Category: Art

  • Museum Day

    I thought that I’d have more time today, but I’m about to head out with the kid to a museum; so, no chance to do a review of a story, or write something profound/witty.

    More tomorrow…

  • Earworm Wednesday: It’s Blondie!

    I woke up this morning and “Heart of Glass” was in my head. And I think I wrote about Blondie and “Heart of Glass” before, but you know what, I think I’m going to do it again.

    I think for most people my age, when you say disco, the Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever are the first things that pop into your head. For me, it’s been “Heart of Glass” since I first head it. Which is funny because me and just about everyone else would never say that Blondie is a disco band – punk and new wave, clearly.

    Then, when I was in my 20’s, the song took on a whole different meaning. Instead of being a silly disco song, I started to appreciate the juxtaposition of the tragedy of loss of the love in the song, with the upbeat infectious driving dance beat. To me, it encapsulates the feeling of monumental life altering infatuation that could evolve into love, but deep down you know its doomed, but these feelings are so intoxicating that you can’t say no to them. You embrace the coming train wreck, though you know better.

    Give me a year, I’ll probably write about this song again.

  • Bad Movie Bible: A Guide to the Many Accents of Steven Seagal

    I never knew that I needed this video from Rob Hill over at Bad Movie Bible, but it turns out I actually did; Simply because I have wondered from time to time, usually late at night after a drink or two, why does Steven Seagal’s accent seem to change every couple of years?

    Here’s the answer:

  • ODDS and ENDS: Time for Some Trust Busting, Vacation, and a Cigar

    ODDS and ENDS: Time for Some Trust Busting, Vacation, and a Cigar

    (Something Clever Goes Here…)

    Looks like Paramount is about the buy Warner Bros./Discovery, which means there will be five companies that control 51% of the media. If what the Ellison’s did to CBS is any indication of what they’ll do to WB/Discovery, then we are about to enter into a dark age. Prices will go up, coverage will be pro-conservative, service will decrease, and market share will continue to be concentrated. The good news is that this has happened before in America, and we have the tools to break all these trusts up. And I mean all the trusts; media, social media, airlines, online shopping, web services, and banking. The only thing stopping it is the will of the people. The laws are on the books, but they’ll only be enforced if we elect the right people to do it. I’m telling you, we gotta get involved before its too late, and we are getting very close to it being too late.

    I think I might vacation in West Virginia this year. Somewhere up in the Appalachian Mountains. Maybe along a river or a creek. Nothing crazy, but a cabin away from everyone and it should also be a place where it gets cool at night, like low 60’s or high 50’s. This is Summer after all. Just a thought I have been having of late.

    I haven’t smoked a cigar since college; it was after a cast party and I was feeling on top of the world. I don’t particularly like cigars or the smell, but the idea of sitting on a porch as the sun sets, smoking a cigar with a glass of bourbon in my hand sounds wonderful at this point. This might be tied in with the West Virginia vacation thing from above… but it’s on my mind.

  • Short Story Review: “Predictions and Presentiments” by Valeria Luiselli

    (The short story “Predictions and Presentiments” by Valeria Luiselli appeared in the February 16th & 23rd, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Jesús Cisneros

    “Predictions and Presentiments” by Valeria Luiselli is a short story that gave me a reassuring hug. The reassuring didn’t come in the form of any answers to the questions which the story brought up, but it reassured me that life is about growth and discovery.

    Overly Simplistic Synopsis: After a divorce, a mother and her daughter spend time in Sicily, not too far from where the mother’s grandmother is originally from. And they try to cook a swordfish head, too.

    In the story, the main character has a small mosaic fragment of the god Proteus which her grandmother obtained/stole from an archaeological dig she was working at. The mosaic fragment is a clever dramatic device in the story. But I had this thought in my head that “Predictions and Presentiments” was a bit like Proteus; it kept shifting and changing. Was this a story about just the narrator, a mother, and her daughter? Was it about her grandmother as well? Legacy trauma? Family origin story? Connection to the past, or the ancient past? What truths do we share with our families, or do we make fictions out of those truths? Can we change who we are, or we destined to our nature? Is our future but a guess, or is there a way to logically know what’s coming?

    This is a story that walks a very nice tightrope of keeping it all together. I couldn’t shake the feeling that at any moment the mother and daughter could spin off into ruin. I can’t say where in the story I got that from; perhaps it was the refrain of starting over in a new place, the perils that come with beginning again, and discovering something new? Maybe it was the climax of the story, or the fishmonger who sold the fish head? Or it could have been how not everything that happened in this piece got wrapped up neatly, or fully explained? This created a feeling of fragmentation, that Proteus mosaic again, but Luiselli held it all together. See, it reassured me that life is messy, not neat, but wonderful to experience.