Discover Prompts

WordPress Discover: Bite

WordPress Discover has returned for April 2020, and this week the writer Michelle Weber has taken Discover bloggers on a wander, with a word every day, to get bloggers looking at shared encounters.  Today’s word is “bite” and, while I don’t like to offer advice, one phenomenon I have observed is that, by the time you are responding to somebody’s food on the Internet you know that you’ve reached a rhythm where likely the best you can do is effect what positive change that person contributed, and go from there.  I would prefer not to seem as though I’m presenting a false rationale.

It’s a perception given the fame of those sorts of delineations.  The inclination I have is to connect cautiously when nourishment is in question, and I’ve had the experience of family, kinfolk mentioning objective facts on the Internet of what they’re keen on eating, individuals that you could never avoid, and even with them, I attempt to evade a lot of input on their dishes.

Adage

Suit yourself.  Ideally, you’re not inhabiting a scene of the TV show Survivor. However, a decent approach is to sit about and eat.

You don’t have to do a huge amount of that.  A drink may improve the pot, yet not to the degree you’re under the table, I’m certain, and there ought to be openings where no such cure is important.

I’m a hopeful person.  I wouldn’t deliberately steer you wrong.

As today’s Discover essay points out, it’s a Saturday, and while it doesn’t touch on the holiday, you probably know that it’s the Saturday before Easter Sunday.  Trouble or not, I am making my usual jaunt tomorrow, to my mom and dad’s house, to celebrate our faith.  It will take us faith to get through this.

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WordPress Discover: Orchestrate

social distancing

Today’s Discover challenge, by Michelle Weber, is about the word “orchestrate.” The last piece of music which moved me is the song battle born by The Killers.


The Killers

Up against the wall (Up against the wall) There’s something dying on the street When they knock you down (Up against the wall) You’re gonna get back on your feet Cause you can’t stop now (Cause you can’t stop now) Did they break your heart? (Did they break your heart?) And did they cause your soul to mourn Remember what I said Boy you was battle born

While The Killers are a great band, I didn’t initially have a strong positive reaction to this song of theirs.  Eventually, though, it began to move me the way a piece of music does, giving me the odd moment of pause while relevance in the song hits home with me.

What would it be that is “dying on the street?” I wonder briefly when I hear it.  There is a Pavement song from 1995, Grounded, that has a similar lyric. Both are interesting songs.

Everything Is Nice: The Matador Records 10th Anniversary Anthology

WordPress Discover: Pairs

The April 2020 WordPress Discover challenges continue with another essay by Michelle Weber, on the subject of “pairs.” Today’s Discover challenge for me is particularly enjoyable. I am thankful.

five best books you’ve ever read, and a song

Photographer:
Suzy Hazelwood

the stranger, by Albert Camus
killing an Arab the cure

a gentleman deals with the death of his mother. killing an Arab might have been the first single put out by the cure. i am sure the cure were inspired by the stranger when they wrote this song, which, despite its theme of “killing” is not a song about hate

brave new world, by Aldous Huxley
chrome injury the church

in the future, a man from lands outside civilization tries to come to terms with how people are living. chrome injury is a song from the church’ first record, a new wave record entitled of skins and hearts

bonfire of the vanities, by tom Wolfe
a well-respected man the kinks

an accidental hit and run are the minutes that serve to ruin a rich man’s life. a well-respected man tells the story of a man whose desires are controlled by his need to fit into “normal” society

one flew over the cuckoo’s nest, by Ken Kesey
ballad of Dwight Frye Alice cooper

a rogue goes into an insane asylum rather than face jail time. Alice cooper’s song ballad of Dwight Frye from their first album love it to death is on a similar theme, about a deadbeat dad who gets locked up

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Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, by Robert Pirsig
born to be wild Steppenwolf

a man “throws away his wristwatch” and travels the united states. born to be wild by Steppenwolf is identifiable as being about that same kind of thing

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WordPress Discover: Hands

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For April 2020, WordPress has brought back its Discover prompts.  Each day a new blogging theme is outlined for bloggers taking an interest.

Today I saw the prompts have been taken over by Michelle Weber. Today she proposed considering hands.

About being a helping hand, I lend assistance to a family business, Maple Lawn.  My dad and I direct the operation of Maple Lawn Cemetery, a small cemetery in our town whose operations we manage weekly.  You can find us on Facebook here:  https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited

This year we are managing cutting down a tree.  The cemetery is surrounded by trees, and when the winds pick up, naturally, tree branches come down from the air.  We usually burn the fallen branches.

This year sparkles from the blaze flew into the tree beside the fire. The tree caught fire from the inside, strangely enough.

We had to bring down the tree and destroy it, as a good deal of the care we provide, for the cemetery, is for the sake of visitors, making the cemetery looking peaceful and cared-for.

I have a photo of how the ground looked around where the tree crashed when we sawed it down.  It was very disorderly.

Cemetery after treefall

My responsibility at the cemetery is chiefly to be a helping hand to my father, Peter.  I also handle the Facebook page for the cemetery, a portal through which we are available.

I took both snapshots and video of the ramifications of lighting that tree in flame and bringing it down.  When Michelle today was asking interested bloggers to reflect on the idea of hands, I thought to point out again that I’m a helping hand to my father, who is in his seventies and getting eccentric but still dedicated to operating the cemetery.

I hope you like the photo, and that you are staying safe during COVID-19.

WordPress Discover: Dish

To help out bloggers, Ben Huberman at WordPress has reopened the Discover challenges.  Each day, for April 2020, a Discover challenge is going up first thing in the morning.  Today’s challenge is the subject “dish.”

Funny, I think of “dishing it,” giving dirt.

What Huberman means is food.  In high school, I took Tuesday noon hours at my grandparents’ house, that is, the house of my mother’s parents.  Each Tuesday I went for a grilled cheese sandwich, a glass of chocolate milk, and a candy bar.

My grandmother and I would sit at her kitchen table, with the company of the dog, a black Schnauzer named Ebony, and my grandfather emerging from the rec room in the basement to grab his lunch and take it back down, to where he could watch TV.  A charmed life.

Photographer:
Suzy Hazelwood

It’s a powerful memory because a meal like that, though simple, got me out of the high school mindset, and into a family role.  Other days of the week, I’d sit in the cafeteria to eat, and then make my way into the school library, perhaps, or to one of the classrooms.

My grandmother enjoyed seeing me.  She felt I was brilliant.  My grandparents were getting on in years, so evenings for them meant watching television themselves.

I think we sometimes talked about the kind of thing we were watching.  I didn’t mind.  I liked the dog.

It was energetic and friendly and enjoyed the scraps.  Maybe more time inside the high school would have been better, and maybe less time, too.  

The time went fast, as time often seems to.  I personally think I was terrible, nurturing the wrong interests and similarly foolish pursuits.

If I could relive those years, I’d do things differently.  Hindsight is 20/20.

I visited my grandmother every week, for years to come.  Even in her senior years, she was a lively old lady about who people cared.

I am glad I didn’t do worse in life, denigrating the family line.  She bid me not to worry.

When asked to address a “dish,” my grandma’s grilled cheese plate is what I remember.  I was glad for it every week.

WordPress Discover: Song

For April 2020, owing to the health crisis, Ben Huberman at WordPress has reopened the WordPress Discover challenges, to help out bloggers who like to blog about the same thing as other interested bloggers.  Today’s theme is “song,” and I thought of one particular piece of music that had me silly when I was a child.

Photographer:
Suzy Hazelwood

I have the good fortune that my parents are passingly interested in film, and it was actually cool that they showed me many films when I was a child.  In the nineteen-eighties, home video was a goliath, and movies went from the cinema to the home in a matter of no time.  Although I think my parents had more of a problem with me as the years went by, during my teen years, while I was a young adolescent, they kind of gave me the “PG” treatment by watching Hollywood fare with me, as they’d done for years.

I remember particularly the sort of inappropriate film fare of rock star Hollywood director Tim Burton that my parents seemed to understand, in their way, that was cool for film viewers.  The scene in Tim Burton’s 1988 comedy Beetlejuice, when Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis haunt the dinner party of the people who have moved into the house where the couple lived while they were alive, got me pretty silly, being only a little guy at the time.  I’ve found it on YouTube.

Thank you to WordPress, and Ben Huberman, for bringing back the Discover challenges.  If you enjoy film comedy, you may well have seen Beetlejuice, and I believe it’s the favourite film of my cousin Caryl.  She’s a few years younger than me, but as for pieces of music that affected me as a child, I would admit that did.

It’s Day-O by Harry Belafonte

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?view=detail&mid=B070AA6EDE658D5B8484B070AA6EDE658D5B8484&shtp=GetUrl&shid=f014ab2f-4243-4015-aa49-aadca0d53018&shtk=QmVldGxlSnVpY2UgKFNvdW5kdHJhY2spIC0gVGhlIEJhbmFuYSBCb2F0IFNvbmcgKERheS1PKSBIRA%3D%3D&shdk=RGF5LW8sIGRheS1vIERheWxpZ2h0IGNvbWUgYW5kIG1lIHdhbicgZ28gaG9tZSBEYXksIG1lIHNheSBkYXksIG1lIHNheSBkYXksIG1lIHNheSBkYXkgTWUgc2F5IGRheSwgbWUgc2F5IGRheS1vIERheWxpZ2h0IGNvbWUgYW5kIG1lIHdhbicgZ28gaG9tZSBXb3JrIGFsbCBuaWdodCBvbiBhIGRyaW5rIG9mIHJ1bSBEYXlsaWdodCBjb21lIGFuZCBtZSB3YW4nIGdvIGhvbWUgU3RhY2sgYmFuYW5hICd0aWwgZGUgbW9ybmluJyBjb21lIERheWxpZ2h0IGNvbWUgYW5kIG1lIHdhbicgZ28gaG9tZSBDb21lLCBtaXN0ZXIgdGFsbHkgbWFuLCB0YWxseSBtZSBiYW5hbmEgRGF5bGlnaHQgY29tZSBhbmQgbWUgd2FuIC4uLg%3D%3D&shhk=LY2WQ35w7pOfwdyhNmHMwAzn4%2FtIvoTBrtPolGZyj%2F8%3D&form=VDSHOT&shth=OSH.fuzdvtzCJWS1sxcj4oDMZw
BeetleJuice (Soundtrack) – The Banana Boat Song (Day-O) HD

WordPress Discover: Open

Great news, I saw this evening, the WordPress Discover challenges are back.  Every day of April 2020, there will be a Discover prompt to help people keep blogging when there is so much consternation about them, and throughout the world.

The Discover prompts invites bloggers to give their handle on the idea of “open,” when something you wish open is in fact closed.  I guess that sounds obvious.

I have a persistent interest in what’s happening behind the scenes at Disney.  I was there once as a kid, in 1991, with my mom and dad and my brother and sister.  As you probably suspect, both Disneyland and Walt Disney World are closed.

I hear Disney talked about on YouTube, and actually, the channel Clownfish TV talks about Disney quite a bit.  I take it the two Clownfish TV hosts are into movies and that kind of thing.

Photographer:
Brandon Mowinkel

Actually, the other day, they reminded their audience that they have taken no interest in watching The Rise of Skywalker.  To me, that’s strange because a general interest in Disney would usually include an interest in Star Wars, but they are just so discouraged at Clownfish TV with the sequel trilogy that they have zero anticipation for at last seeing Episode IX.  They said it didn’t get the greatest reviews, but for me, it’s hard to relate to the idea that they could just never see it and live happily after.

I just like to think about how nice it must be spending a day at one of the Disney parks and that kind of thing.  I don’t believe much that I’ll ever return to Disney World, and perhaps to them at Clownfish that reality might not be a reality, that they could possibly relate to.

I was really surprised by some people afoul of the Star Wars backlash, which I presume will never end.  I thought the worst of the incalcitrant attitude to what happened with the sequel trilogy might fade away, but maybe that won’t be the case.  To be more honest, I imagined that the backlash would rear its head occasionally when new Star Wars stories were put to film and video, but it really is a pervasive phenomenon, I think now.

I am glad for the Discover challenges to have reopened, and I just wanted to say that the businesses I would have most liked to overcome the difficulties posed by the crisis are the Disney theme parks.  It just wasn’t possible, it is clear.  I hope to get in on the Discover challenges some more, while we continue this quarantine.