Richard Dansky's Blog, page 35

Pottery

I went over to the Crafts Center at NC State tonight to see about actually, you know, doing something with the clay and the potter's wheel and whatnot. After all, the money had been spent, the raw materials purchased, the blog post made, the die cast.

It's been nigh unto 30 years since I got my hands on clay on a potter's wheel. It took me five minutes to remember how to lock in the splash ring around the wheel. My centering was iffy. I used too much water. I wasn't precise with what I did, I ...

When I Was A Kid...

...the most important book I owned was Taran Wanderer . Narnia may have introduced me to fantasy, The Halloween Tree may have applied the subtle twist that led me to ghoulies and ghosties and all things Lovecraft, Tolkien may have taught me how big imaginary worlds could be, but it was Taran Wanderer that I actually loved. I still have my beaten-up, coverless, spine-cracked version from those long ago days. Wouldn't trade it for anything.

This fall, my wife signed me up to use the pottery studi...

L'shanah tovah...

...to all and sundry. Here's hoping the next year's a better one for all of us.

Additional Lessons of Prog Day

If you like Kansas, you'll like Mars Hollow.Any CDs given to you for free during the last hour of a progressive rock festival should be treated with extreme caution.If you like Kings' X, you'll like Scale the Summit.A young lady working the food tent siting down between customers to read a Bone graphic novel is pretty damn cool.It's always fun to watch bands goobing on other bands.If you like King Crimson and the whole "serious looking musicians sitting down and doing serious things with...

Prog Day

So I'm sitting in a field in Carrboro with a book in my lap, a can of birch beer open next to me, and a prog band I've never heard of whanging away furiously onstage. The sun is up, the sky is pure blue with just the first trailing wisps of cirrus way up high, and spread out between me and the stage are tents, chairs, umbrellas, and all manner of laid-back observational stations. Behind me is the merch tent, which is full of well-mannered people feverishly thumbing through boxes of CDs by ban...

Quantum Peach

My sister Becky, who haunts the farmers' markets of DC on occasion, brought down a crate of peaches when she visited for the surprise birthday party we threw for our mom. And when I say a crate, I mean "a crate", as in "wooden box that you run across very quickly in every video game ever and proceed to smash open because there's a suit of armor/blaster/health pack crammed improbably inside". 

This one, however, was filled with peaches. Lots of them; tasty, too. So my sister who lives around h...

My Monthly Contribution To The Accrued Writing Knowledge of the Ages

Or, this month's Storytellers Unplugged post - here.
 

"At its core, this makes sense. Most people who say they want to write, don’t. Most people who call themselves writers aren’t, for the simple reason that they never actually sit their asses down in front of something suitably keyboard-shaped and pound out actual words in sequence. The real physical act of writing is, of necessity, the key to the writing process, and yes, you have to perform it if you’re going to call what you’re...

My Monthly Contribution To The Accued Writing Knowledge of the Ages

Or, this month's Storytellers Unplugged post - here.
 

"At its core, this makes sense. Most people who say they want to write, don’t. Most people who call themselves writers aren’t, for the simple reason that they never actually sit their asses down in front of something suitably keyboard-shaped and pound out actual words in sequence. The real physical act of writing is, of necessity, the key to the writing process, and yes, you have to perform it if you’re going to call what you’re...

Bookishness

I discovered tonight, quite by accident, that my copy of the 1954 hardback edition of Tar Heel Ghosts, by James Harden, is in fact signed by the author.

I find this oddly cool, not least because I picked up the book after a wild goose chase into the hinterlands of suburban Wilmington with Badger, Merrie and Melinda after my signing at Two Sisters back in the day. Books should not just be stories, they should have them, too.

Also, my brief review of the Michael Knost-edited Legends of the...

There Are Certain Things You Do

If, for example, you have spent the day hauling bags of cedar mulch in your wife's convertible* because A)you haven't worked on your house's landscaping since the Pleistocene and B)it's a lot easier to dump bags of mulch into a convertible than to try to shove them into the back seat of a Camry, and while doing that hauling you have thoroughly coated the interior of said convertible with cedar dust, which gives said convertible the homey and comforting smell of a closet and ensures that cloth...