I don’t know what I might have said If I had had the room To say It
The simplest words
I was thinking of my epitaph this morning, after reading the colophon of a book I love. It struck me how different my epitaph would be, if it said “He died,” with the addition of one word: “And.” Both are good epitaphs, I suppose; they communicate the essential information. When I die, I will be [...]
Changes
I believe that art has to be a source of mutation to be any good. It has to change the person who’s viewing or listening to the artistic work; it has to change the artist; it has to change in form. If it fails in any of these, it’s not art any more, it’s just [...]
Poetry: Alive
My tears keep falling in the middle of the night I tell myself that it will be all right Through years of ache it’s come to light They are still alive. I cannot touch them, a veil remains But is no longer the source of pain The truth, it shines, the light retains They are [...]
Poetry: Today’s Seconds (by someone else!)
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, someone wrote this poem to me, because I was unable to see (and largely unable to appreciate) what was around me at the time. Prophetic, really, because I’m still that way. I haven’t been in touch with the author for decades, and it ended [...]
The Rush Political/Religious Survey Results
TL;DR Rush is awesome, and so is its fanbase. I put together a survey to try to figure something out about Rush’s career arc, but the author of the survey (me) didn’t get enough information and didn’t capture the right information to make the survey much more than pure entertainment. Table of Contents The Hypothesis [...]
Shower thought
The question isn’t “Have I changed the world?” The question is “Have I changed the world enough, and in the right ways?”
WebStorm tip
When you’re working with NodeJS in JetBrains’ excellent WebStorm IDE, don’t forget to configure your NodeJS environment properly. I was using the default configuration, and it was warning me that process.env wasn’t imported, and needed to be. Everything ran okay, though, so I was not very pleased with the warning. I want my warnings to [...]
First they came for.. but so what
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out – Because what could I do? There were lots of them, and one of me. So I left it up to someone else, who was surely better equipped and better informed than I. That way, not only was my burden lighter, but the [...]
How I See Rush’s Albums from Ten Thousand Feet
This is how I think of Rush’s entire studio catalog, in short summaries. Rush This is a set of young rockers trying to follow their dreams. Raw, immature, full of pride and purpose. Surprisingly good, especially when you consider that “Working Man” was an earnest staple of the band for their entire career. Fly By [...]