Jennifer's Emporium of

RENEE'S WREASONS

2007-03-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Humans have gotten a lot wrong, but sometimes we get it right; I mean REALLY right. These are just a few gestures both large and small that make me cheerful:

WREADING BENJAMIN

Everything Walter Benjamin has ever written amazes me. He looks at the world in such fascinating detail. Sometimes, I wonder if history had not conspired against him, what other works he may have created.

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WATERING MAILMEN

When my grandmother was alive, she always left a glass of water on the front porch for the mailman. To be honest, I don't think he was that thirsty, but he drank it anyway to make her feel good. Kindness comes in an infinite multitude of tiny

exchanges.

LISTENING TO BOB

The other day, I was listening to Bob Dylan's Masters of War. What a powerfully lucid ballad against the powers that were, and still are, so dominant. Hearing that song reminds me of the potential of an individual's voice to speak the truth with such acuity.

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THROWING FISH BACK IN

Last week my four year old son cried when we ate fish. He said we should put them back in the sea. He's right. I have a lot to learn from him. Who knows, his generation might teach us how to deal with the environment in more responsible ways.

ADMIRING KURT

Sometimes I wonder what made Kurt Schwitters build the Merzbau three times. One bombed in Hanover, another one burned. It's amazing his spirit compelled him to keep on pursuing the project; in fact, it's absolutely logic defying. He reminds me that our breadth of imagination combined with determination might make us dream of other fantastical worlds.

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WATCHING FLIRTING

There is a bench at the corner of my house, just across the street. Every afternoon, a Moroccan boy meets with a Dutch girl. Although they sit without touching each other, the flirtation is incredible. Maybe their desire will do more to solve racial tensions in our city than any blue-suited politician with the best of rhetoric and intentions.

LOVING SOMEONE

For the past twelve years I've woken up next to the same person. I still enjoy seeing his face on the pillow. Together we are discovering that imperfection is pretty seductive stuff. It might be the very foundations of "getting it right".

I could go on and on... There is a lot to be both cheerful, and moreover, hopeful about.

- Renee Turner

SAILING MY BOAT

2007-03-07T11:06:00.000-08:00

Hello,
my name is Tom Mucha. I am 10 years old. The best thing to be cheerful is sailing. I sail in my own boat on the atlantic ocean. I am in Spiddal sailing club and you can do your certificut in sailing and make friends and if you ahve a boat, then you are the captin of that boat. I am the captin of my boat in the photo. Now my boat is in the gardin till next spring.
Tom

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WALKING IN THE MIDST OF ANGELS

2007-01-28T02:02:00.000-08:00

Oh, there are so many reasons to be cheerful.
I no longer drink.
I no longer smoke.
I have wonderful friends and ?
I always do what I wanna do. I always have, which can be delightfully dangerous,
As well as terribly selfish. C'est ca!

.

Long walks make me cheerful,
as does my brisk lunchtime stroll.
I love it when it's spring here,
when the cherry blossoms are in bloom;
when I feel like I am walking in the midst of angels.
But Autumn is my favourite season,
When the momiji maples are ablaze.
It is time then to join the throngs at Nikko,
to admire the foliage and visit Tokugawa?s shrine,
It makes me cheerful to sit quietly with a good friend and sip green tea.

Or better still, in autumn, I love to go way up north, up towards
The swift Mogami River,
Maybe I'm a bum, a pilgrim, a spy. Who cares what those drivers think?

I imagine I am Basho, or maybe Sora,
When I huff and puff my way up the sacred mountain of Haguro.

Mary King

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BEACHCOMBING GLASSWATCHING

2007-01-13T05:27:00.000-08:00

If pushed for a reason to be cheerful, almost joyful, I would say that walking along the waterline at a beach, especially in Greece and searching for pieces of shiny worn edged glass.

I have a honey jar that I got in Greece that is full of these green and red, brown and opaque white pieces of glass.
What I like to do is get up early, before the sunbathers get to the beach and walk along the shore with my shoes in my hand and my head down, and where the water meets the sand in a frothy line, I look out for these little bits of glass.
Then I like to imagine where they come from.

Galleons probably.

On a good morning I will find maybe ten.
In the afternoon, when I'm bored with laying under my beach shelter that I have made out of broken umbrella poles and a shower curtain, I will go for another walk and look for more.

The day I leave to come back to England, I wash the pieces of glass and dry them and put them in the honey jar that I've kept for the purpose, roll them up in my beach towel and put them in my suitcase.

When I look at them in their jar back in England, they don’t shine as much, they’ve dried off and lost their gloss and I say to myself, "I should varnish them so they look just like the do when I find them on the beach."

But of course, I never get round to it.

Toni Le Busque

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DOODLING IN NOTEBOOKS

2007-01-12T23:38:00.000-08:00

I have a little tin box of watercolour paints and a tiny collapsible brush. My real bliss is sitting at a cafe on holiday somewhere with palm trees (I can draw those!) sketching and colouring in, doodling cartoons and jotting down words.

My great grandmother went with her husband and daughter on a world cruise in 1914 and made a tiny watercolour per day, each one exquisite. I aspire to such artistry but actually part of the pleasure is feeling happily amateur.

M Seward

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PLAYING THE CONGAS

2007-01-12T02:03:00.000-08:00

Now the therapeutic value of pummeling the skin of a drum is hard to beat, and great big wooden congas are the best hand drums of all, though it takes time to get the knack of the slaps and bass tones etcetera. Learning with my wonderful tutor Robin Jones was scarey and delightful - how amazing to be taught something as tricky and direct as this. Playing with the band is bliss too.

John Swann

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RIDING THROUGH THE CITY ON MY SCOOTER

2007-01-12T01:36:00.000-08:00

..preferably on a hot, sunny day. Solo or with the one you love. It's perhaps the only truly satisfactory way to experience where I live. Instead of the hell of the tube, my journey to work can lead me to roar (gently) through Regents Park and cruise down the Kings Road, or wiggle through the streets of Soho and Covent Garden, whizz over Waterloo Bridge or putter past the Houses of Parliament... Every day there's something to see that makes me marvel at the splendour of the capital, and if I want to I can stop off and investigate further a shop or park or nice place to stand for a few minutes. Be careful though - it's dangerous and there's only one rule: don't get hit.

Christopher Overleaf

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GARDENING WITH BEAUTIFUL TOOLS

2007-01-12T01:30:00.000-08:00

Gardening with good quality well made tools is one of my reasons to be
cheerful.

The ones illustrated are a pleasure to use, both in my small back garden and
in my allotment. The handles ('staffs' )for the longer tools are of European
hardwoods (I think mine is ash), and the copper blades are sharp and smooth.
The copper is said to deter slugs, but I wouldn't vouch for that.
For me the pleasure is in the weighting, the effective shape of the blade,
the smooth wooden handle and the sense of using something made fit-for-
purpose by a craftsman. The Phoenix hoe with a long handle and the Mira
trowel are my current favourites. Not cheap but well worth the money

Jo Howard

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TWISTING ANGELINA

2007-01-12T01:01:00.000-08:00

what makes me cheerful, she said,
as a pigeon deposited cheer on her head.

the end of the day, the end of the week;
the end of angelina jolie's physique.

what makes me cheerful, she cried,
as a puddle cheerfully opened wide.

the times i play, the times i sleep;
the times i make angelina look cheap.

what makes me cheerful! she exclaimed,
as somebody cheered and she was blamed.

twisting the body, twisting the head:
twisting angelina until she is dead.

Chris Joseph

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SWIMMING AT NIGHT IN THE OPEN AIR

2007-01-11T14:21:00.000-08:00

My reason to be cheerful is swimming outdoors at night.

Daytime is good too, but there's something very special about swimming in darkness. However, there’s a qualifier to achieving 100% cheerfulness: I’m squeamish about unidentified objects beneath my feet, so the swim must be in a well-maintained pool with a nice smooth base, not a lake, river or sea, or an old crumbling pool scattered with yucky Band-Aids.

One of my all-time favourite swims was in the Hilton Hotel in Toronto, where the pool is several floors up and has a plastic curtain which allows you to swim from the inside out into the winter. The first time I scooted through the curtain it was just starting to snow; I could peer amongst the flakes into nearby offices, still lit for people working late, and watch billboards flashing red across the street.

Another year I swam every night for a month in warm Los Angeles at the Hotel Del Capri, circling slowly around the small blue space scattered with floating pink petals and staring up at the apartment blocks towering above.

Until recently, I swam outdoors at least once a week at a leisure club near my home in Leicester. Most nights I could keep the moon in my sights. But as the evenings got colder the steam above the pool became more dense, until it became impossible for the lifeguards to watch us through the misted glass. Now I have to wait until the Spring swings around again and we are allowed to swim outside once more.

Sue Thomas

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MAKING WHOOPEE

2007-01-11T10:24:00.000-08:00

Who else thinks sex with the same person gets better and better as the years go by?
We know each other so well and know what turns us on, can still recall our fresher selves, have fewer inhibitions, lashings of imagination, less pressure to perform and more cuddling whatever.

R & M

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