The battles we fight – the wars we wage.
I, too, sing America.
When I tell people I want to live in a school bus after I retire, reactions run the gamut. But it’s OK. I’ve already driven a bus – the bus I was riding home from school one Spring day in 1972, in 9th Grade. I wasn’t supervised at all, but only watched by the laughing and licensed bus driver who gave me her seat so that I could drive my own bus down my own street. Continue reading “Stop for Flashing Lights”
My heart is breaking, but it’s not just for me. It is breaking for my mother’s brother Ken Viard, for Ken’s children Melissa and Carl (with whom, at some relatively minor physical distance, I grew up), for Melissa’s husband Jeff and Carl’s wife Agnes, and for all those who love Marcia Leete Worthen Viard, who, on Feb 22, 2017, passed into what awaits us all. Continue reading “Aunt Marcia – Family Vol. 4”
Read up a bit on Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist of the 19th century, and you may run across this: “The greatest delight the fields and woods minister is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me and I to them.” Continue reading “A Woman & the Vegetable – Family Vol. 2”
“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails.”
Thus wrote Terence Hanbury White in The Once and Future King, first published in its entirety in 1958 – the year I turned 2. It will be just as true at the end of 2017, when I turn 61. Continue reading “Regina quondam, regina futura – Family Vol. 3”
Some people have such difficulty expressing their periodic chasms of vengeful depression, they take to the Internet looking for narratives they might adopt for their own. Now and then, reading through these portrayals of sub-flat-line despair, they shout, “That’s fantastic!”
This does not suggest any enthusiasm – not even for recovery. Part of depression is being willing to take on anything – even the misery of others – in an effort to fill the void with something other than deep, dull pain. Continue reading “Spinning Our Plates”
A simple gift for your holiday … Continue reading “Happy Christmas, Dylan”
It has been four years – Continue reading “Kiss Like Your Kiss”
Walt Kelly was the author and artist behind the Pogo comic strip, which ran from 1948 to 1975 – and which blasted American behavior and attitude related to everything from littering to politics (sometimes interchangeably).
Perhaps even more than this, Kelly was also known for rewriting Christmas carols. Continue reading ““Deck us all with Boston Charlie””
In my composition classes, I taught that if you are interested in thinking outside the box – if you strive to stretch or break the rules – you must first master the box. It’s my simplistic notion based on observations that some of the most innovative musicians were first classically (or at least formally) trained. Mastery can be the foundation from which one can reach for more. Continue reading “Standing on Rounded Stones”
Essays Exploring Craft and the Writing Life
"A Word of Substance"
A guide to crafting captivating music, lyrics and performances
The battles we fight - the wars we wage.
Middletown, CT
Breaking free and paving my own way.
Words of War 