• “Let Phil sing!” - RIP Phil Lesh

    … his lack of experience allowed him to rethink the role of the bass in rock music, drawing inspiration from the harmonics found in works he loved by Bach and the jazz bassist Charles Mingus. NYTimes, 25 Oct 2024

    Box of Rain


  • The military may have to make decisions

    … the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics… it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military…


  • Seconds, anyone?

    Auto-generated description: A group of sheep gather around a billboard featuring a wolf in a suit with the caption I AM GOING TO EAT YOU, while one sheep comments, He tells it like it is.

    Paul Noth in The New Yorker. H/T @austinkleon.com


  • Milestone

    It’s a big day in a boy’s life when he gets his very own Medicare card.


  • Texas Harvest

    It never seems like it in August, but there are upsides to gardening in a hot state.

    a bowl of yellow-orange cherry tomatoes

    Sun Gold cherry tomatoes


  • Urgh

    Possible book plate for ““Ex Libris Jim Rain”; I like it, but I’m creeped out that it’s AI generated from a prompt I gave. (Esp. because my daughter is an illustrator. What does this bode for her?)


  • Ya' Got Me

    I’ve become convinced that this election isn’t really about Harris and Trump. But I haven’t figured out what, exactly, it is about. (I mean, I know what it’s about for Trump, but I don’t know about Trump voters. Or the country.)


  • What Makes a Good Citizen?

    Charles M. Schulz (Peanuts creator):

    Sometimes it is the very people who cry out the loudest in favor of getting back to what they call “American Virtues” who lack this faith in our country. I believe that our greatest strength lies always in the protection of our smallest minorities.

    H/T Kottke


  • What’s the Problem?

    Kevin Williamson:

    … you might conclude that this country has a leadership problem. But it doesn’t. This country has a citizenship problem.


  • I Love Astertide

    Purple aster flowers
  • Morning Has Broken

    Auto-generated description: A sky filled with scattered clouds at dusk or dawn

    (That’s Jupiter, I think.)


  • Exhausting, Exhausted

    Before Trump took his golden escalator ride, life was different. Then, even if I thought a candidate would make a terrible office holder, I rarely thought he or she was objectively a bad person. Even LBJ, and he was pretty bad on a personal level, or Nixon, who was pretty bad as a leader. One consequence was, while I might have thought folks who supported “the other guy” naive or misguided, I didn’t think of them as bad either.

    But Trump by any measure is actually a bad, bad man. And he’s bad in many, many ways. So, that makes my response to his supporters quite a problem. In my life, there are folks I love who definitely will vote for that bad, bad man. I know those folks are not themselves irredeemably bad. But I cannot help but wonder, “What is wrong with them?”

    And that is one important reason this is all so exhausting.


  • The Christian Gospel in a Nutshell

    Luke, Chapter 15. Lost sheep, lost coin, lost boy. All wonderful. But the best is at the top in v.2: “… the scribes murmured, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.'” Good news, huh?


  • RepublicBank

    A nice appreciation of Dallas' Republic National Bank building. I enjoyed working there for many years.


  • So nice to have a backyard this time of year


  • RIP, Kris Kristofferson

    Well, I woke up Sunday morning
    With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt
    And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad
    So I had one more for dessert
    Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes
    And found my cleanest dirty shirt
    And I shaved my face and combed my hair
    And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day
    
    I'd smoked my brain the night before
    On cigarettes and songs that I'd been pickin'
    But I lit my first and watched a small kid
    Cussin' at a can that he was kickin'
    Then I crossed the empty street
    And caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin' chicken
    And it took me back to somethin'
    That I'd lost somehow, somewhere along the way
    
    On a Sunday morning sidewalk
    Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned
    Cause there's something in a Sunday
    That makes a body feel alone
    And there's nothin' short of dyin'
    Half as lonesome as the sound
    As a sleepin' city sidewalk
    Sunday mornin' comin' down
    
    In the park, I saw a daddy
    With a laughing little girl who he was swingin'
    And I stopped beside a Sunday school
    And listened to the song that they were singin'
    Then I headed back for home
    And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin'
    And it echoed through the canyons
    Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday
    
    On a Sunday morning sidewalk
    Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned
    Cause there's something in a Sunday
    Makes a body feel alone
    And there's nothin' short of dyin'
    Half as lonesome as the sound
    As a sleepin' city sidewalk
    Sunday mornin' comin' down
    

  • For reference

    Auto-generated description: A diagram illustrates the eight phases of the moon, arranged in a circular pattern around Earth.
  • Hell Weed

    Smilax (or bindweed or greenbrier, among many other names). It covers everything, and its roots reach down to hell. But, once a year for about a week, it puts out pretty purple flowers. So it’s got that going for it. Which is nice.

    Purple flowers are abundantly growing among green leafy vines
  • Audere est Facere

    Micro.blogger Tottenham Hotspur fans (if any, besides @frjon and me), might take some heart from this article in the Evening Standard. COYS ⚽


  • Due Api
    Two bees on yellow Cosmos flowers

    It’s so fun to grow plants (in this case, Cosmos), from seed! Fun for the bees, too.


  • O Liverwurst, Where Art Thou?

    Sad memorial in the NYT. I loved liverwurst on rye with mustard and red onion slices from the late ’70s Stanford Coffee House. I still wonder why people crossed to the other side of the street after I’d enjoyed one.

    The deli counter at Zabar’s in 1971
    At Zabar’s, 1970 - Credit: Michael Gold/Getty Image


  • A Thought

    Extraordinary people in arts, business, etc., can be so focused that their relationships suffer. Maybe that’s the price of excellence. But those who nurture relationships also pay a cost. They may be less successful at making money or art. Might that be a price of deeper connections?


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