MoodyTunes

I’m starting something new today. We’ll call it “Passages,” and it’s related to my recent “What are you reading?” post. I’d like to toss out a favorite sentence or paragraph from a book, poem, or essay. Maybe you’ll see something you like. Maybe you’ll want to dig out a favorite of yours and post [...]

I picked up a treat while I was out chocolate shopping with my sweetie: “Mo’s Bacon Bar,” an exotic candy bar featuring…
applewood smoked bacon
Alder wood smoked salt
deep milk chocolate
If anyone can explain “Alder wood smoked salt” and “deep” milk chocolate to me I’d appreciate it.
I’m not posting photos, I’m not wasting anyone’s time, and I [...]

Time for a summer reading update. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
Recently finished:
Elizabeth McCracken – “The Giant’s House: A Romance”
Louise Erdrich – “Love Medicine,” “Tracks”
Tim O’Brien – “In the Lake of the Woods”
Cormac McCarthy – “All the Pretty Horses”
On deck:
A few magazines, for a change – The Atlantic Monthly fiction issue, The [...]

Part of the reason I started the blog up again was to write about what it’s like to pursue an MFA in fiction. I guess this is the first real post about that — some things that run through my head with 26 days left before I leave my home, girlfriend, parents, friends, and neighbors [...]

I saw a truck yesterday — it had the slogan “Making the Outdoors Livable!” on the side. And a big cartoon mosquito, and some other unidentifiable critter.
Then I thought, hey, I’m glad someone is finally getting around to that. I’m always thinking “Damn you, Mother Nature! Let me liiiiiive!!!” when I step outside my hermetically [...]

Part three in a series. Here’s part one, and part two.
I’m posting this because someone asked what I meant when I said that it felt like the setlists at the Pearl Jam concerts I attended in June were made just for me.
Leaving places, restraint, breaking free of restraint, self-determination…those are some of the themes that [...]

I admit I’m late on this one, so I’ll give credit where credit is due. I first heard of the “South Carolina is so gay” marketing campaign from the Island Packet, Hilton Head Island’s local paper.
From there I learned that a blog called The Palmetto Scoop broke the story a few weeks ago.
So, [...]

Part two of a series. Part one has a timeline, which is of questionable value because I’m posting these out of sequence.
Before I get too far along I should mention that I rented a car for this trip because my trusty 1999 Saturn wouldn’t have made it. Or if it had, the lack of a [...]