Ice Friday: You Have Pissed Your Life

Any way you walk

Any way you turn

Any way you stand

Any way you lie

You have pissed your life

From an ineffectual fool

butting his head blindly

against obstacles, become

brilliant–focusing,

performing accurately to

a given end–

Any way you walk

Any way you turn

Any way you stand

Any way you lie

You have pissed your life

William Carlos Wiiliams

Mindful Gong for Leaf Goals

Instead of the damned blaring horn, spotlights and screaming, the Toronto Maple Leafs should focus on the import of the moment. Mindful Gong for Leaf GoalsA single note on a gong followed by the crowd rising in silence, a bow between teams and audience, after which they would resume play. That’s what makes a champion.

Leafs Fandom: Losing the Moment

It was to be magic, the stuff of dreams: a pair of seats ten rows behind the Capitals’ net for Game Seven, perfect for that overtime goal by Matthews, Marner or Nylander. Leafs Fandom: Losing the MomentAnd then not…and I was sent this damnable message: Leafs Fandom: Losing the Moment“Thanks for being a fan”? Fuck you. They’re my seats! Mine. I owned them on this night, just like the Leafs owned…ugh.

Overlooked New York: Liberty Park

Liberty Park has recently been opened atop the parking garage immediately south of the 9/11 Memorial in Downtown Manhattan.It has the same design aesthetic as the Chelsea Highline but is much less crowded, although it is also marred by an excessively almost angrily worded memorial, America’s Response Monument.And so, while the crowds of the 9/11 Memorial may not be here, this statue can give the feeling of impending doom

Ice Friday: Robert Hunter’s “Loser”

All that I am asking for is ten gold dollars
And I could pay you back with one good hand
You can look around about the wide world over
And you’ll never find another honest man. Ice Friday: Robert Hunter's "Loser"Everybody prayin’ and drinkin’ that wine
I can tell the Queen of Diamonds by the way she shines
Come to daddy on the inside straight,
Well I got no chance of losin’ this time

Mount Lafayette to Mount Everest

I’ve climbed a few mountains, including Mounts Baker (10,781) & Rainier (14,411).
And now I want to try out Everest (29.029). Sure, it’s more than twice the height of anything I’ve tried, and that hundreds have died in the attempt, but it’s my kind of thing, a straight-ahead venture of just putting one foot in front of the other. It’s a simple thing. Just go up. Until the air is so thin that I might dream of being something else, maybe even touch the face of the gods. I’ll start with New Hampshire’s Mount Lafayette and take it from there.

Overlooked New York: African Burial Grounds

North of City Hall and the World Trade Center Memorial is a spot much less frequently visited: The African Burial Grounds National Monument. Africans – enslaved and “free” – were buried here, outside the boundaries of what was then called New Amsterdam in 1690-1794. The grounds were rediscovered in 1991 during the planned construction of a Federal office building. It’s as good a place as the 9/11 Memorial – and far fewer people.