- R Millis is my next music obsession.
- Earth seen from Saturn.
- Blegsylvania closing down already for the winter break, link-fishing likely to be lighter than normal the next few weeks.
- Unsurprisingly, in my stringtown, Blegsylvania's peaks and flows follow the college calendar with uncanny accuracy.
- Return of >> Deleted Bleggalgazing << beyond, that is, the above two bullets. Believe me, thank me, plus it will appear in other locations soon enough, draft seven finished last night.
- What the hell are we doing here. Technology is advancing faster than philosophy can keep up.
- Looking back at the end of the world. A year since the end of the Mayan calendar.
- I have my doubts about the wisdom of United's acquisitions, but they do seem determined to win at least four league games next season.
- RIP Jake, condolences to Jim and his family. This blog's traditional poem for beloved dead dogs below.
- :-P on being judged in meatspace.
- Oblique strategies. Sometimes workable cures for writers block.
- The heat death of a music blog. Well, fuck, here's some bleggalgazing.
- What I just bought.
ANOTHER DOG'S DEATH
John Updike
For days the good old bitch had been dying, her back
pinched down to the spine and arched to ease the pain,
her kidneys dry, her muzzle white. At last
I took a shovel into the woods and dug her grave
in preparation for the certain. She came along,
which I had not expected. Still, the children gone,
such expeditions were rare, and the dog,
spayed early, knew no nonhuman word for love.
She made her stiff legs trot and let her bent tail wag.
We found a spot we liked, where the pines met the field.
The sun warmed her fur as she dozed and I dug;
I carved her a safe place while she protected me.
I measured her length with the shovel’s long handle;
she perked in amusement, and sniffed the heaped-up earth.
Back down at the house, she seemed friskier,
but gagged, eating. We called the vet a few days later.
They were old friends. She held up a paw, and he
injected a violet fluid. She swooned on the lawn;
we watched her breathing quickly slow and cease.
In a wheelbarrow up to the hole, her warm fur shone.
