| The Wonder of Vlogging | date 10/10/2007 / issue #5 | ||
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Storytime 2.0 & Vlogging
Link to the "Magic Time Machine" on YouTube This is the craziest video yet, where Christine travels back in time to 592 A.D. Caledonia to an ancient stone circle and tells the story of Rowan of the Wood
Christine has had a lot of fun creating Storytime 2.0 and just random rambling vlogs over the past week. In order not to get through the book too fast, she decided to just make one Storytime 2.0 per week, but she will be putting up other vlogs throughout the week as well. You can subscribe to her channel here: Kalitara's YouTube Channel. We're also working on getting the book on audio through podcasts. Keep checking our website at www.bluemoosepress.com, the first chapter podcast should be up by the end of this week.
This is the fifth Newsletter from us, and we need more submissions for your reading pleasure! Please forward this to your friends and family inviting them to join and submit their stories, poems, jokes, photos, etc. If you've missed the first four, you can view them at Archived Newsletters. Please enjoy this week's stories & poem. The first story "Projector Screens" brought tears to my eyes. Also I'm running the beautiful pictures by Catherine Weisheit again because they are really just so very lovely! Please check out this talented artist. Also, link to our blogs/vlog and bookmark them on sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, De.licio.us, and Techorati. Subscription links at our website.
See you in cyberspace... Allison Willows |
In this issue: "Accio Deathly Hallows," a fun song by Hank Green of Brotherhood 2.0.
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Projector Screens by Rob Queen - optimutt.livejournal.com The earthquake strikes at 8:46.
I know this because I’m staring at the clock on my computer, yawning away the night’s sleep.
At the desk beside me, Michael swears, just loud enough to let us know to keep our distance. He’s been on edge ever since his wife left him last month. Not enough time for his family, she said. He bought a new tie to soothe himself over. It’s now brown from the spilled cappuccino.
People are chattering, going against company policy and swearing out loud. I’m one of them. My carefully-placed clutter is strewn about the floor. How am I supposed to work in this?
Maybe I’m not.
Shouts of alarm fill the office. Far off, across the four foot high partitions splitting the warehouse sized room into cozy cubicles, I see it. Black sooty ash obscures the view of the river. The city is on fire.
“Think a gas station went up?” Tariq wonders aloud. His parents run a service station somewhere down I-95. For the smoke to be this dense this high, it would have to be something major. If we could see out the window, we’d know how bad the damage was. At the very least, it’ll cost the city millions.
“The building is secure, please remain at work,” a service announcement tells us. Its false bravado echoes off the padded partitions and drop to the carpeted floor along with the soot that sneaks its way into the office. When Rome burned, Nero played his fiddle. If an emperor couldn’t get back to work, how on Earth can we?
The second earthquake hits at 9:02.
This one is far smaller than the first, but the building tosses us around, nonetheless. If it’s this bad up here, I hate to think how it is down at street of level. Oliver crosses himself. He picks up his phone and dials out. “Santa Maria,” he says, staring at the receiver. “No dial tone,” he tells me. “My family.”
Oliver is fearless in the face of bank executives, one of the greatest salesmen I know, but he is also a tender father. He’s trembling. I give him my Blackberry so he can call home. He thanks me and jogs toward the bathroom for privacy.
A runner from a company across the building darts into the office. Every day I ride up the elevator with her. Her hair is always perfect. Today, it is no less perfect, though it clings to her forehead from sweat. I overhear several of her hyperventilated words to our receptionist. “Explosion… smoke in the building… stairwells filled.”
Mary Katherine’s eyes fill her bifocals. She dashes to our boss’s office.
“What’s going on?” Lydia screams to nobody and everybody at once. Her mascara leaves a sooty trail as it rides her tears down her cheeks.
“Phone call, Braydon,” Oliver says, handing my Blackberry back to me. His face is ashen to the point of livid. Must be bad.
“Don’t go to work!” my kid brother screams as I answer my mobile. He’s at college in upstate New York. I ask him if he got the earthquakes there.
“They weren’t earthquakes,” Harrison tells me, awe in his voice...
Read The Rest of "Projector Screens" Visiting Virginia Andy turned his car to the right into the main gate off of Santa Monica Boulevard and slowly made his way around the traffic circle where he parked behind a row of cars. We had just eaten at Mel’s Diner, a 50’s retro establishment across the street from Hollywood High School and we had to navigate our way through a collection of narrow back roads to avoid the major anti-war demonstration that had sprung up on Hollywood Boulevard. While Andy bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t make the turn he wanted and diametrically complained that he wished he had known about the protest so he could take part, I readied my camera in case we passed any landmarks. This was my first time in Hollywood and I wanted to be prepared.
I had rented a car and driven up the I-5 from Long Beach to his house in Burbank, experiencing Los Angeles traffic along the way. I was still fighting my off-kilter internal clock. That, combined with my general discomfort whenever I am in strange surroundings had me in a nervous mood and so I missed seeing Disneyland as I drove past it. All in all it was a fairly simple ride. Still, I was uncomfortable with the thought of driving myself in unfamiliar territory and Andy had graciously agreed to be my chauffeur for the day.
Andy was a friend but not a particularly close one. He and my old college roommate were friends from childhood and I had known him as a result of that relationship. He also happened to be one of the few people I knew who lived in L.A. and the only one with whom I would be willing to spend an afternoon (which is a different story).
He had moved west from Connecticut more than five years ago to work for Warner Brothers in their television licensing department but he held dreams, like so many who make the same transition between the coasts, of being a screenwriter. He had won a couple of competitions here and there and I admired his work. It wasn’t necessarily my taste – he liked to write westerns with elements of sword and sorcery-type fantasy - but I couldn’t argue with his originality and dedication to his craft. However, it was a bit telling and not all that surprising that after more than five years he was still toiling away at the studio in a desk job. On the one hand I had tremendous respect for his commitment. On the other, I questioned when he would decide he had had enough and return to his friends and family in New England.
“I wonder the same thing myself,” he answered. “There are days when I ask myself just how much longer I can last out here like this. I’m alone, I’m frustrated, but it always comes down to the same thing. The weather...”
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The books are in!! We received the shipment for our preview, limited release. This is the last chance to order Rowan of the Wood with FREE shipping before the limited release on Oct. 15th. Only orders placed before the 15th will be eligible for free shipping and the optional free DVD. The books are in!! So your order will ship immediately. Get it before it's released! Forward this newsletter far and wide!
OUR LINKS
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by CSCHWEIZER
Daily news read again
Tossed human in a bin
Bodies bound and burned
But if the streets are clean and lit
Plastic as they come
So tie them up at will ©2006CSCHWEIZER by Catherine Weisheit
 Mystic Woodland
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