I don’t like to drive when it snows. It’s a fear that has grown into a full-blown, anxiety-induced phobia. Of all my quirks and neuroses this is the one I loathe the most because it makes me feel flaky and wimpy. Because I am a hearty Minnesotan, I spent many years white-knuckling it from here to there as my truck, Ruby, fishtailed with all her shitty 2-wheel-drive might. With every slip and slide and tightened grip on the steering wheel,…
After two, or maybe three false starts, I finally made it through Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues. Usually, I wouldn’t be so dogged in reading a book that didn’t seem to be working for me, but the combination of vinyl record on the cover & LeAnn’s review gave me the extra persistance I needed. I’m glad I stuck with it. In Nazi-occupied Paris Sid Griffiths, Hieronymous Falk, and The Hot-Time Swingers are working on recording “Half-Blood Blues.” Hiero, aka the kid,…
When it comes to pop cultural nonsense, I have a very elaborate and arbitrary filtering system. We all have these filters, right? I mean there’s just so much out there that we can’t absorb it all. It’s why I have eliminated the screechy and judgmental “I can’t believe you have not read this book” from my vocabulary. Now that I am FORTY! and wise, I’ve finally accepted that the literary landscape is a vast and varied place. There are more…
So I’ve been trying for a week to write about the night I decided the time had finally come to sit down, drink a Captain Morgan and Diet Coke like it was 1995 and Kelly McKnight had just given me a buck to put in the jukebox with the stipulation that I play something by The Replacements, and watch Color Me Obsessed, a documentary about The Replacements. Before I get too far, you should that if you’re an Amazon Prime…
I don’t have any words about what happened in Newtown, only tears and anger. I can’t even muster the outrage so many seem to have at their ready. Really, the only thing I keep thinking is a modified line from the movie “Heathers.” “Our society nods its head at any horror an American can think to bring upon it.” This is running through my head not only because I’ve seen this movie so many times the entire script seems etched…
You’re familiar with the song “Father Christmas” by The Kinks, yes? Of course you are. It’s a disturbing song about poor kids mugging someone with asking for money and a job for his dad. You know all those kinds of things we like to ignore at Christmas. So what kind of jerkwads would use the song about poor kids at Christmas to sell Chromebooks at Christmas? I guess that would be Google. Now, I am someone who has pretty much…
