joely's blog: Archive

Uncomfortable Facts

I wrote this poem as a response to something I discovered in 2003. It had to be pried out - rather like creating something not of one’s own making - an uncomfortable feeling. Was it an act of creation or completion? It seems appropriate somehow, that this poem has an undecided “lineage.” ”Facts all come with points of view Facts don’t do what I want them...

Aug 25th

Remembering Frank McCourt

Frank McCourt Memorial from joely on Vimeo. This is a memorial for Frank McCourt with his younger brother, Malachy McCourt. Frank McCourt didn’t start writing until he was 68, and then as he says: “He wrote it all down.” If you’ve been touched by Angela’s Ashes, this is for you. If you haven’t, it’s also for you – an introduction to a body of...

Jul 26th

Buster in a Bag :-)

I left the classic Whole Foods plastic bag out after using it for the COJ picnic Sunday, and Buster saw its greater potential. “Look Daddy, this is my clubhouse. You have to know the password to get in!”

Jul 21st

The Duchess

I bought a car Wednesday, and will be saying goodbye to the Porsche after 26 years. I’m really glad to have the newer vehicle; it solves a lot of problems for me! It’s an ‘87 BMW with many miles, but it’s been very well maintained, and I won’t have to deal with Porsche mechanics anymore. They made my life way too “interesting” at times. The BMW...

May 22nd

PDQForms: Like adding Spreadsheets to Acrobat

My software obsession. http://pdqforms.biz Free tax software for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard

Apr 13th

Welcome back Daddy!

Buster snoozed through my return from COJ today. I guess he finally feels “at home” here :-)

Nov 3rd

Watch

I loved Paul. I was thinking about him, just a bit ago, as I heated up some Sockarooni, looking at his splendid countenance on the label. I had a thought that my favorite Paul Newman movie was the “movie” of Paul, in real life, his beauty tempered by humility and a steadfast determination to do the right thing, like in 1969, when he supported the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. ...

Oct 6th

Watch

Head of Skate – don’t blink!

Sep 30th

A Candle for Mookie

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not...

Sep 11th

A Late Dessert

I attended a talk describing the recent discovery, reconstruction and translation of the Gandhara Scrolls, the oldest surviving Buddhist texts. While ruminating on their temporal scope and import, this began to form in my mind. I waited to harvest it, hoping that it would ripen, but finally picked it anyway, knowing that further verse wouldn’t grow until I did. When a friend stipulated...

Aug 14th

Buster on "Lap Cam"

I took this picture of Buster while he was on my lap this morning. (My camera’s view-finder swivels.) He was pretty oblivious to it all :-)

Aug 13th

Roger & me

I wanted to honor Roger’s memory in this small way; he was such a treasure. My deepest condolences go out to his close friends and family. Olga and Roger This reflection on my friend and colleague, Roger O’Neill, doesn’t have much to do with me, except that it’s written from my perspective. But I liked the title and thought Roger would have too. Correct me if...

Aug 12th

Watch

I love you, Scruffy.

Jul 18th

Slight Synchronicity?

I’d almost posted this in last night’s “Thoughts for Matt” – but didn’t: I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. - East Coker I decided to put this up when I saw...

Jul 14th

Thoughts for Matt Wheeler and his Family

Matthew and his family are in my heart and prayers throughout each day. I wanted to express special appreciation to Mrs. Wheeler for her writing, and to the many people who are also thinking of and praying for Matt and the Wheeler family at this unknowably difficult time.

Jul 14th

God's Audience

I’ve been thinking about PV2 Hotwheels and his family, and CPT G and The Gravediggers this week. And praying for them: That PV2 Hotwheels fully recovers, and that CPT G and The Gravediggers stay safe and return home to their loved ones. I wrote this poem some time ago. It had its inception in a question posed by a good friend: “How does one process grief?” My verse...

Jul 11th

Watch

The perfect gift for someone who has everything :-)

Jul 7th

Thinking of Gandalf

I’ve been thinking of Mr. G. He was my soulmate who went to Kitty Heaven seventeen years ago, today. I’ll have more to say about Gandalf and Equity, his partner, at some point. I hope. I love you Gandy.

Jul 6th

Yahoo Statistics

Featured on Yahoo’s home page, June 29, 2008: This is so Yahoo. First the stupidity: “each,” ouch! But the essence of Yahoo seems to be the displacement of the real, important and accurate with the mindless, trivial and false. There would be no reason for Rupert Murdoch to ever buy Yahoo; not when they’re doing his bidding for free!

Jun 30th

Yahoo Economics

This would be funny if it weren’t so scary.

Jun 18th

I found this piece, Hello Kitty, by David Sedaris...

Jun 11th

Reading Long on the Web

The eyes use much of the brain’s waking energy. My eyes are older now, and after retinal surgery in 2006, I notice that the “neural energy” required to read a display greatly exceeds that needed for a book. While there are other parameters that affect reading besides just a display’s resolution, I wonder if Shelley finds that her Kindle, with its greater resolution,...

Jun 10th

Remembering Hank

I met Hank Swan and Jan Sells at Tom’s Interdependence Day party in 2002. About six weeks later, I received a phone call that they were at Stanford Hospital nearby me. Hank had had a stroke, and Jan needed some logistical support. I saw Hank two times that Sunday, about four hours apart. And over that interval he’d improved materially; it seemed like a miracle! Was it a warning that...

Jun 2nd

Keeper of the Flame

I wrote this in 2004 while thinking about a good friend after returning from his place one Sunday night - in gratitude for his offering me a handhold, a transitory context, a sanctuary on my uncertain journey. Keeper of the Flame It is fortunate that you kept the old ways which I so shortsightedly abandoned. Now that I need them back I can come to you and ready my spirit to be reclaimed by...

May 23rd

May 21st

Namasté Dirk

I’ve been missing Seán. But being able to “follow” his journey through this special — and thoughtfully set up — blog, has given me comfort, and joy to know that Seán is being deeply seen! And that our community is spreading and coalescing, a seeming paradox, no?

May 21st

Lost in Translation :-)

This is an entry from Dirk’s blog, of Seán’s impromptu celebration of The New Eucharist in a park in Baden-Baden. My German could be a lot better; some of these words are attempts at literal translation and are especially susceptible to word order error. They may not capture the nuance of meaning, or worse! But its imagery comes through for me and I wanted to share it. There are some...

May 21st

The question-mark tail

Buster had his tail wrapped up against his belly forming a sort-of question-mark. Not that I needed that as an excuse to take a picture of him :-)

May 18th

INTRODUCTION TO HERACLES

William Arrowsmith’s brilliant Introduction to his translation of Euripides’ Heracles was my psychic firewall for a number of decades. It’s been superseded by a work of Robert Grant’s which I’ve found to be more tractable; you never really can stand-down. THE Heracles of Euripides is seldom assigned a high place in the corpus of extant tragedy. If no one any longer...

Apr 24th

Don't call off that airstrike yet.

It’s great that Mr. Frank has this pulpit; like Matt Groening, one of the things I most enjoy is making Republicans squirm. But it should give us pause: What is Rupert is up to that requires this kind of disarming tactic? Think Sun Zu. To quote my favorite deejay, Doctor Johnny Fever: “When everybody’s out to get you, paranoia’s just good thinking.” (Thanks...

Apr 21st

Am I right? Am I wrong?

I don’t see how anyone could follow more than a couple of blogs without using an RSS reader. One thing that puzzles me is their lack of adoption. I felt that I was a “late adopter” two years ago when I started using NetNewsWire; it’s completely changed my life! When I ask people what RSS reader they use, most of them haven’t a clue what I’m talking about! ...

Apr 16th

There's something about that sound.

I ran out of kibble to feed Buster today and had to open a small can of wet food. As soon as Buster heard that distinct “can opening” sound he started doing a little dance, well the kitty equivalent. It’s too bad I didn’t have a video cam handy to take a clip of this; but next time I will! Speaking of Buster; guess who just came back for more — no cheating :-)

Apr 15th

The “backstory” of my Sunday afternoon.

A friend’s post on acceptance and alignment led me down a rabbit hole in a curious regression looking for a paper that’s always been a touchstone of my sanity but realizing that it’s not available on the web and wanting to make it so. So first I had to find the paper which turned out to not be trivial since I’d moved recently and didn’t know which box it was in. So I...

Apr 14th

Mar 25th