RonVitale

Woven Light: David Livewell

Download and listen to an interview of David Livewell, author of Woven Light. (8.15 MB)

Listen to the interview online:

Total running time: 23 minutes and 42 seconds

Every once in a while I stumble upon a work that captures the essence of art in a quiet and pure form. I purchased a copy of David Livewell's "Woven Light" and was amazed at the photography and the beauty of its poems. Livewell's book takes the reader on a journey through Andrew Wyeth’s historic Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, revealing the "private symbolism that captivated the artist his entire life."

As a lover of art, I was aware of Wyeth's prominence as an artist, but I had never had the opportunity to explore the meaning behind his works in more detail. One of Wyeth's famous paintings, Christina's World, is stark and jarring. A young woman lies in a field, positioned in an odd manner. There is a story to be told in her movements, but the viewer takes in the view, wanting to know more.

In "Woven Light," Livewell, painstakingly captures, through his own photography, the essence of Wyeth's paintings, showing the scenic landscape of Chadds Ford and then interpreting that beauty through poetry. The result is a beauty to behold. Quiet, yet powerful Livewell delves into Wyeth's secret world, transforming the ordinary world we know into one full of potential and grace. A great companion piece for any Andrew Wyeth enthusiast, I would also recommend the unfamiliar to gander down the pages of this book and travel through the imagination of the spacious and pure fields of Chadds Ford relieving a time of contemplation and peace.

All About Writing

What happens when Christine Cavalier and I get together to talk shop? A podcast about writing techniques, social media, the future of traditional publishing and self-publishing.

Listen to the podcast:

Download the "About Writing" podcast (26.2 MB)

Listen to the podcast online:

Writers and topics addressed in the podcast:

• Push to Publish Conference (October 16, 2010)
• Philadelphia Stories
• Writer Beware
• Jeff Han (TED talk: Breakthrough touchscreen)
• Gregory Frost
• Jonathan Maberry
• J. C. Hutchins

Don't Bang Your Head Against the Wall

Last weekend I started working on my website for my next novel. Although I don't intend to have the novel finished until early 2011, I had some free time and wanted to work on the template part of the site. So I started tinkering around, working on domain mapping so that when you go to the site the URL resolves to what I want. Should be easy, right? Well, I went into my registrar's admin panel, set everything up and it appeared to be working but when I clicked on the "Home" link in the main navigation things weren't working. I tried a few things and it still didn't work. Having worked in information technologies in the past, I know that DNS changes can take 24-48 hours (maybe a little longer) to be implemented throughout the web. I left the problem stay, tried again the next day and it still didn't work. I tried on Monday and still no go.

At this point, I became a bit frustrated, trying to figure out what the problem was and how to resolve it. Work has been busy, I haven't had a lot of free time and I tried accessing the site on several different computers and clearing caches but still no luck. Now here's the important point: In the past, when I was younger, I'd start to hunker down and start working on the problem. I'd attack it from every which way using brute force to knock through the problem. Now I don't know if I'm just mellowing with age, have a bit more wisdom or being a parent has helped me realize that you can't soldier through sometimes. It's not possible to push your way through certain problems. I can try and try again, but, in the end, I keep coming against a wall.

Walls surround each of us in our lives: Financial, emotional, psychological and technological--just to name a few. How we work when we come up to those obstacles teaches us a lot about ourselves. Do we walk away? Start chipping away? Turn into water and flow under (my favorite solution sometimes)? It all depends.

In the case of my domain mapping issue, I tried to access the site last night and the problem still existed. I let it go, went to bed and when I took my PC out of hibernation mode this morning I saw that the site was still in my browser. I refreshed the page and as I rolled my mouse over the Home link a spark of inspiration struck me. I suddenly realized that the Home link was hard coded into the navigation. The domain mapping was working. I simply needed to manually change the navigational link to the correct URL. Problem solved.

It took me a lot longer to solve the problem than I would have liked, but all worked out well. In the end, I got the template for my future site up and running and I didn't have to bang my head against the wall. Nice, huh?

What Is America?

September 11, 2001. My boss poked his head into my office and said, "I heard a plane crashed into the World Trade Center." The image in my head was of a tiny single person plane. Some poor guy had some mechanical problems and crashed. The enormity of what was actually happening unfolded within the next hour. I tried to get onto CNN.com to learn more but the internet had slowed to a crawl. Information was spotty. My wife called me asking if I had heard what had happened. And then there was the second plane, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania planes. Fear descended over me. I realized that some group was attacking America and I began to wonder if planes throughout the United States were going to start falling from the sky. On the way home from work (as the city closed down for safety reasons and fears that other attacks would hit major cities), people were scared, talking nervously, all trying to get home to their loved ones.

My wife and I did what millions of Americans did that day: We sat glued to the TV. This is 2001--before I decided to have children. That night my wife and I cuddled close, holding on to each other in bed, realizing that when we woke up in the morning it wouldn't have been just a horrible nightmare. Welcome to the post 9/11 world. But I had a choice, well, we all have a choice. The next day I went to a local blood bank and waited in line for 6 hours to give blood because I wanted to do something, anything, to help people who needed help. I stood in line and saw the newspapers. The pictures of people falling from the tower to their deaths. The rumble, smoke and discussion of body parts strewn on the roofs of local buildings. Death, destruction, chaos and fear.

When I look back and remember how I felt at that time, it was a mixture of two things: Cold, slow-burning hatred and loving, tears in my eyes, hope. A day or two after 9/11 I remember watching the news and seeing the thousands of people lining the streets applauding and cheering the firefighters, police and other uniformed workers who helped save people's lives. Those men and women were (and are) heroes beyond question. I realized that we, as a people, had such opportunity in front of us. Out of all the suffering, pain and despair we had become galvanized, stronger and these colors don't run. We were united in the red, white and blue. It did not matter what walk of life we were in, together we had all suffered and been attacked.

But, I also felt that burning hatred. I wanted revenge. I wanted to bomb the motherfuckers into the stone age. No mercy. No forgiveness. None. That is how I felt. Was it right? Well, let me ask this question instead: Is any human emotion right or wrong? I believe that it's not what we feel but how we act on those feelings that is important. Fast forward to 2010. Look at our legacy: We argue over whether we should have a Mosque two blocks from ground zero, a preacher who was going to have a public burning of the Koran and if President Obama is a Muslim. Collectively, we are a scared, petty people who have lost our way and I fear that we can never come back to what we had on September 12th--that hope of our being united.

The cartoon that I've posted on this blog is from artwork that was very popular days after 9/11. If I remember correctly, a young teenage girl had posted the artwork up online and, for a while, her cartoon became a symbol of the anger we felt. Lady Liberty held close her baby with a gun in her hand. If she is provoked, she would fire. I liked this image, disturbing as it is, as it captured the complicated turmoil of those days after 9/11.

I am a citizen of the United States of America. My country is filled with people from all over the world, of many different religions (and many atheists) and cultures. In a time in which the national debt is beyond our comprehension, the economy has taken blow after blow, we have time to have a national debate about the most petty of things. We (not just I) need to see beyond the here and now to what we want for our children and our children's children. We can easily pick at the mote in someone's eye but not the beam in our own.

We have inefficient government, are deadlocked between opposing views and stagnation rules the day. What will get us out of our current economic turmoil? Wasting time and energy on blaming Obama or Bush or a crazy preacher in Florida or "the enemy"? Stop. I got this. Get up off your sorry ass, and do something. Obama is one man. He is flawed like the rest of us. Every leader and every individual we looked to "save" us is unable to do so. What we can do is to help ourselves, aid those around us and make a difference in the lives we touch. Do I need Obama or Palin or Bush or McCain to tell me what I should do? No, I don't.

I was angry after 9/11 and I wanted revenge. Collectively, we did get our revenge. We bombed, murdered innocent civilians in two wars and have spent trillions of dollars. Are we safer, better, happier? What are we? I would say that we are no longer the Mother holding her baby, protecting her kin from the enemy. No, we have lost our way and I fear that we are on a downward slide. I can't see what will be of America 50 or 100 years from now. Maybe some historian will point to this moment in time and say it was the beginning of the end. All empires and countries crumble. No matter if it's a Chinese dynasty or the Roman empire. We are temporal. So in knowing that, what are YOU going to do? Bitch? Moan? Complain? (Trust me, my wife will read this and can easily report that I do all of those things.) But beyond that, what are we going to do to be better people? It's a complicated answer as it appears that there is little hope. Yet when I think of our great leaders, weren't they all just a normal person at one time? We need not change the world, we need to only change what is in our hearts. It's a free country. Do what you want, be who you want, but, remember, nothing will ever change until you make it happen. If we wait for our leaders to save us, we'll be waiting a long, long time.

In the 9 years since 9/11, I have worked hard in choosing to raise a family, better myself and to continue to do what I love. Anyone who knows me will see that I put my money where my mouth is (as my family used to say): I deliver. I am a flawed person, just like everyone else, but I do get off my ass and shit gets done. My goals, charities, volunteerism and work is different than yours--as it should be. We are different and I respect that and believe that is what makes America strong. As I build up and strengthen what I hold dear, so can you. And when our differences clash, imagine if we could have tolerance to say that we might disagree but that we respect each other's beliefs. Respect. Take the far left and the far right and you realize that they're back to back sharing some of the same behaviors. Yet if we remember the Constitution and our Bill of Rights, maybe, just maybe, we can find common ground and come to the middle. Come to rebuild and raise our families and shake off our hatred and fear. I pray that we can come to the middle. That is my prayer and my hope for all our children and the future of our country.