ABC Wednesday - G is for Ghosts

It's ABC Wednesday, and G is Ghosts for me.

Blue Girl in the Dark Forest, by Sugwon.

This is a delicate subject for many people. Those who don't believe in ghosts may get enraged by accounts made by the ones who believe them, and those who believe may get mad at those who don't share their belief - although it really doesn't matter, either way, as long as we respect different opinions. I personally love ghost stories, and my family has a few about encounters with them - who knows if they were real or not? ;)

We could go deeper and talk about emotional ghosts, the ones who haunt us from a past we insist on living in instead of moving on, or the ones who prevent us from fully living the present by blocking our self-esteem and balance, or those who haunt us from the distant lands of the future, when fears and insecurities come long before anything happens.

Whether you believe or not in the existence of ghosts, they're here to stay, at least in movies, books, songs and art. They're sometimes depicted with a gentler eye, when characters have an insightful, rewarding experience, but usually it's all about fears, sleepless nights, nightmares, goosebumps, looking-behind-over-shoulders.

I just wanted to share with you guys some favorite representations of supernatural appearances, in varied types of art.

The Ghost of Oyuki, by Maruyama Okyo, is a favorite, because it's lovely, with a peaceful feeling to it - legends say that Okyo once woke up in the middle of the night with the sensation of being watched. And there was this lovely ghost woman staring at him:

Alfred Kubin's art is subversive and maybe too disturbing for some tastes, and this piece always seemed very ghostly to me:

The Brown Lady is a famous supernatural photograph, among others - some are artificially altered so badly they become a joke. Regardless of its authenticity, I always loved this ethereal image:

There are lots of movies about ghosts that I love, and recently I watched a very moving Chinese flick with my sweetheart, called Rouge, about a lonely ghost played by Anita Mui. It's all I can say, to prevent spoilers, but if you like a beautiful, delicate love story, check it out:

Of course, I watched Ghost Whisperer, the TV show starring Jennifer Love-Hewitt, following her hard times trying to help anguished spirits with unfinished matters. I used to cry my eyes out at the end of each episode, when she always managed to send the poor ghosts to the Light in the most touching ways.

And I finish this very long post with a poignant studio version of The Ghost of Tom Joad, performed by Bruce Springsteen...

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To read another cool G entry, visit my dear favorite author at Under An Outlaw Moon.

To read more great ABC entries, and if you want to join the project, visit the meme's main page, and have fun! :)

ABC Wednesday - F is for Flamenco

It's ABC Wednesday and F is Flamenco for me.

I always liked to dance and to watch dance performances. And flamenco is a style that always captured my heart. The passion, energy, sensuality and emotion that overflow from the dancers' feet make me want to get up and start spinning around with them every time I watch a good performance. 

My absolutely favorite flamenco dancer/choreographer is Antonio Gades. I became a huge fan in my early teen years, when I first watched him in the wonderful movie Blood Wedding. I had the pleasure of seeing him and his Company, many years ago, dancing at a stage built on Ipanema beach, under a beautiful full moon. Talk about magic, it was amazing! Gades is one of those dance professionals who puts his soul in every step, and you go along with him.

Talking about Antonio Gades naturally leads to talking about the Spanish director Carlos Saura. He has an extensive list of great movies (Cria Cuervos is one of my favorites), and during the 80s he created a fantastic musical trilogy starring Gades: Blood Wedding (based on Garcia Lorca's story, to drool at), Carmen and El Amor Brujo/A Love Bewitched. All the choreographies are intense and gorgeous, and Gades, of course, is a hot shining star who takes the audience's breath away with his performance. Cristina Hoyos - an equally hot, super talented icon in flamenco dance - was his partner in the trilogy (although in Carmen she doesn't play the main character). Three beautifully dramatic movies about love, loss and death in a passionate latin way that those who love musicals will appreciate.

Here's a beautiful sequence in El Amor Brujo, if you want to watch it.

And of course, flamenco is Paco de Lucia. His furious guitar became a legend and he broke the barriers as a guitar player, acclaimed not only by flamenco lovers, but also by other non-flamenco guitar legends like Eric Clapton and Eddie Van Halen. His powerful style is a delight to listen to, when I'm in the right mood for it... like right now. ;)

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To read another cool F entry, visit my love and favorite author, at Under An Outlaw Moon.

To read more great ABC entries, and if you want to join the project, visit the meme's main page, and have fun! :)

ABC Wednesday - E is for E. E.Cummings

It's ABC Wednesday and E is E. E. Cummings for me.

I'll be brief this time. Although I definitely don't agree with his political choices (he was a Republican and fan of McCarthy), I love his poems, as they translate feelings and emotions with a delicate accuracy that speaks to my soul.

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i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

***

To read another cool E entry, visit my love and favorite author, at Under An Outlaw Moon (his adventure novel Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom is currently on sale to celebrate Valentine's Day)!

To read more great ABC entries, and if you want to join the project, 

visit the meme's main page, and have fun! :)

ABC Wednesday - D is for Destiny

It's ABC Wednesday, and D is Destiny for me.

Bear with me, everybody. I'm spending precious time with my love here in Brazil, once again sharing Summer with him. So I naturally become this melting butter, seeing everything through rose-colored glasses, and apparently only able to talk about how wonderful my sweetheart is. ;)

I believe mostly everything happens for a reason, that nothing happens by chance. It's a concept that might be unfair when we think of the deep suffering people go through in their lives. This is not an universal truth, and I'm being very superficial on the subject. But in general, at least for me, every time I had a bad experience, or when I thought I couldn't take another hit from the gods, I made it through, and later - weeks, months, years later - pieces fell into place, and those specific moments in my life made sense at last. The same happened when I had some good experiences, i. e. when I got a job that introduced me to key people who would eventually help me later, or when I was at the right place, at the right time and met someone extraordinary, like Tim.

We are two luck people who found love at a phase of our lives when we had already dealt with our own issues and were basically okay about who we are. We know how to appreciate life, and we really value those who are with us, when value is due. No place for drama, paranoia, or ghosts created by our minds. We don't waste our time this way.

There's something amazing on how life worked in these mysterious ways, and gave another meaning to all decisions we made.

When we first met in person, after months of perfect online match (story for another time), it was instantaneous perfect live match. As if our bodies, minds, hearts and souls were just patiently waiting to finally bond and react in all levels possible and feel at home with each other. 

I always like to play with the fun thought of this huge world map with us two tiny bright colored dots moving around in different directions as our lives progressed along the years, slowly but definitely converging to that exact point where us dots would become one when meeting, mixing our colors, and never being apart again, even when silly distance keeps us in different continents for now. 

So yes, Destiny is one of the words when I think about Tim, and Delight is what I feel when I'm with him.

To read another cool D entry, visit my love and favorite author, at Under An Outlaw Moon (his adventure novel Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom is currently on sale to celebrate Valentine's Day)!

To read more great ABC entries, and if you want to join the project, visit the meme's main page, and have fun! :)

Valentine's Sale with Doc Wilde!

Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom is on sale for Valentin's!

Grab your copy, you won't regret it! And if you ca spare some minutes, spread the word, and review this awesome book, it helps a lot!

Supporting indie authors is always cool. :)

Tigers

Almost everybody has a physical curse, something that makes them feel miserable from time to time or on a regular basis. It may be a chronic back pain that makes every step a torture. It may be a burning stomach making it impossible to eat. It may be legs that refuse to take you anywhere, or painful joints that keep you from moving. I'm not talking about a serious illness. I'm more talking about these "little" things that can ruin days but not threaten your life.

My curse is a tiger. A big bad tiger that stalks my brain-village for decades. Medicine calls it migraine. I call it a Tiger, borrowing the expression from my twin friend Amy, who suffers with the same maladie. It's the best way to describe the debilitating pain I feel every time I'm cursed with its visit. I can feel its powerful fangs ripping off my scalp, its claws thrusting deep in my skull, reaching for my gray cells.  It's a stupid, mean beast that makes every inch of my body cringe, and prevents me from enjoying a beautiful sunny day, keeps my son and my love away from me while it's around, and basically wastes my precious time.

Oh, before some sweet soul wants to suggest techniques or natural/non-natural meds to fight this tiger, thank you, but I know them all, and while being careful about what I eat and drink definitely helps a lot on making the visits less often, there's not much I can really do about it. During the crisis I become this 90-year-old vampire lady who can just take her meds and stay motionless in bed, in the dark, avoiding contact with humans, afraid of lights and noises, until she's back to her younger self again. It sucks big time.

And I'm blogging about it because venting is good and I get slightly pissed off when tigers try hard to ruin a beautiful day with my son or my love (like last week). But I almost always manage to kill it before that happens. Because it gotta take much, much more - if anything - than a stupid tiger to ruin my perfect moments with my loves. ;)

Updates on Artless and Heartless situation

I have already posted about what happened to my boyfriend Tim Byrd when he hired this artist to work on the cover and inside illustrations of his next Doc Wilde book. Here is an update on his situation, where he finds out that seems like he wasn't the only one to fall in her trap:

http://tim-byrd.com/2014/01/29/hiring-artist-tess-fowler-good-idea-or-bad/