blogging Archives - Page 15 of 22

February Rambling about comic book issues, and music

The first Cajun song ever recorded

Local judge removes 5-year-old from grandparents to live with mom and known child abuser. “Local” being in Michigan, with the child being moved to Utah with a mother who had never been part of her life. This particular case involves Troy, the grandfather in question, who’s contributed to the ABC Wednesday team. He’s not thrilled with the way the actual story came out – I’ve seldom liked stories I’ve appeared in myself – but the “justice system” is SO wrongheaded in this case, which, as I’ve linked to before, is not an isolated incident.

KunstlerCast #215: Nicole Foss Interview. Economic contraction and the fate of the nation.

Mad props for Anita Hill.

Blogger Alvin McEwen has published a booklet called How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right War on Gay America, which deftly exposes the most common anti-gay propaganda. Also, conservatives file amicus brief in a case before the Supreme Court; they are supporting the plaintiffs in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the challenge to California’s anti-gay marriage referendum.

How Joe E. Ross (of Car 54) is NOT like Donald Trump or Michele Bachmann.

I mentioned Melanie LAST month; I COULD mention her weekly. This month, she talks about 17 years of defying death and fulfilling longed-for dreams, and for futures that are better than what we have known.

Jaquandor: On Snark and his eleven years (!) in Blogistan. Not only that, he answered some of my questions!

Amy’s 600th post is about Frickin’ Frackers.

Euthanizing gay dogs for Jesus.

Arthur remembers C. Everett Koop, the former Surgeon General, “an unlikely ally in the fight against HIV/AIDS.”

Shooting Parrots, on juries: “Has it come to the point where a group of citizens have failed to grasp the basics of the legal system or even a working understanding of the English language?”

Roger Ebert “took after” his aunt Martha.

Recovered suitcases from an insane asylum; this is a Kickstarter project I backed.

Why does bottled water have an expiration date? We HAVE some 2007 water in our emergency kit. Hmm.

I want THESE people to move my stuff; too bad they are in Japan.

One of many reasons why people hate Disney: Disney Refuses To Allow Epilogue To Appear In The Don Rosa Collection. You may not know the name, but if you ever read the Disney ducks, you’ve probably seen his work. The publisher Egmont has agreed to publish a link to career-end.donrosa.de in the final volume, which leads to the now unpublished text, a scathing indictment of compensation practices. (Mark Evanier clarifies this, but does not dispute, in Rosa’s case.)

A fine letter to DC Comics objecting to the hiring of hatemonger Orson Scott Card to write some Superman comics.

Eddie Campbell’s Rules of Comic Book Comprehension.

Colleen Doran, comic artist, says: Fandom, You Deserve Better Friends.

Library prof bops doc who K.O.’d comic book industry.

You can NOW hear my buddy, comic book artist Steve Bissette blather [his word] with Robin at Inkstuds: PART 1 and PART 2. Steve also noted on Facebook: “Note to self: NEVER FORGET this tweet from “Neil Gaiman @neilhimself My #gatewaycomic was Alan Moore & @SRBissette’s Swamp Thing in 1984. I had stopped reading comics. They hooked me back.” Sunday, Feb. 10, 12:23 PM.”

In 1896 William George Crush created the second-largest ‘city’ in Texas, only to deliberately demolish it overnight in a publicity stunt that went catastrophically wrong.

Internet Explorer usage and the US murder rate.

Sesame Street takes on Downton Abbey.

uJigsawArt Jigsaw Puzzle iPhone App & iPad App, designed by Deborah, my friend since 1977.

Must note that Tim O’Toole, my choir buddy, has two books in the Amazon.com pipeline, on Kindle. Two paperbacks are available at their Create Space subsidiary: THE AMERICAN POPE and SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS. Haven’t read them yet, but I will, probably the pope book first.

An archeological history of the Beatles?

A BUNCH O’ MUSIC

Dustbury remembers Shadow Morton.

Allons à Lafayette is the first Cajun song ever recorded.

I Heard The Voice Of A Pork Chop – JIM JACKSON (1927). Ragtime Blues Guitar.

Chuck Miller’s The Ease of Vocalese and musical references to chess.

George Gershwin plays a piano version of “Rhapsody in Blue”.

Young@Heart Chorus performs I Put a Spell on You by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

The theme song to the Road Runner cartoon show, in Korean.

Adam Warrock songs. I especially like the Doctor Who song. The store I worked at for many years carried the novels, but I never read them and have only seen one entire episode.

Talking with myself

Covertly? The Wife will tell you that when I’m composing a blog post, my talking to myself is QUITE evident.

Chris Honeycutt – wish you were still blogging, Chris – wrote to me, “Totally thought of you on this“:

“If you’re reading this sentence, chances are you’re reading it silently…”

Yup.

“Your lips aren’t moving, you’re not making any sound that other people can hear. But are you making ‘sound’ in your head?”

Absolutely.

“Many people who read silently do so by imagining a voice speaking the words they are reading (and often, it’s your own voice, so there’s even a specific ‘tone’. I wonder if this is what makes people react so strongly to some blog posts).”

Interesting. I usually DO read, hearing my own voice. It’s especially true when I write this blog; I try to have it sound like me talking to you; sometimes I read back what I’ve written and I’ve totally nailed it; other times, not so much. Hey. what do you want from a free daily blog?

“This could be because when we learn to read, we associate symbols with verbal sounds until the association is effortless.”

It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one who loves the sound of his own voice, especially when I’m reading back my own words.

Chris thought the funniest line was: “The authors also comment that few would contest that most of our waking time is spent talking to ourselves covertly.”

Covertly? The Wife will tell you that when I’m composing a blog post, my talking to myself is QUITE evident. It’s especially true when I have an idea for a piece but lack either pen and paper or a word processor.

I was thinking of this because I read some Langston Hughes poems last week at First Friday in Albany. Someone asked if I had practiced reading them at home. No, all my practice was “in my head,” often on the bus. The ones marked # I read. The others were sung by baritone Christopher L. Trombley, accompanied by Todd Sisley on piano. (Pictured, clockwise from top left: Chris; Roger; Gloria Wood, who was displaying quilted wall hangings; and Todd.)

LANGSTON HUGHES (1902–1967)
A CELEBRATION IN SONG AND VERSE
In Time of Silver Rain – Jean Berger 1909–2002)
#The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Death of an Old Seaman – Cecil Cohen (1894–1967)
#The Weary Blues
Genius Child – Robert Owens (b. 1925)
#My People
#I, Too
Lonely People – Jean Berger
#Let America Be America Again
Shake Your Brown Feet, Honey – John Alden Carpenter (1876–1951)
#Montage of a Dream Deferred: Harlem; The Ballad of the Landlord
Litany – John Musto (b.1954)
#I Dream a World
#Wisdom and War
#Wealth
Carolina Cabin – Jean Berger
***
Talking with others:
Take a Seat – Make a Friend?

Second photo by Ray Hendrickson, stolen from his Facebook page.

I Write Like HP Lovecraft, DF Wallace or J Joyce?

My more informational pieces are very David Foster Wallace.

To show that, when you peruse this blog, you are reading the finest quality reading material, per instructions from Dustbury, I went to the website I Write Like, where one can supposedly “check which famous writer you write like with this statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of the famous writers.”

I took the first ten blog posts of this month as a typical sampling.

The War On Christmas post and the reviews of the Walter Cronkite autobiography and the Vince Guaraldi biography, I write like Lovecraft:

I write like
H. P. Lovecraft

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

A couple of newsier pieces my life on a treadmill and the FantaCon update are Joycean.

I write like
James Joyce

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

My more informational pieces, politics and commerce, and the Baseball Hall of Fame and the UHF TV are very David Foster Wallace, who, I must admit, I’ve never read.

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

No time to blog is in the style of Cory Doctorow, who I read regularly these days. (Note to Dan: so is your December 2 post.)

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Finally, my World AIDS Day piece is like William Gibson, whose writing style I am not familiar with.

I write like
William Gibson

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

Whose writing style do YOU emulate?

The Dave Brubeck webpage. I wanted to say something clever about Brubeck, who died earlier this month, like this piece by EJ Dionne. He was a real ambassador of jazz. I DO remember hearing, and liking, Take Five on the radio when it first came out. My favorite of his songs, though, is Blue Rondo a la Turk. Also, SamuraiFrog links to a Disney song.

Like most Americans, I became aware of sitar master Ravi Shankar, who died this week, via his relationship with Beatle George Harrison. Still cracks me up when, at the Concert for Bangladesh, the 1971 event that Ravi encouraged George to initiate, Shankar says to the clueless Western audience, “If you enjoy the tuning so much, I hope you enjoy the playing even more.” The official recording label of The Ravi Shankar Foundation is East Meets West Music. “With unique access to an archive featuring thousands of hours of live performance audio, film footage, interviews, and studio masters, EMWMusic releases rare recordings and provides audiences with the definitive portrait of Ravi Shankar’s long career. And, in keeping with Ravi’s dedication to looking forward and not back, EMWMusic provides a vibrant platform for new artists, projects, and collaborations.”

The “no time to blog” blogpost

Our office may be moving back downtown.

This is how I know it was a busy autumn: this year will be the first in a decade that I did not donate blood at least six times, only five. To be fair, I DID actually go down to the Empire State Plaza (the Egg, for you Albanians) back in late October but could not get into the building. As it turns out the Governor was holding a booze summit and so I couldn’t get to the regular donor site, though I had time before my dentist appointment.

I seem to have taken off a lot of days from work in November, one for Hurricane Sandy, one to take the daughter to the ER, one to go see Wicked, two because my wife was having two minor surgeries and my daughter had a half-day of school, two for Thanksgiving, a half-day for a doctor’s appointment. As Yul Brynner regularly said, “et cetera, et cetera.”

The local bus company changed its routes, and I found myself waiting an hour for transportation that was never going to come.

The Daughter is going to bed later AND getting up earlier, cutting into my wife’s prep time for school, my blogging time, and both of our sleep times.

I performed in two different choir concerts, plus attended a Friends of the Library event, a comic book show, and did the usual stuff such as raking. Then Sunday past, attended TWO concerts.

Since it’s a low content/energy day, let me tell you the latest rumor at work: our office may be moving back downtown, I’m guessing around May, since we moved almost eight years ago in that month. I currently work in Corporate (frickin’) Woods, this soulless suburbany place with no sidewalks, and the drivers motor around it as though there are no pedestrians. Save for a bank, it has none of the amenities that downtown offering, such as going to the post office or a store or a restaurant, or MY bank, or my eye doctor or my dentist. I’d be taking off far fewer days if we were downtown. It takes me two buses to get to work now, but it would only take me one if we were back in civilization, with no fewer than six different buses that could get me from downtown to within three blocks of my home.

A real blog post manana. And the next day. And the 8th…

I saw someone on Facebook pass along the suggestion to send Christmas cards to “A Recovering American Soldier” at Walter Reed Hospital. PLEASE DO NOT DO THAT. As this Snopes.com report explains: “In these times of heightened security, mail from strangers to unnamed soldiers must, for everyone’s safety, must be discarded unopened.” You CAN send cards via Holiday Mail for Heroes, a Red Cross project, but it must be postmarked by December 7, or it won’t reach its intended destination either.

According to the NY Times, Bazooka, creators of Bazooka Joe gum, will be getting rid of their famous comic strips.

Tabula rasa

The downside to all this moving stuff around is that, sometimes, I don’t know what I’ve posted for a given morning; I’m as surprised as you.

I was reading this post from Cheri at Idle Chatter, which begins: “Here it is, 11:15 pm, and I’m just now sitting down to write today’s post. Somebody make me feel better and assure me that I’m not the only one who’s ever found themselves staring at a keyboard as the day dwindles away, the ‘publish’ key impertinently mocking, waiting for a flash of inspiration.”

Two things came to mind:
1) I really enjoyed the post, but
2) I almost never write that way

I find that I need to write things when they enter my mind. The post about my mother’s birthday, which you will read on November 17, i.e., my mother’s birthday, I wrote on September 15. It just came to me, and if the muse says, “WRITE THIS,” I write it. The muse can be rather insistent.

I would hate to get to November 16, think, “Geez, I ought to write something about Mom’s birthday,” and stare at a blank computer screen, so the muse does me a favor.

I find it easier to write when I know what I’m going to write about, which I suppose is obvious. For instance, if I know for an ABC Wednesday post X is for X-Rays (it won’t be, at least not this time around), it puts me to mind to think about all the X-rays I’ve had. The brain will percolate in the background while I’m doing something else, such as showering or bicycling, then, suddenly, a theme emerges.

After I have written it, I might change it, but it’s easier to change something than nothing. If it isn’t tied to a specific date, I might even move it to another day because I need to say THIS more right now. THIS is usually for some national or world event, or perhaps a noteworthy death. When Hal David died, I wrote a piece, but I had had something else scheduled for that day which was, fortunately, movable to a day or three later.

The downside to all this moving stuff around is that, sometimes, I don’t know what I’ve posted for a given morning; I’m as surprised as you. The upside is that I get to read it, well, semi-freshly. “Oh, yeah, I remember this one.”

I tend to write in spurts. I’ve created as many as four posts in a day, and often two. Then I might go four or five days without writing anything, because the muse is on strike, demanding higher wages. Or I’m sick and/or tired; spent nearly a week in mid-September with stomach flu that was not helpful to the creative process. Or I’m busy, often with the Daughter.

I like to read other blogs, not just so I can steal ideas (e.g., this post), and create my end-of-the-month summary, but because it makes me feel connected to the rest of the world. Otherwise, it’s just navel-gazing.

Today, not incidentally, marks exactly 7.5 years of blogging, every day. It is better to post once a day than three times in one day, then nothing for three days, in my hardly humble opinion.

Anyway, I hadn’t written a blog post about blogging in nearly six months, so this is my semiannual contribution to that much-maligned body of work.