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Posts published in “Essays”

The Ghost Ship Fire

The embers were still warm the morning of December third of last year when phones lit up in law offices all over the Bay Area.…

Living in the Land of Lono

The rain moves in ghostly horizontal sheets that march out of step across the landscape. Propelled by tradewinds gusting at 40 mph, curtains of water…

The Kate Wolf Festival

Surrounded by depressing news on health care and a non-functional president and congress I decided to escape the real world and treat myself to a…

One Stump Town

He was a mean ugly slumlord, pushing 80 with a big chip on his shoulder. Every week he drove his old yellow van into town…

Female Firsts

Women got short shrift in 19th century reporting. If married, a woman was almost always referred to in print by her husband's first and last…

Dangerous Blues: Monk Does Vadim

The late 1950s were great years for black-and-white movies in France: I’m referring specifically to those with white people on screen, and black musicians invisible…

My Roller Derby Date

After Roller Derby in Eureka, after lots of sushi and sake in Arcata, after she drove home to Trinidad at 11pm I walked around the…

Gus

The lucky accident of our place and time has spared us the unspeakable domestic horror of watching our families and friends displaced from their homes…

Hmong Among Us

On a summer day in June it was hot and dry almost everywhere in California. Nearly eight thousand miles away, it was hot and rainy…

Fear The Beard!

Of all the mystifying shit that youth is getting up to these days — body-madding, skinny jeans, gender-hopping, emoji poetry, and molecular cuisine being just…

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