Of all my favorite things to bring back from the woods, I now have a new one which I’ll have to rank above ticks and lice and that is poison oak. After almost twenty years without a serious run-in with the plant, I now have a great rash on the ventral side of my body, […]
I’ve finally done my first non-book review, with a most-worthy subject– the Turkish Grill of Fayetteville, North Carolina, which can boast the best Mediterranean food and the best baklava in the area, as well as some of the friendliest owners. Having been to Turkey myself now, I can judge how the Grill’s cuisine stacks up– […]
Well, it’s been a long time out of the blogging business, and there’s no better time to get back in. I’m married now, and I’m happy. The rest of my unit is deploying to Iraq and beyond, and I am being left behind like an inconvenient turd. But I can’t feel angry. You can’t feel […]
Cielito Lindo (click here), a famous serenade composed by Quirino Mendoza y Cortés, has been claimed by Mexicans as a second national anthem, and is also known to most English-speaking Americans simply as the “ay, ay ay ay” song. It is also worth mentioning that Spaniards, Cubans, Argentines, and people from almost every other […]
It is a funny thing to be angry. I have always known anger as a passing emotion, because it motivates you to take some action, and that action will remove the anger one way or another. But it is different to hold in anger. To choke on it. I never knew that the sensation could […]
A particularly good lunch today at a Korean restaurant today made me reflect again on the many advantages provided to our town by our immigrant community. A good lunch is not only good food, of course– something in a mild day, relaxed company, getting lost on the way there and not caring, drinking an […]
Just for fun, here is a song by a Lila Downs, a singer from Oaxaca who plays traditional Mexican music with a modern touch. I don’t know much about Lila Downs, except that she seems to be an independent woman in the mold of Frida Kahlo. I can say that I had this […]
I have not offered many clear personal details about myself so far, but it may interest some of you to know that I work for the Communist Party of America. No, not that wussy impostor organization you may have heard of whose leaders all teach at the University of California. The identity of […]
Today I have a song (click here) I would like for you all to hear, as well as an English translation of the lyrics. I first heard “En Barranquilla Me Quedo” (”In Barranquilla I’ll Stay”) when I was in Colombia, though I did not know anything about Joe Arroyo at the time.
A more […]
There is a coffee scene here in town, a little place with coffee merchandise on the first floor, and an upstairs loft with couches and a microphone. On Monday nights they have open mic for musicians. Today I was there with a friend; we saw mohawk girl, who had been sitting and glaring in the […]