Indie Ink Dot Org

'Composition. Not Competition'.

This is the brilliant tag line for the newly-launched Indie Ink.org, a modern version of The Algonquin Roundtable meets Life magazine.

For here you will not only find a wide variety of exceedingly well thought-out and articulate essays & poetry, but also photographs that are simultaneously beautiful and evocative.

All chosen by the discerning eye of a highly-talented editrix, with a critical audience in mind. Because let's face it - we here in the blogosphere are a pretty tough crowd.

With a voracious appetite for the new, the different, the edgy, the resonant, Indie Ink offers a invaluable service to its visitors - it filters through all the works that the Interwebs has swirling around and distills it down to present the potent artistry that is out there, waiting to intoxicate us.

Not entirely unlike those afternoons at the Algonquin with Parker and Benchley.

Olive or maraschino cherry, there is something for every taste.

Read now - write now.

Thoughtful Thursday

Once upon a time, the Baroness had a life that she considered to be extremely stressful. Her viscera roiled from dawn to dusk.

To cope, she bought book after book (she has always been a reader, after all). Some were self-help books, but most were of the Day Book variety. Where each day of the year had its own soothing thought. Some were meditative. Some were inspirational. Some were platitudinal, and on some days, that was ok too.

The attraction to these kinds of books were that they were manageable. One could fit one in during a few spare moments of a lunch hour, or at home when the potatoes were on the boil.

Today's Thoughtful Thursday comes courtesy of a Day Book which I keep returning to over and over again. The Day Book is the lovely Sarah Ban Breathnach's Simple Abundance, and the poem she refers to today is from Thomas Gray (1716-1771) - "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard".

I won't divulge the whole piece (it's quite lovely, but also quite long) - feel free to go here to read it in its entirety. One of the stanzas that stuck out for me on this day is this:

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

You, dear readers, are such a diverse and talented lot.

Please, please, continue to use your voice to become that fragrant bloom found in the desert and that luminescent gem discovered under the sea.

Thoughtful Thursday

In anticipation of the upcoming "Thoughtful Thursday" post, The Baroness decided (for once) to be a little prepared. So she started searching. She searched poetry.com. Nothing jumped out at her. She went to her "Great Thoughts" reference book. Not so great. She thought of her "Ex Libris" book - that would indeed have something. But it was in her 3rd floor study - too much of a schlep, and Jeeves was no where to be found to do said schlepping. Damn servant. So, she scanned her office bookshelf, and her eyes alit on a book near and dear to her heart. Not quite the book to get warm fuzzies from, but it has context and meaning to the Baroness. And it was the perfect springboard for today's post.

The book "Surviving Cancer", was given by a dear lady and is about another dear lady. It was just the touchstone I needed at the beginning of my walk, and was so very appreciated. In her introduction, Ms. Levine quoted Joseph Campbell (whom she referred to as "the famous mythologist"):

We must be willing to get rid of the life we have planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us

The fact she referred to him as a mythologist was intriguing, so I sought out something a little more substantial to share with you. But - story of my meandering life - instead of looking for Joseph Campbell, I somehow ended up at Joseph Conrad instead. A happy accident. Mr. Campbell, we'll save you for another day. Back to your mythologicking.

I found this to be appropos- for all of us who craft our posts day after day; for those of us who inspire, who cajole, who amuse. Think of the visual that Shining Egg created in her wonderful post - we are all a community.

Enjoy - and keep on keepin' on.

"You perceive the force of a word. He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense. I don’t say this by way of disparagement. It is better for mankind to be impressionable than reflective. Nothing humanely great—great, I mean, as affecting a whole mass of lives—has come from reflection. On the other hand, you cannot fail to see the power of mere words; such words as Glory, for instance, or Pity. I won’t mention any more. They are not far to seek. Shouted with perseverance, with ardor, with conviction, these two by their sound alone have set whole nations in motion and upheaved the dry, hard ground on which rests our whole social fabric. There’s “virtue” for you if you like!… Of course, the accent must be attended to. The right accent. That’s very important. The capacious lung, the thundering or the tender vocal chords. Don’t talk to me of your Archimedes’ lever. He was an absent-minded person with a mathematical imagination. Mathematics commands all my respect, but I have no use for engines. Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the world.

What a dream for a writer! Because written words have their accent, too. Yes! Let me only find the right word! Surely it must be lying somewhere among the wreckage of all the plaints and all the exultations poured out aloud since the first day when hope, the undying, came down on earth. It may be there, close by, disregarded, invisible, quite at hand..."

Joseph Conrad, preface to "A Personal Record"

To Be or not To Be

Sometimes people have some problems. To share these issues is a tricky proposition. The exposure can either come off whiny or make the poor reader slightly squidgy & in need of a long hot shower. Bad taste be damned, the Baroness is about to share an issue that she's currently struggling with. Will you, dear reader, care or not care? That is the question. Should it be the question? That is also the question. Perplexed? Intrigued? Read on at your peril.

I know that the purpose of a blog is to just be a journal of sorts. I also know that I enjoy writing. What I'm wrassling with right now is why I started this. Ah yes, the question of intention.

You see, like every other warm-blooded individual, deep down I'm looking for some sort of validation. Yes, surprising. With me being such a capricious, who-gives-a-care kind of gal. But if I am to face the cold truth, I'm not all that unique. I'm looking for some sign of life in the vastness know as cyberspace. While I amuse myself to no end, I have no idea if my writing is doing what I think it should. And that's when the handy-dandy "Comments" section of the blog come in.

It's quite lovely, I must tell you, to open my blog and find new comments. It makes me believe that I could possibly be writing something that has some resonance. Here's the catch - I started this so that I could get my just writing out there. No formal process, just pure autonomy. No submissions to an editor, no rejection letters.

But hitting that "Publish Post" button is beginning to feel like I've launched my baby out into a vacuum. And all of a sudden, rather than just being passionate about getting the writing out, I'm becoming obsessed with knowing if anyone is reading it. Why? Am I nuts? Is that what's important here? I really don't know. As much as I'd like to believe that I've embraced all new things tech-y, maybe this is one realm that I'm just not ready for.

I'll have to sit with this for a while. I just don't know.