A Bloy and his Blog

2005 is almost over which means it’s time for my best music of the year list.

Death Cab for Cutie – Plans
Uplifting lyrics with excellent musical arrangements that almost alternate between jangly, acoustic guitars and melodic piano. An example of the latter, the track “Different Names for the Same Thing” sounds like a John Lennon song, straight off of Imagine. This CD includes my favorite song of the year, “Soul Meets Body,” a beautiful love song whose chorus stays in my brain for days every time I hear it.

I do believe it’s true,
That there are roads left in both of our shoes.
If the silence takes you,
Then I hope it takes me too.

So brown eyes I hold you near,
Cause you’re the only song I want to hear,
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere.

Where soul meets body…

read the rest of: Favorite music of 2005

While at work today, in the middle of a snow storm, my co-workers and I discovered two Northern Harriers (also known as Marsh Hawks) perched on a birch tree in front of the library.

read the rest of: Edgewood marsh hawks

Today on the public radio show, To the Best of Our Knowledge, they asked the question, “What do you regret in your life?”

After I graduated from high school, I stayed in my parents’ home and attended college at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. I had considered attending the University in Madison, but decided against it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back I think chose that path because it was the “safe” thing to do. I may have been a little scared of moving away from home. Sometimes I think I made the wrong decision and should have gone to school in Madison. By doing so I believe I would have gained a level of maturity sooner and would have broadened my horizons a little more than I did by staying in Milwaukee.

read the rest of: The path not taken

When I woke up this morning the temperature in Madison was -5 degrees (F), the coldest so far this season. After I noticed the sunlight beautifully illuminating the frost on my bedroom window I couldn’t resist getting out my camera.

I’ve been seriously neglecting my blog. To make it up to my loyal readers, here are a few interesting links courtesy of the Librarians’ Internet Index. Subtitled, “Information you can trust” , LII is a search engine featuring websites that are hand selected by librarians. Those wacky librarians, always doling out information…

• Darwin: American Museum of Natural History: It’s interesting to note that Darwin himself believed in creationism — until he visited the Galapagos Islands.
• How to take better holiday photos
• An American Christmas: Decade by Decade: Speaking of holidays, how did they celebrate Christmas back in the day?

read the rest of: Links from the Librarians’ Index

A while ago I discovered pages in the albums I keep my concert ticket stubs in were turning yellow. Yes, I am a music geek — I save my concert ticket stubs. Acid-free, archival-quality albums were the fix for the problem, so I bought a few. As I was transferring the tickets into the new albums, I was reminded of all those excellent shows I’ve been to. Below are some thoughts on the best:

Sting – July 10, 1988
I’ve seen Sting in concert several times now, but he never tops this show. Probably for a number of reasons: He was promoting his best album, …Nothing Like The Sun, he had an excellent backing band, and my friends and I had great seats (6th row in a 20,000 seat amphitheater). Favorite song from the show: “Englishman In New York.”

read the rest of: Concert memories

Two paintings by my sister, Barbra Bloy, are now showing in an online exhibition called “Mandalas: Maps of Consciousness Order” at the Caladan Gallery.

For those of you unfamiliar with mandalas (and since the librarian in me is compelled to look things up), the Columbia Encyclopedia offers the following definition:

read the rest of: Mandalas by Barbra