writing – michael jarmer

The A to Z Listening Challenge So Far (By The Numbers)

It appears that I have arrived at the half way point in my challenge of listening to nearly every single album in my vinyl record collection. It falls, neatly enough, at the end of the letter L, just one letter shy of the 13th letter, and the half way mark in the alphabet, which is,Continue reading “The A to Z Listening Challenge So Far (By The Numbers)”

#781: K is for The Knack

As popular as The Knack was, as big of a splash as they made with their debutalbum, my understanding is that they, relatively soon after their meteoric rise to rock stardom, got some extreme push-back to lyrics that were pretty much blatantly pedo adjacent. What am I saying? The fact that “My Sharona” was writtenContinue reading “#781: K is for The Knack”

#780: Found

In the yard, just lying there in the green grass, about five or six feet from the curb, a day after garbage pickup, I found three pages of text ripped from the middle of a trashy novel, ripped from the middle of the pages, so no heading was discernible, no way of deciphering what theContinue reading “#780: Found”

#771: K is for Kansas

It may be a kind of cursefor progressive rock bands to have big hits. “Carry OnMy Wayward Son” is arguablyone of the greatest and most catchy prog rock songsin history, rivaled only by maybe “Roundabout” from Yes. But what’s also clearis that after Leftoverture and Point of No Return anda sequence of a couple ofContinue reading “#771: K is for Kansas”

#769: J is for John, Elton John

I ran a search of all my poststo see how many times I had written about or at least namedElton John in a blog entry.The result: nineteen times. He was my first rock star idol. I was a fourth grader and my cousins played me Goodbye YellowBrick Road from start to finish. Almost immediately after,Continue reading “#769: J is for John, Elton John”

#758: The Voice That Is Not My Voice Is My Voice

I was compelled to use the word“voice” three times in the title of thispoem, and looking at the word (everyone has had this experience)it feels unfamiliar, unreal, made up. That sound I make when I talkis called a voice, and the personalityof my writing or my art is also calledsometimes a voice, but, too, theContinue reading “#758: The Voice That Is Not My Voice Is My Voice”

#757: Sobriquet for Jeff

I learned a new word today: sobriquet. It’s a fancy word for nickname, a kind of nicknamefor nickname. Because the scientificnames are difficult and hard to remember, people have given sobriquets to flowers and plants: baby’s breath, bleeding heart, poppy (known most commonlyas Papaver Somniferum), even the word lily is shortfor something. We give nicknamestoContinue reading “#757: Sobriquet for Jeff”

#750: I Know a Poet

I know a poet who (years ago) createda software program that could write poems. As an experiment, he brought those poemsto a workshop and pretended they were his. People were pissed at him. They invested their time and their critical acumen to helpthis writer with his poetry and they felt hoodwinked and were not atContinue reading “#750: I Know a Poet”

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Talk Some More About Publishing a Book in the Age of AI

And I thought it couldn’t get any weirder. Today, I received a cold email from a guy claiming to be a literary agent interested in my novella. He vaguely expressed interest in my work, saying that my book had come to his attention. He went on to say that his agency’s method was to earnContinue reading “We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Talk Some More About Publishing a Book in the Age of AI”

#743: J is for Jackson, Kara

I can’t remember the last timeI was as hypnotized by a voice. Or the last time I fell in love withan album that was, ostensibly, folk. When Kara Jackson tours, I think, she’s just a singer with an acoustic. And while the songs are powerful delivered in this stripped down way,this record is sonically complex.Continue reading “#743: J is for Jackson, Kara”