Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 187 entries, all of them here in full.
December 9, 2007 · 385 words
Barrage
Okay, so you gotta admire the sheer commercial brilliance of this idea. You recruit six hot-bodied classically-trained violinists, either fresh from the conservatory or still in the conservatory. These people are really sharp musicians, equally at home with bluegrass, jazz, sambas, klezmer, the Great American Songbook,
Read entry →December 5, 2007 · 530 words
Neckar/January
So here’s another image from our fine calendar. (the color picture, not the other one) This is the valley of the Neckar River from the Hornberg— not the Hornburg (Horn Fort), which is in Lord of the Rings, but the Hornberg (Horn Mountain), which despite being identified as a mountain was in fact the castle [&hell
Read entry →December 4, 2007 · 194 words
Throw Away the Tinfoil!
Annoyed by those pesky alien abductions? Worried that alien mind-control rays may be altering your behavior? Well, now you can throw away those tinfoil hats! You can make your very own Thought Screen Helmet out of an old leather aviator helmet, some 3m Velostat, some masking tape, and a few simple household tools. (Eve
Read entry →December 4, 2007 · 98 words
Imaginary Dialogues (1)
This last weekend I helped to test and graduate a few dozen new black belts for my karate school. Some very impressive martial arts were performed— none, it must be admitted, by me. In addition to the physical aspects of kenpo, our students are required to acquaint themselves with martial arts classics such as Su
Read entry →December 3, 2007 · 471 words
September/Paris
Another shot from our splendid little calendar. (D’you think I’d earn more money if I made as much effort to sell my books as I do to sell this calendar, on which I earn nothing?) Anyway, this gives me a chance to talk about Paris, which is one of my two favorite European cities. Paris […]
Read entry →December 1, 2007 · 451 words
Castle March
Another photo from our 2008 calendar, this of Chambord, a royal chateau in the Loire Valley. We encountered Chambord in the autumn of 2004, as we drove along the Loire Valley from Paris to Nantes, where I was a guest at Utopiales, their annual convention. Chambord was built by Francois I, a contemporary of Henry [&hell
Read entry →November 30, 2007 · 314 words
And Now, From the Acme Network . . .
(courtesy of Kathy) SOCORRO – “Lights, cameras, and action!” The casting call may soon be given for the New Mexico Tech campus to become a real-life movie set for a planned cable television series about the day-to-day operations of a research university. Van Romero, New Mexico Tech vice president for research and econo
Read entry →November 28, 2007 · 779 words
Sex, Swoony and Otherwise
Now there’s a title that drew you in, I bet. I want to talk about sex because I’ve just finished reading a book— a pretty good one— that had a number of fairly explicit sex scenes, all much less worth reading than the rest of the book. All the sex scenes “threw me out,” as […]
Read entry →November 27, 2007 · 418 words
Calendar, 2008
Once again, and for the second time in my life, I have become self-published. I’ve put together another travel calendar for 2008, with pictures taken during my travels with Kathy. I make no money off of this. It’s available on a creative commons license. You can order the calendar here, or you can download a […]
Read entry →November 27, 2007 · 164 words
Cold Weather Cuisine
I’m getting sick of Thanksgiving leftovers, which are far from exhausted. I had errands today, and it was a brisk cold winter morning, and that put me in mind of a local treat.So I went to a nearby restaurant and ordered a big heapin’ bowl of menudo. Which, for those uninitiated among you, is cow’s […]
Read entry →November 26, 2007 · 148 words
Reader Response
I’d like to give a shout-out to the Weather Gods, because apparently they read my blog. Back in August, when I complained that none of the monsoon rains that were pelting the rest of the state were hitting my neighborhood, the Weather Gods responded, and hammered the district with a series of storms that washed [&helli
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