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Why were the Dark Ages called the Dark Ages? It probably wasn’t because of ignorance, for ignorance persists; much more likely, they were dark because of Sudden Isolation.
Sun Will Set Again
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Veins of Grey and Gold
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An afternoon spent in the basement, a morning spent in the Basilica.
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A Wolf and a Wish
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Radio address for Feb 21, 2012, which you will have to listen to for yourself.
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Dirt and Leaf
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After the sudden and early thaw, thoughts turn to yard maintenance which does not necessarily include scouring away every trace of unnatural untidiness.
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The Smell of the Tea in the Rain
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City hall springs to life in a flurry of self-cancelling paperwork, and we listen to the north shore of Lake Superior call us while we brew tea on the porch.
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Bees in the Air
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Trixie and I make plans to fly or drive all over the continent in every direction, and groundwork for the suburban apiary is contemplated.
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The Room You Are In Now
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Radio address for April 14, 2012: A reading from the first two headings of my Red Book, about Existence and Inexistence, the first two stops on a journey of exactly one thousand steps.
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The Good Wrong
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Radio address for April 21, 2012, in which our quiet, straightforward life keeps me humble by being too much to keep up with, and I hope it will always be that way.
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You Do Not Know What a Bird Is
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Radio address for April 28, 2012, dictated verbatim from the spring wind and rain on the North Shore.
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Roots and Genesis
Download MP3 audio – 7:37, 10.93 MB – or Read Transcript
Radio address for May 12, 2012, about our Original Garden, which doesn’t look like very much compared to the way we imagined it. Tie-ins to Mother’s Day are subtle, if even at all extant.
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Deities in Exile
Download MP3 audio – 6:59, 10.06 MB – or Read Transcript
Radio address for June 6, 2012, where Trixie and I long to go on pilgrimages, and in fact do so.
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Red Jacket, Silver Curtain
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Radio address for June 23rd, 2012, inspired by our recent visit to family in Niagara Falls.
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Once Around the Lake
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Radio address for July 7, 2012, about a reunion in the Northwoods with some men I haven’t seen in a long time.
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Cave Swept Clean
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Radio address for July 22, 2012. The garage having remained a dusty shrine to the long construction project, we conceived of the idea of hosting a garage sale in the hottest weather of the year as a way of cleaning it out.
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The Sound of Music
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Radio address for August 4, 2012, about an outdoor concert at the Lake Harriet bandshell, and the planes flying overhead.
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Perch
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Radio address for August 19, 2012: a short memory of a long discussion last May, and my search for a new secret bunker.
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The Giant Farm
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Rustling Squirrels
Download MP3 audio – 9:46, 13.78 MB – or Read Transcript
Radio address for October 20, 2012, in which I try to describe what inspiration sounds like.
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Maple Talk
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Radio address for October 27, 2012: the weather gets colder, and we celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving.↧
Roundy Wells
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Radio address for Nov. 3, 2012. I contemplate going to college late in life.↧
The College
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Radio address for November 11, 2012. I elaborate upon my ideal of a college and the search for a lifestyle of literacy.
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Snap
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Radio address for Nov. 24, 2012. Every year at about this time I remember the winters I’m glad I’ve left far behind.
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Good Fortune
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Radio address for December 3rd, 2012. I went for a walk in the woods by the cabin on a moonlit night.↧
Running Thick
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Radio address for Saturday, December 15, 2012. There are few things that can persuade us to go for a run in the cold, but they invariably find us out sooner or later.↧
Scoop and Gallon
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Radio address for Jan 5th, 2013. The new year marks the end of Swaledale’s trials, and finds us with more tea than we know what to do with.
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Small Place
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Radio address for Feb 23, 2013. Winter gets repetitive; it is a prison, a cave, a cocoon.
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One Mile
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Radio address for Saturday, Mar 2, 2013. I discuss the possibilities and limitations inherent in becoming, and trying to remain, a landed proprietor. What's it like to suddenly be the grown-up, welcoming guests into your home?↧
Fireside Banter
Download MP3 audio – 44:46, 20.99 MB
Well, we really coloured outside our usual lines with this one! Trixie and I sat down by the fire to discuss our podcast and the survey results – the only time we’ve done so in five years of podcasting.
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Airbrush
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Radio address for Saturday, March 16, 2013. We all spread out a little bit more with the passing of time and the coming of extra daylight.↧
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Moving Stations
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Radio address for March 23, 2013. Running to work in the morning with a heavy bag on your shoulder, and stopping by the train station.
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Quarters
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Radio address for April 6, 2013. We contemplate the value of stolen and saved moments doing what you love in between work and sleep.
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The Working Ghost
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Radio address for April 13, 2013. A report on the weather: of the neighborhood, of the mind.
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Without Words
Download MP3 audio – 13:06, 12.36 MB
Radio address for May 4, 2013. What it feels like not to have words for things, or to suddenly acquire them.
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Recall
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Radio address for May 27, 2013. Getting ink everywhere but on the page, and coming back to life after being submerged in activity.↧
Manning the Pumps
Download MP3 audio – 8:59, 8.59 MB
Radio address for June 1, 2013. A venture down to the lowest place in the house, floods and sinking houses.
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Numbers
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Radio address for June 15, 2013. Numbers and words are my yin and yang, my law and grace. I’m trying to explore the parallel between numbers and incessant rain, and why is it that we even need them?
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What Happened
Download MP3 audio – 9:42, 9.24 MB – or Read Transcript
Radio address for September 14, 2013. This episode draws from and adds a bit of dimension to Habemus Papoose, in which I briefly described our daughter’s birth at 65 MPH.↧
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The Field and the Fortress
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Radio address for September 22, 2013. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who, at some point in their adult life, have had their world view and their thinking radically changed, and those who haven’t.
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Shifting Schools
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Radio address for October 12, 2013, which finds me getting ready for a long drive, thinking about the radio and those static voices in the darkness, and where they might be found once radio is really dead.↧
The Way Back
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Radio address for November 30, 2013, a short trip through music, the kitchen, and the woods.↧
The Infinite Aleph
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Radio address for December 7, 2013: a glimpse into everything, everywhere, all at once.
Mention is made of the living, breathing digital experience The Aleph: Infinite Wonder / Infinite Pity created by David Hirmes, and the short story on which it is based. There is also a reading of 0016. Similarity from my in-progress ebook, Noise of Creation, which I promise is still in-progress.
The musical dimension for this episode is by Z.D. Smith, who I met through his ideas and writings on Thoughtstreams.io. You can listen and download the music at his website, http://zdsmith.com.
Bill Watterson drew this strip about what it’s like to suddenly see both sides of an argument.
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The Second Ring
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Radio address for December 14, 2013. We tend to place a bit of our power into things: trees, books, jewels, bullets and hats. Lose one of these talismans, and you are put to a world of trouble to get it back again.
I never really thought I’d write about the experience of losing my wedding ring, but the time seems to have come when I can talk about it reasonably. Not long after it happened, encouraged by stories such as this one, I tried posting on some treasure hunting boards, and a couple of people said they’d look but ultimately I never heard back.
The second loss (not talked about in the audio): As mentioned at the tail end of the episode, there was another time when I actually lost my second ring too: it went missing for a few months. One day my mom shows up at my door with the ring: it had been found under their piano, looking like this:
The jeweler was able to restore it to its original condition, and in the process reduce it by a half size, making it a little less likely that I’ll ever have to live through this again.
This address’s extremely appropriate and well-placed music cues are:
- The Blue World from Lady in the Water by James Newton Howard
- Wow, from Finding Nemo, by Thomas Neumann
- Treasure, from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by Alberto Inglesias — “…those wanings of power, which are the inevitable result of old age…”
- …blended seamlessly into One Ring to Rule Them All, from Fellowship Of The Ring, by Howard Shore
- and ending with The Grey Havens, also by Howard Shore, from The Return of the King
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Schrödinger's Cat
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Radio address for December 21, 2013, about the affinity I feel for a cat at work that is, for the time being, both alive and dead.
Very prominent mention is made of “Schrödinger’s Cat” — read all the details on Wikipedia, for starters. It seems likely that quantum mechanics is right about small systems existing simultaneously as a superposition of two states correct even though in reality the cat would actually be dead or alive long before you opened the box (hint: the Geiger counter is itself an observer).
There is also the obvious problem that the cat would make an ungodly racket.
An artistic interpretation of the impossibility of Schrödinger’s Cat. By Jie Qi (CC license).
Read more about the many appearances of Schrödinger’s Cat in popular culture
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Not a Radio Address
Download MP3 audio – 4:04, 5.01 MB – or Read Transcript
There is no radio address this week, or the first weekend in 2014, due to the holidays. In lieu of a creative monologue, I’m here to deliver a short meta-report — something I do not more than once per year — and an announcement, or perhaps a quasi-announcement…really just more like a simple, cryptic heads-up.
Creatively speaking, Howell Creek Radio will be going in a bit of a new direction in 2014. I’ve already left several clues, and I’ll leave it to you to figure it out as it happens.
Mention is made of a blog post with technical notes about recent updates to the podcast: stay tuned, it’ll be up within the next day or two.
If you have headphones on, you can clearly hear the atmospheric background music “Leviathan” by Z. D. Smith. It’s currently my favourite audio for thinking, tinkering, and producing: an ethereal yet crunchy digital mystery; the lightless, calming cacophony of the ocean floor and the relentless machinations of an artificial intelligence. You should really get your own copy at http://zdsmith.com — it’s name-your-own-price, and the rest of the tracks are free. I’m not getting anything for this, in fact he doesn’t even know I’m doing this, and I just hope he doesn’t mind.
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Low Power
Download MP3 audio – 8:55, 10.56 MB – or Read Transcript
Radio address for January 11, 2013: Weather and shipping news, visitors to Howell Creek from Vancouver, and the blue light gleaming from the icy deck of the Baie Comeau.
Mention is made of the recent cold snap in Minnesota, beatific vision, and virtue ethics.
View more shipping information and photos at Duluth Shipping News. Closing music is Stubborn Love by The Lumineers.
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Out of Sequence
Download MP3 audio – 11:23, 13.39 MB – or Read Transcript
Radio address for January 24, 2014.
Mention is made of the book The Discarded Image and (towards the very end) of “Unix philosophy”. Music is by Trentemøller.
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Tracks
Download MP3 audio – 12:46, 17.88 MB – or Read Transcript
Radio broadcast for February 22, 2014. A narrative of the first two legs of the trip I took in response to the signal seen on the Baie Comeau in January: a midnight snowshoe hike in the woods, and boiler-stoking our way over Heston Grade in the train.
The closing music is The Ghost of O’Donahue by Johnny Flynn.
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Wayfinding
Download MP3 audio – 7:54, 11.21 MB
Radio address for April 12, 2014. What it means to do low-focus podcasting in a high-focus world, and how to keep it going that way.
I mention my recent haphazard writing on mystic experience and religious conversion. The extended quote in the middle is from Shunryu Suzuki’s book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.
The ending music is On My Way by The Melodic. (There’s also the album version, but it doesn’t have nearly enough kick compared to their live performances.)
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Neighbors
Download MP3 audio – 5:14, 7.54 MB
Radio address for April 19, 2014. The gap between the ideal and the actual social fabric in my suburban neighborhood.
As I mention at the end, there’s a Part Two to these thoughts that will be coming in the next address.
Mention is made of communal ovens: here’s how it worked out in Dufferin Grove Park in Toronto, and there’s also one in Pittsburgh. A couple of Australian women blogged about the idea, and their commenters found all kinds of potential problems with it.
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The Grid Life
Download MP3 audio – 7:13, 10.27 MB – or Read Transcript
Radio address for May 3, 2014, a continuation of the previous episode. There are lots of reasons not to like cookie-cutter suburban developments, but: there may be an upside.
Mention is made of A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Egnle and The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis, and also (somewhat obliquely) of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John Le Carre.
Closing music is An Old Peasant Like Me from the Prince Avalanche soundtrack.
From Ciphers, a book of suburban photography. Photo by Christoph Gielen.
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