Page 21 of 80

Posted on

Thoughts on Writing Prompts

In the summer of 1991, I attended a camp for artistic expression of all sorts — I had applied and entered for writing and so I took a number of different writing courses of the creative variety. One of the things that we did nearly every day was to work with different writing prompts to inspire our writing. On one morning we were handed photos from magazines (one each) and on another day we were instructed to go outside and just write based on on what we saw out there. There was even one morning when one of the professors simply said, “Thirty seconds — write!” That didn’t seem like so much of a proper writing prompt as much as it was a direct order from our commander!

Continue reading → Thoughts on Writing Prompts

Posted on

A Cat by Any Other Name

When I was growing up, I had a friend in West Windsor who had a pet cat. He told me one day that it didn’t matter what he said to the cat as long as he used a soothing tone when he said it. He proceeded to demonstrate by saying some of the most ugly things I had ever heard a twelve year old boy say all with a cooing tone. I noted at the time that the cat didn’t seem to mind all too much.

Continue reading → A Cat by Any Other Name

Posted on

How Find My iPhone Works from Afar

Janna is currently in Iowa visiting her mother.  I miss her heaps, and I am happy to help whenever the call for assistance arrives from the Midwest into my Google Voice Inbox via SMS.  Janna has her iPad with her and her creaky, water-soaked-and-barely-usable, iPhone 3G.  Her 3GS was stolen.  We skipped the iPhone 4 in indignant principle.  We will move up the iPhone 4S or 5 or whatever it will be when it is announced.

Continue reading → How Find My iPhone Works from Afar

Posted on

The One Book Bookstore

For many years, bookstores have gone through different phases of figuring out how to get the people who came into their stores to buy the books on their shelves. Should books be faced out, lined up with the spines out, or a combination of the two — and which books got the face out treatment? Successful strategies were copied — you don’t see too many bookstores that are missing a “staff picks” section for a reason — it moves books. It really caught my eye when I saw the strategy of one Brooklyn native, Andrew Kessler — make an entire bookstore dedicated to his book.

Continue reading → The One Book Bookstore

Posted on

John Mayer and a lot of Hoodoo about Nothing to Undo

I have always believed we must live our lives and make decisions based on insufficient evidence we have in hand and then live with the consequences of those uninformed responses.  I do not believe in regret.  Regret is poison.  Regret is emotional and intellectual suicide that decays the body from within.  Reflecting on a reflexive life is different than regret.  We must reflect in order to know what not to do in the future.

Continue reading → John Mayer and a lot of Hoodoo about Nothing to Undo