Bored Pandas, Super Heroes, and My Friend Mr. Whitman.

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February 21, 2017 by Ray Yanek

Just a few odds and ends today.  A couple of things I would like to share.  Hope you enjoy!

bookbub

I like books and I like deals, which is why this is the one website that I don’t mind sends me daily e-mails.

Book Bub is a site that scours the Amazon Kindle store in search of discounted books and then sends you a daily email cataloging their findings.  If you have a Kindle, you know how much of a rush it is when you come across a fantastic book for just $1.99 or less.  You also know how big of a disappointment it is when you miss a deal like that.

As part of the free sign-up process, Book Bub asks you to pick preferred genres.  I’ve chosen mystery, crime, literary fiction, history, fantasy and a few others.  You’ll then receive daily updates concerning discounted books in those genres.  You can also just go the main site and just browse around if you’d like.
Give it a try here.

Also, click here to see the selection of free Kindle books Book Bub found.

I get to a point at least two or three times a week when I want Facebook out of my damn life.  I get tired of wasting my time; I get tired of hearing the rants and arguments; and I almost, almost drop it.

But then I see a post like this, from a fun site called Bored Panda:hulksmashWhen I was a kid, I loved my action figures and I loved setting them up in cool poses.  I even used to pretend the desk at school was a secret base and set them up in there.  Japanese photographer Hot.kenobi (which I will someday take as my pen name…) did exactly this, but in much, much cooler ways.  And he took photos. They are amazing.

 

Here’s a link to the full post and a warning– there are about a 100 images.  Some epic, some silly, but all awesome.

Click here to see super heroes doing cool super hero things…

On a more serious note, I came across this article in today’s Guardian concerning the discovery of a lost novel titled The Life and Adventures of Jack Engle, a prose work by Walt Whitman.  What I find the most interesting about this is that we see a less ‘confident’ side

walt

Photograph: Stock/Getty Images

 

to Whitman’s writing here.  Zachary Turpin, who discovered the lost work, says “The Whitman we see in Jack Engle is not yet the confident, committed poet we now take him to have always been,” and that “it is during this vital time that he’s experimenting, trying on different genres and modes of writing, looking for one that’s ample and expansive enough to express what [Ralph Waldo] Emerson would call ‘the infinitude of the private man’” (qtd in Kean).  See the full article here.

I needed to see this.  As I’m close to beginning an MFA program I needed to be reminded that it’s okay to experiment in different genres, to try on different writing styles and to be open in the search of that which fits best.  I feel like Walt has given me a direction here, like he’s telling me to keep that experimentation going as, kind of like a pre-MFA project, or kind of like a reading and writing list that needs to be done before the start of the semester.

Thanks Mr. Whitman….

 

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