Watching Herons

My favorite aspect of holidays is the unhurried passage of time and the chance to watch: to watch the turkey brown, to watch football, to watch herons out the window.

Heron, as seen from the back window

Delta Blues

I’m delving into Ted Gioia’s exciting new book on the Delta Blues. A passage:

Put a pin in the map for every early citing of blues music in the United States before 1915, and you find a strange, almost unprecedented pattern. The blues came to life in the poorest parts of the country, in communities almost completely cut off from the hustle and bustle of city life, in groups largely untouched by outside influences. Tracing the early history of the blues takes us to places seldom visited by music historians… to plantations and prisons, and townships so small that even the mapmakers sometimes forgot they existed. (15)

Gnome from Robert Frost

‘One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.’

Quote for the day… ah, Byron

Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away;

A single laugh demolished the right arm

Of his own country;—seldom since that day

Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could charm,

The World gave ground before her bright array;

And therefore have his volumes done such harm,

That all their glory, as a composition,

Was dearly purchased by his land’s perdition.

—from Don Juan