Creative Copying

Be careful how you copy an idea. When something is a cute gimmick for one organization, for another to take the exact same idea is pretty obvious. Take Cleveland Opera, whose blog I follow. It has its 'chicken' spokesman. It's cute, it works, it's fun. Now my local Yakima Symphony has suddenly out of the mysterious blue taken on its own ugly "Teddy's Tales," by a spoiled looking doggy. I am not amused and I think it is entirely unclever.

On the home front I have a new recipe to add to my cookbook project: Fiery Pasta Verde! Perhaps this project will be my impetus for inspiration throughout the year. I am still shying away from another writing project although I did get one lonely little idea for working on that too.

I am in the middle of reading Sydney Rittenberg's "The Man Who Stayed Behind" of his personal accounts of his work in China, working with Mao Ze Dong, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De and colleagues during the revolution. It is pretty amazing...I really recommend this book if you want to know a first hand account published in English about the communist rise to power.

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