Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Publish, or...

... well, not perish. Not even "Publish or Bust". More like ...AND bust. It's not like I have a positive cashflow from self-publishing. Not even close, in fact.

But cost notwithstanding, it's an internal drive that I need to satisfy. (Getting "the word" out, I mean. That is, out of my head and into the heads of others.) This blog certainly takes the edge off that drive, but now and then an idea is well enough received among friends & family (and maybe more), that I feel a need to get the idea into a more tangible form than is possible in the virtual world.

So after winning a local poetry slam competition a while back, I decided that now was the time to put that idea in print, too. It's a children's book (Dr. Suess style) about the geriatric set, lovingly illustrated by J1, who was the audience for a lot of my silliness when she was growing up. She had been working on the artwork for a while, but the poetry contest pushed me over the top with the project. Tomorrow I head for the printer to talk about setup of text and images, paper style, etc.

This will be book number three for me. The first (another "children's" book) was not for sale, and this one won't be either - it's just for gifts. The middle one (a poetry collection), published on Amazon Kindle, has actually sold some copies. Amazing. And if anyone ever found a hard copy of that one floating around, it would either be a forgery... or ha - priceless. ;)

Maybe someday I'll do what columnists do: publish a book derived from their columns. In this space right here, I certainly have enough material. And I suppose just about as many people will want to read that, too.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Gypsy Mania On The River

Well, it may not have been Milwaukee's Summerfest, but still, what a great evening. :) Clear summer night last night, not too warm, enough breeze to keep bugs away.

Add to that a picturesque setting in someplace new and interesting, decent food and great music, well-behaved relatively sober people, and a special occasion to celebrate (not to mention the good feeling of just having finished up some needed yardwork and my second summer school paper), and it all adds up to a swell time.

St. Anthony Main is a dining and entertainment complex in a refurbished old mattress factory,



right on the Mississippi river by an old hydroelectric dam and a city park built out into the river called "Water Power Park."








Xcel Energy (formerly NSP or Northern States Power) reclaimed a bunch of the land once used for a power plant, and made it into a riverfront walking park. Really very nice. They must still make power there too, because the substation and high-power lines were certainly visible.


But back across the cobblestone street where the horse and buggy stood ready to give carriage rides, St. Anthony Main had sidewalk (patio, really) cafe' dining opportunities



and a courtyard in which they had free live music going. This is an all-summer-long thing, apparently. This one went well enough, maybe we'll go back... even without the special occasion. :)

The band du jour was one we'd heard before in a neighboring nightclub, Vic's. It's Gypsy Mania, and they do "hot club" swing, a'la Django Reinhart & Stephane Grappelli. Missed their CD release party earlier in the month due to that driving vacation I'll eventually get back to telling you more about. But I picked one up last night, and they all signed it for me. An honor to be asked, they said. :)



So again, a very pleasant couple of hours spent at a neat local night spot by a lovely local natural resource, listening to talented local musicians. I do like this area. There really is a lot to enjoy without going far and spending much.



Oh, before I go, a couple of odds and ends. This picture for one. I'm not sure what struck me about it now, but here it is anyway. If you figure out why, let me know. ;)



And the other thing is.. the prior post was my 1,000th on this blog. One thousand and one, now. Yikes! Do I really talk that much?

Don't answer that.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Preach it, brother!

Okay, then... if you insist... I will. :)

The pastor at EnCompass church will be taking some time off in August, and a few of us from the congregation are going to take turns filling his "pulpit" (which is actually just a bar stool and a music stand, but you get the general idea..)

I get to lead off on August 2, and also get to pretty much pick my own topic, within the loose confines of a general series of how each of us relate to God. So, I thought "hey! why not make use of my summer school course?"

Hey, indeed. The pastor and the Sunday morning program person bought the idea, so in about a month yours truly will be waxing eloquent (maybe...) on the topic of God as a relational being, and what that implies about change in an unchanging God.

Now if I can just get my prof to let me substitute prepping for (and preaching) a sermon, in place of that last comprehensive research paper, I'll be golden. :)

Of course, there's the small matter of what the heck I'll actually say.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Drafting in Blogger

My Summer School course is now in full swing, I guess, as I have just finished the rough draft of my first (of 6) papers on the first (of 5) books. Hopefully, that one goes in to the prof tonight, and the second one by, oh... Tuesday?

From there on they'll come a little less frequently. The first two books I've read; the next three I haven't. And what's more, I read the first two several months ago. The cool part is, though, that I had already written about both... right here in this little ol' blog spot. :)

Richard Sanders "The God Who Risks", here. And here.

Jung Young Lee "The Trinity In Asian Perspective", here. And here. And here.

That is one of the benefits of doing posts immediately on topics that strike me as profound enough to write about. Now, all I really have to do is go back to my earlier thoughts, and put them into the more formal structure of a research paper. Easy! :)

So for those of you that are not really all that interested in my theological musings, hey, there's a purpose for it. Capture those thoughts while they're fresh!

Oh, and... expect more blog posts on the other texts as I get to them. Some of them might actually be interesting. Really.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Handling Intimacy in a Public Setting

Um.... what do you mean by this, now? Is this going to be a blog post full of double entendres? One that appeals to the prurient interest of certain people and offends the delicate sensibilities of others?

Noooo. Not me. I never do that. :)



It's really just an observation (which is most of what I do on here, anyway.. experience life and make observations about it) of how different performers handle the intimacy of a small club like the Dakota. Over the last year or two I've seen several great jazz performers (some of whom I've also seen in a larger concert hall setting), and they really do exhibit differences in how they handle being literally within arm's reach of the audience.



Last night it was Karrin Allyson. Her CD, Collage, was one of the first jazz vocal recordings I bought in that format (many more on tape or vinyl, mind you), way back in 1996. I liked her voice back then on that collection of standards, but she has really developed as a vocal stylist since, and I picked up two newer ones (Imagina and From Paris To Rio) recently that showcase her facility with French and Portuguese. And last night she proved she could also grind out the blues effectively, so now a few more of her CDs are on request at the local library. :) Man, she's good!



I'm not sure she is real comfortable playing such a small house as the Dakota. Seems to me she coped with it by featuring her band members on solos (and they were fabulous, so it worked), and by interacting with people she knew in the audience (family and musicians she's worked with). She even dragged a couple of them up on stage to help her out.



Other performers have been more stiff and removed from the audience, and still others have made you feel like you were sitting in their living room looking through a family photo album as they told you stories. The ones who could handle being intimate with the small audience (like John Pizzarelli) really put on the superior show.

The ones who were more comfortable in an arena or large hall (like The Manhattan Transfer) were great performers, too, but.. you didn't feel like you got to know them. Give me someone who really knows how to romance a crowd, and I'll forgive slips in musicianship. Put distance between yourself and your audience, and I expect perfection as compensation. Luckily for me, even the stiff performers at the Dakota are that good. Love this place. :)

Hm. Can't resist one more spur-of-the-moment observation. Isn't it like this in intimate relationships, too? I mean, romance me, drop your guard and be intimate with me, and I'll naturally overlook all kinds of flaws. But be cool, distant and aloof, and man, you gotta be pretty much flaw-less for love to work. And sometimes, that's exactly how it goes. Either way.

Hm. Sounds like a topic for another time and place. :)

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Vegelyzing

New word alert!

I think this SHOULD be a word, at least. It refers to the evangelizing (or proselytizing, take your pick) of the carnivore/omnivore community by the vegetarian/vegan community.

Ran smack into it in Asheville, NC, a mountain community that is sort of like the Seattle of the Appalachians, very left-leaning and culturally post-modern, populated with both aging hippies and young hipsters (along with the usual entourage of opportunists that accompany both.)



I picked up a copy of PeTA's "Vegetarian Starter Kit" in one of those curbside bins full of free papers. You know the kind. They range from "Street People's Weekly" to "Bait & Switch Real Estate Listings" to "Escorts At Your Fingertips".

It's actually a nice little 24-page 8.5 x 11 glossy publication that boasts "FREE Recipes Inside", and carries the slogan "Everything you need to eat right for your health, for animals, and for the Earth."
I love how Earth is capitalized. It's sort of like the way God is capitalized by some people, I guess. Perhaps Capitalization sort of reveals your Worldview. Some people's worldview excludes belief in capital letters altogether. :)

Beyond the food facts and recipes (which are pretty decent), it's full of important celebrity endorsements, ranging from Joaquin Phoenix (wait, isn't he dead? No, that's River. Ah, I can't keep them straight.) to Alec Baldwin (are you kidding me? He's a role model for anything?) to the Dalai Lama (who has a heck of a sense of humor, and is a pretty cool guy.)

But I digress. This is supposed to be another installment in the travelogue series of what I did on my summer vacation. So, back to Asheville. You could tell that it was a hipster kind of place by one look in the local book dealer's window.



Yeah. I get this place. ;)

So, besides being the home of the Biltmore (Vanderbilt's 250-room French mansion),



it was a neat-looking little town. Lots of art-deco-era buildings, street buskers and cool stores.







It's just... too enamored with itself and its über-hipness.

I'd settle for Boone, a little college town about two hours north.

It's just as hip as Asheville, but not nearly as pretentious.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

HVAC, ASAP!

At 1:45 this afternoon, my outdoor thermometer read 99.3 degrees.

And last night the air conditioner stopped working (in both home and office.) Aargh. Nice timing. Sort of like being on vacation when your boss quits. Not when you want that to happen.

So, an HVAC guy is coming over (soon, I hope) to look at the thing. God willing, it's a quick fix, and not a total replacement.

Here I thought that leaving the oppressive heat of the Carolina low country would be a relief. Ha. It was actually preparation!

And like a true diehard, I went to the indoor track (cooler, but still 70+) and ran at noon (shorter than normal due to the two-week vacation layoff), knowing I would come home to a sweatbox. Yuk.
But darn it, life can't grind to a halt because of a hot spell, right?

Right?

Where IS that a/c guy anyway?



P.S. Heard a great new song today by Regina Spektor from her new album "Far". It's called "Laughing With", and it's pretty profound coming from a girl that sings an aria about a lost wallet and Blockbuster card.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

3,750 Miles

Wow. Long trip.

Great trip! :)

I've got lots to share about it, beyond that which I already have, but it will have to wait until I have time. I have two weeks of work emails to crawl out from under, a new (old) boss to (re)orient to what I do, two papers to write for my summer school course, yada, yada.

For the time being, here is a photo-recap of hotels from here to NC and back, a pictorial story told through amenities (and any other distinctive features that a $60/night room be able to muster up.)

Oh, and in case one of the pictures is hard to make out, it is the logo for a Tempurpedic mattress. Yeah, the real kind. It's time to replace the 12-year-old Select Comfort mattress currently in use, and it seemed like a hassle-free way to try out a new (and expensive) kind. And the verdict? Well, it's the only mattress that produced a pain-free morning-after. That says a lot. :)

































Friday, June 19, 2009

En route

... homeward bound.

Today will be the last of the mountain driving, going through four states in about 2 hours! This part of the Appalachians is where NC, TN, VA and KY all overlap like the fingers of folded hands. I fully expect more trailers, more biscuit places and more pottery shops. :)

Tomorrow, the nose of the car heads on a steady NW course through the flatlands, arriving home just in time for 90 degree weather. Yikes! I thought it was supposed to be cooler by the Great Lakes.

Give me the Blue Ridge, baby. It's nice up here at 3100 feet.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Gourmet dining... in a barn?

Well, yesterday we certainly went from one extreme to another.

Breakfast at the Waffle House across the road from the hotel. Mmm, mmm, mighty good. And cheap. The food, I mean. I really can't comment on the wait staff in those same areas. Although I could venture a guess.



The cheesy eggs were perfect, as were the grits with butter & salt. Bacon crisped (with a flat iron on the griddle), and one real nice biscuit, yes sir. I had them hold the raisin toast in favor of the biscuit.



Lunch, however, was another matter. Not the Waffle House, but the Biltmore House. Yikes!



And even though the restaurant was where they used to keep the horses back in the day, the place cleaned up pretty nice.



And the food was also mmm, mmm, mighty good. But, um... not cheap. Salad topped with flank steak and grilled peaches, chunks of white cheddar, and fried onions. Marvelous.

As before, the drive up the mountain and along the Blue Ridge Parkway found the temperature dropping about 5 degrees for every 1,000 feet gain in altitude. I'll take something right about 3,500 ft., I think. Just right.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

I'm taking a break from the travelogue here to bring up an item from the reading for my summer school class. One of the authors, Richard Sanders, in his "The God Who Risks", is discussing love between persons, and offers these characteristics of it:

1) limitless (but conditioned by the ability of the other to receive it),

2) precarious (because it does not control the other),

3) vulnerable (because it may not get its way), and

4) desirous (of reciprocation, of mutuality)



Some explanation is needed of the first term. By limitless, he means "unlimited concern for the other", as in the lover desiring to give all for the beloved. Kindness may have limits, but love does not. Love is willing to give all, because the lover is focused on bringing great good to the beloved.  However, love also respects the personhood of the beloved and works within the conditions of the relationship and with the limitations of the beloved.

The argument of this book is that this is also how God loves, but perfectly. God takes risks in loving us, and at the same time allows us free will. If we as the beloved do not have free will, then we can't freely reciprocate the love of God, which is ultimately what God wants to have with us - a mutual relationship of love.



I can relate to this. In theory and in practice.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Urbanity awaits

Well, the backwoods tour is done, and Friday we're on to the more "urbane" world of Charlotte, if that's indeed the right word for it. At least there's cell phone service there.

I needed it the last couple of days, too, as I got a voice mail from my boss indicating that he just quit. Yikes! His last day is my last day of vacation. And who do I get for a new boss? My old one. From before the current one. For now. It may be temporary.

I'll tell you, corporate america, I can't be gone too soon. Playing musical managers is frustrating, for them and their workers.

Life is simpler in the backwoods. Driving up into the hills today to ride a "scenic railway" (once an old logging train),



I caught a local AM station in the car. You know the small town kind where for news they read the minutes from the school board meeting. Seriously. They actually did that today. :)

I used to work for one of those radio stations during college in the backwoods of far northern Wisconsin. In addition to broadcasting live from the county fair and interviewing the prize winners from the cattle judging, part of my job was to announce the lunch menus for the school and the senior center. I tried to make hamburger hotdish and tuna casserole sound as exotic as I could, by reading it with a foreign accent and playing 1960's "cool jazz" in the background. I'm not sure it helped.

So anyway, one of the news items on this radio station was a recap from the Spring elections. One community may have violated WV state elections law by only having the polls open from 5-7PM. That's all they could manage because of a lack of qualified poll workers. The reason they were unqualified was that the WV election law states that poll workers can't be related to people on the ballot, and that eliminated almost everybody in town. :)

I'm not kidding. This was a real news item from rural WV hill country. But as it was, during the two hours the "non-kinfolk" poll workers were available, they still achieved a 30% voter turnout. That community had 74 potential voters, of which only 30 were registered. Twenty-one showed up. At least it was an odd number so there wouldn't be a tie. Imagine the problems if they had to hold a runoff.



But on a two hour train ride through the Allegheny Mountains, one did manage to slow down. It'd be nice to stay that way.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Trailers, Churches & Biscuits

Finally a chance to breathe, and catch up in the on-line world. In the first two days, we covered about 900 miles, a goodly part of that in rain. But that was fine, as the "get out and look around" part of the trip was planned to start on day 3 anyway. So on days 3 and 4 combined the mileage covered was barely 400. Now, finally, it's 3 nights in one spot, and a base of operations to come back to post-sightseeing.

Yesterday and today were definitely "off-the-grid" days for a good part of them. There were stretches on the back roads where I could imagine breaking down and not being able to call AAA for a tow, not only because there was no cell signal for about an hour's drive in any direction, but how would I tell them where the car was? "Um... AAA? Yes, we're broke down here somewheres between Frog Hollow and Piney Ridge on Gunflint Trail? Y'all know where that is? I ain't got me one of them GPS thangs in my ve-hi-cle."

The night before, when still in the realm of the connected world, I made the mistake of pulling up a clip on YouTube of the Dueling Banjos scene from "Deliverance". We hain't seen those ol' boys exackly yet, but we shore enough have seen us some o' their kin. And durned if they don't make a feller a tad narvous.

Well, I could go on and on (and probably will when I get home), but let's just say that West Virginia has already left some definite impressions. Immediately on crossing the border, the trailers bloomed like mountain wildflowers - everywhere, prolifically, and randomly. Only nowhere near as pretty. Here are two of the cleaner ones.





Then there are the Waffle Houses and the donut places. There's even a chain of fast food joints called Biscuit World. Really. Finally broke down and stopped at one today, and hoo-ee. Now that is a biscuit.




Not to be outdone by the trailers, biscuit places and Gentlemens' Clubs (which for decorum's sake I decline to display), were the churches. Every kind you can imagine, and some you really couldn't, popped up in the oddest places. There were so many of them that they had to amount to mostly just the pastor, his family and in-laws, and a few scattered neighbors. How they support themselves, I can't imagine.



The eating places have been a slice of local culture, too. And the more remote they were, the better the cookin'. More than once we had what amounted to private dining.




More to come later, maybe when I get to where family is and can borrow a memory card USB adapter to upload photos in bulk instead of one text message at a time. :(

In the meantime, I leave you with some picture-postcard scenes of the mountains, which will probably wind up as screensavers for my Mac back home. My goodness, it is lovely here. :)



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