I confess, the natural disasters Flagstaff has experienced in the last year have honed my survival instincts. With Nov. 2 looming on the horizon I interpreted the low tea-colored clouds as an impending landslide of poor judgment and I headed toward the Mexican border before they closed it. Desperate to breathe air untainted by negative campaign adds I...
Read MoreShut up and go to sleep; A conversation about lullabies
Tony: I’m in the planning stages for a new CD of lullabies, those songs intended to calm the fretful child and persuade him to fall fast asleep. It seems all my younger friends have babies and toddlers. Having raised five of my own and boasting eight grandchildren, I want to record a collection of soothing tunes that might make bedtime a little easier for...
Read MorePlum jam; Making light of the depression
The stems of the amaranth in my yard have turned a deep embarrassed purple in just the last week. They were just part of the background of an unusually lush tangle of knee-high greens, but the shortening hours of sunlight and almost freezing temps have triggered a chemical color shout-out that makes them tremble and vibrate. It hasn’t been cold enough to...
Read MoreThe unintended performance; Broken strings and opportunities
Sometimes the real show is not the one we showed up for. I’m always delighted when the hidden and serendipitous performance unfolds and I am there—the accidental audience looking on at the unscheduled dance. It was an evening some 20 years ago at the Coconino Center for the Arts. The Bluegrass Cardinals were playing! It was one of the first shows Dick...
Read MoreRainy day chicken; Time traveling in the henhouse
“Like our travels, our workdays burned upon the world/lifting its inwards up in fire. Veiled in that power/our minds gave up the endless cycle of growth and decay/and took the unreturning way, the breathless distance of iron.” –Wendell Berry, “Horses” The lightning has been pitchforking across the eastern sky for 45 minutes. I breathe deeply of the moist,...
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