Stephen King

I predicted someone like Trump many years ago, in THE DEAD ZONE. So now I'm saying this--in the next 12-16 months, we're going to find out if the two machines for the removal of a man unable to fulfill his duties actually work. They are impeachment and the 25th amendment. He is deeply unwell.

Mentors: People closer to the problem are closer to the solution.

https://reasonstobecheerful.world/formerly-incarcerated-mentors-california/

On Wednesday morning, nasturtium vines were offered to gorillas

 https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/15/metro/zoo-animals-eat-isabell-stewart-gardener-flowers/

Sacred Space

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Carrot Salad mixed with Steamed Kale and Brown Basmati Rice

My carrot salad became a basmati brown rice salad with steamed kale. Delicious. The dressing was cilantro sauce olive oil, vinegar and leftover BBQ sauce sesame oil and soy sauce. I added some home cooked chick peas and cranberries for sweetness. It came out so good I am doing it again.

Every time I step out for a neighborhood dog walk I find three major hazards; broken glass, dead rats and chicken bones!

Write. Start writing today. Start writing right now. Don’t write it right, just write it –and then make it right later. Give yourself the mental freedom to enjoy the process, because the process of writing is a long one. Be wary of “writing rules” and advice. Do it your way.

TARA MOSS

Authentic Indian Street Food: Vaanga of Boston and Bellingham

 

What's a Picaresque?

“Picaresque” is an eely tag. The Spanish word picaresca came from picaro, first used in the early 1600s and which in English can mean rogue, bohemian, adventurer, rapscallion. We took picaron, the augmentative of picaro, and made the accusatory-sounding “picaroon,” a lovely synonym for “picaro” that Merriam-Webster will tell you also means “pirate,” although Picaroons of the Caribbean doesn’t have the ring it should. The picaresque novel—the term wasn’t coined in English until the early nineteenth century—has shape-shifted since its first known incarnation in Spain, the anonymously authored Lazarillo de Tormes, published in 1553. But most picaresque novels incorporate several defining characteristics: satire, comedy, sarcasm, acerbic social criticism; first-person narration with an autobiographical ease of telling; an outsider protagonist-seeker on an episodic and often pointless quest for renewal or justice. 

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/53090-what-s-a-picaresque-the-top-5-novels.html

Life is from the inside out. When you shift on the inside, life shifts on the outside. Kamal Ravikant

transform the black thread of writing into people, ideas, feelings, actions, cities, worlds, humanity, life.

 Elena Ferrante

Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies Spiced up My Rice and Beans

 We added this to dinner last night at it was fantastic. I had home cooked chick peas and home cooked brown basmati rice and we added my home made cilantro sauce on top (cilantro garlic oil vinegar blended). It was out of this world.

The king cannot lie repeatedly and nakedly and demand to be believed.

 Garrison Keillor

Brian Eno

 “Beautiful things grow out of shit. Nobody ever believes that. Everyone thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head—they somehow appeared there and formed in his head—and all he had to do was write them down and they would be manifest to the world. But what I think is so interesting, and would really be a lesson that everybody should learn, is that things come out of nothing. Things evolve out of nothing. You know, the tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest. And then the most promising seed in the wrong situation turns into nothing. I think this would be important for people to understand, because it gives people confidence in their own lives to know that’s how things work. If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted—they have these wonderful things in their head but and you’re not one of them, you’re just sort of a normal person, you could never do anything like that—then you live a different kind of life. You could have another kind of life where you could say, well, I know that things come from nothing very much, start from unpromising beginnings, and I’m an unpromising beginning, and I could start something.”

― Brian Eno

Regard your limitations as secret strengths. Or as constraints that you can make use of. Brian Eno

Humans create machines. Humans give machines intelligence. Machines take over humans. Humans must defeat machines.

 Billy Baker

The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.

 ― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching  

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. Lao Tzu

The best fighter is never angry. Lao Tzu

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you.
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching