Author @ Blaise Kielar

Blaise Kielar received Honorable Mention in the 2022 Alex Albright Creative Nonfiction Prize for an excerpt from his memoir in progress, "Be Heard: The Quiet Kid Who Started the World’s Loudest Violin Shop." He opened Chapel Hill’s first violin shop in 1978 and retired from a music retail career by transitioning Electric Violin Shop into the first worker-owned co-op music store in the United States. He plays jazz violin and clarinet in several bands and leads the Bulltown Strutters, Durham’s community New Orleans brass band.

Feathers in the Wind

Eye drawn to gray weathered splintering wood on the railroad trestle, as I approach I see wing feathers fluttering in the wind – a red tailed hawk struck by a train. I am compelled to apologize for our blunt mechanized intrusion on the freedom of the air. And to utter gratitude for magnificence, though cut […]

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Wisps of Mind

Pleasure, even joy, can be had by the wispiest shift into appreciation of what is served to me, right now. Yes, it could be an IPA, or a red light, or a pain in my wrist, or an unexpected smile, yet perhaps there is no more encouraging bequeathal to us humans than the ability to […]

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How to enjoy a Wright pilgrimage

It is rare when a friend asks you to join on a bucket list pilgrimage, especially one so unlikely that I never really considered going. Unlike seeing Carnival in Brazil, visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house just required a day’s drive and sharing accommodations already booked. Perfect! We visited 5 FLW designs (2 by apprentices) […]

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Blossoming Creativity

There are times in attending a friends-and-family event that expectations are shattered by awesomeness. So it was with Mia Kaplan’s solo art opening at Liberty Arts, after a summer as an intern, working with their artists in so many different media – casting metal, welding, pottery, wood, sheet metal wall art, jewelry (probably should really […]

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BLAZE OF PASSION

25 years ago today, I woke up at the beautiful Asilomar Center on Monterey peninsula, sat up in bed and wondered if I had a birthday poem in me. This mindset was inspired by a man at the conference named Roy Jordan, who enthusiastically recited his poems at any moment, especially in the dining hall. […]

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THIS SCHOOL

This school never closes though students can be dismissed any time they can never go home again and again they try to master today’s lesson for totally ingrained is the grief for today as it fades and the fear of what the new teacher, tomorrow, will require of us

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Arms

Blood, rubble, hate, outrage what hysterical god made forgiveness and reconciliation so difficult? It appears we can never walk together our words congeal and dissolve on the screen of I blame assigned as precisely as a misguided missile as carefully as a spent cartridge on concrete. Miles and years away we both thresh pain seeking […]

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3:00 AM Café du Monde

Hot beignet drops from shaking hand, phosphorescent meteor of confectioners sugar scatters sweetness to a silent Jackson Square. The plump fried pastry sparks to life upon splashdown in a Mississippi colored puddle, succulent ripples breach the curb, strut down the sidewalk, lap on doors, then leap to the humid air, to penetrate every lacy wrought […]

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Again

a twitch of a finger speeds hot lead through skin and bone to burst a heart life oozing to gray the equalizer the peacemaker easy executioner no judge no jury the burning ricochet cuts us all down mockeries of truth of brotherhood what might have been no fear no corpse no twitch

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LAST HALF

Consider July a smelling salt to rouse your faint year from sleepwalking, startled nostrils finally snort in this year’s bouquet. Ponder the steam of August melting towards September, yellow school bus dinosaurs prowl the morning roads to ingest reluctant morsels, cool shoes and backpacks the last whiff of freedom down institutional hallways. Daydream out windows […]

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