For all E2 creative writers:

It may seem that because we live in a fractured world the art of storytelling is dead. It may seem that because we live in a world without coherent belief, a world that has lost its center, in which a multitude of contending versions of reality clamour in the mind, that storytelling and enchantment are no longer relevant. This is a sad view. Worse than that, it is a view that implies that we no longer have a basis from which to speak to one another. When we do attempt speech or song we do it solipsistically, in fractured tones. This negative view of storytelling also implies that there are no continuities in the human experience, and no magical places resident in us that we can call up in one another.

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Poets, be cunning. Learn some of the miracles. Survive. Weave your transformations in your life as well as in your work. Live. Stay alive. Don't go under, don't go mad, don't let them define you, or confine you, or buy your silence. If they do confine you, burst out of their prisons with wilder fatidical songs. Be a counter-antagonist, break their anti-myths. Where the enemies breed destruction, sow seeds of startling lights. Keep sowing. Time will reap. Weave your songs by whatever means you can. "What doesn't kill us makes us strong," wrote Nietzsche. There is no reason why the poet, if possessed of practical intelligence, cannot survive as well as the politician, or the banker. Don't become a dying breed. Dare to stick around for the hard and beautiful harvest. We need you even as we antagonize you. Remember: it is from the strength of your antagonists that you derive your greater authority. They make it absolutely necessary for you to be more than yourself. Follow Melville's precept, which he had nailed to his writing desk: Be true to the dreams of thy youth. After your untimely and much lamented death, we would shout about how much we miss the uniqueness of your voice, your demanding presence, your duende. Don't wait until you are dead to know that in reality the whole of life is on your side.

Ben Okri, A Way of Being Free

The Wood Female Tiger

For sheer excitement and activity, very little can match the company of this hyper, energetic lady! In her company, you will never be bored. Indeed you could be mesmerized by waves of mad behaviour that send ripples of anticipation down your spine! She is totally unconventional and full of fun ideas. She is charming, tempermental and flamboyant, and unless you can keep up with her mood swings and impulsive propositions, better to stay clear. But if you want her, be manipulative. Flatter her, cajole her, appeal to her passionate nature, and she'll lap it all up!

A skeleton walks in to a bar
and asks for a beer and a mop.

Je ne t'aime plus, mon amour.
Je ne t'aime plus, tous les jours.

The world will be saved by Beauty
Prince Myshkin, The Idiot

I want to write your name in Khmer. /msg me your name (I mean would you prefer your online name or the one you use outside) and address and I will mail it to you. Some names need not apply. Um, by this I don't mean I might not like you, but that some names just can't be written properly in Khmer. Not by me anyway. The added bonus is that your name will be written on the most fabulous Taiwanese stationary I have.

Those who have: ascorbic, vilk, JohnnyGoodyear, NinjaPenguin, TheDeadGuy, Apatrix, rischi, atesh, anthropod, 00100, Siobhan, Starke, BlueDragon, arcanamundi, RainDropUp, siouxsie, Oolong, purple_curtain, yossarian, Chihuahua Grub, graceness, wertperch, Segnbora-T, iocane, Chiisuta, icicle, cami, momomom.