For shits and grins, I recently started paper cutting. I looked around for a first project to cut my teeth with and found a delightful paper artist named Clare Margaret…
Author: Mark Oppenneer
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Cashmere
This post isn’t about me. It is about my cousin Susan. I haven’t spoken many words to Susan over the years (when we were younger, our 8 years difference was…
Reach
I reach up to find that Time has reduced my harvest shrunk my field and left what stalks remain gray and brittle I reach to the middle and find that…
Shiny Objects & Salvation
I just got back from Mexico City where I was honored to deliver a keynote address for the 1st International Congress on Cultural Heritage and New Technologies (El Primer Congresso…
Consulting the Memex
A major refrain in Vannevar Bush’s As We May Think article is the notion of ‘consulting’ – how are we to wrangle, sift, or otherwise make sense of the growing…
Listening to books
We get older. We get busier. I used to be a voracious reader of words. Fiction and non-fiction. Poetry, histories, newspapers, novels, short stories, mythologies, ancient cabalistic charts (odd, I…
Dad is a mythologist
I was raised in a Protestant household, regularly attending church until I was thirteen. As I grew older, I associated less and less with the belief system of the church…
Remembering Gerald McDermott
I met Gerald McDermott in the spring of 2008 at a Joseph Campbell Foundation workshop at the Esalen Institute. He was the kind of person that was instantly familiar –…
Recognizing Veterans
On Friday, Excelsior College (where I work) honored the Veterans who work there with a recognition ceremony. It is the first place I’ve worked since I left military service (both…
A dark place
When I met my wife, I was a musician and entertainment manager in Seattle. This was post-grunge, mid 90’s Seattle and the music scene was fertile and full. When you…
Stollen Memories
I realize I’m jumping the gun on this post. Halloween hasn’t yet arrived and I’m posting a holiday piece about baking Stollen. But a few days ago, I was thinking…
A Horrible Husband
I was addicted to nicotine for roughly twenty years. Mainly I chewed tobacco, but I also smoked cigarettes and cigars. I started chewing in college. I played intramural baseball and…
Careless
I have been careless I have filled my bag to overflowing It is hard to carry along the way Like a serpent who has just eaten a rabbit I leave…
A pendulum inside
There is a pendulum inside of me. Some days it swings toward me disappearing and some toward me devouring. Today I start another climb toward the pendulum’s root where I…
The Bridge
an allegory There was once a man and a woman who lived alone on opposite sides of a deep chasm. He lived in the forest on his side and made…
Escape
The sweet strains of Billie Holliday floated from an old tube radio in an apartment somewhere below my perch, echoing off faded bricks and streaked cement. The thin cacophony of…
Stained Glass #2
A gift to my inlaws. Currently held in Utica, NY.
Mom
My mom passed away on October 3, 2011. The picture above is from the beautiful memory book my wife Becca made for the occasion of my mom’s memorial service (yes,…
Seeking Hatsune Miku
“Hatsune Miku is clearly a more complex phenomenon than I initially assumed. Requires further study.” @GreatDismal William Gibson’s Twitter Feed On March 9, 2010, several thousand glowstick-waving Japanese fans gathered…