Another of my occasional reminders that COVID-19 is still with us.
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays, which I occasionally use to shamelessly promote another blog post. 😉 Learn more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/08/24/one-liner-wednesday-upon-the-throne/
I am awash with too many emotions to SoC today, because, well, reasons…
This JC’s Confessions post from earlier in the week gives some clues.
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “wash/awash.” Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/07/29/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-30-2022/
Regular visitors here at Top of JC’s Mind know that life has been challenging for me for a number of months and that I haven’t been keeping up with visiting and commenting on other WordPress blogs as I used to. I haven’t visited my blog’s email inbox in a long time, but there are a few non-WordPress blogs that send notification to my personal email, which is how I saw this post from Eclectic Evelyn. So, I am participating in answering a series of summertime questions to link to her blog (and to have a post that doesn’t involve a lot of brainpower, which is in short supply).
The questions and my answers:
1. Favorite animal? chickadees
2. Wine or beer? neither, although I very occasionally drink a hard cider
3. Socks on/off while sleeping? off
4. One piece or two piece bathing suit? one, although I haven’t had a bathing suit on in years
5. Cooking at home or eating out? usually cooking at home, although I love eating out
6. Pepsi or Coke? neither, as medical issues make sodas unwise for me
7. Regular or electric toothbrush? regular
8. Candy or chocolate? I love chocolate, but am not eating it these days (see #6), so candy
9. Coffee or tea? I never do coffee or black tea, but once in a great while will do an herbal tea (also related to #6)
10. Music or talk radio? talk, but only on public radio which involves no screaming or name-calling
11. Chick flick, action movie or documentary? documentary
12. Regular or mechanical pencil? mechanical, so that it doesn’t dull
13. Swimming or laying out? neither, as I prefer to be indoors
14. Dog or cat? dog, although we can’t have house animals due to allergies (and that I don’t need another being to take care of)
15. What do you drive? SUV, van or sedan? I drive a minivan and our fun, fully-electric Chevy Bolt
16. Early bird catches the worm or night owl? unfortunately, both, because, insomnia….
17. If you could eat only one food for the rest of your life what would it be? pasta
18. While sleeping: Phone in room by your side or phone in another room? cellphone in another room with landline in the bedroom in case of emergency
19. Singing in the shower, yes or no? I do sing, including 35 years with the Binghamton University Chorus, but I don’t sing in the shower
20. Oreo cookies, Eat whole? Take apart and/or dunk? I haven’t had an Oreo in years. As I kid, I used to take apart; not a fan of dunking.
So, there you have it! Please visit Evelyn. If you would like to answer the questions yourself, she has a handy list in her post ready to copy and paste.
This post is going to be very short, because I just spent a bunch of time writing a post about the Sappho’s Circle poetry reading last night.
I guess the other thing I should mention is that I had to adjust the mike last night because I am so short…
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This short and sweet post was written in response to Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week, which was “short.” Join us! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2017/03/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-mar-1117/
As promised, here is the reactivated link to our Boiler House videopoem: https://vimeo.com/187387583.
This (somewhat atypical) post is part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Join us! Find out how here: https://lindaghill.com/2017/02/22/one-liner-wednesday-rock-is-dead-yippie
“Imagine we are linked, not ranked.”
~~ Gloria Steinem
Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2016/03/23/one-liner-wednesday-its-als-fault/ Enjoy our badge by nearlywes.com.
In an attempt to make my new blog theme exploration almost as obnoxious as my poetry publication squealing, here is yet another post on my newest tweak to Top of JC’s Mind.
In my quest to discover what happened to my link to my About page, I found the menu feature of my new theme. I had never done much with menus in my prior themes, but decided to expand my horizons.
Besides the About link and a Posts link to my main page, I added three category links. One is poetry, which will include anything that I have put in that category, so, while links to my poems are there, there are also links to other poets’ work and anything that relates to my writing, groups, workshops, submissions, etc.
The two other category links are to my posts in the two series of Linda’s Life in Progress blog to which I regularly contribute, One-Liner Wednesday and Stream of Consciousness Saturday.
I was pleased to discover that the new menu links appear above the new header image, which has the happy effect of making the blog title and tagline font size more proportional and intentional-looking. They seemed puny and forlorn before.
So, yay! So much progress (that I wasn’t actually planning to make today)!
Comments welcome!
~ JC
As promised, here are the links to all of Merrill Oliver Douglas’s poems which have been featured this week by Eunoia Review.
“In the Basement”
“High Tide”
“Crab Apple”
“What the Dream Reveals About Her Father”
“King’s Point, Delray Beach”
“I Love You Too Much to Wear Those Earrings”
“March”
“Cleaning Miller Pond”
“Song in Gray July”
“Woodchuck”
Way to go, Merrill!
Would you like to read some blogging tips and share some of your own? Pop over to my blog-friend Jay Dee’s blog I Read Encyclopedias for Fun and join in the discussion: https://ireadencyclopedias.wordpress.com/2015/10/28/my-take-on-this-whole-blogging-thing/
I admit that I don’t follow all the advice that is offered. For example, I choose to have a wide-ranging blog rather than a focused one. I am also notoriously bad at handling images, and can’t imagine ever adding video. However, I also never set out to have a large readership, so I am comfortable going my own way on those things.
I do, however, try to be good about responding to comments and about visiting and commenting on other blogs. It’s what makes bloggers into a community.
I just saw a piece on the Today Show about the only remaining theater organ in Seattle, which in the 1920s had fifty in silent film and stage theaters. The organ in the piece was a Wurlitzer, which was one of the most common manufacturers of the day.
It reminded me of the Roberson Museum in Binghamton, New York, which housed a Link theater organ, built by the firm of a local family. Edwin Link went on to found Link Flight Simulation, which used the technology of the organ business to craft the first mass-produced flight simulators, the Blue Boxes that trained many pilots in World War II.
When we moved here in the 1980s, I studied organ with M. Searle Wright, who was an enormously talented classical organist, teacher, and composer, and, at an age when most people are retired, then the Link Organ Professor at the State University of New York-Binghamton. He also was one of the few remaining masters of theater organ, able to sit at the console and accompany silent films, bringing to life the sounds of the world and the moods of the characters. It was an amazing experience to hear him accompany a film! Talented younger organists would travel up from New York CIty to study theater organ techniques from him.
We more often heard Searle’s theater organ talents when he played a 45 minute prelude of classic American songbook and Broadway tunes before each Binghamton Pops concert on the Morton theater organ at the Forum. On the music stand, he would have only a list of the pieces (perhaps with the key structure, he planned to include that day and would weave those songs together, showing off the fun aspects of theater organs, the literal bells and whistles.
A magical art, which is, thankfully, still being kept alive by those to whom an older generation of organist like Searle Wright passed on to them.
Top of JC's Mind 