It’s a set-up that itself sounds like the scenario for a musical: big-time London theater-makers transplant a flop from the West End to a regional summer stage in an off-the-beaten-track American town in order to…
Posts published in “Essays”
When I first met Jerry Coffman I had just bought a two-bedroom, one bath house in Boonville. The half-acre was set back off what is now called Anderson Valley Way, conferring on its two-mile length…
Generally it can be said with some accuracy that Ralph Weinstein likes birds, especially the many beautiful species – the eagles, the hawks, the quail, the meadowlarks — that do not defecate on the clear…
The rumor was that Budmar was a contraction of Bud and Mary, which were the first names of the original owners. The cardboard mill was in an ancient factory building in Bloomfield New Jersey. It…
This morning (Sunday) the Great Blue Heron that I often see on the river lofted itself from below the Shenoa bridge when I walked past. As looked down it rose from the company of a…
Abraham Lincoln said, according to many sources, including the Cannabis Card produced by Pebbles Trippet and drawn by Fred Sternkopf, "Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of…
They finally opened the new bridge across the Muskatatuck river about a mile south of the Farmhouse. The first one, with wooden ties and steel arches, was known as Cavenaugh Bridge, the gateway to the…
There are those who have attained infamy — and flocks of admirers — through their flamboyant self-destructive pursuits, talent or no. Then there are gifted lunatics, always aflame, iron constitutions allowing them to create masterpieces…
There’s that mythic line from America’s long-abandoned manned lunar space adventures: “Houston, we have a problem.” Nearly fifty years on, I can correct that statement from my hotel room in the city’s so-called downtown some…