Category: articles
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Urban Scavenging and Falling Fruit for Freegan Folk
Bit blurry, but these Juneberries hanging from a lone couple branches underneath sheet scaffolding in a construction project down the block illustrate the urban scavenging I’ve dipped my toe into. It started recently with mulberries we remembered in the Bay Ridge community botanical garden (a rather huge installation of neighbors that rivals many government-backed and…
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Outdoor Types
In Carthage, Missouri, every once and awhile you’ll catch outdoor types bringing mattresses in the beds of their trucks to the drive in theater. They get frisky, but mostly just make out. If they do anything else, it’s not like the squeaking of truck suspension interrupts you while watching Pixar films with your kids. They…
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Cussing and Kissing Because of all the Things You’ve Done
Saturday; October 8th 2022: Zionist in Tehran literally means someone who is the cruelest. “They’re all zionists boy, worse than Zionism. Look at them; they’re tall.” An old man got close to me and whispered with malice. I mocked him. “Be very careful.” he answered: “cause we need you — all the young — healthy…
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Etsetara 002 : Map Key
Hello! Tara here, here’s another Estetara miscellany of my internet links for Thursdays or Fridays. So here’s my attempt to show a map key or two: 1) The Deep Sea If you want a deep deep deeeeeeep dive into the Abyssal Zone of the sea, go to Neal Agarwal’s new science scroller. 2) Put a…
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PROSODY
The following excerpt on PROSODY comes from our longtime contributor, Jeffrey Burghauser‘s new book entitled THE HEAVY LIFTING: A BOY’S GUIDE TO WRITING POETRY. It was provided graciously by his publisher: “PROSODY. Noun. \ ʹprä-sә-dē \ [a] The study of versification, especially the study of metrical structure. [b] A particular system, theory, or style of…
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Chat GPT Ethics, Uses, and Other Ai Ethics — Heliosphere
We gathered at Heliosphere this year for several panels and one included a talk on Chat GPT Ethics, Uses, and Other Ai Ethics. The talk featured Chris Kreuter, Renee Ritchie, and Elektra Hammond — so of course, I was out of my league trying to keep my head above water. We talked through all manner ethical…
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Zuk and Zub – A Fable
At the dawn of time, an enterprising caveman, known as Swarthy Zub, lived at the far end of the cave village. Swarthy Zub might have thought himself an “entrepreneur,” and his old friend, Not-tall Zuk, a “mentor.” But, as neither word yet existed, Zub had not articulated this belief. Zub was a simple fur trader…
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Writers Group Near You — House Points
Starlings NYC has met since 2016 which is, as of 2023, seven years ago. I figured we would start keeping track of “house points.” As in 10 points for Griffyndor. There’s a writers group near you — what if they kept track of group points? Only in this case, it’s sales. And we’ll do it in…
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Story Inspiration from Breaking Science
The wonderful folks who run Heliosphere invited me to moderate and participate in several panels for their conference. One of the panels was Story Inspiration from Breaking Science. The panel included Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Dr. James Prego, and Sarena Strauss. We started out hypothesizing from various abstracts we’d come across. We — mostly me — got a bit…
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The lie: “It’s just art.”
A person undeservedly close to me recently scoffed at the words of a set designer here in NYC recently. They said, “It’s not worth it. It’s just art.” This person intended, of course, to aim this barb at me and my life’s work. At someone who had structured their entire life around encouraging people to…
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You Are More Creative Than Me
You’re more creative than me. You are. Or — at very least — equally creative. That belief motivates and empowers my own creativity: you, reading this right now, are more creative than me, Lancelot Schaubert. If you don’t believe that, you aren’t thinking clearly. It’s okay to not be thinking clearly — muddleheadedness affects me all the time…
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Ibex Brief
“Park & Main?” I asked Daryl the other day. “What?” Daryl asked back in a “what” kind of way. “I saw an advertisement on the television for Park & Main clothing and underwear. “I know all about Park & Main. An Amish family started it in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Their top-selling item [and here Daryl made…