I reviewed this guy >>>> on amazon.com 

       Yes I did. I read his book, and then I lay down a while, and then I wrote on Amazon what I’ve written below, and then I pasted it below here, and next I’m going to lay down some more. Because a bookful of Ricky is a great deal of Ricky indeed. 

       “It’s about two years since I first encountered this talkative person Ricky on Xanga, his blogging system of choice, and my first thought was “who does this guy think he is?” I now know the answer to that question; he is Ricky, and to Ricky’s mind, that’s justification enough for anything. Authority on the courage to accept the vulnerability of tears, Love Guru, counselor on the perfect handling of breakups, seeker of The Inner Batman, asker of the hard questions that others fear, or glibly skip over…. that’s Ricky, and if you don’t like it – tough!

       With plenty of time to think, and plenty of practice in doing it, Ricky charges in, wheels a-roaring, where lesser minds fear to tiptoe, and blasts out his thoughts on Love, Life, Right, Wrong, God and Faith etc. clearly and without hesitation. Ricky’s obviously thought these things out a million or more times in the not so many years of his life, and love him or hate him, this dynamic young man has created a masterwork here on how to dream despite all barriers.

       Read it for the laughs, or read it for the oddball perceptions, or read it because you’d like to know what Ricky’s razor-sharp mind thinks. But by all means, read it.”

Kindle is here to stay.

Click me

There’s satisfaction in the feel of a paper book, a permanence and solidity that makes the contents real in a way that the glowing screen cannot, for it has endurance. We own it without any dependence on the uncertainties of the internet or cable, we grasp it by hand and own it intimately, for when we dive into it it describes a private world, even though a million people may have a copy. And with physical ownership comes responsibility, for if we loose it – it’s gone!

When we handle the reality of paper, there’s a relaxation from the tyranny of the screen, a retreat into a easier world where the permanence of ink on paper gives something that the uncertain sophistication of chips and electrons cannot. And there is the concentration that comes from lack of choice, for a book contains only the story that it contains.

None the less, Kindle is here to stay.

It seems that recently a bunch of Xangan authors have acknowledged this, and I’ve listed them below. As the list of Xangans published in paper was in alphabetical order, I’ve shot for reverse order here, in the interestof fairness plus I’m cursed with a W, which has annoyed me all my life.

Liz Zelvin               

Graham Worthington            

Lynn Voedisch            Smoky Trudeau     

Vila Spiderhawk                   

Smaranda            Jeff Markowitz           

Jerry J Davis     

Melinda Clayton     

Background to The God’s Wife, by Lynn Voedisch

“Religion and civic duty in the vast Egyptian civilization were one and the same, and if some of the appointments and duties required by Pharaoh’s law seem absurd to us now, they were taken on with complete earnestness many thousands of years ago. One of these offices was the real job of God’s Wife of Amun. It has a haunting sound and conjures up images of a lonely woman living in a temple, playing handmaiden to an invisible force. However, it was much more than that.

Egyptologists are still learning about this position, which rose up in some dynasties and disappeared from others. It first came to light in the earliest days of the 2,000-year civilization, but then had nowhere near the power and influence that readers will find in the following novel.  Girls were chosen from the pharaoh’s family to “marry” the icon of Amun and please him on earth, although how she did this remains a total mystery.  Amun, by the way, became the highest of the triad of the most important gods in Thebes or Wast, during the time of the novel. To go into the dizzying number of gods and their relationships would take another book!

The practice of electing a God’s Wife rose again in the 18th Dynasty, where The God’s Wife takes place. My fictional character, the daughter of a fictional pharaoh, takes on all the pomp and power that was afforded a God’s Wife at that time—which was an era when women were growing in influence in Egypt. It was the period of Nefertiti and Hatsepshut, the queen who dressed as a man in her bid to be called a pharaoh. Hatsepshut too was a God’s Wife.  The role died out again after the 18th Dynasty only to resurface late in the New Kingdom, when Egypt was invaded by Nubian kings, and women were again empowered…..

While we know that the God’s Wives were granted large tracts of land and given livestock (a sign of wealth) it is not certain that they were second only to the Pharaoh in power. However, since the God’s Wife topped the Chief Priest of the temple of Karnak (which was the holiest place of worship in the 18th Dynasty), it would seem that no one else could touch her in power. So I am following the opinion of some Egyptologists and placing her second to the Pharaoh in rank.

The question of virginity is also a cipher. Some say she was pledged only to the Amun and thus was virginal. But many God’s wives were married, so I am taking the virginal story as a myth.

Dr. Peter Dornan, of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, filled me in on so many things about the God’s Wife that I am in debt to his knowledge.  However, he couldn’t’t say exactly what the priestess did to satisfy the idol. There, he said, I was free to use creative license. So, being a writer, I did.

In Egyptian royalty, pure blood was treasured, thus incest between members of the royal family was common. Brothers and sisters, half-bothers and half-sister, uncles and nieces, all kinds of relationships that we quail at now were considered quite normal and even encouraged. It’s obvious to us that this caused all sorts of illnesses and instability that made dynasties fall, but the Egyptians didn’t understand genetics. When in my book you come across a romance that seems incestuous by 21st century standards, try to look at it through ancients’ eyes. To them it was normal and even favored.

Also, in an effort to get away from Greco-Roman names for places and Gods, I have named things as often as possible in the Egyptian language. Thus Egypt is Kemet, which means “black land,” named for the rich deposit of earth the Nile left on the land after it overflowed its banks each year. (One has only to visit Egypt once to realize that it is nothing more than a green verdant stripe down the middle of red desert on either side. The Nile is life giving in every way possible.) Wast is the word for Thebes. Eset is Isis. Hor-heb is Horus. Tehuti is Thoth. It becomes easy to pick up the authentic words.

I’ve tried to be accurate in every way, but there is one detail in which I let my fancy take flight. The long row of ram-headed sphinxes leading to Karnak temple…..

…….had not yet been built in the 18th dynasty; that was the work of a later pharaoh. But they take your breath away when you approach the temple’s front pylons. So, in my fictional world, they appear out of time.

For those who want to delve deeper into Egypt, the role of the God’s Wife of Amun, and Egyptian terms, please visit my Web site at www.lynnvoedisch.com

 .The other setting in this dual-plot tale is modern day Chicago—another city beset with magic.” 

Enjoy, Lynn Voedisch

Lynn, a Xangan for many years now, has today published her second novel, of magic, intrigue and romance in Ancient Egypt.

Until recently, ancient Egyptians were the freest civilized women on Earth. Novelist and journalist Lynn Voedisch explores their world in a fact-based, magic-filled work of historical fiction, THE GOD’S WIFE (Fiction Studio Books, August 9, 2011).

Powerful priestess Neferet, holder of the office of God’s Wife, finds herself in trouble when power-hungry palace politicians and sexual harassers threaten to take away her status—which is second only to the Pharaoh’s. Meanwhile, Rebecca, a contemporary dancer in Chicago of 2011, begins falling into deep trances where she imagines herself in ancient Egypt. Rebecca is slated to perform on stage in Aïda, an opera based on ancient Egypt, finds her research taking her farther and farther into the world of sphinxes and the Nile. An unwanted suitor from Alexandria tries to lure her from her work and her lover. She can’t concentrate and the exotic dreams begin to overwhelm her. Soon she begins to see and even speak to Neferet.

Neferet dances to appease the god Amun and dodges the suitors who try to win her hand (and thereby stand a chance to be the next pharaoh). Meanwhile, her fiendish half-brother schemes to ruin her reign as God’s Wife. But as she darkens her eyes with kohl, and dons her elegant ceremonial wig, she peers into the mirror and sees the eyes of another woman—perhaps the woman who can guide her through the maze.

The womens’ two parallel worlds are running on a collision course, and only one will survive. Who will live, and what will be the outcome for the God’s Wife?

The God’s Wife is Lynn Voedisch’s first novel for Fiction Studio Books, and will be released in paperback and on all e-book platforms. Voedisch is a Chicago-area writer, whose previous novel was Excited Light (ASJA Press).

    Publicity contact: Lynn Voedisch 847-675-1130

Fiction Studio Books

On Sale August 9, 2011

$16.95 paperback/ $9.99 e-book, 293 pp.

In what must be a record five weeks for Xanga, three Xangans have published, as Ricky Tsang joins John Lindensmith and Lynn Voedisch in paperback and ebook form

From the Amazon.com’s Editorial Review of dearricky’s long-awaited autobiography.

** For every book sold, a dollar of the proceeds will be donated to the White Ribbon Campaign in an effort to end violence against women from across the world. **

Ricky Tsang was only seven years old when he was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy. Duchenne’s is a debilitating neuromuscular disease that weakens and deteriorates voluntary muscle strength and mass. Survival past the early thirties is uncommon, according to statistics.

When Tsang lost the ability to draw with his hands, he pursued the literary arts. From the sketchpad to the written word, Ricky’s peculiar combination of poetry and satire has captivated audiences in the world of blogging by an uproar.

In his first ever “autobrainography”, this outspoken yet soft-hearted writer gives a no holds barred account of the fantastic adventures of an extraordinary mind, trapped inside an unusual body. Unlike most memoirs from the physically disabled, his focus on the conflicted realities of life as he undertakes the struggles in the search for love. These, along with the craziest, most off-the-wall moments…

Ridiculous: The Mindful Nonsense of Ricky’s Brain is a raw and unadulterated anthology of the human mind, packaged in a chaotic mix of romance and comedy at its finest. Told with brutal honesty and heartfelt emotion, Ricky’s uncompromising style of redefining the infinite facets of life promises to keep readers on the edge of their seats.

Turning the pages through this incredible journey of everything, you’ll find both fictional (short) and real-life stories, along with a collection of love letters, and not to mention tragedy, self-help, philosophies, and much, much more. Feelings are bound to be stirred.

Written with sleek but uncensored prose and illustrated with eighteen photographs, this book is a must-have for anyone who believes that freedom can only be attained from within, and a sense of humour is everything.

Hell the town’s called, and a hellish picture Lindensmith paints of its high school. It’s not long since this young author was himself incarcerated in one of these Halls of Learning, and grim places they must be, if they at all resemble his fictional, small-town school, where all the cruelty and confusion of youth comes together in a satanic dance that culminates in nihilistic slaughter.

The outer hell of high school is mirrored by the fiery pits of anger and emptiness within each of Lindensmith’s characters. Shallow, pointless sex, often between people who loath each other, the confusion of recreational drugs and quick-fix psychiatric medication, the jealousies of possession and lust, the rigidity of pseudo-macho ideals. Sometimes love is found in this cesspit, and then as swiftly lost, to be replaced by unceasing sorrow.

Incessant bullying stokes these inner fires, and is usually performed by characters who writhe with self-doubt, themselves the victims of bullying or humiliation, while a mocking, ignorant teaching establishment ignores the rising hatred and terror. Nor is this climate of grief relieved by the “Christians” also boiling in this stew; hypocrites, who drone out trite formulas lacking the force of any kind of depth, values, understanding or commitment.

All the foulness that can happen populates the pages of Lindensmith’s Hell, a hideous compression of small town evil, and Lindensmith’s writing deals in no half measures. But how much does the novel reflect real life, and how realistically describe the hell that would exist if our worst desires were always made true?

Exaggerated? Unlikely? So you or I might say. But the realities of such massacres as Columbine High School say otherwise, with a far louder and far clearer voice.

As an avid reader and writer, I’v followed the progress of this emerging writer since his publication of Mystery Man, and was eager to read and review this new novel, which I now have. And I tell you in all seriousness, I now need to go find a peaceful, dark place, and lie down for a while.

I got an invitation from a friend recently to join Blogger, so I did all the usual junk – location = Ulaan Bator, Mongolia, occupation = uni-cycle rider, gender = pick one at random, age = whatever lies I feel like telling, providing it’s different from the last system I joined.

Then I tried to post a comment on the friend’s site. What a goddamned performance. It put me into an endless cycle of verifying by twisty-words, then signing in, then back in the cycle again to the twisty words, the back to signing in…

All I wanted to do really was say “how’s it hanging?”

In the end I quit. Who the hell has time for the frustration of this shit? Why is it that practically every social networking site except Xanga has to design these great mysteries? This damn thing (Blogger) is worse than Myspace.

And when was the last time you heard anyone mention Myspace?

My Amazon author’s blog.

About the author

John R. Lindensmith is a 22-year-old writer from West Fargo, North Dakota. He was born in Kagoshima, Japan, where his parents served as missionaries. In 2006, he self-published and promoted a psychological thriller, Mystery Man.

He’s also runs Xanga’s The-Church-of-Fat, and if you merely say “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” most old-time Xangans will know who you mean immediately.

HELL is his second novel, available online at CreateSpace  amazon.com. and Kindle. It would be great for this struggling young author if you could somehow show support, at minimum rec this on. Hand onto the plastic for a copy would be even better, as I’m now doing.

These are the best years of your life: Football games. Dances. Drugs. Parties. Sex. Murder.

In the town of Hell, North Dakota, seven teenagers lose their souls. After a cruel prank causes a girl to commit suicide, everything falls apart. At the junior prom, none of them may survive when a gun-wielding maniac opens fire on the festivities.

The Toronto Fringe Festival is an annual theatre festival, featuring uncensored plays by unknown or well-known artists, taking place in the theatres of Toronto. Several productions originally mounted at the Fringe have later been remounted for larger audiences, including the Tony Award winning musical, The Drowsy Chaperone.

The festival runs from the sixth of July to the seventeenth, and one of the entries, Gravestone Posse, is co-written by well known Toronto playwright Paul Koster, who also acts in the production.

The venue is the Hart House Map Room at Toronto University, in downtown Toronto, which is also the home of CUIT, the campus and community radio station of Toronto University, located in glorious…

…downtown Toronto!

The Box.

Our lives are busy, and full of things worth doing; or at least, they should be, and if they aren’t – try working on it. ;=)

For a pity it is if we can’t find meaning and entertainment without invariably soaking it up from that dispenser of both delight and junk, the television.

None the less, we did pay for the damn thing, and it unavoidably is a major distributor of news, thought, opinion and culture. Culture, often in the form of films, where some bunch of actors and a director try to artistically express how life is, or could be, or definitely should not be. To move us to pity, or indignation; to horror, to understanding. Or perhaps just to earn a few honest bucks by making us laugh.

It’s being going on since Sophocles had his cast yell at the citizens of Athens about the disastrous mistakes Oedipus made, and probably longer, and for all I know there may have been an intermission where guys sold Athenian hot dogs.

It’s what’s loosely called “Culture.” It’s ours, it’s necessary, it’s legitimate, we invented it, it’s made for us, we paid for it, we need it, and we want it. It’s about life, whether lived on a higher plane of thought or a moronically low one.

Yet, for some incredible reason, here in Canada we cannot have it unless we’re willing to endure some dumb-ass warning us in a grave voice of the dangers we are about to be exposed to. 

It’s bad enough having to endure every ten minutes some crap about how this company’s soap will make your dishes sparkle more brilliantly than ever before, and watch an overjoyed woman hold a glass up to the light with an expression of ultimate orgasmic joy, as though been secretly, invisibly rammed by a hidden demonic lover; bad enough having to hear how your kids will grow up faster – and more intelligent – if enabled to shit themselves into the new, superior brand of pull-up diapers; bad enough been told that a car we can’t afford will use no gas and miraculously find ways around the traffic jams that our battered old banger has to trudge through, and a host of suchlike bullshit.

This torrent of junk is advertising, and pays for what’s left of the airspace after it’s eaten its chunk. So – unfortunately – it’s necessary, and understandable. And with luck, it may be amusing or ingenious.

But why – when this segment of commercial boredom has run its clanking course – can we not watch the damned program, instead of having to hear that “This program contains brief nudity, and may be suitable for a more mature audience,” with the same drivel given visually in text, in case the endangered viewer is Mutton Jeff (deaf.) To what purpose? May it blind our children, like an atom bomb’s flash? Are there no special glasses we can buy for our little ones, with a chip implanted that make them go black if some chick with big knockers looses her top in a film about surfers? God, we need such glasses for them! What if we missed the warning, and so failed to protect them? Really? This in a world in which we believe that education is good, and kids should be taught about sex in school, and are probably aware that people have fancy parts?

Or… am I mistaken? Is the warning actually for adults? Might the viewing public include those who are training for some form of holy orders where purity of thought is essential, who would dearly like to watch Slaughterhouse Five, but fear that Montana Wildback’s boobs may be on view, this destroying their careers? Or are there some men – or women too – of sensitive disposition, easily disturbed, who may see an erotic scene and fall on each other in a frenzy of lust, and finally perish by heart attack?

Then there’s that other superbly beautiful warning, “This program contains coarse language, and may offend some viewers.”

But why go on? Just imagine though; somewhere out there a whole chunk of a major organisation is dedicated to organising this garbage, and paid bucks to do it; and some guy is actually employed to round out his vowels and solemnly intone these essential messages.

Why?

You don’t know? Then I will tell you. Because we, the consumers who ultimately pay for this, don’t count. And those who think we must be harried into their concept of respectability, they do count.

And in their minds, our purpose in life is to obey.

My Amazon Author’s page.