It’s Black Friday Record Store Dayand I am boycotting the experience. I thought I was going to pay a visitto my local neighborhood record storebut they really don’t need my supporttoday because they get my supportprobably a couple times a month, sometimes every single week, and the titles offered this year arenot very enticing. IContinue reading “#624: We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Talk about Record Store Day on Black Friday”
Category Archives: Culture
We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Review Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein
It might be that if I had never read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that I would have marked this new film by Guillermo del Toro as one of my favorite films in recent memory. However, I have read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, several times in fact, and because I have such a strong and endearing relationship withContinue reading “We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Review Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein”
#589: Alena (just.this.thought)
Instagram has my number. I keep seeing videosfrom Alena. All of them shot identically, a close up of her entire face, the frame starts just belowher clavicle, the topof the frame just barelymisses the very topmostpoint of her head. Thelighting is always the same,and the backdrop, the same,minimalist, nothing detracts from her face.She wears veryContinue reading “#589: Alena (just.this.thought)”
A Recrudescence in America
Ain’t that the whole truth. America is experiencing a recrudescence, one that will last four long years, and have repercussions, possibly, for decades to come. I try not to think about it all the damn day. I try not to look at the news. I fail. I check news outlets on my stupid smart phoneContinue reading “A Recrudescence in America”
Girls, Girls, Girls
I’m just going to begin by making a few observations concerning girls in music. The first three albums I purchased in 2025 were all records made by female artists, Laufey’s Bewitched, Aurora’s What Happened to the Heart, and the debut album from The Last Dinner Party, Prelude to Ecstasy. I didn’t watch the Grammy AwardsContinue reading “Girls, Girls, Girls”
On the Twenty-third Day of 2025…
…I entered a song I wrote with Adam, my Project MA partner, into a contest for songwriters over the age of 50 sponsored by an organization called Talent Is Timeless. I only know about this organization because somehow (o mystery of mysteries) I started seeing their ads in my social media feeds. Now, I couldContinue reading “On the Twenty-third Day of 2025…”
On the Nineteenth Day of 2025…
…I find that TikTok has already been restored, and I say, WTF. What kind of a bullshit ban was that? I looked at it last night around 9 or 10 p.m. and it was dark; this morning by noon it was alive and kicking. And I say, WTF again. I have tried not to consumeContinue reading “On the Nineteenth Day of 2025…”
On the Third Day of 2024: In the Third Person
He rose again. Isn’t it amazing, he finds, that every morning, no matter what, he never fails to wake up! On his way into his meditation space he realizes, though, that the dog has once again pooped and peed in the entryway, so he attends to that first. Then he can begin the ritual ofContinue reading “On the Third Day of 2024: In the Third Person”
Mindfulness in 2023: A Reflection
It has been five years since I have written one of these end-of-the-year reflections. I’m coming into this one after rereading what I wrote in 2018. In the intervening half a decade, I must have been just too overwhelmed by COVID and the ending of a career in education to be bothered to do aContinue reading “Mindfulness in 2023: A Reflection”
Journal of the Plague Year: #21
Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, has made an executive order that as of July 1st, all Oregonians must wear face masks in indoor public places, or outdoors whenever there are concentrations of people and 6 foot distancing cannot be maintained. As if on cue, my DEVO face masks were in the mailbox the day that orderContinue reading “Journal of the Plague Year: #21”
michael jarmer 