From a story by Hillel Italie, AP National Writer-link

Some learned though his books, others from the man. John Irving studied at the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop in the 1960s, when Vonnegut was a faculty member then known, and often dismissed, as a science fiction writer.
Irving, who went on to write "The World According to Garp" and "The Cider House Rules," remembered Vonnegut as a self-effacing presence who "didn't have an agenda about what `the novel' should be." Vonnegut also appreciated that you didn't have to be in the classroom to get your work done.
"I had a young child at the time and when he heard about that he said, `You mean you have to work in writing whenever you can?'" Irving explained. "He then told me, `You're certainly giving me enough pages every week, so why not forget about the class part and stay home and take[ care ]of your kid?'"

R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut

Birdcage-Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

''When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes'.''

Pat Tillman's Story at Crooks & Liars-link

Here's a link to an excellent post by John Amato, it links to some video of Jake Plummer speaking out about his feelings for his fallen teammate Pat Tillman. He obviously had the highest respect for his friend and you can feel his distress over the bungling cover-up following the fratricide ( what an unfortunate term, wonder how his brother feels about that).
Plummer has retired from the NFL now and I'm sure any fans of pro football will be familiar with the particulars of his egress from the Bronco's squad. At the time I recall that I was baffled by Mike Shannahan's move to rookie QB Jay Cutler, I marked it up as more evidence of his diminishing coaching skills. Now I'm starting to wonder if there wasn't an element of politics involved.
You may remember that during the 2004 presidential campaign Shannahan and several Broncos, notably John Lynch and Hall of Famer John Elway, came out with strong support for Bush. They all shared the stage with him in a Munich style rally at Red Rocks that fall. Plummer declined to participate, he doesn't seem to be a very political person.
When details of the cover-up emerged he started speaking up in a critical way, as an advocate for the Tillman family who had no problem voicing their own complaints. The protests shed a very bad light not only on the Army, but also the Bush administration who undoubtedly had a hand in the cover-up, as always.
When Plummer got benched at mid-season last year it was like seeing a microcosm of the dysfunctional Bush presidency in action. Shannahan pissed away a very promising season with that boneheaded move, and most certainly a post-season appearance. Was Plummer being punished for his views about his friend's death that questioned the Army, the war and Shannahan's hero? I'm thinking that Shannahan's actions were perfectly Bush-like. He cut off his nose to spite his face.

Winter fading

Bright water running past snowy banks always suggests the onset of spring to me, and today was one of those days that's gonna get me rummaging through my fishing gear, maybe spinning out a few new dry flies and nymphs, the runoff is started and I'm itching to pursue the wiley trout.

The Funny Pages

One of my all time favorites, hope it's clear enough to read, I couldn't download this so I had to scan it and convert to JPEG. This comic runs daily in the Denver Post and is consistently leaning to the left but I haven't heard an outcry from the neanderthal right to banish it to the editorial pages as there was for Doonesbury.

Bruce Hornsby, Ricky Skaggs, and John Anderson - Superfreak

Have some fun with this!

I read a book-link

1491 is a scholarly work by Charles C. Mann that presents an enthralling story of the Americas prior to the European invasion. Mann covers the gamut of all the major cultures on both continents but I found his treatment of some of the American cultures to be the most revelatory to me. The size of their populations was amazing in itself, not to mention the works of civil engineering they had to accomplish to support these populations. Needless to say some kind of civil order was required to make that kind of society work and indeed they had systems of laws and governance in place that inspired the founders of our present country.
In what we now call Mexico the earliest cultures developed an astonishing sophistication in agriculture that bred abundant crops from the native plants around them. They created Maize from what was little more than a weed with edible seeds.About 60% of all the food crops in the world today were first cultivated in central Mexico, pre- Columbus.
I started out to review a book and I haven't said much about the actual writing, it is a fascinating subject. Mann possesses a crisp narrative style that is reminiscent of John McPhee His story moves along in a way that turns the ancient people into characters, it's pageantry.

This one goes on the A list.

Winter's easing up a bit

Here's an image that captures the crispness of sunrise on a Colorado winter morning, it's from back in early January and the weather is starting to turn, the thaw, it's on.

The black ice is mostly off the streets now and the potholes are in bloom, some of the streets with poorer drainage are in the worst shape, damnation alley.

victor wooten

Too lame to post, enjoy some Victor Wooten, amazingly graceful.

Strength In Numbers - Slopes

Austin City Limits presents...

R.I.P. Molly Ivins

"We are the people who run this country," Ms Ivins said in the column published in the Jan. 14 edition of the Star- telegram. " We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war."

Aug. 30,1944-Jan. 31,2007

Dear Molly, you've been ripped from our midst way too soon, but thanks so much for all you gave, we won't see the likes of you again any time soon.

Keep on Hatin'-link

Photo by Evan Agostini/ Getty Images

"Loofah my stretch marks, Bill!"

Somewhere we might have done some good

Man of La Mancha

I got a chance to borrow a DVD of Man of La Mancha from the library today and I found it to be much more entertaining than I thought it would be. O'Toole's Don Quixote looks like the Burger King fallen on hard times and the effect is even more striking as he plays the Cervantes character acting as Quixote,with mask,wig,etc. in prison.

Reading Don Quixote is a must to understand the context of the scenes in this film, the novel is epic and I guess the stage production and the film were presented with the assumption that patrons would have an understanding of the story.

Deportees-link

From the Rolling Thunder Review tour of 1976, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez sing Woody Guthrie's Deportees (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos).

Round Two

We got another blizzard yesterday, here's a shot of the backyard. The space directly behind the grill is the drive which I had very painstakingly shoveled out in anticipation of being able to park in. Now it's a future chore that I can already feel in my back and shoulders, I've shoveled tons of snow since the last storm and this one is supposed to be lingering into the morrow.

Soltice Blizzard

The view out my back door on the morning of 12-21-06. I really like the effect of the flash on the snowflakes at various distance, looks like a starfield. Posting now on 12-22-06, I'm supposed to go into work today, it remains to be seen if I can get to a passable street, there's one about 2 blocks from here. Got to get going, later

Frank Rich - Has He Started Talking to the Walls? -link

When news organizations, politicians and bloggers had their own civil war about the proper usage of that designation last week, it was highly instructive — but about America, not Iraq. The intensity of the squabble showed the corrosive effect the president’s subversion of language has had on our larger culture. Iraq arguably passed beyond civil war months ago into what might more accurately be termed ethnic cleansing or chaos. That we were fighting over “civil war” at this late date was a reminder that wittingly or not, we have all taken to following Mr. Bush’s lead in retreating from English as we once knew it.

Bush is so divorced from reality that he blames Al Qaeda for the whole mess, as if they had the influence to manipulate all the forces at play in Iraq.

Radio hoax reveal an appalling depth of bigotry-link

When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly.
His show on Sunday, Nov. 26 lured a gaggle of bigots out of the weeds. Just hit the link, it's chilling and unbelievable.

Lady "Blue", photo by F. Liebovitz

"I'm A Fool To Want You" or any other Billie Holiday tune you'd care to insert here.