Adjust text size:
Surprised by What You Want
[Video above: "Rio," by Hey Marseilles. Lyrics at the foot of this post.] From whiskey river: I feel as though I stand at the foot of an infinitely high staircase, down which some exuberant spirit is flinging tennis ball after tennis ball, eternally, and the one thing I want in the world is a tennis [...]
The Steam Drill Only Made Nine (Lord, Lord)
When my siblings and I were kids, at some point Mom and Dad bought us a huge collection of LPs of music of all sorts — a passive music-appreciation course, of sorts, for kids in a small town. The entire set arrived in a cardboard box which none of us (but Dad) could lift. Each [...]
Real-Life Dialogue (Midday Meal Edition)
[Setting: a small automobile in a mid-sized city in northern Florida, USA. It is early morning. She is driving today; He occupies the passenger seat. The car pulls up to a curb. He opens his door and prepares to exit; in the midst of the usual love-yous, good-byes, and have-a-good-days, He suddenly remembers a specific [...]
Think You Know What’s Coming?
From whiskey river: If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next — if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions — you’d be doomed. You’d be as ruined as God. You’d be a stone. You’d never eat or drink or laugh or [...]
Musical Interlude: Chin Up
The week’s been one of needing (re)encouragement — always a popular subject with writers, who can never get (or imagine they can’t get) enough of it — and of finding new reasons why maybe we don’t need as much encouragement as we thought. Coincidentally, in the last 24 hours I’ve tripped across a couple of [...]
What Takes You Back?
Yesterday, Granta magazine kicked off a new collective-memory project called “Nostos Algos.” From a publicity release which just made its way to my Inbox: The word ‘nostalgia’ comes from the Greek words nostos (‘a homecoming’) and algos (‘pain, grief, distress’). We have all known the desire to return to another place or time, and the [...]
Hits and Misses
Complicated here, during the last week. Not bad, just… complicated. Thought I’d sort of summarize a couple of points of potential interest, but first, a question for regular visitors: Have you had problems accessing RAMH recently? One of your number has reported getting repeated “the connection was reset by the server” errors. It’s prevented her [...]
Book Review: War, by Sebastian Junger
Habitués of Running After My Hat know, I think, that I resist the intrusion of politics into my posts here. And although I’ve never been tested on this, I’m pretty sure that’s one area in which I would likely resort to editing (or outright banning) comments of certain kinds. If you’re after debate, even of [...]
