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Month: August 2018

Friday Musings: Speak My Language

Friday Musings: Speak My Language

Gary Chapman is a theologian and relationship counselor who wrote the book The Five Love Languages. Although I’ve only read excerpts from it, I have taken the quiz, and I find myself fascinated with the concept. Dr. Chapman maintains that there are five basic ways in which we give and receive love: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Although we practice all of them at one time or another, we tend to favor one more than the others, and this is

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Music and Cocktails: Gonna Keep You in Love With Me

Music and Cocktails: Gonna Keep You in Love With Me

I’ve been a huge fan of The National since I saw them in concert nearly seven years ago, and I’m beyond excited to be seeing them again in Philadelphia at the end of September. Their work has been incredibly consistent, and their latest album Sleep Well Beast is certainly no exception in terms of quality, yet it has brought with it a slight shift in sound and meaning. The National has always been a rock band with a very guitar forward focus, but the introduction of carefully selected electronic and orchestral elements on this release raises things to a whole new level, and creates layers of both subtlety and sophistication. Band frontman Matt Berninger, who writes his song lyrics with his wife Carin Besser, often taps into the darker, more melancholic aspects of life and love. That’s one of the reasons why I love The National so much! Sleep Well Beast zeroes in on the idea of the dissolution of long term relationships and the difficulty in maintaining that first flush of love that can so quickly slip away from us. There are also several tracks on the album that focus on our country’s current political situation and leave no question as to who is responsible for it. Greg Kott sums it up best in an article for the Chicago Tribune by saying, ” [Sleep Well Beast] is an album that works well with the lights turned low, if only to better empathize with the dimming prospects of singer Matt Berninger’s narrators.” Totally true.

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Mercury Goes Direct

Mercury Goes Direct

Just a few weeks ago I wrote about the phenomenon of the planet Mercury and its retrograde phase. This little first rock from the sun controls certain major aspects of our lives that include communication, transportation, and technology. In short, it can wreak a bit of havoc when it appears to be spinning backwards in its orbit because we suddenly can’t speak or write properly, can’t navigate our way around the block, and can’t rely on our cell phones to help us out in either of these situations. The good

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Friday Musings: A Leap of Faith

Friday Musings: A Leap of Faith

I have found myself wondering recently about the things that define us as human beings. There are certainly many studies that show how related we are to other members of the animal world, particularly chimpanzees, but what are the traits that truly differentiate us? For starters, we have complex language skills, the ability to write things down, and the desire to share knowledge on a large scale. Not only are we able to communicate, but we are able to intuitively understand one another’s emotional states and

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Music and Cocktails: How’s That For First impressions?

Music and Cocktails: How’s That For First impressions?

When I first listened to Courtney Barnett’s “Depreston” I can remember being pulled into the song immediately. The guitar riff is simple, and everything accompanying it is fairly muted, so it evokes the feeling that Barnett is singing directly to us, telling us a story in her signature deadpan delivery that immediately makes us want to know more. Then again, that’s pretty much what we can expect from almost all her music. Fortunately she’s not shy about telling us what inspires her and how the process of

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