CURRENT EVENTS

PLEASE CONSIDER COMMENTING

My thanks to Michael, Samantha & Sue,  for commenting on last week’s post. For the rest of you looking at this blog, please consider leaving a comment.  It would be interesting to me and everyone to know what you think about the various items in this week’s post.

PHYSICAL TRAITS 

Honor Thy Temple

We work so hard to maintain our health, please don’t offset that effort with dangerous driving habits.

CHARACTER TRAITS

The Foundation for Being Extraordinary

In Chapter 6 of my book, I talk about courage.  It takes a lot of courage to follow your own path as Steve Jobs says below.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Source: Steve Jobs

SOCIAL TRAITS

Getting Along with Others

LEARNING TRAITS

Growth Keeps You Extraordinary

In chapter 40 of my book, I talk about seeing and hearing what is there, and not what you want to be there.

I believe cooking tips should fall under this category, so here is a cooking tip that you may find useful.

MISCELLANEOUS 

The Odds & Ends of Being Extraordinary

SELF-HELP BOOKS

The Creative Habit

By Twyla Tharp

If you want to keep your creativity fine-tuned, you may want to check this book out. 

Leon & Lulu’s

Please don’t forget that Sunday, October 23 at Leon & Lulu, you will have the opportunity to speak with many authors, including myself.  For more info, including the authors that will be there, click on the link below.

http://www.leonandlulu.com/events/books-authors/

MOVIE OF THE WEEK

 Elementary

This TV series has just started its 5th season and if you are a Sherlock Holmes fan, as am I, you really need to watch this show.  Nigel Bruce was a great Dr. Watson, but Lucy Liu brings a new dimension to the character of Dr. Watson.

MUSIC OF THE WEEK

Time to get in the mood for Halloween.

Monster Mash

by Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers

Jessie’s Girl

LAST WEEK’S POLL – Do you wish to be extraordinary?

     

The results:

37% – thought they were already extraordinary

32% – wanted to be like the two guys pictured above

21% – Wanted to try to be extraordinary so that they would at least become more than they were.

10% – Didn’t want to be extraordinary.

THIS WEEK’S POLL – How will you celebrate Halloween?

ART OF THE WEEK

Bird Girl

Sculpted in 1936, by Sylvia Shaw

 

Sculpted in 1936, “Bird Girl” by Sylvia Shaw Judson stood in obscurity for decades in Savannah’s Bonaventure Cemetery, where it was named “Little Wendy” by the family that paid for it.

That ended in 1994, when a photo of the statue appeared on the cover of the bestselling “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” book cover and acquired its new Bird Girl name.

Fans flocked to the cemetery. Some began chipping off pieces of the statue’s base for souvenirs. The family grabbed their statue and moved it into Savannah’s fancy Telfair Museum of Art, where no chipping or photos are allowed. There’s already one on the book cover….

Sylvia Shaw Judson was dead long before the book was published. She had made several exact duplicates of her statue, so there are a handful of Bird Girls floating around out there, but the one in Savannah is the famous one. (Source: http://www.roadsideamerica.com)

EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE

Tony Bennett

Anthony Dominick Benedetto (born August 3, 1926, which makes him 90 years old), known professionally as Tony Bennett, is an American singer of traditional pop standards, big band, show tunes, and jazz.

He is also a painter, having created works under the name Anthony Benedetto that are on permanent public display in several institutions. He is the founder of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York.

He fought in the final stages of World War II as a U.S. Army infantryman in the European Theater. Afterward, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records and had his first number-one popular song with “Because of You” in 1951.

In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”. His career and his personal life experienced an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era.

Bennett staged a comeback in the late 1980s and 1990s, putting out gold record albums again and expanding his reach to the MTV Generation while keeping his musical style intact.

He has won 19 Grammy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award, presented in 2001) and two Emmy Awards, and was named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree. He has sold over 50 million records worldwide. (Source: Wikipedia)

THIS WEEK’S JOKE

BLOG

My thanks to Michael & Sierramarks, who started following my blog (Currently 86 followers) and Samantha, who liked my Harmony Books & Films Facebook page (Currently 101 likes).

If you think this blog has any merit, please pass it on to your friends.  Hopefully, more of you will continue to share this blog with others. My thanks to Cynthia, Elizabeth & Joanne, for sharing my post last week on Facebook.

MY BOOK

If you are one of the 100 to 150 people who have read my book, please consider posting an evaluation of it on Amazon.

My book is available on-line from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million.  The Kindle version of my book is $4.95.

http://www.amazon.com/Tired-Being-Ordinary-Are-You/dp/0990388697

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/im-tired-of-being-ordinary-are-you-wm-allen/1120528064?ean=9780990388692

http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Im-Tired-Being-Ordinary/Wm-Allen/9780990388692?id=6429711012885