After creating the most viral video game of all time, Alexey Pajitnov went back to work.
From: Tetris: The Games People Play
By: Box Brown
Tag: am reading
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Day fullblown and splendid….day of the immense sun,
and action and ambition and laughter,
The night follows close, with millions of suns, and sleep
and restoring darkness.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. And thanks for reading!
From: Leaves of Grass 150th Anniversary Edition (Penguin Classics), pg.157
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Great is youth, and equally great is old age….great are
the day and night;
Great is wealth and great is poverty….great is
expression and great is silence.
Youth large lusty and loving….youth full of grace and
force and fascination,
Do you know that old age may come after you with equal
grace and force and fascination?
Old age is coming with grace and fascination?
I’m not so sure.
Force?
Yes.
You’re right Walt. Old age is the unstoppable force.
From: Leaves of Grass 150th Anniversary Edition (Penguin Classics), pg.157
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Label clearly. Measure twice. Eat elsewhere.
The Name of the Wind: 10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, pg 243. Patrick RothfussIn case you’re asked…
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Great are yourself and myself,
We are just as good and bad as the oldest and youngest
or any,
What the best and worst did we could do,
What they felt..do we not feel it in ourselves?
What they wished..do we not wish the same?
Was Walt Whitman a stoic?
Parts of this poem make it seem so. I need to research his biography to learn more.
Follow up soon…
From: Leaves of Grass 150th Anniversary Edition (Penguin Classics), pg.156,157
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The Explorers Guild is unique.
It’s structure, pages of prose intertwined with pages of comics, is a format I’ve never seen before.
Most of the comic’s layouts follow this 4 panel design. Illustrator Rick Ross‘s (No. Not that Rick Ross) draftsmanship scales this restraint, bringing the characters to life. The actions and emotions of the characters are believable, despite the limitations.
Check it out here.
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Some kids have imaginary friends.
Some kids have real friends.
I had Cascāo comics.
During those long days at my grandma’s apartment I could count on Cascāo to get me through the afternoon.
I didn’t understand Portuguese so I let the drawings tell the story.
Comics make great company. They speak every language.
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Afternoon light ripened the valley
From: Another Life, by Derek Walcott. As read from Teju Cole’s essay Derek Walcott, from his collection of essays – Known and Strange Things.
I read this Derek Walcott line repeatedly. I admit I’d never heard of Walcott before reading Teju Cole’s essay.
With a few words Walcott took me to a mountain range.
I could see the orange and yellows wash across the shrubs. I watched the white and pink light flood over the granite.
I wanted to keep going back there.
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Thoughts from an amateur.
I’ve written before on how to to write a poem. Followed by how to truly write a poem – study Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook and then practice.
But reading a poem is a whole different pack of monkeys.
I developed this weird method to help me absorb the poems I read. It slows me down, so I don’t rocket through the lines. The aim is to bury the verses in my subconscious.
See if it works for you.
First I read the poem to myself. From the first verse to the last, all the way through.
Then I’ll read the poem from the end to the beginning. I read line by line, from the final verse, back up to the opener:
From Over the Fence, Emily Dickinson Reading it backwards is like reverse engineering. It helps me see the poem’s structure. How each verse builds up to the final one.
After that, I’ll read the poem beginning to end again, but this time out loud.
Reading out loud helps you find the poem’s rhythm. I’m sure there’s things like meter and tone involved as well, but I won’t pretend to know how.
Then I’ll read the poem in reverse order again. But this time in full blocks. Starting from the bottom of the poem to the top:
From Again his voice is at the door, Emily Dickinson
While reading I’ll keep a pencil close. If the poem rhymes I search for the rhyming pattern by underlining all the rhyming words.
From Again his voice is at the door, Emily Dickinson Once finished, I’ll log the date, author, and name of the poem in my steno book. Keeping a record gives me a sense of progress.
It’s a practice I stole the from director Steven Soderbergh who publishes a yearly log of what he’s watched, read, and listened to, on his site.
This how I read a poem. You may read a poem once and bin it. And that works too.
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Deep roots We all have that ideal person we want to be.
That imaginary, idealized person who drifts into our daydreams during a Wednesday afternoon budget meeting.
This imaginary-self is usually a mix of various people you admire. And everyone’s imaginary- self is different.
Some are a cross of Conan O’ Brian, Beyoncé and Martha Stewart.
For others it’s a mix of Joe Rogan, Bill Gates and Morgan Freeman.
And for others it’s part Frank Lloyd Wright, part Tony Bennett and part Jane Austin.
But my imaginary, idealized person? My imaginary-self?
A bear.
Robert Macfarlane describes him with incredible detail in his book Underland: A Deep Time Journey
There is something of the polar bear to Bjørnar: there in his powerful physique, his heftedness to the north, those white eyes, and of course in his name: Bjørnar, the Bear, from the Old Norse bjørn. He is an intense, intelligent presence; a person you would want fighting for you and would dread as an enemy. He is not without self-regard, but I do not begrudge him that.
There is also a strong mystical streak to Bjørnar: unexpected perhaps, in a man whose working life compels him daily to such pragmatism and self-reliance. But – as I will learn – Bjørnar looks often through things: hard into them and right through them with those pale eyes of his. He looks through people, through bullshit, and the through the surface of the sea.
Robert Macfarlane, Underland: A Deep Time Journey, pg 292-293, Chapter: The Edge.A heftedness to the north.
A powerful physique.
The ability to look through the surface of the sea.
Add relentless, creative, box-to-box midfielder to the list and my imaginary-self’s profile is complete.
What traits does your imaginary-self possess?
And now some:
Wordsmithing –
Heft - n. chiefly N. Amer. 1 weight. 2 Ability or influence.
Origin ME: prob. from HEAVE , on the pattern of words such as cleft and weft.
Floodlights and Goalposts 