moon traveller herald

I had the answer to the contest question*, my fingers did the walking, Central connected me, and lo but my spousal unit and I were on our way to a concert featuring Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn in Lexington (July 28). Thank you WHRB Hillbilly at Harvard. I thought I should share a perspective on the proceedings. Abigail began things saying “I hope you like banjos.” The audience did. I do too – but more so after this show for sure. Blues is my main thing – A guy who really rocked my boat back in the day was John Fahey. And Bela’s approach to his instrument, to explore the sound, sometimes to the point of abstraction, unafeared to traipse through the gardens of other genres, was kind of like old John. I didnt see John at his best – but I did see Bela in July in Lexington and he seemed a virtuoso of the highest order this night. He shore can play the banjo, actually many varieties of said. I am not a purist, but I like that cold lonesome sound. I’d say Bella and Abigail’s has go...

The Drunken Silenius Silenius tutor to Dionysus - buy that poet a port, upend the apple cart of hokum and decorum and spill the wine spodee-odee nowhere now to go but round and round while your young in the Fogg and larger Forest. Addenda 1 - I am a long way now from the portrait of the poet as a mystical drinker. But chance led me to the Fogg Museum, and more chance had me lingering, yesterday, while others came and went, in front of the painting, the painting by Francesco Fracanzano of a satyrists' symposium centered around young Silenius and his younger-yet student Dionysus (shown here idly peeing). Just like a songster soft-voiced  mountain singer who might have a special reverence for a bluesman like Skip James or Charlie Patton, I have learned to hold a regard for  the drunken poet - the one of less accomplishment but more traffic with the creative motherload because of his intoxicated immoderation. I think of Eric Burdon's Spi...

Engineers initiated a process Tuesday to hoist t he sails on a satellite that can orbit the EARTH using only the power of solar winds. The project's goals are limited, and the craft's abilities to control its orbits, and to extend its mission are slim; as indicated in the above video. Yet LightSail2 helps open a hopeful window into a new future that a century of science fiction writers could only imagine. 

It was a trick bag when we landed on the Moon. As I think back I think a lot of the determination involved was driven by ghost of tragic John Kennedy. He willed it, and America determinedly followed through. I listened via radio. I say it was bag mixed with confusion because there was combined great awe and pride - but there was even greater clarity in the view that Earth was in a Tangle. Same is true today, Funnily enough. The surface of the moon was icing on a cake, inside the cake were the flames of war in Asia and riots cities and starvation in Bangladesh and Vonnegut saying 'so it goes.' Check this great Google Doodle out: Command Module Capt. Mike Collins testimony - in which he often sounds like poet Ferlinghetti - and even like Vonnegut for that matter - It's a journey to remoteness that peaks: "We came in peace for all mankind."  Later as they took a trip around the world, he recalls, people they met everywhere said 'we did it.'" Sign m...

When we were young there was some concern about the ‘boob tube’ – the living room TV that seemed to be sucking the family into a state of stupor. Not having a TV was a badge of cool in my college days, and I wonder if we will see that kind of wave of sentiment again. That’s hard to imagine, looking at the populace today, bent like praying monks en masse over cell phones, poking about on social media. They lose their attention and trip, and some get run over by trolleys. Stil l worse, the Facebook has stepped into a void left by TV and newspaper news, and disrupted normal political communications. A recent book by Roger McNamee uncovers some of the developments behind this situation. “Zucked ” takes a close look at how social media can go bad. A long-time Silicon Valley insider, he was among early venture backers of Facebook, and that is the main topic of this story. McNamee knew the company very well, and watched with particular concern, even while his p...

It's a lot more than just drawings that make Calvin and Hobbes so great. There is his Mittiesque imagination. Which allows him to conflate anything into an over-sized adventure.... Read more .