My two favorite musical artist are Nanci Griffith and Suzanne Vega (yes, I'm a little bit country and a little bit urban folk). When my wife told me a few days ago that Nanci had died, I didn't have to ask "Nanci who?"  I wasn't surprised by her death. She had stopped performing years ago and I had heard rumors suggesting that she was in rough shape for a while now. Still, the news hit me hard. Prince's death, the only thing I can compare, was shocking because it was so sudden and unexpected. Both Nanci and Prince meant a lot to me during some of the formative years of my life, but Prince's death felt like something that effected everyone because he was so famous and so widely revered. Nanci, though she surely has many, many fans, always felt like she belonged to me more--not just because she wasn't quite as famous, but mainly because her songs themselves have such an intimacy to them. She can take you to places that feel so private, and you can relate...

  Link to article in Popular Culture Review

Link to Revue LISA  

Presented at the Slayage Conference 2004 Personal relationships carry great importance to the Scoobies for their very survival in the chaotic world of the Buffyverse. The Scoobies essentially exist in a psychotic realm where they must survive in an unstable, ever-shifting reality. In this realm, they rely primarily on each other for self-verification. In “Once More, With Feeling,” we witness the breaking down of these essential relationships between characters. Love fails to support and sustain identity on every level. We see the failure of the parental relationship, the failure of friendship, and the failure of erotic love in Tara and Willow, Xander and Anya, and Buffy and Spike. Here, for practical purposes, I will focus on the erotic relationships and the conflicting operations of eros and thanatos within them, particularly in terms of identity. Love is essential to the Scoobies, but the love that maintains them also threatens their identities. They deal with this painful paradox th...

Dec. 3, 2001 Dear Father,  I’m writing to tell you that I am dropping out of BYU. I know it is only the first semester of my freshman year, and I’m sure you think that I haven’t given it much of a chance, but things are not going well for me here. I guess I’m partially to blame. Since my arrival here, I’ve done nothing but try to stir up trouble. First it was that whole thing where I was trying to get the Mormon community to gather an army for a modern day crusade of the holy land—I mean, shouldn’t Christians value that land more than the Jews or Muslims. I thought so, but the bishops here kept saying that America was God’s chosen land. Anyway, as bad as things were, they have become unbearable for me these past few weeks ever since I started openly sympathizing with Osama Bin Laden and his al Queda terrorist network. Well, there you have it; I didn’t know how to break that to you but I’ll try to explain. I know it was just this past October that I was writing to tell you about how...

First, I love the (Dixie) Chicks and would have been happy with a mediocre new album after 14 years. At one point they were considering an album of Patty Griffin covers, which I would've been fine with. I'm tempted to say that I'd love anything with Natalie Maines singing on it, but somehow her solo album from a few years ago just didn't work. But the Chicks have been in my life for a long time. I vividly recall driving across the country by myself from Northern Virginia to New Mexico to attend grad school and playing Wide Open Spaces. It was the perfect song and album for that moment in my life. I remember listening to Fly in our tiny Albuquerque apartment after I got married. They came out with Home, their most traditional country album, when I was back in Virginia, but living down in the country this time. When I was at Kent State getting my PhD and becoming politically engaged for the first time in my life, I took the Bush comment controversy to heart. Of course the...

A work in progress, and, of course, this changes depending on the day, but my totally subjective favorite bands/musicians more-or-less in order: Suzanne Vega Nanci Griffith Prince Bob Dylan  Emmylou Harris Lucinda Williams Billie Holiday Cowboy Junkies Kacey Musgraves (Dixie) Chicks  First Aid Kit The Ramones Wu Tang Clan The Beatles  Concrete Blonde  Tift Merritt B52s   EPMD Neil Young Sade Beastie Boys Led Zeppelin  Public Enemy Pistol Annies/Miranda Lambert  Iron Maiden Velvet Underground Pink  Judas Priest Dwight Yoakam  Tribe Called Quest  Ozzy/Black Sabbath Loretta Lynn  Run DMC   Roxy Music Indigo Girls Depeche Mode Bob Marley Tom Waits  Sonic Youth Marvin Gaye Talking Heads Frank Zappa  Grateful Dead  The Cure King Diamond  Slayer The Cars The Roots Kanye West  Lily Allen  Jason Isbell Van Morrison White Stripes  Patti Griffin  Iris Dement  Black Star/Mos Def  Pink Floyd...

 Horizon Zero Dawn Breath of the Wild Ghost of Tsushima  Spiderman Donkey Kong Bananza Ratchet and Clank Horizon Forbidden West Last of Us Uncharted 4 Assassins Creed: Odyssey  Witcher 3 Miles Morales Uncharted: Last Legacy Immortals Fenyx Rising Tomb Raider (2013) Tears of the Kingdom Bayonetta 3 Bioshock Infinite Kena: Bridge of Spirits Monkey King: Hero is Back  Knack 2 Mario Karts Wii Uncharted 2 Biomutant  Life is Strange Brothers Knack Borderlands 2 Uncharted  Super Mario Galaxy 

Covid to the right of them,  Covid to the left of them, Covid in front of them  Coughing and sneezing;  “Forward the faculty!” Boldly they taught and well, But Admin had blundered.  Students not to make reply,  Teachers not to reason why,  Theirs but to get sick and (hopefully not) die.  Honour the noble faculty, Honour the charge they made!  --Tennyson  

The Metal Flower containing an excerpt from William Wordsworth's poem "Daffodils" can be found on a mesa just east of Meridian. Aloy has to cross a tightrope to get to it and will have to fight off a group of Glinthawks. As with all of the Metal Flowers, the poem contained in the Mark III I flower does not appear to have any specific relation to the surrounding landscape in which it is found. As is the standard, it is surrounded by a triangle of purple flowers, not daffodils--a missed opportunity by the game designers if you ask me. According to my correspondence with Guerrilla Games, the poems contained in the Metal Flowers were all selected by Ben McCaw, the Lead Writer of HZD. The most obvious unifying theme of these poems is, of course, nature, which makes sense in a game that deals with ecological subject matter and contains an elaborate and beautiful depiction of natural landscapes. Of all of the nature poems McCaw included throughout the game, "Daffodils...