Kudos for Shorts

Shorts

Some of the best talents are displayed in these short films--too bad they aren't easily accessible unless you have access to an Art Theater. 

The five above films were shown at the #Bijou here in Eugene. To decide which is best, is, to me, impossible, for all are different. Ave Maria is the funniest. The little girl in Everything Will be Okay ought to win for best actress. Day One is poignant, impactful and memorable. Shok will leave you shaken. The Stutterer is hard to watch at first, but all ends well.

Kudos to the film makers.

P.S.

All five are nominated for an academy award for best live action shorts. I had to mention them before the awards ceremony. Why don't we see more of these???

I'm off, my daughter inspired me about writing fiction--which I am efforting to do. Perhaps it deserves comment on 

www.thebestdamnwriterbloggerontheblock.com

See the Michael Moore Movie, See the Michael Moore Movie, See the #Michael Moore Movie

Movie title: “#Where to Invade Next.”

Don’t be misled by the title. The idea is that we invade other countries to take what we want. This time, Moore  has “Invaded” various countries to find valuable philosophical attributes and bring them back to the US.  Astounding. Wonderful.

The film was playing at the #Bijou Art Theater in Eugene, Oregon, not in one of the “big” theaters. They will wait to see if it is a blockbuster. Maybe if Moore is nominated for an award, then they will show it. (My seven-year-old grandson has gotten sarcasm already, guess I have taught it to him.)

I missed an opportunity to be involved in a discussion that was happening outside the theater. A few people were standing in a group talking. As my husband and I walked past I figured they were friends visiting, but on second thought, I said, “I bet they were discussing the film.” I should have poked my head in. Opportunity missed.

And then I read that theaters are having a hard time clearing people out of the lobby after seeing the film, for they want to discuss it. Imagine.

I don’t want to be a spoiler for the film, but some things sang to me with such vigor I have to say something.

Imagine, a school with no homework. “Children should play,”  the principal said. “They have other things they need to do when they go home.” I have said for years that if a school can’t jam enough information into a child’s head in the 6 hours they have them, they aren’t doing their job. For heaven’s sake, why send work home? Remember endless pages of  long division we had to do at home? Educators then thought that children learn by rote when people learn better by discovery.

The school system implementing that philosophy ranks the highest in education. Their advice to us,  “Stop teaching to the tests.” And I won’t even mention that a gourmet kitchen Moore found was, in fact, a school cafeteria where children were seated at tables set already with china plates, then served a healthy appetizer, main course, a cheese dish, and dessert, and they drink water. This was not a private school—no private schools there.

I had to say it. But I can’t steal any more of Moore’s thunder, you must see it. Don’t take the children, though, a few scenes in American prison’s are brutal. Generally, however, it is impactful and upbeat.

A lady in Iceland looked us straight in the eye and said that she wouldn’t live next door to an American, they don’t take care of each other. They think in terms of Me instead of We. And they don’t care.

Moore said, “I do.”

 Me too.

 How about you?

Oh The Places We’ll Go

Danielle Steel is my mentor. Rosamunde Pilcher is my inspiration.

Why Steel? Because she weaves description, character development, dialogue, and backstory into one seamless flow, and she is so prolific she has kept me reading for months. Pilcher because I just love her. Her writing is exquisite, and her first best seller was The Shell Seekers, about a painting.

My novel, The Girl on The Pier, too, is about a painting.

After completing a novel titled Song of Africa I saw that one publisher was offering a two book contract (not to me), but I thought, my God, two books? How could I ever write a second? 

Whap! A thump on the side of the head.  “Write about the young namesake from the Africa book, and about a canvas featured there painted by her uncle.

Sara Andrews, 22, fresh out of Parsons School of Design, and now with a job as a curator of a gallery in SoHo New York, meets the love of her life on page one of  The Girl on the Pier.

The following day Sara receives a call from a customer wanting to view the painting The Girl on the Pier, painted by her uncle, Clyde Dales. When the customer sees the painting, however, he says, “That isn’t the painting.”

Sara didn’t know there was another. Two paintings by the same name?  When the customer offers two million dollars for it, Sara acts as though she sells two million dollar paintings every day. Uncle Clyde’s paintings have sold for thousands, but never millions. 

Something is fishy.

Sara’s search takes her and her new love from New York to Los Angeles, to Seattle, to Gambia West Africa, to Kenya, to Paris, and with Paris comes my reason for writing  this…

Not knowing Diddy squat about Paris, I needed to find a museum there—not the Louvre, and so I searched and found Muse’e d’ Orsay. And within that museum, I stumbled upon a collection of Vintage American Photographs.

Shirley temple signing her first movie contract

I had to show you a few:

JFK and Jackie, 1953, in a photo booth

Girls at soda fountain 1940's

1939

Hawaiian surfer. The missionaries outlawed surfing, luckily the Hawaiians didn't listen.

Live Wild,
Joyce
P.S. See link below

Live Wild

Island Lilikoi* iced tea, El Yummo

Come sit a spell...I'd pour a frosty glass for you if I could,

We live on earth is experience life.

We write about it to make sense of it.

I tried to be wild once but gave it up in favor of ice.

We lived on the island without a refrigerator—well, we had an ice box, but it didn’t make ice. Strange how something as simple as ice can mean so much when you don’t have it.

Happy times on the Island were going to sleep to the tune of the #Coqui frogs, and awakening in the morning fresh as the #Lilikoi Iced tea pictured above. My computer was in front of a window and as the sun came up it enlivened the green outside my window as though the Morning Goddess was turning up her rheostat.

We saw no sunrises or sunsets where we lived on the island for the trees stood in the way of them, but when we were on the West side of the island we stood in reverence watching the sun sink into the sea. Fascinating again how exquisite a daily occurrence can be when you do not have it daily.

I said my mission statement is “Live wild.”  That doesn’t mean running away and living on a tropical island—although one can, and that sounds good--Swimming in a bath-tub warm sea, and being able to go to luxury hotels when the urge and pocketbook collide.

When I say “Live Wild,” I don’t mean going to #Waldon’s Pond as Thoreau did where he wrote 

I mean, follow that wildness that is buried deep in your solar plexus. You know the feeling. It burns with a desire to break free, to live the life you’ve always wanted, to have the courage to follow your dreams. It’s not coming to the end of your life and realizing that you have not lived.

What might those dreams be? And what are you willing to do to accomplish them?

Live wild,

Joyce

P.S. What really pushed us off the island? I have written rewritten, contemplated and journaled about that experience for what, about five years now? Maybe one day One Year on the Island will be a book. Hope springs eternal.

P.S.P.S.  This blog isn't about it being a business, I love you guys too much to enter that into the equation. I'm going to carry on as I have always done--rambling, contemplating, urging all readers to greatness. Whew! That releases the stress.

Ta Da

Lilikoi blossom. Isn't that exquisite?             Lilikoi passion fruit

Mission Statement

You know how mission statements can be boring, run too long, sound like they are God’s gift to the consumer, and promise to heal the ills of mankind? Sometimes when you look at a company and compare it to their mission statement you wonder if they live on the same planet.

I Googled, “#Mission statement” —you know the first place we go these days for information.  Google’s advice was, “Keep it short.”

Viola’ this popped into my head. “Live wild.”

That’s it. That’s short. That’s my mission statement.

Live Wild!

Perhaps a tag line could be: “Help people improve their lives.”

Yes, yes, I know, “Physician heal yourself.” I’m not a physician a psychiatrist or have any such illustrious job titles. Remember the old Bible story of the man on the road to Damascus and saw a fellow traveler lying wounded? The Good Samaritan stopped and poured oil on his wounds. The prevailing joke in college was, “Maybe the man didn’t want oil on his wounds.”

If you do, ask for it.

I’m asking this: If you would like to help with the direction of this blog, it would make me happy as our two pups running around the living room, circling the coffee table, over the couch, into the bedroom, over the bed…

Here are the questions:

1.                 Who are you? _______________________________________________

2.                 What are your hopes and dreams?______________________________

3.                 What is getting in the way of achieving those dreams?

                  __________________________________________________________

Copy, paste and send to my personal email jewellshappytrails@gmail.com

I won’t promise a perfect solution. I won’t always be upbeat because life isn’t that way all the time. I won’t try to be someone I’m not; even wild horses get pissed sometimes. (But that doesn’t remain a permanent condition.)

I’m staying with my title “Wishing on White Horses, www.wishingonwhitehorses.com as that is the title of this blog,  I’ve had it so long it is ingrained in my consciousness, it has a dot com, and I have some dear, wonderful, stupendous followers. Are you one?

How about a sign-up?

See, I’m learning to ask for what I want.

 How about you?

I can’t wait to see/read what is going to happen here. I’m jazzed.

Live wild,

 Joyce

P.S. If you want a personal answer to a question that’s been stuck in your craw, 

  Click here
livewildwithauntjo.blogspot.com

Now 15₵ (Price of living increase you know.)

The answer might be pertinent, or it might be “Go home and eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”  It depends on my mood, my mental capacity, or whether or not Mercury is in retrograde.

Live long and prosper.

Faint Hearts Never Won Fair Ladies

The Vision

I wrote this blog, and then I chickened out and let it sit. Then I thought I would go ahead and publish it. No, don’t do it, Joyce, you’re sticking your neck out. It might get chopped off.

Maybe. Maybe not.

This how all this came about:

A couple of days ago as I wandered Barnes and Noble bookstore, I came upon Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s 50th-anniversary book #Gift from the Sea. I have loved it for about that long, and there it is, still in the bookstore. It occurred to me that I, too, might have something to contribute to the world.

Many women related to Lindbergh when she recounted how fractured she felt caring for five children, and even though she had household help, she still managed the meals, drove the children to the orthodontist, to soccer practice, cared for her husband, called repair men when the refrigerator broke down, and in the midst of it all searched for grace.

We all related to her words when she penned: “The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere.”

We championed her cause when she wrote “When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return.”

 The subjects of which she spoke have lived and touched the hearts of readers throughout all that time.

So why I am writing this?

I am using you as a sounding board. Forgive me—I could use the page alone, and not send this, but I trust that you are with me on this journey, as we were with Anne when she lived in a minimal house on the beach. It was a house where she let the wind blow through and brought in only what suited her—shells from the beach, shells she used as metaphors for her chapters.

Last night I listened to a webinar by Caz Makeover who is a travel writer (www.yTravel.com). Her topic was “How to Turn a Blog into a Business.” I have wished for that but felt it was not possible for me. My mindset was that making money from what I wanted to do was a pipe dream. Yes, I know, I have read, “Do what you love and money will follow.” Nice lure, I thought.

Then I realized I had “Stinkin thinkin.”

I tell other people they can do it and then I don’t believe it myself.

Why not me?!

If your intent is to serve, and mine is, if your intent is to make a difference, and mine is, then if you don’t make money doing it, your business is soon over—no service, no difference. Kaput.

I hadn’t thought of it that way.

I had been griping that it appears that people are often asking for money. I felt the pull, the desperation of others so that I couldn’t consider that maybe people wanted to give to me.

Open the pipeline so money flows to you, not out of you.

I don’t know how I am going to do it yet. I can offer my words on a blog, and that’s free, so I’m not sure where the money is, but I trust that I will find it.  I have the first step, The Vision.

To quote Jonathan Mead (Paid to Exist)

“As we grow up, we're taught to follow a template.

“Let's call it the "Freedom Template."

“We're sold this idea, this myth that if we just follow the template, someday we'll earn our freedom. Someday, we can finally be happy.

“…This "Freedom Template" is a big, fat, lie.

“But the problem is, maybe you don't know how to do it any other way.

Maybe you don't know that in order to opt out of the template, you must create your own path.

“That's pretty terrifying.”—

Keep checking in, and together we will see what happens next….

Next blog is the Mission statement.

Thank you for reading.

“Don't wish me happiness
I don't expect to be happy all the time...
It's gotten beyond that somehow.
Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor.
I will need them all.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

Super Heros

On June 30, 1908, at 7 a.m. a man was sitting on his porch when he was suddenly hurled from his chair and felt such heat that he thought his shirt was on fire.

“Suddenly in the north sky… the sky was split in two,’ he recounted, “and high above the forest, the whole northern part of the sky appeared covered with fire… At that moment, there was a bang in the sky and a mighty crash… The crash was followed by a noise like stones falling from the sky, or of guns firing. The earth trembled.”

All this was caused by a “#dirty ice ball” known as a comet. This occurred in a desolate area of #Turguska Siberia Russia. No causalities (of people) were reported, but it decimated over 770 acres, killed Reindeer, and sent a shock to Japan 5.0 on the rector scale.

In 2009, a comet, (The Westly Impact), hit Jupiter leaving a “spot,” the size of our Pacific Ocean.

Fifteen years earlier for the first time, humans saw the impact of two solar bodies. This was the Shoemaker Levi 9 comet plowing into Jupiter.    

          

I had been trying to turn my husband into a Superhero by finding comets before they find us.  He has a long history of detecting things, and I thought comets would be a worthwhile cause. Of course, then we need to engage earth’s brilliant minds on how to get rid of them—drive them away, shoot them down, whatever it takes.

And then I find a superhero in the form of a little lady named Carolyn Shoemaker.

In 1913, she and David Levi had discovered a comet orbiting Jupiter. The following year the comet broke into a “string of pearls” and by gravitational pull was sucked into that humongous red planet named Jupiter. This impact was equivalent to 6 million megatons of TNT and was named after its finders Carolyn Shoemaker, and then an amateur astronomer, David Levi , thus the name, The Shoemaker Levi 9.

Jupiter, “The shining father,” is a giant protective magnet, a sentinel for the earth. For the Romans’ he was “King of the Gods,” and they replaced the name of the Greek god Zeus with the name Jupiter. Maybe they knew something it has taken us years to learn.

Jupiter is protecting us.

Thank you, Jupiter!

Jupiter because of its immense size draws flying objects into its mass, thus sweeping up debris that could seriously damage us.

Mrs. Shoemaker says that as a young girl she had little interest in science.  Yet she has discovered more comets than any other living soul. To date 32 comets, and  800 asteroids.

She said she at first considered Astronomy a field "relegated to only old men in white beards, smoking pipes, and staring at the sky." In the 1960s, there was still a "prevailing attitude in astronomy that women were used as computers for their attention to fine detail, not for theory."

Mr. Shoemaker was a cheerleader of other people's interests. In 1960, he encouraged his wife to fly and become a pilot because he knew she wanted to, as he could not due to health problems. In the late 1960s, at the age of 51, after years as homemaker and mother to their three children, Carolyn was faced with the empty-nest syndrome and wanted to do something fulfilling. She asked her husband for advice. He thought she might be good in astrological research.

In Australia, in 1997, the Shoemakers were involved in a car crash. Gene Shoemaker was instantly killed while Carolyn sustained severe injuries. She eventually recovered and continued her observation work becoming known as “The Comet Lady.”

Her awards have been:

National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal
Rittenhouse Medal (1988)
Scientist of the Year Award (1995)

More If’s And’s and no Buts.

Isaac Asimov said, “If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood, I’d type faster.”

More If’s to think about:

If the crowd likes sweets, does that mean we ought to sweeten most every food? And instead of sprinkling a few grains of pure cane sugar from Hawaii, grown in the sun, (didn’t we do that when we were kids with little repercussions), we hire scientists to create chemicals that trick our brains into thinking we are tasting sweet, all the while those substances called "diet," are doing the opposite.

If the crowd likes big booms, explosions, and war games, does that mean we ought to up the ante in movies, books, and video games to see who can provide the biggest boom, fire, or car crash?

If children like solving puzzles and playing games via the internet, does that mean that the only way we can provide tension and conflict, it to kill something?

If the crowd likes to be chased does that mean we ought to provide a chase scene in every action movie?

If the crowd likes digests over books, then should we offer more U-tube videos, sound bites, and quick reads?

If the crowd will stand in line for a popular attraction, and by-pass the meatier dramas, documentaries, or movies of substance, then do we need to sell the sizzle and not the steak?

If the crowd likes simple, cheap, fast and fun, then, in order to sell, do we need to enter those concepts into most all advertising?

It the crowd doesn’t like to read, does that mean we stop printing books?

Do  you think when Michelangelo was carving David he was concerned about whether the populace would like it?

Do you think when Andy Warhol painted soup cans he thought that people loved Campbell’s Soup so much they would want a painting of that product on their walls?

Do you think when Orville and Wilbur Wright climbed into their bicycle made flyable with wings they thought they were going to get rich building airplanes?

No, these people were experimenting. They were expressing their creativity; they did what they wanted to do and in the doing of it, advanced their craft, and thus civilization.

There is an aspect of the crowd that creative people sometimes forget—that is that chase scenes wear out, that hype gets old, and that the new, the fun, the creative, gets their juices flowing.

Do the work that matters to you.

You’re the one to make a brighter day.

If

“If you can start the day without caffeine,

“If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,

“If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,

“If you can eat whatever food is put on your plate and be grateful for it,

“If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,

“If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,

“If you can watch friends go away on exotic vacations when you have to stay at home, without even a twinge of jealousy.

“If you can face the world without lies and deceit,

“If you can relax without beer, wine, or liquor,

“And if you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

“Then you are probably a dog.”

--Jack Kornfield

What do You Believe?

When you were a kid did you wonder what happened to the miracles?

If you went to Sunday School as I did and heard Bible stories about pillars of fire, people turning into salt, Jesus raising people from the dead and turning water into wine, you might have wondered, as I did, that if they could do it then, why not now? Not that I wanted people turned into salt, but you get the idea.

The events around me were physical, a nuts and bolts life, not ethereal, or even mystical. Yet even in those days there was the concept of a guru sitting on the mountain, where people trudged up steep cliffs to ask him about the meaning of life.

  

And then there was the Wizard behind the curtain who tricked us by pulling leavers, and appearing in smoke. The Wizard, however, honored the gift we had exhibited, a heart, a brain and some courage, and he taught us that he didn't have the magic, we did.

And from the mountain the guru told us “Don’t worry, be happy.”

One must rise above the rank and file to accept that the idea that perhaps, maybe, not worrying and being happy just might be a good idea.

We had to advance to the place where we knew we were good people, we have a heart, a brain, and some courage, and we have a right to be happy.

We’ve come a long way baby.

But we’re not the first civilization on this planet to obtain heights of grandeur—there have been others. We would know that if we had not been knocked back to the Stone Age by a series of cataclysmic events.

About a week ago I heard Graham Hancock at Powell’s Book store in Portland speak to a packed house.  He has written the book Magicians of the Gods, and he not only proposes that much of the archaeology taught is wrong but he supports it with evidence. That mankind is not 5,000 years old, more like 350,000, that there were advanced civilizations long before we crawled out of the mud thinking we came from monkeys.

He spoke of an archaeological find in Turkey called Gobekli Tepe, where carved pillars stand vertical in the ground similar to the buried warriors found in China. These pillars are carved with reliefs, and writings yet to be deciphered, and there are five more layers of columns beneath those—they have ground X-rayed to find them. This incredible find was deliberately filled in with light weight soil and sand, and entirely covered with a mound of earth.

They preserved their story.

What story will it tell?

Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Quiche Maya says this about the “Forefathers.”

They were endowed with intelligence; they saw and instantly they could see far, they succeeded in seeing, they succeeded in knowing all that there is in the world. When they looked, instantly they saw all around them, and they contemplated in turn the arch of heaven and the round face of the earth. The things hidden in the distance they saw all without first having to move; at once they saw the world, and so, too, from where they were, they saw it. Great was their wisdom, their sight reached to the forests, the lakes, the seas, the mountains and the valleys.”

Would that we would be spoken of in that manner…

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. “ - Hamlet Shakespeare

What's Your Perfect Christmas Gift?

Here's mine.

Carry on, and celebrate the Great High Holidays!

Love from Joyce

The Real Scoop

A funny thing happened on my way to my desk, daughter number one called to tell me about the cooking class she offered at her son’s school. It happened during a storm, and when thunder clapped louder than a train going through the building, the little ones hid under the table while the big one’s went outside to hold onto the flag pole to see if they could get electrocuted.

Before I could lay a pinkie on the keyboard, I get a phone call…

"This call will be recorded for quality assurance."

Garrison Keillor (The Prairie Home Companion show on radio) did a shtick about this sort of call. He wondered why they wanted to listen to his voice, so he suggested—backed up by his sound effects guy—that each time you call use a different accent.

“This is Senior Keillor , I teenk this is a torough explanation…”

“Bonjour, this is Monsieur Keillor…”

The scoop, folks, is, they don’t care how you sound.

They are not listening to you.

They are listening to their employee.

Same with email, Quality Control is watching the employee who is writing the email.  

They are making sure the responder is answering within the prescribed amount of time, that they don’t use contractions, (Horrors), and use proper grammar with no &%4 typos.

Companies are monitoring the very employee they background checked, fingerprinted, drug tested, and interviewed to make sure they qualified  for the job. and then they don't (contraction) trust them to do it.

It boggles my mind.

I hear #Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream is a joy to work for.  #Tom’s of Maine as well, and # Log Rhythms, the company that built our log house is terrific.

Just think, if we knew of companies that follow our ethical, humane, and logical way of thinking, and gave them our business…

I’m excited about the possibility.

Ha Ha: What’s a perfect pitch?

When you throw a banjo into a dumpster and it spears an accordion.

Thanks to Doug McMinn

NDE

Go into a Wall-mart book section and what do you see? Mostly fiction. (I love fiction, the exquisite kind.) But on this Wall-mart shelf we see mainly murder, mayhem, illicit love stories, and world wracking events. The magazine rack is about the same, as is the TV news.

Nobody wants to be on the Red October, but we want to read about it.

Why?

Escape.

Well, listen to this: Most people go to mind-numbing jobs, stop at McDonalds or the equivalent for lunch, don’t have the money for a Big Mac, so opt for a Quarter Pounder instead, go home, watch some TV, play video games, have chili and crackers for dinner, argue instead of making love with their spouse, go to sleep, and the next morning begin all over again.

But that’s not us right?

We have dreams and aspirations, and we are searching for how to achieve those dreams. We want an exciting life. We figure we are here for a reason. We endeavor to find that reason and realize it.  We want to be successful in life, finances, and family. Whew, that’s a tall order.

I was inspired recently by a NDE, A Near Death Experience, sent to me by an intimate friend. It was her experience, not mine to tell. The bottom line is, however, I want to be the sort of person my friend felt she was destined to be--one who makes the world a flourishing place for people, plants and animals.

And I want to enroll others to join me.

According to my friend with the NDE experience, when we dropped the bomb the world was in peril, peril like total destruction, but someone, some thing, something wise, intervened. And now it is our job to carry out the trust placed in us.

We need to hold the planet in awe. We need to hold it with soft hands and a warm heart.  We need to take care of each other. I don’t mean we have to love everybody, heavens, that’s a crock. We just need to see that their basic needs are met, exalt them to a higher plane, encourage them, and stop shooting each other for God’s sake. And while I’m at it, we can stop bellyaching about our childhood. Get over it. Millions of others are in the same boat.

And stop that mind-numbing stuff.

We aren’t lazy people. We just want to be challenged to greatness, to feel that we matter, to be acknowledged for our contributions, to have a job we rush to in excitement.

Some of the aborigines of Australia believed there were the keepers of the Earth, but because the resources are not supporting them in their preferred wild lifestyle, they are leaving. They are not reproducing themselves, and they are leaving that earth’s care in the hands of others.

We are the others.

Why we must start taking a stand against the system that’s designed to make us despise our work, and start being part of a new movement where work is centered in joy, contribution, and community—Jonathan Mead

#Paid to Exist