Tag: Top Ten

In the end, it is a mysterious process

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

And you wonder what’s behind those stories?

  1. “Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” — Neil Gaiman
  2. “Everything you could ever think of has been written. That’s worth saying three times. You’re not going to think of a new idea, per se, as far as plot or story. What you can infuse it with is your voice, because while every story has been written, there is only one you. We are unique snowflakes. Be yourself. Tell the story about the teddy bear who can talk, but give it your voice. Don’t try to make it Corduroy or Winnie-the-Pooh. Make it your teddy bear. That’s what you can give the world — give the world your voice.” — Drew Daywalt
  3. “I never tired of learning about the stories of strong women and finding a compelling way to tell those stories. I love to discuss the themes in the book — cultural standards, resilience, overcoming odds, equality, breaking barriers — so even when I’m tired, I’m always energized by the opportunity to have meaningful conversations around this work.” — Haley Shapley
  4. “An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.” — Mark Twain
  5. “Acutely aware of the poverty of my means, language became an obstacle. At every page, I thought, ‘That’s not it.’ So I began again with other verbs and other images. No, that wasn’t it either. But what exactly was that it I was searching for? It must have been all that eludes us, hidden behind a veil so as not to be stolen, usurped and trivialized. Words seemed weak and pale.” — Elie Wiesel
  6. “The writing life is essentially one of solitary confinement — if you can’t deal with this you needn’t apply.” — Will Self
  7. “Dull, awful jobs like laundry, ironing and weeding suddenly feel like an urgent priority when you’re looking at a blank page that needs to be filled with a couple of thousand words before you can sit back and breathe deeply. … Writing is my joy, but not always; much of the time it is my job, and I have to write whether I feel like it or not, whether inspiration strikes or not. Th at is how you make a story unfold.” — Jane Green
  8. “Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.” — Zadie Smith [Oh, but it makes quick research so much easier. I’ve definitely been relying on online dictionaries, for one.]
  9. “Sometimes the ideas just come to me. Other times I have to sweat and almost bleed to make ideas come. It’s a mysterious process, but I hope I never find out exactly how it works. I like a mystery, as you may have noticed.” — J.K. Rowling
  10. “But ‘constructive’ criticism irritates me. I do not object to being denounced, but I can’t abide being schoolmastered, especially by men I regard as imbeciles.” or “Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.” — H.L. Mencken

 

Among my personal fears

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

 Don’t we all have demons?

  1. My fear of jumping in — of doing it wrong, an unfamiliar act
  2. or of falling, physically
  3. or in debt
  4. or on my proverbial face
  5. fear of being subsumed or losing freedom, especially in relation to others
  6. or feeling shamed when I make a mistake
  7. being left holding the bag or unable to get to a plane or train in time
  8. of things breaking down or not doing what they should
  9. unable to find the right word, as in trying to describe a high-tech snafu or somebody’s name
  10. Though not so much now that I’m retired on a marginal income.

Being unlovable has somehow fallen away.

 

Reach for the heights

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

There were no mountains where I grew up, but even then, they rose in my imagination.

Here are ten related perspectives.

  1. “The summit is what drives us, but the climb itself is what matters.” — Conrad Anker
  2. “There’s no glory in climbing a mountain if all you want to do is to get to the top. It’s experiencing the climb itself — in all its moments of revelation, heartbreak, and fatigue — that has to be the goal.” — Karyn Kusama
  3. “I learn something every time I go into the mountains.” — Michael Kennedy
  4. “Going to the mountains is like going home.” — John Muir
  5. “Fresh air is as good for the mind as for the body. Nature always seems to be trying to talk to us as if she had some great secret to tell. And so she has.” — John Lubbock
  6. “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” — Henry David Thoreau
  7. “It is in the wild places, where the edge of the earth meets the corners of the sky, the human spirit is fed.” — Art Wolfe
  8. “Birds have always had the ability to bring me out of a dark space and provide relief in bad times.” — Jason Ward
  9. “Not just beautiful, though — the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me.” — Haruki Murakami
  10. “Embrace your local nature — it’s not necessarily going to look like these mountain-top moments. There’s so much more than just the baseline of what you think exists. You probably know the biggest park in your city, but you probably don’t know a park that’s within a mile of your house that would blow your mind.” — Pattie Gonia

 

Performers at an open mic

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. J tasted colors, like a connoisseur of drama.
  2. S sharpened stones.
  3. R, who likes to listen, was fondest of springtime.
  4. H came after everyone had settled, hustled her book of bleeding tomatoes, and left early.
  5. E and T had a thing about penises.
  6. X told us he was trying some technical shit he didn’t think worked or was presenting an old or new piece or would like to score later that night.
  7. B marshaled his troops in a half-hour late, like a conquering army.
  8. P bolted, apparently peeved.
  9. W used a tambourine, needed a gimmick.
  10. Z, totally disorganized, spent more time flipping through books or journals trying to find pieces than he did actually reading.

And that’s before getting to musicians who spend the allotted time fussing with their gear and then expect to run longer.

Don’t call them ‘starfish,’ OK?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Although they live underwater and are commonly called “starfish,” they are not true fish. Unlike fish, they do not have gills, scales, or fins.

Also, they move quite differently from fish, which have tails to propel themselves. Instead, sea stars use tiny tube feet for moving along.

Thus, since they are not classified as fish, scientists prefer to call them “sea stars.”

Now, for ten more points.

  1. They belong to the phylum Echinodermata, relating them to sand dollars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and sea lilies – about 7,000 species in all.
  2. Like many echinoderms, they have radial symmetry – their body parts are arranged around a central axis. Since many sea stars have five-point radial symmetry, ruling out an obvious left and right half, only a top side and a bottom side.
  3. Sea stars come in roughly 2,000 species ranging from tropical waters to the polar regions. Some dwell in the intertidal zone, while others live in the ocean depths.
  4. Not all sea stars have just five arms. Some species have many more, such as the sun star, which can have up to 40 arms.
  5. Most of their vital organs are housed in their arms. Some species can regenerate an entirely new sea star from just one arm and a portion of the star’s central disc, which is useful if a sea star is injured by a predator. It does, though, take about a year for an arm to grow back.
  6. Instead of blood, sea stars have a circulatory system made up primarily of seawater.
  7. Their appetite is bigger than their mouth, but no problem. A sea star’s mouth is on its underside, so when it catches food, the sea star will wrap its arms around the animal’s shell and pull it open just slightly. Then the sea star pushes its stomach through its mouth and into the bivalve’s shell, digests the animal, and slides its stomach back into its own body. This allows the sea star to eat larger prey than it would otherwise be able to fit into its tiny mouth.
  8. Sea stars do have eyes as a spot at the end of each arm. While a five-armed sea star has five eyes, the 40-armed sun star has 40. A sea star eye looks like a red spot. It doesn’t see much detail but it can sense light and dark.
  9. Rather than a brain, a sea star has a decentralized nervous system, with nerves extending into each arm, something that allows each arm to operate independently while coordinating with the others.
  10. Predators include birds, fish, and sea otters.

 

It has to be the story you’re drawn to

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

If you’re dreaming of writing a book, here’s some perspective.

  1. “Write what should not be forgotten.” — Isabel Allende
  2. “The story must strike a nerve in me. My heart should start pounding when I hear the first line in my head. I start trembling at the risk.” — Susan Sontag
  3. “Run your own race. Don’t worry about how fast someone else writes, how much another author makes, how many followers another author has. Write what makes you excited, and the enthusiasm will come through on the page.” — Christina Lauren
  4. “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” — Stephen King
  5. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” — Toni Morrison
  6. “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” — Madeleine L’Engle
  7. “I always write in the morning. I was pleased to hear lately that Rousseau, too, after he got up in the morning, went for a short walk and sat down to work. In the morning one’s head is particularly fresh. The best thoughts most often come in the morning after waking while still in bed or during the walk.” — Leo Tolstoy
  8. “The author, in his work, must be like God in the Universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.” — Gustave Flaubert
  9. “You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.” — William S. Burroughs
  10. “I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English — it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep.” — Mark Twain

Some of them seem to think it has to be book-length. Short and sweet can be compelling, too.

 

Mention ‘The County’ in Maine, and everyone knows what you mean

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The Pine Tree State has 16 counties, but only one is recognized as The County, a place also known as “the crown of Maine” or even the most northeastern point of the USA.

It’s Aroostook County, set right along the border with Quebec and New Brunswick, Canada, with a population of 67,000 people and who knows how many moose.

It’s also the largest county by landmass east of the Mississippi, though

St. Louis County, Minnesota, is larger though much of it is waters of Lake Superior. With more than 6,800 square miles, Aroostook is larger than the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.

Now, for ten more considerations.

  1. It’s famed for potatoes, which are being harvested about now. In the 1940s Maine topped the nation in potato production but by 1994 had fallen to the eighth-place in production and the seventh in the number of acres devoted to potato cultivation in the United States. In 2024, Maine grew 54,000 acres of potatoes (behind Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Colorado, and Michigan) and nearly 90 percent of that was in Aroostook County. Potatoes are still far and away the state’s largest (legal) crop.
  2. When the county was created in 1839, border conflicts with Canada threatened to erupt into the “Aroostook War,” explaining the town names of Fort Kent and Fort Fairfield.
  3. It’s hard to spell, but not nearly as much as the Wolastokwey (or Maliseet) language that originated it. It means “beautiful river” and refers to the St. John River. The Maliseet, still present in the county, are affiliated with the Wabanaki Alliance that includes the Mi’kmaq, Penobscot, and Passamaquoddy tribes.
  4. The county was a stop on the Underground Railroad carrying fugitive slaves to freedom in Canada. The secret network carried freedom seekers from ports around Bangor to wilderness waterways, where Natives canoed them to havens like the Quaker community in Fort Fairfield, one of the last safe places before reaching Canada.
  5. During the Cold War, Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, vital because of its location close to Europe, had a major impact on the county’s economy. Its closure in 1994 is still deeply felt.
  6. The county is becoming a major producer of wind power.
  7. Many people in the northern part of the county speak both English and Acadian French (which is different from Quebecois).
  8. As the agricultural activity changes, Amish are moving in and establishing communities. Somehow, the county does feel a lot like Pennsylvania to me, so it seems fitting to see horse-drawn carriages (they don’t call them buggies) on the roads, dark blue and green laundry on the lines outside plain farmhouses, and lively one-room schoolhouses as you drive through.
  9. Much of the county is forest, including a significant moose population. Drivers, beware.
  10. A stretch along U.S. 1 presents the measured-to-scale solar system. Created with high school and college students plus adult volunteers, it really is mind-boggling. The results can be viewed in the October 2023 archives of this blog, should you wish to explore more.

 

Bodies of water attract us, naturally

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Walking along rivers, lakes, and ocean shores seems to have healing powers for the soul. Just consider.

  1. “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” — Loren Eiseley
  2. “Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people. They nourish and refresh us and provide a home for dazzling varieties of fish and wildlife and trees and plants of every sort. We are a nation rich in rivers.” — Charles Kuralt
  3. “To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together.” — Barry Lopez
  4. “The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.” — Zhuangzi
  5. “Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.” — Herman Hesse
  6. “I’m an old-fashioned guy… I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake or something.” — Johnny Depp
  7. “When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
  8. “There’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.” — Sarah Kay
  9. “Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.” — Zora Neale Hurston
  10. “Despite the ferocity of the current, a river is always moving but it’s always in the same place. And much like a river, while we should surge forward with great ferocity, our principles should never move.” — Craig D. Lounsbrough

 

Here’s looking at glass

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

You know, we usually take it for granted.

Here are some thoughts. Or should I say reflections?

  1. Usually you look through it, unless it’s dirty. You know, a pane of glass.
  2. I don’t know about you, but I find washing windows to be a pain.
  3. It can also be something you drink from. Or a quantity. (“I’ll take a glass of milk, please.”)
  4. Or something to boost your vision. (“Now where are my glasses?”)
  5. It can have very sharp edges, sometimes used in tools or instruments.
  6. Traditionally, it’s made from silicon dioxide (SO2), a common constituent of sand and coming from quartz flakes. Because of the high temperatures required to work with pure silica, most glass is made with additives that lower the required heating levels and allow for different varieties of glass, soda-lime being the most common. Borosilicate gives Pyrex, and lead glass being the most brilliant and having a lower melting point.
  7. Contrary to a widespread thought, it is not a solid liquid but rather an amorphous (non-crystalline) solid, allowing it transparency. In addition, it’s chemically inert, which is why it’s so wonderful for bottles and jars.
  8. Fiberglass is stronger than many metals by weight, non-magnetic, non-conductive, can be molded into complex shapes, and is generally chemically inert. Its applications include aircraft, boats, automobiles, bathtubs and enclosures, hot tubs, swimming pools, septic tanks, water tanks, roofing, pipes, cladding, surfboards, and orthopedic casts. It could easily be a Tendrils of its own.
  9. Spun glass is probably best known as insulation, while its use as fiber-optics cable is touted as superior to traditional copper wiring.
  10. The oldest known glass objects are beads, perhaps originating as an accidental byproduct of metalworking or lead glazes for pottery.

Technological advances in glassmaking could furnish a Tendril on its own, but let’s not overlook the fact that one of the most recent gives us the tough glass that’s on the screen of the laptop or smart phone where you’re likely reading this.

 

There was an old farmer who lived in Maine

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Actually, there are a lot of them. A recent Census of Agriculture found that of Maine’s 13,053 farmers, half are over the age of 57½. Not only that, but there are more farmers over 75 than under 35. Do we see a shortage coming soon?

Now, for ten more tidbits.

  1. Four-fifths of the farms are family owned-and-operated. Corporations account for less than a tenth, 677 farms, while another 474 are partnerships.
  2. A bit over two-fifths of the respondents said farming is their primary occupation. The majority of the farmers rely on other jobs or other income.
  3. Women farmers comprise 43 percent of the workforce, 5,638.
  4. As the Census observed, “Male producers had higher rates of involvement in land use and/or crop, livestock, and marketing decisions than female producers. Female producers were most involved in day-to-day, record keeping and financial management decisions.”
  5. USDA-certified organic farms = 412.
  6. Black farmers: 132 operating 2,238 acres.
  7. New and beginning producers = 4,681.
  8. Renewable energy-producing systems in use = 907 farms.
  9. The state leads the nation in wild blueberry production and ranks second for maple syrup, but potatoes lead the way as the largest crop. Other leading agricultural products potatoes, milk and other dairy products, chicken eggs, and floriculture.
  10. Of special interest to Washington County, where I live, was the Maine harvest of 24,735 acres of blueberries on 703 farms in 2022, an increase from 20,473 acres five years earlier.