It’s been a golden week for reblogging, as some of my blogosphere buddies continue to generate some amazing content. It looks like I may have to do another Dissident Write feature soon (here are I and II). Armistice Day always brings out the best material, too.
As we head into the weekend—mercifully free of professional obligations—I’m pleased to note the revival of my buddy fridrix’s blog, Corporate History International.
It’s the week of Halloween! I love Halloween—it’s second only to Christmas and maybe Thanksgiving for my favorite holiday. Poor Halloween suffers—as countless others have already noted in casual conversations all month—due to Commercial Christmas’s imperialism, so it doesn’t really get its proper due anymore, but it’s a fun event worth celebrating.
As is typical for Halloween in South Carolina, the crisp, autumnal weather is gone; in its place is uncomfortably warm, sticky mugginess. As a child, I always dreamed of the spooky, chilly Halloween nights I would read about in books, the kind of night where you really could believe ghosts are tickling your spine, witches are abroad, and skeletons are playing their rib cages as xylophones.
Instead, Halloween in South Carolina is always hot and wet. As a plump child with glasses, I could never wear a mask for long, as my chubby breathing in the swampy air would fog up my thick glasses, my costume quickly becoming a burdensome chore (mostly for my parents) instead of a joyfully freeing disguise. It looks like I’ll be treated to lots of back sweat and foggy lenses again this year.
I recently started playing piano for Wednesday night and some Sunday services at my little Free Will Baptist Church. My church has about thirty or forty attendees on a good Sunday morning, so it’s slim pickings for pianists.
The little old lady who had been playing is very feeble, and she managed to miss more accidentals than a seventh-grade clarinet player due to her failing hearing and eyesight. As such, she was eager to pass off the monkey’s paw of church piano playing to someone else.
As such, I’ve gradually improved my sightreading. More importantly, I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to reacquaint myself with some wonderful old hymns—and to learn some for the first time.
The Portly Politico 