Tales From This Side

We said goodbye to Darwin yesterday, who in his short, five month tenure with us still managed to become a fixture in our house. Darwin was, for a cat, incredibly old, and the part of his story that we know is a sorry one. At some point in his life he had developed kidney disease, which causes cats to urinate frequently and not always in the litter box. Peeing around the house caused his family to evict him to their barn. At some point after that, his family sold the house and moved, but they left Darwin. Acts like this defy my comprehension and reinforce my uncertainty about a shared, inherent goodness in our species. Neighbors later found him sleeping in the middle of the road and delivered him to the animal hospital where Lauren works. The neighbors related the scant bits we know of his story; veterinary records confirm that Darwin was 20 years old when he arrived in our care. Lauren’s hospital agreed to keep him as a “hospital cat” for the remainder of what time he had left, which ...

Much ado has been made of late concerning the automated speed cameras that have been installed in Washington, Connecticut, the first of their kind in this state. I was happy to hear about these. People drive far too fast in Washington; in fact, people drive far too fast in most of the small, rural towns in this state. Giving people a reason to slow down even a little bit is a good thing. I have good reason to be invested in the well-being of Washington. Although I am not currently a resident, I work there and my family has deep roots in the town. My great, great grandfather was Headmaster at The Gunnery (back when they called it “The Gunnery,” at least), and I’m a former English teacher at the school. My mother was raised in Washington in a house that her father, my grandfather, built there. I’ve worked for years at one of the town’s small vegetable farms. I imagine that I’ll someday again be a resident, living in the house in which my parents currently reside, so I like the idea of pe...

Camembert (Cammie), Known Angel Lauren and I have been together for more than 10 years now. Her cats, Cammie and her brother Whit, were there from the beginning. I grew up in a household that only ever knew dogs. I didn’t outright dislike cats, but I did dislike the idea of an animal that had to relieve itself indoors and that relied on someone to clean the litter box, daily. One of the first substantial disagreements Lauren and I had was early on, when I said that I couldn’t possibly live in a house with cats. On that, I did more than relent. I came to dote on Cammie. I fixed up the extra blanket on our bed that she liked to sleep on, every night. (She liked to dig her way under it during the day, so it was always mussed up and needed rearranging.) I delivered her small plates of freshly chopped chicken whenever I was cooking some for the dog. (Among the few times she was vocal was whenever she saw me carrying one of those small plates.) If I was playing a computer game and she came i...

"My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one’s actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century."  ( Noam Chomsky ) I think the hardest part about really understanding what Chomsky is saying here is what anyone is to do about it.  The knee-jerk reaction is "go and vote and change things," but I think that after...

The issue, as I see it, isn't with gay marriage, its with marriage. I find it ironic that soon-to-be presidential candidate Mitt Romney - a Mormon - is against gay marriage.  This despite the fact that his religion has a history of institutional polygamy.  So two guys getting it on is immoral, but a nightly, one-man orgy with ten women...that's cool.  (Incidentally, I DO think that'd be cool, but now we're getting into a different discussion, entirely.)  In fairness, though, Romney isn't trying to integrate his religion's views of marriage into the government's definition of it.  Why, then, do we continue to have a government definition of marriage that is based on a Christian understanding of the institution?  And if anyone thinks that our government's definition of marriage is not based on Christian directives, then why is it always preachers and deeply right-wing, pro-Christian officials that are the ones defending its current incarnation on the new...

Sharp lessons from youth stand out in my mind, a snap-shot reel of images that play out the crucial scenes from a formative moment.  Although I was only a small boy, I can remember the feeling of the chocolate bar in my pocket, flat and stiff, poking into my leg.  I can remember my mother's face, in the car, when she watched me start peeling back the foil wrapper.  And I most certainly remember her walking me down the checkout aisle of the grocery store I had stolen it from when she made me hand it back to the manager, who smiled at me from under a waxy, black mustache.  It was a stiff reprimand from my parents (my father had also been in the car) regarding the act of thievery, as evidenced by the clarity of the images that I recall.  But what if I had succeeded?  What if I had kept it in my pocket until I got home and opened it in secret?  What sort of reversed moral reinforcement would have imprinted itself?  My mother had, when I was young, oft...

**Cross-posted from ADT Music ** Song:  Descending ( listen ) Album:  Amorica (1994) ( listen ) Artist:  The Black Crowes When it comes to using the blues as a modern rock influence The Black Crowes are not unique.  The Brits got there long before any white Americans did, under the guidance of bands like The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin , infusing one of the few, truly original American music forms with pop, folk, and rock essences that made it accessible to mainstream listeners.  In doing so most of these bands brought the notion of riff-based song structures to popular music (a form that is at the heart of blues).  In some cases, the songs lifted the lyrics and riffs of blues staples directly, adding electric instrumentation, percussion, and decidedly more robust vocals.  (See, for example, Led Zeppelin's Bring It On Home ( listen ), which opens with a direct, musical homage to the original , offering song credits to Willie Dixon in the pro...

**Cross-posted from ADT Music **  Song:  Trinity Road ( listen ) Album:  Chapter Eleven (1995) ( listen ) Artist:  Michael Lee Firkins I'm a sucker for a lot of things: baroque writing, painfully arduous hikes, and really, really hot salsa, to name a few.  Although this song is none of those things, it is something else that I'm an absolute sucker for:  melodic guitar music.  I tend to like music that was once cool (like 70's guitar rock), music that has never been cool (like progressive, conceptual rock), and most certainly music that would get any red-blooded male laughed at in a biker bar (like the sort of guitar balladry that Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have become semi-famous for). Michael Lee Firkins falls into step with this latter group of musicians for writing complex, guitar-based, instrumental music.  The origins of this "genre" are oftentimes attributed to Joe Satriani, who first made a ...

It seems to me that the fellow with Pornstar emblazoned upon his shirt seems least likely to be one in a starring role; That the girl with Love boldly across her chest seems not to love me looking at her; That the seat in the pants labeled Juicy is really a bit more than overripe. Would he be less or more if the Chinese tattoo that he thinks says Loyal actually said Lonely ? Would you know that the calluses on her fingertips said that she played the guitar every Friday night; That the sawdust on his pant leg said that he worked with his hands; That the faded, green t-shirt on sale at the Salvation Army fit snugly over a label once, but that he outgrew it? I'd rather trust a countryman than a townman, You can judge by his eyes, take a look if you can.

The sun was already well beyond its afternoon zenith, shining brightly off the distant waves, when Lonnie showed up.  She glided around the edge of the patio fence, her lower body hidden.  I was sitting at a small table – only two seats – facing out, away from the restaurant’s porch, and she waved and smiled, mouthing a “Hello, Davey!” even though she was only a few feet away.  Her wave was childlike, a rapid flutter of fingers, bending from the knuckle.  I smiled back, involuntarily. Lonnie stepped onto the porch and crossed the patio to my table.  Each step of her platform heels clacked against the stone, announcing her arrival, and her leather shoulder bag bounced off her hip in time with her footsteps.  Long waves of blonde hair fell from her head, cascading over and around her chest, wreathing her slim figure in a moving frame.  As she got close to the table she mimed a sprinter’s dash, in place, and her deep blue, tight fitting jeans scuffed ag...

Under the sterile, white, neon lights, everything seemed to jump out at the young man.  Under the sun, with the movement between light and shade, there were depths and dimensions.  Here, however, in the store, it was more like a single plane; only the loudest colors, the most garish statements, had any chance of standing out.  Buy One, Get One Free! (it had yellow, serrated edges); 20% Off This Entire Shelf! (the green background made the red letters appear to shimmer). The man dragged himself down the flatness of the aisle, eyes catching on sign and display, until he reached the notebooks.  Spiral ring, college ruled; 1 subject, 3 subject, 6 subject; 3 pack, 6 pack, 10 pack, each wrapped in cellophane.  The man thought about his uncle.  He had always said that he was a writer, though he didn’t seem to write very much.  The man was a boy, flipping through his uncle’s notebook, 6 subject.  His uncle coughed while he spoke.  “What a waste ( c...

Much has been said about this, one of Twain's less well known texts, regarding allusions to the divided America of Twain's age: the knight-errantry of Camelot that Twain derides is a mirror of the proud and genteel American south; the pitiable English slaves are a thin disguise for Twain's contempt for American slavery; the inevitable routing of Camelot by the rational protagonist's forces lay bare Twain's notion that the old customs of the American south were doomed to failure. However, where Twain's most famous work - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - is almost entirely dedicated to the moral dilemmas of the north/south conflict, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court puts on display many other bits of Twain's multi-faceted persona. Anyone familiar with Twain's personal history will know that he was an unrepentant gambler of funds when it came to investing in new ideas and inventions. Unfortunately, history proves Twain's busines...