THIS IS WATER from nathan m peracciny on Vimeo.
A hair pious, maybe, the way commencement speeches can be. But it strikes me for a couple of reasons. Continue reading
Duo Tone
7 posts
Your friend, your cousin, your boss, your next-door-neighbor has just suffered one of the commonest calamities of life: being dumped. Do you say anything? And if so, what do you say?
As many times as you’ve heard and read and learned that “I’m sorry” is always okay and always welcome, it feels somehow inadequate. Well, here’s the thing, nothing you can say is truly adequate. That is why it can be so difficult to say anything at all. But we try, oh do we try. And often, we screw up. Continue reading
We’re two weeks past Thanksgiving, but I am still puzzling over the dinner conversation. As four 20-something guests talked about hopes and worries, I began to wonder if the pressures they feel reflect a generational terror.
The cast of characters, besides me, was my adorable 23 y/o crypto-nephew and three young women, none of whom I’d met before. You know how it is: crypto-nephew wants to invite his favorite roommate. A couple of days later she asks if we can include one of her friends and then a few days after that, how about another friend at loose ends? Boom! You’ve agreed to feed one person you know and three you don’t.
Despite my apprehensions (who are they? will they throw up on my couch?) they were great. A wonderful time, as the saying goes, had by all—especially by me. Their conversation about ambitions, expectations and fears was as fascinating as it was startling.
They are preparing for, striving towards, in search of nothing less than the perfect job. Continue reading
I love summer, all sultry nights and sunshine and steamy rains, changes of scene and no coats and time to spend with friends you don’t see enough of during the year. My summer was working out fine, until the week-end before Labor Day. Continue reading
Julia Child, the woman who almost single-handedly led Americans out of the hell of soggy green beans and Jello molds and into the Paradise of perfectly roasted chicken with butter-enriched pan sauce, would have been 100 today. She deserves every accolade she gets.
Without Julia Child, I might never have learned to cook. I was a Modern Young Woman, hungry to make my way in the great wide world and determined never to serve in any man’s kitchen. Cooking was the last thing I ever intended to do. But when I saw Julia make cream puffs on TV, I thought, “I love cream puffs. If it’s really that easy…” It was that easy, and they tasted like nothing I had ever imagined, tender and yeasty and totally unlike the leathery shells in the bakery window. The world of food opened up to me and Julia Child had me in the palm of her open, competent hand. Continue reading
Once upon a time, everyone was writing a novel. Now, everyone who isn’t making a video game or a graphic novel is writing a screenplay. You could use some help, right? Why not eliminate the slow part of the process (writing) and proceed directly to the Producer’s notes? This hilarious web site will take you there.
Thirty-seven years ago this morning, Sir Tone was walking towards his office on Music Row in Nashville when he heard one of Elvis’ side men yell out “You hear Elvis is dead?”
Sir Tone: “Drugs?”
Side Man: “Yeah.”
The mere mention of Elvis’ name is enough to throw Sir Tone into a fury. The primary reason black blues musicians and early pop recording artists never got their due, Sir Tone says. Not half so good a musician as a multitude of them, never wrote a song of his own and most egregious of all, failed even to acknowledge his debt to the Delta black music his baby self breathed in along with its white country and church music. Continue reading