Friday 1 February 2013

Mindset Cafe: 2013-02-01

Bigfoot in the swamps, the secretary who became a king, I'll never be Hemingway, love of my kindle, scorching weather and the scent of dead writers.

Stories for stories

Screams and howls are being heard from the depths of a US swamp. There is some speculation that it may be a young Bigfoot that has been separated from its clan. A building in China collapsed into a giant sinkhole.  Could it be that Cthulhu is developing a taste for Chinese? And, in something that resembles a fairytale, a secretary in the US woke up to be informed that she had become a king. No, that's not a typo... 'king' is correct.

Reading and writing

I haven't managed to get to any writing this week which has been a trying thing. The bit of free time that I had (about two hours) I spent in a pub. After two days of feeling the after-effects of four beers, I know for sure that I will never be a Hemingway. Here's some yadda-yadda about my Kindle though...

The Kindle that I tote around with me verges on miraculous. In the past, in a small country, with just a few bookstores struggling to cater to the tastes of everyone, books that I enjoy were incredibly hard to come by. Now with the Kindle in my hand, and an overstocked reading list, I feel liberated (pardon the cliché). I don't think I will ever lack for reading matter again. It is possible to feel gratitude towards a device.

In light of this, paper book snobbery really angers me. It's a thing for people who have never lacked a choice of books, and never walked out of a bookshop with the gloom of empty hands, for want of something, anything, to read.

Mother Nature and other terrifying things

It seems that climate change has hit home in a big way where I live. The heat has been almost unbearable with less than a handful of days under 35 Celsius.  On a very real level, the rains have not arrived. Normally the first good rains in January are the signal to plant crops. Unfortunately, February does not look much better. Hopefully there will be food aid.

And finally...

there is some speculation on perfumes inspired  by dead writers.  Let's go literal. Actually it depends on the state of decomposition / mummification of the corpse.

No comments:

Post a Comment