{"id":776,"date":"2007-09-19T14:04:21","date_gmt":"2007-09-19T18:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/2007\/09\/19\/various-sundry-part-sixty-four\/"},"modified":"2007-10-02T16:50:16","modified_gmt":"2007-10-02T20:50:16","slug":"various-sundry-part-sixty-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/archives\/776","title":{"rendered":"Various & Sundry, part sixty-three"},"content":{"rendered":"

Call it Nine-One-One<\/strong>
\n\u2014 Needless to say, our wedding anniversaries now tend to start out with a somber mood, but that\u2019s just part of being an American, so we put it aside to begin our own joyous observance. We took a nice drive up Highway 33 after stopping at Shaker Village and then spent part of the day in Midway, where I made arrangements for the Damselfly gallery to display my wood engravings. We enjoyed the sunny afternoon together and had a delicious dinner at the Heirloom restaurant. In downtown Lexington we discovered the same spot that Dana\u2019s parents stood for a wedding photo, when they eloped to Lexington many years ago. Several times, leading up to the event, we talked about having a picture made on our milestone day, but we didn\u2019t even have a camera with us, so we had dessert, did a bit of shopping at Wild Oats, and then headed home.<\/p>\n

Lalo the Magnificent<\/strong>
\n\u2014 Joan paid a visit and made a closing installment of anniversary gifts, even though she\u2019d given us a new Mhing game back at the Seitz Reunion. She told me about the recent NPR interview<\/a> with Schifrin<\/a>. My favorite part was when the interviewer asked how he was able to move effortlessly from one type of music to another. Describing himself as a \u201cchameleon,\u201d he said he can do it because he\u2019s able to see the \u201cessence\u201d of each form. That idea speaks powerfully to me.<\/p>\n

Lust for Lit<\/strong>
\n\u2014 To have discovered the joy and consolation of literature at this stage of life is an unexpected blessing. I recently read my first story by Paul Horgan<\/a>. Joan gave me a copy of Flannery O\u2019Connor writings. Both are masters of the short story who happen to have been Catholic. A good friend of artist Peter Hurd (brother-in-law of Andrew Wyeth), Horgan also created little hand-made library-card pockets<\/a> that now sell to collectors for $500 each. He died in 1995<\/a>. I don\u2019t know anything yet about O\u2019Connor, but I read one of her stories and found it interesting, but just a bit creepy.<\/p>\n

Lucky\u2019s Day Wasn\u2019t Lucky\u2019s Lucky Day<\/strong>
\n\u2014 I didn\u2019t even know about Smoked Mullet<\/a> until the recent BillyBlues concert at the Constitution Square Festival. James and Susan urged us to come back and catch Aaron\u2019s performance the next day. He\u2019s obviously looking for that elusive \u201chit\u201d for which nearly all young songwriters yearn. It reminds me of my conversations with Danny D about his long haul through the music industry. Danny hit paydirt overnight when he wasn\u2019t much older than Aaron; he hasn\u2019t seen anything quite like it since. I also remember how a friend of mine from Yellow Springs watched his son go to Nashville to strike gold, only to see him throw away the whole opportunity when the lad couldn\u2019t steer clear of the whiskey bottle.<\/p>\n

Kelly Watch<\/strong>
\n\u2014 Urban Picnic received a slideshow highlight by The New York Times<\/a>, and the young talent from Danville was mentioned by name. Not bad. She\u2019s one to keep watching.<\/p>\n

Still Crankin\u2019 Forward<\/strong>
\n\u2014 I’ve been ingrained with the committee approach through my board service and community involvement (Band Festival, Chamber of Commerce, Salvation Army, Rotary Club, etc.), but I\u2019ve picked up resistance about going that direction with the B.I.K.E. group<\/a><\/em>. The \u201cc-word\u201d doesn’t seem to have taken hold as a positive idea. Too many meetings. Perhaps a more workable approach is to have a volunteer \u201cproject manager\u201d for each objective. Those people can \u201ctake ownership,\u201d rally a few helpers to move the ball, and then get back to the steering group with a progress report. The whole thing reminds me too much of the foundering honcho system within the Dixon Clan Council. Hopefully Mombo\u2019s new trust will be a better context for a workable committee arrangement. To be honest, I have diminishing enthusiasm for attempting to structure the cycling-advocacy team. I\u2019d rather devote myself to individual creative and lobbying efforts, like our area master plan, a “share the road” promotional effort, and the planned multi-use trail along the new bypass connector. Although we\u2019ve made some great progress<\/a>, I\u2019m somewhat weary after 18 months at the helm. I\u2019d like to see a different leader with more management skill to succeed. This would free me up to work on actual projects instead of administration. Meanwhile, the need for studio activity outweighs all these other considerations. Where\u2019s that old Graybeard<\/a> when we need him? <\/p>\n

V & S<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Call it Nine-One-One \u2014 Needless to say, our wedding anniversaries now tend to start out with a somber mood, but that\u2019s just part of being an American, so we put it aside to begin our own joyous observance. We took a nice drive up Highway 33 after stopping at Shaker Village and then spent part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,3,17,12,18,42,29,8,62,36,37,23,16,6,43,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}