When I was growing up my family always had plenty of cars. Not new ones. God forbid. I can only recall one new car during my youth, a blue Chevy Impala. Maybe my sister, who actually has a memory, can clarify this. Aside from that glaring exception we were a sort of urban Island of Misfit Cars. My dad knew a lot of people anxious to sell cars, often for $1. It was illegal to Read the rest of this entry »
car talk
Posted: May 6, 2012 in TrasklandTags: auto, Black Beauty, car, Edsel, family, growing up, humor, humour, life
timeless
Posted: May 4, 2012 in PhotographyTags: black and white, Colgate clock, Empire State Building, Jersey City, New York, Photography
For many years the clock buttressing the Colgate factory in downtown Jersey City was the sole impressive sight when folks in Manhattan looked across the river towards New Jersey. Over the past 25 years or so that has changed with the construction of looming Read the rest of this entry »
death and twitter
Posted: May 2, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: culture, death, Junior Seau, life, respect, society, Twitter
Today Junior Seau died. He was an ex-football star who had a distinguished 20 year career in the National Football League. Most likely he will eventually – and rightfully – get inducted into that sport’s Hall of Fame. Preliminary indications are he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 43.
Ever since Twitter burst into the collective consciousness people have used it as a vehicle to express public condolences when someone of note passes away. Today was no exception. Apparently the Twitterverse was bursting with Read the rest of this entry »
your genius is so amazingly brilliant
Posted: May 1, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: awesome!, Blogosphere, blogs, internet, interwebs, language, life, Mozart, praise, society
You know what’s happened, don’t you? We snatched the exclusive world of superlatives, recklessly threw it into the combustible core of the web, and watched it blow apart in a way that would have made Robert Oppenheimer proud.
As willing participants in this weird alternate universe called the Blogosphere you can’t help but notice the epidemic of exceptional praise for unexceptional performance. (To be fair it extends far beyond our little bloggy neighborhoods.) This misuse of language reaches its nasty tentacles everywhere, much like a cockroach intrusion. You only need to see one to know thousands of similar vermin Read the rest of this entry »
family tree
Posted: April 30, 2012 in Humorous BitsTags: ancestors, family, history, humor, humour, life, Trask Avenue
The Trask Avenue family has a long history. We share with you some of those who came before us.
Traskulus? Who knows?
Traskulus Bargainus (285-330)
Traskulus Bargainus was a noted tapestry merchant in Rome during reign of Constantine I. He became widely famous for promoting the use of advertising slogans to popularize subpar and shoddy merchandise. He is alleged to have invented the concept of selling overstocked items at largely discounted prices by invoking the phrase “Everything Must Go!” However, several significant scholars claim the original phrase was actually “Everything must go before the nasty centurion bastards crash through my door and steal my goodies for the greedy Emperor”. Traskulus was commonly known to Roman citizens of the era as “Crazy Trasky”. Read the rest of this entry »
dreamland
Posted: April 29, 2012 in PhotographyTags: Dreamland, fantasy, houses, mystical, Photography
Trifextra – “rochambeau: standoff”
Posted: April 27, 2012 in FictionTags: battle, challenge, Rochambeau, rock paper scissors, strategy, Trifextra, war, writing
This weekend’s Trifextra challenge: Take a scene which involves (or affects) at least three people. Write this scene from the point of view of three of the characters, using 33 words for each. Read the rest of this entry »
common threads #8: weaving-intertwining
Posted: April 23, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: cause and effect, Common Threads, connections, intertwining, life, mind maps, weaving
Remember when you were told as a child never to pull a loose string hanging from a sweater? Remember how you were warned if you pulled it the whole sweater would unravel? Remember how tempted you were to pull it anyway, how it pleaded to be yanked? And remember how you finally succumbed to that irresistible urge only to discover what you had been told all along was the truth? You didn’t understand the breadth of the connection between Read the rest of this entry »
Trask Avenue 
nothing’s cooking
Posted: May 7, 2012 in Observations and CommentaryTags: hunger, life, Photography, poverty, society
I took this photo several years ago. While some details have changed (the abandoned diner is no longer there, for one) the underlying reality of what this illustrates remains sadly the same. You still see the disenfranchised, disposed and dispirited milling about as you drive through this section of Read the rest of this entry »