why I like Johny Depp?

..because he reads Beat Generation, like Jack Kerouac...


Let me remind you what his view on writing was (more here):
'1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy

2. Submissive to everything, open, listening

3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house

4. Be in love with yr life

5. Something that you feel will find its own form

6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

7. Blow as deep as you want to blow

8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

9. The unspeakable visions of the individual

10. No time for poetry but exactly what is

11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest

12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you

13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time

15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

19. Accept loss forever

20. Believe in the holy contour of life

21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better

23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it

26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

29. You're a Genius all the time

30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven '

Life changing books

I started reading Fromm's Man for Himself and I feel bizarre! The book is changing me...you know the feeling when you live chaos and suddenly everything starts to fall in its place? The puzzles start to show a shape and you sit back and relax? That's what Fromm did and still does to me....but there were others too. Last weekend was quite relaxed and even though I still had no time to write down my trip to Spain (due to the fact I have 500 pix to go through and no time at all!), I decided to write down a list of books that changed my life.

1. Bible - born in a Catholic family I was raised with it, had it always around, studied it...It gave me basics for my own values, later on sadly made me realize I cannot represent Catholic Church. Nonetheless I still live most of what I've learned from it, but very much incorporated it in modern reality:)
2. Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice - I remember the scene and the day when I realized the paradox of human life and longing for eternity. I was upset for a few weeks, that life was given to be taken away and art, music, architecture will survive when I will be gone. (or those who do not know me I AM and egocentric person). I kept the copy I received form a friend from Egypt as one of my little treasures:)
3. The Name of The Rose by Umberto Eco - thought me to smile and appreciate what I have and the education I was given; thought me to love books and libraries.
4. Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women by Anne Moir and David Jessel - great study of female and male biology, brain structure, growing up and socialization as well as everyday behavior. I was a feminist when I read it - and stopped being one, hehe, it kinda put all sex differences in order and I learned to appreciate that men think and behave differently and it all works quite well;)
5. The Sane Society by Erich Fromm - well writer critique or a study of Western society, extremely improved my relationship with my family, opened my eyes to all the mechanisms below the surface, helps me to manage my relationship with my parents and later on with my son.
6. Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai by Yamamoto Tsunetomo helped me to find a balance between my Catholic background, post-modern nature and Zen philosophy - if that makes sense...
7. The Letters of Vincent van Gogh by Vincent Van Gogh, Ronald de Leeuw, and Arnold J. Pomerans - increased my sensitivity in photography and pushed me to achieve more - I always go back to this book, whenever I feel I am stuck.
8. Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz - once finished studies I went back to this - cherished in my house, since my dad comes from Lithuania - book on Lithuanian Poles during Napoleon times. I realized I miss old times, and even though I am a fan of post-modern myself I do think back on my ancestors' traditions and long for those delicious meals, huntings and picking mushrooms and blueberries in the forests that are endless and beautiful or in Hungary for example: sipping a coffeee and enjoying a gorgeous cake in one of Budapest 'cukraszdas' - any of those traditions that are gone forever .... ech...
9. Polka and Tarot Paryski by Manuela Gretkowska - first one guided my through pregnancy, second one developed my laid back attitude! I love her writing!
10. 11 Minutes by Coelho - one of those simple stories that quite you trough hard times - really helped me out of my horrible marriage:)
11. Girl with One Track Mind by Abby Lee - this will sound bizarre, I know, but the way she wrote her diary down brought back the magic to my life lately - maybe simply because she was so honest and so feminine...
11. Mental Fight by Ben Okri - sooo right about the times we live in!!!!

Well, and there is Fromm and his view on ethics now...let's see how it shapes me.

In the meantime I do follow others. Rice, Coelho and Abby Lee blog, Ben Okri was in Oxford lately and the rest...well, I guess I need to go to the local library. There were others too, but I guess I have no more lunch brake left to list them:)

How about you? Did you read a book that affected you so much that it changed our actions?

Update: good to see that Big Bloggers, like Loic Le Meur write about this traditional medium as well:)

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