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Saturday, February 1, 2025

Anaphora as It Applies to Life

 

anaphora - noun - repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive sentences or clauses in order to create a drama effect or for emphasis.


When I taught high school English, anaphora was one of the literary techniques that I encouraged my students to use in their writing, mainly for poetic as opposed to dramatic effect. Back then, poetry was appealing. The term and its defining synonym "repetition for effect" popped into my head today at a care center while I was sorting through myriad boxes of clothing to be made available to the survivors of the recent L.A. wildfires. A fellow volunteer and I were told to keep all nearly new items and toss the threadbare. As we went through box after box of all kinds of donations (even designer garb), I discovered via chatting that my comrade in selection was not only from a town near my own hometown in Jersey, but she had worked for a man who had been friendly with my dad. Small world. 

Without prompting from me, she began a new verbal paragraph and told me that many of her friends lost her homes to the fires in Pacific Palisades and Malibu. Using anaphora unintentionally, she dramatically revealed that one of these current domestic mourners had lost more than one house on the same plot of land in more than one fire over a period of six years. The family had been displaced, yet returned to the scene of the natural crime only to rebuild. They just lost the latest version of the home two weeks ago and are already meeting with architects. Why? To rebuild. Really? Anaphora is one thing; deja vu is another. The question that plagues me is why someone would wish to fall down the same rabbit hole more than once.

What makes certain individuals ignorant of obvious patterns? Do they not believe in warnings from the Universe? Heck, for me, one loss would have been enough of a sign to sell the lot and move to Vegas where there is literally nothing to burn but hard-earned wages over and over again via any of the slot machines in the abundant casinos. 

As you know, I am not Einstein, but I do have common sense. But maybe that's just it. "Common sense is not so common" according to punny Voltaire. Some people are willing to take extraordinary risks especially when it comes to real estate. What it all boils down to is money, that abstract, concrete concept that rules the world. A house (particularly a new one) in Pacific Palisades or Malibu will be worth a lot more than the same house anywhere else. Who cares if the owners can't find an insurance company to insure the place? They can always sell the land. Or can they?

I have no time for complications of this nature, which is why I live in an apartment, a distance away from what tends to be burning these days in SoCal. I have insurance, but just enough to replace some of the contents of my 725 square foot abode. If the building were to disappear one way or the other, I would just find another apartment somewhere a bit safer. It would just make sense, though, like anaphora, not deja vu. 

#word-to-words, #slice-of-life, #blog, #blogging, #editorial, #reading, #vocabulary, #ReadersMagnet, #spilled thoughts, #personal-essay, #writing community, #writing, #truth, #society, #L.A.fires, #LosAngeles, #SoCalFires, #Wildfires, #fires, #repetitionforeffect


Friday, January 24, 2025

Karma: Inside the L.A. Wildfire Relief Effort

 

karma - noun - (Sanskrit) - action 


For whatever reason, the definition of karma tends to vary. If you are a Hindu, you believe that karma relates to "the relationship between a person's physical action and the consequences following that action." If you are a Buddhist, karma is "the force generated by a person's actions to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of a person's next existence" (Merriam-Webster). The emphasis in all three if you include the Sanskrit is on action. I'd like to think of karma as cause and effect in which balance is involved. Whatever your understanding of the concept is, it is fine with me. Karma is all about actions, how they stimulate reactions. It is more about balance than punishment. You simply earn what you deserve. 

Yet how does karma relate to the recent Los Angeles wildfire relief movement? I'm getting to it. Since moving here from Jersey in April, I have found that the residents here are, for the most part, not stereotypes. Most of the angels in the City of Angels are transplants from other regions of the country or world. Most of us are here to live out fantasies acquired during childhood. I'm here to do what I can for the homeless community that has just grown due to loss of property caused by the recent wildfires. The cause has produced a generous effect of much generosity, defying balance, however. 

To illustrate what I mean, this past Tuesday, I volunteered to sort through bag upon bag upon bag of miscellaneous clothing donated by miscellaneous Los Angelenos who went out of their way to do their own sorting (through their closets) to come up with wearable items for the newly homeless. Over the course of nearly three hours, a fellow East Coast come-here and I micro-organized over thirty trash bags of clothes only to notice more donations in leaf bags, tumbling through the door en masse. The quantities were daunting. When I asked the higher-ups at the facility where the bags would eventually wind up, no one could give me a straight answer. Basically, my question was ignored. I walked out of the center, hoping that the clothing would find itself to the right, needy individuals and not to a landfill somewhere out of town. 

Just what am I getting at here? Karma does include cause and effect, but perhaps balance is a moot point. Does too much of a good thing lead to balance somewhere down the line? Will the clothes eventually be found and worn by just the right people? I hope so, but I don't know. What I do know is that if you believe in the karma that establishes your place in the next life, the citizens of L.A. who are going out of their way to give to the needy are all going to the best possible next-life alternative. The angels of Los Angeles will find their place in actual Heaven. 


#word-to-words, #slice-of-life, #blog, #blogging, #editorial, #reading, #vocabulary, #ReadersMagnet, #spilled thoughts, #personal-essay, #writing community, #writing, #truth, #society, #L.A.fires, #LosAngeles, #SoCalFires, #Wildfires, #fires





Wednesday, January 22, 2025

A Public Service Announcement

 

Hello, Readers of Word to Words...


I am experimenting with a new platform, Substack. As of now, a subscription is free. However, if I attract more readers, I may monetize. 

The web address is gwynenglishnielsen.substack.com.


Thanks for being loyal followers! 

Gwyn

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

The L.A. Ashes: Is There a Phoenix?

 

conflagration - noun - large, destructive fire


On the third of January, I left my present home of Los Angeles to spend a week visiting friends and family in my former home of New Jersey. Within days of my departure, winds blew, sparks flew, igniting destructive flames throughout portions of the City of Angels, reconfiguring the landscape. From Jersey, I flew to Las Vegas where I played the unfamiliar role of refugee until the air quality was breathable. Now that I am back in L.A., the conflagration continues. When it will end, no one seems to know. 

Already, the wealthy displaced are using their monetary advantage to secure replacement homes that are few in number. Already, there is price gouging in the real estate sector while the fires still burn. Already, the opportunists are finding opportune moments to secure all opportunities while the "middle class" wonder whether it would be worth their while to take what little they rescued and move to higher, moister ground, perhaps Helena? 

It all seems nightmarish, but is there a phoenix waiting to emerge from the ashes of what was once unparalleled beauty, natural and manmade? 

In order to answer the question, Americans have to step away from the 24-7 news cycle, ubiquitous, disparaging New York Times editorials for long enough to grasp perspective. Everyone knows that the media and those associated with it tend to enjoy exaggeration for effect. It keeps the customers coming back; the advertisers pleased. Okay, hold on. I'm not saying that the L.A. fires haven't been any accurate pejorative synonym one can find on Google. They have. What I am saying is nothing is as it seems to be, especially depending on where you are standing. 

Case in point, from a safe enough distance away in my hotel room in Vegas, from watching CNN news feed, addressing concerns from friends and family back east, I formulated the impression that I would never be able to return to Los Angeles again as my city of choice was mired in conflagration and destruction, havoc reigned. When I returned yesterday afternoon, that is not what I found. I found nothing amiss. The skies were blue, the rolling hills, mountains, mainly green, the flavor of the air unnoticeably different, the 405 still bumper to bumper at 3:30 in the afternoon. And I asked myself, How could this be? 

Los Angeles County is one of the largest in the country. It is over 4,000 square miles. The affected communities make up 60 square miles, the size of Paris, but roughly 1/70th of the total land area. It is no wonder I didn't see or smell anything. My path didn't take me through the affected regions, my apartment being ten miles from the holocaust. Largely, L.A. is still what it has always been: a great, internationally recognized city that is still functioning 24-7, not missing any beats.

I may not be a seer, but I do know this. Los Angeles was not named the City of Angels for no reason. All of us here are contributing to the salvation of the lost. Many of us do this routinely anyway, fires or no fires. Person vs. Nature is a literary and real human conflict that has plagued us long before "global warming" and "climate change" were even in the lexicon. Government has proven to be inept. But the people, "We, the People" will persevere. Is there a phoenix to rise up from the ashes of destruction? Yes. We, the locals, the millions of feathers on the wings of the phoenix, will rise together.


#word-to-words, #slice-of-life, #blog, #blogging, #editorial, #reading, #vocabulary, #ReadersMagnet, #spilled thoughts, #personal-essay, #writing community, #writing, #truth, #society, #L.A.fires, #LosAngeles, #SoCalFires, #Wildfires, #fires





Friday, December 27, 2024

Distorting Reality in "A Complete Unknown"

 

distort - verb - to give a misleading or false account or impression of. (Google)


The real magic of the cinematic art is that it can take a slice of reality and reconfigure or distort it. Setting, a pedestrian place in particular, can be twisted, transfigured, or transmogrified so that it can appear to be somewhere else, a completely different locale, perhaps one that isn't as glamorous as the original. 

Case in point: the recently released, Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, produced by and starring Hollywood's current hottie, the actor Timothee Chalamet. The movie, which authentically portrays a slice of Bob Dylan's rise to fame, was shot almost entirely in my home state of New Jersey. Even the scenes that are supposed to take place in Greenwich Village, practically a stone's throw away from Jersey, were staged and recorded in Hoboken. What I found astonishing is that the outdoor concert footage depicting a great lawn in what is supposed to be Newport, Rhode Island is actually one in Echo Lake Park, a bit over a mile from where I grew up in Mountainside, a don't-blink-otherwise-you'll-miss-it hamlet, hugging Rt. 22, famous for being the former home of the infamous godfather of N.J., Gip DeCarlo–also a character in Jersey Boys–whose sons I had attended school with. How the production company found the park, I have no idea. Maybe I don't want to know? The very familiar looking motel used in the film is also not in Newport, but in Cape May. 

Since I had known the actual locations before seeing the movie, I found veracity to be distracting. For instance, during the concert scenes, I kept looking for evidence of the Echo Lake Park I remembered: the wooded acres where I would hike with friends in the fall, the lake itself where I would ice skate and the hill where we would sled in winter, the playground where I would watch my daughter climb the monkey bars and listen to her laugh as she negotiated a path through the play set in spring and summer. Although some of the concert audience was C.G.I.ed to seem a lot larger, I could still make out some familiar trees and even a portion of the lake surrounding the extras. As a result, suspension of disbelief became impossible for me, yet not for the Los Angeles natives in the theater, who seemed completely convinced that they were in Rhode Island along with the cast members. 

Good for them! They left the house believing Mountainside was Newport. I left the theater believing my little town had finally found its place in the sun, the sun of Hollywood. Who would have thought? Not I. Not in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that the park down the street, 25 miles west of Manhattan, would ever, could ever touch the imaginations of millions the world over. Yet it is. Hmm. Miracles can and do happen. 

The takeaway? Never say never? The next small borough featured in a big movie could actually be your own, the one attached to your childhood. It may not have the same name or even the exact same look, but you'll recognize it. And the memories that will come flooding back will be yours alone.

Happy New Year, readers, wherever you are. Although you might disagree, I think 2025 could just be a magical, miraculous year. We'll see. Stay safe and stay positive :).


#word-to-words, #slice-of-life, #blog, #blogging, #editorial, #reading, #vocabulary, #ReadersMagnet, #spilled thoughts, #personal-essay, #writing community, #writing, #truth, #society, #film-review, #movie-review, #A-Complete-Unknown, #BobDylan, #TimotheeChalamet, #gwynenglishnielsen, #Hollywood


Monday, December 16, 2024

The Benefits of Puerility

 


puerility - noun - quality of being a child; foolishness; silliness.

Yesterday, I had the distinct pleasure of turning 66 at the west end of Rt. 66–at Mel's Drive-In in Santa Monica. I invited 35 of my favorite people in Los Angeles, and twenty came to squeeze into a very long booth that spanned the length of the diner just to celebrate the milestone and to promise to contribute monetarily to two of my favorite charities. As the other half of the eatery was virtually devoid of customers, we took the liberty of celebrating with gusto, whooping it up, being noticeably puerile. You know. Being loud, raucous, immature. Like college kids at a frat party even though the majority of us culprits are in the fourth quarter of life. We weren't bothering anyone. No one complained. We were just having a good time. 

Case in point: Can there be benefits for those who behave like this? Can refusing to age graciously be beneficial? 

You bet.

Age is not a number, but this is something most of you who are in my box already know. It is a state of mind. If you think you are old, then you are. Here I am reminded of my former mother-in-law who got married out of high school, had two children–hardly taking a breath in between–and proceeded to agree to age rapidly because there was nothing better to do. By the time she was 66, she wasn't behaving like I did last night, sporting a red "Historic Route 66" T-shirt and a short skirt, laughing uproariously with her fellow revelers, pausing only to smooch with her seventy-year-old best beau (which would have been my former father-in-law) at Mel's on Lincoln. Nope. Mom was watching TV reruns of "Dallas," pausing only during breaks to light up a Marlboro and stare miserably at a series of commercials advertising such products as Listerine. Naturally, she died relatively young and unhappy only because she had no concept of joy. She consciously chose not to have any understanding of it. 

Those who aspire never to lose track of puerility know how to turn back the hands of time. They simply don't step into the shoes of society's antiquated expectations. They don't listen or answer when their grandkids ask why they ride Viros in and out of traffic. They don't understand what "age appropriate" means. They work out so that they look good in clothes that are designed for much younger people. They dye their hair. They intrinsically know that life is a lot less painful if they surround themselves with a variety of friends of different ages who hold onto humor as if it were a life vest in a turbulent sea. They know joy. They practice it every day by living dauntlessly, not caring what others might think of them. They give generously; they take when necessary. They love passionately. They forgive. They understand. They listen. They are as some say, "All in." And they smile wholeheartedly at the end of each day, knowing they sucked the marrow clean out of it.

Life as we all know is so very short. Why get old before your time? Why get old at all? It is not something that you are forced to do.  If you don't want to end up like my former mother-in-law, you are going to have to reset your mindset. Walk on the puerile side. You may live a lot longer, staying a lot healthier in the process. 


#word-to-words, #slice-of-life,  #blog, #blogging, #editorial, #reading, #vocabulary, #ReadersMagnet, #spilled thoughts, #personal-essay, #writing community, #writing, #truth, #society, #good advice, #gwynenglishnielsen




Thursday, December 5, 2024

"No One Mourns the Wicked": The Politics and Such of Wicked

 

political - adj. - relating to the government of a country


For as long as I can remember, children's fare–whether it be televised cartoons like the Peanuts series or live-action films like The Parent Trap–has catered more to the parents rather than to their young offspring. Of course, when I was seven watching network TV's It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown for the first time along with my sister, mom, and dad, I had no idea what Sally meant when she angrily vocalized, "I want restitution!" to a stunned Linus, but it didn't much matter as the character's body language spoke volumes. Still, the word haunted me until I was old enough to look it up in Webster's. The point I am trying to make in a roundabout way is that production companies that produce family movies have adults in mind because after all, the money is coming from their pockets; and they want to be entertained as well as their kids.

This holiday season's blockbuster Wicked is no exception. While visiting family in Utah over the Thanksgiving weekend, my cousin and I made sure to cue up at 11:30 a.m. for the first showing of the film at the local cineplex, thinking there would actually be a cue. There wasn't. In fact, only about six of us adults wound up in the theater. Oddly enough, there wasn't a single person under fifty in the house. Hmm. Perhaps the green of the Wicked Witch of the West or her prior reputation in the original version of Gregory Maguire's classic The Wizard of Oz kept the sensitive LDS families away, or perhaps they read enough about it to feel as though it was more of a PG-13 offering rather than a PG. They were right to veer on the side of caution. Although much of the suggestive content flies as high out of the range of juvenile comprehension as Wicked Witch Elphaba herself does on her broom at the close of the film, Wicked may not be designed for kids due to its political innuendoes. 

My daughter, a highly educated Millennial, was lucky enough to see the original Broadway show about seven times. The upbeat musical numbers and romantic subplot hooked her and multitudes of other fans. Throughout the years, though, due to her obsession, she managed to read the book on which the stage musical and film were based and began to understand the primary theme, which she recently texted to me as "the vilification of marginalized groups to maintain corrupt power structures." I kept thinking that by releasing the film just before the onset of Trump's presidency, Universal Pictures might be issuing a subtle forewarning to our mature society members who voted for him. During his first term, wasn't he the one responsible for locking immigrant children in cages at the Mexican border? Likewise in Wicked, the replacement professor for Doctor Dillamond, a literal old goat who is forced out of his position teaching history at fictitious Shiz University, displays a caged leopard cub, signifying to the class what the Wizard wants to do to the animals that have the ability to express themselves via language. Yikes. Albeit not exact, this is a clear parallel. Like it or not, Hollywood is expressing an opinion here, an opinion that isn't meant for youngsters to contemplate.  

Some of you are probably wondering whether or not I liked the movie. I did, but not for political reasons as I really deplore politics. Although I am in my late sixties, young matinee idols like Bridgerton's Jonathan Bailey who gives an Oscar-worthy performance as the romantic leading man Fiyero in the film, can still melt me sans any splash of water to the face. Despite being gay (and aren't the truly gorgeous guys always gay?) in real life, Jon is welcome to play the leading man in my dreams any time. 

Which brings me to something significant: the reason why we go to the movies. Most of us go to escape the drabness of reality that has grown sepia with familiarity. The emerald green of Wicked's Emerald City and Elphaba's visage shine vibrantly mainly because of talent. And green is the color of spring, of eternal youth, something we all would like to hold on to indefinitely. So grab a grandchild, daughter, son, or neighbor's teen and see Wicked if only to defy gravity for two hours and forty minutes. Mourn or don't mourn the wicked, your choice. (As a postscript: Another slightly less controversial theme that the movie implies is that there is no such concept as evil since the wicked are merely misunderstood. Politically speaking, we'll see about that :). )


#word-to-words, #slice-of-life,  #blog, #blogging, #editorial, #reading, #vocabulary, #ReadersMagnet, #spilled thoughts, #personal-essay, #writing community, #writing, #truth, #society, #good advice, #Wicked #film-review #gwyn-english-nielsen



Anaphora as It Applies to Life

  anaphora - noun - repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive sentences or clauses in order to create a drama effect or ...