Look at what we can do!

Baffling, but cool!

I don’t understand how it works, but it’s fascinating.

Also, a little scary, as you realize that whatever took these pictures can actually see in the windows. Big Brother is watching.

So, I don’t know whether this is something to celebrate, but I think it’s inevitable. The privacy issues, as always, are lagging behind the technology. At some point, we will probably have to deal with them. Although, I suspect, the ship has sailed. I don’t think I can recall any single instance of humanity deciding not to use some technology we have invented. The show-and-tell gene is too dominant in our species, I think.

At least, this has the possibility of benign and beneficial applications. Imagine real time web cams at Picadilly Circus. The Acropolis.

We can already watch manatees at Blue Spring State Park, falcon cams in Ohio, and countless tourist locations at EarthCam. (It appears to be raining in Times Square as I write this.)

Most of these shots seem a little grainy, and some are more active than others. For instance, there are more people out and about near the Miami News Cafe than there seem to be in Chios, Greece just now. Personally, I am rather fond of the giraffe cam. And I look forward to checking out the penguin cam (too dark in California just now).

The possibilities for eyedropping (I know it’s not a word, but “spying” just seems loaded with more evil intent) seem to be endless.

Really, it’s amazing what we can do!

And, I hope, that someday we can celebrate the miracle of careful consideration about whether we should do all the things we can.

Joseph Smith

Junior

Joseph Smith, Jr.

What can you say about Joseph Smith? That doesn’t run the risk of offending somebody?

On the other hand, the creators of the musical, The Book of Mormon, have probably already taken care of that. Offending everybody, I mean.

Clearly, this is a highly influential Smith. Arguably, the only modern-day founder of a religion—assuming that you think of Mormonism as a separate religion rather than another denomination of Christianity.

I don’t know enough about Mormonism to speak knowledgeably on the subject. I don’t know all that much about Joseph Smith.

I will say, after perusing the Wikipedia entry, that it sure sounds like his life would make a great movie. The only trouble is that you’d almost have to take a position on the theological questions and that would certainly pose problems.

It’s a fascinating story, though.

Today, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has over 6 million followers in the United States. One of their members ran for President as the nominee of the Republican Party.

So, I say again—Joseph was and is a highly influential Smith.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Sillier, too.

Writers are always trying to dream up things that are original. Strange, even. (Hence, you may imagine, almost any Stephen King novel.)

I think we should just give it up.

Because, here are a bunch of purportedly true stories. And if I put any one of them in a play, nobody would believe it. Although, I’m thinking that Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin could have made good use of a few of them.

The gentleman with the insurance claim and the tools in the barrel was made for Keaton, for sure.

The man in the lawn chair with the balloons—a Chaplin short, undoubtedly.

I don’t know what to make of poor Brian Finnegan, though.

The Secret Door

Artist Dates made easy.

One of the main tools of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way is the Artist Date, where you take your inner artist on a weekly excursion to spark your imagination. It is, for me, and I think for other people, the most easily overlooked and often skipped of all the components of the 12-week journey back to creativity.

Now, however, for the armchair traveler in all of us, there is The Secret Door.

Using Google Maps street view, a company in the U.K. (selling windows and doors, of course) has built a website that takes you on a random visual excursion all over the world. You won’t always know where you are, but the images are extraordinary.

So, go ahead.

Step through the Secret Door.

The Secret Door is presented by Safestyle UK

You never know

When, where, how and by whom you’re gonna get inspired.

How cool is that?!

So, today, I am thankful for unexpected inspiration.

I’m not talking about inspiration for my next play or novel—although, Universe, if you’re listening—bring it on!

I’m talking about inspiration for how to live better, how to bring more joy into our lives, how to increase our sense of connection.

It’s not like these are not things that most of us know on some level. But it is true that we tend to forget. We get busy. We get anxious. We get stuck.

The thing that is so great is that we run into reminders everywhere.

I’m thinking right now about this post by Brené Brown, scholar and author, about rebranding Valentine’s Day into a day of generosity. The idea is to take the Hallmark holiday and make it meaningful by practicing random acts of kindness and generosity.

Even better, you don’t have to wait for Valentine’s Day.

I re-read the post just now, and I see no reason to wait. I can give it a shot any time.

Just thinking about it makes the sun shine a little brighter. A sense of mischief and interest has entered my day.

So, that’s all well and good, and if you have similar thoughts, more power to you. The point, however, is that I wasn’t looking for this the day I logged into Facebook and followed a link to Brené Brown’s TED talk. (Watch it below for yourself.)

I just found the little blurb intriguing, listened to the talk, thought it was very interesting and subscribed to her blog.

And out of that, this.

Not a new idea.

Just a good one.

You never know.

Gig Smith

Helen, that is.

Helen “Gig” Smith is one of those girls in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

You know? A League of their Own?

According to her Wikipedia entry, she’s 91.

You’d think being a professional ball player and making it to 91 would be enough interesting stories for anybody’s life, but Ms. Smith was also an artist. She enlisted in World War II as a WAC and, eventually, worked for Army Intelligence on top secret cartography.

The nickname “Gig” was acquired her first day in the WACs. It stands for “government issued gripe,” and I’m thinking there’s a story or two behind that, as well.

Maybe even another movie?

Life’s Little Mysteries

Stuff you didn’t even know you should wonder about.

(It pains me to end that sub-head with a preposition. I know it should be “Stuff about which you didn’t even know you should wonder,” but I couldn’t quite bring myself to be pedantically correct about a sub-head beginning with the word “Stuff.” Kindly overlook it, please.)

Now, where were we?

Oh, yes. Stuff you didn’t know you should wonder about.

I found this website.

Lifeslittlemysteries.com

It’s full of stuff that fascinates me. Stuff about which I never even thought to wonder.

Why is the glass in airport control towers slanted?

Why have doctors switched from white scrubs to green?

What makes some meat white meat and some meat dark meat?

What makes an Etch-a-Sketch work? (Actually, I think I had figured this out myself at one point—minus the technical details.)

The site is also full of stuff about which I have wondered from time to time.

Why cats hate car rides, for example.

No one who was on that car trip when I helped move my sister from Connecticut to Michigan could help wondering about that. That journey is one of those stories best saved for when I write my screenplay about a road trip—except a) no one would believe it and b) nobody could train a cat to behave that way on camera.

We will draw a veil over that trip except to say that I have been held prisoner by cats in a car, in a hotel room, and in an apartment, and someday, there will be a reckoning.

Anyway, all that is kind of beside the point of this post which is just to introduce you to yet another time-wasting website and/or help to prepare you for your next audition for Jeopardy!

It’s up to you what you do with that info. Proceed with caution.

QWERTY

Keyboards!

I am SOOOOOO thankful I learned to type when I was in high school and that I had to make my living at it for a brief period. (You either become a temp or a waitress when you move to NYC to pursue acting.)

I see people hunting and pecking. I wait on instant messaging programs for folks to laboriously pick out their responses. I read emails that are full of typos, and I am thankful.

It’s possible I came of age in one of the few periods of history where being able to type provided a significant advantage. Icons and gestures and touchpads all seem to be leading us down a road where keyboard input is less significant. Voice recognition technology is improving daily.

I can see a day coming where there may be no such thing as a high school typing class.

On the other hand, keyboard entry still remains the fastest way to input a computer program, so it may never be lost altogether. I hope not.

Because I think it trains a part of our brains that we can utilize even miles away from any computer keyboard. What is “clerical speed and accuracy” other than the ability to comprehend quickly and translate that comprehension into action.

Reading comprehension is closely allied. The faster you can read, the faster you can type. And the faster you can read, the faster you can accumulate information in a world where information is paramount.

The ability to process information—to absorb it, comprehend it, correlate and aggregate and then formulate a plan of action—is where success lies. Any edge you can give a kid is important.

And I think the lowly typing class provided me with a significant edge.

On a practical level, I made a living as a typist and as a computer programmer, in part, because I could type. Well.

I now pursue more creative goals. Whatever success I’ve had as a writer is not solely or even largely attributable to an ability to type, but it sure streamlines the process. I’m a better writer, certainly a faster writer, because I am a damn good typist.

And I am very thankful for Mrs. Laird and that long-ago typing class.

What happened…

…to my city feet?

I was wondering this for about a week, and now I’m not wondering anymore. I think I know.

This is a cautionary tale.

When I lived in NYC, I walked all the time. I walked to work. I walked to the theatre. I walked to museums and restaurants and friends’ apartments. To classes, to stores.

I did take subways for long distances, but I walked to and from the subway station on either end.

There was an occasional taxi cab or automobile excursion, but, mostly, I walked.

One learns very quickly in NYC that comfortable shoes are important.

I had comfortable shoes.

I still have those same shoes, and they still fit my feet in the same way.

But, suddenly, they’ve started to hurt my feet!

It began on the treadmill and continued during a trip to the zoo and the county fair.

All I can think is I have lost my city feet.

Because this here is not a land of public transportation.

If you’re going to walk, you are going to walk a loooooooonnnnnng way. And you’re not going to want to do that in 95° weather with 97% humidity. Well, okay. You may want to but, outside of incapacitating mental illness, you learn better.

So, I almost never walk anywhere. Add to that the fact that I almost never go anywhere, and I like to go barefoot—or, at most, slippered around the house—and I find I am now a person who gets blisters on trips I would’ve barely noticed previously.

This is not a good development.

Clearly, I am going to have to get off my—ahem—and back on the treadmill on a daily basis. Several times a day, in fact. Probably, multiple short walks will be better than long blistering treks.

It’s a plan.

In the meantime, I wonder how long it will be before I get my city feet back. And I’m wondering what else I’ve lost?

Double-duty

The blind

One day, a couple of weeks ago, I was on the phone with a friend. I was standing over my desk, in front of the window in my office. The newly installed window, I might add.

I could see out it.

Of course, I could only see out it in narrow strips, because the Venetian blind was down.

One of the narrow strips, however, provided an excellent angle on the concrete border of the flowerbed under the window.

Right there, busily picking at something—I think it was a piece of that stuff that falls off the oak trees in the spring—the pollen—was a female cardinal.

In and of itself, this is not so miraculous. We have quite a few cardinals around here. They seem to like it by the water. (I know they like water. They love the sprinklers. Several will gather any time the sprinklers are on and swoop in and out of the water droplets with zest.)

The miracle here was how close she was. I could see every separate feather. The slight reddening on her crest, the red-orange beak. Her little roly-poly body (she was not an underfed cardinal).

The second miracle was how long she stayed. I usually get to observe a cardinal as it is in the process of disappearing—unless, of course, it’s barreling through water droplets, and even then, it’s a matter of fleeting glimpses.

But this lady sat on that concrete border, picking at her meal, for several minutes.

And why?

Because of the blind.

Never have I had a clearer demonstration of the value of the hunter’s blind.

Had the blind been open, had I been standing as I was in front of the window, that little birdie would have been gone almost before I noticed her. Movement behind the window? Bye, bye birdie.

As it was, she didn’t notice me.

And I got a miracle.

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Category Archives: Life in General