I was going to write this morning, but I got to reading the annual Southern music issue of the Oxford American, which comes with an amazing CD. The periodical is a labor of love and excellence, and certainly worth a look. Check out this piece on yodeling by Roy Blount, Jr.; “The People’s Singer,” a…

One of the ideas that continues to intrigue and haunt me is that most of the world lives their lives without knowing or knowing of me and they don’t miss me either. I even posted a poem about it called “Spokane.” This morning, I’m sitting in Foster’s Market and Café in Durham, which has been…

The prompt from Writers’ Island this week was “The Journey.” I have no idea how I got from there to here, but here’s the poem — and I couldn’t pass up the video. drinking beer with bob dylan It’s late and we are sitting in a tavernI know well but can’t name.“Oh, where have you…

Yesterday was our Schnauzer Lola’s seventh birthday and my brother’s forty-ninth. (I suppose that makes them the same age.) Today, my friend Doug is fifty years old. By coincidence, today also marks my four hundred and fiftieth post since beginning this blog on December 27, 2005. Eliot said we measure our life in coffee spoons;…

One of my tasks in preparing to move is to go through my CDs and transfer the bulk of them to my MacBook instead of boxing them all up to head south. I’ve invested a lot of money in CDs over the years, collecting a good bit of interest, though not of the monetary kind….

Our burning bushis just startingto singe aroundthe edges.Before longwithout smokeor fire, the leaveswill blaze brilliantlywithout burning upand fall to the earth. We talk aboutcolors, yet namethis seasonfor the letting go,the breeze-ridedown from lifeinto death. How can it beso energizingto see what wasonce verdantand vibrantflame and die? I try to listen.I want to hearwhat the leavesare…

On the way home from church to go to work, I heard the end of this interview with Emmylou Harris on NPR. She has a new boxed set out of rare tracks and unreleased material that I am now coveting in the worst way. One of the songs she sang during the interview (accompanied by…

Thanks to Tess at Anchors and Masts, I saw the video below and learned about the work of Peace Direct and that today, September 21, is the United Nations International Day of Peace. At one point in the short film, as Gill is putting on her artificial legs, the text reads, “Gill believes in the…

Somewhere around April 20, give or take a couple of days, the Red Sox moved into first place in the American League East. On April 20, we were two games ahead of the Yankees. Today, September 20, we have a game and a half lead over the Evil Empire with nine games left to play….

Gracie, our youngest Schnauzer, woke me up early this morning and I turned on the television as I was trying to gain consciousness just as all three morning shows were cranking up. The lead story on all of them was about O. J. Simpson. In fact, over half of the first thirty minutes of Today…