A GROANER FOR 3 MARCH…
0630 by Jeff HessFrom my dad, of course…
A man rushed into a busy doctor’s office and shouted, “Doctor! I think I’m shrinking!”
The doctor calmly responded, “Now, settle down. You’ll just have to be a little patient.”
3 March 2011
2 March 2011
2 March 2011
A GROANER FOR 2 MARCH…
0630 by Jeff HessFrom my dad, of course…
Evidence has been found that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers. Unfortunately, all the Swiss league records were destroyed in a fire, so we’ll never know for whom the Tells bowled.
2 March 2011
2 March 2011
FEAR IS THE MIND KILLER…
0030 by Jeff HessBe without fear. This is impossible, but let the small fears drive your rewriting and set aside the large ones until they behave – then use them, maybe even write them. Too much fear and all you’ll get is silence. Al Kennedy
Ten rules for writing fiction from The Guardian.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
1 March 2011
TWATS AND TWATTER…
0644 by Jeff Hess1 March 2011
A GROANER FOR 1 MARCH…
0630 by Jeff HessFrom my dad, of course…
King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on cash after years of war with the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star of the Euphrates, the most valuable diamond in the ancient world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the pawnbroker, to ask for a loan. Croesus said, “I’ll give you 100,000 dinars for it.”
“But I paid a million dinars for it,” the King protested. “Don’t you know who I am? I am the king!”
Croesus replied, “When you wish to pawn a Star, makes no difference who you are.”
1 March 2011
1 March 2011
VIDEO IS MY WORST ENEMY…
0030 by Jeff HessRead. As much as you can. As deeply and widely and nourishingly and irritatingly as you can. And the good things will make you remember them, so you won’t need to take notes. Al Kennedy
Ten rules for writing fiction from The Guardian.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
28 February 2011
28 February 2011
HOW DO YOU LEARN TO TELL…?
0030 by Jeff HessIf you have a good story idea, don’t assume it must form a prose narrative. It may work better as a play, a screenplay or a poem. Be flexible. Hilary Mantel
Ten rules for writing fiction from The Guardian.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
27 February 2011
DO CLOTHES MAKE THE DICTATOR…?
2130 by Jeff HessMYANMAR/BURMA — I’m puzzled. Has Myanmar become so Westernized that anyone living there would mistake a uni-sex sarong as a woman’s dress? The lede on Robert Horn’s piece for Time makes no sense to me (no one would accuse Jimi Izrael of wearing a dress) but the exploration of astrology’s insidious hold on Myanmar’s leadership certainly does.
From Time:
“It’s yadaya,” said a Rangoon-based astrologer who asked not to be named, referring to Burma’s particular brand of black magic.
Burma has had three rulers during the past half-century and all have been devotees of yadaya. Gen. Ne Win, who ruled from 1962 to 1988 reportedly shot his own reflection in a mirror, on the advice of a fortune teller, to foil a foretold assassination attempt. His obsession with numerology led him to demonetize all bank notes in 1987 so new notes could be printed — all divisible by his lucky number nine. The move wiped out the savings of most Burmese and contributed to an uprising one year later. His successor, Gen. Saw Muang, was replaced after erratic behavior that included a rambling, semi-coherent nationally televised speech brimming with references to magic and astrology. The man who replaced him, Than Shwe, is reported to have seven personal astrologers, several of whom are tasked with focusing solely on Aung San Suu Kyi, according to his biographer Ben Rogers.
Astrology, superstition and black magic are common in Southeast Asia, and Burma’s rulers have rarely made any bones about their beliefs.
Do what you can (without consulting your horoscope) to make this a good morning, Myanmar.
27 February 2011
27 February 2011
WHAT IS YOUR NO. 1 REASON…?
0814 by Jeff Hess27 February 2011
WRITE FOR YOURSELF, SCREW THE REST…
0030 by Jeff HessWrite a book you’d like to read. If you wouldn’t read it, why would anybody else? Don’t write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book’s ready. Hilary Mantel
Ten rules for writing fiction from The Guardian.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
26 February 2011
MADISON POLICE REFUSE TO ARREST PROTESTERS…
1123 by Jeff HessWill so-not-getting re-elected Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker call out the National Guard?
26 February 2011
I THOUGHT CONVERTING TO JUDAISM WORKED…
1101 by Jeff HessBut you can’t just cut up your membership card in front of a priest and go, Feck you, I’m out of here, my conversion just makes me a heretic liable for a good, old-fashion burning at the stake.
26 February 2011
26 February 2011
YOU WANT MY PASSWORD BECAUSE WHY…?
0820 by Jeff HessWhy do we assume that evil people are stupid?
From The Baltimore Sun:
“The department’s efforts to explore an applicant’s behavior on social media networks stems not from a desire to invade personal privacy, but rather from a legitimate and serious concern with the infiltration of gangs into our prisons,” Maynard wrote in his letter to Sara N. Love, president of the ACLU’s Maryland chapter. “I am sure you would agree that permitting applicants who engage in illegal activities, or have gang affiliations, to be employed as correctional officers compromises the safety of all inmates and employees within our prison walls.”
The observation from Jenée Desmond-Harris is spot on:
Since you’d think any serious criminal would be savvy enough to delete problematic content before applying for a position with the Division of Correction, this seems like a violation of innocent applicants’ privacy that can’t possibly be effective enough to be justified.
Just because the evil people who we arrest and successfully prosecute tend to be stupid does not mean that the ones we don’t arrest are.
26 February 2011
I TAKE THE THIS I BELIEVE PLUNGE…
0802 by Jeff HessFrom This I Believe:
You have successfully submitted your essay to This I Believe. Thank you for being part of our project!
Our project’s goal is to open a public dialogue about belief, one essay at a time. To that end, every essay we receive is an important part of our project. This I Believe is not a contest, but a community conversation.
Our essay review process takes about six to eight weeks, and at the completion of this process, your essay may be entered into our online Essay Collection. If your essay is approved for posting on our website, we will send you an email alerting you to that fact. That would signify the end of the review process.
I think I spent about two weeks writing these 475 words:
This I Believe…
I was born and I will die. I have no memory of time before the first event and no evidence of time after the second. Between those certain markers stretch my path of irregular and uncertain stones that bound the serial moments that I know as my life. I may choose some of these stones, allow others to be chosen for me and accept without choice many laid in my path. Once placed, each stone becomes a part of a collective memory by which I am known and may be remembered by others.
I am one of several billions stepping along at this moment and to imagine that I am in any real sense special is hubris. Yet, I am a unique combination of genetic instructions and environmental experiences with the potential to be special. Whether or not I realize that potential may be judged by at least one other and in the extreme, History. Regardless, I choose to make the effort.
I am on Walkabout, my experience of wondering. I choose to speak and to fling starfish back into the ocean. More importantly, I choose, for good or ill, to set stones that by their set draw attention through our common mist and din, to what I would be. I am not inspired by great personages but rather by a solitary man who cautioned against a life of quiet desperation and chose to spend a night in jail rather than allow his taxes to fund an immoral war. By his act of civil disobedience he aided at least one other man in choosing a path of non-violence that led his people from colonial oppression to independence, and yet another in writing a jail-house letter serving notice on his peers.
On Walkabout I have learned that there is only now. Each morning I awaken in possession of a bag holding 1,000 pieces of gold, each representing a minute of my self awareness between when I rise up and when I lie down. I cannot hoard these minutes of gold. Each falls from my grasp in succession until the pouch is empty. I decide how each coin is spent. I may choose to purchase stones that lead me closer to my ideal as a fit, civic-minded writer and educator engaged in our collective conversation or I may stand in place and stare as each coin tumbles into the abyss.
While I do fear pain, I do not fear death because I enter oblivion each time I close my eyes to sleep certain that I cannot know if I will open them again. Each day then is a microcosm of my life. From my daily gathering of intentional moments comes an intentional day and from the total of my intentional days will come my intentional life. I am on my path. This I believe.
Tag, you’re it.
