Archive for the ‘Bibliofile’ Category
Missed Connections
Found this morning at The Moment, I think this is wonderful: Continue Reading
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CommentGraceful
What does it mean to be graceful? Usually when one thinks of someone who is graceful it is in the context of physicality, like a ballerina or someone who carries herself with particular poise. There is graceful living, which connotes a certain sense of ease and comfort. There is the religious idea of grace, through which one achieves a state of sanctification by adhering to religious practices and beliefs. Then, of course, there is a different kind of grace entirely, one more nebulous and abstract, that has to do with acting with a sense of thoughtfulness.

Looking for a definition, even Webster doesn’t quite capture what it really means to be graceful. And then along comes Seth Godin and his little book on the subject, in which he offers us thirty ideas on “making a difference in a world that needs you.” Originally created as a handout for attendees of Catalyst Conference 2010 where he was a keynote speaker, Graceful is now an eBook available for download from the iTunes book store or at Amazon.com here.
Graceful is artistic, elegant, subtle and effective. Graceful makes things happen and brings light but not heat.
Although he talks about industry and frames his point of reference in business terms, I see this work more as a manual on how to live a life filled with authenticity and truth than a treatise on best work practices. In 59 pages Seth shows us how focusing on happiness, abundance, kindness and connection are the way to achieve a life full of grace and to be a success in the process, allowing all along that what it means to be successful inherently includes that which is graceful.
Working and living gracefully requires “emotional labor,” which is “the art of working with your head and your heart, not your muscles.” It may not be as easy as going with the flow and accepting the status quo, but it’s infinitely more rewarding.
I could fill this post with quote after quote as each short chapter becomes increasingly more inspiring and resonant than the last. Instead, I encourage you to read it for yourself.
The digital revolution is destroying the industrial one. Compliant cogs in efficient factories race to the bottom, seeking to be ever faster and ever cheaper. It’s a race we can’t win, one that deadens us and cheapens our work.
The alternative is to strip away the insulation we carry around like a suit of armor, to open ourselves to the possibility of making connections, giving gifts and creating art. I call this posture a graceful one.
It’s our birthright to be graceful. The world has just made it possible for you to take this opportunity and make something of it. I hope you will.
I, for one, am choosing to go and make something happen.
Reading Goethe
I love reading poetry and it’s been a while since I’ve found something to engage my interest on that front. A website I read sometimes quotes the poetry of Goethe on occasion and, although I know him more as a philosopher than as a poet, I was inspired to buy a book of his poetic works today.
Goethe’s poetry was essentially autobiographical. One of his poems, “The Diary,” was suppressed for more than a century for its eroticism. Well, of course, the thing we want to read first and most is that which has the excitement of the forbidden! So I started there. You should read it for yourself, but here are the final lines:
This life’s a crazy journey, and our heart
May stumble, but two mighty powers, we’ll find,
Can move the world and help us as we go:
To Duty much, to Love far more we owe.
How lovely!
Adventures in Deviant Journalism
For anyone who has known me long enough, or read this, or noticed the items that I tend to “like” on Facebook, or that he has his own tag in my cloud, then you get that I have a serious crush – intellectual and otherwise – on San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford. Understandably then, I am excited that his first, self-published book The Daring Spectacle is very nearly ready to land in my hot little hands.

I started reading Mark’s column when I lived in San Francisco, a place that fit me personality wise and felt like home. So it was fun to discover a columnist who, in a sense, embodied all of the things that I love about that city and wrote a weekly column that was so clever with words, so irreverent, so hilariously observant about the craziness that is life on our little part of this little planet. (Am I starting to sound like a rabid Robert Pattinson fan now? Sorry. I can’t help myself.) I’ve been reading ever since. The book is based on his columns that Mark Morford has written over the years.
The Daring Spectacle is award-winning San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate columnist and culture critic Mark Morford’s hilarious modern record of sex and media, politics and pop culture, love and lust, as told in 92 delectable parts — not including all the delicious photos and terrifying hate mail. TDS spans nearly a decade of Mark’s wildest, most popular columns, full of feral wordplay and liberal sorcery with an unexpected spiritual kick. There’s simply nothing else in modern media quite like it. Please undress accordingly.

The book is more than a reprint of his columns; it includes illustrations and commentary and a fun design and layout. You can find a host of interesting teasers about the book on The Daring Spectacle website. Like a list, in Mark Morford’s own words, of the book’s features that will make you laugh all by themselves. And a collection of quotes from people like Phil Bronstein, Dan Savage and Craig Newmark.
Trust me, Mark Morford will tickle your cosmic funny bone and you will find yourself laughing out loud, even if you are shaking your head.
You can pre-order The Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism from Amazon.com or directly from the publisher, AtlasBooks. The book will ship on April 12th.
Does Mark Morford know that I’m out here shilling his book? No. Would I turn down a big thank you kiss? Not on your life.
Eat, Pray, Love – The Movie
The inimitable Erin of Elements of Style alerted me to the fact that they have made a movie from Elizabeth Gilbert’s amazing book Eat, Pray, Love. I had no idea! And there is even a trailer already.
I haven’t met Elizabeth Gilbert, so I don’t have a problem believing Julia Roberts as this character; I just wonder how they can possibly capture the wonder and magic of this book on film. The only film I’ve ever thought did the book on which is was based any justice was Like Water for Chocolate.
And what is it with Hollywood making movies from books these days? Doesn’t anyone out there have an original idea? I hear there is going to be a movie version of one of my recent favorites, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
Autumn Feelings
Okay, so it’s not Autumn. In fact, there’s a crazy February snow storm happening outside in Boston and I’m just glad not to be out in it any more. But I’ve been awake since 3:30 am (do visit the new PR and marketing page of the site, which is the product of my early morning insomnia) and somehow the intelligent Trend Tuesdays report I’ve been working on is not coming out of my tired brain. Maybe this week we’ll have a Trend Thursday. How’s that?
Anyway…
So as not to disappoint anyone who was looking for something to read today, I bring you a lovely poem by Goethe that I only recently discovered. I think it needn’t be Autumn to appreciate such lovely words.
FLOURISH greener, as ye clamber,
Oh ye leaves, to seek my chamber,Up the trellis’d vine on high!
May ye swell, twin-berries tender,
Juicier far,–and with more splendourRipen, and more speedily!
O’er ye broods the sun at even
As he sinks to rest, and heavenSoftly breathes into your ear
All its fertilising fullness,
While the moon’s refreshing coolness,Magic-laden, hovers near;
And, alas! ye’re watered everBy a stream of tears that rill
From mine eyes–tears ceasing never,Tears of love that nought can still!
Autumn Feelings by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If You Have to Cry, Go Outside
Kelly Cutrone and her book If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You Continue Readinghave been popping up a lot lately. I think this means I’m supposed to read it.

My name is Angela Eloise and I am a freelance writer. That sounds as if I am copping to an addiction. I am. In addition to writing this blog, I also write a column about social media and I am at work on a series of essays that I hope to see in print some day. Cloud of Chaos was born from my desire to dance with the absurdity of life, to create a space where I could write and share all of the gorgeous, fun, snarky deliciousness I find spinning around me every day. What does a spinning cloud of chaos have to do with writing? Everything, as it turns out.














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