If your church is turning away people who show up to your doors in good faith, you don't have a church. You have a very expensive book club with scarcely any wine.

My ND hypervigilant brain immediately tracks into verbal info. If I am writing I can listen to instrumental music, but nothing with words. Same for falling asleep. Unless the words are in a foreign language I don’t know (I know circa 4), then the words are just part of the music and it works.

Happy Partially Muscled Skeleton Day to all who celebrate. Be sure to let all your screams out and then disappear.

I recorded performances of4’33” several times for my old podcast. I get so tired of “what’s yoir favorite song” questions that I regularly answer, 4’33”. 🖖

This past weekend found me in my happy place for the first time in months: days of music, book arts, printing, creativity. Then I got home and have written a new choral piece. I also started in on cleaning and organizing the basement. If this is a new trend, after so much crap, I’ll take it.

My new “Ave Maria” is finished. Lots of fine-tuning of choral effects, divisi, with both thick chords and sparse lines. I want this piece, when it’s sung in a cathedral, to have emotional resonance, to feel transcendent, even sublime. The text is about awe, the music must be as well.

BREAKING: At Pope Leo XIV’s urging, U.S. Catholic bishops just delivered the strongest rebuke of a sitting president in Church history — condemning Trump-Vance raids as “inhumane” and “dehumanizing” in a 216–5 vote.

See, this is entirely the point in all this, it’s the often overlooked point that defines democracy as a way of life: NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

I spent much of today polishing and engraving the “Ave Maria” for TTBB chorus that I sketched last night when I couldn’t sleep. Polishing is about smoothing out details, making the music sound internally coherent, and be properly expressive. #music #musiccomposer #ttbb #choralmusic #avemaría

Yeah, so, last night I couldn’t sleep, so I sketched a complete “Ave Maria” for TTBB chorus. You know. Like you do. It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way. #music #ttbb #choralmusic #musiccomposer #avemaria

That night when you can’t fall asleep, and music starts flowing in your inner ear, so you get out of bed to write it down. Here’s the start of a nascent TTBB “Ave Maria,” then. #music #musiccomposer #avemaría #ttbb

Moon and stars #nightphotography #moon

Aurora borealis photography RIGHT NOW in southern Wisconsin. These are unedited photos on my iPhone using 6x7 camera app. The aurora right now is visible with the naked eye. Bright enough to see red and green without assistance.

Instead of funneling endless amounts of money into our bloated Pentagon budget while thousands of veterans face homelessness and hunger, let’s use those funds to truly take care of our veterans — ensuring every one has a home, food, and access to medical and mental health care.

Starving people is a weapon of control. So, too, is controlling and attacking the media, attacking science and higher ed, and using the military against citizens and innocent people. All weapons of control.

My first gay wedding versus my second. I know which I’d prefer, Kim

Wow, some actual good news for civil rights in the midst of the shitstorm.

Thread. This exactly describes my own perspective.

The most corrupt administration in American history.

Tesla shareholders approved Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package. Meanwhile, millions of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, can't afford to feed their families, and struggle with cuts to the safety net made to finance tax cuts for the super-rich. American capitalism is off the rails.

Hummingbird and Rose at origami class tonight.

lol

"All of these candidates who won last night didn’t shy away from talking about gender equality and LGBTQ rights. They didn’t buy the theory that doing so would alienate young men. And they were right. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Carville." charlotteclymer.substack.com/p/what-young...

Buried in the article: “Over a period of six months, researchers estimate that COVID-19 infections led to 2.24 extra cases of myocarditis or pericarditis per 100,000 children, while vaccinations led to 0.85 extra cases per 100,000.” The scare tactic of the headline is what’s wrong with media today

Listening to Florence and the Machine’s “Everybody Scream” and thinking of Lucille Clifton’s “It was a Dream” Poems are spells, songs are spells, screams are the most primal of spells What should you do about the nightmare we find ourselves in? This This This

Australia has so much electricity from solar power that it is going to start offering free electricity to everyone for at least three hours during the day as the wholesale price of power goes negative electrek.co/2025/11/04/a...

You may not agree, but I think it’s time for Dems from coast to coast to run on Medicare for all. We do NOT need health insurance companies at all. Period. They serve no valuable societal purpose other than to add cost to healthcare and drive people crazy.

The real choice Democrats face is not between a continuing resolution that allows the government to function normally or a government shutdown. Under the Trump regime, the government is not functioning normally. It is already shutting down. Democrats must not legitimize Trump's coup.

This. They are not the same.

Up at dawn for a very productive hour of planning and note-making regarding this coming weekend’s letterpress, printmaking, and book festival in Ann Arbor. And now a bit more sleep.

For children and teens, heart and blood vessel complications of Covid overshadow the very rare and short-term risk of vaccinations, a new report from nearly 14 million kids www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

A democratic sweep was the perfect way to honor Dick Cheney's death. Well done, everyone. See you tomorrow.

“Donald Trump is Dick Cheney’s Legacy” Read: charlotteclymer.substack.com/p/donald-tru...

"Patriotism is loving your country all the time, and your government...when it deserves it." -Mark Twain

If you want to take a master class in how to do literary criticism right, especially poetry criticism, this is the book for you. Few have done it as well. Conrad Aiken: Collected Criticism

Considering it took me four tries, ten years, and three different lawyers before my disability case succeeded, during which time the GOP made it harder each and every time, this news infuriates but in no way surprises me. The GOP just wants disabled people to die.

"The current iteration of the Republican Party is a direct consequence of a political environment that was already in decay because of what Dick Cheney forcefully and intentionally normalized."

You’ve seen the headlines: This battery breakthrough is going to change the electric vehicle forever. And then silence. @wired.com talked to experts about what’s really going on in EV batteries. Which tech is here? Which will be but isn’t yet? What’s not coming? www.wired.com/story/the-ev...

Concept art brilliance on display.

multiple states are declaring food emergencies as the president holds decadent parties with showgirls and builds a golden ballroom

"...but then I remember how many friends of mine are buried in Arlington National Cemetery because they were killed far too young in service to a disastrous and immoral military strategy and some of them never got to marry anyone."

I’ve had a rough 24+ hours. About as bad as it gets. So tonight’s comfort viewing is more of my Redford marathon: The Sting.

suicide road: I can only teach you night vision

"I do not believe this is because Ms. Davis has an enduring faith in God. Her actions reflect a deep insecurity over her own faith and a relentless need to have her religious views validated by everyone around her in order to assuage that insecurity."

Another day lost to PTSD and suicidal ideation. And apologies to be made that don’t make me feel any better about it. If you ever thought that mental health or depression can be fixed by sheer power of will, you’re a fool.

Status report, "Watching MTV 80s": Jeez, remember when you could fit a whole two or three *years* in a single stanza of "We Didn't Start the Fire"...? 😅

This could be a game changer for us, and wildfires 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼