WestVirginiaVille

As a collector of fine local obituaries (Happy Jack’s was the best!), this one today for Francis Joseph Falbo leapt off the Charleston Gazette obit page.

All I want to do is sit in the angled sun that pierces through the trees. I want to write something about today’s lunch at the monastery, which was personal in more ways than one.

Here is a rare photo of a cat posing with the article that brought her a degree of malodorous renown in certain corners of the State of WestVirginiaVille.

New in ‘Blogalachia’: I didn’t want it to go cheaply. I didn’t want it to pay for dinner or even for the start of my new life. I wanted it to perhaps find its way to a new hand, a new marriage and a new start | By Bill Lynch from ‘Ring Cycle’

“The future of this wild place, and indeed of this wild state, is up for grabs. Hope still exists for this bioregion. Not the distant hope of the future, but hope in the moment, hope now …”

West Virginia, for those who haven’t been, is a curious place, full of curious nooks, crannies and people. Here is Part 1 of a survey of some of the more interesting video encounters around the state in 2011.

So, this week a bunch of us headed out to the weekly Thursday night open mic at Boulevard Tavern in downtown Charleston, W.Va., hosted by Lou Argento. Who should show up to play open mic but Santa, armed with a harp.

Her name was Amy. And his name? She called him ‘Allie.’ But that wasn’t who he really was in his heart of hearts. His true name was written with a ‘Z.’ And a slash! A tale of bruising love.

Dammit Dammit Dammit. I say to myself, rounding the corner of a building on the Marshall University campus this morning espying my Honda. The sign of a hassle, flying its flag upon my windshield, a ticket.

Thought for the day: “The richer the world economy becomes, the more the collective imagination of those who rule seems to atrophy. Ultimately, all common goals collapse into nothing more than efforts to increase production and trade.”

I have spent my adult life rounding curves in the road here in West by god or so they say Virginia. There are curves around most every curve here.

Albert Perrone queries a young man who used to come to his meditation group on his deployment to Afghanistan: “The good news is the unit we’re replacing over there had 14 casualties over the last year. 9 of them could have been prevented.”

There’s a scene in the Martin Scorcese movie, “Hugo,” where Hugo looks out from a high clock tower in the Paris train station where he lives a secret life. it’s a scene one is able to see for oneself. There’s a place you must stand, though, and it’s not inside a clock tower.

Through the crack between the curtains in the office I see the sky has gone from charcoal black to flannel gray. It is another day on Earth. They do come and go and come and go.

The point is to get to the point where you no longer feel the need to ask: ‘What’s the point?’ Yet the older I get, the more I think this misses the point.

I hear a harp playing. A lovely harp-tastic chord strummed over and over again. Have I died in the night? Is there indeed an angelic host, a Top 40 Angelic Harp Band, which greets you at the gates of Heaven?

A video of a stirring murmuration, a map that shows there are no nuclear warheads in my backyard and why the number 88 is important to Neo-Nazis: Things Learned on the Web last week.

So, there I was, walking across the Krogers parking lot toward the opening when Zeus in his heaven shafted me with a lightning bolt.

TheWebTheater of WestVirginiaVille.com, presents “Saint Stephen’s Dream: a Space Opera.” Coming Soon To A Computer Near You. Spring, say. Or maybe Summer.