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Ready (or Not) for Surprise
[See the note at the foot of this post for information about this video.] From whiskey river: I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. There’s a certain humor in realizing that. I can never figure out the kind of tie to put on in the morning. I don’t have any strategy or [...]
Swept Away by (and for) Books
My Old Kentucky Blog recently highlighted two of the films nominated for this year’s Oscar in the short-animations category. One of them really struck me, and I think it will really strike you as well — if you are someone who’s ever had a little jolt of excitement at opening a new book… or dreamt of adding [...]
The History of English, in Ten(ish) Minutes
When I was a sophomore in high school — this was just a plain old everyday public high school, not a school for high-achieving nerds or anything — our English teacher let us write an end-of-year research paper on any topic we liked. I have no idea why, of all possible subjects, at the age [...]
Bringing Worlds Out from Within
[Video: Lista (The List), a short film by Paweł Łyczkowski. It won the 2010 "Best Film" Suzanne Award, for users of the Blender open-source animation and visual-effects software.] From whiskey river: Lao Tzu exhorts us to listen to the world “not with ears but with mind, not with mind but with spirit.” Some days I [...]
A Love Story Between (vs. Within) Book Covers
Spike Jonze’s short film Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die By Your Side): Spike Jonze: Mourir Auprès de Toi on Nowness.com. Read about it — and watch a brief making-of film — at Brain Pickings. (And I should probably add, “…of course.”)
Midweek Music Break: Theme-Park Earworms
The Missus and I took a much-needed mini-vacation this past weekend, trekking off to central Florida for (among other things) our first visit to the other theme park in that neighborhood. We love amusement parks and fairs (county, state, you name it), but neither of us is a big roller-coaster fan; most of the rides at [...]
Knowing What You’re Looking At
[Image: graffiti artist Bansky visited a subway archway in central London, adding a caption to a wall which just happens to fall within the view of a surveillance camera.] From whiskey river: All men, at one time or another, have fallen in love with the veiled Isis whom they call Truth. With most, this has [...]
“An Echo That Did Not Die Away”
[Image: a communications "satelloon." For more information, see the note at the foot of this post.] From whiskey river: There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. You may have noticed that [...]
Midweek Music Break: Earworms of a 1950s Childhood
When The Boy was a boy*, he did not know that nursery rhymes and fairy tales and folk songs had already lived lives stretching back centuries. When The Boy was a boy, he imagined that each story, verse, and tune had been crafted just for him and for people like him, all within the last [...]
Not Trying Quite So Hard, But It Feels Right
[Image: "Comb of Retrospection," by Michael Leunig] From whiskey river: How I Would Paint Happiness Something sudden, a windfall, a meteor shower. No – a flowering tree releasing all its blossoms at once, and the one standing beneath it unexpectedly robed in bloom, transformed into a stranger too beautiful to touch. (Lisel Mueller, from Alive [...]
