Yet another weblog by Thom Forbes, this one with no boundaries — like recovery, animals, obituaries, poker, softball, Hastings trailways or prostate cancer — and no fear of the occasional flummadiddle.
Dagnabits Blog
At Play At Work
I have been maneuvering my career into a converging direction with much of the rest of my life for several months now. The first public manifestation of this is a Twitter feed, playgruntlaugh, which I launched yesterday. It will reflect my love of playing games, working out, cooking healthy foods, eating well, and having fun. A website and community will follow by spring.
Becoming and staying fit demands desire and discipline. That's the grunt part. But it need not be — it should not be —…
Put Your Mind Where Your Body Is
If I weren't so absent-minded, I probably would have made a good absent-minded professor. It's not that I would not have completed my dissertation like so many others. I would not have figured out what field it should be in in the first place (although quite a few would have been eliminated by natural selection).
But I digress. Which is the point.
My thoughts tend to wander; My attention is easily nabbed; I am frequently accused by my family of leaving "ummms" in the air; and many a story I…
Spillage
Or, A 'X@fS Nuts!' Situation Ain't Necessarily All That Bad Or, Brian Murphy For Hire For Interior Painting This Winter
In Progress
Contact Brian here. Some trim work remains , as does work on the back and other side, but the house has been rejuvenated and will be completed within the month.
Before
The front of the first story had been covered with ivy; tendrils clung tenaciously to the walls after it was ripped off. Brian then diligently washed, scraped and sanded while accompanying some pretty heavy metal on his iPod.
We are painting the house. Well, that's a gross misuse of the royal "we." We are actually paying to have the house painted. Brian Murphy, one of our daughter's friends, is doing the job, and he's doing it quite well. Neighbors ooh and ahh. He's too modest to say "thank you." Instead he tells them that "Mr. and Mrs. Forbes picked nice colors."
I basically have one task beside paying Brian's quite reasonable fee and occasionally reminding him that winter is fast approaching and he need not obsess…
On a Soldier's Suicide
Deirdre had a moving letter about a young soldier's suicide published in the Journal News yesterday. Here it is for when the link disappears behind a pay-only archive:
U.S. soldier's death strikes a chord
Sometimes I turn the page in the newspaper without reading past the headline. But today, something compelled me to read about Army Pvt. Keiffer Wilhelm, 19, of Plymouth, Ohio. Maybe his unusual name intrigued me. Maybe it was his age, a year younger than my only son, who I just watched play…
The Hudson
The river has been my soulmate for neatly 50 years. To celebrate it, I've created a new section on the site at http://tforbes.com/the_hudson/.
The High Line
Thom, Deirdre and Rebecca on 18th St., where I managed to park the car 10 yards from the stairway up to the High Line on the first pass. I probably used up five years worth of NYC parking karma on this. Photo by Mike Barrett.
May There Always Be News Wars
Elizabeth Williamson had a good piece in the Wall Street Journal Friday about the newspaper war on Martha's Vineyard between the fabled Gazette and the townie's TImes.
Twenty-five years ago, Deirdre and I went to the Vineyard to interview the Gazette's Henry Beetle Hough, one of my heroes. There was another weekly newspaper competing with it at the time, and the Times was about to be launched. I covered the newspaper "war" in a sidebar.
As I wrote in a comment to Williamson's story, "We can…
Farewell, Gene
Gene McCarthy told me a couple of week's ago that he was taking a "change-of-scenery" assignment in Fleetwood after serving at the Hastings-on-Hudson post office for 16 years (minus a couple of years misspent elsewhere). I thought at the time that I ought to take his picture and write a little something about it, but ideas like that fly through my head all the time. Something, however, drew me to the P.O., out of the blue, a few minutes ago.
I waited until Gene's line was clear and showed…
Could I Modify That? No? Okay, Thought I'd Ask.
There is a book out
that quotes me.
I remember saying
what it says I said,
but I don't believe
I said it.
Then the Crows Came
"My son says
the subway doors
are not quite
an E flat
when they close,"
she said.
The man
who tunes pianos
smiled knowingly.
"He will have to learn
to make accommodations",
he said,
"because the world
is not
in perfect pitch."
Then the crows came.
So bleak.
So scrawny.
Compared to what?
Smaller birds squawk
apocalyptically
at their presence.
But they are not hawks.
They perch
rather than swoop.
They natter and conspire
rather than act.
They are malevolent
not amoral.
Their arrogant…
Same Old, Same Old River ... But Different
Sublime Seredipity
On the way to the river, I chanced upon an outdoor concert by the Hastings Bluemothers at the Hastings Station cafe. And wouldn't you know that the second song they played, even as I decided to try out the video capabilities of the Canon PowerShot from across the plaza, was a Van Morrison classic? They do a nice set and are worth catching if you're in the area.
Take Me Out To The New Stadium
The World's Most Perverse Copyboy
I lured Jim Meehan, a copyboy crony from 35 years ago or so, out of his Nyack lair to fulfill a 20-year ritual of falsely promising each other that we'd get together at a Yankee game.
(Jim last week: "I don't know. Doesn't anyone else want to go? I'm not much of an athlete." Thom: "Don't worry. They're not going to ask you to pinch hit." Jim: "Call me if you can't find anybody else." I ignored him, knowing that he'd accept after consulting with his brain trust, Debbie.)
Jim (see photo below), it turns out, has been preparing for the Goose Gossage lookalike contest that, alas, wasn't actually held yesterday. Maybe in 2029.
0 Comments