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Author: Kevin Donahue
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I know not everyone is all that excited by Bruce’s late career arc, but I love it. There’s a grace he has brought to his later music; I thought Western Skies was brilliant, a new chapter in his American songbook and this song is sly, wise and fun. Not new themes, necessarily, but a mature take on the…
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This is a road song in a world without road trips, where our collective experience is reflected in words like homebound, locked down and socially distanced. I’ve been on exactly two road trips (definition: a multiday jaunt at least 3 hours away from home by car) in the past year, one last spring to pick up my son when…
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As we come up on the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to share some of the music that has helped me through the year, with post a quick bit about one song each day in March. So here goes … #2, Hold On, Yola I first heard Yola when she sang with…
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As we come up on the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, I wanted to share some of the music that has helped me through the year. I’m going to post a quick bit about one song each day in March. So here goes … Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam is a favorite and this…
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Interesting is a word I notice in conversation because of how people use it—or misuse it. The two ways that amuse me most: When asked for an opinion or evaluation, people will say “That’s interesting” or “Hmmmm, interesting.” Often they don’t follow that with insight. Instead, it’s a neutral being used to not offer a more…
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We’ve had a mouse problem. It started with a text from Virginia on my Monday morning walk that said, “Mouse! Come home!” I came home, seemingly trapped it in a bathroom and went to get some mouse traps. By the time I returned, it was gone. But we set our traps and the next morning,…
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I was going through a photo album from 1968 made up of photos mostly taken by my father-in-law, and it was as if I was meeting him for the first time. Which, in some ways, I was. Charles Christopher Kirk died in 1974, when I was 9, Virginia was 12, and we were almost 15…
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I’ve never been much of a flower person. I’ve let Virginia do the work of encouraging things to grow and be beautiful, and I water, yank up weeds and prune when things get unruly. But last year, I decided to try my hand at it. I dug out a garden in our backyard and planted…
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It’s been a few weeks since Virginia’s mom, Rosalie Kirk, passed away. After a trip to Maine, during which Virginia grieved in motion, we’re back home in Pennsylvania and feeling Rosalie’s presence in the negative—the lack of the evening phone call, the absence of a need to plan a trip down to Maryland. In this…
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After watching the Celtics’ 92-87 Game 7 win over the Raptors .. Paskal Siakum took a big step back this postseason. In a series where Toronto really needed Siakum to come up big, he was outplayed by Jaylen Brown consistently. In Game 7, he managed just 13 points (to Brown’s 21). After a great first…
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I purchased an iPhone 11 earlier this summer to replace my Pixel 3a. I am not satisfied. Here’s why would I return to my Pixel 3a: • The size. The Pixel 3a is smaller and, honestly, just the perfect size for a phone. The iPhone 11, which is the old XR, is just plain large.…
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Virginia and I were in DC Monday at the White House. We joined a group of local Catholics, from lay people to bishops, Franciscan monks to priests, who peacefully affirmed that Black Lives Matter. Behind the speakers was a security fence, erected to keep citizens off the White House grounds but turned into a shrine…
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