Ugh, The Seance

I am really stoked about the Inanna part. There’s stripping and fucking and history and magic and my Grandma (people, yes, for a story about Nashville, it’s filling up with dead people who married Phillipses) and omni-gendered priests and Inanna dressed like the twilight sky. And the importance of trying to live with the truth [...]

Davy Jones Gone, I Suppose, to Davy Jones’s Locker

The amount of time I spent watching The Monkees as a kid… man, how many sick days were spent with me curled up either on the couch or in a Laz-y-boy watching The Monkees. Davy was my favorite, at first, though I later shifted to Peter. They’re so young, now. You don’t see it when [...]

To Dine or Not to Dine

The Butcher is having dinner with a high school buddy, which means I am going to get a huge chunk of time this evening to write. I want to get two things done. One is that I have this idea that how we relate to history is like we’re dancing the dance of the seven [...]

Don’t Make Eye-Contact! We Don’t Want to Startle It!

Ha, just when I was all “Eh, nostalgia, what crap!” Jamie Hollin wrote a post on some happenings in the blogosphere yesterday. I write a post on a subject I feel compelled to tell. JR Lind with the SouthComm family posts a link thereto on Post Politics. The hits driven by JR’s post make my site [...]

And Now for Your Daily Moment of Terror

The VIDA numbers about who gets hired to write what about whom are out. It’s worth reading the quotes they include with the pie charts, but be warned, you will be queasy. Then head over to Catherine Lacey’s post, which ends with “So, yeah, it’s a vicious cycle, blah blah blah, but one thing you [...]

It is Against Policy to Blog About Work

So I am not blogging about how I saw the final pages for a project I’ve been working on for years, like half a decade kinds of years. And they are beautiful. So beautiful. Full of color images and beautifully laid out and just everything I hoped it would be. The thing about this project [...]

Ugly

What I’m trying to get at is kind of two-fold. One is that “ugly” is obviously a boogey-man word like “fat” or “slut.” It doesn’t have to have anything to do with objective reality. You can be “ugly” and look like Edith Wharton. You can be “fat” and be a size four. You can be [...]

A Couple of Other Things on Franzen

The New York Daily News and the Los Angeles Review of Books. I just want to say, too, that Edith Wharton is fine looking. Not because I think that it contributes directly to the discussion of her value as a writer, but because I think it illustrates just what bullshit this whole discussion is. If [...]

One for the Old-Timers

If you remember this, you’ll know why I laughed hard at this.

I’m Not Dead

Though there were points this weekend when death seemed like it was sitting at the other end of the couch, not because it was my time, but because one never knows when a person might accidentally choke to death on her own snot. My dad was like “Are you still sick? You’ve been sick for [...]

Nashville, Put this On Your List

I could not be more excited about this exhibit.

More Strangeness

This is now the kind of book where my dead relatives show up to deal with people’s mean in-laws. It was almost the kind of book where dead Ulysses Grant shows up. WTF?! The revisions on this are going to be weird, that’s for sure.

Strangenesses

1. I lost my voice. I was in the middle of a sentence and it just stopped working. No pain or anything. Just there was noise and then there wasn’t. It’s back now but it’s all weirdly squeaky. Again, no pain or anything. Just not quite right. 2. You remember my complains about the hypnotism [...]

It’s Worse than Being Uninteresting

I think I’m getting sick again. This weather has just been brutal on my ability to stay well. Seriously, I think I’ve had a “Spring cold” once a month since December. And yet, we encourage old people to move south. Do they not get spring colds then all throughout the winter? I got some work [...]

Yes, Another Collection of Links

I’m just not feeling incredibly interesting today, I guess. 1. The Carolina Chocolate Drops. I am completely stoked about their new album, which comes out next week. That link is a great article into the history of playing the bones. 2. I was sure this was a joke, then I wasn’t sure, then I was [...]

Things that Delight Me

1. President Obama being urged by BB King to sing “Sweet Home Chicago.” 2. The back of the paperback edition of Meeting Jimmie Rodgers has a quote from the Scene, “If you write about music, you should read this book. If you are a fan of American music, you should read this book.” That’s me! [...]

Oh, Right, Ben

Ha, I got so excited about how awesome the Lodge was that I forgot to tell you what handy things I learned about Ben Allen. 1. He was handsome in his younger years. I can see why Sue threw her lot in with him. 2. He was not sick for a long time before he [...]

It’s Not a Mistake

Rihanna and Chris Brown have both released a remix today featuring the other on it. This is, I would guess, their public acknowledgment that they’re back together–a situation I find depressing and scary. It’s depressing because it’s so predictable. People return to their abusers all the time. And some of the reasons “I can’t live [...]

Everyone

I read this post over at Feministe and I want to say that I agree with her that it’s not clear that more men are being raped in this country than women. I also agree that that number is a lot closer than anyone thought, though. And here’s the thing–those people eventually come home, most [...]

It Worked.

A City of Ghosts is $2.99 on Kindle and free for Amazon Prime members to borrow, however it is that you do that. It’s still $14.99 at Amazon for the book, but the price change has already taken effect at CreateSpace–just $12.99. And The Witch’s Friend is $1.99. If you buy it, please let me [...]

I Get to Live Here

You can’t tell it in this picture, but this morning was another morning when the frost on the plants on our walk was sparkling like tiny jewels. Like natural Christmas tree lights. I still can’t believe this is a place I get to live, that this view is right out my back door and I [...]

Argh, Toby Keith!!!!!

Yes, the song is rock-stupid. Yes, the video features a dude drinking another dude’s pee. Yes, it is filled with smug people, including Toby Keith, doing smug shit. But here’s what drives me crazy about this song. This is a novelty song. It is literally a piece of shit song you poop out when you [...]

Busy Sunday

I reviewed my park. I saved an asshole’s unleashed dog from Mrs. Wigglebottom. I wrote a post on the apparent death of 287(g). I revised a piece on the Masonic Lodge. I lowered the price of the Kindle Version of A City of Ghosts to $2.99. I lowered the price of thebook book to $12.99. [...]

My Day with Micajah Harpe’s Various Resting Places

I will say that, while there have been times when I have been embarrassed that my hobby is driving around looking at things, today is not that day. The dog and I drove up to Kentucky to look at the place where they stuck Big Harpe’s head and then the place where they threw his [...]

My Morning with the Masons

I can barely describe it to you. It was so awesome. Everyone was kind and smart and helpful. They not only knew who Ben Allen was, but they had a ton of his stuff. And they let me see it! His ring he got when he made the thirty-third degree, a sword he made his [...]