Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 3,174 entries, all of them here in full.
May 18, 2015 · 66 words
Texas Joik
When you’re joiking, you’re joiking alone. But not in this case. Joiking is normally an a cappella art form, but here Wimme brings a rhythm track with him, for a song as big as all Texas. I’m not sure where the picture comes from. It’s not the album cover, anyway. But what I’d like to […]
Read entry →May 15, 2015 · 75 words
1925-2015
“I just love singing my blues.” He lived 89 years, and he toured constantly till just a few months ago, and he could make a guitar weep. I saw him a number of times, and he was never less than a standout, even when he was opening for someone else. Sirius Radio’s blues channel is […]
Read entry →May 14, 2015 · 487 words
The Broken Road
I’ve just finished The Broken Road, the long-delayed third volume of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s memoir of the walk across Europe that the 18-year-0ld Fermor took in 1933, just after Hitler took power in Germany. I have mentioned the earlier volumes, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water elsewhere, and added a
Read entry →May 10, 2015 · 143 words
Days and Days
It’s Mother’s Day here in the States, so I thought I’d post a photo of my mom, on the right, enjoying a typical evening with her pal Sylvia Aakre. It occurs to me that my idea of a fun time just might be hereditary. Mom met Sylvia at university, where they were both studying to […]
Read entry →May 8, 2015 · 1,310 words
Superhero O.D.
I saw Age of Ultron, and I’ve reached Episode Seven of Daredevil, and so I’m pretty well experiencing a superhero O.D. right now. What I’ve learned from both is a lesson in the limitations of the superhero genre, even if you gussie it up with A-list actors and a $250-million budget. I’m enjoying Daredevil, and Charlie
Read entry →May 6, 2015 · 291 words
Edible!
My longtime friend Nadine Panache is a badass baker. For my birthday one year she created a cake of a sculpted Dracula lying in his sculpted coffin. (I was born around Halloween) For another friend, born on the anniversary of the Titanic sinking, she built a sinking Titanic going down by the bows, with little […
Read entry →May 4, 2015 · 141 words
Princess Whatzername
So the entire world, apparently, is holding its breath waiting for the Windsors to make up their minds about what to call the latest Blessed Event. Public opinion seems to be holding out for “Victoria,” which is certainly keeping it in the family. But I think the Windsors should go a little more 21st Century […]
Read entry →April 30, 2015 · 186 words
I Am Play’d
I am gradually uploading my ebooks to Google Play. They’re not all uploaded yet, but they should be within the next week or so. I haven’t moved my stuff onto Google for a number of reasons, among them (1) I’m still mad at Google for trying to glom the copyright of every living writer in […]
Read entry →April 28, 2015 · 350 words
Who You Gonna Call?
I was chez Abraham last night, and watched as Kat played one of the XCom series, video games about an elite force of soldiers tasked with repelling an alien invasion of what looks to be Middle America. Just as Master Chief leads the elite alien-fighting Spartans in the Halo series, and Nathan Hale leads another elite a
Read entry →April 25, 2015 · 447 words
POV
The other day, I wrote a few pages. And when I looked at them, they struck me as mediocre. They weren’t bad, mind you. They got the job done, they got my protagonist where she needed to go. But they didn’t sparkle, they didn’t fizz, and when I read them I didn’t hear the little voice […]
Read entry →April 22, 2015 · 420 words
La Vie Bohème
This article points out that authors’ incomes have declined nearly 30% since 2005. “The creative industries are thriving, generating £76bn per annum, yet professional writers have seen a near 30% reduction in earnings in recent years . . . Consequently many are no longer able to sustain a career. The one truly irreplac
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