Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Holidays

    My friend Melanie had an art opening on Friday, and Kate and I went up to Bethel, Maine to see it. Melanie is a wonderful painter (the daffodils painting is one of the paintings we bought), and if you find yourself in Bethel this winter, you should go to the Mill Hill Inn (where Kate…

  • Late Jazz Post

    Hello everyone, I’m sending out this jazz podcast a day late – just pure laziness on my part – it’s not like I’ve been super busy these past few weeks. I’ll be able to slow down soon, but I still have tons of stuff to do by year’s end. Anyway, I’ve got some podcasts that…

  • Christmas Cards

    Kate and I used to send out tons of Christmas Cards in our younger days. Although we usually didn’t have a big “family newsletter”, I usually wrote quite a bit in the cards. We tried to get Christmas cards that were different and amusing, rather than the run of the mill “Merry Christmas” cards. I…

  • Early December

    It’s the first weekend in December – this crappy year is almost over! Of course, it also means that the Christmas season is heavily upon us, and has been since before Thanksgiving. Seems like stores make the changeover right after Halloween now, but we’re full bore with Christmas music, advertising, Black Friday, advertising, Cyber Monday,…

  • 2016 has done a number on me

    2016 has done a number on me – the year has not gone the way I thought it would, and it’s time for me to re-examine my life to see what I should be doing in the future. Oh, I’ll be fine, overall, but my thinking has become fuzzy, and it’s time to bring my…

  • People Are Dying Here

    Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Holly Dunn, Mose Allison, Sharon Jones – those are the latest artists who died over the last ten days. Has this year been awful for people dying, or what? Look, Cohen and Allison were in their 80’s, so there was no great surprise there. We’ll be losing aging rock and jazz…

  • Trumpistan

    We had an election here in the U.S. last week, with shocking results. The poll-leading favorite to win, Hillary Clinton, lost to Donald Trump. We will definitely be living in interesting times over the next four years. My wife did not take this well – she has been in shock that will continue for the…

  • I Want to Be Elected

    Well, there was an election last week – you may have heard about that. The results were not as expected (by either side), and we are going to be living in a new reality very shortly. As a result, things have gotten tenser here in the U.S.A. (and around the world – people wonder if…

  • Daylight Savings Ends

    Today ends Daylight Savings Time for another year – what did you do with your hour? I’m not sure of the value of Daylight Savings anymore – turning back the clocks takes away the sun later in the day – I’m not sure I see the value there. Veteran’s Day is at the end of…

  • Halloween

    Happy Halloween! Don’t know how you celebrate Halloween – there’s no dress up or parties for me. Actually, in my area there are a number of towns that have Trick or Treat a day early – I think that they call it Beggar’s Night. Not sure how the tradition started around here, but it went…

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