Pictures of the Day
Here are some photographs of the incredible solar eclipse that swept over the Pacific region this past weekend, including the breathtaking “ring of fire” phenomenon, which makes this event more astounding. There’s nothing like such a spectacle to humble humanity back to its knees.
Filed under News
May 20, 2012 – 214 Days Until Baktun 12
Survivalist Tip: This is in tune with my previous post about meditation. As an avid runner and weight lifter, I understand the importance of breathing properly. In the aftermath of the apocalypse, there’s no doubt you’ll be exerting a great deal of force; whether searching for food and water, running from a wild bear, or burying the body of someone who tried to steal your chocolate. People underestimate the importance of breathing correctly. They think of it like turning on the faucet: good, clean water will come out automatically. So, why put so much thought into it? Don’t be a dumb ass! It’s not that simple. Inhaling deeply and correctly gets oxygen into your diaphragm, which is then parceled out to your organs and limbs. It’s critical, therefore, you fully understand how to breathe properly.
You inhale mostly through your nose and exhale mostly through your mouth. You relax your stomach muscles and let air fill up your chest cavity. Don’t heave your shoulders or your entire torso too much. It’s easier said than done, especially when you’re in the midst of a 10K race or a bodybuilding contest. To be fair, I’ve never done either – except in my wildest utopian fantasies. But, since we’re talking survivalism here, utopia is out of the question. Taking full, proper breaths on a regular basis isn’t just necessary to stay alive, it’s essential to good overall health.
To grow accustomed to breathing properly, place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach. Now, inhale as deeply as you can through your nose, although if you take in air through your mouth, that’s okay. Try to keep your shoulders level. If the hand on your stomach moved before the hand on your chest, you’re doing it properly. If you heaved your entire body upwards as if lifting a set of 100-pound dumbbells, you’re breathing too much with your shoulders. You need to relax your stomach as much as possible. This also will help you develop that cherished, yet elusive 6-pack, which in turn, is key to upper body stability and strength. So, while looking beautiful may be important to you, staying alive is even more significant. Altogether now – breeeeeeeathe.
Filed under Mayan Calendar Countdown
May 20 Notable Birthdays
If today is your birthday, “Happy Birthday!”
Actor David Hedison (Licence to Kill, Live and Let Die) is 85.
Actor James McEachin (The Dead Don’t Die, Double Exposure) is 82.
Actress Constance Towers (Naked Kiss, On Wings of Eagles) is 79.
Actor Anthony Zerbe (Harry-O, The Young Riders, Licence to Kill, Onassis, Rooster Cogburn, The Parallax View, Papillon) is 76.
Singer – songwriter Joe Cocker (With a Little Help from My Friends, She Came in through the Bathroom Window, The Letter, You are So Beautiful) is 68.
Singer – actress Cher (Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre; I Got You Babe, The Beat Goes On; Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves, The Way of Love, Dark Lady; Moonstruck, The Witches of Eastwick, Silkwood, Mask) is 66.
Political commentator Ronald Prescott Reagan Jr., son of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, is 54.
Actor Bronson Pinchot (Courage Under Fire, Beverly Hills Cop series, The Flamingo Kid, Risky Business) is 53.
Actor Tony Goldwyn (Truman, Pocahontas: The Legend, Nixon, The Pelican Brief, Ghost) is 52.
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On May 20…
1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama became the first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean when he arrived at Calicut.
1506 – Christopher Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain.
1768 – Dolly Madison, wife of President James Madison, was born in Guilford County, North Carolina.
1799 – Novelist Honoré de Balzac was born in Tours, France.
1862 – The U.S. Congress passed the Homestead Act, allowing any adult over the age of 21 to claim 160 acres of land from public domain.
1873 – San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss received a patent for blue jeans.
1875 – The International Bureau of Weights and Measures was established.
1908 – Actor Jimmy Stewart was born in Indiana, PA.
1927 – Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in New York aboard the small airplane Spirit of St. Louis, and arrived in Paris, France, thirty-one and a half hours later.
1985 – The Dow Jones industrial average broke the 1300 mark for the first time, gaining 19.54 points to close at 1304.88.
1995 – Under pressure from the Secret Service, President Bill Clinton authorized closure of a 2-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to all non-pedestrian traffic.
Filed under History
Quote of the Day
“It looks like the people who were worried about his Mormonism, at least that crowd is diminishing somewhat. The question is, if you have two candidates, you don’t have Jesus running against someone else. You have Obama running against Romney.”
– Pat Robertson’s tepid hint at an endorsement of Mitt Romney.
Someone get the smelling salt! I’m about to pass out! Pat Robertson is actually starting to make sense! The Mayan apocalypse really must be near.
Filed under News
Loathsome Writing Advice
This is as hysterical as it is true. Freelance writer Karen Briggs presents 20 golden bits of wisdom for the dedicated scribe. Raise your hand if you’ve been told you must follow these or die in a sewer clutching your unpublished manuscript?!
1. Write every day, even if it’s not for publication. Oh Christ, like I need to practise just for the sheer sake of practising. While I’m at it, why don’t I get some of those multi-lined sheets and revisit my cursive technique? I always liked doing j’s and q’s …
2. Write for free, in order to get “exposure” (see previous rant here).
3. Enter writing contests. Totally counter productive in a head-spinning number of ways. Not only are you now writing for the privilege of submitting an entry fee, you’re never going to get paid, your material (whether it’s any good or not) will instantly become someone else’s property, and you’re just going to become totally demoralized when it disappears into a black hole and is never heard from again. Trust me, hardly anyone in the history of time and space has ever launched a writing career based on a contest. (And please don’t bother sending me the story of the sister-in-law of your second cousin who won a writing contest and is now J.K. Rowling. I don’t want to know.)
4. Create a business plan and calculate how much you’re worth per hour. Sure, a great idea on paper. Think you’re consistently going to get anything remotely near what you’re worth in this business? If so, you have a way better publicist than I do.
5. Try using ‘bid sites’ or writing for content mills. A great way to break in, if your plan is to establish that you will work for crumbs and never expect to be treated any better. Seriously, 1500 words for $5? Thank you, sir, may I have another? Plus, honestly, the content on the content mills is such shite that you’re not exactly enhancing your resume in such company. The bid sites are even more humiliating: just how much more can you debase yourself than the next guy?
6. Write what you know. Ugh. Just shoot me. Okay, I did begin by focusing on a niche in which I already had good contacts. B ut a journo’s job is not to dispense her own wisdom… it’s to dispense the wisdom of others. I didn’t know anything about shopping for a mid-sized tractor, but I was able to a) locate a few experts and b) ask questions, like, say, “So what’s the deal with mid-sized tractors, then?”, then c) write down their answers. Voila. Article. Write what you DON’T know, and chances are you’ll ask much better questions.
7. Everyone wants to read your autobiography or journal of Deep Thoughts. Hey, it’s even more fun if you write it in the third person, as if you were interviewing yourself. It will simply fly off the shelves because you are just so gosh-darn interesting.
8. Use correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Oh. My. Fucking. Gawd. You need to be told this?
9. Get lots of sleep. Sure, as long as deadlines aren’t an issue for you … I’m sure your editor will understand the vital importance of being well-rested.
10. Designate a space for your writing where you can work undisturbed. I can’t even manage this, living alone with two cats. They are all over me like hairy white on rice, and that’s to say nothing of my keyboard. Good luck achieving it if you have a spouse and/or ankle-biters. Unless you build your very own dungeon, and don’t mind emerging to heaven knows what kind of chaos which has occurred in your bleary-eyed absence. The thing about working from home is, you’re not really doing anything important, are you, so you are the first victim people call when they need a couch moved or a horse subdued for the vet …
11. Eat healthy snacks. By all means, make sure your beta-carotene, your psyllium fibre, your spirulina, and your omega-3 intakes are appropriate for the writing life. Pretend you have unlimited leisure time and no bills to pay.
12. Go for long walks, commune with nature, find your bliss etc. Because that’s how articles get written. Certainly not by doing research, interviewing sources, or, um, sitting down and writing.
13. Read lots of stuff. I am absolutely convinced that the bilingual text on my morning box of Cap’n Crunch has made me a better writer. Seriously, there are people with writing ambitions who never read anything? Plus, plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.
14. You are a “real writer” if you believe you are. I believe I’m the heiress to the Thomson media empire, too, but my bank balance, tragically, disagrees. I’m sorry, but if you’ve never had anything published, you are a hobbyist scribbler. Maybe an ambitious one, maybe just a delusional one, but your writing needs to be able to stand up to professional scrutiny before you can use the appellation. Just sayin’.
15. Do creative cross-training to stimulate the ‘writing juices’. Oh, yes. Make greeting cards out of coloured construction paper and compose a delightful handwritten verse for the innards. Create bombs from pipecleaners, an old deadbolt, and some glitter glue. And while you’re at it, sell your crafty creations on Etsy — you might at least make some money that way.
16. If you’re writing for children, use simple words. Distressingly conspicuous, wouldn’t you say?
17. Don’t fear what you write. Huh? Well, I guess if what you write exposes your secret, festering desire to become a pedophilic serial killer, you might want to be a little afraid. Or at least surrender yourself to the authorities before things get messy. Trust me, it’s better this way.
18. Come up with catchy titles. a.k.a., You Can Never Have Too Much Alliteration.
19. I confess, I love, love, love this one: ”If you’re writing fiction, it’s a great idea to have a plot. It will coordinate your thoughts and add consistency to the text.” (This was actually taken from one of those writing-tips blogs.) Good Christ on a donkey, why didn’t I think of that?
20. A writer is someone who needs to write, has to write, is consumed by the passion to write. Two words: sheer bollocks.
May 18, 2012 – 216 Days Until Baktun 12
Survivalist Tip: Okay, breathe deeply through the nose and exhale gently through the mouth. Or, something like that. It’s called meditation – a method of transcendental cogitation practiced throughout the ages by most every society on Earth. Except modern America. The ancient Maya and other Indigenous Americans thought differently about cleansing their minds of impurities. And, they didn’t mean thoughts of cheesecake and masturbation – both of which I thoroughly enjoy. Meditation – literally thinking of nothing for 20 minutes or so – alleviates your mental faculties of life’s congestion and prevents cerebral hemorrhages. As I readjust my own life and reconsider what’s valuable, I return to my previous passion for meditation and I recommend the same for you in preparation for the coming apocalypse. Nothing will get you set for the “New Universe” like a clear mind! Altogether now – breeeeeathe.
Filed under Mayan Calendar Countdown
In Memoriam – Carlos Fuentes, 1929 – 2012
Carlos Fuentes at home in México City in 2001. Photo courtesy Henry Romero/Reuters.
Carlos Fuentes, México’s most elegant and renowned writer, died at a hospital in México City May 15. He was 83. Fuentes published his first novel Where the Air Is Clear in 1958 at age 29, which set off an explosion of literary genius and introduced the English-speaking world to Latin American literature. Fuentes gained famed in the United States with 1985’s El Gringo, a tale about American writer Ambrose Bierce, who disappeared during the Mexican Revolution. It was the first book by a Mexican novelist to become a best seller in the U.S.
Like many writers, Fuentes was more ideological than political; choosing to embrace justice and essential human rights regardless of political labels. He supported Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution that overthrew the regime of Cuba’s Fulgencio Batista. But, Fuentes eventually turned against Castro when he saw the latter had become much like his predecessor. He sympathized with Latin America’s indigenous peoples and opposed the administration of President George W. Bush because of its anti-terrorism tactics and immigration stance. But, he also criticized Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, dubbing him a “tropical Mussolini,” and condemned México’s failed war on drugs, which has taken some 50,000 lives over the past 5 years.
Like any passionate scribe, Fuentes communicated best through his works. He wrote with fervor, becoming one of modern literature’s most prolific writers. In The Death of Artemio Cruz, a 1962 novel considered his masterpiece, his title character, an ailing newspaper baron confined to his bed, looks back at his climb out of poverty and his heroic exploits in the Mexican Revolution, concluding that it had failed in its promise of a more egalitarian society.
Though Fuentes wrote in just about every genre, including opera – a 2008 work inspired by the life of Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna, the wooden-legged president of México during the Texas Revolution – he declined to write an autobiography. “One puts off the biography like you put off death,” he once said. “To write an autobiography is to etch the words on your own gravestone.”
Carlos Fuentes was born on November 11, 1928, in Panama, the son of Berta Macías and Rafael Fuentes, a Mexican diplomat. As his father moved among Mexican embassies, Fuentes spent his early childhood in several South American countries. In 1936, the family arrived in Washington, D.C., where Fuentes learned to speak English fluently while enrolled in a public school.
In 1940 the family was transferred again, this time to Santiago, Chile, where young Carlos began to experiment with writing. In an interview with The Times in 1985, Fuentes said he first had to decide “whether to write in the language of my father or the language of my teachers.” He chose Spanish because he believed that it offered more flexibility than English, but there was also a practical reason. English, he said, “with a long and uninterrupted literary tradition, did not need one more writer.”
He was 16 when his family finally returned to México. He knew his homeland through the stories his grandmothers had told during the summers he spent with them.
For much of his career Fuentes competed for recognition and influence in Mexico and abroad with another titan of Mexican letters, the poet Octavio Paz. Fuentes received the National Order of Merit, France’s highest civilian award given to a foreigner; Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award for literature in 1994; and, in 1987, the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world’s highest literary honor. Paz, however, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1990. Fuentes, a perennial on the shortlist for the honor, never did. His final work, an essay on French politics, was published the day he died.
Regardless of awards, Fuentes’ body work speaks without such accoutrements. Search here for a complete selection of Carlos Fuentes’ books.
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Chief Writing Wolf 