flash & yearn

• Just Discovered Rothko Draft

  (note: this is a draft of an unpublished story that I had written while working for the Valley Advocate. It's incomplete, but I was surprised to find it at all. I had thought I had left the story behind when I was let go from the Advocate. Perhaps if I [...]
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  Posted: November 03, 2009, 11:04pm EST
  by sachem_head

• 30 Poems in 30 Days

  I've decided to undertake a different blogging project this month. I'm taking up the challenge issued by Northampton Poet Laureate Leslea Newman to write 30 poems in 30 days during the month of November. I'm two poems in so far. You can follow my progress here.' [...]
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  Posted: November 03, 2009, 3:45pm EST
  by sachem_head

• Not Another Teen Drama

  The October issue of Preview is on the newstands. I picked a copy up the other day. In it, you can find my story on the Drama Studio in Springfield, which is performing Ascension Day by Timothy Mason for its fall production, Oct 16-18 and Oct 23-25. Here [...]
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  Posted: September 30, 2009, 4:23pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Hadley, Houston, St. Louis

  The weekend before last, I was in Hadley for an interview for an upcoming Preview story. I met the director of an upcoming show at the Panera there on Route 9 -- she picked the meeting spot. It was a nice place for an interview, and L. liked it, because [...]
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  Posted: September 30, 2009, 4:02pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Kardiac Kids

  As someone who was seven or eight years old at the time, watching this YouTube video of the Sam Rutigliano-era Cleveland Browns this morning made me happy. I still maintain that Ozzie Newsome was the greatest tight end ever to play the game.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: September 26, 2009, 2:10pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Inspired Clay

  This week, the prose feature at Poetry Daily is an essay on Robert Burns called "Inspired Clay." Author David Mason reviews a new biography by Robert Crawford. But I particularly like the way he begins, with his father-in-law as an example of Burns' audience:John Lennox missed his home. Even' [...]
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  Posted: August 22, 2009, 10:39pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Sailing (CM #3)

  One of the goals for any Canada trip for me is to get out on the lake and sail. The boat at the cottage now is the Aquacat. I found this website for American Sail, the company that still makes the 12.5 ft. Aquacat and says that the current [...]
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  Posted: August 17, 2009, 7:47pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Bruce Trail at Colpoy's Bay

  
  Bruce Trail at Colpoy's Bay
  Originally uploaded by avarnon
  

  This is a particularly good photo that L. took of the start to the Wiarton Loop hike we took on the Bruce Trail. Flickr friends can see a few more.

  [...]
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  Posted: August 09, 2009, 12:24pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Waltzing Arcadia

  I'm headed out to see New Century Theater's production of Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia tonight in Northampton. It looks like I'll be seeing it alone. I have two tickets, but L. went out last night with the mother's group and she's not sure she wants to be away from little [...]
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  Posted: August 08, 2009, 7:07pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• "Bo, Wawa" (CM #2)

  Before heading up to Canada, we had bought little A. a Personal Floatation Device. We were looking for something that was a little more swimming-oriented, but didn't find anything her size. But we brought the PFD up with us, excited about the prospect of taking her out on the water.[...]
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  Posted: August 08, 2009, 12:35pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• A Walk Along Colpoy's Bay (Canada Memory #1)

  For our third in a series of walks on the Bruce Trail, we chose a loop hike starting in Wiarton's Bluewater Park. Three years ago, my family and I had bought a set of maps published by the Peninsula Bruce Trail Club. Previously, we had hiked Jackson Cove [...]
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  Posted: August 07, 2009, 9:13pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Voice Male Magazine

  A few weeks ago, I got a call from an editor who said he had seen my poem, "Halo Moon," in The Recorder and wondered if he could use it for his magazine, Voice Male. "Wow!" I thought, so I looked the magazine up and it's a nice little magazine, [...]
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  Posted: July 17, 2009, 9:54pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Mount Jefferson

  My friend A. and I hiked up Mount Jefferson yesterday. We drove up Saturday afternoon, camping at the Sugarloaf campground near Twin Mountain. Shortly after we got the tent set up and the fire going, it started raining on us. So we ate our dinner in rain gear. I [...]
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  Posted: July 13, 2009, 10:45am EDT
  by sachem_head

• Hi Neighbor!

  I think I have a new beer crush. On my trips to Ryan & Casey's, I've discovered that if I walk on past the glass cabinets of $8/six pack microbrew beers, over to where the domestics are, I can pick up a six pack of Naragansett tall boys in a [...]
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  Posted: July 10, 2009, 11:48am EDT
  by sachem_head

• American Ale

  Two weeks ago, I was in St. Louis for a friend's wedding. Getting married was one of my old high school crew. He lives over on the Illinois side of the river. We converged from disparate points around the country: Colorado, Massachusetts and Florida. I arrived on a Thursday afternoon' [...]
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  Posted: June 29, 2009, 10:58am EDT
  by sachem_head

• The Mind of a Dad-to-Be

  While at Willits-Hollowell yesterday, I saw a copy of the July Preview Massachusetts magazine. In it was my story on the Williamstown Theatre Festival's world premiere production of Jonathan Marc Sherman's new play, Knickerbocker. I'm pretty excited about it, because Sherman, like me, is a new dad and' [...]
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  Posted: June 28, 2009, 3:13pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Six Years Ago Today

  Six years ago today, I woke up at the Holiday Inn in Springfield. A number of us drove down to Forest Park, where I listened to "Fishing in the Morning" by Dar Williams. The grass was so green and the skies, as I remember them, were blue. My brothers, my [...]
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  Posted: June 28, 2009, 11:53am EDT
  by sachem_head

• Biomass: Sanderson Says No

  I've always been a fan of local voices and personalities in the newspaper. These days, I think one of the best things the Recorder has going for it is Gary Sanderson's column. Sanderson's column is ostensibly an outdoors column and it runs on the sports page. He does write a' [...]
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  Posted: June 26, 2009, 9:56pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Twilight & Obscura in Central Park

  [...]
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  Posted: June 10, 2009, 1:44pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• The Falstaff Play

  The June issue of Preview Massachusetts magazine is on the stands, and my story this month is on the Hampshire Shakespeare Co.'s production of Henry IV, Part I.
  
  
  
  (As an aside, one of my favorite movies from my college years is Gus Van Sant's [...]
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  Posted: May 28, 2009, 4:49pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Wood-Fired Power in Greenfield?

  There's a ZBA meeting tonight in Greenfield about a proposed Biomass plant that a developer would like to build in the industrial park. Here's a blog post by Myriam Erlich Williamson at The Back Forty that contemplates the issue. I found it interesting that environmentalist heavyweight Bill McKibben [...]
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  Posted: May 26, 2009, 4:03pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Kinlochbervie

  "I would have liked to have had a child," says Frank Hardy in the fourth and final monologue of Brian Friel's Faith Healer. I went to see the play at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge on Saturday night. It was opening night. Apparently, Rep. Smitty Pignatelli [...]
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  Posted: May 25, 2009, 11:13pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• The Bill Dwight Show, Round 2

  Yesterday, I was on the Bill Dwight show again, this time talking about how the Poet's Seat chair went missing. It's a story of a prank gone awry, with a happy ending. Unlike the dead dog Bobby Zimmerman plagiarised poem that Bill reads before I came on. Anyway, you [...]
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  Posted: May 21, 2009, 12:50pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Books I've Been Reading

  These are all books that I've started, that I'm reading, that I expect to return to.
  The New Kings of Nonfiction, by Ira Glass. I found this book at the BookMill when I was shopping with A. for books to give for Valentine's Day. It's an anthology. Glass is the [...]
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  Posted: May 13, 2009, 3:40pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Me, on the Bill Dwight Show

  I drove down to Northampton this morning to sit in on the Bill Dwight Show. After going on a rant about torture, Bill chatted with me about the Poet's Seat poetry contest and "the chair." You can hear the whole show at this link. (If I figure out how [...]
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  Posted: May 06, 2009, 12:24pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Faith in the Words

  The May Preview Massachusetts magazine is out on the streets. I have in it a story about the Berkshire Theatre Festival and its production of the Brian Friel play, Faith Healer. Here are the first few paragraphs:This is how the Berkshire Theatre Festival's season will begin: one actor, Colin [...]
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  Posted: May 04, 2009, 10:08am EDT
  by sachem_head

• PBS Did a Poetry Series?

  So, apparently PBS did a poetry series in April. The send-off reader was Bob Hicok, who I heard read two years ago at UMass. Before becoming a poetry professor, Hicok had owned a automotive die business in Michigan. Now that's a career change. So he went to Virginia' [...]
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  Posted: May 03, 2009, 9:07pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• "Greenfield's Hatfields & McCoys"

  (Note 5/4: I'm making this post public.)
  
  So says WRSI The River morning host Monte Belmonte. I heard him and fellow local radio personality Chris Collins on the Bill Dwight show Tuesday, while driving to Springfield. Monte and Chris, apparently, had aimed to start a half-hour radio show on' [...]
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  Posted: May 01, 2009, 9:53am EDT
  by sachem_head

• The Chair is Downstairs

  I read last at the Poets Seat Poetry Contest reading last night. A. was crawling in a hallway at the back of the room, so that I could see her from the lecturn. Partway through the reading of my poem, "Halo Moon," she called out. I paused and said that [...]
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  Posted: April 30, 2009, 6:03am EDT
  by sachem_head

• Dragonslayer, Sparrow, Jet

  [...]
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  Posted: April 26, 2009, 3:01pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• On Maps, Kill Means River

  [...]
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  Posted: April 24, 2009, 11:03am EDT
  by sachem_head

• Voice Post

  [...]
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  Posted: April 23, 2009, 11:56am EDT
  by sachem_head

• Poetry for Physicists

  [...]
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  Posted: April 21, 2009, 11:29am EDT
  by sachem_head

• Poets Seat Finalist

  Woo hoo! I've learned that I'm among the finalists for the Poets Seat Poetry Contest this year, and that my poem, "Halo Moon" is one of the ten in contention for the coveted top prize of "the chair." The Poets Seat contest is a local poetry contest sponsored [...]
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  Posted: April 13, 2009, 5:56pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Oops, I made a Poegle

  A student this morning called me sexist. It set me back a little. After class, in my office, after a few hyperlink clicks, I found myself staring at this "Poegle" page (kind of like Flarf?) and then trying my hand at a Poegle. This is what I came [...]
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  Posted: April 09, 2009, 12:33pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Halo Moon

  [...]
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  Posted: April 06, 2009, 9:29am EDT
  by sachem_head

• Pink Houses

  The lyrics of "Pink Houses" by John Mellencamp (listen to the song on Mellencamp's Last.fm page) are a social commentary, packed carefully into the confines of a three-minute pop song. As a songwriter, Mellencamp has kept it simple throughout his career. His songs are not quite as inventive or [...]
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  Posted: April 01, 2009, 10:30am EDT
  by sachem_head

• Shimmer

  "Shimmer" is a song from the 1995 Throwing Muses album, University. You can listen to it on this live TV performance on YouTube. I first heard Throwing Muses on the tapes my college roomate M. in shoeboxes on his dresser. They were all copies of our friend F.'s prodigious' [...]
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  Posted: March 31, 2009, 10:22pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Kristin Hersh, etc.

  She looked so severe. That's what I remember thinking. Kristin Hersh, up there on stage, her head swaying back and forth like a cobra, her eyes locked on the distance.
  
  Throwing Muses was part of the essential soundtrack of my college years. As much as I listened to [...]
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  Posted: March 27, 2009, 11:38pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Muses, Thrown

  So I went to Cambridge last night to see a show. The Throwing Muses at the Middle East. With 50 Foot Wave and the
  Screaming Females. Went with my old college roommate, M. Good times.
  
  I don't remember all of the songs, but they definitely played these:' [...]
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  Posted: March 15, 2009, 10:30pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Happy 3rd, GoNomad!

  The GoNomad Cafe in South Deerfield is three years old today. L. and I have been meeting there on my days home with A. We meet during L.'s lunch break, so that she can nurse A. So I have a coffee card at the cafe. I've actually collected two' [...]
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  Posted: March 13, 2009, 1:43pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Blogiversary List, 2008 edition (running)

  Okay, I'm going to do this as a running list. I'll find and annotate it a few at a time and keep it at the top of the blog until I'm done. Cheer me on? Heckle me? Any suggestions? Comment me, baby.
  Dad is Great! - 1/7/08 - Impending' [...]
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  Posted: March 12, 2009, 1:36pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Is Writing for the Rich?

  I don't know if I want to know the answer to this question, but Francis Wilkinson of The Week asks it anyway.' [...]
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  Posted: March 11, 2009, 8:36pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Fifth Blogiversary

  Somehow, I let it pass that the 8th of this month marked the fifth anniversary of my starting this blog, "Flash & Yearn." In years past, I spent weeks leading up to the blogiversary post, looking back over old posts, collecting them, waiting for the day when I would post [...]
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  Posted: March 11, 2009, 12:41pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Sonnet for the Wagnerians

  In one of my periodic bouts of self-Googling, I found WNEC's student-run literary magazine, The Review of Arts and Literature, took it upon themselves to publish my poem "A Sonnet for the Wagnerians." They changed the title, and I was never told it was going to be published, but [...]
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  Posted: March 09, 2009, 2:23pm EDT
  by sachem_head

• Cordwood

  Gary Sanderson had a nice little local color piece in this morning's Recorder called "Cordwood Blues." I've often thought that The Recorder should feature more local personalities in their pages. Sanderson, who is the sports editor, probably fits that bill best right now. His column runs in the sports' [...]
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  Posted: February 26, 2009, 12:32pm EST
  by sachem_head

• Greetings from the Newspaper Delivery Woman

  "How's your little one? She must me about a year old now." This was the woman who delivers the newspaper when I saw her this morning. She was making her way up the street in her mini-van, jumping out every few houses to deliver a paper, shuffling carefully along the [...]
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  Posted: February 24, 2009, 11:50am EST
  by sachem_head

• Zoo Poetry

  L., A. and I went to NYC for a couple of days this week to visit brother pkhentz and his fiancee, S. pkhentz already touched on the Poets' Corner at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which we' [...]
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  Posted: February 22, 2009, 10:38pm EST
  by sachem_head

• One Year Ago Today

  A. turned one today. She's having a "two-grandma day" to celebrate. My mom flew in yesterday and she and A. came down with D. and I to Springfield. L. made a little poster for her room with a picture of A. saying "I'm one today," but I haven't done anything [...]
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  Posted: February 05, 2009, 1:48pm EST
  by sachem_head

• Istanbul

  My friend Jeff has been teaching English in Turkey for the past year or so. He's written a couple of articles for Time Out Istanbul, about turku bars (turku is Turkish folk music) and a neighborhood in Istanbul called Kadikoy. [...]
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  Posted: February 01, 2009, 7:24pm EST
  by sachem_head