the eye of Nova's mind

Human DNA is hiding a secret, second code: researchers

Father sticks by son accused of killing family

The Highest-Paid College Presidents -- The president of my alma mater is only #136 nationwide but is the top as far as Iowa is concerned. I am not surprised.

Science of scooping snow: Which is better, straight or bent-handle shovels? -- Guess.

Flipping through the pages of my alma mater's official magazine, I see that there is a space for the announcement of alums' publications.

Really? I've been publishing for years now & I didn't know this? Dammit!

Of course I submitted hardly anything last year, so now I have no publications upcoming . . . . I guess I can look at that as incentive.

Over at 13_blackbirds, I've given some pointers on how to explicate a poem. This skill was taught to me by the venerable Elizabeth Dobbs, a professor at Grinnell. I had her my freshman year, when I (foolishly) thought I was going to be an English major. She was legend on campus for how strict she was and how dour.

I took her Poetry in English course, which compensated for Composition I Fundamentals of Literary Analysis. It was one of the best courses I had in my time at Grinnell.

I was knocking around Amazon, learning more about Ronnie Laws (one of my dad's favorite jazz artists), and I came across one of my favorite titles from my childhood: Solid Ground. When I was seven or eight, I used to listen to this while I played. I made up lyrics for the instrumental pieces.

I bought it when I found it on CD. I can't tell you when that was: I believe it was sometime after college, because I don't recall playing it when I had my radio shows on KDIC. Seeing it on Amazon, I wanted to rate it up so that others would know how good it is. Then I noticed how much it was selling for.

Apparently it's out of print. I'm not used to CDs going out of print--most of the CDs in my collection are popular and so are reprinted often. It's odd to think that I have a $50 CD in my collection. Especially when I didn't pay that much for it. And I didn't buy it as a collector; I just wanted to listen to music I've long enjoyed.