The Poem I Begin Every New Year With…

Smokler on January 7, 2019 

In Memoriam [Ring out, Wild Bells] (185) 

by Alfred Lord Tennyson 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the year that is to be.

I Smoke a Pipe. And Wrote a Little Thing About how Young People are Coming to the Hobby

Smokler on December 10, 2018

PS_pipe_MaryWalters

Photo via Walters Photography

Unlike napkins, diamonds, and golfing—traditions that Millennials have supposedly “killed”—pipe smoking is very much alive. In 2014, ABC News postulated that younger smokers and collectors were bringing pipe smoking, a hobby reminiscent of great-uncles and blazered villains of ’80s teen comedies, back into fashion. Nearly five years later, it’s largely agreed that pipe smoking’s youthquake hasn’t saved the industry or the hobby, either, but it has changed how pipe smoking appears in our minds: It’s unlikely that the image of an American smoking a pipe will be only associated with the dark-wooded dens of men in retirement ever again.

A thing I wrote for Collector's Weekly magazine. 

 

 

 

Blue Waves: Midterm Elections 2018

Smokler on November 7, 2018

Blue-wave-4

 

Friends, I am as heartbroken about Andrew Gullim & Beto O'Rourke and the racist nonsense that no doubt poisoned those elections. But the House is Blue. Kris Kobach, Scott Walker & Putin's fav. congressperson are out of of a job. We elected 111 women, half are POC. 300 state house seats flipped. Voter suppression/gerrymandering laws turned back in Florida, Michigan and Utah. A brand new, state of the art program to end homelessness in my own San Francisco. Unprecedented turnout amongst young people who 2/1 vote Dem.

If that's not a wave, I've never seen one. Listen to Rebecca Solnit on this one. We blue folk are terrible at joy, at secretly loving our own tragedy and downplaying success. We mistakenly believe being miserable and refusing to be proud is a sign of our commitment to our values.

Don't do it. We worked hard for this. We earned it. Let's not dishonor the hard work and commitment of the millions of Americans who made it happen by pretending it's something less than it actually is.