What is a Blog Off: a Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What is a Blog Off?"

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In 1975, the British group Supertramp released the album "Crisis? what Crisis?" and its cover art sums up my sentiments about our modern times perfectly. That to photo in question dates from 1975 (a year I remember too well) tells me that nothing ever changes.

The world is going to hell and it's wasting no time getting there but Blog Offs let me see an alternate reality. Every two weeks, we get to write about the same thing and interpret it as we want to. It's fascinating to read all of the participants' takes on a given topic and it reaffirms my faith in humanity to see the amount of good will spilled out on Twitter on Blog Off days. Total strangers stop what they're doing, read a participating blog post, leave a comment and Tweet about it. Would that everything worked with such genial generosity.

As a founder of this thing I see new bloggers build communities around themselves with Blog Offs and these things give people like me who've been at it for a while the chance to encourage newcomers. I always learn something and I never stop marveling at the amazing people my fellow bloggers are.

So even though everything seems to be falling apart, there's this. The Blog Off and the community of bloggers and Twitter-ers who keep it alive every two weeks. It makes me think that all is not lost after all.

And as one of the people who keeps this thing alive, we're looking for you to help us refine what we're doing. How can we better serve the Blog Off community? What topics should we tackle and just how commercial are you willing to let us get? We have a designer-ly skew though not all of us who participate have have an involvement in the shelter industry. How can we grow our pool of participants without alienating the folks we have on board already? This topic is the perfect opportunity to let it all out, for good and bad. How can we make this thing better and more useful?

As today wears on, and as I fly to San Francisco, a table of all the participating bloggers will appear here. Please do me a favor and click on the links to see what people from all over think about the Blog Off.

Thumbtacks: a Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "Thumbtacks"

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To preface this one a bit, the brilliant Rufus Dogg was having a conversation with the novelist and essayist Jane Devin about blog topics. Jane said, “I think some bloggers could write about thumbtacks and their ‘community’ will be pleased.”

Rufus took that as some sort of thrown gauntlet and here we are a week later with "thumbtacks" as a Blog Off topic. While I can't guarantee that'll I'll please my community with this one, I'm sure going to give it a try.

I'm a history nerd of the highest order and when I was thinking about all of this over the weekend it hit me. I'm going to write about the invention of the thumbtack.

Who knew that something so mundane as a thumbtack could have such a controversial history. For starters, three inventors in three separate countries claimed the thumbtack as his own, all three of them around the turn of the last century. Of the three, Mick Clay's is the most pathetic so that's the one I'm going to believe is the true inventor of the thumbtack. All invention involved suffering and disappointment, right?

Mick Clay is a man lost to the mists of history. His lasting contribution to civilization however was something the English call a drawing pin. In 1903, in Barnsley, South Yorkshire; Mick Clay invented a little device that drafters could use to fasten their drawings to their drawing tables. Hence the English term drawing pin. In the US, they were called thumbtacks, but their purpose and original use was the same.

Before getting a patent on his idea, Clay sold the idea to Otto Lindstedt. Lindstedt was a wealthy business man who was granted a patent for Clay's idea in 1904.

From all accounts, Lindstedt went on to even further fame and fortune with the proceeds from Clay's idea. Lindstedt was the toast of the Continent, feted by royalty and commoner alike. Clay disappeared and even though I ca'tn verify it, I see him dying in obscurity in some Dickensian workhouse somewhere while shaking his fist at Lindstedt and being ignored by his fellows. Poor guy.

Actual metal thumbtacks, or drawing pins depending on your side of the Atlantic have all been replaced by something that's technically a map pin.

Thumbtacks have an annoying habit of landing pin side up when dropped, something I remember with searing clarity from my childhood. Stepping on a tack in bare feet is a pain like none other, let me tell you.

The shape of a map pin makes such a deadly landing impossible and their widespread use have made workplaces and households infinitely safer places.

However, I rather like the idea of office supplies that fight back. A little hazard now and again is good for the soul. I say we bring back the old metal thumbtack.

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As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's posts. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

The best book I ever read: a Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What's the best book you ever read?"

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This is a tough one and I'm having a hard time narrowing it down to just one. I've been a prolific reader my whole life and different periods have always revolved around different books. I remember reading Alex Haley's Roots when I was in sixth grade and I thought it was the most amazing thing I'd ever read.

In high school I bounced between Catcher in the Rye and A Separate Peace. When I went away to college I was all about Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage until I ran into John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire. I thought that was the most profound thing I'd ever read. A couple of years later I stumbled across John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces and it held the title of best book I ever read for a number of years.

I learned to read when I was around four and since then I've cycled through countless Best Books I Ever Read. Whether fiction or non-fiction, there's always been something at the top of the pile. But I suppose the last ten years or so have brought with them a less flexible sense of the Best Books. I have my lifetime favorites of course and I do go back and re-read some of them from time to time. But not all of them are great. These same last ten years have had me gravitating toward the social criticism (fiction and non-) from the late 19th early part of the 20th Centuries.

The times we live in now are largely the result of societal shifts that took place over the last 100 years. Going back and reading what was a contemporary commentary from 1890 and seeing how times have changed or not changed since then is endlessly fascinating to me. It drives home the point that history is a continuum and that I'm part of that same continuum. It also tells me that human beings have always been human beings. We have the same emotional range, regardless of the era and the times. There's nothing I feel or think today that hasn't been felt or thought in an endless loop since Homo sapiens first graced the scene.

So with that said, there are three books that sit at the top of my favorite book pantheon and they've help that spot for a while. I'm sure it'll shift with time but on 31 August 2011, those three books are:

Jacob Riis' How The Other Half Lives. In 1890, Jacob Riis exposed the horrific conditions that New York's tenement dwellers lived in. Due to his book and its accompanying photographs, there arose a movement to clean up the inner cities in this country and at the same time a sense that there are minimum standards in which people should live and that it's in a society's best interest to establish and enforce those minimum standards.

Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt from 1922 is a scathing indictment of conformity, suburban and bohemian alike. George F. Babbitt is a Realtor and early in the novel his professional life's described as making "nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry,” but that he is “nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay.” It's scathing and prescient at the same time. Lewis wasn't the first to point out the holes in the American dream but I don't think anyone's ever done it better.

Finally, John Steinbeck's 1939 masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath holds a place so near and dear to me I struggle to find words to describe what an important work it is. Most people are forced to read Grapes when they're in high school and that's unfortunate. Few 17 year olds have the life experience to appreciate what goes on between the covers of that novel. In some ways it picks up where Babbitt left off. The Grapes of Wrath is all about the dark underbelly of capitalism, and underbelly that's become vogue to ignore again. If you haven't read The Grapes of Wrath since high school, read it again. If you've never read, read it for the first time. Read it before the next election.

What about you? What book or books hold the title great in your world?

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As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's posts. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

My life 20 years from now, a Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What will your life look like 20 years from now?"

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Portrait of an Old Man (Johann Harms); Egon Schiele, 1916;  Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; New York

In 20 years I'll be 66 years old. That sounds old, but then again, 20 years ago I was 26 and 46 sounded positively ancient. But at 46 I can say that 46 doesn't really feel very old. So I'm sure the 66 year old version of me won't think he's old.

But the last 20 years ago have taught me a thing or two and I expect that the next 20 will teach me even more. One of the important things I've learned is to avoid making predictions about a future I can't control. Had I been asked this question at 26, the prediction I would have made at the time would have born zero resemblance to what my life actually looks like today. I can't tell you what a great thing it was to have been so wrong about so much.

One of the best gifts I've received as I've grown older is patience. When I was a lot younger I was devoid of it entirely and I wasted countless opportunities in my rush to have the future arrive. A future I had all mapped out of course. But some time in the last 20 years I learned the folly of getting to hung up on specific plans, specific results and specific futures. I've learned that if I can instead plan for intangibles like "I want to be happy," I end up in a better place when it's all said and done. More important than that, I can then concentrate and enjoy every moment of the constantly inventing itself present.

If I get too attached to the end game, I can't alter my plans and I can't jump on the new opportunities that show up so consistently. If I can fully commit myself to now, tomorrow takes care of itself. That sounds counterintuitive, but it works.

So what will my life look like in 20 years? I wouldn't hazard a guess but I have a feeling it'll look somewhat like my life does today. I will be engaged in something productive that pays the bills and makes me feel fulfilled. I'll have a lot of contact with the people I love. I'll continue to learn and grow. I'll still delight in the actions and activities of my nieces and nephews as they strike out on their own and build lives for themselves. I'll have traveled to a bunch of new places and will have collected a whole lot more stories. I'll still be writing in some capacity. I'll be happy.

That's it. Me in 20 years. It'll be interesting to see what my life looks like then but not nearly as interesting as the path I'll take to get there. What about you?

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As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's posts. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

Dumbo and me

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What one thing did you really want when you were a kid?"

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When I was a wee lad, my most prized possession was an LP and an accompanying story book of Disney's Dumbo. I played that LP to the point of wearing it out on a portable RCA record player. I would listen to the story (it was essentially the soundtrack to Disney's 1941 movie) and read along in my story book and be transported.

Here's a copy of my old LP I found on eBay.

What got me more than anything was the introduction to the Disney story book. One of the first illustrations in it was this map of Florida.

It looked so exotic and peaceful. Palm trees were something my Pennsylvania young self could only see in books and I longed to live in a place where they grew. Even as a kid I loathed winter and I ached to live in a place where it didn't exist.

The house I grew up in was not a TV kind of place. In fact, we didn't get our first color set until I was heading into high school. I was a very loved and very valued member of a large family. We had a big house and a big yard, something my brothers and I were charged with maintaining. Between all of the stuff we did outside, homework and the tomfoolery inherent when there are six boys under one roof, watching TV never really figured into our lives very much.

However, everything else we were doing stopped on Sunday nights at seven o'clock. A lot of people reading this will be too young to remember what Sundays at seven on NBC meant. But to those of us of a certain age, Sunday nights meant this:







(The actual intro starts at :20) That's right, The Wonderful World of Disney. In a time before DVDs and DVRs, most of us saw the classic Disney films on The Wonderful World of Disney. They never failed to enthrall me, even though I saw them on a black and white TV.

I found the intro to Dumbo. Watch it before Disney yanks it off of YouTube.






At one point in those years somewhere in the 1960s and 1970s Old Walt himself introduced the world to his vision of Disney World on a Sunday night during a telecast of The Wonderful World of Disney, something he was planning to build in where else but Florida.

I somehow knew better than to want to go to Disney World when I was a kid. We took our vacations in rural Canada, something I loved as much as I loved life itself and to miss that was unthinkable. Even at six or seven or eight, I knew that the Florida thing was going to have to wait.

However the die was cast some time around 40 years ago. Even then, I knew that some day I would call Florida home. As exasperating as life and times can be in this banana republic sometimes, every time I walk out the front door I see palm trees that I grow myself. It doesn't matter what our ridiculous governor is doing, I sink my feet in the sand and watch the sun setting over the Gulf of Mexico any time I think to walk on the beach at the end of the day. So what that our grandstanding legislature practically insists the world is flat, I have palms and parrots and geckos and 75 degree January afternoons.

Every time I hear the wild parrots squawking or hear the thump of a ripe coconut falling I remember back to a time when all of this was unthinkably exotic. I remember back to a childhood lived out in the rolling farmlands of Pennsylvania and I just smile to myself because when it's all said and done, I got what I wanted.

So to speak to this week's Blog Off topic, what I wanted more than anything when I was a kid was to lead the life I lead today as a middle-aged man. I toy with leaving this part of the world all the time. Some small part of me remains fundamentally attached to the northeast US. However the palms, the sand, the parrots and the geckos make me want to stick around for just a little while longer.

And there you have it. My childhood fantasy, realized. What about you?

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As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's posts. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

As the day progresses, a list of participating bloggers will appear here. Check out how everybody participating tackled this topic.

Tradition: A Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What traditions do you keep?"

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I can't hear the word tradition without thinking of Fiddler on the Roof and poor milkman named Tevye. Tevye lived with his wife and five daughters in a shtetl in Czarist Russia at the turn of the last century.

Alfred Molina as Tevye in the 2004 revival of Fiddler on the Roof. via.

In 2004's brilliant revival of The Fiddler on the Roof, Alfred Molina and cast breathe new life into Sheldon Harnick's lyrics and weigh in on the topic of tradition.





Over the course of Fiddler, Tevye and his family deal with changing traditions that come at them from all sides. In a time when marraiges were arranged, Tevye allowed his eldest daughter to marry for love. In a time when Cossacks loyal to the Czar could pillage Jewish shtetls at will and Russian Jews accepted it as their lot, Tevye and his family leave for the United States and the promise of a better life.

The tradition they would have run into upon their arrival in New York was that Jews were summarily excluded from public life in the first part of the 20th Century, but at least they weren't being dragged from their homes in the middle of the night. But they had each other and they would have been free to practice their religions as they saw fit and to make new lives for themselves.

Tradition is one of those terms that gets loaded with a lot of nostalgia and a lot of unnecessary meaning. It's easy to sentimentalize traditions and hard to see them in a broader context. There are times when traditions provide a script to get through awkward moments. There are times when traditions provide a framework for social interaction. And there are times when traditions lock people in place and hold them to the stations where they were born.

Rituals and traditions are fascinating to study in and of themselves, but even more fascinating is watching them evolve over time. And all of them evolve over time. Even though they change, they provide a terrific opportunity to step back and remember the people who came before.

So far as traditions I keep, the first one that springs to mind is that I vote religiously. Despite the current vogue for early voting and mail-in ballots, I stand in line and exercise my right to cast a ballot in person. As distressed as I may be with an election's outcome, I always know that I stood in line and made my voice heard. Over the last ten to 15 years, getting an "I voted" sticker after I cast my ballot has become a new addition to the ritual of voting. So now I get to feel better about my role in a representative democracy and gloat over my participation at the same time.

Second to voting, another tradition I keep that springs to mind involves Christmas Eve. When my youngest brother was old enough to stop believing in Santa Claus, my family started celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve with a late dinner and we'd exchange gifts some time around midnight. I have people over every Christmas Eve and it's a continuation of that tradition my parents introduced. Some time between 11pm and midnight on Christmas Eve I stop for a second and think about the fact that all of my siblings are having a gathering at the same time I am. Each and every one of them is sitting at a table and he or she is surrounded by the people they love. No matter where our lives take us, that one moment of recognition every Christmas Eve reminds me that I came from somewhere.

Finally, just to pick a third tradition I keep, I like to bake pies and my pie baking starts in earnest with the arrival of cooler weather in November. I make my pie crusts from scratch and I follow my grandmother Stewart's recipe. It'd be easier just to buy the pre-made stuff and honestly, I think the only person who can tell that my crusts are the real thing is me. But I don't do it for the recognition. I do it as a way to remember my Gram and to keep her memory alive for another year.

So there you go. Three traditions I keep in my own way. What about you?

As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's posts. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

Relaxing and recharging: a Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "How do you relax and recharge?"

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I work a lot and I haven't had a real vacation in longer than I want to admit. While it's true I've been a traveling fool for the last couple of years, none of that travel's been leisure travel. Yes, I've been to some amazing places but going to press conferences and product seminars when you have jet lag doesn't count as R&R in my book. Even so, it's a good problem to have.

So to bide my time until my next vacation, I've picked up the habit of what I call taking mini vacations. They can take less than an hour and they're a short walk down the street.

via

I live four blocks away from the waterfront park system we have in St. Pete. 101 years ago, the City of St. Petersburg decided it wanted to preserve its downtown waterfront for the enjoyment of all and so they established a grand program to buy up waterfront property and turn everything they bought into a park.

via

It took a number of years, but eventually the park system would span for the many miles of downtown waterfront and 101 years later, St. Petersburg has an asset every other waterfront city in the world would kill for. Along those many miles of park you can find everything from beaches to tennis courts, dog runs to botanical gardens, marinas to the largest city pool I've ever seen. That park system typifies St. Pete's commitment to the quality of life of its residents and it's one of the things that holds me here.

Few things can soothe and recharge me the way looking at water and watching wildlife can and the parks provide both of those things in spades. An early morning walk (or in my younger days, a jog) can recharge me and get me ready to go back and keep plugging away at what ever I'm doing.

That I can walk a couple of blocks east and see pelicans and wild dolphins and herons and ibises and egrets and smell jasmine and dodge falling coconuts convinces me further that I'm the most fortunate man alive. When I was a kid in rural Pennsylvania I dreamed about seeing the things I see every day.

If I get down there early enough to watch the sun rising, I have most of the parks to myself. There is no other more amazing thing than to sit on the sea wall at the bottom of my street, to warm myself in the rays of a rising sun and to have wild dolphins chasing mullet a few short feet below me.

So my mini vacations in the park tide me over for now. As much as I enjoy my time spent down there. I really need a vacation.

As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's postss. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

Guilty TV pleasures: a Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "Guilty pleasures: what's your favorite show on TV?"

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It's funny. I spent most of yesterday composing a lengthy, lengthy defense of my intellect that amounted to a rationalization of why I watch the guilty pleasure TV I do. I'll spare you my inner torment and just come clean. I am no stranger to trashy TV. I don't admit it very often but the whole point of this Blog Off topic was to act as a confessional.

So with that said I'll confess that I watch most of the shows the Bravo Network produces. And out of all of those programs the one that stands out for me, the true rose among the thorns of reality TV is the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

There. I just admitted that to the world. This is supposed to make me feel better but instead I just feel exposed. The Real Housewives of New Jersey has no redeeming qualities other than that it entertains me. It entertains me because it makes me think I'm sane when I compare my life to the horrors that play out in North Jersey every week. I watch it for no reason other than the thrill of schadenfreude.

Here are three clips that sum up the shenanigans of The Real Housewives of New Jersey perfectly.

From Season One:






From Season Two:






From Season Three:






And there you have it. I've either admitted my humanity or made myself look bad. I can't figure out which. In my own defense, I really do read The New Yorker...

As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's postss. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

What's my favorite color: a Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What's your favorite color?"

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I may have put away my designer shingle these days, but some things never really go away. One of those things in my case is how deeply affected by color I am. The topic today asks me to pick a favorite color and I can't just pick one. I can't imagine ever having to pick just one favorite color.

When I look over my long list of favorite colors, every one of them is based on an experience I've had or a place I've been. As I go through my day to day life I'm struck by the memories certain colors trigger. I cannot imagine myself ever saying something like, "my favorite color is blue." Rather, I'm a lot more apt to say something along the lines of "That color blue reminds me of the color of the water on the northern end of Cat Island on an August afternoon." It's sounds kind of strange, but that's just how I operate. I have a hard time taking colors out of context.

Said beach on Cat Island

So here's a collection of some of my favorite colors and the places where I saw them.

Some of the most beautiful scenery in the entire US is in the hills of Northern California. Every September, those hills turn the most amazing color of gold I've ever seen.

I love combinations of purple, red and green. This is a bromeliad on my patio with a visitor on Christmas Eve two years ago.

Despite the bad mouthing they get, I love the color yellow dandelions are, especially in the spring when the rest of the earth is still half-asleep. They don't grow in Florida, so I took this photo in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago.

The ochre colors of the Spanish countryside look like something from another planet. I'm not at all accustomed to seeing cliffs and hillsides that appear to be painted, but even if I were, Spain would still stand out.

I love the emerald-turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico. I am not a native to these parts, but the Gulf of Mexico exerts a pull on me I have a hard time articulating. When seen from above I fall in love with it all over again.

These are the winter blossoms of a tree called a Tabebuia, and they're scattered like lilac confetti on a street in my neighborhood. I'm not usually a purple person but spent Tabebuia flowers on a brick street in January are almost enough to convert me.

When the sun sets every evening, the Sorrentine peninsula looks like it's on fire. If only those colors could be put in a can.

I love the colors of patina-d metals. My great-great-great-grandfather's monument is made from cast zinc and it's the most striking gray-blue I can think of.

As I mentioned before, I am not a native to the part of the world where I live now. Though I may hang my hat in a tropical climate, in my heart of hearts I remain a Yankee's Yankee. The only time I really miss the Northeast is toward the end of October when the maple trees start to turn. This was my back to school back drop every year as a kid and no matter how far away I go, I'm always drawn back when I know the leaves up there are turning.

So what are my favorite colors? Well, this morning they are Bahamas Afternoon Blue, September Rolling Hills Gold, Christmas Eve Bromeliad, Brooklyn Dandelion, Spanish Hillside Ochre, Gulf of Mexico March Turquoise, Tabebuia on a Brick Street Lilac, Cliffs on Fire Orange-Red, Ancestral Grave Marker Blue-Gray and Pennsylvania Autumn Riot.

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As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's postss. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

What is a fact? What is true? It's a Blog Off

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What's the difference between a fact and a truth?"

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When we figured out the topic of this Blog Off last week I was pretty psyched up to have a deep discussion. I love delving into the deeper meanings of rhetoric and nobody can debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin better than me.

But as I thought about it and as I figured out what I wanted to say I kept coming up short.

When I was a younger man I believed with every fiber of my being that the world was governed by a series of universal truths that could be counted on as a way to determine how the world works. These universal truths came from the natural world.

Truths such as the theory of evolution, the theory of gravity, atomic theory and the laws of thermodynamics undergirded everything and could be relied upon as a compass to use to get through anything. I lived for years in this Aristotelian idyll.

But as I grew older and experienced more I started to stumble over truths and events that didn't jibe with my A is A worldview. Why did my friend Woody die so horribly? Why do my fellow Floridians vote into office politicians who will sell out our future? Why do so many of my friends continue to act against their best interests? And most recently, why did my ex-boss do a swan dive off the tallest bridge he could find and why did he blame me? The Universal Truths I hold onto don't apply in these cases.

Now that I'm a middle-aged man I'm coming to see that there is a difference between facts and truths, something I couldn't have seen when I was 25. It's true that Woody died 12 years ago but it doesn't  mean anything other than the fact that every life has an expiration date. It's a fact that people will elect politicians who appeal to their baser instincts. It's true that Carl is dead but despite his feeble attempts to drag me down with him, it doesn't mean I did anything wrong.

There's a difference between facts and truths and the more I think about it the deeper the divide between the two grows. It's easier to believe in universals but the older I get the less I believe in them.

As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's postss. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

If I could stop the world for one day: A Blog Off Post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "If you could stop the world for one day, what would you take the time to do?"

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What would I do with the time? I'd take a page from Modern English.

What would I do? That's easy, I'd melt with you.










Hah! As soon as this topic surfaced last week my mind went back to 1982 and that song immediately. Some influences just can't be undone and early '80s British New Wave is definitely an indelible influence.

But back to the topic at hand. What would I do if I could stop the world for a day? I'd probably not stop the world in the first place. If that weren't an option, I'd spend the time looking for a way to start it again.

I may be alone in this, but I enjoy the passage of time. I like getting older (and wiser) and I love being able to look back across a landscape of lessons learned. Further, with those lessons learned, I'm better equipped to enjoy my life as a move forward.

I'm a busy guy. My days are pretty tightly scheduled and if there's something I really want to do I rearrange my priorities and do it. If the thing I want to do isn't important enough for a priority rearrangement then it's probably not very important in the first place.

So if somebody wants to stop the world, please find a way to do so that my world keeps spinning.

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Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "If you could stop the world for one day, what would you take the time to do?"

What do you carry: a Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What are you carrying?"

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I fancy myself to be a bit of a traveler and the many places life's brought me so far have left an indelible mark on me. I'm a better man for having seen some places most people only read about and it's not something I take lightly. So whether it was trekking through a Panamanian rain forest or having the Spanish steps all to myself on a rainy Sunday morning, places and experiences stay with me.

I like to travel lightly and I'm not much of a shopper, but something I've been doing for the last 20 years or so is accumulating odds and ends from the places where I've been. These stones and sticks, bones and feathers end up in a jar on my dresser. That jar is my world in miniature it reminds me how fortunate I am every morning. The theme this week is What do You Carry? And my answer is that I carry with me every experience I've ever had. Some highlights:

This is an ancient Roman bell, it's one of the three ancient Roman artifacts I own. That this bronze bell was once sewn into the hem of someone's clothes thrills me to my core.

This is a small piece of brick from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. The ruins in Rome are crumbling and this small piece of brick ended up getting washed off the building that once held the grandest baths the world has ever seen and it landed on a path I was walking on. Holding a piece of Roman engineering is almost as thrilling as holding a piece of Roman ornament.

These are shells from a beach in Honduras. If you ever want a get away for some solitude,  Honduras fits that bill nicely. The Honduran people are amazing and they need your money. Go.

This is a piece of pumice I fished out of a hillside in Pompeii. This piece of pumice is one of the billions of pieces of pumice spewed out of Mount Vesuvius on August 24th, 79 and buried Pompeii.

This is pumice I pried out of the cliffs in Herculaneum. This stuff looks so harmless now. 

This is a piece of granite from the summit of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California.  Mount Tam was the backdrop to an important period in my life and when I hold onto that rock it's like I'm there all over again.

This is a feather I found on Cat Island in The Bahamas. It once belonged to a common ground dove, which are the most comical birds I've ever had the pleasure to interact with.

This is a piece of quartz from Guanajuato, Mexico. Mexico is a beleaguered country and good news from there is hard to come by in the US press. Mexico is a wonder and it has a history that predates anything on this side of the border by centuries.

My great friends Bob and Rick live just outside of Philadelphia and this is a piece of mica  I retrieved from their woods.

This is a shell from the beach in Positano. I've written about the wonder that is Positano here before and this misshapen shell is a perfect metaphor for the place.

This desiccated tree frog once stowed away in my luggage when I was in Panama. I never knew he was there and by the time I got home he hadn't survived the ordeal.

This is a shell from a beach in Mayreau in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The extreme southern Caribbean is littered with unpopulated islands, many of which are only accessible by sailboat, which is how I got there. Why anyone would set foot on a cruise ship is beyond me.

I bought this ring from an old woman in Puerto Limón, Costa Rica for around 75 cents. It's silver and I wore it for nearly ten years.

This is a piece of lavender I picked from a roadside in France in what seems like a lifetime ago. It's at least 16 years old and it still smells like lavender.

This is a piece of stainless steel I retrieved from a factory parking lot in Germany last winter.

So what do I carry? My history and the stories I've accumulated.

As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's postss. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

The best advice I've ever received: A Let's Blog Off post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What's the best advice you've ever received?"

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The best advice I've ever received came from Stephen Sondheim. Actually, Sondheim didn't deliver it personally. Rather, someone suggested that I pick up a copy of Sondheim's 1984 triumph, Sunday in the Park with George.

Sunday in the Park with George, like all of Sondheim's work, is deep and complicated. If you're looking for something light and uplifting, a Sondheim musical probably isn't for you. Sunday in the Park tells a fictionalized story of Georges Seurat, the French pointillist. Specifically, it tells a fictionalized story of his life as he set out to paint Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Portions of the play take place within the painting itself.

Act two moves the action ahead 100 years to the year 1984. Georges Seurat's great-grandson, George, is also an artist who shares the tortured soul of his famous ancestor. In act two comes the song "Move on." Here's a recording from a London Concert last year. The singers are Daniel Evans and Jenna Russel who starred in a revival of the play in London in 2005 and then again on Broadway in 2008.






The best advice I've ever been given is in that song. Stop worrying where you're going, move on. Let me repeat that. Stop worrying where you're going, move on.

When I first heard that song, I was a neurotic 31-year-old who spent more time second guessing himself than he did being productive or carving out some kind of happiness. I was unhappy and I couldn't figure out why. The first time I heard that lyric it hit me like a Mack truck that I wasn't happy because I wasn't letting myself be.

I was so afraid to make the wrong move that I ended up not going anywhere. So I sat and wrote down all of the "bad" things in my life. I used to blame that stuff for my unease, but as I wrote I started to see that the common thread in all of those situations was me. Once I had that aha moment there was no going back.

I'm hardly perfect and I backslide all the time, just like everybody else. But thanks to a song in a play most people have never heard of, I see my life differently than I did when I was that neurotic 31-year-old. I am a happy man and I got that way because I decided to be a happy man.

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As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's postss. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

What is legacy? A Blog Off Post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "What is legacy?"

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These two women were my grandmothers.

That's Marjorie Belle Pfahl-Anater on the left and Guellma Gevene Flowers-Smith-Stewart on the right. I knew them as Gram A and Gram S, although we usually called Gram S by her middle name, Gevene. When I was young I loved Gram A for her intellect and musical talent. I loved Gevene for her scrappy common sense and good humor.

Both of my grandmothers were widowed before I came along and I never knew my grandfathers.

But I knew these two and the older I get the more of them I see in me. My love of classical music is pure Marjorie and my inability to suffer fools is pure Gevene. That's legacy. A legacy of a sort.

For me, the legacy a person leaves is the story of their lives. My grandmothers led lives of high highs and low lows, just like everybody else does. Both of these women dealt with adversity, survived the deaths of children and husbands, and witnessed the enormous, tumultuous changes that defined the 20th Century.

I grew up hearing a lot of their stories and to me, those stories are their greatest legacy. Those women weren't just static characters in a photo album, they were real people. I look at that photo above and I can hear Gevene's laugh and Marjorie's "Good glory!"

I think that people live on when their descendants tell their stories and pass along their legacy. My nieces and nephews, who number in the dozens, never knew those women as the forces of nature they were. But I did. I knew them and I feel like it's my job, my obligation, to those two great women to tell their stories to their great-grandchildren.

In telling those stories, in passing along those legacies, I keep my grandmothers alive for just a little while longer. And not only that, I reinforce (at least I hope I do) that my nieces and nephews belong. In the act of telling, I get to remind myself the same thing.

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As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's postss. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.