Dispatches since 2005
The journal
Announcements, new editions, travel, diving, cooking and the working life of a novelist — 3,179 entries, all of them here in full.
January 12, 2025 · 99 words
Immigrant
A Viking grave in a Scottish churchyard. (I don’t remember the name of the village, but it was very near Loch Lomond.) The gravestone is carved so as to resemble an overturned boat— boat burials were still a thing. The “viking funeral,” with the ship set on fire and pushed out to sea, is a […]
Read entry →January 10, 2025 · 351 words
Holy
This photo is 50 years old! And sort of looks it. I and Photoshop have done our best. This, from 1975, looks down from Delphi toward the Gulf of Corinth. I had come to Delphi at the command of a couple of major figures— one from the Bible, the other from science fiction. Not that […]
Read entry →January 7, 2025 · 153 words
Spin About
A reconstruction of the turret of the USS Monitor, open to allow a view of the mechanism and one of the two 11-inch guns. The turret was designed by American inventor Theodore Timby, and the rest of the ship by the Swedish-born John Ericsson. A problem with the turret was that there was no brake— […]
Read entry →December 31, 2024 · 833 words
Ghost Docks
About six years ago I was on a motor trip along the North Shore of Lake Superior, and wandered down a small road from the highway down to the lake. When I parked in the small recreational harbor, I saw this huge abandoned facility along the shoreline. (It’s much bigger than it looks in this […]
Read entry →December 29, 2024 · 210 words
20% Off
I spotted this globe in the gift shop of the Corning Museum and immediately wanted it. I wanted it so much that some Japanese visitors actually took a picture of me wanting it. It’s about the size of a bowling ball and was created by artist Josh Simpson. While it may look as if it’s […]
Read entry →December 26, 2024 · 67 words
Jimi’s Jacket
Found in a museum exhibit of psychedelia, this is Jimi Hendrix’ jacket. While there seem to be a number of techniques used in constructing it, much of it seems to be hand-painted silk. The second I saw it, I was struck with jacket envy. Judging by the size of the jacket, Jimi was a tiny […]
Read entry →December 24, 2024 · 194 words
Sand Spit
Here I stand on a sand spit outside the town of Dalyan, in southern Turkey. The year is 2009. To reach this beach, we had to hire a boat to take us from the town and through a mazelike passage between islands of tall, rustling reeds, an experience that led straight to the scenes in […]
Read entry →December 21, 2024 · 107 words
Santo Whatsisname
Here’s a mosaic of some saint or other, from St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. He was very high up in the church, on the inside of a dome I think, and I had to crank up the telephoto to capture him. The tesserae are in pretty good shape. Though St. Mark’s is the iconic church […]
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