Quote Day

Today is Random Quote Day, but, as I often discover, quotes can be wonderful starting points. So, here are some of my favorites.

"In the end, everything is a gag." Charlie Chaplin

"There is no terror in the bang, only the aniticpation of it." Alfred Hitchcock

"I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me." Henri Matisse

"Silence is sometimes an answer." - Estonian Proverb

"Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination." Voltaire

A couple about writing:

"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work." Emile Zola

"For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough)—they are experiences." Rainer Maria Rilke


and my favorite:

"If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. " Vincent Van Gogh

So, what are some people's favorite quotes?

Things that make you go Hmmm...

As you guys may or may not know, I'm also a screenwriter, so I am, unfortunately, one of those Entertainment Tonight watching lame-lifes. So I bring you a couple of comments on Tinseltown, one involving Edgar Allen Poe. (Wow, two words I thought would never go together)

Ok, so am I the only one who is sick of Tom and Katie? And now that they've announced their engagement (more on this in a sec) means that we can look forward to dazzling tales of dress fitting disasters, best man mishaps (who is his wingman going to be anyway? then again, who cares.) and online voting about where Tomkat should honeymoon.

Here is my question, though. Don't you thinks they doth profess their love a bit too much? I mean, come on. You're a couple. We get it. And please, proposing atop the Effel Tower?! Come on, guys, you've done enough movies to recognize a bad cliche. Now look, I love love, so if they are truely in love, then godspeed. But the cynic in me just can't help but wonder, what with them both having big blockbuster movies openning this summer. mmm, is something rotten in the state of Hollywood?

(ps: yes, I am ashamed to admit I read all the AOL news about the engagement that I could find)

On another block of Tinseltown, I just read in that Sylvester Stallone has written and is set to direct a biopic of Edgar Allen Poe. (read the article here: http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1491357,00.html)
Before you start groaning, I'll tell you why you should be excited--this is the guy that wrote the Academy Award Winning script for Rocky. Whatever you think about his acting, you have to concede that Rocky is a great flick. And I am a big Poe fan, so, yes, I will probably shell out the ten bucks for this one.

Random Links'n Stuff

Today is potporri day. I'm including a couple of my favorite links, as well as an article from the newest Poets & Writers that talks about some 'myths' of writing and the creative process. What do you guys think about the article?

http://www.pw.org/mag/0507/galef.htm


a couple of fun websites:

http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/

http://www.rhymezone.com/ (Ok, so many of you may know this one. Fun to play around with)

Today's Poetry Highlight

Today's post is a new poem from Rane Arroyo, kick ass faculty member of kick ass Spalding University. I am to stress that this is "just a first draft." Isn't everything? :) Thanks to Rane for doing the writing exercise and letting me post his poem!


Homesick in Africa
by Rane Arroyo

For a pencil, I’ve a grim horse.
I tell God that I’ll name these days

Peach (yeah, right, in this season of
the red scarf). Grenades are fruit

ripening despite our prayers.
Feats of running feet, the blur

afterwards, after words. I rein
the handwriting towards the dream

of New York where brooding turns you
into a fleckless bride (one’s sex

is unimportant). For a diary,
the volcano once my heart:

shoot me instead. A flood of blood.
Write, screams St. Augustine, ride.

Trading Coffee for Khalua

Well, I did it. I finally quit my soul-sucking office job. July 1 is my last day and it can't come soon enough!

It stared the Tuesday after Memorial Day, after having spent nine days among people who understand me. I walked into the office and literally wanted to start crying. I knew I couldn't take it anymore. So, I gave myself till lunch to calm down a little bit, and then contacted my boss. Luckily, she is a very understanding woman, gave me her blessing and her business card and told me she was proud of me. (ok, at this point I really did want to cry because I was so relieved)

Now, yes, I need money to live, so I decided to do something I've never done before. Bartend! It will be good money and it won't be an office job, which is just so not me. I signed up for a class at the better bartending school in town that also hooks you up with jobs. I start July 11th!! I can tell it's the right decision because I feel happier than I have in a very long while.

I'll start sometime early August, so look for posts about interesting happenings in New York City bars. :)

Poem from Writing Exercise

I'm posting the first draft of my writing exercise poem. Thanks all for their awesome poems, and feel free to post them here in the "comments" section for others to see!



New York City Symphony

Along Central Park South, kept horses
in indigo and scarlet get-ups release

their neighs into another peach dawn
while a bleary-eyed beggar sleeps it off

on a stoop next to a twenty-four hour
drugstore. His mouth, an unconscious

volcano, moans against the brakes of a garbage
truck and a taxi horn, both wailing in tandem

at someone playing Russian Roulette
on a bicycle. A neighbor’s clean soprano flutters

about the apartment like a fine mist. The aria
of an abandoned bride clutching

her three year old secret. From underground,
the subway rumble provides the sullen drum.

Writing Exercise: Limited Freedom

Let's face it. Sometimes you need help getting started. This is a great, simple exercise you can do to summon the muse. All you need is a dictionary and imagination.

Pick 15 random words from the dictionary, preferably nouns.

Then use 8 to 9 of those words in a 14 line poem.

The beauty of this exercise is you can play around with your own 'limits.' I usually pick 12 words and use 6 to seven in a 10 line poem, which often ends up being the beginning of a 25 line poem. I promise you will be amazed at how it works. Just try it. Of course the rules are made to be broken. This is just to give you a jumping off point.

So, the assignment:

Use 8 of the following words in a 14 line poem:

grenade
bathrobe
volcano
blade
scarf
bride
pencil
bicycle
horse
drugstore
button
garbage truck
veranda
bruise
Indigo
peach


Extra Credit if you can work in: a body part, the name of a town, and the name of a real person (living or dead)

Happy Writing. I'll post mine when I've written it.

Mad about Mad Hot Ballroom

In my lifetime, I have cried exactly three times during movies.

The first time was when Gertie's pot of dead flowers bloomed again in E.T. The second time is too embarrassing to mention.

The third time was when the Indigo team from Washington Heights won the New York City Ballroom Dance Competition in Mad Hot Ballroom.

Briefly, Mad Hot Ballroom (http://www.paramountclassics.com/madhot/) follows three groups of fifth-graders from the Dominican-dominated Washington Heights area at the northern tip of Manhattan (aka my own 'hood and proud of it!), affluent Tribeca just steps from Ground Zero, and residential Bensonherst, Brooklyn as they take part in ballroom dancing lessons.

Ok, you're thinking why would I want to sit through a two-hour documentary about eleven-year-olds and ballroom dancing?

Because the movie is not about dancing. It is about life.

Watching these kids as they begin their year-long journey, you giggle at their fabulous awkwardness as they try to learn steps, must (gasp) make contact with the opposite sex as they are paired up and told to "study each other's eyes", and you downright cackle with glee as one self-proclaimed aspiring Broadway star practices devoutly in front of the mirror at home and another girl starts moving her hips in ways that make you hope her mama is strict. You are not laughing at them, you are laughing because you've been there, you are laughing because, at eleven years old, these kids are the perfect balance of wisdom and naivete.

Although the focus is preparing for and getting to the ballroom dancing competition, there are illuminating glimpses into the kids' home lives, their friendships away from the classroom, and wonderful examples of how their new-found skills have helped turn all of them into "little ladies and gentlemen." My favorite such story is about one of the best dancers, Michelle, who was an out-of-control problem child whose visit to the principal's office was routine. "Ever since she's been in the program," the principal states, "I haven't seen her once."

Mad Hot Ballroom is about bridging gaps, the healing power of art, having respect for other cultures, having respect for oneself, being a good looser, and more importantly, being a good winner.

Bonus:
If you like Mad Hot Ballroom, you'll love Strictly Ballroom (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105488/).