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Posts published in “Essays”

Memory Loss

Review of ‘Loss of Memory is Only Temporary.’ By Johanna Kaplan. Ecco Press, HarperCollins. New York, 2022. 248 pp. $16.99. Mental Health, its circumstances, its manageable and unmanageable characteristics, its treatments, its colossal direct and…

Handel Makes War

Yesterday began for me before dawn when I awoke, went downstairs and watched footage of the night sky above Kyiv lit up with the bursts of artillery fire.  Looking out through the kitchen window, I…

House of Paté

At San Francisco’s Maison Nico—an épicerie (a grocery) and a café—where I’ve been shopping, eating and sipping wine and coffee at least once a week for the past six months, I’m reminded of Paris in…

The Early ‘Modern’ Era Grapegrowers

From the day I began laying out my vineyard on paper back in 1971 I wondered whether what I was doing was in the best long term interests of The Valley community.  Back in those…

Albion’s Lost Railroad

Questions about the Albion Lumber Company’s miles of railroad on the Mendocino Coast have been popping up at the Kelley House Museum recently. Here’s a review of how this little-known railroad came to be, what…

The Ukraine Is In My Blood and Body

I feel doubly or triply connected to the war in the Ukraine because my grandparents on my mother’s side of the family came from the Ukraine, escaped with their lives and little else, though they…

People in White Houses Shouldn’t Throw Roger Stones

A grizzled veteran hobbled by bad knees and addled in the head lies on the trainer’s table in the locker room while the Big Game rages out on the field of a state-of-the-art stadium packed…

Going Places: Sam Tidwell’s American Journey

I’m a walker, not a hiker, though my preference for walking over hiking hasn’t prevented me from admiring Sam Tidwell, who went on a long road trip, solo, soon after his 21st birthday and who…

The Humiliation of Dr. Chen

The US government has dropped charges against Dr. Gang Chen, an MIT scientist accused of concealing Chinese affiliations when he applied for $2.7 million in grants from the US Energy Department. Ellen Berry reported in…

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