We approach the twentieth anniversary of the wilderness trek of the two greatest radical journalists of our time: the late Alexander Cockburn and Bruce Anderson, editor and publisher of America’s Last Newspaper—Anderson Valley Advertiser. In…
Posts published in “Essays”
Last night I attended the Mendocino Music Festival’s third orchestral concert of this year’s festival, my wife a cellist in the most excellent orchestra. The second half of the program was Symphony No. 2 in E minor by Sergei Rachmaninoff, a massive work that lasted more than an hour. The third movement of the four-movement symphony was especially moving to me—the glorious music swamping my psyche and catalyzing several epiphanies about the novel I’m currently writing.
A gentle rain keeps me company in the wee hours as I pen these words. We desperately needed it. Throughout May and June, storms danced by with thunder and lightning all around, teasing us like…
“But my father’s dying.” I didn’t want to say the word “dying” because I still had hope for a miracle and was superstitious about such pronouncements, but needs must at a visa interview at the…
In our present digital age many once-beloved pianos are junked rather than sold, as a trying NY Times video of a couple years ago unsparingly dramatizes. Yet in spite of its declining status, the piano…
Author’s Note: For the first time in over seven years, the Ford brothers — Mark, Patrick, and Robben — will share the same stage — and it will be in their home town of Ukiah…
When Barbara McNair died in February of 2007, not a single obituary mentioned her role in bringing down the lawyer who effectively owned Erhard Seminar Training (est) and the pitchman himself, Werner Erhard. The obits…
Critics still argue about which book might qualify as the greatest American novel. Moby-Dick, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and numerous others have been put forth as candidates. The “just-the-facts-ma'am” answer lies in Philip Roth's 1973…