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	<title>Carlo Wolff</title>
	<link>http://www.carlowolff.com</link>
	<description>Cleveland Rock &#038; Roll Memories</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:16:36 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Rock lives</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In rock ‘n’ roll, comebacks are by no means a sure bet. Some bands never go away, even when they should, like the Stones and the Who. Some go acoustic and minimal, like Ray Davies of the Kinks. Others devolve into their leader, like Roky Erickson, whose 13th Floor Elevators yielded the barbed-wire breakup song, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2010/03/07/rock-lives/</link>
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		<title>The right of spring</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The headline is a pun I use as an excuse to catch up with my blog, woefully unattended to for nearly a month. Seriously, it’s a pleasure to write this at my living room window as I watch snow mounds on the deck finally melt.
It’s still cold but it’s bright, the snow crunching less than [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2010/03/06/the-right-of-spring/</link>
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		<title>An apology to my website</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been neglectful of my website. It’s been nearly a month since I updated. I’ve been very busy, but it’s time to catch up.
In mid-December, my wife suggested I e-mail as many people as I could think of to tell them I wanted to engage more. Being semi-retired can be lonely, even when there’s work [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2010/02/10/an-apology-to-my-website/</link>
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		<title>Getting out of a jam</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I went to traffic court today for a hearing about the $25 ticket I got Dec. 22, when I was accused of parking too far from the curb.
I parked in the Justice Center garage across the street from the plug-ugly Justice Center and got to the second floor in plenty of time for my 10:45 [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2010/01/21/getting-out-of-a-jam/</link>
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		<title>My favorite books of 2009</title>
		<description><![CDATA[These are my best 2009 reads. I reviewed all of them except Box 21. Maybe I included that one because I read it for fun. 
T.J. Stiles, The First Tycoon (Knopf)
Hans Fallada, Every Man Dies Alone (Melville House)
Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire (Knopf)
Peter Kuper, Diario de Oaxaca (PM Press)
David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/12/27/my-favorite-books-of-2009/</link>
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		<title>Cleveland’s Christmas spirit</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I went downtown Dec. 22 to pick up new glasses at Jerold Optical on Huron Road. I parked at a meter with 25 minutes left. My daughter Lylah and I picked up the specs within 10 minutes and left Jerold, the only full-service optical emporium left downtown.
We saw a cop ticketing my car. I yelled [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/12/24/cleveland%e2%80%99s-christmas-spirit/</link>
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		<title>American twilight part II</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s almost Christmas, time for the spirit of giving, but our politicians seem to have lost sight of this. Three weeks ago, I ranted against the Republicans for saying no to health care reform. Now, I’m blasting spineless or mean-spirited Democrats, particularly Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, a self-styled conservative determined to scuttle health care reform [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/12/17/american-twilight-part-ii/</link>
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		<title>American twilight</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Are Americans getting stupider? Or is it just Republicans? Seems like in the face of contrary evidence, Americans, according to a Washington Post poll, are beginning to think global warming doesn&#8217;t exist. The Christian Science Monitor, meanwhile, just published evidence to the contrary. Might global warming become an issue as divisive as abortion? God forbid.
Meanwhile, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/11/24/american-twilight/</link>
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		<title>Leonard Cohen: in the zone</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Weird to think of “Leonard Cohen Live in London” alongside “Allman Brothers at Fillmore East,” but both are paradigms of the live album, capturing artists at the peak of their powers. Cohen’s was recorded in 2008 when he was 73, near the start of his nearly two-year-long tour; the American leg this fall was his [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/11/06/leonard-cohen-in-the-zone/</link>
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		<title>The torchy Sophie Milman</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Sophie Milman is a 26-year-old Toronto chanteuse who may be the hottest Canadian export since Diana Krall. Not only is Milman, a Russian native and a kind of wandering Jew, fluent in English, she sings jazz with an authority common to far more seasoned performers. Backed by Paul Shrofel on piano and Mark McLean on [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/11/06/the-torchy-sophie-milman/</link>
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		<title>Jewish music</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I keep running into other lucky ones who attended the Leonard Cohen concert at the Allen Theatre in Cleveland Oct. 25; we all stand in awe (here’s my preview). In more than three hours, Cohen and his amazing troupe of cosmic musicians rekindled my belief, that I’d thought retro, in pop as conveyor of truth. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/11/01/jewish-music/</link>
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		<title>The western trek</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Katy and I went to Arizona in the third week of October to look at Arizona State University in Phoenix and the University of Arizona in Tucson. Katy&#8217;s a senior at Beaumont School and is interested in psychology. She has a gift for it, working with kids with special disabilities the past two summers in [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/11/01/the-western-trek/</link>
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		<title>Fra Fra Sound channels Afrobeat</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Call Amsterdam-based group Fra Fra Sound’s CD “Dya So” world music, call it jazz, call it anything you want. Formed 25 years ago, the septet takes its name from the Surinamese “Fra Fra,” meaning “mysterious” or “hybrid.” “Dya So,” its latest CD, blends high-life, rai, island chickenscratch, funk, percussion virtuosity and an ever-shifting, ever-surprising front [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/10/14/fra-fra-sound-channels-afrobeat/</link>
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		<title>The post-bop sax of Bobby Selvaggio</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Bobby Selvaggio is a post-bop saxophonist from Cleveland with robust tone, astonishing technique and a talent for composing tunes with complex, braided melody lines. On his fifth CD as a leader, Selvaggio unfurls spiky chamber music (“Whirlwind,” a fabulous exchange with pianist Kenny Werner), an exotic, Middle Eastern excursion (the wittily titled “Timbuktu Step”) and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/10/14/the-post-bop-sax-of-bobby-selvaggio/</link>
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		<title>Willie Nile&#8217;s latest CD</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Willie Nile may be the most stirring hard rocker you’ve never heard, and his new album, “House of a Thousand Guitars,” ranks with his best—except for the title track, a musical roar that name-checks guitar heroes in an uncharacteristic, sadly retro burst of self-indulgence. Otherwise, “House” is wonderful, sparked by the infernally infectious hoedown of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/10/14/willie-niles-latest-cd/</link>
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		<title>Willie &#8216;n’ me</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I reconnected with my past last night when I went to hear Willie Nile at Wilbert’s in downtown Cleveland. I hadn’t seen Willie since the early ‘80s when he was the next big thing, a bantam conflation of Dylan and Springsteen who made critics slaver. I was writing for the Schenectady Gazette in those years [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/10/11/willie-n%e2%80%99-me/</link>
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		<title>Stuff I’ve been working on</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m writing about jazz again. Just cobbled together a feature about Cleveland-based jazz saxophonist Bobby Selvaggio, who’s working his new CD, Modern Times. Just wrote a short about Fra Fra Sound, an Amsterdam septet whose Dya So CD is cool world music. These are for Scene.
I’m also writing debut columns for a yet-to-be-announced, Cleveland-based news [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/09/29/stuff-i%e2%80%99ve-been-working-on/</link>
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		<title>Will crying help?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cried about the body politic today, it reminded me of the day in January 2008 when then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton grew misty during a New Hampshire campaign stop.
Clinton intimated tears when a woman asked her how she bore up under the campaign strain. Pelosi quivered when she compared today’s heated [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/09/17/will-crying-help/</link>
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		<title>Raspberries, James Gang come together</title>
		<description><![CDATA[They always do the second Sunday of every September, when rock musicians who constitute the cream of legacy Cleveland bands get together in Russell at the country home of Buddy and Carol Maver. Members of the Raspberries, the James Gang, associates of the Michael Stanley Band, Rastus, Wild Horses, The Secret, and more blast through [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/09/16/raspberries-james-gang-come-together/</link>
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		<title>Thanks, Woody Herman</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
These Woody Herman recordings from the early to mid-&#8217;60s boast modernist arrangements, spectacular solos and a judicious selection of pop covers. These roaring, democratic dates suggest that Herman was a thoughtful sort capable of switching between incendiary soloing and giving his great players plenty of solo room themselves. The Mosaic Select box resurrects three albums [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/09/14/thanks-woody-herman/</link>
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		<title>Jazz on my mind</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I saw Barbara Dennerlein Friday in a church and Saturday in a jazz club. She plays pipe organ in churches and the Hammond B-3 in jazz clubs. She swings, singularly and unforgettably, in both.

At Fairmount Presbyterian, the petite, 45-year-old German phenomenon played for about an hour and a half, traversing a desultory blues, a few [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/09/13/jazz-on-my-mind/</link>
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		<title>Maybe we can’t</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I just read Politico’s story on liberal pundit dismay with Obama. I’m alarmed myself. Obama’s waffling on health care reform, apparently ready to sacrifice a public option to insurance and pharmacy interests (forget single payer). He hasn’t lifted the Cuban embargo despite calls for air travel from here to there, not just from there to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/08/18/maybe-we-can%e2%80%99t/</link>
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		<title>Family food</title>
		<description><![CDATA[On Friday night, Karen, Lylah and I produced baked shrimp scampi from a recipe Karen and I learned and executed last week. It was delicious. Better yet, all three of us were involved, and both Lylah and I got over some of our kitchen nervousness (I think I speak for my daughter, who until last [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/08/01/family-food/</link>
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		<title>Helpless</title>
		<description><![CDATA[So I’m leaving the Taj Mahal the early afternoon of July 15 and it’s unbelievably hot and to get to the tour bus I have to run a vendor and beggar gauntlet unlike any I’ve ever encountered including one kind of like this outside the Great Wall of China.
Only this one puts vendors and beggars [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/07/24/helpless/</link>
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		<title>And now, from India&#8230;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve just arrived at the Leela Kempinski Goa on the coast of the Indian Ocean in the southwestern part of this fantastic country. It&#8217;s one of the most beautiful resorts I&#8217;
ve ever seen. The per-night cost of the suite I&#8217;m typing this in approaches my monthly mortgage payment; no wonder it&#8217;s so relaxing. It helps [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/07/20/and-now-from-india/</link>
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		<title>Keeping up with Sean Jones</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This isn’t exactly breaking news, but it’s exciting nevertheless: Sean Jones, a charismatic young trumpet virtuoso with fabulous leadership abilities, is the new artistic director of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra. He’s actually interim artistic director, because he’s testing the Cleveland waters to see whether becoming official artistic director of the CJO will fit in with [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/07/08/keeping-up-with-sean-jones/</link>
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		<title>The pleasures of local color</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I spent a few hours on Larchmere Boulevard in Cleveland yesterday, baking in the sun to sell copies of my book, “Cleveland Rock &#038; Roll Memories.” I was part of the Loganberry Books local authors’ fair, which was part of a daylong flea market.
Didn’t sell a single copy, but I saw a lot of friends [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/06/28/the-pleasures-of-local-color/</link>
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		<title>Remembering the latest king</title>
		<description><![CDATA[When I called Michael Jackson a has-been on my Facebook page, some people were pissed. All I meant was that since the mid-&#8217;90s, the most interesting thing about Jackson, who died June 25, was his dysfunction. Weird-looking, for sure; mysterious and shape-shifting psychologically and otherwise. The child molestation charges he was cleared of, the marriages [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/06/26/remembering-the-latest-king/</link>
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		<title>Rocker bliss</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Lylah and I drove to Fredericksburg, an Ohio town so small it seems like nothing more than a string of houses between huge tracts of land, today to pick up a bentwood rocker from Marty Hershberger.
Marty’s Amish; his faith forbids him from having his picture taken, so I settled—happily—for a shot of one of his [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/06/13/rocker-bliss/</link>
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		<title>Media glare, media shifts</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m in a fashion spread in today&#8217;s Plain Dealer. I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails about it. It’s fun to be in the spotlight. 
It’s also fun to wear stuff I really like, particularly these days, when I spend a lot of time at home and there’s no need to dress up to go [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/06/10/media-glare-media-shifts/</link>
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		<title>It’s Ki time</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Big news: The first CD by one of my favorite duos, guitarist Bob Fraser and Ki Allen, is finally out and available at CD Baby. Its name is “Calling Card.” It’s a collection of 13 tunes including one original, “Nonetheless.” Ki wrote the melody, Bob arranged it, and Ireta, Ki’s mother, wrote the lyrics. “Nonetheless” [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/06/09/it%e2%80%99s-ki-time/</link>
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		<title>Welcome to the new carlowolff.com</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I want to thank my wife, the gifted multimedia artist Karen Sandstrom, for outfitting my website with this new header, and I want to thank website facilitator Dave Miyares for fitting it and my “old” blog into this new template. I also want to thank  the technocommunications expert Penny Stetz for advice in setting [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/05/25/welcome-to-the-new-carlowolffcom/</link>
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		<title>Live dead</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Northern Ohio Live, a magazine I’ve written for on-and-off for nearly 20 years, is dead. RightUp Media, which took it over from founder John Schambach three years ago, closed May 15, pulling the plug on the bimonthly and laying off the whole staff.
For now, the website remains, offering readers a look at the kinds of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/05/18/live-dead/</link>
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		<title>Linguistic differences</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I had a difference of style with a major newspaper the other day when the editors there sanitized my review of a book based on the work of Philip K. Dick, the science fiction writer. I punned on his name, and it wouldn&#8217;t fly. Funny how the gap remains between what people can joke about [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/05/04/linguistic-differences/</link>
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		<title>Civil rights</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m going to Ohio City on Sunday for my second afternoon of canvassing for gay rights. Working with AskCleveland, a liberal, flexible issues advocacy group, I’ll walk a neighborhood in support of the domestic partnership registry, which Cleveland City Council created in a 13-7 vote in December. When it takes effect next month, it will [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/04/17/civil-rights/</link>
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		<title>Reset</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Penny Stetz, a tech whiz I met through Macintosh guru Spike, is coming over to help me update technologically. Blogs take feeding; Facebook takes even greater attention. I have both, and I don’t use them enough.
I’d write more for my blog if I could embed links in it, along with photography. I’d do more on [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/04/07/reset/</link>
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		<title>Car talk</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Cleveland Heights wrote me today saying I’d lost my driver’s license and car insurance because I’d failed to pay a $150 fine for driving 18 miles over the 25 mph speed limit in that despotically liberal city in mid-December; naturally, the cop didn’t let me go, despite my entreaties and the Christmas season. Then I [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/03/11/car-talk-2/</link>
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		<title>No Top Ten</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I didn’t come up with a Top 10 for 2008 because politics preoccupies me far more than music. Some music I heard left an impression, like Dylan’s latest Bootleg release, some John Zorn CDs and singles my kids turned me on to by Rihanna, Chris Brown, Katy Perry, Lil Wayne, even Kanye’s vocoderized latest. But [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/02/10/no-top-ten/</link>
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		<title>Growing up is hard to do</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
I&#8217;m trying to mediate between a friend who does a lot of work around our house and the rest of my family. He copped an attitude toward my oldest daughter and her boyfriend, spreading nasty rumors about them and the boyfriend’s parents. God know divorce is ugly, but there&#8217;s no cause to make it uglier, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/02/10/growing-up-is-hard-to-do/</link>
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		<title>Flying</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
On Jan. 16, when I first heard of US Airways flight 1549 landing in the Hudson River off Manhattan, I called my wife into the bedroom to watch the news. It was good. She agreed, and she’s had fear of flying for years. Maybe from now on she’ll travel lighter in her head. I want [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/01/17/flying/</link>
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		<title>My &#8216;beat&#8217; goes on</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I was Googling Mike Belkin for links to his website (http://www.mike-belkin.com) when I came across this review of &#8220;Cleveland Rock &#38; Roll Memories&#8221; from the Akron Beacon Journal in May 2007.  Better late than never to post it. I&#8217;m doing a couple of signings for the book next month at the Cleveland Home and Garden [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2009/01/01/my-beat-goes-on/</link>
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		<title>Goodbye to 2008</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s very cold this Wednesday, the last day of the year. The snowplow guy cleared the driveway, the windows in the car roll down, our big dog Pearl romped in the white stuff until her paws were iced. It’s beautiful, austere, that time of year when things turn. There’s the promise of warmth. Or is [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2008/12/31/151/</link>
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		<title>Them changes</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Since last I blogged, Karen has left the Plain Dealer and been accepted to the Cleveland Institute of Art. She starts Jan. 12. Her PD buyout goes through next September, though we have to secure health insurance and pay for it on our own starting next month. Creativity is on the rise, money on the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2008/12/21/them-changes/</link>
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		<title>My Obama Movie</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Katy&#8217;s boyfriend Nick suggested I make a movie as a response to an Obama questionnaire regarding the future of the country under the president-elect. Here it is. It&#8217;s a prelude to my growing understanding of how to use the Internet to enhance the blog. Look for further/better changes in the near future, including real links, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2008/11/29/my_obama_movie/</link>
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		<title>Tectonic shifts</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
It’s Thanksgiving Day, my second (I was there her birth year in 1995) with my daughter, Lylah and the first I’ve spent with the rest of my family in 13 years. Each year this weekend, I’ve gone to either Detroit or Baltimore for a table tennis tournament. Not this one; last year’s was not a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2008/11/27/tectonic-shifts/</link>
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		<title>The Obama effect</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
I was at a local bar the night of Nov. 4 when CNN said Ohio had gone for Obama. That was when I knew he’d won the presidency, and I cheered as loud as anybody. The gang of Obama workers at the Purple Shamrock in South Euclid knew then that something huge was happening, and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2008/11/07/the-obama-effect/</link>
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		<title>Joe the Hater</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
I went to pick up my daughter at her friend Laura’s house and encountered a McCain-Palin sign on Laura’s parents’ front yard. I’ve talked politics to Laura’s mom, who’s said she leaned toward McCain. When I offered her Obama literature, she at least took it. When I picked up Lylah, Laura’s dad opened the door. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2008/10/31/joe-the-hater/</link>
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		<title>Trying Times</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
I’m settling into retirement—can’t help calling that even though it’s by no means the end—in peculiarly unsettling times. Work isn’t easy to get, though I seem to be on the verge of securing a part-time job, which I’m happy for. The days unfold erratically; some crawl, some whiz by. Pearl the dog is getting bigger [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2008/10/08/trying-times/</link>
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		<title>Seawolff Communications</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
I’ve been going through some changes recently, wearing a captain’s hat and practicing seafaring. At least that’s what I see in my mind when I’m at the helm of Seawolff Communications, my new business alter ego. It’s a limited liability corporation I’ve formed as my business, dealing in words, concepts and brand strategy. My wife, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2008/09/17/seawolff-communications/</link>
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		<title>Doing fine, thanks</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
My friend Jack called the other night to see how I’m doing almost a month into retirement. I’m doing fine, I told him before we got into another political argument (he thinks Obama’s a Manchurian candidate). God knows retirement is still weird. I’m getting up maybe an hour later than I used to when I [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.carlowolff.com/2008/08/27/doing-fine-thanks/</link>
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