Welcome the second month of the new decade

Here we are and it is February. A thick coat of white to blanket fair Lancaster expected this weekend. And honestly, would it be February in Lancaster PA if that weren't the case?

For a change, at the end of this month I am going to Orlando! A Florida trip with just the family. Usually I don't go, not interested in Disney's rampant commercialism, but realizing that despite my disdain for Disney as it is. My family members, especially my sweet youngest sister so over the top with joy that Alvie will be going to Orlando! Mom is happy too, but no one so happy as Sara.

One of my goals for this year, get out of America, even for a couple days. Where? Anywhere cheap to fly too and stay in. Language barriers? I'm not so worried about that. What to do? I just want to relax, spend time in the sun, write in my journal or even my laptop, take some photos and if possible, ride my Bridgestone around.

Finally, took me long enough!

So I put off writing for a while as there has been little to write about. So apparently, this is an exception, and a worthy one I think.

Last years big blockbuster, James Cameron's Avatar offers much commentary on militarism, capitalism, racism and the influence those factors have had on the political climate of decades and centuries past where few have brought guns and germs devastating the landscape and the people who lived on them. This story takes place far from our home planet, but in a way, not so far from home, as it is in a way, a very human story.

The Na'vi and their way of life depend deeply on the health of the forests they call home. They live without concern for economy and social class. Their concern is the forest, the lush and gorgeous world of Pandora, where the geography bares similarity to Earth's tropical rain-forests. The creatures and people of Pandora so strange to our eyes much like the flora and fauna of the tropics may have been to European explorers in centuries past.

And much like the conquerors of times past, people from earth, a powerful corporation using military personnel and weaponry, have come for one thing: extracting the mineral unobtanium. Oh so expensive, and whose purpose to the Na'vi remains a mystery, but like the conquerors in history, they cared none about whatever uses petroleum, copper, gold and other minerals had to the indigenous people they took these resources from. Their "need" for X-mineral trumped all concerns for human rights and environmental impact, but who cares? Someone's getting rich!

So, would I say go see it? I'm no cinephile, nor a huge Cameron fan, but I'll say, the effects render a gorgeous looking film, however the character development is alright, though I thought the antagonist Quaritch, to be much like characters in Cameron's other flicks, I.E kind of un-real, they can be sometimes to evil, to smarmy, etc. The change to humans as invading aliens and the Na'vi as defending their home is pretty well executed and not often seen in Sci-Fi.

The other main aspect, the modern man becoming part of a tribal society, and gaining greater respect for the natural world that is his new home. Well, that's been done often before, I.E Ferngully and Dances With Wolves, and while not done poorly, it's not done in a stunningly original way either.
Overall, I liked this film.

Going into 2010, some reflections on 2009

2009 had been my year of change, in that I didn't just try doing a handful of things I had done before, but I lived a new life that gave me direction.

Moving out from home for six-months April to November 2009 to take a job on an organic farm.

Thinking back, I like aspects of the country life. But enjoy it much more so when an exciting city is close by.
In Virginia, the closest small town required a car to get too, 6-miles one way on a very hilly road. In PA, the small town, which had all the necessities we needed, a mile away, accessible by bike, but like W-Town VA, a hilly ride on not so bike-friendly roads either. The exciting city, el capital de estados unidos, 50+ miles away. Compared to el ciudad de bromance, a short, easy train or trolley ride courtesy of SEPTA. All in all though, I'd never want to live for to long a time outside the city, in the country, as well, I get kind of bored, and need to find things to do, restless? maybe, but it's who I am.

Though I started and ended the year with the same change in status: single. But more importantly, I gained something from beginning to end I always needed, and built up what I already have. More confidence, direction, clarity, happiness with oneself.

Losing more weight, starting the year at 185, and ending at 168-172 makes me happy.

I blogged very little, mostly on bike-related stuff, little on much else.
I'm not that much of a blogger I guess, I like writing blogs, though the quirky aspects make them feel odd to write at times, but whatever I still will.

Speaking of writing, I'd like to engage in that more productively. Even learn how to teach it someday, but always make time to just write, write non-fiction, fiction, occasional poetry, whatever, just write! Keep writing! as the Empress with three Fs in her name once said.

Enough for now...
I'm going to do all I can to embrace and enjoy this new year for what it will be. A New Year!

day of retreat

Herrbrook farm, cottage to rent for the day. A few miles outside of town away from city, the noise and the energy.

Personal goal: figure out someway to spend at least a day, if not longer, outside my fair city of Lancaster, even if in the county, but just outside the city at least. Once a week is my ultimate goal, but even a couple times a month is pretty sweet too. So far, not one day this year, but I know that will change.

Ah yes, the retreat. Going with the intention of having just a day of relaxation and self-discovery. Seriously, just being somewhere away from it all for a day, or half a day, with the phone turned off is just wonderful.
Thinking of those I should keep close, and lately those I should create distance from, the relaxing environment to just be by myself and alone opens the senses, and allows the thought process so much freedom from distractions.

I'm going back, maybe in a month or so, preferably when the weather is warm enough to bike there, and I would have if not for the frigid temperatures.

who I am and art, stream of conciousness

In living outside my usual stomping grounds, getting a change of scenery, even if not that far from home, and for the most part befriending the same peoples. I learned much about myself: I cannot live a life without pursuing what I love.

What do I love? I like taking photos and writing to put it in simply human terms.

What to take pictures of? Whatever catches my eye.

Writing out what I want on however I feel some moment of the day, at night, whenever putting my thoughts into words on a computer screen adequately expresses emotions and feelings of the present moment.
Discussing life, beliefs, cats, bikes, keeping these written thoughts secret, mattering only to me, thoughts I sketch out in journals. Burning, intense thoughts expressed through written words, with no regret or worry of "correctness" just writing it all.

Art is created by humanity, as is language, poetry and emotion. Expressed in human terms, that is when we relate, we love, hurt and feelings are evoked when something speaks to us. Stating the obvious? Yes, but often have we endured art that speaks to the creator, not the masses.

Writing reflections

In tasked to write a critical piece on myself as a writer that addressed how I got into writing and whether or not I am a good writer the following below had been extracted from a paper written sometime ago on such a subject.

First creating written works just for the joy of doing so beginning as a teenager through dream journals and jotting down random thoughts about life, work and school.

As a "super-freshman" that first semester ever of college, unprepared for academia but ready to take it all in stride I found joy when the partaking in the freshman composition class we were expected to start keeping journals.
With this journal everyday thoughts, musings, heartaches, and exuberance put into words on a computer file that has grown to several hundred pages. Using the journal more as a personal record than anything else, I keep writing in it. The written work in all forms to quirky to be of much interest, does provide a forum for practicing that crucial skill of revision and the always valuable practice of writing.

Inspirations for writing come from looking at the world around me and putting into words what the site of a mountain, a tree or a feline friend mean to me. The world of the mind, the creation of alternate realities we visit momentarily through dreaming serves as inspirations for future written works.

I'll never call myself a “good-writer” though confident in my capabilities writing a variety of decent pieces, such as paper articles, occasional pieces of poetry and short stories, fiction and non-fiction I have attempted to write it all. Much of my writing has been geared to the academic environment that emphasizes more neatly put together works on a given subject using formulas for doing so. And over the years, having attended three different colleges in almost six-years and writing musings of my own for the last eight or nine, my writing just through sheer effort, practice, much revision and having others comment on my writings strengths and weaknesses naturally has lead to improvement, not because I write more and allow my writing to get criticized, but because of deliberate efforts to actually become a better writer.
In reading the last passage, the idea that just writing over and over will improve your abilities, is a bit to simplified, after all continuing writing the same way for a long time does not lead to better writing. Improving as writer is more than just practice it is review, revision and criticism that improves one's writing talents.

As someone with a personality disinclined to continue doing repetitive tasks, which may include writing if the motivation for writing is not there. Once you know how to write for a class, an A for a paper will make you think that, you do not challenge yourself to improve your writing except in areas you may get comments on from an instructor saying what needs to be better done. For myself, and many other writers I imagine, my major holdup has always been, and certainly be for sometime that inability to only occasionally write passionate discourses on a subject, properly edited for grammar and punctuation. Yes, I know and I am conscious of the rules. Arguing that it is easy enough to judge other people’s work is one thing, and once I can look at my own more objectively, it can be criticized more effectively, helping myself as a writer, as well as my fellow writers.

Devastated as a freshman when commentary that my writing lacked passion became clear to me. Unfortunately than and now overall I only infrequently wrote with much passion on a given subject, as many do not inspire me much as they were options for the class. Though doing my best, sometimes scoring extremely well, almost never do I think about those written works with much pride other than thinking about the grades I had gotten. Except one: a short story I had written based on a dream some years ago, I thought would be a great basis for a story, so I wrote a 5+ page paper, turned it in, hoping for the best. Pleasantly surprised it got an A+ with several positive comments written on the paper once I got it back, including “great story!”.

In writing classes, I always sat anxious on workshop days to see whose pieces would be discussed that day.
I'll always feel that workshops have been and always are valuable way to help people improve their writing, as they get a chance to hear people’s thoughts, biased or not, and not just read the professor’s comments on the papers. When getting feedback on my writing, actual critical feedback beyond “oh great piece, later dude” as some peers remarked, inspires me to revise my pieces. The peer review process plays a positive role complementing work-shopping and formal criticism, as it gives writers an opportunity to show that good writing evolves from better reading skills. The two go hand in hand, as you work to show how well you read the paper, and have to show, through effort on your part in writing a tight, to the point peer review. Writing peer reviews, aside from being useful ways to help other writers iron out shortcomings in their own works also serves as valuable practice for the peer reviewer themselves to improve their own writing.

As to the art and craft of writing. All works need some efforts for revision, as no work spilled from the writer's mind is in a pure, readable state. However, every class with a writing component where your writing is up for criticism, and not just grades, always served me well in trying to improve upon my writing skills. Getting assignments to write outside my comfort zones, such as a paper on solitude a subject that pushes my writing abilities outside my comfort zone, creating a challenge to show through writing how much I can discuss on the subject with a level of clarity and focus that has been built up through years of writing, feedback, and revision.

Writings on a Lee and Lawrence play.

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee most famous for their 1955 play Inherit The Wind, a dramatic retelling of the Scopes monkey trial of the 1920s.

The Wikipedia entry is weak, but a link will be included anyway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Thoreau_Spent_in_Jail

The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail of 1970 dramatizes reflections on life Thoreau could have shared with a fictitious cellmate the night in 1846 he spent in jail after refusing to pay poll taxes over the last 6-years. The same incident would prompt him to write the essay “Civil Disobedience” later an inspiration to Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and others who used and encouraged non-violent protest to inspire others to work towards social reform.

Throughout the play, events in Thoreau’s life, portrayed as flashbacks as he talks to his cellmate known as 'Bailey', an illiterate man finding inspiration in much of what Thoreau has to tell him. The familiar aspects of Thoreau’s life and the moral convictions that guided him in his life are portrayed including his relationship with Ralph Waldo Emerson; thoughts and writings on transcendentalism; simple living; the building of his shack on Walden pond; his role in the abolitionist movement; and finally his opposition to the Mexican-American war. When the play premiered in 1970, Lawrence and Lee saw historical parallels with Thoreau’s time. Just as Thoreau questioned material progress in his time, people in the ‘70s questioned whether material, new plastics, and technological progress, better automobiles, computers and such, actually advanced human society. In the introduction, “The Now Thoreau” Lawrence and Lee write about 'Emerson’s handy man' how he foresaw how technology and progress are not synonymous:

“To create a better world, we need to make things bigger, faster, stronger and cheaper. But materialism is not the way. THOREAU KNEW THAT.

He smelled the smog before we saw it.

It smarted his soul before it smarted our eyes.” (Lawrence vii)

The Mexican-American war of the 1840s, well remembered because of an American victory and the acquisition of territories becoming much of the Southwest U.S. faced much opposition during Thoreau's time, over not just the legality and morality, but because it also expanded the power of slave-holding states. Thoreau, an ardent abolitionist became a vocal opponent of the war, thus in 1846 as an act of retaliation, and seeing that powerful people only speak in financial terms, he refused to pay poll taxes that could be used to support the war. Sam Staples, the Concord MA constable, jails him for refusing to pay. This historic scene is illustrated in the play when Staples implores Thoreau to just pay the tax, but Thoreau, in the middle of downtown Concord, adamant in his refusal to pay creates a scene, and is thus arrested. (Lawrence)

Serving as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Thoreau let runaway slaves stay at his parent’s house on their trek to freedom. (Harding 3) An experience with a runaway slave is recounted in Act Two. Williams, the runaway slave meets Thoreau at his cabin in the woods, at first afraid of Thoreau, but calming down after Thoreau just talks to him as a human of no lesser or higher status than his own and offers to share his cabin and the little bit of food he has with Williams. (Lawrence 80-86) A beautiful scene, it is not Thoreau, the transcendentalist, the non-violent agitator for social reform, it is just Thoreau the man as he puts his beliefs into practice, without ideology or hidden agenda.

A dramatic nightmare sequence showing the horrors that is war, Emerson, his long time friend and unbiased critic, plays President Polk, as he both justifies his war with Mexico, while making others fight it for him. While this happens, Thoreau’s calls for peace and simplicity go unheard, as people march to “HATE TWO THREE FOUR” over and over. He talks to an Illinois congressman who opposed the war:

“I doubt if the people of Illinois will re-elect you, but I shall remember who you are, Congressman Lincoln” (Lawrence 92-97)

The power of The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail is how it portrays, be it fictitiously Henry David Thoreau's life yet does justice to Thoreau's beliefs, speaking well of the everlasting power simplicity holds and that any man, or woman, if they hold true to their deepest moral convictions must be prepared to not only live the lifestyles they promote, but also never forget that they may have to suffer for them, either through jail time, or the criticism and ridicule of those who do not see life the way you do, whether they be blind or just cynical about it. The play dramatizes events in Thoreau’s life, but it is written so more modern audiences can appreciate the beliefs Thoreau, and those who would be inspired by him hold dear.

Works cited:

Lawrence Jerome, and Lee, Robert E. “The Now Thoreau” The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail 1970

Meyerson, Joel ed. “Thoreau’s Reputation” Cambridge Companion to Thoreau. Cambridge

University Press 1995