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“Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles”
The extraordinary tale of old-school “primitivist” Marshal South. In the 1930s and 40s, he and his wife Tanya made the monumental decision to move to a hand-made home on a rocky outcropping in California’s desolate, yet eerily beautiful Anza Borrego desert. They started a family and lived there entirely “off the grid” for 19 years. […]
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1960s library pamphlet: “Opportunity beckons”
My wife found this pristine California library pamphlet from the 1960s in a box of memorabilia from the old barn. The pamphlet is folded in a way that offers a sneak peek of the illustrations within. A hand beckons from behind a door of “opportunity.” Unfolding the sheet reveals that the owner of the hand […]
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Little free library
For years I resisted the idea of installing a little free library. This was mostly due to my curmudgeonly nature. I don’t want a bunch of people hanging around the front step, I’d grumble. I spend all day taking care of libraries. I don’t need another one to take care of, bah! But eventually, my better angels prevailed.
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“Killers of the Flower Moon”
Black gold. Texas tea. So goes the old “Beverly Hillbillies” sitcom rhyme. In this case, the tea is underground in Oklahoma, in the early days of American oil exploitation. Years before, the Osage native American tribe had been invaded and driven out of their ancestral lands into a remote corner of Oklahoma which was thought […]
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“Everybody Lies”
The Google search box is the new confessional box for a digital age. A place where deepest fears and forbidden wishes find new, unfiltered expression. In this new confessional, we don’t seek salvation— we seek information. And the questions we ask it often reveal things about us that were previously hidden, or misunderstood. Subtitled, “Big […]
tales
essays and stories
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Through a bubble, darkly
I will never forget the day we moved to Hayward, California. It was October 1979. I was seven years old. There was a huge statue of a lumberjack on the side of the highway, leaning forward on a street closely crowded with pavement and buildings and cars. There were no trees anywhere in sight. I thought that the lumberjack had cut all the trees down. His hands were frozen awkwardly out in front of his body, one palm up and the other palm down, as if he was holding something impressive and heavy. But his hands were empty.
bookshelf
interesting reads
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“Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles”
The extraordinary tale of old-school “primitivist” Marshal South. In the 1930s and 40s, he and his wife Tanya made the monumental decision to move to a hand-made home on a rocky outcropping in California’s desolate, yet eerily beautiful Anza Borrego desert. They started a family and lived there entirely “off the grid” for 19 years. […]
lyrics
songs and poetry
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REVOLUTION DREAM
You tell me that there’s something different / but underneath I’m all the same / wishing for a premonition / why we still play these games. / I dreamed about a revolution / then woke up to a brand new day / wishing for a real solution / why we still feel this way.
