Thursday, June 30, 2011

Deep Fried Butter

Imagine.


Well, its chocolate covered, does that help? "Deep fried butter. Totally deep fried," says an ad at the Dell Mar Fair California. Additional delicacies: “Chocolate covered bacon, Twinkies, and Oreos.”


I figured that was something like Bull Poker where 4 guys each pay 50 bucks each to sit around a table playing poker—with a live bull in the ring. The last man standing or alive would get the pot. They ought to get the Darwin award—that is the award to the person who kills themselves in the most stupid way. One year they gave it to a man who didn’t die—the lawn chair man who went up with a sandwich, a can of beer, and a shotgun to shoot out the balloons that had carried him aloft—so aloft—you know the story—that he drifted into the jet path and was escorted down by the military. After all, he carried a gun.


Okay, that aside, I wrote about my manuscript on the last blog, and here’s the latest: I put it in my backpack and took off for a quiet spot under gigantic Douglas firs beside a gurgling stream. En route I encountered a raging river, and since others were rafting it, and they invited me to join them, I climbed aboard a rubber raft that immediately dropped me about 50 feet into a tumultuous river. Together we cascaded down rapids so frightening it would make your grandma drop her undies. I climbed out shaken but alive. My backpack was damp, but whew, the manuscript was still there. I said good-bye to my team-mates and took off around the bend and was almost flattened by a run-away train from a mine shaft. Gosh, and on my way to that quiet spot too. That train so unnerved me that I dropped my backpack, and white papers littered the landscape like, well, like white pages.


I dropped to my knees scooped up my papers, sheepishly, not wanting anyone to see me looking stupid—a duck did, and after pecking at it and not seeing it was editable, he pooped on it. Page 71, “Living on the Edge,” guess that’s how he felt about it. I wiped Living on the Edge on grass, folded it over and put it between page 70 and page 72, and went off to find my quiet spot—that is if there ever is a quiet spot at Disneyland.


Attribution…that’s the reason I imagined the above story. I think it needs more angst though. Attribution is the story behind the event or object. Since I’m not famous I need a story…


There is a painting hanging in the Louvre that is over 500 years old. It was stolen in 1911 and the face in the painting was plastered across newspapers around the world. More people lined up to see the place where the picture had hung than had ever come to see the painting before the theft. Over the years this painting had acid thrown at it, red paint sprayed on it, and a gift-shop mug hurled at it. Now it sits in a massive room protected by bullet proof glass. It is the rock star of the world.


To the left and right of the Mona Lisa hangs Salvator Rosa’s paintings—really nice, but they have no pedigree, no mystery, and no story. Two equally beautiful paintings—one a legend, the other a nice painting.



Baby D and Bear on our "Green Trail of Bliss" Hawaii.


Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Singing Frog

I read that writers ought to have someone read their manuscript. If the reader says “It’s crap,” send them a bottle of champagne.

Well, that’s assuming it’s an honest assessment of course. A couple of extremely wonderful, courageous, talented people read my manuscript and didn’t tell me it was crap, kind souls that they are. Thank you, thank you. Well, dear readers, it’s different now. I’ve been rewriting, editing, changing the beginning, changing the ending, thinking about it, scaring myself, motivating myself, reliving our adventure, cutting out so many parts my “extra” file is bigger than the manuscript. You know how it is, it’s finished, it isn’t finished. Okay, read it again. How did those types get in there? What? What was I talking about? Okay, who’s toying with my pages?

Once called Life Beyond the Horizon, Secrets from the Big Island, I’ve renamed my manuscript about our move to and from Hawaii to The Frog’s Song, Secrets from the Big Island.

Some of my old time readers might laugh. I have used that title for so long they are probably tired of it. Darling Daughter and I have even acquired that name as a non-profit status—not that we know what to do with it. The name suits me—I don’t know, maybe it’s that I can croak out my words, maybe that frogs have potential to become princesses…

I loved the Coqui frog’s song of Hawaii. It seemed pertinent that I was plunked down in the midst of singing frogs. Many people on the island wanted to eradicate them—frogs that sound like birds, that make the jungle ring, that eat insects and mosquitoes, that do not harm anything they don’t eat, and their song is to call a mate. Right, that seems like something to eradicate.

“The frog calls the rain that settles the dust for our journey.”

Okay let’s move it.

Love from Joyce