Writers Unbound

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Congdon

Amanda Congdon (born August 4[1],1981 in New York City) was the co-producer and host of a weekly vidcast for ABC.[2] She has an independent videoblog, Starring Amanda Congdon. She is also co-president of Oxmour Entertainment along with Mario Librandi and was the host of Amanda Across America before it concluded. However, she is probably best known for hosting the daily news show Rocketboom[3], which she hosted and produced until 23 June 2006. She is still the co-owner (49%) of Rocketboom but a controversial dispute between her and the 51% shareholder Andrew Baron has resulted in her no longer hosting or producing the show. She also was the co-executive producer of JETSET (now EPIC FU) for the first several episodes of the show.[4]

Congdon was born and raised in Manhattan and graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern University.[5] Once she graduated she took a job at Saatchi & Saatchi, an advertising agency.[6] She had leading roles in Waafrika (Red Room Theater) and Independence (Manhattan Theatre Source) and, during the second season, appeared as the coat check attendant on Rocco’s The Restaurant.[6] She has also appeared on CSI, The Chris Rock Show (on HBO), a Showtime pilot and Cake Presents. She can be seen in a Northstar music video which aired on MTV2, FUSE, and VH1’s My Coolest Years.[5]

Contents [hide]
1 Involvement with Rocketboom
1.1 Departure from Rocketboom
2 Amanda Across America
3 Television
4 Current project
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Involvement with Rocketboom
Congdon began as Rocketboom’s anchor with the show’s 26 October 2004 debut and gave her own reports, often with a comedic slant.

As she went from an initial 700 viewers in 2004 to 70,000 viewers in Rocketboom’s first ten months, her success was noted by CBS Evening News, Wired, the Associated Press, and others[citation needed]. BusinessWeek labeled it “the most popular site of its kind on the Net”[citation needed]. More viewers visited Rocketboom after a 11 June 2006 interview with Congdon on CNN.[7] The following day, ABC News described her usual approach:

“ Congdon sits behind the news desk, in front of a world map, as if she’s going to report hard-hitting news, but when she starts talking, she is everything but a typical news anchor: Her eyes pop with expression, her content is quirky, and her hand gestures animated.[8] ”

Her audience continued to increase, going from 100,000 vlog viewers at the end of 2005 to 300,000 by the spring of 2006. Congdon’s catapult to fame was noted in the media. Brad Stone, writing in Newsweek, commented:

“ It helps, of course, to have talent and some youthful, Web-savvy insouciance. Amanda Congdon has both, and her daily videocast, Rocketboom, is another breakout Web hit. Congdon, 24, was a struggling actress in late 2004 when she answered an Internet ad by Web entrepreneur Andrew Michael Baron, who was looking to start a newsy Webcast. Today their edgy three-minute episodes, starring and co-written by Congdon, riff off things ranging from White House scandals to the new Web-browser wars. With 130,000 daily viewers, Congdon is now getting approached by book and TV agents. “One of the best pieces of advice I ever received from an acting coach was to go out there and create your own vehicle,” she says. “The Internet allows you to do that.”[9] ”

Amanda Congdon interviewing Jimbo Wales at the Time 100 Most Influential People Gala (8 May 2006)Congdon sometimes went on the road. One memorable episode showed her dancing in various locations throughout St. Petersburg, Russia. She has also performed her frenetic signature dance in the streets and parks of Austin and other cities. In some episodes, Congdon appeared in various Manhattan locations, talking to store managers and people on the street. In the 15 April 2005 episode, she stood in Washington Square Park and posed the question “Mac or PC?” to anyone walking by.[10] Eight months later, she returned to the same spot to ask, “Internet Explorer or Firefox?”[11] In an Office Pirates video parody of Rocketboom, Manhattanites were asked, “Coffee or tea?”, and Congdon’s news desk idiosyncrasies — her signature head swivel, “hair flip” and habitual paper tossing — were also mocked.[12]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvzlQAjbcT0

Marianne Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was a Modernist American poet and writer.

Contents [hide]
1 Life
2 Poetic career
3 Later years
4 Selected works
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Life
Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of construction engineer and inventor John Milton Moore and his wife, Mary Warner. She grew up in her grandfather’s household; her father having been committed to a mental hospital before her birth. In 1905, Moore entered Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and graduated four years later. She taught at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, until 1915, when Moore began to publish poetry professionally.

[edit] Poetic career
In part because of her extensive European travels before the First World War, Moore came to the attention of poets as diverse as Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, H.D., T. S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound. From 1925 until 1929, Moore served as editor of the literary and cultural journal The Dial. This continued her role, similar to that of Pound, as a patron of poetry, encouraging promising young poets, including Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery and James Merrill, and publishing early work, as well as refining poetic technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf85YP4FOpo
Photograph by George Platt Lynes (1935)In 1933, Moore was awarded the Helen Haire Levinson Prize from Poetry. Her Collected Poems of 1951 is perhaps her most rewarded work; it earned the poet the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bollingen Prize. Moore became a minor celebrity, in New York literary circles, serving as unofficial hostess for the Mayor. She attended boxing matches, baseball games and other public events, dressed in what became her signature garb, a tricorn hat and a black cape. She particularly liked athletics and athletes, and was a great admirer of Muhammad Ali, for whose spoken-word album, I Am the Greatest!, she wrote liner notes. Moore continued to publish poems in various journals, including The Nation, The New Republic, and Partisan Review, as well as publishing various books and collections of her poetry and criticism. Moore corresponded for a time with W. H. Auden and Ezra Pound during the latter’s incarceration.

Her most famous poem is perhaps the one entitled, appropriately, “Poetry”, in which she hopes for poets who can produce “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.” It also expressed her idea that meter, or anything else that claims the exclusive title, “poetry,” is not as important as delight in language and precise, heartfelt expression in any form. She often composed her own poetry in syllabics. These syllabic lines from “Poetry” illustrate her position: poetry is a matter of skill and honesty in any form whatsoever, while anything written poorly, although in perfect form, cannot be poetry:

nor is it valid
to discriminate against “business documents and
school-books”: all these phenomena are important. One must make a distinction
however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry

At work the other day, a customer and I were discussing that he walk more. He was one of the newer men who have osteoperous. Though he did a lot of the recommended diet, supplements, and exercise his bones had weakened. He was in his late 60’s-early seventies.

He began to tell stories and he said that he had a lot of land around him where he could walk. I was ready to say,”Good” and return to my shelving stock. “However”, he continued with a glint in his eye, “There are a lot of rattle sankes out there.” His next hook was,”Did you know that rattle snakes don’t rattle anymore?” He explained that his brother was a snake specialist and something else scientific, and he had read that the rattle snakes have stopped making the noise because of too many rattle snake hunters! The study was done in Arizona where there are/were plenty of snakes.

As an ocassional hiker who knows how easily snakes blend into their environment I felt a wave of dis-ease. If I were out on a hot afternoon, and a good distance from the road, returning to safety in time could be a problem. I have seen snake road kill and a four foot snake is common, and I once saw one nearly seven feet long in the southern part of New Mexico. If I were bit more than once….

The story continued. His brother, himself, and his dog were recently on a hike. His brother and dog had proceeded ahead of him. He kept walking and suddenly noticed a big diamond head rattler on the edge of the path. The snake was coiled in an attack pose and was totally still. The hiker froze.

I did find some files on her by Joe Wysong from the Gestalt Journal. Google Barry Stevens and you’ll find his PDF’s and remembrances. Long ago, when I was a young college student, I read “Don’t Push the River”. I believe an old history teacher told me about that. Inspired by Gestalt therapy and Barry’s writings, I hitchiked across Canada and landed on Vacouver Island at Cocitan (Sp?) Lake. I was accepted into a 3 month training program. During my time there I met a woman who was a friend of Barry Stevens. Later when I was in San Francisco, she asked if I would like to meet her.

In a relatively short visit before dinner, we talked about a lot of things while also doing a basic tai chi pose. We also talked about writing. Somehow I had “grace” enough to just be there with her.

If you have never read her works, I highly encourage you to do so. Warning: you may burst out laughing. Read on.

Life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Stevens_(therapist)#LifeStevens was a self-described “High School drop-out, 1918, because what she wanted to know, she couldn’t learn in school.”[1]

Fritz Perls described Barry Stevens as “a natural born therapist.”[2]

[edit] Publications
Her publications include Don’t Push the River (It Flows by Itself), a first-person account of Stevens’ investigations of Gestalt Therapy. It shows the author during a period of several months in association with Fritz Perls at Perls’ Gestalt Institute of Canada at Lake Cowichan, Vancouver Island, in 1969. Barry Stevens describes both Gestalt therapy theory and practice and her relationship with Fritz Perls in a sensitive way. Thus creating a vivid image of Perls in the last months of his life.

In addition she explored Zen Buddhism, the philosophy of J. Krishnamurti, and American Indian religious practices in an effort “to deepen and expand personal experience and work through difficulties.” “We have to turn ourselves upside down and reverse our approach to life.”[3] Alternating with episodes from her earlier days, it became a “best-seller” in the circles of humanistic psychology.[2]

[edit] Personal life
She is the mother of John O. Stevens who is also a writer, Gestalt therapist and NLP-trainer. John O. “Steve” Stevens founded Real People Press, a publisher of works on psychology and personal change in 1967, in order to publish a book by Carl Rogers and Barry Stevens entitled “Person to Person”. He published books on Gestalt therapy; he was responsible for the compilation of Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, the media event that brought Gestalt therapy to public attention in the late 1960’s. And he is also the editor of Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain: The Essence of Tai Chi by Al Huang, to which he and Barry Stevens wrote the preface. He later changed his name to Steve Andreas.[2]

“One night about eleven years ago I had a dream, more like a vision, so real and stunning in clarity I never forgot it. Although I knew it was extremely important I didn’t at the time know what it meant in terms of my life. I’ve shared this dream with only three close friends. However I now feel a need to more fully claim it as I begin to understand how it relates to my life path.

THE VISION: It’s a late night, very dark and quiet outside, peaceful. I’m sitting cross legged before a warm fire inside a small teepee. It’s barely big enough to hold four people, but I’m alone. My hide dress is adorned with paint and beads and my hair runs in two braids down my shoulders. I cuddle into the warmth of the fire and watch its orange glow dance over the teepee walls. I know, without being told, that I’m supposed to wait. Something life altering is about to happen, something private and sacred. I feel at ease, as if I’ve known all my life that this moment would happen.

Suddenly the entrance flap is pushed aside and the oldest woman I’ve ever seen enters. She too is dressed in soft hide. Thick dove-white hair hangs in two braids tied with leather thong. Her ancient face is creased by thousands of emotions that tell the history of humankind. As she kneels on the ground beside me I notice a glowing white hoop held reverently in her weathered hands. I gasp in awe and instantly feel the beauty of the world passes through me. I’m overcome with love. The elder slowly shakes her head knowingly and extends the hoop towards me, watching my face with her black raven eyes. She speaks: “For as long as I can remember I have been the Keeper of the Circle, but my time has come to an end and I go on a different journey. Now you are the Keeper of the Circle. Never let it be broken. I am counting on you.” Before I could respond she rose and vanished into the night. I sat holding the glowing circle and asked, “But what am I supposed to do? What does this mean?” I heard her voice, “You will know when the time comes. You will know.”

The dream ended and when I awoke I felt energetically altered, filled with love and compassion so expansive it encompassed the entire world. I was so in love I wanted to weep for all of humanity, all life. However, it was only recently that I began to grasp what this vision means in terms of my life path. Last month I gave a talk about my life in the Australian rainforest at the Institute of American Indian Art (which was videoed). A few days later, while editing the film clip I share below, my vision of eleven years ago came hurtling back to me, out of nowhere. I was stunned that I had called this part of my talk “The Great Circle of Love”. Pieces of a puzzle began to fall into place. I still have a long path to walk, but then I have seen myself living as long the elder in my vision. And I see more clearly where I’m headed. Robin Easton www.nakedineden.com

This week I have posted a portion of video about my music. Many of you already know I can’t read or write music, but dream it at night, as well as often hear it in my head while going about my day. It is all original music that just overcomes me and demands to be expressed. I’m compelled to sit at the piano and play what is moving through me. I’ve no idea what keys I’m playing; my fingers just seem to have a life of their own.

When I was four years old my mother sent me to take piano lessons, but after the first lesson the teacher told my mother that I had no “aptitude” for it. Then my mother tried again when I was eleven and on the first lesson I refused to play and the teacher became angry, called my mother and said (through clenched teeth Lol), “Do…NOT…send…Robin…back.” (With the word EVER silently attached to the warning. Lol! ) However, I must have had a good ear because when I reached high school I’d occasionally play something on the piano that I’d heard on the radio. I was proficient enough that friends thought I could read music, but that only happened a handful of times, and there ended my piano playing days until I started to dream music in the Australian Rainforest.

Music is one of the truly great gifts in my life. It came to me after much deep personal growth and has stayed with me every since. I still don’t read or write music and have had no training (and still have no desire to), yet I play piano or flute almost every day. I believe that music isn’t something separate from us; it’s who we are. We must be aware of a culture (especially USA) that tends to “can” music and consign it to stereo-types, professionals, “famous” people (chuckles) and those with music degrees from Robin’s blog www.nakedineden.com

breifly ignoring all the news.
each carrying our own personal load
each escaping
meeting age old remedy
nature

snow melt feeding river stream
rocks shining
water rushing to nowhere
or a destiny beyond present
consciousness.

friend lingering
awhile longer in hospital bed
another filtering reality
good friend unexpectedly
may leave this earth soon.

is there a graceful way
to let go?
water rushing down mountainside
determined to be free now.
Does it fufill the deeper purpose
does lliving fill with contradictions?

Stories are told, again and again.
Hearts bound with breath
treetops outline skies
clouds allow shadow breath.

Where is the courage
voices carry
release of those
about to die.

Remember to call Irene
again, she would want
to know

and from down the road:

I once many years ago travelled with a friend and attended a social such as this by the elders of these folks. Song is poem. Drums let heart speak.

How many memories we have lost, the long winding walk along the tip of the cape. We felt cold November wind rise on a return. Never again could I lightly say, just around the bend, for the kept continuing and we wre very weary upon the magical time with ocean, sand, and sore feet.

I do encourage you to take time to listen and watch these videos. Much story is lost by being in a rush, and walking fast. History too has been forgotten whether personal, local, or cultural. These videos remind us of the power and dynamic expressions of earth and human voice.