All the blood ran out of his face when my boss said they were putting me on a plan. It’s not the kind of plan you want to be put on. I became aware of my body language, uncrossed my arms,… Read More ›
art
Song of my 40s, still life
I can palm the cat’s head in my lap when she’s napping in the morning and it’s still dark — with just candles and Brian Eno playing, sometimes you can’t tell if it’s even on, that’s the thing about ambient… Read More ›
Standing under the shoulders of giants
A week spent with data, inside Excel: VLOOKUPS, pivot tables, four rewrites of a simple proposal drawn up for review by one guy, a 15 minute meeting. A five page deck with about 10 pages in the appendix. The appendix,… Read More ›
The Unraveling of Mark Kozelek
Last week, Kozelek got some press related to belligerent remarks he made to audiences and fellow musicians The War on Drugs. For someone like Mark, who requires a footnote explaining who he is by way of the band he used… Read More ›
Carson Street slideshow, 1994
We are in Michael’s boyfriend’s apartment, getting into Michael’s boyfriend’s bag. Michael is gay before anyone else in Pittsburgh. He wears scarves and earrings with hoops and looks beautiful but doesn’t act like a priss. People talk behind his back… Read More ›
An eye, an ear, a voice, a heart: the journey to find
(This post originally titled A voice, an ear, an eye, a heart, but I resequenced it.) Writers talk about the importance of finding your voice. That’s been the premise of this blog, to see what I sound like as a writer… Read More ›
The Notes Between The Keys
I spent the last year here rebuilding my confidence as a writer, forcing myself to see my life as noteworthy every day, gathering inspiration. I didn’t know what I was doing, and half-hoped the sheer pursuit of a Broken Down… Read More ›
The quality vs. quantity dilemma of blogging
In manufacturing, art, blogging…quality and quantity aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s true, you can have both (high output and high quality), but one often suffers at the expense of the other. You take hours to craft a blog and so you… Read More ›
Corpse Pose (On Creation)
The Barbie dolls are on their backs, arms in supplication, dead bugs frozen in the position of a child’s imagination before it moves on to something else. Me and the dolls and our glassy eyes, plastic smiles, a battlefield of… Read More ›
Winter’s Playground
Drinking good wine out of paper cups at the Howard Johnson’s in the mountains, the knocking through the wall could be the neighbors signaling Keep it down, or the neighbors knocking each other around, with the bed frame. We decide… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 