An Autumn Digression

Carnivale
We wander through the rising morning as the boy sings protest songs off key.
Carnivale’s in town.
The tattered banners of last year cry and wheedle beneath us, we both feel them as we walk. Abandoned tents, discarded tinsel, the bearded lady sending a desperate telegram in the night.
I know his questions as he steps over the [...]

Storytime with BardHaven

Gather round children. Unca’ Zealot has a story for you all…two stories in fact
Thursday the 30th at 8 AM SLT I will be in Caer Blanco, having been invited to read a few short stories of my choice in support of Caer Blanco’s continuing partnership with the charity Partners for Others. Throughout October, Caer Blanco [...]

Existential Nonexistence

For all sorts of very good reasons, my mind has been on death of late, considering and recalculating my views on the afterlife or the lack thereof. Just as I was reaching the point of wondering about my inability to comprehend the noncomprehensability of death, I came upon the following excellent article that comes [...]

The Opposite of Gay

Anyone who believes that they can alter fundamental human personality traits with “education” always tend to worry me. Inevitably such concepts bring to my mind images of Khmer Rouge style “re-education” compounds. This is double true when the traits they are trying to change involves human sexuality.
The believe that homosexuality can be cured has [...]

A Cautionary Tale

Here is a little warning for all of those Second Life denizens who Partner, Departner, Repartner and Alternapartner with all the care and forethought of a virtual Zsa Zsa Gabor in heat (yes, we all know at least one of them).
It seems that on one virtual reality platform in Japan, a player who decided [...]

2omb Raiders is History

Well, in my never truly humble opinion, BardHaven Ball: 2omb Raiders was an unqualified success…but I can’t take much of the credit at all. The credit truly belongs elsewhere.
Thanks to Duchess Eva Bellambi for peerless hostessing and wondrously careful and decadent preparations throughout Loch Avie. Her attention to detail, sense of humor and flair for [...]

It’s Coming AGAIN – The BardHaven Ball

Once again, the BardHaven Ball is coming this Halloween to grab Caledon by the throat and sacrifice it upon a dark and funkadelic alter.
This year BardHaven, the Duchy of Loch Avie and the Royal Society have joined forces to investigate rumors that the scholars have dug too deeply into the dark and twisted history [...]

A Quiet Digression

Questions cast me down
Remembering how stone feels
Forgetting to rise

Politics as Usual

As the slow motion train wreck that is American party politics rushes onto it’s eventual colorful demise, I am thinking back more and more to Presidents past. Elections often have this effect, and by and large people look back at former titans and reflect that neither of the current candidates is a JFK or [...]

Tits Over Teacups

Well, the Boobie Ball 2008 is over, and it was an unqualified and total success. More then an astounding 2700 USD was raised for Breast cancer research by this single event, after donations at the Ball were most generously matched by hostesses Seneschal Serra Anansi and Duchess Eva Bellambi.
The Ball itself, held in Winterfell, was [...]

Saint of Science

The Victorian age had a penchant for creating secular saints. Heroes of the intellect and “adventurous spirit”. Worthies who were meant to usher in the next great age of man, an age of science triumphing over superstition. One of the greatest of these was Charles Darwin.
Even during his lifetime, the man was canonized and [...]

“We Have the Music…”

 
I have always been filled with respect and awe for Leonard Cohen. No other modern poet, in my view, has the same almost effortless way to make me laugh and think and weep, all at once. His turns of phrase and evocative images are without peer. When he sings his poetry, it takes on [...]

A Talmudic Digression

Psalm
Harp song and shadow silk.
I stand at the water’s edge and beckon the horizon, calling my sins down to me.
They swarm like peacocks, clinging each to each, resplendent in the dying light.
Wearing them like halos, gray and rust and gold. Humming them, laughing them, decanting new tunes from the same old wine.
They settle over [...]