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Posts published in “Essays”

Bach & Taxes

I was born on tax day. But it was only on my 40th birthday (13 years ago) that my quick-witted friend David Borden—pioneering electronic music master, first tester of the Moog synthesizers and founder of…

H.H. Wonacott & His Grandniece

Many readers have heard of H.H. (Harold Howard) Wonacott, the photographer who maintained studios in both Willits and Fort Bragg in the 1910s and on into the 1920s. In 1922 he sold the Willits studio…

A Sanctuary City For The Irish Too

A starkly political film from the north of Ireland was an unusual choice for this year's annual San Francisco Independent Film Festival, "Indie Fest"- held every February. The Fest screened the 2017 feature "Maze" which…

The Laytonville Dump

The headwaters of the South Fork of the Eel River have been continuously tainted by polluted seepage from the Laytonville landfill for 50 years. Preliminary results from a community health study currently underway suggest people…

To Shoot Or Not To Shoot

So: guns. Quite the prevailing topic of conversation these days. Everyone seems to have an opinion on the subject, no one is shy about expressing it, and given the general ubiquity of opinions and how…

DSQ: Those Danish Men of Feeling

The most famous string quartets of the present age take their names from diverse sources:  the Emerson from an American transcendentalist whose first name is Ralph; the Juilliard from the famous conservatory where it is…

The Big One: A Family History

My grandfather arrived in Northern California in 1900. He'd left Delebio, his home town in northern Italy, primarily, he said, because he didn't like to be told when to farm by the Pope, who prohibited…

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