Author: MAÔ

Wandering around, exploring the Divine, figuring life out. No guarantees, no promises. Just day by day, an inner and outer journey.

The awards show

by MAÔ, posted in Film

I caught a bit of the Emmys on Sunday night. It’s been DVRed, but finding time to watch it this week will be tough. Easier instead to read the rundowns posted yesterday, either from NYTimes or Vulture, or from Twitter feeds and other social postings.

Two years ago, roughly at this time – following the Emmys, I posted on awards shows. It’s funny to think that again the Emmys prompts a post. After rereading my post from two years ago, I’m happy to say I’ve made some forays back into the entertainment business. Small steps.

But the awards show is an interesting animal. We’re watching the congratulations of people who likely enter our home at some point during the year, when otherwise we’d be watching the shows which they are on. The ratings were a record-low on Sunday, which may have something to do with the abundance of that other that we could be watching. We also are much more involved during the year with celebrity gossip thanks to social media.

So is there a place in the cultural consciousness for award shows? Should they even be televised? I’m sure that the question will continue being thought about among television executives trying to decide how best to sell to advertisers.

Digital decluttering

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

I can remember my first computer. A two megabyte tower, DOS-based operating system. It took actual floppy disks, and I played some text-based game on it. At the time I wasn’t much of a writer, so I don’t know that the thought even occurred to me to write on it.

That computer is long since gone. Since then, I’ve used several desktop PCs, switching to MacBooks in college. I still have my original MacBook, now only usable when plugged into the wall. The next MacBook was a Pro-series, 15in. monster, and didn’t work as well as it first had when I switched it in for a 13in. last year.

Then my iCloud filled up, and I spent about two hours yesterday moving documents, videos, and miscellany to a portable hard drive.

You see, we accumulate things in our digital life too. Maybe more-so than we acquire actual things. And as they exist in 1s and 0s, we’re much less likely to do anything about them. But each additional file is one more thing that we have to worry about, say when we’re looking for something specific.

How many flash drives, CD-ROMs, and hard drives to you have to store your additional files?

Sometimes they are very important. I’ve got friends working in digital media who need a TB hard drive for each day of filming. But we have to be honest with ourselves. What do we really need?

stacks-on-mac-desktop

Targeted marketing

by MAÔ, posted in Economy

There’s always a moment of disquiet when an ad pops up, or a brief commercial shows before a YouTube video, which is targeted to something that I’ve just researched. The Volkswagen Electric Bus; passive income streams; buying and selling put and call  options; NaNoWriMo (yeah, it’s nearing that time again).

Sometimes I bite the hook, like when I saw a concoction of ashwagandha and turmeric – two supplements I take daily. Sometimes I ignore it. But the fact remains that what we put out comes back in a way meant to entice us to spend money.

This can be good, for instance if our life will genuinely be enriched by purchasing what is being advertised – I think specifically of researching medication options and perhaps a new treatment is shown that you can ask your doctor about.

This can be bad – do you really need another set of pans? Or, in my case, a Honda CR-V? No, I don’t.

I don’t know that there is a way to combat this. Only that we must remain diligent and think rationally when it comes to online enticements.

John McPhee on writing

by MAÔ, posted in Writing

I tend to think of myself as a bland storyteller. Maybe I like to explain things more than is needed. Maybe I add a lot of filler to the meat of the story. Maybe it’s just the way I process information as it happens, and thus it’s how it comes out.

So when I find a writer who has a similar syntax and rhythm in their writing, it stands out to me.

I was reading Draft No. 4, a book I purchased on recommendation, and in the first essay I noticed the familiar tone of my own voice. Now, McPhee is a treasure-trove of first-hand accounts, and his written vocabulary far exceeds my own. But the way in which he describes occurrences resonates with me – because of its similarity.

“In the late nineteen-sixties, I was working in rented space on Nassau Street up a flight of stairs and over Nathan Krasel, Optometrist. Across the street was the main library of Princeton University. Across the hall was the Swedish Massage.”

One wonderful thing about reading Progression, this first essay in Draft No. 4, is that I didn’t find it bland at all. And I suppose that I can take comfort in that.

Friday…

by MAÔ, posted in Social

I’m considering what to call this weekly post. I used to post a poem a month, and the reading/book list every month. When I switched to daily, I left off the poetry – more or less. I still try and post my monthly books lists. But as to Friday, and what I’ve been spending time with…

What I’m reading: Draft No. 4 by John McPhee. I purchased this sometime in the past six months. Not sure it was included on a monthly list. Trying to focus more on getting books read, posts published, decluttering, organizing, etc. I’m liking this book so far. It’s giving me a little insight into forming story, at least from McPhee’s perspective. You can learn more about McPhee and read some of his writing over at the New Yorker website. Coincidently, I was subscribed to the New Yorker around 2013-2015. I may have read some of his writing before and not even known it.

What I’m listening to: The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury. Something Wicked has led me down a deep dive of sorts, including checking out From the Dust Returned from the library, and watching a bit of The Ray Bradbury Theater on Prime Video. Halloween Tree, read by Bronson Pinchot, is a history of Samhain, just in time for the Halloween season.

What I’m spending time with: Halloween Horror Nights. I’ve gone nearly every year for the past 26 years. My mother took me when I was a child, and I have fond memories of it. I still enjoy the spectacle and design of Horror Nights, though I no longer feel frightened in their scary attractions. This year includes houses on Universal Monsters, House of a Thousand Corpses, Stranger Things, Jordan Peele’s Us, and Ghostbusters, as well as non-licensed houses. I know some of the actors as well from working around the area.

◊ Also on Universal’s monster franchise, I received this article from Hollywood Reporter  this week, speculating how Invisible Man and Dark Army will usher in a potential new wave of horror genre goodness.
◊ This old Thrillist article on why Netflix sometimes has terrible movies in your suggestions. (I’m cleaning out my reading list – finally – and this has been in there since 2016.)
◊ YouTube video of Tao Chi Kai massage on busy street in UK. I like massage and chiropractic videos, and routinely do adjustments to myself. There’s also a link in the video notes for Tiger Balm.
◊ One more YouTube channel to check out: And You Films. Their most popular videos are Diary of a Wimpy Alien and you can start with episode 1. I’ve been friends with this group for fifteen years, and they are nearing 100K subscribers. Follow them if you’re interested in updates.

On Becoming

by MAÔ, posted in Work

When we’re born, the whole world is open to us. Every new day brings new discovery. What changes?

School. Rather that look to the world, we are conditioned to look to our educators – our supervisors – for instruction. That’s where new things are to be found – in the wisdom of those leading us.

I’m quite fond of teachers, and most do the best that they can, within a broken system. But education now is set up with industrial processes in mind. All cogs must perform equal tasks. Outliers will not be tolerated.

There is an outcry against teaching to the test for this very reason.

The environment today resembles more the environment of learning in the 15th century – the period directly following the creation of the printing press. Knowledge is democratized, and the industrial complex is no longer guaranteed work.

A return to Vagabonding pt. 1

by MAÔ, posted in Travel

I feel I’ve written on this book once or twice before. It’s one that’s been with me for a while. In fact, my bedroom’s bookshelf has only the books I really want to read or ones that I want close to me. Rolf Potts’s Vagabonding is one of three books that I’ve had since the early 2000s. The other two are Lao-Tau’s Tao Teh Ching (Shambhala Publications’ John C.H. Wu translation) and Acupuncture: A Comprehensive Text (Shanghai College of Traditional Medicine; translated and edited by John O’Connor and Dan Bensky).

The text on Acupuncture was a loan from a former teacher of mine – my earliest mentor, you might say. One day I will track him down again and return the book, with a comprehensive apology for having it as long as I’ve had.

So saying that Vagabonding is near and dear to me falls somewhat short of the mark.

I’ve done two extended trips in Europe, one in ’16 and one in ’17. Last year it was a short trip to Costa Rica, and then this year, of course, was Alaska. But I think I’ve accepted that long term travel is more appealing to me than a regular vacation. It’s significantly more immersive, and, in my opinion, more fulfilling.

And recently I realized that it’s once again time to revisiting Mr. Potts. So I pulled a heavily-used, loved paperback off the shelf and opened again to the first pages.

Vagabonding – n.    (1) The act of leaving behind the orderly world to travel independently for an extended period of time.   (2) A privately meaningful manner of travel that emphasizes creativity, adventure, awareness, simplicity, discovery, independence, realism, self-reliance, and the growth of the spirit.     (3) A deliberate way of living that makes freedom to travel possible.

Improving

by MAÔ, posted in Advice

It’s no fun working to get better at some things. Most of us aren’t inherently wired to find joy in the difficult tasks.

Maybe that’s going to the gym. Or cleaning house. Separating transactions into individual accounts.

For a select few, that is a place of extreme joy. Some people love going to the gym and pushing themselves to their very limits. Some people love organizing, cleaning, and meticulously managing a household. And some people love numbers in such a way that accounting becomes both game and reward.

Us others are left looking in with amazement. However, we can cultivate that joy. We can improve. It’s just a matter of sticking with it.

We may be limited in ways that will prevent us from being top performers. We may not be. We won’t know until we try.

But no matter what it is, we can get better by doing.

Roots

by MAÔ, posted in Pathfinding

Usually I would say that roots firm us up. Give us structure. Provide support. In that, roots are good and useful.

Sometimes, though, they can keep is from reaching out beyond ourselves. Sometimes roots prevent us from pursuing the impossible, which, if pursued, we may discover isn’t as impossible as it seems.

At those times, roots hinder our development.

You can never know which time is which. And you never want to sever roots. But sometimes it’s a good idea to dig them up a bit, and see how far you can move.

ED vs. ING

by MAÔ, posted in Work

I was working a job last night, until after 11, and I started thinking about what I wanted to do when I got home. Did I want to turn on the tv, and watch some more Grimm? Did I want to continue listening to Something Wicked This Way Comes? Did I want to write, or clean, or some other variation?

And in my notebook as I stood there waiting, I wrote “ED vs. ING”. ED is passive. You are entertained. You are fed. You are pleased. You are relaxed (verb relaxed, not adjective).

ING is active. Creating. Thinking. Hell, even eating. (Oddly, I did a quick Google search and found this article in the LA Times, from 2014.)

And I believe much of our time we waste in passivity. We are entertained by the television. Rather than thinking about what we’re doing, we become the object of someone else’s sentence.

And so I decided to be creating, rather than merely be entertained.