When William Faulkner was already a grand figure and John Kennedy was collecting such objects to adorn some of his private dinners, the writer received an invitation from the President for one of these events in the White House. At this table had already sat many of the Great: Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, and the Sinatras, to name a few. Pablo Casals and his cello had aggrandized some of the exquisite desserts.
Posts published in “Essays”
Irony is the not-so-new normal. Somewhere back in the swirling dry-ice mists of history, round about the time of the one-and-only Clinton Administration, this venerable figure-of-speech stretched its wings and its brand and became a…
I dunno about you, but I rather enjoy watching the praetorian Deep State go batshit crazy as the day of Trump’s apotheosis approacheth. I imagine a lot of men and women running down the halls…
There are probably settings more dismal than a Fort Bragg (northern latitude, coastal proximity) bus "shelter" on a late Sunday afternoon in mid-November during a rainstorm, but as my prevailing worldview is far too cheerful…
We are feeling pampered and special because the power went back on after a two-day outage. We know there will probably be another outage when the next storm hits, but for now we’re on Easy Street. No more cooking on the woodstove. No more boiling water in the old kettle to wash dishes. No more writing by candlelight. Our computers work again. We can take showers. Luxury!
There was a crowd gathering outside the College of the Redwoods auditorium, we had all come to hear one of my literary heroes Sherman Alexie give his talk. Indian kids had been bussed in from…
1878 slipped into 1879 along the Mendocino Coast behind a northwestern breeze that blew away the rain showers of New Year's Eve. The flag on the point of Mendocino's headlands snapped with the occasional gust,…