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 ›
humor
Discreet Music | January 11, 2018
“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 ›
A piece of Richard Brautigan (for Loren)
The cat’s eyes have gone cloudy, or maybe it’s just my imagination. She spends most nights in the garage, which would explain the need for a thicker coat. And in the morning she pulls a pipe cleaner out of the… Read More ›
Discreet Music | January 7, 2018
The dog’s hind leg shifts like a coal in the wood stove, stirs, then settles in. It’s Sunday and I vowed to cook, read, build a fire and that’s it. Spent half of it online reading consumer reviews of cars… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany (26 Dezember)
Eberhard put school pictures of the girls in a pack of cigarettes and we said goodbye, gave him the last of the turkey in a Ziploc bag. When he leaves, mom always goes to the kitchen sink window where they… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany (24 Dezember)
24 Dezember, 17 Besigheim, Baden-Württemberg Early morning, happy snoring sounds in bed with Dawn—then mom and I by the banquette watching the birds gather outside by her window. We stayed up late playing Dan Fogelberg songs on mom’s tablet, Dawn… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany (23 Dezember)
My pants don’t fit, and we can’t get the lyrics right to any of the Steely Dan songs. Cooked onion hangs like phlegm from the lips of Eberhard, the seafood gumbo I made: we were so full from lunch, mom… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany (21 Dezember)
This month I’ve been featuring journal-style stories from our time visiting my mom in a small German village in Baden-Württemberg. The series is named after a post from 2014, before we moved here for nine months. We had to leave… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany (18 Dezember)
We went back to Colmar, the small French town with the killer Christmas markets, but it wasn’t the same trying to recreate our first visit, when it was just me and Dawn. But if you’re a 10-year-old, on the cusp… Read More ›
No Christmas in Germany (14 Décembre)
December 14, 2017 Colmar, France In the morning Dawn had a headache and I went out looking for aspirin and bottled water or coffee, but found none (it was before 8 and only the Tabacs were open, all they had… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 