I wanted a nap, but I had a deadline. So I tried to stack stones knowing I’d have to do it over again tomorrow anyway. The laptop battery ran down before I had written 300 words, and that was excuse enough to stop. Then I remembered an overdue library book: A Beginning, A Muddle, and an End by AVI. It was supposed to be about writing, and I was paying 25 cents a day to keep it. Read More
ByGD
Book Report: A Beginning, A Muddle, and an End
ByGD
July by the Numbers
Image Gratisography.com
I’m not sure why anyone besides me would be interested in reading about my blog statistics, but these “Numbers” posts seem to get read as much as any, and they’re easy, so here’s another one. The most notable number this month is that page views so far for 2014 are higher than last year’s total. So thank you all very much. Read More
ByGD
Locked and Unloaded: Getting Real About Gun Safety
Gun laws are off-topic for this blog, and I quote Jennie’s WYS Words too often for any writer of original material. But this post is literally the first time I’ve heard an American make a gun control argument more nuanced than, “Guns are bad!” or “You commies are trying to take my guns away!”
America has so many political nonstarter issues where actual discourse is out of the question that the country is paralyzed. Until we start talking – actually talking and not parroting lobbyist talking points – progress of any kind on any issue is impossible.
Personally, I am more concerned about the fact that it’s easier to buy a gun than a car in America than I am about open carry. Frankly, if I’m sharing space with someone who’s carrying, I’d prefer to know about it. But I applaud Jennie’s call for reasonable discourse on one of too many American hot button issues.
Please click over to Jennie’s blog to read what she had to say:
https://wyswords.com/2014/07/31/locked-and-unloaded-getting-real-about-gun-safety/
ByGD
How to get to Eistnaflug
Eistnaflug is a remote and mysterious ritual, underground even among the denizens of its home country and virtually unheard of outside of Iceland. More famous festivals like Wacken or Maryland Deathfest make it on to metalhead’s bucket lists. Eistnaflug is more like a Holy Grail, a mythical goal that few expect to find.
But I am here to tell you it is not impossible.
Mere mortals who are not even particularly metal can and have drunk from the Eistnaflug chalice (Icelandic speakers may have just thrown up a little in their mouths at that term). Read on, and I will tell you how. Read More
ByGD
Book Report: Names for the Sea
I took a picture of my copy. I like the American cover best, partly because I know where to stand to get this shot of Tjornin.
People read travel stories about places they have never been in order to vicariously experience a trip they could never take themselves. Or they read as a form of research for trips to places they might someday go. I’m not sure if it is as common to read travel books about places you have already been, but I like to do it. It’s a weird combination of vicarious adventure, excitement over shared experience, and the alternate schadenfreude over the author’s mistakes and embarrassment at the reader’s own. Read More