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Posts published in “Essays”

Candidates for County School Superintendent Exchange Views

Candidate Nicole Glentzer: The Anderson Valley Advertiser asked me to respond in writing to the question, “What is not happening at MCOE under the auspices of Ms. Hutchins that you think should be happening?” As…

Our Friend The Poet

Poetry, exhausted by the heavy burdens of sensitive emotions conjured up by dreamy sentimentalists, today is mostly found on dusty shelves in old libraries, none of which are in Ukiah. The poems of today are…

Himself

I never met him, never even saw him, though my formative years in the Bay Area were inextricably entwined with Charles McCabe. McCabe didn’t occupy the celestial firmament claimed by fellow San Francisco Chronicle columnist…

The Place To Be

After clubs and concert halls shut down in March of 2020, the enterprising and exuberant pianist Emmet Cohen invited the cameras and microphones into his Harlem apartment for weekly Monday night jam sessions that brought—and…

Play Ball!

With the 2022 major league baseball season barely begun, a starting player on a prominent team lost his job. Though not in itself unusual – professional teams make on-field adjustments all the time – the…

Tres Amigas Do Southeast New Mexico

"It ain't new and it ain't Mexico," so says a popular bumper sticker. Everywhere we three traveled everything we saw was old, very old. Millions and millions of years old. It was an incredibly wonderful…

The Etymology of 420

Your correspondent got invited to an “Eve-of-420” bash on April 19, 2016, at a club in San Rafael started by the Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead. At the bar I got into a conversation…

Raising Wheat In Anderson Valley

Wheat was one of the main crops raised in Anderson Valley by the first homesteaders. In 1864, John Gschwend built a waterwheel powered grist mill on Mill Creek and in 1881, Mr. Chapman built one…

Prolonged Grief Is Now An Illness

In a tremendous win for Big PhARMA, the American Psychiatric Association has added “Prolonged Grief Disorder” to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder —a list of conditions for which insurance companies reimburse doctors.…

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