About the author
The Art of War
Standing outside the Manassas Battlefield visitor’s center I began to photograph the open and lush countryside surrounding the battlefield monuments and the roads used for auto tours. It’s a new camera—a Canon SX40 HS—and I have fallen in love with it. It allows me to capture what I am truly seeing. The art seems to flow through it. As I was clicking shots of an old, weathered tree, cannons and a far-off ba...
Teaching New Texts
It's that time in the semester again when I do a little segment for my College Writing I students on poetry. We read poetry and write a little about it. Much groaning and head banging ensues. Students have been brainwashed into thinking they cannot understand poetry. Part of this is the falling away of the arts in general from the definition of education. Poetry is not an integral part of teaching to the test. The...
Exit Through the Local Gift Shop
I've written about conspiracy theories and art here before. The notion that Sorina Higgins has about frauds in her recent piece "On the Validity of the Vogel Collection" is a valid one. Our culture teaches us to hold the truth and conspiracy hand in hand, like imagining that a document that makes its whole case on "self-evident" truth is actually a secret treasure map that leads to a trove of ancient treasures hord...
Not Your Father's Shoplifting
I remember well my family’s second desktop computer. It was bigger and faster than the clunky Packard Bell that was our entry into the digital age. This new computer, a Compaq, was more than just a glorified typewriter. This computer could not only access the Internet―it was fast enough to download things. So download we did. First we downloaded games or software, but that was still too large for the modem on ...
Help Us Curate: Good Country Music
After writing my eloquent and diplomatic piece rant about contemporary country music today (it's just as bad as that other CCM!), I wondered how we could crowd source all the good country music into one spot. Since this webzine is The Curator, I thought to myself the most productive thing to do at this point is to curate a list of good country music artists. These country music acts should be contemporary, so naming ...
A Lament for Country Music
I miss country music. I really do. I used to love it. After moving to the New York City metro area almost seven years ago I went through withdrawal. There was no country music station. Top 40 was everywhere. It was awful. But then something started happening in country music shortly after I moved up here. The neo-traditional wave started by artists like Alan Jackson began to putter out and was replaced...
Taking A Break
I had eleven days off for Christmas and New Years. No work to do. Just spending time with family, reading and writing. I also decided to take a stab at brewing my own beer. It was all and all relaxing time. What was different about this time, other than the hours I suddenly had to spend, was that I started writing again. There was a three week spell before this break when I didn't write a poem, blogging was a chor...
