ClimbingSky

Why Baseball, Books, and the Grateful Dead matter

  • On Prayer

    I have been thinking about prayer of late. I used to attend a Lutheran church where one of the pastors insisted that any event held at the church required a prayer. It was her view that something going on at church needed to have a “Christian” component to it.  Though she never said so explicitly, it was… Read more

  • On the Art of the Book Cover

    Some of my earliest and fondest “book-memories” are of the kind of paperback books my father and uncles used to read. The kind of books I would find on tables and shelves in various bunkhouses or in the”office” (trailer) at the city dump where my Uncle Carl used to work: westerns and detective fiction… cheap… Read more

  • The Perfect Office

    Over the 35+ years of our time together, Sue and I have often had at least one “extra” room that could be made into an office. The kind of “room of my own” I thought I needed to read and to write. Book-filled spaces that inevitably filled with the flotsam and jetsam of my various… Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee Shot

    Flack went into his desk again, took out a fifth of bourbon, and poured some into his coffee. He grinned. “Wanna cheer yours up a little?” “No thanks.” I got up, “I’ll keep in touch, Julian.” Flack’s grin disappeared. “Don’t call me Julian. And watch your step. I got enough trouble without having you turn… Read more

  • Coping With The Madness

    To cope with the Madness that is Trump, I am reviving a few well-worn strategies again these days. And gravitating to some new ones. First, as I did during is first term, I no longer listen to or watch the news in any form. I will only read the news in my morning StarTribune. The… Read more

  • FRIDAY FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Henri Lefebvre on Capitalism

    [U]p until now ‘progress’ has affected existing social realities only secondarily, modifying them as little as possible, according to the strict dictates of capitalist profitability. The important thing is that human beings are profitable, not that their lives be changed. As far as is possible, capitalism respects the pre-existing shape and contours of people’s lives.… Read more

  • THROWBACK THURSDAY: “Making Certain It Goes On” by Richard Hugo

    Here in the North Country Richard Hugo’s name does not come up in many discussions. He is a Western poet after all, not a Midwestern one. There is a difference: in tone, subject, and in edginess. Hugo’s volume of collected poetry takes its title from this poem. “Making Certain It Goes On” is one of his… Read more

  • SHORT STORY REVIEW: “As I Lay Dead” by Fletcher Flora

    I have mentioned here before that Noir and Hardboiled fiction are my guilty pleasures. The tough, cynical protagonists, the fast-paced, action oriented plots, the tone, the dialog, and the style all appeal to me in a way that no other fiction really does. Manhunt first appeared in 1952. According to information Here is some information… Read more

  • SHORT STORY REVIEW: “The Cat” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

    My pursuit of short stories available in the Public Domain has led me to discover a number of very fine 19th Century writers that I did not previously know. One of those writers is Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. I have now read a number of her short stories and will no doubt be reviewing more… Read more

  • Hardboiled Coffee Technique

    The coffee maker was almost ready to bubble. I turned the flame low and watched the water rise. It hung a little at the bottom of the glass tube. I turned the flame up just enough to get it over the hump and then turned it low again quickly. I stirred the coffee and covered… Read more