(fleeting)

🔗 Lou Ottens, the inventor of the cassette, has died.

I was a member of the mixtape generation, and also a lo-fi cassette 4-track musician. This cuts deep.

(via)

Update. I’m in the clear: no signs of a concussion. It feels like someone punched me hard in the chest, and even after nearly a week, my breathing and mobility is still compromised just enough to really slow me down.

All three guitars have new strings, finally. I won’t let it go that long again.

And Concussion Watch ’21 begins!

I’ll definitely have some bruising and stiffness, but I didn’t break any ribs.

Good news is, I know how to fall. If you spend your childhood trying to fly by throwing yourself down the stairs, you learn a few things.

What a week. Is this what a good week feels like?

Well, what do you know. Something happened. And now something else is happening.

RIP Peter Ostroushko

Something’s about to happen.

Thinking about Lawrence Ferlinghetti today, I just posted a short something I wrote a few years ago but never published. It’s more about my father than Ferlinghetti, really, but that’s the way of elegies sometimes: they go where they go.

On Poetry and Bullshit

RIP Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1919–2021

Two down, one to go.

So, in the category of “bands that always wear headgear,” it’s down to Los Straitjackets and The Residents, is that right? Am I forgetting anyone?

The last time I was in a bookstore was 55 weeks ago. Since then, I’ve bought every book online, most from independent bookstores or, when I could, directly from the publisher. Only one has thought to include some bookmarks.

(Full series here.)

Last, next.

74: Nat’l Parks: Rainier
75: Letterpress: Genghis Kern

Good is better than great.

“Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.”

—Dennis Leigh
(but associated with Alastair Gray, who cited it often)

Last, next.

73: Nat’l Parks: Denali
74: Nat’l Parks: Rainier

A poem of mine, “Polly,” is up at Autumn Sky Poetry Daily.

Here’s another straggler that just surfaced. From the same era that produced this bookmark.

(The full series is here.)

All these “Micro.blogiversaries” (e.g. @Miraz, @Burk) remind me my own third anniversary was nine days ago.

Thanks to @manton, @cheesemaker, and @jean for laying the groundwork for such a wonderful community!

Here’s another bookmark that just turned up. I remember it being cluttered and tousled, the sort of place where accident was the only real form of discovery.

Happy New Year!

Yesterday’s scones.

The scones are in the oven. A day late, but just in time to be my last creative project of 2020.

A poem of mine, Thighbones, Clay, is up at Eunoia Review.

Oh, what a year. I’m aware of (and grateful for) my privilege and my luck. But it doesn’t always help, when I’m struggling. And I’ve been struggling.

But tomorrow, I make scones.

I will build something, and add savor to the world, at least for a few moments.