Lazy Sunday CCXIII: D.C., Part I

Back in March 2023 I chaperoned a particularly difficult group of students on a trip to Washington, D.C.  Some of the behavior and shenanigans I witnessed from other kids—and, sadly, even from my own students—was quite discouraging.  That aside, it was a good, albeit whirlwind, trip, and I’m in the process of finishing off the essays in this mini-saga.

With that said, here are the first three installments of the Washington, D.C. Trip series:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CCXII: Ponty Week 2023

If the week of Independence Day was MAGAWeek2023, then last week was the unofficial Ponty Week 2023.  Regular contributor and right good bloke Pontiac Dream 39 (or 39 Pontiac Dream?)/Always a Kid for Today/Ponty sent in a trio of great pieces, and I decided to schedule them all for the same week.

So, in case you missed any of these excellent contributions from our favorite Englishman, here are Ponty’s posts:

That’s it for this ultra-British edition of Lazy Sunday.  Cheers!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CCXI: Greatest Hits Recap

I’m really embracing maximum laziness lately.  Sure, I’m being productive around the house and what not, but the week after the Fourth has proven to be one of the slowest of the year.  It’s been nice.

So, after a week off from most new posts, I’m making this a particularly lazy edition of Lazy Sunday:  I’m going to recap the four “Greatest Hits” posts from last week:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CCX: MAGAWeek2023 Posts

Well, another MAGAWeek is in the books.  It was a star-spangled affair, with biographies of four important historical figures (one of recent vintage, the others from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries).  $5 and up subscribers also got three bonus editions of Sunday Doodles (here, here, and here).

Of course, to get access to my four detailed biographies—as well as all past MAGAWeek posts—it’s just $1 a month.  One measly buck!  As of the time of this writing, there are 429 posts on my SubscribeStar page, over half of which are available for just $1 a month.  At $5 a month, it comes out to one cent per post as of right now, and I’m adding new content every single week (with rare exceptions).

Even at just $1 a month, and assume (conservatively) that you only get access to half of the posts (about 215 posts), it works out to just $0.0047 per post—less than a half-cent per post!

At $12 a year—the price of a single, one-topping large pizza—you can a.) support your favorite chubby content creator and b.) gain access to an ever-growing library of long-form essays.  For $60 a year—what most of us pay for Internet access for one month—you get everything—doodles (which often contain additional commentary), bonus doodles, bonus posts, exclusive election coverage posts, etc., etc.

Thanks to those who have donated and subscribed in the past.  Please help spread the word!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CCIX: Original Music, Part II

By the time you’re reading this post, I should be about an hour or so into a long drive to Indianapolis, where I’ll be visiting my older brother for a week.  We’ll laugh, we’ll cry, we’ll vomit—well, probably not those last two, unless I overindulge on the chicken sausage dogs he picked up for the Fourth of July.

In the spirit of keeping Lazy Sunday lazy, here are three more pieces of original music from Open Mic Adventures, the series that keeps on giving:

  • Open Mic Adventures XXVIII: ‘Song of the Bigfoot’” – “Song of the Bigfoot” is designed to be a simple étude (a “study”) for acoustic guitar to help students learn the notes on the B and E strings.  It also teaches note durations, with quarter, half, dotted half, and whole notes.  I like the slightly mysterious sound of this simple piece.  Listener consensus says that the guitar version better captures the mystery of the piece, and I agree, but I like the more robust piano version, too.
  • Open Mic Adventures XXX: ‘Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday’” – I composed “Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday” during one of my planning periods.  I thought it would make a fun sightreading exercise for my Middle School Music Ensemble, and eventually I’ll upload their full recording of this piece (audio only).  When I write chorales, I tend to do so as a music theory exercise, so it was fun to see my more astute student-musicians notice some of the stepwise motion in this little piece.
  • Open Mic Adventures XXXI: ‘Carousel’” – I wrote “Carousel” as a Haydn-esque little gigue or dance in 3/4 time.  My Middle School Music Ensemble students nominated two possible names, “Carousel” and “Ambata,” and “Carousel” won the day.  I promised the student who proposed “Ambata” that I would composed that piece, and I still need to do so.  I already have a good sense for what it will sound like in my head.

Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CCVIII: Original Music, Part I

Ah, the glorious summer.  I can already feel it slipping through my Vienna sausage fingers like the grains of sand in an hour glass, or the metaphorical sandbags I’m desperately stacking up against the inexorable tide of the new school year.  I love teaching, but having mornings free to write and the like is glorious.

One perk of summer is that I can actually get out to open mic nights again.  I’ve missed playing live, and I want to find sustainable ways to play during the school year.  It’s difficult, though:  I typically don’t get in from an open mic until 10 PM.  That’s doable during the summer months, but during the school year, I’m usually zonked out by 9 or 9:30 PM, not hanging out with hipsters in some coffee shop.

Regardless, here are some recent posts featuring original pieces, two of which are open mic performances:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CCVII: Stories

This blog loves the arts, but especially the short story as a form.  The short story is incredibly versatile, and can explore many of the themes of a novel without the time commitment.  Often, less is more.

This Sunday, I thought I’d look back at three genres of short stories:  ghost stories, Southern fiction, and science fiction:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CCVI: Intergalactic Nonsense

I’ve been writing (and singing!) a lot about space lately.  My interest in the topic is steadfast, though the highlighting of it here on the blog ebbs and flows.  I also will hasten to add that I’m not much for the technical details of space exploration and colonization, and I suspect that many of our scientific observations about space are, at best, educated guesses.  Rather, I adore the idea of humanity stretching its fragile fingers into the firmament.

This recent focus also coincides with the re-release of several of my old instrumental albums into the digital space.  To save a few bucks (“quid” to my English readers), I released Electrock Music (2006) and Electrock II: Space Rock (2007) into a digital double LP (twelve tracks each, twenty-four tracks total):

Start with “Launch” to begin a musicologist’s tour throughout our Solar System.

To take an abbreviated tour of our Solar System—with a major emphasis on Saturn—keep reading:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CCV: Myersvision, Part VII

As much as I love to beat a dead horse—or, in this case, a dead Bigfoot—this Lazy Sunday retrospective of the Myersvision series will be the last for awhile.  It’s a testament to Audre Myers‘s impressive output that I’ve spent seven Sundays looking back at her contributions to the blog.

Of course, there will be more Lazy Sundays featuring her work if she revs up the ol’ Commodore 64 and sends me some more juicy submissions.  Lazy Sunday typically comes in threes, and I have one additional post for the eighth installment of this retrospective.  That means Audre just needs to submit two more pieces, and we’ll hit eight!

Of course, there were only Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  Perhaps Audre’s writing is the Eighth:

  • Myersvision: A Very Good Discussion” – This title is quintessentially Audrean in nature.  The discussion in question is in a YouTube video shared in the post, but the real meat of the post are Audre’s theories about Bigfoot, based on what are likely hundreds of hours of research.
  • Myersvision: A Possible Language” – Apparently, Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) have a language, “Samari.”  Bigfoot enthusiasts picked that name because the alleged Sasquatchian language sounds like a bad overdub of an old samurai or kung-fu film.  That lack of seriousness and overabundance of hokiness tells you everything you need to know about Bigfoot enthusiasts (Audre being the exception here).
  • Myersvision: Consider if You Will…” – A video of what appears to be a bipedal ape creature rampaging through a snow-covered parking lot.  Gasp!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CCIV: Myersvision, Part VI

When it comes to Lazy Sunday, I really put emphasis on the “Lazy” part of that title.  When I find something good, I milk it dry, which is probably what will happen to Bigfoot if we ever get the big lug into captivity.  Imagine drinking “Squatch Juice”—the sweet, slightly gamey, milk of the female Bigfoot (Bigfemme?), packed full of anti-oxidants and invisibility serum.

Uh, ahem… I digress.  Right now I’m only milking Bigfoot metaphorically in the form of Audre Myers‘s excellent Bigfoot-related posts.  March inadvertently became “Bigfoot March Madness” at The Portly Politico, to the point that even Audre expressed concern that she was doing irreparable damage to this site’s reputation, to which I responded (again, metaphorically), “What reputation?”

And so I digress yet again.  Here are three editions of Myersvision from 8, 15, and 22 March 2023, all about our favorite, elusive, hairy cryptid:

  • Myersvision: The Books” – Audre offers up a short bibliography of Bigfoot books, including some by Jeff Meldrum, a Full Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at Idaho State University.
  • Myersvision: Other Sources” – Here Audre offers up some other Bigfoot sources, including an interview with Jane Goodall (who herself falsified some of the wild findings she made concerning apes).
  • Myersvision: Structures” – Bigfoot is a builder (perhaps he should sign up for my Minecraft Camp).  There are apparently eerily similar structures that are attributed to Bigfoot, which suggests a certain degree of intelligence in our mystery pal.

That’s it for this latest retrospective into Myersvision.  There’s more milk to come!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments: