A man and his well-traveled family came by the house the other night, friends of friends needing a place to stay. He was a gray-bearded mountain climber, tall plank of a man 70 years old, one eye squinting, the other permanently closed from some accident in his youth that I didn’t ask about. He came […]
Curiosities
I usually avoid talking to people at the gym. But a few weeks ago, the man next to me had his shoes untied, and I couldn’t help myself. The laces were bright red, and extremely long. He was doing side steps that looked like they had high trip potential. And I was extra-sensitive to falls […]
“It’s like Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, but on dinner plates,” I told my nine-year-old daughter during a recent trip to London. She wasn’t entirely convinced, but she agreed to go with me and a friend to see the long-lost Famous Women Dinner Service, a set of 50 plates painted by the artists Vanessa […]
Non-native species get a lousy rap. Now don’t get me wrong, often they deserve it. Between the nutrias, peacock bass, eucalyptus trees, and lionfish of the world, environmentalists have a right to be a little xenophobic sometimes. But there are a few exceptions. Honeybees, for instance, are quite handy. Plus Emma’s wattle-necked softshell turtles, if for no […]
Today you get a poem, or prose with line breaks, about an archaeological dig and what happened there. Please take this post with a grain of salt, or sand, and enjoy. East of Winslow, a tarp tied at six points pumps like an enormous drum Wind does not stop, not even to breathe, Hot […]
What scientific concept would everyone be better off knowing? When the magazine Edge asked mathematician and economist Eric Weinstein, he described the following: What rigorous system would be capable of tying together an altered reality of layered falsehoods in which absolutely nothing can be assumed to be as it appears. Such a system, in continuous […]
Have you seen events in the sky you can’t explain? I’m asked this question frequently because I’ve spent many nights out, a likely candidate for seeing things that can scarcely be fathomed. One happened last week. I live near the Utah-Colorado border, no human lights to be seen. Carrying groceries and my work down the […]
Inspired by true events Me: Alexa. Good morning. Alexa: Good morning! On this day in 1961, NASA sent a chimpanzee named Ham into space, flying 155 miles up in the Mercury capsule. But these scientists weren’t just aping around. This mission was designed to tell them about – Me: Alexa stop. Alexa, did […]
