Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 268 entries, all of them here in full.
October 21, 2010 · 205 words
Cartoon Leopards Are Reading Your Email!
Hey, boys and girls! Betcha didn’t know that the National Security Agency has a kids’ page online! Yes, apparently No Such Agency, the government’s most clandestine service, has figured out that the best way to get the hackers and cryptographers of tomorrow is to hook ’em young. (After all, it worked for J Edgar Hoover
Read entry →October 19, 2010 · 470 words
Quarai
On our way back from Fourth of July Canyon we stopped at the ruins of Quarai— or Cuarac, as it was known in its heydey. I’d never been there before. Quarai was one of three large Indian pueblos standing on the trade route from the Rio Grande to the dry salt lakes southeast of the […]
Read entry →October 19, 2010 · 266 words
Fourth of July in October
I don’t know why we haven’t done this before, since the place is so close, but today we went to Fourth of July Canyon to see the autumn maples. New Mexico mountains were covered with maples during the last Ice Age, but as the continent warmed, the maples were gradually replaced with the pine and […]
Read entry →October 18, 2010 · 48 words
How Did That Giant Picture Get Here?
So, I’m new to WordPress, and so is this blog. Why, in my previous post, did it take a digital photo only four inches long and blow it up to the size of Mississippi? Any clues out there? UPDATE: Okay, problem solved. Thanks to all for offering suggestions.
Read entry →October 18, 2010 · 605 words
Chunking
So yesterday I took time off from finishing the novel to enjoy a piece of Americana, to-wit: the annual Pumpkin Chunkin’ festival out on the plains of Estancia, NM. What they do, see, is build these enormous war machines, then shoot vegetables from them. In addition to vegetable warfare, the festival featured many acti
Read entry →October 15, 2010 · 62 words
By Tingo!
MatadorNetwork has collected 20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words From Around the World, in which terms like “tingo” and “saudade” require whole unwieldy sentences (if not paragraphs) to render in English. The best part of the article is the comments section, in which many more untranslatable words are submitted. My favor
Read entry →October 15, 2010 · 145 words
Whereat I Am
I haven’t been posting a lot here in the last couple weeks, and there are a couple reasons for that. First, I’ve been correcting page proofs for Deep State, my next novel and the sequel to This Is Not a Game, available in the US and UK next February wherever fine books are sold. Second, […]
Read entry →October 10, 2010 · 147 words
Labeling
About ten years ago, I was shopping around a proposal for a novel about Benjamin Franklin. Though the friends who read the initial chapters loved them, and one went as far as to say it was the best thing I’ve ever done, the proposal never sold, in part because editors were puzzled by it. There […]
Read entry →October 9, 2010 · 2,140 words
1981: The Writer’s Life
This is third in a series of posts about my early life as a writer, inspired in part by my digging through old tax records. 1981, though the third year in which I earned my living through writing, was the first year in which I was actually published. I have remarked in the past that […]
Read entry →October 6, 2010 · 324 words
Vegas Death Ray
Via Gardner Dozois, the news that the new Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas has its very own built-in death ray, which it is using for the very best purpose— cooking lawyers. “I’m sitting there in the chair and all of the sudden my hair and the top of my head are burning. I’m rubbing my […]
Read entry →October 2, 2010 · 356 words
The Flash Crash— Solved!
Friend of the blog Ralf sent me a link to an article in which it is claimed that the SEC/CFTC investigation into May’s Flash Crash has finally come up with the culprit— naturally, an automated trading program. In the 104-page report, staff members at Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Tr
Read entry →October 1, 2010 · 340 words
Ralph M. Vicinanza, 1950-2010
My agent, Ralph Vicinanza, died suddenly over the weekend from an apparent brain aneurysm. He was in good condition and vibrant health, but an aneurysm can kill you at any age, and this one did. At some point around 1992, I was sold to Ralph by my former agent. (Odd to think that this sort […]
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