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 is [...]
Entries Tagged as 'The Missus'
Margaret Atwood, in a Nutshell
February 23rd, 2010 · 12 Comments
Tags: Celebrities · Hearing · Style and Craft · The Missus · Writing
Paying Attention to the Magical
February 13th, 2010 · 10 Comments
“Ambivalence” doesn’t even come close to capturing my schizoid views about magic (or magical) realism.
The term has been around since the early part of the twentieth century, and for most of its life has been associated especially with the work of certain Latin American authors. Here’s part of the definition from A Glossary of Literary [...]
Tags: Paying Attention · Reading · Ruminations · Seems to Fit · Style and Craft · The Missus · Writing
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
What’s in a Song: Cry Me a River (1)
December 2nd, 2009 · 8 Comments
[Another in a series of occasional posts about popular American songs with long histories. And if you are seeking information on the Justin Timberlake song by the same name, believe me, you are 100% in the wrong place.]
On paper, it doesn’t appear to be a “big” song. Nearly always, the arrangement features a single vocalist [...]
Tags: Celebrities · Language · Movies · Music · The Missus · What's in a Song
Stuck-in-the-Mud
November 23rd, 2009 · 16 Comments
I like to think of myself as a flexible guy — able to roll with the punches, able to work around problems, able to, y’know, cope. It’s amazing how quickly and how profoundly that self-image can be shaken simply by adding an extra person to the household.
Recently fallen on some sudden, transitory, but inarguably hard [...]
Tags: Everyday Life · Family · The Missus
Things Which Seem Otherwise
November 13th, 2009 · 10 Comments
From whiskey river:
Let me make this perfectly clear.
I have never written anything because it is a Poem.
This is a mistake you always make about me,
A dangerous mistake. I promise you
I am not writing this because it is a Poem.
You suspect this is a posture or an act
I am sorry to tell you it is not [...]
Tags: Cartoons & Animation · Everyday Life · Music · Poetry · Reading · Ruminations · The Missus · whiskey river Fridays
Losing Our Heads Over Modest Gods
November 6th, 2009 · 12 Comments
[Above, a set of miniature Egyptian canopic jars depicting, according to the retailer, "Anubis, Horus, Monkey God, Prince."* Click image for original.]
From whiskey river (which this week celebrated eight years of bringing to the Web wisdom about things we generally know, but generally do not speak of):
Shinto
When sorrow lays us low
for a second we are [...]
Tags: Everyday Life · Humor · Movies · Poetry · Reading · Ruminations · The Missus · whiskey river Fridays
All Good Stories Start Small
October 20th, 2009 · 7 Comments
A couple of stray tidbits for your daily (weekly, hourly, etc.) writerly use…
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First: You may have noticed agent Nathan Bransford’s recent contest, for which he invited readers to submit as contest entries the first paragraphs of their own works-in-progress. (He announced the winners yesterday.)
Regular RAMH commenter Froog has been observing Nathan’s contest as well. But [...]
Tags: Everyday Life · Style and Craft · The Business · The Missus · The Online World · Writing
The Ick Factor
September 21st, 2009 · 12 Comments
The Missus and I saw District 9 on Saturday. I’m tempted to review it in full, but fear I’d reveal too much of its plot. So I’ll just say that District 9 is one of the, I don’t know… two or three best movies I’ve seen for the last 10 or 15 years — in [...]
Tags: Language · Movies · Ruminations · Short Fiction · Style and Craft · The Missus · Writing
Confuse-a-Dog
September 17th, 2009 · 8 Comments
An old Monty Python skit posits a service called “Confuse-a-Cat.” (Veterinarian to anxious elderly couple: “I think I can definitely say that your cat badly needs to be confused.”) I started to explain the whole thing but was laughing too hard to type properly; I’ll include the seven-minute routine in its entirety at the foot [...]
Tags: Everyday Life · Family · Humor · Nature & Pets · The Missus




