At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past. – Maurice Maeterlinck I’m experiencing an identity crisis – nothing serious, just stuck at a crossroads, particularly about this blog. Sometimes I want to rebrand (again), but to what? While “Life is a Brand” and its matching domain name are not exactly exciting, the search engines seem to like it, at least to the extent that they haven’t sent this blog to the cyberspace version of Siberia. I have some great candidate domains, but their themes seem too confining – for example, WhyIWrite.com . At the moment, it has its own site, but once one has discussed why one writes, what is left? How many times can I discuss my process for writing? More important, “Who cares”? Bleh. Meanwhile, the “Why I Write” blog is essentially inactive – not good for ranking on the search engines, borne out by its current search engine location (Cyber Siberia). For rebranding

CNN: The Trump Channel ____________________ OMG! I thought the incessant coverage of MH370 was bewildering and excessive, but now CNN has truly flipped its corporate lid. At least the coverage of MH370 dealt with human suffering and an attempt to solve a mystery, but DONALD TRUMP??? You are feeding into his fascism and narcissism. He's playing you, CNN, and you're giving him FREE coverage. And if he is elected as President of the United Sates, you will have only yourself to blame when he shuts you and other channels down -- because that's what fascists do: silence the mainstream press. Have a nice day!

The “Mayflower” Bowl ____________________________ A great sales person is a great actor.  – Based loosely on a Paul Lynde quote _________________________________ Last winter [January 26, 2015], Jerry, I, Mark, and Missy (the four Siegels) were browsing a flea market at Webster (Florida), nosing around in the antique section, when I spotted an old wooden bowl with cracks. Despite the cracks and being around the block several times, the bowl was very pretty and exuded a lot of soul, and I was drawn to it. But it had a $900.00 price tag on it. I and two other women were oohing and ahhing over it, but that high price tag seemed puzzling; while the bowl did seem to be old, it just didn’t seem to be worth $900.00. No one seemed to want to question why the bowl was priced so high – that is, except me, so I said to the owner of the stand, “This is a really nice bowl, but I don’t understand why it’s $900.00.” He, a white haired gentleman with a nice smile and friendly voi

CarlyFiorina.org -- Carly Fiorina ____________________ The world is really run by the Web. There’s so much information out there that you can click and keep going down the rabbit hole finding stuff. – Big Boi   ______________________   CarlyFiorina.org was registered on December 19, 2014, presumably by a former disgruntled employee of Hewlett-Packard (HP). For good reason, t he domain is registered under Contact Privacy , Inc, a privacy service out of Canada.  Politifact.com believes that the registrant of CarlyFiorina.org is a cybersquatter, but he or she is NOT. He or she is NOT monetizing this domain but using this valuable piece of the web to exercise his or her free speech rights, in this case making a definitive statement about Ms. Fiorina’s job-killing activities while she was CEO at HP. OUCH. No visitor would ever mistake this site as being pro-Carly Fiorina, and, therefore, there is no trademark or name infringement. The first rule of running for p

(To My Freshmen, with Apologies to Northrop Frye) Ah. There it is: A still-living poem. Some critic or teacher must have Done this to it. Put it on the table, boys. Gently, now. Check for vitality, Analyze the theme, Examine its metaphors, Lay bare the quivering imagery And expose the throbbing Thought. Let’s see that history. Two hundred years old? No wonder it seems in Rough shape. As you can see, the relevance is clearly herniated. Diction? Grossly inefficient. Impossibly high allusion level. There! Between the varicose values. Just as I suspected! A great mass of dense meaning Complicated by a massively conscious rhythm. There’s nothing to be done about it. Hopeless – Not a chance of reconstructing this one Into useful lyrics Or a slogan. Close it up And send it off To the anthology. ____________________ (A found poem, written sometime in the mid-1970’s, by a young professor)

Funky Ceramic Vase with Handle and “Crackle” Finish ______________________     “You say freak, I say unique.”  ― Christian Baloga ___________________________ This vase is probably the oddest item I have ever found and actually bought; I found it about two years ago at a thrift shop. At first, I didn’t like it a lot, and I nearly passed it up, but it’s so different that, over time, it has grown on me. It’s  a green, white, and blue striped vase with handle, with a “crackle” finish. There is a signature on the bottom, but it’s an unreadable squiggle. It looks old, but it just could have had a rough life (when I acquired it, it smelled like cigarette smoke), obviously well-used. Has anybody seen this kind of ceramic, and, if so, does anyone know anything about it? I looked on the internet, but I found nothing about this type of ceramic. In my search, I may be using incorrect terminology, or it could be a homemade, one-of-a-kind, item.

First Edition of Stranger in a Strange Land ___________________________ Sex without love is merely healthy exercise. – Robert A. Heinlein ________________________________ This is a likely 1st edition of Stranger in a Strange Land , by Robert A. Heinlein. (G.P Putnam’s Sons), 1961. According to several entries on Abebooks.com ,  A true 1st Edition must include the “C22” in the gutter of page 408 (Yes). and An ad for Starship Troopers on the back cover (Yes). and No notations for subsequent printings (Yes, just the 1961 copyright). and Pale green coloring across the top pages (Yes). I have no idea when this book was acquired; maybe it came with Jerry when he came into my life. He is more likely to be the one to have bought this book in 1961 – I didn’t discover Heinlein until the 1970’s. The photo is of the actual book.