Picture Behind the Picture

June 6, 2009

Isn’t the appeal of this photo the immediate emotional response it triggers? And that response, different for every viewer, likely has nothing to do with the moment captured or starkly beautiful landscape or its inhabitants. I guess that’s why it ranked first in this contest.

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Finally, a Leader

June 4, 2009

I don’t agree with everything President Obama does or doesn’t do. But too many people miss his essential, rare quality: he is a real leader, a leader unafraid to take on difficult and complex problems by confronting them with blunt yet uplifting language, language that holds up a mirror, a mirror reflecting truth. From his [...]

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Musical Bridge

June 1, 2009

Is the banjo’s sound a pleasure genetically shared? My grown son, Zachary, told me again today how much he loves Sufjan Stevens‘ rooftop rendition of “Lakes of Canada.” Part of the appeal is more than the banjo, however. It’s the way Stevens is filmed by La Blogotheque, coincidentally in my city of birth. Funny how [...]

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Sacrificing scenery

May 31, 2009

Until the last few days, I hadn’t traveled through the Columbia River Gorge and seen the new price of protecting the planet. For several miles east of The Dalles, the bare ridge lines that for eons had starkly demarcated earth from sky now are scarred with wind turbines. Aligned like robotic sentries, they look like [...]

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Alone

May 30, 2009

South of the tiny hamlet of Pilot Rock along a lonely road, I saw an ancient barn. One end had collapsed. No one lives close enough in the desolate hills to have heard it. The rest of the building looked ready to fall in the next big wind. I ventured inside. Sunlight poured through holes [...]

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At the bus stop

May 28, 2009

Mother: What are you so angry about, bitch?
Daughter: I’m not angry.
Mother: It’s all over your face, bitch.
Daughter: What are you talking about?

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Music Fix

May 27, 2009

I make no secret of my adoration for The Avett Brothers, a band I fell for even harder after seeing them live last summer. For that concert at the Oregon Zoo, I stood in a monsoon-like rain, oblivious to the drenching.
Now I’ve seen them again, this time indoors last Friday night at the Crystal Ballroom. [...]

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Alternate Universes

May 24, 2009

I pass the bathroom door. Our soon-to-be four year old, Atticus, is seated naked on the toilet. His mother is next to him. Atticus is holding her iPhone, which is playing a YouTube video of Sesame Street, a technique for scaring off the constipation spirits.
Surely no one forecast such a scene more than a half-century [...]

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Slumming in the City

May 19, 2009

Movement outside the bathroom window. Peering through the blinds, I see a heron atop the neighbor’s garage. It’s scoping out the goldfish in our small backyard pond. Some are so large they’re often mistaken for koi. All are oblivious to the harbinger of death gazing upon them.

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Taken by time

May 16, 2009

When I was in college, my roommate and I often drove back roads deep into the Georgia woods. The roads would narrow to little more than rocky rutted paths. With no idea of our whereabouts and not caring, we’d then walk until the forest enveloped us. It was aimlessness with purpose, a meandering quest for [...]

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Cancer With Wry Smile

May 9, 2009

I’m a big fan of a guy’s blog. He’s a storyteller, and a damn good one. Even if he wasn’t, he’d win my award for best blog name: And I Am Not Lying.
Jeff Simmermon hasn’t posted much lately, and I just found out why: he apparently has testicular cancer.
His account of learning about the tumor [...]

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Spring flower girl

May 9, 2009

In evening light, she and a friend drift past my house. “Can I take a picture of your hat?” No hesitation or strange look in her response, only a guileless yes. “What’s the occasion?” She glances at her friend. “I make them all the time from what I see along the sidewalk.” Lilac today, maybe [...]

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Romance without speaking

May 8, 2009

Showing my age, I remember when teenagers called AM radio stations at night to dedicate songs to girls or boys they liked. The lyrics communicated things they couldn’t say face to face. In junior high school, I was one of the them.
Sometimes we masked our identity but made clear whom the song was intended. Or [...]

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