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Breaking news: Cormac McCarthy proves apostrophes susceptible to nuclear attack!
My list of 15 books that left a lasting impression is full of science fiction, much of it very dark, and some of it apocalyptic. After ignoring the hype for a couple of years, I finally picked up...
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Stuck in a Hanford reactor building elevator
Nuclear physics fascinates me. The creative potential of nuclear power intrigues me. The destructive potential of nuclear weapons repulses me. Photo from Pierre J‘s collection of French nuclear test...
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Geographic memory
I’m in Redding, California now visiting my wife Beth’s parents, who moved here earlier this year. It’s an odd feeling, coming back decades later and still having geographic memory about where things...
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Houses of the Holy
My last day in England, I embarked upon a pilgrimage. I took the Tube from Russell Square to Leicester Square, transferred to the Northern Line for one stop going south, and entered Trafalgar Square...
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James Joyce tweets from 1926
Clearly, I get blogging. For a writer, blogging seems the natural evolution of Samual Pepys’ diary. Even Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog. I don’t understand the attraction of Twitter, though, except...
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Traveling (through the Dark) from Portland to Tillamook with William Stafford
To get to Tillamook, Oregon, head west from Portland and veer left onto Oregon Route 6. The next 50 miles are a winding, sometimes steep road that takes you up and over the Coast Range, through parts...
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Philip Larkin on inspiration
“Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.”
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Karl Marx on writers
“The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.” National Library, Dublin “The writer may very well serve a...
View ArticleRenovating Building 112
Workmen are remodeling our office. They gather by the dozen to eat breakfast – sock caps low over foreheads, face masks slung around necks. One tells a joke I can’t hear,...
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The alien past
There are shared themes between the science fiction and archaeology books I’ve been reading lately. There’s a sense of otherness, of alien intelligences glimpsed across a void. Photo by Vince Musi from...
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