Category: Essay

Review: See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody

See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and MelodySee a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody by Bob Mould

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As a fan of Mould’s work, I can’t really address whether a non-fan would enjoy this comprehensive biography of his life. I came into the book with a solid background of Mould’s career; the dramatic questions were already framed for me. Why did Husker Du really break up? What was the story with his brief career in professional wrestling? How did his outing as a homosexual change his course as an artist? All of those topics are covered, and dozens more that I couldn’t have guessed.

What the book lacks in a narrative arc is made up for in the sheer volume of detail about the merging of punk and pop. His later career (both musically and in the book) held less interest for me, but I appreciate the level of detail Mould felt compelled to share. A compelling read for fans, without a doubt.



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Keeping a Daily Writing Practice

Image by paragen.

“How to keep a daily writing practice” is a common theme among writing advice columns, articles, and books. I know, because I’ve read most of them. It’s been a dream of mine for decades to have a daily writing habit.

For the last ten months, I’ve written for an hour almost every weekday. I’m not going to lie. I’m just about as proud of this as anything I’ve ever done.

As the practice has solidified, I’ve tried to measure the advice that I’ve read throughout the years in an effort to see what actually helped. Mostly, though, I found that the advice was no help whatsoever. Continue reading →

Sometimes, A Guy Just Needs to Brag

I do not consider myself an ostentatious man. In public, I am conservative in dress and speech. I drive a minivan. I bathe regularly. But sometimes, something good happens in my life that I must declare from the mountaintop. Such a thing happened yesterday, when I successfully activated my replacement phone.

Continue reading →

Photo by sundstrom.

The Unbearable Meanness of Costco

Costco cart in hand on a Sunday afternoon, it all came back to me. I furrowed my brow, drew my children close, and prepared for battle. The unhappy cavalry of shoppers and pale-faced, run-walking employees closed in on us. Only a dozen feet away from the membership desk, I remembered what I had tucked away in my memory the last time we let our Costco membership lapse.

In my mind, Costco has always walked a fine line between rampant big-box consumerism and bulk-buying convenience. It would be easy— and perhaps not unjustified— to view these mega-warehouses as unsightly blights on the suburban landscape, threatening to kill off any Mom and Pop survivors of Walmart. Continue reading →

The love dart (or, how to cure the common anthropomorphism)

I chose nature writing for my English degree emphasis. At St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, where the back doors of many buildings open to a view of the Mississippi river, there weren’t a lot of other interesting emphases for English majors. That said, nature writing was a good and worthwhile focus, and just as unlikely to prepare the student for gainful employment as any English emphasis not called “teacher training.” St. Cloud was surrounded by some wonderful, vibrant habitats, and the opportunities for natural study, writing, and reflection are close and numerous.

The most challenging aspect of nature writing is to describe the natural world without overtly anthropomorphizing it. That prairie is motionless; it is not calm. That tree is old, but it is not wise. That mule deer that passed by you? It did not commune with your soul as you looked in its eyes. It actually didn’t even wonder if you were going to eat it. It can’t wonder. It’s a mule deer. Continue reading →

Party like it’s 1199

Here’s another story I like. It has revenge in it and, like yesterday’s entry, more flaying. I don’t have any particular interest in flaying. It just keeps coming up.

Richard I (you may know him as Richard the Lionhearted) only lived to be 41 years old. If he really did everything they say he did—and by ‘they’ I mean Wikipedia—then he had a busy 41 years. He managed to put down revolts against his father, King Henry II. He had a major role in the third crusade, engineered by his father and Philip II of France. Somewhere in all this, Robin Hood was running around making mischief in Sherwood Forest, and pioneering the use of green tights.

But that’s not the fun part. No, the fun part comes in 1199, after he returns to Europe. Richard I is running around and fighting with the French (who, by his later years, weren’t getting along anymore with the English). Laying siege to one castle in particular, he notices a boy defending the walls of the castle with a frying pan and a crossbow. Continue reading →

Marsyas, the martyred satyr (or, why I don’t like Tuesdays)

This morning, as I sit by the window and watch the sun come up, I can’t help but think of Marsyas. Marsyas was a satyr, one of the male companions of Pan and Dionysus in Greek mythology. If you’re waiting for me to call him “goat-like” because he was a satyr, then good for you. You paid attention in school. Apparently, the “goat” aspect came with later Roman influence.

One feature of the early Greek satyr really stands out; they had perpetual erections. Permanent stiffies. They might have been like those Viagra victims who suffer erections for more than four hours, whose first call is supposed to be their doctor. You and I both know that isn’t the first call they make, however.

But I digress. Marsyas was walking around one day as he always did, enjoying some wine and his undying boner, when he found a double flute, an aulos. Sick of screwing and getting drunk, he decided to master a musical instrument. You have to admire the fortitude of a man who takes up a vocation when he has an inexhaustible supply of alcohol (from his buddy Dionysus) and can fornicate at will. Marsyas was a satyr with vision. Continue reading →