Text Art: Exhibit 4

Islamic Calligraphy by Mohamed Zakariya

                                      Hypergraphie Infinitesmil by Broutin

Osgard by Margaret Penny

Lettrisme by Lorsakoff

Genius Out of Time by Ibn Muqlah

Concrete Poetry and Text Art Directory and Guide

Exhibits at the Onion Garden

TeXTArt

Graphic Arts: Shape Poems, Concrete Poetry, Lettrisme

Mind Writing Slogans, Part II, by Allen Ginsberg

   II Path (Method, Or Recognition)
 
1.  "No ideas but in things." "... No ideas but in the Facts." — William Carlos Williams
2.  "Close to the nose." — William Carlos Williams
3.  "Sight is where the eye hits." — Louis Zukofsky
4.  "Clamp the mind down on objects." — William Carlos Williams
5.  "Direct treatment of the thing ... (or object)." — Ezra Pound, 1912
6.  "Presentation, not reference." — Ezra Pound
7.  "Give me a for instance." — Vernacular
8.  "Show not tell." — Vernacular
9.  "The natural object is always the adequate symbol." — Ezra Pound
10.  "Things are symbols of themselves." — Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
11.  "Labor well the minute particulars, take care of the little ones.
      He who would do good for another must do it in minute particulars.
      General Good is the plea of the Scoundrel Hypocrite and Flatterer
      For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars." — William Blake
12.  "And being old she put a skin / on everything she said." — W. B. Yeats
13.  "Don’t think of words when you stop but to see the picture better." — Jack Kerouac
14.  "Details are the Life of Prose." — Jack Kerouac
15.  "Intense fragments of spoken idiom best." — Allen Ginsberg
16.  "Economy of Words" — Ezra Pound
17.  "Tailoring" — Gregory Corso
18.  "Maximum information, minimum number of syllables." ─ Allen Ginsberg
19.  "Syntax condensed, sound is solid." — Allen Ginsberg
20.  "Savor vowels, appreciate consonants." — Allen Ginsberg 
21.  "Compose in the sequence of musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome." — Ezra Pound
22.  "... awareness ... of the tone leading of the vowels." — Ezra Pound
23.  "... an attempt to approximate classical quantitative meters . . . — Ezra Pound
24.  "Lower limit speech, upper limit song" — Louis Zukofsky
25.  "Phanopoeia, Melopoeia, Logopoeia." — Ezra Pound 
26.  "Sight, Sound and Intellect." — Louis Zukofsky
27.  "Only emotion objectified endures." — Louis Zukofsky

-  Mind Writing Slogans, Part II, compiled by Alllen Ginsberg, 1926-1997. 

Allen Ginsberg. "Mind Writing Slogans," copyright © 1993 by Allen Ginsberg, in
What Book: Buddha Poems From Beat To Hiphop, Gary Gach, ed., copyright © 1998, Parallax Press.]

Robert's Bookstores in Lincoln City Oregon

 Yurt Camping in Lincoln City, Oregon, from 9/22-9/25.

Devil's Lake State Recreation Area

Lincoln City

Siletz Bay National Wildlife Refuge

Chinook Winds Casino and Hotel

Depoe Bay OR

Yurt Camping Information

Mo's Restaurant in Siletz Bay

Robert's Bookstores

Prehistoric: Rocks and Fossils Store

My Photographs

Yurt 35C

Mo's Restaurant

Clams and Oyster Shooter

Photographs from the Internet

Activities I Do Everyday

39. Fourteen Acts I Do Everyday at 8o Years of Age

Get Up, Stand, Move; Plan
Eat breakfast; Think
Talk with my wife; Listen
Read; Reflect
Tend to our garden; Smile

Write, Web Publish, Journal; Analyze
Enjoy Walking; Encourage Others

Do some Yoga or Tai Chi; Study Sages
Do Household Chores; Clear Mind
Eat Lunch and/or Dinner; Gratitude
Clean my Body, Drink Water; Purify
Socialize; Communicate for Peace

Mind My Own Business; Summarize
Sleep; Dream

53. Write Sonnets and Quintains

SM8 Sonnet Model 8

Garofalo Sonnet Form

5 2 5 2 = 14 Lines

Quintain Couplet Quintain Couplet

The Couplets are often connected thematically with each other.

Can be rhymed verse, blank verse, or free verse.

Typographically, mostly Left Justied; but with some variations in identation, spacing, layout.

Makes free use of punctuation.

Some use of hypertext and reference links.

A Google drop-down Translation Menu. Read the webpage in over 50 different languages.

Many of these Sonnets are cellphone readable with ease. However, due to the limitations on the width of the lines on a cellphone screen, these Sonnets can appear to be 28 to 45 lines long. Viewed on a larger desktop screen, the same Sonnet can been seen as just 14 lines. Consequently, this cellphone line length limitation affects the writing style.

Examples in The Gushen Grove Sonnets: #1, # 2, #4, #9.

The Gushen Grove Sonnets. By Mike Garofalo.

Quintains, Pentastich, and Tankas. By Mike Garofalo. Over 750 Quintains.

Tercets, Haiku, Senryu. By Mike Garofalo. Over 1,000 Tercets.

Pulling Onions. By Mike Garofalo. Over 1,000 One-Liners, Quips, Epigrams.

Poetry Research. By Mike Garofalo. Bibliography, Links, Notes, Reviews, Commentary, Research.

Sonnet Poetry Research. By Mike Garofalo. Bibliography, Links, Notes, Reviews, Commentary, Research.

Quintain Poetry Research. By Mike Garofalo. Bibliography, Links, Notes, Reviews, Commentary, Research.

 

 

Today: Where It Takes Place

“This nondescript, never-to-be defined daytime is
The secret of where it takes place
And we can no longer return to the various
Conflicting statements gathered, lapses of memory
Of the principal witness.  All we know
Is that we are a little early, that
Today has that special, lapidary
Todayness that the sunlight reproduces
Faithfully in casting twig-shadows on blithe
Sidewalks.  No previous day would have been like this.
I used to think they were all alike,
That the present always looked the same to everybody
But this confusion drains away as one
Is always cresting into one’s present."
-  John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, 1975

I have enjoyed reading poetry in the month of April.  I have read poems from these two books every day in April, 2022:

The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry.  Edited by Rita Dove.  Penguin, 2011, 599 pages.

The Oxford Book of American Poetry.  Edited by David Lehman.  Oxford, 2006, 1132 pages.

One objective of mine, from April 20 to May 20, 2022, is to write each and every day.  

My objectives must be under my control, measurable, realistic, specific, accomplished on time, positive, and reported daily. |
The daily measurement and reporting on objectives helps to keep me on track towards accomplishment.

Measurements are recorded in writing so results can be evaluated accurately and properly over weeks and months.
Changing a habit requires at least 90 days of consistent accomplishment of the specific remedial objectives.
“Objectives” are also referred to as plans, aims, goals, resolutions, targets, projects, daily actions, specific tasks, etc.  
Daily steady improvements accumulate over time towards success. 
Belief and confidence in your goals is essential to success in making improvements. 
Norcorss Principles:  Psych, Prep, Perspire, Persevere, Persist.   

Changing Habits – Bibliotherapy

Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions.  By John C. Norcorss. 

Atomic Habits.  By James Clear. 

 

A Blogger's Hardware Setbacks and Steps Forward

Suddenly, my thin ho-hum ASUS laptop computer, used for field work and play, lost the ability to connect to my home wifi, then went blank and would not turn on again.  It could not be revived, despite my heroic medico-laptop efforts.  Sadly, this weakly little laptop was pronounced dead on 1/21/2002 at 3:54 am.    

Things break down and don't work anymore and my wallet hurts.  

I went on a Yurt Camping trip from Monday (1/17) to Thursday (1/20) to Nehalem Bay State Park near Manzanita, Oregon.  All my writing about my travel experiences, nature studies, poetry, notes, and some photographs for this trip were lost, gone, taken to the grave in the hard-drive-soul of my dead ASUS laptop.  

Yes, a setback, a cheap laptop equipment failure,  DaRn$##!!XX**!, lost written work, no warranty backup, and my wallet groans.  

Home Office Desktop System:
I write, manage photographs, read my Kindle books and Internet documents, search the Internet, and use computer software on my home office desktop computer set up.  I run a big Dell desktop computer, Epson printer and scanner, and external hard drives.  I have a nice big Samsung computer screen. Yes, and all the associated peripheral electronic gear and goodies.  Also, I use a Samsung Galaxy A32 cellphone power-house will fast T-Mobile 5G.  Very Nice, very cool, very powerful, with it, current, and my wallet moans again.    

Recently, as a sad story goes on, I upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11 on my desktop.  Sadly, my trusted webpage editor, Front Page 2003, no longer can inset photos in a webpage.  Yikes,  DaRn$##!!XX**!.  Still have to solve this problem with Front Page.

History!  Figure out and find solutions.  Move on!  

What Steps Forward?  Do It!!

So, I bought a used and refurbished HP Elitebook 8470P laptop.  My wallet shed a $250 tear.  We shall see how this hefty businessman's travel tool works for me.  

Lot's of extra computer laptop work ahead for me in the weeks ahead.  Time, time, time ...

I use my Cloud Hands Blog as searchable electronic filing cabinet.  Blogger software is simple and free.  Material can be used elsewhere in webpages.  All blog files can be backed up.  Handy.  Sharable!

I do use the laptop in the field for viewing pictures taken.  For taking photographs, I use a Canon EOS Rebel T7/2000D, a Canon SX740 PowerShot, and my cellphone Galaxy A32.   

I do regular backups on external hard disk drives from my desktop and laptop.  

Text Art: Editing

Editing
By Michael P. Garofalo

Text Art and Concrete Poetry

Cloud Hands Blog Usage Report

Cloud Hands Blog Name??

Why call this blog "Cloud Hands"?  What does "Cloud Hands" mean?

The title phrase "Cloud Hands" comes from Tai Chi Chuan practices.  One movement sequence in Tai Chi Chuan is called "Cloud Hands."  Variations of the name include "Waving Hands Like Clouds" or "Moving Hands Like Clouds."  

The movement sequence is from left to right, done two to four times, with both legs and arms moving fluidly, slowly, gracefully, and expressively.  

The ability to use the hands creatively, gracefully, beautifully, skillfully, and artistically is essential to nearly all arts.  The whole subject of Hands is hightly interesting to me.  

Clouds can form dramatic and changing sights in the sky.  They can be calm and beautiful, or awesome, or frightening.  The cloud cover changes throught the seasons are provides endless variety.  

Rolling clouds and rolling hands.  Flowing clouds, rivers of air and water, out of reach, out of hand; but mimicked, imitatated, pretended, played ... playing hands like clouds.  


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



The Cloud Hands Blog has now served up over 700,000 page views of my daily blog posts to readers around the world 

In October of 2015, this blog had page views of 600,000.  In February of 2015, this blog had 500,000 page views.  

I have made over 2,411 posts to this Cloud Hands Blog.  My first post to the Cloud Hands Blog was made on October 26, 2005.

There were 20,450 page views of posts to the Cloud Hands Blog in the month of May, 2016.  There are 90 persons who follow my blog posts by automatic email.  

I have had some positive feedback and awards for the Cloud Hands Blog.


Thank you very much to all those persons that have read the posts to this blog. 


Last year, I added a Translate button at the top of the right sidebar so that non-English readers can read the post in the language of their choice, albeit within the limitations of automatic machine translations.

I use Blogger for a number of reasons.  First, blogging provides a permanent record of one's written contributions with backup files.  Second, your posts can be indexed in a variety of ways.  Third, it provides a useful and flexible structure for linking to other related websites and blogs.  Fourth, people can subscribe to your posts via an email blog aggregator.  Fifth, your posts and content links are added automatically and immediately to the Google and Bing indexes.  Sixth, you can display photos, graphics, and UTube embeds in your blog.  Seventh, web publishers can use their blog to create a alternative front-end index to their other websites and webpages.  Eight, it serves as my readily available online notebook.  Ninth, Blogger is a free application provided by Google.  

The nice aspect of any Blogger blog is the fact that all posts are thoroughly indexed by topics shown in the lower right side bar.  The blog has a search box at the top left hand corner of the blog that provides full access to the content of all my past posts.  Also, there are links in the right sidebar to other blogs and webpages by others that are worth exploring and reading.

My Cloud Hands Blog is primarily a online vehicle for referring people to my hundreds of webpages with specific, extensive, and focused content on subjects of interest to me, and updating my readers on the webpages I am currently creating or improving.  Links in each post point to relevant material in my webpages on a particular subject. A detailed alphabetical index to my many webpages can be found at Green Way Research.  

I have been creating webpages at the Spirit of Gardening website since 1999.  Over 33 million webpages have been served to people all around the world from the Spirit of Gardening website from 1999-2016.  I use BlueHost for hosting my webpages. 

I have been creating webpages at Green Way Research since 2001.  Each year over 1.3 million webpages are served up from the Cloud Hands website which includes Cloud Hands Taijiquan, Valley Spirit Qigong, Ripening Peaches: Taoist Studies and Practices, A Philosopher's Notebooks, The Good Life, and One Old Druid's Final Journey. 

Over 4,000 persons have written to me since 2000 to tell me how these hundreds of webpages have provided them with enjoyment, inspiration, information, and insights; or, to ask me questions.  

My main webpage efforts in 2015 had been weekly work on the 81 Chapters of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.  By June of 2016, I completed adding over 25 English language translations for each Chapter, 5 Spanish language translations, 2 German and 1 French translation for each of the 81 chapters of the Daodejing, and indexing by English, Wade-Giles, and Spanish language terms for all the Chapters.  Each Friday, I submit a post on the Daodejing to the Cloud Hands Blog.

I always respond to comments to one of my webpages.  However, readers seldom make comments.  

In 2016-2017, my reading, research, and writing will be focused on on Epicureanism, Hedonism, Utilitarianism, Hellenistic philosophy, embodied cognition, pragmatism, metaphors, fitness practices, self-help, and the senses. I focus on a more limited set of topics on this blog, and seldom comment on current events.

My wife, Karen, and I are very active gardeners.  Therefore, I post on this subject quite often.

Hopefully, posts to this blog will benefit my readers in some positive way, lead to discovering other mind-body fitness options they might explore, and providing a little insight on topics of mutual interest.  My views on developing a philosophy of life might not appeal to some - so be it.

Yes, I do repeat previous blog posts.  Few busy people have the time to post original material each day unless the blog is a steady source of income for them. Since I am 70 years of age, semi-retired, and still work two part-time jobs for 30 hours total each week, actively garden, and exercise six days a week, my time available for original creative writing is somewhat limited. 

Recent Feedback and Kudos from my Readers:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!

Best wishes for good health, contentment, and peace,
Mike Garofalo 

Summer Vacation and My Retirement

Today is the last day of my weekly part-time employment for this school year, 2015-2016.  I begin my summer vacation, tomorrow.  This vacation will run from June 3rd until August 18th. 

I will focus on enjoying my home and gardens this summer.  Taijquan playing, walking, gardening, weightlifting, and teaching yoga and taijiquan will be my somatic practices; albeit modified to help my right hip and right knee to mend from a recent hard fall I took while running.  I intend to travel to Oregon and Washington.  Plenty of reading and writing on hot summer afternoons.  Family visits and outings. Researching the subject of Hedonism.

I work part-time, 3 days and 24 hours a week for the Corning Union Elementary School District serving 2,100 students in grades K-8.  I've worked part-time for the CUESD since 1999.  I am a classified supervisor.  I have managed five libraries, textbooks and consumables, websites, educational software support, and have written and managed budgets for $4.5 million in grants for the district.  I work as a substitute teacher as needed.  It has been an enjoyable, challenging, and worthwhile employment opportunity.   

I have decided that the upcoming 2016-2017 school year, which runs from August 18th, 2016 until June 3rd, 2016 will be my final year at this job.  I will be 71 years of age when I retire in June of 2017.  I have been employed since I was 15 years old - 54 years of work.   

Hopefully, I can live a few more years and remain in good health and be able to enjoy myself, prosper, learn, create, and contribute something positive to others.  

Plans for 2016

Reassess the value and benefits, for others and for myself, of my blogging, and my webpage development and maintenance projects.  

Accomplish many home improvements, refurbishments, painting, and clean up projects.

Complete my normal daily exercise and fitness routines.

Work diligently to reduce my A1C blood sugar test results to under 6.5, and my body weight down to 240 pounds.  Effectively manage my eating of nutritious foods, carefully use my diabetic medicines, exercise, reduce stress, and get adequate rest to slow the deterioration progress of my Type 2 Diabetes.

Complete 9 months of my last 18 months of part-time elementary school district work before my retirement in December of 2017.

Do what I can to help make for a peaceful, productive, prosperous, beneficial, and healthy community.

Discontinue activities that are not supportive and aligned with my preferences and goals.

Weed my used book collection.

Enjoy more frequent camping and day hiking adventures in coastal Oregon and California.  



The Cloud Hands Blog has been in existence since 2005.  I have posted 2,193 times to this blog.  There have been 635,000 Page Views of this blog.  Many positive reviews and some awards have been given to this blog.  The right hand column of this blog provides extensive subject access to my hundreds of webpages and blog postings.  There is plenty of content still available on this blog and my webpages that readers might find useful.  Enjoy! 



If you don't set objectives, goals, intentions, resolutions, or aims, then it is far less likely that you will accomplish any of those objectives.  With no target to shoot at, how do you aim?  Use your energy, your thinking, and your will to prioritize, focus, and accomplish the most important objectives.


Simplicity Quotations

Simple Living Manifesto: 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life

How to Live a Good Life: Advice from Wise Persons

Mind Writing Slogans, Part I, by Allen Ginsberg

      I Background (Situation, Or Primary Perception)

1. "First Thought, Best Thought" — Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
2. "Take a friendly attitude toward your thoughts." — Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
3. "The Mind must be loose." — John Adams
4. "One perception must immediately and directly lead to a further perception." — Charles Olson, "Projective Verse"
5. "My writing is a picture of the mind moving." — Philip Whalen
6. "Surprise Mind" — Allen Ginsberg
7. "The old pond, a frog jumps in, Kerplunk!" — Basho
8. "Magic is the total delight (appreciation) of chance." — Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
9. "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes." –– Walt Whitman
10. "...What quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature? ... Negative capability, that is, when a man
    is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason." — John Keats
11. "Form is never more than an extension of content. — Robert Creeley to Charles Olson
12. "Form follows function." — Frank Lloyd Wright
13. "Ordinary Mind includes eternal perceptions." — Allen Ginsberg
14. "Nothing is better for being Eternal Nor so white as the white that dies of a day." — Louis Zukofsky
15. "Notice what you notice." — Allen Ginsberg
16. "Catch yourself thinking." — Allen Ginsberg
17. "Observe what’s vivid." — Allen Ginsberg
18. "Vividness is self-selecting." — Allen Ginsberg
19. "Spots of Time" — William Wordsworth
20. "If we don’t show anyone, we’re free to write anything." ─ Allen Ginsberg
21. "My mind is open to itself." — Gelek Rinpoche
22. "Each on his bed spoke to himself alone, making no sound." — Charles Reznikoff
     

-  Mind Writing Slogans, Part I, compiled by Alllen Ginsberg, 1926-1997. 

Allen Ginsberg. "Mind Writing Slogans," copyright © 1993 by Allen Ginsberg, in
What Book: Buddha Poems From Beat To Hiphop, Gary Gach, ed., copyright © 1998, Parallax Press.]
"First Thought is Best in Art, Second in Other Matters." ─ William Blake 

Cloud Hands Blog Usage

The Cloud Hands Blog has served up over 400,000 blog posts from October of 2005 through July of 2014.  It now has a 97 subscribers.

Thank you very much to all those that read the posts to this blog.  

This year, I added a Translate button at the top of the right sidebar so that non-English readers can read the post in the language of their choice, albeit within the limitations of automatic machine translations.

The nice aspect of any blog is the fact that all posts are thoroughly indexed by topics shown in the lower right side bar.  The blog has a search box at the top left hand corner of the blog that provides full access to all past posts.

Many of my blog posts refer to material found in my many webpages.  Links in each post point to relevant material in my webpages on a particular subject. 

The right sidebar of this blog highlights my many webpages on a variety of subjects of interest to me.  Also, there are links in the right sidebar to other blogs and webpages by others that are worth exploring and reading.

My main webpage efforts during the last two years has been weekly work on the 81 Chapters of the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.  In June of 2014, I just completed adding two Spanish language translations for each of the 81 chapters of the Daodejing, and indexing by Spanish language terms for all the Chapters.  Each Friday, I submit a post on the Daodejing to the Cloud Hands Blog. 

I do get considerable positive feedback about my webpages and blog via email. 

Hopefully, posts to this blog will benefit my readers in some positive way, lead to discovering other mind-body fitness options they might explore, and providing a little insight on topics of mutual interest.

I receive very few comments to the blog posts, and I always respond. I get email with questions and comments each day. 

I recently upgraded my computer to a new HP Pavillion desktop computer running Windows 8.1.  I moved all my software and files over to the new computer.  I am now using the Microsoft Office Suite 2007.  In the past, I used the Microsoft Office Suite running on Windows XP on a Gateway desktop computer.  I purchased a number of good low priced used books from Amazon about the Microsoft Office Suite 2007.  This summer, I plan to get very familiar with Word 2007 and Dreamweaver CS5. 

Our summertime afternoon daytime temperatures in Red Bluff, California, frequently climb to above 100F, and nighttime temperatures drop to 70F.  Consequently, we get all outdoor chores and watering done in the early morning hours.  I also take a long walk at daybreak.  In the afternoon, at 4pm, I go to the gym to lift weights and then teach yoga.  I tend to work indoors on computer projects, webpage publishing, writing, reading, and blog posts during the hottest time of the day.  I am off my part-time job as a Elementary School District Librarian and Webmaster until August 20, 2014.

Green Way Research


The picture below was taken in Olympia National Park in Washington during the summer of 2012.  My granddaughter, Makenna, and I enjoyed our visit to this beautiful park.  This summer, in 2014, we will camp at South Beach State Park in Newport, Oregon.

Writing Software: Atlantis

Lately, I have been using the Atlantis word processor to work on Ebooks that my wife, Karen, and I are writing, and will be publishing online starting in December, 2013. 

The Atlantis Word Processor is full-featured, fast, compact, and inexpensive at $35.00. 

I use Microsoft Office at work and at home.  I use Word 2003 running on Windows XP on my home and work desktops, Karen uses Word 2007 running on Windows 7 on her desktop, and we use Word 2013 running on Windows 8 on our Toshiba Satellite laptop.  Most of our documents are in .doc format, backed up to an external hard drive, and easily imported into Atlantis.  Atlantis saves documents in a variety of formats.  I am most familiar and most comfortable with using Word 2003, and Atlantis is quite similar in appearance and functionality to Word 2003.  Since I also use Excel, Access, and PowerPoint at work, Microsoft Office is indispensable.  However, If all you need is a good word processor, then consider buying and using Atlantis.     

You can easily export the entire Atlantis word processing software to a USB flash drive, because the program is only 9.8 MB in size, and quickly use Atlantis on any Windows computer.  Kind of like a "Cloud" on a lanyard.  A great addition for my tiny Acer Netbook laptop. 

I really like how Atlantis exports to EPUB format.  Even Word 2013 can’t export to EPUB format. The Atlantis software even comes with an Ebook template. 

I read Ebook files with the Calibre Ebook Reader and with a Kindle Paperlight.  Both Karen and I use the Kindle Paperlight readers.  Calibre can convert any EPUB file into many Ebook formats other than EPUB.  Calibre is open source and free, and a donation is advised for this high quality product.  

As we are both now semi-retired, we are looking for more ways to generate income from our web publishing efforts at our Green Way Research business.  Our hope is to have a more successful home business, and too work more at our rural home office in the very near future.