Howling at the Moon? Today’s Daily Prompt is — again — not working. You’d think with all these apparently stubborn problems, they would give up and use the old coding with which no one ever had a problem, but they are like toddlers who want that particular cookie … even though there are none in the house and Mom doesn’t want to go shopping.
Never mind. Mediocre analogy.
Evil Squirrel of Evil Squirrel’s Nest felt this prompt needed a picture, so he created one for me. I think this little graphic vastly improves the entire post which was previously undistinguished.
Now … it’s ART!
Howl at the Moon — “Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.” — Allen Ginsberg. Do you follow Ginsberg’s advice — in your writing and/or in your everyday life?
If you actually know what this means, I invite you to explain it to me. I always rather liked Ginsburg as a poet, but I never thought he made much sense and I still don’t. I have never literally howled at the moon, though I have participated in a group howl with our dogs. If I howl alone, they will often chime in, each in his or her own key and it can be quite musical, if you like that kind of thing.
But I doubt that’s what this prompt is talking about. I don’t know what it says. That life should contain some madness? It does and I don’t have to do anything to partake. Life is insane without my help. Otherwise? Insane writing? I use (mostly) grammatical English, which isn’t particularly mad. Or crazy.
Inanity as another way of saying creative? Unique? Ginsburg always overstated everything.
Whatever this means, it doesn’t matter because it’s broken anyhow.
Check out Martha Kennedy’s response. I love it.
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Categories: Blogging
Serendipity Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth 
I think this prompt needs an image…
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If you would SIGN this and send it to me, I would LOVE to use it. I’ll write a whole post just to use it. As a matter of fact, I so much love your stuff so much that if you would send me ANYTHING (and SIGN IT), I could use your stuff instead of the dumb prompts from WordPress!!! Which I would love to do!!
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As i have said elsewhere, to me, the quote speaks to my personal madness and how it feeds my creativity, but I’m not going to pretend I have a damn clue what he was actually talking about 😉 Will check out Martha’s piece in a bit… I’m working my way there 😀
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I doubt the guy who makes these prompts knows what he means. He’s a “slogan” kind of guy. If it has a catchy sound, he figures that’s good enough.
It isn’t good enough. It’s crap.
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I’m with Martha.
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I was howling today, trying to understand the inner workings of Mac and Apple, but I will succeed (I hope).
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I always have trouble with Apple. I had a series of Apple computers, way back when, but I actually like the more structured Windows environment better. Go figure, right?
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I love to howl with my dogs. We all feel better afterwards. This prompt reveals that illusion — that people who are NOT “mad” think they can BE mad if they want to and then turn it off when it’s time to go to work. It’s like me as a young woman saying, “I want more than to survive.” I didn’t know then how difficult survival actually is and what a fucking triumph.
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I just got back from my shrink who said she sees definite signs that I’m getting my “mojo” back. “YOU,” she said, “are a survivor.” And that was high praise indeed — because most of her clientele are not.
I think many people don’t know the difference between “creative” and “crazy.” But then again, most of them aren’t all that bright, either.
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No, most people don’t know the difference. Once, long ago at a job I loved and in which I had done exceptionally well, an up-and-coming younger teacher (by 10 years) approached me out of nowhere and said, “I hate people like you. Creative people just leave messes for other people to clean up.” First of all, creative people are no “messier” than other people. Second, this b–ch was USING material I’d developed for her listening classes! That person was later in a position where she had to apologize and THAT is messy, too. This has actually happened more than once. The “others” have often felt the need to stage a public attack. Personally, I can’t think of anything “messier” than that. I don’t know if it’s fear, jealousy, competitiveness or just pure stupidity. My ideal for “diversity awareness” would go beyond “understanding” obvious and rather superficial culture, race and gender orientation. It would be education that accepts the intrinsic and often invisible differences in all individuals. However, such awareness would require a pretty good imagination… 🙂
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I’m with you. The problem is, so many people are so dense, so close-minded, so plain stupid that you can’t retrain them. They do not want to be confused by facts. Their minds are made up.
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