he must resort to buying some handmade reproductions to stretch his supply. I found the mixing of the original richly patterned antiques with the plainer reproductions to be a very smart and practical decision, b...

Book Review - Three Tides - Part 2

I find it difficult to sum up the first chapter of Three Tides ; Limping Through Europe. I think, to be honest, it’s mostly because of the jumping around through places and times. By the end of the chapter, the jumping makes some sense. You can see more clearly at that point the threads that run through, mentally, and tie the tales together. But during the read, I think it can seem confusing – though it didn’t help that I had a headache while trying to read the first half of the chapter. Pineda tells about a trip through Europe, planned to attend a couple conferences, with the intervening weeks needing to be filled. Pineda fills those weeks by visiting old friends and seeing sites, most of which are places she has seen before and have meaning for her. More than once she notes that she has a feeling this might be the last time she gets to visit a certain beloved locale. But there is also, interspersed, tales from her childhood, about previous times she had been in one of the locations ...

Book Review: Selection from Create Dangerously

In my creative writing class we are also reading selections from various other publications. This week our selection was Chapter 1 from Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work by Edwidge Danticat. In the chapter, she talks about certain parts of her Haitian background. She describes disturbing political incidents which occurred during the dictatorship of Papa Doc Duvalier, particularly the executions of Marcel Numa and Louis Drouin. She explains the significance of the event for her by saying, "All artists, writers among them, have several stories - one might call them creation myths - that haunt and obsess them. This is one of mine." She discusses, in depth, the chilling effect such times had on art, artists, and the sharing of stories. She describes a sort of cultural oppression that went hand in hand with the physical political tyranny of the regime. On oppression which vilified such accepted classics as Camus and Sophocles. She talks about how plays would be pu...

Book Review - Three Tides - Part 1

In the Creative Writing class I'm taking at the moment We've just started reading Three Tides: Writing at the Edge of Being by Cecile Pineda . I decided I'd review it, serially, as we read it. This week, we read the Introduction and Forward only. So far, Pineda has described her writing process as encompassing 3 basic parts: Emptying, Gathering, and Making Something. She apparently intends to expound on these concepts in the ensuing sections, mostly, or partly, through memoir, I believe. Certain phrases stood out enough for me to highlight them, mostly because I loved them.  Phrases like, "No one can teach anyone how to write. Someone can teach you how to spell ..." "Writing takes forgiveness ... At first, it just needs to be allowed to do what it's doing ..." and "The how of what artists do is never easily explained. Even artists themselves find the alchemy of their art inexplicable." stand out as some of my favorites.

Book Review: You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One)

I downloaded You Are a Writer (So Start Acting Like One) by Jeff Goins on Audible the other day while battling a cold. Topics covered in the book include the motivational (picking yourself and not waiting for someone's permission to call yourself a writer) to the practical (the importance of building a platform and a brand). While I admit some of this was just common sense, some of it was genuinely new and helpful information for a self-publishing newbie like myself. And even the parts which weren't particularly revelatory, were still important on the level of reinforcement. Sometimes it helps just to be given that "just do it" pep talk one more time. I can't say that I would turn evangelist over this book, but I would definitely recommend it.