mumby road
  • Elm Street, Dallas

    Vintage photo of Elm Street in Dallas at night, with neon Pegasus sign atop a building in the distance
    1942 📷


  • Ancient DNA maps migration in the Roman Empire

    Interesting.


  • Lovers 📷
    Birds on power lines against a stormy sky.
  • Here goes 🌱

    One of the benefits of gardening in the South. January 27: tomatoes are sprouting and onions are planted.

    tomato seedlings onion sets planted in a vegetable garden
  • For savory breakfast types

    Eureka! I finally discovered a good use for whey left over from yogurt-making. Add it to the pot when cooking steel-cut oatmeal. Makes for a delicious tangy breakfast. (BTW, the soft-boiled egg and s.c. oatmeal combo is dynamite.) 🍳


  • Fellowship - Christian Wiman
    Tragedy and Christianity are incommensurable,
he declared, which we’d have chalked to bluster
had he not, within the month, held a son
hot from the womb but cold to his kiss,
and over a coffin compact as a toolbox wept
in the wrecked unreachable way that most resist,
and that all of us, where we are most ourselves,
turn away from.
                              Bonded and islanded 
by the silence, we waited there,
desperate, with our own pains, to believe,
desperate, with our own pains, not to.

  • Hope Springs... You Know

    Started tomato plants by seed today in the garage. Will use grow lights when (if) they sprout, then repot, then into the ground come Spring. Never tried doing it this way before. Fingers crossed.


  • Lovely Breakfast Companion
    a pink amaryllis flower in a vase. 📷
  • from The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg /
    ... the third place tavern combines drinking with conversation such that each improves the other. The talking/drinking synergism is basic to the pub, tavern, taverna, bistro, saloon, estaminet, osteria -- whatever it is called and wherever it is found... [J]ust as conversation is enhanced by the temperate use of alcohol, the artful and witty game of conversation moderates consumption of liquor. As Tibor Scitovsky remarked with respect to those who know how to use a public drinking facility, "a half-pint of beer is to talk as bed is to making love -- one can do without, but does better with.”
  • My Turf Club / Tuxedo Cocktail No. 2
    • .75 oz Old Tom Gin
    • .75 oz London Dry Gin (Tanq or Beefeater)
    • 1.5 oz dry vermouth (I prefer Dolin)
    • .25 oz Luxardo liqueur (worth having around for other classic cocktails, such as the Aviation)
    • 2 dashes anise liqueur (absininthe, pernod, etc.)
    • 2 dashes orange bitters
    • 2 dashes Angostura bitters
    • lemon twist garnish (important!)
    So beautifully balanced. [chef's kiss emoji goes here.]
  • Not a bad mission statement /

    “We aim to humanize those who have been objectified.”
       – Jessie Kornberg, Director, Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles


  • London's East End in the Last Century
    From the wonderful Spitalfields Life: "In the seventies, while living in Mile End Place ... photographer Philip Cunningham took these tender portraits of his friends and colleagues."


    📷
  • sunny colorful
    a sunny interior of a house with bright blue and orange fabric on furniture

    📷


  • Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry
    - Howard Nemerov
    Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

  • Whatever Happens This Year /
    I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.
    In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
  • At the coffee shop
    turquoise-colored chest with decorative wood work and plants on top 📷
  • Third Places
    American suburbs provide an excess of privacy, but deny proximity to those places upon which a community life depends.

    Ray Oldenberg, The Great Good Place


  • For 2024

    Ten days in, my theme for 2024 is: “Be attentive”:

    • Pay attention to what I pay attention to, and jettison stuff that doesn’t pay back with value.
    • Improve focus on stuff that is valuable. (Takes practice!)
    • Be attentive and responsive (or least present) to others.

    (NB: They all take practice.)


  • from Symmetries & Asymmetries - W.H. Auden
    Could any tiger
Drink martinis, smoke cigars,
And last as we do?

  • a friend
    A Panama hat resting on a plastic facsimile of an armadillo skeleton
  • Ventura County, CA
    A partly shaded unpaved hiking trail in Ventura County, California, USA
  • Loo Art
    stenciled skeletons painted on a restroom wall stenciled cowboys on horseback in silouhette painted on a restroom wall
    Lee Harvey's, Dallas. Tx
  • Well, yeah, I am. Thanks, mate.

    Ange Postecoglou: “I’ve loved my first six months as head coach of this fantastic football club. We are still very much in the early stages of our journey. We have been moving in the right direction in terms of the squad, style of play, results. Hopefully, you are enjoying the team we are becoming.” ⚽️


  • from The Other Side of the Alde | Reynolds Stone, Wood Engraver
    Wood engraving of wooden boat on a rocky beach
  • Year-end lists
    Without a doubt, my 2023 personal Word of the Year is "Ange Postecoglou".
    (Two words, but you get it.) Coming in at #2 is "mate."
    Come On You Spurs! ⚽

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