Welcoming Change

How would you like having to nurse your twins in a stranger’s yard?

People love habit.  Having the feeling of knowing what comes next is comforting.  But you can’t fix problems or grow from a place of complete safety.  You have to take risks, spend resources, embrace the insecurity of undetermined outcomes, and dream of better things that might be.

The Hazards of Early Success

I just read about Harper Lee suing to have the copyright and royalties on “To Kill a Mockingbird” restored to her.  She’s 87, dwells in an assisted-living facility, can’t see or hear well, and admits to “memory problems”.  Since I don’t know Miz Lee and am not a lawyer, of course I can’t resist stubbornly trying to read between the lines of this news story.  That’s my specialty, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Word Salad Sandwich

Obsession likability paranoia.

Kibble-reinforced, bio-degradable op-ed.

Review – “I Am Jennie”

This is an irritatingly difficult challenge.  Since I began blogging, I’ve asserted that you can’t write about yourself with complete accuracy, no matter how hard you try.  When we tell our own life stories, we portray ourselves as we imagine we are and have been, and it’s inevitably subject to all our biases, the self-protective and the self-destructive ones.  No one is merciless and/or fearless enough to do it.  That’s why I’ve always said I’m writing here about a character based on me.

This One Starts Out Boring

Firing the big gun (1915)

My recent inability to access the most interactive features here on WP.com are producing interesting results.

Dream Engines

I’ve been away from the computer, recharging my imagination.  The weather has been unwilling to decide which season it is.  It rains, the sun breaks out, it rains again, and so on.  The constant changes have invigorated my unconscious.  I’m waking up with memories of my dreams

Deja Vu All Over Again?

There’s a book (and later film) by Dalton Trumbo, one of the “Hollywood 10”, a screenwriter blacklisted in the 1950s.  It’s called “Johnny Got His Gun”.  In that story, a wounded soldier is only able to tap messages in Morse Code using the back of his head on his hospital bed frame.  His face and limbs were removed in an explosion.  Those caring for him assume he’s been de-cerebrated and has no original thought to contribute.  I feel a bit like that.

My Wonderful, Hideous, Golden Opportunity

No one suspected that cuddly, lovable Spice was also…

THE HELLHOUND

Thanks for Writing

… and for reading.

A very poetic and concise writer, whose name I assume is Trish (http://actionfiguretrish.com/) “liked” my last post.  When I went over to her space, she had posted a reminder of an incredibly gracious and meaningful speech I read a long time ago and had forgotten.

This Is Possible

It’s time for a re-statement of why I write here.  It isn’t just for me.  I have this strange vision of a place where almost everyone is welcome.  I’m committed to RADICAL INCLUSIVITY.

Awards, Schmords (Pt. 2)

My 7 Links

I.K. Brunel (1857), and his set of impressive links

This self-congratulatory award nomination was more fun than the usual “tell me secrets and nominate others” routine, because it requires you to mull things over a little in order to make choices based on their criteria.

Awards, Schmords (Pt. 1)

Everything is new to a puppy.

It’s time to clear out some backblog, er, blacklung, a-HEM, backlog on the blog.  I got nominated for two “awards” last week.

Old Guys Who Made Good

My son wrote me an email in which he suggested I not call myself old, so I thought about some of the many men who produced significant work in my areas of interest when they were at least a decade older than me.

The Post LESS Challenge

As I surf around WordPress and other blogging communities, all I see is encouragement about posting MORE.  How many times must I re-assert that more is not better? 

Tidying Up

This is what you see when you enter through my front door.

It’s Spring.  Time to clean up my Blogroll.  I don’t want this action to hurt anyone’s feelings, so instead of just doing it I want to explain a little.  In terms of design and possessions, I prefer less rather than more.

What, Me Stylish?

No one epitomized stylish more than Fred Astaire.  If you say that word, I think of him.  And don’t give me the “Ginger Rogers did it backwards and in heels” line.  Fred and Hermes Pan made up the routines.  Ginger only learned them

Deluxe Gift Baskets (#3)

http://home.myfairpoint.net/vze6omtd/jorysquibb/index.html

Jory Squibb built a microcar, which he named Moonbeam.  It took 1000 hours and $2500 in materials – mostly Honda Elite scooter parts.  It holds two adults, includes a heater, goes 45mph and has a range of 200 miles on a 2-gallon tank. I know how to do lots of things, but not this kind of thing.  Here’s where I’ve been reading how to

Deluxe Gift Baskets (#2)

Tragedy Tomorrow, Comedy Tonight!

detail from the Universal Comedy Flow Chart, care of the Ministry of Secret Jokes http://www.ministryofsecretjokes.com/

There’s nothing I like better than a good laugh.  It’s better than a good meal.  A unique gift of the human species is the ability to observe tragic circumstances and see humor in it. There’s nothing we can’t find funny; funerals, starvation, alcoholism, bad smells and bankruptcy.

Deep River

The Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1877

The musical song form known as spirituals began as a beautiful union between American slaves’ desire for freedom, their identification with Old Testament stories, and a post Civil War embrace of European choral harmonization in Black colleges like Fisk University.

Great Blogs (Part Three)

They Say Things Are Big in Texas…

Do you remember your teenage years?  Before I found out it was about Michelangelo, I assumed from the title that The Agony and the Ecstasy was about teenagers.