[Image above depicts two street paintings by Peter Gibson, which I found at the inhabitat.com site. Click it for their post about Gibson's work.]
From whiskey river:
Epitaph
Now I’m not the brightest
knife in the drawer, but
I know a couple things
about this life: poverty
silence, impermanence
discipline and mystery
The world is not illusory, we are
From crimson thread to toe tag
If [...]
Entries from January 2010
Walkin’ and Lookin’
January 29th, 2010 · 7 Comments
Tags: Uncategorized
After “The End”…
January 25th, 2010 · 4 Comments
No, alas — not here to report anything like the conclusion of Seems to Fit. Just sharing a tidbit from the irrepressible xkcd webcomic. The first three panels of today’s contribution to the collective wisdom are above; click the image to see the final panel.
Tags: Comics · Humor · Ruminations
Voice Tech Follies
January 23rd, 2010 · 14 Comments
I’m really not a fan of the telephone: give me good-old when-I-get-to-it email any day, y’know? (People at work long ago got used to the idea that I intentionally sit with my back to the phone — so I never even have to see the red “voicemail message waiting” light. They all email me, even [...]
Tags: Everyday Life · Hearing · Phones (Cellular and Otherwise) · The Internet
Enchanté
January 22nd, 2010 · 5 Comments
From whiskey river’s commonplace book:
The whale moves in a sea of sound:
shrimps snap, plankton seethes,
fish croak, gulp, drum their air-bladders,
and are scrutinized by echo-location,
a light massage of sound touching the skin.
The small, toothed whales use high frequencies:
Finely tuned and focused sound-beams,
intense salvoes of bouncing
clicks, a thousand a second,
with which a hair, as thin as
half a [...]
Tags: Language · Music · Poetry · Reading · Ruminations · Style and Craft · Theater · whiskey river Fridays
Blurring Around the Edges
January 17th, 2010 · 4 Comments
[Note to regular readers: You may have noticed a change in my online tempo in the last week -- I sure have: my visits to your blogs are a little more erratic, my postings here a little less... I don't know... "focused," maybe?
Partly, true, my spotty attendance is because the pace of my 9-to-5 [...]
Tags: Language · Ruminations · Science & Medicine · Seems to Fit
The Sky Calls to Us
January 15th, 2010 · 6 Comments
From whiskey river (italicized portion):
The landscape opens its eyes and sits up,
sets out walking followed by its shadow,
it is a stela of dark murmurs
that are the languages of fallen matter,
the wind stops and hears the clamor of the elements,
sand and water talking in low voices,
the howl of pilings as they battle the salt,
the rash confidence [...]
Tags: Poetry · Ruminations · Science & Medicine · whiskey river Fridays
Perfect Moments: The Boy, the Wintry Day, the Film, the Flash of Panic
January 12th, 2010 · 11 Comments
On a recent wintry day, The Boy (Who Was No Longer a Boy) and The Missus decided to go to a movie.
Now, because the day was in fact wintry, and because “wintry” seldom applied to weather conditions where The Boy and The Missus lived, they needed to undertake certain careful preparations in advance. Warm clothing [...]
Tags: Everyday Life · How It Was · Humor · Movies · Perfect Moments · Science & Medicine · The Missus
Earnout!
January 9th, 2010 · 6 Comments
From my tech-writing agent, in an email message yesterday:
Did you want us to send you a check for the payment due, or did you want an electronic funds transfer to your bank acct?
It took 7½ years, but my last tech book finally brought in more for the publisher than the size of the advance.
(And no, [...]
Tags: Books as Books · The Business · The Internet · Writing
Your Dreams, and the Long Haul
January 8th, 2010 · 10 Comments
[Image above: "The Long Haul," by artist Robert W. McGregor]
From whiskey river (italicized portion):
Excerpt from
“Sabbaths 1998: VI”
But won’t you be ashamed
To count the passing year
At its mere cost, your debt
Inevitably paid?
For every year is costly,
As you know well. Nothing
Is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first a gift.
The gift is balanced by
Its [...]
Tags: Language · Music · Poetry · Ruminations · Writing · whiskey river Fridays
There’s Got to Be a Morning After
January 7th, 2010 · 4 Comments
Centuries after the Eastern Orthodox Church began celebrating the Epiphany, the Roman Catholic Church decided to start doing so too. But for some reason, the Western Church really latched on to this image of the Persian priests bringing gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold to the infant Jesus, guided from their homeland of Iran by [...]
Tags: Humor · In the News · Short Fiction




