TBT^256: The Frisson of the Night

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

My church recently partnered with my town and a number of other local churches to host A City Set Apart. The event started at 6 PM on Friday, 11 September 2026 and ended at 6 PM on Friday, 12 September 2026. For twenty-fours, volunteers ranging from local clergy to lay people read Scripture aloud.

I signed up for the 2 AM slot on Saturday morning. I set an alarm for 1:15 AM and blearily crawled into a hot shower. I had a cup of coffee waiting in the fridge, which I popped into the microwave before heading downtown. My assigned text was Micah 1-7 (the entire book), which I apparently breezed through, even though I didn’t think I was reading that fast, so my pastor then gave me Psalms 42-51. Reading Micah, which is a pretty hardcore book, at 2 AM over a loudspeaker with my voice bouncing off the brick buildings around town square was powerful.

It was also just cool being out at that time of night. A lady from our sister church read a large portion of Psalms (including the lengthy Psalm 119), and hearing her reading it at that hour, while still a bit sleep deprived, really made it “hit” differently. I could really hear the poetry of the text, and she read it with this impassioned voice—not stentorian, not melodramatic, but I could feel the conviction in her reading.

Later, the lanky reverend of the Presbyterian Church read the Gospel of Matthew. I stuck around until shortly after 3:30 AM, by which point he’d read through chapter 9 or 10. At that point, I was ready to get back to Dr. Wife and Nugget and try to get some sleep (I ended up dozing until nearly 11:30 AM), but his reading also brought the Gospel to life. I’ve read Matthew dozens of times and have heard large chunks of it read in services over the years, but something about hearing the Presbyterian reverend read it in his distinct voice opened my eyes and heart to shades of significance I’d never really absorbed in prior readings.

That’s all to say that it was a memorable event and I hope they do it again next year. I told Dr. Wife I’d opt for an early morning slot again, but something a bit more reasonable, like 5 AM. I got home and I was absolutely ravenous, so I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drank a caffeine-free Diet Pepsi in the dark before getting back into bed around 4 AM. I thought Dr. Wife was out cold, but she told me later that she heard me crack open the drink and wondered what in the world I was doing—ha!

I keep using the phrase, “there’s something about,” but I’ll abuse it again here: there’s something about that time of night, the wee hour(s), that makes everything a bit more intense and surreal. Sometimes that’s a bad thing—the overly vivid nightmare, the baby crying in the night, the distant wail of a motorcycle as someone is up to something sinister. But it can be good, too: the prayer warrior on his knees, intercessing to Christ; the sumptuous midnight snack (or PB&J); the people of a town marinating their home in God’s Word.

Sure, most nights I like to be long abed by 2 AM, but every once in awhile, those wee hours still have something to offer.

With that, here is 18 September 2025’s “TBT^16: The Frisson of the Night“:

Read More »

Midweek Novella Review: Opium Tales: Humpty Dumpty

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

For the next few weeks I’m going to review the novellas adapted from Roman and Anna Riva’s planned animated series, Opium Tales (which doubles as Roman’s Substack moniker and publication). I’ve followed Roman’s work for years, and it’s refreshing to see his active presence on Substack. When I found out he and his wife had a series of short novellas in print—and that they are all, save one, under $8.

According to the introduction of each volume, Roman and Anna sought, but failed to procure, funding for an animated series called Opium Tales. They hoped to call it Dark Tales, but the name was taken, so they leaned into the opium habits of early eighteenth-century Romantics and landed on Opium Tales. Since they still had all the rights to their stories, they decided to publish them as a series of novellas.

Here is the series—or, at least the volumes I purchased; if I’m missing one, please let me know, Roman (the following are Amazon Affiliate links; I receive a portion of any purchase made through these links, at no additional cost to you):

The entire series is (as of the time of writing) $46.94 before tax, so these are easy to scoop up in one fell swoop.

According to is introduction, Humpty Dumpty was the first installment in the series, and intended to be the pilot episode of the animated series. It is a dark fantasy rendering in the spirit of the Brothers Grimm, in which H. Dumpty is not a clumsy egg, but instead a brutish feudal lord with dark appetites.

Read More »

New Music Tuesday XXIV: “Weird Doll”

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

While I was looking for an image to accompany “Lazy Sunday CDV: Music Lessons” I found the manuscript for an old piece called “Weird Doll.” As far as I can tell, I never did anything with this piece, so I decided to slap it together yesterday morning. I based the doodle on this creepy old doll my Mom had growing up, which is made out of some kind of strange rubberish polymer. It was so creepy.

Indeed, it was two dolls: a boy and a girl. I’ve depicted the boy in the doodle seen in the video below. The doll had these weirdly articulated eyebrows that were made from the same sculpted polymer as the rest of it.

As far as the mixing and such, I just added a “Ambient” reverb effect and turned the “room size” down from 100 to about 75 in Audacity, then a “Firm Bass” preset that I turned all the way up. I also applied a “Wide Synth Pad” chorus effect.

Read More »

Monday Morning Movie Review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

The Portly Politico7 Comments

While visiting my older brother the other weekend, we drove down to the AMC in Savannah, Georgia to catch Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026). I’m of the mind that if there is a Spider-Man movie, I must see it.

I’m not a huge comic book nerd (although I like them; I just don’t know all the deep lore and storylines and such), and I haven’t devoured hundreds of issues of Spider-Man comics, but I’ve always appreciated the character. Plus, my generation came of age with the Tobey Maguire flicks (directed by none other than Sam Raimi). I’ve heard it said that each generation has their Spider-Man; mine is Maguire (and my Mary Jane is Kirsten Dunst). Also, where else are you going to see Willem DaFoe lose his mind as a super villain (and not as just every other character he plays)?

That said, I love the character and his backstory. Spider-Man is basically a goofy kid with amazing powers who has to grow up fast and learn some hard lessons. He is duty-bound—“with great power comes great responsibility”—to protect those around him, even at great personal cost. Very often, Spider-Man doesn’t get the girl; sometimes, the girl gets killed!

That theme continues with the current iteration of Spider-Man as portrayed by the eternally boyish Tom Holland, albeit with a twist that I think Spider-Man: Brand New Day essentially nullifies.

Read More »

Lazy Sunday CDV: Music Lessons

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Now that yours portly is essentially semi-retired (although maintaining our household is a full-time job in its own right), I have more time to work on music for my private music students. It’s really broadened my students’ repertoires with some fun pieces, and it gives us some recital-style work to do outside of the usual method books (although we still work from those, too).

Ergo, I’ve been writing more about lessons and such, so I thought I’d share some recent posts that relate to the teaching of music lessons:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

The titular “Will” loved his waltz!

SubscribeStar Saturday: SCISA Talk 1: Supplement Your Income with Music Lessons

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

This Friday, 18 September 2026, I’ll be attending the SCISA Teachers’ Conference. I’ll be presenting two sessions, one about creating a “DIY Garage Band Music Program” from scratch, the other about teaching private music lessons.

I always like to have prepared remarks for any public speaking, so I’ve put together the following. I’m building a Google Slides presentation to go along with the prepared text, but it’s not quite done at the time of writing, so I’ll share that later.

For now, here’s “Supplement Your Income With Music Lessons”:

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

TBT^4: Remarkable Animals

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

It’s been an animal-centric year for yours portly. Sweet Murphy crossed the rainbow bridge; Nugget is still going strong; and we’re likely adopting a puppy in a few weeks. The koi and other creatures are doing well—I even wrote an entire album about it (still 90% off with promo code koipond)—and our bird feeder continues to attract lots of birds—and lizards. I’ve seen a nasty skink slinking around, too.

That reminds me of this piece I wrote a few years ago, “Lament of the Lizardman“:

But I digress. It seemed apropos to reblog this series of posts about animals in all their glory.

With that, here is 11 September 2025’s “TBT^2: Remarkable Animals“:

Read More »

General Midweek Update: Beds, Tunes, WiFi, Peloton, Algae, Printers, Presentations

The Portly Politico2 Comments

It’s been a moderately busy week for yours portly, so writing has fallen on the backburner a bit. Dr. Wife and I spent much of Labor Day knocking out some projects around the house, including assembling a blue bedframe that has been the bane of my existence. I finally found some screws that would work to hold the footboard to the frame (I have no idea where I packed the original screws), so the bed is safe for human use.

Yesterday, while a bit more relaxed, also feels like a bit of a blur. I set to work fairly early on writing and arranging some music for my students, including “Will’s Waltz,” the subject of yesterday’s installment of New Music Tuesday. I also arranged a piano version of the legendary Tetris theme song, available for purchase here, here, and here (or you can screenshot it, you cheapskate, and print a copy). The famous “A Theme” from Tetris is based on the Russian folk song “Korobeiniki,” which is about a peddler seducing a woman—whoa! Now we associate the theme with dropping blocks and clearing lines.

Today I’ll be installing a WiFi mesh (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchase you make through that link, at no additional cost to you—TPP). Our router from Spectrum isn’t cutting it in our house—the signal here in my office is very spotty, although my PC is connected via a dedicated Ethernet port—and my younger brother helped me find a scorching deal on the model linked above (which was almost $100 pricier the last time I checked). Our old house has plaster walls, which apparently disrupt WiFi signals terribly, so the three-point mesh should give us the coverage we crave.

Read More »

New Music Tuesday XXIII: “Will’s Waltz”

The Portly Politico1 Comment

One of my favorite ways to write new music is to take ideas that pop up in music lessons and turn them into something fun. One common counting issue that turns up without almost every student is the tendency to rush a sequence of quarter notes when they come right after a sequence of eighth notes.

Something like that happened with one of my students, the titular “Will” of today’s piece. There’s a piece called “Waltz Time” that features a sequence of descending quarter notes in 3/4 time. For whatever reason, students tend to rush those quarter notes, even though they’re not preceded by a sequence of eighth notes. Good old Will was doing it consistently enough that I pointed out he was essentially turning every other measure into 3/8 time and/or a set of eighth-note triplets.

That got us talking about music theory and multimeter pieces, and we started to play the piece wrong on purpose to see what we could come up with (then I insisted he play the piece as written so he doesn’t program his fingers to rush those quarter notes). I floated the idea of writing a piece that intentionally switches between 3/4 and 3/8, and Will seemed very excited about that idea.

So it is that I sat down this morning and put together this little piece, which Will and I will explore during his lesson later this week. It’s a piece that I can use with my other students, too.

As far as the mixing and such, I just added a “Large Room” reverb effect—my go-to reverb effect—in Audacity, then a “Bakelite” preset that I turned down a bit. It gives it that kind of retro, phonograph sound.

Read More »