Ridin' and Rockin"

" Cruisin and playin' the radio

With no particular place to go. "

 

Chuck Berry
 

Hi Carolyn,


Having just returned from another stint of plying the highways of Southwestern Ontario, I guess I'm pre-disposed to be thinking about driving and music - since I don't leave home without it!. An item at Autonet.ca about  travellin' with tunes caught my eye recently . In it, Keri Potipcoe, a regular columnist, reports on a recent published  study by Kanetix, an auto insurance company, on how music affects your driving.

 

Auto and motorcycle insurance has always been a  " don't get me started " topic for me, so I found this to be  somewhat intriguing. Age and gender already seem to play disproportionately into the assessing of rates, so why not musical tastes eh?

 

 

 

 

 

Anyhow, just a few items noted in the survey.  Talk radio listeners are most prone to speeding while over half of those who proclaim to be folk music fans have never had a speeding ticket.  I would have figured Alternative Rock or Heavy Metal listeners would have the most accumulated speeding tickets but that dubious honor goes to R&B listeners. Listeners who prefer " Oldies"  ( whatever that means ! ) appear to have been the least ticketed when it comes to speeding.

 

Them good ole' boys and girls who love country music have the greatest likelihood  to be charged with DUI while Hip Hop/Rap aficionados are most likely at fault in an accident (60%)

 

 

The whole survey can be found on Kanetix.ca. I would be surprised if results were too different on your side of the border, Carolyn, since musical genres seem pretty well uniform across our two countries. I can find music I like in all of the genres mentioned above so I wonder where that puts me on the curve?

 

 

BTW that three sentence story item you mentioned in connection with Sowrite.us.com sounds cool. I just stuck a post-it note on my monitor to remind me to give it a look-see.

 

 

So, let us give the riddle thing a wee whirl here too. Maple syrup was the answer to last time's number. I think mine also was too easy.

 

 

For this time around I am gonna guess that yours is an e-reader or ( since I'm a fanboy of the folks in Cupertino ) , an iPad mini. After almost four years of pretty constant use my old iPod Touch has given up the ghost and I'm very tempted to get something like that this time around.

 

 

Here's my entrant for this time:

 

Imposing member of the boom-boom  brigade

On stage or on parade

A smack or a kick

Brings rhythmic repercussions.

 

 

 

See ya later, I think I'll go and enjoy being in one place for awhile.

 

 

 

Don

 

 

 

 

All images sourced from Google Images

 

 

 

Fig. 1 - ehow.com

 

Fig. 2 - online.wsj.com

New contest and how to be flexible when writing

Good morning, Don. In five weeks we’ll have done 100 entries? WOW! I’m impressed. I was really worried when we first started this that I wouldn’t have anything to say, let alone anything interesting. Can’t say I’ve always fulfilled the “interesting” part, but hopefully I haven’t bored very many people.

You asked about my “flexible” outline for my next Tracker episode. Good question. I have certain event points that are pretty important, but I don’t always know how I’m going to get to them. That’s the “flexible” part. Right now I’m working on the first section. A reader of the last episode mentioned Tren’s godlike status (I mentioned this in a previous blog). In the beginning of this episode, Tren has to lose his status in order for the rest of the story to work. I haven’t figured out how yet, but it is coming. I’m actually working backwards from the final climax. That is helping me deconstruct the characters and how they get along. I know what they have to be like in the end, in order to survive. I have the events that led to that point – the actual process of getting to each event is still in question. Does that help?

The week has been busy – put the final polish on the three stories we are presenting in September. I’ve actually gotten them on Amazon a week early. For those of you so inclined to be the early bird, I’ve listed the Science Fiction Fantasy Transport 24 for $.99 until the first Friday in September –that’s two weeks away.

T24 includes Colby’s incredible essay on Comic Con, 2013. His misadventures and what he saw and experienced make me almost jealous of his adventure. Lisa picked up The Search part 2 and did a fine job twisting the plot just a little more than she’d done in her original draft. And Ariel – most excellent job wrapping up Touching Lands Dance. Finally! All my questions were answered! Mercy! Took a long time. Read and enjoy!

I get to be a judge for Sowrite.us.com’s newest writing contest. Anyone interested?  Link on over and take a look. This contest is to write a complete story in three (3) sentences. Can you do it? It took me a while, but I was able to – not the best – but it works. However, I’m a judge so I can’t enter. I’m looking forward to the entries. Wormhole will be giving away a couple of ebooks and looking at new talent to possibly showcase on the website – I’m excited about that too.

 

Riddle cave – Canadian icon – the only icon I can think of is maple syrup? Actually I started to type in hockey puck, and this bolt of maple sugar charged through me. And if I remember right, weren’t thousands of gallons on syrup stolen earlier this year? The only other icon I could think of was Chris Hadfield - that one didn't quite work.

Speaking of astronauts - 8 new ones were recently added to NASA. One of the skills they had to demonstrate was: poetry/twitter/facebook.... look at what Chris started!

Your guess of white out was right on! Too easy. So, try this:

Connect to instant entertainment and fun

Bigger than a pocket

Smaller than 8 x 10

Affordable reading with the click of a switch

 

Have a great week everyone!

 

All images downloaded from google images.

 

 

 

Transient this and transcendant that

Well first of all Carolyn,

I was partway to flabbergasted to read that this is the 91^st entry. It seems like a couple of weeks ago that we were acknowledging the 50^th - tempus does fugit when one is having fun, eh ? Five weeks on will see entry 100 and that’s pretty cool!




Before I forget, I have to ask you about what you mentioned in the last entry as your “ flexible outline “ for your next Tracker episode. Just what is a “ flexible outline ? I can get the basic idea but I’m curious as to just how you do it.

 
 
 
 
 
I’ve also seen the “international student” phenomenon first hand especially in the first part of my career when we lived almost within sight of the Toronto airport for 13 years. It did give one a sharpened sense of where things were going here in the first world vis-à-vis the third world.

















I guess you and I are both blessed and bereft in that we didn’t have to adjust to a completely new culture in our younger lives. Blessed because we didn’t have to endure the jolting experience of being parachuted into a new and fundamentally alien culture. We’re also bereft ,methinks, since the kind of constant intense thinking on your feet to survive exercise that such a a situation involves would keep our grey matter at it’s A-Game for sure .




Also, it must be gratifying  to “ click in “ to things that are parts of the daily life around you in this new culture. Those members of your family that are out there on the international teaching circuit and are dealing with that kind of thing almost as we speak/blog can ratify that situation for sure.




Surprisingly though, all of the students I dealt with who came from other cultures came with a basic toolbox of English simply because it was there in their popular culture. I remember from my three weeks in Sarajevo and other parts of eastern Europe that if tee shirts are any indication, these folks are not unfamiliar with English slogans and logos that we are bombarded with here in North America as well. I saw AC/DC and Michael Jackson tees, NBA stuff all over the place and graffiti about Metallica  and Guns and Roses  in Romania . 


 And, Saints be Praised, I saw lotsa Beatles and Lennon stuff ! Music and sports, it would seem,  cross cultural borders with relative ease and impunity.

I had a couple of other things I wanted to yap on about but that’ll have to wait since I’m in danger of setting off the brevity alarm.


So, on to the riddles ( I gotta admit, I do like the wordsmithing stuff ! )

Wheelchair it is indeed. I do a volunteer stint for one afternoon a week at the hospital here in Owen Sound and I have come to realize just how crucial these chairs are. Sometime I must devote a blog to the whole hospital experience . Hospitals are the ultimate levellers. Rich, poor, famous or unknown, you come thru the same front door.
　

I’m gonna guess that yours from last time is white-out ( or beige-out, I guess ) I used to chide my students about using it by calling it pigeon-poop. If that’s not the answer then I am supremely gabberflasted on this one.



Here's my current offering:

Sublime liquid

from the blood of a

Canadian icon.

 

Sounds kinda vampirish, n'est-ce-pas?



Don




All Images sourced from Google Images

Fig. 1 - maxwilsoncd.org
Fig. 2 - tiptoptens.com
Fig. 3 - selfmadescholar.com
Fig. 4 - finishline.com
Fig. 5 - nuuniform.com
Fig. 6 - sketchartist.tv

 

Engleese and Transport 24 preview

Don, I am envious that you got see the meteor action! We had clouds and rain (much needed but it obscured our view). The web link was “okay”, but not like the real thing – there is a sense of satisfaction at pointing as a meteor flares then dissaptes before you can say, “There’s one!” There is a definite smile of contentment that comes with actually seeing one.

I’m hoping the O.E.D. becomes the Rosetta Stone. We have enough rear view mirrors for our language. It would be nice to know that English is still alive and kicking. Technology (word spell) has dampened the imaginative combining of letters to create new words. Such a big help that creates such a loss.

I admire my International students. Not only do they immerse themselves in a new culture, they agree to learn the third hardest language in the world. English has very few rules that hold true 100% of the time which makes it “slip-slidy”. Many of these students ask me how many languages I speak. My answer: three – English, English and English. It makes them laugh but makes me feel like a slacker; most of them know at least two other languages.

Still mastering English, (and our writers trust me!), I have completed the rough draft edits for Transport 24 due out September 6^th. It is going to be an incredible ezine! Ariel wraps up her book, Touching Lands Dance. You see the end coming, but you don’t really believe it until it unfolds in the last hair raising chapters. Lisa moves the reader and her character deeper into the maze as her characters prepare themselves for their search (The Search). We end with Colby’s adventures at this year’s ComicCon in San Diego. This highly humorous look at one man’s adventure at the highly regarded SciFi Expo helps define the commitment of so many to the genre. Nerdopolis is a fast entertaining read.

Personally, I have started the flexible outline for my next Tracker episode. My characters were well mannered while family was here, but now that the place is quiet, they’ve become a bit insistent that I continue their story. I was excited when Ariel wrote in answer to whether or not her characters followed her around: “All the time! I’ll watch some woman walk by with a great outfit and say, “You know, Arosdé would wear something like that,” or “We’ve got to write that into a scene.”

I also so empathized with her answer about stories keeping her awake when they aren’t working right:  “We generally run a 48-hour clock, so somebody’s usually “awake” in one form or another, and we have rolling body-breaks for sleep and such. We’d taken to watching Mad Money at 3 A.M. as a break to just clear the table. This sort of division of activity gives all the sister-entities some room to create, and practice. Sometimes you just have to walk away for a while when a story line stops producing. But there are other things to work on, both creative and mundane. The Answer will appear in its own sweet time while your mundane brain’s busy recycling, or wrestling with the reception from Digital TV.”

I was thrilled with her answers! Now I don’t feel so “odd-ballish.”

Riddle-isky, Lit Man! On to the Riddle Cave!

My guess for your riddle is “wheel chair”.

The answer to mine was “tomato vine.” Our tomatoes are just coming on and I’m excited as this is the first year in several that we actually get fruits for our labor!

So here is mine - hopefully a stumper:

 

Makes things disappear

Can be white or beige

Was created by a frustrated secretary

Now worth millions



Speaking of fruits of labor - Don! This is our 90th blog entry! Thanks for being part of this conversation! Doing it alone is so BORING!

 

And yes, I remember Rocky and Bullwinkle – we didn’t have good TV reception (we lived in the mountains) so it wasn’t until I was almost 11 that I was aware of Saturday cartoons. I made up for the loss in my pre-teen years and as a mother.

I'm not having any luck with pictures and images this week - wonder if Mercury is in retrograde again.

Have a great week everyone!

Carolyn

 

Genes, jeans and speaka-da-englitch ....

Hi Carolyn,

Good grief, 180 Goldens in one place?!  I cannot imagine it either. Woody is back with his master now and I must admit that a wee part of me misses him.

Speaking of smart doggies....



 Sherman, set the wayback machine for the mid nineteen fifties. ( Please tell me Carolyn, that you've met Rocky and Bullwinkle and their time travelling friends Sherman and Mr. Peabody! )

 Here's what we'll see when we arrive.



 Where you live, Ike contemplates his re-election  and agonizes about keeping his effective but occasionally virulent VP, Richard Nixon, on for a second go-round. Up where I live Louis St. Laurent,  ( a.k.a. " Uncle Louis" ) is closing out a long, bucolic stint at the Prime Ministerial helm. My LSM ( long suffering mother ) is heartily engaged in the process of enlightening a pre-school me, rote-learning style, as to why I am the "luckiest boy on earth"  to be living in North America.


 We have freedom immaculate , tolerance aplenty, land in abundance  and we speak the best language on earth - English.


 Now, my mom wasn't scholarly by any imaginable stretch. Hell! She actually flunked grade 1 and threw in the academic towel half way through high school in order to get out and " make a living ".  But she did click into the fact that pretty well the whole planet around her carried on internationally in the language that we were born into. Turns out she was more prescient than she may have realized.



What tossed me off onto this particular tangent is an item in the news this week about the O.E.D.

The ultimate argument settler and lexicological bible  ( sorry, Mr. Webster ) is contemplating its future direction, or directions. This would seem like ho-hum academic prattle were it not for the fact that English has managed to become, for almost all intents and purposes, the lingua franca of this dirtball we all inhabit.

So, does the Oxford English Dictionary become the starch collar repository of all things inherently English/British or does it become the authoritative catalogue of a dynamic language that is common parlance in over 75 counties worldwide?  Will it be a linguistic Rosetta stone or a  crystal ball or a rear-view mirror ?

Regardless, it's cool to have Anglais as my native tongue. If I had to learn it from scratch I think I'd have to cop out and settle for something more logical, manageable, syntactical and approachable - like Latin or Mandarin!


Okay, having had the week off it's back into the riddle-diculousness. 





My last item was blue jeans. Not the cheapo Wal-Mart crapola  but the original heavy duty copper-riveted variety. Mr. Dean and Mr. Springsteen especially have helped keep the image out front for half a century or more.





I have spent some quality time with your last item and the best I can do is  something that grows in a pot. It sorta sounds like the orchids that my better half is so fond of and has in a couple of places around our home. It's either orchids, roses or ornamental grasses, for my money.  I'm not betting the farm on any of those guesses, though.


Here's my rejoinder for this week:

Take a seat

Hands and wheels become feet

Helping hands guide from behind

 

Enjoy the rest of the summer. Got to see some of the meteor action before the clouds set in. It was pretty frickin awesome !  It sure makes ya feel small for some reason.



Don


All images sourced from Google Images.

Fig. 1 - organizedremains.com
Fig.  2 - oup.com
Fig.  3 - totakethetrain.wordpress.com
Fig.  4 - huffingtonpost.com

Spaceport America, Meteors and Golden Retrievers

Good Afternoon, Don! It’s been a busy week getting everything caught up and put away. But, I think I’m almost done. A single last load of sheets, some folding to do and I should have the house back in order. School is progressing, we are already at midterms! I got the grading done late Friday, and midterm grades posted. It’s been lots of rush to get things done, but I think I’m finally under control! On top of everything, I squeezed in an edit for the next Transport – the second episode of The Search by Lisa Manifold. She changed up the story some – I’m anxious to read what she does with the rest of it.

I enjoyed you pictures of Woody! Beautiful dog! And your description of him as a George Clooney or Cary Grant is most appropriate. Personally, I am either a dog or a cat person. Right now we are dog people as my husband and our daughter are allergic to cats. Our son, however, is very much a cat person. He has two and I promise you, they are his children. And if given a choice as to who save, his wife or his cats – he would be hard pressed to decide.

Just after I admired your pictures of Woody, I stumbled into a story about the Guisachan Gathering in Scotland, the home of the Golden Retriever breed. There was a breed reunion this summer and over 220 dogs and their owners from around the world participated. There was a picture of over 180 dogs in the same frame. Incredible!

I read a lot of science articles this week, but the most impressive were HydrolnfraTechnologies and Spaceport America. Hydrolnfra Technologies is a Swedish company that has apparently discovered Hydro Nano Gas which neutralizes carbon fuel pollution emissions. Those are the emissions that come out of coal stacks, hydro plants, cars, engines of any kind.  If the reports are true, and cost is effective, maybe we have a chance of turning the tide on greenhouse emissions.

Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space, Sir Richard Branson’s brain child. Located in New Mexico and completing testing in the Mojave Desert, the space port should be ready for customers within the year. New Mexico is a bit closer to me than Florida – maybe I’ll get to see a spaceship take off yet! That would be a rush! As I’ve said previously, I’d love to go into space, but for now the cost is a bit prohibitive. I’m not sure they’ll let me go on the installment plan. But I can watch!

My last bit of news is about the Perseid Meteor shower. When I first read that you could watch through a webcast, I was a bit fickle – why don’t people just get up off their duffs and go and watch it! Are we that lazy and tied to our technology that we can’t experience something first hand? About that time a thunderstorm settled in and we had clouds most of the night. Looks like tonight will be cloudy too. Webcast? Not such a bad idea! Did you know that the shower is dust particles, most the size of a dime, from the Swift-Tuttle comet?

Onto the Riddle Cave!

You were correct! Lightning was my last riddle.

I’m still looking at yours. If we ever do anything with the riddles, yours will be listed as: only accomplished linguists need attempt. I have no idea! I’m thinking favorite band/famous people on a tee-shirt? But I’m not totally sold on that answer.

Struggle to get tall

Tend toward gangly

Finicky about moisture

Need heat to produce

Cool nights turn me make me blush

 

Have a great week everyone!

Carolyn

 

 All images downloaded from Google images except for figure 2.

Fig 1 – Curiosity

Fig 2 – “222 Golden Retrievers Frolic in field in Scotland” by Gordon Richardson. Sponsored by Scotland Golden Retriever Club.

Fig 3 – Spaceport/Virgin Galactic retrieved from www.virgingalactic.com

Fig 4 – Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Sunday Night retrieved from www.patriotledger.com  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fun Foods and Four-legged Family

Hi Carolyn,




I gather from your entry that the end of this last week has been somewhat bittersweet. I can see that in your case, where the bulk of the family is pretty far flung, its perhaps closer to the latter.  Glad to hear that it all went off swimmingly.  Good also to hear that your granddaughter made it through the week with no significant psychological scars.  BTW, I'm with you on the popcorn in the movies thing. Movie going time was always in the evening and being filled from supper always made it seem overindulgent and irrational to start eating again before breakfast.






 I think the whole thing is a prime example of how a product can be indelibly associated with an activity - usually for marketing purposes. Things really don't go any better with "Coke" at all. It's like candy-floss at the fair/circus, peanuts or hot-dogs at the ball game, couch-potato munchies, comfort foods or hot chocolate after any outdoor winter activity ( although that one at least gives you the chance to work up an appetite.) Fun foods are certainly an inextricable  part of the culture - and the obesity crisis too.








I've been taking in some non-routine  family activities as well these last few days. They haven't given me quite as much food for thought and reflection as yours have but they've been a new experience pour mois. We're in the midst of a two-week babysitting stint of our other " grand-dog" . This time is a bit different, though. I find myself  somewhere I've never been before.












Unlike our daughters aging and deteriorating canine that I spoke of earlier, " Woody" is a four-year old Golden Retriever. He's a quintessential example of the breed, too. Just like the ones on the pet food bag labels etc. A handsome dog to be sure. If he was a human he'd be a George Clooney or ( in an earlier generation ) a Clark Gable. He's got the disposition to match ; strong,  silent and even-tempered to the max. His " retrieving" skills are positively uncanny, too.





Recent events with my better half's family have seen her away for six or seven days - leaving me and " The Woodman" on our own.  We've done dog-sitting before but this is the first time that I've been on my own with one of those  man's best friend  creatures. I am, have always been and always will be a cat person. I don't dislike dogs but I just can't get all chummy or entranced with them like my wife and our offspring can. This was like asking a sworn Democrat to babysit Mitt Romney for a few days. " Gulp "








Well, it's not been too bad,  actually. I've been finishing some new stairs for our back deck and he's had no problem fitting right in with that activity( literally... ) as you can see. I still prefer that non-intrusive nonchalance that cats have, but have gotten somewhat used to an 80 pound canine Cary Grant following me about and lying beside me whenever I am seated. I just can't get used to the pooh-bag thing though. Four of my five senses go fully berserk whenever I have to do the stoop and scoop routine.  This is when I most appreciate that supremely self-sufficient feline who just went out into the forest and took care of business unobtrusively.





For the sake of continuity ( and because I haven't had time to come up with one for this entry ) what say we just go back to the riddles, with renewed vigour, next time around. Time to let the dust settle from recent frivolities a bit, eh.


Don.



All images sourced from Google images:

fig. 1 - lowdensitylifestyle.com
fig. 2 - coolpets4u.blogspot.com
fig. 3 - cineawesome.com
fig. 4 - magazine-covers.lucywho.com
fig. 5 - politicalscrapbook.net

Family Dynamics

Because of so much family activity this week, I didn’t have time to find interesting science facts. Instead, I uncovered interesting “family” concepts.

Our Bed and Breakfast is almost closed. All that is left is a mountain of laundry to finish washing, folding and putting a way. A couple more days then life returns to as normal as we can get.

I have to say that we have survived the week visit of our teenage granddaughter – okay, truthfully, she survived us. She managed the week without TV, going to bed at an earlier hour, vegetarian meals, fixing her own breakfast and lunch, walks in the early morning instead of after dinner, having to eat dinner at the table, and the big one – going to see a movie without popcorn and a coke (it never occurred to me to get popcorn…) What did she gain? Some free guitar lessons from her uncle, time to read 3 books, volleyball skill practice, sleeping in, the realization she missed her sister and brother. She’ll tell you she missed her dog, but the relief on her face when her family drove in Friday night was palatable.

Lunch during the week was an amazing event: everyone, except me, pulled out their technology and read while eating. Two laptops, an ipad, and a kindle fire all lined up around the table. Then there was me – trying to find space for my magazine. Some habits die hard. Ah well, someone has to keep the “olde ways” alive.

Yesterday we had the family picnic. Lots of family, a few friends, good conversation. Throughout the day, I discovered moments that were crystal clear – the people, what they were doing, the conversations. I realized that “this moment” with these people will never happen again. If and when we meet next year, we will be different people with different experiences. The grandkids will have completed the school year that they are just now beginning to anticipate. Our son and his wife will have completed their first year of teaching in China, our daughter and her husband will have completed their degrees. My husband and I will, out of all of us, have changed the least. A few more gray hairs (white hair in my case), a couple more wrinkles, but probably not much else. We are the constant in our children’s lives. An interesting concept – being the “constant” in someone else’s life.

We finished the evening with song – our son played guitar, the rest of us sang along, or just listened. Another moment that will never happen again. Then the flurry of goodbyes, see ya, travel safe, keep in touch… no one really enjoys goodbyes – even with folks you’d never be friends with if you weren’t related to them.

 Families are interesting – we are a collection of people who would never meet, never talk to one another if we weren’t related. I think each of us harbors a wish that some parts of someone else’s life could be ours. Not all of it, just certain parts. And this, in many ways, colors our perception of how our life is going, what is new in our life, what is the same, what we want to be different and how powerless we feel when it comes to changing our individual lives.

Thanks for reading, Don. I think I’ll pass on the riddle this week – I haven’t even had time to read your contribution this week! A first for me!

Have a good week everyone!

Carolyn

 I haven't had time to change the pricing on Transport 23 - it is still $.99! I'll be changing it next Friday - just incase you're interested.

Movin' On and Groovin' On.

 

 

 

Hi Carolyn, 

 

 

Running just a tad and a skooch behind this week. Summer seems to have only grown more frenetic since I hung up the pedagogical spurs, I swear.  

 

 

 

This is a bit of a cathartic or leaving the nest type moment in my reader/writer relationship with Harlan Ellison. I’ve read a couple of interviews he did this year and also had a boo at the documentary about him  in 2008. Harlan Ellison hasn’t changed and while he hasn’t really evolved into a caricature of his former self, I guess I’ve changed in my appreciation of him.

 This  may just be the same kind of thing that happened with Tolkien a few months back except that in this case I’ve not grown into a fuller appreciation of his works ( The Hobbit especially ) but have grown out of my former sense of all-encompassing and forgiving adulation for Mr. Ellison. It's not because of his literary activities but more because of the sense or feeling about him as a public figure.


 He's become another of a fairly long line of litigious bullies with deep enough pockets to make it work. He's certainly not lonely in that sort of endeavour. Chuck Berry, Liberace,  The Church of Scientology, and The Apple Corporation have the same M.O.


He’s also another one of those types I’ve referred to like McCartney and Shatner, - they are the very best at what they do, but looking at them outside of their art ( which this world where celebrity frequently trumps accomplishment, makes it so easy for us to do ) is a whole other thing. Like those other two chaps, I find I would not like to be in the presence of Harlan Ellison for very long. He seems to have an absolute pathological need to stir things up and be confrontational. He’s simply not a very likeable human specimen. In David' Pringles Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ( a very handy and enjoyable reference item, BTW ) Ellison's career is referred to at one point as " Sinatra-like " and I now see just how absolutely apt that simile is.


What I certainly enjoyed supremely in the Dreams with Sharp Teeth documentary was Ellison  verbally riffing with Robin Williams - one of the few people who can match him in sheer  mental agility and improvisational prowess. It's almost beyond words enjoyable.


That mysterious humming down Windsor way is really intriguing.
At one time it could have come from the thriving auto manufacturing complexes that  hummed and thrummed right across the river in Detroit. Recent events in and around The Motor City certainly point up poignantly just how that scene has changed.


  As for that long low hum stuff as a possible factor in my love affair with music, I will admit that I always turn the bass right up and simply won’t buy any kind of sound system that doesn’t include a brawny subwoofer. So you just may be on to something Dr. Varvel! I sometimes wonder which I would miss more if I lost it, my sight or my hearing - and my hearing comes out on top more often than not, simply because I would be robbed of my music.


　
　
　
　
Riddle time!


My last one was "Trust" - more specifically, mutual trust. I guess in many ways that's not unlike confidence.


I’m guessing lightning for yours, this time.


Try this one on.

Copper and indigo

On a canvas of cotton

Mr. Dean and Mr. Springsteen helped

immortalize the image.

Don








 All images sourced from Google Images

Fig. 1 - popsugar.com
Fig. 2 - imdb.com
Fig. 3 - dvdverdict.com
Fig. 4 - ninjanoveltysigns.com
Fig. 5 - musicpsychology.co.uk