Literary Safari

Are blogs becoming irrelevant given the ease with which we can post articles and poems and anything else of interest to our facebook profiles? It may be a function of laziness, or maybe it’s a question of ease. But, then something comes along that makes my heart leap and soar and I know that it can only be shared at one destination. Here.

It’s Maira Kalman’s latest column of “The Pursuit of Happiness” at the New York Times and it brings me back after what may have been a longest hiatus ever for me in recent months. I’ve been working long hours, making deadlines, and in all my spare time, hooked to the news which, as one friend so rightly put it, is so fascinating with our new president in office that “it’s like reality television, only better.” She’s right.

Every since Inauguration Day when I sat and stood among a crowd of several hundred adults and school children at Symphony Space on New York’s upper west side, I have felt like I’m looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. No, the economy is not improving; yes, the world still reeks of unfairness and self-indulgence; certainly, it has a fair share of myopic  legislators (don’t get me started). But there’s something else, something new: Leadership that is direct, says it like it is, and is willing to “extend a hand if the other side can unclench its fist.”

It’s so refreshing.

I have read many commentaries about the Inauguration of our new President, but “The Inauguration: At Last,” a visual take from one of my favorite artist/writers Maira Kalman captures the uplifting spirit of these past few weeks in a fresh and honest way … I love it because it captures the feeling of that day and this time through the tiny, mundane details.

It took two weeks to arrive, but it was well worth the wait. Sometimes reflecting on things a little bit later allows us to see them from a finer perspective.

You can read it in its entirety here.

I blogged this last week at Sepia Mutiny. Just catching up! 

A break from politics and world news (and my crazy workday) to share this short, sweet video that I just caught wind of via my daily VSL fix.

It’s called “Rewind City” and is a French TV ad currently airing for Orange’s DVR service in France. Watch as the unexpressed wish of a tearful backpacker comes true when the traffic and people in a Goan village conspire to reverse direction.

Filmed in village of Assonora, 15km east of the town of Mapusa (a hub for bus travel) in North Goa, it’s directed by British director Ringan Ledwidge. The main characters came from Paris, the 250 extras came from Mumbai, and the other backpacker types came from Anjuna, home to the famous Goa hippie flea market.

The ad asks the question, “What if you could rewind a memorable moment in your life?” Not a bad question to ask of oneself every now and then.

This is part of my ongoing series, Flex Your Writing Muscles here and here.

Every year, either on New Year’s Eve, or New Year’s Day, I sit down to write my year in review. The exercise gives me a chance to contemplate the events of the past 12 months, to look at the passage of time—my time—from a big picture point of view. Today, I thought I’d try a different approach and write one using each of the 26 letters of our alphabet.

This particular exercise was inspired by my friend Eleanor of Creative Times whose annual holiday letter was hand-written and illustrated. I will (obviously) be doing a separate one that focuses on my personal, intimate, inner life, but this particular one is you could say, focused more on my “literary professional safari of 2008.”

If you have time today or this week or this month – I’m all about extending the New Year’s spirit for all of January—maybe you’ll want to give this a whirl and then, come back here and share your experience with us. Happy New Year! Bonne Annee! Saal Mubarak!

The A to Z’s of 2008

Allowed myself to make more time to read than I’ve done in a very long time! Here’s a list of some of the the books I most enjoyed reading (and writing about in 2008 at Literary Safari, Sepia Mutiny, Kahani, and Yoga + for Joyful Living) – Animal’s People, Child of Dandelions, Climbing the Stairs, Eat, Pray, Love, Evening is the Whole Day, Home of the Brave, In Defense of Food, India in Word and Image, Love Marriage, Marrying Anita, No Onions Nor Garlic, The Aunt Also Rises, The Lost Island of Tamarind, The Toss of a Lemon, Thoreau at Walden, Unaccustomed Earth, Yoga Calm for Children.

Bid farewell to Scholastic at the end of May, and started , Literary Safari Inc., my own editorial services company.

Commissioned original fiction for a middle school reading program at Scholastic, from authors including Walter Dean Myers, Paul Fleischman, Joseph Bruchac, Gary Soto, and Mitali Perkins.

Despite my initial reluctance, grew to appreciate social networking sites like Facebook which allowed me to connect with old friends and make new ones. Twitter is still in the “out zone” however.

Entered the wordy world of wordsmith Anu Garg and wasted way too much time with Wordle, Photofunia, VSL, morgueFile, and of course, Facebook.

Got a gig writing for the New York Times Learning Network and churned out lesson plans about Twitter , digital innovations in news delivery (aka Contents and its Discontents); American Consumerism and Black Friday; Google Earth’s Rome 3D; the 2008 election results, negative campaigning in presidential politics; multitasking; Paul Krugman’s Nobel Prize, and recent research on our “approximate number sense.”

Had little time to comment on one of my favorite blogs Sepia Mutiny, BUT was stoked to start writing for it in March. I’ve been off the grid lately, but hope to do more in the spring.

Interviewed authors including Indra Sinha, Padma Viswanathan, V.V. Ganeshananthan, Nadia Aguiar, Katia Saint-Novet Lot, Cynthia Kadohata, and An Na, and learned much from them about discipline, inspiration, and craft. Now, if only, I could discipline myself!

Judged the 4th annual Kahani Young Writers & Illustrators contest where the task was to write a story with the words peacock, fever, and mountain. (more…)