The Hollow Men » Holidays

So, uh, what’s we doin’ tonight, boys?

Pete — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:51:36 +0000

Just dreaming out loud here for a moment. There has been far too much time between visits and get togethers over the past couple of years. Understandable, of course. I am wondering what holiday plans might look like and if we dare dream up a kid-a-palooza event for somewhere down the road. There are too many great kiddos out there now with no real knowledge of the others. Perhaps we could plan something for next summer. i know a place in the mountains that may have enough space and may be cost-effective…just sayin’

Happy Father’s Day

Shotts — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 14:24:05 +0000

Here we all are. Happy Father’s Day to all of you.

May your Christmas Spirit rival…

Tobias — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 19:23:46 +0000

…Darth’s:

Merry Christmas to all of my Hollow Souls!

Happy Thanksgiving

Shotts — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 14:14:51 +0000

I hope you all have a great one. Sorry you’re not all arriving up here in the cold and snow this evening for a night of Asian food before we have the usual feast on Thanksgiving Day. Tradition looms large in memory.

Amazon Kindle

Shotts — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:06:23 +0000

I got one. Anyone else? Care to muse and discuss? In this early stage with it, I’m finding the Kindle surprisingly readable and fun. In its way, it’s making reading "new." At the same time, I find myself gravitating toward nonfiction with it, rather than the more traditionally "literary" genres of fiction and (certainly) poetry. Maybe I’m used to seeking out information on a screen, and so nonfiction feels more comfortable in that format. In any case, it’s been an interesting Christmas gift…

Protected: Snow Day on Christmas

Tobias — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 02:56:18 +0000

Music Christmas Eve Thursday

J.E. — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:57:55 +0000

Recorded live at KUT studios in Austin.

kat-edmonson-christmas-time-is-here

Thanksgiving

Shotts — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:52:52 +0000

I’m curious what all of your plans are for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Of course, I always think back to our run of Thanksgivings and miss them.

Jen, Beckett, and I will be going to Washington State to be with my parents and sisters. It should be great, and it will be nice to get together with them in our new “home” headquarters. It will be the first time taking B on a plane, so I’m sure it will pose interesting challenges. Any flight advice would be welcome, from those of you who have flown with one-year-olds…

I hope you’ll all have good holidays. Let us know what you’ll be doing to celebrate.

Keeping Up With

Ned — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:50:15 +0000

Eliot came home a couple of weeks ago and all of the sudden read me a book. It was quite a moment for me as you can imagine. We’re reading the Tale of Despereaux, which is better than the movie.

I just finished reading a book of essays by Wendell Berry, entitled, The Way of Ignorance (I got it for Christmas, unfortuantely, I didn’t get Life is a Miracle). One of the most interesting articles is by Courtney White on the revitalization of the western wild (his essay was included with Berry’s). I like Berry when he talks about farming, politics, and ecology. When he talks about writing and gets more philosophical, not so much. I also am enjoying Shaun Tan’s new series of illustrated stories, entitled, Tales from Outer Suburbia.

I enjoyed seeing Amanda and Peters over the break and speaking briefly with Toby. J.E., your package arrived and the ornament is quite striking. The kids were very excited. Shotts, I hope to get to the cities once the snow melts and see that little guy. It’s freezing up here. Hope you all had good holidays.

Thanksgiving

Shotts — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 02:35:44 +0000

Oh the long tradition. Much regret we are not gathering together. Many good wishes and gratitude to all of you on this Thanksgiving. A lot to be thankful for this year. A raised glass to you.

Frightening Project

Tobias — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:00:57 +0000

Ned, thanks for the quick examples of your take on the frightening theme. About two weeks ago I started digging through my art from college because I had a hankering to start in on my work again. I hadn’t looked at my work since college in many cases, and was surprised by what I thought was crap then didn’t seem so crappy. I worked on "restoring" a couple of drawings that had gotten smeared from my few moves since an undergrad and fixing some parts that I wanted to alter. A couple of drawings I thought would be fine contributions to Project Frightening.

I am hopefully going to post a couple of creepy things that aren’t mine and one that is mine in the comments later today. Click on the thumbnails to see an enlarged view.

Study of Bernini’s Death on the Tomb of Pope Urban VIII

Box Elder, Part of the "My Icons" Series

I had to take photos of these both and adjust them in Photoshop, so they look much different in real life. The Box Elder piece is at least five feet in height, so I had to take two shots and seam them together. The Death study is on white paper, but I created the effect you see in Photoshop and thought it created a nice mood for this project. Hope you like my additions!

Frightening II: The Bear (Tentatively Titled)

Ned — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:14:39 +0000

Here’s my newest painting. You can also see it and a close-up on my website. The Bear refers to the market and who actually pays for our financial miscalculations – a weight no one can really carry. The text is Wordsworth’s "Lines in Early Spring." If you want to know how Toby influenced this painting, I can tell you.

Frightening Entry: I

Ned — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:07:22 +0000

So I was flipping through some files on my computer at work before I take off for MI, and I passed this sketch from an old sketchbook that I scanned into Photoshop. I have a bunch of these that I intended as chapter headings for a story I wrote. Here’s the first one done in pencil w/ Photoshop duotone. I think it is in the spirit of Tob’s pumpkin.

Frightening

Tobias — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:53:22 +0000

It’s October. A few thoughts have seized my mind about posting some sort of collaborative challenge for the group. I don’t mean to add to anyone’s burden but I thought it might be fun to participate in a sort of group exercise. The poetry writing turned out really well during Beckett’s Baby Shower, and while I don’t imagine it taking the same shape as it did this summer, I thought it would be fun to engage the creativity of the group.

My challenge: create something scary or frightening.

The events that precipitated this were:

1) One of my favorite novels had it’s genesis in the "ghost story" challenge (Frankenstein).

2) I read "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and it frightened me more effectively in short story than many things I see or read today. It’s amazing to me the atmosphere Hawthorne (and Washington Irving) both were able to create in the span of their short stories.

3) I had a very vivid dream last night that Steph woke me up in the middle of. Curiously, after being awake about fifteen minutes, I resolved the dream by coming up with an ending. It was really hard to shake it before that.

Now, this only has to be as complicated as anyone wants it to be. And each person can create as much as we’d like. For instance, I could (and plan on) describing this dream I had last night. I also had a story idea that I could flesh out for everyone, or just give plot points to. I could haiku, write about the scariest moment in my life, take a photo, draw something, link to something scary. It can be supernatural (ghost, demons, etc.), unnatural (politics, the economy ), or even natural.

What say you all? Is this a good idea or bad one?

Happy Independence Weekend

Ned — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:02:31 +0000

Sara and I took the kids to the MN Science Museum to see the Star Wars exhibit. They had a lot of models and costumes from all the films. Eliot loved it, but he was so excited still after two hours that he wouldn’t be quiet in the Omnitheater. We also went to see Kungfu Panda a few days ago which is pretty delightful. Here’s a few shots of the kids. Eliot has been into Narnia, Star Wars, and Peter Pan lately. I made the sword and shield for a party. Claire is usually, Princess Leia, Lucy, or Tinkerbell.

Protected: So much (for) gratitude….

Tobias — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:03:21 +0000

Asps. Very Dangerous. You Go First.

Tobias — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:03:43 +0000

You guys might have heard, the first Indiana Jones movie in 19 years is coming out this Memorial Day weekend. So, Steph and I have devised an equation.

Memorial Day + Kansas City + HM and their wives + Indiana Jones + (optional beer & pipes) = a Memorable Weekend

Are you in or are you out? Let us know. Discuss below.

Holidays and End of Year 2007

Shotts — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 17:09:25 +0000

Happy holidays to all! Be safe, merry, and joyous, and accept good intentions for the New Year and for seeing you all in 2008.

Jen and I will be at her parents’ home for a couple of days over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, then will be enjoying some restful days here in Minneapolis. We have a good few inches of snow on the ground, and it’s expected to snow tomorrow an inch or two. So no need for dreaming of a white Christmas in these parts.

OUT STEALING HORSES by Per Petterson is #33 on this week’s New York Times Bestsellers list. Amazing for such an introspective, literary work of translation. Funnily enough the book is just ahead of WAR AND PEACE. So take that, Tolstoy!

Any thoughts on the past year? Predictions for the new one? Anyone care to share some of their favorite books, albums, gallery exhibits, songs, movies, etc. of 2007?

Here’s to what’s ahead…

Lindsborg Ice Storm

Pete — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 02:48:48 +0000

Holidays

Shotts — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:31:05 +0000

The holidays are upon us. I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving next week, wherever you will be. Jen and I will be in the Pacific Northwest from Tuesday through Sunday. So here’s wishing you a good feast to you and yours, from there.

As it happens, I have a fairly grand holiday break set up for myself this year, due to the fact that my class ends the week of December 10, I’m three days a week at Graywolf, and I have saved up vacation days all year, apparently. I will more or less be off of a regular work schedule from December 13 to January 7.

I’m hoping that might mean I can come to Kansas for a few days somewhere in there–either before Christmas or sometime after. I will certainly be in Minnesota roughly December 23-26 for family gatherings here. I thought I would see when others of you might be around the McPherson area during the holidays, to see if I can match my schedule to yours, as it would be great to see you all, in addition to my parents, grandparents, and extended family.

I need to get my air fare set as soon as possible, so let me know what your plans may be. And of course, it’s always interesting to know what all of you are doing for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s…

Nuts for _____

Tobias — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:30:29 +0000

Okay, I just got a call from the allergy clinic a couple of days ago. I’ve been given the all-clear for my cashew and pistachio allergies! They said that no observable allergies showed up in a blood test I took a few days previous. So, I can begin to reintroduce the pistachios and cashews back into my diet slowly. I wasn’t aware that this happened, but they seemed confident I was fine to eat them again. I wonder if I just ate too many nuts over the holidays a couple of years ago.

All I’ll say is, it’s nice not to have a potentially life-threatening allergy again.

Happy Birthday to Us

Tobias — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:05:15 +0000

Happy birthday, The Hollow Men. It was one year ago today that this web site had its first blog entry. That was a grand start to this fine conversation — a conversation that constantly exceeds my expectations.

Sometimes I feel like technology does very little to enhance our lives, but then I take a look at what has happened on our blog and I fear the future a little less.

As a gift to everyone, I’ve updated the blog template to have a new look. The old one is classic, but I thought we’d dress our one year old up a bit and hit the town.

Any thoughts, reflections, comments on what has made the site great (or not-so-great) for the Hollow Men?

Protected: Parcel

Tobias — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 18:22:17 +0000

YouTube Friday — Freestyle Jet Ski

J.E. — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 12:58:27 +0000

Ned, I expect you to have a better trick than “turning it turtle” this year.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OlIS1dbIno[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BliCQvf3Vy0[/youtube]

Poetry Post

Shotts — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 14:56:32 +0000

It IS National Poetry Month, so I shouldn’t let it get away without a current Poetry Post. This one from fellow Kansan Albert Goldbarth, who teaches at Wichita State University and who is the only poet to have twice won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. This poem is from the “new” section in his recently published (by Graywolf, no less) The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems 1972-2007. Enjoy. And happy National Poetry Month to you.

Human Beauty

If you write a poem about love …
the love is a bird,

the poem is an origami bird.
If you write a poem about death …

the death is a terrible fire,
the poem is an offering of paper cutout flames

you feed to the fire.
We can see, in these, the space between

our gestures and the power they address
—an insufficiency. And yet a kind of beauty,

a distinctly human beauty. When a winter storm
from out of nowhere hit New York one night

in 1892, the crew at a theater was caught
unloading props: a box

of paper snow for the Christmas scene got dropped
and broken open, and that flash of white

confetti was lost
inside what it was a praise of.