Blog – Page 36 – Deborah Makarios

June 9, 2020June 9, 2020

Good Egg? Your Input Please!

Hullo all you lovely people!

I’ve been sitting on an idea for some time, like a hen on an egg, and I’d like to hear your views on it. (Addled, or ready to hatch?)

I’ve trawled through the first seven years of the archives of this blog, cherry-picking all the really good bits. The idea is to compile them into an ebook – with some extra material – and make it available to the public at a minimal price.

The questions are as follows:

One: do you think this is a good idea (i.e. do you think there’s a market for it)?

Two: do you have any suggestions as to the title? I’ve had ideas including:

A Retentive Memory for Trifles (from this post)

Eccentric Ethic & Aesthetic (a former tag-line for the blog)

Unconventional and Slightly Strange (the definition of eccentric)

Old-Fashioned Fruitcake (the present tag-line of the blog)

Sinistra Inksteyne: The First Seven Years (fairly self-explanatory, though Sinistra Inksteyne isn’t the site name any more and there’s always a problem with misdirecting people to the old site which still has that in the url)

Just My Cup of Tea (related to my mission statement)

Some of these might need a subtitle explaining what the book is (truth in advertising!). The possible BISAC codes include Humor/Form/Essays, and Literary Collections/Essays – or possibly even Literary Collections/Women Authors (though I don’t know if I qualify for the latter, being woman singular).

The overall feeling is one of light-hearted amusingness and oddity with the occasional more serious post for a bit of chiaroscuro. Rather like the blog as a whole, but more so – the cream of the jest scooped off the top, as it were.

Three: do you have any suggestions for the cover? The above looks fun (or is it creepy?), but a lot also depends on the title.

So there are my three questions, and I’d love to hear what you think about any or all of them – or anything else that strikes you as relevant.

June 6, 2020June 6, 2020

An Interesting Thought

With the exception of some members of the “vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language” in the book of Revelation, there are no people in the Bible who a white supremacist would recognize as white.

Unless you count Miriam (the sister of Moses and Aaron), who was struck white with leprosy for criticizing Moses’ choice of a dark-skinned wife. It’s like God said “you think being light-skinned is so great? Try being white as a dead fish belly and see how superior you feel then.”

Racism: God’s Against It.

June 3, 2020June 3, 2020

What I Did On My Non-Holiday

If one were to judge from social media and memes alone, there are only two experiences of lockdown: Exhausted Parenthood and Exorbitant Boredom. (Clearly, this overlooks other experiences such as Having to Work Despite Feeling Unsafe, and Fearing Your Family Will Starve to a Covid-Free Death, possibly because the people having those experiences don’t have a lot of time for memeing.)

Personally, my experience of lockdown was busier and more stressed than my ordinary life, due in small part to the technolofication of all communications, and in large part to publishing a book in the middle of NZ’s Level 3. Publishing in a Time of Pandemic: not recommended.

But in amongst the stress and confusion and delays, I did manage to fit in a bit of sanity-maintaining handwork. I did a moderate amount of tatting, including a very simple lace collar, and two bookmarks.

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