Great news today: my wife Abby was able to receive her second dose of Pfizer-made coronavirus vaccine Friday. Across the country, health departments, hospitals and clinics have been struggling to meet demand for vaccines to address the historic coronavirus pandemic. I know that I am grateful for every effort they have made, and I am…
Continue reading →This item was originally penned in 2011, but I updated it January 2021. The reason we spent all those dark hours scratching our thoughts onto Mead notebooks are as individual as we are, but at the core is this: we recorded our intimate thoughts. 98% of the creative process creates useless, self-indulgent drivel. Only through…
Continue reading →I step into this punishing night The cold wraps its Loving arms around me I lift my face to feel The cold white touch from the sky And I realize it is not snow It is ashes From all the words I had ever said And all the words I wanted to unsay
Continue reading →
This was a story I wrote for my newspaper two years ago, before Open Mic Nyte disbanded. I found the files when I was cleaning out some folders on my laptop, and wanted to preserve it here. Open Mic Nyte by Richard R. Barron, Chief Photographer The scent of coffee drifts through the air as…
Continue reading →
I spent an evening this week with some friends old and new at a poetry/fiction reading event at a home here in Ada. Lit by Christmas lights, candles, and camp fires, it really was photography pushed to the edge of all the margins: ISO 6400, aperture f/1.4, shutter speeds down to 1/8th of a second….
Continue reading →I have a zillion words on paper in my life, and I have a zillion words online. I think it’s a good idea to keep both of these vectors for expression updated and complete, and I happen to think that the printed word and printed pictures are more engaging and meaningful than anything online. This…
Continue reading →
Most of my work as a journalist has returned. School is back in session, as are athletics, though both have faced fits and starts as the pandemic spreads. Our young photographer/writer friend Mackenzee came by my office last week after I offered to lend her my copies of Ansel Adams’ The Camera, The Negative, and…
Continue reading →The road rumbles around us. Brilliant New Mexico sun shines through the windshield. Brilliant October blue sky surrounds us. In the seat next to me, she sleeps. On the truck’s MP3 player is this song, Piercing Quiet by Tritonal. It resonates in me. Listen here as you read… “The world’s in constant motion And…
Continue reading →“You should have seen the look on Mark’s face when he saw those bell peppers.” It never ceases to amaze or discourage me to see grown men so threatened by something as harmless as someone else’s diet. He was a huge Coke drinker. Obsessive. “So why didn’t you and Elizabeth ever get together?” he asked…
Continue reading →I was cleaning up some computer files and folders recently when I came across images from our most recent anniversary trip, The Winding Road. I must have been hungry, because I gravitated to an image of a dessert Abby and I shared at our favorite restaurant in the world, Madrid, New Mexico’s The Hollar. “Honey,”…
Continue reading →
As someone who’s had his name in print thousands of times over the years, and as someone who has always made an effort to curate something of a creative legacy, I believe it might be more important than ever to try to express our thoughts with pen and paper. I know I’ve said this before,…
Continue reading →
“No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and emotions shared by all.” ~Albert Camus, The Plague I miss my indulgences. I want to get back to my self pity. I want to walk the wolfhound and think sweetly about my napping wife, or hear a song on my phone…
Continue reading →
When I was young, I thought I wanted to write novels and short stories for a living. I imagined, as young people sometimes do, that it would be easy and that everything I wrote was solid gold. In reality, I penned a quippy, smart-assy journal that often ignored or missed the mark, and when I…
Continue reading →
There is a strong current of pessimism around us right now as a disease is endangering humanity, and we the people are not handling it very well. Social media has become a consistent source of bad news for me, so I think I will slow way down on checking it. My comment on social media…
Continue reading →As I convalesce from influenza Type A, I am in an oddly overly-emotional state. So as I pester my wife with my nagging cough, I also had some time to ponder a thing or two. I confessed to a friend recently that at one point in time, I almost – almost – threw away my…
Continue reading →Sunday I was, to my surprise, awarded the Ada Arts Council’s 2019 Outstanding Adan in the Arts during the annual Cozy Up with the Arts event at Wintersmith Lodge. I love the idea of supporting the arts, and I certainly feel like I want to be an artist, but often I get into ruts that…
Continue reading →
I express myself in a number of ways. Many are visual, but some are linguistic. An excellent example of this is that I have written my thoughts in some kind of journal or notebook since September 1978. There have been milestones: a first anniversary, a 40th anniversary, and a change in 1998 from big spiral…
Continue reading →
One of my favorite Ada community events, Open Mic Nyte, ceased meeting in May for a variety of reasons. But the gathering came roaring back for a one-time event Thursday on the patio of Hot Shots Coffee House in Ada, drawing many regular artists and readers, and a few new participants. The event was precipitated…
Continue reading →I write this on the 41st anniversary of my journal. My reviewance of Kurt Cobain’s journal continues. I am about halfway through, but I grab his big red book at every commodal sit-down and late afternoon nap. So far, it has been every bit the epic roller coaster I hoped it would. “No matter what…
Continue reading →Browsing YouTube recently, I came across a video from The Nerdwriter called, “Polly: Nirvana’s Darkest Song.” I wasn’t into Nirvana when the band was huge. I found their sound, like a lot of grunge/garage of the era, a bit too ratty and melodiless. In the video, Nerdwriter mentions front man Kurt Cobain’s journals. I literally…
Continue reading →
I am saddened to report that Open Mic Nyte, which I have attended since June 2017, has suspended performances. We saw this coming when its long-time home, Mojo’s Coffee, closed in October 2018. The Grandview hosted us for a while, which was unassailably generous, but the space wasn’t quite conducive to our scene. Another factor…
Continue reading →This is from the Bl@k Bük. It was written by a long-time friend of mine. Manifest of Mary’s 24th Century Weaponry by M7/Rectal Infectant Personal defense… Mood wand Spider gun The constipater Nut hook Sonic buttplug Dung sabre Point ‘n vomit Vomit box Beavisator Halitosis projector Dangerously infected semen Wash plug in ureter Julio Iglesiator…
Continue reading →Editor’s note: I read this at Open Mic Nyte recently, and I felt is deserved a wider audience. It was written by a long-time friend of mine in one of the notebooks we share. Shopping List for My American Jee-Hodd (In American, it’s pronounced “She Hot!”) by M7/Virgil Woodpuff Wood putty Barbed wire 1984 Blonde-haired…
Continue reading →Editor’s note: I read this at Open Mic Nyte recently, and I felt is deserved a wider audience. It was written by a long-time friend of mine in one of the notebooks we share. At Right Angles by M7/Rectal Infectant My pet kangaroo gently bounces in front of me – ears atwitch. I lustily attack…
Continue reading →Am I really such a huge egomaniac that I believe that nothing counts if no one saw it? Is my life not the center of it all? Pînch Pøke; Sück Mæ D!ck When I asked if she played any instruments, she said, “just the meat flute.” I then looked at her job application, which said,…
Continue reading →
I came to The Ada Evening News (The Ada News since 2012) 30 years ago today, October 24, 1988. I documented the news photography angle on my teaching site (link), if you want to read it. From a far more personal perspective, 1988 was a very dark, very lost, very complicated time for me. I…
Continue reading →
“…tell him to pray that I won’t melt away And I’ll see your face again Odessa, how strong am I? Odessa, how time goes by…” ~Odessa, The Bee Gees Picture me at my desk in our house on 52nd Street, in Lawton, Oklahoma. I’m wearing my bulletproof Plain Pockets jeans, an untucked plaid shirt, and…
Continue reading →
“Honey, can I put cheese on Max the Chihuahua?” I asked. “You never let me put cheese on Summer the Chihuahua.” “Yeah, well, right place, right time.” I have rejoined the Twitterstream, where it is always raining lawnmowers and assholes. While I scour the web for interesting content, I always try to generate my own….
Continue reading →In high school I was on the The Talon yearbook staff, first as a writer, then, in my senior year, as a photographer. It was a different era in most ways. I talked about the photography aspect of it on the teaching blog (link), but in this instance, I refer to the social aspect. I also wrote…
Continue reading →Cry on my shoulder. This above all: to thine own self be true. I just want something I can never have. Fantasies are opiate of the imaginative. Far away. Then, it was over. The secret of life, therefore, is this: when faced with the truth, accept it. Right now I’ve got fear, pain, and boredom….
Continue reading →