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Posts published in “Essays”

Fake Grit

With their re-make of True Grit the Coens have shot and stuffed the original animal: so often, in the sights of big game hunters, the Western species refuses to go extinct.

Grateful for the Dead

The Grateful Dead? Those guys and their fanatic, tie-died, permanently stoned followers? The band that made interminable music which a noted poet and writer I reviewed for the San Francisco Chronicle called “unspeakable, self-indulgent dreck”?…

Recommended Reading

Catch/Release by David Ollier Weber, lately of Comptche presently of Placerville. A novel set here in the Emerald Triangle's most exciting outback venues, mostly along the Mina Road running between Covelo and Alderpoint, Catch/Release begins,…

Outrageous Fortune

Physically, psychically, and in every other way my thesaurus can describe, Oak Street in downtown Eugene is a very long way from the nearest killing field. This has been true since the folks who arrived…

The Holiday Spirit?

(Caution: There may be some blasphemy in the following message, although it is certainly unintended.) This past cold Christmas morning I took a traditional dogwalk through San Francisco’s fabled Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. It was pretty much…

Bird’s Eye View

Greetings! If you are sitting comfortably then I shall begin. Welcome to 2011 and may it be happy and healthy for one and all. Any New Year’s Resolutions? These are difficult to maintain of course…

The 1970s

At a New Year's Eve gathering in Phoenix, a twenty-something kid to whom I had just been introduced looked me over and said, "Man, it must have been cool to have been alive in the…

The Court System

Many Americans labor under the mistaken belief that our legal system functions effectively and fairly. They have confidence in and respect for court personnel, including the judges, and in the efficacy of the judicial process…

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