Tag: Willmar

Friday Fare, Internet Articles, Random, Uncategorized

Friday Fare: 11/11/16

Michelle Kubitz

Friday Fare is where I post links to the random articles that have resonated with me during the week. Sometimes they make me smarter, sometimes they make me hungry … sometimes they have to do with writing and sometimes they are just plain random.

Aaaaah!  I missed Friday Fare last week.  I’d like to tell you that I had a good reason, but that reason … I don’t remember.  Work is crazy again, which has it’s upsides (paycheck! a sense of usefulness!) and its downsides (it takes me away from writing! it’s work! i’m suffering from a cold, ergo i have little to no energy!).

There’s a lot going on in the world right now.  (Understatement.) I’ve got a lot of feels about what’s going on, but what I’m focusing on is being as kind as possible to those I meet.

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Listening to: I’m officiating a wedding for a pair of dear friends this weekend and the bride’s father will be singing “The Wedding Song” written by Noel “Paul” Stookey for Peter Yarrow’s 1969 wedding.  I’m not going to lie … this song gets me kinda weepy when I listen to it.  And while I was reading up on it, I was surprised to see that the first time it was performed (ahem, at Yarrow’s wedding), it was performed at a Catholic church in Willmar, Minnesota.  I lived in Willmar for three years!  But this little fact was from Wikipedia, it couldn’t be true, could it?  Well, I emailed one of my dear friends who is a Willmar native and something of an amateur music historian and this was his note back to me:  “Your information about the ‘Wedding Song’ is correct. Peter Yarrow and Mary McCarthy got married at St. Mary’s Church on (sic) Willmar. And I was at their wedding as a matter o fact. My friend Kent and I were among the uninvited guests (kids) hanging out in the church narthex.” <– How cool is that?

Reading:  I found a copy of “Death Along the Spirit Road” by C.M. Wendelboe at a local bookstore recently.  I’m only a few pages in, but it’s good.

Fiction Update:  *crickets* OK – so maybe it isn’t that bad, but I haven’t been able to write since last weekend. Grump!  Hoping to make up for some lost time this weekend.

Remember, kindness is free – sprinkle that shit everywhere.  (h/t to whoever said that … it’s a great sentiment.)

Friday Fare, Internet Articles, Random, Uncategorized

Friday Fare: 6/10/16

Michelle Kubitz

Friday FareFriday Fare is where I post links to the random articles that have resonated with me during the week. Sometimes they make me smarter, sometimes they make me hungry … sometimes they have to do with writing and sometimes they are just plain random.

Sorry for being MIA last week.  Work has been a little crazy lately and I was in the process of getting ready to go on a west central Minnesota roadtrip.

foxhole
And hooray! Bonus that the roadtrip involved a trip to a new microbrewery in Willmar, Minn. The beer here is fiercely good!

Here’s what’s good on the Internet:

Kris Kristofferson.  This piece by the Rolling Stone was a great read.

I read this article from Outside Online about Kay Grayson, known as “the Bear Lady.”  What I liked about this piece was the deep dive the journalist made into this woman’s life and the sense that I couldn’t put this article down when I started reading it.  A very compelling piece of work.

Another piece that came out in April from MPR News.  A goofy read.

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Listening to: I got a chance to take a deep listen to the new Monkees disc while I was on my roadtrip last weekend.  And it was really good.  Most of the album is posted on YouTube and it’s a solid listen.  (In no particular order, my favorite tracks are “Me & Magdalena,” “Birth of an Accidental Hipster,” and the title track “Good Times.”)

Reading: Yeeeeeah … I kinda burned through of almost all of Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston’s “Pendergast” novels.  (There are 15, and the latest one has a 16-deep wait list at the library, so it’s probably good for my eyes that I can’t access the last one just now.)  And honestly, I learned a lot about pacing from the “Pendergast” books, so I think I’m going to back up and read them again.  I also finished Dana Chamblee Carpenter’s “Bohemian Gospel,” a historical mystery that I similarly couldn’t put down.  I wasn’t 100% thrilled with the ending, but it was the ending that belonged to the story.  I have a sense that this one is going to stay with me for awhile, the story was haunting and the details were just sumptuous.

Fiction Update: One of the best parts about being away for the last weekend was the opportunity to get some uninterrupted time working on “AL.”  I didn’t get as far as I wanted, but considering I was in the town that originally inspired the setting for my book, I had a wonderful weekend of soaking in some of the details that I look forward to bringing to life in my story.