Bruce Lee's Top 7 Fundamentals for Getting Your Life in Shape is an excellent article. My favorite quote: "It's not the daily increase but the daily decrease."
On Positivity Blog.
Friday, May 30, 2008
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Emma Alvarez Gibson
I write copy that hits just the right nerve--be it as simple as a bio or as intensive as a whole new campaign.
Some other things about me: in my quest to pack several lifetimes into one, I have: produced a zine, which sold at a big-name bookstore in West Hollywood; created an online magazine for teenage girls (Lulu Magazine, now defunct); started a theater company; written, produced and performed original theater; written, sung and recorded music with the band Agent Vertigo; and sold my handmade goods via my Etsy shop. I am married to the best man on the planet, with whom I share a delightful 3-year-old boy; I quite enjoy typography and gin; and harbor a fervent desire to a) speak every language in the world and b) move to New Zealand, despite my intense and disproportionately loyal love for the City of Angels.
Some other things about me: in my quest to pack several lifetimes into one, I have: produced a zine, which sold at a big-name bookstore in West Hollywood; created an online magazine for teenage girls (Lulu Magazine, now defunct); started a theater company; written, produced and performed original theater; written, sung and recorded music with the band Agent Vertigo; and sold my handmade goods via my Etsy shop. I am married to the best man on the planet, with whom I share a delightful 3-year-old boy; I quite enjoy typography and gin; and harbor a fervent desire to a) speak every language in the world and b) move to New Zealand, despite my intense and disproportionately loyal love for the City of Angels.
Posts
THE INTERVIEWS
Reader Favorites
In No Particular Order: Things To Do Before Shuffling Off
1. Own and live in a big house by the ocean
2. Sing in a band
3. Tend a prolific garden of my own
4. Live in New Zealand
5. Publish a novel or book of short stories
6. Sing onstage with Neil Finn (preferably the song Nails In My Feet)
7. Become fluent in French
8. Learn conversational Japanese
9. Make more money freelancing than working for The Man
10. Visit Paris
11. Own a Labrador (this requires owning a yard as well)
12. Record music with a band
13. Earn a degree in linguistics
14. Send spiritual/emotional support regularly to people who are incarcerated for religious beliefs, as well as financial support to their families
15. Get really good at practicing peace
16. Learn to look my fear of my own anger in the face, and dismantle its power
17. Return to Italy and England
18. Visit Antarctica
19. Hike regularly
20. Meet Clint Eastwood
21. Be a buyer for a store that sells amazing, beautiful, strange wonders
22. Find the haircut that suits me best
23. Find and marry a man who is handsome, clever, strong, sensitive, tough, independent, loving, kind, handy, a good cook and treats me like a queen
24. Have the bulk of my diet be whole, healthy, organic foods
25. Be free from diabetes
26. Be free from headaches
27. See some of the equipment from Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic voyages
28. See (and touch!!) Frank Worsley's notes from the Endurance voyage
29. Visit Ireland and sing a traditional song accompanied by musicians in a pub
3. Tend a prolific garden of my own
4. Live in New Zealand
5. Publish a novel or book of short stories
6. Sing onstage with Neil Finn (preferably the song Nails In My Feet)
7. Become fluent in French
8. Learn conversational Japanese
9. Make more money freelancing than working for The Man
10. Visit Paris
11. Own a Labrador (this requires owning a yard as well)
13. Earn a degree in linguistics
14. Send spiritual/emotional support regularly to people who are incarcerated for religious beliefs, as well as financial support to their families
15. Get really good at practicing peace
17. Return to Italy and England
18. Visit Antarctica
19. Hike regularly
20. Meet Clint Eastwood
21. Be a buyer for a store that sells amazing, beautiful, strange wonders
24. Have the bulk of my diet be whole, healthy, organic foods
25. Be free from diabetes
26. Be free from headaches
29. Visit Ireland and sing a traditional song accompanied by musicians in a pub
The Best Parts.
- "Given that we can only live a small part of what there is in us--what happens with the rest?" Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier
- "She is entirely a creature of fees, adamantly short-term, no managerial skills whatever." Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
- "Those who have an orphan's sense of history love history." Divisadero, Michael Ondaatje
- "Was this what came from thoughts of time running out and death: that all of sudden you didn't know anymore what you wanted? That you didn't know your own will anymore? That you lost the obvious familiarity with your own wishes? And in this way became strange and a problem to yourself?" Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier
- "Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places." Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
- "He was thin, like some lost animal, some idea." Anil's Ghost, Michael Ondaatje
- "There remained the big envelope. Katie opened it slowly. Inside was a beautiful pink satin heart with lace edges. She sucked in her breath and turned the card over. No name was signed. Who--? Katie stared around the room. And saw Edwin Jones just looking away, the tips of his ears bright pink, as pink as the satin heart. So! Katie John let out her breath. There was a silly prickling around her eyeballs, and she blinked her eyes quickly. No one gave satin hearts to tomboys." Depend on Katie John, Mary Calhoun
- "My God, don't they know? This stuff is simulacra of simulacra. A diluted tincture of Ralph Lauren, who had himself diluted the glory days of Brooks Brothers, who themselves had stepped on the product of Jermyn Street and Savile Row, flavoring their ready-to-wear with liberal lashings of polo knit and regimental stripes. But Tommy surely is the null point, the black hole. There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul. Or so she hopes, and doesn't know, but suspects in her heart that this in fact is what accounts for his long ubiquity." Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
- "This was sunstroke or dengue fever or malaria. When they got back to Colombo she would have tests done. 'It's the sun,' Sarath murmured. 'I'll buy you a bigger hat. I'll buy you a bigger hat. I'll buy you a bigger hat.'" Anil's Ghost, Michael Ondaatje
- "To be able to part from something, he thought as the train started moving, you had to confront it in a way that created internal distance. You had to turn the unspoken, diffuse self-understanding it had wrapped around you into a clarity that showed what it meant to you. And that meant it had to congeal into something with distinct contours." Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier
- "There is a great history of people being given the wrong book, at some key moment in their lives." Divisadero, Michael Ondaatje
ARDENT ENJOYMENT
- 43 Folders
- Bake and Shake
- Bernard's Diabetes Technology Blog
- Brian
- Comments From The Edge
- Corntastico
- Design Sponge
- Fairlywell
- Forget What Did
- Gastrokid
- How About Orange
- Jane
- Martha Craig
- Mightier Than Any Sword
- Oh Happy Day
- Persephone
- Pohangina Pete
- Possum
- Ray's Lucky 13
- The Dharblog
- The Happiness Project
- The Pink of Perfection
- The Positivity Blog
- The Ruins of the Moment
- The Traveler's Lunchbox
- What Possessed Me
- Whylime
HELPFUL CLASSIFICATIONS
- life's rich pageant (34)
- music (30)
- Haute Nerd Intensity (29)
- mama (24)
- lists (21)
- quotidian (20)
- osi interview (19)
- inspiration (18)
- webby (18)
- culture (15)
- frippery (15)
- joy (14)
- worth a million in prizes (12)
- fainting couch (11)
- op-ed (10)
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- current events (6)
- the disease (6)
- housekeeping (5)
- making stuff (5)
- minutia bites (5)
- peace (5)
- politics (5)
- hilarity (4)
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- o the humanity (3)
- film (2)
- gratitude (2)
- truth (2)
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- art (1)
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- fangirl (1)
- marketing (1)
- order (1)
- smitty (1)
- still life (1)
- tomfoolery (1)
- unabashed consumerism (1)
2 comments:
That quotation's an excellent thought, Emma. If the "less is more" approach could become widespread, we might have a lot more reason for optimism. Thanks for pointing it out.
It really resonated with me, Pete, as I've made a few changes recently that have me thinking differently. (More on that in a post one day in the near future.) It reminded me of another quote I read recently, by Antoine de Saint Exupery: Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. I disagree with the basic concept of perfection--it's not only impossible; it's boring-- but as someone who believes strongly in editing words (not that one would necessarily pick up on that from this blog...), it hit me all at once that this principle needs to be applied to everything. And I think you're right; there would be much more cause for optimism as relates to our world if that belief were widespread. Of course there is the 80/20 rule to consider as well--maybe we still have a chance! ;-)
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