Category Archives: Creativity

I Want to Anagram
Posted on February 7, 2014 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ

Fifty years ago this week, a British rock-and-roll band appeared on national television and changed the world.  They would go on to record a double album, self-titled “The Best Ale” and better known as the “We Hit Album.”  I remember the songs on each side, do you?

 

Side One

Beach Knit U.S.S.R.
Reduce Pander     :     Gin Saloons
Boo Aid Ballad    :    Whip No Eyelid
The Untiring Tycoons of a Blowing Bull
Why Rumple a Twisty Negligee
Rampage Nuns Whip a Sis

 

Side Two

Mama Had Terry
Timid Rose    :    Bald Brick
I Sip Egg    :    Cock or Crayon
Standby Poems
Rewind a Hot Hoedown Ditty
Will I?    :    Ja, Uli

 

Side Three

By a Third    :    Eyes Blur
A Southern Monster
Excited Naked Gent Gives Shy Neophyte Mommy Bedroom Toy
Ex Said Yes    :    Hell Trek Reset
Gong Lon Gnoll

 

 

Side Four

Our Violent 1    :    Piney Hoe
A Stuffy Lover    :    Crabby Cyry
Our Violent 9    :    Hot Dog Gin

 

 

 

The band was often accused of putting hidden messages in their songs.  No idea why.

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All Saints Day: An Introit
Posted on October 31, 2013 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ 
Here come the saints.
You know who I mean.
The saints. The martyrs.
The people who lived better lives than you and I.
Or worse lives than you and I.
That's it.  They made their own lives worse -- by choice.
That's what makes them saint-worthy.
As opposed to those whose lives are worse -- by chance.
The unlucky multitude who do not become saints
live in obscurity in obscure parts of the world.
Until the saints visit them.
And help them.
And the saints become famous.
And the obscure...
They have the privilege of being grateful.

And then someone in Rome decides, it is time.
Let us name new saints.
Time to expand the Sainthood Hall of Fame.
There are never enough saints
or great guitarists.

This very day
the Last of October
the Eve of All Saints Day
the Birthday of John Candy
is an Official Feast Day for

  St. Antoninus
  St. Arnulf
  St. Bega
  St. Wolfgang
  St. Erth
  St. Notburga
  St. Abaidas
  St. Quentin

I may be wrong but
was it St. Quentin who was in prison so long
they named a jail after him.
I could be mistaken.
After all, I am no saint.
St. Collins.  That would be ridiculous.
Almost as silly as the story of St. Notburga
who threw a sickle into the air
as a dare
and it remained suspended there.
Look it up.

All Saints Day fast approaches.
Are you ready to celebrate?
Celebrate sad times, come on.
You remember All Saints Day.
The day after Halloween.
The day that the saints sweep greed
and melting chocolate
out of your hands
and into their visionary fires.

When mortals become saints
they line up to get their candy coating
and get stamped with the letter m
(which stands for miracle)
and then a handful of them
are sealed in a paper wrapper
printed with nutritional and devotional instructions
for our comfortable consumption.
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Epic FAIL!
Posted on August 31, 2013 by CHC   ᐃ ᐁ

I begin (after all, it is the beginning) by asking, when did the word failure turn into FAIL?  In my day, we used failure to describe both the act and its actor; we applied it to the actor if the failings were habitual.  (Today the noun failing has a different and euphemistic sense: we use failing to describe not an event but a personal shortcoming.  One of my failings is a lack of inhibition for writing long parentheticals.  Sorry.)

But the topic of this blog is my own epic fail, or failure, if you prefer.  You may recall that I recently rented a studio in the River Arts District of Asheville, the better to do art with, or so I supposed.  Well, my first project was a bomb.  I didn’t even finish it.  First, it looked like some pastel-crazed graphic from a 1976 episode of “The Price is Right.”  Second, the design involved far too much fine detail for my sixty-year-old eyes, and I didn’t pull it off.  Third, in spite of the hours I spent planning and designing, I never built a prototype on my computer to see what the finished product might look like.  Instead, I figured I would just make it work.  That didn’t happen.

I brought the incompleted work home to let it cool overnight and give me a chance to look at it with fresh eyes, in the morning.  But it was just as bad the next day.  An epic fail.

I could be disheartened by this.  (OK, I am somewhat disheartened.  But I could be more disheartened.  I could not only have been disheartened but disemboweled.  Luckily for all,  I did not undergo that.*)  Instead, I have moved on.  I’ve ordered some canvas and I am thinking about the design for a geometric abstract involving my favorite colors, pale yellow and light gray.  Life is good.  Fail is for failures and perfectionists.  I aspire to be neither.

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* Speaking of disembowelment, as I was backing out of my driveway today, I unfortunately ran over a small box turtle.  I hope it had the chance to eat well and produce many turtlets before its demise.
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