THE EARTH MOVED AND I THOUGHT IT WAS ME

I was sitting quietly reading a newspaper just before 1am yesterday when suddenly the sofa I was sitting on trembled. Absolutely no question about it: trembled. To say I was startled is inaccurate. I thought I might be having a turn, a heart attack, a stroke, or some strange mind-body experience. It only lasted a few seconds and then everything was still and stable again so I went back to my newspaper. Today I read that:

Britain experienced its biggest earthquake for nearly 25 years today - but Londoners were hardly shaken or stirred. The quake, a 5.2 on the Richter scale, struck at 12:56am and lasted ten seconds.

I am disgusted with my self-centered assumption that the tremor came from me rather than from the earth. Obviously the earth was trying to tell me something.

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DREAMS COME TRUE OR FALSE?

My talk on Sunday went down quite well, people said they were encouraged to go home to their computers and make their own self-publishing dreams come true. If you want to have a look at my slide-show presentation it's on blip.tv here but bear in mind that the discussion afterwards was the main part.

I've just noticed how odd that cliché is: making dreams come true. It implies that until we take action our dreams are untruths. It also takes for granted that we want our dreams to come true. What about nightmares? Plenty of film-makers cater for a nightmare-loving public so you could say that they make dreams come true. You could also ask what kind of truth are we talking about? Truth as in fact? Truth as in beauty? Truth as in the opposite of lie?

I love indulging in this sort of free-form thinking, starting from familiar words or phrases and just meandering. You never know where you're going to land or if you will land at all. Anyone for free-floating?

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PROCRASTIGNATING ETC.

I have been busy trying to catch up with things which, as is my wont, I have left until the last minute. No: not as is my wont. My wont is to get all tasks done on time and in leisurely fashion. But the wont of the demon PROCRASTIGNAT is to make me always late, always panicking for being late, and generally to bugger up all my plans and good intentions. I haven't got rid of this particular demon yet, unlike those I tore up, burned and drowned.

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Getting Rid of Six Demons

Click to Play

The story about these "demons" and the cartoons I first drew of them is on the January 24th post of my blog, Blaugustine

In this movie, I tear them to pieces.

SPEEDED-UP DRAWING EXPERIMENT

See it on Blip TV and on Blaugustine