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On Bagpipes

First Published: 2022 October 24

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Yesterday I got to play bagpipes at a friend’s wedding. It was a lovely service, and I’m grateful that I got to take part in it.

While I was setting up, I remembered the last service I saw bagpipes at. I was at a funeral for a friend’s family member. It was there that I thought about how fitting bagpipes are for emotional performances.

Unlike most any other instrument, which requires consistent and continuous breath support, in the bagpipes you blow just the top of your breath each time. When your breathing turns to gasps, you can1 still play pipes.

Anyways, yesterday’s occasion was really happy and joyful. It’s always shocking to me how much people really appreciate hearing music, especially from instruments that they don’t hear often. Most of the parents and assorted older members of the wedding came up to express their gratitude for my playing, and the bride and groom both were happy for ti. It’s nice when my hobbies actually get to be helpful.


  1. in theory I assume↩︎

Reflections on Today’s Gospel

First Published: 2022 October 24

Luke 18:13 “But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’”

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I really love today’s Gospel, because it gets directly to the heart of the Christian call to holiness. We are not saved through our own actions. We are not holy through our own merits. Rather, we are called to remember that we are sinners, and the good in our life comes from He who is Good.

St. Paul reminds us that we are strong enough to do what He calls us to do, because we are given the strength we need. The First Reading reminds us that there is no one the Lord does not hear.

Book Review of Gideon the Ninth

First Published: 2022 October 21

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I’m still figuring out how to do these book reviews. I think maybe a good, bad, other style could be good? I haven’t done that here, but there’s always next time.

In addition to reading Atomic Habits yesterday, I also finished a book that I was reading with a friend.1 That book was Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth.

I’d heard a lot of praise for the book from different people unprompted, so I was curious how reading it would go. Overall, I enjoyed the book a lot, for all that I still have no idea what happened. The book begins, not so much in media res as in medium mundum. Our main character is trying to escape captivity. She has dreams of joining the military, if only to get off of the planet she’s on.

Very quickly, we learn that this universe is one of necromancy and inter-planetary travel. Gideon (our intrepid hero) is not a necromancer. The only other girl on the planet2, is, however. The two fight about whether or not Gideon should be allowed to leave the planet, and it ends up in a duel.

Shockingly, the girl with a sword cannot beat the girl with a seemingly infinite number of skeletons in combat. For losing, Gideon is forced to attend a meeting, where they learn that their God Emperor wants new immortal killing machines. Both think this sounds like a great idea,3, and they fly off to a planet to meet the other houses.

From there, there’s intrigue, romance, and violence. Becoming an immortal necromancer stops seeming quite as wholly good and starts to seem more morally grey as the book continues.4 All in all, it’s an enjoyable read, with a couple of caveats.

There’s a trend I’ve noticed as I’ve started reading more and more self-published/first works.5 Either the text contains literal paragraphs of explanatory text a la “A gronkle is the currency in the realm. It is worth twenty two shenks, which are approximately one inch in diameter. One shenk is worth about as much as a single mana crystal, which is powerful enough to cast one fireball from. Unlike the gronkle-shenk relationship, which is enforced by the King (btw we’re in a total monarchy)...”, or there’s a glossary/index that we’re supposed to refer to while reading. Gideon is the latter half, at least for me.

I’ll take some responsibility in this. I often struggle to keep characters apart in books, but the author does just go “here’s sixteen new characters. Anyways, from now on I’ll be referring to them by name and where they come from interchangeably.” However, the experience was still really enjoyable. I’m excited to start the next book in the series.


  1. well, in theory at least↩︎

  2. so not one of the elderly↩︎

  3. after enough duress↩︎

  4. shocking, I know↩︎

  5. this book isn’t self-published but is the author’s first book↩︎

Book Review of Atomic Habits

First Published: 2022 October 20

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By recommendation,1 I listened to James Clear’s Atomic Habits today on a long drive.2 It’s a book which uses anecdote and scientific evidence to help build the habits we want in our life. Like every other self-help book I read by pseudo-scientific men who started out blogging,3 it uses the example of compounding interest, and how small percent differences become massive over time. Unlike others, he really emphasizes how you’re completely unlikely to see any of the gains until after you’ve fully established a habit, which is nice.

Another good part of the book is that he makes a point of the fact that habits don’t form out of nowhere. Whether it’s a net good for our overall life or not, any habit we start is started, on some level, at least, because it’s improving our immediate environment.

The advice seems good and practical, which is somewhat uncommon in these sorts of books. There’s also good mention of survivorship bias, which is often lacking in the genre. Overall, it’s a really enjoyable read, and doesn’t suffer from the same page-length padding common to the genre. It’s a quick read that I’d recommend!


  1. read:advice↩︎

  2. the recommendation was to read the book at some point, I chose to interpret as listen during my 8 hour drive↩︎

  3. a not-insignificant number of books↩︎

Sharing Another Song

First Published: 2022 October 18

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Wow! Two months ago today I talked about when I shared a song I wrote. It’s so weird to me how in those two months I went from terrified of playing a song in front of a single friend to willing to just play a half-finished song at an open mic.

However, it was generally well received, and it was fun to have the band back together.1


  1. mostly↩︎

Reflections on Today’s Gospel

First Published: 2022 October 16

2 Timothy 4:2 “proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching”

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Today’s readings remind us of the Gospel admonition to pray ceaselessly. More than that, though, we are reminded of how our faith lives do not affect us alone.

When Moses lowers his hands from exhaustion, it is not only he who suffers. All of Israel is pushed back. And yet, we do not have to fight alone. When he grows weary, Aaron and Hur support his arms.

We are also reminded of how, if we truly are living solely for Christ, our actions would be. How often in our day to day lives do we stand obstinately in the face of some inconvenience to us? How much worse is an eternity without the Lord, either for us or for those around?

On Villanelles (Redux)

First Published: 2022 October 14

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Well, I have once again fallen behind on both poems and writing blog posts.1 There’s a Tumblr page that posts weekly prompts for short writings, and last Friday I responded to it with a poem. I kind of like the idea of continuing to do that, and sonnet form is starting to get boring to me.

So, it feels like a good time to break back out villanelles. I’ve written about them before, but they remain a fascinating poetic form to me, for all that they’re significantly harder to write.


  1. also stretching, but that’s not relevant here.↩︎

Talk Planning, Giving the Talk

First Published: 2022 October 12

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Yesterday I gave the talk that I’ve been talking about for a while. I think it went well, and I got mostly positive feedback. It’s very weird to be over it though, I feel like I didn’t do anywhere as good of a job as I wanted, and I only read like half of what I was planning to read.

Still, it happened!

Theology Question

First Published: 2022 October 5

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Currently I’m struggling with a theology question. Apparently animals don’t have immortal souls. So far as I can tell, we know this to be true that because:

Neither of those is sufficient in my mind to require my submission.

My logic for why I would believe animals have souls which go to heaven is1 a relatively straightforward logical chain.2

  1. Prior to Original Sin there was no death

  2. We die because our ancestors, Adam and Eve, committed the sin, and we inherit it as their children. This has been stated by a Pope as necessary to belief, though in the context of whether we can believe humanity sprang from multiple sources.

  3. There were animals in the Garden

There are only a few conclusions I can draw from this chain. Either:3

Anyways, fixing my router just now took out most of my interest in solving my theological quandry, so off it goes into the ether of thoughts I sometimes have. I may revisit this some other time.


  1. at least to me↩︎

  2. I’m currently writing this without wifi, so I cannot fact check my claims currently.↩︎

  3. or multiple, I suppose↩︎

  4. again, I’m writing without access to internet↩︎

Accordion Repair

First Published: 2022 October 3

Draft 1

I mentioned recently that I learned how to repair an accordion. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned here yet that I own an accordion, but I do.

More or less, one row of the bass reeds had fallen into the bellows of my instrument.1 Now that I know how to, fixing it is as simple as opening the bass side up by removing six pins and slotting the row back into place. However, I did not know that at the time, and ended up spending around two hours to get to that point of knowledge. I’m glad for the mistakes I made, because they’ll help me do better in the future!


  1. no I don’t know how↩︎