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ByGD

My Daughter Got a Lammily for her Birthday and You Won’t Believe Her Response

Lammily doll in boxHow’s that for a Buzzfeed-worthy headline? Anyway, I remember hearing about the crowdfunding campaign for Lammily and thinking, “She’d better have awesome clothes.”

Oh wait, I’d better back up. Lammily is a new Barbie alternative designed after actual human body dimensions. The first time I saw a picture of one, I thought it looked weird. Then my daughter received one for her 6th birthday, and her response actually did surprise me. Read More

ByGD

Sólstafir at Seattle’s Barboza

Solstafir plays banjoI tried to curb my excitement, remembering stories of people who allowed their joy to flow too freely and attracted the attention of angry spirits, stories of children named Worthless to protect them from jealous gods. I know the danger of anticipating a show too intensely; the more you expect, the greater the chance of disappointment. So I was nervous all day. My favorite band, Sólstafir, was going to play Seattle for the first time in their 20-year career. Read More

ByGD

The Fright Catalog of Warrior Soul

Fright Catalog CoverA few days ago, Kim Kelly posted an interview on Noisey with Joseph Moconi, the linguist/poet behind the surreal poem performed exquisite corpse-like by a circle of narrators embedded in flowers. Individual phrases evoked the titles of paintings by Salvador Dalí and sculptures by Remedios Varo. They also sounded like black metal lyrics – because they were!

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ByGD

I’m Forty

40th-emblemA couple days after WordPress reminded me how old my blog is, Facebook reminded me how old I am. knew my birthday was the same week as Thanksgiving, I just forgot which day. I was sick, and I was busy.

And then my phone started buzzing every two seconds with a new notification as everyone on Facebook wished me a happy 40th birthday. Forty! That’s a big deal – isn’t it? Read More