February 2012
1 post
January 2012
1 post
December 2011
2 posts
1 tag
In search of bookends
I’ve been thinking and writing about verbs almost all weekend. But that’s neither here nor there: what’s both here and there is that I could do better than a 5lb weight for bookending the books I keep on my desk.
Here are some options:
Clothes Iron
Rocket Ships
Scholars
Owls
Sailing Ship
Discuss.
October 2011
1 post
1 tag
September 2011
9 posts
1 tag
Baseball Night in America →
Joe Posnanski:
Baseball, like life, revolves around anticlimax. That’s what you get most of the time. You stand in driver’s license lines, and watch Alfredo Aceves shake off signals, and sit through your children’s swim meets, and see bases loaded rallies die, and fill up your car’s tires with air and endure an inning with three pitching changes, a sacrifice bunt and an...
September Visitors - David Budbill →
I’m glad to see our friends come: talk, laughter, food, wine. I’m glad to see our friends go: solitude, emptiness, gardens, autumn wind.
Chicago
I briefly mentioned my new job in my last Dispatch; one thing I didn’t mention is that, in order to hire the most talented developers, designers, and product managers we can, our team is spread out across the nation, and we all use Skype to communicate during the day*.
This is great, but there’s no substitute for being in the same room as someone with whom you’re collaborating,...
1 tag
The Word - Tony Hoagland →
Down near the bottom of the crossed-out list of things you have to do today,
between “green thread” and “broccoli,” you find that you have penciled “sunlight.”
Resting on the page, the word is beautiful. It touches you as if you had a friend
and sunlight were a present he had sent from someplace distant as this morning—to cheer you up,
and to remind you...
Dispatches from Iowa
Like email correspondence and exercise, my Tumblr-posting habits have been pretty spotty lately. I’ve been writing, especially over the past couple months, but it’s mostly work-related, reflective babble, uninteresting to anyone but me.
So, I thought it was time for another dispatch. The last, as I recall, was around Christmas, from Wisconsin, but a lot’s changed since then.
...
2 tags
August 2011
1 post
July 2011
3 posts
May 2011
4 posts
mightyflynn replied to your post : Say what you will about “grit” and rules and bad…
Well, it’s been respectable for a long, long time. Mike Scioscia, a former catcher, spoke about it today: tinyurl.com/3bq9ld3
That’s fair, but it’s not my brand of baseball. I’d like to see a comparison of how successful a collision at home is versus a slide, because my (biased) gut tells...
Say what you will about “grit” and rules and bad positioning, but I have a hard time accepting that lowering one’s shoulder into a catcher’s torso is a respectable way to play baseball.
April 2011
7 posts
1 tag
Mother by Ted Kooser →
Mid April already, and the wild plums bloom at the roadside, a lacy white against the exuberant, jubilant green of new grass and the dusty, fading black of burned-out ditches. No leaves, not yet, only the delicate, star-petaled blossoms, sweet with their timeless perfume.
You have been gone a month today and have missed three rains and one nightlong watch for tornadoes. I sat in the cellar from...
Maybe Sparrow - Neko Case
Her voice at “Oh,...
Cranking →
Just read it.
1 tag
March 2011
3 posts
“Moneyball is not about statistics or On Base Percentage, it is about constantly...”
– Paul DePodesta (via hotfoot)
On the other hand
This whole chanting “SHAME” thing would be a hilarious substitute for chanting “You fucked up” in the Badger student section.
Defense of Marriage →
One of my closest friends (who, I might add, is enrolling in seminary this August) just posted the linked website on Facebook a few hours ago. I wrote a glib response by way of a comment, thought better of it, deleted the comment, and sent him a message instead. But I’m curious what you, Tumblr, think of this. Particularly the video and the F.A.Q..
So, I dunno. Call this Hot-Button Topic...
February 2011
9 posts
Joe Posnanski: The Buck O'Neil Award →
Joe, once again brilliant:
What was Buck’s life about? It was about baseball, of course. It was about love. It was about faith. It was about honoring those who, in their own small ways, had helped changed the world. And it was about doing his best to make sure people did not forget. Again and again, across the country, he would tell people small stories about Satchel Paige and Cool Papa...
2 tags
Joe Posnanski: Thoughts in a bookstore →
Joe is the best, even (especially?) when writing about books, and about book stores:
I was in this very bookstore once when Buck O’Neil called me. This was in the last few months of Buck’s life, and it was also in the last few months of me writing my book about Buck. I had not written a book before, and I had no idea how to do it. I still don’t, but I knew eve less then. So I...
Watchvia smoketest:
This is one of the truest, most heartfelt speeches you’ll ever hear from a politician about democracy, taking place yesterday, 11.5 hours into a public hearing on Governor Walker’s budget reform proposal to nullify the majority of union contracts for public employees. Sen. Jauch (D-Popular) addressed the committee on the right of the people to get their chance to speak at the...
The Information: How the internet gets inside us →
Thoughtful article from the New Yorker on the Internet and its effect on our attention.
Thoughts are bigger than the things that deliver them. Our contraptions may shape our consciousness, but it is our consciousness that makes our credos, and we mostly live by those. Toast, as every breakfaster knows, isn’t really about the quality of the bread or how it’s sliced or even the toaster. For man...
“A man once told me to walk with the Lord. I’d rather walk with the bases loaded.”
– Ken Singleton (via biscuitsandmore, battingcleanup, and oldtimefamilybaseball)
“Also, the sun? IT’S OUT. THE SUN IS OUT.”
– Sam
1 tag
January 2011
5 posts
“Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare...”
– Bill Watterson (via calvinnhobbes, seedsot)
This Weekend In Review
Homemade Multigrain Bread
That bread, used for a French Toast brinner with bacon
The Sting And now I basically want to be Paul Newman.
Pretty Girl From Chile - The Avett Brothers
The...
December 2010
6 posts
7 tags
A Short Testament →
Today’s poem at Writer’s Almanac, the last stanza of which is the best collection of words* I’ve read in a while:
When winter is over And all your unimaginable promises Burst into song on death’s bare branches.
* I say “collection,” because without the rest of the poem, the words have very little context for meaning — which makes them even better, now...
Dispatches from Wisconsin
Hello, how are you all?
It’s been a while since I’ve actually written something here, and not just reblogged an image on a whim, such as a captioned owl I found (and still find) quite amusing.
I’ve realized lately that I feel like I have less that I need to say on here. Sam and I talk about everything, and with the few hours every day I have to myself, I guess don’t feel...
