Blogga-Looba!Blogga-Looba!A series of essays ond observations on political, cultural and personal events, both large and small, by an Atlanta-based psychotherapist and pundit. Articles
In Praise of "Evening At Emory"
2008-04-28 02:47:00 Today I want to sing the praises of the "Emory Center for Lifelong Learning" which offers the popular "Evening at Emory" program of non-credit courses and classes for personal growth and enrichment. Most people learn something by taking one of their classes, but I gained a marvelous refresher course on human kindness precisely because I didn't attend a single class. Here's the story: Back in More About: Praise
Compost Blogpost
2008-04-22 05:25:00 My compost pile loves me. I know this because it tells me so. Since as much as 25% of landfill space is composed of organic waste, we're regular composters into a pile in our backyard. Raw vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds and egg shells go into a container just outside the kitchen door and then into a compost pile mixed with grass clippings and mulched leaves. Since it's been a
Rating the Rater: Kudzu.com
2008-04-20 00:26:00 For well over a year I paid to list my business with kudzu.com, an Atlanta-based rating service that provides a forum for anonymous posting of comments about local service professionals. People can post one-to-five star ratings about any business in the metro Atlanta area. I've used kudzu.com to get information on dog sitters, air conditioning repair services and other local businesses. It's More About: Kudzu
Razor Sharp Athletics: "Best of the Best"
2008-04-17 06:20:00 For two years I've been telling anyone in Atlanta who is interested in youth athletics to check out Razor Sharp Athletics , a speed and conditioning program for ages 8 to 18 that has to be among the best-run programs in the southeast United States. I've talked to other parents of sports-minded kids, the local middle school football coach, recreation league athletic directors and coaches -- almost
Restaurant Review: Saravana Bhavan
2008-04-13 01:39:00 I'm delighted to report that Madras Saravan Bhavan, which closed for several months, has re-opened as Saravana Bhavan, now officially part of a world-wide chain of high-quality vegetarian Indian restaurants, and it is better than ever. I was initially chagrined to learn they had discontinued the lunch buffet, but it has returned in greater splendor than ever: 30 items, each exquisitely prepared. More About: Restaurant , Review
Musical Rebellion Lives On
2008-04-08 12:37:00 I've previously written about my goal of uploading a wide variety of quality music onto my computer. The public library has been a treasure of a resource for introducing me to a lot of musicians I otherwise would not have known about. lately I've ben thrilled to discover artists such as Devendra Banhart, Andrew Bird, Happy Apple, Spoon and Daddy Yankee, to name only a few. I've also beefed up More About: Musical , Lives , Rebellion
Casey, Nusrat and Ruff
2008-04-06 07:23:00 Tonight I took Casey to the bi-monthly drum circle at the Lake Claire Commmunity Land Trust. Less than 50 people turned out tonight, probably due to all the rain we've had the last two days, even though the skies had cleared by nightfall. It was nice to have some extra room round the fire, because it allowed me to show her how to whirl. It's a simple exercise: simply begin turning More About: Nusrat
Obama's Historic Speech on Race in America
2008-04-05 04:51:00 I know this is already a few weeks old and so it's stale by the standards of our quick-turn-around news cycles and nationwide short attention span, but I want to comment on the speech entitled "A More Perfect Union" Barack Obama delivered in Philadelphia on the heels of the "Reverend Wright" issue. I finally sat down and read it all the way through and came away extremely impressed and even at More About: America , Race , Historic , Speech
Piccadilly People
2008-04-04 05:36:00 In our household each person gets to decide where to eat on his or her birthday. For her 9th birthday Casey chose Piccadilly for some unfathomable reason. It's not just that this place isn't very friendly to vegetarians, it didn't seem very friendly in general. Neither the person ringing up our selections at the cafeteria line nor the cashier made eye contact or said anything but the minimum More About: People
Coach
2008-03-31 02:16:00 I've agreed to help coach my daughter Casey's 2nd-to-4th grade church softball team. I love this league because it emphasizes fun over winning. I know most leagues profess the same principle, but this one means it. We've played two games already and I think we tied the first and won the second, but I couldn't tell you for sure. This is all especially notable since the church's youth sports More About: Coach
Return of "Another Noteworthy Sentence"
2008-03-29 05:30:00 Some time back I wrote a short entry about sentences I hear from time to time that are so out-of-the-ordinary that I never in my wildest dreams would have predicted if I had a million opportunities to guess. Yesterday my daughter said another one that caught my ear. "I'm going to use the john and then say 'pie' outside and swing on the rope." Isn't that a great sentence? The background, for More About: Return , Sentence
Boniface
2008-03-24 03:44:00 I'm surprised to find that it's been over two weeks since I last posted a blog entry. I've been so consumed with uploading music onto my computer that I've neglected to simply sit down and write. Although there's a bunch of things happening in my life I could write about (which is always the case with everyone) I feel stuck finding anything I want to relate at the moment. Part of the block
Fitty
2008-03-08 22:20:00 I turned 50 years old yesterday. Fifty. "Fitty". Half a century. Officially not-young. Old fart. Closer to death than birth. Supposed to be wise by now. Full of remorse for choices made and not made. Feeling like I should be more grateful because I'm not dead, imprisoned, infirm or insane. For most of the day I just wanted to bang two heads together, 3-Stooges style, and I wasn't
Long Past "Poopy-Head"
2008-03-03 17:01:00 Casey, who is almost nine, came home from school last week and remarked at dinner that "Nolan called me a fat asshole today." She wasn't complaining as much as reporting on the day's events. When I asked her how she responded she simply said "I told him to blow it out his nose." You go, grrrrrl! We had practiced the "blow it out your nose" retort weeks ago and she's used it to good effect a More About: Past , Head , Long
7 Nights To Rock
2008-02-27 03:02:00 The title comes from an old Nick Lowe song. Let's just get that out of the way. I have way too many compact discs, and I probably don't really enjoy more than 4 songs on average from each one so I made a decision to separate the wheat from the chaff so that I could theoretically be surrounded by good music all the time. Years ago I bought a 300 CD changer so that I could shuffle through all More About: Rock , Nights
There Are No Ordinary Moments
2008-02-21 06:39:00 (Note: This entry is being simultaneously posted on my professional blog site.) My family and I recently watched "Peaceful Warrior", the 2005 movie starring Nick Nolte that sank like a stone at the theaters but which has since developed quite a little cult following due to its message. It is based on the "Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives" by Dan Millman. The movie tells More About: Moments , Ordinary
Breaking With "Breaking Bad"
2008-02-12 19:59:00 I don't watch a lot of television and rarely focus on a particular series, so it was notable that I began watching the AMC series "Breaking Bad". It is a much-hyped show about a 50 year old high school chemistry teacher who learns he is dying of lung cancer and then teams up with a drug pusher to make and sell crystal meth in order to leave money for his family after he dies. However, I've More About: Breaking Bad
Best Songs Ever
2008-02-12 03:05:00 For no particular reason than to practice being opinionated, here's my list of the absolute best songs by various musical groups. You'll probably be able to judge something about how old I am from the groups I list: Best Beatles Song - "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" -- While "Twist and Shout" has the all-time best raw-throated enthusiasm of any song before or after, this hauntingly beautiful More About: Songs
Poem: "Art Shanties: Fragment of KC's Email (Found Poem)"
2008-01-31 23:47:00 My friend Matthew, who I saw in Minneapolis, is working on a dissertation in American Studies on Apocalypse culture, especially Peak Oil. So I left your book with him (and I think he'll take good care of it, along with the one-eyed cat he just adopted and named "Trout Fishing in America"). We went out on a frozen lake to visit the Art Shanties, parodies or homages to the adjacent ice More About: Email , Poem , Fragment
Poem: "One Hundred Hours"
2008-01-30 02:09:00 OK, here it is, the big kahuna, the whole enchilada, the entire shebang -- the longest (by far) poem I've ever authored. I recently blogged about finding a cache of poems and poem fragments that stemmed back to college, and among that collection I found the remnants of something that I've worked on sporadically for over 30 years. When I use the word sporadically I mean that the last time I More About: Poem , Hours
Everybody Wants to Party with Obama
2008-01-27 06:44:00 "Everybody wants to party with Obama !" This great line was uttered by my soon-to-be-13-year-old son, and it seems especially true on this night when Barack Obama beat Hilary Clinton and John Edwards combined in the South Carolina primary. The line comes from the movie "School of Rock", when a student confides to Jack Black (pretending to be a substitute-teacher) that she doesn't want to sing More About: Party
Searching for Troy Overstreet
2008-01-25 23:08:00 For years I've been plagued with sporadic phone calls and automated messages for someone named "Troy Overstreet". All of these messages and inquiries apparently come from credit companies and the bill collectors who work for them. Whatever debt old Troy rang up he apparently did while associated with a telephone number that I later inherited. Today I got another call for him: I noticed that More About: Searching
Kilt-a-looba
2008-01-24 14:16:00 I bought a kilt. Having been steeped in the tribal drum circle experience for many months I've been moved to find clothing that is more spiritually expressive, culturally transcendent and physically free-flowing for dancing and drumming. I just ordered some wrap pants, also known as fisherman pants or Thai fisher pants. I looked at some cool "Sufi pants" but the wash/care instructions are More About: Kilt
Poem: The Task Of Our Bones
2008-01-19 07:27:00 The Task of Our Bones To recall the task of our bones As ancestors soon to be joined Hold sacred the shape of stone To so join a common voice that Through history rejoices over Understanding this mystery Such is the respite of all return Like a raindrop on the ocean As you have and will in turn More About: Poem
Poem: "Three Tools To Guide Your Course"
2008-01-12 08:07:00 I wrote this poem a few years ago to express some of the value I find in 12-step and other recovery movements. I have simultaneously posted it on my other blog site, Atlanta Counseling and Therapy Services, since it related to some of my recent content there. Three Tools To Guide Your Course The way ahead stretches further than you can see, so you need to be clear about a few facts from the More About: Poem
Poem: "Jethro"
2008-01-06 03:36:00 I was recently storing some personal belongings in my shed when I came across a file of poems I wrote in college. I read one of them to my cool and literate sister-in-law who was visiting for the holidays and she suggested I post it, so here it is. I originally thought this was a villanelle, but it doesn't fully meet the criteria. A villanelle is an insanely complicated poetic form that is 19 More About: Poem
Barack Obama's Transcendent Iowa Victory Speech
2008-01-05 03:03:00 This morning I heard that Barrack Obama gave a "goosebumps" speech after winning yesterday's Iowa caucus. It's easy to find this speech online and well worth 14 minutes out of your life to do so. I simply had no idea the man could hold forth as he does, but now I know what all the buzz is about. Listening to him I had the sensation that he was flat-out channeling the spirit of Robert Kennedy More About: Victory , Barack , Speech
Another One-In-A-Million Sentence
2007-12-22 22:37:00 Here's the latest entry in my list of actual sentences which I wouldn't have predicted saying or hearing in a million guesses: "Did you hear about the blue man and the cloned glow-in-the-dark cats?" More About: Million , One in a million , Sentence
Big God/Baby God
2007-12-17 06:28:00 My recent experience of learning about Reiki has opened up yet another new level of awareness regarding my ever-shifting relationship with my "Higher Power". (I'm going to use the word "God" from this point forward despite my historic reluctance to do so because of its anthropomorphic connotations. I don't reckon that I'll ever have a definitive grasp on what "God" means since by definition I More About: Baby
Movie Review: Before The Devil Knows You're Dead
More articles from this author:2007-12-16 15:29:00 Many reviewers have lined up in a high-kicking chorus line of praise for Before The Devil Knows You're Dead , so Gina and I went to see it this weekend. It's the story of two brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) who decide to rob their parents' jewelry store as the perfect non-violent crime, but of course everything goes awry and many people die before the credits roll. The More About: Movie , Movie Review , Review 1, 2, 3, 4 |
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