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Posts published in “Essays”

Murky Weather For Burning Man 2025

Mother Nature is tampering with the spirit of Burning Man campers. Really…the voice of experience here. The year 2023 was “Mudman” not Burning Man, but when one of the events goals is Radical Self Reliance…

Salonen & The Swans

I had come from the State Library on my bike, a long-term rental courtesy of an excellent and cheap Dutch company called Swapfiets with outlets in many European cities. I’d just pedaled down Unter den…

Ukiah, America’s Mystery Spot

We were at Todd Grove Park and he was explaining where the old Chevy pickup truck with a For Sale sign was parked. “You take Dora here,” he said, pointing east down Grove Street, “and…

Headbanger

Once weekly, sometimes twice, I have breakfast at a cheap restaurant. Always it’s alone, always the same restaurant, and I’m poor so always I second guess the expense. It’s splendid, though, starting a day with…

Vinyl Afterlives: Lots O’Liszt

Claudio Abbado was conducting Mussorgsky right next to the Dave Brubeck Quintet. The collision made crazy, coincidental sense, a compelling mash-up: Taking Five on Bald Mountain. Nearby, Elly Ameling sang Bach while leaning on a…

My Worst Job

In the summer of 1966 my father (who was then General Manager of the Danish Creamery Co-op in Fresno) asked me if I wanted to fill in for a couple of weeks while one of…

A Simple Plan, With Glitches

So my old pal Jimmy Eldridge, living alone and already at fair remove from the best of health, went ahead and fell down enough times to frighten his kids. They moved him to an old…

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