Author: tiphane

A Penny for your Thoughts

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A penny there on the path, the made-up path by non-conforming pedestrians who won’t take the official planned sidewalk, and I don’t pick it up. I would pick it up from a marble floor – someone could slip on it. It would be worth a penny. It would be useful to avoid receiving four pennies in change. The penny, having been dropped for its lack of value or a hole in a pocket, might mean something to you if you picked it up. Just don’t assume it’s supernatural that the year corresponds to a life event of someone who’s watching you from the sky. What if it doesn’t? Will you toss the coin? You can’t write to Dear Abby any more, to tell her you found a penny with no significant date on it. On second thought, an imagined message sounds better than any real message from real life. Yes, there are useful messages, every first Wednesday there’s a voice in the sky telling us the siren is just a test, otherwise we’d be asking …

This is a blob of ink

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My pen spat a blob of ink Like an asteroid on the planet of my page Chaos ensued It bounced and spawned other blobs Small and large And I waited for it to dry, saw the skylight reflected in each Tried to give them meaning: This is you, I pointed an arrow to the smallest; That is chaos, I pointed to a large one Landed between serious lines of my thoughts, Read into it nothing but a blob of ink Waiting to be absorbed into another constellation.

Mixed Signals

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It was just to be a photo of the multiple antenna dishes, with the prominent one looking, maybe at a different satellite, but then something happened: a bird on the only one that isn’t gray, leading to the tree in the background (it’s a redwood tree, and the shingles on the building seem to be redwood), and then the image in the window seems to be receiving all the signals and making a distorted image.  

NaBloPoMo, litbazaar, and a novella in blog format…

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I’m going to try this: write the novella in blog form. I have already written four drafts of “a novel” to figure out that I don’t produce enough words to fill enough pages to have value for book publishers in the traditional way. It’s November, nanowrimo month, and I already know that I don’t have it in me to fill the 50,000 words target. On the other hand, the people at WordPress just sent news about NaBloPoMo, and that sounds more like the kind of challenge I would like: write a blog post every day of November. It constitutes an even better challenge in that the style is going to be different: first of all, the length of each post is going to be such that you can read it on your commute (if you commute by public transportation, of course) or during your coffee break (or cigarette break, if anyone still does that). And the other thing that the blog form imposes: it will be first-person narration from the point of view of the …

Names of Taxi Cabs in Berkeley

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for a few years now, I have gathered the names of taxi cabs passing under my window… AOL Cab Greyline Cab Yellow Friendly A1 Red Sea Taxi Adventurous Cab Luxor Cab United Cab Friendly Cab Yellow Star Express Marwan Cab Commuter Cab Co. Yankee Express Cab Desoto Cab Day and Night Cab Airport Unlimited Safari Cab Quick Cab Sunny Cab DD Cab Co. A1 California Cab Co. ProjectCab Taxi Metro Checker Welcome Transportation Adventure Cab Eco Friendly Cab God Bless Cab

January Birth Daze

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Yours wasn’t immaculate, your conception, more like the maple sap in the bucket. Then you were born in a snowstorm. Now every January you ask, what am I doing? With my life? With the resolutions, those sand bags anchoring the balloon inflated during the Holidays? But it’s your birthday! Bake a cake! Have a little celebration!    

A Work of Art, a novel in progress

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A Work of Art is a novel that has been in various stages of preparation for many years. I’ll be frank to say that I’m easily discouraged by people’s questions about what I do and whether I have published, because it is the same as asking a computer programmer whether he’s sold his software to millions. I did write software many years ago, and some of it got on widely distributed products, but frankly it didn’t have such a long life. There was pleasure and income in writing it, but also in knowing at least one user (sometimes happy!). Now I write this novel without seeing the need for getting an actual book out. I’ll be happy to have one reader passing by the Internet, perhaps leaving a comment about it. Why should anyone read Draft 3 of this novel, you wonder? I just think it would be encouraging. I’m not looking at producing the next To Kill a Mockingbird, and I’m not looking at having an Internet sensation. What it means is that should …

A Work of Art, Chapter 1

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That motorcycle noise from that neighbor behind the house, across the backyard, woke him into a headache. What time could it be? Max felt like he could be dead, or on his way to his death. His left eye discerned the number 12 on the digital clock and closed again. It would be one of those days, the day after too much drinking, something he had vowed to never repeat again. Download: Chapter 1 – Max falls apart.pdf About “A Work of Art”

A Work of Art, Chapter 2

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“A work of art!” Peter thought, wondering at the same time why he would so qualify the gigantic, mostly white, digitally rendered portrait of the Golden Gate Bridge. He reminded himself not to judge. Sam stood behind the print, laid out on the living room floor where they had moved the furniture aside, waiting for a word from the frame maker. Download: Chapter 2 – the framing.pdf About “A Work of Art”

A Work of Art, Chapter 3

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Peter! You have been at the party long enough! It’s time for you to stand up and leave these so-called artists, because it’s you that I need, because you are my artist. You, the chosen one, will paint me, and I’m not sure all that free booze has helped you stay focused on your goal, our common goal, in fact, my life. It’s almost twelve hours since you drew the first sketches, and what have you achieved since? Have you attained clarity in your mind about what it is that you want to paint? You must be tired, and I’m almost sorry this will be our night. Download: Chapter 3 – POV the painting.pdf About “A Work of Art”