http://www.advicetowriters.com/interviews/2017/11/21/diana-raab.html
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
“When it hurts, write harder,” said my dear colleague and friend Philip Deaver.
How did you become a writer?
My passion for writing began at the age of ten when my grandmother and caretaker committed suicide in my childhood home. My mother had been an English major in college and had the good sense to buy me a journal and tell me to write my heart out. I sat for hours on end in my room, which was next to my late grandmother’s, writing about my sadness at her loss. Since then, I’ve been using writing as a spiritual practice and as a way of healing. I wrote during my turbulent adolescence, my three pregnancies on bed rest, and my two cancer diagnoses.
http://dianaraab.com/
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Diana Raab
Some quotes from Stage Performance by Livingston Taylor
Performance
I have been blessed to have a number of close friends who are professional performers. They have taught me a lot and everything I have learned from them applies to writing, teaching, having art shows, performing and being a good neighbor. I recommend this book: Stage Performance by Livingston Taylor
Some quotes from Stage Performance by Livingston Taylor
On nervousness:
Remember that your audience means a lot more to you than you mean to them. Your performance is more than likely one small part of their whole time out. They may have been out to dinner, may be celebrating a birthday, may be talking closely with friends. If you don't perform at your all-time best, it will not matter to the audience, especially not nearly as much as it matters to you.
Sometimes the worst does happen, and is spite of your best efforts and wishes, you wind up being absolutely awful. This is normal. Don't be so hard on yourself.
On the audience:
They want attention, and they want to feel that their presence is special to you, that it makes a difference in the course of events that make up your show. They want to believe you are glad to be with them. If you're focused on yourself and caught up in nervousness, you're taking attention away from your audience- the attention they want and deserve...Their attention is a gift. Don't throw it away. Even if you think you don't deserve it, receive it graciously.
Look at, and pay attention to, your audience.
If you are tense, your audience will be tense too, and will become exhausted.
Expect that the unexpected will often happen. Work with material that is basic enough to your skill level that, if an unexpected event occurs, you will be able to respond to the event, while still maintaining your composure.
The performer has the absolute right to be on stage. The audience also has the right to not like what the performer is doing. Sometimes people will love what you do, other times not like it at all. Just do your best at the time, and be patient, and enjoy performing to the end of your show.
Ask yourself where you can add to the audience's enjoyment. If you do something once and the audience likes it, do it again. If they don't like it, don't do it again.
Be patient.
Let your audience know when it's time to respond.
Periodically you need to be still, or at least slow down, as with dancers, or your audience will become tired out.
It's okay to be human on stage...They love you to be normal, to make a mistake, acknowledge it, smile, shake your head slightly, forgive yourself, and move on.
The key to your success lies in making your audience comfortable.
Do not beat yourself up for not being 100 percent. Do the best you can with what you have at the time.
Do not rush the music. This tells the audience you are nervous.
Accept compliments graciously.
Local Hero, Jonathan Goyer
Jonathan Goyer Gives Back After Battle with Addiction | The ...
https://providencecenter.org/.../jonathan-goyer-gives-back-after-battle-with-addiction
Mar 16, 2017 - Jonathan Goyer was introduced to marijuana when he was seven. ... Soon the crippling grips of addiction took hold of his life. ... He was transferred to The Providence Center’s Crisis Stabilization Unit.
Jonathan Goyer - Manager, Anchor MORE - The Providence Center ...
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-goyer-58272aa0
View Jonathan Goyer’s full profile. ... Co-author of the Rhode Island Strategic Plan to Address the Opioid Epidemic. ... Partnering with members of the community to decrease overdose deaths and increase access to treatment.
About Anchor Recovery – Anchor Recovery Community Center
https://anchorrecovery.org/about/
Jonathan Goyer - Anchor MORE Manager. Jonathan has been the manager of the Anchor MORE, Anchor's community outreach program, since its inception in ...
Natural
Make writing a regular part of your daily routine—even just a tiny amount per day—so that it feels more natural to write than not to.
JENNIFER EGAN
Clues
I know a lady who keeps her fridge completely empty except for a gallon of 'spring' water. This is so she can't eat at work, which is also her home. Her violent approach to life is why our friendship did not last. I am fascinated by people even ones I no longer like. Their quirks stick with me. I never remembered things in school like famous dates and names but I remember strange bits about people like whether their ear lobes attach or not or the shape of their toes and what they keep in their fridge.
Bethany Ball
Trick yourself into writing. I was recently listening to a writer talking about apps like Freedom where you block the Internet to better concentrate. I have used Freedom. But what I’ve realized is that I use the Internet as a kind of carrot to keep writing, to keep me in my chair. I waste a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook but it keeps me sitting in front of my computer with my fingers on the keyboads, and my Word doc open.
I write anywhere and everywhere. I write on my phone if I’m struck by an idea, or a sentence or a phrase. I have these moleskin notebooks I carry when I’m actively working on new material, or revising drafts. I have an apartment in the city that I have use of sometimes and I will go there and write to get a head start on a project, or restart something I’ve had to put on hold. I write at home on my sofa after my kids go to school. I write in my kitchen waiting for water to boil or the oven to heat up. I have an office in my basement where I write and sometimes I write in bed with my laptop after my kids go to sleep. When I was working full time, I would wake up at 5 or 6 in the morning to write before work and I often worked at night and on weekends, partly because I never made enough money to have much of a social life.
http://www.advicetowriters.com/interviews/2017/11/28/bethany-ball.html
Daniel Pennac
The Reader’s Bill of Rights: The right to not read, to skip pages, to not finish, to reread, to read anything, to escapism, to read anywhere, to browse, to read out loud, to not defend your tastes.
DANIEL PENNAC
Steven Pressfield
We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.
STEVEN PRESSFIELD
Farhad Manjoo
Working in digital media is like trying to build a fort out of marshmallows on a foundation made of marbles in a country ruled by capricious and tyrannical warring robots.
-Farhad Manjoo
Snarled
Good writing takes place at intersections, at what you might call knots, at places where the society is snarled or knotted up.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Slum Landlords Destroy a City
It's amazing how rapidly slum landlords can destroy a city. We need to publicly shame the perps on this.
The Screaming Roof Vent
The neighborhood screaming roof vent goes 24/7. Perhaps like a dog whistle I'm the only dog that hears it.
UPDATE: It has been replaced by the property owner and we have silence once again. AMEN!
UPDATE: It has been replaced by the property owner and we have silence once again. AMEN!
Found Magazine
We collect FOUND stuff: love letter, birthday cards, kids’ homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, receipts, doodles - anything that gives a glimpse into someone else’s life. Anything goes...
For suggestions, hellos, or questions about events, advertising, special projects and the like, feel free to email us at info@foundmagazine.com.
SEND US YOUR FINDS:
FOUND Magazine
3455 Charing Cross Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI 48108
"Shutdown" Angels Paid
'Shutdown angels' pay furloughed Navy veteran's chemotherapy bills
After Quashawn Latimer was caught up in the government closure, she had to decide whether to pay her rent or get her cancer treatment. Then a miracle happened.https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/shutdown-angel-pays-furloughed-cancer-patient-s-medical-bills-n964591?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma
Persist
Persist. You'll only get better by continuing to work at it. There's never a time when you're good enough to slack off.
-James Curtis
Six Degrees
It's six degrees out and my neighbor has the window open and she is blasting the stereo.
Longs for Acceptance
I suspect that all the agony that goes into writing is borne precisely because the writer longs for acceptance—but it must be acceptance on his own terms.
RALPH ELLISON
Amazing Lauren Clark Story
Article
Clark won her last court battle with Cruz. But she still lives with what she lost.
The night he attacked me I was out seeking a runner’s high.
I haven’t gone on a run since.
Not once.
Don't Postpone Joy
"The belief that life ought to be defined by a grand finale tends to postpone joy. Greater power lies in your present experience."
— Amit Sood, M.D.
— Amit Sood, M.D.
The X Monster is Familiar
I grew up with narcissistic parents who had tactics similar to X. The whole news cycle gives me flashbacks.
Carl Sandburg, Rootabaga Stories
“One summer afternoon I came home and found all the umbrellas sitting in the kitchen, with straw hats on, telling who they are.
...
The umbrella that peels the potatoes with a pencil and makes a pink ink with the peelings stood up and said, "I am the umbrella that peels the potatoes with a pencil and makes a pink ink with the peelings." ...
The umbrella that runs to the corner to get corners for the handkerchiefs stood up and said, "I am the umbrella that runs to the corner to get corners for the handkerchiefs."
...
"I am the umbrella that holds up the sky. I am the umbrella the rain comes through. I am the umbrella that tells the sky when to begin raining and when to stop raining.
"I am the umbrella that goes to pieces when the wind blows and then puts itself back together again when the wind goes down. I am the first umbrella, the last umbrella, the one and only umbrella all other umbrellas are named after, first, last and always."
When the stranger finished this speech telling who he was and where he came from, all the other umbrellas sat still for a little while, to be respectful.
”
― Carl Sandburg, Rootabaga Stories
Suicide
I have lost four people to suicide in my immediate circle. Suicide is a real. It is something I am always afraid someone might choose.
Rutabaga
“Rutabaga” comes from rotabagge, the plant’s Swedish name, meaning “baggy root.” This is, perhaps, the reason that it’s sometimes called a Swedish turnip or simply a swede. Dense and sweetly earthy, a spheroid that can grow to the size of a human head, with a mottled, brown-and-white surface and a buttery, yellow interior, the rutabaga looks like an overgrown turnip—which it is, sort of, at least on its mother’s side.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/kitchen-notes/what-rutabaga-does-better-than-anyone-else
Dream
In the dream I went to see my therapist. Someone came out and said she had died. I started sobbing, "When?" I asked. "Before Christmas." I went home. That's when I realized I said the wrong name. Her name was not Tracy it's Katy.
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Malignant Narcissism
Renowned Psychologist : Like Hitler, X suffers from Sadism, Malignant Narcissism & Paranoia
BY Ed Krassenstein January 30, 2019
“[X] truly has the most dangerous form of mental illness that you can find in a leader,” Gartner told KrassenCast. “He suffers from a personality disorder called malignant narcissism. Malignant narcissism was actually introduced by Erich Fromm, the famed psychoanalyst, who himself narrowly escaped the Nazis. Malignant narcissism was his attempt to explain the psychology of dictators like Hitler or Stalin or Mussolini.”
“He has actually gotten intense pleasure from [other people’s] pain. He is reveling in the chaos and the destruction he is causing,” Gartner explained. “The more he feels threatened by the Mueller investigation, the more he needs to experience the exaltation of feeling drunk with power, through his ability to harm and humiliate and degrade other people.”
“I’m not saying he’s Hitler. I’m saying he has the same psychology. He’s of the same type, cut from the same cloth…. He is someone, who if given the chance, would enact that same kind of destructive agenda.”
“They are very paranoid about their own staff,” Gartner explained in speaking about leaders with this mental disorder. “They keep purging their staff so that anyone with any independence — those people are purged — so you only have yes men and opportunists who will not defy the great leader. They don’t want to be constrained. They want to be able to act out their worst impulses and anyone who constrains them now becomes their worst enemy.”
“His reality testing is truly compromised. He’s not just bad, he’s also crazy.”
Kleptocracy
The Great American Heist
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a25989196/donald-trump-cabinet-members-2019-list/
A new Cabinet has coalesced around Donald Trump entering Year Three of his presidency, one that seems poised to pull the United States further—and more efficiently—towards kleptocracy.
A defense contractor running the Department of Defense. A self-styled tycoon who allegedly stole $120 million from his business partners. A coal lobbyist regulating coal. A senior Commerce Department official who once lobbied for whale hunters. Ivanka.
Donald Trump’s improbable ascension to the American presidency was a Bat Signal to some of the most accomplished grifters and scoundrels this fine country has to offer. They jumped on the nearest airplane—preferably private, and paid for by someone else—and jetted off to Washington, D.C., to carve out their piece of the action. The United States and its territories have always been home to some of history’s great scammers, fraudsters, confidence men, and snake-oil salesmen. It is a relentless feature of the national character in a country built by people trying to make a buck, however they could, on the ragged edge of civilization. It’s just the very greasiest operators don’t often pry their way into the Cabinet of the United States president. More rarely, still, do they capture it—and the Executive Branch of government.
“It's just a deeply unethical administration in American history.”
“This is the Teapot Dome scandal on steroids,” Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University and a CNN contributor, told me. He’s referring to the orgy of bribery and crony capitalism that devoured the presidency of Warren G. Harding in the 1920s. Harding’s crew, known as the Ohio Gang, featured oil-industry insiders who proceeded to operate in public office on behalf of their old friends in the business. For Brinkley, the 45th president has a similar recruiting strategy.
A Hole in My Life
excerpt by Jack Gantos
From my cell window I could see a line of houses in the distance. All week the people had been putting up Halloween decorations. We didn't celebrate Halloween in prison . . . or, I should say, every day in prison was scarier than any Halloween, so there was no reason to do anything special on October 31st. But thinking of Halloween reminded me of a funny story from when I was in fifth grade. We were living in Kendall, Florida, right on the train tracks. One Halloween afternoon police cars flooded our neighborhood and announced that Halloween was canceled because there had been a prison break upstate at Raford. A couple of guys had hopped a freight and the cops thought they may have jumped off in our area. We locked our doors and turned on all the lights. We pulled the curtains. All night I scampered from window to window peeking out and looking for unshaven suspicious types in striped outfits. Every time a bush rustled in the wind my heart leapt. I saw rugged prison mugs in every shadow. It was the most exciting Halloween ever. The escapees were caught not far from our house and I was disappointed that I hadn't spotted them slinking around.
I wrote this story down in my journal. From time to time I wrote down other funny stories and memories about my family and my childhood. It was a relief to write stories that didn't have bars around them.
order the book
Becoming a writer the hard way
In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up with them. For his part in the conspiracy, Gantos was sentenced to serve up to six years in prison.
In Hole in My Life, this prizewinning author of over thirty books for young people confronts the period of struggle and confinement that marked the end of his own youth. On the surface, the narrative tumbles from one crazed moment to the next as Gantos pieces together the story of his restless final year of high school, his short-lived career as a criminal, and his time in prison. But running just beneath the action is the story of how Gantos – once he was locked up in a small, yellow-walled cell – moved from wanting to be a writer to writing, and how dedicating himself more fully to the thing he most wanted to do helped him endure and ultimately overcome the worst experience of his life.
Hole in My Life is a 2003 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
Jack Gantos
Writing What I Know & Finding Joey Pigza
https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/authors/jack-gantos/
By Jack Gantos
I started writing when I was in second grade. I kept journals and wrote in them obsessively about everything I saw and felt and wondered. I wrote about kids I knew. I remembered conversations I'd heard and put those in my journal.
For me, it had nothing to do with writing, and everything to do with privacy. I lived in a household with three siblings. The fact that the diary had a strap and a lock and key was the most exhilarating thing about it. It was like a lockbox or a pirate's chest. It was one little corner of the world that I had control over.
When I was in college, I wrote my first books for kids. I thought I could write about anything — alligators, for example. But I didn't know anything about alligators, so that book wasn't very good. It didn't get published. But then I wrote about a cat I owned. It became a book called Rotten Ralph, which was published and became popular.
After I got wise to writing about what I know, I reread my childhood journals and began to use my early writing as inspiration for more complete stories about my adventures, my family, and school. Those became the four Jack Henry books: Jack on the Tracks, Heads or Tails, Jack's New Power and Jack's Black Book.
I got the idea for Joey Pigza when I was visiting a school in Pennsylvania, talking about writing. This kid was sitting in the front row (teachers tend to put the really active kids in the front) spinning around on the seat of his chair. He was really smart and having a blast. I would start to tell a joke, and he would figure out the punch line and say it before I could. He was finishing my sentences! He was having fun, but then he changed. He became quite worried. “Teacher, teacher!” he called out. “I forgot to take my medication!” She pointed to the door and out he ran. I could hear him slapping every locker as he ran down the hall to the nurse's office.
I'd known kids like this when I was a kid. We moved 40 times when I was growing up, and I was always changing schools. Because I was never in one place very long, I didn't make a core group of friends. So, I ended up hanging out with the unusual kids. Some of these kids were very, very active. I liked them because they were smart and funny and clever and didn't appear to have any dull moments in their lives.
So, the spinning, locker-slapping Pennsylvania kid brought back some memories. I still write and draw in my journal every day. And when I got home from my school visit, I wrote a description of the “active” boy in the front row. The next day, I read it and liked it, so I wrote more. And Joey Pigza was born! At first, I wrote about him in the third person (using “he”). But it didn't sound right. Then, I started writing about his life as if I were Joey — I wrote in the first person (using “I”). It was really Joey's book, and that's what I wanted!
Food is LOVE
Bon Appétit
culture
Chef Tunde Wey’s New Dinner Series Seeks to Wed Undocumented Immigrants with American Citizens
With his newest project, the food activist takes on the country’s current immigration policy.
Tiny Library to Remote Villages
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190125-the-tiny-library-bringing-books-to-remote-villages
The tiny library bringing books to remote villages
Antonio La Cava transformed his three-wheeled van into a travelling library, the Bibliomotocarro, to make sure no child goes without a book.
28 January 2019
“Without a book, so often the child is alone,” says Antonio La Cava.
The retired schoolteacher converted his three-wheeled van into a mobile library, the Bibliomotocarro. Driving the hills and mountains of Basilicata, Italy, La Cava is able to reach children in remote villages like San Paolo Albanese, which only has two children of primary school age.
“I was strongly worried about growing old in a country of non-readers.” La Cava believes that it’s important to spread the joy of literature to as many children as possible: “carrying out such action has a value, not only social, not only cultural, but has a great ethical meaning.”
La Cava hopes his Bibliomotocarro brings the message that culture is made by and for everyone, not just a privileged few.
Watch the video at web site above to find out more.
Mashed Potato Weather Supper
Wash inspect and cube (Yukon Gold) potatoes. place in pressure cooker on steamer tray with water below. cook for 3-4 minutes and fish out the potatoes. Save the potato water in a glass jar for making bread or soup stock or deglazing the pan in the next recipe. Use a potato masher to mash the taters. Add Adobo, kosher salt and half and half. Enjoy!
Stir fry onions and peppers and spinach in garlic and olive oil (add soy sauce and red wine) and cook some more. Pour over mashed potatoes.
Stir fry onions and peppers and spinach in garlic and olive oil (add soy sauce and red wine) and cook some more. Pour over mashed potatoes.
Winter Driving Safety Tips
Winter Driving Tips
http://risp.ri.gov/safety/vehiclesafety/winterdriving.php
Driving a motor vehicle with any significant amounts of snow or ice on the vehicle is against the law (R.I.G.L. § 31-23-16). Clear all snow and ice off the entire car including the roof, hood, trunk, and license plates. Also, all glass surfaces and lights should be clear and transparent. This includes your windows, side-view mirrors, headlights and tail lights.
If you must drive during a storm, follow these tips
Never leave a vehicle unattended while it is warming up. Also, never warm up a vehicle in an enclosed area, such as a garage.
If you have a mobile phone, take it with you and make sure it is fully charged before you leave.
Keep your gas tank at least half full to avoid gas line freeze-up.
Drive slowly. Accelerating, stopping and turning takes longer on snow-covered or icy roads. Give yourself time to maneuver by driving slowly.
Do not follow the vehicle in front of you too closely. Remember that it takes extra time to stop on icy roads. The more space there is between you and the vehicle in front of you, the less likely you will rear-end them if they stop short.
Brake gently to avoid skidding. If your wheels start to lock up, ease off the brake.
Turn on your lights to increase your visibility to other motorists.
Use low gears to keep traction, especially on hills.
Don't use cruise control or overdrive on icy roads.
Be especially careful on bridges, overpasses and infrequently traveled roads, which will freeze first. Even at temperatures above freezing, if the conditions are wet, you might encounter ice in shady areas or on exposed roadways like bridges, entrance and exit ramps.
Don't pass snow plows and sanding trucks. The drivers have limited visibility, and you're likely to find the road in front of them worse than the road behind.
As always, never text while driving and be sure everyone in the vehicle is wearing a seat belt.
If your rear wheels skid...
Take your foot off the accelerator.
Steer in the direction you want the front wheels to go. If your rear wheels are sliding left, steer left. If they're sliding right, steer right.
If your rear wheels start sliding the other way as you recover, ease the steering wheel toward that side. You might have to steer left and right a few times to get your vehicle completely under control.
If you have standard brakes, pump them gently.
If you have anti-lock brakes (ABS), do not pump the brakes. Apply steady pressure to the brakes. You will feel the brakes pulse — this is normal.
If your front wheels skid...
Take your foot off the gas and shift to neutral, but don't try to steer immediately.
As the wheels skid sideways, they will slow the vehicle and traction will return. As it does, steer in the direction you want to go. Then put the transmission in "drive" or release the clutch, and accelerate gently.
If your vehicle becomes stuck or you are snow-bound...
Stay with your vehicle. It provides temporary shelter, makes it easier for rescuers to locate you, and is easier for other motorists to see (versus you walking outside of your car, where you could be hit).
Don't try to walk in a severe storm. It is easy to lose sight of your vehicle in blowing snow and become lost.
If you are sure the car's exhaust pipe is not blocked, run the engine and heater for about 10 minutes every hour or so depending on the amount of gas in the tank.
Call 911 from your mobile phone for the Rhode Island State Police. Describe your location and immediately report any injuries.
Remember, if your vehicle starts to skid, always look and steer in the direction you want to go.
Matt Gallagher
Matt Gallagher
http://www.advicetowriters.com/interviews/2016/2/9/matt-gallagher.html
Tuesday, February 9, 2016 at 12:06AM
How did you become a writer?
Like most writers, I read a lot growing up as a means to make sense of the world. The old truth that the best way to develop as a writer is to read, read, and read some more endures for good reason. But I was a skinny Irish kid from Reno, Nevada, and had no idea how someone "became" a writer. Some years later, as an Army lieutenant in Iraq, I started a blog that inadvertently jumpstarted my writing career. At the time though, I was just writing to keep in touch with family and friends.
Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).
The best question and the hardest! Because someone vital is always left off. Let's see ... I grew up out west, so Joan Didion and Katherine Anne Porter and Robert Laxalt were literary fixtures in our house. Like a lot of young men of a certain type, I read too much Hemingway. I came to Marquez late but am glad I did. As for “war” stories: Herr’s Dispatches, Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato … oh, and Tolstoy. Can’t leave out that guy.
A number of wonderful writing instructors left great impressions on my work, to include John McNally, Lauren Grodstein, Richard Ford, Benjamin Taylor and Victor LaValle.
When and where do you write?
My usual schedule is write in my apartment for three to four hours in the morning. Then I'll take my dog to the park and grab lunch. In the afternoon I'll edit and revise at the local coffee shop for a few hours.
What are you working on now?
A second novel, centered on post-empire America. It still needs a lot of work, but I’m excited for its potential.
Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?
Of course! Any writer who says otherwise is lying through their teeth. But I've gotten to the point where I realize that the only way past writer's block is through it — writing through it, to be more exact.
What’s your advice to new writers?
Talent's great. Tenacity is better. Don't be afraid of failure, it's part of the process. And "Embrace the Suck," as we liked to say in the Army.
Matt Gallagher is a former U.S. Army captain and Iraq war veteran. His debut novel Youngblood was just published by Atria/Simon & Schuster.
The Grit of Discontent
The grit of discontent, the acute misery of early and uninformed motherhood worked under my skin to force out the writer.
MAXINE KUMIN
First Eight Pages
The job of the first eight pages is not to have the reader want to throw the book at the wall, during the first eight pages.
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
Chris Cander
Chris Cander http://www.advicetowriters.com/interviews/2019/1/29/chris-cander.html
Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 12:03AM
How did you become a writer?
The same way Mike Campbell in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises went bankrupt: "gradually and then suddenly." As a child, I wrote poems. Stories in my teens and early twenties. Non-fiction during my thirties. When I started my first novel, at age 37, I realized that was where I wanted to focus my literary energy. Since then, I've written over a million words in various drafts, and have kept about a third of them. Now I'm 49 and releasing The Weight of a Piano--the fourth novel I've written and third I've published--and am working on a fifth.
Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).
There are so many of each. My parents read to me, told me stories, took me to the library, let me live with my nose in a book. My sophomore English teacher, Mrs. Carol Blaine, recognized something in me and encouraged it--even though I never got higher than a B on any essay in her class. The novels I read in college, in particular The Decameron. The novels I've read since then. The writers I've admired, befriended, leaned on, learned from. Their names would fill a phone book. I'll start with the Brothers Grimm, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Charles Baxter, Annie Proulx, Nevil Shute, Harriet Doerr, Italo Calvino, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Isabel Allende, Leo Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, Joan Didion, and a thousand others.
When and where do you write?
In my upstairs home office at the hybrid art deco/midcentury modern desk I bought myself when I was 18 and plan to use until I'm dead. I'm surrounded by books, art, trinkets, and totems. To my left is a big picture window overlooking a crepe myrtle tree. A set of pentatonic windchimes hangs just outside; it's the only music I listen to when I write. I don't have a particular time of day, but I try to get my fairly modest goal of 350 or so words done before the kids get home from school.
What are you working on now?
A novel about the unseen forces that affect and connect us.
Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?
I don't believe in it. I also don't believe in inspiration. Muses can be mercurial, and "blocks" are usually the result of something else: fear, procrastination, hangovers, etc. My writing life is governed instead by determination. It’s scary sometimes, and I suffer the same crises of confidence that any writer has, but in the end, the only way to start is to calm down, sit down, and begin.
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
I don't know who--if anyone--gave me this advice, or if it was just something I figured out: never, ever give up.
What’s your advice to new writers?
Try to be fearless when you confront a blank page. (I tell this every day to my third-grade Writers in the Schools students, and it works.) Don’t think—feel. Don’t critique each word as it lands. Give into that Dickinsonian “bolt of melody.” Even if it’s nonsense, write it down. Liberate your imagination on the page and you’ll discover something to pursue. And that critic inside your mind that’s tugging backward on your pen? Tell her to settle down—you’ll deal with her later, after you’re finished.
Chris Cander is the award-winning author of the novels WHISPER HOLLOW, 11 STORIES, and the children's picture book THE WORD BURGLAR. Her latest is THE WEIGHT OF A PIANO, forthcoming from Knopf in January 2019, which has already received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal. For seven years she has been a writer-in-residence for Writers in the Schools, serves on the Inprint advisory board, and stewards several Little Free Libraries in her community. A former competitive bodybuilder, Chris currently holds a 3rd dan in taekwondo and is a certified women’s defensive tactics instructor.
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Vaccinate Your Children
https://www.vaccines.gov/getting/for_parents/five_reasons/index.html
Five Important Reasons to Vaccinate Your Child
You want to do what is best for your children. You know about the importance of car seats, baby gates and other ways to keep them safe. But, did you know that one of the best ways to protect your children is to make sure they have all of their vaccinations?
Immunizations can save your child’s life. Because of advances in medical science, your child can be protected against more diseases than ever before. Some diseases that once injured or killed thousands of children, have been eliminated completely and others are close to extinction– primarily due to safe and effective vaccines. Polio is one example of the great impact that vaccines have had in the United States. Polio was once America’s most-feared disease, causing death and paralysis across the country, but today, thanks to vaccination, there are no reports of polio in the United States.
Vaccination is very safe and effective. Vaccines are only given to children after a long and careful review by scientists, doctors, and healthcare professionals. Vaccines will involve some discomfort and may cause pain, redness, or tenderness at the site of injection but this is minimal compared to the pain, discomfort, and trauma of the diseases these vaccines prevent. Serious side effects following vaccination, such as severe allergic reaction, are very rare. The disease-prevention benefits of getting vaccines are much greater than the possible side effects for almost all children.
Immunization protects others you care about. Children in the U.S. still get vaccine-preventable diseases. In fact, we have seen resurgences of measles and whooping cough (pertussis) over the past few years. Since 2010, there have been between 10,000 and 50,000 cases of whooping cough each year in the United States and about 10 to 20 babies, many of which were too young to be fully vaccinated, died each year. While some babies are too young to be protected by vaccination, others may not be able to receive certain vaccinations due to severe allergies, weakened immune systems from conditions like leukemia, or other reasons. To help keep them safe, it is important that you and your children who are able to get vaccinated are fully immunized. This not only protects your family, but also helps prevent the spread of these diseases to your friends and loved ones.
Immunizations can save your family time and money. A child with a vaccine-preventable disease can be denied attendance at schools or child care facilities. Some vaccine-preventable diseases can result in prolonged disabilities and can take a financial toll because of lost time at work, medical bills or long-term disability care. In contrast, getting vaccinated against these diseases is a good investment and usually covered by insurance. The Vaccines for Children program is a federally funded program that provides vaccines at no cost to children from low-income families. To find out more about the VFC program, visit http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/ or ask your child’s health care professional.
Immunization protects future generations. Vaccines have reduced and, in some cases, eliminated many diseases that killed or severely disabled people just a few generations ago. For example, smallpox vaccination eradicated that disease worldwide. Your children don’t have to get smallpox shots any more because the disease no longer exists. By vaccinating children against rubella (German measles), the risk that pregnant women will pass this virus on to their fetus or newborn has been dramatically decreased, and birth defects associated with that virus no longer are seen in the United States. If we continue vaccinating now, and vaccinating completely, parents in the future may be able to trust that some diseases of today will no longer be around to harm their children in the future.
For more information about National Infant Immunization Week, visit http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/events/niiw/index.html.
For more information about the importance of infant immunization, visit http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines.
Crack the Code
Sushi!
Culture > Film > News
The iconic green code in The Matrix is just sushi recipes
Christopher Hooton
@christophhooton
Friday 27 October 2017 09:37
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The Independent Culture
The falling green characters at the beginning of all of the Matrix films have become perhaps the most recognisable visual from the film, signifying how everything in the franchise's universe is a vast fabrication.
So what constitutes the code? An incredibly complex equation? Chopped up passages of Heidegger? Nope, it's just a load of recipes for sushi.
The Matrix production designer Simon Whiteley told CNet of the apparently indecipherable collection of Japanese hiragana, katakana, and kanji characters: "I like to tell everybody that The Matrix's code is made out of Japanese sushi recipes.
"Without that code, there is no Matrix."
Film and TV has a rich history of concealing through translation, Game of Thrones having previously hid a Monty Python line in its Low Valyrian language.
For more film, TV and music, follow Independent Culture on Facebook.
Brainstorm from Boredom
A 5th grader's boredom while visiting her mom's job led to $30,000 for the elderly in need
Article
Honest Emotionally
When it comes time for me to write, I don't outline and I don't do any of that stuff. I just sit down and write. If it's not honest emotionally then it's not good, and that's my only rule.
SHONDA RHIMES
Proper Breathing for Health
Article
Recommendations for how to modulate breathing and influence health and mind appeared centuries ago as well. Pranayama (“breath retention”) yoga was the first doctrine to build a theory around respiratory control, holding that controlled breathing was a way to increase longevity.
Streetworker Program: Nonviolence Streetworker Outreach
Streetworker Program
Nonviolence Streetworker Outreach
https://nonviolenceinstitute.org/index.php/streetworkers/
Our Streetworker Outreach Team build relationships, gather information and mediate conflicts to prevent violence. They respond 24:7 to every shooting and stabbing brought to Rhode Island Hospital. Our team works with the families affected by the violence, to understand the community dynamics that cause violence, and to prevent retaliations.
We have 8 Streetworkers to cover the core cities: Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls. In partnership with the Providence School Department, we have two Streetworkers dedicated to middle schools to work with at-risk youth. We have two Streetworkers dedicated to Pawtucket, and the remaining team works together to cover Providence and Central Falls.
You Can Find Our Streetworkers At:
School dismissals
After school youth programs
Community events
Midnight Basketball League
In “hot spots” where violence is known to occur
The Streetworkers, many of whom are former offenders, provide one-to-one advocacy and mentoring, and are a positive presence in the streets and in the lives of high-risk youth. In 2016, our Streetworker Outreach Team responded to Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital 70 times for shooting and stabbing victims, and outreached to 116 victims of violence. They work closely with the Providence Police Department and other community partners to mediate conflicts.
For more information, please contact Juan Carter, Director of the Nonviolence Streetworker Outreach Program at juan@nonviolenceinstitute.org.
Home » About Us
About Us
Mission & Vision
Choose Peace
The Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence’s (ISPN) mission is to teach, by word and example, the principles and practices of nonviolence, and to foster a community that addresses potentially violent situations with nonviolent solutions. We work to build Dr. King’s ideal of the nonviolent Beloved Community.
About ISPN
ISPN was founded by Sister Ann Keefe and Father Ray Malm in 2001 in the rectory of St. Michael’s Church in South Providence. They were angry about the overwhelming amount of young people they had to bury because of gang violence and knew they had to act. Based on the principles and practices of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s theory of nonviolence, The Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence was born. Their dream was to teach nonviolence to everyone, to increase a person’s ability to see alternate solutions to potentially violent solutions.
Sister Ann and Father Ray wanted to build Dr. King’s ideal Beloved Community, where no one is excluded and everyone is welcome and treated with dignity and respect. That dream has since grown into offering comprehensive and holistic programs and services to support violence prone communities and countless victims of violence: Employment and Education, Victim Support, Nonviolence Streetworker Outreach and Re-Entry, and Nonviolence Training and Nonviolent Conflict Resolution Workshops. Together, these services provide our clients with a continuum of care to ensure they stay alive, feel a sense of purpose and are able to be productive members of the community.
The Need for Nonviolence
ISPN’s nationally recognized model of violence reduction using nonviolence is being deployed in cities throughout the state and country, in places such as Providence, RI, Pawtucket, RI, Central Falls, RI, New Bedford, MA, Fall River, MA, Brockton, MA, Wyandanch, NY and Chicago, IL. Teny Gross, ISPN’s former Executive Director, is currently the Executive Director for the Institute for Nonviolence- Chicago, and using our Violence Reduction model in the Austin Neighborhood of Chicago.
I Need to Take up Space
“I Need to Take Up Space”
Knock Down the House is a thrilling chronicle of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s rise—and of the 2018 Democratic insurgents who lost.
Listen to the wind
Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows.
Native American Proverb
Cloe Axelson
It also quickly became clear that life without Amazon was a little more interesting, or at least a little more serendipitous. The algorithm-driven hyper-curation we’re accustomed to (and rely on) ensures that almost nothing we read, listen to, watch or buy, is by accident. I think we pay for all this tailor-made convenience by polluting the free space in our heads.
https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2019/01/30/qutting-amazon-cloe-axelson
Robin Abrahams
Advice: My bossy daughter was banned from my neighbor’s house
I don’t know what happened, or how to tell my kid. Help!
By Robin Abrahams January 29, 2019
Need advice? Submit questions for Miss Conduct here.
We have lived in our home for nearly four years and lucked out with wonderful neighbors. Recently, my neighbor told me that, outside of school, my daughter can’t play with hers anymore and is no longer allowed at her home. I am crushed beyond belief. My daughter can be bossy at times. But how do I explain this ban to my daughter, and to my son, who is essentially guilty by default? I’m not even sure the friend knows she’s no longer supposed to play with my girl. I feel as though the management of this has been thrust upon me and my husband. The mama lion in me wants to stop inviting them to anything anymore. There goes the neighborhood!
E.F. / Swampscott
Wait, what?
(Imagine your favorite gif of a befuddled facial expression.)
You and your neighbors need to talk. Parents don’t usually forcibly end a child’s friendship because the other kid is “bossy at times.” What on earth happened that your erstwhile-wonderful neighbor made such a draconian rule? Why aren’t you more concerned about the cause of the ban than about its enforcement? Do you really find it plausible that your neighbor has banished your daughter without telling her own daughter?
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You and your husband should sit down with the other girl’s parents, away from the kids (if possible), and sort this out. Get the backstory on why they felt the need to intervene between your children. Then get on the same page in terms of what rules all the kids are supposed to follow, and how the logistics of that should work. Keep in mind that whatever arrangement you agree on can be subject to change — maybe the girls are going through a rough patch and need some time apart.
What’s absolutely crucial is that you go into this in the spirit of open-minded fact-finding and communal problem solving. Whatever your hindbrain is telling you, this is not battle of the apex predators, got it? Don’t be a snarling mama lion — be a curious, peacemaking bonobo instead.
Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a writer with a PhD in psychology.
It's the Birthday of Richard Brautigan
It's the birthday of Richard Brautigan, (books by this author) born in Tacoma, Washington (1935), best known for his 1967 book Trout Fishing in America, which has sold millions of copies around the world. It's only 112 pages long, it's abstract, it doesn't have much of a plot, and characters in the story reappear in seemingly unrelated incidents.
An idyllic book, but Brautigan's own childhood in the Pacific Northwest was from idyllic. His father abandoned his mother while she was pregnant with him, and his mother was an alcoholic and a heavy smoker. Brautigan had a string of stepfathers. He was extremely poor and often went without food.
On a chilly mid-December night when he was 20, a year and a half after he'd moved out of his mother's house and into a Quaker boarding house, he filled his pockets with rocks, walked up to the Eugene Oregon police station inside City Hall, announced, "I am a criminal. I am going to break the law," starting throwing rocks through the police station window, and asked police to put him behind bars. He was literally starving trying to be a writer, and he figured that if he went to jail he would at least get fed three meals a day.
After a stint at the Oregon State Hospital, Brautigan left for San Francisco. He wore his blond hair long and shaggy, sported old-lady eyeglasses, walked hunched over because of scoliosis, worked on underground newspapers, went to acid-plied rock concerts, and hung around with people in the Beat movement” some people called him "the last of the beats" ” but he insisted that he was never one of them. His writing is classified as part of the counterculture movement. During the 1960s, he published a number of books: the poetry collections The Octopus Frontier (1960), All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (1967), which he handed out for free on the streets of Haight-Ashbury, The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster (1968), and Please Plant This Book (1969), which was made up of seed packets that had his poems printed on the sides of the packets. But it was his novel Trout Fishing in America, published in 1967, that made him famous all over the world and an icon of the 1960s counterculture movement.
Brautigan continued to write through out the 1970s, though he was severely depressed. He shot himself in 1984.
Exquisite Corpse
Exquisite corpse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse
Exquisite corpse, also known as exquisite cadaver (from the original French term cadavre exquis), is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun." as in "The green duck sweetly sang the dreadful dirge.") or by being allowed to see only the end of what the previous person contributed.
Redemption: The Fall and Rise of Mark Gonsalves
https://omny.fm/shows/from-the-newsroom-the-providence-journal/redemption-the-fall-and-rise-of-mark-gonsalves
Description
Depressed, using alcohol and drugs, and recently jobless, Mark Gonsalves decided to end his life by suicide. Amazingly, he survived a 220-foot jump from a bridge and went on to become an inspiration to others dealing with mental-health and addiction issues.
Plants Talk
Plants 'talk to' each other through their roots. Scientists studying corn seedlings believe that they send signals under the soil, advising each other of the proximity of other plants https://buff.ly/2FCcWVB
The Dangers
What Keeps the Spies Up at Night
the dangers America faces.
The scope and severity of the parade of horribles in the assessment — even space weapons — reflect a world order that may be strained to the point of fracture. From cyberspace to pandemic diseases, the biggest challenge facing leaders in Washington isn’t identifying threats to the homeland. “It is increasingly a challenge to prioritize which threats are of greatest importance,” Mr. Coats told lawmakers.
How the country responds to threats to national security is as important as picking which to focus on. When it comes to foreign meddling in democratic elections — a top priority for the intelligence community — the initial signs are not encouraging.
“Russia’s social media efforts will continue to focus on aggravating social and racial tensions, undermining trust in authorities,” the report warns.
But, as Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, pointed out during the hearing, foreign nations exploit America’s divisions, they don’t create them. “When a divisive issue like the ‘take a knee’ N.F.L. controversy or a migrant caravan dominates the national dialogue, these are issues that can be — and are — taken advantage of by Russian trolls. Let's not make their work easier.”
And while Mr. X and his populist fellow travelers may cheer chaos in the European Union, Brexit and the rise of nationalism across Europe, the report notes that those are also all major objectives of Russian foreign policy.
“The Kremlin is stepping up its campaign to divide Western political and security institutions and undermine the post-Word War II international order,” Mr. Coats said. “We expect Russia will continue to wage its information war against democracies and to use social media to attempt to divide our societies.”
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
The Case of the Bumbling Spy:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/world/black-cube-nso-citizen-lab-intelligence.html
The case of the bumbling spy is the latest episode involving undercover agents, working for private intelligence firms or other clients, who adopt false identities to dig up compromising information about or elicit embarrassing statements from their targets.
Alyssa Leader
When College Rapists Graduate
If they’re not held accountable at school, what’s to stop them from becoming the villain of another woman’s #MeToo story once they enter the work force?
By Alyssa Leader
Ms. Leader is a law student and activist.
Jan. 29, 2019
Guts and Brains
Germs in Your Gut Are Talking to Your Brain. Scientists Want to Know What They’re Saying.
The body’s microbial community may influence the brain and behavior, perhaps even playing a role in dementia, autism and other disorders.
By Carl Zimmer
Jan. 28, 2019
Marcy Macdonald
Marcy MacDonald to be inducted into International Swimming Hall of Fame
MacDonald, who also coaches a youth swim team, made her first English Channel crossing on June 30, 1994 and her last one last September. She has also swam the 28-mile Manhattan Island Marathon five times, the 17-mile Swim Across the Sound in Bridgeport nine times as either an individual or relay, the 41-mile Round Jersey Swim in the UK, the Catalina Channel swim (20 miles from Catalina Island to the California coast) and a 12.4-mile swim around Mercer Island in Washington, among others. She became the first American to swim the 23-mile length of Loch Ness in Scotland in 2015.
“I always know it’s a team effort,” MacDonald said. “It’s an induction of my team.”
MacDonald and her team plans to head back to the English Channel this summer for another crossing, which she hopes will occur around the 25th anniversary of her first.
“I love the Channel because it’s the most challenging swim,” MacDonald said. “Every time you go there, there’s something different. My destiny lies in the Channel.”
MacDonald grew up in Manchester and currently works there. Last spring, the town’s West Side pool was named in her honor.
Alice Munroe
“I’m doing less personal writing now than I used to for a very simple obvious reason. You use up your childhood, unless you’re able, like William Maxwell, to keep going back and finding wonderful new levels in it.”
—Alice Munro
Michael Gerson
People who praise me have good judgment. Thus, people who praise me make good deals. Hearing these sentiments from an American president is enough to gag a historian. It is pathetic gullibility elevated into the realm of theory. It should concern us that the American president is a source of global derision and national shame.
We have plumbed the shallows of his boasts. They are refuted lies. And whatever else the president may be, he is a fraud.
Greek Rhapsody
Greek Rhapsody – Instrumental Music from Greece 1905-1956
by Various Artists
https://dusttodigital.bandcamp.com/album/greek-rhapsody-instrumental-music-from-greece-1905-1956
Early Risers
Early risers 'less likely to develop mental health problems'
Research says ‘night owls’ may be at greater risk due to having to fight natural body clock
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
@hannahdev
Tue 29 Jan 2019 11.00 EST
Last modified on Tue 29 Jan 2019 11.02 EST
The study showed being biologically programmed to wake up early is linked to a lower risk of schizophrenia and depression. Photograph: Alamy
People who are naturally early risers are less likely to develop mental health problems than “night owls”, according to scientists.
A large-scale genetics study found being biologically programmed to wake up early is linked to greater happiness and a lower risk of schizophrenia and depression.
The scientists behind the work said evening types may be at greater risk from the mental toll of having to fight their natural body clock due to most schools and workplaces having early start times.
Prof Mike Weedon, who led the research at the University of Exeter, said: “The large number of people in our study means we have provided the strongest evidence to date that ‘night owls’ are at higher risk of mental health problems, such as schizophrenia and lower mental wellbeing, although further studies are needed to fully understand this link.”
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The study used genetics data from 250,000 research participants signed up to the private genetics company 23andMe, and 450,000 people in the UK Biobank study. Participants were asked whether they were a “morning person” or an “evening person”, and their genomes were analysed, revealing certain genes people shared that appeared to influence sleep patterns.
The latest findings increase the number of areas of the genome known to influence whether someone is an early riser from 24 to 351.
“This study highlights a large number of genes which can be studied in more detail to work out how different people can have different body clocks,” said Weedon.
The researchers also compared the genetics analysis to data from wrist-worn activity trackers collected from more than 85,000 individuals in the UK Biobank. This showed the genetic variants the researchers identified could shift a person’s natural waking time by up to 25 minutes, for example changing your average waking time from 7am to 7.25am.
The genes identified appeared to influence the time people went to sleep and got up, but not the quality or duration of sleep.
The evidence for a link between body clock and schizophrenia was the most compelling, with evening types being roughly 10% more likely to develop the condition. The data suggested morning people were also at lower risk of depression and reported being happier on wellbeing questionnaires.
Samuel Jones, the paper’s lead author, said: “Our work indicates that part of the reason why some people are up with the lark while others are night owls is because of differences in both the way our brains react to external light signals and the normal functioning of our internal clocks.
“These small differences may have potentially significant effects on the ability of our body clocks to keep time effectively, potentially altering risk of both disease and mental health disorders.”
Jones said the working hypothesis is that evening types are more likely to have to work against their natural body clock in school and the world of work, which may have negative consequences. Another possibility is the genes involved in determining the body clock have a more direct genetic influence on vulnerability to certain conditions.
The team is now aiming to address this question by looking at whether those whose lifestyles and body clocks are most mismatched are at greatest risk.
Some of the genes identified are known to be expressed in the brain and retinal tissue in the eye, which plays an important part in coupling our internal circadian rhythm to external cues.
Without any outside influence, the human body clock runs on a cycle that is slightly longer than 24 hours, and light sensitive cells in the retina help “reset” the body clock each morning to keep us aligned with the day-night cycle.
Despite previous findings linking sleeping habits to risk of diabetes and obesity, the latest work did not find any links between these conditions and body clock genes.
The body clock is influenced by genes and lifestyle factors including diet, exposure to artificial light and jobs and activities. It affects a wide range of molecular processes, including hormone levels and core body temperature, as well as waking and sleeping patterns.
The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.
100th Anniversary
Article
“The Road Not Taken”, which was collected in Mountain Interval (1916), seems to be a fairly simple homily about making choices:
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler ...”
“I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
"Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black."
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
The Smiling Salamanders
Can Regrow most of their Body Parts
Trilobites
Seeking Superpowers in the Axolotl Genome
The smiling salamanders can regrow most of their body parts, so researchers are building improved maps of their DNA.
Image
Look at this cheerful tube sock.CreditCreditArno Burgi/picture alliance, via Getty Images
By Steph Yin
Jan. 29, 2019
The axolotl, sometimes called the Mexican walking fish, is a cheerful tube sock with four legs, a crown of feathery gills and a long, tapered tail fin. It can be pale pink, golden, gray or black, speckled or not, with a countenance resembling the “slightly smiling face” emoji. Unusual among amphibians for not undergoing metamorphosis, it reaches sexual maturity and spends its life as a giant tadpole baby.
According to Aztec legend, the first of these smiling salamanders was a god who transformed himself to avoid sacrifice. Today, wild axolotls face an uncertain future. Threatened by habitat degradation and imported fish, they can only be found in the canals of Lake Xochimilco, in the far south of Mexico City.
Captive axolotls, however, are thriving in labs around the world. In a paper published Thursday in Genome Research, a team of researchers has reported the most complete assembly of DNA yet for the striking amphibians. Their work paves the way for advances in human regenerative medicine.
Many animals can perform some degree of regeneration, but axolotls seem almost limitless in their capabilities. As long as you don’t cut off their heads, they can “grow back a nearly perfect replica” of just about any body part, including up to half of their brain, said Jeramiah Smith, an associate professor of biology at the University of Kentucky and an author of the paper. To understand how they evolved these healing superpowers, Dr. Smith and his colleagues looked to the axolotl’s DNA.
At 10 times the size of the human genome, the axolotl genome was no small beast to tackle. “This thing’s huge,” said Melissa Keinath, a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Baltimore and an author of the paper.
Building off a previous study, Dr. Keinath and her colleagues mapped more than 100,000 pieces of DNA onto chromosomes, the structures that package DNA in the nucleus of each cell. Their axolotl genome is the largest genome to be assembled at this level.
The scientists used an approach called linkage mapping, which relies on the fact that DNA sequences that are physically close together on a chromosome tend to be inherited together.
To identify axolotl-specific DNA, the researchers juxtaposed axolotls with tiger salamanders, which are close relatives. Specifically, they crossed axolotls and tiger salamanders, then back-crossed these first-generation hybrids with pure axolotls.
Tracking patterns of gene inheritance across 48 of these second-generation hybrids, the researchers were able to infer which sequences of DNA belonged to axolotls and where they physically sat along the amphibian’s 14 chromosomes (humans have a greater number of chromosomes, but the axolotl’s are much larger).
It was like “putting together 14 linear puzzles,” said Randal Voss, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Kentucky and an author of the study.
In the process of validating their results, they identified a gene mutation that causes a commonly studied heart defect in axolotls, demonstrating that their research will speed up the process of scanning the axolotl genome for mutations in the future.
Ultimately, knowing how DNA is positioned along chromosomes “allows you to start thinking about functions and how genes are regulated,” Dr. Voss said. For instance, much of the genome consists of noncoding DNA sequences that turn genes on and off. Often, these noncoding sequences occur on the same chromosome as the genes they interact with.
“Once these relationships are known, then we can ask questions about whether the same kind of controls happen in other animals, like humans,” said Jessica Whited, a professor and limb regeneration expert at Harvard Medical School who was not involved in the study.
Over all, she added, that will help scientists understand whether there are predictable ways to “render humans more like axolotls,” fantastic regenerators of the animal kingdom.
Kamala Harris
Harris, a former prosecutor and attorney general of California, took care to note that her support for “smart gun safety laws” did not imply disagreement with the tenets of the Second Amendment.
“You can be in favor of the Second Amendment and also understand that there is no reason in a civil society that we have assault weapons around communities that can kill babies and police officers,” she said.
She called for a ban on assault weapons as well as universal background checks, saying the only obstacle was Congress, which lacked “the courage to act the right way.” As for the NRA, which awards her a 7 percent rating, she acknowledged its influence was “real” but also suggested its power has been overstated, making the organization a “paper tiger.”
“We’re not waiting for a tragedy,” she said. “We have seen the worst human tragedies we can imagine."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/01/29/kamala-harris-gun-control-requires-locked-room-with-autopsy-photographs-those-babies/?utm_term=.3a57f4e55605
Dana Milbank
The Government is Desperately Trying to Turn Lies into Truths
The routine, extravagant efforts to convert fiction into fact remind me of the work of the great con artist Stephen Glass 20 years ago, when we both worked at the New Republic. Glass partially or wholly fabricated 27 (literally) fantastic articles for the magazine before he was caught. Even more stunning was the web of deceit he employed to cover up his fraud once editor Chuck Lane (now a colleague in The Post’s opinions section) began asking questions: fake notes, fake memos, fake business cards, a fake website, fake voice mail and even the use of his brother to pose as a fake source.
The difference, of course, is that Glass wasn’t running the country. As Trump is discovering, the administration’s backfilling of his untruths keeps the con going for only so long.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-government-is-trying-to-turn-trumps-lies-into-truths/2019/01/28/1ad3a89e-2349-11e9-ad53-824486280311_story.html?utm_term=.3a3316832093
Thurgood Marshall
Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.
Thurgood Marshall
http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/hill/marshall.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurgood_Marshall
Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) was a U.S. Supreme Court justice and civil rights advocate. Marshall earned an important place in American history on the basis of two accomplishments. ... He argued thirty-two cases before the Supreme Court, prevailing in twenty-nine of them.
Roosevelt
Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Aristotle on Democracy
Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.
Aristotle
Modern Life: Me, My Dog, and the Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm (/ˈælɡərɪðəm/ (About this soundlisten)) is an unambiguous specification of how to solve a class of problems. Algorithms can perform calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning tasks.
As an effective method, an algorithm can be expressed within a finite amount of space and time[1] and in a well-defined formal language[2] for calculating a function.[3] Starting from an initial state and initial input (perhaps empty),[4] the instructions describe a computation that, when executed, proceeds through a finite[5] number of well-defined successive states, eventually producing "output"[6] and terminating at a final ending state. The transition from one state to the next is not necessarily deterministic; some algorithms, known as randomized algorithms, incorporate random input.[7]
The concept of algorithm has existed for centuries. Greek mathematicians used algorithms in, for example, the sieve of Eratosthenes for finding prime numbers and the Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers.[8]
The word algorithm itself derives from the 9th century mathematician Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, Latinized Algoritmi. A partial formalization of what would become the modern concept of algorithm began with attempts to solve the Entscheidungsproblem (decision problem) posed by David Hilbert in 1928. Later formalizations were framed as attempts to define "effective calculability"[9] or "effective method".[10] Those formalizations included the Gödel–Herbrand–Kleene recursive functions of 1930, 1934 and 1935, Alonzo Church's lambda calculus of 1936, Emil Post's Formulation 1 of 1936, and Alan Turing's Turing machines of 1936–37 and 1939.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm
An Open Letter
When I travel, I seek it out because I know exactly what I’ll get—the precise dose of caffeine (roughly the amount to bring a horse back from the dead) that my body needs soon after sunrise. Also, let me admit: over the years my usual order has gotten more and more baroque. I’m going to share it even though it is objectively embarrassing, to demonstrate that, despite the fact that this is an open letter, which is inherently impersonal, I’m trying to be honest.
Ready? It’s three shots of espresso with extra ice in a venti cup, plus three pumps sugar-free vanilla and a splash of half and half. Holy shit.
The effort to remove Donald Trump from office—by impeachment, resignation, or electoral defeat—is among the most important political fights in American history. The stakes are total. If he is on the ballot in 2020 he will be defeated by Democratic voters, with the help of independents, first-time voters, and some Republicans—or he will be re-elected. A huge percentage of those voters are about to engage in a great contest, state by state, to choose the person we want to face off against Trump. Millions of your fellow citizens will take it seriously, they will knock on doors and persuade their friends, they will argue and think and worry about who they should support. For you to evade that process, for you to introduce so profound an uncertainty into this election, for you to leapfrog the primaries, avoid any debate, insert yourself into that decision, simply because you have the money to do it and the foolishness to believe the consultants you’ve paid to get to yes, is reprehensible.
You want to help your country? Help us defeat the propaganda machine that enables Trump and the worst elements of the Republican Party. Help us push back against corporate interests arrayed against action on climate change. Fund local journalism. Fund scholarships. Fund voter registration and protection. And, if you believe in the case you’d make as an independent candidate, join the Democratic primary and make that case before the voters you’d need to win. Put some skin in the game. Put some time on the trail. Because unlike money, time and skin are as limited for you as they are for the rest of us.
I believe you love this country. I believe you believe in a noble conception of your motivations. So my hope is that the criticisms reach you, that you talk to smart people you do not pay, that you do not show the same kind of hubris and selfishness and ego that led Trump to believe he alone could fix it. In other words, I hope you show some patriotism and get your head out of your ass. That’s it from me, Howard. If you want to talk more, just send a note to the baristas at Sunset and Gower.
Warmest regards,
Jon
https://crooked.com/articles/open-letter-howard-schultz/
No Interest
I am startled and disappointed to discover that most of the people I know who were raised upper middle-class are still subscribing to that life. I was raised with a silver spoon but it was jabbed up my ass. I have no interest in duplicating that existence.
A Comedian's Story
A comedian says U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers asked him to get off a Greyhound bus in Washington, then demanded to see his papers and attempted to declare them fake. The incident, which he recounted in a series of tweets, has been met with national outrage from both the public and politicians.
https://www.thecut.com/2019/01/comedian-mohanad-elshieky-says-cbp-agents-called-him-illegal.html#_ga=2.263667658.773066963.1548771282-amp-TXYZ-IOtdsKQqJ6sXsmfOw
Seasonal Energies Centered by Swimming
What I have discovered is that swimming is just as important during transmit-mode as it is during receive-mode. Because when I blow it off, after a few days I become off balanced, angry, edgy. I start spinning straight up, losing a lot of ground. Even walking is not nearly as helpful as swimming laps although walking is better than nothing. My seasonal moods and energies are centered by swimming. This is why people meditate. My meditation happens to be in the water.
Everybody
“Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing.”
― Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier
Outside Assurance
“There is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.”
― Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier
Ford Madox Ford
“We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist. So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the encouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of his own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as the shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages of the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will have been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story.”
― Ford Madox Ford
Democracy
One doesn't want one's democracy to behave like a dictatorial or fascistic police. One doesn't.
Tom Stoppard
Fundamental
I want to support the whole idea of the humanities and teaching the humanities as being something that - even if it can't be quantitatively measured as other subjects - it's as fundamental to all education.
Tom Stoppard
Your village and Beyond
Obviously, you would give your life for your children, or give them the last biscuit on the plate. But to me, the trick in life is to take that sense of generosity between kin, make it apply to the extended family and to your neighbour, your village and beyond.
Tom Stoppard
Love, Friendship and Respect
Love, friendship and respect do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.
Anton Chekhov
The Thirst for Power
The thirst for powerful sensations takes the upper hand both over fear and over compassion for the grief of others.
Anton Chekhov
A Writer is Not...
A writer is not a confectioner, a cosmetic dealer, or an entertainer.
Anton Chekhov
Lonely Existence
People who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds that they are eager to talk about.
Anton Chekhov
Incomprehensibly Complex
All of life and human relations have become so incomprehensibly complex that, when you think about it, it becomes terrifying and your heart stands still.
Anton Chekhov
Electricity and Steam
Reason and justice tell me there's more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism.
Anton Chekhov
Dr. Chekov
When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't be cured.
Anton Chekhov
The World Perishes
The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.
Anton Chekhov
In Love with Chekov
Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.
Anton Chekhov
Appreciate
Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.
Anton Chekhov
I Promise
I promise to be an excellent husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, will not appear every day in my sky.
Anton Chekhov
Fools and Charlatans
No psychologist should pretend to understand what he does not understand... Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand nothing.
Anton Chekhov
A Good Upbringing
A good upbringing means not that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice it when someone else does.
Anton Chekhov
“Even in Siberia there is happiness.”
“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
“Any idiot can face a crisis; it's this day-to-day living that wears you out.”
― Anton Chekhov
“The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.”
― Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“What a fine weather today! Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.”
― A.P. Chekhov
“The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.”
― Anton Chekhov
“When asked, "Why do you always wear black?", he said, "I am mourning for my life.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Wisdom.... comes not from age, but from education and learning.”
― Anton Chekhov
“You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don't want to understand you.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other”
― Anton Chekhov
“Civilized people must, I believe, satisfy the following criteria:
1) They respect human beings as individuals and are therefore always tolerant, gentle, courteous and amenable ... They do not create scenes over a hammer or a mislaid eraser; they do not make you feel they are conferring a great benefit on you when they live with you, and they don't make a scandal when they leave. (...)
2) They have compassion for other people besides beggars and cats. Their hearts suffer the pain of what is hidden to the naked eye. (...)
3) They respect other people's property, and therefore pay their debts.
4) They are not devious, and they fear lies as they fear fire. They don't tell lies even in the most trivial matters. To lie to someone is to insult them, and the liar is diminished in the eyes of the person he lies to. Civilized people don't put on airs; they behave in the street as they would at home, they don't show off to impress their juniors. (...)
5) They don't run themselves down in order to provoke the sympathy of others. They don't play on other people's heartstrings to be sighed over and cosseted ... that sort of thing is just cheap striving for effects, it's vulgar, old hat and false. (...)
6) They are not vain. They don't waste time with the fake jewellery of hobnobbing with celebrities, being permitted to shake the hand of a drunken [judicial orator], the exaggerated bonhomie of the first person they meet at the Salon, being the life and soul of the bar ... They regard prases like 'I am a representative of the Press!!' -- the sort of thing one only hears from [very minor journalists] -- as absurd. If they have done a brass farthing's work they don't pass it off as if it were 100 roubles' by swanking about with their portfolios, and they don't boast of being able to gain admission to places other people aren't allowed in (...) True talent always sits in the shade, mingles with the crowd, avoids the limelight ... As Krylov said, the empty barrel makes more noise than the full one. (...)
7) If they do possess talent, they value it ... They take pride in it ... they know they have a responsibility to exert a civilizing influence on [others] rather than aimlessly hanging out with them. And they are fastidious in their habits. (...)
8) They work at developing their aesthetic sensibility ... Civilized people don't simply obey their baser instincts ... they require mens sana in corpore sano.
And so on. That's what civilized people are like ... Reading Pickwick and learning a speech from Faust by heart is not enough if your aim is to become a truly civilized person and not to sink below the level of your surroundings.
[From a letter to Nikolay Chekhov, March 1886]”
― Anton Chekhov, A Life in Letters
“If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry.”
― Anton Chekhov, Notebook of Anton Chekhov
“Man is what he believes.”
― Anton Chekhov
“We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.”
― Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you’re angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you’re asked.”
― Anton Chekhov
“A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stages - first an acquantaince, next a mistress, and only then a friend.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters
“If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.”
― Anton Chekhov
“To fear love is to fear life, and those whose fear life are already three parts dead...”
― Anton Chekhov
“There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.”
― Anton Pavlovič Čechov
“Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels
“And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe.”
― Anton Chekhov
“The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.”
― Anton Chekhov
“The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.”
― Chekhov, Anton Chekhov, Anton
“There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble."
(The Mill)”
― Anton Chekhov, The Portable Chekhov
“Even in Siberia there is happiness.”
― Anton Chekhov
“...and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Do you see that tree? It is dead but it still sways in the wind with the others. I think it would be like that with me. That if I died I would still be part of life in one way or another.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters
“I was oppressed with a sense of vague discontent and dissatisfaction with my own life, which was passing so quickly and uninterestingly, and I kept thinking it would be a good thing if I could tear my heart out of my breast, that heart which had grown so weary of life.”
― Anton Chekhov
― Anton Chekhov
“Perhaps man has a hundred senses, and when he dies only the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
“Any idiot can face a crisis; it's this day-to-day living that wears you out.”
― Anton Chekhov
“The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.”
― Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“What a fine weather today! Can’t choose whether to drink tea or to hang myself.”
― A.P. Chekhov
“The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.”
― Anton Chekhov
“When asked, "Why do you always wear black?", he said, "I am mourning for my life.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Wisdom.... comes not from age, but from education and learning.”
― Anton Chekhov
“You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don't want to understand you.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other”
― Anton Chekhov
“Civilized people must, I believe, satisfy the following criteria:
1) They respect human beings as individuals and are therefore always tolerant, gentle, courteous and amenable ... They do not create scenes over a hammer or a mislaid eraser; they do not make you feel they are conferring a great benefit on you when they live with you, and they don't make a scandal when they leave. (...)
2) They have compassion for other people besides beggars and cats. Their hearts suffer the pain of what is hidden to the naked eye. (...)
3) They respect other people's property, and therefore pay their debts.
4) They are not devious, and they fear lies as they fear fire. They don't tell lies even in the most trivial matters. To lie to someone is to insult them, and the liar is diminished in the eyes of the person he lies to. Civilized people don't put on airs; they behave in the street as they would at home, they don't show off to impress their juniors. (...)
5) They don't run themselves down in order to provoke the sympathy of others. They don't play on other people's heartstrings to be sighed over and cosseted ... that sort of thing is just cheap striving for effects, it's vulgar, old hat and false. (...)
6) They are not vain. They don't waste time with the fake jewellery of hobnobbing with celebrities, being permitted to shake the hand of a drunken [judicial orator], the exaggerated bonhomie of the first person they meet at the Salon, being the life and soul of the bar ... They regard prases like 'I am a representative of the Press!!' -- the sort of thing one only hears from [very minor journalists] -- as absurd. If they have done a brass farthing's work they don't pass it off as if it were 100 roubles' by swanking about with their portfolios, and they don't boast of being able to gain admission to places other people aren't allowed in (...) True talent always sits in the shade, mingles with the crowd, avoids the limelight ... As Krylov said, the empty barrel makes more noise than the full one. (...)
7) If they do possess talent, they value it ... They take pride in it ... they know they have a responsibility to exert a civilizing influence on [others] rather than aimlessly hanging out with them. And they are fastidious in their habits. (...)
8) They work at developing their aesthetic sensibility ... Civilized people don't simply obey their baser instincts ... they require mens sana in corpore sano.
And so on. That's what civilized people are like ... Reading Pickwick and learning a speech from Faust by heart is not enough if your aim is to become a truly civilized person and not to sink below the level of your surroundings.
[From a letter to Nikolay Chekhov, March 1886]”
― Anton Chekhov, A Life in Letters
“If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry.”
― Anton Chekhov, Notebook of Anton Chekhov
“Man is what he believes.”
― Anton Chekhov
“We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.”
― Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
“There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you’re angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you’re asked.”
― Anton Chekhov
“A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stages - first an acquantaince, next a mistress, and only then a friend.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters
“If ever my life can be of any use to you, come and claim it.”
― Anton Chekhov
“To fear love is to fear life, and those whose fear life are already three parts dead...”
― Anton Chekhov
“There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.”
― Anton Pavlovič Čechov
“Why are we worn out? Why do we, who start out so passionate, brave, noble, believing, become totally bankrupt by the age of thirty or thirty-five? Why is it that one is extinguished by consumption, another puts a bullet in his head, a third seeks oblivion in vodka, cards, a fourth, in order to stifle fear and anguish, cynically tramples underfoot the portrait of his pure, beautiful youth? Why is it that, once fallen, we do not try to rise, and, having lost one thing, we do not seek another? Why?”
― Anton Chekhov, The Complete Short Novels
“And I despise your books, I despise wisdom and the blessings of this world. It is all worthless, fleeting, illusory, and deceptive, like a mirage. You may be proud, wise, and fine, but death will wipe you off the face of the earth as though you were no more than mice burrowing under the floor, and your posterity, your history, your immortal geniuses will burn or freeze together with the earthly globe.”
― Anton Chekhov
“The happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burden in silence. Without this silence, happiness would be impossible.”
― Anton Chekhov
“The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.”
― Chekhov, Anton Chekhov, Anton
“There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble."
(The Mill)”
― Anton Chekhov, The Portable Chekhov
“Even in Siberia there is happiness.”
― Anton Chekhov
“...and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.”
― Anton Chekhov
“Do you see that tree? It is dead but it still sways in the wind with the others. I think it would be like that with me. That if I died I would still be part of life in one way or another.”
― Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters
“I was oppressed with a sense of vague discontent and dissatisfaction with my own life, which was passing so quickly and uninterestingly, and I kept thinking it would be a good thing if I could tear my heart out of my breast, that heart which had grown so weary of life.”
― Anton Chekhov