The Little Museum of Dublin

When I first got here, I walked around, had a look at all the details, and took a seat, waiting for the tour to start. A guy in his twenties walked over to me, and asked, "Why did you break my heart and leave me? I couldn't sleep last night." 

At first, I thought he was crazy. I had no idea who he was. A couple of people my age, and older, stared at me, probably thinking, really lady? He's just a kid. I smiled, and jokingly replied, "I don't know. Because you snore." 

By then, people realized it was a joke, and everyone laughed. It turned out that he was our tour guide, and had a PhD in history. He was funny, entertaining, and quizzed us to make sure that we were listening.

At first glance, this museum seemed tiny compared to most museums, but this place was packed with many details. The eclectic collection of artifacts was donated by the Irish people. The museum has since moved from Pembroke to a larger space in St. Steven's Green with added collections. For anyone visiting Dublin, this is a worthwhile place to check out.

Queen Victoria lands in Ireland, south of Dublin (1900). Even with the restrained relationship between Ireland and England, she received the welcome mat.

From the museum: "Countess Constance Markievicz (1868-1927) was stationed across the road from here during the Easter Rising of 1916. When the British decided not to execute the countess at the end of the Rising, she complained, 'I do wish you lot had the decency to shoot me.'"

Poverty was high in Ireland, and still is. People lived in buildings with no running water or electricity. One famous building turned museum was 14 Henrietta Street. One hundred people lived in that house in 1911.

I wanted to make sure that the above quote was an accurate description of what the Irish people thought. So, I asked someone who worked there. He said it means that the Irish are not impressed by those with titles, heads of states, politicians, and authorities. They question everything.

There is a U2 section with a figure of MacPhisto. During the European ZooTV tour in the 90s, Bono made a devil statue of himself with white makeup, wearing a gold suit. The figure represents a rock star who has sold his soul. The word MacPhisto comes from the German word Mephisto, a shortened form of Mephistophele which means the devil.

The above photo is a cardboard cutout of Brendan O'Carroll who plays an Irish Mammy in Mrs. Brown's sitcom. When the show came out, the critics didn't like it, but the public favored it which proves that it is possible for actors, and shows, to be successful regardless of what the critics say.

 

Happy Book Lovers Day

Today, August 9,  is the National Book Lovers Day. It's not an official holiday, but it's recognized by those who love to read. So, I'm posting some trivia about the book world. No one really knows who was the first author, who wrote the first novel, and etc., Yet, it's fun to ponder over things as such...

It's believed that the first author was Enheduanna. She was a poet, priestess, and a politician from Mesopotamia who lived 4200 years ago.

Apparently, the first novel was written more than 1000 years ago by Murasaki Shikibu. It depicted the aristocratic life during the Heian period. Few years ago, I visited the museum dedicated to her work. More here...

The first book printed in English was Recuyell of the Histoire of Troye. It's a book about country romance, written by Raoul Lefèvre, and translated from French to English by William Caxton 550 years ago. Caxton was the founder of the printing press in England. The book sold for £1 million in 2014.

Robert Carlton Brown, a successful writer, came up with the concept of E-Reader in 1930. He believed that print books would become obsolete, and wanted books to keep up with film when he said that we have talkies (meaning, we changed the radio to cinema), but what we need are readies (meaning, we are behind in times and print books should be changed to E-Books). He invented, and produced about 150 electronic book reading machines.

In 1932, the American Foundation for the Blind created the first audio book in the form of a record, yes record—you know, those things that make a popping, and khhh sound when playing on the record player. Later records changed into cassettes and then to CDs. Finally, when Amazon came about, portable audio recorders were created.

Searching for France in L.A

I've been thinking a lot about France lately. Not sure why. I lived there many years ago as a student, and although I had a great time, I kind of moved on. I don't know. Perhaps life just got busy, I got older, and my interests changed.

What I've been missing most about France is their lifestyle, culture, and a sense of community. Most of the time, you don't need a car, and can get anywhere by metro, subway, bus, or train. Although we have a little bit of that here; it's not the same. Cities are not spread out like Los Angeles. You don't have to drive in traffic for hours to visit family and friends.  

There's something about France that makes you want to sit at a café, read, journal, write a poem, a short story, or a novel. It's such a different vibe than L.A and people hangout in smoky cafes for hours, chatting, and enjoying life.

Long ago, there was a lot of French culture in L.A. We had events, French markets, neighborhoods, restaurants, and cafés with French employees. Now we just have replicas of things. I miss the authenticity. I guess for now, my hanging out at Le Pain Quotidian will have to do.

France has many beautiful parks and gardens, and you can get lost walking for hours. Out in L.A, everything is concrete, walls, and fences. Take the above walking path, for example, that was reached through a shortcut at Ralph's parking lot in Marina Del Rey. It has been shut down by walls and fences. To get there now, you have to walk for a longtime through traffic, cars honking, and the unpleasant smell of gasoline. It gets frustrating at times, and makes you want to live elsewhere.

The artist garden at Argenteuil, Claude Monet, 1873

Dance in the city, Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1883

Woman bathing her feet in a brook, Camille Pissarro, 1894 

I use to love doing cultural things, be it attending the theater, an art exhibit, or watching a French film with subtitles.

And it didn't end there. Afterwards, my friends and I would discuss and analyze what we saw over a glass of wine. The above film, Joueuse (Player)—Queen to Play is really good if you can find it on Netflix or Prime. 

And yes, you may be able to do these things in L.A, but to do so, you have to drive to many different places. So, there it is. My search for France in L.A.

And I guess nothing is complete without a French song 💙. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but when I lived there, everything was about love, sex, and betrayal, even their commercials. The above song is by a Canadian artist Dian Tell, Si J'étais un homme.  

An evening with Tchaikovsky

Time for summer events. My friend and I opted for an evening with Tchaikovsky. The parking situation at Hollywood Bowl is nutty because all hell breaks loose while trying to get out when the show is over. So, we parked on a side street and took the shuttle. I personally prefer taking my car, and hanging out until the crowd leaves. But my friend wanted to do it this way. It wasn't so terrible. People were friendly, and we got to have interesting conversations. 

We got dropped off, and followed the crowd uphill. Because the show was on a weekend, most of the benches and tables were taken. We asked a family if we could share their table, and they said okay. In fact, when there is room at any table, everyone does this. No one has an issue with it. We pulled out our gourmet sandwiches from Subway 😀 and picnicked on a wooden table that overlooked L.A.

After picking up our cushions, we found our seats, and settled in. The orange hued sky, the soft breeze, the subdued lighting, musicians practicing, and the murmur of the crowd, gave the place a dramatic feel as we tried to stay in the moment and take it all in.

My friend pointed out the ballet dancers stretching on stage, which was unexpected. We had thought that there was going to be just an orchestra, and some fireworks toward the end.

Couple of notes: 

1. After you go through security, don't bother with the bathrooms you see right away because they are crowded. 

2. Get your cushions early because they run out. 

3. Don't leave your chair after the first intermission has ended. The performance that comes after the first intermission is sometimes short, and you will not be able to walk back to your seat, because the crowd walking toward you will not let you get through.

Lazy Sunday

Couldn't sleep. Went to bed at 5 a.m. Got up late. It felt like most of my day was gone, but I ain't worried 😉 I feel rested. Slept in. Had a pleasant dream 💙 I don't usually remember my dreams, but this time I did, because I was between sleep and awake mode. (image by jbooba)

I stretched. Had tea and toast. Listened to my favorite UFO expert on YouTube—DR. Steven Greer—talk about extraterrestrials. (image by Taryn Elliott)

Then I took a nap. This day reminds me of when I lived in Iran. Days felt much longer than they do in the U.S. Life was more relaxed. We took long afternoon naps. Snacked on ripe fruits. Played cards, chess, backgammon, and board games instead of computer games. (image by stevepb)

My dad didn't like my brother and I playing cards. He was always petrified that we would turn into gamblers. So, we always had a chessboard nearby, set up as though we were playing. When my dad would knock to come into our room, we would place the chess board on top of the cards sitting on the bed cover. I used to know all the games—Persian Pasoor, Black Jack, Poker, and many other ones. Nowadays, I don't know how to play any of it, well, except for Pasoor. (image by maverick63)

I'm going for a walk now, and probably grab a bite to eat at Panini Kabob Grill. I love their Tofu Kebab. So good. (image by jbooba)

Then I'll come back, wash the dishes sitting in my sink, do some laundry, put out the trash (trash day tomorrow), watch a movie, read a book, and call it a day.

So, there you have it. A humdrum day in a writer's life.

Update:

During my walk in Playa Vista, I ran into the above event by accident. There was so much energy all around with people chatting, kids playing, and musicians singing. Playa Vista does throw events as such sometimes. For me, it was a nice surprise.

These two kids were so cute. I had to video them. Earlier the little girl was dancing.

X/Twitter

Update: Thanks to the Twitter community, my account is working for now. 

My twitter account is no longer working. It gives me an error message when I try to sign in. (click on the photos to enlarge.)

According to their instructions and on other sites, I cleared my cache and cookies, tried using different browsers and rebooted my system and the router. None of these solutions worked. X/twitter has deleted all my posts since 2009!

I have contacted them. I had to try several times before it went through, because it kept giving me the same message that they always give: oops, something went wrong. 

Then I got an unhelpful email with generic solutions, probably from an AI. It never addressed the issue that all my posts have been deleted. 

I can see three reasons why this has happened:

   1. Technical glitch on their part or

   2. I have been hacked or

   3. I've been kicked out because I'm an activists, I have good reliable content that actually reports the truth with credible links, instead of the lies provided by government-controlled media.

Whatever the case is, if my posts disappear forever, then the truth will disappear forever because there is a lot of nonsense that's being posted on twitter these days. And now Trump is working toward destroying the education system. He and his friends hate free thinkers. 

If anyone is reading this, has access to X/Twitter, please let them know that I have been hacked, and all of my posts have been deleted. Thank you!  

Author Interviews

Sometimes I browse to see what other authors say about the world of writing. And once in awhile, the interviews are so good. I have enclosed two short clips from the same video and one clip from a different one in case you don't feel like watching the entire thing.

Your Identity should not arrive from what the world thinks of you nor from your success, because that's a cheap substitute for who you really are. 

—Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

  

(scroll to 11:20. Sorry, but blogger is loopy & doesn't let me post the URL at current time). I really like what Eckhart Tolle says in the above talk because oftentimes, what friends, relatives, and reviewers say affect us when in fact, we shouldn't identify who we are with the work that we produce. I bought The Power of Now awhile back. but didn't get into it all that much. Now that I have seen his interview, I'm going to make a point of picking it up again.

A lot of times ideas come when you're doing something else. 

—Neil Gaiman

(Scroll to 14:55) In the above video, Neil Gaiman is hilarious when the interviewer asks where he gets his ideas. I did not know anything about him before running into his interview by accident. I now must purchase a book that he wrote. I laughed so hard because he is right on point. What can I say, writers' humors...

(Scroll to 51:44) This is another great talk where John Grisham and Stephen King carry on a conversation about how they became known. In this clip, Stephen King is talking about how poor he was when he started to date Taby, his wife, and what his father-in-law thought of him the night before he got married. So funny... 

So, there you have it. I hope that you found this post motivational and laughed a bit. Overnight success doesn't exist, and if it does, it's rare. I think that people's struggles bring them to the point of success.

And success has a different definition for different people. It's not always about money. It could be as small as printing your work on a pamphlet and handing them out. 

When I was taking creative writing long ago at UCLA, our class assignment was to write a short paragraph that would tell the story of Cinderella in a unique style. Then our teachers, a husband and wife team, told us to polish it, and turn it in. When the class ended, she gave us a blue pamphlet which I still have to this day. It included all of our paragraphs, giving each author credit for their work. It was so exciting for all of us to see our names in print for the first time. I guess you could say that at that point in time, we succeeded as a team.

Let It Be

Working on a writing project that may or may not turn into a poem or perhaps a very short story. Don't know. Sometimes ideas come. I just write them down. I know the piece below needs a ton of work, but I thought I share a very rough draft on this safe space. It may expand into something or perhaps not. Again, it's not well written, but a muse whispered it, and I told the muse, we'll see... (image by Geralt)

Let it Be

No need for pain or closure

Back and forth, for too long

Just let it be

No need for tit for tat

No need to hurt the one she loves

No right, no left, no forward, no back

Just let it be

No reason for labels,

What it was or what could have been

Just let it be

Didn't give him up easily

Hanged on to the edge

Dangled for too long 

until the strength left

Can't say she didn't try,

One way effort is never fun

Sorry she didn't show up

She thought about it

But didn't want to just be

a number in the crowd

One on one moment stood no chance

Time came, and time left

When the feelings of fun and light

changed into intense

They often overwhelmed

the two independents 

Two people from different worlds

Night and day in likes and dislikes

Perhaps in the middle

there could have been some compromise

He misunderstood for so long

No interest in the Altar

Not something she wanted

Never enjoyed the bondage

But when love is true

bondage has no chance

In a complex puzzle

The pieces advance

She was sorry he felt caged

Maybe it was never love

Maybe it was

Far away in distance and time

She could not catch up

Even if she tried

Life was hard on him

She tried to be there

But now he's strong

It's time for her to mosey along

Too many hens in his life

Entertainment wouldn't stop

She wouldn't interfere

She wanted him to thrive

Her mistrust would push him away

She would cry

Love would have changed her 

to someone she couldn't recognize

No need for pain or closure

No need to hurt the one she loves

He needs freedom and space

She gives him what he wants

Perhaps one day their paths would cross

They say hi

Reminiscence of what never was

Then they breeze on by

Or perhaps not

No one knows what the future holds

She was an immature soul

He, an old soul

Both too adventurous,

too difficult to tie down

He always had the upper hand

Much more time than she ever had

with too many hens in his life

A perfect match, no

Many obstacles, yes

Many differences, yes

But they couldn't give away 

what life had dished them out

No reason to fight life

It always plays to win

They could be friends

They could be more

No one knows what the future holds

She is sorry things didn't work

He can find her if he needs her

Or if he wants to say hi

Instead of goodbye

Awareness

I like to go for walks, and get lost in my thoughts. Unfortunately though, I zone out, and even if I pass by someone I know, unless they yell out my name, I would not notice them. I have seen other solo walkers, in their own world as well, sometimes with sunglasses, and a Bluetooth headphone on, giving that vibe of don't bother me.

I'm trying to be conscientious these days, and pay attention. At least pay attention to nature, and the environment around me. So, during one of my walks, I slowed down, looked around me, enjoyed the fresh air and comfortable temperatures, and took some photos.

Why is awareness so important? Because it is a form of meditation that helps us tap into the consciousness, allowing us to gain real knowledge (not the kind taught in classrooms or showcased in the media). It helps us feel incredible love, peace and joy, and save us from all the chaos. It gives us clarity.

I once stood by a fountain, and spoke to a bunch of turtles in the same manner that people talk to their pets. What came next was a big surprise. One turtle opened its mouth and moved it around, trying to communicate with me. And it didn't matter that I didn't speak its language. What mattered was that we were connecting.

You see, you don't always have to sit somewhere like a statue and meditate. Paying attention by silencing the thoughts of past regrets, the worries of the future, and staying in the moment is also a form of meditation.

Be aware, stop your thoughts, and turn off that Bluetooth.

Listen to the birds sing, ducks quack, and in the evenings to the frogs ribbit, and crickets chirp.

Growing up, there were two owls at my parents' house that used to chat with each other every night. I used to look forward to the sound of their "hoo-hoo" before falling asleep.

 

An Escape To La Jolla

Left L.A for La Jolla with my friend for an early birthday celebration. She wanted to try out Shiku Sushi that I raved about so much. We had no idea what traffic was going to be like. It took us about three hours. L.A is so unpredictable. But I just wanted to go somewhere for half a day. The potential of an escalated war between the U.S and Iran has been difficult to cope with.

We stopped at Shiku to grab lunch. My friend wanted to try everything on the menu because everything looked so good. But you know what they say, Your eyes are bigger than your stomach. We had my favorite—Agedashi Tofu which I wrote about the last time I was there, and Tofu Geisha, and Hippie Gangsta minus sundried tomato because they were out, but they replaced it with zucchini tempura.

We walked around a bit, and went inside the Valencia hotel. The staff there is so nice. The beautiful fresh flowers above decorate their lobby.

This fountain was so pretty that I had to take a shot.

There are a bunch of shops in this passage, but most were closed by the time we got there. La Dolce Vida restaurant looked interesting. We saw one or two coffee shops that were open till midnight which surprised us. We thought people in La Jolla go to bed early. Also, the area has so much variety from Japanese food, to Italian, to sea food, to Indian.

We wanted to go walking by the water, but it was starting to get dark. We found Coast Walk Trail and climbed for a bit.

The entire area is so lovely, and the water looks so clean.

There is a restaurant called Eddie Vic with an entrance from Prospect Street (I think). As you can see it has great views. We were debating as to what kind of food it served. It turned out that we were both wrong. It's a seafood and steak place, not Italian, and not Chinese 😄 After hanging around the area, we walked down and checked out the boutique hotels, quaint eateries and a small market. Then we climbed up, and headed back because it was getting late. We got back to L.A around midnight. It was a relaxing getaway. That's what I like about L.A. It offers so many places nearby and makes you feel like you're on a mini getaway.