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<title>D. F. Bailey&#x27;s Blog</title><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/index.html</link><description>Narratives for the Mind&#x27;s Eye</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><dc:rights>Copyright 2011 Don Bailey</dc:rights><dc:date>2011-11-20T18:03:06-08:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Sat, 08 Jan 2011 17:22:38 -0800</lastBuildDate><item><title>Bookscans Review No.4</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>book news</category><category>Writers in the news</category><dc:date>2011-11-20T18:03:06-08:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Bookscans-Review-No.4#unique-entry-id-24</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Bookscans-Review-No.4#unique-entry-id-24</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a &lsquo;natural writer' - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon. &mdash; Maya Angelou 


...Mark's gets a new lease but a New Hampshire shop struggles to stay open.


...Esi Edugyan of Victoria has won the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize for her novel, Half-Blood Blues. 


Nobel Prize-winning Daniel Kahneman reveals the built-in kinks in human reasoning&mdash;and he&rsquo;s Exhibit A. 


...A look at the locations that informed novelists, from Faulkner to Woolf. 


There is plenty of evidence that Shakespeare was somewhat less than a sensitive poet and entirely honest citizen. 


Nicholas Evans, author of The Horse Whisperer on the event that nearly killed him - and almost tore apart his family. 


As the Queen prepares to mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible Peter Mullen scorns its modern rivals. 


...An inside look at the real reasons for the once-beloved chain's demise. 


...G-G winner Patrick deWitt says grant &lsquo;saved&rsquo; him. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Bookscans Review No.3</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>book news</category><category>Writers in the news</category><dc:date>2011-11-05T12:03:45-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Bookscans-Review-No.3#unique-entry-id-23</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Bookscans-Review-No.3#unique-entry-id-23</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average. &mdash; Derek Walcott


High-school biology teacher Alexis Jenni won France's top literary award, for his first novel, The French Art of War. 


...Psychologist Steven Pinker tells us that we are living in the least violent era ever. 


...Home to 12 Nobel laureates and 6 Booker winners, Faber & Faber hires Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker as editor-at-large. 


In Ranganathan's The Five Laws of Library Science he formulated the principles for the use of library materials. 


Charles Dickens was the Victorian era's most beloved writer, but even he couldn't live up to its unforgiving morals. 


...Transgressive fiction is a genre of literature that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms of society. 


..."History of Science Fiction" maps the genre from its roots in mythology to the calcified space opera epics of today. 


...A website about constructing metal book clasps, bosses and other hardware, showing book clasp repair and restoration. 


...It has been revealed that the Amazon e-book reader weighs more when it is fully loaded. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Bookscans Review No.2</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>book news</category><category>Writers in the news</category><dc:date>2011-10-28T15:50:22-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Bookscans-Review-No.2#unique-entry-id-22</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Bookscans-Review-No.2#unique-entry-id-22</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time. &mdash;  Barbara W. 

...Fascinating excerpt from Vivian Gornick's forthcoming book: Emma Goldman: Revolution as a Way of Life. 


...Here's ~100 he coined, hyperlinked to the play and scene from which it comes. 


Here's an interesting A.I. librarian: "Madam, I've just finished reading __ by __ . 

...Telegraph Head of Books Gaby Wood on judging the Man Booker Prize 2011: seven months to read 138 novels. 


Open Text Book: A registry of textbooks that is free for anyone to use, reuse and redistribute. 


...Beckett: &ldquo;I know no more about this play than anyone who manages to read it attentively. 

...Public health study by Ron Shaoul lifts the lid on toilet reading once and for all. 


...From Stuart McMillen, an illustrated comparison I used to ponder as a teenager: "Aldous Huxley versus George Orwell." 


"The book business deserves to die if for no other reason than that its business model is something out of the 1930s." ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Bookscans Review</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>book news</category><category>Writers in the news</category><dc:date>2011-10-22T11:52:43-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Bookscans-Review-22-October-2011.html#unique-entry-id-21</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Bookscans-Review-22-October-2011.html#unique-entry-id-21</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say.   A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off). &mdash; J.R.R. 

...Here&rsquo;s something new for the blog that I thought I would try for a few weeks: a synopsis of news about writers and books collected from my recent twitter posts (@bookscans).


Literary SNAFU: "How I Was Un-nominated For The National Book Award." 

...Print vs. ebooks: "Participants liked reading a printed book best [contrary to] the data obtained from the study.&rdquo; 


...Click through to see some of the strangest day jobs of beloved authors before they were famous. 


...Salman Rushdie: 'We live in a society in which people are allowed to tell their story, and that is what I do.' 


...After nearly 3,000 years, does the &ldquo;Iliad&rdquo; really need translating again? 


...Charles Bukowski: &ldquo;Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others.&rdquo; 

...A pretty decent list that covers a lot of bases: "52 Travel Books Worth a Read" 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Art is a Lie</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing insights</category><dc:date>2011-10-18T15:59:34-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Art-is-a-Lie.html#unique-entry-id-20</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Art-is-a-Lie.html#unique-entry-id-20</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The truth is that art is a pack of lies: fiction, paintings, sculpture, music, opera, theatre, and all the other constructed elements of the artistic mind.   And those new pretenders claiming to anchor themselves in the nitty-gritty facts of life&mdash;non-fiction and reality TV&mdash;are the greatest liars of all. 


Last month I had the good fortune to visit the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park during their Picasso retrospective, &ldquo;Masterpieces from the Mus&eacute;e National Picasso.&rdquo; ...  One of his fascinating inventions, Cubism (which he developed with the help of Georges Braque in the early 20th c.), isn&rsquo;t so much a way to represent something we might encounter in daily life, but rather an exhibit of what we can perceive when the human imagination is rendered by visionary genius.


...When you carefully examine the parts and the whole of a particular image, the synergy of Picasso&rsquo;s work can feel overwhelming.  ...  Whether you are looking at the Portrait of Dora Maar or Deux femmes courant sur la plage, or La Lecture you can find yourself nodding in agreement, thinking, Yes, this is the way it is: the truth. 


...ie=UTF8&tag=dfba-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=3822850284">Picasso (Taschen 25)</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?

...When they are well rendered, the illusions of art are so powerful that we accept fiction, dramatic and film characters as legitimate personnas in our lives.   The same holds for music that we love and repeat (sometimes endlessly it seems) in our minds&mdash;and for other art forms divined from human imagination. 


If there&rsquo;s a point to this bit of argument (another clever form of deception) it&rsquo;s that good art&mdash;art worth our time and money&mdash;can lead us to understand who are what sort of place we can make for ourselves in this world.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Yo-Yo Ma&#x2014;the Dalai Lama of Cello</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing insights</category><category>Spiritual insight</category><dc:date>2011-09-26T23:51:41-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Yo-Yo-Ma-the-Dalai-Lama-of-Cello.html#unique-entry-id-19</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Yo-Yo-Ma-the-Dalai-Lama-of-Cello.html#unique-entry-id-19</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It took me way beyond what I knew, into places of which I was totally scared, but as I became less frightened, I welcomed new ways of thinking and approaching something. 

...While I was in San Francisco I had the good fortune to hear Paul Hindemith&rsquo;s Cello Concerto (1940) performed by Yo-Yo Ma with the San Francisco Symphony.


...But what struck me was the remarkable aura he emitted during the breaks in his performance when he was not playing a note&mdash;the respites when the orchestra carried the music through the transitions that moved the score forward without the soloist. 


...Ma&rsquo;s face was lit by the forces streaming through him, his knowledge and talent and years of practice and study&mdash;all of it compacted in the moment of his performance which was both completely under his control, yet completely controlling every molecule in his being.


...ie=UTF8&tag=dfba-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=0313344868">Yo-Yo Ma: A Biography (Greenwood Biographies)</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?

...This reciprocal stream of creative energy reminded me of the current Dalai Lama, a man whose face glows  despite the unending trouble and grief he encounters day after day.   In his case, I suspect he&rsquo;s sustained by faith in the unity of the one and the many: the knowledge that his place in the world is like a fading rose nourished by forces which will reinvigorate his mission for generations to come.


Is this the same stream of being that &ldquo;totally scared&rdquo; Yo-Yo Ma&mdash;an experience that made him &ldquo;an infinitely richer person&rdquo;?   The answer is not as important to me as the thought that an artist has to enter a psychological world that is both enlightening and frightening, energizing and enervating, a vortex of the one and the many.


...But I tell myself that I have to look upon their scenes with unblinking eyes and transmit what I see without censorship or the slightest filtration. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>There is Madness&#x2014;and then there is Insanity</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Social Justice</category><dc:date>2011-08-26T21:49:59-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/madness-and-insanity.html#unique-entry-id-18</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/madness-and-insanity.html#unique-entry-id-18</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I learned more about humanity (and myself) working with individuals who were psychotic, neurotic, obsessive-compulsive, bulimic, angry, tortured, raped and violated in ways I&rsquo;d never imagined possible. 


...During my employment I never met a patient who embraced his condition as form of divine sense nor anyone who wished she could preserve her stark madness. 

...The sort of madness that Emily Dickinson refers to is perhaps more dangerous than insanity in that it has a social dynamic at its heart, a kind of societal disease that grows until it gets a grip on the population. ...  There was a certain &ldquo;sense&rdquo; to both programs and plenty of advocates who could make a case for identifying outsiders and locking them in chains. ...  Her prescience was based on the recognition that divisions in society open the door to dangerous liaisons. 


...If the answer is yes, then should we begin to prepare for another age where the madness of crowds directs our activity to war and conquest? ...  History reveals that the first option&mdash;the path of the warrior&mdash;is futile because it often leads to more war and destruction.   But the second choice&mdash;that of the peace maker&mdash;is so challenging that it seems almost impossible to achieve. 

...The fascinating benefit of bridging the gap between those who have and those who do not, is that it nourishes the individuals who reach out to one another. 

...As the gaps and divisions widen in the months and years ahead, we can consider Dickinson&rsquo;s insight and determine how to respond to it. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Do Not Panic</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Stoicism</category><dc:date>2011-08-14T21:50:32-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Do-Not-Panic.html#unique-entry-id-17</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Do-Not-Panic.html#unique-entry-id-17</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. &mdash; Franz Kafka


...The world is about to be unmasked and according to our friend, Kafka, there are no alternatives. 

...If you try to embrace all this with our usual urbane irony, the basic tenets of civilization become questionable: stay invested for the long haul, my country right or wrong, shop &rsquo;til you drop.


But what if the we are approaching an historic turning point, a shift that will carry us all in a new direction?   And what if this transition includes the erosion of the social, political and economic foundations that have brought us to our current sorry state?


Many people suggest that Earth can no longer sustain steady economic growth of two or five percent every year.   If that&rsquo;s the case, then the sound of grinding gears we hear is the engine of the world juggernaut seizing in mid-stroke. 

...Try to remember the stories from your great-grandparents&rsquo; era and blend it with your own knowledge of how catastrophe can strike when we fail to pay attention to our brothers&rsquo; and sisters&rsquo; needs and desires.   Somewhere ahead of us there is a balance that we might be able to achieve, one that will tune our individual awareness to those around us and set it in harmony with the natural resources in the world.   That would be a kind of ecstasy, I think; one that we can all embrace.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Cultivate the Visionary Thing</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing insights</category><dc:date>2011-08-01T22:07:04-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Cultivate_The_Visionary_Thing.html#unique-entry-id-16</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Cultivate_The_Visionary_Thing.html#unique-entry-id-16</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I really would like to stop working forever&ndash;never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I&rsquo;m doing now&ndash;and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends.... 

...Since my last entry I&rsquo;ve pushed myself to re-work the first draft of my new novel and prepare for the arrival of my first grandchild.   But if a defence were required&mdash;and of course, none is&mdash;I&rsquo;d rely on Allen Ginsberg to plead my case for indolence.


...Both were marvellous events held in hockey arenas, with hundreds of people pressed toward the stages which were adorned with Indian carpets, incense burners and assorted props to put Allen in the mood.   He was accompanied on stage by Peter Orlovsky and a local poet or two, people who read from their own work to warm up the audience. 


Allen&rsquo;s readings were preceded by a series of generic chants&mdash;oom, oom, oom&mdash;incantations, the cling-cling of finger cymbals, some a-rythmic drumming and a bit of amateur hand-organ ditties. ...  His poems and prose-poems, the anecdotes and stories, all of it revealed a perspective on the world that suggested we should all be exploring &ldquo;the visionary thing&rdquo; in ourselves.


Although the bloom had faded from the hippie era by the mid-70&rsquo;s, here was a man who&rsquo;d quit his day job in the 1950s and dedicated himself to his perceptions and the unique expression he could provide about the world as he saw it. 

...Now when I listen to contemporary slam poets it&rsquo;s easy to link them to Ginsberg&rsquo;s days at jazz club and bookshop readings in San Francisco and New York. ...  Sadly, today&rsquo;s slam poets have to endure the American Idol-style audience scoring as if their work is the subject of a reality TV blitz. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Dueling Writers&#x2014;Contrary Advice</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing insights</category><dc:date>2011-05-13T17:01:26-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/DuelingWritersContraryAdvice.html#unique-entry-id-15</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/DuelingWritersContraryAdvice.html#unique-entry-id-15</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no indifferent place. &mdash; Rainer Maria Rilke


...Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. &mdash; Ralph Waldo Emerson


...In this case we have Rilke chastising the writer who is unable to extract a few grains of ore from the &ldquo;riches&rdquo; of everyday life. 

...A few years ago I re-read the collection of Letters to a Young Poet, which was originally addressed to Franz Kappus, a 19-year-old student enrolled in a military academy in Vienna. ...  Or perhaps I should say, adapt it to their daily attitude&mdash;because so much of Rilke is about an approach to writing, and a way of living as a writer.


...While Rilke is the European idealist searching to connect humanity to the eternal through art, Emerson is the pragmatic American: a craftsman at work on a great labor who acknowledges human frailty&mdash;and admits that when it emerges on a page of writing, it is simple enough to tear out the page and begin again.


...However, there&rsquo;s something bracing about this ability to simultaneously discard and restore, to both create and destroy&mdash;an approach to writing I doubt neither Emerson or Rilke could have imagined.


The second pleasure of writing on a computer&mdash;that related to Rilke&mdash;is the way that it provides direct contact with the inner world of the emerging imagination&mdash;the flood of characters and dialogue that flows onto the screen as if it&rsquo;s being dictated.   It&rsquo;s an near-spiritual experience that I&rsquo;ve mentioned elsewhere on the blog, something that flows through me unmediated except for the words themselves.   And because I don&rsquo;t have to worry about spelling, grammar, syntax, word spacing, and all the related imperfections of typing a manuscript, I can simply let the words pour onto the screen. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Art of Levitation</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing insights</category><category>Spiritual insight</category><dc:date>2011-04-18T16:06:09-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Creation-and-Levitation.html#unique-entry-id-14</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Creation-and-Levitation.html#unique-entry-id-14</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[At such moments one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet, gazing in amazement at the cold yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable; life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny; only Being. &mdash; Albert Einstein


...The lesser-known Wasson was a vice-president at JP Morgan & Co. and a self-taught ethnomycologist who began the study of edible wild mushrooms on his honeymoon (must have been quite a romance!)&mdash;a pursuit that led to his personal discovery of magic mushrooms and other hallucinogenic fungi. 

...Wasson and his wife began to travel the world reporting on their experiments with psychedelics and the variety of transcendental experiences associated with spiritual and religious practices.   His first-hand reports reveal a sense of wonder at his out-of-body journey, one that provided an elevated view of consciousness. 


...While he never fully endorsed any religion (he was a secular Jew), there are hints here and there that he was a pantheist, one who believes that God inhabits all things. ...  I suspect there were several occasions in which he possessed a complete identification with &ldquo;Being&rdquo;&mdash;free, as he says, from the constraints of &ldquo;evolution or destiny.&rdquo;


...However, many artists report similar phenomena to those of Einstein and Wasson, especially when their painting or composing or writing enters a groove when the work seems to create itself. 


...I had no idea she was there, yet when she entered the narrative, she immediately demanded an important place in the novel&mdash;one so important that it drove the story in a direction I didn&rsquo;t imagine when I began to write.


When the creative act reaches this point of &ldquo;lift-off&rdquo; it can become a form of dictation in which I simply record the text and correct bits and pieces to ensure it makes sense. ...  Once that sense of trust is complete, I am free to read the narrative as a disembodied eye, to witness the unfolding of the forces of nature as they are transmitted through my being. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A Lot Less is Much More</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing insights</category><dc:date>2011-04-15T12:43:49-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/A-Lot-Less-is-Much-More.html#unique-entry-id-13</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/A-Lot-Less-is-Much-More.html#unique-entry-id-13</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[To make sense of this, consider Hemingway&rsquo;s &ldquo;iceberg&rdquo; notion of the story, which he mentions in various interviews and in his own writing.   As we know, the visible part of an iceberg is roughly ten percent of its entire mass&mdash;most of which is out of sight, lurking below the surface.   Likewise, a short story or novel that bears real heft will reveal only a portion of its substance in the words on the page. 

...Some might imagine Hemingway&rsquo;s stylistic innovation is drawn from Shakespeare&rsquo;s oft-quoted advice to be sparing in expression, since &ldquo;brevity is the soul of wit.&rdquo;   But Hemingway perfected his lean approach to writing during his years as a foreign correspondent reporting the news from Europe over the wire.   Since every word added to the cost of transmitting his stories, he developed a talent for tight writing and economy of phrasing. 


When he adapted this line-by-line technique to a thorough-going narrative style in his stories and novels, he set down the foundations for a revolutionary literary standard: Minimalism.   This new way of telling stories was echoed in a lot of detective and noir fiction in the 1940s and 1950s and taken to new heights in the short story collections of Raymond Carver in the 1980s.   Over the decades Minimalism found an audience of readers who were busy and distracted, unable to dedicate hours at a time to the pleasure of reading.


What I find fascinating is that at the same place and time (Paris in the 1920s) where Hemingway was developing his literary style, another writer, James Joyce, was perfecting the style of interior monologues that led to stream-of-consciousness writing. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Don&#x27;t think. Don&#x27;t write. Just BE.</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Spiritual insight</category><dc:date>2011-04-08T16:23:34-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Dont-think-Dont-write-Just-BE.html#unique-entry-id-12</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Dont-think-Dont-write-Just-BE.html#unique-entry-id-12</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[By becoming attached to names and forms, not realizing that they have no more basis than the activities of the mind itself, error rises and the way to emancipation is blocked. &mdash; Buddha


The writer of these lines has nothing whatsoever to teach anyone; his words are just his contribution to our common discussion of what must inevitably be for us the most important subject which could be discussed by sentient beings. &mdash; Terence James Stannus Gray (a.k.a. 

...When three respected spiritual leaders&mdash;each writing from a different tradition&mdash;declare that &ldquo;words,&rdquo; &ldquo;thoughts,&rdquo; and &ldquo;names&rdquo; are wrong-headed, it makes me pause. 

...After all, those of us (and I include myself here) trying to achieve some insight into the mystery of our existence have to dig pretty deep to penetrate all the cultural &ldquo;noise&rdquo; that gets in the way.   For example, is it possible to enter a state of self-realization while tapping your toes to the latest tune from Britney Spears? 

...In other words, you need to disconnect yourself from all the cultural personas and social diversions to get to the centre of life. ...  When (or if) you achieve this state of pure being your self will have dissolved, and as a result, there will be no &ldquo;you&rdquo; to experience it. 


...Apart from various tribal and animistic practices (which DO rely on painting, sculpture, music and dance) the world&rsquo;s great religions depend on the written word to mark their authority, to provide continuity through time, and to render a grand narrative that offers transcendent meaning to their followers. 


...There are so many marvellous poems and novels and plays that provide a direct conduit to self-awareness (even in the spiritual sense of the word) and most of them achieve this success without constructing new religions from their foundations.


...And if that freedom can be completely unleashed&mdash;so that even unconscious self-censorship is eliminated&mdash;then the novel can dictate its own narrative, the characters will speak freely, and artistic clairvoyance can emerge. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Brilliant Opening Lines</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing insights</category><dc:date>2011-03-30T12:15:11-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Brilliant-Opening-Lines.html#unique-entry-id-11</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Brilliant-Opening-Lines.html#unique-entry-id-11</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA["Many years later, in front of the firing squad, colonel Aureliano Buend&iacute;a would remember that distant afternoon his father took him to see ice." &mdash;Gabriel Garc&iacute;a M&aacute;rquez


Is it possible to read this sentence&mdash;the opening line to M&aacute;rquez&rsquo;s One Hundred years of Solitude&mdash;without wondering what follows? 

...To complicate matters, the conclusion of the sentence is so at odds with its beginning (how can such innocence possibly lead to an execution, we ask) that the reader is compelled to re-read it just to be sure she has a grasp of the scene at hand. 


...The closing sentence completes everything that precedes it, much like the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle as it snaps into place. 

...One quality every first line MUST possess is a &ldquo;catapult&rdquo; to read the sentence which follows.   And the second sentence had better be as brilliant as the first&mdash;or employ a device to establish the imaginary world of the novel.   The sooner the writer can immerse his audience in the narrative web, the more certain he can be assured of the power of his voice, the characters, the plot and everything we consider integral to the story as it unfolds.


...However, turn these questions on end and consider all the wonderful works of fiction that begin with sparkling brilliance. 

...By the way, if you want to read the second line from M&aacute;rquez&rsquo;s One Hundred years of Solitude, pick up a copy and read on. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/006112009X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?  ie=UTF8&tag=dfba-20&linkCode=am2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=006112009X">One Hundred Years of Solitude</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Modern Art of Stoic Joy</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Stoicism</category><dc:date>2011-03-25T11:36:31-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/The-Modern-Art-of-Stoic-Joy.html#unique-entry-id-10</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/The-Modern-Art-of-Stoic-Joy.html#unique-entry-id-10</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[In an age when the average westerner has unfettered access to booze, sex, drugs, travel&mdash;and the limitless diversions of TV, film, and the internet&mdash;why would anyone  consider the abstemious values of the Greek and Roman Stoics?


Yet that&rsquo;s exactly what William Braxton Irvine urges us to do in A Guide to the Good Life: the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. ...  More important, he reveals how Stoicism can be updated to serve contemporary readers who are seeking a viable philosophy of life. 


...In one of the best sections of his book, Irvine makes a good case that our insatiability&mdash;along with many other human traits&mdash;is a product of evolution. 

...The modern Stoic (or New Stoa as others would have it) can employ a number of strategies to extricate herself  from our cultural hedonism, including two that are well articulated by Irvine. ...  Four or five other methods are offered, all of them based on the insights of the ancient Stoics and adapted by Irvine for contemporary readers.


While all this may appear to be a tad dreary and depressing, take heart from Irvine&rsquo;s all-important subtitle: the ancient art of stoic joy. 

...Throughout the book, Irvine reveals the common bond between Stoicism and certain types of Buddhism&mdash;a subject I explored in my last novel, The Good Lie. ...  Both direct our attention to the few areas where we possess real power and freedom: on setting personal goals, asserting our will power, managing our behaviour with one another.


...Stoicism offers a way to approach these unalterable facts of life&mdash;and Irvine&rsquo;s book illuminates a path that leads to dignity and self-respect.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>How to Write a Masterpiece</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing tips</category><dc:date>2011-03-18T12:58:08-07:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/How-to-Begin-a-Masterpiece.html#unique-entry-id-9</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/How-to-Begin-a-Masterpiece.html#unique-entry-id-9</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power. &mdash; Toni Morrison


...In this marvellous fictional dream Morrison transported me into a world that was completely unfamiliar, yet I was utterly convinced that every detail was accurate, every nuance correct. 

...ie=UTF8&tag=dfba-20&linkCode=am2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=006112009X">Beloved</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?

...But a writer who has completed her apprenticeship and who is now approaching her masterpiece must take Morrison&rsquo;s counsel:  imagine what is not the self.   It sounds so simple, but in this hyper-narcissistic age who among us routinely reveals an empathetic spirit&mdash;even if he possesses one? 

...I do love this invocation, this challenge to bring a new dimension into words so powerful that the reader feels it in her bones.   In my new work-in-progress, Exit from America,  I&rsquo;ve being toying with the experience of meditation, trying to figure out how to make this &ldquo;strange experience&rdquo; (since many people have never meditated) seem familiar.   After acknowledging that the task is impossible, I decided to try a narrative simulation, to break the experience of meditating into a sequence that leads to &ldquo;empty consciousness,&rdquo; that fullness of being that is no-thing located no-where in no-time. 

...James Joyce built empires from daily experiences like these and tied the simplest rites of passage to centuries-old myths. ...  These writers have discovered the mysteries in life&mdash;and miracle of miracles&mdash;they have revealed them in their work.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Fame and Obscurity</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing insights</category><dc:date>2011-03-09T17:44:00-08:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Fame-and-Obscurity.html#unique-entry-id-8</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Fame-and-Obscurity.html#unique-entry-id-8</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Of all the possessions of this life fame is the noblest; when the body has sunk into the dust the great name still lives. &mdash; Johann Friedrich Von Schiller


...Assuming we humans still possess a musical culture 300 years from now, I can&rsquo;t imagine that the music of Beethoven will be forgotten.   And if Beethoven is remembered, his Ninth Symphony, with its famous &ldquo;Ode to Joy&rdquo; will be admired again and again.   The libretto to the &ldquo;Ode to Joy&rdquo; was written by Schiller, and his fame will be enshrined by this remarkable music&mdash;and perhaps by many of his other literary works, too.


...And Carrie Fisher, Star Wars&rsquo; Princess Leia&mdash;and a popular author and screenplay writer&mdash;believes that all celebrity will dissolve in the passage of time.


Schiller&rsquo;s boast provides an insight into the mind of the Romantic era, the time of Keats, Napoleon, Goya&mdash;a period when common citizens could rise from the masses to achieve greatness in politics, the arts, war, and grand love affairs by aligning themselves with an idealized notion of nature pitted against the perceived grip of industrialization and the dehumanization of the individual.


The Romantics championed the individual and theirs was one of the first social movements to include women (like Mary Shelley) in its ranks. 

...How quickly we see our megastars forgotten, their images commodified (like Marilyn and Elvis) and their work &ldquo;covered&rdquo; by a million pretenders in the Karaoke bars across the land. ...  Fortunately she&rsquo;s had the good sense to step back and recognize this illusion for what it is: a mirage.


...Better to choose a genuine, purposeful life without striving for the variety of illusions that cost us our freedom, than to to enslave ourselves to a fantasy of immortality that only the very few will find if they can win Fortune&rsquo;s favour.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Novel as a Rorschach Test</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing insights</category><dc:date>2011-03-03T22:22:06-08:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/The-Novel-as-a-Rorschach-Test.html#unique-entry-id-7</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/The-Novel-as-a-Rorschach-Test.html#unique-entry-id-7</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The writer&rsquo;s work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book.   The reader&rsquo;s recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book&rsquo;s truth. &mdash; Marcel Proust, Meditations


...The 10 ink blots developed in the 1920s by Hermann Rorschach (pronounced raw-shock) as a &ldquo;projective test&rdquo; were intended to provide a sort of mental map of the mind which trained psychologists then used to work with their patients. 


If we apply the same idea to books, then we can begin to understand Marcel Proust&rsquo;s claim that a novel, for example, is a kind of ink-blot series that the reader reacts to with every turn of the page. 

...In other cases, the novel may have some scenes that are not part of your own experience, but nonetheless, you read on convinced &ldquo;this is exactly how I would react if I were there.&rdquo;   These effects are called verisimilitude and writers of realistic fiction work very hard to ensure they are part of your reading experience.


But Proust suggests there is an even higher plain to a successful book, a level where the novel can offer you a new perspective about your own life that you&rsquo;ve never considered.   It&rsquo;s as though the narrative can lead you by the hand to a plateau, spin you around and point to the place where you live and work from a new angle that you never imagined.


...I had similar epiphanies when I read Steinbeck&rsquo;s Grapes of Wrath, Keats&rsquo;s &ldquo;Ode to a Grecian Urn,&rdquo; and many other texts. 


...Whether you find yours in Proust&rsquo;s Remembrance of Things Past or Dan Brown&rsquo;s The Da Vinci Code depends on who you are &mdash; and (perhaps more important) where you look.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Creativity Transforms Us from Beasts into Gods</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing insights</category><dc:date>2011-02-24T22:31:05-08:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/From-Beasts-into-Gods.html#unique-entry-id-6</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/From-Beasts-into-Gods.html#unique-entry-id-6</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. 

...No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing. &mdash; Mario Vargas Llosa


...The French possess a wonderful word without an exact counterpart in English: ennui, which means &ldquo;studious boredom,&rdquo; or something close to it.


...Many believe that nothing&mdash;no ideal, no religion, no individual, no love, no career&mdash;can transcend the drudgery of existence. 

...Yes, most novels are vapourous and likely to disappear from the public mind within a few years (or months) of publication.   But all art is born from the human imagination, and is therefore a vestige of nature and the universe.   And like a broken twig or stray feather, it is something&mdash;and most definitely not an artifact of despair.


I would take the argument much further and suggest the work of the artist can transcend despair and ennui.   Both the act of writing and the completed novel&mdash;the process and the product&mdash;generate this kind of elevated experience. ...  Better still, by aligning your creative energy with the forces of nature within you, you directly contact the creative state of being which is the polar opposite of ennui: joie de vivre. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>When a Good Friend Goes Bad</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Exit from America</category><dc:date>2011-02-18T15:30:34-08:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/When-a-Good-Friend-Goes-Bad.html#unique-entry-id-5</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/When-a-Good-Friend-Goes-Bad.html#unique-entry-id-5</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[And Marie Curie might have escaped her battle with terminal cancer if she&rsquo;d feared the effects of radioactive isotopes in the test tubes that she carried about in her pockets and stashed in her desk drawers. 


...In the 1960s Lovelock invented Gaia theory&mdash;the notion that Earth is a dynamic living system, an organic whole constantly adjusting the &ldquo;harmonic thermostat&rdquo; of  our world. 

...I have to confess to a certain gloomsterism about our collective future and The Vanishing face of Gaia, A Final Warning provides more than enough fertilizer for my over-ripe vision of what may befall humanity in the very near future.   While Lovelock acknowledges the tireless work of the scientists who support the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (another Nobel Prize winner), he dismisses the consensus approach of the IPCC as politically motivated and a form of science heresy. 


According to Lovelock, the IPCC is way too optimistic in its forecasts and it&rsquo;s now too late for humans to reduce the global warming trend.   Instead, governments should dedicate their efforts to prepare for the survival of those few millions lucky enough to inhabit the isolated places on Earth that may be habitable after the next 100 years: Tasmania, New Zealand, Britain and a few other spots in the northern hemisphere. 

...If Lovelock is correct (and I pray that he is terribly, laughably, wrong) the implications of the challenge we face are almost unimaginable. 

...Which takes me to my new work-in-progress, Exit from America, in which the central characters confront the changing world that Lovelock foresees and set about to find a new place for themselves where they can thrive. 

...But if there is another step in human evolution (something equivalent to the shift from homo erectus to homo sapiens) this change will be based on choice.   Rather than merely adapting to a new environment (the modus operandi in Darwinian evolution) we will have to actualize our sense of human freedom and choose to become a new species so that our society can become a new kind of humanity.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Art is a Way of Knowing</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing insights</category><dc:date>2011-02-11T12:32:52-08:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Art-is-a-Way-of-Knowing.html#unique-entry-id-4</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Art-is-a-Way-of-Knowing.html#unique-entry-id-4</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Just when you think you&rsquo;ve come up with an original idea, you check it in Google and see 91,600 hits for the exact idea that&mdash;only seconds earlier&mdash;you assumed sprung solely from the genius of your imagination. 


This humbling experience befell me when I searched for the phrase &ldquo;art is a way of knowing&rdquo; only to discover that it&rsquo;s a book title by Pat Allen.   I don&rsquo;t know Pat Allen, but I&rsquo;m sure he must be quite brilliant to scoop my idea 11 years before it occurred to me.


(The lapse of 11 years probably disqualifies me from claiming that our mutual discovery is an example of synchronicity, Carl Jung&rsquo;s notion that certain ideas or events occur simultaneously in discrete cultures at the same time. 

...The reviewers reveal that the book focuses on art therapy and the unique psychological insights art offers to anyone seeking personal growth (aren&rsquo;t we all?).


...For instance, each day when I&rsquo;m at work on my current novel (Exit from America) I don&rsquo;t anticipate what will be revealed by the end of the writing session. 

...Later we are introduced to her father and witness the events that drive the narrative&mdash;the conclusion of which will be revealed to me (I hope) in the months ahead.


Another example from the novel: James Wayman (Mavis Helm&rsquo;s husband) has discovered a new form of meditation that he calls White Light Meditation. ...  James&rsquo;s efforts led me into a new world of inner discovery and personal meaning that I don&rsquo;t think I would have experienced without writing this particular novel. 

...I&rsquo;ve taken the liberty of registering WhiteLightMeditation.com and soon you will find a page on this site that will reveal the techniques you can employ to achieve this elevated state of self-knowledge. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Deep Chill: Money vs. Art</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Money</category><dc:date>2011-02-04T11:50:10-08:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Johnson-Pound.html#unique-entry-id-3</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Johnson-Pound.html#unique-entry-id-3</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Johnson as he preferred to be called, secured a remarkable paid writing contract to produce the first Dictionary of the English Language. 

...Johnson had been desperate for money before, and at the age of 25 he married Tetty Porter, aged 46 and mother of three children&mdash;which provided access to her considerable savings at a time when he was in dire need.   At the time, he might well have said, &ldquo;No man but a blockhead ever married, except for money.&rdquo;


...He put in with the fascists during World War II and broadcast radio propaganda against the Allies until he was arrested for treason in Italy by the Americans in 1945. 

...While there are a lot of ways to make money in this world (and certainly more ways to lose it), writers have limited options.   They can try their hand at journalism, technical writing, publishing, or take on more lucrative corporate work like web copy-writing, advertising and media relations (where they are known as &lsquo;flak writers&rsquo;). 


...Only the rare publisher will pay you by the word, and unless you&rsquo;ve already established your credentials as a best-selling author, few publishers can gamble their dwindling resources on substantial advances for a new book.   Most will offer a token advance based on anticipated sales and pencil in a 15% cut of additional sales after their advance has been paid out&mdash;which rarely occurs (do the math: the average books sells about 200 copies).


...If you&rsquo;re writing fiction, or creative non-fiction, you&rsquo;ll almost  certainly create a better book if you work without any constraints. 

...While they are schlepping from book fair to retail store to media event, go about your business: begin your next story, pay attention to its wants and needs, nurture this precious gift in its embryonic form, give daily thanks to your muse.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>A Koan from Jean Cocteau</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing tips</category><dc:date>2011-01-28T12:48:06-08:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Cocteau.html#unique-entry-id-2</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Cocteau.html#unique-entry-id-2</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[So he has only to copy in order to be original. &mdash; Jean Cocteau


Cocteau&rsquo;s clever paradox began to gnaw at me the first time I read it.   The text seems contradictory and like a lot of quotes I come across on the internet, it would be easy to dismiss and forget.   But when I took a moment to unravel this little knot and I found something worthwhile (...

...A French modernist, Jean Cocteau was at the center of the Parisian avant garde in the early twentieth century.   As a proponent of surrealism he was eager to expand our sense of reality, to discover our boundaries and fields of gravity.


...His first sentence, an original artist is unable to copy, provides our center of gravity: his premise, which we can accept, or debate. ...  The leading clause in the second sentence, he has only to copy, acts as a hinge to open the boundaries of our understanding.   Because it&rsquo;s impossible for an original artist to copy, when she attempts to imitate or copy others, she simply CANNOT.   Therefore whatever efforts she makes to copy all result in something new and original. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Trinity of Art</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing tips</category><dc:date>2011-01-21T12:34:01-08:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Burroughs.html#unique-entry-id-1</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/Burroughs.html#unique-entry-id-1</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Burroughs is the first contemporary writer to openly acknowledge the bond between a writer and his readers as the process of imaginative collaboration is about to begin.

...His story, &ldquo;Twilight&rsquo;s Last Gleamings,&rdquo; was supposedly written in 1938, when he was twenty-four, then re-drafted in 1949.   Regardless of the genesis, the story presents a remarkable about-face from the standard notion of the story as a &ldquo;delivered object&rdquo; which the reader &ldquo;receives&rdquo; as a kind of second-class citizen in our hyper-narrative culture. 

...Burroughs provides the same sort of jolt to readers that Ren&eacute; Magritte offered to viewers of his painting &ldquo;This is not a pipe.&rdquo;   Burroughs and Magritte are having a bit of a joke, of course, but they both force their audiences to pause and consider three interdependent elements: the work of art, its creator, and those who experience the work&mdash;be it fiction, painting, music, or whatever form is on offer.


...Furthermore, two elements of this trinity&mdash;the audience and object&mdash;can be separated by any span of time, a fact demonstrated by the awe-inspiring re-discovery of the 17,000-year-old cave art in  Lascaux, France.   I imagine we in the 21st century would enjoy similar delights if an unknown play by Sophocles was screened on YouTube or a lost score by Mozart went viral in MP3 format. 


The point is that art connects us to one another, one by one, in an instant (or across the millennia) as soon as the third link&mdash;the audience&mdash;attends to the work of art.   No matter how long the work has been lost or found, no matter if the artist is renowned or obscured in the dust of time, the audience ensures the work can live and breathe.


The unique trinity of art is as durable&mdash;and as fragile&mdash;as humanity itself, and accessible to anyone who seeks to know the inner life it reveals. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Original &#x22;K&#x22;</title><dc:creator>don.bailey@shaw.ca</dc:creator><category>Writing tips</category><dc:date>2011-01-14T16:03:45-08:00</dc:date><link>http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/WritingTips-Kafka.html#unique-entry-id-0</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.dfbailey.com/blog_files/WritingTips-Kafka.html#unique-entry-id-0</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. 

...We owe a debt of gratitude to the original Mr. ...  For a writer who published very little during his lifetime, Franz Kafka knew a lot about how to do it well.   An original stylist, a social visionary who extrapolated the dynamics of his working life (in insurance) into a portrait of a world gone mad&mdash;Kafka is one of the few artists who anticipated the pervasive and perverse horrors of Nazi and Soviet bureaucracies. 


...Abandonment of a logical framework to support metaphors, ideas, narratives. 


So many young writers are desperate to make it, to break through, to land a triple book contract and be celebrated by Oprah.   Kafka is the paragon of the artist who forsakes all aspirations for fame, glory, money. ...  He took dictation from his imagination, unfettered by pop fashion and contemporary flare. 


...The imperative of embracing writing for its own sake.   The experience is self-sustaining and complete&mdash;a feeling, I think, akin to levitation.
]]></content:encoded></item></channel>
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