Supporting Friends Friday: Son of Sonnet on Substack

Longtime readers might remember the thoughtful, moving poetry of Son of Sonnet.  In addition to being a skilled poet, Son is also a gifted orator, and his readings of poetry are always a special treat.

Now you can enjoy his poetry and recitations on his Substack page.  He has a consistent schedule of regular posts, so you won’t be wondering when the next post will arrive.

A subscription is just $7 a month or $70 a year—well worth the price of admission.  Son possesses an extensive theatrical background, which he uses to great effect in his recitations. He even takes requests, and will frequently write poems on themes that subscribers submit.

I bang this gong a lot, but as conservatives and/or Christians, we need to support our people.  The Left gets most everything wrong, but they get this right—they support their creators.  On the Right, we’re often too pragmatic, and dismiss art, culture, and literature as impractical playthings.

We couldn’t be more wrong.  No one remembers early nineteenth-century German tax policy; everyone remembers Beethoven.

So, consider a subscription to Son of Sonnet’s Substack page.  He is worthy of your support.

Supporting Friends Friday: New Works from Robert Mason Sandifer

Two years ago I wrote “Supporting Friends Friday: The Cinematic Compositions of Mason Sandifer” about the composing work of one of my student, Robert Mason Sandifer.  Mason (as I call him) started distributing his music to all the major platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, etc.) earlier this month, and he is directly responsible for inspiring me to put my old instrumental music on the same platforms.

Mason is currently undertaking an ambitious project to compose instrumental music that tells the story of the Bible, from Genesis through Revelations (or, as my friend Steve O would say, “from Genesis through Maps”).  It’s an amazing concept, and he has executed it beautifully so far.

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Supporting Friends Friday: Scoop’s Blog

Our senior correspondent and resident Bigfoot expert Audre Myers reached out to me with a request:  could I, she wondered, give a shout-out (my term, not hers) to a friend’s blog?

The friend is Scoop, a regular commenter over at Nebraska Energy Observer.  Unbeknownst to yours portly, dear old Scoop has a blog with the somewhat unwieldy title Smoke of Satan & the Open Windows of Vatican II.

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Supporting Friends Friday: Andrea the Illustrator’s Children’s Book

I should probably not trumpet so triumphantly and assuredly the death or hiatus of any given thing, especially as it pertains to this blog.  I’d decided to give Support Friends Friday a rest for a bit—and I did, for two weeks!—because I was running out of friends to support.  At least, I was running low on new friend-generated content to champion.

Then good old Andrea the Illustrator went and published a book with a bunch of contributors.  It’s called Creative Gems, Volume I, and it’s out in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle editions now.

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Lazy Sunday CLII: Frederick Ingram, Part II

We’re back for another Sunday of Ingramania, the musical sensation that is sweeping the nation (or, at least, the half-dozen people that read this blog on Sundays).  Here are the next three juicy posts about the incomparable Frederick Ingram:

Thus ends our two-part retrospective on all things Frederick Ingram.  Here’s hoping we hear more from him soon!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Lazy Sunday CLI: Frederick Ingram, Part I

As I’m considering retiring Supporting Friends Friday—at least for a short while—I realized I’ve dedicated quite a few posts to my good buddy Frederick Ingram—six, to be exact!

That’s the perfect number to eat up a couple of Lazy Sundays honoring my musical homeboy:

That’s it for this first installment of Ingramania.  Stay tuned next Sunday for Part II!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Supporting Friends Friday: Backwoods Home Magazine

As I’ve noted in the past, I’m running low on friends to support.  There are still a few bloggers out there that deserve some praise, I’m sure, and I can think of a few that I really enjoy, but who are a bit too spicy to endorse outright (until blogging pays the bills—which is an extremely long way off—even I have to censor myself).

As such, I might be giving Supporting Friends Friday a hiatus starting in July.  I started it last June (with a post about real-life buddy Jeremy Miles‘s book of poetryHindsight: Poetry in 2020), so it’s had over a year—a good time in which to run its course.

I’m not saying it’s gone forever.  I’m just going to give my talented friends more time to churn out excellent work.  Supporting Friends Friday has really been beneficial to the blog, especially since honoring Audre Myers with a post on 27 August 2021; that brought over a whole new readership, and has led to more contributions in the comment sections and to the blog itself.

Of course, I could end up changing my mind by next week, so who knows?  That said, I thought I’d dedicate this “season finale” edition of Supporting Friends Friday to a publication I’ve come to enjoy and respect over the last year:  Backwoods Home Magazine.

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Supporting Friends Friday: Frederick Ingram’s “Ephemery”

My phone has twelve tracks downloaded to it, which auto-play in alphabetic order every time I get into the car.  Six of them are the tracks from my album, Contest Winner EP; four are from Frederick Ingram’s Elements; one is Frederick’s single “Fish Bowl“; and one—oddly—is Ozzy’s “Shot in the Dark” from The Ultimate Sin album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crltUo_ZFbU

This Friday, I’m diving back into Frederick’s exquisite EP Elements, one of my favorite indie releases of the past decade.  Because I listen to this EP multiple times each week, I’ve gotten to know these tunes very well.  Indeed, I wrote about another song from the EP, “Yesterday’s Weather,” back in January.

Today, I’d like to examine the other standout track from Elements, the shimmering “Ephemery.”

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Supporting Friends Friday: Bette Cox on Heavenly Music

“God loves music. He invented it.”  Thus begins Bette Cox‘s wonderful piece—aptly titled “God loves music“—about music and its divine origins.

As a lover of music myself, I’ve long believed that the existence of music—that certain frequencies together create consonant harmonies and beautiful textures, that the mere manipulation of sound waves can become a transcendent whole greater than the sum of its physical parts—is proof positive that God Exists.  How could something so precise and so beautiful emerge from a chaotic Nothing?  Unless we’re including twentieth-century German Expressionism, it couldn’t.

Bette’s piece went up earlier this week on her blog Esther’s Petition, and it is a must-read.  She points out the ultimate purpose of music:  to glorify God, to worship Christ.  She also dives into the endless variety of music, and how a single song could keep a composer occupied for eternity.

The most poignant part of her piece, however, is a “mini-vision,” in which a throng of singers and instrumentalists of every stripe arrive to sing for an “audience of one: Jesus.”

Go read her post—and go make a joyful noise!