On Summit

No review of a Guided By Voices show is ever truly complete without a reference to Bob Pollard's leg kicks. Here's some commonly used descriptions you might consider for your next GBV review: Big leg kick High leg kick Really high leg kick Boozy leg kick Classic leg kick Chin-high leg kick Waist-high leg kick Kung-fu leg kick Patented high leg kick Trademark high leg kick Botched Bob leg kick Aforementioned leg kick High leg kick or really high leg kick? Good critics can tell the difference. Check back next month for Reviewing Guided By Voices: Part Two: Estimating Bob Pollard's Blood Alcohol Level .

Recently, the Wall Street Journal published an article by Meghan Cox Gurdon decrying the state of contemporary young adult literature. To hear Ms. Gurdon tell it YA literature has become little more than a cesspool of sex and violence cultivated by amoral publishers and depraved authors. Oh it's a threatening landscape to be sure; one full of "ever-more-alarming offerings", "hideously distorted portrayals of what life is", and "damage, brutality and losses of the most horrendous kinds". Now, if that sounds a bit over the top, it is. Gurdon's article is an inflammatory screed of such epic proportions that it almost defies argument. Her accusations, assumptions, and misrepresentations fly so quickly and with such vigor that a rebuttal seems nearly impossible. Should one strike first at her narrow characterization of YA literature or her tacit approval of censorship? Should opponents spend pages debunking the supposed ill-effects of exposure to ...

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the opening of a brand new library. The library (appropriately called the Orange Branch) is located in Orange Township, a fast growing community nestled on the southern edge of the equally fast growing Delaware County. The opening of the Orange Branch represents not just the culmination of a 12 month construction cycle, but also years of planning and preparation, including and perhaps most importantly the Delaware County District Library's successful 2009 levy campaign. While the economy has been slow to recover (and Ohio has been particularly hard hit), it's heartening to see that the vast majority of Ohio communities are willing to support libraries even as State funding for libraries is reduced. The Orange Branch itself is one that all stakeholders can be proud of. It represents the best of what libraries offer, both as place to learn and as a place to gather. Its robust collection of books, AV materials, and computer workstations ar...

I work on the northwest side of town in a mostly residential area. While it's a fairly suburban community, nature still manages to find a way in and stake out its claim. This is perhaps most obvious near the neighborhood's retention pond. I usually try and get out for a walk during my lunch break and I'll often do a lap around this arguably modest body of water. Depending on the time of year, I might encounter herons, ducks, Canadian Geese, swallows, turtles or groundhogs. I've seen people angling in the pond as well, which leads me to believe there must be fish of some sort in there too. While I'm certainly no Henry David Thoreau, I'm surprised at how attuned I've become to rhythms of this little pond's life; from the arrival of the ducks to buds on the forsythia, I'm starting to internalize its seasonal patterns. In the pond's annual cycle, nothing is quite as exciting as the arrival of the goslings and ducklings. They usually appear about the ...

It seems that SoHud is winning the battle for my neighborhood's nickname. This is regrettable, but at this point likely unavoidable. For the uninitiated, I live in the University District in Columbus, Ohio; a few blocks south of Hudson Street. Hudson is an almost major east-west artery that separates our neighborhood from an arguably nicer neighborhood to the north. Ours is an in-between area. To my knowledge it's never had an official name; at least not one that's lasted into the 21st century. I've heard it referred to variously as North Campus, The University District, Old North Columbus, Baja Clintonville, Washington Beach, SoHu, and SoHud. Sadly, at this stage, the SoHud designator is gaining traction and seems poised to stick. Our friends at Wild Goose Creative have adopted it for their mural project . A group of affiliated musicians use it to describe their music collective . Perhaps most importantly, the taste-makers at Columbus Underground favor SoHud over SoH...

In a previous post I outlined what I saw as a couple of real deficiencies in Ohio Governor John Kasich's leadership style. My hope was to frame (in a non-partisan way) Kasich's words and actions in the context of some commonly understood leadership principles. And while it's never been my intention to make this blog particularly political, Mr Kasich's off the cuff style (and relative lack of any sort of filter) has provided yet another chance to consider what makes a good leader. In recent remarks, Governor Kasich stressed the need to make Ohio economically competitive by making Ohio "cool". Kasich said: "We've got to make Ohio cool. You know, I was down at Lexis-Nexis down in Dayton, I'm meeting with the CEO of the company, and he says, you know, a lot of these, these young people, you know, they want to head for the coast. Why do they want to go to the coast? It's cool. Why do they want to go to Austin? You ever been to Austin? It...

This year the Ohio Historical Society is holding an Ohio history themed Peeps diorama contest, Ohio: A History of a Peeple . Participants have been invited to create a diorama based on famous scenes from Ohio's past. While I don't expect this is exactly famous, I do know that the last captive passenger pigeon, "Martha," died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. So, to commemorate Martha, and to acknowledge (in some small way) the passenger pigeon's place in Ohio's history, I present Martha, the last passenger peep: The passenger peep, Ectopistes marshmellosous , was once the most common bird in the United States, numbering in the billions. Passenger peeps lived in enormous colonies, with sometimes up to 100 nests in a single tree. Migrating flocks stretched a mile wide, turning the skies sticky and yellow. Bird painter John James Audubon, who watched them pass on his way to Louisville in 1813, described “the muffled tones of their gelatinous wings,” and sa...