Warren Bluhm's Blog, page 14

Shameless self-promotion

I have a morning routine after I turn on the computer. (I have a morning routine BEFORE I turn on the computer or the “smart” phone, and I find that I am most productive on those days that I wait longest before looking at a screen.) In addition to Dick Tracy and Luann, I have a folder of bookmarks called “Important People,” writers and liberty lovers whose blogs I find important to check in on.

I’ve noticed of late that my Important People spend a lot of time promoting their work: their b...

Picking Summer

We hereby dub thee Summer

I look like I’m crying in the photo Red took just after we decided which one of the 10 golden retriever pups in the pile would be the one we would name Summer. It was an emotional moment, in fact, and at the moment of decision, all I could do was point at the little girl I’d placed in Red’s arms and nod.

We had decided to pick one of the eight female pups in Windsor and Lady’s litter, which made it awkward for the puppy in the black collar they named McIntosh,...

A poem is

A poem is what the poet says it is.
A poem is what the reader says it is.
If I say this is a poem,
you have every right to say,
“No, it’s not.”
And we
both
are correct.

Naming Willow

Warren and willow, May 16, 2009

(We picked out Summer, our next golden retriever, on Sunday. More on that later. Today here is my remembrance of how Willow got her name.)

CRASH! Cj and I jumped. Again.

We were in a bar on a Saturday afternoon not too far from where we lived. We thought we’d try it out, have some lunch, and talk about what we would name the puppy.

Onyah had died the day after Easter 2009. She was a little more than 11 years old and had been declining for some time. Th...

All the words!

All the words I’ve stored on shelves all around! There must be millions. Surely the books in this house alone number in the thousands: There are 37 just on my Ray Bradbury shelf (36 Bradbury books and A Christmas Carol), one of eight bookshelves on the walls of this room and not counting the bookcases behind me and next to and above my computer.

All those words, all those stories, and words of advice and encouragement, and words arranged for no other purpose than to spark an image or emot...

Fight the Fear

Fear has become the motivating factor in this contemporary world of ours. Life is portrayed as a maelstrom of forces beyond the power of the individual to tame.

It’s a lie. You can tame the maelstrom, if you can tame your fear.

I came to that conclusion more than a decade ago and put out a little book called Refuse to be Afraid. I have added a few essays to it over time, and when I released a “10th anniversary edition” a year ago, it had about half-again as many chapters as the origina...

Our mission is love

I wish you love.

I don’t care who you love, as long as it’s love. Love is more important than skin color, creed, gender or any other divisions.

Focus on giving love, and the rest just drops away.

They say God is love and we are made in God’s image, and then they spread anything but love.

If God is love and we are made in God’s image, then our best instinct is to love.

Our mission is love. Our purpose is love. So let’s all get out there and love!

To have that conversation

“We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.”

— B.F. Skinner

… because reading is a peek into someone else’s mind, a spark for the imagination caused by a glimpse into someone else’s imagination, a tap into the wine of someone else’s insight, uninterrupted except by the pauses during which you choose to revel or reflect.

I looked over at the turntable after writing that little paragraph and thought about musicians polishing their recordings to perfection, as well ...

This most amazing dawn

Part 5 of 5.

Thank you, Lord, for this most amazing week. Sunday morning brings a new start, another round of seven days. Thank you, Lord, for this most amazing year. Jan. 1 brings another cycle of days and weeks and months. We are a rare set of generations, who are able to have said Thank you, Lord, for this most amazing century, a new cycle of years, and Thank you, Lord, for this most amazing millennium, a new cycle of centuries.

In truth, they are all reflections of the daily celebr...

This most amazing memory

Part 4 of 5.

Thank you, Lord, for this most amazing day.

This most amazing day does not begin with a trumpet fanfare proclaiming itself to the universe, unless you count a slow, steady emerging light defeating darkness as a fanfare — although you have to admit, wiping darkness off the landscape is a pretty good trick. An hour ago you couldn’t see a darn thing without a flashlight of some kind, and even then shadows were everywhere, and now this most amazing day is here.

Still, by al...