September 29, 2008
No Complaints
So this is my view when I walk to the office in the morning. That's the Boston Public Library to the left, Old South Church straight ahead.
Oh, and I won my fantasy baseball league, despite making a bonehead trade at the beginning of the season and having David Ortiz hurt for a long stretch.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 9:24 PM
Mr. Pesky
The Sox retired Johnny Pesky's number yesterday, a great tribute to a great man. I am too young to remember Pesky playing, but I remember him as both a full-time coach and an announcer, and more recently as the fungo-hitting special-assistant-ambassador-baseball-lifer and mentor to Red Sox stars such as Nomar Garciaparra and Jim Rice.
I have two memories of Pesky, both from to Red Sox Spring training in Fort Myers. In one, Pesky has parked himself in a shady spot where he sits and signs autographs all day. I take my sons through the line and he signs baseballs for both of them. He is warm, sunny, avuncular. He talks to everyone, asks my boys if they play baseball, and wishes us well, tells us to enjoy the day and the season.
In the other, Pesky is on a far field hitting ground balls to a minor leaguer. Jim Rice is standing not far from us. Seeing Pesky walk around the field collecting stray balls in a bucket, Rice grabs his own bucket and a bat and begins lofting fly ball after fly ball onto the field, behind and around Pesky. Rice--a giant of a man known for his surly disposition as a player--is giggling in delight as Pesky starts to grouse loudly about the balls, not sure yet that he is being pranked. When Pesky finally sees one of Rice's fly balls land near him he turns and yells goodnaturedly at Rice, and the two share a long laugh from a few hundred feet apart.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 10:18 AM
September 27, 2008
I was Really Rooting for You, Butch
I think we all were. More here.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:12 PM
When Fall Comes to New England
Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2008
Google Book Previews
Testing, testing...
Read more here.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 2:21 PM
September 11, 2008
More Cormac McCarthy
Currently reading, er, re-reading, All the Pretty Horses. This was a delightful little senior moment. I knew I had the book when I bought the second and third book in the Border Trilogy this weekend, knowing I already had Horses. I had just forgotten I read it until I got about 20 pages into it on the subway this morning. But it's so darn good, I kept reading.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:23 PM
Prayer for the Dead
American Life in Poetry: Column 181
By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
Stuart Kestenbaum, the author of this week's poem, lost his brother Howard in the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. We thought it appropriate to commemorate the events of September 11, 2001, by sharing this poem. The poet is the director of the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle, Maine.
Prayer for the Dead
The light snow started late last night and continued
all night long while I slept and could hear it occasionally
enter my sleep, where I dreamed my brother
was alive again and possessing the beauty of youth, aware
that he would be leaving again shortly and that is the lesson
of the snow falling and of the seeds of death that are in everything
that is born: we are here for a moment
of a story that is longer than all of us and few of us
remember, the wind is blowing out of someplace
we don't know, and each moment contains rhythms
within rhythms, and if you discover some old piece
of your own writing, or an old photograph,
you may not remember that it was you and even if it was once you,
it's not you now, not this moment that the synapses fire
and your hands move to cover your face in a gesture
of grief and remembrance.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2007 by Stuart Kestenbaum. Reprinted from Prayers & Run-on Sentences, Deerbook Editions, 2007, by permission of Stuart Kestenbaum. Introduction copyright © 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 4:32 PM
September 8, 2008
Stan Grossfeld and the Art of Storytelling
I've mentioned before that when I was growing up, the Boston Globe had unquestionably one of the best sports sections in America. Well, the newspaper world is changing dramatically. Newsrooms, including sports sections, are shrinking, but the Globe still has some of my favorite columnists, including Bob Ryan. And they still have Stan Grossfeld, who early on in his career won two Pulitzers for his photography, but now creates wonderful human-interest stories such as this one. You can see a slide show of related pictures here.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 6:20 PM
Massachusetts Poetry Festival
Well, this sounds great:
The Massachusetts Poetry Festival is a three-day celebration of the poets, poetry, and literary heritage of a state whose contribution to American poetry is unsurpassed in the nation. Join us as we pay tribute to the poets and writers of the past while experiencing the creative energy of today’s literary artists. This first-ever, state-wide event will include readings by renowned and emerging poets, teacher workshops, performance poetry, films & music, programs for children and young writers, literary heritage tours, a small press fair, poetry in the streets, and much more.
It's on Columbus Day weekend, October 10-12, and is being held at the Lowell National Historical Park, which is a great venue. Featured poets include Andre Dubus III
Most of the events on the schedule are free, but the featured readings require tickets that you can buy here.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:38 AM
Amazon Video on Demand
People are often so focused on Google's plan for world domination that they fail to notice how much content distribution capability Amazon is developing. Today they announced a video on demand service.
As my friend and Gilbane colleague David Guenette has noted, wouldn't it make sense for Kindle to be the device for all this content?
Posted by Bill Trippe at 8:24 AM
September 5, 2008
My name came from. . .
American Life in Poetry: Column 180
By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
What's in a name? All of us have thought at one time or another about our names, perhaps asking why they were given to us, or finding meanings within them. Here Emmett Tenorio Melendez, an eleven-year-old poet from San Antonio, Texas, proudly presents us with his name and its meaning.
My name came from. . .
My name came from my great-great-great-grandfather.
He was an Indian from the Choctaw tribe.
His name was Dark Ant.
When he went to get a job out in a city
he changed it to Emmett.
And his whole name was Emmett Perez Tenorio.
And my name means: Ant; Strong; Carry twice
its size.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 2000 by Emmett Tenorio Melendez. Reprinted from Salting The Ocean: 100 Poems By Young Poets, Greenwillow Books, 2000, by permission of the editor. Introduction copyright © 2008 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 4:55 PM
Second Life Scripting
I see from LinkedIn that a friend of mine, Michael Thome, has co-written Scripting Your World: The Official Guide to Second Life Scripting. Congratulations, Mike! And all you Second Life users, click here and buy one now.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 4:42 PM
The View...
...from my new office, five floors above the sanctuary at Old South Church.
Coordinates here. The Boston Public Library is right across the street, and the restaurant scene is great around here.
Copley Square is the first Boston neighborhood I considered "mine." Even though I grew up just outside the city, we always came into Boston--for shopping, movies, a special meal out. I had a Boston Public Library card as a kid. My trip to the orthodontist took me through Copley Square by trolley and bus. I can't remember the name of it now, but a record store on Boylston Street near Fairlfield (above Copy Cop!) became my first regular place to buy albums. My first job in Boston, toward the end of high school, was in the Prudential Center down the street. Later, I would go to grad school at Emerson, which is downtown now but then inhabited a loosely grouped set of brownstones centered at Beacon and Berkeley streets. After I joined Houghton Mifflin in the 1990s, they soon after moved their headquarters to Berkeley and Boylston. They remain a client to this day, and I can see the building from my new window.
And, as I type this, someone is on the organ. On that "note," time to grab some lunch and get back to work.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 11:51 AM
September 3, 2008
'Twine
I have been playing fantasy baseball for years (long enough to pause before typing "fantasy" and almost typing "rotisserie"), but I am pretty new to its football equivalent. However, my boys love it, especially my younger son, so I like to do it to have another thing to talk with them about it. I drafted my team last night, and named it after one of my favorite Boston Patriots players, Houston Antwine.
Posted by Bill Trippe at 1:16 PM
