tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-122662702024-03-07T22:17:30.600-05:00bblyblogBill Bly's weblogbblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-56640710742832835962011-09-26T12:15:00.001-04:002011-09-26T12:15:41.699-04:00Mark Bernstein points to a Genreville post, Authors Say Agents Try to “Straighten” Gay Characters in YA, which asks us to link to it in order to raise awareness of the problem.
Really, people. Let's build a better world.bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-62378655985663333072011-09-19T21:03:00.000-04:002011-09-19T21:17:48.930-04:00Right shoulder blues
This is an X-ray of my right shoulder, imaged today in preparation for the MRI-arthrogram that followed, when they shoved me into the magnetic oven for forty minutes to watch the dye (that black streak in the center) seep into the socket to see if any of it leaked out.
Another Humpty-Dumpty piece we're trying to put back together again after my tumble just before Memorial Day. Once the Lyme bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-27141409116898412992011-08-28T20:28:00.001-04:002011-08-28T20:37:58.069-04:00About to burst into songHere's the original pose that all the rest of the pix to follow are based on. This is what I looked like just a little over three years ago, on the 4th of July 2008, a true Independence Day: I'd just got home from my LAST day of working at the Apple Store in King of Prussia PA, some 62 miles and a world of hurt away from my safe & sane little apartment in Bethlehem. Don't know what I was thinkingbblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-40953784091729303212011-08-27T23:01:00.002-04:002011-09-20T19:36:26.829-04:00Face-healing
Here's what I look like today, more or less.
It's the last weekend before Labor Day, the end of the summer, the eve of the Advent here on the US east coast, of Hurricane Irene, a lovely name which comes from the Greek word "eiréne," which means "time of peace." We'll see how that works out.
You may observe the scar on my forehead. Looking closely, you'll notice that it's shaped like the bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-28327042934988935292011-07-04T12:46:00.001-04:002011-07-04T12:48:49.503-04:00O no! He's crushing my head! Aaaahhh!In a couple weeks it will be my son Billy's 33rd birthday -- you know, the one that, if you get past it without being crucified by the Roman Army, will demonstrate pretty conclusively that you're not the Savior of the World.
Billy (William James Bly IV) lives at The Center for Discovery in Harris, NY, just past Monticello on the Quickway, US 17, the future I-86, that runs across New York roughlybblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-11186859830164527952011-06-22T07:52:00.002-04:002011-06-24T07:53:54.618-04:00Update on the tumble...Update 22 June 2011. Things aren't going so peachy as they were upon my triumphant discharge from hospital. Increased pain in both arms, some chills & fever, a little swelling in the ankles. Thankfully, my summer class was canceled, so I can sit home and plot my recovery, harrying my medicos tirelessly from phone and computer, but also conferring regularly with dearest friends and family, which bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-73223762603375885452011-06-02T07:24:00.002-04:002011-06-24T07:28:37.053-04:00BBly takes a tumble[The "press release" sent to well-wishers on 02 June]
Dear Ones,
First, I want to thank all of you for your kind messages of concern, encouragement, and support -- they mean the world to me.
Second, I'm on the mend, out of the hospital, back in the apartment in Bethlehem, which has been rigged as needed to help me get my legs back under me. No big deal on that score, really.
Third, I want tobblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-82596888870034354522011-01-01T15:52:00.007-05:002011-11-25T09:05:05.898-05:00Thanksgiving debrief, 2010Time: ~0800, the morning after Thanksgiving 2010Place: The kitchen, Sergeantsville NJ
Members present (in order of appearance): BBly, Deborah S., Peter, Molly, Margaret aka "Banjo Meg", John W., Claire, DGBly.
MINUTES
Evelyn Evelyn = Cynthia's new book, out in March 2011, Text by musicians about conjoined twins, touring the world...
A Failure of Imagination. [notes for a rant]
Thanksgiving bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-26893221902471050832010-01-14T14:49:00.004-05:002010-01-14T20:57:02.248-05:00JacksI don't remember who started it, but it was finals week in fifth grade, in Mrs. Stitzer's basement classroom in the oldest part of the school, and somehow, after an easy exam that many finished quickly, some boys joined the girls playing jacks on a space of floor cleared by pushing aside empty desks. Naturally we lost to girls our own age, but it was fun picking the small sharp metal stars — so bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-50184202089632231752009-12-08T18:50:00.004-05:002011-11-25T09:01:55.515-05:00Minutes of the meeting, Thanksgiving 2009Time: ~0800, the morning after Thanksgiving 2009
Place: The kitchen, Sergeantsville NJ
Members present (in order of appearance): Peter, BBly, Deborah S., John, Claire, DGBly, Molly.
MINUTES
Old Spellman family joke:
What are we this year — Polish or Russian?
Polish.
O thank God, I *hate* those long Russian winters!
— Peter SpellmanDeadly Medicine, Series at the US Holocaust Museum in Washington —bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-68329965078921110332009-09-08T08:48:00.002-04:002009-12-08T19:27:23.593-05:00Something to land onI thump the spider on the outside of my sliding screen from the inside with my figernail, worried about finding her there, worried she'll get in. But, whereas an insect or slug would either fly away or fall, she just pops right back to the exact same spot as if held there by a strong rubber band, which, functionally speaking, she is, and grapples more deeply into the seam where the screen tucks bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-60458752106790915022009-08-29T08:08:00.000-04:002009-08-29T08:08:00.456-04:00The fawnOut of the background of joggers, speed walkers, strollers, the saunterers with their leash-straining pets, she gallops straight at me down the middle of the street, so tall she can't be a dog, but too small for a horse, stick legs drumming, black toes clicking on the asphalt, just after I've pulled around the corner, before I've picked up any speed; I jerk my foot off the gas but can't find the bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-81241199728904614372009-03-24T09:51:00.005-04:002009-04-21T10:49:28.010-04:00Morning bellsAda Lovelace DayIt could be a thousand years ago. Maybe not. When the bell? When the Roman Empire fell, the church used a bellfor a hell of devious scheme:To summon their flock, they invented the clockthey made time with their new machine...The mass bell at SS Simon & Jude cleanses the air of noise, driving city groan all the way to the horizon, each peal a stroke of the wet sponge down the bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-63681328312677787242009-03-07T14:40:00.002-05:002009-04-24T08:45:20.989-04:00Fifteen albums in 15 minutes (with bonuses!)My friend John McDaid tagged me with this challenge, which really underestimates the amount of time needed for completing it. And when I finished, I realized I'd left a couple out!ShareSaturday 07 March 2009 2:40 PMThink of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. Thesebblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-14699517523099889052009-01-28T10:10:00.011-05:002009-02-07T09:44:54.820-05:00Voices in the LineWhen the telephone first came to our upcountry farm in Kula,there was only one wire. The numbers were a digit different,but it was the same line. When anybody's rang, ours rangin the kitchen, and so rang the receivers in every other house.No matter what somebody said, anybody could be listening,and everybody knew it, so nobody ever said anything importantor personal on the phone. Phones were bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-82511103767300394932009-01-24T10:45:00.008-05:002009-01-29T09:00:32.119-05:00Flashback ITo the tune of "We're Havin' a Heat Wave..."I'm havin' a flashback,A terrible flashback...Yesterday, believe it or not, I went Christmas shopping for my wife. Over the past few years, we've been having a serious motivation problem with The Holidaze — the decorating, the doing the shopping, the wrapping the presents, the getting everything shipped in time, then the scheduling the visits, the bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-1790129454401118912009-01-23T10:11:00.007-05:002009-01-29T09:02:02.521-05:00SamizdatMy first and favorite experience in samizdat was The Pick-Pocket's Packet, published by the W.P.A.O.P.P. (Western Pennsylvania Association of Organized Pick-Pockets), Rich Kenny, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief.It was eighth grade, that liminal year which in other municipalities would have been the last year of grammar school, but in those days, in our proto-burb just outside the orbit of metro bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-40158843237605789452009-01-14T07:41:00.001-05:002009-04-23T07:45:01.450-04:00blue knit gloves on the window sill...I want to say to the father at the bus stop every morning fall winter spring with his now two crazy boys yelling running stomping staggering nonstop right up the bus steps when it finally comes that there is a pair of boy-sized blue knit gloves lying on the window sill next to the door of the house on the corner where they wait that must well might belong to one of his sons who probably lost thembblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-79556764534024011942009-01-10T09:51:00.002-05:002009-04-18T10:28:48.802-04:00Snow falls in the rising light...... bringing it back down from the opaque dome just beyond the trees' reach, dropping it on them, the sidewalk, the tops of cars patient as cows lined up to wait out the first storm of the year. The squirrel is pissed, but the crows flap on, kidding & laughing, towards their sunrise staff meeting in the oaks around the old folks' home, where they'll decide, among other things, what to do about bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-37284346555674000302008-12-15T23:49:00.008-05:002008-12-16T00:04:11.041-05:00Dispersit superbos mente cordis suiThis past weekend the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, of which I am a whisky tenor, performed the Vivaldi Gloria and Bach's Magnificat (the one in D). Both are magnificent, dancing works to sing, and I love the Magnificat especially, it being the first major work of his that I performed in my half century of choristing. The tenor aria in that work, "Deposuit," is one of the most exciting, bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-4629808984534124702008-09-08T08:48:00.001-04:002009-04-23T08:50:46.415-04:00Something to land onI thump the spider on the outside of my sliding screen from the inside with my figernail, worried about finding her there, worried she'll get in. But, whereas an insect or slug would either fly away or fall, she just pops right back to the exact same spot as if held there by a strong rubber band, which, functionally speaking, she is, and grapples more deeply into the seam where the screen tucks bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-33832300824046142842008-08-29T08:08:00.000-04:002009-04-23T08:10:59.836-04:00The fawnOut of the background of joggers, speed walkers, strollers, the saunterers with their leash-straining pets, she gallops straight at me down the middle of the street, so tall she can't be a dog, but too small for a horse, stick legs drumming, black toes clicking on the asphalt, just after I've pulled around the corner, before I've picked up any speed; I jerk my foot off the gas but can't find the bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-48950196600249665602008-08-24T07:56:00.000-04:002009-04-23T07:58:28.954-04:00The sun slipsThe sun slips, demure yet sure, out from hiding behind the maple that overhangs the playground where the workmen pound & shout. Behind me, upon an aural bed of late August crickets, a single locust echoes: sliding in, then blazing. bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-60904658178529908812008-02-25T13:42:00.006-05:002008-02-26T05:32:14.801-05:00Eli3Today is the birthday of my grandson, Elijah Bly Arougheti. He's 3.In his honor, I've prepared my first podcast. To play it in your browser (and sing along):Elijah3.mp3For the multimedia version, head on over to:Elijah3 {at} dot-Macbblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12266270.post-32035386786907930622007-10-05T12:50:00.000-04:002007-10-05T12:56:45.138-04:00Australia Project: Will of the CockroachLast week I had the pleasure of seeing some new plays in Manhattan, part of the Australia Project, a production of the Production Company, an Australian-American alliance, which put on eleven new plays over the past three weekends at Chashama 217, on East 42nd St between Third and Second Aves.Stupidly, I'd written the address down as 217 *West* 42nd St, believing that this was the same Chashama bblyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14492475994451557425noreply@blogger.com0