Big Sole Blog (BSB)

After listening to the blues channel a bit this morning, I'm starting to think that's where you go if you want to research the poetry of aging. Bettye Lavette's "Talking Old Soldiers," for instance, is a brooding piece about a forgotten man whose friends are all buried now at the local graveyard. I also heard James Armstrong's "Blues at the Border" in which there are the lines "You see the

I have not been watching much news TV lately because I'm trying to maintain a calm state, but this morning, I watched anyway and was very annoyed listening to Rick Santorum on CNN. Santorum's Romney campaign talking points calling President Obama's campaign hateful, divisive, and class-war mongering assaulted rational thought on more levels than I care to count this morning. Although Jim Acosta

The Commission on Presidential Debates has named CNN's Candy Crowley as one of its moderators for the 2012 Presidential Debates. Crowley will be the first woman in that position since 1992, and with her appointment, three New Jersey teen girls score a victory. In June, this blog reported on the petition circulated by Emma Axelrod, Sammi Siegel, and Elena Tsemberis of Montclair High School that

Here is a video of Maira Kalman that I found through Poets & Writers Magazine. Kalman is a children's book author and illustrator, and in this video she talks about the importance of walking and physical movement to get her writer's brain read for new ideas.

Ticket Rhetoric   By Nordette N. Adams Romney/Ryan.    Mitt's mechanistic;    Paul's penile-Palin,    but smarter . . . maybe. The Double-Mitt Twins conceived to re-position the winds of forefathers: Mayonnaise-y,    retro-phase-y — A paste-hasty    empire strike! Resetting grand narrative to unrainbowed heritage:    America unwomened    then America unblack — The great take-back.

Completely by accident I caught this interview with Christian Louboutin on CNN. In it, "the shoe designer talks to Sara Sidner about his A-list clients and the power of an impressive shoe," per CNN's description. Specifically, he answers her question, "Do you design shoes for men or for women?" He also tells the story of his decision to design a pair of shoes for a woman's wedding after she

When I heard about the horrific shooting at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisc., yesterday, I immediately assumed it was a hate crime, but I hoped it was a domestic violence incident such as the one in Lakeland, Fla., last year in which a man burst through the doors of a Christian church and shot two people. Earlier he had shot his own wife to death in their home. I had hoped the shooting at