On My Mind This Week (OMMTW)
~ Week 4, December 2022 ~
Becky Tuch asks about de-platforming on her Substack, Lit Mag News Roundup. I weigh in on behalf of ONE ART and myself. Lots of interesting engagement in the comments.
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Amazing new episode of The Gray Area featuring Dr. Gabor Maté. The doc has just released a fascinating new book—The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture
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Patrick McCormick who runs ‘Not Boring’ addresses the fearsome Blank Page
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Writer’s Digest’s most popular posts of 2022.
This includes WD’s annual Best Websites for Writers lists.
Unfortunately, most of this is behind a paywall. If you go to Barnes & Noble, you can pick the magazine up off the shelf and skim through.
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15 Things Nobody Told Me About Book Publishing – a thoughtful and, potentially, useful read.
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A little more of the classic “why doctors make the worst patients”. My guess, is that doctors do not follow medication guidelines because they believe that given this is their area of expertise that they simply know better and know safe practices. To draw a totally uncorrelated reference to poetry, those who have learned the rules, in turn, know how to break the rules. A notable difference being that breaking the rules in poetry usually has limited impact on your physical and/or mental health.
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A few of 2022’s notable numbers.
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Disney makes news for a good reason.
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ICYMI: Butter boards have been a thing since (to the best of my millennial knowledge) “the kids these days” got excited about the concept on The TikTok. Fairly quickly, it was noted that eating boatloads of butter is not super healthy and maybe we shouldn’t all get real into this idea. In any case, we have reached “Phase 2” – butter candles.
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This chicken may be 20 years old. Not trying to sound like an angry vegetarian… that being said, broiler chickens have a lifespan of five to seven weeks. More sad, the lifespan of egg laying hens in battery cages can be years. If suffering is life, tragically, the shorter the better in this case. All this as a reminder that society needs to push back hard on the travesties of animal agriculture. And, we shouldn’t put all the blame on farmers. They are often in a kind of indentured servitude to large companies like Purdue because they owe debts to these companies for taking out large loans in order to upgrade their farm equipment to keep up with modern standards and changes in the industry. It’s a mess. A very sad mess. I touch on these topics and more in my recently released poetry collection MEATLESS from Plan B Press.
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More talk about how we have to get our house in order with regards to tipping.
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New Zealand is on the cutting-edge making moves towards ending cigarette use in a way that sounds like the kind of legislation push that begins in California.
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Hope someone who gets more joy from baking tries this recipes and let’s me know how it turns out.
As they say, baking is chemistry. And some of struggled quite a bit in chemistry. (ahem.)
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Why children are natural born philosophers:
“Children have two advantages. First, they’re new to the world and constantly confused by it. So they ask about everything. Several years ago, the psychologist Michelle Chouinard listened to recordings of young children spending time with their parents. On average, the kids asked more than two questions per minute. Nearly a quarter of those questions sought explanations; the kids wanted to know how or why. Second, they aren’t afraid of getting things wrong – or seeming silly. Kids are wrong all the time. And silly is their main line of business. That makes them fearless thinkers, ready to share their thoughts, even if they don’t know that they’re right.”
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Big Brother is watching you while you work. Not exactly a sign that employers have a lots of faith in their employees. They’d be far better off letting employees work at their own pace without the Sword of Damocles hanging over them. Turns out, Kafka gave this some thought.
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The importance of reading & writing for breaking away from the status quo.
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Swing and a miss. Top Ranked Holiday Films list forgets to include ‘Scrooged’. ‘The Ref’ should be higher on this list. ‘Love Actually’ should definitely be on this list. Muppets are a key ingredient for the holidays. Charlie Brown probably needs a little love. Plenty of other sources have better lists. All this begs the question – what makes a good holiday film? Also, what constitutes a holiday flick? Folks love to talk about ‘Die Hard’ being the best Christmas movie even though it has very little to do with Christmas. One might think that certain story arcs would make for the appropriate level of mixed-bag ending that many if not most of us experience around the holidays. If you look up “alternative Christmas movies” (or a related search), you’ll find so truly bizarre picks including Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’— definitely non-traditional to say the least. A weird pick here with L.A. Confidential, and more what I’m thinking with the pick of ‘Steel Magnolias’.
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This is really a “previously on my mind” … and it feels more like Depths of Wikipedia territory. All that being said, I’ve found a Wikipedia pages that are interesting enough to take a deep dive (usually simply captivating enough) and read top to bottom. This one on John Fetterman (I’m a long-time supporter), and this one on Lenny Dykstra (aka. “Nails”) are two very different examples.
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As much as I enjoy aspects of AWP, the organization continues to let me down. I recently put up a Facebook post (tl;dr) – it’s uaffordable for most. Interestingly, the next day, an email arrives in my inbox about AWP awarding scholarships for minority groups, the queer community, and/or those with “low income”. Let it be acknowledged that those with “low income” probably have bigger problems than being able to attend a, frankly, elite (I’m not saying necessarily elitist though that argument can be made) literary conference.
This year, virtual attendance (+ membership fees) cost $135. The question is, what value do you, as an individual, receive? This is very much personalized. I’m predicting that I’ll write more on AWP in future…
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The greatest thing since…
Town that may have first created sliced bread seems to have forgotten they created sliced bread.
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Reader Beware, this next one (to the best of my knowledge) originates from a TikTok trend.
Apparently, CLOUD BREAD has become a thing!? I dunno… I may have to give it a shot. *sigh*
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Gallup goes deep and questions “Who Feels Personal Peace on Earth?”
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New Views/Impressions model on Twitter seems misleading. If you post on a trending topic, my guess is you’ll likely see at least a slight boost in impressions but that doesn’t seem to indicate anyone is actually reading but instead simply scrolling by your post. “Detail expands” would indicate a certain level of engagement. Still, reading with interest feels much different than fleeting curiosity. I wonder how many seconds later the average person can tell you the last tweet or post they read? 3 seconds? 5 seconds? 10 seconds?
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