Ma Li has only one arm. Zhai Xiaowei has one leg. And below is a video of them dancing. They dance into the holes in people's lives. In the wordlessness of their dance, libraries of the soul open and volumes of unutterable wisdom fly off the shelves. A knowing comes forward. We all know this. We recognize the feeling of brokenness. We know what we do not have, will never have. We know that all the pieces in the world are not whole, not complete. We know that we needed, and that we need.

When it comes to costuming my young daughter for Halloween, I am of a decidedly lazy sort:  I am all about the store-bought costume.  Oh, I do a little improvising -- a creative hair style here, glitter there (and admittedly, I am all about the glitter), but other than that, I don't really put myself out.  The result is certainly acceptable enough:

I've mentioned before my addiction to art and design -- it's a sickness, really.  I follow about 200 blogs daily, and a considerable percentage of them are written by artists.  When you follow that many, you start to think, of course, you've cornered the market on great artist's blogs, until you start to realize that's a pretty arrogant mindset, given that there are just so many artists and so many blogs out there.

As is probably very obvious to everyone who knows me, I'm pretty obsessive about design.  I don't claim to be a designer by any means, but I can't get enough of it:  I watch design shows, I subscribe to design magazines, and I comb the internet for design inspiration.  I love home decor, I love typography, graphic arts, I love it all.But in no way am I anywhere near an expert.

For this week I want to focus on people that made me smile, gave me hope or fed my brain cells. These folks reminded me that fun, creativity and exploration are worthy things to concentrate on when you get tired of reality television or adults behaving badly.

What's an actress to do when the part of Laurie in Oklahoma! or the chance to disrobe while weightless in space have gone to a younger woman? If you are Florence Henderson or Jane Fonda, the answer is to keep shining with as bright a light as ever.

The Impossible Project - formed to "re-invent and re-start production of analog INTEGRAL FILM for vintage Polaroid cameras" - may have accomplished just that.

Every year, around this time, my neighbourhood starts to go crazy with the Halloween decorations.  "You'd think that it was a religious holiday!" I kvetch to my husband, as pumpkins start to appear on doorsteps, fake cobweb is hung in trees, and tiny little costumes (even some for the family pet!) start to fill the aisles of our local Target store.  "I don't get it." But secretly?

While I was in Chicago for BlogHer this summer, I shared a hotel room with the amazing Jen Lee, one of the most beautiful writers I know in real life. As soon as we'd checked into our hotel, we wandered to a nearby grill for some much-needed lunch, and our conversation turned to journaling.

Opera music is a lot like okra to me. it If I know it is heading my way I run in the opposite direction. I don’t like Opera music. Well, most of it anyway. If it is not wrapped in a Warner Brothers cartoon or some form of animation I suffer. Classical music, yes, rack up some Glenn Gould and I will be happy; that dude could rock the 88’s, classically speaking.

If you are in the Toronto area this weekend you must head downtown to check out Scotiabank's Nuit Blanche Toronto 2009. At sunset on October 3 until sunrise the next morning the city will be transformed by art installations from close to 500 artists. Best of all, it's all free.

As a photographer myself, I look for inspiration everywhere -- and often, there's nothing like a really good meme to help.  I've been doing Love Thursday for years -- encouraging people to share their images (and words) that depict love -- and there are many others out there that encourage photographers to stretch their creative muscle a bit.  But there's one that has caught my eye this week -- and it's just in time for autumn.