Author Archives

Bill Pearse publishes memoir, travel journals, poetry and prose, and lives in the Pacific Northwest.

• The super, blue, blood moon blues

  By Bill Pearse on January 30, 2018 • ( 20 )

  We got up at 4:30 to watch it, but it was all cloudy. “Discreet music,” I guess. So much for January.

• Dover to Dunkirk, Jan. 31, 2016

  By Bill Pearse on January 29, 2018 • ( 22 )

  

  And just like that, January was over. It meant we could reenter the Schengen by way of France, spend a night, and the next day return to my mom’s house in Germany. The radiator crapped out on the Opel and… Read More ›

• Who’s really sitting around crying now, getting drunk over Mark Smith?

  By Bill Pearse on January 25, 2018 • ( 6 )

  When I moved to Philadelphia in 1995 there was a record store off South Street with an old speaker out front, and the first time I heard “The NWRA” (The North Will Rise Again) it was there, bleating out, getting… Read More ›

• Discreet Music (MES edition) | Jan. 24, 18

  By Bill Pearse on January 24, 2018 • ( 26 )

  

  I’ve lived out here since ’96 and always had a good attitude about the rain, that it’s just November and December which are hard, that by the time you get to January you’re over the hump. Not true! It doesn’t… Read More ›

• Discreet Music | “Brutal Ardour,” Jan. 22, 2018

  By Bill Pearse on January 22, 2018 • ( 26 )

  

  So on a typical Monday here in the suburbs: Lily (12) starts seeing a therapist and texts me, “My therapist said I shouldn’t worry about finishing my homework tonight.” Charlotte (10) is caught moping over the kitchen island drawing another… Read More ›

• Discreet Music | January 14 (Portland, OR)

  By Bill Pearse on January 17, 2018 • ( 13 )

  

  The funny thing about ambient music is, I can play it over and over again, and never really notice if it’s the same song. And then, there are times I’ll recognize the artist and feel sophisticated, like when I’m seeing… Read More ›

• Discreet Music | January 16, 2018

  By Bill Pearse on January 16, 2018 • ( 15 )

  I made marrow soup for the first time (or released the marrow I guess, into a soup). And I took a hot bath and imagined myself settling into it the same as the chicken carcass, reduced. I flickered in and… Read More ›

• Discreet Music | January 11, 2018

  By Bill Pearse on January 12, 2018 • ( 17 )

  “Discreet Music” is the name of a Brian Eno album from 1975 and also a new blog series I’m running through January, prompted by a journal-writing theme I started in Germany over the holidays. It’s inspired by the David Sedaris… Read More ›

• Last reflection before bed

  By Bill Pearse on January 11, 2018 • ( 6 )

  The essence of the day was lost to the holes and spaces where memory goes, the leaks and gaps that take what you don’t see. And sad to think, a whole life can pass by like that, unseen. Photo from… Read More ›

• Song for company reorganizations in F sharp

  By Bill Pearse on January 10, 2018 • ( 6 )

  Now there’s a different feel to the company for those who have been there long enough and know what to expect: It’s half-way through the fiscal cycle so they know how they’ve done the first half and can predict the… Read More ›