Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: ginger, cloves, cinnamon Sight: lacy, dissectum, red Japanese maple leaves; a carpet of curled red leaves Sound: trickling rain, pattering rain; Dan Carr's orchestral composition " Voyage " performed by the Bratislava Symphony in Slovakia Touch: jostling Smell: burnt plastic, acidic air, burning house Extra:  "Everybody is to be self-effacing," (Saint) Paul insisted. "Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of his own interests first, but everybody thinks of other people's interests instead." Philippians 2:2-4; Writer's law: The critique group will glom onto the one true thing in your bizarre fiction: "could NEVER happen," "NO ONE does that!"; Writer's law: At some point during your project, you will read the book that does what you are trying to do — but better. You must finish your project anyway.

It's a bit early for end of the year wrap-ups, but given my effusive reviews, I'm going to go ahead and call it — Carol Emswhiller for the Sensorium's author of the year 2011! In May, I attended my first WisCon and two panels with Carol Emshwiller that focused on reading from and discussing her work. It included a 90th birthday celebration for her. We all wore party hats. It was all very exciting and inspiring . Emswiller's Carmen Dog is, after all, according to Small Beer Press, "...the funny feminist classic that inspired writers Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler to create the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award ." There was just one problem, for me. I had not read many of Emshwiller's works (only The Secret City a Burning Man read in 2010, along with Pat Murphy's The City, Not Long After , to go along with that year's theme Metropolis, The Life of Cities ). I had to fix that. At WisCon, I saw The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwi...

Each New Year, instead of a resolution, I pick a word of the year as a guiding theme. 2011 was "compassion" and I bookended the year by reading Karen Armstrong's Twelve Steps to a More Compassionate Life. Many are familiar with Gandhi's quote that we must, "become the change we wish to see in the world." Armstrong's book offers some practical guidance for how to proceed. Just as scientists search for a cure for cancer, religious thinkers have advocated for and undertaken a search for compassion. Using examples from the major faith traditions, Armstong defines and underscores the commonality of humankind's quest for compassion. "All faiths insist that compassion is the test of true spirituality and that it brings us into relations with the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, or Dao." To be compassionate is to treat others as you would be treated yourself and, to go a step further, to see others as if they were yourself. "So c...

Taste: peanut, curry, coconut milk; peanut sauce on greens: kale, spinach, broccoli; cloves Sight: dragonfruit-green with pinked spikes Sound: the dryer's whirling; the African woman asks re: a kilo of apples Touch: embedded in pillows Smell: the burn of cloves; plumeria, ginger, gardenia; curry powder Extra: "I don’t like what the moon is supposed to do./Confuse me, ovulate me,/ spoon-feed me longing." and "But my lovers have never been able to read my mind. I’ve had to learn to be direct." — Brenda Shaughnessy, “I’m Over the Moon”

Taste: concord grapes Sight: red roses, shadows, delicate skin, wide smile, blue eyes, rose lips; purple yarn pulled up around her neck Sound: when the clock chimes on the quarter hour Touch: her alert, taut neck; hot, popped corn kernals Smell: burnt sugar Extra: a grandson's love; “Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close