Warren Bluhm's Blog, page 24

Three hundred

What is it about numbers? What makes this daily blog post any different from the 299 that came before?

What makes us measure things? Why even track progress? What’s the point?

What’s the point of any action? What’s the point of any habit? What’s the point of any life?

Those questions interest me. But I think the answers will be more interesting.

Ensemble

I woke up the other morning with “Poinciana” by the Ahmad Jamal Trio running through my brain, one of the most persistent earworms I’ve had in a long, long time. It was a great morning.

Since discovering Jamal a couple of years ago, I’ve become an avid fan, especially of the early trio recordings featuring the jazz pianist with bass player Israel Crosby and drummer Vernel Fournier. They were a brilliant ensemble and can be heard on a series of great records on the Argo label from the late...

Trusting in the possibilities

The possibilities are endless.

I look around my room and part of me is overwhelmed. How does it always get this messy? I’m like a kid who doesn’t know to put away his toys, leaving a pile of stuff everywhere I turn.

It’s like that when I sit down to write some mornings. What could I possibly write? It’s not: “I got nothing.” No, it’s: “So many choices!” How do you pick just one toy?

What wonder have I assembled within a couple of steps and an easy reach. Here are books collecting th...

ish

Ish? Ah, the fudge is on.

You were all set to commit to a path and you ished it.

“The project will be done by 4-ish.”

“I will reach that goal by July-ish.”

“Our love will last forever-ish.”

Ish! A plague on your ish.

You can do this. Not do it-ish. You can do this.

Coffee’s ready.

Teaser Trailer #1

The young woman who was destined to save the worlds grinned and held her finger over the ignition switch.

“Ready, Blaine?”

“Ready as I’m ever going to be,” drawled Blaine, who was a vampire. “Punch it!”

“OK, here goes. I hope Mom knew what she was doing when she built this thing,” she said, holding on to the wing-shaped steering wheel and flipping the switch.

“Wait,” said Blaine. “What? What does that mean, ‘I hope Mom knew what she was doing’?”

Everything began to vibrate.

...

scrawled at the bottom of the last page of a journal

What are you looking here for? It’s just the last little bit of space in the book.

What’s that? The greatest wisdom may be found in the smallest and most unexpected places? True, but I’m not sure that applies here.

Still, if you hadn’t looked, you never would have known.

Comparisons, and an update

One of my morning stops around the web is a particular writer whose work has helped me to the point where I consider him a mentor. When he writes about writing, I pay attention.

More often than not, he just writes about what project(s) he’s currently working on. Some days it feels more or less like advertising or promotion. On the other hand, I’m kind of interested: So this is what a prolific full-time writer does, day to day. It’s instructional, although not as instructional as when he w...

born free

We are born free

… and we see that other people are free, too, and everything works pretty well if we all agree we’re free as long as we don’t hurt others or their freedoms

… but then we start building little walls and barriers over what we can do, and then we encounter the permission-givers and who appointed them anyway

… and the little walls and barriers grow into cages, and we don’t step out to test the limits as much, and so we don’t realize how far we can go and we forget we’re...

A cup of coffee and a lifetime ago

I drank my first cup of coffee the morning of May 19, 1975, after successfully negotiating four years of college, including all-nighters, without the beverage.

It was the day after graduation from college. I had spent the night in an old old hotel in Waupaca, Wisconsin (I was there not long ago — Waupaca, that is, not the hotel, because I went to where it was and it wasn’t anymore), and I reported as requested at 5:30 a.m. to the WDUX Radio studios on Tower Drive, where my first newscast ...

46 years in the making

It was a hot sunny day and my dad was proud but displeased that my college would give Bill Proxmire an honorary degree that commie and it was so hot in those black robes that somebody fainted and I don’t remember any specific words that were said except “onward.” And maybe nobody said “onward” but that was what they meant to say.

And 46 years have passed 46 (forty-six) [four tee sicks] are you kidding me? That’s more than twice as old as I was that afternoon and so I have lived three of t...