domingo, 16 de agosto de 2009

Julie & Julia: a personal blog story

Julie & Julia (Sony Pictures, 2009) was the most immediate and pressing reason for me to start writing this blog a week ago. I simply ran out of reasons not to do it.

Thinking that writing a blog would be both very difficult and expensive, I resisted the idea for years, resigning myself to live in self imposed ‘silence’ as a writer. Somewhere in my mind I knew, however, that the true reason for that prolonged and stubborn resistance is the fact that I was (still am a little) fearful of net invisibility and rejection. I did not want to become a literary cyber ghost, someone writing facelessly into the vast, heavily trafficked, hectic and overly competitive void of cyberspace and its wondrously monumental and ever-evolving offspring: the internet.

But here I am, seven days later and some 50 postings later… and loving it! My creative and literary juices are flowing again and I know some curious and other friendly visitors have come to take a peek at my newly surfaced Island and to see (in the case of my friends and family) the end result of my tireless efforts in writing and choosing templates and widgets in my computer over the breakfast area table during the last few days.

Thank you beforehand and come back often to see how things are improving. It will only get better as my confidence and level of comfort writing in this new medium grow and I get a better sense of what makes my readers and myself ‘tic’ and what works and doesn’t work in the design and layout of the page.

Thank you Julie & Julia et al. Until next posting…

Bon appétit!




Otherworldly VISUAL PARADOXes







VISUAL PARADOX MAGIC










THE VERY TALENTED MR. KISSINGER





Brian S. Kissinger is the artist, creator and webmaster of the stunningly beautiful website VISUAL PARADOX, a tastefully and intelligently crafted and gallery-indexed depository of his magnificent and uniquely generated 3D art. The artwork (titled Isle by Kissinger) that identifies and embellishes this blog is one among hundreds of his 3D rendered masterpieces found there.


His works are simply breathtaking in subject and project execution. Don't just take my word for it. Visit his website and download some of his free wallpapers. He maintains the site by showing advertising at the top of each page you visit so please, make sure to view at least one advertiser so that he can keep this wonder of a website free of charge for all of us to enjoy the magic of his unparalleled 3D creations.


Please use the link reproduced herein: http://visualparadox.com/ or tap the link to his website on the sidebar of this blog under the heading Island World Links.





Humanness

Humanness is the quality, the abstraction, the fact and the act of being human.

Humanness sets up apart and ideally above all other known species in our ability to be sentient, act, react and interact with each other, the surrounding environment and members of other species. Humanness intuitively derives most of its manifestations and intellectual feedback from our capacity to feel and process those feelings at a subconscious level and how we project those very personal yet universal feelings onto others.

Our humanness prompts us to undertake and execute seemingly impossible acts of selflessness, bravery, defiance of our own physical abilities and heroism.

When a 110-pound mother is able to pick up a small truck and set it aside to save her offspring trap underneath it; that is humanness. When the firefighter risks his life to rescue a person in a burning structure and sometimes indeed gives his life in the process or after achieving his noble objective; that is humanness. When a small child holds and cuddles an injured animal and feels its pain and vulnerability and attempts to nurture it and heal it; that is humanness.

Sometimes, however, our humanness fails us miserably. Precisely because we are human and miscalculation and misjudgment are constant variants of our very frail humanity and social framework. Sometimes we think and behave in ways that unwillingly infringe upon other people’s humanness and we hurt their feelings though that was not remotely the original intention and all was done in the fun or spur of the moment.

Those moments invariably test the caliber, genuineness and depth of our true humanity. Feeling bad with and for the injured person is the right and only human thing to do.

Today I am felling a little more human than other days…







Image by FlamingText.com

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Image by FlamingText.com
Mi foto
La Habana, Cuba, Los Ángeles, Estados Unidos
Nacido en La Habana, Cuba, el 3 de diciembre de 1960. Emigra a Estados Unidos en 1980, a través del éxodo masivo de Mariel. Ganador de numerosos concursos de poesía, literatura y ensayo en Cuba y Estados Unidos. Publica su primer poemario, "Insomnia" en 1988, con gran acogida por parte de la crítica especializada y el público. Considerado por críticos y expertos como uno de los poetas fundamentales y representativos de la llamada Generación del Mariel junto a Reinaldo Arenas, Jesús J. Barquet, Rafael Bordao, Roberto Valero y otros.