Vicki Wong Explores Loneliness

Winter

As the last petal fell to the ground,
we came to the final season of the year.

The snow splintered softly across the country,
touching roof-tops,
calming empty branches,
and lastly fell onto my shoulders.
With everything covered in white,
I stood on top to admire such soundless sight.

As the morning chill sipped into my skin,
Shivers flew through my spine and awoke the sadness sleeping within.
I tucked my chin under my scarf and tracked downhill,
as thick white clouds loomed over the sky, and overcast my eyes.

Walking under the fall of tiny white jewels,
my gaze landed on the two humming snow birds sitting on the glistening branches.
Watching them finding comfort in each other
I secretly wish for the same.
I longed for love and was curious of what I became.

Slanting downward I thought I was hallucinating
but I saw snowflakes danced upon my hand,
so gentle and soft,
it reminded me of the tenderness entwined in your voice.
Reminiscing the way you used to reassure my fears
effortlessly brought me to tears.

Without your company I felt disjointed, incomplete
like a tiny bird in the cold with its frail wings weighted down by the dust of snow.
I took out the kaleidoscope you gave me this summer
and pressed it to my chest-
beneath those constricted lungs and crumbling bones,
I know we all have a heart that can withstand the consequences.

I gazed around
letting the beauty of winter embraces me
with the murmuring songs of miserable love drifting about.

[READ MORE HERE]

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GettingDiscovered.net

The Art of Women

March is Women’s History Month in the United States and has been since Congress expanded Women’s History Week in 1987. The first International Working Women’s Day was actually observed in Germany on March 19th, 1911, but the modern International Women’s Day is on the 8th. Regardless of its varied roots – whether European socialist or American feminist – this is the month to recognize how far many of the world’s societies have come in liberating women to vote, earn fair wages and experience equal treatment with men. [READ MORE HERE]

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GettingDiscovered.net

Music Industry at a Low High

Cake just topped the Billboard Top 200 with 44,000 copies. That is the lowest-selling #1 album in 20 years, however, so the news for the band is more than a little bittersweet. In a recent interview with Melissa Block on NPR’s All Things Considered, lead singer John McCrea admitted he was pretty pessimistic about the future of the music industry as a profession. He is apparently looking forward to one day putting touring behind him and trying his hand at subsistence farming.

Perhaps the music industry is doomed. Or perhaps it just needs a reboot. [READ MORE HERE]

Writing on Writers, Writing on Writing

Oh so meta.

Author Joe Woodwardrecently shared in the Books section of the Huffington Post a review of The Best American Essays 2010. In it he points about that about a third of the content in this publication is made up of writers, writing about writing. Jane Kramer’s piece from The New Yorker, “Me Myself and I” discusses the birth of the modern essay in the works of French writer Michel de Montaigne. James Woods writes about reading George Orwell’s “A Fine Rage”. Ian McEwan describes the eponymous author in “On John Updike” as a Lutheran “toubled by science as others are troubled by God.” [READ MORE HERE]

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GettingDiscovered.net

Armory Arts Week

This weekend Times Square in New York City will play host to some strange visitors. A giant bronze mouse, a voluptuous woman made of tile and glass and 24 handmade paper sheep will appear amongst bubbling sea foam and a monument of compact discs. Such is the beginning of Armory Arts Week. [READ MORE HERE]

The Music That Was a Mile High

The news that the annual Mile High Music Festival in Denver has been cancelled for 2011 is a blow to its fans, the music industry and the American live music scene in general. Citing economic woes, promoter AEG Live announced yesterday that the event was off.

Although some may say the news is not too heartbreaking because the festival is not a long established tradition – this being only the fourth year slated for the event – we absolutely disagree. [READ MORE HERE]

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GettingDiscovered.net

Artists Without Limits

Ever heard of James Franco the writer? How about James Franco the painter? Or the director?

Yes, these are all the same James Franco. You may have seen him acting in some films. But this busy guy – lightly barbed recently in the Weekend Update portion of Saturday Night Live for being an almost ridiculous jack-of-all-trades – has a real passion for all fine arts. [READ MORE HERE]

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GettingDiscovered.net