Archive | November 2014
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11.20.05: We Lose Chris Whitley
The video opens, of course, with Chris lighting up a cigarette. He died at 45 from lung cancer. You can hear his voice get softer, more whispery, when you spend a day listening only to CW albums, starting with 1991’s Living with the Law and going all the way through 2005’s Soft Dangerous Shores. When […]
It Takes 19 Lines to Build a Villanelle
Today is the 19th, which is another wonderful opportunity to post a villanelle. This one’s pretty famous, as the biographical note accompanying The Bell Jar often includes it. I’m a big fan of Plath’s work and of villanelles, and this one’s a doozy, so here we go: Mad Girl’s Love Song I shut my eyes and […]
18 Words to Describe Today
Productive, sunny, incompetently spiced eggnog, confidence from confidant, ran 3 miles in the dark, proud of daughter’s nomination
$16 and change gets us to the front of the line
I love the winter holiday time. I love my carefully curated holiday songlist, the two weeks off from work (my workplace shuts down between Xmas and New Years), the general air of festivity, and colored lights. I love colored lights! I don’t like crowds much, though, and truly hate standing in line, so I’ve only […]
15 Minutes of Undivided Attention to Kim Kardashian (Sort of)
I’ve never given Kim Kardashian much thought, or any of the Kardashians, for that matter. But I’m going to give her my full attention for the next 15 minutes while I free-write some thoughts in response to her photos released this week. When someone strikes me as an attention whore, my brain automatically shuts off […]
11.14.89: Ministry Releases a Classic
25 year ago today, Ministry’s The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste came out. They could have just released the title track, “Thieves,” repeated 9 times on a CD and that song alone would have been worth the purchase price (for you had to purchase it, or at least have a friend who had […]
November 13: 317 Million Miles
November 13 is the 317th day of the year. You know what else is 317? The number of miles, in millions, travelled by the Rosetta orbiter, which delivered the Philae lander to the comet it then landed on (thus fulfilling its destiny). Landing a little robot scientist on a comet is a pretty fancy feat, […]
11.12: Don’t Be So Sure
I have a book titled Ten Poems to Change Your Life by Roger Housden. On page 11 and 12, Housden is just beginning to discuss the first poem, Mary Oliver’s “The Journey.” (The other 9 poems are from Machado, Whitman, Rumi, Kabir, Neruda, Kinnell, Merwin, Walcott, and St. John of the Cross.) Since today is […]
Roof Pig! Most Unexpected. 