A tale of travels. — As I was leaving La Guardia airport, I stopped at a help desk to ask how to get to Bay Ridge by train. The fellow at the help desk looked at me, “are you sure you want to take the train?” — yes, please, just tell me where to pick…

A work in progress on method and process. — A few years ago, I started putting together a newsletter to capture the essence of a collection of my work. It is a place for me to share my essays, photos, and paintings, each with varying emphasis on life, culture, art, and ecology. It is, essentially, a synthesis of my…

Interdimensional existence via stringed instrument — I have this busted up Seagull guitar that I recently pulled out of storage. A coworker recommended I talk to a luthier they know, and somehow it felt right to bring it out again. It’s been quite a few years so I’m a little surprised the time has finally come…

After envisioning my newsletter as a quarterly publication some several years ago, I am hoping to return to this in the near future. As it is now, it appears to be on more of an annual timetable. That’s okay too. The latest edition is here, published March 30, 2022. What…

Waiting for the Sun. — Sometimes life is just… unbearable. So much strife heaped on while simply trying to get by. It’s exhausting. My son told me yesterday that he can eventually get a job in his field (IT) making more money than I have ever made after getting my master’s degree and he won’t…

A barrel aged snippet of song — There has always been oddity and turmoil around the 4th of July holiday in my life. Each year becomes its own unique entry in a very strange saga. One of my favorites, though, was when I was walking along a pebbly beach with my guitar and a small girl came…

Sometimes I really can’t take the heat. — Today is the summer solstice. To honor this first day of summer, it was close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit along this 42nd parallel north. In other words, it was rather hot. I ran some errands earlier in the day to avoid the worst of it but it was already too…

A bar industry perspective: part 1 — One of the notable aspects of working at a bar is the amount of glass we go through in a single day. Green, brown, red, clear — every kind out there. So each time I toss a glass bottle into one of the bins at the corner of the bar…

Yet a storm soon. — This quiet evening is a stage for the entrance of the full moon. To the west there is a storm soon to blow in. The meteorologists have issued weather warnings that indicate we might experience a derecho overnight. I can see the tree tops moving around more fluidly as I…