Reading the Thomas Merton book on Chuang Tzu. The latter is full of little stories and parables, but they remind me more of Kafka than Jesus. 'The Hat Saleman and the Capable Ruler' is a good example, because it leaves you wondering if the (presumably enlightened) ruler is in a state of bliss or distraught.
Like Kafka's parables, these suggest much more than they state; each one seems to promise a novel's-worth of story.
I want to read those novels.
Just got a tiny Asus computer to take along on an upcoming vacation, and it seems pretty nice - about the size of a large paperback. You can hook up a full-sized keyboard and display if you want. No CD drive, but this thing is the size of a mid-sized paperback novel, so you wouldn't expect one. It has 3 USB ports for extras. The small keys don't really bother me, as I'm not a touch-typist.
It comes with enough software to get me writing by the lake, that's what I aim to do.
I attended PodCast Boston a week and a day ago, and it gave me all sorts of ideas.
Because I consider myself to be a "content provider", that is a producer rather than a merchant or consumer, I decided to try to make some content and sell it online, a bit like a bagel vendor.
But I am hawking sound clips that I have composed. Yes, I know that other people do this (at outrageous prices, too!), but nobody offers the clips that I make but me, for better or worse.
These are tiny compositions and are cranky or delicate; some are just weird.
Check out my site: Your Own Web Music
I wrote to Random House about a month ago to ask for permission to use part of Gift from the Sea as the text for a piece of music. I used snail mail, because that's what I always have done in the past. I am dying to get started composing, but still no word from the publishers. I don't see why this should take so long - there's no risk to them, after all.
This is why I most often write my own texts these days.
However, the Anne Morrow Lindbergh words are beautiful and worth waiting for, I guess...
First, a disclaimer - I am the father of the director of the play(Gerritt Turner), and not the most unbiased bloke on my block, therefore.
Check out the web site: Self-portrait As Schiele
The play is in the NY Fringe Festival in August. I have read versions of the script as it was in progress, and it looks pretty interesting. A woman in a hospital keeps seeing Egon Schiele, the great expressionist artist. He infects her with Schiele memes, and very odd things happen to her and the other characters.
Having read the script, I can't wait to see this thing. In person it should be ten times better.
Whew! Setting up Facebook, looking at Tweeter messages, fielding emails, some from old friends and some from new ones (PodCamp Boston 2008), etc.
The caricature that I did of myself has turned out to be quite useful:
I am using it for Tweeter, FaceBook, and Technorati.
This stuff is exhilarating, actually. Today I had two ideas for micro-businesses for myself as a content provider.
Time to get to work on those.
