Ask almost anyone, anywhere in the world, about a place they’d like to visit, and chances are “Paris” will come up sooner rather than later. (Full disclosure: Please do not assume that the author of…
Posts published in “Essays”
“I respect Ms. Thompson, but this is basic stuff, right out of criminal law procedure 101,” attorney Jan Cole-Wilson said. “Any lawyer should know this.” Ms. Cole-Wilson, as she argued for a new trial for…
One hundred thirty-two years ago a Little Lake coroner’s jury reached a finding that my great grandfather’s horse had justifiably shot and killed Benjamin Frost on the trail between Mendocino and Willits. A judge sat…
Marfa, Texas, of all places. Three hours southwest out of El Paso, Texas, of all places. Los Angeles, Paso Robles, Cholame, CA, Fairmount, IN, Manhattan, NY. Some of the James Dean sites I set my…
Continued from last week’s AVA, the 1937 hearing at which the House Ways & Means Committee considered marijuana prohibition.
As Spring merges into summer, our gaze turns to our lawns, and we are tempted to envision green carpets and lawnmowers… and poisons. Craneflies, those delicate beauties we call “mosquito hawks,” because they look like…
In search of good chicken for our once-a-week intake of animal flesh, I saunter into our magnifico Mendocino Market across the street from Mendocino’s blessed post office, my basket laden with the latest edition of the admirable Anderson Valley Advertiser, and I find the lovely little market and deli in the midst of a calm before the inevitable lunchtime arrival of legions of tempestuous teenagers and loquacious locals and inscrutable turistas.
Worst of all — although there can be some pretty bad among the rest — is the travel. Specifically, the airports and airplanes. The insanely long “security” lines are now even longer, as personnel has…
Other people’s lives come fluttering to us in the tiniest fragments, and these we gather, when we bother to, into an incoherent jumble of impressions we pass off as knowledge. Further, our ears, eyes and…