Halbs

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On eating compassionately

The Happy Vegan: A Guide to Living a Long, Healthy, and Successful Life by Russell Simmons, Chris Morrow

September 11, 2022 by Halbs Leave a Comment

It’s a natural time for change: new school year, new season, new job. So, I decided to freshen up my routines across the board. Since I’ve felt sluggish, lately, I’m trying to switch up what I’m eating. Libraries have like a million food books, so I just ran through that aisle and threw all of them in my cart, Supermarket Sweep-style. The Happy Vegan had a great title, so it’s the first one I read. It’s written by mogul Russell Simmons. I don’t know much […]

Good times, bad times; you know I’ve had my share.

Led Zeppelin: The Biography by Bob Spitz

August 31, 2022 by Halbs Leave a Comment

The Ringer’s Ryen Russillo recently interviewed musician and journalist Bob Spitz’ Led Zeppelin: The Biopgraphy. If Spitz’ name sounds familiar, you may have read his biography on the The Beatles, Ronald Reagan, Julia Child, or Bob Dylan. The writer’s credibility from past books as well as his musicianship seems to have contributed to his ability to get access to Led Zeppelin’s inside circle, including surviving band members. What results is a (relatively) objective look at one of the most revered and at times disgusting popular […]

“The lie tastes bitter, like an ash pretending to be a snowflake.”

Hello, Transcriber by Hannah Morrisey

August 30, 2022 by Halbs Leave a Comment

Hazel Greenlee is stuck in quiet, rusty Black Harbor. She’s falling apart, just like her surroundings. Hazel is a police transcriber working the night shift. Her 111 words per minute typing skills astound the office crew. Her husband is some kind of ag scientist, studying why the nearby lake is eroding the shore. They barely pass one another in their ratty duplex. Maybe that’s for the best. The night shift is like a dream for Hazel. The whole town is like a bad dream – […]

“Which is more mysterious, more inexplicable, dying or/staying alive?”

Earthling: Poems by James Longenbach

August 21, 2022 by Halbs Leave a Comment

Me: “Oh, it’s called Earthling, like what aliens called humans in 1950s sci-fi, lol!” James Logenbach: “Earthling is one of the oldest words in the English language, our original word for ploughman, a keeper of the earth. In poems simultaneously ordinary and otherworldly…” Logenbach’s Earthling is certainly about things of the earth. He ponders (fixates?) on how we’re here for a little, like everyone else has been or will be, but the earth and sky and water remain. In early parts of the book he […]

A Remembrance of Things Past

Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen : Reflections on Sixty and Beyond by Larry McMurtry

August 17, 2022 by Halbs 1 Comment

I have great affection for everything about this book: the Dairy Queen cover photo, the West Texas rumination, the author’s cherishing of books and words. What a delicious book. That DQ photo reminds me of the Dairy Queen I’d often stop at in Goldthwaite, Texas, at the intersection of Highway 183 and 16. I used to go there as a teenager when driving to college. Now I take my own kids there now when passing through. A DQ can be a cultural hub in a […]

Emmalita on But who ever really knows the experience of another?I've been burned by author recommendations so many times.
Emmalita on “Your body was numb to grief; perhaps you had felt it once, but you did not feel it anymore.”I'll send you another one if you need it later. The invitations do time out.
narfna on “Your body was numb to grief; perhaps you had felt it once, but you did not feel it anymore.”Well, I just clicked the link but it's blocked at my work, so. Sucky.
Emmalita on New Love and a Complete Bingo Board!Congratulations!
wicherwill on thank you to my friend EvinThe characters also don't really do the fantasy bits--they begrudgingly put up with the weird, which is why I was struggling with whether this counts...

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