In the heart of the heart of the country

I was up early at 5 a.m. I stood, barefoot, just outside the doorframe to the house where I was staying, deep in the West Virginia hills. No traffic noise since this was the heart of the heart of the country. Only a rural road curved around the house ...

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Categories Essays Photography

After an Influenza Retreat, what the sky looks like

After weeks upon weeks of miserableness, suffering though the worst bout of sickness in his adult life — aka Influenza A — your videographic interlocutor finally has (mostly) passed out of the Valley of Miserableness. This is what he saw looking up once sprung from his sick house.

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Categories Video

When the hummingbirds fly

When an audio clip arrived in our 'in-box' from a buddy, Joel Preston Smith, featuring a live recording of hummingbirds dive-bombing his feeder in rural Liberty, WV., wings a-whirring, we asked if we might illustrate it with some action-packed hummingbird video

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Categories Art Video

“Sonata for Piano & West Virginia, No. 1”

I invite you to take five minutes from feeling harassed by the news or our own hectic heads for "Sonata for Piano & West Virginia No. 1." It offers another way of looking at West Virginia and those parts that remain uncorrupted, fresh, and true.

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Categories Art Video

Images Outside the Pandemic Box

I've wanted to start a simple series here at TheStoryIsTheThing, called "3Photos." The aim is to lay off the sprawling essays, the tangentialism, and attempts to be wise, but which may just be a bad case of P.A.W.S. (Pseudointellectualism At Work Syndrome).

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Categories Essays Photography

Nature’s Not Sheltering in Place

t looks like the violets have returned from wherever violets over-winter. They are small, but distinctive. Kind of like the Pekinese of the front yard. Meanwhile, out on the deck the cardinals are just as prevalent as the violets. Flitting about like there's no tomorrow. Maybe for us. Not for them, it looks like.

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Categories Essays Photography