Frida Kahlo would have been 106 years old today. I noted the anniversary a year ago as part of my series, Born To Be Wild, which marked the birthdays of noteworthy artists and appeared on Vine, the blog at Wisteria.com. Twenty years ago, in an exhibition of Mexican surrealists and before I even knew she existed, I…
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For anyone who writes a blog, creates web content, or for any reason requires images for use online, Wikimedia Commons might possibly represent both the internet’s best kept secret and the largest single repository of bad photography in our galaxy. First, the Best-Kept-Secret category: Because much of Wikimedia Commons “database of 17,568,982 freely usable media…
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Warning: the following post contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some viewers. Even I squirm a little just thinking about it. Only what bothered me wasn’t watching a surgical incision being made inches away. Or seeing a doctor insert large, pokey, stainless steel objects into another person’s abdomen. Or even the blood. No, I squirm…
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VERNACULAR. Language. I don’t know about you, but I’ve long been fascinated by these things. The morphing of meaning over time. Dirty words and what makes them dirty. Dialects. How you can be saying one thing and I’m hearing something else. I think that fascination has been with me since childhood, certainly from the time…
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SINCE I’M TYPICALLY so late in catching on to trends, memes, and rages, I’ve determined my role will be to check in once they’re up and running, make sure everything’s going okay, and then add a comment or two for the benefit of others who, like me, are just getting with the program. Case in…
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WHEN DALLAS Area Rapid Transit sought to keep a federally mandated minimum of minority contracts, they decided to place a classified ad in the jobs section of the Dallas Morning News and asked me to write it, emphasizing the range of contracts they had to offer. Businesses that pursue work with federally-funded organizations like DART…
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MEMORIAL DAY of 2012, I became a grandfather for the very first time. Other proud grandfathers might have passed around snapshots, or maybe cigars. I’m a writer. So I wrote. Wisteria is a family kinda place, and Vine, the blog at Wisteria.com provided me the perfect opportunity to post an interview I did with my…
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“A Car Guy’s Words To Live By: Wisdom For Men Who Like To Fix Stuff” was a list I originally wrote as an in-store branding campaign for a national auto parts retailer. I’m resurrecting it here to mark Father’s Day and to honor the memory of my own dad. James Frank Starr was sort of…
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BORN TO BE WILD was a series of posts I wrote to mark the birthdays of noteworthy artists. It ran on Vine, the original name of the blog at Wisteria.com (now Storyboard). This particular piece, about a sculpture by Paul Gauguin, first appeared in June of 2012. “I have this thing for a Tahitian girl. I…
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