“The world looks serene from up here, life feels gentle now, and the greenest of grapes are bursting joyfully in our mouths. Under a silent, sheltering windmill we agree, that wandering off (away from the well worn paths) is often the most rewarding part of any journey —and the Aqua-Champ beginner's fibreglass fishing rod lays potential at our feet. We are shark catchers, we are whale riders, we are king and queen of all the sparkling sea.”
Excerpt from my A Greek Island.
The Hindu girls sip lemonade and giggle with Catholic children, as this Spiritual Atheist talks to a Protestant friend. On the street below us a Buddhist buys red carnations from a Muslim flower-seller. And we are all rotating around the sun.
I am currently working diligently on bringing a new project in on time. The site, wonderhive, is a honey of a publishing platform, yet I am all in a twist with taxonomies. It feels good to combine designing and coding with travel writing again. Having spent years creating sites and crafting content for third parties, the desire and opportunity to take a tangent appear to have arrived at exactly the right time. As Yogi Berra once said, 'If you come to a fork in the road, take it.'
A righteous recollection of a quantum conversation with the original owner of pets.com. Conducted in the North end of Silicon Valley in the pre .com Crash and post Lawrencian era.
For those of you interested in CSS Typography, I proudly present The Rise and Fall of the Mighty Diminuendo; see him in all his towering might and gasp as the towering Titan shrinks to the size of a humble hobbit before your very eyes. Snazzier than Sea Monkeys, weirder than a walk in the park. Roll up! Roll Up! Step inside...
As the author, feeling restless amid the world of Berlin Internet Tätigkeiten, heads to Nepal in search of Gods, a mountain, tigers, golden saris, and dreams of a forgotten future....
Preface & Part 1 Westerner Approaches now released: Let the torrential tale begin....
Paul.
Time was, stumbling upon websites with nauseating and migraine-inducing colour schemes was a relatively common occupational hazard. Thankfully, the World Wide technicolor Rainbow has tempered her luridness somewhat. The shift from garish flamboyance toward subtler and more concordant colour schemes is due in part to the emergence of tools to create harmonious colour schemes.
Site colours need to complement the visitor and not just each other. Our reactions to colours are instantaneous and have a profound impact on the choices we make. Colour palettes need to convey the message of the site —its nature, its mood. Yet colour meanings can vary between cultures and religions: most Asian cultures associate the colour white with mourning and death, yet in Western culture you would wear black, not white, to a funeral —unless you lived on Fantasy Island.
A current project involves redesigning the website and refining an online publishing system for a large Buddhist network. Amongst the remit-notes given to me was an explanation of the 5 Dhyani Buddha colours and how they relate to the network's activities. The colours relate to certain energies and states of mind:
It reminded me that there are no hard and fast rules for colour usage: yes, it depends upon the message, but more importantly it depends upon the mindset of the user-group.
The evening sky was demure in her pinkness as I wandered down Immanuel Kirche Strasse towards the hallowed confines of Berlin's St George's Bookstore stocked, as it is, with an array of English Contemporary Fiction, Sci-Fi, smutty Crime, and aching ripened leather Chesterfield sofas. Taking place there was the annual Translation Idol competition run by No Man's Land and the German magazine for poetry and prose Lauterniemand.
Twas a delight to read my translation and adaptation of Selim Özdogan’s story Schwule Ziegen auf Lesbos (Gay Goats on Lesbos) to the Merlot filled audience. I took some post-modernist liberties and introduced Zorba's culinary expertise to the translation. Finer still was to win joint first prize with a certain Poetess. I would like, at this point in time, to thank my Fairy Godmother and all the little people in my life, because man findet Gott in den Kleinigkeiten. I thank you.
As Messrs. Druce and Stenschke take deep breaths and lean boldly over the balcony of North Africa with flip-flops in hand.
Maps are useful, but they only take you so far. Navigating the pristine and super-modern passageways of Frankfurt Airport we are reminded of Logan's Run and succeed in finding check-in desk 302 only by closing our eyes and using the force. Read more »
As P.G. heads on out of a rut and over to Colorado. Follow your intrepid Big Horn as he straddles the Continental Divide, so to speak.... Read more »
© 2009 Paul G. Druce
