Cats forgive slowly

They hold resentments, flicking

Tails:  children on a hot day

Kicking at the steps.

Demanding ice cream.

Embracing drawn-out disdain. – © rn, WordTapestry, 2009

[we had visitors, including 2 small boys with light-up sneakers. Oh, the poor cats.]

Driving Through the Elements

Route 70

Driving up into the heights through Damascus,

Then swinging east on the route toward Columbia,

Cars splashed through the rain like a fish in a channel.

In hurtling caravans, we unseeing mortals charged

Past a darkened world of trees beaded with rain crystals

And fog rolling off the man-cut hillsides on either side.

We focused on the car lights in our pool, and paid little

Notice of the night’s beauty. –@ rn, WordTapestry, 2009

“F” Is for “Fountainhead”

Water for a neighborhood pond

No, not Ayn Rand. I’m focusing on Project Spectrum — water’s source as a means of discussing creativity. Where does creativity “well up” from? What inspires us to create and then hold our work up in the light?

I try to paint well, attempt to write with elegance, and seek to go beyond my limits. And why? To keep inspiration alive. If you think you’re a hack artist, it’s hard to aspire beyond that. Some thoughts from Paul Graham:

…one of the reasons artists in fifteenth century Florence made such great things was that they believed you could make great things. They were intensely competitive and were always trying to outdo one another, [...] maybe like anyone who has ever done anything really well. –Paul Graham

Artists wrestle with their work’s worth, as do writers. Bankers, lawyers, and others tap into creative forces, too. The creativity is just less visible to the outside world.

The fountain of the pond

So, as you go through your daily routine, think about this — what gets your creativity flowing?

Often I need to read someone else’s work to get out of a rut, and the current mythology project is a useful construct. I use knitting time as time to center my writing.

Do you need something external, like a walk away from your office, to kick start your ideas? Is coffee your daily focuser, or do you need Finlandia crashing its symphonic waves in your office?

Wishing everyone a little drop of inspiration in the coming months.

“A” Is for “Anorak”

Yes, yes. I’ve looked at the date, and it’s getting close to August (which here in the Mid Atlantic states is a time for heat, humidity, and in my case… general crabbiness). But for anyone who attempts to write short stories or blurbs for nonfiction publishers knows — this is the time to submit stories about the end of winter.

I’m thinking about expository prose topics I could write about to match that time line, and I remembered a huge blizzard in my hometown (where I actually did use cross country skis to get over to the grocery store 9 blocks away). This memory led to today’s word: “anorak”. How many of you out there had one? (In my original hometown, a “parka” was a special kind of inlaid flooring that no one could afford. “Parkay” was a brand of oleo.)

I “Googled” the word, only to find something else other than the OED definition that I know:

“A skin or cloth hooded jacket worn by Eskimos and so by others in polar regions; a similar weatherproof garment worn elsewhere.” – The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1993. Vol 1.

I’m not sure when the Compact Oxford Dictionary added the following British slang definition:

“a socially inept person with an obsessive interest in something”

I used a search engine and I find things like the Anorak News (someone keeping tabs on the tabloids) and a Tarot illustrator asking whether or not he is really an Anorak (no, I know nothing about Tarot, beyond liking some of the art). I have no idea what in blazes an anorak has to do with being a wine connoisseur, but apparently Jamie Goode thinks it fits. Of course his discussion is very high-level when he talks about wine: “Was watering my tomatoes today, and struck by the remarkable aroma that comes from the leaves when you brush them with your hand. It made me think of the wines where ‘tomato leaf’ is used as an aroma descriptor.” (I had noticed and been repulsed by this when sampling wine, but never had the words for it. Thanks, Jamie.)

How did a humble word like anorak make its way from Greenland (where it was a coat) all the way over to the UK, where it’s apparently an obsessive (pardon me while I imagine an obsessive version of the Philly Fanatic) person who focuses on details? I’m not sure the Internet can tell me that one. Perhaps there was a British detective on the BBC who wore one?

Did any of you survive the late 70s and 80s (and the snow) in an anorak? Does anyone have any clue why this became slang in the UK? And when did the anorak cease to be just functional cold weather gear?