Some folks are penny wishers, others are star wishers.
If you prefer stars, here’s a chalk star to wish upon …
~
This is a re-post from a couple of years ago. Thought I’d revisit it now–
at a time of year devoted to intentions, resolutions, success plans.
Sometimes, perhaps, it’s better to drop the effort and hope for something grand …
Meeting relatives within walking distance of my paternal ancestors’ bones.
Translation aside, I have no idea what they’re saying… do you?
Kleinwarasdorf, Burgenland, Austria
Another image of the Lukács Thermal Bath in Budapest.
The bigger, better view is over at my photo blog:
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History:
12th c: monastery baths existed in this area
1880’s: first spa hotel built
1937: drinking cure hall added
1979: daytime hospital established
end of 20th c: spa thoroughly renovated and modernized
now: a popular meeting place for artists and writers
Treatments:
healing drinking cure
physiotherapy
mud packs
Finnish sauna
dry and steam sauna chambers
foot massage
underwater massage with water beam
refreshing massage
medical healing massage
carbonic acid tub bath
weight bath
~
Here’s a different view > Lukács 1.
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Have you been?
Water!
Not just any water–thermal, medicinal, healing water.
Here’s the direct link, with more details and a larger image included:
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Do you have water you’d describe in these terms?
If so, where?
Details about the March 25th walkout and study session: Here / Here / Here
Langara Faculty Association updates: Website / Facebook / Twitter Feed
Langara Social Justice Club solicits Read the rest of this entry »
Bunny, my honey. I love him like money even though he’s got a mean left hook.
It’s a byzantine relationship. Do you have one of these with your pet?
~
Click mouse for more feline fun.
This is my inflatable tree, courtesy of opera diva Barbara Thorson.
Takes less than 2 minutes to fill it.
Now that end-of-term grades are in,
it’s a quick-n-easy way for me to mark the shift in seasons.
What kind of tree do you have?
Somehow, I’ll bet it’s not like this one.
Feel free to post links to your tree photos in my comment box.
I’d love to see them…
Still under water, grading final exams, but the end is in sight.
Also in sight is another trip to the Upper Hot Springs in Banff.
Wonder if it’ll be cold enough for hair to freeze?
Icicle hair while soaking would be sweet…
Grab onto the railing…underwater massage
with jets in all directions. Thermal bubbles like this are
commonplace in Hungary. Hot springs in Canada
don’t feature these contraptions.
Wonder why that is?
Winter approaches. Perennials die–become unrecognizable.
Here’s the question:
The plant in the photo above is/was a _____________. Read the rest of this entry »
Cold November days make vibrant flowers fade from memory…
What fades in November for you?
Three words.
What’s amazing in your world?
Ever feel the need to detach from the web?
I do, every now and again.
This bird sang for me on a May day in Hungary.
I was strolling streets aimlessly in the spa town of Hévíz.
Any idea what kind of bird this is?
Morning greets me with crisp air and fresh Toad Lily blooms.
In your yard, are there any bursting blossoms for you?
Not long ago, I wrote about the human practice of assigning homo-sapiens the names of non-human animals.
Now, in a ‘stone’ called ‘Catch & Release’, I offer a cross-species sporting reference to a mate-selection ritual used by some individuals. The 22 words–in all their glory–appear in the U.K.-based web-zine A Handful of Stones. According to editor Fiona Robyn, a small stone is a very short piece of writing that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment.
To read ‘Catch & Release’,
click the fish below:
A note about the image: I captured it while staring through water, looking down at a pond, standing on the bridge behind Festetics Castle in Keszthely, Hungary–the place where ‘Catch & Release’ was conceived.
And a question:
Do you use non-human animal references to describe assorted human activities and practices?
Alternative to a conventional bridal shower?
A tropical feast with Polynesian dance lessons for friends …
Play videos simultaneously to join the party:
Instructors above ↑ Guests below ↓
Flowers in orange and yellow and pink.
No footage of roasting pig, though.
Always been curious about the High Arctic.
Hadn’t occurred to me I’d fly atop it on my journey to Europe.
After a nap, I look out the window–ice floes everywhere.
Baffin Island. Baffin Bay. Greenland. Norwegian Sea.
In-flight TV monitor reads:
Minus 86 degrees celsius at over 35,000 feet.
Go here for more on Flight 493.
My Variegated Algerian Ivy on a trellis. Slowly, it climbs; grows tall.
In which direction does your Ivy crawl?
Getting mail is cool. No doubt about it.
It’s even cooler when mail with my name on it contains something other than bills.
Take, for example, the package above — sent to me by California-based Folded Word Press Managing Editor, J.S. Graustein. The package contains two custom-made postcard bundles that unfold into a labyrinth of color-coded stories, written and made just for me.
Unravelled, they look like this: Read the rest of this entry »
I was thinking about childhood today, and wondered:
What made me happy as a kid?
I instructed myself to dispense with analysis and forget about critical thinking:
Why certain things put a smile on my face was less interesting than revisiting the sources of my bliss.
First thing that popped into my head:
The Brady Bunch
’70’s TV show / fictional family / a dog / a maid / 6 kids
I loved The Brady Bunch.
They made me happy, and their rendition of ‘Sunshine Day’ still makes me grin …
And a question:
What made you happy as a kid?
I ask myself:
What might a garden look like after midnight through tired eyes and dim light?
Kind of like this, I reply.
The discovery took place in my sandbox — VisuaLiving — while half asleep the other night.
Sweet fragrant daffodils, in full bloom, poke through astilbe leaves to say hello and ask:
Where are you?
The April Garden Party is in full swing.
There’s room for more, and it doesn’t matter where you live.
The point of the party is to share what is (or isn’t) growing in April near you.
For directions, and to see who’s arrived, follow this link.
Hope to see you soon!
Karyn
April is over and submissions are closed.
To all who stopped by to view and/or share, thank-you!
The April Garden Party photos are preserved. Have a look.
On the right is Molly Gaudry — author of We Take Me Apart and Flora The Whore. On the left is the PayPal poem she custom wrote for me for just $1.00.
Here’s the link:
The Mysterious Case of Nancy Drewblood for Karyn Eisler
[Unfortunately, the link to the poem is no longer available.
Wishing now I’d printed a hard copy for myself.]
~
While I’d like to think I’m special — the only person on the planet with the opportunity to trade tailored words for just a dollar — it’s not the case. For a whole host of reasons, Molly has made the exchange available to people other than me — to everyone, it seems. On her website she states:
“For $1.00, I WILL WRITE YOU A POEM and post it here and on our friend, Facebook … let’s call this enterprising, exciting, intriguing. Here are the facts:”
Yes, facts. She lists 23.
I first read about this a while back, but was reminded the other day when I saw a blog post about the poem she wrote for Dorothee Lang.
I wondered:
If I place a PayPal order for myself, what sort of poem will she craft?
She’d asked for guidelines; prompts; instructions. I didn’t give her much to go on:
“No special instructions. I’m thinking of this as an intuitive poem — one where you, the writer, will know exactly the words I need to read.”
Molly, thank-you for Nancy Drewblood’s promise of new vistas with each forward step.
On another note …
Molly has hatched a plan to do a Ph.D. Item #10 on her fact list reads:
“I will cast a net and apply to dream PhD programs, good PhD programs, and backup PhD programs.”
Drawing from experience, having walked that road myself, I figure that even with full funding and brisk poetry sales she’ll need plenty of cash. I think she ought to hike her rate from $1.00 per poem … to more than that.
Birthing blooms vines leaves, my window spring morning fresh, I see.
© Karyn Eisler, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
***
Your view?
Send video or 515 pixel-wide jpeg [or wider] to:
k_eisler AT telus DOT net
Words, name, link, location — please include.
Look forward to seeing what’s growing (or isn’t) near you!
April is over and submissions are closed.
To all who stopped by to view and/or share, thank-you!
Scroll down to see the April photos. They’re preserved.
A question for chalk artists:
Have you any idea of the joy you bring to passersby who
stop and look,
then smile at your creations,
before rain makes the beauty disappear?
Who owns this car? Who adorned it like this?
I want to see this person–how they decorates themselves.
I wait for a while, no one appears.
I don’t have proof, but assume they look like their car, the reverse, or something else …
It’s one thing to experience social life, another to describe it, and something different altogether to depict it visually.
I discovered Palindrome on the BluePrintReview blog just a moment. It knocked my socks off. I left a comment. Here’s what I said:
“So glossy and seductive like beautiful masks people wear at parties; masks that beg to be pulled off b/c of the compulsion to see who’s underneath …
… a fascinating visual depiction of sociology, of the ongoing tensions between self and society, and the ways in which identity is negotiated …”
To my words I’d like to add:
It represents the weight of expectation — of family, ethnicity, race, class, gender, socialization, education, religion, occupation, etc.
It also represents human struggle and the capacity for resistance …
***
The mastermind behind Palindrome is Isabelle Carbonell — a documentary photographer and filmmaker based in Washington, D.C.
Here’s how she describes her work:
“Palindrome is a “videopainting” about what society demands us to do as either immigrants or citizens: to assimilate. It is a palindromic painting about the mirror of identity, the multiple masks we offer in different settings, and our subconscious rebellion that emerges in times of epiphany.”
What does Palindrome represent to you?
What do you see?
Some people wish on stars, others on pennies.
Here’s a penny for penny wishers.
What do you wish for?
Was chatting with a fellow passenger on the Canada Line. He offered to sell me four tickets to the Winter Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. Great seats: third row from the front at B.C. Place. He bought them for $1,100.- each when they first went on sale. The intent was to re-sell for a profit.
Now he’s asking $1,600.- per ticket. It’s easy math: $2,000.- in his pocket if he unloads them for the price he asks. Thing is, the Opening Ceremony is under three weeks away. He’s having trouble selling. He’s advertised on craigslist and registered his tickets with the VANOC resale site. But so far, he says, no takers …
I open the mailbox, pull out the contents, ask a question:
“What’s this?”
“Repetition in a different world,” I say.
“I know (this). I’ve seen these ‘wind words’ before, up close on the computer screen, at a distance. And now, here they are in my hands to touch.”
***
It’s an airmail postcard from Dorothee Lang: German author, artist, poet.
On one side, an image from ‘Lung Ta (wind words)’, introduced to the world in the recent ‘Words of Power’ issue of the online experimental journal qarrtsiluni.
On the other side, a micro-text entitled (this), which appears in A Handful Of Stones: a cyberspace journal that celebrates “the extraordinary in the ordinary”.
Virtual and tangible realities intersect for me as I experience the same words and photographs in different ways, in different worlds.
***
“Is either world, either experience, more real?” I ask. 
The ambiguity makes me wonder:
Is the fundraiser for Haiti disaster relief?
or
Did the earthquake in Haiti spark fear in Vancouver,
and efforts to stockpile emergency funds for when
The Big One
shakes the Canadian west coast,
which we’re told is inevitable?
He told me his name and the name of his cat.
Don’t remember either and forgot to ask:
Does the weight of the cat make your head hurt?
~
I’m curious since they take long walks around town … just like that.
Urban Outfitters. Granville St. 2PM.
I wonder:
How much money did they spend?
Will their deals make them happy?
