My last “As The Pizza Cooks” episode had very good stats. 107 likes, 158 views and 31 comments. Discounting the fact that half the comments are mine, that’s not bad for one of my posts. I should add that this is the first time in about five years that I checked the stats on one of my blog posts. The only reason I really noticed how many likes I have is that I’ve been getting a lot of email about it. Well, actually, WordPress has been sending me a lot of email about it. When I started this blog 13 years ago there was a setting that said, “Get email for: Likes, comments, etc” and I just checked everything. Never changed it. I’m not even sure where that button is anymore. It seems like somewhere, the WP folks changed the admin interface and nothing is where it was. Maybe I’d know more about it if I checked that kind of thing more than once every five years.
Honestly, I don’t blog for stats, but I do get a bit of a thrill when I get that little email that says someone left a comment or clicked the like button. I know that you’re thinking that’s a lot of email to be looking at, but honestly I just set some filters in gmail and all that stuff goes to a folder I check once in awhile. Comments are special though, I do read those and reply. Maybe I don’t say something world shattering in the reply, but I try.
My father always used to say that I was trying.
Anyway, I do have spam filters set on the blog so most of the junk comments never see the light of day and I don’t allow URL links in comments unless I approve them so I have a little control there. Once in a rare while a spam comment slips through the filters and I have to manually delete it. It’s actually rare that I end up deleting a comment and even more rare that I have to block a user. It’s happened, just not very often.
When I started blogging that was one of my fears, that I’d just start getting annoying, rude or hateful comments. It’s not happened. Mostly because I think people head towards FaceBook or other social platforms to be disrespectful.
Turns out that I mostly get really nice comments and well, it’s one of the reasons I blog — for the feeling of community. I’ve followed some blogs for years and regularly comment on them. Maybe not brilliant comments, and sadly there isn’t enough time for me to comment on all the blogs I follow. I checked and there are about 600 blogs on my following list. 90 percent don’t post anymore and I haven’t gone back to clean up the list.
Honestly, I’m constantly amazed that people stop by and comment on my posts. I’m grateful that you do stop by with a comment or two.
I have been wondering why my last pizza post did so well. Maybe because I was talking about blogging. Blogging seems to be a hot topic for a blog post. If I was trying to do blogging “right” I’d learn from this and post more about blogging.
But I only check stats every five years, so even if I did start posting more about blogging, it will be a long time before I figure out if that is getting me more views and comments.
Well, that’s it for this week, likely I’ll post something next week, but you never know what I’ll do.
Spring is here and the days are warm enough to get working hard in the yard. This week I started on a project to improve the watering of our lawn and a flower bed. We’ve made a lot of changes in the garden in the almost four years we’ve lived here and the original garden irrigation system has needed a lot of upgrades to keep up with our plans. Our back lawn has always gone brown in the hottest times of summer and as we’ve added drip irrigation we’ve noticed one drip zone seemed to be losing water pressure.
The solution:
New irrigation valve box
Simple – just find the existing one inch main irrigation line, dig, cut and add in a new irrigation valve box with two new watering zones. Then you get your trenching shovel, sod cutter, spade, iron bar, gloves, water bottle, a large bottle of ibuprofen, band-aids, ice packs and you dig eight feet of trench across your lawn:
This trench gets two 3/4 inch water lines, one for a flower bed and one that will water half the lawn. I’m added eight new sprinkler heads to the lawn and likely around six for the flower bed. I haven’t really added it up (because I wouldn’t have started the project if I know this number), but I think there will be around 50 feet of trench to dig.
So far I’ve been at this for three days and hope to finish the whole project next week. Being an old guy, I only work four hours day before my body says stop so it’s not as much as you think. I do find it best to take the ibuprofen before and after working. Yes, I could have hired someone to do this, but then I wouldn’t get the joy of going to the home improvement store to buy parts and going back to get the parts I forgot.
I should mention that having a good supply of band-aids is important. I only have two cuts right now and no real idea how I got them … wait, three cuts … when did I scrape my elbow?
Tomorrow I fill this trench in and put the sod back. That’s it for this week. More pictures next week so until then, if you need me, I’m limping to the kitchen to get an ice pack for my knee.
This is a series of posts about the music I listen to while writing. This time we’re up to a strange song, The Last Leviathan. I’m willing to bet that few of you have heard of this one. It’s mostly known in the sea shanty and folk music communities and as far as I know is not widely known outside those communities. It’s not a shanty, but best described as a song of the sea and a lament. The words are the first person story told from the last living whale’s point of view of its own death.
Yeah, not exactly uplifting lyrics. The music is haunting and best versions of this song are sung a cappella. I’ve included links to two version of the song at the end of this post. More about those in a moment. The song could also be classified as a protest song as it describes the effects of losing a whole living species.
The opening words are “Last night I heard the cry of my last companion / The roar of the harpoon gun, then I was alone.” It doesn’t delay or build up — it just opens with a gut punch and builds the image of the death of a vast number of whales, leviathans, and ends with the question, “What race will be next in line all for the slaughter? / The elephant or the seals or your sons and daughters?”
The song writer is warning us that if humans are willing to kill whole races, why stop at whales, seals or elephants. Perhaps when we run out of things to kill we’ll turn on own children.
The Last Leviathan is not the easiest song to research the best I’ve found out is that it was written in the early 1980’s by Andy Barnes. Originally titled, The Last of the Great Whales, it’s been recorded by at least 30 groups. I first became aware of the song in the 1990’s after buying a CD of songs recorded by the Celtic Music Group, Golden Bough. I first attended a Golden Bough performance at a church in San Jose, California and generally liked their style of Celtic, Irish and Scottish folk music. I have a couple of their CDs. I don’t think they tour anymore.
When I first heard Golden Bough’s recording of The Last Leviathan I was both repelled and fascinated by the song. The lyrics are hard to listen to, but the music sung in a high soprano backed with harp is haunting, compelling and really makes you believe that a whale is actually singing the song. Altogether it creates a realistic story that it is very believable.
It would be another couple of decades before I’d hear the song again. In 2019 Heather and were in St. Ives in Cornwall enjoying a few day at the sea side. It’s a pleasant coastal town with a small harbor and an active artist community. We didn’t realize this when we planned the trip, but the weekend we were there was their annual arts festival. There were art exhibits, talks, open studio tours and a number of music concerts. One concert we went to was at a little church in town that included a Cornish Men’s Choir and The Bryher’s Boys, a sea shanty singing crew. We enjoyed both and I eventually bought one of their CDs.
One of the songs The Bryher’s Boys sung was The Last Leviathan. It was sung as solo by a tenor backed up with the voices of the rest of the group joining the chorus. The recording I list below is from one of their live performances and how I remember them performing it. I like the emotion and feeling they put into the song and so far this version has become my favorite cover. It turns out that I also really love their other music. Sadly, they don’t do much recording as they are mostly a performance group. Since I don’t live in the UK where they tour, I’ve not heard them since 2019. I will admit that I have been tempted to look up their touring schedule and booking a trip to see them and check out one of the music festivals they do.
Even though this song is on my playlist, I tend to cringe a bit when it starts to play and from time to time find the song slightly irritating. Partly it’s because of the accusatory nature of the lyrics and partly there is a harshness to the music as it mimics the cry of a whale. Still it ends up on my playlist because it does tell a story and sometimes it best to confront yourself with uncomfortable facts. As a writer, and a poet, it’s often necessary to say things that I don’t like or find … challenging. This song is a reminder to me that not all writing is happy or uplifting and sometimes we are called to tell the tragic story or harsh truth.
Andrew's View of the Week 
As The Pizza Cooks — Episode 25
My last “As The Pizza Cooks” episode had very good stats. 107 likes, 158 views and 31 comments. Discounting the fact that half the comments are mine, that’s not bad for one of my posts. I should add that this is the first time in about five years that I checked the stats on one of my blog posts. The only reason I really noticed how many likes I have is that I’ve been getting a lot of email about it. Well, actually, WordPress has been sending me a lot of email about it. When I started this blog 13 years ago there was a setting that said, “Get email for: Likes, comments, etc” and I just checked everything. Never changed it. I’m not even sure where that button is anymore. It seems like somewhere, the WP folks changed the admin interface and nothing is where it was. Maybe I’d know more about it if I checked that kind of thing more than once every five years.
Honestly, I don’t blog for stats, but I do get a bit of a thrill when I get that little email that says someone left a comment or clicked the like button. I know that you’re thinking that’s a lot of email to be looking at, but honestly I just set some filters in gmail and all that stuff goes to a folder I check once in awhile. Comments are special though, I do read those and reply. Maybe I don’t say something world shattering in the reply, but I try.
My father always used to say that I was trying.
Anyway, I do have spam filters set on the blog so most of the junk comments never see the light of day and I don’t allow URL links in comments unless I approve them so I have a little control there. Once in a rare while a spam comment slips through the filters and I have to manually delete it. It’s actually rare that I end up deleting a comment and even more rare that I have to block a user. It’s happened, just not very often.
When I started blogging that was one of my fears, that I’d just start getting annoying, rude or hateful comments. It’s not happened. Mostly because I think people head towards FaceBook or other social platforms to be disrespectful.
Turns out that I mostly get really nice comments and well, it’s one of the reasons I blog — for the feeling of community. I’ve followed some blogs for years and regularly comment on them. Maybe not brilliant comments, and sadly there isn’t enough time for me to comment on all the blogs I follow. I checked and there are about 600 blogs on my following list. 90 percent don’t post anymore and I haven’t gone back to clean up the list.
Honestly, I’m constantly amazed that people stop by and comment on my posts. I’m grateful that you do stop by with a comment or two.
I have been wondering why my last pizza post did so well. Maybe because I was talking about blogging. Blogging seems to be a hot topic for a blog post. If I was trying to do blogging “right” I’d learn from this and post more about blogging.
But I only check stats every five years, so even if I did start posting more about blogging, it will be a long time before I figure out if that is getting me more views and comments.
Well, that’s it for this week, likely I’ll post something next week, but you never know what I’ll do.
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