Tag archives: beings and doings
“Mother Earth provides and we are blessed to receive her bounty as nourishment. But watch out! That which grows from soil tastes like soil.” – Starfire Dickinson The above quote is wholly invented, but Starfire Dickinson is a real person. In other words Starfire Dickinson is also completely made up. But you’ll agree the opening […]
Hullo. I’m the local columnist whose carefully crafted words are the last thing your drowsy cockatiel sees every evening as he nods off on his little trapeze or whatever. My name is Jeff Wing, but since around third grade people have mis-addressed me as Jack Wayne, so feel free. Now, I don’t want to sound […]
Walking onto the wedding site I’m struck by the sense of happy commotion, energized folk crisscrossing the rural property with buoyant industry, faces prone with unconscious half-smiles as they each set to the task at hand. These striding busy bees wear a variety of tats, indelible ink mostly dedicated to soft-spoken renderings of the plant […]
I’m a man of a certain age but you wouldn’t know it to look at me – in part because the very idea of looking at me frightens you. But guess what? I arise at 5:30 in the morning and go to a gym and it shows! On any given day, gather your courage and […]
December is the month we remember (among other things) the good deeds of the well-off Bishop of Myra, a 4th century do-gooder named Nicholas. The guy slipped his considerable inheritance under the doors of many a despondent maiden that she might find companionship in that day’s dowry-driven lovefest. Much later we would recast Nick as […]
When I was 12 years old the classic Hollywood star machine was in the throes of extinction (not to suggest I had anything to do with that). Tinseltown was being overthrown by UnmediatedGritTown as a new generation of auteurs stormed the Dream Factory ramparts, broke into the place and tore down the velvet curtains. David […]
When I was about 14, my sister, Jill – an award-winning equestrian – took me horseback riding. I was uneasy with the whole deal because I’ve always been scared of horses. Always. As a seven-year-old I’d lived on Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. That being Cowboy Country (and Missile Country, but that’s another […]
When we yet had the luxury to do so, my friends and I chose art, with the result that one evening in the bar-spangled early 1980s I found myself in the restroom of a chicken sandwich joint, dressed in a New Wave rock n’ roll getup and helplessly retching over the single sink. Ah, I […]
When the invitation arrived, we were intrigued by one of its particulars. The hosts, our dear old friends the Smythmires (names have been changed to guard privacy and amuse the author) would be offering roast pig as the culinary centerpiece of their yard party. “Whoa,” I thought. The pig roast as ritual feast is popular […]
Centennial Junior High School. Boulder, Colorado. 1973? What happened was this. In PE we were playing soccer (what the rest of the planet calls “football”) and a stocky little guy named Tony kicked the ball out of bounds. Tony was in my German class (please don’t ask), wore his stick-straight hair in bangs and kept […]
“It wasn’t a mutiny. It was the bone-weary ship’s crew selecting – by voice vote – a new captain, one whose brusque nature and laudable transparency in speech gave them hope of precisely the rigorous captainhood the increasing stormy seas obliged. There were trifling misgivings. “The gentleman had been captain once before and had acquitted […]
Often I think my poor oldheartHas given up for goodAnd then I see a brave new face,I glimpse some new neighborhood..– Mancini/Mercer And here we are again. Another …. New Year?! This is a reportedly cyclical occurrence, begat by an explosion that, for reasons I’ve stopped trying to grasp, gave birth to both Time itself […]
Christmas day of ‘68 began like most days; with a guy bellowing singsong prayers in the dark from a mosque somewhere just off base. The mounted lo-fi bullhorn gave the already mysterioso liturgy a surreal 1930s radio feel – think “Libyan Rudy Vallee” if that helps. If that doesn’t help, I get it. Though we’d […]
My friend and I meet one evening at a seafood place – one of those enormous restaurant/bars with maritime junk hung all over the place in case you forget the theme. Tonight it is thronged and seething, the dank air heavy with excited human congress. The World Series is hollering out of a dozen enormous […]
This political season is sufficiently fraught that your fraidy-cat columnist is going to steer well clear of the melee and write about something we can all agree on. I’m talking of course about the inarguable virtues of Communism. Ha Ha Ha. Kidding. As has been lightly touched upon in endless cocktail party conversations (and more […]
By 1973 I had a red Panasonic ball radio parked in the darkened little hutch that was built into the headboard of my bed, and was discovering both the inchoate power of music, and words like ‘inchoate’. I’d bought my first LP with my own money, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, played McCartneys’ RAM album till […]
