When I was in college my department offered a course in comparative anatomy. The idea was that you could learn a lot by comparing and contrasting different species. I was reminded of that course while reading Emily Willingham’s new book, Phallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis, which is published tomorrow. The book offers a […]
Miscellaneous
I went up to a rock art panel in southeast Utah the other day, one known as the Desecration Panel. The sandstone wall is long and repeatedly marked by petroglyphs of animals and human-like characters about 1,500 years old, what is called Basketmaker tradition. Several are terribly defaced, the damage relatively recent. One figure, which […]
I wrote this October 1, 2018. I was thinking about getting older and how that meant getting stronger or more concentrated or something; and of course life imitating art as it does, this particular coffee shop morning conversation happened at the same time. I was also thinking about the Kavanaugh hearings and the extraordinary anger […]
If 2020 has been good for anything except Purell sales, it’s been good for backyard observations. I’m fortunate to have two backyards–one in the woods, one in the ‘burbs–which gives me double the opportunity to get to know interesting critters. I’m populating this post with an array of creatures I’ve met (chased? trapped?) while hiding […]
Back in January of 2014, I wrote a guest post for LWON about a morning with a dog and here it is again, only slightly fixed up. A neighbor dog and I walk up a snow-crusted hill together. Glossy black lab mad for sticks and balls, he hasn’t forgotten how to travel with a human […]
I’ve been working lately to get a handle on where awe fits into our lives, especially the intersection of awe and science. In my journeys, I met someone who sheds light on the awe appeal of science fiction and how it has changed over the history of filmmaking. Michael Backes worked in Hollywood for decades. […]
Eight years ago, I wrote a post about my struggle to decide whether to have a child. Now I have two. The latest addition, who is almost eight months old, is a determined, wiggly, often screaming bundle of chub. He is wonderful. He is awful. He defies description. This is a letter I wrote in 2015 […]
