Frank Denton - The Rogue Raven

Name:
Location: Seattle, Washington, United States

What you have here is an old guy. In education for 30 years, started teaching elementary, ended as library and media director of community college. I've enjoyed mountain climbing, sports car rallying, was pipe major of a bagpipe band, played guitar and sang during the folk revival, walking and hiking later in life. Now fairly sedentary. Enjoy reading, esp. mysteries and fantasy, but my reading is pretty eclectic. Enjoy movies, giving Netflix a workout.

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Gone Away

I've been none too regular with this blog of late and it's going to get worse. I spent most of a week in Chicago at Bouchercon, the mystery convention. It was quite a good convention. The trouble with it is that you hear new writers and return home with lists of books to read. I already have more books than I can read before I die.

On the Sunday we went to the Chicago Art Institute to see the Toulouse Lautrec and Montmartre exhibit. It was quite wonderful. We spent three hours on that exhibit alone. Then we sought out Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, the painting of a diner at night or early morning with a counter man and three patrons sitting on stools and nobody is saying a word, you just can tell. The painting that surprised me was The Portrait of Dorian Gray which was the painting used in the film of the same name. It's a really ugly painting as it was meant to be. I was surprised that it was in a museum of fine art.

We drove to Racine, Wisconsin for a couple of days to visit my cousin Margaret and to have lunch with other cousins whom I have not seen in over forty years. A good time was had by all...well, me anyway.

We flew home, have done the laundry and are leaving tomorrow by car for another Great Wander. We don't intend to be home until sometime in November. The goal is places in the southwest which we have not seen before. Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, west Texas. So do not look for another blog by me until I return home. I hope you don't miss me too much. While I'm gone read Bill Crider's blog or James Reasoner's or Ed Gorman's. Their blogs are much better than mine. But I'll be back. You need not worry. With new stories about old places.