Donne's The Good Morrow

Here's another reading for you, this time John Donne's love poem, "The Good Morrow."

See what you think.

cheers
mjt

My take on Byron's "She Walks In Beauty"

As you know, I've been playing with Audio of late. Here's my take on Lord Byron's "She Walks In Beauty."

Oh, and I've also posted this to the explosive-cargo blog.

Michael Jay Tucker · She Walks In Beauty

Sonnet 29

So my newest toy is a Blue snowball microphone. I'm still getting the hang of recording my own voice, but here's me reading Shakespeare's Sonnet 29. This is on Soundcloud.

You'll hear a few pops and S's in it, but, as I say, I'm just getting the hang of this. Also, if you listen hard enough, you'll hear wind chimes in the background. I was originally going to edit them out, but they sounded so mystical that I left them in.

Anyway, here's the link:

https://soundcloud.com/michael-jay-tucker/sonnet-29


And if you're interested in the text, here's the Bard's original:


Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
       For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
       That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

~


About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Merry (belated) Christmas - 2019

So another GIF. This was our tree this year--a live Norfork Pine which will become a houseplant for us.

I've started a RedBubble Shop

So, I've started a new RedBubble shop. 

If you're not familiar with RedBubble, it is sort of like Fine Art America. That is, you upload your graphics and then the company offers them for sale. They'll print the out as posters or prints or even as images on clothing.

I've had a Fine Art America account, but I never made a dime on it, and, in fact, they charged me for it...so I finally closed it down. RedBubble, at least for the moment, seems to be free.

I guess I still don't expect to make any money off my images. I suspect that you can make a profit selling you art online, but only if you handle the actual production of it ...the printing, the shipping, that sort of thing. And, well, I just don't want to try (again) to run a business.

So why am I bothering? I guess because it gives me some odd sense of justification. I'm not just doing weird things with photoshop and my photographs. I'm making digital art...and offering it the world.

Anyway, the shop is here: 

mjat6677.redbubble.com


 And here are some of the things on offer:

Another recent image. This is "Along The River"

Copyright©2019 Michael Jay Tucker

Thought I would start posting some of my images here. This By The Lake 1.

Copyright©2019 Michael Jay Tucker

To Unify USA...

So for a few years I've been "sort of a volunteer editor" for LiberalResistance.net, a progressive publication that was actually started by Matt Blanchfield--a fascinating character to say the least.

However, recently, Matt had some health problems and had to withdraw from the publication. That's left all the work on me, and I just couldn't manage it. At first I thought I was going to have to shut it down. But, then, the good folks at USAUnify.org, a non-profit "progressive, digital marketing agency," agreed to sort of adopt the site. So, it will go on.

The transfer has proved far more difficult than I'd hoped it would be. We seem to be constantly fighting technical issues. Right now, if you strike on the LR link above, you'll get a rather scary message saying that the site ahead is a "potential security risk." I am told that it isn't. We just need to get our SLL certificate properly installed.

Alas, getting the certificate in place is proving to be sort of like positioning long-underwear on a hot day. There is a lot more tugging, pulling, and stretching than you'd like. And even then, turn the wrong way too fast and ouch.

Wish me luck that everything gets fixed in the near future.

Farewell/Hello

Well, a new blog, and a time of many changes in my life. Last year I became a grandfather. This year I moved to Texas to be near the kids. Positive changes, but no change comes without its unsettling aspects.

*

Saying goodby to Albuquerque (city of my youth) was hard, though not as hard as I thought it would be. There is a lot more to do in Georgetown (my present home, just outside of Austin) than there was in ABQ. By that I mean to do culturally. Here we are very close to Southwestern University, which has thriving art and performance scenes, as well Austin itself, which can be amazing in that regard.

I guess there was actually more to do in ABQ than I seem to be suggesting. It, too, had a world-class university and many museums, not to mention a significant art colony. But it was sometimes hard to get at them. You had to drive clear across town. Here, the same sort of thing can be had in a few minutes on the road.


*

Other major changes: I shut down the explosive-cargo blog. Actually, I should have done that years ago, no one was reading it. Or, rather, very few people were.

I wonder if this blog will do any better.


*

Funny. As an ezine, Xcargo was a rip-roaring success. As a blog, a dud.

Wonder why.


*

Also, a much bigger change. Since 2017 I’ve been editing LiberalResistance.net, a small online publication that opposes Trump. Now, I am slowly making my way out of that.

Why? Well, I’m exhausted for one thing. And, for another, I feel sort of like our initial mission is over. Trump is still in the White House, and could easily get re-elected. But, even so, I think the time has come for us to start addressing the problems that made Trump possible rather than the man himself—such as our nation's growing income inequality, the divisions between different sorts of Americans, the fact that automation and offshoring are making many of us redundant and useless…

So I think Liberal Resistance needs to address all that. And I don’t have the resources to make thechange, particularly now that the founder of the publication, Matt Blanchfield, has had to retire from the effort (he has early onset Alzheimer’s, very sad).

I have made arrangements for LR to be adopted by another organization, USA Unify. It seems to be going well, but you never can tell what the future will bring, and we’ve been in partnership  only a few weeks.

Wish me luck on all this.