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Midweek Music Break: The Playmates, “Beep Beep”
I’ve been thinking for a while of doing theme-type Midweek Music Breaks for a little variety, such as one on car music: songs about cars. As opposed to conventional “road trip” music, I mean, or songs by groups named after cars (like The Fleetwoods, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and, uh, The Cars). I may still do [...]
Perfect Moments: “I Shot ‘im, Paw.”
The house in which The Missus and I live now is over twenty years old, as is our immediate neighborhood. But the area in general has only recently started to get built up. Real honest-to-gods wildlife, not yet squeezed out by housing and new roads, can still be spotted here and there — foxes, a [...]
Transparent, or Just Unseen? Silent, or Just Unheard?
[About the image: one of several models of "bubble buildings" available from French firm BubbleTree. I originally found this written up at the DesignSwan site.] From whiskey river: A Suite of Appearances / iv In another time, we will want to know how the earth looked Then, and were people the way we are now. [...]
Best Not to Wait
[Image above, "Don't Wait for Tomorrow" (original oil on board, 92cm x 122cm), by Nadeem Chughtai] From whiskey river: I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just [...]
Beating Yourself to Death?
[Image above: Peter Kubik's UFO shaped electronic drums, as featured at the Yanko Design site. The Yanko site says, "This electronic drum produces lighted impressions of your hand in psychedelic colors as it strikes the surface."] When it comes to storytelling, are you a mechanic or a gardener? A little of both? Or something else [...]
Margaret Atwood, in a Nutshell
Last night, The Missus and I attended a combined reading-talk-Q&A session with Margaret Atwood. (For the curious, if you’re ever in this neck of the woods in (mostly) February, do check out this arts festival.) The bandwagon of people who believe that those of diminutive physical stature tend to compensate with outsized personalities and ambitions [...]
Voice Tech Follies
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 [...]
Real-Life [Movie] Dialogue
[Above still depicts the Martian "war machines" devastating the California countryside. In the foreground lies a small propeller-driven spotter plane of terrestrial origin, which has crash-landed -- as they are wont to do at the peak of military operations against aliens.] So last night we’re watching the 1953 Hollywood version of The War of the [...]
Writing and Silence
From whiskey river: Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a [...]
What We Miss When We Shutter Our Senses
[Above image, "Magic Eye" by Jennifer Love, first appeared on TrekEarth.] From whiskey river (italicized portion): Beside the grand history of the glaciers and their own, the mountain streams sing the history of every avalanche or earthquake and of snow, all easily recognized by the human ear, and every word evoked by the falling leaf [...]
