Category Archives: Uncategorized

Octopasta!

Because there are two things in this world I cannot resist.  One is octopus and the other is a decent portmanteau.



“Mountainous Landscape,” Albert Bierstadt, 19th Century

Spillwords Press publishes “Smiling Among Inert Shipwrecks”

I’m honored today to see Spillwords Press publish my poem, “Smiling Among Inert Shipwrecks.”  You can find it right here.

Thanks, as always, to Chief Editor Dagmara K. for allowing me to see my work appear in such a wonderful online literary magazine!



Source: Shadows Within My Mind on Facebook

Slowdive performance at The Charlotte in Leicester, England, photo by Greg Neate, 1992

“Man was made for joy and woe.”

“Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Safely through the world we go.”

–William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence” (1863)

Source — Memphis Muse on Facebook



Photo: Rudolf Koppitz, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

My World-Famous Octopus-Swiss-Burger.

The trick to deliciousness is to pour the juice from the octopus can onto the beef while it is frying — preferably with Swiss cheese from the good people at Food Lion.

The last time I shared an octopus recipe online, somebody told me to “up my meds.”  Sigh … like pearls before swine, people.

Update — I know that this does not seem like part of a heart-healthy diet.  But it actually IS, because an octopus has eight hearts.



Photo of Times Square by Dan McCoy, 1973

Environmental Protection Agency.

Throwback Thursday: this 80’s-era fake wood paneling!

People on the “I Found This Online” Facebook page are joking about this weird faux-wood paneling from the 1980’s.  (It got 96,000 “likes.”)  There is even a Reddit page about them!  These walls were everywhere in my rural/suburban New York neighborhood.

I love them!  Sure, you couldn’t hang anything up because you couldn’t get a thumb-tack in.  But they’re dark and rustic, and they take me right back to the 1980’s.  Gimme a basement with these walls, a plush rug, a television, an Atari 2600 and a stack of 80’s horror films on VHS ands I’ll be very happy.  (Hopefully the movies will include 1986’s “Aliens” and 1982’s “The Thing.”)

Better yet, leave out a couple of liters of soda and some chips, and let me invite a couple of Longwood High School friends over.



“The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,” Francisco Goya, 1799

Etching, aquatint, drypoint and burin.