Writing Adventure

“’I did that,’ says my memory. ‘I can’t have done that,’ says my pride, and remains adamant. Finally memory gives way.” - Nietzsche.

“The interpreter” in the left brain strings experiences into narratives. A novelist in our heads. A novelist called memory ceaselessly redrafting the short story we call “My Life.”

"Writing and telling a story is all about detail and realising the significance of the insignificant." 

"Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public." - Goethe

...In both Irish and Welsh myth and saga, the art of foretelling the future is an essential part of the story. More often then not, it is to escape their fate, prophesied by the Druid, that leads the protagonists into adventures which inevitably lead them to the fate they seek to avoid. 

...At one point, the narrator irreverently criticizes the author and the book, saying: "You've slapped together travel notes, moralistic ramblings, feelings, notes, jottings, untheoretical discussions, unfable-like fables, copied out some folk songs, added some legend-like nonsense of your own, and are calling it fiction!"     -Soul Mountain by Gao

Book of Amnesia, V1

Author Page

handwriting

Writers and artists know it's all about choosing your quality tools wisely.

A well traveled 35-year old Mont Blanc Meisterstuck 149 piston fountain pen with a 14K gold nib and platinum inlay. The art of writing.

Language, writing, culture and civilization.

Been with us since passing through Hong Kong en route to a hotel management gig in Beijing. It's the feeling, joy of heft, ink distribution and quality. The edge on Moleskine paper, touch, sensory stimulation. Slowing down.

If you use a fountain pen you know what we mean. These days people crank out material with anything handy. Test out a fountain pen next time you're in the market for a quality writing instrument. Savor the precision.

Chinese students learn writing using them at the pre-university level.

Ancient influence of calligraphy and the fine arts. Before ball points and gels become ubiquitous in their lives.

An Edinburgh, Scotland school teaches students how to use a fountain pen.

"The pens improve the quality of work because they force the children to take care, and better work improves self-esteem," principal Bryan Lewis said. "Proper handwriting is as relevant today as it ever has been."

Happy writing. Go with the flow.

Random musings from a Moleskine notebook.

After a long steady heavy rain a pregnant woman

propped her mop made of strands - discarded rainbows -

as her dispassionate husband shucked peas

removed garlic shells from protective casing

after the sky finished crying to wash student street where

parades of disenfranchised university youth

sought shelter from the storm and well after open windows

released cello notes as a child sitting upright

tuned eyes to black notes on white pages

determined to master the instrument

another music student hammered

piano keys behind locked doors

pleasing Tiger Mom

flies gathered around brown sticky paste slowly

dripping off a cracked plate with their feelers

extending hope toward a thin white butterfly lifting off a green leaf

 

A diver spoke about money exchange systems after coming up for Air. 

How the value of economic currencies fluctuates.

A butterfly and turtle have so much in common.

One in air one in water.

Both floating.

The Language Company

“So you should view this fleeting world –
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.” – Diamond Sutra

*

This is what happened, more or less.

One of his names is Lucky Foot. What does that mean?

He elucidates in simple, clear, precise, concise English the language of savage barbarians.

It means, as an experience junky possessing genetic variant DRD4-R7 addicted to new adventures, he brings prosperity to merchants, rest-a-rant owners and nondescript sad, neglected, abandoned and emotionally well adjusted hot to trot red sheen women among humans struggling to survive life’s labyrinth without a center.

He gifts luck to money changers, manicure girls, beggars, banana women, landmine amputee survivors, ice and rice sellers, student-teachers, tinkers, tailors, soldiers, spies, textile merchants, weavers, artistic genius children, orphans, noodle mama, tea and java purveyors, gardeners, gravediggers, literary outlaws and craggy faced Dan, a boat captain in Hoi An who worked as an interpreter at MAC V during the Vietnam War.

Fate chance and destiny.

If he grows up he dies.

Security is an illusion.

He presents good fortune to Rita, author of Ice Girl in Banlung, barbers cleaning his ears, high-heeled sandal ladies, love sock purveyors and rent-a-life companies.

HCE. Here comes everybody.

90% of life is showing up. When he shows up their day, life, fate and glittering fortunes improve. Karmic destiny.

Fate laughed with him in Morocco on 9/11. He was in the Sahara. He did not take possession of that event and perpetual aftermath. Fear sells.

Destiny danced with him on the is-land of Amnesia in Southeast Asia and exploring Turkey, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Before returning to Nam in 2009 he lived on a string of 15,000 archipelago islands between Malaysia and Papa New Genie gathering evidence about the human condition.

Each island is a letter. If you string letters together you create a word. This word depending on your imaginary perception of truth-value may or may not have meaning for you like Beauty - your true reflection in still water.

Beauty needs no tongue.

A small journey expands life’s tapestry.

He’s a needle without a compass. His needle leads a thread. Threads weave a conversation.

Move like a river, rest like a mirror, respond like an echo.

The Language Company