These four words prove that all you need is an opening lick on a whetstone. “Like people or dogs” Four words, that’s it. That is all it takes to sharpen a razor’s edge and shave the ordinary. I will share the entirety of the poem that starts “Like people or dogs”, but to set that up, a brief rambling on how Jesus of Nazareth taught me the value of a poetic whetstone. In the rabbinical tradition that Jesus participated in, a teacher would speak the opening lines of a Psalm and his students would recite the rest from memory. A teacher’s spoken cue to a lesson …
Author: Swanson
Charlie Chaplin in the Gears of Modern Times
Charlie Chaplin captured the flag of my attention as a boy. His Little Tramp persona is what did me in–the duck walk, bowler hat, narrow mustache, and cane. A bunch of daffy shticks that accented the physicality of his cerebral comedy. So winsome were his antics, I pinned a poster of Mr. Chaplin to my bedroom wall (an oddball move, I admit). When I showed my daughter a clip from Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936) last week she fell into a flurry of giggle fits. It was the iconic scene when Chaplin is working on the factory line. In the clip he is frantically …
Scott Ballew on Talking to Mountains & the Sublimity of Sad Songs
“Scott’s songs are stories that go rolling through your head like little movies. You watch them inside yourself as much as you hear them. And you carry away something of value you didn’t have before. As far as I’m concerned that’s exactly what a good song should do. That and tell the truth. Scott’s songs do all of this.” — Terry Allen Scott Ballew on Talking to Mountains & the Sublimity of Sad Songs Scott Ballew is songwriter from Austin, Texas. He earns his keep as the Head of Films and Commercials at YETI, producing and directing films that inspire …