What does it take to get a book into the world? A little help from St. Joseph the Worker, plus inspiration from an Old World wine vat on a steep Calabrian hillside. That's a good start.
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The News from Lake Trumpbegone
A StoryIsTheThing Public Service Announcement: It's Booking Day in NYC today! That will mean much malevolence, much media blathering, much of way too much muchness. When you need to tear your eyes from the spectacle, here are four images to ponder.
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Things I really should be doing
I should be meditating. I should be writing a new chapter in my 'sorta memoir.' Or polishing an old one. I should not be eating pretzels & pepper jack cheese after 10 p.m. I should be sleeping. I should not be posting yet another black-and-white Instagram photo ...
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A moody, randomized amble in black-and-white
Taking a stroll through some definitive black-and-white moods, from across a couple of states and several states of mind.
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The Long, Strange Trip of Dave Evans’ Notable Life
He was a West Virginia coal miner’s son who lost his legs below the knees in a deadly ambush in Vietnam at age 18. What happened next sounds like a movie script. Dave Evans went on to work across the planet, building and fitting prosthetic legs, hands, and arm for thousands of adults and children in conflict zones worldwide. A look back at a remarkable life.
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A starry exhibit vividly worth one’s time
While "VAN GOGH: The Immersive Experience" wows you with its flash, such as a 7,000-square-foot Immersive Gallery animating his work and a must-experience virtual reality fly-through of Arles, I came away just as intrigued and moved by the more intimate details.
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It’s a Cuba Thing
I claim no grand comprehension of the challenge of life there. But Cuba is … well, Cuba. A confounding, transformative, depressing, challenging, intoxicating place.
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Dear General de Gaulle …
The email arrived one day recently in my in-box from Glasgow, Scotland: Did you know, it said, that a letter your friend Sister Mary Pellicane sent to Charles de Gaulle is on sale on eBay in London? Um ... no. What?
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‘I Am Too Serious’
'Hey, here you go. What's your name? Where'd you serve?' He nods in thanks. Stuffs the bag into a pocket. Tom. That's his name. He takes off his black knit cap. Syria. Iraq. 'A shell took off part of the top of my head.' I wince. He points to a jagged line. 'The Med Evac was the best. Saved my life.' He's homeless. 'I sleep in the park.'
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It’s an altar boy thing
Let's not talk about the moon anymore, but instead Solzhenitsyn's idea of 'political horror,' how to write a 'sorta memoir,' and breaking up with Twitter until the perp walk.
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Seeing Red in Downtown Cincinnati
When the Opening Day parade for the Cincinnati Reds 2022 season snaked through downtown Cincinnati more was going on than it might at first seem.
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A Dozen Ways to Look at Chicago, Illinois
I've always been intrigued by human beings whose lives are lived just below and sometimes at the level of the clouds. They surround us by the thousands, the tens of thousands. In blue rooms, staring at TVs in their skyboxes. Doing Downward Facing Dog, 2,000 feet above the sidewalk.
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“The Key To My Grandfather’s House”
What unites us is that we are all immigrants of one kind or another. Here is one family's tale out of the hills of Calabria to the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio and beyond.
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Getting Ready for Loss in a Pandemic
A huge wave of dying and grief is headed our way from the Covid-19 pandemic. And for that we must be prepared to share the burden—and share the joy, even—of coming together even as things fall apart.
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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.
