Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 102 entries, all of them here in full.
May 31, 2023 · 604 words
Gastronomy
There are a surprisingly large number of Michelin-starred restaurants on Malta. Despite my devotion to gastronomy, I’d never eaten at a restaurant with a Michelin star, and I thought it was about time I did. So even though I knew that Kathy and I were going to be facing a week of very large and […]
Read entry →May 30, 2023 · 85 words
Launch Day!
A new audiobook launches today! The Praxis Triad consists of all the short fiction from my Praxis series, read by the dulcet Stefan Rudnicki. Because the stories were published by different publishers they’ll never be together in print, but here they are together in audio format. And Impersonations isn’t even short fic
Read entry →May 29, 2023 · 868 words
The Beginning of History
So now we get to the chief reason I wanted to go to Malta in the first place: to view the gigantic stone monuments found on the island. There is nothing like them anywhere else. They were built out of the local limestone roughly 3500-2500 BCE— before the Pyramids, before Stonehenge. They are right smack […
Read entry →May 27, 2023 · 582 words
Co-Cathedral
A sight of St. John’s cathedral in Valetta is enough to sear the eyes right out of your skull. The style adopted for the interior was Go-For-Baroque, with enough gold, marble, and brilliant color to rival a fever dream of John of Patmos (as opposed to John the Baptist, for whom the cathedral is actually […]
Read entry →May 26, 2023 · 815 words
Behind the Walls
First, an update. Kathy’s finally come home after 13 days in COVID jail in a hotel room in Malta. And I’ve got a cold, which tests insist isn’t COVID, so two cheers for me. But enough of the depressing stuff. Let’s talk about the good things. We spent a few days on Malta before Kathy […]
Read entry →May 25, 2023 · 111 words
Well Damn
The world has lost Tina Turner. She had a career that lasted over 50 years and even in the new millennium she was still one of the hardest-working acts in the business. (She danced for how many hours? And in those heels?) Here she is at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, […]
Read entry →May 19, 2023 · 553 words
Worst. Trip. Ever.
After 24 hours in planes and airports I’ve returned from the Med, jetlagged, miserable, in considerable pain, and without Kathy. This trip sucked. Bad luck struck on my first day in Valetta, when I tripped on a marble stair and seriously damaged my right knee. The heavy frames on my sunglasses blocked my view of [&hell
Read entry →May 8, 2023 · 69 words
Cast Ashore
So after 30 hours in airports and aircrafts, we finally washed up on the shores of Malta. Here is a photo of Valetta Harbor at night, taken from our hotel. Valetta was named after Jean Parisot de la Valette, Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, who defended the island during the Ottoman siege. […]
Read entry →May 6, 2023 · 798 words
Royalty
There’s an indescribable something about being stuck somewhere, waiting for the plane to arrive, and having nothing to watch but a horror film which I thought at first was Invasion of the Frog-Faced Chinless People, but which turned out to be the coronation of Charles III of the United Kingdom. I am not by any [&hellip
Read entry →May 5, 2023 · 171 words
Malta Bound
In just a few hours we’re going to be flying off for another archaeo-maritime adventure. After something like 20 hours in planes and airports, we’ll arrive on the island republic of Malta. After a couple days to recover from jet lag, we’ll be getting on a smallish boat to visit Tangier and circumnavigate Sicily. As [&h
Read entry →May 5, 2023 · 166 words
Quenelles!
So the other night I had some friends over for a Spring Feast. Starters were cappelletti stuffed with chicken, cheese, and herbs, served with a lemon-cream sauce and asparagus. Chief protein was sous vide leg of lamb, served with a chickpea salad with vegetables, herbs, and mint. Dessert we never got to. Too full even
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