Get well Peter.

New nominee for greatest song ever:

"Long Black Limousine," Elvis Presley

Impromptu Top Twenty Five Greatest Country Recordings:



1) Tanya Tucker, "Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stones)"
2) Merle Haggard, "I Am a Lonesome Fugitive"
3) Glen Campbell, "Wichita Lineman"
4) George Strait, "Amarillo by Morning"
5) Dolly Parton, "Jolene"
6) Statler Brothers, "I'll Go To My Grave Loving You"
7) Don Williams, "Good Ole Boys Like Me"
8) Hank Williams, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"
9) Clint Black, "Nothing's News"
10) Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard, "Pancho & Lefty"
11) Tanya Tucker, "Delta Dawn"
12) Willie Nelson, "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys"
13) Alan Jackson, "Someday"
14) Wynonna, "She Is His Only Need"
15) Randy Travis, "On the Other Hand"
16) Keith Whitley, "When You Say Nothing At All"
17) George Jones, "Good Year for the Roses"
18) Dwight Yoakam, "I Sang Dixie"
19) Merle Haggard, "If We Make It Through December"
20) Loretta Lynn, "The Pill"
21) Ronnie Milsap, "Smoky Mountain Rain"
22) Hank Williams, "Kaw-Li-Ga"
23) The Judds, "Grandpa"
24) George Jones, "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes"
25) George Strait, "The Chair"

tony tost . riley white
will manning . matt reese





Classic two-sided PUBCRAWL flyer -- circulated the same week of Robert Olen Butler's visit to Arkansas, the pubcrawl flyer was the spitting image of the flyer for his reading. Sean Chapman, Mark Cherry and I were the authors, I believe. Mark did the illustrations (muffin on a fork, family circus), I did the design and most of the copy for the Robert Olen, Sean came up with the best line (He vants to drink your beer), and I think all three of us conceptualized it. Was glad to have salvaged a copy of the flyer, considering that Matt Henriksen threw away an entire wall's worth of pub crawl and party flyers on like his first day in the program.




Halloween outfit, Bruce Wilson, Racquetballer for Christ. Zach Schomburg went as a washed-up racquetballer in my C of O days, and I copied that solid outfit and put my own Christian spin (basically just a God's Gym t-shirt and a moustache). If you're wondering, this is a picture of me dancing.

This week, I think the greatest song ever written is "Always On My Mind."

My preferred versions:

1) bootleg My Morning Jacket
2) Willie Nelson
3) Elvis
4) Pet Shop Boys

Leigh's preferred versions:

1) Willie Nelson
2) bootleg My Morning Jacket
3) Pet Shop Boys
4) Elvis


Another nominee for greatest song ever: "The Long Black Veil"

My preferred versions:

1) The Band
2) Lefty Frizzell
3) Chieftains w/ Mick Jagger
4) Johnny Cash (live at Folsom Prison)


Leigh's preferred versions:

1) The Band
2) Johnny Cash
3) Chieftains w/ Mick Jagger
4) Lefty Frizzell


The greatest country song that is waiting to be covered in a more stripped down version: Ronnie Milsap's "Smoky Mountain Rain"

The greatest country song that never gets props as a great country song: "Drift Off to Dream," Travis Tritt

circa '96



circa '93 -- I obviously went through a pretty big transition from the racially biased chunky guy here to the alterna skinny guy of '96 -- it was all about getting out of my hometown and my parents' house, I think



circa '97 - '98 -- my dad's kids John & Michelle from previous marriage -- note the dalmation theme in the background -- a wider shot would also reveal many fire engines



Dave, Emoke, me, Mark -- spring training, probably in '03 -- these are our baseball card poses



me and my dad, circa '81, shortly after moving to Washington state



this is taken in front of my grandparents' place in Ava, MO -- don't know if it's before our move out to WA, or on one of our many trips back to visit -- this might be my favorite picture of my mom, she looks really happy



the Branson Belle serves a meal and puts on dance and song show -- when you go to college in Branson, you've got to go to these places w/ your folks at some point



Leigh and I revealing our inner selves for the camera



famous poet and editor Zachary Schomburg as a young man

First possible inklings of a structure for a possible dissertation, one actually built around my major obsessions and reading interests . . .

The basic structure comes from Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason, specifically his definition of praxis (which takes a similar role as project in earlier works like Being & Nothingness): in the Critique, praxis can be analyzed as an act that can be considered as both/either an ontology and/or a history. In his intro, Jameson gives an example: "the opening of a can of peas stages my whole relationship to being itself at the same time that it inflects the historical modalities of the world of capitalist industrial production . . . 'Praxis' does not impose those two dimension of meaning on an act in advance, but rather opens the act up to an interrogation in terms of both or either one."

I'd apply this sort of structure to the two poets I'm probably most obsessed with, Olson & Duncan, though the notions of ontology & history that I'd prop up for their brand of praxis would differ greatly than the ones presented by Jameson for his act of opening the peas.

My guess is that their ontology/ontologies would be best analyzed in relation to Alfred N. Whitehead's relational views in Process & Reality (with nods to Bergson and God knows who else I haven't read yet: this is a brand new can of peas for me), and their stance/stances towards history would analyzed along the lines present in Joseph Mali's Mythistory: more Herodotus than Thucydides: that being, history including what is said & believed among the data that is empirically investigated and incorporated into its narratives: myth-history operating somewhere between logic and magic.

It makes so much sense to me that it freaks me out a little . . .

The “she is leaving me” trope doesn’t necessarily communicate an exaggerated sense of drama and betrayal in country music or its patrons, or an endemic of unfaithfulness among a particular demographic; rather, it is that the situation of being left and/or betrayed and/or jilted best activates the general philosophical stance of the American white rural working class male and the emotional data that is his birthright: loss, resignation, nostalgia.

Current obsession:



Sinead O'Connor's Gospel Oak.

Also, the Merle Haggard song "I Am a Lonesome Fugitive" and the Tex Ritter song, "High Noon." And the Judee Sill song "The Kiss." And My Morning Jacket's cover of "Always On My Mind." And Richard Buckner's cover of "Loving Her Was Easier."

Also, the first album by Pentangle. Also, obsessed with ignoring emails. That may end fairly soon.