Monica Morris's personal blog

Greetings Friends!

I am delighted that the Fall issue of ken*again, the literary magazine, is now on line. You can reach it at http://kenagain.freeservers.com/ or you can simply Google ken*again

You'll find my "In Praise of Grandparents" under "Prose" and you will also find much to enjoy in the other sections of the magazine.

Happy Fall Equinox!

Monica 

Dear Readers: 

Happy to tell you that a new essay of mine: "In Praise of Grandparents" will appear in the on-line magazine

Ken*Again  in September, in time for Grandparents' Day. Take a look at the site. It includes some excellent

writing, besides my piece.

Mine is pure nostalgia. I'd love to know if you have similar reminiscences of grandparents who have

influenced you.

Nothing lifts the spirits like a crowd of young children so eager to participate in a discussion that they can't sit still, raising their hands so high for permission to speak that they lift their rear-ends right off their seats.

For Career Week at Cheremoya Elementary School in Hollywood, I was invited to speak about the writing life to - I thought - the graduating class. Instead, I was scheduled to speak to two first-grade classes. A challenge, you might think, to interest 6 and 7 year olds in what we do as writers. It turned out to be no challenge at all but sheer delight.

I suggested that they need not wait to be grown up to be writers and asked "Why not let's all make up a story right now?"

The response was immediate and enthusiastic. A little girl at the front started with "Once upon a time..." and characters entered, actions followed, and complications ensued non-stop. The only problem was getting to "The End." The children wanted to continue, bringing in dragons and piglets and cookies and singing flowers to augment the existing tale.

I do enjoy my work but I must confess that I never found the writing life quite this exciting. Few dragons find their way into my computer, and as for singing flowers...well, why not?

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Greetings everybody! It's been a while since we last spoke and I thought you might  be 

amused by my comments on one particular newspaper.

If you want some stimulating reading, something to get your juices flowing - or churning - you can't

beat the week-end edition of Financial Times. If you thought that most of the world's people were

suffering economically, that cutting back and economizing were major trends, then the FT will give you

hope and encouragement. How lovely to know that thereis a market out there made up of people who

have pure platinum flowing through their veins. For the rest of us, the week-end edition provides the 

finest source of humor of all the week's media.

Most hilarious is the elegant magazine section titled "How to Spend It". Sometimes it make me laugh

so uncontrollably that tears flow down my cheeks and drip off my chin. I can hardly wait for the Friday

delivery, knowing what a treat is in store.

How can one not laugh out loud at the offer of a tweed jacket by Chanel for fourteen thousand,

seven hundred pounds sterling - not even a whole suit - or an admittedly rather interesting timepiece for

one hundred and eighty-six thousand, four hundred and seventy pounds! I'm surprised they don't add 99P, just to

make it even funnier. The very rich may have money but they aren't stupid. They must know this is  joke and

find it as rib-tickling as do I.

Perhaps even more amusing that reading about the clothes and watches and jewelry sprinkled throughout

the pages is perusing the announcements for real estate. You, dear reader of the FT, might aspire to a town-

house in London or a wee estate in Scotland, or a tiny mansion on the French Riviera. It's only money after all.

How about these "Weekend Escapes," presented as "hot property"? They would be second homes, of course,

but where a cottage in the country might have once been de rigueur. now the trend is intrnational. Just be sure,

we are advised, that your "escape" is near an airport.

So, for instance, you might like the cosy five bedroom, five bathroom "minimalist"  villa in the Balearic

Islands for 5.85 million pounds. It is just a holiday place, after all. Or if you prefer a regular house in London -

Notting Hill, say, there's what looks like a quite decent condominium for 10.9 million pounds. And don't overlook

the three story town house in New York's Tribeca - no price listed for that one but, as they say, if you have to ask

. . .

Then, of course, you'll need to decorate the house - and yourself. The FT comes through again with

a nice selection and discussion of art of several genres to hang on your walls and designer gowns and

bespoke suits to hang on your frame. All you need, as the Beatles so famously assured us, is love, love, love -

which we know is one commodity that can't be bought with money. Can it? 

You might well ask, by the way, how I can afford a subscription to such an expensive publication. (A friend,

when told that the "pink" paper on my doorstep was the FT, suggested that green would be much more

appropriate). The truth is that if they didn't occasionally offer six months, six days a week delivery for $53.4c, a

fraction of the regular cost, I would be priced out. When the six months is up and the renewal notice demands

several hundred dollars, I draw in my breath and let delivery lapse - until they once again offer me so much fun at

such  good price, I just can't refuse.

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