even our sweet neighbors, the canadians, have a tipping point.
—
“truth is the greatest marketing campaign.”
-richie norton
—
photo credit: s. townsend
Aug25
tipping point.
Author Archives: beth
Aug24
gangs.
mini gang
blue gang
surf and sun gang
—
the street was swarming with gangs of all kinds
at the woodward dream cruise 2017
metro detroit, usa
—
“the speed of the leader is the speed of the gang.”
-mary kay ash
Aug23
breakfast with elvis.
as i walked in, i looked around and asked out loud,
“is this elvis day or something?”
i heard a deep voice following me in who answered,
“you better believe it baby.”
and that is how we found ourselves sharing a breakfast space.
luckily, elvis read the sign, waited to be seated
climbed up on the counter and belted out hits
elvis worked the crowd and met a tiny dancer
and changed costumes before my second cup of coffee
it was a full breakfast.
—
“to me, john lennon and elvis presley were punks,
because they made music that evoked those emotions in people. “
-joey ramone
Aug22
a waking dream.
A collection of fairy tales written by child refugees in Greece has gone on sale to help those like the book’s authors.
Travelling Tales features a rugby-playing dog, a king who grew to love animals and chickens fighting an alien invasion among its eight stories.
The book is the brainchild of Brazilian journalist Debora de Pina Castiglione and her sister Beatriz. The two combined their love of words and illustrations to create the book but the ideas came directly from the children.
Debora ran workshops with Syrian and Kurdish children aged between four and 14 years old, at three refugee camps close to Thessaloniki in Vasilika, Lagadikia and Oreokastro.
It gave the children something to do without focusing on their own lives.“The idea was not to have the children talk about their journeys or experiences fleeing war, at least not directly,” Debora said. “It was to let them tell the stories they wanted to, in ways they chose themselves.
“I think it’s important for young people to engage with one another. Children all over the world are watching the refugee situation, or hearing it on news programmes their parents watch and listen to, and as well as hoping it would be an interesting project for the children at the camps, I wanted to do something so the children outside of the crisis could see the children caught up in it on their own terms, as children with fun and interesting stories, just like they are.”
And there is something entirely captivating about the stories. In The Travelling Princess, Amira shuns her royal title to live as a poor person who goes around giving away gold she found as she explored the world.
In Aliens vs Chicken, Earth is under attack from extraterrestrials who want to steal all the chicken eggs in the world. While humans are relieved about the aliens’ demands, the chickens are not happy and fight back, reclaiming the eggs.
The story was written by nine-year-old Shahd who lives in the military camp of Lagadikia. Debora describes her stories as “full of adventure. Her creativity reminds us that there are heroes even where we least expect to find them.”
“We spent four months with the children,” Debora added. “In some cases, the children spoke English very well, and had quite clear ideas of their stories. In others, we worked with a translator, and also spent time with them to help them develop their ideas, to make the stories hold together better.
“But the point was that these are the stories of the children, so we didn’t change their words, or add anything they did not include themselves.”
Five professional illustrators helped to bring the stories to life, including Beatriz.
The book was published last month and is available in English as well as Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Dutch. It is for sale via Amazon priced at £10.
Money collected from the sale of the book will be used to help support projects that look for alternative housing solutions to the military camps.
—
“hope is a waking dream.”
-aristotle
—
credits: the irish news, Debora and Beatriz de Pina Castiglione, child refugees in greece
—
#teachers for refugees
Aug21
the sun and the moon.
Aug20
the art of doing nothing.
“ah! to do nothing – and to do it well.”
-veronique vienne
Aug19
eclipsed.
for some reason
in anticipation of the upcoming solar eclipse
i decided that it would be a great time
to make 120 ‘solar eclipse’ cookies.
the plan was to give them to 3 different groups of people
who i would see this weekend
the recipe looked quite easy
and fitting in with the spirit of the big day
the idea was to add the sun yellow and moon chocolate icings
to the perfect moon shapes
increasing the dark moon coverage on each one
showing all of the phases of the eclipse
during the process
smoke and grease and sugar and cocoa and lemon
filled the kitchen
it took hours
the outcome was not quite as i expected
i’m not sure what exactly went wrong
but i am sure there were lots of things that did
the end result was best described by
steve carell while in character on ‘the office’ –
“it looks like it was put together by baby monkeys living on a farm.”
i’m going to embrace that and take it as a compliment
i know that the eclipse makes lots of things go a bit off kilter
and i can’t wait to see how excited everyone is
to receive this very special gift from me.
—
“there’s a victory in letting go of your expectations.”
-mike white
Aug18
unsung hero.
got a call from ‘h’ daughter number three
suddenly looking for solar eclipse glasses
we both called all of our possible sources
everyone was sold out
until
my last call
to the 7-11 store
right downtown
in the heart of the student area
the woman on the phone whispered
“the truck just came in with a shipment”
felt like i was in a mob movie
this was magic to my ears
the boys jumped barefoot into my car
we zoomed a few blocks to downtown
quickly pulled into an expired parking space
somewhat close to the store
(disclaimer: all of this was done safely, mom and dad,
so i’m not banned from future care taking)
just as i got out of my car
i spied a meter maid 3 cars ahead
intense and on a mission
the boys would try to talk her out of it
if she wanted to ticket us
just then
the police arrived to have a discussion
with a group of people and their dogs
who had gathered across the street
enough to distract and delay the meter maid hopefully
ran to the store
and straight into a dead stop
right at the back of a giant line
of students ordering up grilled food
paying with change
moving slowly
apparently not needing to be anywhere
found a friendly worker
asked her if they still had the glasses
she was reluctant and nervous at first
looked around
over her shoulder
said she could only sell me one
when i asked her
to please sell me a few more
the godfather/district manager
who happened to be in the store
overheard and stepped in
giving her the nod/authorizing her
to sell me what i needed
she moved me up to her register
rang me up
she was giggling and happy and smiling with the glasses in hand
my unsung hero
who worked small miracles on this day
i knew i had to sprint back to the car
but while i was in there
negotiating my deal
cement workers had arrived
and closed off the sidewalk
took a detour
made it to the car in time
with all the glasses i needed
no harm no foul
the stars had aligned
happy to have pulled off this caper
boys having learned some real life skills
no ticket
so glad to have met a person
who went the extra mile to help
that i gave her a tip
and wrote her a haiku in gratitude.
—
hero haiku
here’s to you hero
big gulp lotto chips seller
you make people smile
—
“for a true hero isn’t measured by the size of his strength,
but by the strength of his heart.”
(or her)
-zeus (from hercules)
Aug17
inconvenient.
after watching
“an inconvenient sequel”
on a hot summer night
in ann arbor
i was left
absolutely chilled.
—
“a man has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of conduct
though it is inconvenient, unprofitable, or dangerous to do so.”
-walter lippmann
Aug16
this is mama.
dropped off the family entries
to the library’s annual lego building contest
there were so many good ones to see
elaborate, creative, funny, scary, lovely, colorful, detailed
some were quickly assembled
some took many hours and days to create
some made by children, some by adults,
some made by both working together
but it was the one above that really caught my eye
it was beautiful because
it was clearly made by someone
out of pure love
created by ivy, a preschooler
her piece’s title
written by someone
who knew how to write their letters
simply read:
‘this is mama.’
it was magnificent.
—
“every block of stone has a statue inside it
and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”
-michelangelo
I didn't have my glasses on.... 