Imaginary Landscapes that Are Real

I have always been drawn to sea creatures. More than one person has noted that I have written several times about whales, and also have a poem about dolphins. Fish have also been an interest of mine. I kept tropical fish, saltwater and fresh, for much of my life. Indeed, I would start a tank here but for the fact that there is nowhere to put one. The large windows in the house that are one of its main attractions mean that we don't have many free walls for bookshelves or tanks, and tanks must be nowhere near a window, which is a tough thing in this house.
So no tank. But I am as ever attracted to stories I see and hear about the sea and its creatures. Too bad I can't swim, so scubadiving is out.
Yesterday I heard two amazing stories of human seamammal encounters. The one that fascinated me most was the story of a photographer who was spending a lot of time underwater in a seal rookery shooting footage. The animals got used to him, and apparently began to regard him as just another oddly configured seal.
A particular female seal kept coming around, bringing him half-dead, terrified penguins as a gift. She became exasperated, hitting him over the head with the dead prey, because he didn't seem to know what to do with them. Finally, she tucked into the snack she brought him in front of him, as if to show him how it should be done.
For his part, he was more than amused. He said he fell in love with the animal, with all the symptoms of human love we are familiar with, longing to see the beloved, whom he described as beautiful and strong, silvery and graceful, above all other seals. He lost his appetite pining for her above the water.
It reminds me so much of a fairy tale in reverse. We have heard of selkies and the little mermaid, but here is a man, clearly recognized as male by an amorous unattached female seal, who has fallen in love with a creature of another order.
The seal finally had enough of his unresponsiveness and told him off with gutteral barks, right in his face. But another female seal picked up where she left off. Sounds like the scene in a single's bar.
This morning I saw a story about the upcoming show on Discovery Channel about Antartica, A Frozen Planet, with this description:“A lot of what we show you looks like magic, it is unearthly,” Berlowitz said. “People are excited by what comes out of people’s imagination, but if you can find things in the real world that look like they are from your imagination, but they are real, that is even more intoxicating.”
See the video here:http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/frozen-planet-icy-finger-of-death.html

Sell Those Books!

Today I visited two health food stores, thinking they would attract just the kind of clientele that might be interested in this book. One was rather unwelcoming, but the other was very positive. I think I've got a real chance to market the book locally in all the stores of this second place!
Still, it feels kind of odd going into what is fundamentally a glorified grocery store and suggesting they buy my book. How sad it is that there are so few bookstores that this is the only sort of place that might sell it!

Interview with Morgen Bailey, with an e.

Today, my interview with writer and blogger Morgen Bailey goes live. Morgen points out helpfully that she shares the spelling of her name with a stripper in U.K., where she lives.
Here's the link:
Morgen has promised to grace these pages sometime soon with her own guest blog.

The Book Biz

Though I have been a writer for most of my life, and have published a number of poems and essays, Balance is my first experience with book publication. It has surprised me how many things I needed to learn and am learning as I go along, such as practical information about layouts, fonts, book distribution and promotion, getting a book reviewed, and keeping records of who has bought it and how much those people have paid.
One thing I have found, to my frustration, is that independently published small-press books do not fit into the neat little categories of retail stores or even libraries. They may like the book, and most of the places where I have taken my book, they have admired the concept and the execution, but because it does not quite fit into the system they have set up, in which the store can send back books that do not sell or get a much lower price per unit than I am able to give them, they are reluctant to carry the book.
How many wonderful books are not receiving the exposure they might otherwise get because of this problem? What if there were brick and mortar stores that carried mostly or exclusively small press books of that kind, or ones that had a room or section devoted to them? But I suppose that brick and mortar bookstores are a dying breed anyhow, never mind ones that focus on obscure works like mine!

Interesting Moment on a Friday Night

Last night at synagogue, we had our annual gathering of the latest Merage fellows. These are entrepreneurs from Israel who have shown promise for their innovative or outstanding work in business and/or technology. The Rabbi is always anxious to show off our progressive shul to these fellows because in Israel, such synagogues generally do not exist. The ultra-Orthodox have a stranglehold on Judaism in Israel. Consequently, the majority of Israelis are alienated from the practice of Judaism, whereas, if they had such on option in their country, they might not be. He wants to inspire young Israeli go-getters to push for the broadening of Judaism in the Jewish state.
This group of fellows, not all of them that young, by the way, were all women. That was refreshing, since women have a different set of interests and concerns from men, and these women were far more outspoken than the fellows who have come to our shul in the past. The rabbi challenged them in his comments about the differences between Israelis and Americans, and they challenged him right back.
Out of the group, there was one probably very observant Jew who would not speak into the microphone, since this is technically not permitted on Shabbat. She spoke, actually at some length, more than once, but none of us could hear her.
It was an interesting inter-cultural meeting ground. I always get the feeling that though these people come from the same sorts of background as us, and several grew up or spent significant time in the English speaking world (Canada, Scotland, even the U.S.), they are very different in their assumptions and way of thinking.

Darkest Before the Yeah Yeah!

This morning I was feeling down. The prospect of having to choose the kind of pension R would take will mean we have to read the future in our crystal ball. Will the Republicans win the election this fall? If so, best to stick with the insurance we have and take the relatively low monthly pension. If not, go for broke with the payout, which we would rather do because it gives us a chance to invest the money. But I have "pre-existing conditions"--inherited hearing problems and very mild thyroid issues. Otherwise, I am healthy. In my doc's words, I am much more healthy than most of her much younger patients because I eat well, exercise, and take very good care of myself. My parents lived to be almost 94. What kind of risk am I, seriously?
But I can't get a decently priced insurance policy, so unless Obama's health care policies go into effect, we must stick with what we have. But how to know that?
Aside from that, I am hanging in limbo on some employment issues, waiting to hear whether I will get interviews for jobs I've applied for, etc. And I'm not having much luck getting readings so I can sell my book to the local community.
But I went to yoga this morning and hoped all the way there would be something in my email box about one of these issues. There was. At least I am less in employment limbo about one of those positions! However, I still don't have a place to read.

Book Launch Party

Last night our little house was full of happy people, eating the Persian vegetarian meal I had spent the past two days preparing, talking, laughing, and getting to know each other.
My publisher, Karen Kelsey Davies and her husband Peter, attended, and I think felt very comfortable. My yoga teacher, Bob, put in an appearance, though my other yoga teacher, Denise, couldn't make it. The rest of the crowd consisted of friends old and new, but they all got along famously.
I made the dinner vegetarian out of respect for my yoga teacher Denise and her husband, Ray, who will not eat at a place where meat is served. But no one felt a lack.
I made saffron rice with dill and lima beans and a yogurt spinach accompaniment, an eggplant kookoo (a sort of Persian frittata), loaded with herbs and roasted eggplant, Persian noodle soup, made with loads of mint, parsley, spinach, garlic, and roasted noodles that gave the soup its name. It was garnished with caramelized onions with mint and kashk, a kind of strained and thickened yogurt.
I had gone to the nearby Persian market that morning to pick up herbs and a freshly baked loaf of flatbread, wrapped in brown paper and slung over the push bar of the cart. It tortured me all the way through the market and during my ride home, just having to smell the thing without eating it up entirely.
I also made a couple of salads, shirazi salad, made with crisp Persian cukes, red onions, seeded tomatoes, parsley, mint, olive oil, and sweet lemon juice. Yum. I ate it for breakfast again this morning, a breakfast I far prefer to the usual.
The other salad was roasted tricolor peppers, in a dressing of olive oil and white wine vinegar with garlic. But I forgot to bring it out. It made nice eating today, since it was 90 degrees!
I sold 3 or 4 books, which was nice too!
After most of the guests had left, the rest of us sat around the table, and I read some of the poems. People requested particular poems they wanted to hear, following in their copies. That was fun! As was thinking up novel ways to sign the books to fit each person.
I hope I get to have another launch at the synagogue because there is no way I could fit that crowd in my house!