Tag: Funny

As long as we’re looking at dreams …

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Since the Red Barn is excerpting from my personal Dreams Journal this year, we might as well also consider a few things about the phenomenon itself.

  1. They’re some of the best movies you’ll ever see, at least if you like Fellini or Wes Anderson. Think entertaining, personal, and surreal.
  2. They typically have one foot in the past and the other in the present. Thus, when I dream about trying to make a deadline in the newsroom, which I left a decade ago, I’m likely to be anxious about something else I’m facing today.
  3. If you’re encountering a nightmare but conscious enough, try looking straight into it. In my experience so far, it will shy away from revealing the evil things it portends.
  4. Dreams exist somewhere outside of normal moral restraints and thus must be accepted as such. You shouldn’t wake up feeling shamed or guilty.
  5. They’re windows into the unconscious and subconscious mind and emotions. It’s an entirely different reality and true in its own way. That is, dreams can run around your ongoing self-denial.
  6. Recurrent themes can open deep perspectives into ongoing mental and emotional states.
  7. If you’re working on any psychological issues, your dreams can run about six weeks ahead of surfacing into awareness.
  8. As for the quality of your visions? Do you dream in color? Or tones of gray?
  9. Is there dialog? As in, who’s doing the speaking?
  10. Beware of what you watch before just before bedtime. A recent spate of binge-viewing of Community led to some really strange sleep.

 

There’s one outstanding King of Maine

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

The popular (and how) “king of horror” has long deserved kudos for getting so many people to read, period, especially in today’s mass-media and marketing saturation. (I refuse to say “culture.”) Plus, there’s evidence he’s a much “better” writer than his top-selling novels reflect, given his appearances as a poet under pseudonyms and a few rogue novels. He’s quite conscious of structure and a bigger picture, for one thing.

Add to that poet Donald Hall’s observation that New England has a gothic nature, which King has played in spades, and King’s own comments about today’s publishing scene in his duels with the critics, often with advice I wished I’d been able to apply to my own work, but mine remains what it is.

All I’m saying is don’t underestimate him.

  1. His upbringing, should you care, would easily fill a dark series of stories all on its own. Somehow, he managed to get back to Maine.
  2. His wife, Tabitha Spruce, seems to be much more of a muse and guiding spirit than has been acknowledged. They met in college at the University of Maine and are still married. She stayed with him through a period of heavy alcohol abuse followed by recovery and sobriety.
  3. He’s said he married her “because of the fish she cooked for me,” and his favorite foods are salmon and cheesecake.
  4. Often critically dismissed as a commercial, pop-culture writer – horror, supernatural, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy fiction – King nevertheless embodied a seriously dedicated author who spent long hours day after day at the craft. He had good reasons to return fire at the more elite literary side of the profession.
  5. He’s never left his blue-collar background. Witness his longtime residency in Bangor, Maine, where you can live in one of the city’s classic big mansions and still be one more regular guy.
  6. Despite his wealth, his politics lean left. He and his wife are active philanthropists – ranking sixth among Maine charities. It’s said no deserving child in Maine is denied a college education, thanks to the King scholarships.
  7. He’s an avid Red Sox fan. And a daughter’s a Unitarian-Universalist minister. Wanna talk about being a New Englander?
  8. His life was changed by an afternoon accident in 1999 when he was struck by a minivan while walking along a highway that left him severely injured and sent him to Florida to live through our harsh winters. Still, he writes on.
  9. He’s claimed to not use cell phones, though that was a while ago. As for other technology? There’s his recent spat with Twitter, which tried to charge him for contributing content for the platform – rather than the other way around.
  10. His 65-plus books have sold more than 400 million copies and spawned countless films, TV series and miniseries, and comic books. And still he’s advocating for the better royalties and advance payments to entry-level authors.

The King home in Bangor is a popular tourist attraction. A tree trunk outside has been transformed into a wild sculpture.

With ten years of blogging under my belt, let me say  

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments
  1. You have a global audience. I remember being startled after posting a posting of a snowy New England day and getting a comment from the Philippines, “I’ve never seen snow.” In my life, I’ve always taken it for granted. And professionally, my daily journalism career focused on a well-defined circulation area, perhaps a single county or an entire state, depending on the newspaper at the time. My Red Barn posts, on the other hand, often get read on five or six continents.
  2. On WordPress, you’re part of a community. Sometimes posting can feel a bit like corresponding to pen pals in the old days. And it’s important to see what they’re up to as well and letting them know you’ve stopped by, too.
  3. At first, I didn’t understand “likes.” Yes, I was that naïve about social media. They do help me know who’s tuning in on a given day or topic, even though the number of hits now is generally lower than I had five or so years ago – I take it that’s one thing happening across the board. But I’m also surprised by the number of new likes on archived posts.
  4. Tags. They help invite readers. Just don’t use too many or too few. These days, I’m finding readers show up less frequently but then stay around longer, sampling other recent posts or digging into my deep past. I do find tags quite helpful in navigating the WP Reader for fresh voices.
  5. Categories. I find them quite useful in navigating the Barn, so I assume that applies for others, too. With the Red Barn’s unique merry-go-round approach to topics, I find them quite helpful in organizing the ongoing mix.
  6. Scheduling. Unlike most other bloggers, I often work on posts long ahead of their release. It’s one way to create time for my other projects, admittedly, as well as to juggle topics for a better rhythm of presentation. The practice also allows me to go back and polish a post before it goes live or to add from additional reflection. And paradoxically, it can also have me releasing in a more timely pace with the changing seasons – working “live” would actually put me behind the action.
  7. Classic editor, rather than the newer “block” format. Old-timers here at WordPress will definitely understand. Ditto for the Administrative working option.
  8. Reader’s comments are important. Some days they’re the best part of a post. But they’ve definitely declined, and I’m not sure whether that’s a consequence of the Barn’s current appearance or of its shifting round of topics or just something else in general.
  9. Photography. Despite a lifelong love of visual art, I had intended the Red Barn to be a text vehicle. But then photography crept in, first through a borrowed digital camera and then a cheap point-and-shoot Kodak leading to an Olympus and now an unbelievable smart phone. In short, I now list photography among my hobbies, even if it does seem like cheating compared to the historic and very real craft of light meters, f-stops, and darkroom developing of film. As for texts, length remains a puzzle – sometimes a longer “think piece” gets more hits than the bright briefs that seem essential on other social media. And photography on WP? Let me suggest it seems to be more thoughtful than gossipy or copped from other sources.
  10. I’m still ambivalent about the decision to branch out into related blogs. Should I have kept most of their posts within the Barn? Or would that have cluttered the mix? The genealogy of Orphan George does seem to demand its own bookshelf, as it were, as do the free poetry chapbooks of Thistle Finch, but I do wonder about the money-and-your-life project now archived at Chicken Farmer as well as the Quaker spirituality and Bible reflections at Sowing Light.

Oh, yes, it does take far more time than I anticipated, even when I had a backlog of poetry and correspondence for republication. And I do miss the Fresh Pressed selections in the Reader feed. But not so the self-congratulatory “awards” nominations that made the rounds.

Personal goals in the new year

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments
  1. Be more attentive to relationships.
  2. Do a better job of housecleaning.
  3. And gardening slash yard work.
  4. Read more of the books I’ve amassed and plunge through the backlog of magazines.
  5. See to the home renovations.
  6. Relish in the publication of Quaking Dover.
  7. Exercise more. Including time for treks in the wild.
  8. Revisit my journals.
  9. Have better dreams.
  10. Act my age.