SEASONAL GREETINGS

For some unknown reason, I haven't been able to upload a new post to my main Blaugustine blog (link at MORE below). If you too are unable to open it, please let me know in comments here.

Meanwhile, I want to wish everyone a happy Christmas - or whatever you may be celebrating - and a New Year that brings you all you wish for, and a little extra.

 

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PRAGUE

That's where I was at Christmas. 

They say that Prague is a beautiful city and there is much to see. I'm sure this is true but the piercingly cold, wet, sleety, slippery, snowy, windy weather made it impossible for shivering chickens such as me and my sister to see anything much besides the foam on a cup of hot chocolate. I exaggerate: my sister is much braver and more of a sightseer than I am so I dragged along reluctantly to make sure I'd be there to pick her up if she slipped on the ice. That's how heroic I am. I know it's reprehensible but all I really wanted to do was to sit in a warm cafe or in the hotel room. 

Maybe some time, not in winter, I could go back and see all the interesting things I missed this time. Maybe in other seasons the people of Prague become more friendly and maybe they even smile or reply when you ask for directions. I've been to lots of cities and lots of countries and in some of those places I didn't speak the language but never, ever, have I encountered such ubiquitously unfriendly attitudes as in Prague - shopkeepers, tram conductors, ticket sellers, information people, passers-by, etc. etc. either did not respond or responded in a manner which can only be described as hostile. Very few people we came across spoke any language other than Czech - fair enough, but did they need to be so brusque and dismissive? Maybe some foreign tourists behave badly in Prague so the citizens have decided all foreigners are a nuisance. There were a few exceptions: the staff at our hotel and the taxi drivers booked to and from the airport. 

Anyway here are a few pictures I took in Prague. I wish you all whatever you most desire in your heart of hearts. Bonne Année, mes amis.

 

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SEASONAL IMAGE

Whether you celebrate this season with different images or with no images at all, my warmest wishes go out to you all and may your spirit be moved by all the beautiful things in the universe, visible and invisible.

Meanwhile, I sent a submission to the latest >LANGUAGE>PLACE CARNIVAL and am very pleased that it's there now (video of my stay in Tavira, Portugal) under the heading Slipping Boundaries, amongst the other wonderful entries on Nicolette Wong's blog Meditations in an Emergency.

I have made a firm resolution to return to La Vie en Rosé  as soon as the New Year kicks in and you have my authorisation to remind of this resolution, loudly and clearly.

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SEASONAL GREETINGS

Since these holidays are about family, however you celebrate, alone or apart, here's a fantasy family for you, perhaps an ideal one, perhaps just an ordinary one, a little bit strange in a good way.


With warmest wishes to every single person who passes this way, I hope you'll stay a while. May the New Year be kind to all of us on this troubled planet. 

(This is actually a black and white photo of an old, highly textured painting of mine which I've scanned and coloured digitally).

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QUIET AND HUMBLE SEASONAL SALES PITCH

Assuming you follow the seasonal gift-giving tradition, maybe you are still wondering what to offer your loved ones? If so, wonder no more because I have the perfect solution.

Everybody on your gift list will be grateful to you forever for giving them something which will make them laugh and think at the same time. How many gifts can do that, I ask you? Laugh heartily and think profoundly, simultaneously? Well, this one can do it.

Even if you already own a copy, you must have friends and relatives who have not yet experienced the special thought-provoking joy contained in this book's brilliantly coloured pages. Therefore I am making this astonishing, unrepeatable offer.

From today until February 1st, I will personally sign and send The God Interviews anywhere in the world for an absurd £7.00 per copy, including postage (airmail only if one copy. For multiple copies outside the UK, I'll send by surface mail). Payment should be made to me via PayPal, specifying sterling (otherwise the bank charges me £7 per transaction for conversion!)

Email me: endapress AT blueyonder DOT co DOT uk with the address where to send the book/s. Yes, I know it's late for holiday posting to foreign parts but at least I can guarantee that I'll rush to the post office the minute I get your order.

You can, if you prefer, still order this book from Lulu.com or from Amazon UK but that would be at the usual price plus shipping costs, and not signed by yours truly.

Wait, I'm not finished!

Another ideal gift for yourself and those you love just as much, if not more, is Brilliant Coroners, a Laupe House Press publication, sixty-eight poems by seventeen poets, edited by Rachel Barenblat (Velveteen Rabbi) and Rachel Rawlins (Frizzy Logic). Available to order from Lulu.com in USA or Europe, here.

I must confess that one of the poems, Canary Yellow Scarf, is mine and I'm truly honoured that it was included in this collection by real poets, ones who know how to carve words out of silence and polish them with a flair and artistry that I can only stand back from and admire. All of us met in cyberspace, via our blogs, and most of us subsequently met in the real world. Beth Adams (Cassandra) describes it best on Phoenicia Publishing , which produced this book:

Writers and artists have always formed groups for mutual support, commentary, and encouragement, sometimes collaborating on public projects from group shows to hand-printed literary magazines. But while one tends to think of local writers hanging out in Paris cafés in the 1930s, or on the lower East side of New York in the 1950s, how does that desire for communication and creative inspiration translate into today’s online world? The poets and visual artists of this anthology met online through their blogs, and have corresponded for a number of years, across continents and oceans. All are serious writers and artists, many with published poems or books. Brilliant Coroners arose from their desire to create a collective work and share it with a wider public, and also their wish to draw attention to the high quality of literary writing on the web, and to the exciting possibilities for creative collaboration it affords. The title of this collection refers not to the poets, but to the poems themselves, which sharply dissect meaning from a post-modern world.

Go on, order both books now and make my humble heart beat a happy tune.

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