Da Blogs Da Blogs

Quote of the DayBy Chip Gibbons Source: I can’t get this quote out of my head, especially since I saw a display of remote controlled toy cars and helicopters at the shopping mall this weekend, but I can’t find the source, only this by Tom Robbins, which is close. ...The Binary Circumstance - http://www.thebinarycircumstance.com

Book Talk 44: Villa IncognitoBy admin Villa Incognito-Tom Robbins. So, apprently I make it a point to enjoy books that other consider “not their best work” types and not aprpeciate usually appreciated “masterpieces.” Nevertheless, I loved this book.
Little Radio Blogzine - http://littleradio.com

Still LifeIt's four minutes to midnight and I just finished "Still Life with Woodpecker" by Tom Robbins. Never have I been so moved and at the same time, mystified by a love story. The last 3 pages had every em...That which cannot be described in words - http://blog.myspace.com/mellaphoric

Debunking the Fertility GapBy Joe Powell All this reminds me of a question once posed by writer Tom Robbins: "If a chicken and a half lays an egg an a half in a day and a half, then how long will it take a monkey with a wooden leg to kick all the seeds out of a pickle?"Cup Of Joe Powell - http://cupofjoepowell.blogspot.com

I Have a Few QuestionsBy SteveO –Tom Robbins; If a jogger runs at the speed of sound, can he still hear his Walkman? If a mime commits suicide, does he use a silencer? –Steven Wright; If a mirror reverses right and left, why doesn't it reverse up and down? ...Acme Anvil Co. - http://www.acmeanvilco.com

The future of readingBy JP Jitterbug Perfume; - Tom Robbins Black Elk Speaks; - John G. Neihardt Watership Down; - Richard Adams Different Seasons; - Stephen King The book of Illusions;- Paul Auster The Essential Jennifer Johnson;- Jennifer Johnston ...
Books
Random QuotesBy Leetie(Leetie) Tom Robbins "It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so." - Arthur C. Clarke "The United States is a Christian nation founded upon Christian ...Leetie - http://leetieblogger.blogspot.com/index.html

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Some of Tom's fondest Tom writing as chosen by Tom.

*the passage in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues building up to the first description of Sissy Hankshaw's enormous thumbs
*the opening gambit in Jitterbug Perfume: "The beet is the most intense of vegetables. . . ."
*the bed mite passage from Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
From Fierce Invalids:
*the riff on Jahweh and Lucifer settling out of court
*the place on page 272 about making a morning social call without showering: "He'd awakened too late to bathe properly, and Cupid's briny chlorines clung to him like clamskin britches."
*page 314's metaphors in celebration of the hymen

What are your favorite litbits?

From Roger Downey's great article from May 2000: My Life and work.
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0018/features-downey.php
Picture by Rick Bahm

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Some Tom Robbins quotes

Here are some of Tom's answers to an interview:

Reality is contradictory. And it's paradoxical. If there's any one word -- if you had to pick one word to describe that nature of the universe -- I think that word would be paradox. That's true at the subatomic level, right through sociological, psychological, philosophical levels on up to cosmic levels.

To say that you can't take life seriously and that life shouldn't be taken seriously is not to say that life is trivial or frivolous. Quite the contrary. There's nothing the least bit frivolous about the playful nature of the universe. Playfulness at a fully conscious level is extremely profound. In fact there is nothing more profound. Wit and playfulness are dreadfully serious transcendence of evil.


I wouldn't want to just raise people's mood -- to elevate their mood -- without first or simultaneously making them aware of the fact that there are a lot of terrible truths out there. So you have to wed that awareness of the terrible truths to a sense of wonder and appreciation for the beauty and the passion and the love and even the danger itself.

I'm not an animal, I'm a zoo.

What I try to do, among other things, is to mix fantasy and spirituality, sexuality, humor and poetry in combinations that have never quite been seen before in literature. And I guess when a reader finishes one of my books -- provided the reader does finish the book -- I would like for him or her to be in the state that they would be in after a Fellini film or a Grateful Dead concert. Which is to say that they've encountered the lifeforce in a large, irrepressible and unpredictable way and as a result their sense of wonder has been awakened and all of their possibilities have been expanded.

At the same time, I don't think that a novel is supposed to be a guide book to happiness any more than it's supposed to be a journal of one's personal pain and frustration, which most novels are today, unfortunately. I think the novels that are most important are those that are more on the order of those coyotes that howl on the hills outside of town. Something mysterious and wild and hypnotic.


Timothy Leary told me that when he was in Folsom Prison -- he had never heard of me, at the time -- Sonny Barger, who was the president of the California Hell's Angels came up to him and handed him Another Roadside Attraction and said: [he speaks in a gruff tone befitting an Angels president] Read this. It's the Angels' favorite book. My personal motto has always been: Joy in spite of everything. Not just [mindless] joy, but joy in spite of everything. Recognizing the inequities and the suffering and the corruption and all that but refusing to let it rain on my parade. And I advocate this to other people.

I set myself a goal of two pages a day. Some days I get it, some days I don't. If I'm writing dialog I can usually get more than that because I can write dialog fairly quickly. But the descriptive passages, the philosophical passages where I'm paying even more attention to imagery and to metaphors and similes and figures of speech, that comes very slow. I write very, very slowly and I try never to leave a sentence until I think that it's as perfect as I can make it. So I'll just go sentence to sentence, almost word to word. Plug along.

No. Almost none. [plotting in advance] When I begin a book I have only the vaguest sense of how the plot is going to shape itself and no sense at all how it's going to end. You wouldn't know that from reading this book, because the end ties in with the beginning, I think, absolutely seamlessly and smoothly.

But I have no idea. When I introduced those themes at the beginning of the book I had no idea where it was going to take me. And that's the adventure of it, for me. That's the fun of it. That's what keeps me doing it every day. But in order to do that and to make it appear as if I knew everything in the beginning it demands a tremendous amount of concentration and energy. At the end of every writing day I feel like I've been wrestling in radioactive quicksand with Xena the Warrior Princess and her five fat uncles.

My tastes are pretty eclectic. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Everything he writes. Everything Jim Harrison writes. Everything Thomas Pynchon writes. Nancy Lemann. Andrei Codrescu. The non-living: Nabokov and Henry Miller and James Joyce. My all-time favorite novel was The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary. A nice Irish gentleman.

From January Magazine
http://www.januarymagazine.com/profiles/robbins.html

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Bloggers don't stop

I need new Music!By wflooter480 I had about $12 and some change so I bought another Tom Robbins book, Still Life with Woodpecker. He's my fav author!! Jeff and I have been on a quest to find some good quality new music. But I don't count new music from old bands, ...who needs plans when they never... - http://wflooter480.blogspot.com

EAT YOUR TECHNIQUEBy Les(Les) ... it's in your blood, but you're not concerned with it anymore. And then all you do is, you write a sentence and see where it takes you.
You take a trip on the page. You go where it takes you. It's a journey." ~ Tom Robbins.Negative Velocity - http://seen.blogspot.com/index.html

My Life Stood Still with "Woodpecker"By marvel is my pen name(marvel is my pen name) Tom Robbins. It started with me going to a poetry reading where the host, a TA, mentioned the book. I already had a copy of it, due to my experimental ... Tom Robbins is a gonzo-plato. His philosophy is very over the hedge and quirky. ...marvel is my pen name - http://marvelismypenname.vox.com/library/posts/page/1/

You gotta have soul by Tom Robbins
Print article --> --> You Gotta Have Soul - by Tom Robbins --> --> By Tom RobbinsOriginally published on January 11‚ 2005One of my favourite authors... --> --> ..s Images Audio/Vid...
...Melmerize - MySpace Blog - http://blog.myspace.com/melmerize

holiday_wishes @ 2006-11-18T23:41:00By Holiday Wishes(Holiday Wishes) Jitterbug perfume by tom robbins CRUSH- richard siken White Teeth by Zadie Smith Stop Pretending by Sandra Sones i capture the castle by dodie smith MAYBE A MIARCLE BY brian strause Hazards of Good Breeding by Jessica Shattuck
...Holiday Wishes - http://community.livejournal.com/holiday_wishes/

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More Blogospherics

oh quizzes...By camera9(camera9) Your Favorite Book: anything Tom Robbins 23. The Last Thing You Ate: a rice cracker 24. Your Life: is full of responsibilities and stress...poop 25. Your Mood: meh 26. Your best friends: Husband and Krystal ...camera9 - http://camera9.livejournal.com/
Love Quotes RevealedBy Dot(Dot) Love conquers all. Virgil The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread. Mother Teresa We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. Tom Robbins.

Damn, I'm stoked.By healthymetal(healthymetal) ... endlessly, passing everything on yet giving up nothing, the first amoebae that ever lived is still alive. Whether four billion years old or three hundred, he/she is with us today. Where?" ~ Tom Robbins, "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues"Cowgirl from HELL - http://healthymetal.livejournal.com/
Are you a victim, a criminal or an outlaw?By seed(seed) They even raise it a little bit when they fail. The outlaw is someone who cannot be ‘’got’’. He can only be punished by other peoples attitudes. When freedom is outlawed only outlaws will be free. Tom Robbins.Knowledge Systems - http://seedsystems.blogspot.com/index.html

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What are the bloggers saying about Dharma Yum

Well I'm not sure, but I appreciate the link in the Czech Republic at Redroom.

aftrlife má blog a robbins je tím pádem v podstatě online
22 Oct 2006 by Ondřej Lipár ... stránka všech online fanoušků toma robbinse, stvořil blog. tom robbins si zakládal na tom, že se na internetu nebude vyskytovat. časy se mění, byť asi bez jeho vědomí. na blogu dharma yum se totiž objevilo už několik jeho textů. ...redroom - http://lipar.blogspot.com

Update: Corrected Czechoslovakia. I shouldn't have made that mistake because one of my ex-wives was of Czech heritage. I guess I should call her my cancelled Czech. ba-da-bing.

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What the bloggers are saying about Tom this week

Bulungula Lodge, continuedBy Rebecca Crootof They've a high-quality library (Myths and Tom Robbins, what more could I want?) and you sleep in rondevals, which are tiny circular cement buildings with thatched roofs and tiny windows. There are NO MOSQUITOS, a huge bonus, ...Crootof Thoughts - http://crootof.blogspot.com
The dream that pushed me into such vanity (or stup...By abby(abby) It lies slumbering somewhere in my psyche, a dream soaked in lethargy, driven there by self-doubt, preoccupations, lack of aesthetic juices and literary knowledge, and a sudden growth of what Tom Robbins calls "an allergy to solitude". ...from behind these curtains - http://wengwangishness.blogspot.com/index.html


Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins [added by morphidae]Bantam (1984), Hardcover tags: {Box 42}Recent books added to group "Romance... - http://www.librarything.com/groupzeitgeist.php?group=romancefromhistorica
old boker knives Links: Folding knives, boker knives, japanese knives,By Administrator In Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, Pan plays a prominent role throughout the whole plot. … Stainless Steel Covered Cake Pan @ Vermont Country Store Looking to buy Stainless Steel Covered Cake Pan? The Vermont Country Store has it for ...Cooking pans - http://cookingpan.be/news
i really dont know whats happening.By ___strokify_me(___strokify_me) ... my e-rewards money at borders in the mall. ill be buying fierce invalids and wild ducks, both by tom robbins. im hoping he will do good things to me this time, since his last book still life worked wonders on my mental health. ...asdfg@#&%! - http://users.livejournal.com/___strokify_me/
i was drunk and no one could tell me otherwise and i played catch ...By junius worth and that tom robbins novel sitting on the nightstand smoking procedures there are 73 of us that work in the bookstore 31 of us smoke 24 of us don't and 18 of us smoke on occasion generally after we've been drinking ...dive bar napkin chronicles - http://divebarnapkin.blogspot.com
ChoiceThanks Tom Robbins.... "The word that allows yes, the word that makes no possible.The word that puts the free in freedom and takes the obligation out of love.The word that throws a window open after t...I feel like I'm taking CRAZY... - http://blog.myspace.com/the_uber_wop
Oh yesBy sexy mama Finally, I was motivated by a recommendation by a mutual Tom Robbins fan to make a purchase of a new book, and well I can't buy just a book, so I finally picked up one of the cds on my wish list. here's what came in the mail today: ...All Things Good - http://allgoo.blogspot.com
If the world got any smaller,....By KiTT If the world got any smaller, we'd all have to go on a diet.-- Tom Robbins (source http://quote.kitt.net)- http://quote.kitt.net
news readers. Click your choice: Half Asleep... news readers ...By robbinshalf_173819 This is, after. all, a Tom Robbins novel and the author has never been in finer form. ...Source: www.randomhouse.comVilla Incognito byTom Robbins On one level, Tom Robbins' Villa Incognito is a book about identity, masquerade . ...robbins half - http://robbins-half.goodpost.org
Books Books Books (and the Senate) (and Ted Haggart)One Book I read more than once: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. One book I would want on a deserted island: The Complete Works of Tom Robbins. I don't think this book exists but if it did I would want this. ...Their Eyes are Watching God - http://ctanews.com/blogs/Their-Eyes-are-Watching-God/
Britney and Cletus Breakup. Oh My!By More Serotonin Please In fact, I think from now on any time I say hollywood I will have to spit afterward - thank you Tom Robbins. So pay attention boys and girls, Britney is planning to make a new album and record, what some consider, music again. ...More Serotonin Please - http://more-serotonin-please.blogspot.com
Books Books Books (and the Senate) (and Ted Haggart)By Arwen One book I would want on a deserted island: The Complete Works of Tom Robbins. I don't think this book exists but if it did I would want this. We asked my mom if she would want to named Maestra after reading the first page of Fierce ...Anthropologist for Corporate America - http://spicyelf.blogspot.com
"We waste time looking for the perfect lover, .............instead of creating the perfect love." - Tom Robbins.Upon the Catherine Wheel..... - http://the-wheel.spaces.live.com/

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Tom Pitching Story Ideas

Welcome to the time machine. These posts will skip around like Billy Pilgrim unstuck in time and with all the regularity of the Clockworks. But at least we'll mostly eliminate the future. We won't go there. You'll see pictures of Tom at all ages like some good-natured Dorian Grey.

Back in September of 2005 Tom Robbins was on book tour for Wild Ducks. In San Francisco, Edward Champion aka Bat Segundo of radio fame, was at Tom's reading. He wrote about that night.

One startling revelation was that Tom had some interesting ideas for TV shows and Movies. Here they are:

And Robbins said that he had experienced a sudden burst of artistic activity. He had started writing a script entitled Pyrex of the Caribbean, which involved maintaining an oven-ready backing condition on the high seas. His offering for reality television was Fungi for the Straight Guy, whereby the producers would take a conservative Republican and give him a syphillitic mushroom with a camera crew following him around. And he had devised a pitch for a dramatic television show, Helen Keller: Private Eye with the tagline: “She’s blind, she’s deaf, she’s mute, but she can smell a rat a mile away.”

Another item was one I think I knew but forgot. It's the fact that Switters from Fierce Invalids also appeared in Villa Incognito, not in person but in the conversations of others. He's the freelance spy that Thomas is trying to contact. In that bit you get the outcome of Fierce Invalids explained a little bit.

SPOILER!!!!
On page 204 the agent is described as having two wives, one European and one American. Sound like any two ladies you know?

The whole article is in The Return of the Reluctant

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Rich Dahm's Photo of Tom

Photographer Rick Dahms has an anecdote about this dramatic photo of Tom he made.

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What are bloggers saying about Tom today?

this is what it's about.By smft.(smft.) go to post office come back, put load in dryer do all dishes in bedroom play lots of sub debs get rid of beer bottles make skirt wear skirt pay cell bill read tom robbins write in my journal call somebody banana bread and apple sauce ...i like the innocent type, dear... - http://users.livejournal.com/____aa_xxx/

QUOTES that I feel passionate about++++++We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. Tom Robbins Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. Robert Frost To love abun...Tiffany - MySpace Blog - http://blog.myspace.com/50944645

quotesTom Robbins • "Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia." - Judith Viorst • "A kiss makes the heart young again and wipes out the years." ...trishy69's IMVU Blog - http://www.imvu.com/blogs/index.php?blog=160358

Tom Robbins"Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach."ThinkExist.com Quotations - http://www.thinkexist.com

I'd Agree With This One.........By comment4U We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. ~Tom Robbins.Weighing In, Without The Cookies - http://weighing-in-without-the-cookies.blogspot.com

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New Review of Not-so-new Book

BOOK REVIEWS
By William S. Allen
Special to THE DAILY


WILD DUCKS FLYING BACKWARD. By Tom Robbins. Bantam, 272 pages, $12, paperback.

‘Wild Ducks’ is mixed bag

Book is compilation of works from 1960s to present day

Author Tom Robbins is very like the lit tle girl who had a little curl.
When he is good, he is very good indeed, and when he is bad, well, you'd have to define bad, something that I'm sure Robbins would be happy to do for you, in the process listing all the varied connotations of the word and commenting on each.

Robbins loves words. He twists them and turns them and combines them in ways that no one has ever thought of before. It's his forte.

"Wild Ducks Flying Backward" is a sampling of Robbins' shorter writings from the 1960s to the present. Included are travel pieces, poems, essays, critiques and a treatment for a movie. There are 68 selections crammed between the book's covers.

After reading some of these, the reader may feel that Robbins has actually said very little, but has said it beautifully.

They are like posters from the Haight-Ashbury in its heyday. We can regard the posters as art, but they are only announcing concerts after all.

Fortunately, not all of the pieces are this type of meringue. "The Day the Earth Spit Warthogs" is a travelogue about an expedition across Tanzania. The unrestrained imagery is here, of course, but there is also a lot of information about Africa. Rhinoceroses avoid conflict with humans whenever possible, but hippopotamuses seek it out. I would have missed that question on a test.

In another selection, "The Genius Waitress," Robbins writes with empathy about young women who are overeducated in unmarketable fields and are forced to take blue collar jobs to make ends meet. "Erudite emissary of eggs over easy...articulate angel of apple pie," he says.

Robbins can be insightful and compassionate. He can be self-deprecating, unlike, say, Norman Mailer or Tom Wolfe, two writers whose works cover the same eras and roughly the same topics. He can also include much that is gratuitously erotic in his portrayals of people and places. Parents take heed. As for his poems, Robbins should have avoided attempting them. Not everyone can be a Renaissance man.

Would I recommend "Wild Ducks Flying Backward"? It is a very mixed bag, some parts are good and some are not, as noted above. If the reader has previously been initiated to Robbins' work and likes it, then give this book a shot. Otherwise, try one of his novels, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" (good book, bad movie) or "Another Roadside Attraction," perhaps.

Two suggestions: First, don't try to read "Wild Ducks Flying Backward" straight through. You could possibly experience sensory overload — a condition that Robbins favors for himself, by the way — and second, keep in mind that what Robbins writes is just one man's opinion, as is this review. Copyright 2005 THE DECATUR DAILY

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Cunning Linguistic Deformations

I was writing the line “pleasant summer sounds like the screeching of harradans and the roaring of neanderthals”. Then I looked up the spelling for “harradan” and found it was actually “harridan”. But I saw an unfamiliar word listed in the synonym section. ‘Virago’. Clicking on that (Dictionary.com is convenient that way.) it brought up that word’s meaning. There were two. The au currant definition was “a loud-voiced, ill-tempered, scolding woman; shrew”. But the Archaic definition, the original one, was “a woman of strength or spirit.”

So before there was a movement to remove gender-disparaging words from our language there was a much longer-term devolution of our language from positive images of women to negative ones.

Not that anybody gets called a virago any more, but it sure is an example of what Tom writes about–the suppression of the Goddess by male-centered religion. A good reminder to us guys that the shrew or nag might be just a strong woman with a message. Not always but we should keep the possibility in mind.

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