Category Archives: Awards

On Versatile Nominations and Hard to Find Decks

17 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Awards, Photography, Tarot

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Indeed, life is what happens while we are busy with other things…

If someone had told me i’d develop an obsession for cupcakes, i wouldn’t really believe them; i hardly ever eat sweets, cupcakes are not really common where i am, most of the ingredients used to make them are unavailable in our parts… Lo and behold, i stumbled upon Judy’s blog and formally converted into cupcakeism!

And as it usually happens, one thing lead to another and i became a Kenley’s blog devotee as well!

I don’t even remember how i got to HarsH ReaLity, but as soon as i read Opinionated Man’s Intro, i became a follower!

I am hooked on Paul Mark’s inspiring and motivating posts!

The conspiracy of pleasure got me at first post’s skimming!

You might be surprised, but yet another blog i follow religiously is Small Business of America News; not that i do business in US, but out of principal – owners of the small, independent  businesses everywhere in the world are the very class on which the rule of democracy depends, hence my (symbolical, but still -) support.

thebettermanprojects is an old favorite.

These guys post amazing photography:

http://hellboy2503.wordpress.com

http://sethsnap.com/

http://skww.wordpress.com

http://pixavantgarde.com

http://hikingphoto.com/

I love, love, love mymostlyunfabulouslife!

Maxim‘s is a versatile and pensive blog…

And i guess by now it’s pretty clear who is to blame for these scrambled thoughts and VERSATILE NOMINATIONS… the Tarot Alchemist herself!

versatileblogger111

Given that i ramble a lot about myself, here are (yet another) 7 interesting things about my collection:

(as promised to tuttacronaca )

Like every Tarot collector, i am a sucker for HTF (hard to find) decks, here is one of my darlings, Carnivale Tarot (Taiwan):

Carnivale Tarot (Taiwan)Carnivale Tarot (Taiwan)2

And another HTF deck from my collection, Turkish Kurmay Tarot:

Kurmay Tarot

I love dark decks – in thee foreground from right to left: Robert Place’s Vampire deck, New Orleans Voodoo (trimmed), Magical Forest:

Bohemian Gothic, Deviant Moon, Necronomicon, Favole, Vampires, Voodoo, Magical Forest

and French decks (in the foreground: ‘The True Tarot of Marseilles’)

Noblet, Vieville, Tarot de Paris, Le Veritable Tarot de Marseille

It goes without saying that i adore decks which depict cats (left to right: I Gati Buffi, I Gati Serie Originali, Baroq Bohemian Cats in their very own BBC bag)I Gati Buffi, I Gati Serie, Bohemian Baroque Cats

I ‘ve mentioned  sub-collections before as the fastest way to spend significant sums in the least possible time; these two babies i got (ehem) because they were created by members of the same family, father and daughter Trevisan – Tarot of the Renaissance and Crystal Tarot:

Trevisan decks

And now, ladies and gentleman, tada! Here is the latest arrival to the collection, The Grail Tarot:

The Grail Tarot

Don’t ask! 😉

Keep Calm and Blog on

10 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Awards

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It’s my 1st Anniversary on WordPress! Party time! It’s been an amazing year and i loved every moment of it… Hold on, that’s not the whole truth. It’s more honest to say: i loved almost every moment of it!  I couldn’t sleep AT ALL the night after my my very first WordPress post, i was excited, i was anxious, i was thrilled!

Oh, and i was such a techno-dummy back then! Not that i am a wizard now, but i had spent months googling mysterious terms such as WIDGET, trying to figure out how to insert pictures, links and just about anything else. And it took me MONTHS to get it what a pingback was!

Then the sweating over copy-right; I had emailed every single publisher whose decks i posted here, waited for an official reply from them – and for written authorization to use images of their copyrighted artwork.  I am still strict with copy-right of anything i use in my posts, the thing is that publishers are fine with images of up to six cards from any deck being posted, as long as the copyright notice is there, there is no need to send them official inquiries and insist on getting a written authorization.

All of it can get quite overbearing in the beginning, i think the first month or so i was logged in almost all of my waken time, trying to figure out  plugins, themes and other WordPress wonders.

Funnily, writing per se took the least of my time. There is a brief notice i posted at About this blog on why, being a published writer, i switched to blogosphere – mind you, i partially blame the funny evolution of-social networking for that!

It took me a lot of courage to  start posting my own photographs, i was taken aback and felt humbled that those were liked! In the art of photography i am an absolute dilettante, i know nothing about it – i simply capture some special to me moments with automatic camera and later on retouch them a bit digitally, that’s it. The thing is that through these enthusiastic efforts here on WordPress i got to know some great artists whose work i love.

WordPress is a world unto itself, and it’s a safe, creative and supportive one. I have dabbled on phenomena of blogosphere before, in Pirate’s Heart &The Copper Sun.

It’s doable and you can make it, even if English is not your first language, and even if you write in it while living in one of those tiny European countries which most have problems pinpointing on the map.

Still, most of the advice on blogging is quite useless, what worked for some won’t work for others and there is no formula for success… Except the usual: do what you love, make it as relevant to others as you can, make it positive, at least in the potential – even the darkest of it.

I am all for quality, i don’t see a point in flooding other bloggers’ readers and I must confess that i am the first to unsubscribe from folks who overdo it.

I love Truth and Cake and i think Rian’s advice on how to start a blog and how to keep it going is about the best you can get.

I’d add only one thing: please don’t start your blog entries with WOW and AWW, it’s such a turn off! A great post on use of REALLY, LIKE & other simulacra by an adjunct professor of English was recently Freshly Pressed, if you are still tempted to use I MEAN, WHATEVER & GEEZ  in your writing, please, do take the time to read it.

To my amazement, the rant i had written about Slavoj Zizek became the most popular piece I’ve posted; funnily, second to it is the entry mentioning Kate Upton’s cellulite.

The statistics are downright breath-taking, in a year of blogging more people had read my writings than over in a decade of traditional publishing:

top views by country

The blog is featured at Portal Montenegrina, the main online cultural gate to my country, sponsored among else by U.S. Embassy in Montenegro and Government of Montenegro.

portal montenegrina widget

Meanwhile, in my native Montenegro, I published a collection of poems. Devil, an unauthorized biography was promoted at last Winter’s Book fair and at one of the main regional art&literature festivals held in the summer at the coastal city of Budva.

Other than that, in 2012 I’ve completed second year of the doctoral program at Pushkin University in Moscow; I’ve been to Brussels at the conference on author’s rights, chaired a session at the European Parliament, traveled to Hungary to attend P.E.N. congress, took some cool shoots of Pest and wrote a poem.

Not too bad, now that i think of it. 😉

WordPress Anniversary

Lovely (Blog) Or Not

21 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Awards

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Makya McBee’s is probably the best ever blog entry on WordPress “awards”: “Here’s how they work. When you win this award, you are requested to nominate ten other blogs…it’s essentially an award chain letter. Obviously, if every blogger that won this award were to nominate ten others, every single blogger in the world will have won within a matter of days. I’ve got to figure this hurts the prestige just a little. I mean, if after winning the Academy Award, Denzel was given ten more Oscars to quickly hand out to folks in the audience and so on and so forth…

…The internet has helped to create a world in which anyone can rant about anything, upload hilarious shots of teenagers getting hit in the crotch, and create your very own “music” video…and talent is never a prerequisite. Like almost everything in the universe, this is good and bad. But the web’s content is still mostly the latter. I’m sorry, but we’re not all special.

But not me, I am special. Clearly. I mean, I won an award, suckers.“

To me, the award thing is like recommending your favorite books to your ‘real life’ friends – it certainly doesn’t mean the book you liked increased its chances of winning a Booker, but the friend will appreciate the recommendation; more so that advice on books is the only advice i personally take from others. See, i gave up long ago advising anyone on anything – and i don’t ask for advice either; when we are ready to deal with anything perceived as a challenge, we are granted clarity of thought too – and strength to handle whatever was sent sent our way; before that – it’s futile to get advice and in my experience it only develops animosity to whomever is giving it.

Just think of the last time someone close to you vented about their partner or children, how irresponsible or inconsiderate they were… If you are naive enough to advice them anything – to calm down, not to take it that way, to seek counseling – first, chances are they’ll take out their frustration on you, second – once they make it up with their significant others, you’ll be the mean bitch who wished them ill… So, nay. I am not listening to angry rants – and i am sparing my friends of mine; there are peeps who are trained to deal with it – i am not.

When it comes to books, it’s all another story – if you recommend me a book i haven’t read and i like it – you opened the door for me to an adventure of which i didn’t know it existed and that’s the kind of surprise i like the most. Especially when it comes to these complex philosophical subjects i like to meddle with – a good recommendation is worth of gold.

So, that’s how i view WordPress ‘awards’ – its merely my list of blogs i check out whenever they post something new because its authors are talented, creative and non-commercial.  Which is – on many blogs i follow you can buy photography or books, that’s one thing, but the blogs which open with: I started this so you can buy  *insert whatever they are selling ..* No, thank you – i can look up myself whatever i need to buy and i loathe aggressive marketing tactics, i have enough of marketers in real life.

(And if one is down to pressuring their  blog followers to buy products or services – i believe they’d rather rethink their business strategy, i really don’t think it earns anything more then embarrassment; a blog, as i see it, is for expanding on what we do and why, and to promote it – not to guilt trip someone to buy stuff just because they stopped by to read an entry or two – in my opinion that is.)

So, this is my list of some of my favorite blogs (in no particular order) which offer awesome content – and some of it is available for sale; i really don’t expect anyone to continue this chain-thing, unless they find it utterly entertaining :

1. Arlen is a super cool guy from Armenia who loves animal and writes books: http://arlenshah.wordpress.com

2. Dianne Gray is an amazing author from Australia whose latest blog entry got Freshly Pressed: http://diannegray.wordpress.com

3. Bonnie Cehovet is a prolific blogger who writes great microfiction and the best tarot and oracle reviews i know of: http://bonniecehovet.wordpress.com

4. Tea& Tao is a great blog for daily inspiration: http://teaandtao.com

5. Judy offers amazing recipes and baking tips: http://petit4chocolatier.wordpress.com

6. Slicethelife posts awesome insight into American history and some great pics too: http://slicethelife.com

7. The cultureur has impressive intellectual content: http://thecultureur.com

8. Leanne Cole posts great photographs: http://leannecolephotography.com

9. I love Christian Mihai’s writing style: http://cristianmihai.net

10. Russel Ray and Zoey are among my favorites: http://russelrayphotos2.com

11. Setsnap is a place to go on gloomy days, you’ll love his pictures and they will brighten your mood: http://sethsnap.wordpress.com

12. Marviilous is an amazing Indonesian woman living in US who is snapping some marvelous  pictures of wildlife and landscapes: http://marviiilous.wordpress.com

13. Anne writes great poetry: http://shrewdbanana.wordpress.com

14. I adore Truth&Cake: http://truthandcake.com

15. Shovonc is one of the best satire writers around and his blog is on the stuff that does matter: http://shovonc.wordpress.com/

There are many more blogs i love and follow, but sadly this round i can recommend only fifteen of them.

I am also supposed to write seven things about myself (and so are you, if you are to continue the game), so here they are:

1. I am somewhat irked by the term ‘blogger’ – many of us are published writers and recognized artists who simply choose new venues of publishing. Here you can read my musings on the phenomena of blogosphere.

2. I don’t really make a difference between so-called “real life” and online experiences, To Hell With Common Sense is about that.

3. Prague, a coming of age story is an excerpt from my memoir, and the first piece i wrote in English; it took ages and i cried of frustration, but i am glad how it turned out at the end.

4. According to WordPress statistics, in less then a year since i started this blog more people have read what i write – than in 12 years since i was first published in my native Montenegro.

5. The photographs i often include in my posts are taken by automatic camera, i can’t claim i know anything about the art of photography – i simply snap some moments that are special to me; i am happy i can connect with guys who are pros that way and i love keeping up with what they do.

6. I oftentimes prefer thinking in solitude to events and crowds of people, so this blog and my writing in general is more about ideas which to this or that extent influence all of us – no matter the geographical location.

7. I’ll be moving to Moscow soon, i am working on my PhD thesis there,  so stay tuned for more  From Russia With Love writings and pictures too.

With Love,

wherever you are

L.R.S.

Pirate’s Heart &The Copper Sun

12 Wednesday Sep 2012

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The Copper Sun

Many thanks to my cyber darling Managua for yet another sunny surprise, he is the guy who by default sees the light where it’s concealed – as it  seems – by default.

We are all a part of the new phenomena of BLOGOSPHERE – of the brand new paradigm, the most revolutionary and most exciting shift the written word made ever since the Guteneberg’s invention of the printing press.

Gone is the middle man – the publisher, gone is the monopoly on information, gone is the editor – in our parts, hand in hand with the infamous censor, followed by its doppelgänger – the self-censor…

Gone are beach reads, chick lit and all other euphemisms used for fiction of low quality – and the new phenomena is born – that of the confessional and memoir blogging.

It will take time until all of it is canonized, academi-zed and, basically, subjected to all kinds of ISMs which will eventually make it mainstream and probably – over time – quite boring and passe and something newer will be born then…

For now though, we are enjoying the ride, the free flowing, the utter lack of mercantilism and the profound immersion in the unadulterated joy of the intellectual exchange and emotional bonding with folks who are wired the same way.

We could say it’s all very much like some cyber version of Huxley’s Chrome Yellow, in which he conceived The Brave New World where (in words of Mr. Scogan, one of the characters) an “impersonal generation” of the future “take(s) the place of Nature’s hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world.”

In the cyber, mind you. Otherwise, many (most?) of us couldn’t and wouldn’t give up on some previously existing commitments – be those down to an spoiled-rotten cat, eccentric parents, an ancient system of belief and a tiny nation – or anything and anyone else that’s, by our own choice or not, between us and the abstract category of the ‘absolute freedom’.

Yet, within blogosphere, miracles are the norm.

Within last 72 hours or so, i’ve been with Managua to Starý Smokovec – don’t listen to his exalted ravings, it’s a boring Slovakian village for which – for unbeknownst to me reasons – he has a thing.

Larry and i had one of those posh academic exchanges about stuff we both know, but call different names;

the moving force behind realmanure and i have developed one of those epic bonds that transgress the personal and local, rectifying thus the universal;

thanks to Arlen i learned what’s Armenian alphabet like – and got infected once again with the wanderlust…

I was with sohojay in NYC, we mourned.

I met lichtbilwefer and they told me of goats’ skins and sweetened teas in places mysterious and not-so-clean.

I check out on Zoey regularly, she got under my skin.

Bonnie Cehovet told me of urban magic and where to find it in the city.

Nonoymanga got me hooked on Manga, hand drawing and animation – and i became their follower number 1001.

I’ve peeked into the curious cabinet of Le Fanu, everyone’s favorite Tarot collector in the far off lands.

Jema tok me for a stroll in Savannah – she hadn’t warned me though it will be snowing! I was taken aback by encountering fully dressed giraffe walking on her back legs – accompanied by an easygoing elephant – but it turned out to be the norm when it’s snowing in Savannah!

Stephen took me for a walk along the cobbled streets in Stromness; Author Dianne Gray pointed out that fickle finger of fate, while wondering wasn’t it all just a little too intense for her own good…

Amras was telling me about healing powers of crystals and the pirate whose heart got stolen by the sea, told me the story of the Copper Sun…

Adventurous Blogger Award

25 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by in Awards

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Managua, thank you so much for nominating my blog!

The nominated blogger should refer back to the blogger who nominated them, then answer the 7 questions below about their adventurous soul. The nominee should then nominate a crew of 12 bloggers for the Adventurous Blogger Award, and let them know of the nomination. The green Adventurous Blogger Award ‘patch’, when copy/pasted onto winning blogs, can be linked back to the awarding blogger if desired.

1. In which country or region would you like your next adventure to be?

Central Asia

2. Where would you recommend for an adventurous time?

Inner Mongolia or Moldova

3. Most interesting culture

That’s a tough one – there are several i am a fan of (not in any particular order): Anglo-Saxon, Chinese, Montenegrin of course and last, but not the least – Israeli

4. Favourite activity

Meddling in the occult

5. Most dangerous risk taken

Too many to list, most illegal, many immoral 😉

6. Favourite quotation

What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn (Shab. 31a).
Hillel

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
Oscar Wilde

Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that.
Mikhail Bulgakov

7. Happiness is… 

… ephemeral and fulfillment usually has to do with poor memory, good health, cats, nice  home, cool people and staying away from commie countries

My crew of 12 Nominations for Adventurous Blogger Awards, whose blogs i’d choose to read on a desert island ( for reasons you’ll find out by visiting their blogs)  are:

1. Managua, of course

2. One and only Bonnie Cehovet

3. Realmanure, making sense out of nonsense

4. Pip, one of the most moving and honest bloggers on www

5. Le Fanu, Tarot collector in a far off land

6. Another nomination for  Russel Ray

7. Toemail of toemail community

8. Amazing Dianne Gray

9. marviiilous who captures magic in the everyday’s

10. Savitri Ananda of Aristocrats of the Soul

11. Alison Cross of Hestia’s Larder

12. David J. Lew, the erthquakeboy

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Inspiring Blogger Award Nomination: Circle of Love

19 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in Awards

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I would like to express my gratitude to REALMANURE for nominating my blog for Inspiring Blogger Award – thank you from the bottom of my heart!

By the rules, once you are nominated , you need to list seven things about you, before listing your own nominations; given that i’ve been going on and on about my own self, i’d like to introduce bloggers i am nominating – they speak of me and my choices better than i ever could:

(in no particular order)

1. Bonnie Cehovet, an amazing mystic and author of some of the best pieces of flash fiction in history

2. Alison Cross, one of the wittiest and most inspiring bloggers on www

3. Lisa Frideborg Lloyd, Holistic Tarot Healer and Reader, author of one of the best Tarot blogs in existence

4. Arie Moyal because he has a vision i support wholeheartedly (and because i hope this nomination might inspire him to post more often )

5. Managua because he puts his heart into what he writes – and he does write well!

6. Russel Ray because he takes amazing pictures of animals, is a dad of a wonder-cat Zoey who is first to approve all of his work -and because he writes interestingly and engagingly!

7.  REALMANURE, because she makes us think, re-think and then think some more!

So these were mine seven ‘shots’ and here are other blogs i find amazing and follow with great interest:

8. http://stephaniescofield.wordpress.com/

9. http://craighill.net/

10. http://creatinganewearthtogether.com/

11. http://taliamarcheggiani.wordpress.com/

12. http://marviiilous.wordpress.com/

13. http://dolitotaiwan.wordpress.com/

14. http://pipmiller.wordpress.com

15. http://truthandcake.com

Now for the RULES to follow when nominated for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award:

  1. Display the award logo on your blog.
  2. Link back to the person who nominated you.
  3. State 7 things about yourself.
  4. Nominate 15 other bloggers for this award and link to them.
  5. Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award’s requirements.