Archive for the ‘Personal Notebook’ Category
Dowland, 1995–2009
I"m sad to report that Dowland, our first-arrived greyhound, died peacefully in his sleep early Tuesday morning, 20 January 2009. As Isaac wrote to some friends He was 13 years, 7 months and 3 days in this world, and was with us for 10 years, 7 months & 7 days. We miss him already, but […]
Why I'll Never Be Voted…
…best gay blog: I couldn't care less about the Golden Globe Awards. I didn't even know they were happening and I'm not very clear on what they are, nor do I care. Sorry–not. But I do know some show tunes. Does that count?
In: Faaabulosity, Personal Notebook
The Mini Santa-Creche
Knowing my predilection for small but wonderfully tacky nativity scenes, our friend George gave me the item shown in the photo at right.* This little Santa is a shade under 3-inches high, and about 1.5 inches in diameter. The surface texture is slightly fuzzy, in a lightly flocked sort of way. Where, you might be […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Personal Notebook
Beard of the Week LXIV: Time Marches On
In acknowledgment of the season, this week's beard belongs to Father Time, beautifully sculpted in this high relief bronze medallion by Steven Adams, owner and proprietor of SGA Sculpting and Engraving.* For good allegorical reasons Father Time, who represents the ending of the year, is an old man with a long beard (so we know […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Personal Notebook
Technical Announcement & Flower
Having discovered today that my blog had been hacked by the industrious "anyresults.net" or "spam redirect" hacker, I was alarmed, felt violated (my second assault!), and spent a good part of the day uncovering, understanding, verifying, fixing, and upgrading my version of WordPress. For troubleshooting and help fixing the problem, this page and this video […]
Viking Gardening
To most of you, I realize that this will look pretty much like one of those pictures everyone takes at least once of a squirrel, in which there's a dot in the middle (if one's lucky) that gets pointed out as the subject. But, what I want you to see is, indeed, the expanse of […]
Beard of the Week LXII: Saint Isaac
As some of you will already have recognized, this week's beard belongs to Isaac, my beloved partner of (so far) 16 years. For obvious reasons this photograph is known around our house as "St. Isaac", certainly among my top-five favorites.* Whether it is obvious or not, he also deserves the appellation "saint" for putting up […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Personal Notebook
Kinsey Zero through Sixty
I'm sure I mentioned before the story that I wrote about a year ago for my friend, occasional co-author, and frequent editor Ron Suresha. The story, an episodic "biography" of a copy of the Kinsey Report during it's (so far) sixty-year life, is called "Between Red Covers" (a title that refers to the original book […]
In: All, Books, Personal Notebook
Nostalgic Travel
Powered by a flight of nostalgia I have revisited the remarkable and virtually unknown Mushroom Planet.* In my youth my bibliophilic tendencies were awakened by two significant influences: 1) my cub-scout den mother who was the one who introduced me to the public library (as an idea, via the actual instance in Kansas City, KS), […]
In: All, Books, Personal Notebook
Hearing Things in Noise
There is a false rumor that snopes.com reported on recently ("Doll Talk", 14 October 2008): an email is circulating, claiming to be from a woman in the Texas panhandle (possibly true) who went to a Wal*Mart store where she listened to the (recorded) sounds made by a Fisher-Price "Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Personal Notebook
Blue Ribbons
Our friend Gerry Stacey, more years ago than I care to remember, complimented my thread crochet by suggesting that I should enter something in the Maryland State Fair because I was sure to win. What a nice thing to say, I thought, and even a good idea. As you know, though, I never get around […]
"Waking Up Bear"
A couple of days ago in the mail I got my two contributors' copies of the new anthology Bears, edited by Richard Labonté (Cleis Press, August 2008). Before you order your copy I'll remind you that this anthology is a collection of gay erotica, and the subject is bearish men, about whom I like to […]
In: All, Personal Notebook, Writing
Ars Volunteer II
Ars Hermeneutica and I are looking for a very special volunteer, just the right person to double our full-time volunteer staff. I intend this to be a volunteer-to-hire position since our top priority will be to bring some projects to the money-bearing stage sooner rather than later so that we can pay ourselves and hire […]
In: All, Personal Notebook, Speaking of Science
Bradford Pear Demoted
In one short news story on the radio this afternoon I simultaneously learned two things: For the last 30 years, the Bradford Pear has been the official tree of Prince George's County, Maryland; and As of today, the Bradford Pear is no longer the official tree of Prince George's County, Maryland. To make a long […]
In: All, Personal Notebook, The Art of Conversation
Beard of the Week XXXIX: Schütz, Schein, and Scheidt
This week's beard belongs to Philip Cave, who has recently taken up the post of music director at All Souls Memorial Episcopal Church in Washington, DC.† Philip Cave (his website) is an accomplished tenor who has sung with the Hilliard Ensemble, The Sixteen, the Choir of the English Consort, and the King's Consort, among others, […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
The Lovely Cyd Charisse
Two days ago Cyd Charisse died. We liked seeing her in movies, watching her dance. To be honest, though, we seem most to associate her with Gene Kelly's voice as heard in the film series "That's Entertainment", once we noticed that he always referred to her as "the lovely Cyd Charisse". I suppose this is […]
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
Re-Tiling Our Shower I
Longer ago than I really care to admit, one wall of our master bathroom revealed that it had been damaged by water (and poor construction) and needed remedial treatment. Over time all of the tiles on that wall, an exterior wall with a window at one end of our large shower, were removed, the old, […]
New Castle, Delaware
This past February (which is to say, in 2008) we took a small excursion to visit our friends Tom & James, who live in Bear, Delaware. While we were there we had a small outing to New Castle, Delaware, where I took pictures. New Castle has a colonial origin, founded in 1651 by Peter Stuyvesant. […]
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
Barry Byrne & Turners Cross, Ireland
You may recall that I wrote recently about our new photo album with photographs of St. Benedict's Abbey Church in Atchison, Kansas. It was a gorgeous building and fun to take pictures of, it was so photogenic. You may recall further that when I tried to find more information about the building and its designer, […]
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook, The Art of Conversation
Atchison in Autumn
Last November, which is to say in 2007, we visited my father at his home in Kansas City,* While we were there we took a day trip to Atchison, Kansas, a smallish town in the northeast corner of Kansas on the Missouri river. The Missouri river is what divides Kansas and Missouri there and it's […]
In: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook