I went downstairs to fix a cup of coffee. I needed a break from the word processor; the flow of words had come to a careening halt. My grandmother was watching television. I heard the voice of Mo Rocca. She was watching CBS Sunday Morning. He was talking about Grover’s Corners. “Grover’s Corners,” I thought.Continue reading “On Literary Confusion”
Monthly Archives: January 2010
On Birds in the Snow
About an hour ago, snow began to fall on Baltimore. The weather forecast earlier this morning called for one to three inches of accumulation. A few hours later, during Car Talk, the local NPR news announcer revised that forecast upward to ten inches. (Correction: Ten inches is the Eastern Shore. Charm City is still justContinue reading “On Birds in the Snow”
On Today’s Typography Lesson
It has only taken twenty years, but I have finally found the font I wanted. In the mid-1980s, Del Rey used a distinctive typeface for the tables of contents or chapter headings of many of their science fiction novels. Foundation and Earth. The Songs of Distant Earth. The Integral Trees. Robots and Empire. A reallyContinue reading “On Today’s Typography Lesson”
On Passages
Yesterday, Howard Zinn passed away. Today, J.D. Salinger. I’ve read both men’s work. I would not characterize myself as a fan of other, though I respected what they both wrote, even liked much of it. Salinger I read, like most people, in high school. I didn’t find his work as revelatory as my classmates did.Continue reading “On Passages”
On the Way I Write
Ah, the silence. I’ve not forgotten about you all, promise. I’ve just been busy. Writing. Watching Monsterpiece Theater. Listening to old Natalie Merchant albums. Writing. But mainly writing. I can tell you that I’ve been putting together some interesting words, building interesting sentences from them, and the resulting idea structures are cool to look at.Continue reading “On the Way I Write”
On Things I’ve Discovered While Writing Today
In no particular order… Mountaineering is an apt and interesting metaphor for life John Nathan-Turner is eminently quotable in virtually any circumstance I really like listening to The Seventeenth Century at this particular point in time Politics influences everything Sometimes, when I have a really good idea, I just have to scribble a few thoughts,Continue reading “On Things I’ve Discovered While Writing Today”
On New Internet Toys
There’s a new Opera Pre-Alpha to play with! As longtime Allynologists know, my browser of choice is Opera. I’ll use Firefox in a pinch, though I don’t like how it looks. It’s sterile. I don’t like its rendering engine. That said, I do stay current on Firefox, and I just downloaded Firefox 3.6. (I haveContinue reading “On New Internet Toys”
On the Thursday View
I wrote a lot of words today. My brain hamster is really tired. I worked that poor hamster. I made him get up in the spinning wheel. I made him run fast faster fastest. I wouldn’t let the hamster rest. The hamster ran and ran and ran. The end results I was pleased with. SomeContinue reading “On the Thursday View”
On Writing My Congressman
The text of an e-mail I just sent to Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger: Dear Representative Ruppersberger, Like many Americans, I have been following the health care debate the past year. I believe that the health care system we have is broken and badly in need of repair. I find it appalling that in this, one ofContinue reading “On Writing My Congressman”
On the Path to Health Care Reform
So. Where does health care reform go from here? (For those reading at some future date, the context — Martha Coakley lost a special election in Massachusetts, depriving Democrats of the 60 vote majority they had in the Senate). As strange as this sounds, I think that health care reform is in a better positionContinue reading “On the Path to Health Care Reform”