What a daunting title for this article, isn’t it? Yet, we all have got them in ourselves, inspiration as well as creation. Sometimes, the two just don’t necessarily come together. Why is that? Take a Frenchman named Marcel Proust. He was inspired by the word Madeleine – the biscuits, mind, not a girl. He could […]
Across the Fence
Across the Fence: Punctuation ad Absurdum
English is my second language, as you all know by now. And some may have realized that mine is a mix of British and American vocabulary. Go figure! My teachers back in the day taught us German students British English with as much of an RP accent as possible. Most of them were good teachers. […]
Across the Fence: A Mighty Podcast
Do you like books? And do you like listening to podcasts? Then this one might be exactly the thing for you: “Mighty Books” is a podcast on YouTube and Spotify in which Ryan Oliver interviews authors about their books. Ryan is an author himself, and I have been one of his interview partners last year. […]
Across the Fence: New Year, New Beginnings
The count-down has started towards midnight this last day of the year. I admit, I’ll not even stay up – haven’t done so in years. What for?! To watch a ball drop 3,000 miles away in a city that’s not even our capital? Or for the fireworks around the Space Needle? Both basically events on […]
Across the Fence: Behold the Light
One of the best Christmas memories ever is to come out of the cold into the warmth of home. I remember I had boots with hooks and laces when I was about four or five. They were beautiful and certainly NOT what was in fashion back then. I loved to put them on when it […]
Across the Fence: A Beverage of Consequences
We all know it. We all have, at one time or another, enjoyed the beverage. There are yards of shelves in supermarkets dedicated to it. And yet, when we walk past it or even choose a variety, we probably don’t even think about it any more than the next pleasant cup of it in a […]
Across the Fence: An Agent of Love
Ouch! Lena had hit her thumb with the hammer that had been meant to hit the nail in the ceiling of the shop window. Having run out of thumbtacks, she had had to switch to nails in order to hang all these beautiful bunches of mistletoe. Some were bigger, some were smaller, and some had […]
Across the Fence: What the Dickens?!
The Lakewood Playhouse is performing “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol”, these days. It’s the portrait of Scrooge’s partner after his death. I haven’t watched this one yet. But I have watched various performances of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” countless times, from a one-man-theater on stage to various movie versions, including a beautiful cartoon one. No […]
Across the Fence: Winding Down
Submitted by Susanne Bacon. Somehow, this year it has been harder for me to get into a holiday mood. I’m still working on it. Maybe, after yesterday, I’m achieving it better. Thanksgiving is usually the time of year when I’m pretty much on schedule with preparations for all of December. This year, not so much. […]