For a peek at what some of the show's like, you can visit Louie and The Humans and get a bit more info as well. :D

Hello gentle reader . . .

Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday

February 8February 8February 8February 8February 8
This coming Saturday (not tomorrow but next) February 8, there's a show at the Rex Theater (1600 block of Carson St. in the South Side, across from Nick's Fat City) you should come see:

The Acts are as follows:

Louie and the Humans (country rock)
B.J. O'Malley (acoustic singer from Cleveland)
Matt Dunegan (a little country a little rock n' roll)

Doors open at 8 PM, music begins at 9PM:

So I'm like the opener guy, I guess I get like 30 minutes of songs? something like that, ya know a brief set. But it'll be fun... :)

I have no idea what B.J. O'Malley sounds like, but I have heard she's good. And then Louie and the Humans play, and they do some cool stuff, no doubt. I may help out with some backin' stuff (vocals?).

Anyways, I encourage you, so strongly encourage you, to come check the show out. Their bartender's pretty cute . . . :D

Today's Poi -em . . .

The Ball Poem
John Berryman

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What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over--there it is in the water!
No use to say 'O there are other balls':
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball went. I would not intrude on him,
A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now
He senses first responsibility
In a world of possessions. People will take balls,
Balls will be lost always, little boy,
And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.
He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,
The epistemology of loss, how to stand up
Knowing what every man must one day know
And most know many days, how to stand up
And gradually light returns to the street
A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight,
Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark
Floor of the harbour . . I am everywhere,
I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move
With all that move me, under the water
Or whistling, I am not a little boy.


From Collected Poems 1937-1971 by John Berryman, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Copyright © 1989 by Kate Donahue Berryman. Used with permission.

If you are bored or thirsty, you can play this game tonight . . . suffice to say, I don't think I'd ever want that man's job, and alcohol comsumption can be justified by / from anything.

Some days we long for human coversation, not really about the heavy issues and not about fluff, but about what? Human conversation . . . sharing experiences . . . yeah, I think that's pretty decent material. I had some experiences over the weekend that are well suited for conversation, but they have to sit for a while and steep in the conscious (or unconscious ?) mind for a while and they have to cool a bit before they're ready to serve. Lest they scald your tongue and leave that little flap of dead skin hanging from your hard palate (that's doctor talk for the roof of your mouth). As some of you may or may not know, there was a bunch of political activity here in town (South Side and Oakland) over the weekend. And the weekend in town was cold and wintry . . . kinda my take on politics: it's cold and wintry, but as it comes back each year, it must be necessary.

SO . . . where is this going? At the moment, in the direction of inquiry. The events of the past weekend raise many many questions. We should ask questions, and seek answers. As Socrates (thru Plato?) suggests, a life unexamined is not worth living. We should ask questions about our world and about ourselves. Plato goes on to say, we may not ever discover ‘truth’, but we improve ourselves in the process of trying. And as one site that goofs on the corporate motivator poster series also suggests, There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquistive idiots. Ahhh . . . theres a bit of a barb on that point, eh?

On that note, I will invite you to start your inquiry afresh with these simple questions: who? what? where? when? how? I hope you find these questions good for generating a dialogue with yourself and with others. Some days we long for human coversation, not always about the heavy issues and not always about fluff. Human conversation . . . sharing experiences . . . yeah, I think that's pretty decent material.
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Since there seems to be much discussion of many topics these days, here are some ideas (on loan from an academic journal, and no I don't hink there's a relation to Bert or Burt, although both father and son did writing of their own) about how to publish a paper, and thus write a piece that's worth reading/writing/publishing:

Bacharach (1989) What is and is not theory

* Make clear what you are adding to the knowledge base.
* Avoid argumentation by citation (Jones’ found tha tX, Smith found that Y, thus we predict that ..). Building hypotheses from past results is not theorizing. As Plato suggested, we may not ever discover ‘truth’, but we improve ourselves in the process of trying.
* In the absence of results, a series of results may simply reflect the idiosyncracies of a particular data set. A lack of theory means there is no way to draw generalizable conclusions from the study to inform other contexts.
* What is the theory that makes me think A and B are related? If you cannot answer this question, the paper is not publishable.
* Position your paper in the journal you are pursuing. How does this paper (and your sources) contribute to an ongoing discussion? (Simply stated, know your audience)

These are just some ideas for those of you who think or write, or will be thinking or writing, and wish to share your thoughts without sounding like an imbecile.