(The stars are falling!) Great silver stars are shrinking into snowflakes as they cartwheel toward earth with a deafening silence. Last week saw the advance guards – lone white motes spiraling down in my headlights on chill nightly drives around midnight. And then there was that holy frozen puddle of white in a field I was walking one afternoon near a sacred inner sanctum of Elm Creek. Like a white stain on the sin-darkened mantle of the earth. Like a priestly vestment. Man-made, true – the snow guns were being tested –yet it was SNOW, the blood of stars, nonetheless. And now the real deal: a full-fledged storm that has me out skiing. It's going to be a grand winter.
But alas, the trip to Tonga for a couple of weeks of ocean kayaking is on hold for a year, owing to an injury to the Australian friend who invited me to join him and his wife Fiona. The good news is that they will come visit for some skiing at the end of the winter. Grant Soosalu is a brilliant person, and an inspirational speaker, who contacted me out of the blue from Oz to do an interview. I'm indebted to him for his nomination of me at this site: http://www.the1000best.com/Nomination.aspx?NomId=12011 and for many subsequent connections. We are both fueled by imagination and discovery, both ever in search of hard science behind positive energy and inspiration, so it was all but guaranteed we would meet some day.
Yet another sterling friendship began with an interview that led to an invitation to speak in Europe. My host, Jan Fredrik Lockert, is a Norwegian publisher/reviewer whose eclectic lifestyle includes many of the same interests that drive me. I'll be speaking in Europe's largest House of Literature, next to the Royal Palace in Oslo (if a window is open, and the mic is really, really jacked up, I'm going to say "I played the Palace"). And fancy this, the 2011 World Ski Championships will be underway at the same time. Not only will we be able to watch them, Jan tells me we will be able to ski the famed Holmenkollen course at night! What else could coax me away from my beloved winters here in Minnesota?
Jan’s exquisite photography has captured 4 of this month’s photos below. (One of them was taken from his house looking DOWN at clouds!) Though I was born in Michigan in the wake of the century's biggest snowstorm, and lived my earliest years in Argentina and a dozen other countries, there were two places I had never visited on this planet that always looked like home to me. One was Minnesota, where I now live on a lake, and the other? Norway. (I am living on the inside of a snow globe. Do not set me free!)
Also below is a pix of that first snowstorm taken from my couch. And another of my Creatoriium (no “m” in that please), because a few of you have asked where I work. Just finished stripping wallpaper and painting to achieve the rosy glow you see, and when I finish the artwork next month I'll try to post more. Last but not least, Doc Foto has cleverly combined Thanksgiving and the recent election hoopla to take another political shot at me.
DRAGON BURPS is the title of November’s column over on Storytellers Unplugged. It's really a trifecta of themes: sort of a contest, some rippingly funny stuff, and a promised answer in story form to cherished reader and colleague
Janet Berliner. Here's the link http://storytellersunplugged.com/thomassullivan/2010/11/16/thomas-sullivan-dragon-burps/ .
Sorry I didn't get to a new sax video for YouTube, but here's what's up now [ http://www.youtube.com/user/Sullysax1#p/a/u/1/d49rY3FQ5ic ]. Hit “subscribe” on the site if you want to be notified when a new video goes up. Meanwhile, wishing you a Terrific Turkey Day if you are celebrating in the States, or a bountiful year wherever you may live.
Thomas “Sully”
Sullivan
http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com
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Guess I'm a miser with my emotions, but when I spend them, they are non-refundable.
