Kurt R.A. Giambastiani's Blog, page 8

Running Up That Hill

Book-learning, while useful, can only get you so far on the path toward competence. This is especially true in the arts. To learn a thing, often you simply have to do a thing. But some learning curves are steeper than others. Some roads to knowledge are pitted with potholes. And along these paths there are […]

Tell Them

no reason for silence, for shrouding heart-born truths

The Music in the Weaving

As some know, a month or so ago I fell down a deep rabbit hole: I am learning how to weave—weave, as in, to make cloth from yarn or string. With a loom. And shuttles. Seriously old-school, low-tech stuff—and in doing so, I have received an unexpected gift. Music. I alluded to this new activity—here […]

Suddenly

and when she was gone    the house lost its voice no laughter echoed    no giggles,     no braying,     no full-bellied mirth banter lost its purpose    no rejoinders,     no quips,     no quotes apropos sounds of life fell silent    no snores,     no clatter of […]

Questioning Authority

It’s been a week. Quite a week. Last Wednesday, my wife went in for surgery (she’s doing well, thanks), and since then I’ve been on caregiver duty. Thanks to the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), I’ve been able to take two weeks off work to provide for her post-op needs, plus to do all the […]

Proximity

Do not presume that because a heart is distant it cannot be read

Indistinguishable From Magic

Any technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic. It’s been a busy, busy start to the new year, filled with terribly mundane things—buying/selling vehicles, gathering data for financial advisors, dealing with benefits coordinators—but while I’ve been working on all of these quotidian chores, I’ve been thinking about magic. I’ve always thought Arthur C. Clarke’s classic quotation* (paraphrased […]

First Meals

Last week’s post got me thinking about my time in the kitchen. My father encouraged his kids to learn to cook, by deed—he always cooked Sunday breakfast, manned the grill on cookouts, and was the go-to guy for fried chicken—as well as by word. The fact that my stepmother was, shall we say, not inspired […]

Kitchen Sink

I’m taking a break from poetry and politics this week (because, oy, it’s been a rough start to the year), and instead turn to things domestic. Throughout 2022, I tried a few new things in the kitchen (stop it! I’m talking about cooking, here), some of which turned out exceptionally well. I am not a chef, […]

Look Back, Walk Forward

I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. However, as someone who’s been developing software for thirty-five years, I am one for retrospective reviews, and just like deploying a new app to a production environment, hanging up a new calendar on the kitchen wall has always seemed an appropriate time for retrospection. After all, by […]