Book Tour Virgin is Will Clarke.com

Hmmm. More UFOs in Phoenix

A Stroke of Insight. Literally.

Rockin' the Civic Hybrid

I got this 2006 Civic Hybrid back in April. I've been holding off about blogging about it because I wanted to see if I really liked it. And now that the verdict is in (I love it.), I thought I would evangelize the virtues of hyrbidness a little.

I downsized from a Nissan Altima, and while the Civic is a smaller car with  smaller engine, it does everything I need it to do and then some.  For a commuter car it's perfect. I get from point A to point B in one piece just like I would in say a Hummer. 

What's not to love about this car? Handling's great. The sound system comes with an iPod jack. The industrial design is kick-ass, and with gas only getting more expensive, I really love the 35 mpg in the city, 40 mpg on the hwy. And whether you lean red or blue, hybrids are the patriotic thing to do because you're reducing America's dependence on OPEC and you're reducing your carbon footprint.

The Bee Rapture

Messenger of Spring, originally uploaded by langkawi.

I good chunk of the American Honeybee population has just up and vanished. Like the rapture—no dead bodies left to be found. Just poof! No more worker bees. Which means no more pollination, which means not as much food, which means.....prices go up and....

Makes me wonder why Mama Earth has turned the bees off. Did we do something to piss her off?  Pesticides? Global Warming? Or is this just a natural cycle that happens and we're getting all Y2K about it?

I hope it's the later. I like bees and I really like a planet that offers up peanut butter honey nanner sammiches.

Here's a link to the an article in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram about it. It's quite a vexing problem. Biblical almost.

Shattered

I've been getting ready for my upcoming tour, and I've been polishing up my bios and press materials for Simon & Schuster to send out. One of my press pieces mentions a quote that I used from Robert Oppenheimer when he witnessed the world's first nuclear explosion, "I am become Death. Shatterer of Worlds." It's a line that he actually cribbed from Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita.

This quote even though I have read it a million times, for just a nanosecond seemed like a typo to me, like I had left out a word and now I feared that it was misprinted in all of my books. So just to double check, I Googled " I am become Death, Shatterer of Worlds", and I stumbled upon a photographer's website documenting the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl. This photographer's website split me wide open. 

The Geometry Of Our Lives

In 1611 Galileo wrote:

"Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean this universe—which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and it's characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without there, one is wandering about a dark labyrinth."

Our lives take a shape. Every birthday we get a new number to play with, and this new number has a shape, a geometry. The thing I always like to ponder on my birthday is how I will play with this shape. What are the lessons and opportunities that come with this new geometry and year of life? And how can I use this shape to better fulfill my role in "this grand book"?

Shakespeare said, "In nature's infinite book of secrecy, a little I can read."

I'll go one step further than the Baird, and assert that we don't only get to read from this book, but we get to write in it. We can fill the pages with the most amazing, beautiful, funny or tragic tales. We just need to know our place in this universe and understand what page the Big Mathematical Author in The Sky wants us to write on. From there we create the prose and poetry of everyday life—making beds, feeding kids, falling in love, etc.

Today, this geometry of life is what I am thinking about for my 35th year. I do this every birthday, and it's quite a fun actually. I realize it's not a usual way to spend a birthday—it might even sound a little whacked—but it is a glimpse behind my curtain so I thought I would blog about it.

While I am on the topic of numbers. Might I recommend THE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO CONSTRUCTING THE UNIVERSE. It's a really fun read, and will make a number-lover out of even the most math-averse liberal arts major.

When You Drive Over 60 MPH In A Little Red Rental Car While Driving On A Gravel Road, & You Take A Corner Too Fast & Put On the Brakes, You Will Spin Like A Tornado & Crash Into A Barbed Wire Fence, Scaring The Cows With Their Big Wet Eyes & Sacred Moos

Not that I did that, but I almost did on this very gravel road...

Hey, You! Yes, You

How did you get here?

And do you like it?

Does this site interest you in my book, LORD VISHNU'S LOVE HANDLES, or am I just wasting my time?

But most importantly, do you prefer cake or pie?

Please click here and post your response below.
Thanks.

Have You Ever Tried To Give A Stranger A Finger Puppet?

I've been on a puppet spree all day to promote my book, and to say thank you. Today, I drove around and gave area booksellers Hindu god finger puppets. I carried a big bucket full of puppets into stores and everyone got to pick their own Hindu god: Vishnu, Garuda, Ganesh or Kali. Just about every bookseller would put their chosen puppet on their finger and make it talk. Booksellers are jokey that way. Some bookstores even let me walk around and pass out puppets to customers.

This was a great way to introduce people to my book, and it was one hell of a sociology study. See, certain people look like they would like a finger puppets;they are warm and have a sparkle in their eyes. And when I would offer them a puppet, they would smile and put it on their finger and wiggle it. And then wish me good luck or ask about my book.

Then there were people who looked like they wouldn't like a finger puppet. And guess what, they didn't like them. These customers had a look of faint discomfort, not unlike the slight grimace one has when one hasn't had a bowel movement in a week or so. But I didn't want to jump to conclusions so I would offer a puppet anyway. But when I did, these customers would look at me like I was trying to give them herpes.

I could predict with uncanny accuracy whether someone would like a puppet or not. So eventually, I just asked the people who I knew would like them. No use being a pest to a bunch of crabby sour puss puppet-haters.

All in all, I gave away about 200 puppets today. It was fun, or at least it was until a crowd began to form around me at one bookstore. There was much grabbing of puppets and laughter. This commotion must have upset the manager (obviously a puppet hater) because he/she made a bookseller, who had a puppet on his finger, come up and very apologetically tell me that this kind of activity is not allowed in this particular bookstore. But it was too late, the bucket of puppets was empty; and there was no asking for them back. So I apologized for breaking the rules and politely left, feeling ever so slightly criminal and strange.

This Just In...

My tooth hurts. The one that got crowned last week.