“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”- Camus
For audio version click here Come close. A few days ago an early morning fog had thickened in the big field behind our house. The light, indirect and reflective, picked up the dew-shrouded webs, hundreds of them, every few feet. The grass spider builds these; they are both “platform and retreat,” ** her trap and her refuge. They funnel prey toward her rather than catch it through an adhesive. Grass spiders seek out our homes when winter comes. Come […]
read more
For audio version click here As 60% of the nation burns under desert temperatures, and just before we turn the corner into what is likely to be the most despair-inducing Fall Presidential campaign since Nixon-McGovern in 1972, let us stop and give thanks for the Rover, for Mr. Bolt, for fearlessness of mind and heart, and for the great pleasure of watching bodies do what we can do only in our best and most surreal […]
read more
For audio version click here The crows greet me when I open the door. They perch in the tall trees around our house, croaking out calls to their family of seven or eight. Their dark feathers sometimes litter the grass. On the road this early, I feel larcenous, as if I should hide my face from any passing cars, as if I have been up to no good. The light is bare and unlimned; I […]
read more
For audio version click here I would prefer not to die anytime soon, but the thought of my end is often with me — not in a morbid, brooding way, but more like a I-hope-that-all-this-work-with-weights-and-walking-will buy-me-a-few-years kind of way. One recent morning just after seven I was grunting under a serious set of iron while bench pressing. I felt like a sweaty Puritan lord, virtuous all the way through. Curls followed and pull-ups, tricep pulls, […]
read more
